by T. N. Robb
"It's all special."
"I guess I asked for that one."
She slung her purse over her shoulder and turned to leave, when Cleary told her to wait. He gazed at the band as she waited to hear what he had to say. When he spoke up, he was still looking toward the stage. "Betts mentioned that Billy Ray had been on the outs with his guitarist there lately. You know, the guy up there singing."
Catching his drift, Dottie glanced at the stage, then dismissed the notion. "If you're trying to picture a cute guy like Dwayne there in stripes, Cleary, I don't see it. You're barking up the wrong tree."
Cleary nodded casually, looked her in the eye. Then he looked out over the crowd. "Ever been tight with any musicians before, Dot?"
She shrugged. "Had a bowling date once with a bongo player who knew Gogi Grant."
"Yeah?" Cleary said, trying to sound interested and wondering what a Gogi Grant was.
"Well, it didn't last too long because we just got to the parking lot of the alley, and he put his hand on my—" She glanced over at Cleary. "Hey, what is this, the Kinsey Report? What you wanna know, anyhow?"
Cleary shrugged. "Just thought you might want to cozy up to Dwayne after the show and see what you can find out about him."
Dottie, her arms suddenly akimbo, glared at him. "Jack Cleary, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to ask me to do something like that. Don't you know that's invading someone's privacy? He's not even a suspect. And what about my feelings? How do you think I'd feel about it?"
Cleary nodded, glancing toward the sky. "Heat's probably killed half the plants back at the office by now." He smiled at her, loosened his tie another notch. "You mind tossing them before you dive back into your paperwork? I'd appreciate that."
She just stared at him, her options painfully clear. Then, checking her lipstick in her compact mirror, she turned back to him. "Toss 'em out yourself, buster." She snapped the compact closed. "I got a date."
He watched her a moment, an amused look on his face, as she sashayed off toward the stage area. He checked his watch, looked around. He was supposed to meet Tommy Slade here twenty minutes ago, but hadn't seen anyone over twenty-five since he had arrived. He decided to try the record store one more time before heading back to the office.
The store was just as crowded as before, and there was no sign of Slade. He watched as a teenage girl wrapped her arm around a lifesize cardboard cutout of Billy Ray, and kissed it on its paper lips. He shook his head and turned around to leave.
"Sorry I'm late, Mr. Cleary." Slade had just walked into the store and extended a hand. In his pricey Mainbocher ensemble and Malibu tan, he looked as out of place in the crowd as Cleary.
He shook his hand. "You said on the phone you had some business to discuss."
Slade nodded, then ushered Cleary past a couple of Silhouette Records booths over to a relatively private comer next to one of the Billy Ray cutouts. He glanced up at the likeness, shook his head sadly. "I had such plans for that kid. I still can't believe he's gone."
Cleary looked around. "Looks like your business with him isn't over with quite yet."
Slade kept a solemn expression. "You know how it is when one of these kids dies tragically like that. Everyone wants to get close to him just one more time. You gotta do something to satisfy them." He shook his head again. "Believe me, if there wasn't the interest, you wouldn't see these Silhouette booths here."
Cleary nodded, wondering what came first, the chicken or the egg—the hype or the adoration and quick sales. Slade talked like some sort of public servant, but he was as slick as they came. Cleary didn't doubt that for a moment.
An annoyed look crossed over Slade's face as he noticed two heavily made-up girls with swirling beehives making a move to walk out of the store with one of the cutouts. "Damn it. Excuse me a minute, Mr. Cleary. I'm not about to put up with that." He straightened his back as he strode over to them, placing his hands on their shoulders.
Rock and roll was an anomaly to Cleary. What he was seeing and hearing, he was certain, was a twisted version of the American Dream. It didn't fit. Yet somehow, he admitted to himself, it probably did. These kids were eating it up. No doubt about that.
The whole thing had started, he figured, with guys like Billy Ray and Betts. Kids rebelling. Against what, he couldn't say. Sure Betts had come from some tough times, but everyone who lived through the war had seen their share of troubles. And damn if things weren't better than ever in the country with General Eisenhower now president. There were plenty of jobs. Great cars. Just a great country. The greatest ever. Big, powerful, and growing up.
Slade returned after kicking the girls out and putting the cutout back in its place. He brushed off his suit and smiled. "Sorry about that. Listen, Mr. Cleary, I want to ask you: do the police think Billy Ray's death may be related to Archie's murder?"
Cleary rubbed the back of his neck. "What makes you think that?"
"I've talked to Dwayne. I know Billy Ray wasn't exactly an Olympic swimmer, and I was at the house when they found his clothes in the bushes."
Cleary looked Slade in the eye. "The cops are calling it murder. But if they see a connection to Archie Hammond's death, they haven't told me about it. Course, I'm not first on their list of who to call when something new turns up. Is that what you called me down here for, Mr. Slade, or was there something else?"
His eyes followed the two girls who had tried to steal the cutout, as they cruised up an aisle. "Throw 'em out, and they come right back in," he mumbled, an annoyed look on his face. "Damn kids. Nowadays they got no respect. Do whatever they feel like."
He looked back to Cleary. "Sorry. Yes, there is something else. Archie had hired you to look into the theft of Billy Ray's master tapes from our company. Have you made any progress yet?"
"Aside from learning that it's tied into a major counterfeit record operation... no."
"Can you give me some details?"
"Archie gave me a post office box number, and from that I got a phone number. I had my secretary call it, and we set up a meet. When I got there, I was pummeled by a couple of pros. As you can imagine, I didn't come away with any tapes. Just bruises."
Slade eyed him curiously. "What about that phone number?"
"It's been disconnected. It led to a vacant storefront," he lied, avoiding any mention of Pettys. He had written off the manager as a pathetic, worn-out hustler, who had been trying to get himself a piece of the action and had bungled it miserably. He hadn't disqualified him from consideration as a murder suspect, but on the other hand didn't see any reason to bring his name into the discussion, either.
Slade stared at him, nodded. "So what have you found since then?"
"Mr. Hammond's retainer ran out two days ago. What makes you think I'm still looking into it?"
Slade gave him a savvy smile. "You don't strike me as the kind of man to leave a job half-finished, Mr. Cleary." He pulled out an envelope and handed it to him. "Here's a week's pay in advance. I want to know everything you find out about the counterfeiting, and the murders. I'd like you to check in with me every day, at least by phone."
Cleary opened the envelope, impressed with the amount of money inside. Then he handed it back to Slade. "Let's make it cash on delivery. I'll check in with you when I've got something worth talking about."
Slade took back the envelope, not entirely satisfied with Cleary's maneuvers. He tapped it against his palm. "Let's hope that's not too long. I hate waiting. I get very impatient."
"So do I," Cleary said, then turned and walked out of the store. He stopped a moment on the edge of the crowd and looked for Dottie. The band was pounding out the anguished verse of another song that, to Cleary, sounded almost identical to the rest of them he had heard today.
He spotted Dottie standing next to the stage. He was too far away, but he imagined her looking longingly up to Dwayne. He smiled to himself, headed for his Eldorado, skirting the crowd. At the same time, he tried to make out the words of the song. He missed the f
irst verse, caught the next one.
Dwayne, you ain't seen nothing yet, Cleary thought as he opened the door to the Caddy, and silently wished Dottie good luck.
FIFTEEN
The Proof
The backyard of Billy Ray's house was hauntingly quiet, except for the hot, restless Santa Ana slipping through the bougainvillea and over the dark waters of the pool. Cleary was seated in a straight-backed patio chair, enveloped in darkness. He stared out at the silent tableau where a young rocker took his last breath, and tried to recreate what had happened in his mind.
He imagined Billy Ray standing by the pool drunk, early in the morning. All the guests had either gone home or were inside, too drunk to have any idea what was happening out here. Betts was probably passed out. He considered the choices:
Dwayne didn't like how Billy Ray was getting all the glory, making all the decisions. He had a reason, and what's more, he knew Billy Ray couldn't swim.
Then he replaced Dwayne with Calvin Pettys. What if Billy Ray had found out about Pettys's attempt to sell the master tapes for counterfeiting? Maybe Betts had leaked it to Jesse, who had told Billy Ray. In that case, the scene would've been something like this: Billy Ray starts a fight with Calvin, who shoves him in the pool and walks away. A few minutes later, he comes back and finds Billy Ray drowned. To hide the crime, he strips him, tosses his wet clothes in the bushes, hoping they dry before they're found.
What about Slade? Betts had told him how Slade was making Billy Ray tame down his music, and had threatened him. That was something that apparently cut deep. Betts had compared it to telling someone to change the language they speak, or forcing them to cut themselves off from their family, forever.
He could imagine a drunken Billy Ray swaggering up to Slade and telling him what he thought of changing the music. A fight breaks out, and Billy Ray falls into the pool. He yells for help, but the angered Slade doesn't believe he can't swim. Finally when he realized Billy Ray's not kidding, he takes off his expensive suit, and dives in. But by then it's too late. Billy Ray's on the bottom.
The problem with that scenario was that Slade probably wouldn't try to hide Billy Ray's death. He was too powerful and well connected to fear prosecution on something like that. Besides, he had plenty to lose himself with Billy Ray dead.
None of the scenarios provided a connection between Billy Ray's murder and Archie Hammond's. If there was one, he sure couldn't see it.
What seemed like an eternity passed before the night's quiet was suddenly shattered by the ringing of a telephone on the patio table. Cleary reached over, took it on the third ring.
"Yeah."
"Dottie told me I'd find you there."
"What have you got?"
"A .38 in the glove, blasting caps and a transmitter under the front seat, and a whole mess of stuff in the trunk."
"Like what?"
Betts deliberately stroked Cleary's impatience. "Skin mags, dynamite, a catcher's mitt, carton of Pall Malls, three Archie comics..."
"For chrissakes, Betts."
"Oh, and I almost forgot. Here it is. A trucking voucher for a warehouse at 220 Spring Street."
Cleary straightened up. "That's three blocks from where I lost the delivery truck."
"Bingo. Need any backup?"
Cleary stood up. "It's Friday night, Betts. You ought to be out with people your own age."
"Hey, my sentiments exactly."
* * *
Betts hung up, feeling satisfied that he had found the link Cleary was looking for in the counterfeit scam. He looked over at the Merc from the phone booth off Mulholland Drive. Now for an evening of playing around, he thought.
Inside, Jesse had slid over behind the wheel, and was sipping from a longnecked Carling. She was staring down the road past the sheer three-hundred-foot drop-off bordering Dead Man's Curve. Her gaze was fixated on the city lights, far below.
"Star light, star bright," Betts said through the passenger window, then opened the door. "You wanna drive the Merc, babe? Is that it? Go ahead. I'll show you what to do so you won't kill us."
She looked at him a moment, ignoring his comments, then turned back to the cliff as if he had awakened her from a dream she didn't want to leave. "I was just thinking... about this old rock quarry back in West Texas we used to park at when we was kids. You know, a lover's kind of lane."
Betts nodded, took a swig of her beer. They had lanes like that in Tennessee, and he had known his share of them, but he kept that to himself. "Oh, yeah? Sounds interesting."
"I remember one night, I musta been about fifteen. Just turned, I think." She looked toward the drop-off. "It had a cliff just like that there, must have been a good three... four hundred feet to the bottom."
Betts watched her, waited for her to continue the story.
"I asked this boyfriend of mine, I asked him to stomp on the accelerator of this old pickup of his and drive as fast as he could, and faster, and see how close he could get us to the edge."
"How come?"
Jesse stared straight ahead. "To prove that he loved me."
"That's a kinda stupid way of proving it."
Jesse didn't answer for a moment. "Do you love me, Johnny Betts?"
He looked at her, silently summoning his courage. He wasn't the type who easily professed his love to just any woman, but he knew that if he had ever loved anyone, he loved Jesse. "Yes, I do."
Jesse turned to face him, a soft smile forming on her lips. Her mouth opened slightly, and she ran her tongue along her upper lip. She looked him directly in the eye. "Prove it, Johnny."
Betts laughed, a bit awkwardly, assuming that it must be a joke. "Yeah, right." But she wasn't laughing. Confusion suddenly tortured the jovial expression on his face as he realized that maybe she wasn't kidding. "C'mon Jesse, cut it out. Quit kiddin' around like that."
She held her gaze steadily on him. "I'm not."
Betts looked at her, a little thrown by her seriousness. "Hey, this is crazy. I don't prove my love that way. What's wrong, Jesse?"
She looked at him a moment longer, then suddenly keyed the ignition. "I do."
She stepped on the gas.
* * *
Cleary pulled into an alley. The Eldorado's lights were out, and it crept slowly ahead, sleek as a cat on a hunt. He stopped outside an old warehouse and turned off the engine. He waited, watched. He wasn't sure what he was going to find, or even if he was going to get inside. But he wanted proof that he had found the counterfeiting headquarters.
He vaulted a chain-link fence and slipped through the shadows toward a lighted warehouse window. He boosted himself up, stared through the window. His features darkened as he glimpsed a long row of record-pressing machines.
The machines were operating, stamping out one vinyl record after another. Yet nothing he could see told him it was a counterfeit operation. Maybe it was just a small record factory. Where was the proof?
He dropped back down to the ground, decided to walk around the building. He pushed his way through the comer of a hedge to reach the far side. His sleeve caught halfway through, and he was about to turn back when he saw it.
The truck. It was the same one that had delivered the counterfeits to Peaches.
He had found the source and the proof he needed. Now he was ready to go to Fontana. He would let the cops handle it from here. They weren't only dealing with counterfeiting, but with the murder of Archie Hammond, and the attempted murders of Jack Cleary and Johnny Betts.
* * *
The Merc was picking up speed, its engine roaring. Jesse slammed her foot hard against the accelerator, entranced as they ripped through the night. They hit sixty, and the needle on the speedometer kept climbing. The headlights illuminated the pavement, which was running out before them by the second. Five hundred feet, four-fifty, four hundred...
"Proof, Johnny," she whispered, not taking her eyes from the road as she barrelled toward the curve.
Betts saw the sign, DANGER—SHARP CURVE, but Jesse st
ill didn't slow down. His eyes were filled with fear and wonder at this madwoman who was driving him toward the abyss, oblivion, the unknown. He caught a glint in her eye, a look of sexual abandon on her face, a look that zapped him with a chill on his spine.
She means it.
It was too late to try to stop her. Any interference now would mean an almost certain crash. He was breathing heavy, both of them were, their hearts racing as fast as the car as the climax jumped at them.
He saw the curve coming up fast. Jesse slammed on the brakes. The Merc skidded; the tires squealed. The rear end fishtailed wildly, hurtling the car across the lane and back again.
Three times.
Then the road ended as they hit the curve, skidding sideways onto the shoulder. The rear right wheel ran out of road, hung a moment precariously over the cliff. Then the forward momentum pulled it up, back on the shoulder. Betts expelled a breath of relief.
SIXTEEN
Infatuation
Betts was under the hood of the Mercury, working on a recalcitrant bolt with a wrench. The tool slipped, and his fist cracked hard against the carburetor. "Damn that sonofabitch. Jeez."
"Got a problem there."
Betts, a frown still screwed on his face, raised his head to see Cleary leaning out the window of the Eldorado. He stood up, surprised by his sudden appearance. "What brings you out here?"
Cleary turned off the engine and looked Betts over. "Decided to swing by on my way to the office. A little early for a tune-up, isn't it?"
He looked down at the Merc, and shrugged. "Did that warehouse on Spring pan out?"
"I think we've hit pay dirt. It looks like they're cranking out thousands of records a night."
"All counterfeits?"
"Think so. The other day Dottie got me a list of all the record manufacturers in the L.A. area. Not a one on Spring Street or anywhere nearby. Besides, I found the delivery truck I'd seen at Peaches."
