the Romanoffs’ anniversary. What a nice old couple, and we’d brought their runaway daughter back from Reno for them safe and sound, and at that party had there been an icy bowl-on a sideboard but well within my reach-full of tiny round black glistening things, that didn’t look like food but turned out to be…? No. I couldn’t quite remember.
“You’re a funny dude,” Jiggs said, although he didn’t laugh. “A funny dude who’s good with his fists. Don’t see that every day.”
“So?”
“So it’s a kind of surprise,” Jiggs said, “and I’m wondering what other surprises you’ve got in store for us.”
“Who’s us?” said Bernie.
“Me and Thad, who else?”
“You’re very loyal to him.”
“We’re cousins-I told you.”
“How does that work?” Bernie said. “Where’s the family connection?”
“My mother and Thad’s father were brother and sister.”
What was that? Something absolutely impossible to follow, that was all I knew.
“Where was this?” Bernie said, meaning maybe he was somehow staying in the picture. That Bernie! I just loved him.
“Back in Kansas City,” Jiggs said. “The whole family’s from there originally.”
“Where are they now?”
“Pretty much dead and gone.”
“Any family connections here in the Valley?” Bernie said.
Jiggs gave Bernie a long look. “Nope,” he said.
“How about old friends?”
“Nope.”
“Mere acquaintances, ships passing in the night?”
“What are you driving at?”
“You tell me,” Bernie said. You tell me: one of my favorites! We’ve closed a case or two with Bernie’s you- tell-me move; not actually closed, because that happens when I grab the perp by the pant leg, but just about.
“Got nothing to tell, my friend,” Jiggs said. “You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
Whoa. Had I heard that one from the mouths of humans before? You bet, and it used to floor me every time, but finally I realized they just don’t know much about chasing little critters, because what would be the point of barking up the tree where the critter isn’t? No member of the nation within would ever do that. Plus after the critter’s in the tree, it’s too late for barking. And why bark when you’re in chasing mode in the first place? Here I come, critter? What sort of technique is that? One more thing: humans don’t bark. Except for Mad Dog Dutwiller, of course, a perp I never want to think of again, so I won’t.
“Whatever you say,” Bernie said. “As long as you’re aware of your legal position.”
Jiggs went still, but not the relaxed kind of still. One of the legs of his stool creaked, sort of on its own, if that makes any sense. “Legal position?” he said.
“Specifically relating to the statute of limitations,” Bernie said.
“Lost me there,” said Jiggs. “Kind of weird-you losing me and threatening me at the same time.”
They stared at each other. I got ready for just about anything. Jiggs placed his hand on Bernie’s shoulder. Up until then, I’d always thought Bernie had real big shoulders.
“Now’s a good time for asking you what you asked me,” Jiggs said. “Whose side you’re on?”
Bernie shrugged his shoulder free. “I’m working for the mayor’s office. You know that already.”
“Doesn’t the mayor want this movie to be a success?” Jiggs said.
Bernie nodded.
“Then just do your job,” Jiggs said. “No more, no less. And it’ll all turn out peachy.” He rose. “Oh, almost forgot. Your son.”
“What about him?” Bernie said; his hands, which had been pretty relaxed, started curling into fists.
“They’re getting ready to shoot that scene,” Jiggs said. “Which is what I came to tell you, before we got off- topic.” He tapped his hand on the bar, then turned and walked out.
What side were we on? That was an easy one: we were on each other’s side, me and Bernie. We also had each other’s backs, which made it a little more complicated. As for peaches, Bernie’s mom had surprised him on her last visit by baking a peach pie. “What the hell do you mean I never baked when you were a kid?” she’d said, and then downed the rest of her G and T and gotten right to work, but there’d been an oven glitch leading to the end result being tossed in the trash-although with the lid left off, meaning I knew the taste of peaches, at least in the blackened state.
We-meaning me, Bernie, and Leda, plus a bunch of movie people-stood outside a kind of log cabin, except the roof and one wall were missing. Inside, the cameraman was mounted on a seat behind his camera, and Lars Karlsbaad was talking to Thad, who sat on a chair facing a bed. On the bed, wearing his Western outfit, lay Charlie, his cowboy hat on the pillow beside him. He looked dark-eyed and ashen, like he was real sick. I sniffed the air, smelled no sickness coming from Charlie’s direction. But sickness was in the room, no question, a thin, sour sort of invisible trickle that led straight to Lars. Hey! He had the same sickness as Mrs. Parsons. That surprised me, not sure why.
Lars stuck a cigar in his mouth. The clipboard woman hurried up with a lighter. “I don’t like the hat,” he said.
“Should I get props in here?” the clipboard woman said.
“The hat itself is fine,” said Lars. The clipboard woman looked confused. “It is the placement of the hat.”
“So…?” said the clipboard woman.
“So? So get props, of course.”
Props turned out to be a little dude with a dangling earring in one ear and a stud in the other, one of those human looks that bothered me a bit.
“Lars?” he said, running in.
“The hat,” said Lars. “Place it on his chest.”
“Right side up?” said Props.
“Unless we want to throw money in it,” said Lars.
Silence. Lars frowned. Then, a little nervously, the clipboard woman began to laugh. The corners of Lars’s lips turned up slightly. The laughter spread. Soon all the movie people were laughing their heads off.
Lars held up his hand in the stop sign. The laughter died at once.
“Back to the salt mines,” Lars said.
Props took the cowboy hat off the pillow, placed it right-side up on Charlie’s chest, and went away. Lars gazed down at Charlie. Charlie gazed back at him.
“Give me more,” Lars called out to a guy up on a ladder. The guy did something with a light. Charlie looked sicker.
“Still more,” Lars said. “Stops are for pulling out.”
What was that? There and gone, way too quick, and besides, I was still somewhat stuck on salt mines. We’d been in abandoned mines more than once, me and Bernie-gold, silver, even emeralds once, although there was just the one emerald, planted by a perp, the details murky, but not the point. The point was why bother digging for salt? Salt shakers were on every restaurant table I’d ever seen. I mean, help yourself.
The guy on the ladder did more fiddling with the lights. Charlie looked sicker and sicker.
“What the hell’s going on?” Bernie said in a low voice to Leda.
“Shh,” said Leda. “They’re creating.”
“Voila,” Lars said, a total puzzler. He rubbed his hands together, chubby, small hands. “We all understand the situation? Croomer has at last persuaded the sheriff to free the shaman and allow her to treat the boy with the special desert herbs.”
“Got it,” said Thad.
