Spencer Quinn - A Fistful of Collars

Then he took Bernie by the arm and marched him down the hall, up the stairs, and into the glassed-in office. Whatever had been going on in the conference room-it sounded pretty bad-remained a mystery to me. Sounded pretty bad, yes, but hadn’t I once seen Iggy “And this is Chet,” Bernie said, as they settled on a huge leather couch.

“Know all about him,” Gronk said. He held out his hand, a real big one. I went over, just to the edge of his reach. He scratched behind my ears. This Gronk dude, whoever he happened to be? A gem, in my book.

“In fact,” Gronk said, “I’ve followed your career closely-especially since you went private.”

“Not exactly my choice,” Bernie said.

“So what? You’re doing great.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Read all about that Big Bear case,” Gronk said. “And the elephant thing, down in Mexico? Who else could have pulled that off?”

“It was mostly Chet,” Bernie said. “But thanks. That’s what I’m here for, actually-to thank you for recommending me to the mayor’s office.”

“Recommend, hell,” said Gronk. “I made it a stipulation for underwriting the goddamn policy.”

“I don’t get it,” Bernie said.

“See, that’s you-your mind’s always on the bigger things.”

“Huh?”

“Point is, down here in the money-grubbing world, the mayor’s sinking taxpayer dollars into this movie scheme of his, and the law requires him to insure Valley government against loss. That actor asshole, what’s his name?”

“Thad Perry.”

“Looked into his history. Keeping an eye on someone like him requires someone like you, and the only person I know like you is you.”

So complicated, impossible to follow, but it was clear that Gronk was one of the good guys, so why worry about the details?

“You haven’t seen me in a long time,” Bernie said. “Maybe I’ve changed.”

“Feel bad about that,” Gronk said. “Thought about calling you many times when I first came out here. But building something like this, it gets kind of consuming.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Bernie said.

“I know what you meant,” Gronk said. “I witnessed you get tested like hardly anybody ever gets tested, and I know what I need to know.”

“I got lucky that night.”

“The hell you did,” Gronk said. “How’s the leg?”

“No complaints,” Bernie said. “What do you think of the mayor’s idea?”

“Cockamamie,” said Gronk. “Which is good for our balance sheet-we charge extra for cockamamie.”

Bernie glanced around the office. “I never knew you even wanted to get rich.”

Gronk laughed. “I never did. That’s the best part.”

Nixon Panero delivered our new wheels in person. Bernie and I had been watching out the window, so we were already outside when he pulled in the driveway.

“Whaddya think?” said Nixon, getting out and handing the keys to Bernie. Nixon eyed the back of the outside mirror, blew on it, buffed whatever was bothering him with his sleeve. “Turn heads or what?”

Bernie gazed at our new Porsche. “This, uh, pattern on the front fenders?”

“The martini glasses?” said Nixon. “Coulda upped the scale-I went back and forth on that. But guess what.”

“I give up.”

“I copied them right offa the shirt you were wearing the other day!” Nixon spat out one of those thin brown streams of tobacco juice. I toyed with the idea of licking the damp spot on the pavement and rejected it. “Moment of pure inspiration,” Nixon continued. “Didn’t see the point of running it by you. Knew you’d go for it-woulda bet the ranch.”

“Where’s the ranch?” Bernie said.

Nixon’s eyes and mouth opened wide at the same time, one of those human expressions I watch for. What does it mean? Not sure, but I’ve seen all sorts of unexpected things right after, including shouting, tears, and an airborne machete. “Whoa,” said Nixon. “I did bad?”

Bernie smiled. He has the nicest set of human teeth going, and the implant matches perfectly, in my opinion, no matter what anyone says. “Nah,” he said. “I love it. The constantly getting pulled over part will take getting used to, that’s all.”

“Didn’t think of that,” said Nixon. “But patrol guys know you, Bernie. Once a cop, always a cop.”

“Where’d you get that idea?” Bernie said.

“When I was in the pen,” said Nixon. “We talked a lot about cops, kind of the way dogs think about cats.”

“Dogs think a lot about cats?” Bernie said.

“Makes sense, don’t it?” said Nixon.

Then suddenly they were both looking at me. The subject was cats? At the moment, I had no interest in that at all. What I wanted was to take this new baby for a spin, see what it could do, and pronto. I gave myself a good shake, the kind that starts at my head, travels all the way to the tip of my tail and ripples back up again.

“Bet that feels good,” Nixon said.

“He wouldn’t be doing it otherwise,” said Bernie.

Well, of course not. Went without saying. But that hardly ever stops humans, no offense.

“Come on inside,” Bernie said. “I’ll cut you a check.”

“Twisted my arm,” said Nixon, which had happened once before, the night we took Nixon down, but why now? And in fact, no arm twisting took place. I pushed all of this out of my mind- whoosh, just like that, a nice feeling-and we moved toward the house.

“Notice those two different shades of red?” Nixon said.

“I did,” said Bernie.

“Too subtle?”

“No.”

“Cheers,” said Bernie.

“To the open road,” said Nixon.

They clinked glasses. We were at the kitchen table, Bernie on the bench seat, back to the wall, which was how he liked to sit, Nixon in Leda’s old chair, and me over by the floor vent, catching the AC. Yes to the open road, and what was wrong with right now?

“Goes down real nice,” said Nixon. “Bourbon?”

“Yup.”

“That your drink?”

“Guess you could say so.”

“Classy.”

“This isn’t the classy kind.”

Nixon took a sip, glanced at some pages on the table. “Don’t tell me you’re working on a screenplay?” he said.

Bernie shook his head. “Don’t even know how to read the goddamn thing.” He picked up a page. “What’s INT?”

“Interior,” Nixon said. “INT or EXT, lead item in every slug line in a script.”

“Slug line?” said Bernie.

Nixon leaned over, pointed to the top of the page Bernie was holding. “Right here, after Fade In. Fade in is how you start a movie. Then comes the first scene-interior, bedroom, night. After that, they put in what’s going on, like here-a man tosses in his sleep. Then see here? Cut to. That’s how they get to the next scene.”

“That’s a whole scene?” Bernie said. “A guy tosses in his sleep?”

“All depends on how it’s handled,” Nixon said. “Film’s a director’s medium-gotta keep that in mind. Take the cigarette lighting scene in Now, Voyager — what would that look like on the page? Zip. But on the screen… well, there are some things you never forget.”

“Now, Voyager,” said Bernie. “That’s Bette Davis?”

“Shit, yeah,” said Nixon. “And Paul Henreid-he did the cigarette thing.”

“Forgot you were a fan.”

“A fan of a particular period, Bernie. Ain’t been acting like hers outta Hollywood before or since.”

Bernie poured more bourbon in both their glasses. “What do you think of Thad Perry?”

“Zip.”

“I’m talking about his acting ability.”

“He don’t have no acting ability,” Nixon said. “Checked out any of his movies?”