One
The Muertos throw the best Christmas party in the whole Valley. The Valley’s where we live, me and Bernie. It goes on forever in all directions, and is almost certainly in Arizona, based on things I hear from time to time. That’s not important. Is it important that the Muertos are the roughest, toughest biker gang around? Maybe to you, but not to us. The Little Detective Agency deals with the roughest and toughest every day. Little is Bernie’s last name, I’m Chet, pure and simple, and the agency’s just the two of us. Why would we need anyone else? That’s the important part.
The Muertos party takes place in their clubhouse and lasts for several days, but we usually leave before dawn on the first night. It gets pretty noisy what with the motorcycle races up and down the big staircase to the second floor, and a sort of dance on motorcycles to a tune called the hora, I believe, which I knew from a bat mitzvah where I’d come upon a forgotten tray of steak tip canapes, our departure following soon after.
Right now, as we made our way to the door, the hora amped down and Junior Ruiz, president of the Muertos, began zooming around in tight circles on his giant Harley with his wife on his shoulders and his mother on her shoulders. He braked to a stop beside us, revved the engine once or twice, and over its roar yelled, “Wanna climb up on Mama, Bernie?”
“Um,” said Bernie, “I don’t really—”
“Aw come on, Bernie,” Mama called down. “Where’s your sense of fun?”
“Very nice of you, given the history, but—”
“History? What history?”
“Didn’t you end up doing eighteen months at Northern State?”
“Turned out as only three on account of overcrowding. Three months I can do in my sleep.”
“Which is actually how it went down, no?” said Junior’s wife.
Mama, up on Junior’s wife’s shoulders, if I haven’t made that clear, gave Junior’s wife a sort of kick in the sides with the heels of her white cowboy boots, like she was on horseback. Junior’s wife did not look like a horse. She actually looked a lot like Mama, except younger and not quite so jiggly.
“Watch your mouth, girl,” Mama said. “And besides, Bernie, I’ll never forget how nicely you busted me—especially the way Chet grabbed my pant leg, so gently.”
Grabbing perps by the pant leg is how we close our cases, me doing the grabbing and Bernie standing by with the cuffs. I checked out Mama’s pants and wouldn’t you know? They were the exact same pants she’d been wearing that day, red leather with golden leather fringes! I remembered the taste of those golden fringes so well! Have you ever noticed how the taste of something—or even the memory of the taste—makes long-ago happenings suddenly pop up in your mind like they were just yesterday? It all came back to me: Mama lighting the fuse, the door blowing off the safe, Mama reaching inside with a lovely look on her face, so excited and alive, which was when we showed up. There’s a lot of fun to be had in this business. A strong breeze started up behind me. In practically no time I figured out it was my tail, feeling tip-top and letting all our Muertos buddies know. I couldn’t wait for … for whatever was going to happen after now.
* * *
A moment or two later we were out in the street, a dark alley, in fact, and in the sketchiest part of South Pedroia, which is the sketchiest part of town. The sky was dim and pinkish, no moon, no stars, a typical Valley night sky. Bernie glanced back at the door to the clubhouse.
“There’s your holiday spirit, Chet,” Bernie said. “No grudges. Instead—forgiveness. Maybe not standard biker philosophy but isn’t that all the more reason to value it?” I had no idea, didn’t understand the question. But it was about bikers and I understood them very well, so no worries.
“Is forgiving possible without forgetting?” Bernie went on. He smiled at me, a pinkish smile that was a bit scary. “You’re the expert on forgiving. Fill me in.”
Forgiving? A new one on me. I was very familiar with forgetting of course, could forget like you wouldn’t believe. My takeaway? I was a good, good boy.
We turned the corner, which led to another alley, darker and sketchier than the one we’d been on. Our ride—a Porsche, but not the old one that had gone off a cliff, or the other old one that got blown up, but the oldest one of all, with martini glasses painted on the fenders—sat at the end of the block, in a cone of light shining from a rooftop lamp. In between us and it, we had some sort of commotion going on. We picked up the pace and headed toward the action, our MO when it comes to trouble ahead.
At first it looked like this particular commotion was all about two shadows—one big, one small—dancing a choppy kind of dance, but as we closed in we saw it was a real big dude beating up a real little one. The big dude backhanded the tiny dude across the face and the tiny dude went flying. He landed on his back, snatched up a trash can lid and held it like a shield, closing his eyes. Closing his eyes? How was that going to help? The big dude whisked the trash can lid out of his hands and flung it away. Here’s something I’ve noticed: You may be eager for whatever’s coming next, but it’s very hard to predict in this life. For example, who would have guessed that the trash can lid would now be spinning through the air just like a Frisbee! Who could blame himself for what followed? Not me, amigo. I charged after that trash can lid, sprang up, actually too high—I love when that happens—and snagged it on my way back down.
After that I trotted over to Bernie as I always do with a freshly caught Frisbee. Only … only a trash can lid is not a Frisbee, and Bernie was not waiting to take it, a happy smile on his face, but was turned the other way, trying to haul the big dude off the tiny one. The big dude didn’t like that. He jumped to his feet, drew back his fist, got ready to launch an enormous roundhouse punch.
Oh dear. That was my thought at the moment. Not “oh dear” on account of Bernie being in trouble and there I was, his partner, standing by with a trash can lid in my mouth—although let me point out that I quickly dropped the trash can lid and got right back to looking like a total pro. But my “oh dear” was more about disappointment at the big guy’s technique. An enormous windup like his meant the fight was already over. Bernie stepped inside and threw that sweet, sweet uppercut. Click! Right on the point of a too-large chin. Not bang or boom, but simply a click, very neat and tidy. Then came the part I love the best, how speedily Bernie’s fist gets back to the starting position, just as speedy as the actual punch or even speedier, in case another uppercut was needed—which would still be a first, in my experience. Meanwhile the big guy’s eyes were rolling up and he was slumping down, one of those interesting sights you see in our line of work. And all at once I understood what humans meant when they said they were having an up and down kind of day! Wow! You could learn so much in this life just by being there.
I trotted over to the big guy and barked, not loudly, simply sending a message. I’m here too, buddy boy. Bernie glanced over at me and now came that happy smile. “Can’t believe you caught that thing,” he said. “One of your very best.”
So I’d done good after all! What a break, just one lucky day after another, starting with the day I’d met Bernie, which was also the same day I’d washed out of K-9 school—and on the very last test, namely leaping, my very best thing! How had that happened? Was a cat somehow involved? I thought so, but the details had grown dim. None of that mattered. We were partners, me and Bernie, case closed. Whoa! Aren’t cases closed with me grabbing the perp by the pant leg? For just a second I had the crazy idea of grabbing Bernie’s! No way I could let that happen, so in order to direct my teeth into something good and useful, I turned to the big dude. Still in dreamland. Was there any point in grabbing his pant leg? Not that I could see. I was a bit confused. My tail drooped. Oh no! I got it back up there, and in no uncertain terms. At that point, Bernie looked down at the tiny dude and this strange confused interlude went pop like a soap bubble. The fun I’ve had chasing those around! But no time for that now.
Bernie bent down, looked closer. “Victor?” he said. “Is that you?”
My goodness! Victor Klovsky, for sure. He had an inky smell you didn’t run into often with humans, except for old ones, and Victor wasn’t old. He had a scruffy beard without a trace of white, a narrow face, now somewhat mashed up, and, behind the thick lenses of his glasses, eyes that were always on the nervous side. Right now the glasses weren’t quite in place, but were kind of twisted and hung off one ear. He’d looked a lot better the last time I’d seen him, at the Great Western Private Eye Convention where Bernie had given the keynote speech. Easy to remember since Victor was one of the few remaining in the audience when Bernie’s speech came to an end. Wait. I take that back. There was still a big big audience. I just happened to spot Victor in the crowd. The point is that Victor is in the same business as we are! Sort of.
“Bernie?” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Right back atcha.” Bernie removed Victor’s glasses, straightened them out, gently replaced them on Victor’s face.
Copyright © 2021 by Pas de Deux
