Spencer Quinn - A Fistful of Collars

“Briefly.”

Bernie nodded, like that made sense. “Fact is,” he said, “we’re on a job.”

“Figured that.”

“And I’m wondering when you came on duty.”

“Midnight,” said Boo Ferris.

“Long shift.”

“I’m covering for one of the guys.”

“Nice of you.”

“Don’t need much sleep,” Boo Ferris said. “And I can use the money.”

“Know Thad Perry?”

“Seen him come and go.”

“Did he go last night?”

Boo Ferris didn’t back off, exactly, but the way he was standing changed, so somehow he seemed farther away; farther away and not so friendly. “They’re big on discretion up here,” he said.

“Me, too, down where I am,” said Bernie. “So my preference would be to take all that Boo and Bo confusion to my grave.”

Boo Ferris stared at Bernie. “Why is it always me?” he said.

“Interesting question,” said Bernie. “But we’re in a bit of a hurry.”

“Christ,” said Boo Ferris. “You didn’t hear it from me.”

“Goes without saying.”

Boo Ferris glanced around. We were all alone. The sun shone, nice and warm but not too hot up here on the mountain. Boo Ferris took a deep breath. “He drove through. Four a.m. on the nose. Honked like a bastard until I came to the gate. I said, ‘There some problem?’ Just letting him know, hey, I’m a human being. ‘Goddamn right there is,’ he said, but not like he was pissed at me. So I kind of took a close look at him, and I coulda sworn he’d been crying.”

“Yeah?” Bernie said.

“Allergies, you’re thinking?” said Boo Ferris. “Possible, I guess. But he stank of booze, and he had a fat old spliff burning away in the ash tray. So I told him, like, maybe this might not be the right time for a ride. But he went anyway.”

“He didn’t say anything else?”

“Not really,” said Boo Ferris. “Just some weird shit about the time being right if everything was upside down.”

“Upside down?”

“He wasn’t making much sense. But what could I do? Arrest him?”

“Imagine,” Bernie said as we drove down the mountain, “if we had citizens arresting each other all the time, willy-nilly?”

Not sure what that was all about, but I liked the sound of willy-nilly. I was feeling tip-top. And so was Bernie-I could feel it. Perps, bad guys, gangbangers: heads up.

“Of course, I might be wrong,” Bernie said.

About what? Was it even worth a thought, what with Bernie never being wrong, plus don’t forget that thinking can be hard, compared to leaping high walls, for example, or finding your way home when you were all alone and deep in the desert, or… I kind of lost the thread.

Meanwhile, Bernie was saying something about upside-down. “… no more than a thin thread, and it’s not even clear that he was even listening.”

Whoa. Thread? Lost, or just too thin? Was he talking about me? I always listened to Bernie. Now, sitting tall in the shotgun seat, ears up, stiff, and open to the max, I listened my hardest. I heard a plane, the faintest hum, from somewhere high high above. Gazing up, I saw one of those white trails planes leave in the sky-they turn gold at the end of the day, a puzzler but very beautiful-with the tiny silver plane at the front, although the sound wasn’t coming from there, instead from farther back on the white trail. What was that all about? The white trail made the sound? That was as far as I could take it.

Meanwhile, Bernie was saying something about having nothing better to go on, so why not? “Let’s roll the dice.”

Uh-oh. Please, not the dice. The last time-in a late-night dive in the diviest part of South Pedroia after the Police Athletic League fundraiser-we’d had to take Bernie’s grandfather’s watch to Mr. Singh, and at the moment Mr. Singh already had it, if I haven’t already pointed that out. So what would be our move if a financial emergency turned up, the kind of financial emergency that always enters our life when dice get rolled or cards get dealt? If only Bernie would just stick to arm wrestling: we’ve made some serious green from arm wrestling. Serious green: my mind got stuck on that idea and stayed there.

We climbed a mountain pass, up and over, and then we were out in the desert. Bernie’s hands relaxed on the wheel. I gazed at his hands, so beautiful, and even that one slightly twisted finger: beautiful, too. Soon we left the freeway and had a nice stretch of two-lane blacktop all to ourselves, pink hills rising on both sides, the kind of pink hills that shrink farther away the closer you get to them. Who could get tired of that?

“Coronado came right through here,” Bernie said.

Coronado? A perp of some kind, and not the first time Bernie had mentioned him-he always pointed out places where Coronado had been, but Coronado had moved on every time, one of those slippery customers who stayed a step or two in front of us. Message to Mr. Coronado: your day will come.

We rounded a long curve-things heating up now, the heat actually visible, wavering like rising curtains in the air-slowed down and bumped off the pavement and onto a dirt track. It led us up a slope, not very steep, toward some big rocks. Hey! I’d been here before. We often revisit places at the Little Detective Agency, just one of our techniques.

The track started looking more and more like the desert, and then you couldn’t tell the difference anymore. Bernie stopped the car by a lone creosote bush, its branches all yellow with flowers. I loved the smell of creosote bushes, a sharp smell that cleared my mind like nothing else. And today my mind was clear to begin with! I took a deep sniff or two, making my mind clearer than clear, the clearest ever. Chet the Jet!

We started up toward the rocks, side by side, Bernie sweating almost right away in the heat-a lovely smell-and soon we were in the slot canyon or whatever it was, this narrow space with sheer rock rising on both sides. Bernie pulled himself onto the top of the flat rock at the end of the canyon-I was already up there, waiting for him, and glanced around. Nothing to see that hadn’t been there before, namely the drawing on the cliff face with-what had Bernie said? — the sun and a guy dancing under it?

Bernie pointed at the guy in the drawing. “Upside down like that means they’re dead.” That was Bernie! Right there, thinking along with me. That made me feel great, so great I just about forgot that I had no clue what we were doing here, or where we were with the case, if it was a case.

Bernie was gazing up at the walls of the slot canyon, steep on the two sides, a little less steep at the end with the drawing. He walked here and there. I walked here and there with him.

“I expected-” he began, and at that moment I went still. “Something up, big guy?”

Beyond a doubt. Here, in the corner where one of the side walls met the end wall: cat. A smell I don’t miss-take it to the bank. Not our bank, where we’ve been having problems with the manager, Ms. Oxley, but forget all that. The point is that a cat had been right here, not too long ago and not just any cat.

Before I’d even realized that this corner actually formed a sort of-not a trail, really, more like simply a doable scramble to the top-I was halfway up.

“Chet! What are you doing?”

And maybe some more like that, but I wasn’t really listening, my attention focused on my back legs. When it comes to steep scrambles, all the push is from the back legs-maybe something you know already-with the front legs just marking the next set point and helping out with a bit of pull. It’s all in the timing, of course-Bernie often talks about timing-and here’s how I handle the timing: I don’t even think about it. Pound, pound, pound, and the next thing I knew I was cresting the top of the wall, a whole avalanche of rocks and pebbles clattering down behind me. I looked back, and there was Bernie, hands over his head and running for cover.