A Fistful of Collars (20 page)

“How about a connection to Thad Perry?” Suzie said.

“Yeah,” said Bernie. “That, too.”

Then came a silence. Under the table, Suzie moved her foot, resting it on top of Bernie’s. I tried not to do anything about that for the longest time.

We’ve got bars out the yingyang in the Valley. You name it. For bikers, how about Greasy Steve’s? Steve’s a buddy, and yes, pretty greasy, a plus as far as I’m concerned. Greasy Steve’s is at one end, sort of the watch-your-back end of Valley bars. At the other end is Amadeus, where Bernie started laughing when he saw the bill. He figured someone was playing a trick on him, and then—maybe he’d had one too many, but Bernie with one too many in him is even Bernier than ever, if you get what I mean, although I’m not sure I do, and in any case I don’t want to remember what happened next, the part with the maître d’ who turned out to be wearing a wig and all that, a wig that came from Paris and got added to the bill, which made Bernie laugh harder, and then
came the bouncers. The point is that Red Devil’s was somewhere in between those two ends, maybe a bit closer to Greasy Steve’s.

We walked in, Bernie taking off his funeral tie and stuffing it in his pocket. The floor felt sticky under my paws. Yes, closer to Greasy Steve’s. Red Devil’s had a few rickety-looking tables and a pool table on one side—don’t get me started on pool balls, so hard and slippery, plus the sticks were way too long for any kind of fun play, although they made good weapons in the hands of a certain sort of human, Jumbo Ogletree, for example, now breaking rocks in the hot sun—and on the other side a long bar with a mirror and lots of bottles.

There was no one inside except the bartender, a woman with not too many tattoos for a bartender, her blond hair, the faded kind, in a ponytail. She looked up from a magazine as we approached.

“Is that a working or therapy dog?” she said.

“Yes,” Bernie told her.

“That’s the only kind management allows in here.”

“I understand.”

“How come he’s not wearing his ID vest, you know, that says therapy or working right on it?”

“Chet’s undercover,” Bernie said.

No problem. We’d worked undercover before, including once when Bernie pretended to be blind. I’d had some seeing-eye training—this was before my days in K-9 school—seeing-eye training that ended a bit the way K-9 school ended, now that I thought about it, but I didn’t want to think about it, the point being I could work undercover, although Bernie didn’t show any signs of blindness at the moment—no stick, no shades—probably a good thing since that other time he’d pretended so well he fell off the balcony at the Ritz. Bernie: to the max. You just had to love him.

“That’s some kind of joke, right?” the bartender said.

“Not if you didn’t laugh,” Bernie said.

The bartender gave him a long look, then said, “What can I get you?”

Bernie laid the coupon on the bar.

She squinted down at it. Humans never looked their best when squinting, and she was no different. “That’s no good anymore,” she said. “It’s from, like, years ago.”

“Me, too,” Bernie said.

Now the bartender did laugh, kind of a surprise. “Nice try,” she said, and ripped up the coupon, tossing the scraps behind her.

Bernie laughed, too. He took out some money. “What’s on tap?”

“I’m partial to the Andersonville,” said the bartender.

“Sold,” said Bernie. “And one for you.”

“Strictly against the rules,” she said. But she filled two glasses from the tap.

“Cheers,” said Bernie. I always liked when he said that: just saying it made him seem more cheerful every time—you could tell from his eyes. “I’m Bernie Little.”

“Dina,” said the bartender.

“Nice meeting you, Dina,” Bernie said. “And this is Chet.”

“Short for Chester?” said the bartender.

Whoa! Not the first time I’d heard that one. Why couldn’t I be Chet, pure and simple?

“Just Chet,” Bernie said.

“Nice name,” said Dina.

“Agreed,” Bernie said. “Can’t take any credit—he had it when I got him.”

News to me, and of an interesting kind. Did it mean that someone else . . . A thought rose quickly in my mind, zipping
through the clear part into the fuzzy part and then up, up, and out of reach, just like every bird I’d ever chased.

Bernie took a sip of beer. Dina tilted back her glass, drained quite a lot of it. He watched her over the rim of his own glass.

“You a baseball fan?” Bernie said.

“That’s a funny question,” Dina told him. “Not really.”

“How come?”

“You some kind of sports nut?”

Bernie thought about that. “Maybe a bit,” he said. “Ever go to a game?”

“In my life? Sure. Why—you got tickets?”

“That’s a bit of a problem at the moment,” Bernie said. “Something happened to my source.”

“Oh?” said Dina. “Like what?”

“She was a reporter,” Bernie said. “They’re always getting tickets.”

Dina, raising her glass to drink, paused in mid-motion; a tiny wave of beer rose up and almost slopped over. Bernie saw it, too: I felt a little change in him, a change I’d felt before, hard to describe. But I knew what it meant. We were starting to cook. Not actual cooking, of course, and I wasn’t even hungry, what with our picnic at Burger Heaven being so recent; although Cheetos were nearby—out of sight just on the other side of the bar, very close to my nose—and who didn’t always have room for a Cheeto?

“A reporter for the
Trib
,” Bernie went on. “Her name was Carla Wilhite.”

Dina lowered her glass and set it on the bar, slow and careful. Then she raised her eyes up to Bernie’s, eyes that hadn’t really been friendly from the get-go and now were cold.

“A lot of her friends showed up at the funeral,” Bernie said. “Not you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dina said.

Bernie took out our business card, laid it on the counter. This was our new business card, the one with the flower, designed by Suzie. We were living with it for now.

Dina glanced down at the card, said nothing. For a moment, I thought she was going to rip it up, just like the coupon, but she didn’t.

“Carla was a friend,” Bernie said. “So we’ll never stop working on this, not until we nail the killer and anyone else involved, no matter how peripheral.”

Dina met Bernie’s gaze, her face real stony. Then she crossed her arms. Humans sometimes did that when they weren’t going to say one more word.

I barked, one of those barks that just sort of come out on their own, a loud, harsh bark. Did it take everyone by surprise? Certainly Dina, who jumped back a bit; and also me.

Dina didn’t look so stony anymore. She put her hand over her chest. “Oh, God, this is so awful. I couldn’t believe it when I found out.”

“How did you find out?” Bernie said.

“On the news,” Dina said. “We were friends when we were little, in the same class.”

“So how come you weren’t at the funeral?”

Dina opened her mouth, closed it, tried again. “I wimped out,” she said. “I just can’t stand funerals.”

Bernie didn’t say anything. Silence: one of those silences that seemed to grow, if that makes any sense, probably not, but the point is most humans can’t let them go on for long.

“And also our friendship was only for a year or so,” Dina said. “Carla was real smart. She got into one of those magnet schools on the west side and we lost touch. I haven’t seen her in years and years.”

“Except for the ball game,” Bernie said. “Where you handed out the coupons.”

Dina glanced down at the floor, where she’d tossed the scraps. “Right, the ball game. A total coincidence—she was doing a story on the microbrewery on Airport Road and I was pouring. She had these box seats—from one of the radio stations, I think. I went. We had fun. And that was the last time I saw her.”

“So that must have been when you told her about Thad Perry,” Bernie said.

“Thad Perry?” Dina said. Although she didn’t say it right away, more after a moment or two, the time it took her to lick her lips. “The movie star?”

Bernie nodded. He was a great nodder, if that hasn’t come up yet, had all kinds of different nods. I’d seen this nod before—not a friendly kind—mostly when we were dealing with perps.

“I don’t understand,” Dina said.

“Dina,” Bernie said. “Maybe you weren’t listening. We’re going to roll up every single person involved in Carla’s death, no exceptions.”

“Bullying won’t make me understand,” Dina said.

Bernie’s voice rose. “You think this is bullying?”

Dina blinked as though tears might be on the way, but her eyes stayed dry. “You’re making a mistake,” she said.

Bernie spoke more quietly. “Are you saying you didn’t tell Carla at the ball game—or at any other time—that Thad Perry was from the Valley?”

Dina spread her hands. “My God, no.”

“Or had spent time here?”

“No,” Dina said. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

Bernie tilted up his chin, gave her a long look from that angle.
I loved when he did that, although what it was all about remained a bit of a mystery.

“How about the old Flower Mart in Vista City?” Bernie said.

“What—what about it?”

“That’s where we found Carla.”

“I know. It was on the news.”

“And?”

“And?” said Dina.

“What do you know about it?”

“Isn’t it closed down?”

“Yes. What else?”

She shrugged. “Nothing else. I’ve never been there in my life.”

“Did Carla have any association with it?”

“I have no idea.”

Bernie took a step back. “Okay, Dina,” he said. “You’ve got my card,” He made a little clicking sound in his mouth, meaning we were hitting the road. The interview was over? Kind of a surprise, but Bernie was a great interviewer, one of the best things we had going for us at the Little Detective Agency. I brought other things to the table.

We moved to the door. Bernie stopped and turned, so I did, too. Dina was watching us.

“The name Ramon mean anything to you?” he said.

“Not especially,” said Dina. “It’s just a name.”

We walked out of Red Devil’s, took a few steps and stopped again, this time looking back through the window. Dina was grabbing a bottle off the shelf.

W
e were pulling away from Red Devil’s when the phone beeped. Bernie had tried some ring tones—the Foggy Mountain Breakdown banjo thing was his favorite for a long time, the longest time, in fact—but now we were back to the beep.

“Bernie!” Leda said. “Charlie got his call!”

“Call?” Bernie said.

“To the set! Come on, Bernie—don’t sound so out of it all the time.”

There’s a red button Bernie presses when it’s time to end a call. His finger shifted toward it.

“Aren’t you excited?” Leda said.

“Excited?”

“For Charlie! He’s your son.”

“Goddamn it, Leda, I know he’s—” Bernie shut himself up, got a grip. When he does that, his jaw bulges like he’s lifting something heavy; once in a while, something jumps or twitches in the side of his neck, too. Like now, both together, bulge and twitch. I never liked seeing both together. Press the red button, Bernie,
press the red button! But he didn’t. Instead, he lowered his voice and said, “Is Charlie excited about it?”

“He’s practicing his signature for when he has to sign the contract,” Leda said.

Bernie smiled. “Okay,” he said. “See you there.”

He pressed the red button, way too late as far as I was concerned, and turned to me. “Onetime thing—can’t see the harm.”

Bernie was quiet all the way home, and then, just as we turned onto Mesquite Road, he said, “We were terrible together, Leda and I, yet somehow we produced a kid like Charlie. Does that mean we weren’t so terrible after all?”

What was he saying—that Charlie was a great kid? I knew that already. The rest of it made no sense to me and blew away like bits off this and that flying out the trash truck when the trash truck dudes are in a hurry. And no time to think about it anyway, because an ambulance was parked next door to our place, not on old man Heydrich’s side, but the other, over in front of the Parsons’ place, where my pal Iggy lived.

“Whoa,” said Bernie, slowing down and pulling into our driveway.

We got out of the car and just stood there, Bernie standing and me sitting, actually, side by side. How often have we done that? Lots, and it never gets old. Bernie watched the Parsons’ front door, so I did, too. We’re real good at watching, and watching pays off in our line of work, big-time. Then why were our finances in such a mess? We were good! Sometimes you had to try to make your mind not do things. I tried to make my mind not think about our finances ever again. It thought about our finances right away.

“I hope—” Bernie began.

The Parsons’ door opened. Out came two EMTs, rolling old Mrs. Parsons on a stretcher. She had a breathing mask over her face—I knew breathing masks from this one time Bernie and I saved a kid from drowning; what a day that was! and who cared if the perp got away? especially since we collared him that night, a perp whose name was about to come to me, I could feel it—and tubes sticking out of her here and there. Mr. Parsons came stumping after them on his walker, trying to keep up and at the same time extending one hand, maybe wanting to touch Mrs. Parsons’s wispy hair. He lost his balance, started to tip sideways. One of the EMTs reached out and grabbed him, saying, “Sir, please.”

“But I want to come,” said Mr. Parsons. “I want to ride with my wife.”

“Sorry,” said the EMT. “No room, no time.”

The other EMT banged open the rear doors of the ambulance. They slid Mrs. Parsons inside, one of the EMTs jumping in after her, the other running around to the front and hopping up behind the wheel. At that moment, Iggy appeared in the Parsons’ doorway. He paused there, his stubby tail up straight, his crazily long tongue hanging out. Iggy, my best pal! When was the last time he’d been outside? Long, long ago, back before the divorce, maybe even all the way back to when Bernie and Leda weren’t fighting all the time. This was Iggy’s big chance, and I knew Iggy: when a big chance came along, he grabbed it fast and never looked back. That mailman, for example, back in the long-ago time, who’d left his sandwich on the dashboard of the truck while he’d delivered a package across the street: what a great memory, Iggy with egg salad all over his face! The truth was I’d learned a trick or two from Iggy, back in the day.