sense, but I kind of wish it didn’t,” he went on, finishing the job. We were driving up our street, Mesquite Road. I spotted Iggy, watching from the window at the front of his house. He spotted me, too, and barked, a bark I couldn’t hear. Iggy ran back and forth behind the glass. I stood taller in the shotgun seat and turned toward him, ears cocked. Then he was out of sight.
“Suppose,” Bernie was saying, “that someone tried to snatch her twice. Madison might not even have realized what was going on the first time outside Ruben’s, maybe wrote it off to routine hassling from some creep. But even if it scared her—and I don’t think it did—didn’t Tim Fletcher say she hadn’t seemed upset?”
Bernie paused, glanced over at me. Tim Fletcher? Who was he again?
“The point is, scared or not, she wasn’t about to tell her mother, because that would have led to the unraveling of the
Dr. Zhivago
cover story. See where this leads?”
I didn’t. How come Ruben Ramirez wasn’t the perp? He looked and smelled like so many perps we’d taken down.
“It leads,” Bernie said, “to the conclusion that this wasn’t spur-of-the moment but a premeditated snatch. Whoever it was failed the first time, coming out of Ruben’s, and got her the second, how and where to be determined. And if that’s true, we’re looking for a blond guy in a BMW. A blue BMW, according to Ruben—maybe not the most reliable witness.” He paused. Car identification, colors: neither of them my strengths, although I knew blue, the color of the sky and also Charlie’s eyes. Bernie turned in to the driveway. “And wasn’t the car in the mall that—”
He cut himself off. All this talk of cars, and now here was another one in the driveway, big and black, unfamiliar to me.
Bernie parked on the street. A man got out of the big black car, came toward us. We got out, too. The man was about Bernie’s height but not as broad; he had a goatee, which always caught my attention, and I was staring at it when his smell reached me, the very worst smell in the whole world: cat. The man in our driveway smelled of cat. It was all over him.
“I’m looking for Bernie Little,” the man said. Some people—Suzie Sanchez, for example, or Charlie, of course—had friendly voices. This man did not.
“Present,” said Bernie.
A frown crossed the man’s face. “My name’s Damon Keefer,” he said. “I understand my ex-wife, without consulting me, hired you to look for my daughter, Madison.”
“She hired us, yes,” said Bernie.
“And?” said Damon Keefer.
“And what?” Bernie said.
Questions, questions. I had a question of my own. Was there a cat, or maybe more than one, in that black car? Not likely: Cats, unlike my guys, weren’t big on riding around in cars, another one of those bewildering things about them. What beat riding aroundin cars? Maybe a few things—I thought of that distant she-bark not too long ago—but not many. Was it possible cats had no idea how to have fun? I didn’t know. All I knew was that the chances of a cat being in that black car were slim but not none. And a cat in that black car meant a cat on our property. A cat on our property? I heard a powerful rumbling sound, had the vague impression it was coming from my own throat. The next thing I knew, I was on the move.
“And what?” Damon Keefer was saying. “I’d like a report on your investigation so far, that’s what. I’m assuming you haven’t found her or else you’d—Hey! what the hell’s that dog doing?”
What was I doing? My job, amigo. And at that moment my job meant checking out this black car—parked in our driveway, by the way, while we were stuck out on the street—for the presence of cats. How do you do that without standing up on your back legs and planting your front paws on the door to get your face right up close to the window? That’s basic.
“He’s scratching the goddamn paint.”
“Chet!”
Good news: no cats. I
“Suppose,” Bernie was saying, “that someone tried to snatch her twice. Madison might not even have realized what was going on the first time outside Ruben’s, maybe wrote it off to routine hassling from some creep. But even if it scared her—and I don’t think it did—didn’t Tim Fletcher say she hadn’t seemed upset?”
Bernie paused, glanced over at me. Tim Fletcher? Who was he again?
“The point is, scared or not, she wasn’t about to tell her mother, because that would have led to the unraveling of the
Dr. Zhivago
cover story. See where this leads?”
I didn’t. How come Ruben Ramirez wasn’t the perp? He looked and smelled like so many perps we’d taken down.
“It leads,” Bernie said, “to the conclusion that this wasn’t spur-of-the moment but a premeditated snatch. Whoever it was failed the first time, coming out of Ruben’s, and got her the second, how and where to be determined. And if that’s true, we’re looking for a blond guy in a BMW. A blue BMW, according to Ruben—maybe not the most reliable witness.” He paused. Car identification, colors: neither of them my strengths, although I knew blue, the color of the sky and also Charlie’s eyes. Bernie turned in to the driveway. “And wasn’t the car in the mall that—”
He cut himself off. All this talk of cars, and now here was another one in the driveway, big and black, unfamiliar to me.
Bernie parked on the street. A man got out of the big black car, came toward us. We got out, too. The man was about Bernie’s height but not as broad; he had a goatee, which always caught my attention, and I was staring at it when his smell reached me, the very worst smell in the whole world: cat. The man in our driveway smelled of cat. It was all over him.
“I’m looking for Bernie Little,” the man said. Some people—Suzie Sanchez, for example, or Charlie, of course—had friendly voices. This man did not.
“Present,” said Bernie.
A frown crossed the man’s face. “My name’s Damon Keefer,” he said. “I understand my ex-wife, without consulting me, hired you to look for my daughter, Madison.”
“She hired us, yes,” said Bernie.
“And?” said Damon Keefer.
“And what?” Bernie said.
Questions, questions. I had a question of my own. Was there a cat, or maybe more than one, in that black car? Not likely: Cats, unlike my guys, weren’t big on riding around in cars, another one of those bewildering things about them. What beat riding aroundin cars? Maybe a few things—I thought of that distant she-bark not too long ago—but not many. Was it possible cats had no idea how to have fun? I didn’t know. All I knew was that the chances of a cat being in that black car were slim but not none. And a cat in that black car meant a cat on our property. A cat on our property? I heard a powerful rumbling sound, had the vague impression it was coming from my own throat. The next thing I knew, I was on the move.
“And what?” Damon Keefer was saying. “I’d like a report on your investigation so far, that’s what. I’m assuming you haven’t found her or else you’d—Hey! what the hell’s that dog doing?”
What was I doing? My job, amigo. And at that moment my job meant checking out this black car—parked in our driveway, by the way, while we were stuck out on the street—for the presence of cats. How do you do that without standing up on your back legs and planting your front paws on the door to get your face right up close to the window? That’s basic.
“He’s scratching the goddamn paint.”
“Chet!”
Good news: no cats. I
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