Freaky Deaky

Chapter 7

Chris was in the living room with the Sunday papers when his dad came in. His dad had a sportcoat and a parka over his arm and was wearing a dress shirt with the collar open, the tie hanging untied. Before closing the door he said, "You still here?"

"Where'm I gonna go? I don't have a car."

"I thought of it, you could've taken the Cadillac."

"I have to get a car, find an apartment, start a new job. . . . I have to get an apartment before they find out at work I'm living here."

His dad said, "I thought you were visiting."

"You know what I mean." Chris watched his dad drop the coats on a chair and come in stretching, yawning. "You stay at Esther's again?"

"We got in late."

"That's two nights in a row."

"We didn't do anything," his dad said, "if it'll ease your mind any. We got back, stopped at Brownie's for a couple and came home. We were bushed."

"How was the cruise?"

"It was nice. You want a beer?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

His dad was heading for the kitchen. "Take a look, you'll see the ship over at the marina."

Chris got up from the sofa and went to a front window where his dad kept a pair of binoculars handy on the sill. He raised the glasses, made adjustments and swept the gray expanse of Lake St. Clair, overcast, Canada way off somewhere, hidden. Then brought the glasses down to the Jefferson Beach Marina, just north of the high rise. He heard a beer can pop open and his dad close behind him saying, "Go all the way out from Brownie's to the end of the spit. You see it?"

"You can't miss it."

"It's a beauty, hundred-and-seven-foot motor yacht designed strictly for entertaining. You rent it for about seven hundred an hour, take your friends out, your customers, it holds about a hundred and fifty people. They set up a buffet in the lower deck, the salon. Topside there's a bar and a big open afterdeck."

"Wasn't it cold?"

"We wore coats, it wasn't bad. I told you, it was a benefit type of cruise, raise money for some foundation that has to do with promoting culture. Esther's into all that. Beautiful buffet, wine, any kind of booze you want--I only saw one guy smashed. Guy would finish a drink and throw his glass off the stern. The kind of thing you might see at a police outing, you and your buddies get together. No, this was a well-behaved crowd, so you noticed a jerk like this guy. Plus the fact when it got cold he put on a fur coat. Looked like some kind of wild animal standing up drinking martinis. Five hours, he must've had twenty silver bullets. I'm not kidding."

"Got his head bent pretty good."

"You'd think so, but he hardly showed it, outside of being obnoxious. I mean he didn't fall down or start a fight."

Chris turned from the window. His dad was on the sofa now, straightening the newspapers. "Where'd you go, south?"

"Yeah, down the river. They were making a movie on Belle Isle. We didn't know what was going on. Somebody said they were filming a car chase."

"Jerry Baker was assigned to it. He said they blew up some cars."

"Yeah, on the Detroit side, off the bridge. We heard about it but didn't see it. We had to go past on the Canadian side. This's a big boat, holds a hundred and fifty people."

"Jerry said it took all day to film the one shot. They built a ramp so the car would go flying off the bridge up in the air. They film guys shooting at the car with machine guns one day, then film the car exploding the next day. Jerry said most of the time all you do is stand around."

"We didn't see any of that," his dad said. "We cruised past the riverfront, checked to see if the Renaissance Center was still there, went down as far as Joe Louis Arena and came about. It was nice, they served the buffet, they had roast beef, chicken. . . . This guy, this jerk I mentioned'd drink his martini and throw the glass over the side? This guy, all by himself, sits down at the buffet table, people trying to get around him, and eats off the serving platters. Pushes the salad around with his fork, finds a tomato, reaches over, spears a few shrimp, pulls the platter of smoked fish practically right in front of him. Unbelievable. You imagine? Who wants any salad after this guy's been eating out of the bowl? People have to walk around him--nobody says a word."

"I'm surprised you didn't."

"I almost did, I came close. Esther wouldn't let me. I'm telling you the truth, this guy must've had twenty martinis. One right after the other. Stopped to mess up the buffet table and went back at it. I don't know why he wasn't laid out on the deck."

"Fun on the river," Chris said.

"We had a nice time. . . . The guy was harmless, I shouldn't let it bother me."

"Who was he, you know?"

"No, and I see all these people coming up to him, shaking his hand, being very pleasant. This guy gives 'em a stupid grin, like he has no idea who they are. Acting goofy. I ask Esther, she can't believe I don't know who it is. So she tells me his name. . . . Now I can't think of it. Buddy? No, that's not it. I said to Esther, 'Where've I been? I must've been out blacktopping parking lots all my life, I never heard of this guy.' I said, 'What's he known for, outside of being a horse's ass?' Esther says you have as much dough as this guy you can do just about anything you want. Well, you can't argue with her there, you see the way these rich guys park in front of the Detroit Club. You or I, we double-park in front of a Coney, run in for a hot dog, it costs us forty bucks. And this guy also I find out never worked a day in his life. Anyway, what'd you do yesterday? You break down and call Phyllis?"

"That's over with."

"You feel okay about it?"

"I'm fine. I brought some case files home with me. Start reading up on sex crimes."

"How's it look?"

"There some weird people out there."

"Woody," his dad said, "that's the guy's name, Woody something."

Sunday afternoon Robin sprayed a circle around the Ricks brothers on the wall and began to fill it in, sweeping the surface with layers of red paint, gradually closing in on the names to take out WOODY first, then paused to look at

MARK

in the white center. Mark in the bull's-eye. The new Mark revealed last night at his brother's weird swimming party.

Mark doing lines at poolside in his wet silk undies. Mark getting high, talking about Goose Lake, playing tapes of groups they used to listen to in the sixties and early seventies. That was still the old Mark. The new one emerged as Mark came down from his high, sort of crash-landed and began to whine and roll his eyes, Mark trying to dramatize what it was like to have an idiot for a partner. (Interesting, Woody was an actual partner.) Robin, at ease in her black panties, began to frown and sympathize.

"But Mark, you're the one who makes it happen. You're the name, the star."

Of course he was, he admitted it, glancing at her breasts, telling her what it was like to feel his talent smothered. "What a waste," Robin said, noticing that as she continued to sympathize, Mark's gaze remained on her breasts. Before long he seemed to be speaking to them as Robin listened, telling her breasts he could be doing rock concerts at Cobo Hall and Joe Louis Arena. The money was there, all kinds of it. The problem was the immovable 250-pound moron sitting on it. Mark, before her eyes, presenting a new possibility, a different approach.

Monday afternoon Skip phoned from the bar in the Yale Hotel, Yale, Michigan.

"This town, I don't think it's changed a bit, except I couldn't find the goddamn dynamite place. I drove up and down M-19, I came back, went in the feed store and they said, Yeah, that's where it is, how come you couldn't find it? Shitkickers love to get smart with you, if you don't look like one of them. See, there isn't any sign on the place. I guess the house is the same, but there are a lot more trees than I remember and they have a big new red barn with a white roof."

"Trees grow," Robin said.

"Is that right? Well, see, I didn't know that. So I got the guy's phone number and called, but nobody answered."

Robin said, "You're not going to buy it, are you?"

"No way. Michigan, I find out, you have to get permission from the State Police. No, I'm gonna wait till some farmer with ninety dollars and stumps to blow comes along and buys a case. He gets it home, then I'll lift it off him. Otherwise, if nobody comes along by tomorrow evening I'll have to bust into that barn. It's riskier, but then I know I'll get exactly what we need."

"Tomorrow," Robin said. "You're going to spend the night in Yale?"

"I don't have a choice. I don't want to drive all the way back to Detroit, I'm tired. We worked late to finish, then had to pack up. I'm suppose to go to the wrap party tonight but I'll be right here at the Sweet Dreams Motel. Honest, that's the name of it."

Robin said, "So I probably won't see you till tomorrow night."

"The latest. But it could be anytime, if the dynamite guy ever gets a customer."

"Whenever it is," Robin said, "call me here. Then I'll meet you at Mother's."

"You gonna stay with me?"

"You know I can't."

"Man, it's gonna be lonesome."

"Skip . . . ?"

He said, "Uh-oh. What?"

"Nothing's wrong. Listen, we may change our game plan. I ran into Woody."

"I was gonna ask you."

"I even got invited to his house. It looks exactly the same, all the heavy furniture, the life-size painting of Mom in the front hall, the only time she's ever appeared sober. . . . You know what we did?"

"I'm dying to hear."

"We went swimming. Woody makes you take your clothes off and go in the pool before you can have a drink or a line or whatever you want, he has everything. He cranks the stereo way up and everybody gets zonked. Donnell sort of lurks, the way their mom used to."

"Well, did you get Woody aside?"

"It wasn't the right time. The whole scene, it was too loud, confusing. Woody disappeared after a while, I don't know what happened to him." Robin paused. "I think we'll be taking a different approach anyway."

"Like what else you getting me into?"

"I have to work it out. But I will, don't worry."

"I'm not worried," Skip said. "I'm up here in Yale, Michigan, trying to rip off a case of dynamite in a rented Hertz car. What've I got to worry about?"

"I'm just about convinced we should go after Mark."

"He was there, huh?"

"Mark and Woody were together, but I don't think it was Mark's idea. Mark puts on his suave act, he still does that, wants you to think he's cool. And Woody still comes off as the lout, sort of an offensive Poor Soul. Only now Woody's got Mark by the ass for the rotten way Mark used to treat him. I have a hunch Mark even pimps for him."

"Well, you said Woody's got all the dough."

"Yeah, but I didn't think he had the brains to use Mark. That's what he seems to be doing."

"I guess you don't need brains if you're rich."

"Woody comes up with these shlock ideas--he loves those big Broadway musicals, Oklahoma, you know, Fiddler on the Roof. The next one they're doing is Seesaw."

"Never heard of it."

"Full of hit tunes like 'Lovable Lunatic' and that show-stopper 'It's Not Where You Start It's Where You Finish.' Meanwhile Mark's dying to put on rock concerts. Remember 'I Wanna Be Your Dog'?"

"Sure, old Iggy and the Stooges."

"Mark wants to sign Iggy Pop and make him a superstar."

"I'd go for that."

"Woody wants to get in touch with Gordon Macrae and see if he'll do Carousel."

"Who's Gordon Macrae?"

"Remember Savage Grace? Ten Years After? The Flying Burritos? Mark dug out these old tapes Woody has--Iggy doing 'I Wanna Be Your Dog'--all the groups we heard at Goose Lake, the summer of 'seventy."

Skip said, "That rock concert? I wasn't at Goose Lake. They had me in the Washtenaw County jail for littering, passing out all your pamphlets everybody threw away and I got blamed for. I think ever since we met I been doing the heavy work and you been having all the fun."

"I'm going to look it up," Robin said, "but I'm pretty sure Mark's in my Goose Lake journal. Something I wrote I think was like a prophecy."

"Goose Lake, sounds like a kiddie show."

"It wasn't bad. Woodstock without the rain and mud."

"Get laid by strangers. Was that your trip?"

"I knew everybody I slept with," Robin said. "You should've been there."

"I should've been anywhere but in jail. Hey, I got one for you. You remember Dick Manitoba and the Dictators?"

"Never heard of them."

"See, you don't know everything, do you?"

"I miss you," Robin said. "Anyway, if Mark's in my Goose Lake journal I'm going to take it as a sign."

Skip said, "Does that make sense? If Woody's in charge, what do we want to go after Mark for?"

"Because he needs a friend," Robin said. "Mark has a major problem and could use some help. Trust me."

"Hey, Robin?"

"What?"

"I got another one. You remember Manfred Mann's Earth Band?"

" 'Get Your Rocks Off,' " Robin said. " 'Bye."

She picked up the spray can from the desk, stepped to the wall and swept the surface with paint until MARK joined his brother, both of them now hidden beneath a brilliant socko design on the white wall, a sunburst, a bright red ball of fire, an explosion. . . .

Robin closed the red-covered notebook, her journal labeled MAY-AUGUST '70, and sat staring at the design on the white wall. Several minutes passed in silence before she picked up the phone and dialed Mark's office, murmured quietly to the young woman who answered, keeping her voice low, and then waited. Mark came on the line and Robin said, "Hi, you want to hear something funny?"

"Love to."

"You know the journal I kept?"

"Sure, I remember."

"I was looking through it, I came to something I wrote on August tenth, 1970." Robin paused. "If I tell you . . ."

"Wait, August 1970 . . ."

"We were at Goose Lake."

"Oh, right. Yeah, of course."

"You promise you won't laugh?"

"I thought you said it was funny."

"It is, but I don't want you to laugh."

"I promise."

"I wrote on that day, August tenth, 'I think I'm in love with Mark Ricks.' "

"Come on, really? Wow, listen, I don't think that's funny."

Robin said in her low voice, "You don't?"