Paw and Order (13 page)

SEVENTEEN

W
e stood by the front door of the row house. There were some buzzers on the side, not many, although more than two.

“Blank, Tina with a smiley face, Mr. and Mrs. Scott, R. Nevins.” Bernie pressed a buzzer.

A voice came through the speaker. “Yeah?”

“Pizza,” said Bernie.

Sometimes—maybe not often—I'm ahead of the game. Like now: hadn't I just been thinking how cops like to eat? Wow. And pizza was clearly in this case, big-time. What had Bernie said, not that long ago? Something about a pizza-loving perp name of DeGaulle? Hope you look good in orange, amigo. There was only one problem I could see: we actually had no pizza. Other than that, we were in complete control.

The voice again: “Pizza? I didn't order pizza.”

“Says Nevins on the box,” Bernie said. I looked everywhere for a box, spotted none.

“I'm Nevins, but I didn't order pizza.”

“Maybe someone ordered it for you.”

“Huh?”

“Like as a present,” Bernie said. “Happens all the time.”

A pause.

“It's paid for.”

“Be right down.”

Bernie turned, put his finger across his lips, our little signal for quiet time. I didn't make a sound, except for the beating of my heart, of course, which never stops going
boom boom, boom boom
, the very nice background music to my whole life. But not the point. The point was that with all this silence going on, it couldn't have been easier to hear footsteps coming downstairs, even though they were the quietest of human footsteps, namely the barefoot kind.

The door opened. Nevins—sweatpants, wife beater, bare feet, and what was this? Pot smell?—looked out, his gaze going to Bernie, me, back to Bernie.

“Hi,” Bernie said.

“Where's the pizza?”

“We can still get some.”

“Huh? Wait a sec—I know you.”

Bernie held up his hand. “No need to thank us,” he said. “Silent gratitude speaks volumes.”

“Thank you?” said Nevins. “What for?”

“Rescuing you from that storage closet,” Bernie said. “You've forgotten the whole episode? Don't tell me you were stoned then, too.”

Nevins licked his lips. I always watch for that in a human; it often tells you more than the talk coming out of them. “Too?” he said.

“Weed's one of those real easy smells to pick up,” Bernie said.

Whoa! Bernie had just picked up a smell? I gave him a close look. Did his nose seem slightly bigger than usual? I thought so! At that moment, Bernie was more beautiful than ever—and his nose hadn't been small to begin with, not for a human.

Nevins squinted, making a face you wouldn't have called particularly pleasant in the first place even less so. “I get it,” he said, kind of inching back in the doorway. “The pizza's total bullshit.” Somehow—without the slightest thought on my part—I'd managed to inch the same way even more, and was now pretty much behind Nevins. I'd heard of many pizza toppings in my time, but never . . . I left it right there.

“A pretext, yes,” Bernie said. “Shrewd observation. Kind of surprising that Soares doesn't have you higher on the depth chart.”

“What are you talking about?” Nevins said.

“The pecking order, who's in line for promotion, who'll be walking a beat for thirty years—all the usual craziness,” Bernie said.

Nevins backed up a step, or tried to, but bumped into me, bounced right off, shooting me a wild sort of look. He turned to Bernie. “Who the hell are you?”

“You really don't remember?” Bernie said.

“Try that rescuer shit once more and I'll pop you in the goddamn mouth.”

Oh, no. Don't tell me I was ahead of things again, and so soon after the last time! But maybe not a surprise: I know Bernie.

“And we'd be happy to save your ass again, if needed,” he said, just as I'd expected.

Part of what came next happened very slowly. Nevins's hands, big and bony, curled into fists. He dropped one of them way down, turned his body, crouching a bit, and launched what's called a haymaker in this business. And while that was going on my only thought was
faster, Nevins, faster!
Not because I wanted to see Bernie hurt—nothing worse than that—but even if Nevins was capable of hurting Bernie, here I was right on the scene to put a dead stop to any of that. No, what I hoped for was just a little action before it was all over. Don't you get in those moods?

Next came the fast part. Nevins's fist was still on the way when Bernie's shot right past it, kind of a blur. Loved that jab of Bernie's. Hook off the jab, Bernie, hook off the jab! And then step inside with the uppercut! Sweetest uppercut in the whole wide world, but it didn't happen. Neither did the hook, the jab being enough, which I knew from how Nevins was lying on the hall floor, out cold. Did he have a glass jaw? I hadn't heard anything shatter—and my hearing is pretty good, probably better than yours—but how could I rule it out? Poor Nevins. Bernie often said that glass-jaw dudes shouldn't get into fistfights, but there'd been no time for a warning.

“How about we invite ourselves up for a quick drink?” Bernie said, stepping into the entrance hall and closing the door behind him. Sounded good to me, although I was more hungry than thirsty, as I may have mentioned, pretty much starving if you want the truth. Hadn't we brought some pizza? For a moment, I got a bit confused.

Bernie picked up Nevins, who'd gone all limp and floppy, threw him over his shoulder and started up the stairs. He grunted once or twice as we made our way past a landing and up to the top floor, but that was only on account of his war wound. I felt bad for Bernie, but what could I do? And then it hit me.

“Chet! What are you doing?”

Getting a good grip on Nevins's wrist, in preparation for dragging him the rest of the way up the stairs, what else?

“Knock it off.”

Knock it off? I don't need to be told twice. If knocking it off is what Bernie wants, then knocking it off is—

“CHET!”

I knocked it off. There was one door at the top of the stairs, hanging open. We went on in.

Nevins turned out to be the messy type, often the case with guys who live alone. No one would call our place on Mesquite Road actually messy, but, of course, Bernie didn't live alone. He lives with me, and Charlie on some weekends and every second holiday, meaning yes on Thanksgiving and no on Christmas, or the other way around, or either, or . . .

Back to Nevins. We were in a small living room, things all over the place—clothes, empty bottles, empty food cartons. Bernie sort of unfolded Nevins on the couch while I made sure the food cartons were indeed completely empty, just doing my job. And they were, all except for the end of what might once have been a spring roll. I made quick work of it, felt hungrier than before. What was that all about? If you kept eating, would you get hungrier and hungrier? No. So what was going on? I left it at that, followed Bernie into a tiny kitchen, too messy to describe, so I won't. But I shouldn't leave out the joint, smoldering away on a counter. Bernie dropped it in the sink, filled a glass with water, and returned to the living room.

We stood over Nevins, watched him breathe. “There are nine billion humans on the planet, Chet. Ever ask yourself—what's the point?”

I never did.

“What would be wrong with scaling back to eight billion? Six? Three? If we could frack pure water out of rock, then maybe none of this would . . .” Had I ever been more lost in my life? But at that moment, Bernie poured the glass of water on Nevins's face, which must have been the fracking part, and everything returned to normal. We were on the job, me and Bernie.

Nevins came to life, all sputtering and annoyed, the way they do at times like this. He sat up, groaned a bit, wiped his face on the back of his hand, gave us nasty looks, and said nasty things I'm sure he didn't mean.

“How about we clean the slate, start all over?” Bernie said. His voice sounded nice and relaxed, and he was standing nice and relaxed, too. I felt nice and relaxed myself. We're a lot alike in some ways, don't forget.

“What the hell do you want?” Nevins said. “I'm a cop. I can arrest you at any moment.”

“I'm tempted to see how that would play out,” Bernie said. “But it wouldn't be in your best interest.”

“Huh?”

“You'd be compounding your mistake.”

Nevins blinked, then kind of winced, like the force of just blinking made his head hurt. Maybe I went on a bit too much about Bernie's hook and that sweet uppercut. His jab is not too shabby. I gazed at his hand, now relaxed. Bernie has beautiful hands. You might not think they can do what they can do, but Nevins wouldn't be backing you up on that.

Bernie took a piece of paper from his pocket, held it up so Nevins could see.

“What's this?” Nevins said.

“Private investigator's license for DC and the surrounding suburbs. Notice the signature.”

Nevins gazed at the sheet of paper, rubbed his eyes, tried again. We do some eye rubbing of our own in the nation within, but only in itchy situations. Were Nevins's eyes itchy? He was having a bad day.

“Soares gave you this?” Nevins said.

“Back up to speed,” Bernie said. “Good job. The point is Lieutenant Soares has hired us to assist in the Eben St. John murder investigation.”

Nevins opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “Soares doesn't do things like that—he's a control freak.”

“This is a special case.”

“Special how?”

“That's what brings us to you.”

Nevins went through the mouth routine again. A thought hit me: his mouth was doing it on its own! My tail played the same sort of tricks, but this was the first time I'd seen something similar in a human. Nevins—bleeding a bit from the nose, eyes glassy, reeking of pot, plus those sweatpants hadn't been laundered in some time—was growing on me.

“Who's this ‘us' you keep talking about?” he said.

“Chet and I,” Bernie said.

“Chet?”

Bernie pointed my way.

“You're what, like partners with a dog?”

And just like that, Nevins stopped growing on me and started shrinking.

“Your point?” Bernie said.

Nevins tried to wriggle farther away from Bernie, but the couch stood against the wall, and he had nowhere to go.

“We'll be filing a report with Soares when all this shakes out,” Bernie said, “but at this moment, and not for too many moments more, you've still got a say in your destiny.”

“My destiny?” Nevins said.

“Not in a spiritual sense,” Bernie said. He glanced at me. “Although do we ever know when the spiritual is in the picture? Maybe the whole point. But forget all that—” Whew! Good news!—“I'm referring to your career in law enforcement.”

“You threatening me?” Nevins said.

“Exactly,” said Bernie. “My apologies for being obscure. I'm threatening you with exposure unless you play ball.”

Whoa! Just like that, out of the blue, we were going to play ball with Nevins? Wasn't this an interview? Was playing ball ever part of interviews? Not that I remembered, but I'm the type who's good to go at any time when it comes to playing ball. Bernie throws—he pitched for Army before his arm blew out, can still wing the ball a country mile, although we play in cities, too—and I fetch. I crowded in a bit closer. Would Nevins be doing some of the fetching? I didn't know how I felt about that. And then I did. It was a bad idea.

“What the hell?” Nevins said, shrinking back on the couch. “Is he gonna bite me?”

“What a suggestion!” Bernie said, which was my take, too, but exactly. “Why would you even think something like that?”

“On account of how he's practically on top of me with his mouth open wide,” said Nevins. “Plus his teeth are huge and he's growling.”

Bernie turned to me. “Everything all right, big guy?”

Most decidedly not. I did the fetching, end of story. Once, back in the days when my best pal Iggy still got outside a lot, Bernie had just thrown me a ball when Iggy came pelting over from his place and snatched it right out of the air, a total surprise that led to some back-and-forth over at old man Heydrich's place, old man Heydrich getting a new lawn out of the deal, the grass kind that Bernie hates. We ourselves have the desert kind, not so easily torn up. “That green cost me a lot of green,” Bernie said after, maybe on his second or third bourbon, dirt still under his fingernails from laying the sod. Perhaps a joke of some sort. Who wouldn't love Bernie? Besides old man Heydrich, of course, who didn't love anyone I knew of.

“. . . Chet?” Bernie was saying. “A little more space, if you can manage it?”

Nothing easier. Just a little was required? Done! I backed off the littlest possible.

“Good boy,” Bernie said.

“He didn't do shit,” said Nevins.

“You're welcome to your opinion,” Bernie said. “The point is Chet likes to see some cooperation, and you've given us zip.”

“He's a goddamn dog!”

“Language.”

“He's a dog.”

“Correct. And very friendly. The last thing he'd want to see would be your career in ruins.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Nevins said.

“Think back,” Bernie said. “Back to when you were guarding the crime scene at Eben St. John's office.”

Nevins's eyes shifted away, toward the window. I shifted my whole body in that direction. I'd seen perps jump out windows before, higher ones than this. Not on my watch, Nevins old buddy.

“What about it?” Nevins said.

“You told Soares you were standing in the hall, thought you heard a sound coming from the elevator end, turned that way, and got hit on the head from behind.”