Santa 365 (4 page)

“Back, Chet.”

I backed up the tiniest bit. Bernie kicked at the glass, shattering it in the most exciting way, and the next moment we were racing side by side through the kitchen, me a little in front, my MO when it comes to racing side by side. Did I slow down slightly in the vicinity of the pizza box? Possibly, but I made such quick work of that slice—or two—that you wouldn't have noticed. And here was something interesting: as we left the kitchen and entered the hall, leaving the zone of pizza smell, I picked up another scent, namely that of earwax. For a moment I thought I understood the entire case, if this was a case. But how could it be? Was anyone paying? I forgot the whole thing, charged down the hall and out the open front door.

The little dude was sort of hopping up and down in what you might call fury beside the van, so nicely blocked in the driveway. Perps—the little dude had to be a perp, no doubt in my mind—hopping up and down in fury was just one of the fun things you get to see when you work at the Little Detective Agency. But we're not hiring, so don't even think about it.

Do you ever get so full of life you can hardly keep it all inside? That was me chasing down a perp, the situation we had going on now. The little dude shot us a fearful glance—actually closer to terrified, always a gratifying sight—and booked. What a fast runner he turned out to be, at least for a human! He was almost clear out of the driveway before I grabbed him by the pant leg.

He did some kicking and screaming. I—how would you put it? Urged him to put a lid on it? Something like that. He went quiet. Bernie came over, looked down, and said, “Merrrry Chriiiistmas.” The little dude called Bernie a name I'm sure he didn't mean. “Is that any way for an elf to talk?” Bernie said.

Elf? That earwax smell? Yes. Those close-together eyes? Yes. But what about the strange pointy ears and the long, droopy nose, no and no? I was a bit lost. Lucky for me, I had Bernie.

First off—all of us back in the kitchen of what I had a notion was Plumpy's crib, but don't ask me to explain how—Bernie examined the little dude's phone. After a few moments he nodded, held up the phone so I could see. What was this? A video of Bernie spinning the dial on our safe, real close up so you could see the numbers?

“You're a quick thinker, Elrood.” Bernie laid the phone on the counter. Elrood! I'd almost gotten there on my own! Was I on fire or what? “So you already know how this is going to play out,” Bernie went on. “Start by telling us what you're looking for.”

“Don't know what the hell you're talking about.”

Bernie—now wearing his grandfather's watch, actually the very first time I'd seen him do that—smiled a quick little smile, one of my very favorites of all his smiles. It meant we were winning. I eased over toward the pizza box, still on the floor. Empty.
Elrood sat on a chair by the table, per Bernie's orders; Bernie himself leaned against the wall.

“Got any ID on you, Elrood?”

“Nope. And you can't keep me here—you're not the law. This is kidnapping.”

“Call the cops,” Bernie said.

The call-the-cops technique! One of my favorites. Bernie was on fire, too. Elrood glared at him, said nothing.

“Chet? Elrood's going to give you his wallet.”

What was this? Something about Elrood? Time to grab him by the pant leg again? Why not? I hurried across the room. Elrood's eyes opened wide in alarm. He whipped out his wallet. I grabbed it in a flash and trotted over to Bernie.

“Good job.” Bernie wiped the wallet on his pants—not sure why—and went through it. Not long after that, he was on the phone. “Rick? Need another favor.” He listened. “My mother's age? Not sure I'm at liberty to reveal that.” He glanced at a plastic card he'd taken from Elrood's wallet and said, “Run Roland Y. Blum.”

Bernie waited. I rechecked the pizza box. Still empty. Was there any reason not to lick it? Time passed, time of the well-spent sort, and then Bernie said, “Thanks, Rick.” He put the phone away. “Elves on parole, huh, Elrood?”

Elrood did some more glaring.

“And what we have here—breaking and entering—would be a parole violation, not to mention the theft of the watch. So it's back to Central State for what Rick Torres tells me would be the remaining three years of an eight-year stretch for embezzlement. Plus whatever the judge hands down on the new charges.”

Elrood glanced down at his feet: small feet in dirty tennis shoes.

“Doing the math, Elrood?”

Elrood didn't answer.

“Did you meet Plumpy inside, by the way?”

“Goddamn loser,” Elrood said.

“Pot calling the kettle,” Bernie said, which zipped right past me. “Doing an unnecessary three years plus spells loser to me. Right now the loser play is to keep your mouth shut. The winner play—meaning there's a chance I let you walk out of here—is to start talking now.”

Elrood's eyes did some shifting around. “How do I know you'll keep your word?”

“Let's skip this part,” Bernie said.

Elrood did some licking of his lips. He had a yellow tongue, kind of pointy. Was he an elf or not? I was kind of confused on that.

“One point two,” he said at last, nothing at all elfish about his voice.

“You're talking about Plumpy's Ponzi scheme haul?”

Elrood nodded.

“Of which he's paid restitution of one thousand fourteen dollars and eighty-one cents,” Bernie said.

“That much?” said Elrood.

Bernie started to laugh. Then he stopped abruptly, and gave Elrood a long look.

“Plumpy said he pissed it all away,” Bernie said.

“Uh-huh.”

“But no?” Bernie said.

“He had to do time anyway,” Elrood said, “whether he coughed up or not.”

Bernie glanced around the wrecked kitchen. “What makes you think it's here?”

Elrood shrugged.

“Don't tell me you killed him?”

“Do I look like a killer?”

“A bit,” Bernie said. “Or maybe you beat it out of him.”

“I
didn't,” Elrood said.

“Meaning someone else did?”

“We didn't have to—” Elrood shut himself off. His eyes seemed to get even closer together, something I'd never seen before. That and the powerful earwax smell added up in my mind: Elrood couldn't be human—he had to be an elf.

Bernie unfolded Suzie's printout. “This is a list of Plumpy's victims. You're not on it.”

“Why the hell would I be?” Elrood's voice, sort of human since our meet up here at Plumpy's, was now squeaking back up into elfish territory. Chet the Jet, way ahead of the curve! No time now for the story of the night Bernie and I for a longish moment on a mountain curve were actually ahead of the Porsche, driverless behind us but coming up fast.

Bernie nodded. “That would be too convenient. But who'd have it in for Plumpy the most?”

Closer and closer together came Elrood's eyes. I couldn't bear to watch.

“Someone on this list, correct? And here you are going over Plumpy's crib. So is it possible there's some connection between you and any of these people?” Bernie gave the printout a little wave. “How about I start at the top? Four hundred thirteen thousand seven hundred one dollars—less ten thousand for a putter we won't go into now—owed to Ms. Becky Simms, Two Bar Ranch, Ocotillo Springs. Know her?”

There was a long silence. Then Elrood said, “You're the relentless type. The world would be better off without your kind.”

Which made less sense than anything I'd ever heard coming out of a human mouth. I reminded myself that Elrood wasn't human, and got right back in the picture.

“I'll watch my back when you're around,” Bernie said.

Which also made no sense. Bernie never had to watch his back: he had me. A whole lot of nonsense was suddenly going down in Plumpy's kitchen. I edged a bit closer to Elrood, got him within prime lunging distance.

“Meanwhile,” Bernie went on, “what's your connection with Becky Simms?”

Elrood gave a long sigh and rubbed his face with both hands, rubbed it hard like he was trying to rub it away. Was that possible? Could he maybe rub his whole self away and pull off an escape? I let him know I was real nearby.

“What the hell! Is he going to bite me again?”

“Can't think why,” Bernie said. “And I wouldn't call what happened outside an actual bite.”

“No?” said Elrood, raising his pant leg. “Then where did this blood come from?”

Bernie peered at Elrood's leg. “You shouldn't scratch mosquito bites.”

“We don't have mosquitoes out here.”

“All the more reason,” Bernie said. “Back to Becky Simms.”

Elrood sighed again. “She's my batty old aunt. Lives with Shirley, my other batty old aunt.”

“They found out you were doing time with Plumpy?”

Elrood nodded. “And offered me a third if I found the money.”

“So you cozied up to Plumpy inside?”

Elrood shrugged.

“And he actually told you the stash was here?”

“Naw,” said Elrood. “But when I suggested like maybe it was,
he did that stupid
heh heh, heh heh
laugh of his.”

“How about we take a little look-see?” Bernie said.

“Suit yourself,” Elrood said. “But I've been over the whole place.”

We wandered around Plumpy's crib, me and Bernie—having first duct-taped Elrood to a kitchen chair, shouldn't leave that out. Duct-taped the way we duct-tape dudes at the Little Detective Agency, meaning so they stay duct-taped.

“What are we looking for, big guy?”

I waited to hear.

“Cash, and lots of it. Cash smells.” Wow! Bernie at his best. He took some money from his wallet, held it toward me. I sniffed up the smell of money—not to learn anything, since I knew the smell very well already, but just to please Bernie. We went down the hall and into the living room. Money? I picked up the scent right away and trotted over to the fireplace. It was one of those kiva fireplaces. We had one on the patio, for when cool winter nights came along, which was hardly ever.

Bernie followed me. “Santa comes down the chimney, doesn't he, Chet?”

Uh-oh. Hadn't known that! And security was my job! I made what Bernie calls a mental note.

Bernie got himself sort of inside the kiva and reached up inside. He grunted, twisted around a bit, and pulled down a big plastic garbage bag. We took it into the kitchen and spilled it out on the table. Piles and piles of money! We were rich at last!

“What the hell?” Elrood said, sort of wriggling in his chair, voice in the elf zone to the max.

We counted the money, Bernie doing the actual counting.
“One million, forty-six thousand, seven hundred and eight.” He turned to Elrood. “Mind waiting here?”

A lovely day for a drive, like just about every day in the Valley. We drove down to Ocotillo Springs, Bernie behind the wheel, me in the shotgun seat, the plastic garbage bag full of cash on the little bench behind us. Ocotillo Springs was like lots of little desert towns, with one main street, a few bars, a few art galleries, and the rest empty storefronts. At the end of the main street stood a low building with a fenced-in dirt yard, and lots of members of the nation within just lying around in that yard, their eyes dull in a way I didn't like to see. A woman was hanging some balloons over a big chalkboard by the door.

“ ‘Animal Rescue Fundraiser Today,' ” Bernie read. “ ‘Please help.' ”

We drove on by, took the next turn, followed a dry wash and came to a closed gate.

“Two Bar Ranch,” Bernie said.

He got out, opened the gate, and drove up a dirt road up to a small ranch house with a tile roof and a shaded porch out front. We parked beside an old sedan, the kind Bernie calls an old lady ride, meaning a far-from-new sedan in perfect—whoa! Had I seen this car not long ago? You bet. And that old bluish-haired lady now coming out on the porch? With granny-type glasses perched on her nose? Hadn't she been at the wheel? I was making connections left and right, wherever they were. And maybe I'd have made even more, but at that moment the old lady raised a shotgun and pointed it at Bernie.

Bernie, still behind the wheel, raised his hands. “Becky Simms?” he said.

“Who wants to know?”

“I'm Bernie Little. And this is Chet. We've got something for you.”

“Like what?”

“Something that's actually yours in the first place. But first we need to know if you're Becky Simms.”

The woman called over her shoulder. “Beck!”

A second woman came out of the front door and onto the porch. She also wore a big white cowboy hat with floral decorations and granny-type glasses perched on her nose. This second woman—Beck, if I was following this right—looked like the first only more so, if that makes sense.

“Shirl?” Beck said. “What's going on?”

Shirl made a little gesture at us with the shotgun. “This here jasper says he's got something for you.”

“Like what?” said Beck.

“First,” Bernie said, “how about we lose the shotgun? This is going to be a good day for you. Don't want to spoil it.”

The women glanced at each other. Some sort of unspoken communication passed between them. We have that same thing going down in the nation within. Shirl lowered the shotgun.

We got out of the car. Bernie grabbed the garbage bag.

“What you got in there?” Beck said.

“Your assets,” said Bernie. “Which we'll trade for Plumpy Bonaparte. A safe and sound Plumpy Bonaparte.”

The women glanced at each other again.

“Let's see these so-called assets,” Beck said.

We went up on the porch. Bernie opened the bag, held it so Beck and Shirl could see. They peered inside. Their old faces pinkened a bit. Then the women looked at Bernie and their eyes went hard, both sets at the exact same time.