The morning fog lifted about ten a.m., like a misty curtain from the land, and withdrew to the sea revealing a fairyland of coastline meeting the pine tree forests. The Santa Lucia Mountains glowed in the distance, reflecting brown tones in the morning light and I knew just nine miles to the north, Hearst Castle stood glistening white in the sunlight of another day. Cambria was divided into three residential hills, subdivided recently by the Cambria Pines Development Company out of San Francisco. Lodge Hill, Happy Hill and Park Hill comprised the subdivision settled in amongst the Monterey Pine trees. Twenty-five by seventy-foot lots were postage stamp properties for retired folks to build their dream cottages and live out their final days. Few paid attention to the fact that the local soil was a sticky clay and sewage percolation would be a difficult process. So the morning air also held a certain odor of leaking septic tank leach lines. Ah… for the sake of the all-mighty buck!
The local community park was located along the shoreline at the base of…you guessed it…Park Hill. I walked along the shore, listening to my feet crunching in the pebbles and watching the waves break against the rocks dotting the shoreline. There didn’t seem to be any sand on these beaches….just the tiny pebbles. The northwest wind had begun blowing by eleven o’clock and a chill came to the air. I spotted an old-timer with a cane making his way toward me. He looked tanned and was singing at the top of his lungs. He wore only an undershirt and trousers. “Top of the mornin’ to you, stranger!” he bellowed out in a big, healthy voice. “Every day’s a good day for it—now isn’t it true? I’m known as Tarzan of the Pines, my good lad.”
“Good for what?” I asked as he came closer. “My name is Denning.”
“Breathing in clean, healthy air and scouting the beach for vibrant, healthy young things. We never lose our need to ogle, in case you were wondering how it’ll be when you get older.”
“No, I guess not. You…you live here long?”
“Yep. Ray Tyson and I are probably the longest living residents except for Pop Lyons, and Fidelio Fiscalini. Gus Cosso and Spider Bianchini come in a close second, I’d reckon.” Then he looked at a clump of rocks a little south of us. “Those rocks—see ‘em? A few years back a world-class swimmer drowned in the undertow over by those rocks. See how the waves come right up to the shore, then curl under with a violent action and spin back? That’s because the sea is so deep here, almost up to the tide line…treacherous. I learned long ago to respect Mr. Sea.”
“May I ask what you know about a guy named Arthur Beatle?”
He looked at me with a different expression than he had heretofore. “Beatle? Ha! A quintessential quack! A big talker, a dangerous man…cynical, criticizes everything, from abalone poaching to our magnificent U.S. Government. Why do you ask?”
“I, uh… I was wondering about his character. I’m supposed to look up a young daughter of a friend of mine who’s staying with Arthur Beatle. Just trying to get some inside information.”
He scrutinized my face and narrowed his eyes. “You some kind of detective or something?”
“Yep. Exactly. Only I’m acting in an unofficial capacity during this visit. I’m supposed to be on vacation.”
“I see. Well, stranger, if you’re talkin’ about Cassie Olson—Art Beatle and she are two birds of a feather—that’s how I’d describe the young lady. On the other hand, she’s almost too beautiful to be here in Cambria. She carries herself like she belongs in Hollywood in the movies or something. I’ve watched local boys destroy themselves trying to get at her. But she is either very persnickety when it comes to the opposite sex—or maybe doesn’t prefer them—if you get my drift.”
“Yeah, well, it’s hard to tell about those things sometimes, isn’t it?”
“If your friend is her mother, shame, shame…she shouldn’t have abandoned the young woman—I think she’s barely over twenty—in a remote community where there’s little to do for young people. Unless you become a slut like that Jane Slaughter and warble a few songs to the drunk sailors at The Bucket of Blood.”
“Well, you’ve been very helpful, sir. Thanks and I’ll bid you good day.” I walked away from the rather opinionated bloke as he continued his way down the beach toward the jagged rocks he was speaking of earlier. I could still hear his singing voice on the wind as I got in Elisa’s little black coupe. Funny how prejudice people become, how they judge before knowing the whole story. Maybe it was to protect their own little moral comfort zones, or maybe they simply didn’t care enough to take it any further, but remained content to rabble rouse and let the partial truth or the lie remain. I don’t know, maybe Jane Slaughter was a whore, but it wasn’t any of my business.
Nitwit Ridge and Arthur Beatle’s creek rock castle was everything people had said—and a few things more. I parked across from the four-story monstrosity and walked across the little dirt road to the bedspring gate. A sign read, “Professor Nitwit Is In…” and so I took the liberty of entering. About fifteen steps took me to the first landing. Each step was hand crafted with cement, inset with pebbles of all sizes and abalone shell pieces. I wandered about for a few minutes, marveling at how a man’s frustrated sex drive could have built this edifice in a decades-long frenzy of building and rebuilding.
Finally, I found a sinewy man with dark, curly hair shoveling in a patch of garden on a terrace about three flights up. “Mr. Beatle—I hope I’m not intruding. I wanted to speak with you for a minute, if I may.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “You from the political piggy bank in San Luis? If you are, you ain’t gettin’ my blood, no siree!” he exclaimed.
“No, I was an acquaintance of Miss Olson’s mother—she asked me to check in with her daughter if I should pass this way. Well, I’m passing this way…”
“Pshaw!” he exclaimed. “Name ain’t no more Olson than mine is Charlie Chaplain, says I.” He put his shovel down and walked over toward me. He spit on the ground. “Why didn’t the mother come to visit her kin? A strange bunch, Professor Nitwit is thinkin’.”
“I—I guess she might be dead by now, Mr. Beatle.”
“Dead, you say? That’s piteous news, now, ain’t it? Call me Art—and who might I be exchanging verbiage with?”
“Denning…Cable Denning.”
“And may I inquire precisely as to your personal interest in Cassie? You see, many a man has turned the rug over for that gal, got fit to tie themselves into the woman-snare, but she isn’t about to succumb. So how did the mother get dead?”
“It’s a long story…but I think she’s gone by now.”
“By now? You knew she was going to be raising turnips?”
“A short while ago. Let’s just say I had advance warning. You see, her mother was rather eccentric, sort of—”
“—one of them, eh? Why didn’t you just come out and say it?—mother’s a stranger to these here earth climes, now wasn’t she? Just like that taunting daughter of hers with alabaster skin and yellow-green eyes—with little fire-red specks in ‘em. But Professor Nitwit knows a thing or two.”
It puzzled me how he sensed that Saturnalia was not a native species to the earth. “I wouldn’t go that far—”
“—why not? I would. Like mother like daughter, Denning. Cassie be strange, no matter how you look at her. She’s too everything. She’s too intelligent, too good lookin’, too cautious, too isolationist, too perceptive, too mysterious and too desirable. Pshaw! We’re two grown men and we know for a fact that little lady ain’t local!”
“What makes you say that?” I asked, having no real clue as to the answer.
“Besides all the features I just described she’s abnormal sexually. She has no men friends, never has since I’ve known her. Second, old sly fox Beatle here sees her with Jane Slaughter, a raw at the gills little hang-around down at The Bucket of Blood. Why would a beautiful young woman like Cassie choose an ex-delinquent from L.A. to fraternize with, I asks myself?”
“So, what’d you come up with? I met Jane Slaughter last night and foun
d her delightfully rough around the edges. I grew up in East L.A. just like Jane. I saw what happens when you don’t get your hinges oiled when you’re young and your door gets kicked in when you’re not looking. I’ve seen a lot of dames like Jane Slaughter get raped in a dark alley or killed in a knife fight with their own sex, just as I’ve seen them fight like helpless kittens tossed into a bag and thrown over the bridge into the waters below. Most of ‘em can’t swim, so they drown before their time, they get stuck in the ooze society created to keep the poor and down trodden at arm’s length, keep ‘em from polluting you so your shit won’t stink and you can pretend after a while these kinds of people don’t exist—as long as they stay in their part of the jungle and pay up when Uncle Sam comes calling for the property taxes.”
Art Beatle looked at me curiously, then spat again on the ground. “Damn now, Mister if that ain’t expressive! You won’t get no argument from me, no siree. You’ve just been espousin’ my central philosophy.” He extended his hand out to me. “I am gladdened to make your acquaintance. How would you like some of Professor Nitwit’s favorite kale soup that’s always on tap and a cup of java?”
“Yeah, thanks…I haven’t eaten anything all day. Mind if I smoke on your premises?”
“Hell’s a poppin’—no! I chew it, you puff it—what’s the frickin’ difference?”
We spent much of the afternoon chewing the rag. I discovered Art Beatle was indeed a literate man, a published author, a hard-drinking, gambling man with no longer an eye for the fairer sex, due to his calamity with the young gypsy woman some years back. I also learned that he suspected Cassie to be other-worldly and he confirmed that in his own mind when she asked him if she could live in a certain small room up by the chicken coop. Trouble was that each time he went to check on her wellbeing, no matter what hour of the day or night, she was not to be found. Where did she go? Then eventually it dawned on him that the young woman was definitively not native to the earth and he had seen other things earlier in his life he would not divulge, but I got the idea that he had witnessed some unidentified flying objects or had had a definite encounter with their inhabitants.
We parted in good spirits. I had shared a small bottle of English gin with him before I left and he relished it. It was about nine p.m. when I pulled into the post office parking lot across the street from The Bucket of Blood. I had this feeling in my gut this would turn out to be a memorable evening. It was the kind of sensation that wound up in your stomach like the spring of a grandfather clock and at some undesignated moment, the whole damn thing would unravel in one terrible moment, ripping and tearing your insides out.
I crossed the street and even before I opened the faded maroon swinging doors, I could hear the din of the joint, mostly men’s voices spitting and cursing and laughing, yelling or shouting. As soon as I sidled up to the crowded bar, a little weasel of a man came up to me. “Would you like to buy a quicksilver mine? Up San Simeon Creek road, it lay. One thousand American greenbacks and you stand to make a million—all she needs is some good grubstake money to make ‘er go….”
“No thanks,” I bellowed out at him. “I live and work in Los Angeles. I’m not the prospector type. Sorry.”
He gave me a disgusted look and staggered away. The bartender finally asked me what I wanted. He had none of what I customarily drank. So I ordered just straight lousy whiskey. Of course, everything was supposed to be water, soda pop and non-alcoholic drinks. But, as Jane said, no one in this town seemed to care about Prohibition and its far-reaching arm.
Just then, I noticed Jane Slaughter come in. She was dressed in a tan leather coat, a long black dress that went to her ankles and black shoes. As soon as the local gentry saw her, there were whistles and cajoles from the rather vulgar men who frequented the joint. Her hair shone and fell straight to her shoulders. She came up to me. “Hello, Cable. Welcome to The Bucket of Blood.”
“Hi, Jane. I’m looking forward to your songs. This rowdy group needs a gentle female touch, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know about the gentle part, but I can punch it out with the best of them, I guess, if push comes to shove.”
Right behind her, in walked a beautiful young woman with the whitest skin I’d ever seen. Her hair was a glowing red and fell half way down her back. She wore a full burgundy dress with a tiger tooth neckpiece and very nice white shoes. She stood where she was. As the crowd saw this infrequent visitor to their less than sanitary environs, the room began to quiet somewhat. I left the bar and walked over to greet her, as if she needed me to protect her or whatever stupid thing I was thinking. “Hello, Cassiopeia, I’m Cable Denning. I knew your mother before—”
“—yes, Mr. Denning. I know…she told me…”
“She told you?”
“Would you like to go outside with me for a moment, please?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, glad to get out of the joint. I waved to Jane that we’d be right back and she nodded as she approached a well-used, old upright piano and sat down to play. She started a fast version of Why Don’t You Do Right? as Cassie and I walked out into the fresh, cool night air. “I—I, uh, promised your mother I would drop in on you if I was ever up this way. So here I am, supposed to be on a vacation— but things haven’t exactly turned out that way, so far. Anyway, I’m honoring your mother’s request. I kind of liked your mother. She had a way about her…”
“Thank you. What little she knew of you, she felt you were an honest man who could keep a secret. How did mother die? She doesn’t tell me—even now.”
“Even now? Ah…. then she’s gone. But how can she communicate with you if she’s dead?”
She studied my eyes with her beautiful, warm reddish-orange orbs. “Didn’t she tell you? We’re goddesses—remember? We can’t die….not really.”
“Yeah…I forgot that part. Well, the last time I saw her alive, your not-so-good father punished her for helping me escape the Evening of the Purple Mists as one of the breathe-able participants.” She laughed and I smiled at her. “I accidentally found her banished to a filthy alley in skid row L.A—an aging old lady with boils all over her body, brought about by your loving Dad. She told me then that she would be gone in a few weeks at most. She also told me not to worry, it was only a physical body and she’d eventually pick up another one through a regeneration process back on her native planet, Saturn. Did she ever use the name Saturnalia or Rhea?”
“Yes, of course. I was with my mother for many thousands of your years. But when my father’s anger began to worsen, as my mother continuously stepped out-of-bounds from what he decreed, she sensed I would soon be in danger. As you know, to avoid competition, my father ate my mother’s first seven children, but when I was born, my mother hid me, took my swaddling blanket and put a large stone in it. When my father discovered an undevoured child, he immediately gulped the rock down, thus disgorging all my brothers and sisters. When my brother Zeus grew up, it was then that he beat out my father for control of the earth. But that was many thousands of years ago. When Cronus discovered mother’s deceit, Cronus swore vengeance. So she mortalized me, gave me earth-money under the assumed name of Cassie Olson. You called me by my real name. Please call me Cass or Cassie, though.” She studied my face. “Mother tells me I can trust you. Can I?”
“Well, that depends on what department you’re talking about. But I’d say in general, yes—I’m solid and dependable, drink and smoke too much, don’t swear too much, keep late hours and used to chase skirts a lot, until lately.” I was thinking about how Adora would have loved the adventure of this balmy night on the Central Coast of California.
The human woman in Cass started up those dangerous brain waves—the thinking process that the female instinct is prone to. “If I may ask, why until lately? You’re a young and handsome human male animal—mother thought so.”
“Well, she was quite a looker herself, a fine dish with a good head on her shoulders. As I see it, her only weakness was goodness—and your father—or at l
east avoiding catastrophe whenever she could.”
She looked—what I perceived to be—directly beside me. “Thank you for allowing me to experience this life…”
“What do you mean?” I asked, perplexed as hell.
“My Mother is standing beside you—she is pleased and told me she wanted you from the first night in her little cottage by the firelight—but that her desire would lead to your destruction. You would be killed.”
“So instead, Gor killed her.”
“Sort of…but not really…she misses her physical body just now, but we can still communicate. She’ll get another one.”
I turned around to look for Saturnalia. I saw nothing.
“I guess that special kind of sight is reserved for your kind, eh?”
“I usually don’t like earth males. So I will share this with you now. I think they are crude, rude, pushy, focused only on the lust of the moment, to breed and consider the female gender a lesser form of life. Or at the very least, males in general consider females as worlds apart to their ‘superior’ status, in many aspects.”
“Well, Cass, you’re welcome to your opinion, but there are always two sides to a story. For example, look at it from a man’s perspective. As a rule, he’s got a short time to sow his oats with all the babes he wants to bed down. All too soon some gal comes along with that certain twinkle in her eye, she gets pregnant—or they get married and then she gets pregnant—either way he ends up mowing the lawn on Saturday mornings, supporting a bunch of brats who will grow up to pretty much forget him.”
Cass just stood there checking out my eyes. “You still didn’t tell me why you gave up ‘chasing skirts,’…..your term for pursuing women.” Then she did an unexpected thing. She took my hand and we walked back into the tavern to listen to Jane Slaughter sing at that little upright, that was somewhat out of tune, clanking away all mixed up with the din of the joint.
We walked over toward Jane. “Did she try to seduce you or something?” Jane tittered in a dry tone. “Just like her.” Then she looked at Cass. “You fight off guys at the drug store daily—and now you’re suddenly friendly toward a mug who’s a private eye in Los Angeles? You must know he’s got lots of women—”
Love Me or Kill Me Page 21
