by J. R. Rain
The fresh air was also suffused with a combination of lotions, sprays, ointments and whatever else it took to look glamorous in Hollywood today.
Dominating the room was a four-poster bed with sheer gossamer curtains, pulled back and tied with red velvet ropes. The first thing I did was cross the room and heft the mattress. Nothing underneath. No revealing Polaroids. Not even a pea. I haphazardly poked the sheets back into place, and moved on.
Next was an antique vanity desk with a hand-carved ornate mirror and matching stool. A neat row of cut glass bottles lined the base of the mirror. I opened the vanity’s three tiny drawers. The first two were empty, and the third contained an expired driver’s license. I studied it. Younger, perhaps just out of high school, very pretty. I put it back, shaking my head.
Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.
I turned and scanned the room. Against the far wall was a closed door. Like a well-used deer trail through a thicket of forest, the polished wooden floor leading up to it was heavily worn and faded.
Miranda’s closet, I presume.
I presumed correctly. Under the inadequate light of a single dusty bulb, a sea of tiny clothing stretched as far as the eye could see. Well, at least as far as these old eyes could see. In actuality, the closet itself was about the size of my bedroom at home—and smelled a whole lot nicer.
I went to work, methodically checking every pocket of every jeans, shirt, slacks, short, dress and things indescribable, at least indescribable to guys like me. I didn’t find much. One partially open cough drop, a handful of change, a wadded up five-dollar bill and one bar receipt. I left the cough drops and money behind, but I put the receipt into a pocket of my own. Although I didn’t step out of a magical wardrobe, I felt as if I were exiting a fantastical, Narnia-like world of sparkly tops, sparkly blue jeans and sparkly shoes.
Don’t knock it. You used to sparkle, too.
Back in the bedroom, I next went to all paintings and pictures hanging on her bedroom walls, checking behind each, hoping for a clue, but finding none.
The final piece of untouched furniture was a cherry wood dresser in the far corner of the room. The top was mostly covered with dozens of picture frames featuring Miranda and many of her friends. Miranda had beautiful friends. Like attracts like. In one of the picture frames—a Minnie Mouse picture frame, in fact—Miranda was smiling for the camera, showing her perfect teeth. Chin slightly dimpled. Light in her eyes. Cheekbones kissed by the gods. A nice picture, certainly, if not for the haunted look in her eyes.
The same look my daughter sometimes had.
I pocketed the small frame to keep for my files. No one would miss it. I next worked my way down through all the dresser drawers, rummaging through shorts and mittens and socks and tank tops and undergarments. I felt each of the socks, looking for anything hidden; nothing. The bottom drawer was empty save for a lacquered cigar box. I lifted it out and cleared a space on top of the shelf and set it down. I opened it. Inside was a ticking Minnie Mouse watch and dozens and dozens of love letters, many dating back to what would have been Miranda’s high school years, which, if my math was correct, would have pre-dated text messaging.
I read through some of them since Miranda’s privacy had disappeared the moment she disappeared. Most of the letters were written by a kid named Flip. Yeah, Flip. Apparently he and Miranda had been an item back in the day. A clue? Maybe, maybe not. At any rate, I rummaged through the letters until I found one with the kid’s last name on it. Flip Barowski. I confiscated it and a couple of others, tucking them behind the picture frame in my back pocket.
I was just putting the cigar box away in the bottom drawer when a voice spoke behind me.
“I can assure you, Mr. King, that you won’t find Miranda in there.”
Dana was standing in the doorway. I stood, perhaps a little too quickly. Immediately lightheaded, I steadied myself on the dresser.
“No, ma’am, I don’t suppose I would.”
“But you’re very thorough, I’ll give you that.”
“You’re paying me to be thorough.”
She frowned at that, but said, “I have guests arriving soon, Mr. King. Will you be much longer?”
I scanned Miranda’s bedroom a final time. The afternoon sun was angling down through the western window. Dust motes caught some of the sunlight, flaring brilliant and then disappearing. Other than her love for clothing and maybe even Flip, nothing else stood out, nothing tell-tale.
I hate when that happens.
I turned back to Dana, who was watching me closely with bloodshot eyes. Her pain was real and her hurt was deep, but I couldn’t help but wonder why she was hurrying me along.
“No,” I said. “I’m done here.”
She showed me down the hallway and down the stairs and then through the front door, which she shut quietly behind me. I stood there a moment on the front porch and sensed her presence just behind me. I think I heard her weeping, but I couldn’t be sure since I had activated the faux dog alarm again.
I moved down the crushed shell drive, got in my car and drove around the block and parked further down the road with a clear view of Dana’s big house. I waited an hour but no guests arrived.
Maybe they were late.
Chapter Fifteen
Kelly and I were in Best Buy looking at a lot of stuff I couldn’t afford. I was hoping to get a new printer, but I wasn’t liking the prices. Luckily, there was always Craigslist.
“I could buy you a new printer, you know,” said Kelly, holding my hand. “We can call it an early birthday present.”
“Thank you, but no thank you.”
“You’re a stubborn bastard.”
“It’s called being old-fashioned.”
“But I make more money than you, and I want to help you. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, but that’s where the old-fashioned part comes in.”
“You can’t let a woman buy you something that you need.”
“Something like that,” I said.
“The guy is supposed to be strong, the provider.”
“You got it.”
“Even when the provider hasn’t done much providing, even for himself.”
“Even then,” I said.
“I think it’s just silly pride,” said Kelly.
“Silly pride is all I have left,” I said.
We were now strolling through the TV section, admiring big screen TVs that looked wider than my apartment wall, and clearer than my windows. I should really clean my windows.
And that’s when I heard it. One of my old songs. Hearing an old song of mine, anywhere, always had an effect on me. And what sort of effect depended on my mood. If I was feeling happy and at peace with the world, hearing one of my old songs always put a smile on my face and reminded me of the good ole days. If I was in a shitty mood, hearing one of my old songs was the absolute last thing I wanted to hear. And, apparently, this Elvis chap was everywhere, and so it was a rare day that I wasn’t reminded of my past.
In this particular case, I was in a fairly lukewarm state of mind. Sure, Kelly and I had been snipping a little at each other, but it was all in good fun. And, sure, my finances weren’t exactly where I wanted them to be, but I wasn’t particularly stressed over it; at least, not at the present. The song, however, didn’t appear to be coming from over the store’s speakers, and so I took Kelly’s hand, searching for the source.
And what I found was highly unexpected.
I had heard of Rock Band and Guitar Hero, of course. Any musician in the industry would have immediately taken note of popular video games that feature rock bands and rock songs.
Not too many things surprised me these days, but I was, admittedly, surprised to see this.
“Elvis Presley: Rock Band,” said Kelly, picking up a box and examining the back of it. “Cute.”
Three kids were crowded around the game, although only one seemed to be actually demoing it. By demoing, I mean he was using a plastic guit
ar and rapidly pressing various buttons built into the guitar’s fretboard, all while a computer generated image of the King of Rock, Elvis Presley himself, sang “Jailhouse Rock” in front of a screaming, raucous crowd. On one side of the screen, multi-colored notes appeared and disappeared. I assumed the colors were associated with the colored buttons on the fretboard. No doubt the object of the game was to press the buttons in conjunction with the appearance of the musical notes, in a simulation of playing a real guitar.
I found it fascinating, perhaps even more fascinating because the game featured my music. No doubt the royalties off this game alone would set me up for the rest of my life.
Dead men don’t get royalties.
True enough, and dead men can’t sue, either. Years ago, just prior to faking my death, I had set aside a small fortune to live off comfortably. That small fortune disappeared quickly, due in part to my own poor judgment and to outright theft by my money handlers. The money handlers hadn’t been privy to my hoax and had promptly raided my account with news of my alleged death. With most of my money gone, I was soon forced to find real work; in particular, work that had nothing to do with the music industry. I answered an ad in the want-ads and soon ended up working for a local private investigator. The work was fun and challenging and I decided to keep at it. When the time came for me to get my P.I. license—and thus get fingerprinted—I had only mild concerns that the prints would come back belonging to one Elvis Aaron Presley, deceased. Back in 1977, when I had had my massive face-altering plastic surgery, I also had the prints from all ten digits shuffled around. The procedure throws off most fingerprint databases and, luckily, it had thrown off the Department of Justice’s database back in the early ’80s, too. My ruse worked, and I was given my investigator’s license.
Now, as I watched the kid rock out to one of my own songs, I could give a shit about all the royalties I was missing out on. All I wanted to do was play, too.
Kelly tugged on my arm to get us moving again, but I told her to hold on. She said fine and wandered off to look around.
When “Jailhouse Rock” came to an end, and the on-screen Elvis avatar bowed to the screaming crowd, the kid playing the game turned to one of his friends and said, “Beat that, bitch!”
The pull was too great. The chance to play one of my own songs and watch a computer generated image of me on-screen, was just too cool to pass up. I stepped forward, “Actually, do you mind if this old bitch has a try at it?”
One of the kids laughed, maybe at my joke, maybe at me. Or both. The one playing the game shrugged and handed me the fake guitar and even showed me how to use it. He next started a new game for me, or a new song, and before I knew it, the computerized Elvis, circa 1968, was back on stage. Kelly, appearing like a groupie, was by my side again, shaking her head and grinning. “Why am I not surprised?” she said. “You always had a thing for Elvis.”
“Maybe it’s a man-crush,” I said.
On the big screen in front of me, notes appeared and disappeared, traveling along a sort of blue highway and coming at me rapidly. I looked from the screen to my hand, and tried pressing the corresponding colored button.
“Too late,” said the kid helping me. “You have to press them sooner, as soon as they appear.”
I nodded, getting it. The other kid laughed again as I missed the next few notes, too. Hell, even the computerized crowd started booing.
“Just ignore them,” said the first kid. “You’ll get it.”
He explained further: When the note reached the bottom of the screen, I was also to use the plastic strum bar, and for each successive note, strum again, using the music’s beat and melody to help me gauge when to play.
Easy, right? No. The game, although simple enough, required ludicrously dexterous fingers. Perhaps too dexterous for my old hands, but I wanted to give it a shot.
After all, these were my songs, right?
After a few more seconds of failure, and laughing from the other kid, I eventually associated the colored buttons to my matching fingers. Playing the thing was all about rhythm and muscle memory, and luckily I had plenty of rhythm—and even some ancient muscle memory stored away in my old fingers. After all, I had played real guitars on real stages to these very songs.
The plastic guitar had a nice feel to it. I hadn’t held a guitar in decades, but this was already bringing back old memories. Fond memories. Damn good memories, in fact.
“Hey, you’re getting it,” said the first kid.
“Not bad,” said Kelly, nudging me with her elbow. “At least the crowd quit booing.”
Now the song picked up in temp, and the notes and colors came at me faster and faster. My fingers, now fully warmed up, flew over the colored key pad. I strummed when I was supposed to. I could almost—almost—imagine being back on stage and doing this for real.
More kids had come up to watch. The one who had been laughing wasn’t laughing any more. My fingers, I knew, were a blur. My advantage was easy: I knew this song in my sleep. Hell, I knew the notes and chords in my sleep, too, even after all these years.
A couple of Best Buy workers came over as well, and now I heard people whispering behind me. I heard the first kid tell them that I had never played before. Someone else said, “No way.”
Yes way, I thought.
I blocked them all out and finished the song in a flourish, strumming and pressing buttons so fast that I knew my fingers would be swollen and sore for days or weeks to come. And when the song was over, when the last button had been pressed, I realized I was gasping for breath and holding the guitar out in front of me as I had done countless times on stage. Sweat was on my brow; I might have been dancing, too, but I couldn’t recall. I had been, as they say, in the zone and oblivious to those around me.
When I opened my eyes and settled back on planet earth, the first kid who helped me was staring up at me in disbelief. Everyone, in fact, was staring at me. Even Kelly. Their faces ranged from humor to surprise.
I handed the guitar back to the kid, who was still staring me. “What?” I asked him.
“You were playing with your eyes closed,” he said.
“Probably not a good thing, huh?”
“But you scored perfectly, hitting every note, without looking. It was incredible.”
I grinned. “Sometimes you get lucky.”
Chapter Sixteen
I was at a bar called Skippers in Hollywood, drinking Newcastle straight from the bottle and, thanks to a handful of Vicodins, working on one hell of a good buzz.
Booze and Vicodins. Don’t try this at home, kids.
Normally, I take about five a day, but lately I’ve been noticing the effects were not the same. Not as strong. I felt good, sure, but not great, and sometimes the aches and pains came back sooner than anticipated.
Can’t have that.
Nope.
Maybe I should start taking six or seven a day.
The idea appealed immensely. I reached inside my jacket pocket, found the bottle of Vicodins, popped the cap with my thumb, shook two more pills out and clicked the cap back on. All with one hand, a real pro at this stuff. Something I’m not necessarily proud of. Anyway, I knocked them back with a beer chaser.
Okay, so now we’re officially up to seven a day. Two weeks ago I had gone from four to five. Now it’s five to seven.
I’m making bigger jumps.
Ten minutes later the prescription drugs were having the desired effect. Blessed numbness, followed by a stronger than normal buzz thanks to the beer. Suddenly, the stool I was sitting on didn’t seem very stable. Maybe it was lopsided.
Funny, it wasn’t lopsided when you first sat down.
No. It wasn’t.
Seven Vicodins was a lot. Too many. And soon even that amount wouldn’t be enough, would it? Soon I would be up to ten, fifteen, twenty. But you don’t care, do you? Because you feel good now. You feel good and pain-free and life isn’t so miserable because of the Vicodins.
Fuck the Vicodins.
Okay, I didn’t mean that.
I drank some more beer and removed the framed photograph from my pocket. It was Miranda, of course, and she was staring back at me with a twinkle in her eye, a half-smile on her lips, her cheekbones high, her hair a flowing glossy wave of black. She was wearing an open-neck white blouse, and I saw behind the half smile. I saw an insecure little girl who still loved Minnie Mouse.
I took another drink and continued staring at the picture and thought of my own daughter again. And again.
And again....
“Is she your daughter?” asked the bartender. He was an older man with a thick mustache.
“Not quite,” I said.
He grinned easily. “She’s very beautiful,” he said.
“Yes, she is.”
At the back of the bar, near a small stage, there was some activity. I’m always on the lookout for stages. Call it a habit. Someone was setting up a karaoke machine.
Oh, goody.
The bartender moved away. I turned back to the picture, drank some more beer. Someone spoke into a microphone, testing it. Ten minutes later, someone else was singing something by Tom Petty. I liked Tom Petty. Ugly as sin, but I like him.
No one followed the Tom Petty act, and so the karaoke DJ filled the lull by singing “Love Me Tender” by Elvis Presley.
And butchered the hell out of it.
Disgusted, I set a twenty on the table and tried to stand but somehow tripped over the wobbly stool. I fell hard and loudly. The bartender was instantly by my side.
“Let me call you a cab, pal,” he said, helping me to my feet. “Or you can cool off over there.” He pointed to some seats in front of the stage and motioned to the singer. “He sounds alright after a few beers.”
I said something derogatory under my breath. Apparently, I wasn’t a good judge of volume these days.
The bartender laughed. “Well, guy, if you think you can do better, why don’t you give it a shot? Would probably clear your head a little.”
