The Sound and the Furry (27 page)

“Better than nothing at all?” said Mami. “Or worse?” She did a dry spit in the direction
of the bayou.

Dry spits: so interesting, but no time to go into the subject now, except there’s
no ignoring that you didn’t see it often, and then only from men. Mami: I liked her
a whole lot.

“Give me a heads-up next time one of those moments comes around,” she said. Her phone
buzzed. She glanced at the screen, then up at Bernie. “Anything else? Gotta take this
call.”

“Is it Duke?”

“No.”

“You’re aware that Lord took off?”

She nodded. “I shoulda put money on that, maybe got something out of all this shit.”

“Would he come back here?”

“What would be stupider than that?”

“Meaning . . .?”

Mami didn’t answer, instead moved away to take her call.

“How about we let Dr. Ory take a quick look at you,” Bernie said, “and then find somewhere
to chow down? Or,” he went on, regaining his balance and wiping away what might have
been a paw print on his shoulder, “maybe a quick snack now to tide you over?”

He stepped over to the Porsche, reached into the glove box, took out a Slim Jim. When
had that gotten in there? Not on my watch. Also nothing to worry about, or even spend
any time on. What was all that talk about heaven and small moments? Totally
over my head, or straight through it, but for some reason I remembered it while I
was downing that Slim Jim.

We stopped by Dr. Ory’s trailer. I didn’t want to go in, so she came out.

“Found him, huh?” she said, wiping a wisp of hair off her face.

“Mami Boutette did,” Bernie said. “Down the bayou, almost where it meets the sea.”

Dr. Ory knelt in front of me, running her hands in that no-nonsense vetlike way over
my body. “He swam all the way from here to there?”

“That’s not clear,” Bernie said.

Dr. Ory glanced at him. “What happened to you?”

“I fell.”

“Uh-huh,” Dr. Ory said, pouring some sharp-smelling liquid on a cotton ball and dabbing
it on my shoulder. “You’re going to be just fine, Chet.” She scratched behind one
of my ears and rose. Iko’s scent was totally gone. What a vet! Maybe she’d do some
more scratching, possibly until I didn’t want anymore, meaning never.

No more scratching happened. I was just thinking that I already felt fine, especially
with the sun on me, heating me down deep where the chill still lingered, when a youngish
man in a suit and tie came out of the trailer and said, “Last one just died, Doc.”

“Damn,” said Dr. Ory.

“More birds?” Bernie said

“Four more at last count,” said Dr. Ory. “I called in Mr. Patel here from the government.
Mr. Patel, meet Bernie Little and Chet.”

Mr. Patel and Bernie shook hands. Mr. Patel was a much smaller dude than Bernie, but
he had a nice, vigorous handshake,
always something I liked to see. Also, he smelled a bit of curried goat, a dish I
often enjoy on visits to Mr. Singh, our pawnbroker back home, at present taking care
of Bernie’s grandfather’s watch for us if I was remembering right.

“Call me Jack,” Mr. Patel said.

“You with the EPA, Jack?” Bernie said.

“Not exactly,” said Jack Patel, flashing a smile, so bright in his dark face. “You
from around here?”

“Not exactly,” Bernie said.

Jack’s smile faded. Weren’t we getting along anymore? All of a sudden this wasn’t
so easy to follow. Instead, I concentrated on the smell of polish that rose from Jack’s
shiny black lace-up shoes with tiny holes in the front. FBI dudes always wore those
kind of polished shoes; other than that, I had no thoughts.

“Mr. Patel’s going to have a little talk with Wes Derrick,” Dr. Ory said. “See if
he can get some better answers than I did.”

“The environmental guy from the oil company?” Bernie said.

Dr. Ory nodded, checked her watch. “Should have been here by now.”

At that moment a bright green jeep came down the street and parked in front of the
trailer. Out stepped Wes, limping—and not just a little but in a pronounced sort of
way, a very nice sight.

“Sorry I’m a bit—” he began, and then he saw me. Sometimes the color drains right
out of human faces and then they look like they’re made of paper and often keel over.
Wes didn’t keel over. Instead, he backed toward the bright green jeep, kind of feeling
for it behind him, his mouth opening and closing. Was he planning to make a break
for it? I thought that over. Wes was a perp, no question. One of my jobs at the Little
Detective Agency was to never let a perp make a break for it. Also, a savage sort
of growling had started up in our vicinity, always exciting, although it meant
thinking things over couldn’t go on at the same time. Plus, I was in the mood for
excitement, big time.

I got my paws under me. I charged. I sprang. I grabbed Wes by the pant leg. More like
right through the pant leg—same leg I’d worked on before, at the start of our boat
ride, but that was more or less an accident. The other leg would have been just as
good, or almost. I worked on the leg I had, did the best job I knew how. Wes fell,
screaming in what I think they call agony. The sound made me even more excited! Who
knows why?

W
hen you’re busy like I was, you’re hardly aware of, say, lots of human shouting going
on, or hands grabbing for your collar—when there isn’t one!—or wide-eyed looks on
the face of a vet who’d probably thought she’d seen everything. Chet the Jet in action:
add that to your list, baby!

But after a while, things settled down out there on the road in front of Dr. Ory’s
trailer, and I found myself sitting peacefully at Bernie’s side. We watched Dr. Ory
cleaning up Wes Derrick’s ankle and some of the calf, perhaps, and possibly a touch
of above-the-knee involvement—not much more than a scratch when you came right down
to it—and bandage up the boo-boo nice and tidy. One thing for sure: Wes was not a
tough hombre. Tough hombres don’t moan and wince and ask whiny little questions about
tetanus and rabies and other stuff that whizzed right by me. Around that time, I realized
that Mr. Patel, the government dude, had—would retreated be how to put it?—stationed
himself behind the mostly closed door of the trailer, only his head poking out.

“What in hell got into him?” Mr. Patel said.

Dr. Ory rose. “Good question—never would have dreamed he was the type to go off like
that.”

What was this about? Wes and his wimpiness? That was my guess. I watched Bernie and
waited patiently for whatever was coming next.

“Uh,” Bernie said.

I happened to notice that he had his hand resting on the back of my neck, fingers
sort of curled into my fur—a brand-new thing, first time he’d done that in all our
time together, and, of course, it felt good. What a great idea! But that was Bernie.

“Um,” he added. “Don’t really know.” He gave Wes a look like some question was coming,
although he remained silent.

“Must be because of my cats,” Was said, so weakly he was hard to hear. “I’ve got cats.”

“Ah,” said Bernie. “Sorry, ah, Wes. I hope, you know . . . any associated expense,
that kind of . . .”

With a groan or two, Wes got to his feet. “Let’s just forget it,” he said. “The company
has an excellent health plan.”

Bernie’s eyebrows rose. Have I mentioned Bernie’s eyebrows? You really can’t miss
them, and they have a language all their own. Right now they were surprised, plus
a little something extra I didn’t get.

“Well,” he said, “if you’re sure you . . .”

Wes started backing toward the bright green jeep. Hey! He seemed to like walking backward:
hadn’t seen much of that in humans—or any creature, now that I thought about it.

“Wes?” said Dr. Ory. “Where are you going?”

“Think I’ll lie down for a while,” Wes said, “take some painkillers, put my leg up.”

“What about our meeting?” Dr. Ory said.

Wes’s eyes shifted to Mr. Patel in the doorway. “Afraid I’m not up to it at the moment.”

“But the birds!” Dr. Ory said.

“Happy to discuss whatever may or may not be happening with any alleged birds,” Wes
said. He opened the jeep’s door and slid in behind the wheel, all of it backward.
I was impressed, but it didn’t make me like him any better. I still didn’t like Wes
at all, although I no longer hated him: I had the taste of his blood on my tongue.
“How’s tomorrow, same time, same place?”

Dr. Ory turned to Mr. Patel. “Jack?”

“Guess that’ll have to do,” Mr. Patel said.

Wes was already driving off, and not slowly. They all watched him go. I watched Bernie.
Something was going on in his mind: I could feel it.

“Meantime,” Mr. Patel said, “I’ll want coordinates for all the bird finds.”

“I’ve got ’em,” Dr. Ory told him. They went inside, Dr. Ory pausing in the doorway
and turning to Bernie. “I know a very good trainer,” she said.

“Trainer?” said Bernie as the door closed behind her. I was with him on that. Trainer?
A total mystery. We hopped into the Porsche—me actually hopping, although not my very
smoothest—and hit the road. My only sure takeaway was that Wes had no cats. You can’t
have cats without me being in the know. He did smell like someone who spent time with
a member of the nation within. Had I noticed that already? I got a bit mixed up, started
thinking about the Isle des Deux Amis, no idea why.

“First,” Bernie said, pulling up to a roadside food truck—one of the greatest human
inventions, in my opinion, right up there with cars and handcuffs, “let’s get you
fed.” Sounded like a plan to me. And what if after I was done, he said,
Second, let’s get you fed again
?

Bernie went up to the guy in the food truck window.

“Got any steak?”

“Just the round, but it’s all cut up for the brochettes,” said the food truck guy.
He wore beaded chains around his neck and was missing a whole bunch of teeth. Getting
through life without all your teeth? Hard to imagine anything worse.

“I’ll take two pounds.”

“How’d you like that done?”

“Raw.”

The next thing I knew I was making quick work of the best steak I’d ever tasted, and
you can take that to the bank, except you couldn’t, the steak being gone. This took
place outside the car, right off the paper wrapper, the food truck guy in the window
smiling the whole time. After that, I lapped up a bowl of water and another, felt
like me. I sat myself down in front of Bernie and waited.

“What?” he said. “What?”

He didn’t know I was waiting for him to say,
Second, let’s get you fed again
? That had been the plan, at least as I remembered it.

Then from the food truck guy came a big surprise. “I reckon he wants to do it all
over again.”

“Can’t be,” Bernie said. “You saw what he just downed.”

“So how come he’s barking like that?”

Bernie gave me a look. “Could be anything. Cool it, Chet. Let’s go.”

We went. I tried to cool it but couldn’t for the longest time, on account of
it couldn’t be anything
! The food truck guy hit it on the nose, whatever that might mean, the human nose
being mostly wrong in my experience, or not even in the picture. Finally, Bernie said,
“Chet! I can’t hear myself think!”

Uh-oh. Bernie’s thinking was one of the best things we had going for us at the Little
Detective Agency, Bernie having come
up with so many thoughts in our career that I couldn’t remember any. I got a grip.

“Whew,” said Bernie. We turned onto the rutted road that led into the swamp and stopped
by the dock where
Little Jazz
was tied up. Bernie switched off the engine.

How nice to sit by the bayou, just the two of us parked in the shade of a skinny tree
that wasn’t providing much shade at all, but it was still nice. Bernie patted his
shirt pocket, took out the cigarette pack he’d bought in the city—I hoped it was the
same one—and shook out the last cigarette in there. He crumpled up the pack.

“Final smoke ever, I swear,” he said.

I always liked hearing that. Bernie lit up, let smoke curl from his nose and mouth.
I felt his whole body relax.