Up on the Woof Top by Spencer Quinn

Author:Spencer Quinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

Sixteen

Two dudes riding slowly down the main drag of this town—the town being Silver Mountain and the main drag called Bonanza Street, if my facts were right—taking in the fancy sights, those two dudes being Bernie at the wheel and me, Chet, in the shotgun seat, actually handling the steering, although it’s hard to explain exactly how.

“What’s going on with these names?” Bernie said. “Prada, Vuitton, Bulgari—they have a kind of magnetic power over people, but not all people. How come?”

Prada? Vuitton? Bulgari? Almost certainly perps of some sort. Did they know they’d end up breaking rocks in the hot sun, trying to look good in orange? What perps know and don’t know is a huge subject, trust me on that, but there’s no time to go into it now.

“But on the other hand,” he said, popping the glove box open as we came to a stop at a red light. He took out the little purple box and had a look at the Desert Star. “What wrong with liking beautiful things? So the screw up must have something to do with the symbolism. If the symbolism is true then the thing is right.”

Uh-oh. Where was this going? Nowhere good, that was certain. But then Bernie did something surprising. He closed the velvet box and put it back in the glove compartment. That wasn’t the surprising part. The surprising part was that before he put the box in the glove compartment, he gave it a kiss. Just a quick kiss—you could almost call it shy—but I’d never seen Bernie kiss an object before. Charlie, yes. Weatherly, yes. Suzie, who came before Weatherly, yes. His mom, yes—she taps her cheek for where and when she wants a kiss every time she comes to visit. And me, of course, always on the top of my head, oh, so nice! And, oh dear, once or twice, Trixie! Why on earth? But forget that last one. The point is he’d never kissed an object, not in my presence. Not even the .38 Special. Wouldn’t you want to kiss the .38 Special after it was done shooting spinning dimes out of the air for you? But no.

The light turned green, and someone honked behind us, maybe more than one someone.

“Honking comes with all the rest of it, Prada and those others,” Bernie said, and we rolled on, him with a little smile on his face and me clearing my mind, which happened in a flash. I felt tip top.

“What we need to do is recon the whole area,” Bernie said, “not just the ranch. We have to feel the pulse, as they say. And I’m not feeling it. How about we start with the skiing?”

That sounded great! Although if I’d given it a moment’s thought I’d have realized I had no idea what he meant. But I didn’t give it a moment’s thought. My mind is on my side. It thinks to itself, Hey, Chet, don’t you trouble yourself about a thing. Is that how your mind runs, looking out for you? I sure hope so.

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