Nixon Panero was one of our best sources, kind of strange because we’d put him away for a year or two. He had an auto-body shop at the end of a long line of auto-body shops in a flat, treeless part of town where guys slouched on every corner, up to no good. My old buddy Spike was slouching, too—sprawled, in fact, with splayed-out paws—by Nixon’s gate when we drove in. He saw me and raised his tail. Spike was one scary-looking dude, part Rottweiler, part pit bull, part unknown, and had been in many scraps, including one with me the night we’d taken Nixon down, but he was getting on now, less belligerent, his warrior face turning white.
Nixon was sitting in a chair in the yard, watching one of his workers spray-painting flames on a black fender. The air filled with paint smells, sweet and harsh at the same time. “Hey, boys, been a while,” Nixon said. “Where’s the Porsche?”
Bernie shook his head.
“Finally crapped out on you, huh?” said Nixon, sounding happy about it. His eyes were too close together, even for a human, always a disturbing sight for me.
“Something like that,” Bernie said.
Nixon spat in the dirt. “I can get you another one, even more beat up.”
“Yeah?” said Bernie. “How much?”
“Don’t have it yet,” said Nixon. “I’m just saying the possibility’s out there.”
Or something like that. I wasn’t really listening, on account of Nixon being a tobacco chewer, which made his spit pretty interesting. I went over and sniffed at the dirt where the glob had landed. It smelled like Bernie’s breath in the morning, if he’d been smoking the night before and hadn’t brushed his teeth yet, but even stronger, with an added bitterness. Normally at a moment like this, I’d move on to an experimental lick or two. Not this time, amigo.
“Supposing,” Bernie was saying, “a guy had to borrow some money.”
“No need—us two, me and you, we got a history,” Nixon said, and started laughing, a laugh that went on too long, got a little crazy, ended in hacking, and then another glob horking out, splatting down nearby. “You can pay me by the week, the month, whatever.”
“I’m talking hundreds of thousands,” Bernie said. “Maybe even more.”
“For a thirty-year-old Porsche?”
“This isn’t about the Porsche.” Bernie pulled up an overturned trash can and sat down; I sat, too. “This is about a developer type in the middle of a big project who gets cut off by the banks and has no other resources, at least that I can find.”
“We’re not talkin’ about you?”
“Do I look like a developer type?”
Nixon’s close-together eyes examined Bernie. “Maybe with some cleanin’ up, haircut, new shoes. Shoes tell the tale, Bernie—can’t believe you don’t know that by now.” He opened a flat can, stuck another plug of dip in his mouth. “So this developer type goes huntin’ for street money?”
“That’s my theory,” Bernie said. “I want to find the lender, whoever it is.”
The second glob was bigger than the first and had an even stronger smell. I went over and was lowering my head for another sniff when something bumped me from behind. I turned and there was Spike. He bumped me again, away from the glob, and gave it a sniff himself. I bumped him back, barely moved him at all—Spike was so heavy, and still strong. But it was my turn at the glob, so I bumped him again, harder this time. Spike faced me, showed his teeth, all yellow and brown now, and growled. I showed my teeth and growled back.
“Hey, knock it off,” Nixon said.
What was this? Spike actually knocking it off just because Nixon said so? Spike walked around in a circle and lay down in the shade of Nixon’s tow truck, his white face much more visible than the rest of him; for some reason, that made me sad. I backed away from the glob.
“More orange at the tips of those flames,” Nixon said. “Make a fuckin’ statement.” The painter nodded, sprayed more orange. Nixon turned to Bernie. “This developer of yours got a name?”
“Damon Keefer.”
“Don’t know him,” Nixon said. “He’s into some shylock for mid–six figures?”
“Educated guesswork on the exact amount,” Bernie said. Nixon scratched his head. Mine got itchy right away, so I scratched it, first with a front paw, then harder with a back paw, which always did the trick.
“Serious green,” Nixon said. “Kind of narrows the list.” He took a pencil stub and a grimy spiral notebook from his chest pocket and began writing. “We got the Spirelli brothers down in Modena.” He licked the pencil; all of a sudden I wanted to lick it, too, so bad. “Then there’s Albie Rose, but they say he’s close to retirement now, maybe wouldn’t want to mess with something like this. You know Albie?”
“Heard of him,” Bernie said.
“Been married eight times.”
“Didn’t know that.”
“All showgirls from Vegas, each and every one, three of them named Tiffany.”
“Vegas keeps coming up in this case.”
“Then maybe you should try Albie. He does some business in Vegas.”
“Any chance he owns a movie theater up there?”
“Wouldn’t put it past him—he’s the cultured type.”
Bernie gave Nixon a look.
“An intellectual, is what I’m saying,” Nixon said.
“Heard of them,” said Bernie. “Anyone else?”
Nixon scrunched up his face. Some humans did that when they were trying to squeeze out a thought; I wished they didn’t. “There’s Marcellus Clay in Sunshine City, kind of diversified these days—aliens, coke, identity theft—but he’s always got money on the street.” Nixon opened his eyes, blinked a couple times, wrote in the notebook, stuck the pencil behind his ear. Was there any way to grab it? “That’s pretty much the list,” Nixon said. He tore off a sheet of paper, handed it to Bernie.
“Any Russians?” Bernie said.
“Don’t know no Russians,” said Nixon. “Don’t know and don’t wanna know. Do I start checkin’ out old Porsches?”
“Depends on the price,” Bernie said.
“Money, money, money,” Nixon said. “Stickin’ my nose in, I know, but maybe you should raise your fees.”
“I’ll think about it,” Bernie said.
Please do. Right now we were charging zero. What kind of business plan was that?
***
Albie Rose lived in the biggest house I’d ever seen, more like a palace, surrounded by high walls. A guy with big shoulders and a gun on his hip led us across vast green lawns to a huge swimming pool. On a deck chair by the pool lay a fat old man in a tiny bathing suit. His skin was oiled and deeply tanned, just about the color and texture of a turkey Leda had left too long in the oven one Thanksgiving. I tried not to look.
“Mr. Rose?” said the guy with the gun.
The old man opened his eyes, hard eyes I didn’t like at all. “You Bernie Little?” he said.
Bernie nodded.
Albie Rose waved the guy with the gun away. He strolled to the end of the pool and stood by the diving board, probably way too hot in his all-black outfit. I was pretty hot myself; the pool looked inviting.
“Did some checking up,” Albie Rose said, still flat on his back. “You have an interesting reputation.”
Bernie nodded again.
Albie Rose glanced over at me. “Not one of those trained attack dogs, is it?”
“Not trained, no,” said Bernie.
An it? I was an it? I moved a little closer to poolside.
“I don’t like violence,” Albie Rose said.
“Me, either, Mr. Rose,” said Bernie.
“Call me Albie. Only my wives called me Mr. Rose. But as for violence, sometimes there’s no other way—am I right, Foster?”
“Yes sir,” said the man with the gun.
“I’m sure this isn’t one of those times,” Bernie said.
“Take a seat,” said Albie.
Bernie pulled up another deck chair, sat on the end. “I understand you’re a kind of financier.”
“Not kind of,” Albie said. “How much are you looking for?”
“None,” said Bernie. “I’m just trying to find out how the business works.”
“Why?”
“To better serve my clientele,” Bernie said.
Albie gave Bernie a long look, then sat up. “Foster,” he called. Foster came over, raised the back of Albie Rose’s deck chair, returned to his post by the diving board. The old man wiped some sweat off his flabby chest, flicked it away with the edge of his hand. It smelled like this old cheese Bernie had brought home once. For a few moments I could smell nothing but old cheese, rising off Albie in waves. “Go on,” Albie said.
“Suppose someone came to you for money, five hundred grand, just to name a figure—what happens next?” Bernie said.
“I say yes or no.”
“Based on what?”
“Could be anything.”
“Like?”
Albie shrugged. “Won’t look me in the eye, or looks me in the eye too much. A crier—don’t lend to criers. Or he’s not wearing a tie.”
“Not wearing a tie?”
“Come to me for money you wear a tie. I’m old-school.”
“What about the purpose of the loan—is that a factor?”
“Purpose of the loan?”
“What the money’s for.”
“Survival,” said Albie. “They come to me for survival. It’s always the same.”
“Suppose you say yes to the five hundred grand,” Bernie said, “and the borrower turns out to be slow making the payments.”
“That would be stressful,” Albie said. “I don’t get involved. Handling stress is Foster’s department.”
Foster stood motionless by the diving board.
“What’s his approach?” Bernie said.
“Foster was a promising baseball player at one time,” Albie said. “Drafted in the sixth round by the Dodgers. He still has his bat.”
“Louisville Slugger,” Foster said. He spoke in a normal voice, but it carried across the pool.
“Had one myself,” Bernie said. “Any stressful situations recently?”
“Nah,” said Albie. “Not for years. Man of Foster’s talent—word gets out.”
Foster made a little bow. “But it’s more the philosophy that keeps things running smooth, boss,” he said. “You don’t mind my saying.”
“Philosophy?” said Bernie.
“In five words,” said Albie. “Deal with cash businesses only.”
“For example?”
“Dentists,” said Albie. “I love dentists. They make good money, look around for investments, always pick wrong, get buried.”
“What about real estate developers?” Bernie said.
“Wouldn’t touch ’em.”
“Why not?”
“What I just said—cash business. Developers got no cash flow at all. Dreamers, sure, I rely on dreamers, but what’s the one thing they gotta have besides their big stupid dreams?”
“Cash flow,” Bernie said.
“Now you’re cooking,” said Albie. “No charge for the lesson.”
Bernie made one of his nods that could have meant anything. Albie’s hard eyes watched him closely.
“I got a question of my own,” Albie said. “What developer’s paying you?”
“I’m not working for any developer,” Bernie said. “There’s a developer in the case.”
“Name?”
“Damon Keefer—he’s got a big project going up at Puma Wells.”
“Puma Wells,” said Albie. “My wife—one of ’em, Tiffany, it might have been, or that other Tiffany, with the tits—used to ride up there, ride for miles, nothing but open country. You ever think about shit like that?”
“Every day,” said Bernie.
Albie nodded. “Too many goddamn dreamers,” he said. “That’s what’s wrong with the American dream. As for your guy, never heard of him.”
Way down at the bottom of the pool I saw a shiny ring, plastic or rubber, one of those pool toys. I liked pool toys. Have I mentioned I’m a pretty good diver?
“Are all your competitors like you?” Bernie said. “Philosophically, I mean.”
“What competitors?”
“The Spirelli brothers. Marcellus Clay.”
“The Spirelli brothers? Marcellus Clay? Now you insult me.”
“Not intentionally,” said Bernie. “But would they do business with developers?”
“The Spirellis, never. That’s not where they go wrong. Marcellus Clay’s capable of anything.”
Bernie rose. “Thanks for your time,” he said.
“Headed out to Sunshine City?” Albie said. “I’d be—Hey! What the hell’s he doing in the pool?”
Bernie looked over at me. “The dog paddle,” he said. “It’s his only stroke.”
And there might have been more back-and-forth, but I missed it, hearing nothing but bubbles streaming past my ears as I dove down through lovely cool water and snagged the shiny ring. Rubber: I gave it a good squeeze and swam—swimming is like a fast trot, only in the water, nothing to it—to the surface.
Albie was laughing at something Bernie must have said. “You’re a funny guy,” he said. “Funny guys are smart. I like having them around, if you get my meaning.”
“I have a job,” said Bernie.
“The dog’s kind of funny, too,” Albie said. “What’s his name?”
“Chet.”
“Good name. How much do you want for him?”
“You’re funny, too,” said Bernie.
I got out of the pool, shook myself off, water spraying everywhere, the very best part of swimming.
“Drop it,” Bernie said.
Aw, did I have to?
“He can keep it,” said Albie.
I dropped the shiny rubber ring by the side of the pool. Albie gazed at it for a moment, then looked at me, and finally at Bernie. “There’s maybe one other guy,” he said. “Kind of a newcomer, don’t know him at all. Name of Gulagov.”
Gulagov? I barked, good and loud. No one seemed to hear. I tried again.
“He wants that toy,” Albie said.
“He’s got lots of toys,” Bernie said.
The toy? I wasn’t barking about the toy. This was the kind of moment when humans let out a sigh of frustration, but my sighs are all about contentment, so that was that.
“Russian?” Bernie was saying.
“We got Russians now,” Albie said. “Whole wide world’s coming to the Valley, in case you don’t know.”
“I know,” Bernie said.
“Could use someone like you,” Albie said.
“No, thanks,” said Bernie.
We began walking away.
“Ninety grand to start, plus benefits and a nice Christmas bonus,” Albie called after us. “Think about it.”
From the look on Bernie’s face, I could tell he wasn’t thinking about it. Me either, despite the messiness of our finances. Coming to work every day and seeing Albie in that tiny bathing suit? Plus the constant smell of old cheese? Count me out.
Back at the office, a little room next door to Charlie’s bedroom, at the side of the house facing old man Heydrich’s fence. A basket of kids’ blocks lay in one corner—the room was meant for a sister or brother who never came along; sometimes I played with the blocks myself. The rest of the office was mostly Bernie’s books—on shelves, in stacks here and there, sometimes scattered on the floor; plus the desk, with phone and computer; the two client chairs; and a nice soft rug with a pattern of circus elephants—kind of like my own personal cubicle, just without walls, very cozy, although even the idea of elephants got me nervous.
“Russian connections, Chet,” Bernie said, tapping away at the keyboard.
I lay on my stomach on the elephant rug, front paws stretched out, working on a chew strip, my mind drifting to thoughts of Max’s Memphis Ribs. Those two-for-one coupons—I hoped Bernie remembered.
He got up, went to the whiteboard hanging on the wall. “Start with Anatoly Bulganin,” he said, writing on the board. “Then there’s the knife, made in Zlatoust.” He drew a picture of a knife, not very good. “Plus Ms. Larapova, suddenly, after our visit, no longer working in the office at Pinnacle Peak.” He drew a picture of a woman with a tennis racquet, also not very good. “What am I leaving out? Oh yeah—Cleon Maxwell, ID stolen by Russian gangsters.” More drawing: Was that supposed to be a pig? Please don’t forget those coupons, Bernie, that’s all I’m asking. “And now we’ve got a Russki moneylender, name of Gulagov.” Bernie made a funny-looking mark on the board—a mark I’d often seen and might have been the sign for money—and beside it added a kind of hook with a round dot at the bottom.
He went back to the desk, starting tapping again. “Anatoly Bulganin, projectionist in Las Vegas, happened to snap the picture of Madison that seemed to show she was free and on her own, just another teenage runaway. Happened to snap the picture that seemed to show—see where I’m going with this, Chet?”
What was the question? Seemed to show, blah blah blah. One thing about the so-called gift of so-called speech: Too often it just went on and on. Besides, I already knew damn well Maddy wasn’t a runaway, had known practically from the start. Bernie, get on the stick.
Tap, tap, tap. “Why don’t we return to the question that came up with Albie Rose—who owns the Golden Palm Movie Palace?”
Oh, sure, and how about where they get their popcorn while we’re at it? Not a big fan of popcorn myself: mostly air, except for those unpopped kernels that get stuck between my teeth, sometimes for days. Even now I could feel a little something caught back there. When was my next appointment with the groomer? She always brushed my teeth, one of my favorite things in the whole world. I got my chew strip way back in my mouth, maneuvered it around, trying to get rid of whatever was bugging me.
Tap tap. “Here we go, Chet—looks like the Golden Palm Movie Palace is owned by the Rasputin Environmental Investments Group. Get it? Rasputin?”
I did not.
“Interesting choice.” He drew a wild-looking bearded man on the whiteboard. “Why not Chekhov or Tchaikovsky or any number of—”
The phone rang and Bernie answered it. “Little Detective Agency,” he said. Then came a pause, and in a very different sort of voice, he said, “Charlie. Hey. Since when are you making phone calls?” He listened and laughed; he was sitting forward now, holding the phone in both hands. “Yeah,” he said, “that button’s the speed dial.” More listening, then: “There’s no actual slow-dial button…How come there’s no slow-dial button? Good question, Charlie. It’s like why there’s no giant ants—who needs ’em?” Didn’t have a clue what Bernie was talking about, but I heard Charlie’s little laugh on the other end. I myself was pretty good at making Charlie laugh—licking his face worked every time. The laughter of human children—there was never too much of that. “Now you know how,” Bernie was saying, “you can call anytime you…Charlie? You still—” Quietly, Bernie said, “Bye,” and hung up. He stared out the window. Bernie had a kind of stare where his eyes went blank. He was doing it now. What did he see at times like this? I didn’t know. After a while he swiveled his chair around and looked down at me. “We’ve got to find the girl, Chet,” he said. “Got to find her soon.”
He went back to the computer and tapped away, sometimes getting up and adding something new on the whiteboard. I closed my eyes, sleep on the way. I’d had some lovely naps on the elephant rug, soft but also with a nubby texture that felt so nice. Sleep on the way, but for some reason it didn’t close in, not completely. Fine with me: A very pleasant fog settled over the elephant rug, nothing penetrating it but Bernie’s voice and that tap-tap, both soft and far away.
“Russians,” he said. And later: “Rasputin Environmental—what else do they own, I wonder.” Tap tap. “And Keefer stinks, no doubt about that.” I couldn’t have agreed more—he stank of that horrible cat, Prince; a bit of a surprise that Bernie had picked this up, scents being my department, although at times our duties overlapped—but I lacked the energy at the moment to thump my tail in support. “Patterns, patterns—first the sighting outside the Golden Palm, then the call. Both setups, of course, and not only that, but Maddy tried to clue us in—what a kid! So they’re feeling pressure. Got to be pressure from us, boy, meaning we must be getting close, our activities influencing theirs. Kind of like Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, Chet—the very act of doing the experiment influences the results, so we can never be sure of them—how’s that for irony?—even if…or was it Max Planck?” He muttered on for a bit. Sometimes, like now, I got anxious about Bernie knowing a little too much about everything. Maybe if he just stuck to basics, like our finances and those two-for-one coupons at Max’s Memphis Ribs, we’d be better off.
Tap tap. “Gulagov. Did we get a first name? Here’s one—Dmitri. And Yevgeny…Anton…Ruslan…any chance one of them’s connected to Rasputin Environmental, which would hook him in to the Golden Palm setup and then—”
The doorbell rang. Bernie got up to answer it. I rose, too, shaking off the fog in an instant—anything about the door was a security issue, my territory. We opened up, and surprise! It was Janie. Janie was my groomer, the best groomer in the whole Valley. She had a great business with a great business plan: “Janie’s Pet Grooming Service—We Pick Up and Deliver.” And there, right out front, was Janie’s truck, silver and sparkling in the sunshine.
“All set,” said Janie. She was a strong woman with a broad face, big hands, and dirty fingernails. I loved Janie.
“We had an appointment for today?” Bernie said.
Janie whipped out some device with a tiny screen, held it so Bernie could see.
“Guess I forgot,” Bernie said.
“Rain check?” she said, which I didn’t get at all. No point checking—it never rained in the Valley.
“No,” Bernie said. “Looks like he wants to go.”
I got back down on all fours.
“I’ll have him back in two hours,” Janie said. Amazing, you might say, how I’d just been thinking about a nice grooming session and now here we were, but it’s not: That kind of thing happens to me all the time. “Chet, easy there, big guy,” Janie said on the way to the truck. She was almost as tall as Bernie, and I had to jump pretty high to lick her face, but I could do it, no problem. She laughed, just like Charlie, a high little laugh, kind of strange in a woman her size. But it sounded great to me. Was this the life or what? I couldn’t wait for the toothbrush.
***
Janie had a nice setup in a strip mall not far away. First came the tub room, which was mostly a big steel tub filled with sudsy water. Janie scrubbed and scrubbed. I pushed back against the brush; wish I could tell you how good it felt.
“Where’ve you been, Chet?” Janie said. “Brought the whole desert in with you.”
I thought of Mr. Gulagov’s ranch, and crawling through the horrible old mine; but only briefly—wouldn’t want to spoil a visit to Janie’s with stuff like that.
We moved on to the shower, a smaller steel tub where all the suds got washed away. Janie jumped back just in time, hardly getting sprayed when I shook off—we knew each other pretty well. I hopped out of the small tub by myself, trotted into the drying room, rolled on my back.
Janie laughed again. “Got it down to a T, don’t you, Chet?”
Whatever that meant. Let’s just get going. I liked the drying part, first getting rubbed down with towels, but even more when the hair dryer came out and Janie ran it back and forth over me, at the same time drawing a big stiff comb through my coat, drawing it nice and slow, slow, slow. Ah, bliss. Did Janie do that two-for-one-coupon thing?
“Looks like you need a trim,” Janie said.
Trim away.
Janie got out the scissors and did some trimming. After that she did some clipping and buffing of my nails. And then, finally, the toothbrush. Janie always sang a song while she brushed my teeth.
“Brush your teeth with Colgate
Colgate dental cream
It cleans your breath
What a toothpaste
While it cleans your teeth.”
Loved that song, one of my very favorites. I raised my head and did some of that woo-woo-woo vocalizing I’d learned by the campfire. Janie laughed, her eyes shining, and gave me a pat. Some humans had a soft spot for us and some did not; Janie was the first kind. Pat pat, and then the laughter faded and her hand slowed somewhere in the middle of my back, felt around, moved off, returned, felt around some more. “Got a bit of a lump there, Chet?” she said.
Not that I knew of. Lump? What was that, anyway? Something Janie could comb out? I waited for her to get the comb again, but she did not. Lump. I thought of a perp named Lumpy Flanagan we’d once put away, but didn’t dwell on him for long—an ugly brute, with an overbite and no chin—and then forgot the whole thing.
“Okay, Chet, we’re done.” Janie and I went out to the parking lot, climbed into her truck. I felt great. A female of my tribe passing by on a leash had to be tugged away. Who could blame her?
***
We drove up Mesquite Road and parked in my driveway behind the van. Janie let me out the back—I didn’t get to ride shotgun in her truck, something about insurance. Insurance was one of those things I didn’t understand, just knew that humans worried about it a lot and that we didn’t have much, me and Bernie, on account of our finances. I glanced next door, and there was Iggy at his window. He saw me, too, and started barking, a screechy yip-yip-yip that didn’t stop. I let out a bark of my own, just saying hi. His barking got wilder; he jumped up and down, raced back and forth behind the window.
“Your buddy’s sure trying to tell you something,” Janie said. She knocked at our door.
No answer.
She pressed the button that rang the bell. No answer, but the bell didn’t always work, something about a fuse. Replacing it was on the list. Bernie kept a list in the bottom drawer of his desk, added to it from time to time; the bourbon often came out after those listing sessions.
Janie knocked again, harder. Iggy was still barking. Janie called, “Bernie?” She raised her voice and tried again, knocking on the door—pretty much pounding—with her big fist. “Bernie? Bernie?” She listened. I listened, too, heard nothing. Janie looked around. “Where’s the Porsche?” she said. And then, “He must’ve stepped out.” Her face squeezed in toward the middle a bit, one of those signs of human annoyance. She put her hand on the knob and turned it. Hey. The door opened. Bad security: but that was Bernie.
Janie looked in. “Bernie? Bernie?”
The house was silent. I went into the front hall, sniffed Bernie’s jogging shoes, lapped some water from one of my bowls, picked up my squeaky ball, squeaked it a couple times. It sounded fine.
“Guess he left it unlocked for us,” Janie said. “Think it’s okay to leave you by yourself?”
I squeaked the squeaky ball at her. Of course it was okay: I lived here.
“I’ll write a quick note, then, get him to call me about your…” Her voice trailed off in the middle of whatever she was planning to say. That often happened when some human and I were alone together, always leaving me with the feeling that the talking kept on inside their heads, no silence ever. Between you and me, and no offense, but I really wouldn’t want to be human.
Janie wrote on a Post-it note—Bernie used to paper the office with them before the whiteboard came along—and stuck it on the inside of the door. “Okay, Chet.” She gave me a nice pat, soft and gentle. “Take good care of yourself, now.” Janie closed the door and went away. I heard her truck start up, and then the sound of it faded away. Iggy was still barking.
I trotted around the corner toward the kitchen. After grooming, I often got hungry, mealtime or not. I was wondering whether I’d left anything in my breakfast bowl—had that ever happened, even once?—when I caught the smell of strangers. And not just any strangers, but strangers who smelled partly of cooked beets. I let out a bark that echoed through the house, came back to me sounding so savage it scared me. I did it again, even louder. After that I ran from room to room, barking the whole time, feeling the hair standing rigid all down my back.
Everything looked normal: kitchen, food bowl empty; dining room that never got used; living room with the big TV where we watched movies, me and Bernie; the big bedroom, very messy, as usual; Charlie’s room, neat as a pin, whatever that meant—I’d stuck myself with a pin once, seen nothing neat about it at all. But normal, that was the point, everything normal. Then I went into the office.
Something was wrong; and not just the odor of the beet strangers, by far the strongest of anywhere in the house. What was it, what was wrong? I ran around in circles, sniffing and barking. It took me a long time, but then I saw: Where the whiteboard always hung on the wall was now empty space, the paint brighter than in the rest of the room. I sniffed some more, sniffed Bernie’s smell, of course, but almost overwhelmed by the smell of the beet strangers.
Oh no. Bernie was gone.
I raced through the house, barking and barking. All the doors were closed, and all the windows, too, with the AC finally on, now that the real heat was coming. I couldn’t get out! Bernie! I threw myself against the front door. I’d seen Bernie bash a door down once, but ours didn’t budge, didn’t even make a cracking sound. I tried again with all my strength. All that did was knock Janie’s Post-it note off the door. It fluttered sideways and disappeared behind the recycling bin.
Bernie!