What had they done to him? Bernie lay on his back on a hard metal bench, one arm over his face. That was a way he sometimes slept—just another nice thing about Bernie—but he wasn’t sleeping. I knew that on account of the uncovered eye being open, although just barely. It was so swollen that just a tiny whitish sliver of wet gleam showed, the wet gleam of an eyeball. Around the eye was a big purple bruise, plus dried blood on his cheek and all over his torn shirt.
That poor eye wasn’t looking my way. I stuck my head through the bars and tried to push through, but the space was too narrow for my shoulders. A whimpering started up. How terrible that was! I’d never heard Bernie whimper before, or anything close. Oh, Bernie, please don’t—And then I realized the whimpering was coming from me. I put a stop to that pronto, changing to this low muffly bark I have for getting Bernie’s attention but keeping quiet at the same time.
Bernie moved. He got a hand on the metal bench, pushed himself up to a sitting position, real slow. His other eye was even worse, but he saw me. He licked his lips—bloody and split—and said my name in a way I’d never heard before, all cracked and faint like a radio station voice when we’re out in the desert and far away. Which was where I wanted to be at that moment, me and Bernie in the Porsche, free and easy.
“Chet.” And then, louder and stronger, “Good to see you. Real good.” He even gave me a little smile, his teeth so white in his bruised and bloody face. My tail started wagging. I was back with Bernie and that was the important thing.
He got off the bench, wincing hardly at all—but I caught it—and came to me. He gave me a nice pat between my ears. I pressed my head against his hand.
“You’re a good man,” he said.
My tail, still wagging, wagged more.
Bernie glanced down the corridor. “Did Anya bring you? Where is she?”
I kept wagging.
“Or was it Suzie?” His voice thickened. That happens some-times—I think when Bernie’s having deep feelings. At that moment I was having deep feelings myself. “You didn’t get here by yourself, did you?” He gave me a close look. I gave him a close look back. “No fair all these questions.” Bernie knelt in front of me. “Listen, Chet, this is important,” he said, and started talking about something, maybe keys. But my mind was elsewhere, on account of Bernie’s poor face, now within licking distance. I licked it, real, real gently.
Bernie laughed, just a tiny quiet laugh, but so nice to hear. “Okay, okay,” he said, giving me another pat, “but right now I need those keys.”
Keys? Right: he had been talking about keys. So maybe I hadn’t missed anything at all. Chet the Jet, on top of the situation and don’t you forget it.
“The keys, Chet. On the wall. Can you get them, big guy?”
Keys? Wall? The only keys I knew were the two on Bernie’s key ring—a real cool key ring with a tiny white seashell I’d found on our trip to San Diego hanging off it—one for the Porsche and one for the house. We’d surfed, me and Bernie! What a life we had. My tail, which had stopped wagging, started up again.
“Hanging on the wall, Chet. Right behind you.”
What was he talking about? I wasn’t quite sure. All I wanted him to do was open the cell door and come out. Then we’d go get the .38 Special, wherever it was—Bernie would know—and come back here and do what needed to be done. Was that the plan? Sounded like a winner to me.
“Chet? Are you listening, buddy?”
Of course I was listening. Didn’t I always listen to Bernie? I made myself listen even harder, and right away heard distant footsteps, on some level above.
Bernie gave me another quick smile. That meant he knew I was trying real hard, doing my best. “Look on the wall,” he said and pointed behind me. I tried to listen even harder—footsteps, maybe a bit louder—but I was maxed out in that department.
“Chet! I’m pointing, big guy.”
Pointing? We’d done a lot of work on pointing, me and Bernie, even more than we’d done on doorknobs.
“Follow my finger, Chet. You know how.”
Yes, I did. And after that would come a treat, quite possibly a rawhide chew from Rover and Company. I gazed at Bernie’s finger—his hands are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, although a couple of the knuckles seemed a bit skinned and swollen, but that had to be a good thing, meaning we’d gotten in a few of our own, and … I lost my train of thought.
“Chet? My finger—follow it.”
Right. I knew this, knew it backward. Well, not that. There were lots of strange human expressions, knowing something backward being one of the strangest.
“Chet.”
I followed Bernie’s finger, turned my head toward where it was pointing. And there, hanging from a hook fairly high on the cement wall of the corridor, was a long black key on a black ring.
“Good, good boy,” said Bernie. “Go get it.”
Fairly high on the wall, but really no challenge for a leaper like me. In a flash I was in midair—hey! actually too high, would you believe that?—and snagging that black ring on the way—
But oops. Not quite. Snapped my teeth around the ring, but somehow lost my grip, the key still up there, now swinging back and forth. I jumped again and the same thing happened: no problem getting to the key. The problem was … I wasn’t sure about what the problem was.
“That’s okay, Chet,” Bernie said, behind me. “You’ll get it.”
If Bernie said I’d get it, that was that. I jumped and jumped, the same thing happening, that cold hard ring—now all slobbery—slipping through my teeth. I jumped and jumped and— hey!—missed with my teeth completely, instead hitting the ring with the tip of my nose and knocking it off the hook and high in the air. Key and ring landed on the hard floor with a clank and a jingle, very nice to hear.
“Good boy.”
I scooped up the key ring, trotted over to the cell, and dropped it inside. Mission accomplished. Next mission? I waited to find out.
Bernie grabbed the key ring, reached through the bars, twisted his hand around, stuck the key in the keyhole in a small metal square on the cell door, turned it, and: click!
And then he was out! I jumped right up into his arms. Had I ever been this happy? Yes, and it was always the best possible feeling.
“Easy, big guy,” Bernie said.
I got all paws down on the floor, stood still, a professional through and through. Bernie put his finger across his lips: our signal for quiet. “Quiet as a mouse,” Bernie sometimes said; not sure why, since mice, scratching away behind the walls of many houses I’d visited, weren’t especially quiet.
We started down the corridor, not making a sound, except for Bernie, although he was being very quiet for him. But I heard those other footsteps, moving somewhere in the building.
We went past all the cells, turned the corner, and came to the door that led to the sheriff’s office. Bernie paused for a moment, gazed at the door, and kept going. We rounded another corner at the end. Just a few steps away stood another door, a door with a high little window in it, and through that window I saw the moon. We were home free! Bernie reached for the doorknob, and then a strange thing happened. Just before he could touch it, the knob started turning on its own.
Bernie stepped back, hugged the wall. I hugged the wall with him. I got the idea, even kind of remembered us doing it once before: the old hiding-behind-the-opened-door trick. I loved tricks! Next the door would open, and in would stroll whoever was strolling in, with us meanwhile hidden behind the door so the newcomer would just keep strolling, maybe whistling to himself the way humans sometimes did when they thought they were all alone, and then out the door we’d scoot, me and Bernie, into the night and gone.
But that wasn’t what happened; none of it. First, I heard those footsteps again, now clack-clacking not above us but on our level. Then—it sounded like Claudie—came shouting: “What the hell?” An instant later, alarms went off and a red light over the door began flashing. The door itself made a loud firm click. Bernie grabbed the handle and tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t turn.
On the other side, the judge said, “What’s going on?”
Bernie pivoted, facing back down the corridor. At about the same time, Mack and Claudie came running around the corner. Claudie—he had a bandage wrapped around his head, nice to see—was reaching for the gun on his hip and Mack was waving a nightstick. We were trapped, a feeling I hated. But Bernie and I could handle these dudes, no problem, as long as I took Claudie down before he brought that gun into play.
I charged forward, full speed.
“No, Chet!”
That was Bernie, saying something behind me, something I didn’t quite catch. I bounded toward those two deputies, bad guys for sure despite the stars twinkling on their chests. Growling started up—wild, savage, dangerous; that was me, bucko, better believe it. Mack and Claudie skidded to a stop, their eyes widening in fear, no doubt about it and no surprise: that growling was coming close to scaring me, kind of crazy. Claudie pulled the gun from his holster, but before he could raise it, I hurled myself on him, front paws right in his face, and teeth bared as much as I could bare them. You’re going down, bad dude, and staying down. I remember having that thought. I also remember catching a glimpse, off to the side, of Mack’s nightstick—it had one of those lead-weighted ends—swinging my way in a hurry.