The Sound and the Furry (32 page)

The
throb throb
grew louder, then cut out. Silence . . . silence . . .
squeak.
A squeak, specifically the squeak hinges make
unless you oil them, and then came what I expected—you start expecting things right
when you’ve cleared all the cases we have at the Little Detective Agency—namely, the
thud of a closing door; a heavy thud, on account of that big steel door at the front
of the house, just where Bernie said whoever it was would be coming in. My heart got
going a bit, the way it does when springing into action is in the near future.

Footsteps sounded on the floor below, changed rhythm slightly, which happens when
someone’s climbing stairs. This particular someone, a man, for sure—an easy one, men
and women moving so differently—wasn’t worried about being heard, made no effort to
be quiet, sounded strong and confident. I was feeling confident myself: ambushes tended
to work out better with unsuspecting dudes like this.

He reached our floor, walked right past the bathroom door. Was he wearing boots? I
thought so. Were cowboy boots in the case? Maybe, although these didn’t sound like
cowboy boots, which change a man’s stride a little in a way that’s hard to explain.
I know it when I hear it: let’s leave it at that.

A doorknob turned down the hall, and then came a few quieter footsteps: the man entering
Lord’s room. He said something I couldn’t make out, but he must have thought it was
funny because he laughed. I felt Bernie rise. Was he giving me the special nod meaning
the hiding-out part was over and springing into action was about to begin? How to
tell? I couldn’t see a thing. Bernie made a soft
click click
in his mouth. That settled it.

He opened the door. We stepped into the hall, side by side and silent, the only light
coming through the open doorway of the bedroom, weak and flickering but enough to
glint on the .38 Special in Bernie’s hand. I could hear his heart beating, just like
mine.

The bedroom door was open. We looked in. A gas lantern
rested beside the empty chair. A short and really wide dude, turned sideways to us,
stood over Lord. He wore a mask over his eyes—a black mask like you see on Halloween,
not my favorite holiday, lots of masked humans on the loose making me a bit nervous—and
had a paper bag in his hand. There was a ham and cheese sandwich in the paper bag
and also a dill pickle. Dill pickles don’t do anything for me, but ham is another
matter. The soggy drumstick from downstairs seemed like a long time ago.

“Hungry, amigo?” the masked man said.

For a crazy moment, I thought he meant me! Then Lord made an annoyed sort of grunt.
I took that to mean the sandwich was going to be his in some future time, but Bernie
often said that no one can see the future for sure.

The masked dude reached out to untie the ball gag. A movement like that is sometimes
a good scent releaser. Now, for example, I picked up the smell of that aftershave
I’d been smelling on this case, the one that comes in the square green bottle. Where
you saw something or other can be not so easy to remember, but remembering where you
smelled something? A different story, although maybe not to you, no offense. I’d sniffed
out this aftershave scent twice so far, once on that little island where we’d found
Ralph’s glasses, and again when—whoa!—when we’d had that meet-and-greet with Pyro,
the visored biker right out front of this very house. I checked out the masked dude’s
footwear: motorcycle boots. All of a sudden I was way ahead of the game: the masked
dude was Pyro! Did I have the best job in the world or what?

“Pyro?” Bernie said, speaking in a normal voice, like we were all buddies in this
place, just having a get-together. “How about we leave the gag on for the moment,
keep confusion to a minimum.”

Or something like that. I was still stunned that Bernie knew
it was Pyro, meaning he had nosed out that aftershave scent all on his own. But that
was Bernie: just when you think he’s amazed you for the last time, he amazes you again.

Meanwhile, Pyro had whipped around, seen us, started to reach into one of his pockets
and then frozen as Bernie raised the .38 Special. Lord, straining against his duct
tape bonds and looking in our direction like he wanted us to do something real bad,
went, “Frrrmmimm, frrrmm!”

“Try to relax, Lord,” Bernie said. “We’ll get to you. First, Pyro needs to toss me
that paper bag, nice and easy.”

Pyro didn’t move.

“He must think I wouldn’t just up and shoot him,” Bernie said, lowering his aim a
little. “Say in his right knee, for starters.” He gave Pyro a friendly smile. “Need
a second to think again?”

I didn’t know how long a second was—pretty short, I thought, probably shorter than
the time it took for Pyro to make up his mind. I could tell he was making up his mind
from how his eyes shifted in those little mask eyeholes. Hard to explain why I found
those eyeholes so bothersome, I just did. My teeth started getting a certain feeling.
Pyro tossed the bag to Bernie.

He turned out to be a real bad tosser, sending the bag so wide of the target that
Bernie had to make a long reach. Except he didn’t: Bernie stood completely still,
let the paper bag go right by, hit the wall, and land with the kind of soft thud you’d
expect from a ham sandwich. What was up with all that? I had no clue, but things were
looking up, and they’d been pretty high already, in my opinion.

“Oops,” Bernie said.

Pyro’s eyes went through some changes, hard to make out exactly on account of the
combination of the low lantern light and those little eyeholes, but one thing for
sure: Pyro hated Bernie.
Anyone who hates Bernie has a real big problem with me, case closed.

“Now,” Bernie said, “since it’s too early for Halloween, you’re going to take off
that mask and drop it on the floor, nice and slow.”

Pyro didn’t move. He was a tough guy. Maybe he didn’t know we ran up against tough
guys just about every day in this job. After breaking rocks in the hot sun for a spell,
they’re not as tough—a bit surprising, what with all that exercise.

The barrel of the .38 Special tilted up. “At one time,” Bernie said, “I wasn’t a half-bad
shot, maybe could have actually picked that mask right off your face without hardly
doing any damage at all. Who’s feeling curious?”

I was! I was! Pull the trigger, Bernie! You’re still a crack shot! You can do it!

And, of course, Bernie could have done it, but before he got the chance, Pyro took
off the mask—didn’t whip it off in a panic, although neither could you have called
it nice and slow—and dropped it on the floor. We got our first good look at his face,
a broad face with a strong jaw and chin, a squishy little nose, small and alert dark
eyes.

“Nice meeting you, Pyro,” Bernie said. “Now if you’ll just roll up your sleeves we’ll
be all set.”

Pyro blinked. “I can go?” he said.

Lord squirmed in his chair. “Nnnrrrr!”

“Go?” Bernie said. “My mistake. I just meant we’ll be all set when it comes to building
a theory of the case.”

Pyro shook his head. “Fuck you, hombre,” he said. “Gonna shoot my shirt off?” He laughed.

And was still laughing when—but maybe I’d better back up here. Pyro was wearing a
camo shirt, specifically the kind with
button-down epaulets, and buttoned down in one of those epaulets he had a pack of
cigarettes, the same kind Bernie had been smoking the last time he’d quit for the
last time. Back to Pyro, still laughing, but his laughter got canceled right out by
the crack of the .38 Special.
CRACK!
What a beautiful sound! The cigarette pack, the cigarettes, the epaulet with its
button: all blown to smithereens, tiny tobacco shreds raining down on my fur. I didn’t
mind. Meanwhile, Pyro was ripping off his shirt in a hurry. Hadn’t Bernie told him
just to roll up the sleeves? Was Pyro’s messing up on the sleeve instructions a good
reason to shoot him now? I went both ways on that.

Bernie didn’t shoot Pyro. Instead, he said, “Move closer to the light.”

Pyro moved closer to the light.

“Hands up.”

Pyro raised his hands. He was scared—I could smell it—but not as scared as some perps
we’d had in this sort of setup, not nearly.

“Lord?” Bernie said. “Can you make out that letter tattooed on Pyro’s right wrist?”

Lord craned his head—I had an unpleasant encounter with a crane once, never having
had much luck when it comes to birds, but no time to go into that now—peered at Pyro’s
wrist and nodded.

“What letter is it?” Bernie said.

“Grrmmph,” said Lord.

“Just to confirm,” Bernie said. “We’re talking about the first letter in queen?”

Lord nodded again, this time much harder.

“Ever heard of the Quieros, Lord?”

Lord shook his head.

“Pretty new to me, too,” Bernie said. “Care to fill us in, Pyro?”

Pyro didn’t answer, but his eyes had plenty to say, all about hatred for Bernie.

“What I don’t understand,” Bernie went on, as if Pyro had in fact made some reply
and now it was his turn again, “is how the Quieros fit into this case. You guys are
in the drug business. Why bother with a load of shrimp? No real money in that. Help
me here, Pyro. Throw me a bone.”

Whoa! Bernie had never asked for a bone once, not in the whole time we’d been together.
I wanted a bone, too! Tell him to throw Chet a bone, too! That thought zoomed around
and around in my mind, even though I knew perfectly well that Pyro had no bones on
him—I don’t make mistakes on things like that.

“. . . which brings us,” Bernie was saying, “to this empty chair. Who’s it for?”

No answer from Pyro, just that hot darkness in his eyes.

“Maybe you’re too far down the depth chart to even know,” Bernie said. “Boss keep
you out of the loop?”

A vein throbbed in Pyro’s neck. “I got no boss.”

“Make you feel better to think that?” Bernie said.

Pyro spat on the floor. Human spitting: a whole big subject of its own, and no time
for it now. “Think you’re tough with that piece in your hand,” Pyro said.

“Nah,” said Bernie. “I’m a softie.” Oh, Bernie. Have I mentioned what a joker he can
be? “My whole goal here is making sure everybody gets out of this room in good health—including
whoever’s coming to sit in this chair.” Bernie raised his eyebrows, like he’d had
a sudden thought. “Oh, my—any chance it’s Ralph Boutette?”

Some perps were pretty good at hiding what was inside. Pyro was one of them. His eyes
barely shifted. His mouth hardly fell
open at all. “Don’t understand you, hombre,” he said. “My English is bad.”

“Don’t be self-critical,” Bernie said. “Your English is the best thing about you.”
He gestured to the empty chair. “Take a load off, let’s get to know each other a bit.”

Pyro looked at the chair like . . . like it was dangerous, kind of a puzzler to me,
and shook his head.

“Prefer to stand?” Bernie said. Probably a puzzler to him, too. We’re a lot alike
in some ways, in case that hasn’t come up already.

Pyro nodded.

“Something about that chair troubling you?” Bernie said.

Pyro stopped nodding.

“Got any ID on you?” Bernie said.

Pyro laughed that kind of laugh humans call laughing in your face. I’d never realized
how bad human laughter—normally one of my favorite sounds—could be until that moment.

“Don’t particularly care what your real name is,” Bernie said. “I’m just betting it’s
not Pyro.”

Angry eyes, yes, but not out of control: Pyro was watched Bernie carefully and his
mind was working hard.

“More of a nickname is my guess,” Bernie said.

Where were we going with this? I had no clue, just trusted Bernie, always the right
move.

Still not looking away from Pyro, not even once, Bernie said, “What’s the word
pyro
mean to you, Lord?”

“Frrmpf,” said Lord. “Frrmpf mmrrcc.”

“Fire maniac?” Bernie said. “Nice way of putting it. Lighting fires is Pyro’s vocation
and avocation.”

“Hrrh?” said Lord.

“Meaning he has a thing for starting fires and he gets paid for it. Didn’t you wonder
what the gas can was for?” Bernie
made a slight chin movement in the direction of the gas can in the corner.

Lord nodded.

“Spell it out, Pyro. What’s the gas can for?”

Pyro didn’t answer for what seemed like a long time. At last he nodded. “I want a
deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

Pyro made a gesture with his hands, still keeping them up but not quite as high. Bernie
didn’t take his eyes off Pyro’s hands and neither did I—keeping track of perp hand
movements being at the top of the list in our line of work—which was maybe why we
were both late picking up on Pyro’s booted foot, swinging real fast and kicking the
lantern right at Bernie.

Pyro turned out to be aces at kicking lanterns. The lantern hit Bernie hard on his
gun hand and the .38 Special went flying.

“Gun!” Bernie yelled, meaning it was my job to grab the .38 Special and give it up
for nobody except Bernie; can’t tell you how many Slim Jims I’ve gotten working on
this particular trick. I sprang for the .38 Special, still clattering across the floor.
Two other things happened at the same time. One was Pyro springing at Bernie. The
other was the lantern going out.

B
ack in complete blackness again, but we had plenty of sound: thumping and grunting
and smashing and smacking and whacking, a cry of pain—that last one coming from Pyro,
goes without mentioning. Would I even know what a cry of pain from Bernie sounded
like? I’d never heard it. The point was we had a knock-down drag-out fight going down,
and if there’s a fight going down—visible or not—I want to be in on it, especially
if Bernie’s involved. My problem was the .38 Special, at that moment gripped securely
in my mouth. Bernie calling “Gun!” meant part one: get the gun; and part two: bring
it to him. I was all set on part one, but part two was shaping up not as well. Maybe
a bark or two would get his attention, but that meant dropping the gun, a no-no. Then
came a fresh idea: how about just plain dropping the gun and diving right into the
fight? I went back and forth on that one, back and forth, back and forth—and then
found that I was actually racing back and forth across the floor, and soon around
and around, faster and faster, bumping into this and that, possibly knocking over
Lord in his chair—“GRRRMMPH!”—leaping high and by sheer good luck landing on Pyro’s
back—“Chet! For God’s sake!”—or perhaps
Bernie’s as it turned out, and then we were all—Pyro, Bernie, me—spinning in a sort
of black tornado, and I was part of things, amigo, and still had the .38 Special in
my mouth. Best of both worlds! Maybe even having my cake and—but let’s not go there.