THE DEADLY DOOWOP
By Charles Deemer
Chapters 20-29
20/
Tues, 15 June 54:
Fuck it, I'm too hungover to write.
I awoke
with a bad hangover. Stumbling into the
bathroom, and
later from
the bathroom into the small kitchen, I found evidence that I
had
finished off a bottle of Jameson's at home before falling into bed.
The
kitchen clock read ten-thirty. I phoned
the hospital. Dad was
waiting for
Hank to get him out of there.
"There was no goddamn reason to keep me over night," he
grumbled.
"Better safe than sorry, Dad."
I
couldn't recognize my own voice. I
cleared my throat.
"You at the office?," Dad asked.
I lied
that I was.
"I'll see you soon then," he said.
"I
think you should go home."
"I
got some calls to make."
"Make them at home."
"Business calls."
"Can't they wait?" I
didn't know what he was talking about.
"Hell,
they can. I want to find out who's been
let out of the can
who's got a
score to settle with me. I don't like
being shot at."
So Dad
agreed with Hank's theory.
I said,
"We'll talk about that later."
"See you soon."
"Maybe, maybe not. I've got
some running around to do."
"You sound like you're coming down with a cold," Dad said.
"Or are
you just
hungover?"
"See you later, Dad."
I
poured a shot of vodka into my orange juice before going to the
office. Hank had left a nasty
note on my desk: Where have you been
all
morning? Was expecting you to hold down
the fort.
I made
fresh coffee and spiked my first cup with a liberal shot of
Jameson's. That was it for the
dog hair, I promised myself. It wasn't
a day for
getting drunk, it was a day for finding out what the hell was
going
on. I knew in my gut that the bullet
had been meant for me.
To hell
with holding down the fort. I wasn't
going to find out
anything by
sitting around sipping spiked coffee.
Where
to begin? As Bad-Ass idled in front of
a rising cloud of
blue smoke,
I made a decision. Dan and the music
conspiracy theory
were the
jokers in the deck. I put Bad-Ass in
gear.
Earth Angel by The Penguins!, said Lovin'
Dan the Sixty- Minute Man
on the
radio. And
what a fine tune it is! Maybe your
doo-wop group
has a fine tune as well, and maybe you'll win the grand prize of a
record contract with KRB's own new record label, Teenbird. That's
right, KRB is having a talent search and you still have a few more days
to register your very own doo-wop singing group . . . .
I
continued to marvel how little Lovin' Dan resembled the
melancholy
Dan who saw a conspiracy in the same industry he worked in.
He was off
the air before I navigated the new detours to South City,
and Hot
Wire Wally came on with the same bravado. It made no
difference,
it wasn't Dan I was after but information.
I
parked Bad-Ass in the station parking lot and walked around the
building to
enter through the front door. A young
Negro woman with
shiny
straight hair was filing her nails at the receptionist's desk.
She looked
up and, without breaking rhythm, asked, "Help you?"
I
pulled out my identification.
Professional demeanor, all the
way.
"You a cop?"
"Private investigator," I said. I always sounded silly to myself
saying that
but the few times I said playwright, I just got stared at.
"I'd
like to ask you a few questions about Lovin' Dan the Sixty-Minute
Man."
There
was an office off the receptionist's desk, and through the
open door I
saw the man inside move to come out.
"What do you want to-," the secretary began. She was interrupted
by the man
moving quickly forward, "Can I help you with anything?"
He was
gray-haired and had the rumpled look of a busy middle
manager. When I showed him my
identification, he invited me into his
office. He closed the door
behind us.
"I'm Buzz Taylor, the station manager," he said, moving behind
his
desk.
"Sit down. What can I do
for you?"
It was
one of those small wooden chairs with armrests, and I barely
squeezed
down between them. If I stood without
pushing down on the
armrests, I
was sure the damn chair would rise up on my ass.
"I'm investigating Dan Davies," I began.
"I
hope he's not in trouble."
"It's a personal matter.
I'm working for his wife."
"Oh, I see. Well, what do
you want to know?"
"For
starters, what kind of a guy is he?"
I
realized that I really didn't know what I was doing there. All I
knew was, I
had to keep moving, I had to find out what the hell was
going on to
motivate someone to remove one lovable over- weight
playwright
from the stage for good.
"Dan is very professional."
"I'm interested in his character."
"His character. Well, I
like Dan. He's one of our most popular
deejays. He's hard-working,
reliable, dedicated."
"He having an affair with the secretary out there?"
"Well," Buzz said, "maybe you should ask her."
"I
plan to."
He
stood up.
"I
don't think I can help you, Mr. . . .?"
I
didn't stand up. I wasn't worried about
bringing up the chair on
my ass, I
just wasn't ready to go yet.
"From another source," I began, "I learned that Dan
believes there
is a
conspiracy in the music business. What
do you know about that?"
"I
have no idea what you are talking about."
Staring down at me
over the
desk, he added clear hostility to his tone.
"I am a busy man,
sir, if you
don't mind. I have nothing more to tell
you."
"White record companies are making copies of Negro songs."
"I
don't want to have to call security."
Security, what a joke. I doubted
if they had a janitor, let alone
an armed
guard. The building was infested with
rats. By the looks of
the place,
it was hard to imagine how they met payroll.
"Good day," he said.
I
pushed down the armrests and got to my feet.
"Thank you for your time," I said. I offered my hand but he
ignored it.
He
didn't follow me outside, which gave me the opportunity to drop
my card in
front of the secretary. She was still
filing her nails.
"Call me sometime," I said.
"I'll buy dinner and drinks."
She
smiled. I smiled back. It was fun being misunderstood.
Since I
was in the neighborhood, I stopped by Caviar's Market. I
was still
trying to keep moving because I knew I'd start thinking when
I stopped
and when I began thinking I'd remember how close I was to
being a dead
man.
"Well, looky here!," Tank greeted me. "The vintage coke man! Maybe
one day we
get in a new shipment for you."
"You don't know if Dan is upstairs, do you?"
"Hey, man, it's been a scene up there this morning. You already
too
late."
"What happened?"
"I
never hear such screaming and hollering.
There's this white
chick, just
a high school thing, man, sweet little sixteen, I guess
that deejay
likes them young-"
"What happened!"
"Man, I be getting to it.
Here comes her mama and this older dude,
who the
mama later calls dad so that makes him the young chick's
granddaddy,
right? Anyway, they had to carry her
out of there, man,
yelling and
screaming the whole damn way."
"Was Dan there?"
"I
don't see him. Maybe he be at work
because later he come in
with this
other chick, a black one, with the bangs in front like you
asked about
that time. How that man get any sleep,
is what I wants to
know! He doing it to young and old, black and
white, goddamn that man
chases
trem!"
"Dan was here with the woman with bangs?"
"They only left a little while ago."
"They left together?"
"Took off in his car together."
Dan and
Ruth? Now we were getting
somewhere. I thanked Tank for
the
information, bought an over-priced coke and left.
The
smog was beginning to thicken. I
decided to drive to
Foothills. I wanted to talk to
Joan. And to Jeff Berger. And to
Harriet. And most of all to Dan
and Ruth, though this would have to
wait. The point was, it was over-kill time. It was time to kick rocks
wherever I
found them. Somewhere in the avalanche
of information,
pieces of
the puzzle were going to fall into place.
They had to. A
dead man
writes no plays.
21/
I
walked from the market back to the station parking lot. On the
corner
diagonally across the street was a phone booth, and in it was
the
secretary at the front desk. Her back
was to me.
I
crossed the street and waited for her to hang up. She must have
sensed my
presence because she suddenly turned and, seeing me, hung up
and quickly
moved out of the booth. I grabbed her.
"I'll yell rape 'less you let go!," she threatened.
"I
just want to talk."
"I
don't know nothin' 'bout Dan. Besides,
I got to get back to
work."
"You can get away long enough to make a phone call. Why didn't you
make it at
your desk?"
"I'm on my break, okay? I
was callin' my boyfriend."
"Then why suddenly hang up when you saw me?"
"It
was private. We're havin'
problems."
"So am I."
"Looky here, Mr. Taylor gonna be lookin' for me if'n I don't get
right
back."
"What time do you get off?"
When
she didn't reply, I said, "Five?"
She
nodded.
"I'll be waiting for you out front," I said. "We'll go somewhere
and
talk. Drinks on me."
"I
told you, I don't know nothin' 'bout Dan."
"Then you don't even have to earn your drinks."
She
trotted across the street and back into the building. In her
tight pink
dress and what I now figured must be a shiny black wig, she
looked more
like a hooker than a secretary. I
didn't know if she'd be
outside at
five or not. I tried to picture her and
Dan taking lunch
together
and couldn't. Maybe I was forcing my
tastes on him and he
didn't mind
sleazy at all.
Driving
to Foothills, I listened to Hot Wire Wally on the radio:
The response to KRB's doo-wop contest has been
phenomenal! Yes,
indeedy! And you still have time
to register your group for the
opening round of competition next week.
Hot Wire will be giving you
all the details right after this new side by The Clovers, and oh what a
fine tune this be! It's The
Clovers answer to the big hit by Clyde
McPhatter and the Drifters, you know the one I mean - Money Honey!
Yes, indeedy! Well, as far as
The Clovers are concerned . . . Your
Cash Ain't Nothin' But Trash!
As I
drove the detours over the ubiquitous construction, my mind
played with
scenarios in a way that was not unlike the thought
processes
that preceded writing a play. Why would
anyone want to kill
me? Because I was threatening them. What was I doing to threaten
anyone? What was I doing,
period? I was investigating Dan. Then was
I close to
discovering something about Dan that was dangerous to
someone? He had had an affair
with Flo, who had been murdered. Was
this the
connection? Or did it have something to
do with Dan's
possible
connection between the rat murders and a music conspiracy? Or
perhaps
about the possibility that he was, in fact, a Negro? Or was
he?
The
connection between Dan and Flo Albertson was most haunting.
She, after
all, had been murdered. And I was
supposed to have been.
The
questions came easily. Perhaps too
easily, too many questions
and none
with answers. Was I just being
paranoid? Dad, for a fact,
had put
some mean characters behind bars during his time with the LAPD.
Surely one
might seek revenge when he was released.
I
pulled into Joan's driveway. As soon as
I was out of the car,
Jeff Berger
was calling to me.
"We're all over here," he said.
There
appeared to be a neighborhood meeting going on in the den.
Besides
Jeff were his wife, Joan and a half-dozen others I didn't know.
And sitting
in the corner, looking like a trapped animal, was Harriet.
Her face
was swollen from crying. She wasn't
even chewing gum.
Jeff
introduced me. All were neighbors
except a pretty woman in
matching
red peddle-pushers and blouse, who was Jeff's daughter and
Harriet's
mother, Candy. She sat on a pillow on
the floor, beside an
ashtray
filled with cigarettes.
After
the introductions, Jeff said, "As I said, Red is a private
investigator. Joan hired him
concerning another matter, and I hired
him to try
and get Harriet back before Candy and I decided to take the
matter into
our own hands."
He shot
me a glance of reprimand, as if I had broken a pledge. I
grinned back.
"Then how can he help us now?," a woman asked. I'd already
forgotten
her name. Like all the other women in
the room, she wore too
much makeup
and was overdressed.
"We don't know that he can," said Jeff.
I didn't
like this sudden scrutiny and said, "Look, I came by
looking for
Ruth. Joan, is she next door?"
"Ruth is no longer in my employ," she replied.
I
wondered why not but this wasn't the time or place to find out.
"Let me tell you our situation," said Jeff, "and you can
tell us if
you can be
of service."
I
nodded. I wanted to get Joan alone
after the meeting and find
out about
Ruth.
"We need proof that Dan raped Harriet," said Jeff.
Harriet started crying. Her mother used a half-smoked cigarette to
light
another, and for a moment she held a live cigarette in each hand,
before
stabbing out the older.
"The girl says that's what happened?," I asked. I didn't look at
Harriet. She was miserable
enough.
"Of course she denies it," Candy blurted out. She stared at me as
if the
question had come from an idiot.
I said,
"Proof that will hold up in court is hard to come by. This
is true
even when the victim is cooperative."
"My idea," said Jeff, "is that we send her back as a
decoy."
"I'm not sure I follow."
"We let her go back to Dan.
With you, or someone, following, of
course, so
proper evidence can be gathered. She'd
also be wired."
The
Peeping Tom Patrol had had some strange gigs but this would be
one of the
strangest. Jeff was beaming at the
possibility of using his
own
granddaughter as a decoy. I figured
he'd been watching too much
Dragnet on
television.
"This thing is much bigger than just Harriet, believe me,"
Jeff
went
on. "It's what he's doing to
teenagers with that music. I'm sure
the poor
girl is not the only victim. That's why
we have to catch him
in the
act. Evidence that will hold up in
court, like you say.
Harriet can
be a hero."
Jeff
tried to look sympathetically at Harriet but this only
increased
the heaving motion of her sobs.
I tried
to picture Dan as a molester of teenage girls.
I
remembered
the nudist magazines, all the happy young girls playing
volleyball
with their smeared genitals. Still, the
fit wasn't easy,
there was
something about Dan that kept me giving him the benefit of
the doubt.
"Tell him more about the music," Joan said.
"I've talked about this before," Jeff said. "What it amounts to is
brain-washing, right on the public airways. We aim to put a stop to
it."
Another
version of the music conspiracy.
"It's filth," said Joan.
"Negro music?," I asked.
Jeff
quickly said, "Not all of it, mind you.
But increasingly,
particularly
with songs aimed at the teenage market, the white teenage
market,
Negro songs are displaying a sensuality and vulgarity that far
exceeds
common decency. And again, these songs
are being played on the
public
airways."
"And
Dan is guilty because he plays those records?"
"Teenagers worship the deejays on KRB. I'm not saying all of them
take
advantage of the situation - but, yes, I think Dan has. But it's
the music
that is at the root of the problem because it's the music
that
defines the aura of sensuality that lets this happen in the first
place."
Everyone was looking at me, waiting for a response.
"Couple questions," I said.
"Surely," said Jeff.
"Back
to Dan. Where's the evidence that he
raped the girl?"
Jeff
gave me his smug grin of superiority and said, "Well, I'd love
to be
wrong, of course. But that wouldn't
change the issue here."
I
looked at Harriet. I hated her being
there, shaking in her sobs,
her arms
wrapped around her body in a vain effort to control herself,
to comfort
herself.
"Will Harriet cooperate?," I asked softly.
"Yes," Candy said, blowing smoke. I was glad Harriet didn't see
the look on
her face when she said it.
"Since you've been investigating Dan anyway," said Jeff,
"I thought
you'd be
the logical one to get the evidence we need."
My gut
feeling was that they were all crazy.
But I also knew that
a man can
get in trouble when his gut feelings fail, and this worried
me.
"When do we start?," I said.
Jeff
turned to Candy. Miracle of miracles,
she stabbed out her
cigarette
without lighting another.
"When do you want to start?," Candy asked her father.
"I
think the sooner, the better," he said.
For a
terrible moment, Harriet became the focus of the room. She
looked in
no shape to cooperate as a decoy.
Jeff
said, "But I think we'd better play it by ear for a few days.
Obviously
Harriet's in shock at what happened."
Candy
got to her feet and, like trained seals, everyone stood up.
There were
hand-shakes and goodbyes and even two or three hugs, but the
mood was
properly somber. I told Joan I wanted
to talk to her, and she
waited
behind as the others left. I noted that
Candy left without her
daughter,
who apparently was staying with the grandparents.
"I'd like to talk to Harriet sometime," I told Jeff.
"No time like the present."
I
couldn't do that to her. The poor girl
needed privacy above all
else.
"Maybe tomorrow," I said.
Jeff
walked Joan and me to the side door.
Edna stayed behind with
Harriet,
sitting across the den from her. Edna
hadn't said a word the
whole
time. She looked like a woman who
should be knitting, who was
lost
without a pile of yarn in her lap.
Across the room, Harriet was
still
sobbing softly, her arms wrapped around herself. At least the
heaving and
shaking were gone, she seemed a little more relaxed now
that her
tormentors had disappeared.
22/
We were
having an early cocktail hour. We were
sitting in stuffed
chairs on
opposite sides of the den, toasting martinis at one another
as if we
didn't have a care in the world.
"Cheers," said Joan.
She
drank. I didn't.
I said, "Let's cut the crap."
"Pardon me?"
"Do you think Dan could rape a teenager?"
"That's just Jeff being melodramatic."
"You went along," I reminded her.
"Because he's right about the music part. It's a real problem, and
Dan's
involved. Apparently he loves that
filth."
She got
up to make another drink, saying, "You ready?"
I
hadn't even touched mine yet. I shook
my head.
"No, I don't think Dan molested the girl," she said at the
liquor
cabinet. Apparently she, too,
had a propensity for giving Dan the
benefit of
the doubt.
"If you think Dan is innocent," I said, "why didn't you
speak up
over
there?"
"I'm hardly of a mind to defend him."
She
brought the fresh martini and sat down again.
"The girl was put through a hell of a lot," I said.
"That's not my concern."
She
sipped. She lifted the tooth pick out
of the glass and took
the olive.
"Mr. Trevorak," she said, "let me remind you that I'm the
one who's
the victim
here. My husband has betrayed me. Not with Harriet, I
assume. With my own
housekeeper. With a Negro. Do you have any idea
how devastating
that is?"
"Is that why you fired Ruth?"
"Jesus." She glared at
me before continuing. "What do you
think?"
"I'm not sure he's having an affair, let alone with Ruth."
"Well, I am. He called her
here."
"When?"
"Yesterday. I was taking a
bath, so Ruth probably thought it was
safe to
talk. I heard her and picked up the
extension in the bedroom.
When I
confronted her later, she denied everything, of course. But I
heard
enough."
Dan had
phoned Ruth, and later Tank had seen them together. My
first hunch
may have been right, after all.
"I
don't know if your husband is having an affair with Ruth or
not,"
I said. "But he had an affair with
Flo Albertson."
She
turned on the glare again.
"Dan told you so?," she finally asked.
"Yes."
"Then why didn't you tell me before? What am I paying you for?"
She got
up and hurried to mix a new drink.
"I've been trying to make sense out of it," I explained from
across
the room.
"I
repeat, what am I paying you for, Mr. Trevorak?"
"First, to find out if your husband has any Negroes in the closet.
I should
know in a few days. Second, if he's
having an affair. He
was. With Flo Albertson. And maybe now with Ruth."
She
mixed me a drink as well and brought it to me.
When she was
back in her
chair, she said, "Perhaps Dan is a Negro, after all."
"It's possible," I admitted.
"We'll know soon."
"I
can't believe he'd call Ruth here.
That's reckless enough to
suggest . .
."
When
she didn't finish, I said, "Passion?"
"Something like that."
The
word seemed to sadden her, like the memory of a feeling she
once
experienced herself.
"There might be other reasons for them to communicate," I
said.
"Are you keeping something else from me?"
"I
don't have answers yet. Just some very
intriguing questions."
She
sipped her drink, thinking. Then she
asked, "Could Dan have
murdered
Flo?"
"My gut feeling is that he didn't but I've been wrong before. What
do you think?"
Instead
of replying, she finished her drink in one gulp and stood
up. The way she looked at me, I got the idea it
was time for me to go.
"Flo was a Negro, Ruth is a Negro," she said. "The humiliation is
the
same."
She went to the bar again. I used the armrest and struggled up out
of the
stuffed chair, leaving a swooshing sound beneath me.
"No more for me," I said.
She
turned and said, "You don't understand one goddamn thing about
what I'm going through, do you? Have you ever been married, Mr.
Trevorak?"
"You used to call me Red."
"I
don't feel like calling you Red. I see
how you look at me. You
think I'm,
I don't know what, some kind of rich bitch, I suppose. You
don't have
an ounce of sympathy in your bones."
"It's not my job to give you sympathy."
"Good day, Mr. Trevorak."
"To answer an old question," I said, "you're paying me to
get facts
and proof. Which you're getting as quickly as I can
deliver them. You
want to
terminate the contract, fine."
I heard
her say Jesus under her breath as I turned to leave. Before
I reached
the doorway, she said, "Just a minute.
Red. Please."
I
thought she was going to cry, which surprised me.
"I've been very upset," she said softly. "I know you're doing your
job. Please continue to do so."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"Dan
mentioned the possibility of divorce."
She
tried to smile. "I sure am finding
out a lot today. I should
give you
martinis more often."
"Everything will be in my report," I said. "It's not our policy to
spell out
every little detail along the way."
"I
see. Well, I've never hired a detective
before. I'm allowed a
few
mistakes."
Amazingly enough, I found myself almost feeling sorry for her. I
didn't
particularly like her, but I had to admit that she was getting
her share
of pain without deserving much of it.
She was married to a
weirdo.
"I'll be talking to Ruth," I said.
"Do whatever you think best."
"I
may be able to wrap everything up by the end of the week."
She
smiled and gave me a farewell toast.
I got
back to South City by four, just in time to find the
secretary
coming out of the station. I got out
and surprised her at
the corner.
"A
little early, aren't we?"
"I'll yell for the police," she said.
"I
have a witness who saw you with Dan," I said, stretching the
truth. "Who happens to be a suspect for
murder. Which means the
police
would love to talk to you. Shall we
yell for them together?"
It
worked, and I could see she was frightened.
"Is there somewhere we can talk?," I asked.
"There's a bar down the street."
"Lead the way."
"You still buyin'?"
"A
man of honor."
We
started down the street. Along the way
she said, "We gonna get
stared
at. Honkies-, I mean white folks, they
don't never come into
this
place."
"Then we're making history," I said.
"You tryin' to be funny?"
"Beats taking the world seriously."
We
continued down the street in silence.
23/
The bar
was called The Texas Playhouse, and it was the darkest bar
I'd ever
entered. As soon as the door closed
behind us, I couldn't see
a
thing. Loud music came from a distant
jukebox and under it I heard
the buzz of
customers - but only for a moment, because suddenly the
buzzing
stopped and just as suddenly I was nervous, standing still in
utter
darkness and hearing only the jukebox.
A male voice was moaning,
Let's get
it while the gettin' is good, a chorus followed with, so good
so good so
good, and I could feel the sweat of fear forming on my brow.
The
secretary, who had entered first, had wandered ahead and my
mouth
opened to call to her. Then I realized
I didn't know her name.
As if
on cue, her voice came out of the darkness, "You comin' or
what?"
I took
a tentative step in the direction of the secretary's voice.
The buzz of
customers picked up immediately, as if the secretary's
question
and my subsequent movement amounted to passing a test. I
remembered
that she'd said white people didn't come in here.
"Come on," she said again,
impatiently.
I kept
moving slowly forward in the direction of her voice. When I
bumped into
a body, I mumbled an apology. Suddenly
an arm touched me,
and I
jumped.
"You don' have to be nervous," she said. "We be sittin'
right here."
So good
so good so good the chorus sang on the jukebox, as she
pulled me
to a table. I felt the chair with my
leg and sat down. I
was
beginning to see shapes in the dark bar.
"We want a bottle of champagne," she told a waitress who had
come
to our
table. The woman made a sound of
surprise and moved away.
Shapes
came into relief as my eyes adjusted to the dark. Across the
table, the
secretary was grinning at me.
"I'm Brenda," she said.
"Red Trevorak."
"I
know. You gave me your card,
remember?"
"It's so dark in here," I said.
"We darkies, so what do you expect?"
Laughter filled the bar. Apparently
everyone was listening to us.
The
waitress came with the champagne and two water glasses. The
bill was
fifteen dollars, which was outrageous but which I paid without
making a
fuss. I felt out of place and nervous,
not knowing enough of
what the
Romans do to follow suit.
I
leaned over the table and said softly, "This isn't very conducive
to a frank
discussion."
"You want more privacy?"
"That's the general idea."
"Come on, we get a table way in back," said Brenda. "But no funny
business,
understand? I got friends in
here."
She had
made her point but just to be sure I got it, she said
loudly,
"Do I have friends in here?"
From
all around the bar, voices rose in exclamation of friendship,
followed by
great laughter. I had the vague feeling
that I was a
guinea pig
without really knowing what the joke was about.
We got
up and moved to a table in a back corner of the bar. It was
more
private, though the bar still buzzed noisily and the jukebox still
played
loudly, work with me, Annie, ah-oom ah-oom . . .
"Tell me about Dan," I said after we were seated.
"I
don't know all that much about him."
"The guy who runs Caviar's Market, Tank, has seen you two in there
together."
"You know Tank?"
I
nodded.
"I
never been in there with Dan 'cept maybe to buy pop at lunch or
some damn
thing."
"Then you must have an opinion about him," I said.
Brenda
shrugged and said, "Well, he's a little nutty, to tell the
truth."
"In what way?"
"I
don't know. He just act strange
sometime."
She
helped herself to the bottle and poured more champagne into the
water
glass.
"You gonna buy another one of these?," she asked.
"You have expensive tastes."
"What you expect? You said
you were buyin'."
"But I was hoping I'd find out something for my investment."
"Well, I told you he acts strange," said Brenda. "I love
champagne. You don't want to
know about anything else besides Dan?"
As a
matter of fact, I did. "Tell me
about the singing contest," I
said.
"We gettin' another bottle?"
I
nodded, and she called out the order. I
heard someone whistle,
as if to
say, She's got a live one this time.
"The contest," I prompted.
"Well,
it's a doo-wop contest. Different
groups are singin' and
everything."
"What does the winner get?"
"They gonna make a record.
The station is makin' it on their own
label."
"And after that what happens?"
"What do you mean?"
"Does the record get played on the radio or what?"
"'Course it get played. Why
else they make it?"
"And will a white group record a cover record?"
Before
she answered, the bottle of champagne arrived.
No new water
glasses,
just the bubbly. I went along with the
highway robbery again,
which
earned me a big grin from the waitress.
An idea
was forming in my mind. I said,
"The winning group cuts a
record, right?"
She
nodded, filling her glass with champagne.
"How many groups are entering the contest?," I asked.
"A
whole damn bunch," she said.
"There's doo-wop groups all over
the
place."
"Are all the songs taped or anything?"
"'Course they tape them.
How they listen to them later and decide
a winner if
they don't tape 'em?"
"Then the station is going to have a whole lot of songs on its
hands,
right?"
She
shrugged, not following me.
"And from what I understand, most of these songs are written by the
kids
themselves," I said.
She
drank.
"So the station could sell these songs to bigger record companies,
couldn't they?"
"Is that all you want to know?," she laughed. "Shit, why didn't
you say so
in the first place. 'Course they gonna
sell everything they
can, how
else they make money?"
"You know that's what the station plans to do?"
"I
type the letters myself," said Brenda.
Now we
were getting somewhere. I filled her
glass.
"I'd like to ask another favor of you," I said.
"What favor?"
"I'd like to see some of those letters you're talking about. You
keep
carbons of everything, don't you?"
"What the hell kind of secretary doesn't keep carbons," she
said,
giggling. She was beginning to
feel the champagne.
"Can you get me some carbons to look at?"
She turned suspicious. "What's this got to do with Dan?"
It was
time to think on my feet. I said,
"Let me put it this way.
Dan may be
trying to swindle the station. I think
he's trying to steal
those songs
himself, for his own record label. I'm
trying to stop
him."
"Why you think that?," Brenda asked.
"I'm a private investigator, as you know. I've been hired by the
owner of
the station."
I was
assuming she didn't know who owned the station, and I was
right. Brenda said, "The owner hire you to
investigate Dan?"
"Right. And to find out
about the big record companies interested
in the
songs. That's why I need to look at
some letters. Unless it's
too
late," I added gravely.
I
filled her glass again, saying, "Or maybe you can't picture Dan
being a
crook."
"I
can sure picture him being a crook."
"Then you'll help me?"
"What you want me to do, bring the letters in here?"
"That would work."
"How many you need?"
"Only a few. Enough to give
me an idea what's going on, how the
deal is
coming down."
"What if I took them during my lunch break and you read them
then?"
"Perfect. How about
tomorrow?"
"Another bottle of champagne now - and two more tomorrow on credit,
so I can
drink them after work."
"That sounds expensive just to read some letters."
"Why
don't you go to Buzz for them letters anyway?"
"Well," I said, thinking on my feet again, "I shouldn't
tell you
but he's
also under suspicion."
She
considered this and repeated, "Three bottles, and I'll bring
the whole file
at lunch tomorrow."
"How about in the parking lot," I said. "It's pretty dark to read
in
here."
"I
ain't gonna be seen in no parking lot.
Bring a damn flashlight
or
something. How can you be a detective
without a flashlight?"
"I'll bring a flashlight," I said. "Then it's a deal?"
"I
get one bottle now."
"You got it."
She
offered a hand across the table and we shook on it. I put
another
fifteen dollars on the table.
"It's a pleasure working with
you," I said. "Don't drink it
all in
one
place."
As I
headed for the door, I heard Brenda yell, "Hey, you all, we
gonna get
down and party!" Shouts and
laughter filled the bar. The
jukebox sang,
way you wear those dresses, sun come shinin'
through. I
opened the
door and stepped forward and was slapped in the face with
sudden,
blinding sunlight.
24/
I
walked up the street toward Bad-Ass, squinting through the late
afternoon
smog. Since I was in South City, I
might as well stop by
Ruth's. I was attacking the
jigsaw puzzle by working at one end, then
running
around the table to work at the other.
You hoped that somehow
the two
sides would come together to a clean fit in the middle.
The
construction workers were busy. A din
of digging, scraping,
crushing
machinery rose from the deep gully behind the house as I
walked to
the front porch.
Despite
the noise, I could make out doo-wop singing through the
screen
door. I knocked loudly on the door.
At my
third knock, the singing stopped. One
of the teenage boys in
the singing
group came to the door.
"Hi, is Ruth home?," I asked.
"She ain't here."
I
wondered if this was her brother, the one fascinated by the
history of
rats. One way to find out.
"Are you her brother?"
He
offered a tentative nod.
"Well,"
I smiled, "you're the one I'm actually looking for. I'm
with, ah,
Doo-Wop Records."
It was
Hurricane Hugh McElhenny all the way now, trying to hit the
holes
wherever they appeared. The boy surely
remembered me but, what
the hell, he probably didn't know who I was
or what I did. I saw
quickly
that the ploy was working.
The
boy's eyes brightened, and I went on.
"You must be, ah . . ."
"I'm Artie," he said.
"I'm her brother."
He
looked like a good enough kid, maybe thirteen, with closely
cropped
hair and skin darker than Ruth's. He
was in the teenage
uniform of
the day, jeans and sneakers and a heliotrope T-shirt.
"Then you have the singing group," I said.
"Artie and the Rainbows."
"Beautiful. Can I come
in?"
"You with a record company?"
"Doo-Wop Records," I repeated.
He
moved aside. As soon as I stepped
through the door, he was
running
into the living room, and I followed.
A
spontaneous buzz of excitement stopped as I entered the room.
The eyes of
four teenage boys were on me, and though they were all
slightly
built and looking more in wonder than in suspicion, I felt
like
Hurricane Hugh facing four beefy linebackers eager to crush him to
the turf.
"Well," I began, "I'm glad I caught you at home. I thought I was
going to
have to negotiate through your sister."
"Her and mom are shopping," said Artie.
I
nodded and smiled.
"Well, then," I said, "let's get to the point. I'm Sidney Sullivan
with
Doo-Wop Records. We heard about the
contest at KRB and are very
interested
in making connections with the better groups that come out
of the
competition. We'll be putting out some
records ourselves."
"You heard about us?," one of the boys asked with excitement.
"Word on the street gets around."
They
were looking at me with wide eyes. I
put out my hand and
stepped
forward.
"You can call me Sidney," I said and went from boy to boy,
shaking
hands.
The
others were named Mike, Jerry and Jackie Love.
Only the
latter, the
tallest of the quartet, gave his last name, announcing it
like a
manifesto, Jackie LOVE. A vague attempt
at a moustache roamed
across his
upper lip.
"Nice to meet you all," I said. "I've already talked to Artie's
mother, of
course, and his sister, but I thought I'd come by to make
contact
again. Didn't mean to interrupt your
rehearsal."
"We're done," Artie said quickly.
I
looked at my watch.
"Well,
I do have a bit of time to kill. Tell
you what. I was
going to
get something to eat before an appointment I have - how about
your leader
come along and I can tell you what kind of material we're
after,
things like that. Are you the leader,
Artie?"
I
figured he was by the name of the group.
"I
guess so," the boy said.
"Would you have a little time?"
The way
the other boys looked at him, if he didn't his ass was
grass.
"Yeah, I guess so," he said.
"Good. Shall we?"
Artie
suggested a chain burger joint a few miles outside the city
limits. My cash was almost down
to change after splurging on the
champagne
but the burgers were cheap. We ordered
two with fries and
cherry
cokes and took our trays to a table.
I was
winging it all the way. Improv, an
actor would call it. I
hated it
when an actor forgot my own lines and started improvising but
in this
case I didn't even have a script to forget.
"I
wonder if I might speak frankly with you, Artie," I said.
Artie
nodded, his mouth full. The way he was
putting down the
burger, it
had been a while.
"We've heard a rumor that Teenbird, the record company the station
is
starting, isn't on the square. You know
anything about that?"
He
shook his head, chewing.
"Well, I'll level with you.
We heard that the whole purpose of the
contest is
to market the songs they tape elsewhere, to a bigger label.
More
established groups, white groups mainly, will then record the
songs. Of course, that's something that's beginning
to happen
throughout
the industry. I'm sure you know all
about it."
He nodded but didn't seem to have the
slightest interest in what I
was saying.
"Be careful, is what I'm saying.
Are you going to enter the
contest
with your own material?"
"We write our own songs," he said.
"Then
don't sign your rights away."
I was
talking about a scam I wasn't even sure existed. But the
puzzle was
beginning to go together this way:
there was a trend of
white
singing groups making versions of Negro doo-wop songs. The radio
station
planned to take advantage of this trend by collecting songs of
Negro
teenagers, which they then could sell to larger record companies.
I wondered
how much money there was in all this.
It seemed like a lot
of trouble
to go to for peanuts.
"In fact," I continued, "if Teenbird makes you an offer,
come to me
first. I may be able to give you a better
deal."
"How do I find you?," Artie asked.
Good
question.
I said,
"I know where you live, so I'll keep in touch, how's that?"
"How you know my sister?"
I
grinned and said, "Hey, you don't know how famous you guys are
out on the
street. I always try to contact the
parents and relatives
first."
"How many records you gonna make?"
"We're still studying the market."
His
hamburger was gone, and I knew he'd accept another. At
nineteen
cents each, I could keep him there a little longer, I figured.
When I made
the offer, he nodded enthusiastically.
As he
began the second burger, I said, "This is my first time in
L.A. I was shocked to hear about these rat
murders. How long have
they been
going on?"
He
looked at me and shrugged. I wasn't
sure what to make of it.
"You have heard about the rat murders, haven't you? I know boys
your age
don't really read the paper."
He
shook his head, yes, and popped another bite into his mouth,
chasing it with
cherry coke. While chewing he said,
"I'm doing a
school
report on rats."
"Oh?"
"My teacher said if you afraid of something, learn about it."
"Smart teacher," I said.
Artie
changed the subject without missing a beat, asking, "When you
gonna cut a
record?"
"We're still working out the details. So how's the school report
on rats
coming? Sounds interesting."
He
shrugged. A school report, that was it,
and though I had no
reason to believe there was more to it than
this, in my gut I felt I
was only
hearing the tip of the iceberg.
Artie
finished the hamburger and said, "I better get back home so
we can
practice."
I
dropped him off and turned Bad-Ass for home.
Two blocks later I
saw Ruth
and her mother halfway down the block of a cross-street. Each
carried a
large sack of groceries, and it would have been the
gentlemanly
thing to do to give them a lift. But Sidney Sullivan didn't
think that
was a good idea. I didn't think Ruth
saw Bad-Ass go through
the
intersection, so I let them continue on alone.
On a
whim I parked across the street from Tank's pink Cadillac,
which was
still parked in the same place. I
wondered if he ever drove
it.
I
walked around to the stairway and was knocking on Dan's door when
Tank
shouted at me from the bottom of the stairs.
"He's not home, man! Took
off maybe ten, fifteen minutes ago."
I came
down the stairs.
"He looked like he was in an awful hurry," said Tank.
"You know where he was going?"
"No way."
"Well, thanks," I said and started away.
Tank
grabbed my arm.
"Looky here, man," he said.
"Seems to me I'm doing a lot of shit
work in
your behalf."
"I
appreciate it."
"I
mean, you usually have to pay someone for all this snooping,
right? I'm beginning to think you a cop or
something."
If I'd've had it, I would have slipped
him a dollar on the
spot.
Instead I
gave him my you've got to be out of your mind look and
started
away again.
"I
heard the way you buy champagne for information," he said to my
back.
Not
even two hours later and the news was all over the
neighborhood. I kept walking.
Tank
followed me, saying, "You a mark for every hustling jiveass
pussy in
the neighborhood, man. I hates to see
you throw your money
away that way, especially when I'm trying
to help you myself. I don't
think you
know who your real friend is, man. They say you was just
throwing
money at Brenda at that Texas Playhouse, and for what, I be
asking? I begin to feel unappreciated,
man. And you in trouble
besides,
when her boyfriend finds out about you, man, you be in deep
fucking
shit!"
I
reached Bad-Ass and got in. As I
started the engine with a
smoke-filled roar, I could see that Tank's lips were still moving.
Bad-Ass and
I paid our blue-smoked pittance to the smog and laid rubber
getting the
hell out of there.
25/
I
didn't expect to find anyone still at the office but Dad was
there and
he tossed me the paper before I had a chance to tell him he
should be
home in bed.
"They arrested a suspect!," he announced.
I hadn't seen a paper all day. The front page headline read Rat