Paw and Order (7 page)

NINE

W
hat we had here was me lying on the pavement in a parking lot behind the cop station where the cops had taken Bernie, unless I was missing something. But what? Doughnut smells and Bernie smells mixed up together could only mean one thing. Bernie was in that building! I had to get inside and that was that.

The little dogcatching man in the green uniform blinked and said, “Huh?”

Ferretti moved in, leaned down, and gave me a close look.

“Need you to back up,” the dogcatcher said. “For your own safety.”

Ferretti raised his head slowly, transferred his gaze to the dogcatcher. “Excuse me?” he said.

The dogcatcher didn't seem to like that gaze, had trouble meeting it. “I'm an authorized animal control officer performing my duty. You need to back up.”

“Yes,” Ferretti said, not backing up an inch, which I took to be a very small distance. “I got that part on the first go-around. Pertinent fact—I know this dog. His name is Chet.”

“He belongs to you?”

“I didn't say that. But I'm in position to contact the owner.”

“Save him some money, sooner you do,” the dogcatcher said. “Tell 'im to contact the facility, arrange a pickup.”

“The facility?” Ferretti said.

The dogcatcher moved the pole in a way that twisted me back up to my feet. “Animal control. We're online.”

“Seems like a lot of trouble,” Ferretti said.

“Huh?” said the dogcatcher. Certain humans—take Presto Figueiroda, for example, who'd stolen a shipment of scratch tickets without one winner in the whole truck—said
huh
a lot. The dogcatcher was turning out to be that type.

“Trouble for everyone concerned, including you,” Ferretti said. “I propose that I simply relieve you of the fugitive here and now.”

“What fugitive?”

“Chet, here. I was being facetious.”

The dogcatcher's mouth opened in a way that made me think he was about to say
huh
again, but he did not. He just stood there, mouth open.

“My intention being,” Ferretti went on, “to take Chet off your hands and simply return him to his owner, slicing through all the red tape.”

The dogcatcher shook his head. “No can do.”

Ferretti's voice, not gentle to begin with, got even less so. “You're losing me.”

“It's against regs,” the dogcatcher said. “Even if you was the owner, which you ain't. This is an open case on my docket, and it don't close till I make delivery.”

Ferretti sighed. “The whole goddamn town is organized like that,” he said. “Which is why we are where we are.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” Ferretti took out a badge, held it so the dogcatcher could see. “All you need to know is that I'll be taking over now.”

The dogcatcher licked his lips—his tongue was pointy and very small, even for a human—leaned forward to squint at the badge, squinted at it for a good long time, and then looked at Ferretti, looked at him in a whole new way.

“You want the rig, too?” he said.

“Rig?”

“Lasso rig,” the dogcatcher said, giving the pole a little shake that made the loop rub against my neck in a way I didn't like.

“I don't think that will be necessary,” Ferretti said.

He wiggled his finger in the signal that means “come,” and we followed him, the dogcatcher holding the pole out to the side, the loop digging into my neck. I thought about doing this and that, but no good thises or thats occurred to me before we reached Ferretti's car.

“Just so happens,” he said, opening the front passenger-side door, “that I picked up a sandwich in case this turned into a long night. A steak sandwich, to be precise.” Which I'd known the moment he'd opened the door, actually just before. He produced the sandwich, removed the paper wrapper, picked a nice big piece of steak from between the bread slices—and then another!—and dropped them on the floor. “Let's see if he likes steak.”

“Of course he—” the dogcatcher began.

“Meaning take that thing off him.”

“I wouldn't advise—”

“And I wouldn't consider your advice, so we're in sync,” Ferretti said.

Whatever that was, the dogcatcher didn't like it one little bit; his head snapped back like he'd been slapped. Slap him, Mr. Ferretti, slap him! A crazy thought, maybe, but it was still on my mind when the dogcatcher reached over and slipped the loop off my neck. He stepped quickly away but not out of leaping distance. I got my paws under me, coiled up my strength, and—

“How about that steak, Chet?” Ferretti said.

—jumped right into the front of Ferretti's car. He closed the door, went around to the other side, got in, and turned the key. Those two pieces of steak were history before we started rolling.

• • •

We drove in silence through streets I didn't know. They got nicer as we went along, more trees, more hills, more big houses. The shotgun seat of Ferretti's car was bigger than the shotgun seat in the Porsche, and really just as comfortable, but not so homey, if that makes any sense.

Ferretti glanced over at me. “My late wife was allergic.” He drummed his fingers, long and bony, on the steering wheel. “Is there a way to end up with you when this one's in the can?”

Me end up with Ferretti? Was that it? Made no sense to me at all. I was with Bernie, now and forever. As for allergic, it's a mystery, although we hear that a lot in the nation within.

“But first things first,” Ferretti said after a while. “Can't let the tail wag the dog.”

I lost track of things for a while after that. Tail wag the . . . ? Had I heard right? Nothing wrong with my hearing. In fact, it's probably much better than yours, no offense. I was very conscious of my tail at that moment, and almost certain it was fixing to wag me and wag me good. My tail has a mind of its own, maybe something that Ferretti didn't realize. I gave him a careful look. From the side his face reminded me of a cliff I knew out in the desert—a cliff that had turned out to be kind of dangerous for me and Bernie, but no time for that now. The point is that the dangerous cliff had a big nose-shaped rock sticking out of it, so if a cliff face could look like a man face, then Ferretti was the guy, if you get what I mean, and I wouldn't blame you at all if you don't. I actually wouldn't blame you for anything. You've been very patient so far.

When I started paying attention again, we were in some suburb, a real nice one with big houses spread far apart and lots of woods between them, meaning maybe we were out in the country. Ferretti turned down a dark lane that led through some trees and came to an end at a small meadow. On the far side of the meadow stood one of those big houses. A party was going on in the backyard, which bordered the other side of the meadow. Lots of people all dressed up, candlelight glinting on glasses and silverware, music, laughter, plus there'd be leftovers out the yingyang: it looked like fun.

But we didn't get out of the car. Ferretti cut the lights and the motor and just sat there, watching the party.

“Same old question,” he said. “Who's using who?”

That was an old question? Brand new to me. I tried to figure it out, got nowhere. Meanwhile, Ferretti unwrapped what was left of the steak sandwich and took a bite. I made up my mind that Ferretti was a pretty good guy. Hadn't he shared his sandwich with me before? No reason he wouldn't be doing it again, and soon. Except he didn't, even though I waited politely, keeping my mouth almost closed.

“What I'd like to know,” Ferretti said, speaking with his mouth full, which I knew was not polite from Leda telling Charlie many many times, “is who planted that pink popgun in the flowerpot.”

I kind of remembered the pink popgun in the flowerpot. Other than that, I had zip.

Ferretti took one of those little plastic dental floss packs out of a cup holder and began to floss his teeth. “Same person who pulled the trigger, or is the setup more complicated?” he said. Or something like that: humans aren't easy to understand when they're flossing their teeth. I've had my own teeth flossed lots of times by Janie the groomer, who has the best business plan there is—she comes to us!—but no time for that now, on account of the flossing suddenly freeing up a surprisingly large piece of steak and launching it with amazing speed in an arc that ended on the dashboard right in front of my face! I've had a lot of luck in life and it didn't seem to be running out anytime soon. I made quick work of what had to be the last of the steak—unless . . . whoa! unless Ferretti had some more hidden away in his mouth. I didn't take my eyes off him until he finished flossing and flicked the used floss out the window.

He glanced my way. “What's so interesting?”

Strange question. What wasn't interesting? Ferretti: a bit of a puzzler. Also I wasn't liking him quite as much as before, not sure why.

The look on his face changed. “You've given me an idea,” he said. I had? I tried to remember my last idea, was still working on it when Ferretti went on. “What's needed here is a cat's paw, and who could play that role better than your—”

Some movement at the party caught Ferretti's attention. I was vaguely aware of that, also vaguely aware of a newcomer at the party, a tall, silver-haired dude, one of those dudes who holds his head up high. He came striding across the lawn, attracting a ring of men and woman, got involved in a lot of handshaking and cheek kissing. But all that was vague in my mind, which had pretty much been taken over by one thing and one thing only: cat's paw. I'd had experience with cat's paws, more than once and never good. What makes them so quick? Also the tip of my nose is quite sensitive; just thought I'd throw that in, mainly because the tip of my nose was suddenly remembering how sensitive it was.

Back to the silver-haired dude, now holding a champagne glass. We'd had a whole set of champagne glasses back before the divorce. Was it my fault they'd been in a tray on an end table when my tail had happened to spring into action?

“There's our boy,” Ferretti said, lowering his voice and leaning forward. He watched the silver-haired dude doing nothing much—talking, sipping, laughing. Women seemed to like touching his arm. “We've had twelve generals who went on to become presidents, some of them not half bad,” Ferretti said. “So why not Travis Galen Galloway? The president's numbers are in the toilet. Look—he can just about taste it.”

That toilet thing again? And now tasting was a possibility? This party looked interesting. But that was as close as I got. Ferretti started the car and backed away. “Nice party,” he said, “if you like parties where you need a check for fifty K to get in the door.”

• • •

We drove back into the city. Ferretti was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “Let's give it a whirl.”

I got a little nervous. Once Bernie had tried the giving it a whirl thing and we'd ended up down at the bottom of a well, just the two of us and for way too long.

Ferretti got on his phone. “What I told you before might happen?” he said. “Make it happen.”

I heard the faint voice of a woman on the other end. “Will do.”

“One more thing,” Ferretti said. “Is our little birdie still in sector B?”

“Affirmative.”

“Bring her in.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ferretti clicked off, turned to me. “Wouldn't do to get hoisted by our own petard.”

That sounded right to me, although I'd only ridden a hoist once, on a downtown construction site where Bernie and I were working a case involving stolen copper pipe, a snap to solve on account of copper being one of the easiest smells out there.

“But FYI,” Ferretti went on, “be prepared for much more of that in future. Getting hoist by your own petard probably tracks one for one with technological progress.”

That one zipped right by me. Meanwhile, the neighborhood began to look familiar, and soon we came to Suzie's street. The yellow Beetle was parked in front of Lizette's big house, and the driveway gate stood open. Ferretti slowed down, stopped in a pool of shadow. Then he hit a button and my window slid down.

“It's been real.”

Humans said that from time to time, a complete mystery to me.

“Out,” he said. “Go.”

I knew out. I knew go. I went out, leaping through the open window and trotting up the driveway to the carriage house. The sound of Ferretti's car rumbling off grew fainter and fainter and finally faded to nothing.

TEN

L
ights shone in the carriage house, and I heard voices inside. I stood at the door, and after a while found I was out of ideas. I barked, just a single bark, and waited. When nothing happened, I waited some more. Then it occurred to me that nothing was still happening, and I barked again, maybe louder this time. The door opened and Suzie looked out.

“Chet!” She clapped her hands together. “You're back!” She opened her arms and I jumped right into them, so happy to see her.

Suzie's surprisingly strong for a not-very-big human, but it's possible she staggered just a bit. I didn't know. I was too busy licking her face.

“Chet, easy there, easy,” she said, and I immediately dropped down, all paws nice and peaceable on the floor, and if not immediately then the next best thing.

Lizette came into the hall, a glass of white wine in her hand. She glanced at me, then looked out into the night. “He came back by himself?”

“Chet can do all sorts of things,” Suzie said, kicking the door closed with her heel, one of my favorite human moves.

“Your friend Bernie seems very attached to him,” Lizette said.

“They work together,” Suzie said. “You could almost call them partners.”

I understood everything except “almost.” Things not understood are best forgotten: that's one of my core beliefs, and it's the core beliefs that keep you operating at a tip-top level. Another of my core beliefs is that Bernie is the greatest, now and forever. If I have any other core beliefs, they're not coming to me at the moment.

“I think you told me Bernie's a private eye,” Lizette was saying.

“That's right,” said Suzie.

“Does he have any police training?”

Suzie nodded. “He was a lieutenant with the Valley PD.”

“And decided to go out on his own?”

“Something like that,” Suzie said. “This was long before he and I got together.”

“At least he's got some contacts in law enforcement,” Lizette said.

“What do you mean?”

“Just that they may come in handy,” Lizette said. “Going down the road.”

Suzie voice sharpened. “There won't be any going down the road, Lizette. I told you—Bernie's innocent. He was asleep in this house when Eben was killed.”

“Oh, I believe you, of course,” Lizette said. She took a sip of wine. The wine's reflection seemed to turn her green eyes yellow in a way that reminded me of cats. I don't like being reminded of cats. “But can he prove it?”

Suzie gazed at Lizette, didn't answer.

“Sorry if I'm being too nosy,” Lizette said. She gazed back at Suzie. “You're in love with him—I can see it—and sometimes that clouds the judgment.”

“My judgment is unclouded,” Suzie said. “Bernie's innocent, and if we have to prove it, we—”

There was a knock at the door. I knew that knock, the best knock in the world, the knock of a guy who could put his fist right through the door if he wanted to, but hardly ever did. Bernie!

“Who is it?” Suzie called.

Humans! They don't have an easy time.

“Me,” Bernie called back.

Suzie threw open the door. And there was Bernie, all by himself and uncuffed, looking just great, except for being so tired and worried and angry. But not angry at us, goes without mentioning. He gave us a quick little smile. Even though he was facing Suzie at the time, the smile was meant for her and me both, actually a bit more for me.

“They let me go,” he said, stepping inside. Leaping into his arms even harder than I'd leaped into Suzie's was next on my list, but before I could make a move, Bernie put his hand on my head with the exact pressure I like, and the next thing I knew he was scratching the spot I can't reach, and right away scratching the spot I can't reach became my whole list, A to Z, whatever that might mean.

“On bail?” Suzie said.

He shook his head, at the same time closing the door with his heel just as Suzie had done. Whoa! Was there something alike about them? What a thought!

“All charges dropped,” Bernie said. “I'm no longer a suspect.”

Suzie stepped forward, gave Bernie a hug. Because of how I was standing, I could see Lizette, standing at the entrance to the hall. She seemed to lose control of her wineglass, almost dropped it, some wine slopping over the rim. The movement caught Bernie's eye, and he looked her way, maybe noticing Lizette for the first time.

“Uh,” he said, “didn't realize . . .”

“I've been keeping vigil with Suzie,” Lizette said. “So glad this . . . this misunderstanding is all cleared up.” She turned to Suzie. “You two need some time.”

Lizette moved toward the door. Bernie stepped aside to let her pass. “Thanks for helping,” he said.

“I really didn't do anything,” Lizette said.

Bernie opened the door for her. She walked out, wineglass in hand, the wine making tiny waves, back and forth.

• • •

We hung out in Suzie's kitchen, Suzie at the table, Bernie leaning against the counter, me lying by his feet. He was wearing his favorite sneakers, the ones with the paint smears. I lost myself in their smells.

“. . . right through the screen door,” Suzie was saying, or something like that. I searched my mind for anything having to do with screen doors, came up empty.

“How long was he gone?” Bernie said.

“Hours and hours.”

This sounded like somebody's fun adventure, but I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. You'd think a big strong dude like me could keep his eyelids—real tiny things, when you came down to it—open as long as he liked, but you'd be wrong. No offense.

So lovely to sleep in the world of Bernie's sneaker smells. The first little smell stream that came along was all about the desert back home: mesquite, greasewood, those lovely little flowers with a scent a lot like Suzie's, and javelina, best of all. I followed that desert smell stream until a nice fat javelina appeared on a butte made of cloud. I rose into the sky, a wonderful feeling that happened only in dreams.

Meanwhile, I could hear Bernie, somewhere down on earth, so . . . so I had the best of both worlds! Hey! I finally got what that meant! What a life!

“. . . definitive evidence it couldn't have been me,” he was saying.

“What definitive evidence?” Suzie said.

“No idea. All Soares told the lawyer Cedric found me was that definitive evidence had turned up, and they were letting me go. He wouldn't answer any questions.”

“This is crazy,” Suzie said. “Is Soares saying he has definitive evidence that you were asleep in this house when the murder happened?”

“How could he?” Bernie said. “It must be something else.”

“Like?”

“I don't know. But it must have been ironclad. The murder weapon was mine, at least in a sense, and it had my prints on it—normally a slam dunk.”

“What does ‘in a sense' mean?”

Bernie started in on a long and complicated story about some biker bar down in bayou country. It seemed vaguely familiar, but back out in the desert I was soaring through the blue sky, the cloud javelina in my sights. Just as I was coming down on him, he saw me and snarled, showing his tusks. Whoa! Tusks that were way bigger than normal, and . . . what was this? Made of buzz saw blades? I flapped my wings frantically to get higher in the air, out of reach, but of course, I had no wings, so I didn't go higher, instead drifted down and down toward those horrible—

“What's he whimpering about?”

“Sometimes he has bad dreams. Chet? Wake up, big guy.”

I opened my eyes. Bernie was leaning over me, giving me a gentle shake. No whimpering was going on, and no whimpering had been going on—you can bet the ranch. Whimpering is not my style. I went over to my water bowl and lapped up water, lapped it up as noisily as possible, for reasons unknown to me.

Bernie went over to Suzie, still sitting in her chair. He raised his hands like he was about to lay them on her shoulders, then seemed to change his mind, and stuck them in his pockets instead. Was something wrong between them? I tried to remember.

“I don't like being set up,” Bernie said.

“But how could it be a setup?” Suzie said.

They were talking to each other but not looking at each other. Instead, they were both facing in my direction, eyes on me. I stopped drinking—all the water was gone now, or at least not in the bowl—and eyed them back.

“Why not?” Bernie said.

“No one knew you were going to be here, not even me,” Suzie said. “Plus assuming someone took the gun from your glove box, how could they have counted on a gun being there in the first place?”

Bernie was quiet for a long time. Then he shrugged and said, “I don't like being set up.” His voice got quieter and harder at the same time in a way that made the fur on the back of my neck stand straight up. “And I'm going to do something about it.”

“Like what?” Suzie said.

“Like track down Eben's killer,” Bernie said. “What else?”

“How are you going to do that? Can you even operate in DC?”

“I hope I can operate here, at least,” Bernie said.

“Here?”

“In this house.”

“I don't understand.”

“That's what worries me,” Bernie said.

Suzie rose and faced Bernie. “Are you trying to scare me, Bernie?” she said.

He gazed down at her. “Last thing I'd want,” he said, his voice kind of husky, like something was in his throat. “But suppose Eben was killed because of the story you two were working on.”

“I wasn't working on a story with Eben,” Suzie said. “He was a source.”

“Same thing.”

“It's not the same thing.”

Bernie raised his hand. “Okay, okay, have it—”

“And I don't like being talked to like this.”

“Huh? Like what?”

“Talked down to,” Suzie said. “Patronized. I don't need protection.”

“Everybody needs protection at some point in their lives,” Bernie said.

“Yeah? What about you?”

Uh-oh. Something was wrong between them, no doubt about it. How could that be, now that we were all back together? I started panting, nothing I could do about it, and turned to my water bowl again. Empty. Right, I'd known that. But there seemed to be lots of water pooled on the floor, so I got going on that.

There's a vein in Bernie's neck that jumps sometimes—hardly ever, actually—and what happens next tends to be very bad if you're a perp. But no perps were around, so therefore? Whoa! We'd come to a so therefore. The way we have things divided at the Little Detective Agency, Bernie handles the so therefores, me bringing other things to the table. I was home free.

Bernie took a deep breath. The neck vein throbbed one last time and went invisible. “Yes,” he said, “sometimes I need protection, too.”

And who was always on the spot to do the protecting? It's not a secret.

“Give me a for instance,” Suzie said.

“Right now,” Bernie said. “Right now is a for instance. When a setup falls apart, it's in the interest of whoever's behind it to wipe out the traces. The point is we're in this together, Suzie. Even if that sounds like a stupid cliché.”

Suzie gave him a long look. Did her eyes soften? Maybe just a bit. But they both began smelling more like their normal selves. I stopped panting.

“You're not the smoothest talker, Bernie.”

“So I've heard.”

“It's actually one of your best characteristics.”

“I didn't know that.”

“And there's another good one.”

Uh-oh. Suzie had gone way off course, probably because she hadn't caught Bernie's keynote speech at the Great Western Private Eye convention, sometime back. True, there'd been some snoring in the audience, but not in the front rows, and there'd definitely been applause at the end. Don't forget about my hearing, better than yours. I'm sure you bring other things to the table.

If Bernie was upset that Suzie had dissed him, he didn't show it. That was Bernie, every time! In fact, he had a little smile on his face, was even shuffling his feet a bit, the same way Charlie had when he'd won the fifty-yard dash at field day. The last field day that I'd be attending, according to Bernie, but that's another story.

“All right,” Suzie said. “You win.”

“I don't want to win,” Bernie said.

“No?”

The little smile left Bernie's face. He and Suzie watched each other in an unblinking sort of way that made me want to blink. I could feel their thoughts, sort of mingling in the air between them. Suzie went to the cupboard and took out . . . what was this? A bottle of bourbon? I'd never seen her touch bourbon. Wasn't wine her drink? This town—Foggy Bottom? Had I gotten that right?—was turning out to be a strange place where strange things happened.

Suzie put the bottle and a couple of glasses on the table. “I got this in case you ever came.”

“I came,” Bernie said.

That was followed by more gazing at each other, and then they sat down. Suzie opened the bottle and poured a little into her glass, quite a bit more in Bernie's.

“I talked to my editor,” Suzie said.

“About what?” said Bernie, swirling his drink around. Bourbon smell got stronger right away.

“Confidentiality agreements in our business and what happens after a source dies.”

“And what did he say?” Bernie said.

“Sheila's her name,” said Suzie.

“Damn.”

“Yeah, damn.” Suzie took a pretty big sip of her drink. “She said it's a judgment call.”

“Sure,” said Bernie. “Otherwise reporters could end up taking important secrets to their graves.”

“People take important secrets to their graves all the time, Bernie. You must know that.” She drained her glass.