Scents and Sensibility (27 page)

“Should I just put 'im out of his misery?” Vroman said.

“He may prove valuable,” said Winners, moving into my line of sight, his porkpie hat set back on his head in a relaxed sort of way.

“For squeezing out more juice?”

“There's hope for you yet,” Winners said. Sunshine glittered on his neatly trimmed white beard. “Ease up on the loop, then work 'im with the pole, take some of the starch out.” Winners turned toward the pickup. “Dog! Come!”

From the corner of my eye I could see Shooter, now awake and poised at the back edge of the pickup bed. He just stood there.

“Dog!”

Shooter looked my way. He started to pant.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Winners said. “Come!”

“Why are you so interested in that dog?” Vroman said.

“First, he's evidence, as Little so cleverly pointed out, so we keep him close. Second, I'm going to train him to be the badass guard dog of the world. Third, it's none of your goddamn business.” Winners stabbed his finger at Shooter and raised his voice. “Come!”

The little fella panted harder, but he didn't move. My mind began to form a plan, but before it got to the first step, Winners walked over to Shooter, glared down at him. Shooter's tail drooped and he ducked his head a bit, as though awaiting a blow. I wanted to do bad things to Winners and then bad things to Vroman, so bad I couldn't even imagine them.

Winners stuck his hand in his pocket and out came not a gun, or brass knucks, or any of the kinds of nasty things I expected, but a biscuit. He held it out for Shooter to see. “Come.”

Shooter just stood there. Were his eyes on me? I thought so. At the same time, his little nostrils—actually not so little considering his overall smallness—started to twitch, and he stopped panting.

“Come.”

Shooter leaned forward, ever so slightly, his muscles trembling, like they were pushing and pulling him at the same time. He even made a faint whimpering noise. But in the end he leaped for that biscuit. How could I blame him? I'd have done the same thing.

Winners whisked the biscuit up and away just before Shooter could clamp his little jaws around it. Shooter fell to the ground—hard and rocky desert ground with thorny bushes here and there—rolled over and scrambled back up, making another play for that biscuit, just out of reach once again. Holding it high, Winners set off toward a huge round golden tent, way bigger than a house, that stood at the base of a nearby two-humped hill. Shooter kept jumping for that biscuit all the way, coming up short every time. When they came to the tent entrance—a dark opening, bigger than a garage door—Shooter paused and glanced back at me. Did Winners give Shooter a kick at that moment? I thought so. Shooter went tumbling into the tent and a flap rolled down over the opening. The tent glowed in the sunshine, almost like a little sun itself. A flag with the image of a saguaro on it fluttered from the roof of the tent. And behind the tent rose a gigantic saguaro, taller than the tallest tree I'd ever seen: a gigantic saguaro but made of shiny metal. Workers on ladders were painting it green. Everything seemed very bright.

Vroman's eyes were on me. Some humans have kind eyes. Some have eyes that can go either way. Vroman's eyes didn't belong to either group. Maybe I was noticing this a bit on the late side. He got to work on taking the starch out of me. Bernie entered my mind immediately, in case I needed any help.

•  •  •

The problem with the muzzle—aside from the obvious one of how much I hated the feel of it, and how enraged it made me inside—was that after we were done with taking the starch out of me, I couldn't drink, despite my thirst. And I was pretty thirsty, no doubt about that. Plus the fact of knowing you can't drink makes you thirstier, something I'd already learned from other scrapes I'd been through deep in the desert. Speaking of scrapes, when you've survived a few, your inner starch gets harder to remove, if that makes any sense. I lay in the shade of a crumbling stone wall, forming a plan. It was a good one so far:
Bernie!

The stone wall was part of the remains of an old hut, the kind of ruin you find out in the desert. We love exploring old ruins, me and Bernie. Once we'd found a real old US Marshall's star with a bullet hole right through it! Suzie had written a whole story about it for the
Tribune
, and we'd celebrated with steak tips at the Dry Gulch Steakhouse and Saloon. What a life!

This particular hut also had the remains of a roof, plus most of another wall. A rusty metal ring hung from that other wall, and I was attached to that ring by a thick-linked chain. Not a long chain, but long enough so that I could reach a small stone trough just beyond a low pile of stones where one of the missing walls had stood. I smelled water in that trough, maybe not the freshest or coolest water, but . . . water! I rose, not quite hopping up in my normal way, but no complaints, and made my way over to the trough. I gazed down into it. Yes, water for sure, murky, scummy, buggy. I wanted it real bad.

My hut seemed to be partway up a slope, some big saguaros masking the view, although I could make out the golden tent at the base of the two-humped hill, the gigantic saguaro, now almost completely green, and a few shirtless workers who seemed to be building a wooden stage. Was one of them taking a water break? He had his head thrown back and, yes, a clear and sparkling bottle tilted to his mouth. Maybe he was the type who had nice feelings for the nation within and would soon amble on over and share his drink. That didn't seem so crazy to me at the time, a sign I wasn't quite at the top of my game. I went back to gazing at the gigantic saguaro and noticed—maybe a little slow on the uptake—that it now had a gigantic human face and wore a gigantic porkpie hat. I was liking the gigantic saguaro less and less.

The sun slid lower across the sky, turning redder, the way it always did. A small dust cloud rose from that direction, also reddish, but that wasn't the point. The point was that dust clouds like that in country like this often meant a car was on the way. Like a Porsche, for example. Had to be the Porsche! I took off for that dust cloud, bounding—

Only there was no bounding, no taking off after dust clouds, nothing doing at all. Somehow I'd forgotten all about the chain. It brought me up short and I smacked down hard on the stony ground, the muzzle now twisted around a bit, partly covering one of my eyes. But no big deal. Vision's not as important to me as it may be to you, and besides I could still see with my other eye, at least well enough to make out the car under the dust cloud—not a Porsche, as it turned out.

I got to my feet, felt pretty dusty, considered giving myself a good shake, decided to put it off for a while. Bernie's mom—a real piece of work who sometimes shows up on Thanksgiving—says never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Even though she calls Bernie Kiddo, I wouldn't have minded seeing her round about now, not one little bit. Maybe she was driving that approaching car; another wild thought that also seemed somewhat normal to me at the time. The car disappeared behind a rise, soon after coming into view on a curving dirt track, much closer now. The car followed a track up the mesa and parked not far from the golden tent. Then the driver's door opened and out stepped not Bernie's mom—whom I was still kind of expecting—but a very big man I didn't like even though I didn't know him that well, which wasn't my usual approach at all. But Bernie really didn't like him, so say no more. Hadn't they almost thrown down the last time they'd seen each other, outside the Parsonses' house? Yes, it was Brick Mickles.

Walking like he owned the place, he disappeared inside the tent. Over to one side, the workers finished up with their water break and got back to work. The banging of their hammers sounded very clear even though they were pretty far from my hut. Not my hut: shouldn't have put it that way. I'd be out of here and gone real soon: just a matter of time until my mind got working on the plan.

Meanwhile, a vulture circled high above, wings spread but not flapping, riding the breezes up there the way birds do. That must have been nice, although I always wonder if birds know how nice. Why are their eyes so mean and angry all the time? At the very moment I was having that thought, the vulture tilted sharply, swung around in my direction, and spiraled down a bit, now not so high above me anymore. For some reason, I began to grow more conscious of my tongue, which was feeling bigger than normal and kind of dry. It really wanted to get outside my mouth and flop around freely for a while, but the muzzle made that impossible. The muzzle, the chain, the thirst: it was almost a little too much. I gathered my strength beneath me and strained forward with all my might, getting nowhere. A small setback? Yes, but you can't let small setbacks bog you down: that's one of the rules at the Little Detective Agency, part of the reason we're so successful, if you're willing to forget about the finances. Out there by this ruined hut on a stony hill, I forgot finances and everything else except for the muzzle, the chain, and water. And don't leave out Bernie. That goes without mentioning.

The sun, red and low and fat, sat on the shoulder of a distant mountain. The sky went through all sorts of color changes, seemed to me a giant living thing. I spotted a cloud, streaky and pink. Clouds brought rain.
Come this way, cloud!
But it did not. And even if it rained, how could I get any water through the muzzle? Chet the Jet: not at the top of his game.

Over at the golden tent, the big flap opened, and Winners and Mickles stepped out. They started on a narrow path up and down a rise, crossed a flat patch, and then switchbacked up the hill toward me. Their hard shoes made crunching sounds on the desert floor. Not a very loud noise, I suppose, but it just about filled up my whole sound world. The only other thing I heard was my heart, boom-booming in its usual way. Once I'd heard Bernie say: “Chet's got a heart as big as all outdoors.” You had to love Bernie.

I
stood up and faced them as they mounted the slope. Winners, not a big guy, huffed and puffed, but Mickles, so huge, did not. They stopped, just out of my reach, and gazed at me. Winners took off his porkpie hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his arm. Then he took a water bottle from his pocket and drank, drank a little sloppily, a bubbly stream running off his chin. Oh, that lovely smell! My tongue got drier, bigger, harder. I growled, pretty much my only option under the circumstances. There were other things I wanted to do, starting with chewing that porkpie hat to bits, maybe kind of crazy.

“Sure there's nothing you're not telling me?” Winners said, tossing away the empty bottle. How I wished for Bernie at that moment. He would have made Winners pick up that bottle at the very least, or maybe even eat it, which would have been my preference.

“What are you driving at?” said Mickles, his eyes still on me.

“I laid him out pretty good is all,” Winners said. “Socket wrench, right behind the ear.”

“He was gone when I got there, exactly fourteen minutes after your text. Why would I say he wasn't there if he was?”

Winners shot Mickles a sideways look. “No reason I can see.”

“Know your problem?” Mickles said. “You overthink.”

Winners said nothing, but I could feel him thinking, so maybe Mickles was right.

“Not saying your plan didn't have its good points,” Mickles said. “But it didn't work.”

“So now Little's on the loose.”

“Yup,” Mickles said.

“I don't like him.”

“Join the club.”

“Not that way,” Winners said. “Well, yes, I don't like him that way, too, but what I meant was he's hard to read.”

“He's a private dick, paid to cause trouble. What's hard about that?”

“Who's paying him?”

Mickles didn't answer.

“You don't know?” Winners said.

“What difference does it make?” said Mickles.

“Maybe he could be paid more to go away.”

Mickles shook his head. “He's not the type.”

“See? That's what I mean. What kind of type is he? He can read charts, for chrissake.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“He's dangerous, that's all. And he's on the loose.”

Mickles pointed at me with his chin. “But we've got Chet.”

“The dog?”

“Correct,” Mickles said. He gave me a closer look. “Something happen to him? Looks kind of in rough shape. Is that blood coming out of his ear?”

“Fell off the truck,” said Winners.

Mickles nodded, a slow nod that actually reminded me of one of Bernie's, even though they were as different as men could be. “Happens,” he said. “What do you know about him?”

“What do I know about the dog?” said Winners.

“Yeah.”

“Stay clear of him, that's for goddamn sure.”

“What else?”

Winners shrugged.

“He's an unusual dog,” Mickles said. “Without him, Little wouldn't have a pot to piss in. See where I'm going with this?”

“The dog means a lot to Little?”

“Exactly. His livelihood, man. And you're right about one thing. We can't have Little on the loose, not while Billy's out there, too.”

“So we're going to make a deal?” said Winners.

“You are,” Mickles said. “A deal of the reneging kind. When you've got it set up, let me know.”

Winners nodded.

“And this time use a gun,” Mickles said.

“Any suggestions on the price?”

“For Chet? Make it something he can come up with fast.”

“Ten grand?”

“Sounds right.”

“Which we'll keep at the end. Call it a dividend.”

“I'll want half,” said Mickles.

They turned and headed back down the hill. “Half's unreasonable,” Winners said. “I'm doing all the work.”