The Sound and the Furry (6 page)

“If anything happens that I should know about,” he said, “I want to know about it.”

“I hear you,” Bernie said.

Stine gave him a long look. Was he wondering about Bernie’s ears? That was my only
thought. He drove away, the ambulance following. We were alone. Heat rose up from
the pavement. Bernie’s eyes seemed to be on something far away. He gave me a pat.
I noticed for the first time that lights were on in the nearby houses. They went off
one by one.

Bright and early the next morning we were on the road, heading straight into the rising
sun.

“Best part of the day, big guy,” Bernie said, as we passed the very last abandoned
development and hit open country.

I couldn’t have agreed more. I sat up my tallest in the shotgun seat, wonderful smells
streaming by so fast I could hardly keep up: sagebrush—such a strong scent, always
reminding me of Leda’a parmesan sage pork shoulder recipe, actually her only dish
and not a favorite of Bernie’s, meaning I always got lots; greasewood, which was kind
of like mesquite but oilier; rocky smells like chalk and iron; plus all kinds of poop—javelina,
buzzard, snake, coyote, cougar, goat, lizard, human. And all that was from just one
sniff ! I was having the time of my life.

“It’s a big country, Chet,” Bernie said after a while. And he was
so right: it stretched on and on to where it finally met the sky. “You’re going to
see the Mississippi.” I had no idea what that was, but I got excited just the same.
Bernie glanced over at me. “Something to look forward to, I know,” he said. “But that’s
not why I took the case.”

No? Had I already heard something on this subject? I came close to remembering, so
close it was almost as good as if I’d done it. Or even better!

“Three reasons,” he said, which meant this wouldn’t be easy, since I don’t go past
two, a perfect number in my opinion. “Put together, they add up to fate. First, there’s
the name of the town the Boutettes come from—St. Roch. St. Roch, big guy—patron saint
of dogs. Second, Ralph Boutette’s company is named after his dog, Napoleon, also missing.
Third—”

The phone buzzed. Bernie hit the button.

“Bernie?”

It was Suzie. I missed her, and hearing her voice made me miss her even more, which
was kind of strange because here she was, sort of. Suzie was Bernie’s girlfriend,
if I’ve left that out. We’d had happy times when she was a reporter for the
Valley Tribune
, but now she’d gone to the
Washington Post
, which was a no-brainer, Bernie said. Maybe if he’d used his brain, Suzie would have
stayed and he’d be happier, Bernie’s brain having proved itself time and time again
in our work at the Little Detective Agency.

“Hey, Suzie,” he said, and all of a sudden I could see Charlie in his face. Charlie’s
smell is always in his bedroom, but it fades between visits.

“Guess what,” Suzie said.

“You’re going to be on
The Tonight Show
.”

Suzie laughed. “I actually might be on a local cable news roundup in September. But
I’m calling because I’ve got the whole Labor Day weekend off. I was thinking of coming
home.”

Bernie turned to me, and quick and softly said, “I’m an idiot.” Then he raised his
voice back to normal. “That would have been great. Any interest in meeting up in New
Orleans instead?”

“New Orleans? What’s gotten into you?”

Bernie laughed and started in on a long explanation. Partway through I realized he
was going over the case. What a great chance to wrap my mind around the whole enchilada!
But instead, my mind drifted over to experiences I’d had with enchiladas, some better
than others, and the opportunity slipped on by.

Bernie was at his cheerfullest when he hung up. “Practically a paid vacation, Chet—we’re
on a roll.” He dialed up some music, cranked the volume. We listened to all our favorites:
“Sea of Heartbreak,” “Death Don’t Have No Mercy,” “After You’ve Gone,” and of course
“If You Were Mine.” When Roy Eldridge hit that last part on his trumpet—the hair on
the back of my neck standing straight up—Bernie said, “And that’s reason number three—the
name of Ralph Boutette’s houseboat.
Little Jazz
. He sounds like the kind of guy we’re going to like.”

Wow! I couldn’t wait. We zoomed across the big country. I felt huge.

Sometime later, Bernie said, “If we can find him.”

Who was he talking about? Kind of a puzzler. But if people are missing, we always
find them, here at the Little Detective Agency. Except for that one time on the trail
of a little girl. We’d roared through the night, pedal to the metal, Bernie leaning
forward like that would make us go faster. Both of us leaning forward, if you want
the truth, and it did make us go faster. We got there too late just the same. I’m
a pretty good forgetter, but I can’t seem to forget the moment we opened that horrible
broom closet.

I went back down to normal size; which is still pretty big, amigo.

I
opened my eyes. Nighttime, which I’d already known just from the feel. I was curled
up on the shotgun seat, air streaming by. Strange air, much heavier than in the Valley,
and kind of wet, if that makes sense: wet air but with no rain. I glanced up at Bernie,
caught sight of the black zigzag pattern of the stitches on his forehead, his skin
all green from the light of the dash. He hardly looked like Bernie! I closed my eyes.

A dream rose up out of the darkness, a lovely dream that began with she-barking across
the canyon in back of our place on Mesquite Road and the next thing I knew I was right
there with her, the two of us in the shade of a sweet-smelling eucalyptus tree. Oh,
what a moment! Why couldn’t it go on forever? But it didn’t and not only that, it
took a quick turn for the worse. Bernie and Mr. Parsons were gazing down at me, and
I was caught in a circle of light, just like a perp down at the station. Mr. Parsons
showed Bernie a photo of a puppy.

“Spitting image,” Bernie said.

“Right after I took that picture,” Mr. Parsons said, “I heard a woman calling for
him and the little critter took off.”

“Catch the name?” said Bernie.

“Shooter,” Mr. Parsons said.

He started laughing in his normal, friendly old-dude way, but then his laughter got
scary and wild. Doc Devine came and threw him in the ambulance. Bernie gazed down
at me, not pleased. Whatever it was, I didn’t do it! I opened my eyes.

And there was Bernie, gazing down at me, yes, but not with not-pleased eyes, far from
it. “Bad dreams, big guy? You were whimpering pretty good there.”

Whimpering? Oh, no. I sat up straight at once, a total pro on the job and ready for
anything, and that was when I noticed we were parked outside a small motel, empty
night all around.

“Welcome to Texas, Chet,” Bernie said, giving my head a kind of rumple. “Let’s get
some shut-eye.”

I wasn’t actually that keen on more shut-eye at the moment, but if Bernie said shut-eye,
then shut-eye it was. I glanced around at Texas, saw not much.

“But first,” he said, opening the cooler, “how about some chow?”

He had roast beef sandwiches in there? When had that happened? Bernie: just when you
think he’s done amazing you, he amazes you again.

Crack of dawn the next morning we were back on the road again, speeding toward the
sun, which actually wasn’t up yet, except for the first tiny blazing curve. The air
got heavier and the land got greener.

“No one ever said ‘Go east, young man,’ ” Bernie said. I myself certainly couldn’t
recall hearing it. Bernie: right again. “And it just feels wrong, like there’s a magnet
pulling at the tailpipe.” That didn’t sound good. Did it mean the tools would be coming
out soon? I hoped not: we had bad luck with the tools.

I spotted a blue lake in the distance, and then another, forgot all about whatever
had been bothering me. We had no lakes in the Valley except for Lago Linda, which
was always dry. Also, from not too far away came the smell of the ocean. I knew that
smell on account of the time we’d gone to San Diego. We’d surfed, me and Bernie! But
the point was that wherever we were now they had water out the yingyang. Water was
one of Bernie’s biggest worries. I checked his face carefully for signs of worry and
saw none, which made total sense. He probably hadn’t smelled the ocean, but no way
he’d missed those lakes, shining in the sun.

The phone buzzed. “Bernie? It’s Vannah.”

“Hi.”

“How’s it going?”

“No complaints.”

“Where are you?”

“About a hundred miles east of Houston.”

“You’re making good time.” No surprise there: we almost always had a good time. “Slight
change in plan,” Vannah went on.

“Yeah?” Bernie said. The expression on his face stayed the same and so did anything
else you could see, but I felt him growing more alert inside, and actually smelled
it, too, just a bit. The smell drifted up my nose and suddenly I was more alert, too,
just another one of those hard-to-explain things that come along in life.

“Instead of heading right on down to St. Roch,” Vannah said, “how about stopping off
in the city? The boys are up there at the moment and they can give you a quick walk-through.”

“The boys?”

“I’m sure I mentioned them. My other brothers-in-law? Lord and Duke? The boys?”

“I didn’t realize they were underage,” Bernie said.

Vannah laughed. “You’re not married as I recall.”

“Correct.”

“Seeing anybody in particular?”

“I’m not, uh, actually what you’d call, um, available,” Bernie said. But at the same
time he said that, or maybe in the short space before “available,” there came one
of those phone bursts of high-pitched scratchy noise—which really hurts deep in my
ears, by the way—followed by dead silence.

“Vannah? Vannah?” Bernie turned to me. “Lost her. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so brutally
honest, and she happens to be married herself, of course, but I’m starting to learn
that with some women you’ve got to—”

The phone buzzed again, so I didn’t find out what Bernie was starting to learn.

“Bernie?” Vannah said, sounding very friendly of all sudden. “Lost you there for a
second. But now I’ve got you again.” She laughed a low little laugh. “Know your way
around the Crescent City?”

“I’ve been there.”

“Good. The boys’ll be waiting in Marigny at a place called Fishhead’s.”

“What’s that?”

“A bar,” Vannah said. “Mami kind of owns it.”

“Are you going to be there?” Bernie said.

“Wish I could, but I’m stuck in the Valley. And kind of tied up at the moment.”

A man laughed in the background. The high-pitched scratchy noise started up and we
lost her again. This time she didn’t call back.

Huge dark clouds appeared in the distance. Underneath lay a city with some towers,
but not many and not as tall as ours back in the Valley.

“True I’ve been here before,” Bernie said. “But only sort of. Four-day leave. I remember
zilch.” Traffic thickened around us and we slowed down. Still the middle of day, but
the sky got very dark and headlights and taillights lit up on both sides of the freeway.
“Was her name Bubbles?” Bernie said after a while. “Seems impossible.”