“The boys meaning Lord and—hey, Chet, what’s going on down there?”
Bernie reached down, his hand feeling around. For a moment, all those fingers seemed to be moving like tiny humans with minds of their own, a real scary thought that I hoped would never come again. Then they found my head and started giving me a nice scratch. Nice scratches are always nice, but wasn’t I down here wriggling under the desk for a reason? I tried to think. I thought: Nice scratches are always nice. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the moment. The sound of their voices flowed over me, quite pleasant, especially Bernie’s.
“Right, Lord and Duke,” Vannah said. “Not boys except in the good ol’ way. The point is there was no sign of Ralph anywhere.”
“Has he ever done anything like this before?” Bernie said.
“Gone missing, you mean?”
“Or made himself scarce,” Bernie said. “He sounds like a loner. Loners have a way of going off by themselves.”
“Ralph’s a loner for sure,” said Vannah. “But it was Mami’s birthday last Tuesday and he didn’t show. No way he’d ever be disrespectful like that.”
“Mami being?”
“Their mother,” Vannah said.
“Frenchie mentioned her.”
“Head of the clan.”
“A criminal sort of clan, if I understood Frenchie properly.”
Then came a silence, maybe not the friendly kind. The lovely scratching—right in the perfect spot between my ears, impossible for me to get to myself—stopped. I opened my eyes. And right in front of my face, was it possible? Yes, a bag of Cheetos, practically full! How could that have happened? How long had it been there? I didn’t worry about any of that. This was turning out to be one of the best days of my whole life. All I had to do was—
“Chet! What the hell! Cool it right—”
Then came a crash, kind of big, and the next thing I knew Bernie’s desk was sort of on its side. That was very wrong and if I had played any part in it, that was wrong, too. Bernie was on his feet gazing down at me with not the best look on his face. Vannah’s eyes were opened wide and she seemed to have jumped into the small space between the couch and the wall. And the bag of Cheetos? Now nowhere in sight. But on the rug, practically right at my feet, lay a small scrap of paper, somewhat like a . . . a check? The check! I remembered the check! And in no time at all I’d snatched it up, stepped forward, and offered it to Bernie.
“What’s this?” Bernie said. He took the check, smoothed it off, wiped away some moisture that might have gotten on it. Then he gave his head a shake like he wasn’t seeing right, patted his chest pocket, pulled his shirt forward so he could peer down into the pocket—a button snapping off his shirt at that moment, which I snatched right out of the air and swallowed, not even thinking twice; was I on a roll or what?—and then his face softened in a lovely way and he said, “Good boy.”
“What’s going on?” Vannah said.
“Nothing,” said Bernie, standing the desk back up. “Nothing at all.”
“You’re still taking the case?” Vannah came out from behind the couch.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Just wondering about the nuts and bolts,” Vannah said, losing me completely. Nuts and bolts weren’t our department: when they came springing out of the Porsche, we always went right to Nixon Panero, our ace mechanic. “Specifically do you, ah, put the dog in a kennel when you’re on the road?”
Kennel? Me? I tried to fit those two together in my mind and couldn’t.
“Chet in the kennel?” Bernie said. I could see on his face that he couldn’t fit them together either. “Chet and I are partners.” His voice hardened in a thrilling way that made the fur at the back of my neck stand straight up. “Maybe Frenchie can fill you in on his capabilities.”
Vannah held up her hand. “Whatever you say. No offense.”
What a very proud moment in my life! And not spoiled at all by the fact that I now puked up Bernie’s shirt button; a tiny thing, but it had disagreed with me.
“Let’s go celebrate,” Bernie said when Vannah was gone. “Money’s burning a hole in my pocket.”
Oh, no—anything but that. We’d had some bad experiences with fire, including one very scary night involving a firebomb and a crummy motel down Mexico way. I sniffed the air, detected no smoke or any hint of fire at all, so it had to be one of Bernie’s jokes. There was no one funnier than Bernie, in case that’s not yet clear.
We went to the Dry Gulch Steakhouse and Saloon, one of our favorite restaurants in the whole Valley, with a patio where me and my kind are welcome. Sergeant Rick Torres, our buddy from Valley PD Missing Persons was there, and Bernie started telling him about the new case.
“Took it for three reasons,” Bernie said. I tried to concentrate, but my steak tips were ready: I could smell them on the other side of the swinging door that led to the kitchen.
“Money, money, money?” said Rick.
“Four, if you include the money,” Bernie said. “Reason number one,” he began, but then the waitress arrived with my steak tips on a paper plate. She set it on the floor, me sort of helping her, and I missed the rest of whatever Bernie had to say.
FOUR
Night had fallen by the time we left the Dry Gulch patio and walked out to the Porsche, although night never actually falls, in fact, it rises from the ground up. The sky darkens the very last. Here in the Valley it never goes completely black, just dialing down to dark pink, especially in the direction of the downtown towers. I was sort of thinking about all that, but not hard, when I noticed a shadowy dude standing near our ride.
I didn’t bark or make a sound, just stiffened a bit. Bernie felt it even though we weren’t touching, and right away peered over at the Porsche. The dude came forward, a tall dude wearing a dark suit and a small-brim cowboy hat, walking the way dudes in cowboy boots walk, his hands empty and out where we could see them.
“Bernie Little?” he said.
“That’s right,” Bernie said, stopping an empty space or two from the Porsche. I stopped, too.
“And this must be Chet,” the dude said. “Heard a lot about him.”
Bernie said nothing. Silence is a tool. He’s told me that, and more than once. I love it every time he tells me, no matter what it means.
Silence, silence, and then the dude filled it in. Filled it in with talk, which is what usually happens. Once or twice a special silence of Bernie’s has gotten filled in with gunfire, but this dude’s hands were still empty. “My name’s Rugh,” he said. “Cale Rugh. I’m with Donnegan’s, Houston office.”
“Uh-huh,” said Bernie, Donnegan’s being a sort of competitor, but way bigger. We’d met some of their agents at the Great Western Private Eye Convention a while back. Bernie gave the keynote speech, and it couldn’t have gone better—the Mirabelli brothers and all those other guys at the back and down the sides plus a few in front must have been real tired to have zonked out the way they did—but I didn’t remember this dude.
“Somewhere we could go for a quick talk?” Rugh said.
“Here is good,” Bernie said.
“It’s confidential.”
“We’ll talk in low voices.”
Rugh smiled, showing a lot of white teeth, not small for a human. His eyes showed nothing. “They warned me about you.”
“Who’s they?”
“Colleagues. They said you’re a difficult son of a bitch. But you know what I told them?”
“That anyone who’s any good in this business is a difficult son of a bitch,” Bernie said.
Rugh’s smile faded. A tall dude and even taller with the small-brim hat, but he seemed to shrink down toward Bernie’s size. Not that Bernie’s not tall—don’t think that for a moment.
“I’m not going to do all your lines for you, Cale,” Bernie said. “What’s on your mind?”
Rugh took a quick glance around. We had the parking lot to ourselves. “We’d like you to consult on a case for us. A month’s work, more or less. We’ll do
uble your rate—not your actual bargained-down rate but your asking. Makes thirty times sixteen hundred—forty-eight grand. Plus expenses. I’ve got a retainer check for ten grand in my pocket, if ol’ Chet here will let me reach for it.”
Bernie laughed. What was funny? Why wouldn’t I let him give us a check? I was totally in favor. Let’s see it, dude.
“Don’t need to see it at the moment,” Bernie said.
What was that? Why not?
“I think the case’ll interest you,” Rugh said, or something like that, hard for me to concentrate on account of that check remaining out of sight. All of a sudden we had checks, practically out the yingyang, but they were still giving us problems. Rugh said something about Alaska, mines, the environment, most of which went by in a kind of buzzing tangle, but mines were a big interest of Bernie’s—we’d explored lots of old abandoned ones in the desert—and if the environment was about water, then Bernie was interested in that, too. As for Alaska, was that where Bernie said the old days were still around? Bernie was a big fan of the old days, in case that’s not clear already.
“Who’s the client?” Bernie said.
“That stays under wraps until takeoff,” said Rugh.
“Takeoff?”
“Private jet. We’re scheduled out of here at six a.m. sharp, nonstop to Fairbanks.”
“Six a.m. tomorrow?”
“Yup.”
Bernie shook his head. “It’ll have to wait. We’re on another assignment.”
“Wait? It can’t wait, Bernie. Thought I made the urgency of the situation crystal clear.”
“Then we’re out.”
Rugh made a little breathing noise from his nose, actually a kind of laugh. I like the mouth kind better. “They mentioned this, too.”
“Mentioned what?”
“That you’re your own worst enemy. Come on, Bernie. What’s this other case? Some grubby divorce shit?”
Bernie’s head bobbed back the tiniest bit, kind of like he’d been hit. He hadn’t been hit, and I knew that perfectly well, but just the same I got ready to do something about it, hard to explain. And at that very moment, I also felt Bernie’s hand on my collar. My brown collar, in case you’re interested: black is for dress-up.
“Even if it was grubby divorce shit,” Bernie said, “which it happens not to be, we’ve committed to it, so that’s that.”
Rugh raised his hands, palms up. That’s something I always like to see. “I apologize for the divorce crack. But we’ve all been there, let’s not be naïve. Donnegan’s has a whole department, for Christ sake.”
“No apology necessary,” Bernie said. “But we don’t have any other departments here. We take ’em as they come in.”
“Makes total sense,” Rugh said. “And does you credit. You’ve got a great rep, maybe I should have put that front and center. But here’s a thought—what if we took over this other case for you?”
“I don’t think so,” Bernie said.
“Whatever your quote was, we won’t go over, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
Bernie shook his head.
“A longtime client?” Rugh said. “Worried that we’ll make off with one of your cash cows? We’ll draw up a contract ruling that out. If you like, I’ll meet with your client myself and—” something, something, but whoa! A cow was in the case, or possibly more than one? That wasn’t good. I’ve had some experience with cows. It’s not so easy to get them to do what you want them to do, especially if it involves moving. Also, they have a way of looking at you that I don’t like one little bit.
“Thanks anyway, Cale,” Bernie said. “But the answer’s no.”
Meaning Bernie’s take on cows was the same as mine. I wasn’t surprised.
Rugh flashed his smile again, the upper half of his face lost in the shadow of his hat brim. “Suit yourself, Bernie.” He held out his hand, a big hand, maybe the slightest bit bigger than Bernie’s. They shook. “Good luck with the case. I’m betting it’s something really special.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Bernie said.
“No?”
We got in the car. Bernie waved. Rugh waved back. He watched us drive out of the Dry Gulch parking lot. I turned so I could watch him watch. He took out his phone and walked toward a big, dark-colored car. Someone was waiting in the driver’s seat.
Back home, Bernie got on the phone, hit speaker.
“Mitch? Bernie Little here.”
“Hey, Bernie. How they hangin’?”
“You say that every time,” Bernie said.
“So?” said Mitch. “It’s my regular form of greeting.”
“With women, too?”
“You suggesting that’s why I never get any?”
“It’s on the list,” Bernie said.
Mitch laughed. Fat guys have their own kind of laugh, and Mitch Crudup was a fat guy and also a good pal. For one thing, he liked sharing his food. Hadn’t seen Mitch in way too long. “What can I do for you, Bernie?”
“Know an agent named Cale Rugh, supposedly working out of your Houston office?”
“No supposedly about it,” Mitch said. “What have you done now?”
“Not following you, Mitch.”
“Rugh’s a heavy hitter, works out of special ops.”
“Donnegan’s has something called special ops?” Bernie said.
“Innermost sanctum,” Mitch said. “Ex-CIA types, even a few ex-KGB, according to rumor.”
“My knees are shaking.”
I checked Bernie’s knees. He was in his boxers so I could take a good close look. They weren’t moving in the slightest! What was that all about? My gaze wandered to the wound on one of his legs. Poor Bernie! He got that wound in the war and sometimes—only when he was at his very tiredest—it made him limp, but not a lot, hardly even noticeable.
“Chet? What are you—”
All of a sudden, Bernie was looking down at me and I was . . . giving that wound a quick lick? Had he brought up something along these lines before? Quite possibly. But I only wanted to make it better. And the next moment, I saw in his eyes that he knew that, too. He gave me a pat. We were square, on the up-and-up, cool with each other to the max.
“Chet there?” Mitch said.
“Very much so,” said Bernie, which I didn’t quite get. You’re here or you’re not here, unless I’m missing something.
“Give him a treat for me.”
Mitch: a gem.
“He just had a big dinn—Chet! Down!”
“He knows ‘treat,’ huh?”
“Among others.”
Mitch laughed again. Invite yourself over, Mitch. Bring a little something. But Mitch didn’t do that. Instead, he said, “What’s special ops want with you?”
“Consultation.”
“They wanted to hire you as a consultant?”
“What’s so astonishing?”
“Did I sound astonished? Must be a bad connection. Nothing against you, Bernie—you’re . . . how to put it? One of a kind. But I’ve never heard of Donnegan’s hiring a consultant. Everything around here stays under the dome.”
“What dome?”
“There’s no actual dome,” Mitch said. “It’s more of a company metaphor. Point is, we don’t go outside, no way, no how. What’s the case?”
“It’s out of state and involves mining. Names and all the intel were going to be forthcoming when I signed on, which I did not.”
“You turned it down?”
“Yup.”
“The money?”
“Nope. Money was good.”
“Then what?”
“I’d already accepted another assignment.”
“Divor—”
“Don’t say it. Wouldn’t matter what it was—we can only do a case at a time.”
“And Cale Rugh couldn’t come up with a workaround for that?”
“Not for lack of effort.”
“I’ll bet,” Mitch said.
“You know him?” said Bernie.
; “Met him once or twice. Those slow-talking Texans can be much smarter than they seem.”
“I’m aware of that,” Bernie said. “I was born in Texas myself.”
“But you’re not slow talking.”
“Neither was he.”
“Want me to touch base with him?”
“Nah,” Bernie said. “I was just making sure he was legit.”
“As legit as anyone in our business,” Mitch said.
“Now I’m scared,” Bernie said.
Mitch was still laughing when he hung up.
Bernie got out his old Army duffel bag, started throwing things into it. “Twenty-hour drive, give or take,” he said. “Or we could fly and rent wheels on the other end. Flying means a crate.”
He looked down at me. I looked up at him. Crate? That brought back memories, almost totally faded away. But not quite, amigo.
“We’ll drive,” Bernie said. He zipped up the duffel. “Lie down, big guy. Get some shut-eye. We leave at dawn.”
I lay down at the foot of Bernie’s bed and closed my eyes, followed his movements by sound as sleep came fuzzing all around me. He picked up the duffel with a soft grunt, carried it to the front hall, let himself out, walked onto the driveway, his foot crunching on something crunchy, maybe a twig. Then came a squeak from the trunk opening, the thud of the duffel getting tossed in, and—another footstep-on-a-twig crunch? I’d kind of been expecting the thump of the trunk closing. There it was: a thump. But not a trunk-closing-type thump. This was different, a thump I didn’t like at all. The next thing I knew I was charging out the front door.
Oh, no! Bernie was on his knees behind the car, blood dripping down his face. A man with a ski mask covering his own face stood over him, a tire iron raised high. He didn’t see me coming until it was too late. Too late for him, not for me. I caught his forearm between my jaws as he was swinging that horrible tire iron down at Bernie’s head, caught it good and bit my hardest, my top teeth and bottom teeth meeting up deep inside his arm. He screamed, tried to twist himself free, and hey! Somehow got his other hand on the tire iron and whipped it sideways at my head. Whack! A black hole sprang up out of nowhere in my mind and started growing.
The Sound and the Furry Page 3
