Spencer Quinn - A Fistful of Collars

Did an inaugural spin mean one that ended up at Max’s Memphis Ribs, and pretty damn quick? Must have, because just about the next thing I knew, there we were at our favorite table, the one in front of the painting of the pink pig. I’ve only had one experience with an actual pig, and don’t want to go into it at the moment, or ever.

Cleon Maxwell’s the owner. We’d helped him out on a case once, the details escaping me, and he was also a friend of me and my kind-whether or not that’s the case is something I’ve known from the get-go with every human I’ve ever met.

“We didn’t order this,” Bernie said when a bottle of champagne arrived.

Cleon appeared at the round window in the swinging door that led to the kitchen, smiled, and waved at us, then disappeared. Things were always humming at Max’s. I lay under the table and worked on a rib, then another, and possibly one more. Up above, Bernie and Suzie were doing the same thing, plus drinking champagne. Water’s my drink.

“Who’s going to win the election?” Bernie said.

“Until a few weeks ago, probably the reformers,” Suzie said. “Now it’s too close to call-the mayor’s smart.”

“He is?”

“More like shrewd,” Suzie said. “The smart one’s his chief of staff. Wherever it’s coming from, he’s made some good moves lately.”

“Like the Hollywood thing?” Bernie said.

“You know about that?”

“I’m a player.” And then Bernie explained all about this new job we were on, or if we weren’t already on it, soon would be. One or two details seemed familiar.

“Thad Perry?” Suzie said. “Isn’t he from here originally?”

“Didn’t know that,” Bernie said.

“Did you meet the chief of staff?”

“Vera something?”

“Yes,” said Suzie. She seemed to be about to say something else but did not, just giving Bernie a quick sideways glance instead.

Soon after that came a struggle between Bernie and Cleon, Cleon saying dinner was on him and Bernie refusing. They arm wrestled over it-Cleon’s got these popping forearms, way bigger than Bernie’s-and Bernie won, as usual. But it took a long time and I missed the very end-arm wrestling gets me too excited and I ended up waiting with Suzie in the parking lot.

We spent the night at Suzie’s place. A nice crib, but I never sleep my best at Suzie’s. One thing about apartments: you’re not alone. There were people up above, a woman and a man. The man said, “What did you do with my pills?” and the woman said, “I didn’t touch them.” Clear as a bell-although I’ve seen humans miss ringing bells, too-but Bernie and Suzie didn’t seem to hear. And on the other side of Suzie’s wall there was a cat. He knew I knew, by the way, and also knew I knew he knew I knew, which is the maddening way it goes with cats, so no surprise that I had a restless night.

And was just settling down by the front door-Bernie and Suzie slept in her bedroom, door closed, fine with me this particular night, kind of a surprise-when I heard a car go by. Did it make a little ticking sound? Tick-tick-tick? I thought so. I rose and went to the window. Yes, a tick-ticking car, driving real slow, a dark car with darkened windows, all closed except one at the back. And poking out of that back window? The head of an enormous member of the nation within, an open-mouth dude with the angriest eyes and the longest teeth I’d ever seen; a real bad combo. The car sped up and vanished in the night.

You know what was on my mind the whole time?” Bernie said. We were on the street outside Suzie’s place and the Beetle, towing the trailer, had just turned the corner and disappeared from view. Its sound shrank and shrank, and then the entire Valley went quiet, which hardly ever happened.

I waited to hear what was on Bernie’s mind. At that moment a car towing a trailer a lot like Suzie’s drove up. A woman got out, glanced at us, then walked to Suzie’s door and fished some keys from her purse. She tried one or two, opened the door, and went inside.

“I was thinking of popping the question,” Bernie said.

A new one on me. Popping? I knew popcorn-not my favorite, on account of how it can stick between your teeth-and that was it.

“There’s a tide which taken at the flow,” Bernie said, not losing me at all, on account of the trip we’d taken to San Diego a while back-we’d surfed, me and Bernie! — so I knew tides were some trick of the ocean. Were we headed there again? Like now? A fine idea, but that was Bernie.

“On the other hand,” he went on, something he hardly ever says, because of this belief of his that if humans had more or less than two hands they’d think differently, or something like that, “a wedding means a happy ending only in the movies. In real life, real life goes on.”

Okay. Now I was lost, and completely. San Diego: yes? no? I didn’t have a clue.

“Come here, big guy.”

I moved closer to Bernie. He gave me a nice pat. His gaze was still on the empty intersection down the street. I let that slip from my mind and just concentrated on the pat. You can feel things in the hand of humans, things that are happening deep inside them. I felt what was happening inside Bernie.

We pulled into Vin’s Discount Liquors, which was in the West Valley, next to a strip club. Strippers: they crop up in our line of work, each and every one a fan of me and my kind. From time to time you run across a person who actually seems to prefer us, from the nation within, to their own, in the nation without, if that makes any sense. Probably not, but the strippers I’d met were all like that.

“You goddamn son of a bitch,” said Vin as we walked inside. “Not you, Chet, but the asshole you’re dragging along.”

He came around from behind the cash register and rolled toward us in his wheelchair real fast, long hair lifting off his shoulders in the breeze. Vin was another old army pal of Bernie’s, he had a massive upper body and below that a lower body easily covered by a small blanket. They shook hands, Bernie’s hand, which normally looked so big, lost in Vin’s.

“What’s doin’?” Vin said, reaching into his pocket and tossing a biscuit my way. I was ready, caught it in midair.

“Not much,” Bernie said. “You?”

“No complaints,” said Vin. “Lookin’ for something special, or your usual cheapo rotgut?”

“Maybe not rotgut tonight.”

“Yeah? Celebration?”

“More like the opposite.”

Vin laughed. “I know that one.” He waited, like maybe for Bernie to say more, but Bernie did not. Vin wheeled around, sped down the aisle, grabbed a bottle off the shelf, and returned.

“Maybe not bourbon strictly speaking, bein’ from Texas,” he said, “but nice toffee overlay, long, soft finish, big in the mouth.”

A woman stuck her head around the corner from the next aisle just as Bernie took the bottle from Vin. She gazed, blinked, and backed out of sight.

No idea what went down there, and no time to figure it out, because a moment later Vin had decided on a little tasting, and they’d opened the bottle.

“Remember that five-hour leave in Amsterdam?” Vin said.

“I try not to,” said Bernie.

“How tall was the blonde, do you think?” said Vin. “The one with the speargun.”

“Six three?”

“Nah,” said Vin. “Six six at the very least. Never ran so fast in my goddamn life.”

Bernie was silent for a moment. He sipped from the little plastic sampling glass. “It is nice,” he said.

We bought three bottles.

“Ship come in?” said Vin.

We were driving away from Vin’s when the phone rang. Bernie has it rigged so the voice of the caller comes through the speakers.