I had a lovely snooze in the car, maybe twisted around a bit with my head poking through to the backseat, but the gentle motion and the rumble of the engine zonked me right out. When I woke up, totally refreshed, rarin’ to go, we were pulling in to Pinnacle Peak Homes at Puma Wells, don’t ask me why. We parked in front of the model home and got out, Bernie carrying the knife in a manila envelope.
We entered and there we were, back in that room with the tile floor, so nice and cool against my paws, and the fountain, no longer splashing. Right away I wanted to amble over to the edge and lift my leg. Why? I didn’t really need to go. A woman sat at the desk, a dark woman, not Ms. Larapova. She gave us a smile.
Bernie smiled back, not a real smile because his eyes weren’t part of it, just showing teeth, although he had nice ones for a human—did I mention that already? “We’re looking for Ms. Larapova,” he said.
The woman stopped smiling. “Ms. Larapova is not here.”
“When will she be back?”
“Ms. Larapova is no longer with the company.”
“No longer with the company?” Bernie said. He picked up a card lying on the desk. “It says right here—‘Elena Larapova, VP Marketing.’”
“I’m afraid that card is obsolete,” the woman said. She took it from Bernie’s hand and dropped it in the wastebasket.
“Chet!” Bernie said.
Oops. Did I hear growling, in fact, almost snarling? I made it stop, even though I didn’t like how she’d grabbed the card from Bernie, not one little bit.
“Do you know how I can contact her?” he said.
“I’m afraid not.”
“But suppose mail comes for her—she must have left a forwarding address.”
“I’m afraid she didn’t.”
Bernie was still smiling, and now his smile seemed real, maybe actually was. Bernie was full of surprises. Sometimes I didn’t understand him at all.
“Nothing to be afraid of,” he said. “I’ll just see Mr. Keefer for a moment.”
“I’m af—Mr. Keefer is away on business.”
“He was here this morning.”
“Now he’s gone.”
“Is he at home?”
“He’s away on business.”
“Where?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What’s your best guess?”
The woman’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. I loved when Bernie made that happen. We walked outside feeling like winners, at least I did. Standing in the parking lot, Bernie tried Keefer’s home and cell numbers, got no answer. He opened his laptop, searched for a number for Ms. Larapova, found only one listing—the Pinnacle Peak office we’d just come from.
“What’s our best guess, Chet? Where’s the girl? Where’s Madison?”
Madison? Her face up in that barn window, across from the entrance to the old mine: I could see it. And how she’d tried to help me, actually did help me, making my escape possible: That I remembered. I started trotting around the parking lot, sniffing for my scent trail, the trail that would take me back to Mr. Gulagov’s ranch. My scent was in the air, easy to find, but all it did was lead me round and round in circles.
“Chet?”
And then all at once, maybe because the man was on my mind, I picked up a scent by a spiky bush in a corner of the lot, a very faint scent that I knew. Human, male, musty and a bit nasty, with a hint of cooked beets: Mr. Gulagov. I trotted around the bush, followed the trail toward the office door, where it petered out. Then I backtracked to the spiky bush, tried to find a trail going some other way, and couldn’t. I sat down and barked.
“Chet? What is it? Keefer? His scent will be all over the place around here.”
I barked louder. Help me out, Bernie.
“Come on, boy. Nothing more we can do here.”
No? There had to be, but I didn’t know what. We drove home.
***
The phone was ringing when we went inside. Suzie’s voice came over the answering machine. “Hi,” she said. “Nothing important—just wondering how Chet was doing.”
Bernie ran for the phone, sliding a bit on one of my toys—a favorite, actually, bone-shaped, made of a nicely chewy but firm rubber—and losing the manila envelope. As he skidded to a stop—a stiff-legged skid almost as good as one of mine—the knife flew out of the envelope and stuck point first in the floor, the handle quivering.
“Hello?” Bernie said. “Chet! Knock it off!” He listened for a moment, said, “He’s, um, fine, his usual—Chet!”
But I couldn’t help it. The knife—that knife!—sticking in the floor, vibrating in my ears with this throom throom throom: You’d be jumping up and down, too, count on it. Bernie grabbed the rubber bone and flung it through the open window. I dove out after the bone, raced across the backyard, snagged it, spun around, and jumped back inside. A new game, and what a game, indoors and outdoors, running and leaping—this one had it all.
“Chet!” Bernie grabbed my collar. “Calm down.” I tried to calm down, tried to keep a grip on the rubber bone, tried to pant, all at the same time: way too much for me. I barely noticed that Bernie was no longer on the phone. “For God’s sake, Chet—she’s coming over for dinner. The place is a shambles.”
Uh-oh. Shambles. I wasn’t sure what that was, only knew it meant the vacuum cleaner, and I couldn’t be in the house during vacuuming, we knew that from experience. Bernie got to work. I went into the backyard, checked the gate first thing—closed, too bad—and buried the rubber bone in the far corner. I sniffed around for a bit, detected the recent presence of a lizard, probably one of those tiny-eyed ones with a flickering tongue, but nothing else new, and dug up the rubber bone. I lay down and chewed it till my jaw got tired and buried it again, digging a real deep hole this time, one of my very deepest. It took a long time to shove the dirt all back in, get everything packed down the way I like, but it sure felt good, doing things right. That was one of Bernie’s sayings: A job worth doing is worth doing well. I lay down for a spell, thought about nothing. The sun felt good. I decided to dig up the rubber bone again. I’d only scratched the surface when I heard Iggy barking next door.
I barked back. Iggy barked. I went over to the side fence, peered through a space between the slats. There was Iggy in a side window at his place, peering out. I barked. Iggy’s head snapped around toward the fence. Could he see me? Why not? I could see him. He barked. I barked. And then, from far away, came that she-bark again. I got a funny feeling down my spine. We went quiet, Iggy and I, listening for that she-bark to come again. Iggy had his face right to the window, his flabby round ears as straight up as he could get them.
***
“Oh God,” Suzie said when Bernie came in from the grill, a big smile on his face and two big steaks with those perfect crosshatched marks burned into them, “I should have told you—I don’t eat meat.”
Bernie’s smile did a funny thing, kind of lingering while his face moved on to other expressions. Suzie didn’t eat meat? That was like saying she didn’t eat. I was shocked, and Bernie, too: The steaks almost slid off the platter. But not quite. I sat back down.
“Oh, uh, it’s, um, my fault,” Bernie said. “Someone like you, I should have known.”
Suzie smiled as though having fun—but how could this be fun, suddenly finding out you weren’t getting dinner? “Someone like me?” she said.
Bernie made a few awkward—what was the word Suzie had used? shambling?—yes, shambling movements and said, “You know. Delicate.”
Suzie’s smile broadened; yes, she was having fun. “Delicate.”
“And strong,” Bernie said. “Strong and delicate. More strong than delicate, definitely.”
Suzie laughed. A really nice laugh—did I mention that already?—so much more pleasing than Ms. Larapova’s. “Mind if I check your fridge?”
“Oh no, you don’t want to—”
But the door was already open. “I’ll just freshen this up a bit,” she said, removing something from way in the back.
“I couldn’t let—”
“It’ll be fine. You and Chet can have the steaks.”
Suzie: a gem.
***
They sat at the kitchen table; I was over in the corner by my bowls. “You, uh, drink wine, yes? Or not?”
“Love wine,” said Suzie.
“Red or white?”
“Red, please.”
“Hey, me, too.”
Easy on the wine, Bernie. That was my first thought—I’d seen things go wrong in this area before.
Bernie poured. “It’s from Argentina,” he said.
“I’ve always wanted to go there.”
“Yeah? Me, too.”
If he was going to keep saying “me, too,” we were in for a long night. I spotted a layer of pure fat on one end of my steak and bit into that first.
“Mmm, delicious,” said Suzie.
“You like the wine?”
“Very much.”
“Oh, good. Great. I like it, too. A nice shade of red. And the taste, not too—what’s the word?—but at the same time…” His voice trailed off. Often, maybe even usually, Bernie ended up being the smartest human in the room. Tonight was different.
They clinked glasses. I loved that, clinking glasses, the sight and the sound, but mostly how no glass got broken. How did they do it? My adventures with glass never turned out that way.
Under the table, their feet weren’t very far apart. Bernie wore flip-flops. His feet were strong and wide; if you were reduced to spending your life on two feet, his might see you through. Suzie wore sandals; her feet looked strong, too, but skinnier and much smaller. Her toenails were painted some dark color, and she wore a silver ring around one toe. Suzie was interesting, no doubt about it. An urge came over me to sidestep my way under the table and give her toes a quick lick. I resisted it. She was the guest.
“Any progress on your case?” she said. “The missing girl?”
Bernie placed his glass on the table. He leaned forward, his back now stiff: the posture of tense Bernie. “Short answer or long?”
“Both,” said Suzie.
Bernie’s back, still straight, relaxed some. He wasn’t all the way to laid-back Bernie, but closer. “No progress—that’s the short answer,” he said. “We may even be going in reverse.”
“But isn’t going in reverse what you do?” Suzie said, losing me right away.
Not Bernie, though. He gave her a sideways look and said, “Yeah.” Then he went to the counter, got the manila envelope, took out the knife, and set it in front of Suzie.
“What’s this?”
“Our only tangible clue,” Bernie said. “It was used to attack Chet. The attacker drove a blue car. On the night Madison came home late, she was accosted by a blond man who stepped out of a blue BMW.”
“And therefore?”
Bernie sipped his wine, actually more like a gulp. “Possibility one: The blond man tried once more, this time successfully. Possibility two: She escaped again and is now on the run.”
“Why wouldn’t she just come home? Or go to the police?”
“Sometimes family dynamics, in this case not too good, get in the way of logic. But the other problem with possibility two is this attack on Chet. If Madison was on the loose, no one would be coming after us.”
“They came after you?”
“Maybe it was meant to be a warning—or maybe he was looking for me. Either way, the implication is that someone has Madison and doesn’t want her found. And that adds up to kidnapping for ransom, except there’s no demand.”
Suzie pointed at the knife, not quite touching it. “What about tracing this?”
“Russian, that’s all we know. Our knife guy is checking out the serial number, but it’s not like guns—you don’t need a license to own one.”
Suzie took a bite of whatever she’d freshened up from the fridge, something brown and spongy. “Mmm,” she said. Had to like Suzie. She drank some wine and said, “Are Madison’s parents rich?”
“Damon Keefer’s the dad. He’s a developer in the North Valley, looks rich to me.”
“What developments has he done?”
“In the past? I don’t know, but right now he’s finishing something called Pinnacle Peak Homes at Puma Wells. He’s fussy about getting the name right.”
“They’re all like that,” Suzie said. “I’ve done hundreds of developer stories.” She shifted her feet under the table, came within a hair of brushing against one of Bernie’s. “Maybe I could help in some way.”
“Oh, no,” Bernie said, “I’d never…” And then he paused.
“What?” said Suzie.
Bernie shook his head.
“I have this rule,” Suzie said. “Once you start saying something, you have to finish.”
Bernie laughed. His foot shot out and banged one of hers pretty hard. “Oh, sorry.” He jerked his foot back.
“No problem,” she said, rubbing her hurt foot with the other one. “Out with it, Bernie.”
Bernie went still. This stillness—was it because she’d called him by name? Bernie is a very nice name, my second favorite. “Fair enough,” he said. “It’s probably nothing. Almost certainly. But in this business, you get into the habit of checking up.”
“In mine, too,” Suzie said. “Checking up on what?”
“Keefer took a phone call. I couldn’t really hear, but it sounded unpleasant. He said it was his irrigation supplier, whatever that is.”
“But you didn’t believe him?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“Who did you think it was?”
“No idea.”
“Something to do with Madison?”
Bernie didn’t answer.
“You don’t want to say it out loud?” she said.
He grinned, for a moment looked like a kid—in fact, a lot like Charlie.
“Tell you what,” Suzie said. “Why don’t I do the checking up on the irrigation supplier?”
“Tell you what,” Bernie said. “Why don’t we do it together?”
“Deal,” Suzie said.
“Great,” said Bernie, making some gesture with his hand that ended up knocking over Suzie’s glass, spilling wine all over her. I closed my eyes.
Sometimes Bernie sang in the shower. Bernie singing in the shower meant things were going good. He had three shower songs, “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” “Born in the U.S.A.,” and “Bompity Bompity Bompity Bomp Blue Moon Blue Blue Blue Blue Moon,” my favorite, which was what he was singing now. The problem was things weren’t going good, not with the Madison Chambliss case. That was our job, the Madison Chambliss case, finding her and bringing her back safe—so why was Bernie singing? I nosed the bathroom door open and went in.
Love bathrooms. I’ll say that straight out. I’ve had a lot of fun in bathrooms. We’ve got two, one without a shower, by the front door, and the other in the hall between the two bedrooms. Water puddled the floor here and there, as always after Bernie’s showers. I lapped some up and noticed that Bernie was standing in a strange way in front of the mirror, twisted around and peering over his shoulder.
“Christ,” he said. “I’m getting back hair.”
So? What was wrong with that? I’ve got back hair, lots of it, thick and glossy, and no one’s ever done anything but praise it.
“Why now, out of the blue?” he said, reaching for a razor. “Women hate back hair.”
They did? Females of my kind—well, let’s just leave it this way—had no problems with my physical appearance. My mind wandered to the unknown she-barker somewhere across the canyon. Bernie, in an awkward position, reached down his back with the razor. I couldn’t watch.
***
“Let’s go in your car,” Suzie said. “It’s so cool.”
“This old thing?” said Bernie, but I could tell he was pleased from the way his shoulders rose a little. We got in—Bernie behind the wheel, and then there was an odd moment when Suzie and I both went for the shotgun seat.
Suzie laughed and said, “I’ll get in the back.”
Not much of a backseat, really, in the old Porsche, impossible to get comfortable. Maybe I even felt the tiniest bit guilty, but bottom line—who always rode shotgun?
Bernie touched her arm. “No, no,” he said. “C’mon, Chet, squeeze in back.”
Squeeze in back? He was talking to me? I didn’t move. In fact, a little more than that: I did this making-myself-immovable thing I can do, tensing all my muscles.
“Haven’t seen that in a while,” Bernie said. “When he goes all mulish.”
Mulish? What a thing to say, a new low, no doubt about it. But in a standoff like this, didn’t someone have to take the high road? I squeezed into the tiny space—me, a hundred-plus-pounder—and turned my attention to whatever was going on outside the back window, which was nothing.
Suzie got in front. Bernie turned the key.
“I just love the rumble of your engine,” Suzie said. “The way it—”
I loved that, too, but engine rumble was not what we were hearing. Instead came a high-pitched whir-whir-whir, a noise that gave me this weird writhing feeling from deep inside my ears all down my neck, a noise we were hearing a bit too much lately in the Porsche, me and Bernie.
Bernie tried again and again, cranking that key harder and harder. Nothing happened except the whir-whir-whir got weaker and weaker. Machines and what went on inside them: a complete mystery to me—and to a lot of humans, too, a fact that kind of surprised me at first. Soon Bernie said, “Damn,” which was not what he usually said at times like this, flung open his door, and popped the hood. From there, everything played out in the usual way—clanging, muttering, swearing, metal parts falling free and rolling under the car, wisps of rising smoke, hood slamming shut, smudge of grease on Bernie’s face, call to AAA. We piled into Suzie’s car, Suzie behind the wheel, me riding shotgun, Bernie steaming in the back, arms folded across his chest. Things have a way of turning out for the best: That’s my core belief.
***
“That must be it,” Suzie said. “Just past Home Depot.” She pointed up ahead. Hey! I’d seen this place before—a huge waterfall in front of a low building—and always wanted to pay a visit. All of a sudden I was thirsty, needed to stick my tongue in that waterfall right away. Suzie read the sign: “‘Water Water Everywhere, One-Stop Shopping for All Your Irrigation Needs.’ Cute name.”
“Huh?” said Bernie.
“From the poem,” Suzie said, losing me fast.
And maybe Bernie, too. “This is a goddamn desert,” he said. “There’s no water water everywhere, and there never was. Why is that so hard to remember?”
Suzie glanced at him in her mirror, a glance that made me uneasy, as though she thought there might be something a little not right with Bernie. But how could that be possible? I worried for a moment or two—I wanted Bernie to be happy, went without saying—but then we were parked and out of the car, all of this—poems, rearview glances—forgotten, and me on a fast trot to the base of the waterfall. Ah. Cold and frothy, simply delicious.
A man with a clipboard came out of the building, gave me a funny look—like what? he was afraid I was going to drink up his whole waterfall?—then turned to Bernie. “I’m Myron King, owner,” he said. “Help you with something?”
“Ever sold one of these waterfalls, Myron?” Bernie said.
Bernie was a great interviewer. One of his best skills, a skill that had cracked a lot of cases for us—will I ever forget “then how do you explain that safe on your back?”—but I could tell from the expression on Myron’s face that this interview was off to a bad start.
“You offering to buy?” Myron said.
Bernie blew air through his closed lips, making them flap in a way I always enjoyed, but it was never a good sign. I sensed things about to go off the rails, had a sudden urge to go off the rails, too, perhaps by lifting my leg right over Myron’s tassel loafer—crazy, I know. At that moment Suzie stepped in.
“We’re still in the research stage,” she said.
“Researching what?”
“Irrigation requirements for a housing development centered around a golf course.”
Bernie gave her a quick look, eyebrows rising.
“Whereabouts?” said Myron.
“Not at liberty to say just yet,” Suzie told him.
Myron nodded, one of those nods that said: You’re dealing with a shrewd character. My guys were never shrewd, but I knew shrewdness: plenty of shrewdness out in the wild—take foxes, for example. According to Bernie, shrewd was smart’s screwed-up brother, whatever that meant. “Haven’t closed on the land yet?” Myron said.
“Something like that,” said Suzie.
“Meaning you’re looking at water supply from scratch, surveys, design, installation?”
“That’s right.”
“How many units?” Myron said.
Suzie hesitated. Bernie said, “We’re thinking along the lines of this place we saw the other day.”
Now it was Suzie giving Bernie a quick look—as though…as though they were getting their timing right, teaming up. Impossible, of course. The team was me and Bernie.
“What place was that?” Myron said.
“Remember the name?” said Bernie.
“Who could forget?” Suzie said. That made Bernie smile. “Pinnacle Peak Homes at Puma Wells,” she said.
Myron’s expression changed; he looked like he’d chewed on a lemon. I’d tried that once. “Good luck to you,” he said.
“Oh?” said Bernie.
“You’ll need it, if that’s your model.”
“Something wrong with Pinnacle Peak Homes at Puma Wells?” Suzie said.
Myron turned away and made a spitting sound with his mouth, although no spit came out. Spitting was something I liked a lot, could have made good use of myself, but dry spitting made no sense to me.
“Care to expand on that?” Bernie said.
“Huh?” said Myron.
“My partner means,” said Suzie, “is the irrigation at Pinnacle Peak not up to your standards?”
“Hell, no,” Myron said. “State-of-the-art—one of my own jobs, designed it personally, even ran a tunnel clear under the sixteenth fairway to tap in to those original wells, what’s left of them. There’ll be nothing greener than that golf course in the whole state.”
Something I never want to see with Bernie is when this vein right in the middle of his forehead starts throbbing. The only times I’ve seen it, bad things happened soon after. And it was throbbing now. Suzie seemed to notice out of the corner of her eye. She said, “Sounds like a smart idea, Myron. So what was the problem?”
“The problem?” Bernie said, voice rising. “The problem with tunneling—” He cut himself off. I almost missed Suzie stepping on his foot, very quick.
“The problem?” Myron said. “My bills going unpaid—or isn’t that a problem where you come from?”
“The worst,” Bernie said, that blue vein settling down now, almost invisible.
Myron gazed at Bernie, gave another little nod, the kind indicating they were on the same page at last, could even become buddies. That meant he wasn’t really on top of the situation. Didn’t he know how close he’d come to ending up in that waterfall? I was still hoping.
“Damn straight,” Myron said. “The worst. What am I supposed to do—rip all my pipes up out of the ground?”
Bernie was about to answer, but before he could, Suzie said, “Of course not. But isn’t it like building a house—don’t you get an advance and then partial payments along the way?”
“Yeah,” said Myron. “Normally.”
“But in this case?” said Bernie.
“Oh, I got the advance all right. And a couple of partials after that. But little glitches kept happening.”
“Like?”
“Like with money quote due any day from a bank in Costa Rica. And the guy’s one of those smooth talkers, very believable.”
“The developer?” said Suzie.
“Name of Keefer,” Myron said. “A smooth talker, but now he won’t even take my calls. Never again, boys and girls.”
Bernie and Suzie exchanged a quick glance. “Wow,” said Suzie.
“Actually stopped taking your calls?” Bernie said.
“Haven’t spoken to the jerk in three weeks,” Myron said.
“Is that a fact?” Bernie said.
“Think I’d make this up?” said Myron. “My lawyer’s slapping liens upside his head and down. Thank Christ it all blew up before we installed Splashorama.”
“Splashorama?”
Myron pointed to the waterfall. “You’re looking at two hundred and fifty grand. Plus tax. Makes a statement, boys and girls. But I can show you a scaled-down version if this baby’s too rich for your blood.”
***
“Fuck you,” Bernie said when we were back in Suzie’s car, same sitting arrangement as before, maybe because I’d hopped in first.
“I’m sorry?” said Suzie.
“That’s the statement his waterfall makes,” Bernie said. “The aquifer’s almost dry. Rivers used to flow through the Valley, all the way to the Gulf. Now there’s not even a trickle. And why?”
Silence. Bernie was upset, the water thing again. I didn’t get it. We had waterfalls! “Too many goddamn people, that’s why,” he said. “And they keep coming, like…like a dry flood.”
Too many people? I didn’t get that, either. Except for perps, gangbangers, and other bad dudes, I liked people, the more the merrier. And they liked me!
“Can I quote you?” Suzie said.
“Quote me?”
“That dry-flood idea—might be useful in a piece someday.”
“It’s all yours,” Bernie said.
Suzie gave Bernie a glance in the mirror. Human eyes had a way of looking foggy when thoughts were happening inside, complicated human thoughts that always seemed to stop the fun, in my opinion. “So where are we?” she said.
“We?” said Bernie.
“With the case.”
“Oh,” said Bernie. “The case.” He took a deep breath through his nose; I loved that sound. “One of those obvious discrepancies. Keefer says he had a phone conversation with his irrigation guy yesterday. The irrigation guy says Keefer stopped taking his calls three weeks ago.”
“And therefore, partner?”
Bernie laughed. Whoa. Partner? What was she talking about? I was the partner. I turned my head, nipped a little bit at the material on the inside of her door, stopped when I realized it was vinyl, not leather. How could that be? The dashboard was leather; I remembered from when I’d pawed at it before. I didn’t understand the car business at all. And the taste of vinyl? Don’t get me started.
“Therefore,” Bernie said. “We look into it.”
“How?”
“One of two ways,” Bernie said. “We could—” His phone rang. The ring on Bernie’s cell phone sounded like those old phones in black-and-white movies we often watched. I liked watching them because black and white was so easy for me to see; as for why Bernie liked them, I wasn’t sure, just knew that if it came to a choice between black and white and color, he always chose black and white. He listened to the phone for a while, and for no reason I could explain, I knew something was up. Bernie said, “Okay, thanks,” and clicked off. “That was Rick Torres in Missing Persons. Madison Chambliss has been spotted in Vegas. He’s on his way to our place.” Our place, meaning his and mine: home.
***
Suzie drove us there. They hardly talked the whole way. I was quiet, too. I’d never been to Vegas, only knew it was far away and hated by Bernie. Madison in a high-up window: That picture was very faint in my mind, almost gone. Was that old mine in Las Vegas? That didn’t make sense, but I couldn’t be sure.
We got off the freeway, drove up the canyon, turned onto Mesquite Road. Iggy wasn’t in his window, but a man stood in our front yard, not Rick Torres. This man was tall with shoulder-length hair. He reminded me of a movie star Bernie didn’t like, the name escaping me at the moment, but that wasn’t the important thing. The important thing was that a stranger stood on our property.
“Who’s the pretty boy?” Bernie said.
Suzie’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Oh my God.”
“You know him?” said Bernie.
Suzie nodded.
“Who is he?”
“Dylan McKnight,” Suzie said. “He’s my…my ex-boyfriend.”
“Oh,” said Bernie.
“But what’s he doing out?” Suzie said.
“Out of where?”
“Northern State Correctional,” said Suzie. “Eighteen months to two years on a drug violation.”
“Oh?” said Bernie.