THE DEADLY DOOWOP
By Charles Deemer
Chapters 10-19
10/
Sometimes my plays come to me in dreams. Entire scenes are
performed
in my head, on a nebulous stage before which I sit passively,
watching
and editing and revising along the way, and when I awake, if
I'm lucky,
I'll remember enough to race to my note pad to scribble
notes of
the production.
But now
the play was being interrupted and for a moment I didn't
realize
why, I didn't realize what was happening, and then I opened my
eyes and
found the bulk of Carla at the end of the bed in the dark
room, her
long black hair on my stomach, her head rising and falling in
a steady
rhythm over my crotch, making what she sometimes called her
contribution to the arts.
I'd
come over only for a nap. Now, in my
last clear thought before
orgasm, I
wondered if I'd overslept. I wondered
what the hell the play
had been
about. I vaguely remembered thinking it
was quite brilliant.
They
usually were, in dreams.
"You getting some on the side?," Carla asked me later, as I
dressed.
She was
pulling open the curtains she had drawn for my nap, and the
glow of
evening swept into the room.
"What the hell's that supposed to
mean?"
"Or have you been jacking off more than usual? You're not your
usual
gushing self."
"Carla, for Christ's sake, I stayed over last night, remember? We
wallowed
around like alley cats for hours. You
may have your best
years ahead
of you but I'm already on the downhill side.
I need time
to
recover."
"On the downhill side?
You're only twenty-four."
"Which is over eighteen.
Read your biology."
We decided to have dinner at Angelo's, an
Italian Cafe not far from
Carla's
apartment. We walked through the
evening hand in hand, silent
and
relaxed. The sun was dropping into the
ocean, a cool breeze erased
all
memories of smog, and the streets were filled with people happy to
be where
they were. In the distance I could hear
bongos playing,
probably as
some ecstatic beatnik celebrated the sun sinking into the
sea.
Our
usual table near the front window was taken, so we settled for
one in the
back corner of the small cafe. Carla
was a professional
people
watcher, one of the best around, but tonight she'd have to
settle for
the dinner crowd instead of the larger crowd strolling past
the front
window.
We were
having our first glass of chianti when Butch walked in with
Ruth. Our usual table near the window had just
vacated and they took
it, which
kept them far enough away to miss us, I hoped.
Seeing Butch
and Ruth
together was such a shock, I didn't know if I wanted them to
know I was
there or not.
Carla
had seen Butch as well.
"Isn't that your friend-," she began before I cut her off. I
put a
finger to
her lips.
"I
don't want him to see me," I said.
"The lady he's with is
involved in
the case I'm working on."
"You never tell me anything."
"I'm telling you now, let's just lay low and hope they miss
us."
"What case?"
"This is not the time."
"It's never the time. Like
the way you ran off this morning. You
can be so
rude. You're lucky I forgot about it
long enough to give you
a blow
job."
"Carla, can we talk about it later? This may be important."
"I'm not important at all, am I?"
"Of course you are."
"You're lucky your goddamn planets are aligned right."
She
began to sulk, which at least kept her quiet.
Butch and Ruth,
I noticed,
were not laying low at all, they were practically climbing
all over
one another, Butch having moved his chair around to her side
of the
table to simplify the maneuvers. They were behaving like lovers,
which threw
me. If Ruth was hanging out with Butch,
then she probably
wasn't
hanging out with Dan. Or was this a
moral judgment without
logic?
Our
dinners came and Carla inhaled hers, then began to squirm the
signal that
she was ready to go.
"You're
not any fun when you're working on a case," she finally
said.
"I
didn't know they'd be here, believe me."
"You could at least tell me what's going on."
"Later. It's too
complicated."
"Later," she said mockingly.
She
made a move to get up and I grabbed her.
"I'm ready to go," she said.
"If we go now, we'll have to pass their table."
"If you think I'm waiting here til they get up enough nerve to
screw under
the table and get it over with . . ."
She
pulled free and was off. I grabbed the
check and hurried after
her.
As we
passed the front table, Butch said, "Well, looky here!"
I
didn't stop and almost made it past the table before Butch
grabbed my
arm.
"Hey, man," he said, "what's the matter with you? You drink too
much dago
red? It's me."
I
stopped, turned and smiled. I continued
grinning during the
introductions. I didn't let on
that I knew Ruth, and she didn't let on
that she
knew me. Which surprised me. Carla, for her part, was off
again as
soon as the introductions were over, which gave me an exit
line.
"Sorry, she just started her, you know, period and we got to, ah,
get some
Kotex." This said, I got the hell
out of there.
I
walked Carla back to her apartment and tried to give her a kiss
at the door
but she swerved away, saying, "You owe me one, Red." Then
she closed
the door in my face.
11/
Dan
came out of the dark shadows like Bogart.
His collar was up, a
cigarette
was hanging from his mouth, all that was missing were the
trench coat
and hat. Without a word he unlocked the
back door of the
station. I followed him in.
The
radio station wouldn't have won any honors from the health
department. Or maybe it was just
too early for the janitor to have
made the
daily rounds. Following Dan down a
hallway, I ran into a
cobweb and
continued along brushing invisible insects out of my face.
We
entered a small studio, and Dan turned on the light. Immediately
I heard a
scurrying sound, like an animal racing into hiding. I'd let
out an
involuntary gasp at the sound, and Dan said, "Rats. They'll
leave you
alone if you leave them alone."
The
studio was cluttered with more records and tapes than I'd ever
seen in my
life. Dan went to a shelf where records
were lined up like
books,
pulled out a 78 and put it on one of two adjacent turnstiles.
He sat down
in front of a control panel and started twisting dials.
"Exhibit one," he said.
The
cigarette still dangled and dropped an ash onto the record as
he leaned
forward to cue it up. He blew the ash
away.
"Cut the dramatics, Dan," I said. "What the hell is this about?"
He
stabbed the cigarette out in a large golden ashtray shaped like
a record.
"Let me do it my way," he said.
The
record began to play. As far as I could
tell, it was a typical
doo-wop
song, forlorn and yet lyrical, with its intricate weaving of
voices. Before the song finished,
Dan picked up the needle and said,
"Keep
the song in your mind."
He put
a second record on the turnstile.
"Exhibit two."
This,
to my surprise, was the same song performed by a different
group. To my greater surprise, the singing group
sounded white to me.
Gone were
the intricate weaving and blending of voices in the doo-wop
pattern,
though many nonsense background lyrics were retained. Somehow
this
version had less energy, and I preferred the first.
Dan
lifted up the needle and said, "Need I say more?"
"Frankly, yes."
"You heard two versions of the same song, right?"
"Right."
"Which do you prefer?"
"Dan, I hope you didn't drag me here at three in the morning to
evaluate my
musical tastes."
"Which best?"
"The first, I guess."
"You're not sure."
"The first. I'm sure."
"The first is the original, by an obscure group of Chicago
teenagers
on a label no one ever heard of. The
second is by
The
Crewcuts, a nationally known group, and it's a smash hit."
I just
looked at him.
"The Crewcuts are white, of course," he said.
"Dan, will you get to the point,
please?"
"What you heard is happening throughout the industry. Listen."
He
played more records, and in each case a doo-wop song, recorded
by Negro
teenagers, was rerecorded in a more traditional, less
energetic
way by a white group. According to Dan,
the white records
were
selling nationally but the Negro originals, recorded on small
regional
record labels, were not even distributed nationally.
When I
finally got the idea of what he was getting at, I said,
"You're telling me that this is happening because of some kind of
conspiracy,
is that it?"
His
eyes positively sparkled.
Dan
said, "Now you know enough to get to the real heart of the
matter. Listen to this."
He put
on another record. This song was
different entirely,
recorded
not by a doo-wop group but by an individual, singing an
uptempo
tune that was bluesy in feeling and yet different somehow from
the
traditional blues of Lightnin' Hopkins or B.B. King that I'd heard
on
KRB. I rather liked it, and when the
song was over I expected Dan
to put on
the white version of it.
"What do you think?," Dan asked.
"I'm sure I'll like it better than the white version. Dan, I get
your point
but-"
"You're wrong," he interrupted.
"You haven't even heard what I was going to say."
"You think the singer is a Negro."
"You're
telling me he isn't?"
"His name is Elvis Presley, and he's white."
Dan
spat out the name as if he were mentioning Hitler or Attila the
Hun.
"I
take it you don't like the song," I said.
"I
don't like what it implies."
"Which is?"
"Sam Phillips, who owns the Sun label this was done on, said that
he could
get rich if he could find a white singer who sounded like a
Negro. I'm afraid he's found him."
I
didn't know what to say and so said nothing, which only managed
to crank up
Dan's anxiety level a notch.
"Damn it," he said, "don't you see? White people are stealing
Negro
music! At least up until now, they
managed to castrate it. At
least one
could get the satisfaction of knowing the Negro versions were
superior. But if white people
begin to sound like Negroes, and the
mass white
audience responds - well, it's the end."
To look
at him, one would have thought it was the end of the world.
Dan brushed
aside a strand of hair that had dropped to his forehead.
"And there's more," he said.
"There's an organization that wants
to ban
Negro music and the white imitations altogether. They think
it's music
from the devil. Don't you see what can
happen?"
"Frankly, no," I said.
He
moved toward the door.
"I
don't know what else I can tell you," he said. "If you don't
understand
. . . well, we might as well go."
"Wait a minute," I said.
"I don't get it. I don't
know why the
hell you
dragged me out here to tell me this."
He took
a deep breath before saying, "Because I want you to
understand
how upset I am about this. Then maybe
you'll get off my
back."
Following him outside, I decided he was a lousy actor. Sure, he
wanted me
off his back, but not because of any presumed musical
conspiracy.
He was
about to get into his car when I said, "It's Ruth, isn't
it?"
He
stopped and turned.
"Let's cut the crap, Dan. I
don't understand why you're so upset
about this
music business unless, for some reason, you're taking it too
damn personally. I ask myself, why should a white man give a hoot
about the
fate of Negro music unless he's somehow personally involved?"
"What's this got to do with Ruth?"
"She's your mistress, isn't she?"
"I
don't have a mistress."
"Right, Dan."
"I
have nothing more to say on the subject."
"You know, when I got this gig, I thought it was pretty weird, I
mean, you'd
think a wife would know what race her husband is, for
Christ's
sake. But maybe she's on to
something. Are you a Negro,
Dan?"
He
mumbled something which, I swear to God, sounded like, "Don't I
wish."
"What's that?," I asked.
"I
have nothing more to say."
I
watched him get into his Mercury and drive away. I took my time
leaving,
sitting for a long while in Bad-Ass, trying to make sense out
of what had
just transpired. Sometimes, in Korea,
trying to make sense
of garbled
language on tape, I'd take off my earphones and try to
repeat what
I'd been hearing over and over again in my mind, with
different
rhythms, different emphases, looking for a key that would get
me into the
meaning. I was doing something similar
now, rehearing the
records
he'd played, the Negro doo-wop and the white copies, and the
energetic
bluesy Elvis Presley, who was white himself.
But I was
getting
nowhere. Dan was strange, and finally I
wondered why he had
shared such
a bizarre theory with me. A theory, I
reminded myself,
which was
as bizarre as Butch's theory of freeway construction.
In the
end, after I'd driven home and was drifting off to sleep,
only one
tentative conclusion managed to stay on the surface of
thought:
Dan may or may not be a Negro but I felt sure that he had a
Negro
mistress and this mistress was Ruth.
12/
I
hadn't been to Butch's warehouse digs in a long while. He was
three
floors up, in a building in Watts where rents were cheap and
amenities
non-existent, a great brick building filled with artist
studios and
cobwebs. Butch rented an entire floor,
which he filled
with his
huge murals and canvases, saving only a clean corner for his
mattress
and sleeping bag.
I found
him in front of a half-finished painting of four teenagers
standing on
a street corner, singing doo-wop, I guessed. At least they
looked like
they were in song, fingers snapping, mouths open. They
also looked
vaguely familiar. The canvas had
Butch's usual scope, the
figures
towering more than twice life size. He
was up on a stepladder,
working on
a corner street sign, as I let myself in through the
unlocked
door. I cleared my throat to let him
know he had company.
"Just a minute, man," he said. "Help yourself to coffee."
He kept
a pot and toaster on a small table near the mattress. I
poured a
cup and sat down carefully on a wooden folding chair, which
creaked
under my weight.
"I've been expecting you," he said, finally joining me to pour
the
last cup of
coffee from the pot. "Ruth told me
about your gig with her
employer. Same gig you were
telling me about, right?"
"What else did she tell you?"
"How fucked up things are in Foothills. You find any niggers in
that
deejay's closet?"
"Not yet."
He sat
down on a folding chair and stretched his legs out in front
of
him. He crossed his hands behind his
head and grinned.
"White folks never cease to amaze me," he said. "You're lucky
you're one
of the spotted hybrids, man. So what's
on your mind, Red?
You come
over to check up on my love life or what?"
"Well, I was surprised to find you two together."
"Hey, let's not beat around the bush, okay?"
Butch
was always up-front and direct. It was
one of the things I
liked about
him.
"You may have ruined a hypothesis I've been working on," I
said.
I told
him how I had concluded that Dan was having an affair. This
was the
difference in him that his wife had noticed.
I told him I'd
concluded
that Dan's mistress was Ruth.
Butch
laughed and said, "You think she's balling that deejay?
Shit."
"Are you telling me you two have an exclusive relationship?"
"Exclusive relationship?
Man! The ofay profs at the
University
don't even
come up with jargon like that. What the
hell have you been
reading?"
"I'm trying to determine if Ruth is the type who would see Dan at
the same
time she's seeing you."
"She may be," Butch said.
It didn't seem to bother him.
"But I
doubt
it. He's not her type."
"What type is that?"
"He's white, for one thing.
This chick has more race hatred than I
do,
man. Best thing about her."
He was
grinning again, which softened the remark a little. Butch
loved to
try and upset me. I didn't take the
bait.
"If she hates white men," I said, "what better revenge
than to
break up
Dan's home?"
"You're grabbing at straws."
"Standard
m.o. in this biz."
"She told me about that neighbor getting killed. The same one you
were
telling me about, right? Who was
passing for white?"
"Same one."
"You think it was that rat murderer?"
"No."
I said
this without thinking. Hearing it, I
decided I hadn't
really made
up my mind one way or the other.
"Ruth thinks it was her husband," Butch said.
"She's not the only one."
"But you're not officially on the case, right?"
"My only gig at the moment is to find out Dan's lineage."
"So lineage is what you call it." He shook his head.
"Man, every
ofay in
America got a rapist way back in the closet somewhere. How
else you
get all those spots you got, man?
You're just one of the
visible
ones, carrying around a hundred little scarlet letters to
remind you
of your ancestry. Excuse me, your
lineage."
To
change the subject, I asked, "How long have you been seeing
Ruth?"
"A
couple months. I met her when I was
making sketches for the
painting
I'm working on. That's her little
brother's doo-wop group."
Of
course, these were the kids whom I'd seen singing on the porch
when I
dropped her off.
"I
talked to Dan yesterday," I said.
"Then why didn't you ask him about Ruth yourself?"
"I
did, and he denies it."
"But you can't accept that, right?"
"I
don't know. He's a real strange case,
Butch. He has this
theory
about a musical conspiracy, how white singing groups are
remaking
all the Negro doo-wop songs."
"The cat say that?"
"Something like that."
"He's on to something, man.
That's exactly what's coming down."
"Then you think there's a music conspiracy, too?"
"No different from the freeways, man. A black man makes progress,
shit, the
powers that be got to do something to head him off at the
pass. With music, it's the white teenagers making
their parents
nervous by
listening to nigger music. Been
happening a couple years
now, ofay
kids digging rhythm-n-blues, doo-wop, giving up their parents
music, all
that mares-eat-oats shit, all that up- a-lazy-river shit.
Man, you
can't have white kids digging nigger music, don't you see
that? They listen to nigger music, next thing you
know they'll
discover
their bodies, man, they'll discover sex.
They'll want to get
it while
the gettin' is good, man. So what's the
alternative for white
parents? Make a safe white copy
of the music, man, dilute it so it's
fit for
white teenage consumption. And that's exactly what's been
happening. If that deejay
understands this, man, he's the smartest
ofay in
L.A."
"Well, he's quite a fanatic on the subject."
Butch
stood up.
"So what else you need to know before I go back to work?"
"You don't think Ruth is seeing Dan?"
"She hates white men."
"Not even to break up his home?"
"Maybe. Why don't you ask
her?"
I
didn't reply, and Butch said he had to get back to work.
"Thanks for giving me some time," I said.
Grinning, Butch said, "Say hello to
Ruth for me." Then he climbed
back up on
his stepladder.
At
Ruth's house, a pack of dogs was ransacking the garbage cans
along the
side of the house. Seeing me, they took
off like burglars
caught in
the act. I stepped up on the front
porch, went to the door
and
knocked.
The day
was turning very smoggy. From the huge
gully behind the
house, I
could hear the racket of construction, the jolting percussion
of progress. How in hell did Ruth and whoever else lived
here get a
moment's
peace?
I
knocked again, less timidly, but obviously no one was home - or
at least no
one was going to answer the door. What
the hell, I decided
at least I
could do a good deed before I left and stepped off the porch
to put the
garbage back into the cans.
The
dead rat was under a torn garbage sack and, seeing it, I
jumped. It was huge, much larger
than any mouse I'd ever seen. Using
the torn
brown paper for protection, I carefully picked it up and
dropped it
into the can.
Then I
went back to cleaning up the rest of the mess and almost
missed
it: a single sheet of lined school
paper was on the ground,
wadded but
loosely enough that I could make out a couple lines of
handwriting
at the bottom of the page, and what I read stopped me in my
tracks. I quickly unfolded the
paper to read the rest:
Rattus norvegicus is bigger and can chase off Rattus rattus
whenever they come together. But
sometimes Rattus rattus can be in the
roof while Rattus norvegicus is down in the basement. In a fight
Rattus norvegicus would win and this is why it is mostly what we mean
when we say rats.
The
name at the top of the page was Artie Brownman and below it was
written,
Period 4. A paper for school? Perhaps, but this bit of the
history of
rats sent a chill down my spine. I
didn't recall the
passage
from anything that had been printed in the newspaper. I
carefully
folded the sheet of paper and put it in my pocket.
On the
drive back to the office, I listened to Dan on the radio -
or I should
say, to Lovin' Dan the Sixty-Minute Man because
there was
no
resemblance between the frantic energy I heard on the radio and the
sad-eyed
melancholy of the man who had taken me into his confidence to
relate news
of a strange conspiracy.
Mint Julep! Were you having fun
in fifty-one? Well, don't mess with
the radio dial, cats, because Lovin' Dan's still got more in
fifty-four! It's LA's own group
now, The Jewels, with their new one -
Hearts of Stone! Yes, indeedy!
Hank
was the only one in the office, and when I dropped the sheet
of school
paper onto the desk in front of him, he frowned before
saying,
"Where the hell have you been? Half
of L.A. is trying to find
you."
"Read that," I said.
Dad, I
was sure, would have understood its significance
immediately. Hank was the
skeptic in the family.
Hank
browsed the sheet of paper and said, "So some school kid is
playing
games. So what?"
I
grabbed the paper back.
"So who's trying to find me?," I asked.
"There's a stack of messages on your desk."
Joan,
Ruth, Jeff Berger, even Lovin' Dan the Sixty-Minute Man (but
not Dan
Davies, I noted) - I hardly knew which call to return first.
Hank
came over to my desk. I could tell by
his manner that he had
some shit
work for me to do.
"You got nothing going, right?," he said.
"I've got the gig with Joan," I
replied, not hiding the self-
defense in
my tone. As far as I was concerned,
being big brother's
flunky was
not in my contract.
"I
got a stakeout for you tonight," he said.
"Fuck your stakeout."
He
stared at me a moment before saying, in his most haughty manner,
"Well,
excuse me, Mr. Playwright, I didn't realize you had a play in
rehearsal."
That
was a low blow and he knew it.
"I
have messages to return," I said, trying to hide my anger.
"The Zimmerman case. The
details are here," he said. He
dropped a
paper onto
my desk. "Dad made the assignment,
so spew your venom at
him, not
me."
As if
wanting to avoid further confrontation himself, Hank walked
straight
out the door without another word. I
glanced at the stakeout
sheet,
seeing Dad's note at the bottom of the page, Thanks
for handling
this one for me, son! Dad. Shit, there went the night.
I picked up the phone and began to
dial.
13/
Joan
wanted to talk to me immediately. In
person. Jeff Berger
wanted to
see me right away. In person. Dan was already gone from the
station but
I didn't leave a message. I'd try and
catch him at the
apartment
later. Ruth hadn't left a number,
saying merely that she'd
call
back. With luck, I would find her at
Joan's.
The
night stakeout started after dinner, so I phoned Carla before
leaving the
office. I wanted more nap time.
"What's in it for me?," she asked.
I told
her I'd try to be there by four and hung up.
I
pulled Bad-Ass into Joan's driveway. As
I got out and headed for
the front
door, I was distracted by a knocking sound: it was Jeff
Berger at
his kitchen window, pounding and waving at me, then gesturing
for me to
come over. I gestured back, hoping to
communicate that I'd
come over
later, then continued to the porch.
Ruth
answered the door. She seemed cold and
distant, not even
giving me a
sign that she'd been trying to get hold of me.
She said
that Mrs.
Davies was waiting for me in the den and this time let me
walk there
alone.
Joan
was dressed to kill. She sported not
only the cocktail dress
but the
martini that I'd looked for in earlier meetings. I almost
expected
her to make a pass at me but she quickly let me know she had
something
else in mind.
"I
want evidence that my husband is having an affair," she said.
"Photographs. You do that,
don't you?"
I
nodded.
"Then do it."
"And if he's not having an affair?"
"You said he was."
"I
think I'm changing my mind."
"Really? I've decided you
were perfectly right."
I was
no longer sure what I thought but I could tell Joan would be
easier to
get along with if I agreed with her.
"I'll see what I can do," I said.
"Of course you will. That's what I'm paying you to do."
"Not exactly."
"I
see," she said. "You want
more money."
I gave
her the usual Peeping Tom estimate, and without missing a
beat she
fetched her purse to write me a check.
"Why have you changed your mind?," she asked as she wrote.
"Hard to explain."
"Do I get a refund if he's not having an affair?"
"You save on expenses."
"I
see."
She
came forward and handed me the check, saying, "I assume you'll
start on
this tonight."
I
nodded a lie. The stakeout was a more
solid case of adultery:
Zimmerman,
the children's TV star, was diddling the show's puppeteer,
at least
according to Hank's notes on the case.
Hollywood clientele
usually
meant good bucks for easily gathered evidence.
They got too
wrapped up
in their own romantic images to cover tracks.
Joan
asked, "Can you find the door or should I escort you?"
I told
her I could find it. I was hoping she'd
ask if I wanted a
drink.
Ruth
was waiting for me at the front door.
"I
have to talk to you," she said.
"Can you stop by the house
later this
afternoon? Say around four?"
It
interfered with nap time at Carla's but I told her I'd be there.
Before I
could ask her what was up, she was hurrying off.
Approaching Bad-Ass, I worried that Joan might be watching from a
window and
so decided not to go straight next door.
I got in, started
the car
with its usual belch, and backed out the driveway. By the time
I'd swung
around to park across the street, Jeff was on the porch
waving at
me. I liked the idea that he was
waiting for me for a
change.
In the
den, pouring two iced teas, he came right to the point.
"Harriet called. I was
right. She's with Dan."
"She told you that?"
"She's at his new apartment."
I
wondered if this was why Dan had phoned me.
Benefit of the doubt
and all
that.
"She told me she was fine," Jeff went on. "But of course she'd say
that. I was hoping you could go over there and
bring her back."
"I
can try."
"I'd rather not have the police involved."
He
handed me a glass of iced tea.
"What if she doesn't want to come voluntarily?," I asked.
"Don't you have methods or something?"
Right,
I'd slip a mickey in her cherry coke and carry her out over
my
shoulder.
I said,
"All I can do is try."
"Phone me if she resists.
I'm closer to her than her mother. She
thought she
was doing us all a favor by calling in."
"What exactly did she say?"
"That she's okay and staying at Lovin' Dan's. She said she's
sleeping on
the couch but, frankly, I'm very concerned about where she
really is
sleeping."
"You think she's sleeping with Dan?"
The
question upset him enough to ignore it.
He finished his tea in
a long gulp
and without a word started toward the door to let me out.
On the
porch he said, "Just bill me your usual rates."
"Well, let's see if I'm any help first."
I could
see Hank cringing at the remark, ever on my case that I
wasn't
hard-boiled and ruthless enough with clients.
From my point of
view, lack
of a contract was lack of responsibility.
If Harriet told
me to fly a kite, I could leave without a
sense of guilt or failure.
"Be sure to call me right away if she's a problem," Jeff
called
across the
lawn. He stood on the porch until
Bad-Ass had exhaled its
roaring
blue smoke, and I was on my way out of there.
The
same loud doo-wop music came from behind Dan's door. As
before, I
had to bang louder and louder again before anyone responded.
In the open
doorway stood a teenaged girl with a complexion problem,
popping gum
at me. Harriet.
"Is Dan here?"
She
shook her head. More gum popping.
"I'm a friend of his," I said, almost shouting. "Can I come in and
wait?"
Her
stare was vacant. The only life in her
was in her mouth. Pop,
pop.
"He's down in the market," she said.
"Pardon me?"
"In the market!"
"Thanks!"
Dan was
at the counter, buying two cokes and a bag of potato chips.
Treats for
the guest.
"Hey, looky here," said Tank.
"The man is back."
Dan
gave me a quick We can't talk here look and scooped up his
change from
the counter. As Dan turned to go, Tank
said, "I introduce
you two but
I forget your names."
"We've met," Dan mumbled and moved off, his eyes telling me to
follow
quickly.
To our
departing backs Tank said, "You two up to something sexy and
evil, am I
right?" Then he roared like a man
who knew something that I
didn't.
"I've been trying to get hold of you all day," Dan told me at
the
foot of the
stairs. "Harriet's up there."
I
thought I saw fear in his eyes.
"Did she just show up or what?"
"What's that supposed to mean?
Of course she just showed up."
"Why do you get the honor?"
"She listens to me all the time.
She's always phoning in
requests."
"You don't seem too thrilled by her appearance."
"I've got to get rid of her, for Christ's sake." He looked
frightened.
I said,
"I happen to know her grandfather.
I'll talk to her."
We were
at the top of the stairs by now, and I led the way inside
without
replying. Harriet was still helping
herself to Dan's doo-wop
records,
playing them loud and popping her gum.
Dan put
the cokes and chips on the coffee table.
He glanced at me
while
lighting up a cigarette, letting me know I could start talking to
her at any
time. I wasn't sure how to begin. The family agency didn't
often mess
around with runaway teenagers.
Harriet
put on another record and came forward to fetch her coke.
Dan took a
chair in the corner of the room and stared vacantly into
space, his
old melancholy self. I stood just
inside the doorway,
wondering
what the hell I was doing there.
Finally
I said, loudly, "I talked to your granddad."
Harriet
stopping popping gum long enough to say, "He told you I was
here?"
"That's right."
"Well, I'm not going home."
"He wants to talk to you."
"I
already talked to him."
"He was thinking you might like to stay with him for a while."
"I
have a place to stay."
I
looked at Dan, who looked miserable.
I
asked, "And where is that?"
"Right here," said Harriet.
Dan
didn't budge or say a word. Real
courage, this guy.
"Dan," I said, "she says
she's staying here."
He
mumbled something and blew smoke.
"What?," I asked.
He
said, "She can sleep on the couch."
Christ. I told Harriet, "I
think you should go stay with your
grandparents."
"Well, I don't. I'm going
for a walk."
Dan
didn't make a move to stop her. When
she was gone, he looked
at me for -
what? Understanding? Sympathy?
"Do you know what you're getting into?," I asked.
When he didn't answer, I walked to the
phonograph and lifted up the
needle.
"What was I supposed to do?," Dan asked. "She doesn't have a place
to
stay."
"She has parents. She has
grandparents. I suggest you call the
police and
tell them you have a runaway."
"I
can't do that. She's unhappy."
"You're flirting with real trouble, Dan."
"I
think she'll go home in a few days.
Don't you?"
"She shouldn't be your problem."
"She's a fan. A true believer."
Christ,
another true believer. She understood
the music conspiracy
or
something. She's on our side.
"Call the cops," I said.
I stared at him, hoping to communicate
that this
was my parting shot. Then I got the
hell out of there.
Outside
I looked up and down the street for Harriet.
I was
standing
next to the pink Caddy and evidently Tank thought I was
admiring
it. He came out of the market to say,
"It ain't for sale,
man. That's my baby."
"Beautiful," I said.
"Class all the way," said Tank.
I
nodded.
He
winked and said, "You looking for that young quiff, she went
thataway." His head
gestured up the street, toward the station.
"Thanks."
I
cruised by the radio station, then around the block, checking
side
streets. She was gone. Disappeared as quickly as an Angel rally.
I found
a phone booth and told Carla I'd take a rain check on the
nap, I
still had work to do.
"All you do is stand me up," she said.
"Honey, something came up."
"Don't you honey me!"
I
stepped out of the phone booth and into the smog and clamor of
the afternoon. I realized that my eyes stung, my ears ached. When
Bad-Ass
coughed to life in a cloud of blue smoke, my contribution to
the rising
pollution and noise was just a drop in the bucket.
14/
At
Ruth's, an older Negro woman answered the door, her graying hair
up in a bun
under a red bandanna. She smiled as if
we were old
friends.
"You must be the one coming to see Ruth," she said. She opened the
door and
gestured for me to enter. "She
called to say she'll be a
little
late. Why don't we wait in the
kitchen?"
She
introduced herself as Ella Mae, Ruth's mother.
As we walked to
the
kitchen, we passed through the living room where the teenagers I'd
seen on the
porch, and on Butch's huge canvas, were sprawled across
ragged
pieces of furniture. They were staring
at me. Ella Mae didn't
stop to
make any introductions, which was a relief.
I felt vague
resentment
from the kids.
"They're practicing for the song contest," Ella Mae explained
later. We were seated at the small kitchen table,
and a doo-wop record
was now
playing from the living room.
"They probably won't sing while you're here," she said. "Just
listen."
She
laughed at this, a mother's wise observation, and her laughter
filled the
small kitchen. Outside I could hear the
roar of distant
construction coming up from the gully of their back yard.
Ella
Mae got up from the table, saying, "I hope you like apricot
pie. I picked the apricots yesterday. They only left one tree in the
yard."
She
didn't give me time to get a word in.
She talked constantly
and
aimlessly, telling me about her trip to Farmer's Market and how
terrible
the smog was lately and how hard Ruth worked, a rush of words
united only
by the perpetual cheeriness of her tone.
Ruth
walked in. She looked ill at ease,
turning down her mother's
offer of
pie and giving me another one of those looks I'd been getting
lately,
Let's go somewhere we can talk. I
wondered why she'd asked me
to meet her
there in the first place.
Following
Ruth to the door, I heard a baby crying.
Ella Mae told
us to have
a good time and headed off in the direction of the crying.
"Mother was supposed to be visiting Aunt Martha this
afternoon,"
she
explained as we drove away.
"Where to then?"
"Anywhere but South City."
"You got some time?"
"Yes."
"I
know a spot in Venice."
"Fine."
I was
eager to hear what was on her mind but there was something
about cars
that clammed Ruth up. Just as when I'd
given her a lift,
she quietly
stared out the window, failing to bite at any of my
attempts to
start a conversation.
I drove
to the Oar House, and we found a picnic table near the
entrance. We were lucky to find a table at all but
were just a beat
ahead of
the crowd coming in for happy hour revelry.
I liked noisy
joints for
important conversation: it was like
static to defend
against
eavesdropping. I didn't know what was
on Ruth's mind but had a
gut feeling
it would be worth listening to.
But it
took two Scotches for Ruth to loosen up and then she became
suddenly
defensive.
"I'm not having an affair with Dan," she told me.
"Did you think I thought you
were?"
"I
think you think someone is. Obviously
his marriage is in
trouble."
"But it's not you."
"No. It was Flo."
Dan and
Flo? A Negro baby from the liaison?
"She's
not here to defend herself," I said.
What if
Dan, not Flo, had the Negro lineage and was passing for
white?
Ruth
said, "I was very close to Flo.
We've known each other for
years."
"Did you know she was passing for white?"
"Yes."
"And could Dan be as well?"
"I
don't think so."
"Could Dan have killed her?," I asked.
The
question had just popped out but Ruth's reaction was
interesting. She quickly looked away. I recalled that Butch had said
she
believed the husband had done it.
"Or her husband?," I asked.
"Jealousy and all that."
Ruth
said, "I suppose it could be jealousy."
She
didn't sound very convincing, and she had nothing more to add.
After a
silence I said, "Do you know what happened to the baby? It
wasn't
mentioned in the newspaper."
"I
don't know. I suppose Gregory put it up
for adoption."
There
was something too glib and easy about this.
And about the
rest as
well. My gut feeling was that she was
hiding something.
"Have you been following the rat murders?," I asked.
"Who hasn't?"
"Why would Flo be one of the victims?"
After a
hesitation, she said, "I don't know."
"The murderer may have set it up to look like the Rat
Murderer."
"Yes, I thought of that, too."
"Did you know that Artie is writing a history of rats?"
This
time she looked down into her drink.
"I
found an episode in the trash," I said.
She
looked up and said, "You've been through our trash?"
She
didn't seem angry, merely surprised.
I said,
"I cleaned up after the dogs."
I told her the rest, about
first
finding the rat, then the paper about rats and how it looked like
a school
assignment.
"I
guess something so gruesome is exotic to a boy his age," she
said.
"Maybe. What about the
rat?"
"What do you mean, what about it?"
"Where'd it come from?"
"We poison rats all the time, Mr. Trevorak. South City is full of
rats. L.A. must have millions of them. The city certainly won't do
anything
about it in our neighborhood, of course."
After a pause she
added,
"Surely you don't think my brother is . . .?"
"Of course not." As a
matter of fact, I didn't know what I
thought.
The
Daisy Mae amazon came by, and we ordered another round.
"Have you talked to Gregory since the murder?," I asked.
"Why should I talk to him?"
"I
thought you might have run into him while cleaning house or
something."
"I
haven't seen him."
"Where would I find him?"
"I
have no idea."
"How'd you meet Butch?," I asked without preface.
She
took the question in strike, without missing a beat. "He's
doing a
painting of Artie's singing group. We
just, well, hit it off
from the
start. I was as surprised as you were
in the restaurant."
"Small world," I said.
"Yes, it appears to be."
She let
out a sigh that told me she was ready to change the
subject.
"If I talk to Gregory," I
said, "do you mind if I mention you?"
"Why would you want to mention me?"
"You said Dan was having an affair with his wife."
"Mr. Trevorak, I only wanted to see you to let you know that Dan
wasn't having an affair with me. I don't even know if Gregory knew
about
it."
I said,
"Dan denies having an affair."
"Wouldn't you, considering the fact that someone murdered
her?"
She had
a point. All the same, something wasn't
settling right.
"So the reason you called me was to clear your good name."
The
question surprised her. I saw her
searching for words before
saying,
carefully, "I thought you would link me with Dan. I didn't want
this to get
back to Butch."
"This meeting is for Butch's sake?"
"I
don't want rumors about me to get to him.
I like him very much.
More than
I've liked a man in quite a while."
I don't
know why I didn't believe her but I didn't. Everything
about her
was too orchestrated.
"What about white people?," I asked, remembering what Butch
had
told
me. "Do you like white
people?"
Again I
caught her off guard but she recovered quickly.
"Since you ask," she said calmly, "not
particularly."
Ruth
and I ended quickly after that, and I drove her back to South
City in
silence. There wasn't time to swing by
Carla's, and when I
phoned she
didn't answer.
For the
stakeout I bought a half-dozen Bob's Big Boy Hamburgers,
two large
vanilla ice cream sodas, a couple bags of potato chips and
filled my
thermos with coffee. I fetched the
camera gear from
Bad-Ass's
trunk. Then I drove into Hollywood,
found the address in a
fancy
residential section and settled in for the adultery to begin.
15/
Stake-outs are a drag. The Army
must have invented them, it's
hurry up
and wait, all the way. For a playwright
who couldn't make a
living at
his craft, however, it wasn't a bad gig.
When half of the
Big Boys
were gone, I took out my journal and, being a sink- or-swim
writer,
started right out on the idea that had been bugging me
recently.
Sun., 13 June 54
Scene: a back room in the Public Hall, with the casket
containing
the President's body inside. An
unnamed Eastern European country. Dr.
Alberts is there with the State Mortician, Neck, and his assistant,
Charles. The President's Wife,
Mrs. Jones, also is there.
NECK: Well, doctor?
DR. ALBERTS: Your
suspicions are correct. I find the
organ to be
tumescent.
(Mrs. Jones breaks into tears.)
CHARLES: Please, Mrs.
Jones.
MRS. JONES (struggling):
It's sca-- . . . scan-- . . . it's
scanda-- . . .
CHARLES: Now, now.
NECK: Perhaps you
could give her something.
DR. ALBERTS: Come,
Mrs. Jones. You must try to relax.
(The doctor and Mrs.
Jones start out.)
NECK: Thank you,
doctor.