The Sound and the Furry (4 page)

“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.

N
ight 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 double 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.”