One Last Hit (Joe Portugal Mysteries)

by Walpow, Nathan

  Frampton picked up on it right away. Woz joined in. They got as far as “too many teardrops for one man to carry on.” Squig stopped and looked at me. “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know it.”

  “Everybody knows ‘96 Tears.’“

  “I don’t. But just give me the chords and I’ll be fine.”

  He looked at me and frowned before turning to Woz. “You know where the book is?”

  “Yeah.” Woz took off the bass, laid it lovingly on a metal stand. He went behind the amps and reappeared holding a beat-up volume labeled “Hits of the Sixties Fake Book” and a music stand he’d no doubt liberated from some high school band room. While I set up the stand he flipped open the book, turned some pages, squinted. “Fuck.” He went to his amp, took a pair of black-framed eyeglasses off the top, put them on, returned, checked again. “One forty-two.” Shuffled the pages, put the book on the stand. “Here.”

  “One, two, three, four,” said Frampton, tapping a cymbal, and he and Squig were Farfisa-ing away again. Woz traded the glasses for his bass and joined them. I looked at the book. The chords were easy.

  Squig sang lead. The rest of us contributed oooohs. The guitar part wasn’t much, but I screwed up a couple of times. Nerves. Mostly I just strummed along. During the part about me being on top and you looking up, I did some single-string doodling, approximating what I remembered from the record. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t miserable.

  We did “A Whiter Shade of Pale” next, with Frampton on vocals and Squig closing with a classical organ flourish. Then “Born To Be Wild,” which was hot during the Platypuses’ first incarnation. Everyone contributed vocals. After that, a dozen more. Somewhere along the line I realized no one thought I sucked, and I relaxed. Then I really got good.

  Squig said, “Let’s try ‘Time Is On My Side.’ You know that one, Joe?”

  “Not anymore,” I said. “It in the book?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Sure it is,” Woz said.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Is too.”

  “Is not.”

  “Is too.”

  “Not this again,” Frampton said. “You believe these jokers, Joe?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I believe it. And I love it.”

  “It is kind of a kick,” someone else said.

  She was standing in the doorway. And though I hadn’t recognized the others, I would have known Bonnie Chapman—née Bonnie Morgenlender—in an instant.

  Behind Blue Eyes

  Monte Freeman had them cut a single first, as Bonner and Bonnie, with some studio musicians. “Loves Me, Loves Me Not.” One of their singer-songwriters had put it on an album that went nowhere. Monte Freeman thought it was perfect for Toby and Bonnie. The first day they played it on KBRK phones started ringing. Two weeks later it was number one in L.A. Three weeks after that, number two in the country, with only “Hey Jude” keeping it from the top.

  They made an album, named after the single. The LP reached number three. The next single, “Fakeout,” made the top five. The one after that, “Like Velvet,” number two. There was a tour, backed by a bunch of guys who didn’t play any better than we did but looked a whole lot hipper.

  Squig and Woz, Frampton and me, we watched all this happen with mixed feelings. Happy our friends had made it, bummed that we didn’t get to go with them. No one blamed Bonnie and Toby. Even at that tender age we knew how carnivorous the record business was.

  Bonner and Bonnie started work on their second album. A week in, Bonnie got tonsillitis. When she recovered, she couldn’t sing. Some freak of medicine, the doctors said, only happened once in a hundred thousand cases. It might get better eventually. It might not.

  I read about it all in the paper. Then Bonnie became old news, and I lost track of her. From then on, she was just a lost opportunity, a late-night fantasy, a much-missed friend.

  “It’s good to see you too, Joe,” she said. She walked across the room, with the basset hound at her heels, and hugged me. Her scent was flowery, sweet, fresh.

  She let go, held me at arms’ length. “You look good. Kind of like Jean-Paul Belmondo.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Funny boy.”

  “You look pretty good yourself.”

  Her hair, so long, so blond when we were kids, was shoulder length, darker, tinged with gray. Her face had filled out. There were smile lines, crow’s-feet by her eyes. Her blue eyes were greener than I remembered, a not-quite-natural shade, contacts probably. Her earrings were small gold hoops, her necklace a simple chain. Her suit was dark blue, almost black, her blouse bright white. She was taller than I remembered. Probably the heels. Bonnie in heels. There was a lot I’d have to get used to.

  “I see you all the time on TV,” she said.

  “My bug commercials.” I’d practically made a career out of them. Olsen’s Natural Garden Solutions. Good insects that eat bad ones. People recognized me on the street. I got to do booth gigs in malls. Whoopee.

  “Yes. And your detective adventures.”

  “Fortunately,” I said, “my detective career seems to be have run its course.”

  “Has it?” She turned to Woz, looked him a question.

  “He’s cool,” Woz said.

  “Good.” Back to me. “Woz has become a very suspicious type.”

  “So I’ve seen.”

  “But he plays a hell of a bass.”

  “So I’ve heard. Just now.”

  “You’ve all been playing for a while.”

  “Yeah, for …” I looked at my watch. Nearly two hours had passed. “For a while.”

  “You ready to sing a few, Bon?” Squig said.

  “Know what, boys? I’m really not. It’s been a long, miserable day, and I’m just not up to it. I’m so sorry. And anyway, this was good, right? Gave you boys a chance to work together without some chick singer getting in the way. Right now, all I want to do is change into some comfortable clothes and find something to eat. Can we try again in a couple of days? Maybe this weekend.”

  Mumblings of assent.

  “Good. Then why don’t you all pack up and call it a night.” She passed a dazzling smile around the room and went out. We straightened up, packed our instruments, went back to the main house. Darren and the basset hound followed at a respectful distance.

  Bonnie waited at the front door. She gave the other three a quick hug on their way out. When my turn came she said, “Stay for a bit.”

  Woz turned and leered.

  “Night, Woz,” Bonnie said, and closed the door behind him. “What was that all about?”

  “Woz is convinced I only agreed to this reunion because I have the hots for you.”

  “And do you?”

  “I’m pretty much over it.”

  “Pretty much, hmm? Well. Go in the kitchen. Through that hall. I’m going upstairs to change.”

  The basset hound followed me into the kitchen. Lots of stainless steel, stained wood, glass. Recessed lighting in the ceiling, terra cotta tile on the floor. The pooch meandered to a doggie bed in the corner and lay down. I leaned against a counter and waited. Darren showed up, got a Coke from the fridge, vanished. A little after that Bonnie came in, wearing a T-shirt advertising a band I’d never heard of, sweatpants, and slippers. She opened the refrigerator, bent down, popped back up. “Want anything?”

  “Just something to drink.”

  “I have some fresh-squeezed orange juice.”

  I stifled a giggle. “That’ll do.”

  She took cheese, a tomato, and a jar of mustard from the fridge, and bread from the cupboard. “Grilled cheese. Sure you won’t have one?”

  “Well …”

  “I’m making you one.”

  The T-shirt fit more snugly than her suit. She caught me looking.

  “Reduction surgery,” she said. “Back in ’88. Men gawking all the time. Backaches. Who needed it? And I couldn’t even think about going to the gym.” />
  “I—”

  “Don’t be embarrassed. All the boys had the same reaction. Speaking of my breasts, there’s something I ought to tell you.”

  This explained everything. She had breast cancer and wanted to cut a record before she died.

  “I knew about Bumptious Bonnie Boobs,” she said.

  Well, that was a relief. “How come you never said anything?”

  “Because it was funny, you all thinking you had this silly secret from me. But enough about my boobs.” She got out the orange juice, poured a couple of tall glasses, brought me one. “A toast. To renewal.”

  “To renewal.” Clink.

  She went to work on the sandwiches. Amiable silence filled the room. I sampled my juice, then said, “Nice place.”

  “It keeps the housekeeper employed.”

  “Doing your part for the economy, you big music biz muckymuck.”

  She nodded. “And you? You’re making a living acting?”

  “More or less. I still live in my folks’ house, so I don’t have to worry about rent.”

  “You live with your parents?”

  “God, no. My mom died around the time you were becoming a rock and roll star. My dad’s still around, but he lives with some other old folks in the Fairfax district. What about yours?”

  “Long gone, thank God. I never saw them again.”

  She finished making the sandwiches while we got the grand tour of each other’s careers. She made a hell of a grilled cheese. It was actually grilled. None of that toaster oven stuff. She topped up the OJ and we brought everything to the dining room.

  I took a bite. It was right on. You have to use the good cheese. “When did you become Bonnie Chapman?”

  “‘72.”

  “A child bride.”

  “A very stupid one.”

  “How long did it last?”

  “Four years. By that time people in the industry knew me as Chapman, so I didn’t change it back. About the only good thing to come out of that marriage is not having to spell out Morgenlender every time someone asks for my name.”

  “And that’s where Darren came from?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s weird, you having a grown son.”

  “Think how it must be for me.”

  “He live here?”

  “Yes.”

  “How come?”

  “It’s convenient.”

  “For you, or for him?”

  “Both of us. I like having him around, he likes being around.” She made a vague gesture. “The place is so huge, we can go for days without seeing each other.”

  “What’s he do?”

  “He’s between careers.”

  “What was the last one?”

  “Musician. He sang with a band.”

  “He any good?”

  “Pretty good. Not great.”

  The phone rang. She got up, answered, listened. Her expression turned hard. “Tell the mother to go fuck herself.” More listening. “No. She wants to sue us, let her sue us. We’ll win.”

  She slammed the phone down and took her seat. “Do you know how many music legends are into kid-fucking?”

  “All of them?”

  “Just about.”

  We finished our life stories. She told me about Hysteria Records, more about her short-lived marriage, and how she’d gotten the house in the divorce and had never gotten around to finding someplace more her size. I told her about my theater days and the commercial work since. She asked about wives and children. Informed there’d been none of either—”no kids that I know about, hee-hee”; being with her was turning me back into a teenager—she asked if I was “with anyone.” I told her the Gina story: How we were briefly lovers back in the eighties, how we’d run into each other years later and become best friends, how we’d taken the relationship to the next stage. Or the old stage. Some stage, anyway.

  “What about you?” I said.

  “No one at the moment. I’m a living, breathing cliché. Married to my job.”

  We’d both had enough history. “Why get the band together now?” I said.

  “Two things. One of them’s middle-aged angst.”

  I nodded. “I had a suspicion.”

  “You too?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Feeling older. Missing the stuff of my youth. Hitting fifty.”

  “You hear from the AARP?”

  “Those bastards. Right on my birthday.”

  “Say no more. What’s the other thing?”

  “I got my voice back.”

  “When?”

  “Six months ago.”

  “How?

  “Serendipity. There was an article in the Times health section on menopause and—why that look?”

  “It’s just weird. Last time I saw you you were sixteen, now you’re dealing with menopause.”

  “I’m not there yet, thank God. Anyway, I opened up the paper to finish the menopause article and right next to it was one about voice restoration. There are all sorts of advances going on. So I called Julie Andrews, who—”

  “You know Julie Andrews?”

  She smiled. “Quite well, actually. You going to let me tell this story?”

  I grinned and said yes.

  “The article said she was a big restoration advocate, and I got the scoop. A couple of months later I had the procedure.”

  “Which worked.”

  “My singing voice isn’t the same, the register’s lower and my range is limited, but it’s workable.” She shook her head. “Fact is, it’s better than half the chicks on the Hysteria roster.” She popped the last bit of sandwich in her mouth. “One morning the idea of getting the band together came to me, and it wouldn’t go away.”

  “You started tracking people down.”

  “Squig and Woz, I didn’t have to. I ran into them ten, twelve years ago, and keep in touch. Every once in a while I get to throw them a crumb. A backup gig, something like that. As for you and Frampton, you’re both in the phone book. So there wasn’t any tracking involved.”

  “Did Woz have Frampton under surveillance too?”

  That raised a smile. “No. Only you had that honor. I mentioned one day how I’d read in the paper about your crimebusting, and Woz got paranoid and said he had to check you out.”

  “A guy’s gotta be careful, he told me.”

  “Evidently you passed muster.”

  “Has he been watching me this whole time?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “It just seems a little weird that he and Squig accosted me in a record store a couple of months ago, but I didn’t hear anything else till now.”

  “Oh, that. I got all hot to get the band together, and we found you and Frampton, and then I got cold feet. I thought it was such a dumb idea. So I let the whole thing percolate, and then a couple of days ago I woke up and couldn’t figure out why I was waiting. I called the boys again, and Woz offered to clue you in, which in retrospect probably wasn’t such a good idea.”

  “What’s his story, anyway?”

  “The tough guy act? Part of it’s just his public persona. Some of it’s earned. He’s been busted a few times. Nothing very serious. A dope bust here and there, a disorderly conduct or two. Though he did once shoot up someone’s car.”

  “Did you know they broke into my house?”

  She grimaced. “Woz was rather proud of it. They break anything?”

  “No. If they hadn’t told me I wouldn’t have known about it. I guess lock-picking is among Woz’s skills. Anyway.”

  “Yes?”

  “We’ve talked about you, me, Squig, Woz, Frampton.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “What about Toby?”

  “What about him?”

  “Nobody’s seen him in twenty-five years. Most people think he’s dead.”

  “He’s not dead. At least, I don’t think so.”

  “What, you’ve found him hidden away somewhere? Having nightly jam sessions with J
im Morrison, Gram Parsons, and Elvis?”

  “No,” Bonnie said. “I haven’t found him.” She leaned in closer and caught my eyes. “You’re going to.”

  Fallen Angel

  Toby Bonner was my other best friend at Mark and Ginger’s. We’d sit around, and he would show me tricks on the guitar. No matter how much I screwed up, he stayed with me until I got whatever we were doing. He had a Triumph TR4—he was a little older, old enough to drive—and one day he took me to a secret hideaway he had out in the desert. As far as I knew no one else ever had that honor.

  He arrived at the Greyhound station in Hollywood from some little town in Wisconsin, and within two days got mixed up with some sharks who drugged him up and let him loose on Santa Monica Boulevard. Mark rescued him from the nasties, and his Les Paul from a pawn shop, before much damage was done to either.

  Toby’s guitar playing was simply amazing. I would sit in awe as his fingers flew up and down the fretboard. He coaxed incredible sounds from his ax. A lot of kids could play a million notes a minute. Only the rare one like Toby could make it sound like the music of the gods. To top it off, the boy could sing.

  Then Bonner and Bonnie happened. And ended with Bonnie’s tonsillitis. After she stopped singing, Toby finished that second album with a new girl singer. They barely charted. Toby and Hysteria Records agreed to a parting of the ways. He signed with a smaller label and put out one more album. The music was harder, more bluesy, a power trio in the Cream mold. The record tanked.

  Ten months later, Toby got hooked on heroin. No need to cover the next several years. You’ve heard that kind of story before.

  He cleaned up his act in ’76 and started booking gigs in clubs around town. Whenever I saw in the paper that he’d be playing, I’d vow to go see him. Somehow I never made it. He put out a final album, this one on a label no one had even heard of. It got a rave review in Creem, an adoring paragraph in Rolling Stone, and miserable distribution. I looked all over but never found a copy.

  After that, Toby dropped off the radar. Rumors flew. He was a subsistence farmer in South Dakota. He’d taken a vow of silence and was in a monastery in the south of France. He was at Jonestown but got out the day before the massacre.

  Eventually people lost interest. The rumors stopped floating.