The Dog Who Knew Too Much (21 page)

“License and registration,” the cop repeated. He took them, returned to his motorcycle, soon came back with a ticket. “Clocked you at eighty-five,” he said. “Have a nice day.”

A vein throbbed in the back of the Butch’s neckless neck. The sight made me bark, not loud, don’t know why. The cop crouched down a bit, peered into the car.

“Hey!” he said. “Is that Chet?”

I peered back. If it wasn’t Fritzie Bortz! A terrible motorcycle driver with lots of crashes on his record; we’d visited him in the hospital not that long ago, he and Bernie downing a bottle of bourbon, but not the real big size. It was great to see Fritzie. My tail started wagging.

“Chet?” said Georgie.

“The dog,” Fritzie said. “Looks so much like this dog I know—” He peered in closer. “Gotta be him.”

My tail wagged more.

“Well,” said Georgie, “it’s not. This here’s, uh, Wilkie, and I’ve had him since he was a puppy.”

“Yeah?” said Fritzie. “Sure looks like Chet. The spitting image.”

Wilkie? I was getting called Wilkie? And something about
spitting, a not-very-pleasant human habit, although pretty much men only? I barked.

“Ha ha,” said Georgie. “Wilkie knows we’re talking about him.”

“Knows his name, like,” Butch said. Georgie shot him a quick glaring look. “Which is Wilkie,” Butch added. “Ha ha.”

“Sure looks like Chet,” Fritzie said again.

“Lots of dogs look alike,” Georgie said. “On account of they’re bred to.”

Fritzie’s eyes got thoughtful. I didn’t know what he was thinking. I was thinking: check my tags. But instead Fritzie nodded, straightened, tapped the roof, and moved away.

Butch pulled back onto the freeway. “Wendell Wilkie was a ballplayer, right?” he said after a while.

“B-o-n-u-s?” Georgie said. “Forget it.”

We took the last South Pedroia exit, the one before the interchange where you could decide on the spur of the moment to take off all the way to San Diego. We’d surfed, me and Bernie! I thought about that over and over, and then we were parking in front of a low white building with a sign on the roof.

“Read the sign,” Georgie said.

“Our sign, you mean?” said Butch.

“What other goddamn sign is there?”

Butch gazed at the sign. “‘Malhouf International Investigations.”

“Ever wonder what the ‘International’ part was all about?”

“Nope.”

“Now you’re going to find out.”

They got out of the car.

“What about the dog?” Butch said.

Georgie gazed at me. “On second thought,” he said, “you stay here with him.”

“Okay.”

“And while you’re at it, take off his tags.”

“How am I sposta do that?”

“You’ll figure it out,” Georgie said.

“What if he tries to run away?”

“Didn’t you hook up the chain like I said?”

Uh-oh. News to me, and not good.

Georgie entered the building. Butch walked around to the back of the station wagon, stood watching me through the window. “Gonna be good?” he said.

Of course not. The instant that door opened up—if that was in the cards, as Bernie liked to say, although he’d stopped that after the Mama Reenya Tarot card case, a case I hadn’t understood from the get-go, except for what a great patter Mama Reenya had turned out to be, right up there with Autumn—I planned to be as bad as bad gets. But then, just as Butch was reaching for the door, I remembered about the chain. And coming right on top of that memory, so fast, was Bernie’s—what would you call it? advice? Yes! That was it. Thank you, Bernie! Even if it had to do with cats, the point was:
more than one way, big guy.

I lay down, chin right on the floor, eyes gazing up at nothing in the least-threatening way imaginable, like I was just one big softie. You hear that about a certain kind of big guy:
oh, he’s just one big softie.
Not this big guy, amigo. When that door opened, I was going to rip—

Whoa.

More than one way.
I’d come close to forgetting the whole thing.

Butch looked through the back window. “You gonna make this difficult?”

I yawned, no idea why, a real big one, mouth open wide as wide could be.

“You are, ain’t you?”

What was wrong with Butch? Scared of a yawn? But then I remembered, maybe a little late, that yawns show teeth. I shut my mouth and went right back to being Mr. Softie.

“That’s better,” Butch said. He licked his lips, how humans do when they’re nervous. We in the nation within get nervous, too, but show it in different ways, although I couldn’t think of a single one at that moment, maybe because I didn’t feel nervous myself, not the least bit. That was Bernie for you every time: just hearing his voice made everything all right.

“Now,” Butch was saying, “what I’m gonna do is raise this here door, slip off those tags, and let you out, nice and easy, no crazy shit. Got that?”

I gazed up at nothing, my eyes as blank as I could make them.

“On three,” said Butch. “One, two, three.” He raised the rear door, then jumped quickly back. I didn’t move a muscle. “Okay, then, so far so good. Now I’m gonna reach in here like so.” He reached in like so, if that meant real slow and cautious. His hand—stubby, with fat fingers, nothing like Bernie’s, moved past my mouth. I could have … done just about anything, but somehow I knew for sure that that was the wrong play. He unclipped my tags and said, “Whew. Now I’ll just lean over here a bit, grab onto the chain, move back—and there we go!” Butch, standing outside the open door, wiped sweat off his upper lip. “Come on out.”

I just lay there. Being Mr. Softie was growing on me.

“Huh?” Butch said. “Hop out. You’re free.”

Free? Butch was forgetting the chain, one end of which he had in his hand. But maybe I’d made my point. I rose, in no hurry, had a nice stretch, butt way up, head way down and then stepped out of the car, landing lightly in the parking lot. Maybe something about that landing alarmed Butch. He was eyeing me like mayhem might be on my mind. And of course it was—always, actually, something to probably not get into at any time.
But not now, big guy.
I sat down, gazing up at him like an obedience-training star. Which I never quite was—have I mentioned about my days in K-9 school?

“Hey,” said Butch, “gettin’ with the program, huh?”

Sure thing. And then came another thought, not my usual kind:
Sure thing, if the program is skinning a cat.
A lovely feeling went through me from nose to tail, the feeling of being in command.

Butch jiggled the chain. “Need to piss or anything like that?”

Not really, although marking this and that was never a bad idea. I had a sudden crazy urge to mark Butch. What a good mood I was in!

“Well, then,” Butch began, just as a black limo pulled into the lot. At about the same time, Georgie came out of the building and hurried over to meet the limo. He opened one of the rear doors and a short round man with glossy black hair stepped out. They shook hands, talked for a moment or two, and walked over to me and Butch.

“This is Butch,” said Georgie, “one of our junior operatives.” Whatever that meant, it seemed to come as a surprise to Butch, judging from the look on his face. “Butch, say hi to Mr. Han, president and CEO of the biggest private investigation company in Shanghai.”

“Wuhu,” said Mr. Han.

“Excuse me?” Georgie said.

“Wuhu,” Mr. Han said. “No Shanghai.”

“Six of one,” Georgie said. “And this here, Mr. Han, is, uh, Wilkie. Wilkie,” he went on, looking at me for some reason, “meet your new owner, Mr. Han.”

“Master,” said Mr. Han, “and only if animal is passing test.”

“Understood,” Georgie said. “Let’s get started.”

TWENTY-ONE

W
hat I was thinking, Dezhang—okay to call you Dezhang, or you want I should stick with Mr. Han?” Georgie said. In the station wagon again, Georgie now at the wheel, Mr. Han beside him, Butch in the backseat, me in the very back.

Mr. Han made a little nod, kind of a bow.

“Dezhang it is,” Georgie said. “Pronouncing that right?” Another little nod.

“Cool,” Georgie said. “Takes some getting used to, first name coming last.”

“Excuse, please?” said Mr. Han.

“We do the opposite—first name first. Maybe when you guys take over, I’ll be Malhouf Georgie.” Georgie laughed, glanced at Mr. Han, maybe to see if he was joining in. Mr. Han was not.

“Hey,” said Butch, “you think in China they order rolls egg?”

There was a silence. Then Georgie said, “Your résumé in shape for sending out?”

Butch shrank down in his seat.

“What I was proposing, Dezhang,” Georgie went on, “was we use a real case for this test.”

“Real case?” said Mr. Han.

“That’s on the books right now,” Georgie said. “Show you what Wilkie here can do in game conditions. You’re stealing this dog, Dezhang, believe me.”

What was this? Was Georgie talking about me? What was all this Wilkie business all of a sudden?

“Twenty grand no steal,” said Mr. Han.

That seemed to bring on another silence. Georgie cleared his throat, something humans do when they want to make a fresh start. “This particular case involves the restaurant business, just about the flakiest business out there.”

“Test first,” said Mr. Han. “Then eat.”

Georgie shot him a quick glance. “Gotcha,” he said.

We drove through some bad South Pedroia streets, all familiar to me. For example, down that street—a mean one, as Bernie would say—was where a perp name of Darren Quigley had lived not so long ago. I had no problem with Darren—hadn’t I scarfed up a Cheeto or two in his living room?—but he’d come to a bad end anyway, south of the border down Mexico way.

Georgie turned onto a street full of potholes, the high smokestack that never stops spewing rotten-egg-smelling smoke—the tallest thing in South Pedroia—towering overhead. Mr. Han pointed to it. “Who is owning?” he said.

“Good question,” Georgie said. “You wanna get the environmentalists on their case?”

Mr. Han stared at Georgie for a moment. Then he started laughing, the red-faced, doubled-over, tears-streaming laughter that’s almost scary. Georgie joined in. They laughed and laughed, high-fiving each other.

“I don’t get it,” Butch said.

Georgie stopped in front of a small cement-block house at the end of the street, dirt yard with rusted appliances in front, a garage bigger than the house in back.

“Man of the house drives a truck for the biggest restaurant supplier in the south Valley, longtime client,” Georgie said. “Constant inventory shortfalls, especially in big-ticket items, steaks, chops, ribs—big concern. Malhouf International has narrowed down the suspects to three, truck driver being numero uno. He’s on the road at the moment and the missus is a flight attendant, working the—Atlanta route today, was it, Butch?”

“Miami,” said Butch.

“Miami,” Georgie said. “We dot the i’s at Malhouf International.”

Whoa. Mr. Singh’s mother had a red dot between her eyes, the only person I’d ever seen doing the eye dot thing. Was she mixed up in this restaurant scam? This case—at least it wasn’t one of ours—was getting complicated.

“… point being,” Georgie was saying, “that now would be an opportune time for sniffing around.”

We got out of the car, approached the front door of the little house, Butch holding my chain. The house was silent, except for the hum of a fridge inside. Georgie crouched down, examined the lock, then took out a key ring loaded with keys and selected one. We were going into the house? Why was that? The steaks were in the garage in the back. What could be more obvious? A soft breeze blew from that direction, and it smelled like the Police Athletic League picnic just before the grilling starts.

Georgie stuck the key in the lock and turned it. “Presto,” he said, and pushed the door open. “Do your thing, Wilkie.”

Here’s a bit of strangeness: every time Georgie said Wilkie,
my mind went straight to him hitting me across the face with the chain.

We went inside: me and Butch, then Mr. Han, and Georgie last. Shotgun house: I’d been in a zillion, maybe more. A tidy kitchen, everything put away except for two mugs sitting on the counter. Did anyone else notice the steam rising from them? No sign of it. Bernie would have, first thing. By now, he’d have had his hand on the butt of the .38 Special. But would we have been in the house in the first place? No way: we’d have been in the garage, packing up all those steaks. My mouth started watering, just at the thought.

We left the kitchen, moved down the hall. Behind me, Georgie sniffed the air. “Picking up anything, Wilkie?” he said, his voice low.

In fact, I was, coming from behind the very first door we reached. Human beings—and this is true as well in the nation within—give off unmissable odors during certain encounters in their lives. I paused by the door.

“In here?” Georgie said. He turned to Mr. Han. “Dollars to doughnuts goddamn room’s full of freezers.”

“What is doughnuts?” said Mr. Han.

That was a shocker. I wasn’t close to being over it, when Georgie opened the door and—

What was that word Bernie liked? Pandemonium? When all hell breaks loose? We always loved that, me and Bernie; we were a lot alike in some ways, don’t forget.