by Susan Kandel
“Listen,” he said, leaning back in his seat. “I gotta be up front with you. I can’t help. I’m sorry. I’m on the straight and narrow these days. Best thing for you to do is get out while you can. Make a clean break. An exit plan. That’s what Anita did. When things got really bad, she was going to go to Gloria. You know her?”
I shook my head.
“Anita’s sister. Lives here in town. Works at Hello Kitty. Gloria’s great. Anyway, you’ve probably got somebody like Gloria in your life. Somebody you can trust. That’s who you need to go to.”
A tall man in an undershirt came out of the freshly painted ranch house. I thought pink was a poor choice, but this is America. He was carrying a baseball bat. His wife stood in the doorway, a phone in her hands.
“Is there something I can do for you?” he asked us. “If not, I strongly suggest you get the fuck off my lawn.”
Jonathan started up the car and we drove back to the lot in silence. Instead of pulling up to the front, though, he stopped the car in the alley around the back. “Wait here. I have something for you.” He disappeared inside.
Five minutes passed.
I’d barely had a chance to think these last few days. This was my chance. But it’s hard to think on demand.
Okay.
I was looking for somebody who wanted Anita dead. I was also looking for somebody with the brains and resources to orchestrate a pretty complicated setup. I didn’t know about his brains, but Jonathan Tucci was stuck in a dead-end job. If he’d had any resources, he’d surely have left All-America Auto a long time ago.
Which didn’t necessarily mean he was one of the good guys.
I heard the crunching of tires on gravel. It was Jonathan driving my Camry, which now had Arizona plates where the California plates used to be.
I gathered up my things and got out of the Sundance.
“You’re gonna need your money,” he said, handing me my keys. “These plates should help, at least for a while. I put the old ones in the trunk.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I think.”
“I gotta get back now,” he said. “Maybe I can still make my quota for the week. It’s tough because we don’t have the inventory of some of the other dealers around here. Oh, well. A person does what a person can do.”
I looked up. The sun was setting behind an old fence covered with layer upon layer of peeling paint. It reminded me of a laundry disaster I’d once had. It had been another long day. I was tired of thinking. I was ready to fall into bed.
“You have a place to stay?” he asked.
“I thought I’d try down the street.” There were half a dozen dingy-looking motels, but I was going to the Marriott. Just for tonight. They had room service and I wanted a steak and HBO and a soft bed with cool, crisp sheets.
Jonathan shook his head. “Even if you plan on paying cash, you’re going to have to leave a credit card. You don’t want to leave a credit card, do you?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Get back on the 99 heading toward Fresno. Get off at the next exit. Go to the E-Z Nights. Big sign. You can’t miss it. I know the guy that works there. Jason. Tell him Jonny sent you. You say you’re paying cash, that’ll be good enough for him.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re a friend of Anita’s,” he said. “And pretty naïve, no offense. I don’t think you get who you’re dealing with. You want to make sure these people don’t find you, and, if they do, that they don’t recognize you.”
Jonathan Tucci was helpful, but not very reassuring.
He reached out and touched my shoulder. “I never did ask you your name.” But before I could answer, he said, “Never mind. It’s better I don’t know. Good luck.”
I smiled.
“You remind me of Anita,” he said, regret in his voice. “Just a little.”
“Sounds like that’s a compliment,” I said.
“Yeah. I loved her. But it was a long time ago.”
I nodded, then got into my Camry and drove away.
Chapter 26
Before getting onto the 99, I made a pit stop at a beauty supply store at the bottom of Oak Street. I tried my best to be anonymous, but the employees had some screwy ideas about good service. The clerk insisted upon accompanying me to aisle eight. The cashier swore up and down that I was a dead ringer for his cousin. The assistant manager appeared out of nowhere, urging me to apply for a frequent buyer card, which saves customers an average of thirty bucks a year. I mumbled something about my poor credit, then grabbed my purchases and slunk off.
By the time I got onto the freeway, paranoia had set in. Again.
First there was the red Pinto. I didn’t like the look of the driver. He was wearing a fedora, like a hood in a film noir. He was sticking to me like glue.
Then there was the beat-up van I’d seen in the beauty supply store’s parking lot. I’d noticed it because of the bumper sticker:
ROSES ARE RED, VIOLETS ARE BLUE, I’M SCHIZOPHRENIC AND SO AM I. Could it be mere coincidence that this particular head case was now driving in the lane next to mine?
I had to get a grip.
The whole world wasn’t out to get me.
Just certain people in it.
Whose numbers appeared to be expanding rapidly.
I got off the 99 at the next exit, keeping my eye on the rearview mirror as I took a sharp right onto Buck Owens Boulevard.
You want to make sure these people don’t find you, and if they do, that they don’t recognize you.
The words pounded against my skull like jackhammers. I had to get to the motel. I had to peel off my sweaty clothes, hide my money under the mattress, take the necessary security measures.
But the E-Z Nights had obviously taken down the sign Jonathan Tucci said I couldn’t miss. I’d been up and down Buck Owens twice now, and I still couldn’t find it. The place had probably gone out of business. Dive motels have small profit margins.
I swung one last U-turn and headed back toward the freeway.
That was that.
I was going to the Marriott. I was going to pretend I’d lost my wallet and that was why I had no credit cards or ID. It was the obvious strategy. But that didn’t mean it was going to work. Let’s face it. I was going to make a scene. The frightened receptionist was going to call the general manager, who was going to call the security guard, who was going to call the cops, who were going to haul me to the clink, where I would be offered a hard pillow and a stale cheese sandwich, which would barely tide me over until the morning, when I was going to be escorted to Detectives McQueen and Collins at the twenty-eighth precinct, right on schedule.
And what about the security measures? They had to come first. The bad guys could get me even while in police custody. These things happen every day.
I slammed on the brakes, backed up, and pulled the Camry into the last establishment before the on-ramp to the 99.
BUCK OWENS’ CRYSTAL PALACE. GREAT FOOD AND GREAT COUNTRY MUSIC TWELVE MONTHS A YEAR, FIVE DAYS A WEEK.
If it had a bathroom, it would do.
I parked behind a looming clump of saguaro cactus, yanked up my collar, and kept my head down all the way to the entrance.
The handles on the front door were shaped like guitars.
“Welcome,” said the woman behind the desk, who had hair nearly as high as Marie Antoinette’s. She was folding commemorative T-shirts.
“One for dinner.” I glanced furtively in either direction, only then removing my sunglasses.
“We don’t open until five.”
Just like the sign out front said. “You’re kidding me.”
“Real sorry about that.” She was almost to the bottom of the stack.
“Do you think I could just look around inside for a minute? I’m a huge country music fan.” I walked over to the larger-than-life bronze statue of Merle Haggard and sighed appreciatively.
“Okay.” She was tidying the commemorative pens now. “You want to visit the museum. Five
dollars.”
The museum appeared to be what they called the restaurant when it was closed. It was chock-full of memorabilia: Buck’s first Fender guitar; a bejeweled jacket made by the famous rock ‘n’ roll tailor Nudie for Buck’s third Japanese tour in 1973; the sheriff’s uniform Buck wore when he costarred with Gavin McLeod and Tony Danza in the ABC Movie of the Week Murder Can Hurt You. The pièce de résistance was a Pontiac Granville convertible built for Elvis that Buck won in a poker game in Vegas in 1976, which was hanging sideways over the bar. And to think I only knew Buck as the guy who hosted Hee Haw. Not that he was my favorite member of the cast. That was Minnie Pearl, who wore those hats with the $1.98 price tags dangling from them.
The waitresses were setting the tables for dinner. I asked where the ladies room was, and they pointed me down to the far end of the bar.
I went inside, peeked underneath the stalls to make sure no one was there, and locked the door. Then I opened the bag from the beauty supply store, and laid the security measures out on the counter.
A kitchen timer.
Some plastic gloves.
A shower cap.
A hand towel.
A bottle of cream lightener.
A bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
I took a deep breath, then cracked my knuckles.
According to the cashier, this was serious business. There were no second chances. After applying the solution, my hair would go from dark brown to dark reddish brown to red-dish brown to reddish orange to orange to orangey yellow to yellow to pale yellow to white—and, if I didn’t rinse in time, to melted, then directly to bald.
I studied my reflection in the mirror. I loved my big, brown hair. After all these years, I knew exactly how to tame it into submission. It was bouncy and shiny instead of dry and cumulonimbus-like, thanks to recent advances made in the hair-care industry, which included the aforementioned Frizz-Ease.
I opened the bottle of lightener. It smelled like toxic waste.
I looked in the mirror again.
Straw isn’t bouncy or shiny or sexy. Neither is cotton candy. Neither are bald spots.
I closed the bottle, gathered up my things, and headed back out to the woman in front.
“All done already?” she asked.
“Yes,” I replied, putting my sunglasses back on. “My favorite was the picture of Buck with Marilu Henner. I love her. Anyway, I took one look in the bathroom mirror at this wretched mop and realized I need to get it done before coming back later tonight for karaoke. Is there a beauty parlor around here?”
She touched her sky-high teased locks and smiled. “In Bakersfield? We got a beauty parlor on every corner, honey.”
Carmen from Carmen’s Curl Up ‘n’ Dye kindly agreed to stay open an extra hour and bleach my hair after I promised her my high-heeled gladiator sandals and two hundred dollars for her trouble. I was hemorrhaging money now, but I supposed that was better than actually hemorrhaging.
Carmen was a large woman with soulful eyes and a taste for drama. Carmen likes her clients to sit facing away from the mirror while she does their hair so they get a surprise at the final moment before forking over the dough. And who doesn’t love surprises?
Carmen draped a white cape around my shoulders and applied the solution with the quiet confidence that comes from experience, which made me feel better in spite of the nasty odor.
I started to relax.
I perused the edifying literature: Star, US Weekly, In Touch, Hello! and Soap Opera Digest.
That took ten minutes.
It took four times that long, however, for the bleach to oxidize the melanin molecules in my hair, removing the color in an irreversible chemical reaction. Which gave me time to think about the chemical reactions in Vertigo.
Poor Judy.
She falls desperately in love with Scottie, but he is still in love with the dead Madeleine. Caught in the grip of his obsession, he implores her to change her style of dress, her manner of speaking, and, finally, the color of her hair so that she more closely resembles his lost love object. The irony, of course, is that Judy and Madeleine are the same woman. Scottie has the woman he thought he wanted, but he prefers an apparition to flesh and blood.
Poor Kim Novak.
Never given her due as an actress, despite her unforgettable performance as the earthy shopgirl and the troubled ice queen Scottie manipulates her into becoming. But then Kim Novak was familiar with this kind of voluntary self-immolation. Her real name was Marilyn Pauline Novak, but the studio couldn’t have another Marilyn, so they made her change her name to Kim. As for Hitch, he loathed her for resisting the transformation process all his leading ladies had to undergo.
“We’re done!” said Carmen. “Ready to turn around?”
She whipped off my robe and spun me in the chair so that I was facing the mirror. Looking back at me was someone both familiar and utterly strange.
A Hitchcock blonde.
There was only one thing missing.
“Can you put it up?” I asked.
Carmen made a face. “How?”
“In a chignon.”
“What’s that, like a bun?” she asked.
The bun is to the chignon as Twinkies are to mille-feuilles.
“Yes,” I replied. “Like a bun.”
“Will can do.” She whipped out the hairpins.
As I was paying, I caught another glimpse of myself in the mirror.
Déjà vu. That’s what I was feeling.
“You’re a love.” Carmen buckled up her new gladiator sandals. “These are absolutely gorgeous. Xavier, my husband, is going to go ape shit.”
I asked Carmen if she knew of a cheap motel in the immediate area.
“Try the E-Z Nights,” she said, walking up and down the linoleum floor. “Like butter,” she cooed.
“I’ve been looking for that place,” I said, slipping into a pair of lime-green foam pedicure thongs Carmen had dredged up for me. “Where exactly is it?”
“End of the next block, just off the road. They took down the big sign because they’re doing construction on Buck Owens. Even so, you can’t miss it.”
But some people miss things even when they’re right under their nose.
Chapter 27
Now the rain was coming down in sheets. I’m not talking your ordinary hard rain. I’m talking torrential downpour. The kind that picks little children up off their feet and whirls them down storm drains.
I didn’t have an umbrella, but Carmen was gracious enough to sell me a polyester scarf for the mere cost of twenty-five dollars. I covered my hair the best I could, then made a run for it.
It was dark now.
The windshield wipers were moving back and forth at a furious pace, but I still couldn’t see more than a foot in front of me. I reached forward to wipe the condensation off the window, but that only made it worse.
This was a bad idea.
I hit the defogger button, which hadn’t worked in at least five years.
I’d already had one accident today. The smart thing would be to pull over. Or give up entirely.
Just then something emerged from the haze.
A red neon sign.
I’d found the E-Z Nights.
The NO in front of VACANCY was sputtering inconclusively, which I was going to take as a YES. I pulled the car to a stop in front of a small cabin marked OFFICE and bolted inside.
The lobby was small, overheated, and overstuffed. Its contents included: a tile-top table covered with old Life magazines; a stained-glass lamp; a wingback chair; several hooked rugs; the overwhelming smell of cabbage; a grandfather clock mocking me with its relentless ticking; a desk, of course; and a bell, which I rung.
After getting no response, I sprinted back to the car and honked the horn several times. I waited less than a minute before backing out because, to be perfectly honest, I’d have rather slept in my dented car with the dysfunctional defogger than at the E-Z Nights. But then, all of a sudden, a tall figure emerged
from the darkness and pressed his face to the window. He looked like he was melting. But that was just the rain. Or maybe my tortured state of mind.
The man gestured for me to roll down the window. I gave him an inch.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was showing a guest to his room. Can I get your door for you?”
Something in his voice made me pause, but I didn’t have the energy to figure out what. “Okay.”
“Get under the umbrella.”
I got under and we ran back to the office. He shut the door behind him. Then he flipped the sign in the window from YES, WE’RE OPEN to COME BACK ANOTHER TIME.
“Don’t you stay open all night?” I removed my scarf and tucked a loose strand of hair behind one ear.
“Well, there are no more vacancies. After you, I mean.” With that, he clicked on the NO, and a burst of neon illuminated the night sky. “So there isn’t any point, is there?”
“Guess not.” I cleared my throat. “You must be Jason.”
He pulled off his baseball cap. “Jason hasn’t worked Saturdays in about a month now.”
Of course he hasn’t.
The man who was not Jason had close-cropped hair, a long straight line of a mouth, and eyes that darted back and forth like he was looking for something that wasn’t there. He was wearing a pale blue shirt buttoned all the way to the top. But maybe he was more obliging than he looked.
“It’ll be just you, then?” He plunged a No.2 pencil into an electric sharpener.
I spoke up so he could hear me. “That’s right. Party of one.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a party.” He touched the point, which broke off. “Useless.” Then he plunged the pencil back into the little hole. “How many nights did you say?”
“Just one. Two at the most.”
“Either way is fine. It’s a nice room, very private. $59.99 plus tax okay?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll just be needing a credit card to secure it.”
“The thing is,” I said, smiling, “I lost my wallet someplace earlier today.”
He searched my face. “What’re you smiling for, then?”
