Free Thereby Hangs a Tail by Spencer Quinn Page B

it? Once I’d had an adventure in New Mexico; another time, I’d been to San Diego. We’d surfed, me and Bernie! Sort of.
    “Passaic, New Jersey, Bernie,” Suzie said. “Good luck with the case.” She turned and walked away; the yellow Beetle was parked by the far side of the barn. Suzie got in and drove away.
    Bernie watched her go. “Christ,” he said. He looked down at me. “Did I screw that up?” Bernie screwing up? No way. I bumped against him. “And come to think of it, I’ve got this nagging thought that maybe obtuse—”
    Nagging thought? He’d lost me completely, but it didn’t matter because we both got distracted by the heavy thumpity-thump of the horse on the move. I turned and saw the count leaning forward in the saddle, the horse headed straight toward what looked like a section of fence standing in the middle of the corral. A pretty high section of fence: was it possible that—
    Wow! More than possible. And I saw what those metal things—spurs, I remembered, from a time when me and Bernie were into watching Westerns, although he’d kept on saying, “See how it used to be?” until finally the Westerns went to the bottom of the DVD pile and stayed there.
    Where was I? Oh, yeah—the metal things: they were for sticking in the sides of the horse when you wanted to make him jump. I can jump, too, and all on my own; wouldn’t have minded a crack at that fence myself. Was this a good time for that? Why not? I happened to look at Bernie. Was he shaking his head at me?
    The horse landed, thumpity thump, and the ground beneath me shook. The count had a stern look on his face, like this wasn’t fun; I didn’t get that: making the ground shake had to be fun. The horse circled around the corral. Nance walked over to where we were, stood on the other side of the fence.
    “Poetry in motion,” she said.
    Poetry? Bernie loved poetry. He knew all kinds of poetry by heart; sometimes, like on long rides in the car, it came flowing out of him. My favorite was: Cannon to the right of them / cannon to the left of them / cannon behind them / volleyed and thundered, but I also liked Old dog Tray’s ever faithful / Grief cannot drive him away / He’s gentle, he is kind / I’ll never, never find / A better friend than old dog Tray; although I really didn’t get that one, since the only Tray we knew was a nasty old growler who guarded a junkyard in Pedroia, a friend to nobody.
    Bernie gave Nance a nod, the kind of nod that might have made Nance think he agreed with her about the poetry in motion thing. “He was an alternate on the Italian equestrian team six Olympics ago,” Nance said.
    “I didn’t know horses lived that long,” said Bernie.
    Nance shot him a quick look. “I’m talking about the count,” she said.
    “Oh,” said Bernie.
    The horse trotted over to us, his head over the fence. “Whoa,” said the count. I got my first good look at the count’s face: thin, with a big nose, quick, dark eyes, a mustache. I didn’t like mustaches, no idea why. The count gazed down at Bernie. The horse was looking at me. I looked right back, you better believe it. He whinnied, a horrible sound, and started sidestepping. The count made a clicking sound and the horse went still. I found myself inching closer to him.
    “This is the detective,” Nance said.
    “Bernie Little,” said Bernie. He raised his hand over the top rail, within shaking distance, but the count didn’t seem to notice.
    “What is it that you want?” he said. He had a funny way of talking, the sounds not quite right, hard to understand.
    “To help find them,” Bernie said. “Your wife and Princess.”
    “In this matter you have failed already, no?” said the count.
    “If that’s true,” Bernie said, “then our motivation will be all the stronger.”
    “There is motivation,” said the count, “and there is competence.” “You can check us out,” Bernie said. “I can give you a list of references.”
    “References?”