Nixon Panero delivered our new wheels in person. Bernie and I had been watching out the window, so we were already outside when he pulled in the driveway.
“Whaddya think?” said Nixon, getting out and handing the keys to Bernie. Nixon eyed the back of the outside mirror, blew on it, buffed whatever was bothering him with his sleeve. “Turn heads or what?”
Bernie gazed at our new Porsche. “This, uh, pattern on the front fenders?”
“The martini glasses?” said Nixon. “Coulda upped the scale-I went back and forth on that. But guess what.”
“I give up.”
“I copied them right offa the shirt you were wearing the other day!” Nixon spat out one of those thin brown streams of tobacco juice. I toyed with the idea of licking the damp spot on the pavement and rejected it. “Moment of pure inspiration,” Nixon continued. “Didn’t see the point of running it by you. Knew you’d go for it-woulda bet the ranch.”
“Where’s the ranch?” Bernie said.
Nixon’s eyes and mouth opened wide at the same time, one of those human expressions I watch for. What does it mean? Not sure, but I’ve seen all sorts of unexpected things right after, including shouting, tears, and an airborne machete. “Whoa,” said Nixon. “I did bad?”
Bernie smiled. He has the nicest set of human teeth going, and the implant matches perfectly, in my opinion, no matter what anyone says. “Nah,” he said. “I love it. The constantly getting pulled over part will take getting used to, that’s all.”
“Didn’t think of that,” said Nixon. “But patrol guys know you, Bernie. Once a cop, always a cop.”
“Where’d you get that idea?” Bernie said.
“When I was in the pen,” said Nixon. “We talked a lot about cops, kind of the way dogs think about cats.”
“Dogs think a lot about cats?” Bernie said.
“Makes sense, don’t it?” said Nixon.
Then suddenly they were both looking at me. The subject was cats? At the moment, I had no interest in that at all. What I wanted was to take this new baby for a spin, see what it could do, and pronto. I gave myself a good shake, the kind that starts at my head, travels all the way to the tip of my tail and ripples back up again.
“Bet that feels good,” Nixon said.
“He wouldn’t be doing it otherwise,” said Bernie.
Well, of course not. Went without saying. But that hardly ever stops humans, no offense.
“Come on inside,” Bernie said. “I’ll cut you a check.”
“Twisted my arm,” said Nixon, which had happened once before, the night we took Nixon down, but why now? And in fact, no arm twisting took place. I pushed all of this out of my mind- whoosh, just like that, a nice feeling-and we moved toward the house.
“Notice those two different shades of red?” Nixon said.
“I did,” said Bernie.
“Too subtle?”
“No.”
“Cheers,” said Bernie.
“To the open road,” said Nixon.
They clinked glasses. We were at the kitchen table, Bernie on the bench seat, back to the wall, which was how he liked to sit, Nixon in Leda’s old chair, and me over by the floor vent, catching the AC. Yes to the open road, and what was wrong with right now?
“Goes down real nice,” said Nixon. “Bourbon?”
“Yup.”
“That your drink?”
“Guess you could say so.”
“Classy.”
“This isn’t the classy kind.”
Nixon took a sip, glanced at some pages on the table. “Don’t tell me you’re working on a screenplay?” he said.
Bernie shook his head. “Don’t even know how to read the goddamn thing.” He picked up a page. “What’s INT?”
“Interior,” Nixon said. “INT or EXT, lead item in every slug line in a script.”
“Slug line?” said Bernie.
Nixon leaned over, pointed to the top of the page Bernie was holding. “Right here, after Fade In. Fade in is how you start a movie. Then comes the first scene-interior, bedroom, night. After that, they put in what’s going on, like here-a man tosses in his sleep. Then see here? Cut to. That’s how they get to the next scene.”
“That’s a whole scene?” Bernie said. “A guy tosses in his sleep?”
“All depends on how it’s handled,” Nixon said. “Film’s a director’s medium-gotta keep that in mind. Take the cigarette lighting scene in Now, Voyager — what would that look like on the page? Zip. But on the screen… well, there are some things you never forget.”
“Now, Voyager,” said Bernie. “That’s Bette Davis?”
“Shit, yeah,” said Nixon. “And Paul Henreid-he did the cigarette thing.”
“Forgot you were a fan.”
“A fan of a particular period, Bernie. Ain’t been acting like hers outta Hollywood before or since.”
Bernie poured more bourbon in both their glasses. “What do you think of Thad Perry?”
“Zip.”
“I’m talking about his acting ability.”
“He don’t have no acting ability,” Nixon said. “Checked out any of his movies?”
“No.”
“He’s hype, Bernie, hype that walks and talks. Hype don’t get it done. Bette Davis had what gets it done.”
“Which was?”
“Hell of a question, Bernie,” Nixon said. “Hell of a question.”
He closed his eyes real tight, the way humans do when they’re about to take a swing at some very hard thinking. I always feel sorry for them at moments like that.
“Had much experience with mushrooms, Bernie?” he said.
“Nope,” said Bernie.
Whoa. Nope? Had he forgotten that huge and tasty mushroom we’d found in the woods on the Big Bear Case? And didn’t Bernie love to throw little white mushrooms on the barbecue when we grilled burgers? Which I hoped would be happening again real soon. I could just about smell them! In fact, with a little more effort, I actually… yes! I smelled burgers. I’d made myself smell burgers when there were none around-wow! What a life! Had something just been bothering me? Whatever it was: poof!
“Once on ’shrooms,” Nixon was saying, “-this was down in Mexico, bad idea as it turned out, but that came later-I was sitting by this campfire and all of a sudden I rose up out of the flames.” Nixon opened his eyes. “Not me, but this vision, you see what I mean.”
“Gotcha,” said Bernie.
“Only I was in black-and-white,” Nixon said. “Shimmering. Is that a word?”
“Think so.”
“I was shimmering,” Nixon said. “There was me, this real person, and then me, this unreal person-but cool, you know? — at the same time.” Nixon shrugged and went silent.
“That’s what Bette Davis had?” Bernie said. “Real and unreal at the same time?”
“You left out cool,” said Nixon.
They drank some more, in a no-hurry kind of way. Burgers, anybody? But there was no sign of burgers in the works, no sign of any kind of food at all in the near future, which is the only future that interests me.
“Do me a favor,” Bernie said. “Read this script and tell me what you think of it.”
