Spencer Quinn - A Fistful of Collars

“No.”

“He’s hype, Bernie, hype that walks and talks. Hype don’t get it done. Bette Davis had what gets it done.”

“Which was?”

“Hell of a question, Bernie,” Nixon said. “Hell of a question.”

He closed his eyes real tight, the way humans do when they’re about to take a swing at some very hard thinking. I always feel sorry for them at moments like that.

“Had much experience with mushrooms, Bernie?” he said.

“Nope,” said Bernie.

Whoa. Nope? Had he forgotten that huge and tasty mushroom we’d found in the woods on the Big Bear Case? And didn’t Bernie love to throw little white mushrooms on the barbecue when we grilled burgers? Which I hoped would be happening again real soon. I could just about smell them! In fact, with a little more effort, I actually… yes! I smelled burgers. I’d made myself smell burgers when there were none around-wow! What a life! Had something just been bothering me? Whatever it was: poof!

“Once on ’shrooms,” Nixon was saying, “-this was down in Mexico, bad idea as it turned out, but that came later-I was sitting by this campfire and all of a sudden I rose up out of the flames.” Nixon opened his eyes. “Not me, but this vision, you see what I mean.”

“Gotcha,” said Bernie.

“Only I was in black-and-white,” Nixon said. “Shimmering. Is that a word?”

“Think so.”

“I was shimmering,” Nixon said. “There was me, this real person, and then me, this unreal person-but cool, you know? — at the same time.” Nixon shrugged and went silent.

“That’s what Bette Davis had?” Bernie said. “Real and unreal at the same time?”

“You left out cool,” said Nixon.

They drank some more, in a no-hurry kind of way. Burgers, anybody? But there was no sign of burgers in the works, no sign of any kind of food at all in the near future, which is the only future that interests me.

“Do me a favor,” Bernie said. “Read this script and tell me what you think of it.”

“Who’s the writer?” said Nixon.

“Says on it.”

Nixon studied the top page. “Wild Horseman,” he said. “Screenplay by Arn Linsky. Never heard of him. What’s this all about?”

“They’re shooting it here in the Valley,” Bernie said. “The mayor’s making a play for the movie business.”

“Who’s the mayor, again?” said Nixon.

“Doesn’t matter,” Bernie said. “What matters is that he hired me to keep an eye on Thad Perry.”

“Good luck with that,” said Nixon.

“How about we swing by Suzie’s and take her for a test drive?” Bernie said.

Next thing I knew I was hopping into our new ride for the very first time. Up, up, and in there, a nice soft landing in the shotgun seat, a very comfortable shotgun seat covered in red leather, although red’s not supposed to be something I can spot, according to Bernie, so maybe it wasn’t. But the best shotgun seat I’d ever sat on: no doubt about it, even though a member of the nation within-namely Spike-had already done some sitting on it, too. But his smell would soon get overwhelmed by mine, the best smell in the world, if I haven’t mentioned that already-a heady mixture of salt, pepper, leather, with a soupcon-not of soup, that was a tricky one-but of a scent a lot like Leda’s mink coat; plus, to be honest, a topping of something male and funky.

Bernie turned the key, tapped the pedal, cocked his head to one side. “Maybe a little too noisy?”

No way!

And then we were off, out of our neighborhood, up onto the freeway, into the passing lane. Vroom! I sank against the backrest.

“This baby can fly!” Bernie said.

Or something like that, his voice drowned out by a siren. Then a motorcycle came whizzing up beside us, blue lights flashing, and we pulled over. But no problem: it was Fritzie Bortz, an old pal. He got off the bike, not without some trouble-Fritzie was a terrible motorcycle driver with lots of crashes on his record-and came up to Bernie’s side.

“Hey!” he said. “Bernie!”

“Hi, Fritzie.”

“And Chet-lookin’ good, Chet.”

So nice to see Fritzie. My tail started wagging.

“How’re things?” Fritzie said.

“No complaints,” said Bernie.

“New wheels?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Cool. Love those martini glasses-wouldn’t have bothered pulling you over otherwise. I was actually on my way home-haven’t had a day off since last Tuesday.”

“No one’s ever said you’re not a hard worker.”

“Thanks, Bernie. I do what I can.” Then he took out his ticket book, flipped a page, reached behind his ear for a pen.

“Fritzie? What are you doing?”

“Writing you up,” Fritzie said. “Might even make my quota on this-I had you at one-oh-three.”

Suzie lived in a garden apartment not far from Max’s Memphis Ribs, the best restaurant in the whole Valley, in my opinion, and not just because the owner, Cleon Maxwell, was a friend of ours and gave us two-for-one coupons, but mostly on account of those ribs: the juicy meat and then when you’re done with that-the bone! Was Max’s Memphis Ribs in our near future?

“Chet! What the hell are you barking about?”

Oops.

We drove down Suzie’s street. There are lots of garden apartments in the Valley, but Bernie doesn’t like any of them, those little lawns and plants always being the wrong kind, bad for the aquifer. Suzie’s yellow Beetle was parked out front and… what was this? Hooked to a small trailer? Bernie’s face changed. For a moment it looked sad, not something you often see from Bernie. Then he sat up straight and took a breath. That was Bernie making himself do what had to be done. His face went back to normal. We pulled up behind the trailer and hopped out, me hopping, and Bernie stepping out after a bit of a struggle with the door handle.

At that moment, Suzie came out of her house holding a lamp. She saw us and her face went through some changes, kind of like Bernie’s but different in a sort of female way, hard to describe. She lowered the lamp.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” said Bernie. “Didn’t think you were leaving till tomorrow.”

Had I known that? Did tomorrow count as near future? I wasn’t sure.

“Yeah,” Suzie said. “I’m just trying to get…” She made a little gesture with the lamp and it slipped from her hand and fell on the stone path, the shade-the multicolored glass kind, like they have in the lobby at Rancho Grande, Bernie’s favorite hotel in the Valley, and mine, too, no surprise-shattering into tiny pieces. They caught the light in a beautiful way and then Suzie was crying.

Bernie took her in his arms.

“I can’t do this,” she said.

Bernie patted her back. I kind of nudged at both of them, helping out in my own way. “Sure you can,” he said. “You’ve got the goods.”

“It’s not that.” Suzie drew back, wiping her face on her sleeve. “It’s you,” she said. “Us.”

“Um,” said Bernie. “I… uh, everything’ll turn out.”

“What do you mean?”

“For us.”

“How can you know that?”

Bernie shrugged. “I just do.”

They gazed at each other. Suzie’s eyes were dampening up again.

“Got a new ride,” Bernie said.

Suzie turned toward it. Eyes dampening, yes, but now a smile was trying to break out at the same time, one of those real complicated human looks.

“How about an inaugural spin?” Bernie said.

Normally, meaning pretty much always, the shotgun seat is mine, but on this particular occasion I hopped right up on that tiny shelflike thing in back. How come? No clue. Sometimes I just do things. One of Bernie’s rules is not to overthink. I’m totally with him on that. Perps fell into that overthinking trap all time. Take Fishhead Hobbs, for example, and that jewel heist he’d tried to pull at the Ritz. “Fishy,” Bernie said to him. “Don’t overthink.” But Fishhead had swallowed the emeralds anyway, so we’d had to spend the whole afternoon waiting in the hospital before collecting our reward from Mort Gluck, house dick at the Ritz.