The Dog Who Knew Too Much (3 page)

“Because I’m not in her line of work,” Anya said. “Although sometimes I wish I was.”

“Oh?”

“She’s making real good money. I should know—I do her taxes.”

“You’re an accountant, Anya?”

“Correct. And you’re not pronouncing my name right.”

“No?”

“It’s like On Ya.”

“Um,” said Bernie.

“Autumn says you’re the best private detective in the Valley.”

Bernie nodded. He’s a great nodder, has all sorts of nods that mean this and that. This particular nod meant he disagreed about being the best in the Valley but didn’t mind hearing it. But that was just Bernie being Bernie: he is the best in the Valley, ask any perp.

“I’d like to hire you for two days,” Anya said.

“To do what?” Bernie said.

“Security.”

“What kind of security?”

“Bodyguard work, I guess you could say.”

“Bodyguarding who?”

“Me,” said Anya. “More or less.”

“Are you in danger?” Bernie said.

I glanced around. The sun beat down on us—we were still in the hot time of year—and glared off windshields in the parking lot, making little suns all over the place, but I saw no signs of any danger. There was only one human in sight, a man looking in our direction from a balcony about halfway up the side of the hotel: Georgie Malhouf, in fact, easy to recognize with that black mustache of his. He raised a pair of binoculars.

“Not real physical danger, I don’t think,” Anya said. “But just your very presence should prevent any unpleasantness.”

“Unpleasantness from whom?” Bernie said.

“That would be Guy Wenders,” said Anya. “My ex.”

“How long have you been divorced?”

“Six months. We were separated for two years before that. Pretty much.” She looked Bernie up and down. “Maybe I should give you some background.”

“That would be nice,” Bernie said.

“Autumn didn’t mention your sense of humor.” Anya gave him a not-very-friendly look when she said that, but at the same
time I picked up a scent coming off her—faint but unmistakable—that meant she was starting to like Bernie. Nothing about humans is simple: I’ve learned that lots of times in my career.

“Could we get out of the heat?” she said. A tiny drop of sweat had appeared on her upper lip; I noticed that Bernie was watching it, too.

“The divorce was my idea,” Anya said. We were out of the heat sitting under a tree in a little park across the street from the hotel, Bernie and Anya on the bench and me beside it, sitting up nice and straight, a pro from nose to tail. “Guy has had trouble dealing with it,” Anya said.

“What kind of trouble?” Bernie said.

Anya’s big blue eyes got an inward look. “Conceptual, I guess you’d say. We were so young when we met. He doesn’t realize how much we’ve gone off in different directions.”

“What directions?” Bernie said.

“I wanted to make something of myself,” Anya said, “which was why I started taking accounting at Valley CC’s night school, working temp jobs during the day. Guy wanted to make something of himself, too. But he had his own ideas about how.”

“Like?” said Bernie.

“He runs a sort of investment firm,” said Anya. “Some of his associates aren’t the kind of people I want around Devin.”

“Who’s Devin?”

“Our kid, mine and Guy’s. That’s sort of what this is all about, me hiring you.”

“Are you in a custody fight?” Bernie said.

“No,” said Anya. “I have custody. But it’s parents’ weekend at Big Bear Wilderness Camp—that’s where Devin is for the month—and Guy’s going to be there. He made some remark
about rekindling things under big western skies. I don’t want that to happen.”

“What do you expect us to do?” Bernie said.

“Us?” said Anya.

“Chet and I,” Bernie said.

Anya glanced in my direction. Interesting: I was no longer sitting by the bench but seemed to have shifted over toward the base of the tree, where I was now sniffing out lots of smells, mostly from a bunch of my guys who’d left their marks on the trunk. I raised my leg—you always want to be on top, mark-wise—eyes on Anya at the same time, which involved sort of twisting my head around to look backward, no problem at all for me. Strong no-nonsense splashing sounds came from behind me, or in front—things can get confusing sometimes.

Anya turned to Bernie. “What I’d like you to do,” she said, “is just be my friend.”

It’s hard to surprise Bernie, so the look on his face at that moment was not one I saw often. “I’m sorry?” he said.

“Pretend-friend, I meant to say,” Anya said. “If I show up with a male friend, Guy will get the message.”

“You want to hire me to masquerade as your boyfriend?” Bernie said.

“We don’t have to define anything—just your being around should do the trick.”

“You said that before,” Bernie said. “But I didn’t understand the context. The answer’s no.”

“No?” Anya sat back. “Why not?”

I picked up a twig—more like a small branch, really—and wandered back to the bench.

“We don’t do that kind of work,” Bernie said, “and even if you find someone who does, you’d be wasting your money.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because this doesn’t sound like something you couldn’t take care of on your own.”

“Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?” Anya said.

Bernie gazed at her for a moment or two and then said, “Maybe.”

“All right, then. What’s your fee structure?”

“Eight hundred a day plus expenses, if that’s what fee structure means,” said Bernie. “But the answer’s still no.”

“I’ll double that,” Anya said. “Thirty-two hundred for the weekend.” Bernie sat motionless. A look came into his eyes, a look I’d seen before, and meant
no
was coming. All I knew was that our finances were a mess. That worried me, and when I get worried, I like to be closer to Bernie. I went closer to Bernie, maybe a little too abruptly, and possibly forgetting the branch in my mouth. Did the end of the branch—perhaps not so small after all, and also somewhat pointy—catch Bernie on the side of the elbow?

“Ow,” he said. The elbow: one of those sensitive human body parts; still there tends to be an overreaction at times like this, if you want my opinion. “Chet, what the hell?”

But even if he was overreacting, I’d never want to hurt Bernie. I dropped the branch—which turned out to be on the largish side—immediately. Did it land on his foot? Oops. But if so, he didn’t say “ow” again, or at least not very loudly. I did notice he was wearing his flip-flops. Was that what humans wore for giving talks? I wasn’t sure.

Meanwhile, Anya’s eyes were on me. “He’s actually kind of good-looking,” she said. “What’s his name again?”

“Chet.”

“That’s a nice name. Short for Chester?”

Short for Chester? What was that supposed to mean?

“Just Chet,” Bernie said.

“How did you pick the name?”

“I didn’t. He was already Chet when I met him.”

I remembered that day, a bad day—flunking out of K-9 school just before the leaping test, my very best thing! Was a cat involved? Blood? Those parts were pretty hazy. But a real good day, too, on account of that was when I got together with Bernie.

“Who picked his name?” Anya said.

“Funny you should ask,” Bernie said. “I’ve been looking into that. Chet was rescued from some rough circumstances as a puppy, but evidently he already had the name.”

“Good coming from bad,” Anya said.

Bernie glanced at her, said nothing.

“I was never a dog person,” Anya said. She reached out, gave me a quick pat on the side, very light. More, was my thought.

Bernie seemed to be thinking, too. He took a deep breath. “All right,” he said. “We’ll do it.”

That breeze starting up behind me? Had to be my tail. We were back in business.

On the way home we stopped by Suzie Sanchez’s office. Suzie’s a reporter for the
Valley Tribune
. She has bright dark eyes that gleam like the countertops in our kitchen, that one time Bernie polished them, and she smells like soap and lemons. I liked Suzie and so did Bernie; in fact, they were kind of boyfriend and girlfriend, especially now that Dylan McKnight—Suzie’s old boyfriend, possibly a burglar or drug dealer, I couldn’t remember, although that time I chased him up a tree was very clear in my mind—seemed to be out of the picture.

Suzie’s office was in a strip mall, a nice strip mall with nothing boarded up. We went in. There were a bunch of workstations,
all empty except for Suzie’s at the back. She looked up from her computer and smiled.

“How did the speech go?” she said. She has one of those nice voices, easy on the ears. Leda’s voice isn’t like that.

“Pretty good,” Bernie said. “Or okay. Not a complete failure. Almost certainly.”

Suzie glanced down at Bernie’s feet, kind of pale in the flip-flops. “These things always go better than you think,” she said. “The audience wants you to do well.”

“Wish I’d known that before,” Bernie said.

Suzie laughed and rose. She gave Bernie a kiss. He gave her a kiss back. I squeezed between them, just being friendly.

“Dinner at my place?” Bernie said. “I’ll pick up steaks on the way home.”

Suzie shook her head. “I’m covering the debate tonight.”

“A debate? Friday night?”

“There’s an election coming, Bernie, like it or not.”

“Which one’s for protecting the aquifer?” Poor Bernie. The aquifer, whatever it was, preyed on Bernie’s mind. Something about water, but we had water out the yingyang: drive by any golf course—and we’ve got them out the yingyang, too—and you’ll see sprinklers working early and late every day.

“Both in theory,” Suzie said. “Neither in fact. Rain check for tomorrow?”

Rain? Was this still about the aquifer? It hardly ever rains in the Valley, not a drop in ages. Hey! Yet still we had water out the yingyang! How cool was that? What a country, as Bernie likes to say.

“… bodyguarding,” Bernie was telling Suzie. “So we’ll have to shoot for Monday.”

“Bodyguarding who?” said Suzie.

“Um, kind of complicated,” Bernie said. “It’s sort of like—”

Suzie’s phone rang. She went to her desk, answered it, listened, said, “But I’m already—” and listened some more. After a while, she glanced over and gave us a little wave good-bye.

We left Suzie’s office, me and Bernie. Sometimes big questions pop up in life. For example: was steak still on the menu or not?

THREE

I
woke up early the next morning—always easy to tell early from the faintness of the light coming through the window, a light that reminded me of Leda’s pearl necklace, which I still feel badly about whenever it pops into my mind. But it didn’t quite pop into my mind now, and I rose, feeling tip-top. First, I had a nice stretch, butt way up, front paws way forward: can’t tell you how good that feels. Next, I glanced over at the bed. Bernie was asleep on his back, one arm over his face, chest rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm. I watched him breathe for a while. Sometimes Bernie calls out in his sleep—“Hit the ground, hit the ground”: I’ve heard that one a few times—but now he seemed quiet and peaceful. I left the bedroom—once Bernie and Leda’s, now just Bernie’s—and went into the hall.

Nothing like being at home, except when we’re on some adventure, when it turns out there’s nothing like that, too. Home is our place on Mesquite Road. That’s in the Valley, which goes on just about forever in all directions. We’ve got two bedrooms—the second one’s Charlie’s, the bed all made for whenever the next every-second-weekend rolls around—plus the office and other
rooms I’ll have to describe later, because right now I was sniffing at the crack under the front door, which I do every morning, part of my job.

A squirrel had been by, and not long ago. That bothered me. I hurried to the long window beside the door and gazed out. We’ve got three trees in front of the house. The middle one’s my favorite for lying under, and that was where the squirrel, chubby and gray, tail raised in a very annoying way, was busy burying something. The next thing I knew I was standing straight up, front paws on the glass, barking my head off. The squirrel shot up the tree without a backward glance: burying things under that tree is my department, little pal.

“Chet! What’s all the fuss?”

Bernie was up? I hadn’t even heard him. That was bad. I slid down off the window real fast and smooth, like I’d never been up there at all. Bernie came over and gazed out, giving me a pat at the same time. His hair was standing out in clumps here and there; one eyebrow was crooked; he wore what Leda had always called his ratty robe, although there wasn’t a single rat on it, just a pattern of martini glasses with long-legged women sitting in them. In short, he looked great.

Bernie peered out the window. “I don’t see anything,” he said.

He couldn’t see that bushy gray tail hanging down from a high branch?

“Was old man Heydrich up to something?”

I fixed my gaze right on that bushy tail and barked. All Bernie had to do was glance in the same direction. But instead he said, “Take it easy, big guy,” and went back down the hall.

Old man Heydrich’s our neighbor on one side. He likes to sweep stuff from his part of the sidewalk onto our part of the sidewalk when he thinks nobody’s looking, and that’s just one
of his tricks. Iggy lives in the house on the other side with this old couple called the Parsons. Iggy’s my best pal, but the Parsons aren’t doing so well these days, plus there’s some confusion with their electric fence, and now Iggy doesn’t get out much. I went over to our side window. And there he was at his side window!