The Iggy Chronicles, Volume 2 Read Free Page B

turned, strode back toward the motel, and was almost there when he realized his zipper was still undone. He zipped it back up and went inside the room.
    â€œHis timing’s off,” Bernie said.
    Maxie got the money all straightened out, counted it—his lips moving, though I couldn’t hear him—and stuck it in his inside jacket pocket. At that moment, Barko suddenly looked our way, saw me, and began barking his head off.
    â€œShadap,” said Maxie, starting his car and driving out of the lot, not once glancing in our direction. Barko kept up the barking until they were out of sight, and even after. I’d forgotten that bark of his. There was something metallic about it, rather unpleasant to my ears. Bernie let go of my collar. When had he taken hold of it? Why? I could feel this case, whatever it was, taking a strange turn.
    â€œEasy, big guy.” How nice, the way Bernie said that! I sat up tall, a total pro, on the job, ready for whatever was coming next, which turned out to be Bernie cranking the engine and driving us out of the Wagon Wheel Motel parking lot, the same way that Maxie and Barko had gone. I could see the shiny black sedan far ahead on the long, straight desert road. We got a little closer, but not too close. That seemed right to me. Bernie was the best wheelman in the Valley, as I may have mentioned already.
    â€¢ • •
    â€œRipples,” Bernie said after a while. “You throw a pebble into the water and the ripples start up. But which one do you follow? Ever think of our job that way, chasing after ripples?”
    What was this? We were going swimming? A bit of a surprise, but a very good one. Not long ago we’d been out in San Diego on a case about which I remembered nothing except for the afternoon we’d spent at the beach. We’d surfed, me and Bernie! I loved swimming, which is simply trotting through the water. Did you know that? Anyone can do it! Other than the fact that there was no water in sight, we were cooking.
    We followed the shiny black sedan up into some hills, interesting scents flowing by at high speed—greasewood, javelina, snake, and all kinds of poop, which I won’t bother sorting out for you now, although I lost myself in sorting them out at the time, not snapping out of it until we came down out of the hills and onto the freeway. Maxie, a few cars ahead, checked his rearview mirror from time to time but didn’t see us, two lanes over on the other side, just one of our techniques at the Little Detective Agency. Barko was out of sight, except for the tip of a pointy little ear, pressed against the passenger-side window. Soon we were back in Pottsdale again, Maxie driving slowly down the street where Livia Moon had her place. And what was this? Maxie was stopping in front of it? Bernie pulled over real fast, parked behind a truck. Maxie walked into Livia’s Friendly Coffee and More, Barko left behind, pawing at the glass, the window cracked open but not much.
    â€œHow about we go around to the back?” Bernie said.
    Sounded good to me. We’d had success with going around to the back in the past, except for once on a movie set where the bar actually hadn’t had a back. Bernie drove down an alley and turned into the small parking lot behind Livia’s place. We hopped out of the Porsche, me hopping, Bernie maybe limping just the slightest bit, which sometimes happened after a long drive. It was all on account of his war wound, which he never talks about, so I won’t mention it either.
    We knocked at the back door of Livia’s place, Bernie doing the actual knocking. A round blue eye appeared in the peephole and then the door opened quickly, revealing a friendly-looking young woman in a small black dress.
    She clapped her hands together. “Oh my goodness—Chet! And even more gorgeous than I remembered.” And then she was giving my head the kind of pat that stops time in its tracks, if