A Thousand Steps

20

Laurel votes Thousand Steps. It’s the last place she’s seen Jasmine so why not? But, after going down all 219 steps, then all the way past the pools to the flooded cave, there’s no Jazz and no artsy Camera Man or Robe Giant or Duffel Guy. No flock of pretty young people cavorting about with peace-sign flags, pink skateboards, or plastic sundaes. Brooks Street is a bust, so is Main Beach and Crescent Bay. No photo shoots; no Jazz, no late-model white-on-green VW vans.

Detouring from the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts grounds — and Laurel’s gig at the Pageant — Matt putts through downtown and drives very slowly the same route he was walking last night when he saw Jasmine.

He describes the kidnapping in detail again to Laurel and Julie, pointing out his exact footpath, right down to cutting across Third and jumping the curb to keep from getting hit. Drivers are honking and shouting at him now, but Matt ignores them.

He details Jasmine’s frantic, weakening run for escape, her billowing orange dress with the lilting wing-like sleeves, the sudden headlights, the tire-skid cloud and the two husky men — he remembers them now as husky — yanking his sister off her bare feet and carrying her toward the waiting van. He remembers also that both men were wearing dark, long-sleeved shirts, or maybe jackets. And curtains! The van had curtains with a pattern of some kind...

He tells Laurel and Julie his new memories. “Details are important,” he says. “I’m remembering better now.”

Matt parks in their driveway and Julie scrambles out.

“You two have fun,” she says. “Nice to see you again, Laurel. Be safe and don’t go anywhere alone.”

After the show Matt takes Laurel and Rose out for sundaes at the Sunshine Inn. Watches a buck-fifty disappear. Drives them home, walks them to the porch, wants to kiss Laurel but the older sister seems to be daring him.

Laurel pecks him on the cheek and follows Rose inside.

Matt is turning to go when Laurel bangs back out, runs and throws her arms around him, kissing him hard.

Her pupils are large in the porch light. “Thanks, Matt. Jazz is close to us. I can feel her and she’s going to be home soon. I’m sorry you’re moving to Dodge City but it might be really nice out there. Rose is jealous that I like you so much. Bye-bye.”

Then she’s gone again and Matt is headed for the van, his heart beating hard and strong.

Too strong for him to go home and to bed, so he gasses up at the Union 76 on PCH and heads north to Sapphire Cove, where he makes a sweeping turn into the guarded entrance. He sees the same security guard, getting up to slide the booth window open. Pulls up to the lowered gate arm, concentrating on his story.

“Yes,” says the guard. His nameplate says MALAPANIS.

“I’m Jim Sloan and I’d like to visit the Johnson family on Oceanfront, by the park.” Mikey Johnson being a friend from school.

Malapanis sits back down, checks something on his desk, stands back up.

“You’re not on the list. You can back up and U-turn out of here.”

“Fred and Florence Johnson said I could visit anytime.”

“Not without a call to me you can’t. Aren’t you the kid who flipped me off and crashed your bike last week?”

“I don’t have a bike.”

Malapanis sizes up the Westfalia. “Didn’t we tow that thing out of here a few days ago?”

Matt hadn’t thought of that. Shit.

“I still don’t have a bike,” he manages.

“You have the Johnsons call security if you expect to get in here. That’s how it works.”

Matt hands the guard one of the Jasmine Anthony missing-persons flyers, which he takes, examines, and hands back.

“You can’t post it here without homeowner association approval.”

“I don’t want to post it. I want to know if you’ve seen her.”

“She looks like everyone else.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Back up and get out.”

Matt punches the Westfalia south on PCH and back into town. It’s after midnight and Laguna is quiet for summertime. He slowly cruises Mermaid and Third streets, and Forest and Ocean avenues, where the green van had outrun him last night. He’s trying to deduce Jazz’s starting point. She was running south on Third Street, toward home. Meaning she’d come from the north, and probably the east. Which left half a city from where she may have come.

He drives past Mystic Arts and Taco Bell. At the Sandpiper he shows the flyer to the nightclub bouncer, who won’t let him in, and to the people coming out the decal-slathered front door. One young woman says the face looks familiar but she can’t be sure. Looks a lot like her friend Jenny in Tustin.

Matt watches the cars go by and sees a VW van stop at the light. His hope launches like an Apollo shot, but he sees that it’s not a late model at all, and it’s white-over-blue, not green. And it’s got batik-looking curtains, not the peace-symbol curtains like the van from last night. Yes, peace-symbol curtains — another image barging in from his subconsciousness! He wonders if adrenalin preserves memories then slowly releases them as it fades. Like an iceberg melting in summer. Yes, he clearly sees the peace-sign curtains on the white-on-green van as it curves away from him, more or less pinned against the GTE building.

Back in the Westfalia Matt gets his sketchbook, sits on the bed, turns on the overhead light, and slashes in a new drawing of the white-over-green kidnapping van, making sure the curtains are detailed and accurate. Black peace signs on a white background. He tries to make the van look like it’s going fast — for a hippie van anyway — coming at him then veering sharply into the U-turn.

The drawing is good. The zoom-like perspective makes the vehicle look closer than it was in real life. It’s the drawing he’d give the Register, he thinks, to illustrate his eyewitness account of the kidnapping. If he defies the police and writes up his story for the paper. What could it hurt? People will read it and see the picture, then see the van and maybe even see Jazz, and call the cops. Though apparently only Darnell believes that he really saw her. Maybe believes. The rest think the whole incident was nothing more than stoned hippies having a wild night in Laguna, and a sixteen-year-old boy seeing who he wanted to see. He remembers the desk officer asking him if he was on LSD that night. Why should the Register believe him?

Five minutes later he’s parked across from Patricia Trinkle’s home on Diamond. He looks out at the wall of bougainvillea. Only the pitched roof of the Craftsman and its chimney show above the flowery walls. A hidden porch light sends up a glow in the damp night, as if something bright and valuable was waiting in that hidden front yard, an open chest of gold coins maybe, or bars of sterling silver.

He props his sketchbook on his knees and the Westfalia steering wheel, opens it to a fresh page. Draws the Trinkle house, trying to get the funny glow from the flower-walled yard. But he can’t. So he touches up the peace-sign curtain van that he now thinks he’ll submit to the Register for sure. It’s still not a photograph, which newspapers prefer. And it’s still kind of cartoony, he sees. When he looks at his latest Laurel from just a few hours ago, her proportions are all off and she looks more like a manatee than native maiden. He wonders if he’ll ever get good at this.

Matt sets aside the sketchbook and lets his head rest against the cool window glass. He’s wasting his time here and he knows it but he doesn’t want to give up. Jazz was here once, not too long ago. Doing what he did earlier — delivering for MAW. Now it’s two fifteen. He closes his eyes, feels his heart thumping away, and sees Bonnie on the rocks at Thalia, and Jazz running through the night on Third. He sees the orgy at Cavore’s, and he knows Bonnie and Jazz have seen it too.

Then bright headlights behind him, almost blinding in the rearview mirror.

They do not approach. They are simply, suddenly, there. Mist rises through the beams as Matt watches Furlong climb out of Moby Cop, slipping his club into the loop on his belt.

Matt rolls down the window, wondering: doesn’t this guy ever sleep?