Spencer Quinn - A Fistful of Collars

Spears? I knew spears from this period when work dried up completely-even divorce work, which we hated-and we’d watched a lot of movies about gladiators. Spears were nasty: was Bernie really hoping we were coming up against them? So be it. I was ready.

“How about we try the manager?” Bernie said. “T. Ortega.” He pressed a buzzer.

We waited. There’s a lot of waiting in this business, just one more reason why it’s nice to have a partner. And a partner like Bernie? That was like hitting the lottery. Once we almost did! What a drive that was, from our place to the lottery office downtown in no time flat. But Bernie had read the number wrong, an easy mistake to make, I’m sure.

Bernie pressed the buzzer again, held it down for a while. As soon as he backed off, a voice came through a speaker, angry but small.

“Who’s there? What do you want?”

“I’m looking for a family that used to live in this building.”

“What number?”

“Five,” Bernie said. “Where Mizell is now.”

No sound came from the speaker, except for a staticky crackle.

“The name was Spears,” Bernie said.

More crackle.

“Hello?” Bernie said.

“Go away.” The speaker went silent, crackle and all.

Bernie pressed the buzzer again, kept his finger there. After a while I heard a door close somewhere in the building, and soon approaching footsteps, the soft, slightly flapping kind slippers make. Then someone-a man actually, a man who’d been eating something garlicky, and who could have used a shower, not that I cared much about that kind of thing, although it was always interesting how humans liked to get rid of their natural scents-stopped at the other side of the door.

There was a little click which Bernie maybe didn’t hear because he kept his finger on the buzzer. Then the door got thrown open real fast and an unshaven guy in a wifebeater and saggy sweatpants stood there, a gun in his hand and pointed at the floor, but also sort of at Bernie.

“What part of go away don’t you fuckin’ understand?” the guy said.

Here’s a strange thing: some humans have trouble even noticing members of the nation within. Also the light over the door was out, and the nearest streetlight stood pretty far down the block, so maybe things were a bit murky. The truth is I didn’t really think about any of that, just lunged forward, grabbed the guy’s wrist, and clamped down good and tight.

“Aieee,” he screamed, or something like that, very unpleasant down deep in my ears. He dropped the gun at once. Not a tough guy, obvious from the get-go, but nobody waves guns at Bernie, not while I’m around.

“Aieee, aieee.” He was struggling now, always fun. Did his blood have a garlicky taste? Had to be my imagination. “Call it off!” the guy screamed. “Call it off!”

“He’s not an it,” Bernie said, picking up the gun.

“Huh? What the hell? He’s killing me.”

Bernie nodded. “He-that’s better. Chet? Big guy? That should do it. Chet? All set on our end now. Good job. No sense overdoing it. Let’s not gild the lily.”

Gild the lily? I’d heard that one before, had no idea what it meant. Wasn’t the lily a flower? This wifebeater guy was no flower, and that garlicky tinge in his blood hadn’t gone away. I let him go.

“Good boy,” Bernie said. “How about sitting for a moment or two?”

Sitting? I didn’t feel like it, not one little bit. What did I feel like? Action, baby, action and nothing but.

“Ch-et?” Bernie has this special way of saying Chet, not loud, that somehow gets my attention every time. Or at least most of the time. Or sometimes. In short: this time I sat.

Bernie popped the magazine out of the gun, dropped the ammo in his pocket, then racked the slide-loved gun lingo myself, learned it back when Bernie was teaching Charlie, a lesson that led to an unforgettable scene with Leda which I no longer remembered-and dropped that last round into his pocket with the others. Then he slid the empty magazine back in place and handed the gun to the wifebeater guy.

“Here you go, Mr… Ortega, is it?”

“I’m bleedin’ to death,” said Mr. Ortega.

Bernie stooped down, examined Mr. Ortega’s wrist. “Nah,” he said. “Just a scratch. And of course Chet’s had his shots, so you’ll be good as new in no time. Now if you’ll kindly be more forthcoming about the present whereabouts of the Spears family, we won’t take anymore of your time.”

“You a cop?” Mr. Ortega said.

Bernie showed Mr. Ortega our license.

“Private eye?”

Bernie nodded.

“What do you want with her?”

“Who are we discussing?” Bernie said.

“Who do you think?” Mr. Ortega. “Mrs.-” And then he put the brakes on, too late. That putting on the brakes too late thing was always good for us.

“Mrs…?” said Bernie.

Mr. Ortega shook his head. “You look like trouble for her.”

“I’m guessing she’s a good person,” Bernie said. “We don’t bring trouble to good people.”

“I’m a good person,” Mr. Ortega said, looking down at his wrist; the blood wasn’t even flowing anymore.

“The gun fooled me,” Bernie said.

Mr. Ortega thought about that. Some humans are faster thinkers than others-you can sort of tell from their faces. Mr. Ortega wasn’t one of them. “You gonna give me my ammo back?” he said at last.

“Sure,” said Bernie. “Just as soon as you tell us what we want to know.”

Mr. Ortega did some more thinking.

“I take it we’re talking about Mrs. Spears,” Bernie said.

“’Cept she got married and changed her name to-” Whoa! He put the brakes on again? This was going to take forever. Fine with me.

“Mizell, by any chance?” Bernie said.

“How’d you know that?” said Mr. Ortega.

Bernie reached into his pocket, took out the ammo, and said, “Cup your hands.” No time to go into this now, but I like when humans cup their hands; I once drank water from Bernie’s cupped hands when we were in a bad way, deep in the desert.

Bernie dropped the ammo clink clink into Mr. Ortega’s hands. “Grateful for your help,” Bernie said. “And I’ll be even more grateful if you don’t reload till after we’re out of here.”

“What are you gonna do?” Mr. Ortega said.

“Pay a visit to number five,” Bernie said, stepping through the doorway; I was already inside, on account of my little dustup with Mr. Ortega. “But you can head on back to your own apartment,” Bernie went on. “We’ll find our way.”

Mr. Ortega backed through the small entrance hall, then started down a corridor. He stopped and turned. “She’s had some hard times,” he said.

Bernie nodded.

We went down the same corridor, but the other way. The floor was linoleum, kind of sticky under my paws. We passed a few doors, TV voices leaking out from underneath them, plus some fast-food smells-fast food being a wonderful human invention-and also pot. Bernie says that practically the whole country is stoned out of its mind at all times, which is why we are where we are, but where we are is pretty good, right? So maybe it wasn’t a problem.

We stopped in front of a door. A horseshoe was nailed to the frame. You see that sometimes, a total puzzler. And what’s with horses wearing shoes in the first place? So it was kind of a double puzzler, way too much for me. Bernie knocked.

Someone moved on the other side of the door, a woman, actually, and she’d been drinking.

“Yes?” she said.

“Mrs. Mizell?” said Bernie. “My name’s Bernie Little. I’m a private investigator, and I need your help.”

“I haven’t done anything,” the woman said.

“I didn’t say you had,” Bernie said. “I’m looking into an old case.”