Some very bad dreams blew into my mind, kind of like a storm. Lots of shouting went on in these dreams, plus fighting and hitting and maybe even a gunshot or two, and there was nothing I could do about any of it, which was the way of dreams. Once Bernie and Suzie got into a big discussion about dreams and what they mean. The candles looked so nice on Suzie’s table that night, their light flickering on the wineglasses. Bernie slipped me the fatty part from his steak, a juicy—
Bernie!
Did I smell him? No. I opened my eyes. That set off a pain in my head. I ignored it, tried to get my bearings. Where was I? In a big shadowy sort of place, weak light coming from a hayloft high above. I knew haylofts. We’d once found a perp trying to hide out in one, Bernie poking around with a pitchfork, the fun we had. But the point: haylofts meant barns, so I was in a barn. And no Bernie. No humans, no other life of any kind.
I was on a wooden floor, worn smooth, a nice feeling under my chest, but most of me wasn’t feeling nice. I rose, kind of slow for me, the pain shooting around a bit in my head. I ignored it. Also, I was pretty thirsty. The scent of water was in the air. I followed it.
But not far. All of a sudden I got jerked to a stop, one of my front paws in midair. I looked back. Oh, no! A chain? Yes, a chain, the kind with strong thick metal links. I looked back, saw that one end was attached to a big hook hanging from the ceiling. The other end was attached to my collar; I could feel the cold metal links on the back of my neck. I knew all about links like that from one or two bad adventures in the past—adventures that had all ended up good, meaning the bad guys got theirs—so I already knew you could gnaw and gnaw at them, gnaw your very hardest, and still get nowhere. Instead I twisted my head, twisted and twisted it, at the same time trying to slip right out of my collar. I’d twisted out of my collar more than once, on account of Bernie always leaving it kind of loose. But for some reason it didn’t feel loose now: in fact, it felt tight—uncomfortably tight, even if I wasn’t twisting and pulling against it.
I went on twisting and pulling, digging my back claws into that soft wooden floor, straining with all my strength, and I’m a hundred-plus-pounder. No use: my collar was on me, but good. I stopped all that twisting, pulling, straining, and began gnawing at the metal links.
I gnawed and gnawed. Most times gnawing feels good on your teeth, plus it’s always interesting finding out how things come apart. But this gnawing did not feel good, and nothing came apart or even gave the least sign that it would. I kept gnawing.
After a while, I went back to twisting and pulling. Then gnawing. Then twisting and pulling. After that I tried charging across the floor at my very fastest. Not too clear how long that went on. All those charges ended with me getting jerked to a halt so sudden my legs would fly out from under me. I kept doing it. By that time I was seeing red, even if Bernie says I can’t see red.
Bernie!
We don’t give up, me and Bernie, part of what makes the Little Detective Agency what it is. I charged, picked myself up, and was gathering my strength—still plenty left, amigo—when the barn door opened, letting in a cold, silvery shaft of light. In that shaft of light stood a man.
“Well, well, well,” he said, looking at me.
I looked at him. A real skinny guy. Was this someone I knew? Hard to tell, with the light behind him and the still air in the barn not bringing me any scents from that direction. But the voice seemed a bit familiar, and then he turned slightly, revealing sunken cheeks and a thick black mustache. There’s something about mustaches that makes it hard for me to look away, so I didn’t. And right about then it hit me: Georgie Malhouf.
Georgie! Georgie was a friend! He’d invited Bernie to speak at the Great Western Private Eye convention—where Bernie had done so well!—and then cut a nice check. But … but maybe Bernie hadn’t accepted it. What was that all about? I tried to remember.
Georgie came forward. He stopped, just out of my range on the chain, and studied me with those small brown eyes of his. “A little worse for wear, maybe, but not bad at all,” he said. “A tough son of a bitch, aren’t you?” He laughed. “Literally.”
What was Georgie talking about? I wasn’t sure, was no longer sure about anything when it came to Georgie.
“You thirsty?” he said. “I’ll bet you’re thirsty.”
That was a bet Georgie would win. My tongue came out a bit, sort of on its own. Georgie walked over to a rusty faucet sticking out of the barn wall, took a ladle off a hook, filled it with water, came back.
“Water,” he said, moving into my range, the ladle extended in front of him.
Ah, the smell of water. I started to have a strange thought, something to do with if there was only one smell left in the whole world, please could it be … but I let it go and sat down.
Georgie smiled. He had one of those smiles where teeth showed—yellow, in Georgie’s case that dark smokers’ yellow— but the eyes didn’t join in. There were also a few humans who could smile with only their eyes—Suzie was one of those. None of that mattered at the moment; all that mattered was the water in that ladle.
Georgie held it out for me.
I drank.
Lovely. I lapped up that water, lapped and lapped.
“Drink your fill,” Georgie said. “Plenty more where that came from.”
I drank my fill. We were getting along great, me and Georgie. I drained that whole ladle, began feeling more like myself; maybe not tip-top, but at least the ache in my head was almost gone.
I looked at Georgie. He looked at me. What was this? He had a biscuit hidden away in his pocket? How had I missed that till now? I really hadn’t been myself, not close. Georgie reached into his pocket—he wore his pants very high, the belt almost up to the level of his hollow little chest—and took out the biscuit, not big, but I’ve never been fussy about things like that.
Georgie held up the biscuit. “See this?” he said. What kind of question was that? “If you’re good, you’ll get it,” he said. “But only if you’re good. If you’re bad, you won’t. And there’ll be other consequences. Got that?”
Consequences? A new one on me. But I had no problem with the takeaway: any moment now, I’d chewing on that nice biscuit.
Georgie rose on his tiptoes—hey! he wore tassel loafers. Something about tassel loafers always got that gnawing thing going in me. Not now, of course. Georgie, on his tiptoes, reached up and unhooked the chain. Holding the end, he said, “Now we walk out of here and get in the car.” He waved the biscuit in my face. “Once we’re settled in the car, nice and cooperative, this is yours.”
One thing about Georgie that I was starting to notice: he talked kind of fast. The last flow of words zipping by, for example: what was all that? I wasn’t clear. But I was very clear on the biscuit right in front of my face. Who wouldn’t have been? I could even make out the tiny logo stamped into it, the happy face of a member of the nation within. In short, I snagged that biscuit right out of Georgie’s hand.
And, being hungry—when was my last real meal?—I made quick work of the biscuit, gobbling it down in two snaps. Maybe not a Rover and Company–caliber biscuit when it came to taste, but not bad at—
WHACK! The end of that chain: I was so busy with the biscuit I hadn’t seen it coming. The end of the chain got me pretty good, right on the side of the face. Georgie had done that to me? Why? I had no idea. But I didn’t take that from anybody. I lunged at Georgie. Then came a surprise. He was ready for me, ready with a sort of black cloth bag. Lunging the way I was, I stuck my head right into it. I couldn’t see a thing. A drawstring tightened around my neck. I went a little crazy, tossed my head around, trying to get the horrible thing off. It wouldn’t come off. Georgie yanked on the chain. I yanked back, way harder, pulling him across the floor.
“Butch,” he yelled out. “Butch!”
I heard running footsteps, kept pulling Georgie across the floor. I had no plan, except to drag Georgie until he finally gave up and let me go. The running footsteps came closer.
“Take it, Butch!” Georgie said. “He ripped off my goddamn fingernails.”
Then someone much stronger than Georgie was on the other end of the chain, someone much harder to pull. In fact, he was pulling me. I dug my claws into the floor. This Butch dude grunted and kept dragging me—across the floor, outside— I could feel the sun—over some stubbly grass, and then all of a sudden I got picked up, lifted clear in the air, and thrown into a small hard space. I scrambled up. A door slammed down with that heavy car door thump.
I bashed around, clawing blindly at my surroundings. Even clawing blindly, you start to figure things out from the different feel of what’s getting clawed. I figured out that I was in the back of a station wagon, with a cage-type grille separating me from the rest of the car. I’d seen many members of the nation within the nation riding in setups like this, and somehow that calmed me. I bashed around a little bit longer and then lay down.
The front doors of the car opened and people got in. Two moving bodies, that was easy to hear, and then I picked up their scents: Georgie—there was sickness in his smell—and this new strong dude, Butch, all about needing a shower plus lots of deodorant. From the passenger seat, Georgie said, “Let’s get out of this hellhole.”
“Hell, yeah,” said Butch. “Never wanted to—” I heard another car driving up. “Who’s that?” said Butch.
“Quick,” Georgie said. “Get that hood off the goddamn dog.”
“But—”
“Move!”
Then came a lot of confused banging around, maybe someone climbing over the seats, followed by grunting and clunking, and suddenly that black bag went whooshing off my head and I could see. The first thing I saw was the neckless, shaved-headed dude, Georgie’s driver. This had to be Butch. I surged toward him just as he snapped the grille back in place.
“Christ almighty,” Butch said. “He’s a beast.”
“Shut up,” said Georgie. “And let me handle this.”
Handle what? I looked out. A taxi was parked beside us— always easy to spot, from that little boxy thing on the roof—and getting out of it was Anya. Anya! She came striding over, her face angry. I had no problem with that—I was angry, too.
Georgie got out of the car. “Hey, there,” he said. “What can I do you for?”
Anya pointed at me. “What are you doing with Chet?” she said.
“The Chetster, as we like to call him?” Georgie said. “Taking care of the big fellow, that’s what.”
The Chetster? No one had ever called me that in my life. I was Chet, pure and simple. Fact one, as Bernie liked to say. Fact two: I was real happy to see Anya. Other than those, I had no facts.
“We like him and he likes us,” Georgie said. “See how happy he is?”
Was that my tail, stirring up a lively breeze? I dialed that down, but not as fast as I wanted, my tail resisting for some reason.
“Uh,” Anya said, “that’s good. But I’ll be taking over now.”
“Oh?” said Georgie.
“Chet belongs to Bernie Little,” Anya said. “Bernie’s … indisposed at the moment. I’m a friend of his, so I’ll be looking after Chet in the interim.”
“Have you talked to Bernie about this?” Georgie said.
“Not yet,” said Anya. “But I know it’s what he’d want.”
“Not so sure of that, all due respect,” said Georgie. “See, I’m friends with him, too. We go way, way back, me and ol’ Bern.” Bern? Bernie hated that. “In fact—Butch? Mind passing me that envelope from the glove box?—Bern has already made his wishes clear in case the kind of unfortunate situation now happening ever happened, if you follow.”
“I don’t,” Anya said.
Georgie held out the envelope. Anya’s gaze shifted for a quick moment to Georgie’s bloody fingertips—a nice sight in my opinion—before she took the envelope and unfolded the sheet of paper inside.
“Duly signed, dated, and witnessed,” Georgie said, stuffing his hand in his pocket.
Anya read, “‘In the event I am temporarily or permanently incapacitated, I entrust without reservation the care of Chet to my longtime friend and colleague, George Malhouf. Signed, Bernie Little.’”
“You follow now?” Georgie said.