Scents and Sensibility (13 page)

He looked over at me. “Chet? What are you doing with your paws?”

Nothing. Nothing at all, except for covering up my nose. My nose had a past with stirred-up hornets. You get a feeling when a case is going well. I did not have that feeling.

S
itting in the Porsche, out in the desert at night, me and Bernie: didn't get any better than this. I remembered the last time—some case involving parrots—when we'd been sitting in much the same way, nice and peaceable, until dudes with flamethrowers came barreling over the next ridge. What did that have to do with parrots? I never figured it out, but all those flame-throwing dudes are now over at Central State Correctional, breaking rocks in the hot sun.

“Hey,” Bernie said, “see the shooting star?”

He pointed at the sky. Whatever it was, I missed it, but it was still pleasant to gaze at the night sky with Bernie.

“Not an actual star, of course. A meteor.”

How interesting! Was there anything Bernie didn't know?

“I'll have to explain that to Charlie.”

Then came a silence, pleasant until I felt Bernie's thoughts begin to darken. He actually smells different when that happens. Have I mentioned Bernie's smell—a very nice one, my second favorite, in fact, with hints of apples, bourbon, salt, and pepper overlaying your basic human male? When dark thoughts are happening, the whole thing gets toned down, like the smell is coming from a smaller Bernie. I edged up against him.

He looked my way, gave me a pat. “Leda's right,” he said.

Wow! I'd never heard that before. Good or bad? I had no idea. In general I like new things, especially if they're nice. That was as far as I could take it.

“Should never have taken him on that little caper,” Bernie said. “Things can go off the rails at any time in this job.”

Couldn't be truer, in my experience! And all in all a plus, unless I was missing something—other than what Bernie was actually talking about. That I was missing, but totally.

“And then there's London.”

Bernie started fishing under his seat. That meant he wanted a cigarette, didn't have any on account of never buying cigarettes anymore, part of his plan for quitting, and was hoping to score one somewhere or other. Which he was going to do, if he kept on searching—a faint and stale tobacco smell had been rising up from under his seat since we left Foggy Bottom.

“Hey!” he said. “My lucky day.” And not long after that, he was lighting up and blowing a long, slow smoke stream, a tiny cloud rising in the night sky, hazing over a star or two. “What would we do in London, Chet?”

London? Wherever it was, why wouldn't we do what we were doing now, stirring up hornets out in the desert, keeping an eye out for shooting stars? I was about to edge still closer to him—not easy, since I'd pretty much completely closed the gap between us, but I'm not one to give up at the first sign of difficulty—when I heard a motorcycle cranking up somewhere higher on the mountain.

“A galoot,” Bernie said. “Would I end up like some galoot sidekick of Suzie's? On the other hand, what about the idea that love conquers—Chet? Something up?”

Most definitely. A motorcycle was roaring toward us down the mountain. Bernie really didn't hear it? I couldn't believe—

“Hearing anything, big guy? I thought I might have . . .” Bernie cocked one ear toward the road. We do the same thing in the nation within, but way earlier in the game. “Yeah, for sure,” Bernie said, turning the key. “Good boy.”

Engine on, lights off—our usual technique in situations like this—we waited, both of us hunched forward, eyes on the road. Bernie's heartbeat changed a bit—not speeding up, just getting stronger. Mine was doing the exact same thing. Look out, world!

“Sounds more like a motorcycle than a car,” Bernie said, his voice low. That had to be one of Bernie's jokes, since the bike was practically right on us. A moment later its headlight beam flashed down the road, and the bike blew into view, banked far over as it shot out of the switchback, ridden by someone who knew what she was doing. Her long blond hair streaming out in the night reminded me of the shooting star I'd missed seeing, no explaining that. But the point: the rider was Ms. Dee Branch.

“One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi,” Bernie said, losing me completely, and then pulled out from our spot by the big rock and onto the road. Bernie's the best wheelman in the Valley, can follow from up close, back far, many lanes over, and even going backward, which I'd seen once and was in no hurry to see again. But tailing Dee Branch didn't call for anything tricky. The beam of her headlight pointed our way through High Pines and down the mountain. We followed from quite close behind, our own lights out and the sound of our engine masked by the bike's loud vroom-vroom, at least to human ears.

Some time later, out of the mountains and on the freeway, Bernie dropped back into traffic and hit the lights. Dee took one of the first Valley exits and headed into South Pedroia. Bernie dropped back a little more, keeping a van between us and Dee. We went right past Orlando the butcher's place, closed for the night—but smelling as good as ever, or even better, what with how smells are stronger in the night air—and then our self-storage, where we keep our stock of Hawaiian pants. Our finances! But not now, big guy, not now.

Meanwhile, we'd entered one of the worst parts of South Pedroia—boarded-up buildings, broken streetlights, dudes slouching around with nothing good in mind. One or two looked up as Dee passed by and called out to her, but if she heard, she gave no sign. At a corner where the stop sign lay in the gutter, the van went one way and Dee another, leaving nothing between us. Bernie stopped there and waited, the sound of Dee's bike fading.

And fading. Maybe I got a little anxious, possibly putting a paw on Bernie's leg, specifically the leg we used for stepping on the gas. He stroked my head. “It's all right, Chet. It's a dead end, backs on to the canal. She's not going anywhere.”

The smartest human in the world? There he was, right beside me!

Real slow, lights off, we drove down the dead-end street. I picked up the smell of the canal, which had nothing to do with water, by the way, the canal being empty except during monsoon season. Pee, mostly human, is the normal canal smell, in case you're interested. There are times the whole world pretty much smells of human pee. What a life!

Hardly any lights showed on the dead-end street, but the night sky in the Valley is a kind of deep, dark pink, making it easy to see the sights going by: a retread tire place, a blackened warehouse with all the windows blown out, an empty lot full of trash, a dark little low cement house, painted green, and another one just like it, except that it was yellow. Also a light glowed in the front window of the yellow house. Plus the yard had a chain-link fence around it, high but leapable, at least for me. What else? A motorcycle was parked in that yard, metal popping as it cooled down. Bernie cruised on to the end of the block, only two houses farther, came to the canal, and turned around. Then he drove back the way we'd come and parked across the street from the small yellow house. He reached into the glove box and took out the .45. We needed the stopper? It was that kind of case? I made a . . . what did Bernie call it? Mental note? Yes. I made a mental note to . . . to do whatever you did with mental notes.

We got out of the car, moving silently in the night, meaning silently for me and not too noisily for Bernie. Pink light glinted off those sharp twisties you find at the top of chain-link fences. Bernie checked the gate: padlocked. We walked around the house, down a nasty little path that separated it from the green one. The fence continued all the way around to the back, but here's something you need to know about humans: they can be careless, especially about the things that don't show. Look under just about any bed, for example. And here was another one: a hole in the fence, almost big enough for us to squeeze through side by side. But not quite, so I went first. The truth is I would have gone first no matter what. How did Bernie put it? Chet has certain preferences. Yes, that was it. You had to give him credit: Bernie notices every little thing.

We crept across a packed bare-dirt strip to the back of the yellow house. At that moment and for no reason I thought of Ellie Newburg and the round red hole in her forehead. Yes, it was that kind of case. I gave myself a shake of the very quickest sort. Set to go.

No lights shone in the back windows of the yellow house, and it was quiet inside. But humans were in there, more than one. Here in the nation within we get good at sensing the human presence. Bernie approached the back door. If you'd been expecting one of those feeble screen doors, you'd have been disappointed. I hadn't been expecting anything, other than grabbing perps by the pant leg, and soon. But back to the door, an unpainted steel door, solid and heavy. Bernie was reaching for the handle when with no warning that I caught, the door banged open. Meaning it was the kind of door that opened out instead of in. That turned out to be important, because the door clipped Bernie's gun hand. The stopper got knocked loose and spun off to the side.

Two men on their way out the back door for a smoke—one was lighting up, the other had an unlit cigarette in his hand—saw us and froze. These were big dudes, bigger than Bernie. They looked like twins with their popping muscles, shaved heads, Fu Manchu mustaches—my least favorite of the possible mustaches, although there's no good type, in my opinion. As for their smells, they reeked identically. Hey! Maybe they were twins for real. That was the last moment for clear thinking, or even after the moment, if you get my meaning.

“What the fuck?” the reeking twins said as one, both of them reaching into their belts. And out came iron, glinting pink in the night. At the Little Detective Agency we don't dawdle at times like that.

“Chet!”

But I was already in midair, teeth bared, front paws out, eyes locked on the gun in the hand—tattooed hand, by the way—of Twin One. Then came a scream, possibly meaning I'd missed the gun, made contact—biting contact to be accurate—with the hand. The taste of human blood in my mouth backed up that interpretation. The gun went flying, and we hit the ground, first me on top and then him on top, kind of surprising. He turned out to be on the heavy side, as was the forearm he planted across my neck, pressing down so I couldn't breathe. Our faces were close—the main source of the reeking was his breath, that was clear right away—plenty close for me to see the murderous look in his eyes. They never stop on their own after that look appears—one of the most important things I'd learned in my career.

Twin One raised his free hand high, a hand that had somehow gotten hold of a big and jagged chunk of concrete. He didn't bring it down right away, wanted me to get a good long look at the thing. And while I was taking that good long look, I heard Bernie grunt nearby, like he'd been hit in the gut, and then grunt again. Once in a while something happens in life that makes you stronger. This was one of those once in a whiles. Just like that I was stronger!

Couldn't have come at a better time, what with me on my back, breathing cut off, and a muscle bulging in Twin One's shoulder as he brought that chunk of concrete bashing down for a real crusher. Into his eyes—small and close together, which I should have mentioned from the get-go—now came the added gleam of someone enjoying every moment. Maybe Twin One was too caught up in his own emotions to sense the surge of energy rippling through me, me this suddenly even stronger Chet. As that crusher came down, I wriggled in one snapping wriggle out from under him and his heavy forearm—

“What the hell?”

—and in a single motion twisted around and got him a good one, with all the power of my jaws, deep into the very shoulder that had just been bulging in that killer way.

That brought a cry of pain and fear, real harsh and ragged but somehow easy on the ears, which I know doesn't make sense, but it did at the time, especially the fear part. And the next thing I knew, Twin One was on the run, not toward the house, because I was blocking his way, but toward the fence, which he scrambled right over, a pretty nifty feat considering one arm was just dangling by his side. At the same time you had to wonder why he didn't simply use the hole in the fence, which I was about to do, my plan being to bring him down on the other side and . . . and take it from there. But then I heard another one of those grunts that comes from getting hit in the gut. Bernie!

I wheeled around. What was this? Bernie, still on his feet but doubling over? Twin Two squared up to hit him again. He was somehow getting the best of Bernie in a fistfight? I refused to let myself even think it, and the truth was Twin Two's nose—the squishy, flattened, saddleback kind you find on the faces of boxing's losers—was gushing blood. But he was standing straight and Bernie was not. As Twin Two cocked his fist to throw another punch, I spotted something not quite right: a metallic glint, barely visible in the night. Brass knuckles? Yes. The sight set off a sort of explosion in my mind. I felt rage—which hardly ever happens to me—and saw red, even though Bernie says I can't be trusted when it comes to the red end of the spectrum.

But the red end of the spectrum, whatever that might be, was now where we were. It turned out to be bloody and noisy at the red end of the spectrum, and also pretty exciting, and very soon Twin Two was also scrambling over the back fence, ignoring the hole just as Twin One had done. One difference was that Twin Two no longer wore pants, now in my possession for some reason. I let go of them, darted toward the hole in the fence, and—

“Chet!”

—made a quick U-turn and trotted over to Bernie. Bent over, one hand over his stomach, but still he had a smile for me. “Beyond good, Chet. What would I do without you?”

I didn't understand the question.