“Where was I?” the mayor said.
“Too much respect,” said Vera.
“Right,” said the mayor. “And besides, he’s already got a babysitter in the form of that bejeezus bodyguard of his. Fine and dandy, but what we want you to do is keep watch on things from our lookout.”
“Keep watch on things?” Bernie said.
“Act as our eyes and-” Vera began.
“Vera?” said the mayor. “Did I ask for your help?”
Vera’s mouth got very small again. For no particular reason I tried to do the same with mine, got nowhere. Instead I opened it up nice and wide, stuck my tongue way out, actually touching the tip of the mayor’s tassel loafer, and then curled it back in. I tasted shoe polish, not bad at all, if on the tangy side for my taste.
“We want you to be our eyes and ears on this project,” the mayor said. “There’s some history of Thad Perry and illegal substances. That right, Cal?”
“Of every kind known to man,” said Luxton, from the shadows in the corner, everything about him indistinct except for his eyes. They were the probing kind.
The mayor rubbed his hands together again. “So,” he said. “Any questions?”
“Why me?” said Bernie. “And who’s paying?”
“Why you?” said the mayor. “Because I’m a bridge builder.”
The mayor was getting more and more interesting. We’d worked a bridge building case, me and Bernie, all about pilfering rebar, whatever rebar was, never clear in my mind, but the point was that the bridge building dudes had big hard hands and the mayor’s were small and soft. Did he wear gloves on the job? That was as far as I could take it.
“So you picked me because of you?” Bernie said.
The mayor sat back and his face, soft like his hands, hardened a bit. “Cal?”
“Sir?”
“He’s a hard-ass.”
“Pointed that out in preliminaries.”
“Maybe not with enough emphasis.”
Luxton dusted off his cowboy hat and put it on. “He’s a goddamn hard-ass and pisses a lot of people off, big- time,” he said. “Is that better?”
“Much,” said the mayor. He looked at Bernie. “As for who’s paying, my campaign fund’s running a convenient little surplus at the moment.”
“Meaning we’re working for you,” Bernie said.
“Not me personally,” said the mayor. “My office. Which really means you’re working for the men and women of the Valley.”
Bernie gets a look in his eyes when he’s having fun. It’s just the tiniest gleam, there and gone, so you have to be on your toes. But I’m pretty much on my toes all the time-it’s the way we’re built in the nation within, according to Bernie-so I didn’t miss it now.
“And the children?” Bernie said.
The mayor squinted at Bernie. Squinting, never attractive, in my opinion, is something humans do when they’re trying to see more clearly. Finally, he nodded and said, “Yes, and the children. Goes without saying. Children are our most important resource, Bernie.”
“Next to water,” Bernie said.
Silence. Then the mayor laughed and said, “I love this guy.” No surprise there: who wouldn’t love Bernie? “Don’t you just love this guy, Vera?”
Everyone turned to Vera. “He hasn’t said yes yet,” she said.
“Three grand a day plus expenses?” Bernie said.
“Also a five-thousand-dollar bonus if Thad Perry is incident-free when location shooting wraps,” Vera said.
“How long does that take?” said Bernie.
“They’ve scheduled twenty-one days,” Vera said.
“Yes,” said Bernie.
“You left out the two tickets to the premiere, Vera,” the mayor said.
“Black tie,” Luxton said. He came out of the shadows and handed Bernie a check. “This do for a retainer?”
Bernie glanced at the check, nodded, and tucked it away in his shirt pocket. Not that pocket, Bernie. We’d had problems with the shirt pocket in the past. Front pants pocket, always.
After another round of handshaking, we split. There were more chews in the mayor’s desk drawer-I didn’t lose the smell until we were in the elevator-but he didn’t open it again. I’m not greedy, although more is always better, stands to reason. As for the case, if it depended in some way on black ties then we were all right, on account of the single tie Bernie owned being black. But was it even actually a case? A puzzler to deal with some other time.
“What’s with you?” Bernie said.
Uh-oh. Had I been kind of clawing at Bernie’s shirt-specifically in the pocket area-and not just thinking about it? I put a stop to that pronto, sat up straight in the shotgun seat, alert and professional. But Bernie wasn’t mad, not at all-in fact, even though we were bumper to bumper on the freeway, he seemed to be in a great mood, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel like maybe to some music happening in his head, possibly one of our favorites like “Death Don’t Have No Mercy in This Land” or “Cry Me a River.”
“See what this means?” he said. “Banner year, big guy. In three weeks we’re going to rake in more than we made in the last… Christ knows how long. Have to check the spreadsheets.”
Please not the spreadsheets. Spreadsheets, whatever they are, get Bernie upset. Last time he ended up giving the laptop a smack, which is what led to the duct taping. Bernie’s very good with duct tape-if you ever visit us at our place on Mesquite Road, you’ll see lots of it.
We got off the freeway, crossed the railroad tracks-a cat was walking on one of the rails! like he owned the-“easy, Chet”-and pulled into Donut Heaven. A black-and-white sat in the lot. We parked beside it, cop-style, driver’s-side door to driver’s-side door. The window of the black-and-white slid down and our buddy Sergeant Rick Torres from the Valley PD Missing Persons Department handed over a coffee.
“Shaving cream on your neck,” he said.
Oh, that. Was it a problem? I was much more interested in the cruller crumbs in Rick’s mustache.
Bernie dabbed at his neck, checked his hand. “Damn. Was it there the whole time?”
“The whole time you were with the mayor?” Rick said.
“How do you know about that?” Bernie said.
“Word gets around.”
“But it just happened.”
“I’ve got spies everywhere,” Rick said. He looked past Bernie, over at me. “How you doin’, Chet? Got half a cruller left if Bernie gives the okay.”
Bernie’s eyes shifted, as though he was thinking it over. What was there to think over? Whatever half was, it had to be better than none. I have this low rumbly bark I can do that sends a message of much louder barking coming soon. The next thing I knew I was curled up on the seat, getting busy with the cruller. There are lots of great human inventions-the car being the best, of course-but the cruller’s got to be right up there.
“How’d the meeting go?” Rick said.
“You tell me,” said Bernie.
“Why they chose you for this I’ll never know,” Rick said. He sipped his coffee. “Although actually I do know.”
“Yeah?” said Bernie.
“Insurance.”
“Huh?”
“The insurance company asked for you specifically.”
“Me specifically?”
Rick nodded.
