gesturing, as though they were face-to-face; I liked that about them. “Hard to explain,” he went on. “I think there’s a word for it, maybe starts with P.”
“Protean?”
“Yeah,” said Bernie. His face softened and he looked about to say more, but did not.
“I don’t want his autograph, by the way,” Suzie said.
Bernie laughed again. Suzie was good at making him laugh, one of the best things about her. “You’re the only one,” Bernie said. He went still. I sensed stillness on the other end of the line, too, like they were both concentrating on what Bernie had just said. What was it again? When humans forgot things-Bernie’s mother being a great example-they liked to say that if it was important it would come back to them. Bernie’s mother, a piece of work: she called him Kiddo! But no time for that now. I was too busy waiting for whatever Bernie had just said to come back to me.
In the meantime, Bernie was now saying something like, “… remember you mentioning Thad Perry was from the Valley originally?”
“Or spent time there,” Suzie said. “Not sure which.”
“What was your source?”
“No source, really. It came up in conversation.”
“With who?”
“I’d have to think,” Suzie said. “Is it important?”
“Probably not,” Bernie said.
“Am I missing a story, Bernie?”
“There’s an irony.”
“Yeah,” said Suzie, all of a sudden much quieter. Something beeped on her end. “Have to take this,” she said.
After that, Bernie called somebody, maybe Rick, but I couldn’t be sure, on account of these dark clouds that came rolling into my mind-something that often happened when I lay chin-down on a soft rug-dark clouds that had this power of being able to make my eyes close.
It was night when we drove back into Vista City, the sky the normal dark-pink Valley night sky, the air smelling of grease; couldn’t have asked for more. We turned onto North Coursin Street, stopped in front of the house at the end of the block. It was dark, as were all the houses around, and none of the streetlights were working. Bernie shone the flashlight on the door, now crisscrossed with crime scene tape, and then back and forth across the yard, passing over the kid’s bike lying on its side and returning to it.
“Nobody claimed Manny’s body,” Bernie said. “And then there’s that bike.” He went quiet. “I don’t know, Chet. Forcing relationships-always the danger when there’s not much to go on.”
Danger? Did we back away from danger, me and Bernie? Not how things got done at the Little Detective Agency, amigo. So: no surprise when the next moment we were out of the car and crossing the yard. Bernie knelt down, took a close look at the bike, a rusty bike, I now saw, with a lopsided seat and twisted training wheels. I knew training wheels from back when Bernie and I taught Charlie how to ride. The fun we’d had with that! And old man Heydrich’s flower bed was now totally back to normal, just as Bernie had promised, that whole episode with the pitchfork being way over the top.
Bernie picked up the bike, carried it back to the car. He was just wedging it into the space behind the seats when a face appeared in an upstairs window of the house across the street, a lighter pink oval in the dark pink night. I barked this low rumbly bark I have for just between me and Bernie. He glanced up, not in time to see the face, but he caught the twitch of the curtain.
“Good boy,” he said.
All of a sudden, the night got breezy. We’d crossed the street and were just about at the front door of this other house when I realized my tail had started up behind me. Bernie says my tail has a mind of its own. What’s wrong with that? Two minds had to be better than one unless I was missing something.
Bernie knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again. No movement inside the house, probably because someone was already right there, on the other side of the door. Was Bernie aware of that? Maybe, because he took a bill from his wallet and stuck it in the letter slot.
“More where that came from,” he said, speaking in an easy, normal voice, like he was kicking back with some pals. That was just one of his techniques. I’ve got some myself. We’ve cleared a lot of cases, me and Bernie.
The door opened, real slow. A tiny woman with long, shiny black hair stood there, the money clutched in her hand and a little kid sort of behind her, clinging to her dress. They shrank back at the sight of us, or more likely at the sight of Bernie. He’s a pretty big dude.
“Tengo miedo de los perros,” the woman said.
“Huh?” said Bernie. “Uh, can we come in? I’d like to talk to you about-”
“No habla ingles,” said the woman.
“Ah,” said Bernie. “El cyclo? The bike? Es el cyclo de Manny Chavez, or…”
The woman frowned at Bernie, not getting him at all. Bernie took out another bill, held it up.
“El cyclo?” he said.
The kid-a girl, I saw, about Charlie’s age and not unlike this great little kid we’d come across once, down in Mexico-stepped forward. “Bicicleta,” she said. “Not cyclo. And it belongs to Nino.”
Bernie crouched down to her level. “Who’s Nino?” he said.
“Manny’s kid,” said the girl. “He lives with his mother.”
“Where?” Bernie said.
“I don’t know,” said the girl. She snatched the money right out of Bernie’s hand and slammed the door shut. A bolt banged into place.
THIRTEEN
We got in the car and drove off, turning at the end of the block, then turning again, and-was it possible? Yes! We were circling the block, one of our very best tricks. Tricks and techniques were pretty much the same thing: I’d figured that out early on in my career. You learned stuff in this business all the time, way too many to remember, so it was important to keep in mind… something Bernie often said, and might come to me later.
We parked in the dark shadows of a droopy-branched tree on the darkest part of North Coursin Street, on the other side from where the little girl and her mother lived and partway down the block. Then we just sat there, which was why this was called sitting on a place. We were sitting on that house, waiting for something to happen, doing our job. Once-this was at a speech he gave at the Great Western Private Eye convention, and just because all the pages kept getting away from him and fluttering down to the stage didn’t mean it wasn’t the best speech I’d ever heard-Bernie said, “There’s no point in poking a hornet’s nest if you don’t stick around to see what comes out.” I’d been sitting close to the Mirabelli brothers at the time-they run a shop in the South Valley-and they’d shared a look I hadn’t liked, maybe having to do with the possibility of getting stung-which actually had been my thought, too, but I’d abandoned it immediately. Who was better at this gig, Bernie or the Mirabelli brothers, with their big gold watches and sparkling pinkie rings? I don’t need to tell you. And in case you’re wondering, I’ve had more than one nasty encounter with hornets-lots more-maybe a story for another time.
Sitting with Bernie on a hot dark night, lots of desert dust in the air, and that Vista City backed-up sewage smell drifting by: I couldn’t have been happier. Bernie reached over and untangled the tag from my collar. I hadn’t even realized that it was twisted up: we’re a team, me and Bernie. He kept an eye on the house, actually both eyes. I kept an eye on the house and an eye on Bernie. We in the nation within have certain advantages, no offense.
Sometimes, like one night sitting on a bunkhouse from a ridge high above, we’d catch a few tunes while we waited, Elmore James, maybe, or Jamey Johnson-“Can’t Cash My Checks”; Bernie loves that one! — but not on this kind of inside-the-city job. There was still plenty to hear-a trash barrel getting knocked over a couple of blocks away, a plane somewhere high above the dark pinkness, and in the background the constant hum of the Valley, which could also get broken down into all the parts of the hum, and I was just starting in on that when I heard a car coming from the opposite direction.
