I think my boyfriend is cheating on me.”

We should have walked away at that very moment, me and Bernie—or better yet run, our tails between our legs. Not so easy in Bernie’s case, since, maybe like you, he’s stuck with living a tailless life, poor guy. Imagine that! Actually, I can’t. The good news is that I’ve got enough tail for two, a strong, bushy, pleasing-to-the-eye tail that even has a mind of its own. Sometimes it wags me! Or just about. I’m not so easy to wag, being a hundred-plus-pounder and strong for my size, Bernie says. And not just Bernie: ask some of the perps up at Northern Correctional, although they may not have time for chitchat, what with being so busy breaking rocks in the hot sun. The point is we’ve taken down lots of perps here at the Little Detective Agency. Bernie’s last name is Little. I’m Chet, pure and simple.

This customer with the cheating boyfriend problem did not look like a perp. What she looked like was the kind of woman who has a certain effect on Bernie. A lock of her golden hair—mostly golden, that is, the roots telling a darker story—drooped down over one eye, and she flicked it back into place with a little shake of the head. That got Bernie’s attention, big-time. Why? I just didn’t understand.

“Well, uh, Sherry, is it?” Bernie said.

“Sherry Caputo. Lieutenant Stine of Valley PD recommended you. He’s my neighbor.”

“Very . . . thoughtful of him,” Bernie said. “The thing is, Sherry, that while I’m sorry to hear about your situation—”

“Tell me about it,” the woman said. “If he’s cheating, I’m going to wring his neck.”

“And if he’s not?”

Sherry blinked. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Her eyes shifted, sometimes a sign that human thinking was in the works. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she said.

“Right,” said Bernie. “Exactly. Glad you said that. The thing is, this isn’t really the kind of job we take on. Missing persons is more our line.”

“Stine said you’d say that. He also told me about the Hawaiian pants.”

Oh, no. Not that. Is there such a thing as being too brilliant? That’s the story of the Hawaiian pants. Bernie’s a big fan of Hawaiian shirts, the one he was wearing at the moment—with a pattern of hula-dancing mules—not one of my favorites. And this was in the early days with Bernie, before I’d even met a mule, namely Rummy, about whom more some other time, or never. Where I’m going with this is . . . is . . . right! The Hawaiian pants! One night, after a bourbon or two—or maybe more, but I don’t go past two, the perfect number, to my way of thinking—Bernie suddenly slammed his hand down on the table real hard and said, “Hawaiian pants! We’re rich!” At which point I’d taken off, running all over the house, darting into and out of every room, meaning the kitchen, Bernie’s bedroom, Charlie’s bedroom, the office, the front hall, the living room, not necessarily in that order—or any order! Who needs order? Especially when Bernie’s on top of the world. If Bernie’s on top of the world, I’m on top of the world. And when he’s not I still am! Or close. So round and round and round I flew, zigging and zagging, claws digging in deep, leaning into the turns so sharply that I almost—

“CHET!”

Better back up a bit. First, the bedrooms. In the predivorce days, Bernie’s bedroom was actually his and Leda’s. Then it was just Bernie’s, although the divorce hadn’t gone through yet. That was around the time I flunked out of K-9 school, something I’d rather not go into now, and gotten together with Bernie. After that came a real weird time when Leda moved back in—bringing their kid Charlie with her, of course—to give the marriage another try, as she told Bernie, or for another reason he found out later, something about prenup negotiations with the new guy, Malcolm, who made a pile of money in software and has very long toes. That was the period where I really got to know Charlie—“those two wild animals growing up together” as Leda said, although I didn’t quite get the reference. But that’s okay. Who has time to understand everything? Gotta live, too, right? Unless I’m missing something.

I was going to make some second point, but now it’s gone, and anyway we’re already way off course. So back to me, Bernie, and Sherry, sitting outside Senor Breakfast, a place we like near Valley College, Bernie on account of the coffee—“hottest in town”—and me on account of a line cook name of Rodrigo, who sends out bacon that somehow gets too burned for human consumption every time I’m around. Why don’t they like it real crisp? Just one of those puzzlers you run into in the human world.

Bernie set his coffee mug on the table. “What did Stine say?”

“About the Hawaiian pants?” said Sherry. “Just that you’re a real good detective and you’re not in a position to—that you’re anxious for work these days.”

“Anxious?”

“How about eager?”

Bernie gazed at her.

“Willing?”

Bernie nodded. Were we still on Hawaiian pants? Bottom line: our self-storage in South Pedroia was stacked to the roof with them, not one pair in the initial order having found a taker. What else? The second shipment was on a container ship, due any day.

“So what I’d like is some proof, one way or the other,” Sherry said. “What will it cost?”

“We’re not cheap,” Bernie said.

“Who’s we?”

“Me and Chet, of course.”

Sherry glanced my way. “The dog?”

“Correct.”

“Did he just eat all that bacon?”

Bernie checked the paper plate Rodrigo had sent out. It lay on the patio floor at Senor Breakfast, and at that moment I happened to be licking it clean. Bernie gave me a look. I gave him a look back, kept licking at the same time. Two things at once? I was on top of my game.

“His appetite, uh, sharpens a bit when the weather cools down,” Bernie said.

How interesting! I’d have to think about that. Leave it to Bernie to come up with something so brilliant. What would I do without him?

“He’s just sort of your pal?” Sherry said. “Follows you around while you work?”

“More the other way around,” Bernie said.

“Huh?”

“We’re partners—let’s leave it at that,” Bernie said. “And it’s eight hundred a day, plus expenses.”

“How does six sound?”

“Doable.”

Bernie agreed to that real quick, meaning six must be bigger than eight. Sherry was learning what so many had learned before her: namely, that Bernie was always the smartest human in the room.

“His name’s Ric—no K—Teitelbaum. He owns a recycling business in Mesa Negra.”

“Recycling what?”

“Oh, all sorts of stuff. I don’t really know. But it’s, like, worldwide, literally. I’m talking China and everything.”

Bernie nodded. He has all kinds of nods, meaning way more than we have time to go into at the moment. This particular nod was one you saw when he was having a good time. So we were having a good time? Start me up!

“How long have you been together?” Bernie said.

“Going out, you mean?” said Sherry. “About two months.”

“Not very long.”

“Maybe not in time. But in feelings. We’re serious, or at least we were until he started cheating. If he did, which is the whole point of this meeting.” Her eyes narrowed. “What’s that look on your face?”

“Look?” said Bernie.

I didn’t get it either. It was just Bernie’s normal face, the best face in the world.

“Like maybe you think I’m delusional,” Sherry said. “If I’m delusional, how do you explain this?” She held out her hand. A huge ring glittered and sparkled on one of her fingers. “Ric gave it to me Saturday night.”

“So you’re engaged?” Bernie said.

“Engaged? What would an engagement ring be doing on this finger?” She stuck up her middle finger, possibly to give Bernie a better view. “We’re talking four flawless carats here, Bernie.”

“Very pretty.”

“That’s an understatement.” She took a sip of coffee, the ring clinking in a pleasant way on the cup, then glanced across the street. “That your car? The old, beat-up Porsche?”

“I wouldn’t really say beat up,” Bernie replied.

“Ric’s got the biggest collection of Porsches in the state,” said Sherry.

“How many can he drive at once?” Bernie said.

“I don’t get it.”

I was with her on that. “Doesn’t matter,” Bernie said. “What makes you think he’s cheating?”

“This,” said Sherry, fishing through her purse and handing Bernie a little slip of paper.

“A credit card receipt?”

“From the Wagon Wheel Motel in Ocotillo Springs. It fell out of his pocket when he was taking care of the check.”

“At the restaurant?”

“Yes.”

“Saturday night?”

“I thought that was clear.”

“A . . . complicated evening,” Bernie said.

“I’m not paying you to tell me that,” Sherry said. “I’m paying you to find out what he was doing at that goddamn motel.”

“We’ll need a picture of him,” Bernie said.

She turned her phone so we could see. A smiling, fleshy-faced dude appeared on the screen. He had one of those mustache-and-chin-beard combos, not a look I find appealing, hard to say why.

“Want me to email it so you can print it out?” Sherry said.

“I’ll remember,” said Bernie.

Money changed hands, and in the right direction.

• • •

“Worldwide Recycling Solutions,” Bernie said. “Looks more like a junkyard.”

We were out in Mesa Negra, not the nicest part of the Valley, with junkyards out the yingyang. This one looked like the best of them to me, bigger than the others, rows and stacks of crushed and twisted metal going on and on, all enclosed by a high fence topped with razor wire. Could I leap it if I had to? Even though leaping is my very best thing, I wondered about that.

We sat in the Porsche, yes, a real old one, which is how we roll when it comes to Porsches, but in no way beat up, except for the dents you could hardly see. This was called sitting on a place, one of our best techniques at the Little Detective Agency. Another is grabbing perps by the pant leg, usually my job, except for that one time when Bernie . . . I’d rather not think about it. But I was still thinking about it and nothing but when a dude in oil-stained denims appeared in the junkyard. He opened the gate, and a big, bright yellow SUV came rolling through, the fleshy-faced, mustache-and-beard-combo guy at the wheel.

“Not a wallflower,” Bernie said. A bit of a puzzler, until I noticed a flower or two, dusty and droopy, growing out of pavement cracks by the Worldwide Recycling Solutions gate. They weren’t growing on a wall. Bernie, right as usual. And I was in the picture! We were off to a good start, whatever this was about. Cheating boyfriends? I don’t think we have that in the nation within the nation, which is what Bernie calls me and my kind. For some reason, my mind wandered back to a night when I’d caught the faint sound of she-barking from across the canyon behind our house on Mesquite Road. Faint, yes, but soon that she-barking was all I could hear, as though it was happening inside my own head. Does that sound scary? I promise you it wasn’t.

Meanwhile, we were following Ric Teitelbaum in his enormous yellow SUV. Bernie was the best wheelman in the Valley. Once, some gangbangers from south of the border had offered us big green if Bernie would drive a shipment of shrimp from one town to another down there. But the shrimp had turned out to be something else, as anyone with a nose could have told you, meaning Bernie had given the job a pass at the last minute, which had led to a bit of resentment on the part of the gangbangers. Forget all that, the gunplay part especially. The point is, Bernie was a great wheelman, could follow from just about anywhere, including in front of the dude, or even in front and going backward, which I’d seen once and didn’t want to see again. As for Ric Teitelbaum, there’d be no losing a ride like his.

“He never checks the rearview mirror,” Bernie said. “Tells you something right there.”

I waited to find out what it told us, but Bernie didn’t say. We followed from close behind, sometimes without even one car in between. Bernie reached over and gave me a pat. This case was going very well.

We crossed the Arroyo Seco Bridge, not even a trickle of water underneath. “How many aquifers have we got, big guy? One and one alone.” And soon we were in Pottsdale, one of the nicest parts of the Valley, with big houses, fancy stores, and lots of golf courses. “So goddamn green,” Bernie said. “Green comes from blue, and we’re running out of blue. How simple can it be?”

Green comes from blue? That’s what Bernie called simple? Just another example of his amazing brainpower.

Meanwhile, Ric Teitelbaum had turned onto a street we knew, namely the street where Livia Moon had her coffee place, Livia’s Friendly Coffee and More, the and-more part being the house of ill-repute in the back. That was where you’d find two very nice young ladies named Tulip and Autumn, both off-the-charts patters. I knew that coffee and blueberry muffins—quite tasty if you’re a muffin fan, which I’m really not—were for sale in the front, but I’d never seen anything for sale in the back and remained unclear on Livia’s business plan.

“This is an interesting possibility,” Bernie said.

But the yellow SUV didn’t even slow down. We left Livia’s Friendly Coffee and More behind and followed Ric Teitelbaum into the hills where the very nicest houses were. Up and up we went on a series of switchbacks, Ric Teitelbaum finally pulling into a long driveway lined with flowering bushes on both sides. He parked in front of a big sand-colored house with a red tile roof. We pulled over, mostly hidden by a saguaro at the side of the road.

“Eight mill, Chet,” Bernie said, taking out the camera. “Maybe more.”

Teitelbaum got out of the car. As he approached the front door, a woman in jeans, T-shirt, and baseball cap rose from her work in a nearby flowerbed, came over, and gave him a kiss. It would have been a mouth kiss, but Teitelbaum turned his face and ended up getting kissed on the cheek. He went into the house. The woman stood still for a moment, a bunch of weeds in her hand. Then she returned to the flowerbed and got busy with the trowel.

“Looks like an older version of Sherry,” Bernie said, squinting into the camera. “Don’t tell me she’s Sherry one point O,” he added, losing me completely. We hit the road.

• • •

“We’ve got news,” Bernie said. “Not good.”

We were back at Senor Breakfast at the same table as before, me, Bernie, and Sherry the client. Bernie spread nice big blowups of the photos on the table, then looked up at Sherry.

She took one quick glance at them. “What the hell?” she said. “I didn’t mean her.”

“Huh?” said Bernie.

Sherry pointed to the woman who’d been gardening outside Teitelbaum’s house. “That’s Annika. How can he be cheating with her?”

“Sometimes there’s no explaining what a guy sees in—”

Sherry raised her voice. “Annika Teitelbaum, for Christ sake. She’s his wife.”

“Ah,” Bernie said. And then, “uh” followed by “um.” That was the moment I began to have doubts about the case. I moved closer to Bernie, leaned some of my weight against his leg, just to remind him of who had his back. The table got a bit unsteady for some reason, but Bernie caught it before it flipped right over and soon had all the photos nicely lined up in place again. “Your meaning being,” he said, “that you suspect there’s a third woman?”

“Oh my God!” said Sherry. “Isn’t it obvious? Have you forgotten about the motel receipt already?”

“Not quite yet.”

“Bernie? Do you want this job or not?”

“I actually do.”

“What does actually mean?”

“Nothing,” Bernie said. “Can I ask what line of work you’re in?”

“I’m an event planner. Here’s my card, in case you’re the entertaining type.”

Bernie the entertaining type? Yes, and big-time. There’s no one more entertaining than Bernie.

• • •

“Geronimo camped right here in Ocotillo Springs,” Bernie said. “Sometimes I wish he’d won.”

Geronimo? A new one on me. A loser of some kind, possibly wearing an orange jumpsuit, but it was clear that Bernie liked him. No surprise there: we liked a lot of the perps we’d put away, me and Bernie. I made what Bernie calls a mental note to give Geronimo a nice big lick if we ever met. But mental notes can be tricky. For example, although I’d made many mental notes in my career, none was coming to me just now. Whoa! Not even the one I’d just made! I was on fire, in a way.

We drove through the little town—a town like lots of little towns down near the border, with one main street, a few bars, a few art galleries, and the rest empty storefronts—and came to a motel with a wagon wheel out front. Bernie turned into the lot.

“Now we just need some cock-and-bull story to feed the manager.” I was hoping I hadn’t heard that right when Bernie said, “How about Ric and I are old college buddies and . . . no, that’s no good.” He went silent. We parked under a big eucalyptus, sat in a world of minty smell, a smell that made me relaxed and alert at the same time. What a nice feeling! Cocks were roosters, if I was getting this right, and bulls were bulls, neither one a personal favorite of mine, the combo making it worse. But I forgot all about that in the lovely little eucalyptus world.

There were a few cars in the lot, but no people around. Then a small red car came zipping in and parked at the far end of the motel. A young woman hopped out and headed right to the nearest door.

“Whoa,” Bernie said. “Is that Sherry?” He took off his shades, squinted at her. “Nope,” he said. “But an awful lot like her, especially how Sherry must have looked ten or twelve years ago.” The woman took out a key, let herself into the motel room, Bernie snapping a picture just before the door closed.

Bernie put his shades back on. I really wished he wouldn’t, shades on humans bothered me in general, and in particular on Bernie. “How about we call her Sherry Three Point O if you see where I’m going with this, big guy.”

I did not. Did that frustrate me? Not a bit!

A breeze rose up, blew a tumbleweed ball across the lot. I’ve chased after tumbleweed in the past, always successfully. But then what? That’s the problem with chasing tumbleweed, so I stayed put. Another tumbleweed went wafting by. Tumbleweed? How exciting! I was getting all set to jump out of the Porsche and show that tumbleweed what was what when another car rolled into the lot, and not just any old car but an enormous yellow SUV.

“Here we go,” Bernie said.

The yellow SUV parked beside the small red car, and Ric Teitelbaum got out. He hitched up his belt—hey! One of those concha belts, maybe the most glittering I’d ever seen. Wouldn’t it look nice on Bernie? I checked Bernie’s belt, saw he wasn’t wearing one, his blue jean belt loops empty. Meanwhile, Teitelbaum took out a key—click went the camera—and let himself into the same room Sherry Three Point O had entered, if Sherry Three Point O was indeed the name of the young woman. An odd name, but if Bernie said she was Sherry Three Point O that was that.

Bernie checked his watch. “Six Cs, Chet, record time.” He was putting the camera back in the glove box when a shiny black sedan turned into the lot and parked at the far end, nose out, just like us. The dude at the wheel just sat there, also just like us.

“Could it be?” Bernie said.

Yes, a familiar-looking dude—you didn’t see sideburns like that every day. I was just about to place him when a member of the nation within rose into view on the passenger seat of the shiny black sedan, gazing around kind of blankly, like a napper emerging from a long spell of shut-eye. This particular napper had his upper lip stuck on one of his teeth in a way that twisted up his whole face, not the most appealing face to begin with.

“Maxie Bonn,” Bernie said. “And what’s the name of his pal? Barko?”

Yes, Barko. We came across each other from time to time, Maxie “Auto” Bonn and Barko being in the business. Once Barko had almost got up the nerve to challenge me. He was smarter than he looked.

“Wasn’t aware they worked this far south,” Bernie said. We sat where we were, in the shade. Maxie “Auto” Bonn and Barko sat where they were, in the sun. “If they’re working,” Bernie continued after a while. “But what else would they be doing?”

I had no idea. All I knew was that neither of them looked our way, not once. Was that the way to run things in this line of work? I’m sure you know the answer to that one. Meanwhile, Maxie’s head was tilting down and down, until his chin rested on his chest.

“Ever think of them as a mirror image of us, big guy?”

I most certainly did not. Barko yawned a huge yawn, finally freeing his upper lip and untwisting his face. He sank back down out of sight.

“A funhouse mirror,” Bernie said, losing me completely. He took a picture of the small red car and the yellow SUV and was pointing the camera at the door Ric Teitelbaum and Sherry Three Point O had entered when it opened and Teitelbaum came hurrying out, fully dressed except for the concha belt. He strode red-faced over to Maxie’s car. Now was when Barko would spring into action, waking Maxie up at the very least. But no. Maxie slept on, Barko remaining out of sight.

Teitelbaum went to Maxie’s side of the car, pounded on the roof. Maxie’s head jerked up and he looked around wildly. Barko rose slowly into view again, licked his muzzle.

“Goddamn peeper!” Teitelbaum shouted. He glanced around, maybe saw us, and lowered his voice. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Maxie said something unfriendly, but the wind had come up, and I couldn’t make out the words. Teitelbaum grabbed Maxie by the throat and said something even unfriendlier. Maxie raised both his empty hands nice and high and changed his tone completely. They had some chitchat. Bernie snapped some more pictures. Then Teitelbaum took out his wallet, counted out a wad of money, and kind of threw it at Maxie. Teitelbaum turned, strode back toward the motel, and was almost there when he realized his zipper was still undone. He zipped it back up and went inside the room.

“His timing’s off,” Bernie said.

Maxie got the money all straightened out, counted it—his lips moving, though I couldn’t hear him—and stuck it in his inside jacket pocket. At that moment, Barko suddenly looked our way, saw me, and began barking his head off.

“Shadap,” said Maxie, starting his car and driving out of the lot, not once glancing in our direction. Barko kept up the barking until they were out of sight, and even after. I’d forgotten that bark of his. There was something metallic about it, rather unpleasant to my ears. Bernie let go of my collar. When had he taken hold of it? Why? I could feel this case, whatever it was, taking a strange turn.

“Easy, big guy.” How nice, the way Bernie said that! I sat up tall, a total pro, on the job, ready for whatever was coming next, which turned out to be Bernie cranking the engine and driving us out of the Wagon Wheel Motel parking lot, the same way that Maxie and Barko had gone. I could see the shiny black sedan far ahead on the long, straight desert road. We got a little closer, but not too close. That seemed right to me. Bernie was the best wheelman in the Valley, as I may have mentioned already.

• • •

“Ripples,” Bernie said after a while. “You throw a pebble into the water and the ripples start up. But which one do you follow? Ever think of our job that way, chasing after ripples?”

What was this? We were going swimming? A bit of a surprise, but a very good one. Not long ago we’d been out in San Diego on a case about which I remembered nothing except for the afternoon we’d spent at the beach. We’d surfed, me and Bernie! I loved swimming, which is simply trotting through the water. Did you know that? Anyone can do it! Other than the fact that there was no water in sight, we were cooking.

We followed the shiny black sedan up into some hills, interesting scents flowing by at high speed—greasewood, javelina, snake, and all kinds of poop, which I won’t bother sorting out for you now, although I lost myself in sorting them out at the time, not snapping out of it until we came down out of the hills and onto the freeway. Maxie, a few cars ahead, checked his rearview mirror from time to time but didn’t see us, two lanes over on the other side, just one of our techniques at the Little Detective Agency. Barko was out of sight, except for the tip of a pointy little ear, pressed against the passenger-side window. Soon we were back in Pottsdale again, Maxie driving slowly down the street where Livia Moon had her place. And what was this? Maxie was stopping in front of it? Bernie pulled over real fast, parked behind a truck. Maxie walked into Livia’s Friendly Coffee and More, Barko left behind, pawing at the glass, the window cracked open but not much.

“How about we go around to the back?” Bernie said.

Sounded good to me. We’d had success with going around to the back in the past, except for once on a movie set where the bar actually hadn’t had a back. Bernie drove down an alley and turned into the small parking lot behind Livia’s place. We hopped out of the Porsche, me hopping, Bernie maybe limping just the slightest bit, which sometimes happened after a long drive. It was all on account of his war wound, which he never talks about, so I won’t mention it either.

We knocked at the back door of Livia’s place, Bernie doing the actual knocking. A round blue eye appeared in the peephole and then the door opened quickly, revealing a friendly-looking young woman in a small black dress.

She clapped her hands together. “Oh my goodness—Chet! And even more gorgeous than I remembered.” And then she was giving my head the kind of pat that stops time in its tracks, if that makes any sense.

“Hi, Tulip,” Bernie said.

Tulip—the best patter I’d ever come across, with the possible exception of her coworker Autumn—looked up at Bernie. “Barnie, was it?”

“Bernie,” said Bernie, looking not too pleased about something, but I couldn’t think what. “Is Livia around?”

“I’ll check.”

And not long after that we were in Livia’s comfortable living room, me lying on a soft rug and working on a thick chewy, the top of my head still all tingly, Bernie on the couch, and Livia—who’d given Bernie the longest welcoming hug I’d ever seen—over at the bar fixing drinks.

“You’re looking just great, Bernie,” she said over her shoulder.

“You, too,” said Bernie.

“With all this weight I’ve put on?”

“It suits you. Uh, I mean, um, of course you haven’t, but if you did one day in the future put on a pound or two, then . . .”

Livia laughed, a lovely booming laugh that filled the room. “Still the charmer,” she said, bringing the drinks—bourbon for Bernie, something with gin for her, gin being one of the easiest smells out there, and water for me.

She sat down beside him, quite closely beside him. They clinked glasses.

“How’s life?” Livia said.

Bernie sipped his drink, said nothing.

“Divorce come through?” Livia said.

“While back.”

“And?”

Bernie shrugged.

“What’s your boy’s name? Charlie?”

Bernie nodded. She gazed at the side of his face. He looked down at his drink.

Livia patted his arm. “A nice name,” she said. “Solid. I’m no fan of these crazy fly-by-night names.”

“Like Tulip?” Bernie said. “And Autumn?”

“Those aren’t their real names, silly.”

“No?”

“Marketing, Bernie, for God’s sake! We’re selling something here.”

Just as I’d always suspected. But what was it? I waited for Livia to fill me in.

“I knew that,” Bernie said. “I just didn’t realize . . .”

She patted his arm again, higher up this time. “Of course, we’re not selling to you, Bernie,” she said. “Anything you want is on the house.”

“Uh, very hospitable of you,” Bernie said.

“Hospitable, hell. You saved my ass that night back in Texas.”

“A long time ago.”

“I don’t forget.”

Bernie put down his drink. “Truth is, I’m interested in a customer of yours. I think he’s here at the moment.”

Livia put her hand to her chest, strings of pearls looping over her fingers. “Not the mayor!”

“No.”

“Phew.”

“Actually someone in my line,” Bernie said. “Name of Maxie Bonn.”

“Auto?” said Livia. “He’s in number three.”

“A good customer?”

“Only when he’s flush, which is hardly ever. Do you want me to . . . interrupt?”

“I’ll wait.”

Livia checked her watch. “He won’t be long.”

• • •

We went upstairs, walked past a couple of doors. Bernie opened the next one, and there was Maxie, alone in a bedroom that was pretty much all bed, humming to himself and zipping up his pants. Zippers done up and undone seemed to be a feature of this case, not an entirely new development in our business.

Maxie stopped humming and whipped around to us. “Bernie Little? What the hell are you doing here?” He glanced past us, out into the hall. “You’re, uh, next?”

Bernie closed the door. “Feeling flush, Auto?” he said.

“Huh?” said Maxie. “And I prefer Maxie, all the same to you.”

“Livia runs a class establishment, not cheap. So you must be doing well these days.”

“Up and down,” Maxie said.

Bernie nodded his enjoying-himself nod. What was enjoyable at the moment? I had no idea, but went into enjoyment mode anyway. Why not?

“Working on anything in particular?” Bernie said.

“This and that.”

“This and that ever take you down to Ocotillo Springs?”

“Ocotillo Springs?” Maxie said, putting on his jacket. “Haven’t been there in years.”

“Then maybe we’re in a time warp,” Bernie said.

“Not following you, Bern.”

Uh-oh. Bern? We didn’t like that at the Little Detective Agency. Bernie took the camera from his pocket, moved toward Maxie. I went with him, actually a bit in front.

“What’s going on?” Maxie said. “Is this damn dog of yours about to attack me?”

“His name’s Chet,” Bernie said. “And why would he want to attack you? For leaving Barko in the car with the window barely cracked open?”

“Huh?”

I was with Maxie on that. I really didn’t know why I wanted to attack him; it just seemed like a good idea, pure and simple. Isn’t that enough?

“All we want is for you to take a look at this,” Bernie said, fiddling with the camera. He turned it so Maxie could see the screen.

Maxie’s eyes shifted to the screen. Then they narrowed, and they were narrow to begin with—extra-unfortunate considering those sideburns, a bad combo for some reason.

“Where the hell were you?” Maxie said.

“That’s not the question,” said Bernie. “The question is, what were you doing there?”

“Why is that any of your business?”

“Also not the question. Start with how much money changed hands in that parking lot.”

“Who said money changed hands?”

“You can see it in the photo, Maxie.”

Maxie batted the camera aside with the back of his hand. “Nice running into you, Bern, but I’m running late.” He took a step toward the door. Bernie put his hand on Maxie’s chest and gave him a push—nowhere near a hard push, compared to what Bernie can do, but Maxie fell backward on the bed.

He—how to put it? Cowered, maybe? Close enough. Maxie cowered on the bed, a bed on which I now seemed to have my front paws. “Lay a hand on me and I’ll call the cops,” Maxie said.

“So they can arrest you for blackmail?” Bernie said.

“Blackmail?”

“Isn’t that what we’re seeing in the photo? A payoff?”

Maxie licked his lips. He had one of those whitish tongues you sometimes see in a human, not my favorite. Whitish tongue, narrow eyes, long, bushy sideburns: it was adding up in a way that made me suddenly pukey. But I’m a pro, and pros get a grip. “I’m not sayin’ nothin’,” Maxie said.

“Have it your way,” Bernie said. “I’ll go right to the source.”

“Source?”

“Meaning Ric Teitelbaum, Maxie. This is one of those times in your life when you’ve got to try to keep up.”

“You, uh, like, know Teitelbaum?”

“What do you think?” said Bernie. The what-do-you-think? technique! One of my very favorites, and I hadn’t seen it in way too long! Who wouldn’t love Bernie?

Maybe Maxie Bonn, from the look on his face. “I’m no blackmailer.”

“Come on, Maxie. What about that time with the cross-dressing blacksmith down at the Old Western Studios?”

“No charges got filed,” Maxie said. “And how do you even know about that?”

“I’ll have to check the statute of limitations on blackmail in this state,” Bernie said. “Unless you’ve got it at your fingertips.”

I checked Maxie’s fingertips. Kind of soft-looking compared to Bernie’s. Relying on Maxie’s fingertips had to be a dead end, unless I was missing something.

“Okay, okay,” Maxie said. “I wasn’t blackmailing Teitelbaum.”

“Then why the payoff?”

Maxie opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “This has to be confidential.”

“A common preamble, Maxie. You must have heard it yourself. It means nothing.”

Maxie sighed a big sigh, pulled himself up into a sitting position. “Why is the world so fucked up?”

Bernie said nothing. He glanced over at me. Did a quick little smile cross his lovely face, there and gone? My tail started up, not in that wild way where it takes over, more of a gentle flicking back and forth. Bernie turned back to Maxie, watched him in a patient sort of way.

“The payoff was for dropping the case,” Maxie said.

“You were sitting on Teitelbaum?”

Maxie nodded.

“Who’s the client?”

“Can’t ask me that, Bern. I’ve got my professional pride.”

“Sherry One Point O?” Bernie said.

“Huh?”

“Meaning Mrs. Teitelbaum.”

Maxie was silent for a moment or two. Then he said, “If you know, why ask? And her name’s not Sherry whatever. It’s Annika.”

Bernie made a little clicking sound. That meant we were out of there. As we headed for the door, Maxie called after us, “Hey! I cooperated. That’s gotta be worth something.”

“We’ll slip Barko a treat,” Bernie said over his shoulder.

Whoa! What was this? A treat for Barko? Or had Bernie said Chet the Jet and somehow I heard Barko instead? I got a bit . . . agitated. Wouldn’t you? Maybe you’d try to think of something else, but how could you when all that was going on in your head was treat, treat, treat?

And then out in the parking lot behind Livia’s Friendly Coffee and More—treat, treat, treat—things went from bad to worse, an expression I finally understood when Bernie popped the trunk on the Porsche and took out my extra-large-size box of extra-large-size biscuits. He walked around to the street, went up to the shiny black sedan where Barko now had his nose poked through the narrow window opening and said, “Hey, Barko!”

Was this really happening? Or was I in a dream, the very worst dream of my life, even worse than the one where I leap over our back gate on Mesquite Road, on my way to that she-barker across the canyon, only to land in a deep pit writhing with snakes. And why did I have to remember that horrible snake pit dream now, at a time when I was already . . . agitated? Yes, agitated, I admit it. But not as agitated as I got the next moment when Bernie reached into the box, said, “Here you go, fella,” and stuck one of my extra-large biscuits—the biggest and tastiest in the box, I just knew it!—through the window. Barko grabbed it faster than any biscuit grab I’d ever seen, then whirled around and settled on the driver’s side, out of range of any possible character who had a mind to snatch that biscuit away. I’d have done the same thing myself. That wasn’t the point. The point was that Barko was chewing on my biscuit. They were all my biscuits! Sometimes you don’t think. You just do. So I did.

“Chet! What the hell?”

Things have a way of suddenly speeding up in this life, or at least in mine. By speeding up I mean going faster than you yourself—meaning me, in this case—can actually go, if you see what I mean. No problem if you don’t: I don’t either, really.

“CHET!”

And then you’ve just got to go faster than you can go. What choice is there? So that’s what I did out on the street in front of Livia’s Friendly Coffee and More. Somehow I had that whole box of biscuits in my mouth. Have I mentioned that already? More like an edge of the box, to be more accurate—no way a mouth, even a big one like mine, could take in a whole extra-large-size box of extra-large-size biscuits. My plan was to . . . was to . . . Never mind plans! Full speed ahead! I zoomed my very fastest, claws ripping into the pavement, the air full of biscuits streaming by. What a life! Had I ever . . . Biscuits streaming by? I came to a shuddering stiff-legged stop, looked back, and saw a trail of biscuits leading all the way down several blocks to Livia’s Friendly Coffee and More.

Not long after, I was in the car. The top was up, kind of strange since the monsoons were long gone and the sky was clear. Also the windows were up, not fully closed, of course, and Bernie had left much more than a mere crack, so fresh air flowed pleasantly in, but still: what was going on? I had a nice big yawn, eyed the activity outside, which was all about Bernie—plus Autumn and Tulip in their little black dresses and stiletto heels—picking up a whole bunch of what seemed to be biscuits that had somehow scattered themselves around. My eyelids got heavy.

• • •

Back at Senor Breakfast at what I now thought of as our table, me, Bernie, and Sherry the client. Bernie didn’t say anything, just spread the new blowups on the table.

Sherry gazed at them. She picked one up. She put it down. She picked it up again. “These are real?”

“Afraid so,” Bernie said.

“What’s her name?”

“I can find out if you want.”

“I don’t care,” Sherry said. “But what can he possibly see in someone like her?”

“Because she’s so young?” Bernie said. There’s a little wince that sometimes crosses Bernie’s face—the best face in the world if you like a certain kind of rough-looking face, and I do—when he . . . how does he put it? Wishes he had that one back? Something of the sort. I saw that wince now.

“Who said anything about young?” Sherry said, her voice rising sharply. “Can’t you see what a piece of trash she is?” She shoved the photo at Bernie.

“Well, um, eye of the beholder and . . .”

“Trashiness is in the eye of the beholder? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Maybe not,” Bernie said. “Sorry this didn’t have a happier . . .”

“Not your fault, for God’s sake,” Sherry snapped at him. “In fact—” She reined in her voice a bit. “In fact, you did your job, just as Stine said you would. What do I owe you?”

“You paid six hundred. It took a day. So we’re done.”

“What about expenses?”

Bernie shook his head. Bernie! The fill-up? Lunch? But he didn’t go there.

“I thought I’d want to kill him,” Sherry said. “But I don’t.”

“Good,” said Bernie. “He’s not worth it.”

“How the hell would you know?” Her voice rose again. “I suppose you think I was just after his money?”

“Oh, no, certainly not,” Bernie said. “Never crossed my—”

“I’ve got news for you—that was only part of it. Ric’s the most vital man I ever met.”

“Vital?”

“Alive, Bernie. He built an empire.”

“What empire?”

“Worldwide Recycling Solutions. I already told you. They’re in thirty-nine countries.”

“He’s all about recycling,” Bernie said.

“Huh?”

Bernie rose. “You can keep the photos.”

“Don’t want to kill him,” Sherry said, “but how much for you to shove them down his throat?”

“Ten billion,” Bernie said.

Wow! This was it, the big score at last! But it didn’t happen. We walked out of there with the photos, and that was it.

• • •

“Not a bad day’s work, Chet,” Bernie said. Back at home that evening, enjoying an after-dinner drink, water for me and a nice big bourbon for Bernie. “If a little confusing at times. I’m getting a strong feeling that I’ve never understood the first thing about men and women.” He took a sip, actually more like a pretty big hit. “And even more than that—starting from zero, I’m now going backward. Take me and Leda, for example. Sure, she had her problems, but did I—”

There was a knock at the door. And I hadn’t heard anyone approaching the house? When security was my job? I ran to the door, barking my head off.

“Chet, easy, big guy,” Bernie said, coming up behind me. He opened the door.

A woman stood outside. Some people just look and smell rich, especially women when it comes to the smell part. This woman was that type, dressed in dark slacks, with a creamy shirt that matched the color of her hair. Had we seen her before? Maybe wearing a baseball cap? I thought so.

“Bernie Little?” she said.

“That’s me,” said Bernie. “And this is Chet.”

She gave me a quick look, but long enough for me to see something in her eyes I liked. Her gaze went back to Bernie. “My name’s Annika Teitelbaum. I’m interested in your services.”

“My services?”

“You’re a private detective, aren’t you?”

“Correct.”

“I tried another detective but . . . but he wasn’t satisfactory. Then Leda recommended you.”

“Leda? My ex—former wife?”

“Do you know more than one Leda?”

“No.”

“She really is one of a kind,” Annika Teitelbaum said.

“Oh, yes,” said Bernie.

“We’re in the same book group.”

“Ah.”

Then came a pause, Bernie perhaps shuffling from one foot to another. “So . . .” Annika said, looking over Bernie’s shoulder and into the house.

“Um,” said Bernie.

Annika turned my way. “I had a dog once myself, name of Molly. Actually resembled this one here.” She took out her phone. Bernie gazed at the screen.

“You’re right,” he said. “Come in.”

“Thank you,” said Annika.

• • •

“Something to drink?” Bernie said.

We were in the kitchen. Annika eyed the glass of bourbon on the table, shook her head.

“What can I do for you?” Bernie said.

Annika thought for a moment. “Is marrying young always a bad idea?”

“No clue,” Bernie said. “I’ve never thought about it.”

“How old were you and Leda?”

Bernie gave her a long look, a long look that always meant no answer was coming. But this time Bernie surprised me. “I was thirty, and she was thirty-three when we met.”

“Thirty-three?” Annika said, like something wasn’t adding up. “But that would make her—” Annika waved her hand like she was shooing flies away. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, Ric and I were high school sweethearts. So maybe it’s understandable if he’s cheating on me. But I don’t understand it anyway. Which is where you come in—I need to know one way or the other.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“What would be the point? If it’s true, he’ll just lie, and if it’s false, I’ll have poisoned the relationship.”

“How about if it’s true and he admits it?”

“Ric’s a highly successful businessman, let’s put it that way.”

“I don’t get it.”

“No? Doesn’t matter. The point is, I’ve had suspicions in the past, but now actual evidence has fallen into my hands.”

“What kind of evidence?”

Annika opened her purse and took out . . . what was this? A concha belt that looked familiar. She laid it on the table. “Arrived late this afternoon. I happened to be out gardening and saw a car stop out front. A man stuck it in the mailbox and drove off. I caught the plate number, not a number, in fact, but letters—WGN WHL. Suggest anything?”

Bernie didn’t say yes or no, just waited.

“Wagon wheel was what came to me. A little sleuthing on the net turned up a motel of that name in Ocotillo Springs.” She paused, and now seemed to be the one waiting. “You’re a strange kind of detective,” she said. “Are you even following this? You don’t ask any of the obvious questions, like am I sure this is Ric’s belt, and what kind of business is he so successful in. What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry,” Bernie said. “I can’t help you.”

Annika’s eyebrows—the thin, plucked kind, hardly eyebrows at all compared to Bernie’s, which had a language all their own—rose in surprise. “A negotiator? Leda hadn’t led me to expect that.” Annika whipped out her checkbook—kind of the way perps I’ve known have whipped out their .44s—and said, “Five grand do for starters?”

Wow! Whatever a negotiator was, why hadn’t we tried it before? Except . . . except Bernie was shaking his head, just a slight shake, but it meant “game over.” “This isn’t a negotiation,” he said.

No more talking after that. We showed Annika to the door.

But then, as the door closed, we just stood there. Why? Was Bernie thinking about the five grand? I sure was. It sounded like a lot.

“How could we take the case, big guy? We’ve already solved it for another client. And doesn’t that client’s interest take precedence?” Uh-oh. Precedence: that one derailed me every time. “On the other hand, what is Sherry’s interest now?” A long silence. He gave me a look. “Funny about Leda’s recommendation. I always thought she saw me as a failure.” What was that? Missed it completely. More silence. “The most difficult woman in creation, but did I give it my best effort? The honest answer to that has to be no. So maybe this is a time for paying back in some weird way, or paying forward, or paying sideways, or—”

Out on the street a car started up. Bernie flung open the door and started running. When Bernie runs, I run. At a different speed, of course, meaning I caught up to Annika’s car when she was barely past the Parsonses’ house, the Parsonses being an old couple we don’t have time for now, and that also goes for Iggy—the member of the nation within who lives with them, and my best pal. Annika glanced over, saw me zooming along right beside the car, and stopped. Bernie appeared, panting just a little. Annika’s window slid down.

“I’ll take the case,” he said. “In fact, it’s solved.”

“You’re not making sense.”

“Come on back to the house. I’ve got something to show you.”

• • •

“An engraved invitation,” Bernie said, opening an envelope that came a day or two or possibly more than two later. “Wonder who’s getting married.” He took a little card from the envelope. “ . . . cordially invited to a Celebration of the Porsche at the Teitelbaums’, where the entire collection will be on display . . . champagne, hors d’oeuvres, blah blah blah . . . and then in handwriting: ‘You don’t want to miss this—Annika.’ ” Bernie looked up. “What do you think, big guy?”

What are hors d’oeuvres? That was my only thought.

• • •

We drove into the hills above Pottsdale, switchbacked up and up to where the very nicest houses stood, finally turned into the Teitelbaums’ long driveway—lovely flower smells flowing in from both sides—and parked in front of their big sand-colored house with the red tile roof. Two dudes—black pants, white shirts, little black bow ties—hurried over and . . . what was this? Opened our doors for us? I hopped out, actually sort of hopping right over the head of the dude who’d opened my door.

“Oh my God!” he said, shrinking back, and maybe getting the message, whatever it was.

“Barn’s around to the back, sir,” said the other dude.

We walked around the house, a walk that seemed to go on and on, went by a swimming pool, cabanas, and some lemon trees, and came to a long, low building that didn’t look much like a barn to me. A waiter by the side door offered Bernie champagne from a silver tray, and then another waiter appeared and said, “Hors d’oeuvres, sir?” He held out a tray, an amazing tray. Why amazing? Because hors d’oeuvres turned out to be shrimp wrapped in bacon, and tiny sausages that smelled better than any sausages I’d ever come across, and slices of something that looked and smelled like salami, except to the nth degree, as Bernie says when . . . I’m not sure when he says that. What’s important is that he loaded up his napkin with a nice selection of everything. We went inside, Bernie slipping me a tiny sausage behind his back, one of our very best techniques at the Little Detective Agency. There’s nothing like learning new things, like what hors d’oeuvres were all about, for example. This party was off to the best kind of start.

Had I ever been in a barn like the Teitelbaums’ before? Nothing close. All along one side stood Porsches, beautiful shiny Porsches of many kinds in many colors, making me think of a beautiful garden, for some reason. Made no sense, I know.

“Wow!” said Bernie.

On the near side of the barn were lots of little café-type tables, nicely dressed people at all of them, sipping champagne but not munching on the hors d’oeuvres with the energy you’d expect. We found a spot at one of the tables. The woman in the seat next to Bernie said, “You’re just in time.”

“For what?” said Bernie.

“The surprise.”

“What surprise?”

“Didn’t you know? It’s a surprise party for Ric. He’s due any moment.”

“Oh, right,” said Bernie. “Is it his birthday?”

“No,” the woman said, “but Annika says, who needs a reason? Don’t you just love her style?”

Bernie was about to answer when the big door at one end of the bar rolled up and Ric Teitelbaum walked in. He saw all the people and stopped dead. Everyone rose to their feet—everyone except Bernie, who remained seated for reasons of his own, and me, because of him—and yelled, “Surprise! Surprise!”

Ric Teitelbaum did look surprised. Then a big smile spread across his face, and he shuffled his feet a bit in an aw-shucks sort of way, like “who, me?” Always an amusing human move, to my way of thinking, and he hadn’t quite finished when the big door at the other end of the barn rolled up and an enormous bulldozer drove in. A slow silence fell, and everything that followed also seemed to be going slowly. But there was no stopping it.

This particular bulldozer had a roofless cab, allowing a clear view of the driver, in this case Annika Teitelbaum. She wore a hard hat but otherwise looked dressed for the party, a huge sparkling pendant hanging from her neck. What else? A familiar-looking concha belt was somehow fixed to the dozer’s heavy blade. The dozer made a little turn and headed straight for the long line of gleaming Porsches. No one said a thing, but everyone’s mouth was open and open wide. The dozer picked up speed and barreled into the first Porsche in the line—a shining silver one, as it happened—knocking it right into the air. It landed on the next Porsche, and then the big blade crushed them both together, the dozer not even pausing, just churning along, smashing, flattening, and obliterating Porsches in a steady, workmanlike fashion. That was the expression on Annika’s face, workmanlike, the expression you see on the face of any experienced dozer operator earning his pay.

No one else in the barn was looking workmanlike. Well, maybe Bernie. But it was hard to be sure about anything, the noise of all that metal getting shredded, twisted, and torn being hard to take, especially for a dude who hears the way I do.

Bernie turned to me. “I think the party’s over.”

It was? I didn’t see why, but if Bernie says the party’s over, the party’s over. We took our leave, more accurately hightailed it out of there, my tail raised its highest, and what was this? All at once Bernie had a tail, too, a real tail and raised up high just like mine? But it was only a shaft of light, shining at a strange angle through the trees. There’s all kinds of beauty in life, and sometimes it takes you by surprise.

We hopped in the Porsche, an old and beat-up Porsche, maybe, but still among the living, if you see what I mean. Bernie drove, and drove fast, glancing back now and then in what I would have called fear if it hadn’t been Bernie. I rode shotgun, chewing on an hors d’oeuvre or two. I think it’s expected. Isn’t “party favor” the expression?