Ramon gave Bernie a hard glare.
“Not selling you short,” Bernie said. “There may be more in your whole career-I’m just focusing on the ones revolving around Thad Perry.”
“You’re full of shit,” Ramon said.
“How about simplest one first?” Bernie said. “You killed Manny Chavez because he was skimming off the blackmail payments. The only way he could have done that without your knowledge was by telling Jiggs the amount had been raised and then pocketing the difference. So the question is, what put you onto him?”
Ramon turned his head and tried to spit, but only dry dust came out.
“All I can think of is that Jiggs called you to complain about the bump,” Bernie went on. “Was that it?”
Ramon gave him another one of those hard glares.
Bernie reached out, took hold of one end of the torn-off strip, held it lightly in his fingers. Ramon looked down, his eyes losing the glare real fast. Bernie tightened his grip just the littlest bit.
Ramon, his gaze locked on that knot in the Hawaiian shirt material, nodded his head. “Manny was a goddamn loser all his life.”
“But Carla was a winner,” Bernie said. His hand curled into a fist, the torn-off strip end lost inside. “How did she track you down? Through her friend Dina?”
“The hell with you,” Ramon said. “I got rights.”
Bernie started to pull.
“Stop,” Ramon called out. “Yeah, that was it, Dina. I was gonna have to-” He cut himself off.
“Kill her, too?” Bernie said. “But you ran out of time?”
Ramon said nothing.
“Which leaves us with April,” Bernie said. “She dumped Manny for Thad Perry, back when they were all kids. But you weren’t a kid-hard to imagine you as a kid ever. Also hard to imagine Manny feeling so humiliated he’d actually want to kill her. Unless some older buddy got him all stirred up.”
“He was a goddamn pussy,” Ramon said. “We-he-was just gonna throw a scare into her. But he went too far.”
“You’re saying Manny killed April?”
“Yeah.”
Bernie shook his head. “Don’t believe you.”
Ramon shrugged.
Bernie didn’t like that shrug; I could tell from his eyes. He yanked the end of the torn-off strip real hard. A red jet came pumping right out, the most powerful one yet. It struck Bernie in the face, ran down his chin, made him look so scary.
Ramon got scared through and through, no doubt about it. “You don’t understand,” he screamed. “The feel of the knife sliding in-I was just going to make a scratch. It was an accident.”
Bernie gazed down at him. Another red spurt: Bernie shifted his head out of the way, just like he was slipping a punch.
“Please,” Ramon begged. “Please.”
Bernie retied the knot, not quickly, but he did it. Ramon was making little whimpering sounds.
“Then you framed Thad for the murder,” Bernie said.
Ramon nodded.
“But Stine and Luxton started poking around,” Bernie went on, “and Stine was smart. For some reason Luxton alibied you out. Possibility one-you had dirt on him. Possibility two-you paid him off.”
“Everyone in Vista City knew Luxton was on the take,” Ramon said.
“So that was that?” Bernie said, wiping Ramon’s blood off his face with what was left of the Hawaiian shirt.
Ramon nodded again.
“Except for the nice bonus years later when Thad hit the big time,” Bernie said.
Ramon looked into some far-off distance. He’d lost all his color, making him sort of invisible, except for the dark eyes. “Couldn’t believe my goddamn luck,” he said.
Bernie and I each got stitches, took it easy for a day or so. Less than a day, in my case: taking it easy gets old pretty fast.
We had visitors. Lieutenant Stine, for example-although he arrived in a brand-new captain’s uniform, with all the gold. He had a whole case of bourbon for Bernie.
“Don’t want it,” Bernie said. “Don’t want anything from you.”
“Aw, come on, Bernie,” Stine said, softening that voice of his, normally so harsh and hoarse-sounding.
Bernie shook his head. “You used me as a cat’s paw.”
Whoa.
“I don’t like that,” Bernie said.
Well, of course not. Who would? Yes, Brando and I’d come to an arrangement, but no point pushing things too far.
Then there was Thad Perry.
“Can’t thank you enough,” Thad said. “And I’m sure Jiggs will want to thank you, too. Right now he’s on an extended vacation.”
“What’s this?” Bernie said.
“A check.”
“No, thanks.”
“Aren’t you even going to look at it?” Thad said. “There are lots of zeroes.”
“Nope,” said Bernie. In this business you get good at spotting tricks, and didn’t zero mean zip, nada, zilch? No way we were falling for that, me and Bernie.
“But I want to do something,” Thad said. “You… you redeemed me, man. And way less important, but it counts-you kept me out of the news.”
“Okay,” Bernie said. “Here’s what you can do-stop encouraging Leda about my son and the movie business. In fact, discourage her.”
“But why?” said Thad. “Charlie’s talented. Lars says that scene we did is the best thing in the film.”
“Can you get him to cut it?” Bernie said.
Thad laughed, like maybe he thought this was one of Bernie’s jokes. “You can’t be serious,” he said, “but I’ll try if you insist.”
Bernie sighed. “Just do the discouraging part,” he said.
The mayor’s office called and the mayor himself came on our speakerphone.
“Not sure of all the details, my friend, but the movie people seem very pleased with your work.”
“Uh-huh,” Bernie said.
“And what with Cal Luxton taking early retirement, I was wondering if you’d be interested in the job? Head of security for the mayor’s office, starting salary a hundred and-”
“Nope.”
After that, Bernie poured himself a stiff drink. “Some dark night let’s you and me pay Cal Luxton a visit.”
I looked out the window. It was night. But not dark enough? I didn’t get it.
We were back on our feet by the time Suzie flew in. I kind of remembered that things weren’t right between them, but you wouldn’t have known from their faces when they saw each other. We had a nice dinner out on the patio, the night cooler than any night we’d had in a long time, the sky so clear after the dust storm. We all gazed at the stars.
Suzie reached for Bernie’s hand. “Crazy to screw up the time we have for no good reason,” she said.
“Sounds like the beginning of a sappy song,” Bernie said.
“What?” said Suzie, withdrawing her hand.
“That’s a good thing,” Bernie said. “Sometimes there’s wisdom in sappy songs.”
Suzie looked surprised. Bernie took her in his arms. And just at that moment, when their lips were touching and I was thinking of doing something about it, barking started up in the canyon, beyond our back gate. Funnily enough, it sounded something like my own bark, but higher-pitched.
