Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘Printz’

At Work, Me and Bernie

We drove on past the golf course. “Martin Ramirez and Ezra Printz were both in the Stockton mental hospital at the same time,” Bernie said. “Ezra Printz handled PR on the Greed shoot. You found that film can in Death Valley.” Hey! I’d almost forgotten that. My tail started swishing back and forth on the seat. And then I remembered something from that Death Valley cave: a skull. Uh-oh. “What are you barking about, boy? You can’t be hungry.”

No, I hadn’t been barking about food, but now that he mentioned it …

“And in that film can do we find film? No – we find a painting by Martin Ramirez. But suppose there was film in the can at one time, maybe when Ezra Printz came the mental hospital in Stockton. See where we’re going with this?”

Nope.

“The question is – ” Bernie began, and then suddenly stopped. He’d noticed the sprinklers spraying water all over the golf course. “What the hell? Don’t they realize there’s only one aquifer? Don’t they know it took millions of years for that aquifer to fill?”

I put my paw on his knee. The car swerved a bit. I took in the lovely scent of water.

Theory

“There comes a time,” Bernie said, “when it helps to have a theory of the case, even if it’s premature. Just between us, of course.”

In the Porsche, riding shotgun. We were in a nice part of the Valley, passing a golf course with water spraying everywhere. I stuck my head way way out, sniffed that lovely water. What was Bernie saying? Something interesting, I’m sure. And I always like hearing the sound of his voice.

“Let’s try this on for size,” he said, or something like that. “Martin Ramirez and Ezra Printz were both in the Stockton mental hospital at the same time. This goes far back – kind of like a Ross Macdonald novel, now that I think of it.”

Ross Macdonald? A new one on me. Some perp, no doubt. I’d have him by the pant leg soon enough. That’s the way our cases end.

Getting Clued In

“Did I say Ezra Printz was Kelo’s grandfather?” said Arnold Fetzer. “I meant great-grandfather.”

Uh-oh. This was getting confusing already. And who was paying? I couldn’t quite remember. Also – has this ever happened to you? My eyelids suddenly got very heavy. And there I was, in the nice quiet shadows under the table.

“The point is,” Fetzer said, “Ezra Printz did some of the PR work on the movie Greed. Familiar with the movie?”

“Not really,” Bernie said.

“An amazing story,” Fetzer said. “Shot partly on location in Death Valley in the height of the summer. It’s probably one of the most important lost movies in the history of cinema. Not lost totally, of course.”

“What do you mean?” Bernie said.

Fetzer answered, but it was just lots of buzzing sound to me, on account of my eyes had closed and I was drifting off. I love that drifting off part. I caught something like, “It starts with a dentist winning a lottery,” and the next moment I was in dreamland, chasing javelinas down a dry wash.

Scoring A Milk Bone

“Is it possible Chet wants another milk bone?” said Arnold Fetzer. “He’s awfully close to that drawer.”

“I wouldn’t bet against it,” Bernie said. 

And in no time at all I had another milk bone! I took it to a nice quiet space under a table and got to work. 

“You were telling us about Ezra Printz, Hollywood flack,” Bernie said.

Fetzer nodded. “Just as long as you didn’t get it from me.”

“That’s a deal, as long as nothing ends up in court.”

“In court?” said Fetzer. “Is there any possibility of that happening?”

“There’s the possibility of that happening every day you wake up,” Bernie said.

There was? I’ve only been to court once. I was Exhibit A. Not sure what that is, exactly, but it meant I had to walk across the room – with some uniformed guy, not Bernie – and on a leash. The leash is something I can do if I really, really have to, and afterward Bernie gave me a Polish sausage. Never had one before or since, but it did look like a pole, except much shorter, and tasted great. Exhibit B was a .44 Magnum I’m dug up out of some perp’s flower bed. He’s probably still wearing an orange jump suit at Central State. I think all that’s in Thereby Hangs A Tail. 

I polished off the milk bone. Where were we?