FIVE
The long, white car stopped outside the gate. The driver, a big-headed dude with a dark tan and a cigar sticking straight out of his mouth, leaned on the horn, even though Darren P. Quigley, the gatekeeper, was already on his way. The sound of a car horn honking really hurts my ears. I gave my head a good shake and felt better. By that time, Darren had the gate open.
“Morning, colonel,” he said.
Rick stepped up to the car. “Colonel Drummond?” he said.
The colonel took the cigar from his mouth. “Yes, sir.”
“Owner of the Drummond Family Traveling Circus?”
“In conjunction with a bank or three,” said the colonel. “What can I do you for?”
“Rick Torres, Missing Persons,” Rick said. “I’m in charge of the investigation.”
Colonel Drummond switched off the engine, stuck the cigar in his mouth, and talked around it. “Put me in the picture,” he said. Or something like that: humans can be hard to understand even without cigars in the way.
“Mostly a mystery at this point,” Rick said. “Your trainer, Uri DeLeath, and the elephant are missing. This gentleman here is Bernie Little, private investigator.”
The colonel’s eyes shifted to Bernie. “Howdy,” he said. “Don’t recall hiring you.”
Bernie smiled; maybe he was liking the colonel. “You didn’t,” he said. “I had tickets for today’s show.”
“They’ll be good tomorrow,” said the colonel. “Come on back. And here’s a coupon, good for twenty dollars at any of our food concessions. I highly recommend the devil dogs, prizewinners in six states.”
Devil dogs. Whoa. That was new.
“The point is,” Rick was saying, maybe a little while later, what with my mind having a hard time letting go of the devil dogs, “Bernie works with Chet. Chet’s probably the best tracker in the Valley, and he’s followed the elephant’s scent from the cage to right here, leading us to suspect they left through this gate, most likely by trailer.”
The colonel glanced at me. “What a fine-looking pooch,” he said. Hey! A horn honker maybe, but Colonel Drummond was fine by me; plus he wore one of those string ties, which were fun to chew on, although I’m sure that thought didn’t even occur to me at the moment.
“The problem,” said Rick, turning to Darren, “is that the guard can’t corroborate the theory.”
Colonel Drummond eyed Darren. “Meaning?”
“Didn’t see nothin’, colonel. Didn’t hear nothin’, neither.”
“You’re Quigley, right?”
Darren nodded.
“Official word is this big fella Chet’s one fine tracker, and I got no reason to doubt it,” the colonel said. The end of the cigar glowed hot. “Anything more to say, Quigley?”
Darren shook his head.
“That leaves one of two situations,” said the colonel. “Either you fell asleep or you deserted your post.”
Darren shook his head harder.
“Any situations I missed?” the colonel said.
Darren stopped shaking his head, let it hang down. We have the same thing in our world: it means you’re beat.
Colonel Drummond took the cigar from his mouth, tapped a big chunk of ash over the edge of the door. It held its shape but quickly lost the glow. I went over and sniffed at the smoke curling up. Love cigar smoke!
“Take it on up to the office, Quigley,” the colonel said. “Tell ’em to print out your last check, plus one week severance.”
“You’re firing me?” Darren said.
“Matter of principle,” the colonel said. “Drummond Family Traveling Circus has a long tradition of full cooperation with law enforcement.”
Darren backed away, got his lunch box from the gatehouse—he had a peanut butter sandwich in there, the scent unmistakable—and slumped off toward the big top.
“Hate like hell doing that in this economy,” the colonel said, “but there are lines you can’t cross.”
Rick nodded. “Any idea what’s going on here, colonel?” he said. “Anything like this ever happen before?”
“Anything like my trainer making off with the star of the show?” the colonel said. “Of course not—DeLeath would have been out on his ass.”
Bernie’s eyebrows rose. Have I mentioned how expressive they are, kind of with a language of their own? “That’s what you think happened?” he said. “He stole Peanut?”
“What other possibility is there?” said the colonel.
Bernie and Rick exchanged a look. “Kidnapping, for one,” Rick said.
The colonel laughed. He had fat cheeks and they shook. I always like that in a human. “Kidnap an elephant? You guys are too much.”
“Why is it out of the question?” Bernie asked.
“What would be the point?” said the colonel.
“Ransom,” said Bernie.
“How much do you think an elephant costs?” said the colonel.
“No idea,” Bernie said.
“As low as ten grand,” the colonel said. “That’s for an Asian—Africans are more, of course, just the females, I’m talking about. African males are too dangerous to work with. But the kicker is the cost of care and feeding: try three grand a month, minimum. So even if the ransom gets paid, this kidnapper of yours could easily wind up losing money on the deal. Nope, gentlemen—DeLeath stole Peanut, end of story.”
“Why would he do that?” Rick said.
“Have to ask him,” said the colonel. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a business to take care of, plus all the folks who work in it.” He reached for the ignition. Bernie put both hands on the top of the door. A big car, but it sagged a bit; Bernie’s strong, don’t forget that.
“Two lives may be at risk, colonel,” he said. “We need to know why you’re so sure.”
The colonel gazed down at Bernie’s hands. Bernie has beautiful hands, but the colonel didn’t seem to be appreciating them.
“Bernie’s right,” Rick said. “How come you’re so sure?”
The colonel took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Don’t know what that’s all about, but I always watch for it. “No one, man or beast, is at risk, I assure you,” he said. “Uri DeLeath has simply gone over to the other side.”
“Other side?” Rick said.
“The animal rights fanatics,” Colonel Drummond said. “What other side is there? All we want to do is entertain kids and their parents in an age-old way, but they won’t rest until they drive us out of business.”
“I thought DeLeath was known to be a humane trainer,” Bernie said, stepping back a little from the car.
“The exact reason the fanatics have been trying to get their hooks into him,” the colonel said. “The way cults go after the softheaded types. They’re very clever. Trust me—we’ll never see Peanut again.”
Bernie looked like he was about to say something else, but before that happened Corporal Valdez drove up in her cruiser, Charlie beside her, lights flashing. Charlie’s voice came over the PA: “Message for Dad—ready to go home.”
Not long after, we were on our way out of the fairgrounds, Charlie riding shotgun, me on the shelf but handling it well.
“Me and Mindy were looking at mug shots,” Charlie said.
“See anyone you know?”
Charlie laughed. Laughter: that’s the best human sound, and kid laughter is the best of the best. Then Charlie stopped laughing and his face got serious. The serious look on a kid’s face is always interesting.
“There sure are lots of bad guys, Dad,” he said. “How come?”
Bernie glanced over at Charlie. “No one really knows,” he said, “but I can tell you what I think.”
“Okay.”
“It’s about conscience.” Oops. I was lost already. “You know—a sense of right and wrong.” Oh, that. “Everyone starts out with one, but the more you override it, the weaker it gets. Remember when the threads got stripped on the thing that attaches the propane tank to the barbecue?”
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m hungry.”
So was I, had felt a hunger pang the moment Bernie mentioned the barbecue.
“We’ll pick up something on the way home.”
Like what? I waited to hear, but Bernie didn’t say. And were we even going home? We didn’t take the freeway ramp, instead stayed on the road that ran around the fairgrounds fence. Soon we were on the back side, coming up to the gatehouse.
No sign of Colonel Drummond or his long, white car. The gate was closed, the gatehouse empty. Bernie stopped the car.
“What are we doing, Dad?”
“Just, ah, checking on something,” Bernie said. “You can stay in the car.”
“What kind of something?”
“Hard to say,” Bernie said, opening the door. “Vague feelings.”
I was already out and sniffing around. I picked up Peanut’s scent, getting a little weaker now—time was passing—and followed it down the road in the direction we’d just come.
“Hey, slow down, big guy.”
I tried to slow down, maybe did a bit. Soon we were at a stop sign. I lost the scent for a moment, sniffed in a little circle, and picked it up, no longer present on the road around the fairgrounds but headed toward a freeway ramp on the other side. I could hear freeway noise close by, kind of like a howling storm.
“Southbound ramp,” Bernie said. “Good enough, Chet. C’mon back.”
I turned and trotted over to Bernie. He gave me a nice long pat. Ah. I could tell from the feel of his hand that he loved me. We’re a good team, me and Bernie.
We walked back to the car, side by side. Charlie was standing on the driver’s seat, turning the wheel and going, “Vroom vroom.” That was so much fun to watch that I almost missed a strange sticklike thing lying in the ditch by the side of the road. I darted over and picked it up, a heavy wooden stick with a sharp metal point at one end, and not only a sharp metal point but also a sharp metal hook, ending up with two sharp things to watch out for.
“What you got there?” Bernie said.
I went up to Bernie and dropped the stick thing at his feet. He reached down, then paused and went back to the Porsche. He put on surgical gloves, returned, and picked up the stick thing.
“What’s that?” Charlie called over from the car.
“No idea,” Bernie said. “Looks like a weapon of some sort.” His face brightened a bit; that sometimes happens when he has a good thought. “Have I ever mentioned General Beauregard?”
“A friend of Chet’s, right, Dad?”
Actually one of my very best pals. General Beauregard lived down in Gila City with Otis DeWayne, our weapons expert. Gila City was somewhere in the Valley or maybe not, but the important thing was all that open country in the hills behind the house. Can’t beat open country, of course, and guns often got fired out back for testing purposes, which was always fun, but the best part was General Beauregard, a real big dude—the biggest German shepherd I’ve ever seen—who likes to tussle.
The Porsche hadn’t even come to a stop when the General bounded over, his big white teeth exposed. I leaped out of the car. He ran right into me, knocked me off my feet. I rolled over, ran right into him, knocked him off his feet. He rolled over, ran right into me, knocked me off my feet. I rolled over, ran right—
“What the hell is going on?” Otis came hurrying out the front door. He had hair down to his shoulders and a beard down to his chest. “Shoulda known it was you,” he said. Did he mean me or Bernie? I had no time to figure that out, because at that moment the General gave me a nip. I gave him a nip back. For some reason that made him charge around the house. I charged after him. We charged around and around the house neck and neck, ears flat back. What was more fun than this? Dust clouds were rising, who knows why. We ran through them and ran through them again. I’d been in dust storms before, and believe me this was nothing compared to—
Crack! At first I thought it was a gun going off—nothing unusual at Otis’s place, if I haven’t mentioned that already—but then the sound came again and I saw Otis clap his hands. He was one of those real loud clappers. We came to a halt, me and the General, outside the front porch, panting side by side. Bernie, Charlie, and Otis were sitting at a table, drinking cold drinks—beer for the men, what smelled like lemonade for Charlie. Right away I was in the mood for a cold drink myself, preferably water, always my favorite.
Bernie laid the stick thing on the table, holding it with the edge of his shirt. “Know what this is?” he said. “Chet found it.”
“Where?”
“In a ditch behind the fairgrounds.”
“Circus in town, by any chance?” Otis said. Or something like that: he had so much beard it hid his mouth, and I do better when I can see the mouth moving.
“Yeah,” said Bernie. “What makes you say that?”
Otis wasn’t wearing a shirt. He had lots of hair on his chest, which met his beard hair in a sort of big hairy confusion, but that wasn’t the point. The point was he didn’t have an edge of shirt for picking up the stick thing, so he used a scrap of paper that happened to blow by. Otis picked up the stick thing and gave it a close look.
“Any elephants in this circus of yours?” he said.
“Come on, Otis,” Bernie said, “spit it out.”
Uh-oh. Spitting is something humans did from time to time—although not the women, for some reason—but they never looked their best doing it, no offense. I got ready for a glob to fly, but it didn’t. Instead Otis set the stick thing down and said, “Ankus, Bernie. Also known as an elephant hook, elephant goad, or bull hook.”
Charlie put down his lemonade. “It’s not for hurting the elephants?”
“’Fraid so,” said Otis DeWayne.