“He’ll meet,” Jiggs said, “but not there.”
“Where?” said Bernie.
Jiggs got a new look in his eye, like something was funny. “Behind the old Flower Mart,” he said.
We headed back down the mountain road, Jiggs in the shotgun seat, still cuffed to the door, which rested on his lap, and me on the shelf in back, not at my happiest. Boo Ferris raised the gate.
“You didn’t see anything,” Bernie said.
“I’m saving up for Lasik,” said Boo Ferris.
We drove through. Did Bernie make a quick call? Possibly to Rick? I was too caught up in staring at Jiggs’s neck-scratched up, but I’d seen way worse-to be sure. The shotgun seat was rightfully mine.
Before we got down to the valley floor, Bernie pulled off on a narrow track and parked at a lookout. Below us the city went on and on as far as I could see.
“What about Thad?” Jiggs said.
“What about him?” said Bernie.
“You’re separating us,” Jiggs said. “Meaning you’ve got something in mind.”
“Have you read the script?” Bernie said.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” said Jiggs.
Bernie did not reply. A little later a black-and-white appeared on the track, drove up beside us, parked cop- style. Rick looked past Bernie at Jiggs with the door in his lap.
“Hope you know what you’re doing,” he said.
“Makes two of us,” said Bernie.
Which had to be one of Bernie’s jokes. Of course he knew what he was doing. I was totally sure that the case, whatever it was about, exactly, couldn’t have been going better.
“… some out-of-the-way precinct,” Bernie was saying. “San Marco, maybe.”
“Fighting traffic coming and going?” Rick said.
“Ocotillo Springs, then, for Christ sake. Book him on something minor-”
“Drunk and disorderly?”
“Whatever you like. Then just hold him, no calls in or out till you hear from me.”
“What about his rights?”
“He’s waiving them.”
Jiggs stared straight ahead.
Bernie uncuffed Jiggs from the door, and Rick sat him in the back of the black-and-white, behind the cage. I hopped up into the shotgun seat, made myself comfortable. Meanwhile, Bernie and Rick had moved over to the railing at the edge of the lookout.
“Did you know Stine worked with Cal Luxton in Vista City?” Bernie said.
“That’s not news,” Rick said. “They hated each other.”
“How come?”
Rick shrugged. “Happens with partners sometimes.”
It did? What a crazy idea!
“Luxton’s connected,” Rick went on. “No way Stine ever would have made lieutenant if Luxton had stayed on the force. And no way he ever makes captain, not as long as Luxton’s in the mayor’s office.”
“Does Stine know that?”
Rick nodded. “Eats him up inside.”
THIRTY-ONE
What am I sposta do with that?” said Nixon Panero, his cheek bulging with tobacco chew.
Back at Nixon’s Championship Autobody. Spike came right over and gave me a nip. I gave him a nip. We nipped each other to our hearts’ content, which came sooner for Spike-a warrior, but getting older now, his face whiter than ever-than it did for me. He went and lay down in the shade of a jacked-up limo.
“Huh?” Bernie said. He was trying to give Nixon the door Jiggs had ripped off the hinges, but Nixon had his hands in the pockets of his greasy overalls and showed no sign of taking them out anytime soon.
“Fix it, of course,” Bernie said. “Can’t have Chet riding around with no door.”
“Know something, Bernie?” Nixon said. “You’re hard on automobiles.” He spat a thin stream of tobacco juice into an empty can that should have been out of reach but somehow wasn’t. I could watch Nixon do that forever. “It’s psychological,” he went on. “I made a study of this.”
“Of what?” Bernie said, shifting the door to a more comfortable position and maybe sounding just the tiniest bit irritated.
“Guys like you. You’re basically jealous of your car. It’s, like, perfection, and you’re flawed. So it figures you’d want to take it down a peg or two, even things up.”
Bernie was flawed? How? I couldn’t come up with a single way, and knew right then that this idea of Nixon’s made no sense. But funny thing: maybe Bernie himself didn’t realize that. I could sort of tell from this look on his face, a still look that meant he was having deep thoughts. When Bernie went still like that, I often found myself going still, too. The stillness went on for sometime, and then Bernie did something pretty amazing: he gave himself a shake! Yes! Just like a member of the nation within. He gave himself a shake, snapping out of the deep thoughts, and said, “So based on my psychological profile, you’re refusing to fix my car?”
“Exactly the opposite,” said Nixon. “Based on your profile, I’m gonna do it. But not with that door.” He gave the door a glance, shook his head. “Beyond my powers, Bernie. Hope you got it out of your system.”
There’s an old couch outside the front of Nixon’s shop. That’s where Bernie and I waited while the door got fixed, and while we were waiting a black car with tinted windows pulled up right in front of us. The driver’s window slid down and the driver looked out at us. Cal Luxton: with his swept-back hair, long sideburns, cowboy hat.
“Well, well,” he said. “This is serendipitous.”
“Yeah?” said Bernie.
“Running into you like this. Best mechanic in the Valley, of course, and you’re the type who’s in the know.” Luxton gave Bernie a long, slow look, the probing kind that made me uncomfortable. “Problem is, you’re not passing on that knowledge in a timely manner.”
“No?” said Bernie. Bernie giving real short answers like “yeah” and “no” was a sign of him being careful. I got ready to be careful myself, starting by gnawing on my leg. And what was this? Some kind of thistle? I went to work on it.
“We’re not paying you enough?” Luxton said. “That the issue?”
Now Bernie gave him a long, slow look right back. I just loved Bernie when he did stuff like that, and also when he didn’t. As for what it was all about, you tell me.
“I’ll pay it back if you want,” Bernie said. “Every cent.”
Whoa! That was what his long slow look was about? Paying back? With our finances being what they were, meaning a mess? Tin futures. Hawaiian pants. They swirled round and round in my mind until I began feeling pukey. I actually considered puking, went with making my mind a blank instead, which took less time.
Luxton smiled. “No one’s suggesting that,” he said. “What I’m looking for is better communication.”
“About what?” Bernie said.
“You’re supposed to be keeping an eye on things,” Luxton said. “Today’s on the shooting schedule and now I find out all of a sudden they’re not shooting. How come I didn’t hear it from you?”
“They forgot to run it past me,” Bernie said.
“Any idea what’s going on?”
“With what?”
“This schedule change,” Luxton said, his voice sharpening. He gave Bernie another one of those eye probes. “What else would I be talking about?”
“Search me,” Bernie said. “But it’s hard to know why they do anything, Cal. They’re artistic types, different from us.”
“How about the bodyguard, Nolan Jiggs-is he the artistic type?”
