Dog On It (19 page)

Bernie’s face sometimes had a way of thinning out and going hard at the same time, as though turning to stone. When that
happened, it was usually “Look out, perps and bad guys.” But not this time. Bernie just said, “I can recommend a few people.”

“That would be very ni—” Cynthia began.

Keefer cut her off. “Unnecessary,” he said. “Just send the final bill at your convenience.”

“You can add it to the stack,” Bernie said.

“Huh?” Keefer said.

“Somewhere under the one from Myron King—wouldn’t want to jump the line.”

“What does he mean?” Cynthia said, turning to Keefer. The smell of her sweat was a little stronger now, actually quite pleasant. “Who’s Myron King?”

“The waterfall man,” Bernie said. He got in the car. Keefer’s face looked dark and swollen; Cynthia was opening her mouth to ask him something else. We zoomed off. Bernie made the tires squeal. I loved that.

We drove for a few blocks, made some turns, stopped at a convenience store. Bernie went in, came out with cigarettes and chew strips. He moved the car into the shade of a huge billboard that showed coins pouring out of a slot machine. We sat there, smoking and chewing.

“Staying on a case when you’re not getting paid,” Bernie said. “How stupid is that?”

I didn’t know. These chew strips were a new kind to me, saltier than I was used to but chewier, too, in a way that was hard to pin down. I tried another.

Bernie took a deep drag, blew the smoke out slowly. Smoke rings, please: I loved smoke rings, but Bernie didn’t make any. “Know what else bothers me? Suzie never said she was doing another story. I thought she was just hanging out with us. You know—because she wanted to.”

Missed that one. Suzie did hang out with us, and of course she wanted to: We had fun. And would keep having fun as long as she didn’t forget who the partner was. Bernie flicked the cigarette outside.

“Tell you what, Chet. Let’s go be stupid.”

That was fine with me.

Pretty soon we were back in front of the Golden Palm Movie Palace; no sign of Keefer or Cynthia. The sun went down, and the sky turned dark pink. I’d never seen sky like that before. It made me uneasy. I twisted around on my seat, trying to get comfortable.

“Vegas,” Bernie said. “Nothing you can do about it.”

I settled down. Not long after that, a beat-up van parked nearby. A man got out, carrying round flat cans under one arm, kind of like Frisbees but bigger; in his free hand he held a paper bag.

“That’s him,” said Bernie. “The projectionist.”

Projectionists, a new one on me, turned out to be little guys, very thin, with arm tattoos and spiky hair. As this particular one came closer, Bernie opened the door and stepped out.

“Got a moment?” he said. “I’m a detective working on the Madison Chambliss case.”

The projectionist stopped, looked up at Bernie. “I already told you guys all I know,” he said.

“Won’t take long,” Bernie said. “What’s your name?”

“My name? I already told you guys.”

“Tell me again.”

“Anatoly,” the projectionist said. “Anatoly Bulganin.”

“Russian?”

“American,” Anatoly said. “Born and bred in New York City, like I already told—”

Bernie held up his hand, palm out. “We’re not those guys,” he said.

“Huh?”

Bernie handed him our card. Anatoly gazed at it. “Private?” he said.

Bernie nodded. “Retained to look for the girl.” Were we still retained? I got the feeling Bernie was pulling a fast one, couldn’t put all the pieces together. But it didn’t matter, because at that moment I caught a whiff of cooked beets. I straightened up in my seat. I knew beets because Leda had grown some, back when we’d had a vegetable garden. The smell was reminding me of something, but what? I sniffed the air.

Anatoly handed back the card. “Private—doesn’t that mean I don’t have to answer your questions?”

“You don’t have to answer anyone’s questions,” Bernie said. “But in this case—a missing kid—wouldn’t it be a bit strange?”

“The other guys—the LVPD—said she’s a runaway.”

“Still counts as missing in my book. Just go through it real quick for us.”

Anatoly sighed, the kind of sigh humans make when they give in. Bernie was good at making people do that, and I was better. “Right about where I’m standing now was where I took the picture,” Anatoly said. “I was on my way to work, and she was coming out.” He raised the paper bag in the direction of the door to the theater. The beet smell got stronger. “I’m kind of a crime junkie, and I recognized her from this site I go to.”

“What’s the name?”

“Desert Mayhem dot com,” Anatoly said.

“Did you talk to her?”

Anatoly shook his head. “I wasn’t sure it was her till I went back to the site. And what could I do, anyway? I’m just a private citizen.”

“Nothing to beat yourself up about, Anatoly. You did fine.” Anatoly relaxed a little, his whole body changing. “How did she look?” Bernie said.

“How did she look?”

“Happy, sad, anxious, in a hurry?”

“Like an ordinary teenager, that was all I saw.”

“Good enough,” Bernie said. Anatoly turned to go. “One more thing,” Bernie said. “What was playing last night?”

Anatoly motioned again with the paper bag, this time at the marquee. “Same as tonight. We change on Thursdays.”

Bernie read the marquee aloud. “
Chainsaw Exorcist Two
.”

“Even better than number one,” Anatoly said.

“Hard to imagine,” said Bernie.

Another wave of beet smell passed over me. It was coming from the bag, no question, but that wasn’t the point. The point was I remembered where I’d smelled it before, who it reminded me of—Mr. Gulagov! I started barking. Anatoly jumped in his skin, a pleasant sight.

“Call off your dog! What the hell’s going on?”

And not just barking: I seemed to have sprung out of the car, backed Anatoly against a parking meter.

“Easy there, Chet,” Bernie said. I lowered the volume maybe a little bit. “He’s K-9 trained. Packing some weed in that bag, Anatoly? No problem, as far as we’re concerned.”

“Weed?” said Anatoly. “No weed. This is my snack.”

“Hash brownies, by any chance?”

“No hash brownies, no drugs of any kind. The body is the temple.” Anatoly opened the bag so Bernie could see. “Borscht.”

“What’s that?” Bernie said.

“Soup,” said Anatoly. “Russian soup, from beets.”

Tell me something I don’t know. I barked harder.

“Chet! For God’s sake. It’s soup.”

Soup. I knew that, actually liked some soups, especially beef consommé, but this soup from beets reminded me of—

“Chet! Stop!”

I stopped, backed away.

“Sorry for the misunderstanding,” Bernie said. “And thanks for your help.”

“Yeah, sure, misunderstanding,” said Anatoly, stooping to pick up those big flat cans, which seemed to have fallen to the sidewalk.

Bernie turned toward the car, paused. “Just thought of something.”

Anatoly paused. “What?”

“Zlatoust,” Bernie said. “Does that word mean anything to you?”

Anatoly shook his head.

“It’s Russian,” Bernie said. “Maybe I’m pronouncing it wrong.”

“Maybe,” said Anatoly. “But I wouldn’t know—I don’t speak Russian.”

We drove around Vegas for a while, hit the Missing Persons bureau and a few youth shelters, came up with zip; then headed for home under a sky that soon looked normal, black and full of stars. Bernie smoked. I ate a Slim Jim we’d picked up somewhere along the
way; loved Slim Jims, could have lived on them exclusively. It was nice, just eating Slim Jims, maybe more than one, and staring at the fiery end of Bernie’s cigarette, which I couldn’t stop doing for some reason. We listened to Billie Holiday. “Hear that?” Bernie said. “Roy Eldridge on trumpet. The great Roy Eldridge.”

Of course I heard. Trumpets were my favorite, made the very best sound in the world. Bernie hit replay, and we listened to the same song again. And many more times. That was Bernie when he found something he liked. We had that in common, me and Bernie.

“They called him Little Jazz, don’t know why.”

Me, neither. Also, I didn’t care.

After a while we pulled over for a pit stop. Bernie went against a mesquite tree; I chose a trash can. He gazed up at the sky; I listened to the two trickles—mine was better, on account of the drumming sound from the trash can.

“See the Milky Way?” he said.

Milky Way? What the hell was he talking about? Long drives never tired me, not a bit, but I knew it wasn’t the same for Bernie. We got back in the car. Bernie started to turn the key, then paused.

“
Chainsaw Exorcist Two,
” he said. “Is that the kind of movie a kid like Madison would want to see?” I waited for the answer. “No way, Chet. I’d bet the house.”

Please, not that.

By the time we got home, Bernie had raccoon eyes, which happened when he was really wiped out. Don’t get me started on raccoons. I myself felt pretty peppy, having dozed off somewhere along the way. The message light was blinking, but Bernie didn’t notice. He opened the cupboard over the kitchen sink and took
out a bottle of bourbon. Bernie liked bourbon a lot, tried to stay away from it. He poured himself a glass, raised it to his lips, and saw the blinking light. Bernie went over and pressed a button.

First came the voice of Leda, Leda in a bad mood. “We’ve been invited on a cruise off Cabo this Saturday. I know it’s your weekend, but I’m sure you wouldn’t want Charlie to miss the opportunity.”

Then the voice of a man I didn’t know. “This is Robert Burk. I’m personal assistant to a financier here in the Valley. We’re looking for someone to handle security on the Maui compound for two weeks starting the day after tomorrow. Lieutenant Stine of Metro PD recommended you. Last-minute, I know, but the pay is good—five thousand dollars. If interested, get back ASAP. That’s five thousand per week.”

Then Leda again. “And I can’t believe you still haven’t repaid Malcolm for covering the tuition.”

Bernie sank into a chair, the glass held loosely in his fingers. Cabo? A cruise? No Charlie this weekend? And what was this about Maui? I went over to my water bowl and took a sip: flat and tasteless. I thought of heading into the bathroom in search of something fresher, instead circled around a bit and lay down.

Bernie rubbed his face. “Know what those messages were like, Chet? A three-act play.”

Bernie, go to bed. Please.

“What the hell are we going to do? Ten grand. Why now?”

He took a long drink. I rose, walked over, sat on the floor beside him. Bernie brushed something off my back. What? Not another tick?

“See the problem?” he said. “Ten grand and soft duty on Maui versus zero for a case we’re not even on anymore.” I didn’t know anything about Maui, but soft duty sounded nice. “And what if
Madison turns out to be a runaway after all?” Madison: I could see her at the window. And hear her, too. She’d said, “Don’t you hurt that dog.” At that moment I spotted Boris’s knife lying on the kitchen table. I went over and growled at it.

“Chet?”

I kept growling. She wasn’t a runaway. I growled and growled.

“What is it, boy, what’s on your mind?” Bernie picked up the knife, turned it over in his hands. “Something’s bothering you.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, slowly downed the bourbon. When the glass was empty, he called Robert Burk, assistant to the financier, and turned down the job. Maui, whatever that was, would have to wait.

The phone rang, bright and early. I lay curled up on the floor at the foot of the bed, comfortable beyond belief, my head all nice and foggy. Up on the bed, Bernie crashed around, fumbling for the phone. It fell on the floor. “Christ almighty,” Bernie said.

“Hello? Hello?” Hey—Suzie’s voice, tinny and distant: Bernie must have hit the speakerphone button by mistake. “Hello?”

“Suzie?”

“Hi,” she said. “Didn’t wake you, did I?”

“Oh no, course not. Been up for hours.”

After a slight pause, Suzie said, “I was just wondering if you found her.”

“No.”

“Did you go to Vegas?”

“Yes.”

“But she’s a runaway after all?”

“Not sure about that.”

“Oh? How come?”

I heard Bernie sit up. “I’ve got a question of my own,” he said.

“Shoot.”

“What’s your interest in this?”

“My interest? I don’t understand.”

“Are you writing a story? Is that it?”

Another pause. “I hadn’t decided.”

“Were you planning to clue me in?”

“I’m sorry. I should have. But it wasn’t my main motivation.”

“What was your main motivation?”

Silence. And in that silence, another voice, a man’s voice, came over the line. “Hey, babe,” he said, “who’s on the phone?” I recognized that voice, and so did Bernie—I could tell from his face. It was the voice of Dylan McKnight, ex-boyfriend, jailbird, loser. I rose, up on all fours.

“Gotta go,” Bernie said.

“No, wait,” said Suzie. “I’m—I’m out of town right now, but I had a thought about Keefer, based on our talk with Myron King. What bank handles his financing?”

“Thanks for the tip,” Bernie said. “Bye.”

“Bernie? Wait, I—”

Bernie hung up. He turned to me. “Went to L.A. with him,” he said. His eyes were blank. I pressed my head against the side of his leg.

After a quick breakfast—bacon and eggs for Bernie, bacon and kibble for me—he opened the safe in the office and took out the watch. Bernie had a fancy watch, inherited from his grandfather, who’d once owned a big ranch where Mesquite Road and our whole neighborhood was now but lost everything, possibly
because of a drinking problem, although the drinking problem might have come from some other story Bernie had told me, a story about another relative. But forget all that. The point is, Bernie never wore the watch, which stayed in the safe at all times, except for when we took it to Mr. Singh, the pawnbroker.

“Bernie! Chet!” said Mr. Singh. “How is our beautiful time-piece today?”

Bernie handed it over. We left, a big wad of cash in Bernie’s pocket and a bite or two of curried goat kebab in my mouth. Mr. Singh was the bomb.