A Fistful of Collars

TWENTY-FIVE

One thing about a nice swim: it was often followed by a nice nap. I lay curled up on the shotgun seat, the motion of the car beneath me kind of… dreamy. Yes, dreamy. Bernie might or might not have said something like, “How come you’re wet?” I didn’t know, and while paying attention to Bernie was always at the top of my list, I really didn’t care. How can you care when your eyelids are so heavy and getting heavier and heavier? And heavier. I dreamed about swimming!

And I was still swimming when the dreamy motion beneath me eased and then vanished. I opened my eyes. We were back in bad air, the moon and the stars now hidden by a dirty pink sky. I sat up. Vista City, or someplace like it: parked on a street lined with apartment buildings, not the tower kind they have downtown, but lower, old with stucco walls, the stucco cracked and crumbling here and there. Bernie was gazing at the most cracked and crumbling of all the buildings. I gazed at it with him.

“When you start digging in something that doesn’t want to be dug…” he said.

Yes, yes: go on. Bernie did not. Naturally, I’ve dealt with close-packed dirt in the past, but when you kept working, even if all you did at first was make shallow scratches on the surface, eventually you always found yourself happily in a deepening pit, all legs in action. So: no problem, right?

“Such a goddamn long shot,” Bernie said. “And is this even where to start?”

I tried to think of some other place, found I could not. This crummy apartment building filled up my whole thought area.

“But,” he went on, “what choice do we have? There’s nothing in the file except the victim ID and the ME’s report. Goddamn file’s been gutted. By who, is the question.”

Bernie turned to me. Whoa. Like I’d done it, whatever it was? Bernie smiled. Whew. “Have a nice nap?” he said. “All set?”

I hopped out, hurried around to Bernie’s side of the car, waited while he got out. “If we could harness that tail of yours…” he began.

Harness me? There’d been an attempt once, in the time before Bernie and I got together. Never again. And of course Bernie himself would never even think of such a thing, so this had to be one of his jokes. Bernie was a great joker, in case I haven’t made that clear already. We walked side by side up to the front door of the apartment building.

Bernie tried the door: locked. He turned to a row of buzzers, ran his finger down the little labels beside them. “Spears, Spears, Spears, wouldn’t that be nice?” he said. “But nope.”

Spears? I knew spears from this period when work dried up completely-even divorce work, which we hated-and we’d watched a lot of movies about gladiators. Spears were nasty: was Bernie really hoping we were coming up against them? So be it. I was ready.

“How about we try the manager?” Bernie said. “T. Ortega.” He pressed a buzzer.

We waited. There’s a lot of waiting in this business, just one more reason why it’s nice to have a partner. And a partner like Bernie? That was like hitting the lottery. Once we almost did! What a drive that was, from our place to the lottery office downtown in no time flat. But Bernie had read the number wrong, an easy mistake to make, I’m sure.

Bernie pressed the buzzer again, held it down for a while. As soon as he backed off, a voice came through a speaker, angry but small.

“Who’s there? What do you want?”

“I’m looking for a family that used to live in this building.”

“What number?”

“Five,” Bernie said. “Where Mizell is now.”

No sound came from the speaker, except for a staticky crackle.

“The name was Spears,” Bernie said.

More crackle.

“Hello?” Bernie said.

“Go away.” The speaker went silent, crackle and all.

Bernie pressed the buzzer again, kept his finger there. After a while I heard a door close somewhere in the building, and soon approaching footsteps, the soft, slightly flapping kind slippers make. Then someone-a man actually, a man who’d been eating something garlicky, and who could have used a shower, not that I cared much about that kind of thing, although it was always interesting how humans liked to get rid of their natural scents-stopped at the other side of the door.

There was a little click which Bernie maybe didn’t hear because he kept his finger on the buzzer. Then the door got thrown open real fast and an unshaven guy in a wifebeater and saggy sweatpants stood there, a gun in his hand and pointed at the floor, but also sort of at Bernie.

“What part of go away don’t you fuckin’ understand?” the guy said.

Here’s a strange thing: some humans have trouble even noticing members of the nation within. Also the light over the door was out, and the nearest streetlight stood pretty far down the block, so maybe things were a bit murky. The truth is I didn’t really think about any of that, just lunged forward, grabbed the guy’s wrist, and clamped down good and tight.

“Aieee,” he screamed, or something like that, very unpleasant down deep in my ears. He dropped the gun at once. Not a tough guy, obvious from the get-go, but nobody waves guns at Bernie, not while I’m around.

“Aieee, aieee.” He was struggling now, always fun. Did his blood have a garlicky taste? Had to be my imagination. “Call it off!” the guy screamed. “Call it off!”

“He’s not an it,” Bernie said, picking up the gun.

“Huh? What the hell? He’s killing me.”

Bernie nodded. “He-that’s better. Chet? Big guy? That should do it. Chet? All set on our end now. Good job. No sense overdoing it. Let’s not gild the lily.”

Gild the lily? I’d heard that one before, had no idea what it meant. Wasn’t the lily a flower? This wifebeater guy was no flower, and that garlicky tinge in his blood hadn’t gone away. I let him go.

“Good boy,” Bernie said. “How about sitting for a moment or two?”

Sitting? I didn’t feel like it, not one little bit. What did I feel like? Action, baby, action and nothing but.

“Ch-et?” Bernie has this special way of saying Chet, not loud, that somehow gets my attention every time. Or at least most of the time. Or sometimes. In short: this time I sat.

Bernie popped the magazine out of the gun, dropped the ammo in his pocket, then racked the slide-loved gun lingo myself, learned it back when Bernie was teaching Charlie, a lesson that led to an unforgettable scene with Leda which I no longer remembered-and dropped that last round into his pocket with the others. Then he slid the empty magazine back in place and handed the gun to the wifebeater guy.

“Here you go, Mr… Ortega, is it?”

“I’m bleedin’ to death,” said Mr. Ortega.

Bernie stooped down, examined Mr. Ortega’s wrist. “Nah,” he said. “Just a scratch. And of course Chet’s had his shots, so you’ll be good as new in no time. Now if you’ll kindly be more forthcoming about the present whereabouts of the Spears family, we won’t take anymore of your time.”

“You a cop?” Mr. Ortega said.

Bernie showed Mr. Ortega our license.

“Private eye?”

Bernie nodded.

“What do you want with her?”

“Who are we discussing?” Bernie said.

“Who do you think?” Mr. Ortega. “Mrs.-” And then he put the brakes on, too late. That putting on the brakes too late thing was always good for us.

“Mrs…?” said Bernie.

Mr. Ortega shook his head. “You look like trouble for her.”

“I’m guessing she’s a good person,” Bernie said. “We don’t bring trouble to good people.”

“I’m a good person,” Mr. Ortega said, looking down at his wrist; the blood wasn’t even flowing anymore.

“The gun fooled me,” Bernie said.

Mr. Ortega thought about that. Some humans are faster thinkers than others-you can sort of tell from their faces. Mr. Ortega wasn’t one of them. “You gonna give me my ammo back?” he said at last.

“Sure,” said Bernie. “Just as soon as you tell us what we want to know.”

Mr. Ortega did some more thinking.

“I take it we’re talking about Mrs. Spears,” Bernie said.

“’Cept she got married and changed her name to-” Whoa! He put the brakes on again? This was going to take forever. Fine with me.

“Mizell, by any chance?” Bernie said.

“How’d you know that?” said Mr. Ortega.

Bernie reached into his pocket, took out the ammo, and said, “Cup your hands.” No time to go into this now, but I like when humans cup their hands; I once drank water from Bernie’s cupped hands when we were in a bad way, deep in the desert.

Bernie dropped the ammo clink clink into Mr. Ortega’s hands. “Grateful for your help,” Bernie said. “And I’ll be even more grateful if you don’t reload till after we’re out of here.”

“What are you gonna do?” Mr. Ortega said.

“Pay a visit to number five,” Bernie said, stepping through the doorway; I was already inside, on account of my little dustup with Mr. Ortega. “But you can head on back to your own apartment,” Bernie went on. “We’ll find our way.”

Mr. Ortega backed through the small entrance hall, then started down a corridor. He stopped and turned. “She’s had some hard times,” he said.

Bernie nodded.

We went down the same corridor, but the other way. The floor was linoleum, kind of sticky under my paws. We passed a few doors, TV voices leaking out from underneath them, plus some fast-food smells-fast food being a wonderful human invention-and also pot. Bernie says that practically the whole country is stoned out of its mind at all times, which is why we are where we are, but where we are is pretty good, right? So maybe it wasn’t a problem.

We stopped in front of a door. A horseshoe was nailed to the frame. You see that sometimes, a total puzzler. And what’s with horses wearing shoes in the first place? So it was kind of a double puzzler, way too much for me. Bernie knocked.

Someone moved on the other side of the door, a woman, actually, and she’d been drinking.

“Yes?” she said.

“Mrs. Mizell?” said Bernie. “My name’s Bernie Little. I’m a private investigator, and I need your help.”

“I haven’t done anything,” the woman said.

“I didn’t say you had,” Bernie said. “I’m looking into an old case.”

Her voice got a bit wavery. “Old case?”

“Which it would be better to discuss in private,” Bernie said.

She was silent.

“Maybe I’m making a mistake,” Bernie said. “But if your surname used to be Spears and you had a daughter named April, then I’m not.”

The door opened.

The woman peered out. She had rusty red hair and wore very big glasses. The eyes behind the lenses looked small and watery. They took in Bernie, and then me.

“This is Chet, Mrs. Mizell,” Bernie said.

“April had a dog,” said Mrs. Mizell. Holding her housecoat tight at the neck, she stepped to the side and let us in.

We were in a small living room, separated from an even smaller kitchen by a counter. On the counter stood an open jug of red wine and a half-filled glass. Mrs. Mizell made a gesture toward a couch facing the TV. Bernie didn’t sit there. Instead he pulled a footstool closer to the couch and sat on that. Was an interview about to happen? Maybe: Bernie always got fussy with seating arrangements when it came to interviews.

Mrs. Mizell screwed the top on the wine jug and pushed the glass out of sight, behind the toaster, then turned quickly, the way humans do when they’re checking to see if you saw. So complicated. And of course we saw. We’re pros, me and Bernie.

Mrs. Mizell came over, smoothing her housecoat, and sat on the couch, shifted herself away from Bernie, but because of where he’d placed the stool, she couldn’t go far. She sat up straight, a kind of bloated woman, but her feet were bare and they were nice, well-shaped in a way that’s hard to describe, the nails red, a very bright red I had trouble taking my eyes off.

Mrs. Mizell gave Bernie a sideways look. She was real nervous; the smell, not unpleasant to me, filled the room.

“What was the name of April’s dog?” Bernie said.

“Kurt,” said Mrs. Mizell. “She was a big Kurt Cobain fan.” She put her hands together, wrung them a bit. “He got unmanageable after she… after. I had to give him away.”

“After what?” Bernie said.

Now she looked him right in the eye and her voice got harsh. “After April got murdered,” Mrs. Mizell said. “Isn’t that the old case you’re talking about?”

“It is,” Bernie said.

“Old and cold,” said Mrs. Mizell. She gazed down at her feet. I gazed at them, too, and was hit by a strong desire to give them a lick. Was this a good time? I wondered about that.

“What happened to her, Mrs. Mizell?” Bernie said.

She shook her head. “April was a good kid, no matter what any-no matter what,” she said. “And she was as pretty as a movie star.”

“Have you got a picture of her?”

“I do.”

Mrs. Mizell rose, her knees cracking, and went through a door into a dark room. Bernie turned to a desk by the wall, opened the top drawer, glanced inside, closed the drawer. Mrs. Mizell returned and handed Bernie a picture. He studied it.

“Yes,” he said. “She was very pretty.”

“Beautiful,” said Mrs. Mizell.

“Is that the old Flower Mart in the background?”

Mrs. Mizell, looking over Bernie’s shoulder, nodded. “She worked there part-time.”

“Who’s the boy with her?”

Mrs. Mizell’s face hardened. “The boyfriend,” he said. “Ex-boyfriend, but this was before she dumped him.”

“Why did she dump him?”

Mrs. Mizell took a deep breath. “By that time I maybe wasn’t keeping the close eye on her that I should. And I had problems of my own. A single mom, in case you haven’t guessed. This was before Mr. Mizell. Now is after him.”

“So she didn’t tell you?” Bernie said.

“I wasn’t really around much, is what I’m saying. April was here alone. I’d gone up to Vegas that summer, looking for work.” There was a silence. “Aren’t you going to ask what kind of work?”

“No,” Bernie said. “I’d like to know more about this boyfriend.”

“Manny? I never liked him.”

“The boyfriend’s name was Manny?” Bernie said. My ears went up right away. There was a change in the sound of Bernie’s voice, not big, but that change, a slight sharpening, almost always meant something.

“Short for Manuel.” Mrs. Mizell said Manuel in a way that was kind of-what was the word? catty? whoa! I’d never thought about that, clearly a huge subject, and no time now. And where was I? Manuel. Yes. She stretched it out like she was making fun of the name.

Bernie leaned forward. “Do you remember his last name?”

“Chavez.”

Bernie went very still. When he spoke again, his voice was back to normal. “Do you know what became of him?”

“Became of him?”

“Since then.”

“I never saw him again.”

“Was he a suspect?”

“In my mind he was,” Mrs. Mizell said. “April was stabbed to death, and if you’re a private eye, then you must know all about Mexicans and knives.”

Bernie said nothing.

“And he had a motive,” Mrs. Mizell went on.

“What was that?”

“Jealousy, of course. I think April had started seeing someone else.”

“Is that why she dumped Manny?” Bernie said.

Mrs. Mizell got angry. “I told you I didn’t know. I just think.” She glanced over at the toaster.

“What makes you think she dumped Manny for this other person?”

“It was a long time ago,” said Mrs. Mizell, eyes still on the toaster.

Bernie rose, took Mrs. Mizell’s chin in his hand and turned her face toward his, not hard, even kind of gently. Her eyes got big.

“But you remember,” he said, and let her go.

Mrs. Mizell nodded. “I overheard her telling a friend on the phone.” Her hand went to her chin, felt it, almost like she was making sure it was still there.

“Did she mention the name of the new boyfriend?” Bernie said.

“Not that I remember. I really don’t, so keep your hands off me.”

Bernie made a little motion, like he was brushing a fly from in front of his face, but I didn’t hear or see one. “Who was the friend on the phone?” he said.

“Probably her oldest one, going all the way back to grade school,” Mrs. Mizell said. “Dina was her name. Dina… Taggert, I think it was. “Or maybe Haggerty. But what difference does it make?” She started getting angry again. “Manny alibied out.”

“How do you know?”

“The cop told me-the cop who found poor April in the first place. I put him on to Manny first thing.”

“What was the alibi?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure I even knew.”

“And the cop?”

Mrs. Mizell stared at the wall. “A serious young man,” she said. “It’ll come to me.”

We waited, Bernie watching her face, me watching her feet. We’re a team, me and Bernie, which must have come up already.

At last Bernie said, “Did he have long sideburns?”

“Oh, no,” said Mrs. Mizell. “That was the detective in charge. Detective Luxton.”

“Detective Luxton?”

“He had long sideburns, like from the seventies,” Mrs. Mizell said. “The cop wore his uniform, of course. He cared, I could tell. He promised me they’d find April’s killer but they never did.” We sat in silence. “You’ve brought it all back to me,” Mrs. Mizell said. “What gives you the goddamn right?”

“There’d only be one good reason.”

She raised her head. “You’ve found something?”

“I can’t go into details,” Bernie said.

Mrs. Mizell gave Bernie an angry look, then turned away from him. Her gaze happened to light on me. The anger seemed to leak out of her. “The cop was named Stine,” she said.

Spencer Quinn

A Fistful of Collars