Jack abided.
The woman flicked on the projector. The screen lit up with Jack’s afternoon partner walking in the motel room. Her maroon robe came across as dark gray on the film. The camera panned over to Jack, naked and bound on the bed.
Jack said, “Okay, you made your point.”
“What point is that?” the woman at the projector asked.
“You got me. You filmed it. My face is clear as day and you own the film. What do you want?”
The woman flipped on a lamp next to the projector. The image on the wall looked faint. The scene still played itself out in front of Jack. As much as he wanted to turn to look at the woman, he couldn’t peel his eyes off this film.
“I want to know who you are.”
Jack thought about making up a name, but he knew they had his suit, which meant they had his father’s PI license and all his father’s business cards. Jack’s driver’s license would’ve been in his wallet, also. No point in lying. Jack said, “I’m John Chesley.”
The woman walked over to meet Jack. She grabbed a chair, swung it around, and straddled it. She rested her arms on the back of the chair. The film flickered out of focus across her face. Jack studied the face: the hard eyes, the tight lips, the grooves of her forehead meeting above her eyebrows. This was the face of someone in charge. He may not know much about what she was in charge of. He just knew she was boss. She said, “Bullshit.”
This confused Jack. “What’s bullshit?” he asked.
“You’re not John Chesley,” she said.
“I’m not?”
“You’re not,” she said. “I knew John Chesley. Knew him for years.”
“Did you, now?”
“Sure,” she said. “I knew that old son of a bitch well enough to get a little frog in my throat when I heard about his death, what was it, eight, nine months ago?”
Oh, shit, Jack thought. She’s talking about my father. He said, “Six months ago. October. Just shy of Halloween.”
“And now, what? You’re trying to tell me you’re him, back from the grave, forty years younger?”
Jack tried a smile. His swollen jaw hurt too much for that. He loosened his face. “I’m his son. John Chesley, Jr.”
The woman looked back at the thug. “Hey Dimples, didn’t Johnny say that his kid died in the war?”
The thug nodded.
Jack couldn’t resist. The name was too perfect. He said, “Is that right, Dimples?”
Dimples launched at Jack, bringing a fist into his head before Jack could dodge one way or another. The message was clear. Only she got to call him that.
The woman grabbed Jack by the cheeks and stared at his face. She turned his head to the right, then to the left. “If you’re Junior, how’d you come back from the grave?”
“I never died. I was in a POW camp. The Air Force made a mistake.”
The woman kept her fingers on Jack’s face. She looked past him to her thug. “Dimples, holler out to Paddy. Have him make some calls. See if Junior is telling us the truth.”
Dimples stuck his head out the door and yelled, “Paddy.” He stood in the frame, keeping one eye on the courtyard and one on Jack and the woman.
The woman focused back on Jack. “What were you doing looking in the bathroom window of my motor court?”
“I’m a peeping Tom,” Jack said.
The woman slapped him. “Bullshit. Try again.”
“It’s the truth,” he said. “If Dimples had come along a minute later, he might’ve found me in a compromising pose.”
She slapped him again. “Dimples didn’t knock you out. I’m not some petty crook that has only one muscle man. I got enough men around here to find out what I need to know.”
“And what do you need to know?”
“Who you are and what you were doing looking in my bathroom window.”
“I’m John Chesley, Jr.,” he said. “I’m a peeping Tom.”
The woman exploded from her chair and threw Jack backwards in his. He landed head first against the floor of the screening room. His legs were still tangled in his chair. His ears started ringing. The woman stood over him. Something about this latest blow made her look like a pair of tough queens. Everything in the room had a double.
She knelt on his chest and spoke through gritted teeth. “Quit fucking around. If you’re carrying John Chesley’s license, you’re posing as a dick. You’re looking into something. That something has something to do with me. That’s what we know. You fill in the story from there.”
Jack figured that weaving a lie into a mostly true story would help get him out of this. “I really am John Chesley, Jr. When I was in the war and my wife thought I was dead, she went on a bender. She was sent to Camarillo for an alcoholic cure. I went up to the hospital today to see what that was all about. When I was there, I saw a Mercury loading up two broads. I thought to myself, that’s peculiar. So I followed him here. I reckoned, if you were doing something with those crazy broads, I might be able to lean into you, make myself a little shut-up coin.” Jack lifted his bound hands to point at the faded film wrapping up on the wall in front of him. “Now it looks like I don’t have anything on you that you don’t have on me.”
Paddy showed up at the door. Dimples told him to make some calls, see if John Chesley, Jr., was still alive.
The woman lifted herself off Jack’s chest. “Dimples, lift this son of a bitch up.”
The thug came across the room and propped Jack back up into his chair.
The woman righted her chair and straddled it again. “There’s still one question you haven’t answered,” she said. “Why are you pretending to be John Chesley?”
“I just told you. I am John Chesley.”
She shook her head and let loose a deep breath. “Why are you pretending to be John Chesley, Sr.”
“I’m not.”
“You had his PI license in your suit.”
Jack nodded. “It’s not my suit. It’s my father’s. My suit was dirty, so I borrowed one of his this morning.” Jack stared the woman in the eye. “Not like he was going to use it.”
The woman stood and walked to the doorway. Dimples followed. She whispered, “What do you think?”
“Hell, he’s ugly enough to be Chesley’s kid.”
The woman shook her head. “Chesley was never ugly.” She stepped into the courtyard. Dimples followed. He shut and locked the door behind them. Jack gazed straight ahead and watched the end of his film with the same sense of nausea and shame and arousal he’d had when he made it. When the movie was over, the loose strap of film flapped around the projector reel.
Jack walked over to the camera. He stopped the reels from spinning. He pulled the film out and held it to the projector bulb. The bulb was still hot enough to melt the film. He melted frame after frame until the whole roll caught fire. He tossed it into a steel trashcan, where it smoked and burned.
The door opened again. Dimples and the woman walked into the cloud of film smoke. “Look at this,” Dimples said. His grin was wide, his dimples deep. “Boy genius thinks we didn’t keep the negatives.”
The woman tossed Jack’s suit at him. He caught some of it. The rest fluttered onto the floor. “That’s your copy you’re burning, Johnny,” she said.
Jack squatted down to inspect his suit. The jacket and shirt had been cut along the sleeves and down the sides. The pants were cut down the legs. They must have cuffed him first, then undressed him with a knife. Even his belt had been sliced into three pieces. Jack dug through the pockets for his lighter, his tobacco and papers, his wallet, and his keys. They gave his Springfield nine millimeter back to him. Jack checked the clip. It was full. He glanced at Dimples and the broad in charge. If they were brazen enough to hand him back a loaded gun, then he knew someone somewhere was pointing another loaded gun at him. He dropped his effects in his fedora, slid his bare feet into the socks and shoes, and left the rest as a pile of rags. “So you’re calling me Johnny now,” he said. “You must believe I�
�m alive.”
“We know who you are and where to find you,” the woman said.
Dimples walked over and unbuckled Jack’s cuffs. Jack knelt to pick up his fedora.
The woman kept talking. “You just stay out of our hair and you’ll be all right. But you mention anything about this motor court to anyone, and suddenly copies of your little movie will find their way to your wife, your mother, your boss, everyone. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Jack started to walk for the door. Neither Dimples nor the woman stopped him. He stepped into the courtyard and across the weedy lawn. Some of the rooms had lights on behind the curtains. Some glowed in a fainter light. Some leaked grunting and moaning, or whip cracks and commands, or a combination of everything. Jack walked past the front office and into the next-door diner parking lot.
He placed his hat on the fender of the Model A. His keys were at the bottom of his hat. He dug them out and opened the driver’s door. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the cook closing up shop. The cook recognized Jack, made note of the pajama pants and crop welts. “I told you to go downtown for a room,” he said.
Jack nodded. “You did at that.”
WILMA, 1943
EVERY NUTCASE who wasn’t stuck in Hydro or drooling from electroshock or otherwise bedridden and incontinent was primping for the bughouse ball. The girls in Unit 6 fought for space in front of a mirror to build their bangs into structures of architectural interest. Makeup fluttered out of forgotten cases and pasted onto faces. Elbows flew in front of sinks. Those who were pushed aside retreated back against the wall, where they slid into dresses their families had sent from home or the State had issued recently enough to keep them free from madhouse stains. In between, the women weighed their chances. They outnumbered the men at the hospital two- or three-to-one. On top of that, some of the men were there for dancing with other men. One woman pointed out that there were probably an equal number of women patients who’d been committed for dancing with other women. Her wardmates dismissed the optimistic viewpoint. The odds were bad. That couldn’t be denied.
Lottie stood behind a drunk so short that the top of her head barely reached Lottie’s shoulder. Lottie could see well enough to put on makeup from the second row. By and large, she stayed out of the gossip. One bitter patient said, “Lottie’s not worried about the odds. Dinge or not, she has a beau to fill her dance card.”
Lottie folded her hair into a bun and didn’t offer her antagonist so much as a wince or sidelong glance.
Because she was a musician, Wilma had gotten ready much earlier. While the girls in Unit 6 fought for mirror space, Wilma sat outside the hospital dance hall with Chester Ellis and a host of other musicians. Camarillo was, it seemed, overflowing with Hollywood talents whose antics landed them an involuntary stay here. There were enough of them to field a full band for tonight’s party and to have replacements for most of the chairs. Wilma and Chester would perform together, but not for the whole night. Loud as Wilma’s dobro ukulele was, it couldn’t match the volume of horns and drums. And Chester didn’t play much background. Not for free. He’d play for this ball, but only front and center. The one exception was a little number Wilma had written for the girls in Unit 6. She charmed Chester with it during one smoke break. He agreed to back her up, and even in that, he insisted Wilma add a break in the song for him to solo. Wilma was more than happy to accommodate.
The musicians had tuned and sound-checked and even run through a few warm-up numbers in preparation. Now, they were ready and there wasn’t much to do except pull some wooden chairs onto the lawn of the south quad and watch that lazy orange sun dip down behind the hills westward. There were about a dozen of them sitting in a half circle facing the sunset. For a while, no one talked. A guitarist everyone called Tappy finally broke the silence. “This ocean breeze reminds me of a gig I had in Hawaii back in ’27. A two-month stay at the Royal in Honolulu, playing for all the swells. The honcho from Dole had his own table near the bandstand. A couple of the members of the old royal family had tables in back. Celebrities filtered in and out. Old Doug Fairbanks and Mary Pickford came in for a few nights. Even that cute little kid from the Chaplin picture. What was it called?”
“The Kid?” a drummer suggested.
Tappy shot a squinty-eyed stare at the drummer. He shook his head. “I guess it was. Anyway, he was a little older, a little less cute when I met him. Hell, though, they all came out for that stay. It was a union job, too. We had money and rooms to share down along Waikiki.”
“Sounds like heaven,” Wilma said.
Tappy nodded. “It should’ve been. But I got off that boat from Los Angeles at night. I was already drunk. I caught a trolley to the Royal and kept the drunk going with my guitar and bags at my feet. I could play all right with a head of booze on me, so I only slowed down when I played. If my fingers weren’t on the fret board or didn’t have a pick in them, they were wrapped around a drink. And not just that first night. The whole damn two-month stand. Drunk the whole time.
“Finally, we get through the contract. The band leader doesn’t have to worry about the union covering my back, so he fires me. Tells me to stay off his fucking island. I didn’t even know he was unhappy. I played fine the whole time. It wasn’t my playing that bothered him, he said. It was my shenanigans. I thought back on it. Which shenanigans would that be? How the hell was I supposed to know? The whole trip was shenanigans. I was barely alive at the end. Too close to dead to wonder what stuck a thorn in his britches, anyway. So I go back to my room, pack my bags, take the trolley to the docks, and that’s when I take a look around at the island. I was seeing it for the first and last time. Christ, it was beautiful. More than that. Beautiful doesn’t cover it. I’m just not smart enough to find the right word to put on that place. It’s as close to God as I’ve ever been. And I spent the whole time ignoring it, holed up in hotels and bars. Shit.”
Well, that story did the trick. It hit every member of the dozen somewhere deep. They traded their own tales of wasted days and lost nights. Wilma, for sure, had hers to add. Chester did, too. All of them sat in the waning daylight trading regret and shame and, well, bragging a little on top of it.
The dance started without a hitch. Since Wilma and Chester played together, they took breaks at the same time. Chester spent his breaks twirling around the dance floor with Lottie. Wilma mostly chatted with the Unit 6 girls. She took a turn or two on the floor with another recovering drunk but, truth be told, after her recent widowhood and that little tryst with Tom Fillmore, she wasn’t much in the mood for love. A Camarillo affair just didn’t seem to be in the cards for her. She sipped her virgin punch and waited for her turn on the stage.
At about ten o’clock, the guards told the band to start winding down. They’d all promised Wilma the chance to do her number, so they put down their instruments and called her up. She cradled her dobro uke and stepped to the microphone. Chester took the piano behind her. Most of the nutcases were danced out. They gathered around the stage for Wilma’s song.
Wilma leaned into the mic and said, “This goes out to the women in my ward. Where are my Unit 6 girls?”
The very ones who’d been fighting in the mirrors four hours ago were loose and sweaty enough to surrender dignified airs and give Wilma a cheer.
Wilma turned to Chester. She counted the time. One. Two. Three. Four. She ran through the chorus chords two times. Chester started the melody. On the third measure, Wilma sang her song.
When I’m at Camarillo
(an original number by Wilma Greene)
Now I’m at Camarillo, I never would’ve thunk
of such a lovely place, for such a hopeless drunk
Oh it’s a place that just suits me
A bughouse case you would be
If you could see what I can see
When I’m at Camarillo
Spending nights with the daft
Sometimes I spank them in the aft
And act as if I were the st
aff
When I’m at Camarillo
The docs and nurses, they work hard
To get us off the sauce
They shock and drown and beat us
To get their point across
The highballs, they have gone away
No beer or wine for me today
I won’t be out there making hay
When I’m at Camarillo
I get free cheese with flirty stares Steal
Section smokes from unawares
Paraldehyde wipes away my cares
When I’m at Camarillo
I dish out floor wax by the crate
Wear lingerie from the State
And eat gooey beans from my plate
When I’m at Camarillo
The docs and nurses, they work hard
To get us off the sauce
They shock and drown and beat us
To get their point across
I shower weekly with the nuts
In the stalls with weird-shaped butts
Sally falls, my favorite klutz
When I’m at Camarillo
At this point, Wilma paused for Chester’s piano interlude which, in practice, had run through two measures of the chorus. With a laughing and raucous audience of nuts inspiring him, he kept it running for six full measures. Wilma was all right with that. She danced and strummed rhythm until he had his fill, then brought home the final verses and chorus.
There’s a jazz pianist trying to kick
A talkie queen whose head is sick
And all of you taking in my shtick
When I’m at Camarillo
I miss all this spring’s afternoons
Stuck in here, singing tunes
And cleaning up after all the loons
When I’m at Camarillo
The docs and nurses, they work hard
To get us off the sauce
They shock and drown and beat us
To get their point across
And here I dance, cheek to cheek
With madhouse cases who really reek
Worse than the breath of a circus geek
When I’m at Camarillo
Dead Extra Page 8
