One
Uh-oh.
Most perps turn out to be reasonable in the end. They know, for example, the moment a case is closed, namely when I grab them by the pant leg. Pant leg grabbing is one of my specialties at the Little Detective Agency, Little on account of that’s my partner Bernie’s last name. Do I even have a last name? I’ve never heard it, but if there’s a change, I’ll let you know. Till then just think of me as Chet, pure and simple.
Maybe you’re wondering, but Chet, what about the unreasonable perps? I hope so, because that was exactly where I was headed with that uh-oh. Right now, we had a couple of unreasonable perps on our hands, although I myself have no hands, don’t need hands, and wouldn’t even know what to do with them. These unreasonable perps were the Burger boys, two brothers who’d hijacked a beer truck, now wrecked at the bottom of a box canyon they’d sped into in the hope of getting away from us—getting away in a wobbly truck from me and Bernie tailing them in the Beast, our brand-new, very old Porsche, can you imagine? A truck, by the way, that actually must have been hauling something unbeerlike, so unmistakably peanut oil from the aroma now hanging in the still air.
“What’s that stink?” said a Burger brother, the one Bernie called Hammy. The Burger brothers did not look alike. Hammy was short and skinny with big round eyes. The other one, Cheesy, I believe, was huge with little slit eyes.
“I don’t smell nothin’,” Cheesy said. “And who cares? This is our chance, you moron.”
Cheesy didn’t smell the peanut oil? How astonishing was that? Every time you think you’ve hit bottom when it comes to what the human nose can’t do they take it down another notch. There was nothing else to smell besides peanut oil, even for me who smells everything! I was about to feel sorry for them, or at least for Cheesy, when Hammy said, “Chance for what?”
“For hightailin’ it—what else?” Cheesy said. “He’ll be back any minute.”
Possibly I should have mentioned that I was alone with Hammy and Cheesy, Bernie having climbed up to higher ground where maybe his phone would work and he could call into Valley PD. Was there room in the Beast for me, Bernie, Hammy, and Cheesy? Maybe just for me, Bernie, and Hammy, but we couldn’t leave Cheesy out here in the desert all by his lonesome, his wrists cuffed in the pretty red, white, and blue plastic cuffs we used, just one of those touches that makes the Little Detective Agency what it is. The point I’m making is that Valley PD needed to come out here with the paddy wagon. I peered at the trail Bernie had followed up the canyon wall, a trail that took a sharp turn high up there, vanishing behind a jumble of red rocks, and didn’t see him. But Hammy and Cheesy hightailing it, Bernie or no Bernie, was off the table. Hadn’t the Burger brothers been grabbed by the pant leg, first Cheesy and then Hammy? The case was closed.
But Hammy and Cheesy weren’t getting it. They’d gone from sitting peacefully on the ground to a sort of grunting struggle to stand, not so easy with their hands behind their backs. Cheesy, despite being so enormous, was the first one up, a bit of a surprise to me. Then came a bigger surprise. He leaned over Hammy, chomped down on the collar of Hammy’s shirt, and hoisted him up. Wow! A first in terms of what the human mouth is capable of, and I’ve been in the business for a long time.
“Let’s go,” Cheesy said.
“What about the dog?” said Hammy.
“No problem. If it comes close give it the boot, good and hard.”
Excuse me?
Not long after that, Hammy and Cheesy were sitting nice and comfy on the ground and we were back to being buddies. I admit that their pant legs were no longer what you might call blood free, but the amount wasn’t worth mentioning, hardly noticeable.
Bernie returned soon after, gave us all a close look.
“Was there a problem?”
None that I recalled, and Hammy and Cheesy were shaking their heads, the rhythm identical.
“But we were thinking you might cut us a break,” Cheesy said.
“Why would I want to do that?” said Bernie.
Hammy snapped his fingers, a human thing for when they get a sudden idea, but amazing he could do it with his hands cuffed behind his back. “Isn’t it Christmas time?”
“Next week, maybe?” said Cheesy. “Wednesday? Thursday?”
“Friday?” said Hammy.
They gazed up at Bernie, eyes open wide in a hopeful look like they were—oh my goodness!—begging. Didn’t they know begging is a no-no? Also, Bernie had no treats on him. I keep close track of things like that.
“Do I look like Santa?” Bernie said, this whole little back and forth ending in total confusion, at least for me. But Valley PD arrived soon after, along with a nice lady from the peanut oil company, who gave Bernie a check. And we hadn’t even been working the case, not until Hammy and Cheesy almost ran us off the road. What a day! The only problem was Bernie, sticking that check in the chest pocket of his Hawaiian shirt, the one with the dancing tubas. We’d had problems with checks and chest pockets in the past. I barked this low rumbly bark I have. Bernie got a look on his face, like he’d remembered something, and he transferred the check to the front pocket of his jeans, where it was nice and safe. If he wanted to think he’d done that remembering all by himself that was fine with me. Anything Bernie did was fine with me.
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