The Sound and the Furry (13 page)

“With the exception of Ralph,” Bernie said.

“Huh?”

“Isn’t it one of his favorite anchorages?”

Mack looked down at his feet. Bare feet: very dirty, the ends of the nails all black;
in short, really interesting.

“Mack?” Bernie said. “Look at me.”

Mack slowly looked up, sort of met Bernie’s gaze.

“What are you hiding?”

Mack tilted back the bottle, took a long swig. It made him look a little tougher.
I’d seen that kind of toughness, the bottled kind, disappear real fast.

“Nothin’,” he said. “And now, all the same to you, I’ve got work to do.”

“It’s Sunday,” Bernie said, “your day off. Those shrimp disappeared on a Sunday, and
so did Ralph.” Bernie took out the baggie with the Buddy Holly–type glasses inside
and held it up so Mack could see. Mack’s eyes locked on that baggie. “Ralph was
anchored off Isle des Deux Amis that Sunday morning,” Bernie said. “You were right
here. So you saw him. Now I just need to know what you saw and we’ll be out of your
hair.”

Of which Mack had none, except for that bushy mustache. I felt a bit pukey.

“I got no memories of that day,” Mack said.

“How is that possible?”

Mack didn’t take his eyes off the glasses. His voice went quiet. “Truth is I backslid
that day, drug-wise.” He looked up, took out the fifty Bernie’d given him. “Want this
back?”

Bernie shook his head. “You may be needing it.”

Sweat beads popped up on Mack’s forehead. You saw a lot of human sweat in bayou country.
And very little back home in the Valley. I came close to giving that some thought.

S
ee the way St. Roch is divided in half by the bayou?” Bernie said. “Boutettes on one
side, Robideaus on the other—it’s almost too damn convenient.”

We were in the Porsche, Bernie at the wheel, me riding shotgun, which was always our
setup except for once after a long night at Pony Up, a dive bar in South Pedroia we
no longer visit, and with the engine off, the car hadn’t been moving anyway. And then
all of a sudden, with me in the driver’s seat and Bernie sort of—let’s say napping
in the front seat—it was! Moving! And fast! A story for another time.

Right now we were crossing a bridge over the bayou. A narrow one-lane bridge where
we’d had to wait on a red light while a battered old van came clanking across from
the other side: didn’t seem all that convenient to me, but if Bernie said so, then
it was. I’d never been on a more convenient bridge! And the view was beautiful: sunset
over the bayou, the water fiery red, the trees and buildings black against a purple
sky. Bernie says I can’t be trusted when it comes to colors, so forget the red and
purple parts. But not the black. I’m very good at black.

We drove over the bridge, followed the bayou for a bit, lined with docks just like
the other side, the air fishier than any air I’d ever smelled, then turned up a street
and parked in front of a low building with a blue light hanging over the door. Blue
lights meant the law. We’re on the same side as the law, me and Bernie, except for
a whole confusing bunch of other times. There’s even a lawman or two wearing an orange
jumpsuit on our account. They look so different that way!

Bernie opened the door under the blue light—bugs buzzed around it, big-time—and we
entered the building. I’ve been in many cop offices, most of them messy with half-f
paper cups all over the place, and also plenty of leftovers lying around, often within
easy reach. Leftovers: one of the great human inventions, and leftovers within easy
reach were even better.

The St. Roch setup was the other kind of cop office, the kind you hardly ever saw,
neat and tidy, like Leda and Malcolm’s place in High Chaparral Estates, which I’d
only been in once, and very briefly. No paper cups here, no leftovers, no files stacked
to the ceiling, no dust. Although there was mold growing down in the basement, growing
wildly: that had been obvious the moment I’d stepped in the room.

Two lawmen sat at side-by-side desks. They weren’t wearing orange jumpsuits yet, in
fact they had on crisp, unwrinkled uniforms and kind of reminded me of FBI types Bernie
and I have come across—clean-shaven, short-haired, watchful. What else? They smelled
like brothers. Other than that, I had zilch so far.

The lawmen looked up at us. They both had ginger-ale-colored eyes and curly ginger-ale-colored
hair, although one had lots of gray mixed in. That meant he was older: we have the
same thing in the nation within. Take my old buddy Spike who hangs out at Nixon Panero’s
yard, his face practically white now, but still
a fine scrapper, with a snarl that makes you want to back away pronto, which I never
do, goes without mentioning. If there was time, I could now add something about how
come I know about ginger ale—which happens to be Charlie’s favorite drink at the moment,
although he’s not allowed to have any at their place in High Chaparral Estates, and
it’s possible he’s officially not supposed to at our place either—but there isn’t.

The older lawman smiled in a friendly way and said, “Help you?”

“Sheriff Robideau?” Bernie said.

“Guilty as charged,” the lawman said, raising his hands like he was turning himself
in. Whoa! We’d closed the case already? Could I even remember a quicker result? Maybe
the time that Stylin’ Sammy Minsk was still in the middle of hiring us to find his
wife’s missing diamond ring when it fell out of a hole in his pocket right in front
of my eyes. I grabbed him by the pant leg without even having to move, and the fraud
squad from the insurance agency sent us a nice check, which Bernie put in his chest
pocket, things going downhill from there.

“Bernie Little,” said Bernie. “And this is Chet.” They didn’t even look at me. My
tail, which had started up in a normal meet-and-greet sort of way, ramped it down,
although not all at once. Bernie stepped forward and laid our card on the sheriff’s
desk, the new card designed by Suzie, the one with the flower.

The sheriff gazed at the card, meanwhile . . . tracing the outline of the flower with
his fingertip? I couldn’t be sure from my angle. “Little Detective Agency,” he said.

“Correct,” said Bernie.

“Out of where?” said the deputy. The sheriff handed him the card. The deputy examined
it, and yes, traced the outline of the flower with his fingertip, no question about
it. “Long way from home,” he said.

“It’s about Ralph Boutette,” Bernie said. Then came a pause, a space in time that
went on too long to feel right. Sometimes after a few drinks, Bernie starts talking
about the big bang. “See what it means, big guy? Space and time are the same thing—not
just two sides of the same coin, but the coin itself.” No coin or money of any kind
ever appeared after these talks; and also no big bang ever happened, which suited
me just fine. Fourth of July? Not my cup of tea. Tea isn’t my cup of tea either, in
case you haven’t figured that out already. Water’s my drink, pure and simple, and
Thanksgiving’s my favorite holiday. Can’t beat it for leftovers—to bring up leftovers
again, and how can that be bad?—just scattered around all over the place, and everyone
collapsed in front of football on TV. Dark meat’s best, but I don’t complain about
white. It’s fun listening to all the burping while I hunt around. Human burping is
actually one of the best things they do, although I’m not sure they know that.

No burping was happening at the moment, too bad because I now wanted to hear some
pretty bad. The sheriff and his deputy were watching Bernie, their eyes giving nothing
away. Were they thinking about space and time? That was as far as I could take it.

“What about Ralph Boutette?” the sheriff said at last.

Right. Ralph Boutette. Just like that, I was back in the picture.

“We’re looking for him,” Bernie said. Totally true, and it couldn’t have been fresher
in my mind.

“Why?” said the sheriff.

“Not sure I understand your question.” Bernie and I? Peas in a pod on this one. I’ve
had pea experience, with pods and without. They aren’t high on my list, as maybe I
mentioned already, not so much on account of the taste, which I don’t mind, but because
of the way they get all mushy and stick to the roof of your mouth. Must have happened
to you.

“No mystery,” the sheriff said. “Mr. Boutette is a local resident. We don’t know you,
and looking out for our people is job one.”

“Nice to hear,” Bernie said. “But if a missing persons report has been filed on Ralph,
it would be a matter of public record.”

“And you’re the public?” the sheriff said. Bernie didn’t answer. The sheriff turned
to his deputy. “Got an MP on Ralph?”

“Not as of four p.m. today. Want me to check the log?”

“I do.”

Deputy Sheriff Robideau tapped at his keyboard. These brothers were very polite lawmen,
spoke in quiet, nonthreatening voices, but they were kind of nervous at the moment,
human nervousness being hard to hide from me. It has a real sharp scent, as you may
or may not know, that cuts through other smells the way sour milk does, for example,
or a pot on the stove after the water’s boiled away but the heat’s still on, something
that goes down from time to time at our place on Mesquite Road.

Deputy Robideau looked up, shook his head. “Negative.”

Sheriff Robideau turned to Bernie. “You know something we don’t, Mr. Little?” Of course
he did! A whole bunch of things! He was Bernie!

“Wouldn’t put it like that,” Bernie said. And that was Bernie, too, not rubbing it
in. “But his family can’t seem to locate him and they’re worried.”

The deputy laughed.

“What’s funny?” Bernie said.

“Them being worried about him,” Deputy Robideau said.

“I’m not getting it,” Bernie said.

“Because they all know goddamn well—” the deputy began, but the sheriff cut him off.

“Scooter?” he said. “I’m pretty sure this gentleman didn’t come here for a whole lot
of small-town gossip.”

Gossip: a new one on me, but from the look on his face, I knew that Bernie wouldn’t
have minded hearing some, whatever it happened to be.

“You’re the boss, Chip,” said Scooter Robideau, his lips barely moving.

The sheriff—Chip was it? Chip and Scooter? Just like some members of the nation within
I knew!—turned back to Bernie. “The Boutettes are worried about Ralph.”

“Correct.”

“And they’ve hired you.”

Bernie opened his mouth to answer, but Scooter piped up again. “Why’d they pick someone
from so far away?”

The sheriff smiled, or it might have been that teeth-gritting thing. “Actually my
second question, Scoot.” Scooter’s eyes went kind of blank. “Question one,” the sheriff
went on, “is what explanation, if any, did the Boutettes give you regarding Ralph
and his whereabouts?”

“You’d have to ask them,” Bernie said.

The sheriff kept smiling or gritting away. “Oh, I intend to.”

“You do?” said Scooter.

The sheriff’s smile faded. “But I don’t expect much help from that quarter.”

“Why is that?” Bernie said.

“Put it this way,” said the sheriff. “If you do find Ralph, failure to inform this
office might be risky.”

“How’s that?”

“Not saying for sure. This is a friendly talk, after all—we’re known for our hospitality
in these parts, Mr. Little. But keeping us out of the loop could place you right on
the edge of negligent activity.”

“What kind of negligent activity?” Bernie said.

“The kind that might resemble aiding and abetting,” said the sheriff. “Depending on
where you’re coming from.”

“Meaning you think Ralph was in on the shrimp heist,” Bernie said, almost before the
sheriff finished talking.

The sheriff sat back. “You’re quick on the uptake.”

The sheriff was right about that. Normally I have good feelings for any admirer of
Bernie, but they weren’t there at the moment.

“Not quick enough,” Bernie was saying, “to know for sure if I’m being threatened.”

“Threatened? My goodness.”

“Just on the chance that any negligent activity amounted to a crime in someone’s eyes,”
Bernie said. “If you see where I’m coming from.”

“Who said anything about a crime?” the sheriff said.

“Fella’s got crime on the brain,” Scooter said.

That made the sheriff smile again. He was a very pleasant lawman, if a little on the
nervous side. Nobody was perfect, as you hear all the time, excepting one person I
could think of, no need to name him, I’m sure.

That unnamed person was smiling, too. We were all getting along great, except maybe
for the nervousness part. Not that Bernie was nervous, not a bit, although he can
get nervous, just about always around a certain kind of woman. I wasn’t nervous either.
When was the last time? At the vet’s, most likely; can’t think of anything else that
makes me nervous, and—uh-oh, all of a sudden I was thinking about the vet! Nothing
but going to the vet could fit in my mind! I needed to gnaw on something real bad,
this nearby wooden leg of Scooter’s desk, for example. I tried not to shift over in
that direction, but I have the kind of body that knows how to shift on its own.

“An occupational hazard,” Bernie said.

The sheriff laughed. “Isn’t that the truth?”

“What is?” said Scooter.

The lines around the sheriff’s eyes deepened a little bit. That was all it took to
make him look annoyed. “Crime on the brain,” he said. “What else?”

Scooter had the same sort of lines around his eyes, although not so prominent. Everything
about Scooter was more prominent in Chip. Now he looked annoyed, too. What was going
on? They were brothers. Just then I had a real strange memory, the farthest back memory
of my whole life, a memory of lying in a whole big mess of puppies! The memory faded
away, just when I was about to make . . . what would you call it? A connection?

Maybe it would come to me another time. You could always hope. And hey! I always did!
I forgot all about gnawing the leg of Scooter’s chair, remembered, then forgot again,
once and for all. Just like that, I was back to feeling tip-top.