A Cold Heart

13

After leaving Robin’s house, I went home and got back on the computer, tried to track down China Maranga’s band mates.

The guitarist who called himself Squirt was nowhere to be found in cyberspace, but the drummer, self-titled Mr. Sludge and the bass player, Brancusi, were easy to locate.

A year ago, Sludge, née Christian Bangsley, had been condemned on the “page of shame” Web site of a music zine called misterlittle: Hot Flash: ex-Chinawhiteboy sells out, peddles junk-slop, ends up cap-pig cancerous bigtiiime!!!!

During the three years since China’s murder, Bangsley had made significant lifestyle changes: moving to Sacramento, investing a “small inheritance,” and ending up the co-owner of a small chain of “family-style” restaurants called Hearth and Home. The zine noted Bangsley’s plans to “fester and postulate this tumor of phony-fuck normanrockwellism into a malignant metastasizing!!!franchise!!!. Sludge dludes (sic) himself that he’s cleeeen, now, but he’s sludgier than ever.”

Along with the tirade, misterlittle ran before-and-after photos, and the contrast was so remarkable that I questioned the truth of the story.

During his band days, Sludge had been a scrawny, angry-eyed nightcrawler.

Christian Bangsley was well fed and Beatle-mopped, in a white shirt and tie. These eyes sparkled with contentment.

I found Brancusi on his personal Web site. His real name- shockingly- was Paul Brancusi. Local; he worked as an animator for Haynes-Bernardo, a Burbank studio, one of the major players in kids’ TV.

Brancusi’s bio listed two years as an art major at Stanford, an equal amount of time spent as a member of China Whiteboy, then another year at CalArts, where he’d picked up skills in computer graphics and animation.

He worked on a morning show called The Lumpkins, described as “Edgy but kindly. Imaginary creatures live in a suburb that evokes some of the humor, nostalgia, and rib-tickling situations of a human neighborhood. But in Lumpkinville, imagination and fantasy reign supreme!”

Home and Hearth’s Sacramento corporate headquarters was listed. I called and asked to speak to Christian Bangsley.

The receptionist was cheerful- nourished by family-style food? “Mr. Bangsley’s in a meeting. May I help you?”

“I’m calling about an old friend of Mr. Bangsley. China Maranga.”

“Could you spell that, please?”

I did.

She said, “And what shall I tell Mr. Bangsley this is about?”

“A few years ago Mr. Bangsley played with Ms. Maranga in a band. China Whiteboy.”

“Oh, that. She’s dead, right?”

“Yes.”

“So what message should I give Mr. Bangsley?”

I rattled off my L.A. police consultantship and told her I wanted to ask Bangsley a few questions.

“I’ll be sure to tell him.”

I reached Paul Brancusi at his desk.

He said, “All this time, and finally something’s being done?”

“You don’t feel enough was done at the beginning?”

“The cops never found out who did it, right? The thing that bothered me was that they didn’t even want to talk to us. Even though we were close to China- closer than anyone, excepting maybe her father.”

“Not her mother?”

“Her mother’s dead,” he said. “Died a year before China. Her dad’s dead, too- you don’t know much about it, do you?”

“Just starting out. How about filling me in? I can drop by your office anytime today.”

“Let me get this straight: you’re what- a shrink?”

I gave him a longer explanation than the one I’d offered the Hearth and Home receptionist.

“Why now?” he said.

“China’s death might be related to another murder.”

“Really,” he said, stretching the word. “So now she matters. And I should talk to you because…”

“Because I am interested in talking to you.”

“What a thrill.”

“Just a brief talk, Mr. Brancusi.”

“When?”

“You name it.”

“In an hour,” he said. “I’ll be in front of the H-B building. I’m wearing a red shirt.”

Haynes-Bernardo Productions occupied a massive, free-form, pink-brick-and-blue-tile structure on the east side of Cahuenga Boulevard, just before Universal Studios, where Hollywood gives way to the Valley.

The building had no corners. No symmetry of any kind. Just curves and swoops and parabolic adventurism, set off by odd-shaped windows placed randomly. A cartoonist’s vision. Coco palms flanked a trapezoidal entry door the color of grape jelly, and a hundred feet of brick planter filled with struggling begonias ran along the front facade.

A man in an oversized red flannel shirt, baggy blue jeans, and grubby sneakers sat on the planter ledge, sucking on a cigarette.

As I approached him, he said, “You made good time,” without looking up.

“Motivation,” I said.

He studied me, and I returned the favor.

Paul Brancusi had changed less than Christian Bangsley. Still scrawny and sallow, he wore his hair long and uncombed, had tinted the natural dishwater color bronze.

His cigarette adhered to a chapped lower lip. A crusted cold sore was wedged below a hook nose. Blue-black iron cross tattoo on his right hand, stainless-steel stud in his left lobe. At least half a dozen healed-over pierces revealed themselves as tiny black dots on his nose, brow, and chin. Someone who’d never seen what he used to look like might have taken them for large pores.

John Lennon eyeglasses gave his eyes a faraway look, even as he checked me out.

He pulled out a pack of Rothman Filters and offered it to me.

“No, thanks.” I sat down next to him.

“Who else got murdered?” he said.

“Sorry, can’t give out details.”

“But you want me to talk to you.”

“You want China’s murder to be solved.”

“What I want and what’s going to happen don’t often coincide,” he said.

The faraway eyes had grown dour. His back rounded as if under a terrible weight. He had a look and a sound that I recognized. Years of accrued disappointment. I thought of him hunched at his drawing table, bringing The Lumpkins to life. Edgy but kindly. Rib-tickling situations.

Brancusi fished out a cigarette and chain-lit. His cheeks hollowed as he devoured the smoke. “What do you want to know?”

“First of all, do you have any theories about who killed China?”

“Sure,” he said. “Someone she pissed off. Which is about ten million people.”

“Challenged in the charm department.”

“China was a four-plus bitch. And guess what, you’re the first cop-type to ever ask me about her personality. What’s with those guys- retarded?”

“What did they ask?”

“Joe Dragnet stuff. The facts, just the facts. What time did she leave the studio, what did she do the last few days before, who was she doping with, who was she fucking. No attempt to really get into who she was.”

Smoke exited his nostrils and dissipated quickly in the smoggy air. “It was obvious they despised us and her, were blaming the whole lifestyle thing.”

“Do you think the lifestyle had anything to do with China’s death?”

“Who knows? Listen, I really don’t see the point of this.”

“Bear with me,” I said. “I need to get some context.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, from what I can tell things were looking up for the band. There was talk of a deal with a major label. That true?”

Brancusi sat up straighter, energized by nostalgia. “More than talk. We had a decent shot. Had just done a showcase at Madame Boo, where some of the better A & R guys were in the audience. We were great that night- really rocked. Next day, we were called for an interview with Mickey Gittleson- any idea who he was?”

I shook my head.

“Big-time manager. Big-time clients.” He rattled off a list of bands, some of which I recognized. “He was hot to represent China Whiteboy. If he’d have gotten behind us, things would’ve popped.”

“You said ‘he was.’ “

“Dead,” said Brancusi. “Last year, lung cancer. Idiot smoked too much.” He flicked ashes and cackled.

“What happened with Gittleson?”

“China broke the first appointment- pulled an absolute fit, said Gittleson represented everything evil about the music biz and she wasn’t going to sell out. Which was funny because during the showcase it was she who’d freaked out when she saw Gittleson sitting there, told us backstage that the guy was Mr. It. During the next act, she went over to his table, chatted him up, just about gave him a lap dance. Couldn’t have hurt. The guy was a horny old goat, liked to fuck the talent.”

“China flirting,” I said, trying to picture that.

Brancusi laughed. “China was incapable of anything as light and airy as femme flirtation. But she could put on the sexy act when she wanted.”

“Method acting?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was it real, or was she faking it? How sexually active was she?”

“She was plenty active,” said Brancusi. “All with girls, she was into girls.”

He stared at Cahuenga traffic, seemed to be losing interest.

I said, “So she was the one who got Gittleson involved but then she changed her mind.”

“Typical China.”

“Moody,” I said.

He flicked the cigarette onto the sidewalk. It lay there smoldering.

I said, “You said the first appointment. Gittleson didn’t cut you off after the first cancellation?”

“He was cool about it, we were a hot prospect, so he rescheduled. But a month later, he was traveling to Europe, arranged to meet us after he got back. Suggested we lay down some fresh tracks. That’s the reason we were in the studio. Trying to burn a CD sampler that would really knock Gittleson’s argyles off. And we were doing it. Hauling. China had changed her mind- now Gittleson was cool. She was on, she was motivated. That’s the thing about her. Even when she was high, she was able to focus.”

“Big-time high?”

“Is there any other kind?”

“So what happened?”

“The session’s going great, China starts freaking out over something- maybe something someone said, the sound system- when she was like that it could’ve been the way the drapes were hanging. She pulls a fit, walks out on us, disappears.”

“Not a word where she was going?”

“Nope. Just fuck-you’s all around. We figured she’d be back, the way she always was. Tantrums were a way of life for her.” He pulled out another cigarette and ignited it with a Donald Duck lighter.

“The opposition,” he said, brandishing the lighter before snapping it shut.

I said, “What happened to the sides you cut that night?”

“They’re worthless. I tried to peddle them, but without China to tour, no one- not Gittleson or any of the others- wanted to know us. A few months later, we were ancient history.” Another cackle. “Serious pathos, huh? I coulda been a contender? Like that Swedish ship, the Wasa, ever hear of it?”

I shook my head.

“I was in Sweden last year, doing some business, they’re maybe going to franchise The Lumpkins over there. So this Swedish animator is taking me around Stockholm. Weird city, all these big blond zombies lurching around looking like they haven’t slept in years. Cause of the light thing they’ve got. Summertime, it never gets dark. Winter, it’s dark all the time. This was summer, we get out of a club at midnight, and it’s still broad daylight. Anyway, the next day this guy takes me to this ship, the Wasa. Big old wooden Viking warrior ship, built hundreds of years ago, huge, the Swedes loaded it with cannons for this war they were fighting with the Danes. Problem is, they overloaded it with cannons so when they launched it, the sucker sank right in the North Sea. They salvaged it forty years ago, pulled it up intact and built a museum around it. You can climb in and pretend you’re Leif Ericson, get drunk and eat herring, whatever. Anyway, this guy who’s taking me around, after we leave the museum, he turns to me with tears in his eyes, this incredible wistfulness, and says, ‘Paul, my friend, if the Wasa hadn’t sunk, Sweden would be a world power.’ “

Three rapid drags on the fresh smoke. He held his breath, closed his eyes, broke out into a ragged coughing fit. Seemed comforted by the spasm. “We’re the musical Wasa. If China hadn’t been murdered, we would’ve been Aerosmith, ha-ha-ha.”

“What else can you tell me about China?”

“She could’ve used you. Mentally unstable. We all were. I’m on lithium and antidepressants for bipolar. Four screwed-up personalities, and then we augmented it with endless dope.”

Rib-tickling situations.

I said, “Christian Bangsley, too?”

“Mr. Corporate? Especially Chris. He was more thrashed than the rest of us. Had a very rich family and no moral fiber. As opposed to us, who merely had weak moral fiber.”

“He sold out?”

“He didn’t sell out,” said Brancusi. “That’s an asinine concept. What’s the difference how you make your way through life- playing music or being a CPA or building warehouses or whatever? It’s all one gray death march. Chris shifted gears, that’s all.”

“Where’s Squirt?”

“Dead,” he said, as if that made perfect sense. “Went over to Europe and OD’d on heroin. Some park in Switzerland. Living like a bum, it took weeks before they identified him.”

“You’re not surprised.”

“Squirt was riding the needle pretty hard before China got killed. Afterward, he just started shoveling the stuff in.”

“Traumatized by China’s death.”

“Probably. He was the most intense. Not counting China.”

“Apart from China’s general abrasiveness, was there anyone she had a run-in with during the week or so before her murder?”

“Not that I know about, but it wouldn’t surprise me. She was just instinctually unpleasant, would get into this Greta Garbo mode-’I vant to be alone and fuck you for trying to relate to me.’ “

“What about a stalker?”

He threw up his hands. “I don’t think you get it. We weren’t stars, no one cared. That’s what really got to China. For all her talk about alienation, all that hermit posturing, she was a Palos Verdes princess who’d gotten tons of attention as a kid and still craved it. That’s why it was monumentally stupid for her to blow off Gittleson. Ms. Schizo. One minute, she’d be seething because the band wasn’t getting the respect it deserved, the next she’d be cussing out anyone who actually wanted to focus on the band- like journalists. She went out of her way to alienate them, called them butthole lickers, imposed a strict no-interview policy.”

Out came the pack of Rothmans. Another chain light. “I’ll give you an example: There was this zine, dinky little rag that wanted to do a story on us. China told him to fuck himself. They did the piece anyway, without talking to us. So what does China do? She phones the editor and gives it to him.”

He shook his head. “I was there, listening to her end. ‘Your mother fucks scabrous Nazi dicks and drinks Hitler’s cum.’ Granted she’d told them no, but what was the logic behind that?”

“Remember the name of the zine?” I said.

“You think some journalist type murdered China because she talked mean to him? Give me a break.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” I said. “But if the editor was a fan, maybe he’s got some ideas.”

“Whatever,” he said. “You’ve obviously got plenty of spare time… Groove something-GrooveRut or GrooveRat. He sent us a copy, and we chucked it. Cheap little desktop deal, probably out of business by now.”

“What was the gist of the article?”

“We were geniuses.”

“Did you keep a clipping?”

“Oh, sure,” he said. “Along with my Grammys and my platinum records.”

He shot to his feet, smoked and coughed and walked, hunch-shouldered to the grape-jelly door. Shoved it hard and went back to work.