California Girl

12

ANDY SAT IN the Journal newsroom and looked out the darkened windows. Seven o’clock, Thursday, one day after seeing Janelle Vonn in the SunBlesst packinghouse. The lights of Costa Mesa twinkled in the cool breezy night outside.

The presses downstairs were silent for now. The AP and UPI teletype machines were quiet while the night editor dozed in his office. The city desk guys were off in the cafeteria shooting the bull. Associate publisher Jonas Dessinger was long gone, execs on the fifth floor long gone, too.

Andy took another big gulp of cool coffee, wondered why he wasn’t hungry. Hadn’t really slept since late Tuesday night. Heard about the Boom Boom Bungalow stabbing and didn’t put that story to bed until three in the morning. Guy was an elementary schoolteacher from Bakersfield. Eleven stab wounds. Looked horrible, the way the skin swelled up to close the slits. No way the Journal would print stuff like that. Perp still at large. Then Wednesday and Janelle. Twenty-six straight hours. And still counting, because Andy’s source at the County had a hot tip for him but she wouldn’t give it to him over the phone.

He never could sleep with stuff like this going down. Teresa could sleep through an atomic explosion, so long as she got herself relaxed first.

He’d scooped the Los Angeles Times today. Waxed ’em. Just like he’d waxed them on the Boom Boom stabbing. Great to beat the big boys. The Times reporter who did the main Janelle Vonn story had Janelle still living in Texas when she was eight. Said Karl had worked as an electrician when he was a plumber. And they went to press too soon to even know about Terry Neemal.

Clobbered the Santa Ana Register, too. They got Neemal but none of his mental hospital stuff or his criminal jacket. Nick had helped him with that because Neemal’s juvenile record was sealed. Not the first time Nick had come to the rescue.

But the clincher was Andy’s sidebar photograph. He’d snapped it through the window of the Tustin PD cruiser when his brother ran back into the packinghouse for his tape recorder. Neemal even bared his teeth for the shot. Growled, gave Andy the full Wolfman act. The front-page picture showed this hairy, weird-looking guy glaring at his handcuffs, one sleeve pulled back to show a wrist like something out of a horror flick. Hands dirty. Eyes crazed.

“WOLFMAN” QUESTIONED IN BEAUTY QUEEN DECAPITATION

Story and photos by Andy Becker

The New York Times had even picked it up.

A million phone calls to the Journal to say Andy’s article and pictures were great.

A hearty handshake of congratulations from Journal publisher Jonathan Dessinger.

An indifferent handshake of congratulations from Journal associate publisher Jonas Dessinger.

A telegram from newly elected Republican congressman Roger Stoltz, all the way from Washington.

Andy’s guess was that Terry Neemal was a severe nutcase who had the bad luck to be found near a murder scene. Nick had corroborated that idea in his blunt, almost wordless way. But it was hard to completely dismiss a guy who as an eight-year-old set his brother on fire, walked out, locked the door, and had a bowl of Wheaties.

AT EIGHT-THIRTY Andy locked up his desk. Got his briefcase, stopped by the supply cabinet for some more typing paper, and headed out.

Put the top down and took the Corvair down Coast Highway to Laguna, ocean rippling off to his right and a fat moon low over Catalina Island.

A Wolfman moon, he thought. Good title for a paperback crime novel except Neemal probably didn’t do it. But Neemal was still a great newspaper story. And the picture was press club award material, no doubt. Story and photos by Andy Becker. Turned the police band radio loud. Hoping for news on a Boom Boom Bungalow suspect but nothing doing.

The Sandpiper Nightclub was peaceful when he walked in. Band drinking at the bar before the first set. Some good-looking hippie girls with them. Beads and headbands and little oval sunglasses to hide their pupils. Canned Heat on the jukebox, that cool little number with the harmonica.

Verna sat at the other end of the bar, ignored him as he came over and sat down. He had to kind of squeeze onto the stool because Verna was big. She was a clerk in the county payroll office, did the Sheriff’s, Fire, Ag Department, and Sanitation. Strawberry hair and an unhappy face that Andy could see the prettiness trying to get into. He always thought if Verna dropped fifty, threw on some makeup, and tried smiling, she’d be a stone fox. Though he wasn’t sure how “stone” got to be an adjective.

As it was, she had a crush on Andy that he’d never acknowledged. He let her buy his company with occasional payroll gossip. She pretended to be distrustful of phone conversations but Andy knew she was just lonely. She liked coming down to Laguna to see the cool people, rub up against the druggies and artists. A contact high. Andy enjoyed her company. Liked the way she disguised her fear with humor and hostility. Liked her insatiable lust for gossip, innuendo, insinuation. And her honesty.

“Orange juice and vodka,” she said.

“I love you, too.”

“You’re such a huge liar.”

“I know.”

Andy ordered drinks. Glanced down the bar at the hippies. Clove cigarettes and sudden laughter. Glassed eyes. Slurred vowels. Wondered if he and Teresa sounded that way when they got loaded at night.

“Andy, what was it like, seeing her with her head cut off?”

“My heart sped up. It made my legs feel cold and weak.”

“Really?”

“It amazed me that someone would do that to someone else.”

Verna thought about this, said nothing as the drinks arrived and the barman went.

“Nick sees murder every day in homicide,” she said. “And of course, Sharon every night in Orange.”

“The less you talk about that the better, Verna.”

“I’ve never told anyone but you.”

“Keep it that way.”

Andy disliked what Nick was doing and that it was known. Before, when he’d watched Nick and Katy together they made him believe that you could get married and stay in love. You could see them pass love back and forth. Like an invisible box, a big one, the size of a TV maybe, they’d always be handing it off or gathering it in. One of the few married couples he’d seen do that. Now they were just one more reason to skip the service. Maybe these dipshit hippies were right. Free love. Sure, why not? For Nick and Katy it was pretty pricey stuff.

And if a clerk in payroll knew, who didn’t?

“Was it all bloody?”

“Less blood than you would think,” said Andy.

“I heard the Wolfman’s beard had blood in it. Like he’d eaten part of her.”

“That’s asinine, Verna.”

She shrugged.

“So, what’s up?”

Verna rocked her glass. Nothing but ice and a red plastic straw. Andy waved the bartender for two more. Verna stared across at the liquor bottles. Kept staring at them until the drinks arrived and the barkeep was out of earshot.

“This is interesting,” she said. “I do all those department payrolls, right? I get to see what everybody gets paid. Big deal. But I also cut special payment checks, too. You know, for subs or consultants, or emergencies. Stuff like that. The Sheriff’s Department has an informant fund, for their snitches and spies and all. That money comes from us as ‘Discretionary, Informational’-one monthly sum based on the year’s budget. That’s the last we see of it. The department breaks it down division by division. And the divisions break it down for each detail. Homicide. Burg-Theft. Like that. Well, today I’m logging in the numbers on my ledger, making sure the amounts match the checks. Basic bookkeeping. And up comes Captain del Gado with a cardboard box full of Girl Scout cookies he’d sold to some of the people in payroll. He sets it on my desk, finds the order forms, and gets out the Thin Mints and Savannahs. Hands them to me, picks up the box, and goes. But guess what?”

“You ordered Shortbread.”

“No. There’s a new sheet of paper on my desk. Came off the bottom of the box is all I can figure. Static electricity maybe. Anyhow, it’s a typewritten disbursement log for narcotics detail. For informants and drug buys, all that. Third from the bottom, in the amount of two hundred dollars?”

“Janelle Vonn.”

“Right.”

“On the Sheriff’s payroll. I like this.”

Verna looked at him and nodded. Took a big drink. “I thought you would.”

“Two hundred dollars,” mused Andy.

“So…”

“So you…”

“So, I’ve been hearing about Janelle Vonn all day, right? I mean the whole county building is buzzing with the beheaded beauty queen, so I discreetly visit my good friend-”

“Pam, in Assistant Sheriff Louden’s office.”

“Right, and she tells me, in absolute strictest confidence, that Janelle Vonn has been on the payroll for four years.”

Andy clicked straight back to his conversation that morning with Craig, owner of Blue Beat records. Thought of the merry stoners he’d seen hanging around in the back of the store-Timothy Leary and Ronnie Joe Fowler and that Indian fakir with eyes like wet obsidian. The sweet smell of hashish. And Craig saying while he hung the black light behind the counter so the Cream poster would light up blue, The thing about Janelle is she liked getting high, but she got it under control. Then she got into acid and really dug it. For her it was pure experience. Chick had a brain.

But, thought Andy, to collect a paycheck she had to hang with the heads. Tell some tales. Deliver pay dirt, sooner or later. Try LSD and find out she really liked it.

Craig didn’t know if Janelle had had a regular job or not.

Nick didn’t, either, as of midnight Wednesday. He’d said all the pay stubs he’d found in her cottage were old.

Karl Vonn didn’t know. Neither did Janelle’s degenerate brothers.

Andy clicked back to another conversation. Five months ago, May. Ran into Janelle coming out of the White House bar with three locals he recognized. One was a big blond hippie guy who owned a local leather store. Cory somebody. One a hotshot movie director just back from making a surfing film in South Africa. And Jesse Black, the musician, scruffy and lost-looking as always.

Janelle had looked vibrant and self-conscious. Unforgettably lovely. A nominee on Oscar night. None of that hippie stuff. A tailored black leather jacket with silver on it and red accents. Black satin pants, leather boots. Dark waves of hair faceted by streetlight. Red lips and dimples. Skin pale in the fog.

The three men acted bored while Janelle stepped away to talk to Andy.

Got my own pad here in town. I love Laguna. Everybody’s so friendly.

You look good, Janelle.

I’m so sorry what happened to Clay. Call me sometime. Here. I’ll write the number.

Now Andy wondered if Janelle could have afforded a place of her own in Laguna on a snitch’s salary. He made a note to ask Nick again if Janelle had had a job.

“What are you thinking about?” Verna asked.

He shrugged.

“Never mind,” she said.

What he was thinking about was the White House matchbook Janelle had written her phone number and address on. Tossed it in his change drawer. Never called because that night outside the White House his heart had fallen to the sidewalk and bounced to Mars and back. Even though he was twenty-six and she was just a year out of high school. Even though he was with Teresa and intended to honor that. Even though he understood that Janelle Vonn was more valuable untouched by him.

So he’d kept the matchbook. Looked at it a few times. Saw her cottage from the beach a couple of times. But never called.

“I’ll tell you what I was thinking about,” said Verna. “I was wondering why the cops were paying a fifteen-year-old girl to risk her life.”

“Me, too.”

THE BAND started off with “Satisfaction,” ran off some Byrds and Dylan. Andy and Verna took a booth for themselves because there was hardly any crowd.

Teresa blew in around ten, glasses slightly askew and hair messed up by the breeze. Against the fashion of the moment, Teresa had recently cut her pretty auburn hair short. The night she did it she’d told Andy she wanted it businesslike but had left plenty of craven sex in it for him. Proven it, too.

One of her other reporters was with her, the guy who covered Newport Beach. Chas Birdwell. Andy disliked Chas’s smug face and the degree he’d earned at Stanford as a classmate of Teresa’s. She’d fired her former Newport Beach reporter, brought Chas down from San Francisco, and put him to work. Told jokes only they got. Knew all the same people. Stupid football games. Reunion every year, some rich kid’s summer mansion up in Tahoe. All that shit you didn’t get at Fullerton State, especially when you dropped out after two years.

As Teresa came across the empty dance floor toward him Andy had to smile. Something about her. Tall and slender. Cagey eyes in a pretty face, a wild laugh. Great brain. When she sat down and kissed his cheek he could smell the pot in her hair. And see the big black pupils in her gray eyes.

Chas offered Verna a dismissive little peace sign, Andy a nod, as he slid into the booth behind Teresa and sat down.

Five minutes later Jesse Black ambled in. Black had a guitar case in his hand, a worn peacoat. Then behind him, the leather store hippie in some cool black leather jacket like you’d figure. Cory. Black stayed by the stage. Cory headed straight for the bar. Cory must be six-five, thought Andy. Black stood with a forlorn expression, looking at the band.

“Uh-oh,” said Chas. “Guitar boy thinks it’s open mike night.”

“His name is Jesse Black and he’s a better songwriter than you are a reporter,” said Andy.

“Whoa,” said Chas. “I’ve been put in my place.”

“Cool it, Andy,” said Teresa.

Verna leaned toward them. “He was-”

Andy found her knee under the table and squeezed it firmly.

“He was up in L.A.,” said Andy. “Making a demo tape the last few months. Working the clubs.”

“Right,” said Verna, placing her hand over Andy’s, still on her knee. “That’s about all I know about him.”

Chas nodded without interest. Shook the wave of thick blond hair off his forehead. Had one of those stiff imperialist mustaches. Like you should salute it.

Teresa looked at Andy oddly but he saw her curiosity melt into the high she was on. That’s why she smoked it, he thought. For the way it dulled one part of her mind and sharpened another. Close one window. Open another. They said the LSD was best of all. Sandoz. Blotter. Windowpane. Orange Sunshine. Purple Haze. Wasn’t sure if he had the balls to try it. Stories about people going permanently insane. Oops, wrong window. Didn’t seem to have hurt Tim Leary any.

“So, what have you two been up to tonight?” Andy asked.

Teresa recounted her night so far with Chas: a Newport edition editorial/advertising meeting at six, quick bite at the Crab Cooker at seven, fund-raiser for the Charity League at the Newport Pavilion, you know how those things drag on forever.

Chas chuckled. Verna nodded. Andy watched Jesse Black as he propped his guitar case against the carpeted wall beside the stage and pulled out a Martin with a pickup built over the sound hole.

The band finished “Taxman” and the lead singer welcomed Jesse Black onstage.

Everyone clapped. Maybe eight people. The hippie girls with the clove cigarettes extra hard. They were checking out Cory at the bar.

Chas clapped stupidly loud, the wave of hair over his forehead jiggling.

Black slung on his guitar. Plugged in and strummed a chord. Made his way to the lead singer’s mike, pulling his cord through the stands and monitors.

Little guy, young. Thin and pale. Dark stubble, dead eyes.

“Some songs for a girl I knew,” he said. Turned his back on the tiny audience and conferred with the lead guitarist.

“His high school sweetheart?” Chas whispered to Teresa. “Died of a banana peel overdose?”

“That’s dumb,” said Teresa.

“What do you expect from a spoiled moron?” asked Andy.

“Let’s go outside,” said Chas.

“Piss on you.”

Teresa grabbed his ear and turned his face to hers. “What’s wrong with you?”

Andy jerked his head free. “I’m sorry. No sleep. The Vonn thing has me wired and weird.”

“Go home and sleep. I’ll be there later.”

“I’m writing tonight. First I want to hear some music.”

“Leave Chas alone. You don’t get to abuse the personnel just because the boss is in love with you.”

“Good. Yeah. That’s fair.”

For the next hour Jesse Black sang twelve of the prettiest songs Andy had ever heard. Sweet and smart. Passionate and humorful. Sexy, sad, beautiful. He was a good guitar player and his chords changed unexpectedly. His music sounded new and different in a way Andy couldn’t put a finger on. The band knew most of the songs, you could tell. Filling in at the right time, backing off for the rest. Nice voice, too. Clear, a little high, something innocent and yearning in it.

The last one Jesse Black did alone. A song he’d finished about two hours ago, he said. “Imagine You.” The band kept their places. Hung their heads and listened. Twenty-one-gun salute, thought Andy, rock and roll style. The drummer banged a stick on his high hat when he wiped his eyes, looked embarrassed.

A LITTLE while later Andy said goodbye to Teresa and walked Verna to her car. Kept walking up Coast Highway after she drove off. At St. Ann ’s he went down the concrete stair steps to the sand. From the beach he could see Janelle Vonn’s little cottage up on the rise. And the black ocean with a wobble of moonlight on it.

Should he have called her? Maybe learned what the inside of that cottage was like?

Would that have changed things? Changed what happened in the packinghouse?

He thought of Meredith in her red coat with the upturned collar and the falling stars. Married a dentist. Batch of kids already. Better that way. She deserved better than him.

Thought of Clay. That face of his. That grin. The confidence he had. His meanness that wasn’t quite mean. The assumption that he was right and he would win and his cause was good. A sniper near Kontum. Hearts and minds. How many like him dead by now-seventeen, eighteen thousand? Eighteen thousand! For what? It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it. He’d actually heard an army “spokesman” quoted as saying that on TV the other night. The words had been haunting him ever since.

Andy also thought of himself. Standing right here on earth, this brief little man. Thought of Jesse Black’s songs about Janelle and his own story about the Wolfman Terry Neemal and wondered at the difference between the two. He wanted to make something beautiful, like Jesse Black had made. Andy felt this thing inside that was Janelle but not only Janelle. Believed that a lot of people would want to have the same feeling if he could just give it to them.

Then he saw a light go on in Janelle Vonn’s cottage. Saw a man move past a window behind the curtain. One of Nick’s guys?

Nick himself?

Jesse Black?

Andy moved into the shadow of the bluff. Crunched along the ice plant until he made the stairs. Took them two at a time, trying to keep from slipping on the smooth sandy steps. Legs wobbly. Made the top and stayed with the shadow to the north wall of the house. Squatted down and leaned against it. Heart throbbing against his ribs so loud the world could hear it.

He could hear the man inside. Drawers quietly opening and closing. Closets. Cupboards. Hard shoes on wooden floors. Not urgent. Not covert, really. Methodical.

Ten minutes of that, then nothing. Andy’s legs sore now, the circulation cut down. He moved closer to the north window, got his face up to the bottom corner of the weather-beaten frame.

The curtain didn’t quite cover the pane so Andy got a peek in. Just a sliver but he made out the sofa and posters and part of a kitchen at the far end. A hallway leading back into the house.

Then the man coming from the hall toward him, into the kitchen. Just a split second of face in the light: white guy, late twenties, short dark hair. Suit and tie. He turned and came into the living room, sat on the sofa. Andy could see his profile. Dark eyes, looking up at the ceiling. Thoughtful. Considered. The guy sat there and stared for five minutes. Hardly blinked. Then he stood and went to the front door, locked it. Wiped the lock and knob with a white hankie and walked out.

Andy scrambled around the house, out of sight. Heard footsteps, a car door open and shut. The engine turn over.

When he heard tires moving on blacktop he peeked around the corner. A white four-door pulled up to Coast Highway and made a right. Got the California plate numbers.

He sat for a few minutes with his back against the yellow cottage. Wrote the numbers in his reporter’s notebook. Then up to Coast Highway and the pay phone at the market. Took forever for this guy with a ponytail and earrings and eyes red as rubies to hang up. Pregnant woman on the other one, feeding in dimes like a slot machine.

Nick picked up on the fourth ring and Andy told him what he’d seen. Nick made him say everything at least twice. Taking notes, Andy could hear. He checked his watch when he hung up. It was almost one in the morning.

Back down to the sand. Then along the moon-silvered beach to Cress Street and his home with Teresa. She was still gone. Probably closing the ’Piper, thought Andy. If Chas wasn’t such an asshole he’d be worried about her.

He sat in the living room for a while and thought. Nick hadn’t ventured a guess as to who the guy might be. But Andy wasn’t expecting one.

HE POURED a light drink and went into the little laundry room. His spot. Quiet with the door closed. Good light overhead. Typewriter on a rolling stand, a towel folded under the machine so it wouldn’t bang and echo too much late at night and wake up Teresa. Smell of dryer lint and detergent in here, always liked it.

He took the manuscript out of the cabinet and looked it over. Three hundred and eighty-one pages. His third full novel. Two others too worthless to show, boxed right there in the cabinet side by side, like a couple of beds in an empty room. Proof of something, Andy believed. Stubbornness? Devotion? Vanity?

He looked down at the paper and thought about the scene. Where the smugglers heading from Mexico to Laguna drop the Orange Sunshine and trip all the way through Baja. Don’t realize the federales are following them. Point where the adventure turns ugly.

Strange Trippin’ by Andrew James Becker.

He stared at the blank page for a while, tried to let his mind fill up with the story.

But it wouldn’t fill up. He couldn’t even get interested. Couldn’t think of anything but Janelle Vonn-Baby, time will pass you by but you can catch up if you try-in the packinghouse with her head ten feet away. And the guy in her house. And his unhappy brother trying to find out why.

Helluva first case. Now that was a story.