A Fistful of Collars

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Heard you drove another one off a cliff,” said Nixon Panero. He spat a thin brown stream of chewing tobacco into an empty paint can, or maybe not that empty. Yellow paint, the yellow of egg yolks, now with a brown swirl in the middle: there’s all kinds of beauty in life.

“You heard wrong,” said Bernie.

Uh-oh. Bernie was looking at Nixon in an irritated sort of way. Wasn’t Nixon our buddy? True, Nixon’s eyes were too close together, even for a human, but he was one of the best mechanics in the Valley according to Bernie, and if Bernie said so, then that was that, and besides, Nixon was also one of our top sources on the street, even though we once put him away for a year or so. Or maybe because of it! Anything’s possible with perps, believe me. We’ve taken down lots, me and my partner, Bernie. That’s what we do at the Little Detective Agency. He’s Bernie Little. I’m Chet, pure and simple.

Sidling on over toward Nixon, just in case backsliding was on his mind? The right move at a moment like this, no question, so I sidled, keeping my eyes on his hands the whole time. That’s where the trouble usually comes from with humans; their feet are too slow to bother worrying about. Nixon’s big hands-fingers all oil-stained and as big as sausages-were hanging by his sides, doing nothing much. I hadn’t had a good sausage in ages, or even a bad one, not that there’s such a thing as a bad sausage, and was trying my hardest to actually remember the last time, when I became aware that Bernie was speaking. When Bernie talks, I listen and listen hard.

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