Spencer Quinn - A Fistful of Collars

We went out to the patio. We have a nice patio in back-this is at our place on Mesquite Road-with a stone fountain in the shape of a swan that Leda had installed before the divorce, but then wanted no part of when Bernie said she should take it with her. We had trouble understanding Leda, me and Bernie.

Bernie sat in his favorite patio chair, the one with the drink holder, and I sat beside him. The sun was going down, changing the colors of the canyon that runs behind Mesquite Road, a canyon inhabited by lots of creatures, including some fat javelinas. Until you’ve chased a javelina you haven’t lived, and I wouldn’t dream of living anywhere else, although once I did dream I was living in a Dumpster, sort of a nightmare until it turned out the Dumpster stood behind a fast-food place. Dreams: don’t ask me to explain them.

Bernie swirled his bourbon around, stared into it, took a sip. “Suppose I said let’s get married. What would happen then?”

I waited to hear.

Bernie drank some more. “Why shouldn’t she be ambitious?” He gazed at me, his face reddening in the evening light. “She’s got every right. So that leaves the option of picking up stakes and going with her. Which, you may have noticed, she didn’t mention.” Bernie drained his glass, went inside. I went with him, right on his heels. He took the bottle down from the shelf, refilled his glass. “Heading east,” he said. “How would that work? My ancestors headed west. Going back would be like-”

The phone rang before Bernie could finish, but not a problem since I’d lost the thread long before. Bernie picked up.

A man’s voice came over the speaker. “Bernie?”

“Yup.”

“Cal Luxton here.”

“Uh-huh.”

“From the mayor’s office.”

“I know.”

“How’re you doin’? It’s been a while.”

“No complaints,” Bernie said.

“Suppose I should congratulate you on that wilderness camp case.”

“Not necessary.”

“Heard you drove another one over a cliff.”

“You heard wrong.”

Silence on the other end. In that silence, Bernie knocked back a big slug.

“Got much goin’ on these days?” Luxton said.

“How do you mean?” said Bernie.

“Work-wise.”

“We’re pretty busy.”

We were? First I’d heard of it. Hadn’t done a stitch of work since the Big Bear Wilderness Camp Case, for which we’d been paid, yes, and plus there’d been the bonus of that gold nugget, now at Mr. Singh’s on account of some tax bill coming due, not something I’m clear on and neither was Bernie although he finally gave up on getting an explanation and just cut the check; which bounced, so he cut another one. In short, our finances were a mess. There hadn’t even been any divorce work, which we hated, me and Bernie, but took when nothing else-mostly meaning missing persons cases, our specialty-came along. The Teitelbaum divorce! Mrs. Teitelbaum at the wheel of that forklift, crushing Mr. Teitelbaum’s classic car collection! And what he did to her boyfriend right after that! Only it wasn’t her boyfriend! I gave myself a good shake. Meanwhile that Luxton dude was talking again.

“I’m sure you are,” he said. “But maybe you could squeeze in a little job for us.”

“Who’s us?” said Bernie.

“The mayor, who else? Did I wake you or something, Bernie?”

Bernie put down his drink. “Wide awake, Cal. So wide awake that I’m thinking, Why me?”

“Why not you?”

“We have a little history, the mayor and I, maybe from before your time.”

“Back before you got-back when you were still with the force? I know all about it. Water under the bridge, as far as the mayor’s concerned. And what with the election coming up, he wants to reach out, to be more inclusive.”

“Has he heard of the aquifer yet?” Bernie said.

The aquifer? Bernie talks about the aquifer a lot, but he hasn’t shown it to me yet. Something about water, of which we’ve got a lot in the Valley-check out our golf courses every morning and evening, sprinklers spraying rainbows out the yingyang-although, come to think of it, none under any of the bridges. Whew! I’d taken that one pretty far! Right up to the point where Bernie always says “so therefore.” Bernie handles the so therefores. I bring other things to the table. That’s how come the Little Detective Agency’s what it is.

“You can ask him tomorrow at ten,” Luxton said.

“Huh?”

“That’s the only time he can see you this week.”

“See me about what?”

“This job, Bernie. Are you listening?”

“What’s the job?”

“He’ll tell you in person.”

Bernie reached for his glass, downed some more. “I’m not interested.”

“No? What’s your normal fee?”

“Eight hundred a day. Plus expenses.”

“Yeah? You can make that stick in an economy like this?”

“Not always.”

“What I thought,” Luxton said. Another phone rang at his end, and he spoke a little faster, so maybe I didn’t hear right. “The fee for this job is three grand a day, plus expenses, guaranteed, plus a bonus at the end if they like you.”

“Who’s they?”

“See you at ten.” Click.

Humans tend to go to sleep in their beds and stay there all night. It’s different with me and my kind. For example, I often start in Bernie’s bedroom, on the floor at the foot of the bed, and later move across the hall to Charlie’s old room, even though he’s hardly ever there, the bed stripped, and after that I like to lie with my back to the front door. The sounds and smells of the night leak in through the crack under the door. Security is part of my job.

On this particular night, my pal Iggy who lives next door got a little restless and did his yip-yip-yipping once or twice, and Mr. Parsons tried to shush him, and later a toilet flushed in their house. Our neighbor on the other side, old man Heydrich, went outside not long after that, and what was this? Whisk-whisk, whisk-whisk. He was sweeping the dirt from his part of the sidewalk onto ours? I barked, the low muffled kind of bark, not wanting to disturb Bernie. The whisk-whisk ing stopped, and old man Heydrich muttered something about curs, a new one on me. Then came the pad-pad-pad of his slippers, his door opening and closing, and quiet. I dropped down into dreamland. Did a car come down the street sometime later, moving slowly, pausing in front of our place, driving on? Maybe. Dreams can be so strong, and then you wake up and poof! It doesn’t work the other way. You always remember real life. Sort of. But forget all that.

Except if a car did go by, its engine was making a little ticking sound. Tick-tick-tick. That tick-tick-tick happened once with the Porsche, not the blown-up Porsche but the one that actually did go off a cliff. Bernie’d taken out the tools. You never wanted to see that.

“Knits up the raveled sleeve of care?” Bernie said the next morning. “I wish.”

Uh-oh. We were in the van, headed downtown, possibly on something work-related, and now was when the linen shirt episode comes up? Linen: a complete unknown to me at the time, specifically on a visit I paid to the laundry basket not long after Suzie gave Bernie a long-sleeved linen shirt for his birthday. I prefer Bernie’s Hawaiian shirts, of which he’s got lots, including the one with palm trees and martini glasses that he was wearing at the moment, but that had nothing to do with what happened. It was just the strange feel of linen, and when it comes to feeling things, well, you always do better with your tongue, no news there. And what’s close to the tongue? Teeth. So there you go.

But still, I felt bad. I moved across the bench seat, a little closer to Bernie. The van made one of those quick swerves across the lane that sometimes happens, not sure why. It’s not the smoothest ride in the world, but no complaints.