TWENTY-TWO
Lucky,” said Captain Panza, the chief of police. He sat straight behind his desk, a thin little guy with gold braid on his shirt and creases in his uniform pants, smelling strongly of the same kind of shaving lotion favored by Skins Barkley, now sporting an orange jumpsuit at Central State. Creases always got my attention: Bernie’s pants never had them. “You’re very, very lucky to be alive,” Captain Panza went on. He took a thick gold pen from his chest pocket and wrote something on a sheet of paper.
“I’m aware of that,” Bernie said. He sat in a chair on the other side of Captain Panza’s desk; I stood beside him. Bernie wore sweats he kept in the car—all the rest of his stuff had burned in the fire. I wore my brown collar; the black one, back home, is for dress-up. “Got any leads yet?” Bernie said. “Clues about who did this?”
“The term leads is familiar to me,” said Captain Panza. “Leads are being developed even as we speak.”
“Such as?” Bernie said.
“Perhaps in El Norte the police discuss ongoing investigations,” Captain Panza said. “Procedures are different here.”
“I appreciate that,” Bernie said, “but—”
“My office is grateful for your cooperation,” said Captain Panza. “Enjoy your visit to our beautiful country.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You may go.”
“That’s it?” Bernie said. “You’ve hardly asked any questions at all.”
Captain Panza glanced at the sheet of paper. “You testified that you were asleep when the incident occurred, escaped with the help of your dog, and saw no one. Is there more?”
“Yeah,” said Bernie. “Lots. Starting with the fact that someone tried to kill us and I’d like to know who.”
Captain Panza’s gold pen moved across the page. “We have no indication that you were the target.”
“Someone blows up my room and I’m not the target?”
“As you may know, we have a violent element among us in this state. Dangerous, yes, but often careless, prone to mistakes.”
“They were going after someone else?”
Captain Panza nodded.
“Who?” said Bernie.
“That information must remain confidential.”
“Did any of the other guests get hurt?”
“There were no other guests.”
“What about the woman who runs the place?”
“Rosita?” said Captain Panza. “Lucky, like you. She was elsewhere at the time.”
“That’s interesting,” Bernie said.
“Is it?”
Bernie and Captain Panza gazed at each other. They’d been having a polite conversation, but I got this uncomfortable feeling—it happens down the back of my neck—that they actually weren’t big fans of each other.
“I’ve got an odd question for you,” Bernie said.
“I’m listening,” said Captain Panza.
“Ever heard of puff adders out in the desert?”
“Puff adders?”
“It’s a kind of poisonous snake.”
“We have poisonous snakes, certainly,” Captain Panza said. “That’s no secret.”
“The thing with puff adders,” Bernie said, “is that if they show up here in Sonora they’re lost. Puff adders come from Africa.”
One of Captain Panza’s eyelids made a tiny fluttering motion. “You’re a naturalist?” he said. “That is what brought you to Mexico?”
“I’m a private investigator,” Bernie said. “I thought you knew.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because you didn’t ask.”
More eyelid fluttering. I was glad to see it, although I couldn’t have explained why. “Private investigators from El Norte have no status here,” Captain Panza said. “You must be on vacation.”
“Yeah,” said Bernie. He rose. “We’re just starting to have fun.”
Captain Panza smiled. Hey! He was missing a tooth. I couldn’t help feeling a little bad for him. “We want all our visitors to have fun,” he said. “But before you go, it’s my duty make sure that your dog has papers.”
“They were checked at the border,” Bernie said.
“I will have to see them.”
“They’re in the car.”
Captain Panza gestured toward the door. Bernie moved that way, and so did I. “The dog can remain,” Captain Panza said. “I like dogs.”
Bernie gazed at Captain Panza, then nodded. “Stay, Chet,” he said, and went out the door. I stayed.
Captain Panza stopped smiling. He stared at me. I stared at him. If he was a fan of me and my kind, his face kept it hidden very well. “I saw what you did last night,” he said. “Muy bien. We would make a good team, you and I.” He opened a desk drawer, took out a big bone-shaped biscuit, the size I like the best. Captain Panza held out the biscuit. “Ven aquí,” he said.
I stayed where I was.
He laughed. “Jocko fears you,” he said. “Imagine that!” Captain Panza put the biscuit away, closed the drawer. Jocko? This guy knew Jocko? What did that mean, if anything?
The door opened and Bernie came back in. He crossed the room and laid the papers on Captain Panza’s desk. Captain Panza glanced at them real quick, if at all.
“These papers are not in order,” he said.
Bernie gave Captain Panza a look that showed nothing, at least to me.
“You must leave Mexico at once,” Captain Panza. “Alternatively, you may stay, in which case the dog will be seized.”
Bernie kept giving him that look. “Do you have a specific amount in mind?” he said.
“Amount, señor?” said Captain Panza. “For your sake, I will pretend I did not hear that word.”
Bernie was silent for a moment. Then he said, “We can pretend all kinds of things.”
For some reason, Captain Panza didn’t like hearing that; it kind of stung him—I could see from this tiny flinch in his eyes.
Bernie turned to me. “Let’s go,” he said.
I followed him to the door. Captain Panza said, “Maintaining a safe speed, you will reach the border in”—he checked his watch, thick and gold, like the pen—“seventy-five minutes. Naturally I will receive a telephone report from the aduana the moment you pass through.”
“Adiós,” Bernie said.
“Hasta la vista,” said Captain Panza.
“It stinks,” Bernie said, as we got in the car.
It did? I sniffed the air, rich with smells, although I wouldn’t call any of them stinking.
We drove for a while, back in the direction we’d come from, away from Dos Jorobas, that two-humped mountain. “Hasta la vista,” Bernie said. “Probably not a good idea if that actually happens, at least not down here.”
That one zipped right past me. I watched the outside go by, hilly and rocky, with saguaros here and there, the kind of country we like. Normally Bernie would switch on the music and we’d do a little singing, but his hand didn’t move toward the knobs, just stayed on the wheel, maybe gripping it harder than usual. We passed a donkey pulling a cart with an old man riding on top—the donkey’s big eye seemed to watch me going by, sitting up tall in the shotgun seat, but I couldn’t tell, and anyway got distracted by the sight of tiny white worms crawling around on the donkey’s face. Only for a moment, though, and then we were zooming on down the road.
“What’s a border, Chet?” Bernie said. I waited to hear. “Just a line on a map, drawn by politicians. Is that supposed to impress us?” I didn’t know. We came to a crossroads, the pavement continuing straight ahead, a dirt track leading off to the side. Bernie pulled over, shut off the engine.
It was real quiet. Bernie twisted around in his seat, gazed at Dos Jorobas. In between the humps lay a little clump of white. “San Anselmo,” Bernie said. “That was our plan. Do we cut and run, let ourselves get pushed around?” Were we getting pushed around? By who? I didn’t know, but getting pushed around was out of the question. I barked. Bernie laughed and gave me a pat. Then he opened the glove box and took out the .38 Special and a box of ammo. “Don’t know about you,” Bernie said, loading the rounds—those rounds, glittering in the sun, a sight I always liked seeing!—into the cylinder. “But I’m in the mood for pushing back.”
Me, too. That was exactly my mood, to a T, whatever that means. There were golf tees, of course, and once in a pro shop I’d gotten into a bit of a—but forget all that. How could this be about golf? Had golf come up in this case, even once? Hey! In fact, it had. I remembered Colonel Drummond on the practice tee—whoa, another T—and those yellow pants. So maybe this was about golf, after all. Fine with me. I was ready for anything, including golfers in yellow pants trying to push us around.
Bernie tucked the .38 Special in his belt, started the car, steered off the paved road, and onto the dirt track. Almost at once, his hand relaxed on the wheel, let it go, wandered over to the knobs, and then: music! All our favorites, like “It Hurts Me Too,” with Elmore James and his slide guitar, “If You Were Mine,” with Billie Holiday and Roy Eldridge on trumpet—that trumpet always does things to me—and “Honky Tonk Blues” with Hank Williams. By then Bernie was singing at the top of his lungs, I was joining in with my woo-woo thing, and we’d made another turn, so now the two-humped mountain stood dead ahead, getting closer and closer.
The road switchbacked up the nearest hump of the Dos Jorobas. I like switchbacks—you get to look down on where you just were, and then again and again. Sometimes that can make me pukey, but not today. Soon the road leveled out, widened, became paved, and a bit of traffic appeared. We drove into San Anselmo, through narrow cobbled streets, all bumpy, and then into a square with a fountain in the middle and white buildings all around, gleaming in the sun. We parked beside a rusty old flatbed with a load of flowers in back. The smells: lovely.
We got out of the car, walked over to an outdoor café near the fountain. It made nice splashing sounds. I leaned in and lapped some up. Delicious. Coins glittered down at the bottom. A skinny barefoot kid passing by on the other side reached in and grabbed one of them. A waiter yelled at him and the kid ran away. The waiter came to our table.
“Señor?” He had a cigarette sticking out the side of his mouth, a plume of smoke curling up into the still air. Bernie couldn’t take his eyes off it. His nostrils seemed to expand a bit, like his nose was making a play for some of that smoke. Poor Bernie.
“Café,” he said,
The waiter went off. We sat in the sunshine. The skinny kid returned and fished out another coin. The waiter came back, yelled at kid. The kid ran away. The waiter lowered his tray, a tray bearing a cup of coffee and a dish with some cigarettes on it.
Bernie took the coffee, gave the waiter a quick glance. “Yeah,” said Bernie, “don’t mind if I do.” He plucked out a cigarette and handed over a greenback.
“For one cigarette and one coffee is twenty pesos,” the waiter said. “You have nothing more small?”
“Keep the change,” Bernie said.
The waiter nodded, just once, a careful sort of nod. Bernie stuck the cigarette in his mouth. The waiter produced a lighter and held the flame under the tip of the cigarette. Bernie’s cheeks got hollow and the cigarette end glowed. I loved seeing all that; if I could smoke I would, no second thoughts, whatever those are, about it.
Bernie blew out some smoke, reached into his pocket, laid the photo of Darren Quigley on the table. The waiter’s eyes shifted to it, then away.
“Know him?” Bernie said.
The waiter shook his head, just once, a careful sort of head shake. Some kind of interview was going on. Bernie was a great interviewer. That was one of our strengths at the Little Detective Agency. I bring other things to the table. Maybe they’ll come up later.
“But you’ve seen him,” Bernie said.
The waiter didn’t reply. He stuck the lighter in his apron pocket, took a slow glance around.
“Suppose our friend in the picture likes a drink or two but doesn’t have a lot of money to spend,” Bernie said. “Where would he go in San Anselmo?”
The waiter tilted his chin toward a narrow street leading away from one of the corners of the square. “La Pulquería,” he said.
“Gracias,” said Bernie.
The waiter picked up his tray and left without another word. The skinny kid reappeared.
I’ve been in dives before—that comes with the job—but never one as divey at La Pulquería. Dark and smoky with walls stained brown and a floor that stuck to my paws with every step, plus a smell of human urine that was off the charts, if off the charts means the most powerful I’ve ever come across, except for that one time on the freeway when a truck carrying a load of portable toilets wrecked right in front of us.
There was one customer at the bar, slumped over it and motionless, his hand around a glass, drool coming from the corner of his mouth. We stood as far from him as possible. The bartender approached. She was hefty, wore a low-cut top and gold hoop earrings that touched her shoulders, looked kind of puffy and tired.
“Pulque?” she said.
“Cerveza, por favor,” said Bernie.
She opened a bottle, took a glass off a shelf, and set them on the bar, said something in that Mexican way I didn’t understand. Bernie laid a greenback on the bar. The bartender seemed to perk up. She said something else. Bernie said something that made her laugh. Did it also make her lean forward, giving Bernie an even lower-cut view? Bernie tried and failed not to look; I’d seen that happen many times. He raised the bottle as though to fill the glass, then paused.
“Salud,” he said.
“Salud,” said the bartender.
Bernie drank, but right from the bottle. I couldn’t help noticing the fly at the bottom of the glass. Bernie was fussy about things like that. That was one difference between us. There may be others, but none came to mind at that moment.
“You like?” the bartender said. “Is good beer?”
“Yeah,” said Bernie. “Real good. I like bourbon, too.”
“Bourbon?”
Bernie pointed to a bottle on the shelf behind the bar. The bartender brought it down, put it on the bar. “Cuatro Rosas?” she said. “You want?”
Bernie nodded. The bartender poured bourbon in a shot glass. Bernie took out another greenback, laid it on top of the first one.
The bartender’s eyes narrowed. “Is too much,” she said.
“Got a friend who had some trouble with Cuatro Rosas,” he said.
“Amigo?”
“Sí.” Bernie laid down another greenback. “We’re trying to find him. Darren Quigley’s his name.” Down at the end of the bar, the lone customer tightened his grip on his glass, but otherwise made no other movement. “He looks like this.” Bernie set the photo of Darren on top of the greenbacks.
The bartender glanced at the photo, then sucked in her breath and made a quick motion with her hand over her chest, up and down, side to side. I’d seen that before, although what it meant was a mystery. “No sé nada,” she said.
“I don’t believe that,” Bernie said.
“No Inglés,” she said.
Bernie switched to the Mexican style of talking. The bartender shook her head. “No comprendo,” she said, and shook her head some more. At the same time she kept sidling away down the bar, toward a bead curtain at the end.
“Qué pasa?” Bernie said.
The bartender raised her finger, like she’d be right back, and disappeared through the bead curtain.
We waited. Some kind of creature scratched inside the wall. Bernie was thinking hard and fast: I could feel it. All at once, he looked down at the greenbacks, still lying on the bar. “Christ,” he said, and then he was up and running around the bar, and I was running with him. We charged through the beaded curtain and into a small room with a dented fridge, cases of beer, a rusty sink with a dripping tap. No sign of the bartender. Bernie opened the only door. It led to a narrow street with tall whitewashed walls on both sides, the sunshine glaring bright, and no one around.
“Can I be so stupid?” Bernie said.
Bernie stupid? Never.
We went back inside. The only customer was still there just as before, sprawled on the bar. Bernie picked up the greenbacks and the photo, and was putting them in his pocket when the customer suddenly raised his head and looked right at us. He was a scary-looking dude in lots of ways, but what stuck in my mind was the sweat now on his face, just dripping, the way humans get after running a long way. He opened his mouth—his teeth were black, same color as the fly in Bernie’s glass—and spoke in a deep voice, maybe the deepest I’ve ever heard.
“Jesús Malverde,” he said.
“Quién?” said Bernie.
The dude pointed to a ceramic—ceramic means breakable if you knock it over—statue standing by one of those big, old-fashioned cash registers, the kind of statue that’s just the head and shoulders, in this case a dark-haired unsmiling man with a thick mustache.
“I don’t get it,” Bernie said.
“Él sabe,” said the guy.
“He knows?” Bernie said. “Knows what?”
The dude gazed at us, sweat rolling off his chin. “La respuesta,” he said in that deep deep voice.
“Jesús Malverde knows the answer—is that what you’re saying?” Bernie said.
The dude’s eyes rolled up and he pitched forward onto the bar, knocking over his glass. It toppled off the edge and smashed on the floor. His hand twitched once or twice, like it was trying to find something.