“I’d never have thought of that.”
“Start by canvassing the fourth floor.”
“The fourth floor?” said Soares. “Why would anyone up there have seen them?”
Bernie looked at Soares, said nothing.
“Who are you protecting?” Soares said. “That asshole Nevins?”
Bernie kept on saying nothing, one of his best techniques.
“Have it your way,” Soares said. “What else are you hiding?”
“Nothing.”
There was a silence. Soares looked up and down the street. “Where you headed now?”
“Sightseeing.”
Soares tapped our hood. Hands off the paintwork: that was my only thought. “Stay in touch.”
Bernie nodded.
“One other thing,” Soares said. “Let me know if you think you’re being watched.”
“Being watched?” said Bernie. “By who?”
Soares smiled and turned back toward his cruiser. “Two can play the selective information game, pal.”
A game? Who were the two? Bernie and Soares? Soares and me? Me and Bernie? Soares got into the cruiser and sped off, meaning it was me and Bernie. We were golden.
TWENTY-TWO
* * *
Sweet Virginia,” Bernie said. We were in beautiful country, rolling and green, with long white fences, lots of real big trees and broad meadows, plus horses, cows, and even pigs from time to time, to all of whom I gave a piece of my mind as we flew past. As for Virginia, I knew no one of that name, sweet or not, and waited for Bernie to clue me in.
We turned off the pavement and onto a long gravel road that curved over the top of a hill and led down to a nice spread: big white house with red shutters, big red barn, some outbuildings, tennis court, and in the distance a river sparkling in the sunshine.
“Jeffersonian dream come true,” Bernie said, as we pulled into a circular drive in front of the house and came to a stop. We hopped out of the car, me actually hopping, and headed for the front door. At that moment, a horse came trotting out of the barn, ridden by a woman in fancy riding getup. She rode away in the other direction, toward a fenced-in riding ring, kind of briskly although not at a pace I’d actually call fast.
“Don’t even think about it,” Bernie said.
Think about what? I had no idea. I walked right beside Bernie, being the very best Chet I could be. Or even better! I was still trying to get hold of that one when the front door—a huge old wooden one with lots of brass, the smell of brass always welcome, so good for clearing the head, as you may or may not know—opened and General Galloway looked out.
“Appreciate your punctuality, Captain,” he said as they shook hands.
“Bernie will do, sir,” Bernie said, a moment of possible confusion passing quickly away, the only captain I knew being Captain Stine of the Valley PD, a captain on account of some help he’d gotten from me and Bernie. I made a quick stab at remembering what it was, kind of like one of those bears on Animal Planet when the fish comes though the rapids, and missed, as the bears often do. I’ve actually had some experience with a real bear, and don’t mind at all if ages go by till the next one.
“And in the same spirit, seeing as how we’re both retired,” the general said, “you can call me Trav.”
“Yes, sir,” Bernie said. “And after you’re elected?”
The general laughed. “Then it’s strictly Mr. President. But who said I was running?”
“Just about everyone.”
“Just about everyone has been wrong before and will be wrong again,” General Galloway said. “Fact of the matter is, I haven’t made up my mind. Maybe you can help me on that.”
“Don’t see how,” Bernie said. “I know nothing about politics.”
“Best possible recommendation. Come on inside.” The general glanced my way. “Think your dog here—Chet, isn’t it—would prefer to stay outside?”
“You’ve got a good memory.”
“Know every soldier in your command by name—that’s basic.”
Bernie smiled.
The general had been smiling, too, and the smile was still there, although now it seemed to be hanging all by its lonesome. Have I mentioned the smoothness of the general’s skin? I now picked up a very faint scent of a sort of cream Leda used to slather on lots of, and of which Suzie sometimes dabs on a little.
“Something funny?” General Galloway said.
“Only if you think Chet’s under your command,” said Bernie.
What was this? Under the general’s command? Me? Or somebody else? Had to be somebody else. I’m under nobody’s command, amigo. Excepting Bernie’s, of course, but even there it depends what we mean by command. My take’s always been that it’s a kind of suggestion. Bernie makes the best suggestions possible, you can take that to the bank, although not our bank, where we’ve been having problems with Ms. Oxley, the manager. As for where I wanted to be at the moment? Inside with Bernie—a no-brainer, which is the best of all possible brainers, as you probably know.
• • •
“Nice room,” Bernie said.
My thought exactly. What had the general called it? His study? Something like that. I really hadn’t been listening, occupied as I was by the soft feel of the carpet and the lovely smells that came from the leather furniture and old wooden beams. And I haven’t even mentioned the view: the riding ring, where the woman was now taking her horse over jumps, something I’d done myself—meaning take myself over jumps—on a horse ranch case back in the Valley, and done as well as any horse, as I’d been trying to demonstrate when— But do we have to go there?
“I married rich, the second time around,” General Galloway said.
They both looked out the window, just in time to catch a smooth, easy jump, the woman giving the horse’s neck a little pat pat on landing. I shifted closer to Bernie, making it easier for a pat pat to come my way.
“. . . but that wasn’t my motive,” the general said. “I’d have married Isobel even if she’d been a pauper. True love, believe it or not.”
“Why wouldn’t I believe it?” Bernie said.
The general turned to Bernie, his head tilted a bit to the side, the way humans sometimes do, not sure why. “I looked into you,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” said Bernie.
“Your military record is stellar. Did you know there was some talk about the Medal of Honor for your conduct on the night of November 9, 2004?”
Bernie said nothing.
“Didn’t quite think it rose to that level myself,” the general said, “although the Silver Star would have been appropriate, in my opinion. Still, the bronze is nothing to sneeze at. Feel you ended up with the short end of the stick?”
“The guys who didn’t come home got that,” Bernie said.
The general looked away. Then came a silence, broken only by the faint clop-clopping of the horse in the ring. The general rose from his chair and went to the window. A man came into view from the direction of the barn. The woman dismounted. The man took the reins and led the horse away. Dog life beat horse life: it was as simple as that.
“As for your present career,” the general said, turning from the window, “there seem to be two schools of thought. I’m choosing to believe the second, namely that the positives outweigh the negatives. Bottom line, you’re a smart investigator who gets results and knows how to keep his mouth shut. And that’s what I need.”
“For what?” Bernie said.
“Assistance,” said the general, coming away from the window. He stood behind his chair, his hands resting on the chair back. Hands are a big subject, maybe for later, but one thing about them is that small dudes can have big hands and big dudes can have small hands. That was General Galloway, the second kind.
“In an investigation?” Bernie said.
“Not exa
ctly,” said the general. “What I’d like you to do—”
The door opened and the woman came in, still in her riding outfit. She saw me and Bernie and said, “I didn’t realize you had company.”
Bernie rose.
“Captain Bernie Little, Seventh Cavalry retired,” the general said, “my wife Isobel.”
Isobel took off her velvet-covered helmet, shook out her hair. Lots of it, all lovely and golden and recently colored, a smell impossible to miss. She looked younger than the general, except for chin area, which looked older, although why I’d all of a sudden be noticing a detail like that is beyond me.
“Nice to meet you,” Bernie said.
Isobel nodded. “Is that your dog?”
“Chet’s his name.”
“A handsome animal,” she said, turning out to be a first-class human being, and just when I was starting to think she tilted the other way! “Sorry to interrupt, Trav,” she went on. “Just reminding you of that photo shoot—it’s in forty-five minutes, down at the boathouse.”
“The boathouse?” said the general. “Is that a good idea?”
“Why not?” said Isobel.
“Maybe it’s a little too . . . patrician, you might say.”
“Since when does that bother the American people?” Isobel said. Totally beyond me, but whatever it was, Bernie liked it: I can always tell.
“I don’t want to appear aloof,” the general said.
“Wear jeans and a T-shirt.”
“You think?”
“Why not?” Isobel said, turning to Bernie. “What’s your opinion?”
“On what the general should wear for the photo shoot?” Bernie said.
“Precisely.”
“I’m not qualified to have an opinion about that.”
“Aren’t you a voter?”
“I am.”
“Then what would you like to see?” Isobel said.
“Nothing from a photo shoot,” said Bernie.
Isobel laughed, a real quick laugh, here and gone, and now looked at Bernie in a new way.
“What is it you do, Captain?”
“Bernie will do,” Bernie said. “I’m a private investigator based in Arizona.”
“How interesting,” Isobel said. “And what brings you here?”
Bernie opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, General Galloway jumped in.
“I brought Bernie in for a quick consult,” he said.
“On what?” said Isobel.
“Security.”
“Yours or the nation’s?”
The general smiled. “My wife has a very sharp wit, in case you haven’t noticed. My own security, Isobel. It’s too soon to be putting out policy papers.”
“I thought Bill Donnegan handled personal security,” Isobel said.
“He does,” the general said. “I’m looking for an objective critique from someone else in the business. You know Bill Donnegan, Bernie?”
“I know Donnegan’s, of course,” Bernie said. “But not him personally.”
“What do you think of them?” Isobel said.
“Probably what they think of me,” Bernie said.
The general laughed. “You’re in their doghouse at the moment.”
Whoa! Stop right there. Bernie in a doghouse? I’d seen that once before, but that was Bernie on a bet and after a number, more than two, of bourbon shots, the doghouse in question belonging to Spike, a buddy of mine in the nation within who hadn’t reacted well on finding Bernie curled up in his personal space. Were we in for another round of that? I sat up tall, ready for anything.
“Why is that?” Isobel said.
“We had some conflict with one of their agents on a recent case,” Bernie said.
“An agent now deceased,” said the general. “Although I’m not clear on the circumstances.”
“He drowned,” Bernie said.
Hey! It all came back to me. The long fall off that oil platform and then the two of us, me and what’s his name from Donnegan’s—a sort of competitor of ours, if I’d gotten things right—plunging down and down into the black water, with only me coming back up, another case cleared by the Little Detective Agency, and the best kind of case-clearing, where we ended up getting paid cash money. What was left of the roll was in Bernie’s wallet at this very moment, still smelling slightly of shrimp, a story too long to go into now. Were we about to shake some green out of General Galloway? I got a real good feeling.
“A poor swimmer?” Isobel said.
“You could put it that way,” said Bernie.
“And what about you, Bernie?” she said. “Are you good in the water?”
The general gave her a funny look. Bernie gave her no look at all, just said, “Chet’s the swimmer on this team.”
How nice of him! But that was Bernie, every time. And in fairness, he’s no slouch in the water himself. Take our trip to San Diego, for example: we’d surfed, me and Bernie, me on the front of the board, not so different from riding shotgun in the Porsche—my favorite thing in the whole wide world, if that’s not clear by now.
Isobel looked my way. “I like how his ears don’t match.”
My ears don’t match? Had I already known that and forgotten, maybe on account of my life being pretty busy? And what did it even mean? Probably something good, if Isobel liked it.
She came closer. “Do you think he’d mind if I gave him a pat?”
“You never know,” Bernie said. What a sense of humor!
Isobel stood in front of me. My head was right at her hand level, making us a good fit for patting purposes. She reached out and gave my head a soft pat, right between the ears. It felt nice, although nothing like the pats you get from Tulip and Autumn, two very fine ladies who work at Livia Moon’s house of ill repute back home. Then came a surprise, not good. A scent I knew, very faint but there, was coming off her. Old Mrs. Parsons, our neighbor on Mesquite Road but now in the hospital, gave off the same scent, although stronger. Plus Maurice! What was going on?
Still patting me and hardly raising her voice above a murmur, Isobel said, “Must be nice, having a partner like this.”
“Wouldn’t change it for anything,” Bernie said.
Right back atcha! What a pleasant visit this was turning out to be!
“Are the two of you working on anything at the moment?” she said. “Beside whatever Trav’s got in mind.”
“A security review is what’s in mind,” the general said, sounding a bit annoyed. “As I mentioned already.”
“We’re working on a murder case, actually,” Bernie said.
“Back in Arizona?” said Isobel.
“Here,” Bernie said. “Meaning the metropolitan area. A man was murdered a few days ago, and his father hired us to help with the investigation.”
“Sounds interesting,” General Galloway said. “Who was the victim?”
“A consultant named Eben St. John,” Bernie said.
All at once, I could hear Isobel’s heart pounding away, loud and clear, and feel the pulse in her hand.
“Is that someone we know?” the general said.
“No,” said Isobel, her eyes on me but not in a seeing way, her hand no longer in patting mode, more like gripping, like she was holding on.
“I hope that case won’t preclude you from doing other things,” the general said.
“It depends on the other things,” said Bernie.
Isobel let go of me, squared her shoulders—a human move I always like to see. “I’ll let you two discuss it,” she said, crossing the room without looking at either of the men and going out.
“See you at the boathouse,” the general called after her. He waited for an answer, and when none came, rubbed his hands like he was warming them up and turned to Bernie.
“We don’t have
much time,” he said, leaning forward and closing the distance between them. “What I’m looking for is someone to help me preserve my tiny island of privacy. I’m aware that if I’m elected, privacy is not an option, but until that happens, I want to enjoy a taste of normal life.”
“So you’re running?” Bernie said.
A few pink spots appeared on the general’s smooth cheeks. “I didn’t say that. Everything is fluid at this point—thought I’d made that clear.” He sat back a little in his leather chair, smallish hands kind of tight on the armrests. “Suppleness of mind is what I need from you.”
“You can’t get that from Donnegan’s?” Bernie said.
“You can’t get that from any big organization, right on up to the government of our wonderful homeland,” the general said. “I assumed that was common knowledge.”
Bernie gave him a long look. “I’ll need specifics.”
General Galloway sat back somewhat farther. “Fair enough,” he said. “Should I start with the money?”
“The money comes last,” Bernie said.
Oh, Bernie: that was my thought. The general seemed to be thinking, too. He opened his mouth and was about to speak when a man in a white uniform of some kind appeared in the doorway.
“Sorry, sir,” he said. “Mrs. Galloway says it’s time. She sent a change of clothes.” He came in, handed the general jeans and a T-shirt, and left.
The general rose, started unbuttoning his shirt. “To be continued?” he said.
“You’ve got my number,” said Bernie.
TWENTY-THREE
* * *
The dude in the white uniform showed us out through a side door. For some reason, Bernie didn’t seem to want to circle around the house to the driveway. Instead, he kind of wandered the other way, past the tennis court and through a small apple orchard, red apples hanging from the trees, reminding me of Christmas, although I couldn’t think why. Oh, but the smells, so lovely! I could have stayed there all day, except Bernie kept wandering, so I wandered with him, snapping up a fallen apple and making quick work of it. Apples aren’t bad at all, especially the crunchy kind, which this one was, maybe the crunchiest I’d ever scarfed down. Were we on a roll? I had no doubt.
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