Paw and Order (16 page)

TWENTY

L
izette's door opened and a waiter-type dude—black pants, white shirt, a tray of drinks over one shoulder—looked out.

“Welcome,” he said.

In the background: lots of nicely dressed people, drinking, talking, laughing, and eating bits of delicious-smelling food, the small-portion size known as appetizers. In short, this was a fancy party. I have absolutely nothing against the small-portion size. You just have to eat more of them. What could be simpler? Bernie always says that the shortest distance between two points is something or other, and that's become one of my core beliefs.

“Uh,” said Bernie, “didn't realize a party . . .”

Suzie stepped right on in, me following; I like when people step right on in. “Don't mind if I do,” she said, sweeping up a glass of what they call bubbly from the waiter's drink tray. Once I stood over a glass of bubbly and nosed up the tiny air pops. There's all kinds of fun to be had in life.

Was Suzie suddenly in a fun mood? I got that feeling. She glanced back at Bernie, still wavering in the doorway. “Coming?”

“Well,” said Bernie, “I'm not sure we . . .”

Suzie's face was just starting in on a frown, very unusual for her, when Lizette appeared in the hall. She had a sparkling bow in her glossy red hair, cut on the shortish side, and wore a green dress that made her eyes seem even greener. Hey! Lizette was turning out to be one of those humans it was hard to take your eyes off.

“Suzie!” she said. “What a nice surprise. And . . . Bernie, is it? Plus this absolute knockout of a dog.”

“Didn't realize you were having a party,” Suzie said. “We can come back another time.”

“Don't be silly,” Lizette said. “The general loves dogs. He'll be delighted.”

“General?” said Suzie.

“General Galloway,” Lizette said. She motioned behind her. “This is a very modest fundraiser in his honor.”

“I didn't realize you were active in politics,” Suzie said.

“Tonight's more social than anything else,” Lizette said. “Come join the party!”

Which was exactly what I wanted to hear! Lizette was growing on me, no question about it.

“Uh,” Bernie said, quite some distance behind me. I seemed to be well inside Lizette's house, on my way to that screened-in porch and following—more like getting swept along on—a powerful scent trail, and one I'd encountered not nearly often enough in my career, namely the scent trail that flows from a plate or two of shrimp wrapped in bacon.

“Thanks,” Suzie was saying, also from somewhere behind me. What was this holdup about? I looked back. “We won't stay long,” Suzie said, “but of course I'd love to meet the general. First, I wanted to ask you whether you were home today.”

“In and out,” Lizette said, raising her glass toward her lips. “Why?”

“Did you see anything unusual?”

“Unusual?”

“Someone lurking around, for example.”

Lizette lowered her glass. “No,” she said. “Don't tell me you've had a break-in?”

“Nothing like that,” Suzie said. “Someone slipped a package under my door and I'd like to find out who.”

Lizette's mouth opened, closed, opened again. “I hope it wasn't—there wasn't anything unsettling in it.”

“No,” said Suzie.

Lizette watched her, maybe expecting Suzie to say more. When she did not, Lizette said, “I'd be happy to accept any packages for you in future.”

“I'm sure that won't be necessary.”

“Offer's on the table,” Lizette said. “I like to help.” She took Suzie's hand. “Let's go introduce you to the general.”

They headed in my direction, toward the porch, Bernie trailing. Another waiter went by with a drink tray, and Bernie raised his hand, maybe trying to get the waiter's attention, which didn't happen. For a moment he was just standing there, hand curled like he was holding a drink, even though he wasn't. I waited for him to catch up and fell in beside him. Not that he looked a little lost—we're dealing with Bernie, after all—but I got the idea he could use some company, namely mine.

We moved onto the porch, a pretty big space with lots of wicker furniture. I'm partial to wicker furniture and I know it, which is why I gave myself a warning:
Not now, big
guy.
Even though I could practically feel all that wicker unraveling between my teeth, hard on the outside and much softer within. I have memories like you wouldn't believe!

At the far side of the porch stood a silver-haired dude doing nothing much—talking, sipping, laughing—although from the faces of the people around him you'd have thought he was doing big things, like pulling a rabbit from a hat, for example, something I'd actually seen done when Leda hired a magician at Charlie's birthday party. The absolute truth is I'd seen it about to be done, but while the magician was handing the hat over for the kids to inspect—“Take a good close look, ladies and gents!”—I'd smelled a surprising thing, namely a rabbit hidden in the sleeve of the magician's jacket, and after that had come a lot of action, kind of a blur, although I have a clear memory of what happened when the rabbit—what a funny pink-eyed dude!—with me close behind, reached the back gate of Leda's house, a gate with no space for squeezing under, except the little bugger did, never to be seen again, although I'm sure I could have tracked him down if I'd been given the chance, which I was not.

But that's neither here nor there, as humans often say, totally right in this case, since it took place at Leda's big house in High Chaparral Estates, just about the fanciest neighborhood in the whole Valley, where she lives with Malcolm, her new husband with all kinds of software money and very long toes. The point was I'd seen this same silver-haired man once before, on the little spin I'd taken with Mr. Ferretti, and he'd been doing this exact same thing, namely talking, sipping, laughing, surrounded by a bunch of—what would you call them? Fans?—waiting for him to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Forget that last part: the silver-haired dude, a very smooth-skin dude, except for what I could see of his neck, more on the wrinkly and saggy side—had no hat. What he had was his silver hair, all full and shiny, plus his smooth skin and fine teeth, big for a human and the whitest I'd ever seen. Lizette, towing Suzie behind her, wedged her way through the little crowd.

“General?” Lizette said.

The silver-haired dude paused, one finger in the air, and turned to Lizette. Hey! What was this? A smell started up in both of them? Two smells, human male and female, although kind of the same thing if you get what I mean, probably a long shot since I'm not giving you much help.

“Yes, Lizette?” he said, in the voice a man uses for a woman he sort of knows, but not real well.

“I'd like you to meet a friend of mine,” Lizette said. “Suzie Sanchez,
Washington Post
reporter, General Galloway, our guest of honor.”

Suzie and General Galloway shook hands. “Pleased to meet you, General,” Suzie said.

General Galloway gave her a smile. Those big, white teeth: wow! I found my own mouth opening wide, for reasons unknown to me.

“Call me Trav,” the general said.

“Okay,” said Suzie, although she didn't call him Trav, or anything, for that matter. Humans meeting for the first time was often a tricky moment. Take Booby “Bonecrusher” Daunt, who ruined so many handshakes that finally we'd had to take him aside, me and Bernie, and in no uncertain—

“And this,” Lizette was saying, “is Suzie's friend, Bernie—I'm sorry, Bernie, I've forgotten your last name.”

“Little,” said Bernie, stepping forward and shaking hands with the general. They were about the same height, although Bernie was bigger, with broader shoulders. He didn't have that smooth skin, but neither was his neck all wrinkly and saggy. In fact, I realized for the first time right then and there that Bernie had the most beautiful human neck I'd ever seen. But that was Bernie for you: amazements piling up on amazements.

The general had eyes that were on the biggish side, but now they narrowed. “Bernard Little?” he said. “Cadet Bernard Little?”

“Sir,” said Bernie.

“Two-hit shutout at Annapolis? The game with those snow squalls at the end?”

“A long time ago, sir.”

“But vivid in my memory,” said the general. “My good luck to be at a chinwag with Navy colleagues that afternoon. Fully expected to see you in the big leagues after your service obligation.”

“Didn't happen,” Bernie said.

Was this about baseball? Bernie had pitched for Army until he'd thrown his arm out, although I didn't quite get that part on account of how far Bernie can wing the tennis ball when we're playing fetch, namely a country mile, much longer than a city mile, which I'd finally figured out is because of less traffic.

“Stayed on?” the general was saying.

“Yes, sir.”

“See any action?”

“A little.”

“Iraq?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Different places.”

“Fallujah?”

“Yes, sir.”

“First or second battle?”

“Some of both.”

The general gave Bernie a nod, like Bernie had asked him a question and he was saying yes. Kind of confusing, but whatever was going on, all the people around the general were now looking at Bernie.

“Assume you're no longer on active service?” the general said.

“Retired,” said Bernie.

“Rank?”

“Captain.”

“And what are you doing now?” the general said. “I'm going to guess there's baseball involved.”

“No, sir,” Bernie said. “I'm a private investigator.”

“Ah,” said General Galloway, rocking slightly back on his heels. “Working out of DC?”

“Arizona. We're just visiting.”

“We being?”

“Me and Chet, here.”

And without warning, all eyes were on me. A bit of warning might have been nice, especially since—and how had this happened?—I seemed at that moment to be gnawing on a nearby wicker leg. I put a stop to that so fast no one could possibly have noticed, but next time, please—a little heads-up.

The general gazed down at me. I gazed up at him. “Nice-looking animal,” he said.

Right back atcha—that was my first and only thought. The general was a nice-looking animal, if you left out the neck, and I'm the type who's always willing to cut dudes a break, even some of the perps and gangbangers I'd come across in the line of duty; cutting them a break the first time is what I mean, goes without mentioning. As for nice-looking animals, the very nicest in the room was Bernie, of course, leaving myself out of the competition for the moment, I'm not sure why, because competition and I are like that, meaning tight.

The general turned to Bernie. “In town for long?”

Bernie glanced at Suzie. “Not sure.”

A few new arrivals—they brought the smell of outside with them—came up to the general, kind of sweeping him away from us.

“Trav,” one said, “you were so fabulous on
Charlie Rose
.”

The general looked over their heads at Bernie. “Hope we can have a nice sit-down sometime,” he said. “And thanks for your support.”

“Um,” said Bernie.

• • •

“My support?” Bernie said.

We were out in Lizette's garden now, just me, Bernie, Suzie, and a bartender pouring bourbon for him, wine for Suzie, and water for me in a bowl brought specially from the kitchen.

“A natural assumption,” Suzie said. “It is a fundraiser, Bernie.”

“Meaning he's definitely running?”

“What kind of country would we have if you had to be definitely running before the money started flowing?”

“A better one,” Bernie said.

“It was a rhetorical question,” Suzie said. “What I really want to talk about is the battle of Fallujah.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because of its historical importance, second, and that you, the man I—that you were there, first. Which I just now found out, despite how long we've been together.”

Bernie gazed into his glass, swirled the bourbon around. I had the craziest thought of my life: he'd jump right in that glass if he could.

“There's not much to say,” he said.

“How is that possible?” Suzie said.

They looked at each other. Suzie reached out and touched Bernie's arm. Did his eyes go the slightest bit misty? Hard to tell under the flickering light of the lanterns set up in the garden, and that wouldn't have been Bernie, whom I'd seen cry only once, the day Leda took Charlie away to live in the house in High Chaparral Estates. Plus I didn't get a long look because at that moment Lizette came out of the house and hurried over, practically running in her high heels.

“The man of the hour,” Lizette said to Bernie.

Suzie took her hand off his arm.

“Uh,” Bernie said, “nice party, thanks.”

“The pleasure's all mine,” Lizette said. “I've never seen the general so charged about meeting someone.”

“I didn't realize you knew him so well,” Suzie said.

“Not,” Lizette said, “personally. But I'm very active politically.”

“I thought you were Canadian,” Suzie said, “from Montreal.”

“French Canadian by origin,” Lizette said. “But I'm a citizen now.” She turned to Bernie. “Tell me the story of this famous ball game, the one played in a blizzard.”

“More like a few flurries,” Bernie said. “Made it much harder for the hitters.”

“So—hard for everyone and still you did well?” Lizette said.

Bernie shook his head. “Didn't affect the pitching much.” Lizette gazed at Bernie in that big-eyed way some humans have when they're not getting it. “I was a pitcher.”