Skip navigation.

Pat Maginess: Private-Eye

Hard Shelled Detective Fiction by Edward Piercy

Posts tagged with "private-eye"

Those Songs We Sing to Ourselves (Part I)

Thursday, 24. April 2008, 22:19:43

, ,





"Those Songs We Sing to Ourselves"


a Pat Maginess private-eye story

by

Edward Piercy


(Proof of 4/24/2008)


Then -- too -- be comprehended --
What sorer -- puzzled me --
Why Heaven did not break away --
And tumble -- Blue -- on me --

-- Emily Dickinson (Johnson: 600)







September, 1953

PART I.

The town of Colton was a rather archaic looking place that seemed made
mostly of railroad tracks and old brick. I pulled over to the curb and
asked a passer-by directions to the sheriff's office. A few minutes
later I walked into a small building whose front part looked like
something out of the Old West and the rear of which was an obvious
modern add-on of steel and glass, probably not more than a couple years
new. The woman at the front desk walked me back to meet the local
sheriff.

"Tom Baker" he said, extending out a hand.

"Pat Maginess" I said. He offered me a seat.

"So you're from Los Angeles. Your secretary said you were investigating
the Harrison murder?"

"That's right. I had Carmen call ahead inasmuch as I thought it would be
good to talk to you first, since it's your case."

"I appreciate that. And you were hired by his brother?"

"Yeah. Don Harrison. He said you were kind of stuck."

"Tell me about it. We found Ron about two weeks ago, the morning of the
7th. Dead in his cabin. No witnesses, not much in the way of evidence
except a couple of mean bullet holes in him. I talked to most of the
people up there in Angel Pines. Nobody knew anything about it. They were
just shocked, mostly."

"Any sign of robbery? Maybe it might be someone who was just passing
through."

"No robbery, no. Not unless he had a secret stash of the Queen's jewels
laying around that I don't know about. As far as somebody passing
through, you'll find that Angel Pines isn't exactly a pass-through type
of place. It's about as remote as it gets these days. You take the narrow
highway up from here in Colton. Then there's an access road that leads
into the town. From there, there's two roads, one north and one west.
Both are dead ends. Past that, you pretty much have to back-pack it from
there."

"Well if that's the case, then it has to be one of the local residents."

"I suppose. Hard to imagine that, though. They're pretty nice people up
there."

I was going to tell him that sometimes even nice people did bad things,
but then thought better of it. "Well if you're stuck, I guess you won't
mind me asking around a bit then?"

"Be my guest, Maginess. In fact if you figure out who did this to Ron,
I'll pin a medal on 'ya."

"About the murder weapon, you got anything on that?"

"Left at the scene. Don Harrison thinks that it was his brother's gun.
Not certain, but pretty sure. An old .44 Smith & Wesson. Left some
simply huge holes in the guy. We found the gun about ten feet from the
body over on top of a chest of drawers, wiped clean of prints. So no
luck there. Prints on the shells were Ron's, he put 'em in himself."

"Did you dust for prints in the cabin?"

"No, we didn't."

I thought that odd. "Can I ask why not?"

"It's like this, Maginess. We might find other people's prints up there
at Ron's cabin. But it doesn't mean anything. Over the years, there were
likely dozens of people visit his cabin and leave prints. Doesn't mean
they killed Ron. Without any prints on the gun, and without any motive
to go on, prints wouldn't prove anything. Know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I get it. How many people live up there in Angel Pines?"

"Oh, about 50. About a dozen live in town. The others live out in the
woods in cabins and such. Don Harrison owns about half the town, what
there is of it, the diner and the little grocery. The diner is run by a
girl named Michelle. She went down your way for a while, Los Angeles.
Evidently got into a little trouble there."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Don't know. Rumor has it she got into drugs, played with some Hollywood
types. But that could be pure bullshit. She seems like a nice girl. Good
looking, takes good care of the diner. She's been back here for about
three years now. So I think she's gone straight. If she was ever crooked
to begin with, that is."

"Anybody else up that way you could tell me about?"

"Well there's Nick White Feather. He owns the filling station. Has
arthritis real bad, rumor is he's going to retire soon. Then there's
Frances Dillard. She's Postmaster up that way. She's getting up there,
too. I imagine her dumb-ass son will take over the Postmaster thing for
her when she retires."

"What's with her son?"

"He's just a dumb-ass. That's the best way I can explain it. You'll find
out yourself if you go up there. Doesn't work. Just kind of hangs out in
town all the time, acting like a dumb-ass. He did score 92 percent on
the Postmaster test, though. Must have cheated best as I can figure out.
Like I said, he's just retarded."

"Hmmm. I can hardly wait to meet him. What did Ron Harrison do?"

"He was on some sort of disability pension from the war. In fact he just
got back from Korea it seems like not too long ago. Though it must be a
year already. He owned the fly fishing shop up there. But he didn't
really need the money. He used to give fishing tours to rich businessmen
from the big cities. But according to Don he quit the tour thing about
six months ago. In fact, I guess he quit fishing entirely."

"A guy who owns a fly fishing shop who doesn't fish? That's odd."

"Yeah, I guess it is kind of odd. But that's people for 'ya."

"Did you double check his tour thing. You know, just to make sure he
didn't have anybody in town at the time of the murder?"

"Sure did. The most recent tour I could find in his books was about six
months ago, same as his brother told me. Like I said, Maginess, I did
look into this thing."

"I'm sure you did, sheriff." Off and on over the past minutes I had been
looking at an old framed photo up on the wall.

"Is that Wyatt Earp?" I asked him.

"Close, that's his brother, Virgil. Virgil lived here in Colton for a
while. Did some gambling, had a detective agency, served as town Sheriff
for a bit. All of that was long after the famous Tombstone shootout, of
course."

"Well I'll be damned" I said. "Anyway, I suppose I had better get myself
up to Angel Pines." I put on my hat, and reached over to shake his hand
again. "Thanks for your help, sheriff."

"I should tell you too, Maginess, there's no place to stay up there at
Angel Pines. You might find a cabin that you can rent from somebody. But
there's no motel or boarding house or anything. That means you're going
to have to drive back here for the night. I suggest you leave early. You
don't want to be driving these mountain roads after dark unless you know
them like the back of your hand. Otherwise, you'll more than likely end
up off the edge of a thousand foot drop."

***************

She was about twenty five or so, tall and straw-thin but well-built in
spite of it. Her best attribute was certainly her face. She had large
glowing hazel eyes and a small, slightly downward sloped mouth that set
off the eyes and nose in a manner that most Hollywood starlets couldn't
match. She looked in good shape, healthy, and had a way of seeming to
float as she walked behind the counter at the Angel Pines diner. Except
for the waitress I was the only guy in the place except for a skinny kid
who sat at the far end of the counter reading a comic book.

"Coffee?" she asked.

"Sure" I said, giving her my best smile. "And maybe a menu, too."

"Coming right up" she said, smiling at me in return.

I noticed as she walked to the other end to get the coffee that she had
great legs, too. She certainly was a beautiful girl. And sometimes
beautiful girls get into trouble, especially in Hollywood.

She walked back and put the menu into my hands and started to put the
coffee cup in front of me. "I hear you spent some time down in Los
Angeles" I said, opening up the menu.

The waitress dropped the coffee cup and saucer the remaining distance to
the counter and the saucer hit with a rattle and the coffee cup tilted
over. Her reactions were quick. She righted the cup and pulled it and
the saucer away and with her other hand grabbed a rag from behind the
counter and draped it over the spilled coffee.

"I...I'm sorry, Mister" she said. Her hand was visibly shaking as she
mopped up the coffee with the rag.

"No harm done" I said. "I'm sorry that my question bothered you so
much."

She had the rest of the coffee mopped up, and left for a moment to get
me another cup. When she set it down on the counter this time I kept my
mouth shut.

She shook her head. "Where did you hear that at? About me being down
there?" Her voice had gotten very soft and low all of a sudden.

"The sheriff in Colton" I said.

"What else did he say about me?" She almost whispered it this time.

I didn't think that mentioning the rest of it and embarrassing the girl
would be worth it at that point. "Not much. Just that you had lived
there for a while. I'm from L.A., actually. My name is Pat, Pat
Maginess." I stuck my hand out, and after hesitating a second, she took
it.

"Michelle" she said.

I set the menu down. I wasn't quite hungry yet, and decided that dinner
could wait until I got back to Colton for the night.

"I'm investigating the death of Ron Harrison" I told her. "That's how
your name came up. The sheriff told me that you had spent some time in
Los Angeles. I guess he thought it would make me feel more at home up
here."

"Oh. A terrible thing" Michelle said. She seemed to be coming around a
bit, not nearly so nervous now. "Ron was such a nice guy. It's terrible
what happened."

"Hey, your shoe's untied" a voice said from down the counter. I turned
in the direction of the voice to see the skinny kid smiling at me.

"Your shoe's untied" he said again. He was obviously talking to me. I
looked down at my shoes. Both laces were tied perfectly.

"Ha! I can't believe you fell for that one. You city-slickers."

"All right, Jimmy, knock it off" Michelle said. "The man's a visitor in
our town. Let's show him our best side, okay?"

"My best side? How 'bout my back side?" Jimmy got up off his stool and
turned his rear towards us and made like he was going to pull his pants
down.

"I said knock it off, Jimmy" Michelle yelled at him. "Don't make me
throw you out of here again."

I turned my attention back to Michelle. "The sheriff told me about him,
too" I laughed.

That got a little bit of a smile from her. "Jeezus, the idiot's like
famous or something, yeah?"

"Kind of" I said, laughing again.

"Would you like something off the menu?" Michelle asked, still smiling.

"No, I don't think so, Michelle. Not really hungry yet. Though it all
looks good. What I would like, if I can get it, is some information. Don
Harrison hired me to come up here and check a few things out about his
brother. I'm just kind of looking into the matter for him, seeing as the
local sheriff is stumped. So if you could answer a few questions for me,
I'd really appreciate it."

"What do you want to know?" she said. Her voice had lowered in volume
again.

"First of all, did you know him very well?"

"Yeah, pretty well. It's a small town."

"Did you socialize with him much?"

"Not really. Mainly here in the diner."

"You see any strangers come into town here around the time Ron was shot?
Anybody unusual come in here to get something to eat, for instance? Or
to get coffee?"

"No, none in the past month or so anyway."

"A month, huh. He have any beefs with anybody who lives here in Angel
Pines?"

She shook her head. "Not that I can think of. Everybody liked Ron."

"Hmmm. Let me ask you a different question. Why did Ron give up his
fishing tour business? And I gather he gave up fishing entirely. Can you
tell me anything about that?"

Michelle gave me a funny look. I got the feeling that there was
something she wanted to say but didn't know if she should say it.

"I'm sure Ron wouldn't mind if you told me a few private things,
Michelle. I'm trying to find out who killed him. I'm sure he would
appreciate any help you can give me."

She looked down at the counter and nodded. "Okay. I guess it doesn't
make any difference now, him being gone and all. Ron had turned into one
of these vegetarian types. He didn't eat meat anymore, or fish. So he
stopped fishing. But he would come in here every once in a while and
order a steak or cheeseburger. Or sometimes the biscuits and pork
gravy."

"That stuff doesn't sound very vegetarian to me."

"Yeah, that's the funny part. He tells me he had become a vegetarian.
But then he would order a steak or something. And then he'd ask me not
to say anything to anybody about it. I promised him I'd keep it quiet."

"That really doesn't make much sense. If he fell off the vegetarian
wagon every once in a while, why would he want to keep it a secret?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. It didn't make any sense to me either. But
I kept my promise anyway."

I left her a pretty good tip, saying that I would be back in now and
then. My car was parked outside the diner. But Angel Pines was a tiny
place, I could have thrown a baseball across the length of it, so I
decided to walk. Next to the diner was the Post Office. After that there
was a building with a sign that read Harrison's Grocery and Hardware. I
figured that must be Don Harrison's place. As I walked in a young,
black-haired girl of about twenty was ringing up somebody's groceries, a
guy in overalls with the look of some rustic woodsman about him. I
waited until she was finished and then asked her about Don.

"Oh, he's in back. Come with me, I'll take you to him." She walked me
through what there was of the store, every once in a while looking back
over her shoulder at me. "Don's in the hardware area. A new shipment
just came in. You from L.A.?" she said.

"That's right. Born and raised."

"That's nice" she said, smiling. "I'd like to go visit there someday."
The way she said it made Los Angeles seem like it was Venice, an exotic
locale that it would be nice to go to on vacation. All of which made me
feel even more out of place.

"That's Don" she said, nodding at a guy stooped over a bunch of boxes on
the floor. I went up to him. He was about 50 or so, semi-balding, with a
little extra weight showing beneath his clerk's apron. "Don Harrison?
I'm Pat Maginess."

"Ah" he said, putting a tiny box of screws over on a nearby counter. "I
was wondering if you would show up today. How was your drive up?"

"Nice. Uneventful. No flat tires in any case."

He laughed. "Well, that's always good." His look got more serious.
"Thanks for looking into this for me. I really would like to find out
what happened to Ron."

"Don't thank me yet. I haven't done anything except a lot of driving.
And I should tell you up front, I've got a pretty good track record as
an investigator, but it doesn't mean all cases can be solved."

Don seemed to think about that for a few seconds, then nodded. "So let's
just hope for the best, then, I suppose."

"Yeah, hope for the best. Carmen told you about my fees on the phone,
right?"

"Yes. I can say, Mr. Maginess, that money is no issue here. This may be
a small town and a tiny little grocery, but I'm pretty well off. And she
told me about the bonus. That's no problem either. I assure you, if you
solve this, I'll make the bonus a good one. You have my word on that."

"Great. Now, if you have the time, I would like to go over the case with
you. I'm sure Sheriff Baker asked you a lot of questions. But I need to
ask them again."

Don slid the box he had been unpacking over to the side and sat down on
it. Then he nodded in the direction of another box a few feet away. "I
don't have an office here in the store, I'm afraid. This is the best I
can do if you'd care to take a seat on that box there."

I sat down. "I must confess, this is the first time in my career that
I've conducted an interview sitting on a box of mouse traps." I pulled
out my notebook from inside my suit jacket, and a pencil. I was glad to
see the pencil tip hadn't broken yet. "Okay, I guess Ron was in Korea,
right?"

"Yeah. I couldn't believe it when he joined up. Ron was twelve years
younger than me, but he had already done his part in the last one. But
he went anyway. Wasn't over there long, got wounded. Caught some
shrapnel in the back and the derriere, and the legs. Pretty much minor
except for the legs. Hit some muscles down there. He still got around
pretty good, but with a slight limp."

"He was lucky" I said. "I knew a guy who was killed by a piece of
shrapnel big as the tip of this pencil here. Did his injury have
anything to do with him getting out of the fishing tour business?"

Don shook his head. "No. I never really understood that one. And Ron
didn't talk about it. He just told me one day that he had stopped taking
on tours. Then he grabbed a box of corn flakes and left."

"What about fishing in general? I guess he quit that one, too?"

"I guess. He quit both fishing and hunting. Strange, Ron always was the
hunter. He was great at it, just had all those instincts. And he was a
damn good fisherman. That's why when our father died he got the fishing
shop and I got the grocery. But I don't know why he quit, Mr. Maginess.
I really don't."

"Sheriff Baker mentioned something about the .44 found at the crime
scene. He said you thought it might be Ron's gun."

"It might be. I guess when they found it I just assumed that it was
Ron's gun. He had all sorts of guns."

"But you don't know for sure?"

Don shook his head. "No. Sorry. Ron was the one with an interest in all
that stuff. As for me, I'm more into putting up new shingles and
remodeling decks."

"Okay. I'm going to need to visit the crime scene. Ron's cabin. Can you
give me the key, or make a duplicate?"

Don laughed. "No key necessary, Mr. Maginess. Except for the few stores
here in town, there isn't a lock within fifty miles of Angel Pines. But
what I can do is give you a map to the place. That's probably be just as
valuable."

The sun was already beginning touch the top of the mountains in the
West. Remembering Sheriff Baker's warning about driving at night on the
mountain roads, I decide to head back to Colton. I went back to the
diner and got the old Plymouth and drove it over to the filling station
for gas. Outside, an old gentleman sat on a chair, holding a cane. He
was wrinkled and his skin looked like old leather. I couldn't come close
to figuring out how old he was.

"I just need some gas" I said, approaching him.

"Sure. But you'll have to pump it yourself. I got arthritis awful bad."

I went pack to the car and put the gas in. I had worked as a pump jockey
in college, along with the dry cleaning business my parents owned, and
just for old memories I got a paper towel and the spray dispenser and
cleaned off the windshield as well. "That was three dollars and twenty
three cents worth" I told the old guy in the chair. "Here's five. Keep
the change."

The guy looked up at me and smiled. "You are very generous with your
money."

"Yeah, I'm on expense account. Sort of."

"I'm Nick White Feather" he said. He didn't bother to try to shake
hands, either out of natural inclination or because of his arthritis. "I
own this little place. I'm also head of the Tribal Council around here.
That is a very nice Plymouth you have there. You've obviously had it
fixed up quite a bit. It's nice to find someone who appreciates the old
ones. Most young people these days, they just go out and buy the newest
thing on the lot. Myself, I like a car with some history to it."

White Feather's whole manner impressed me. It was a shame about the
arthritis hitting him. "Thanks for the compliment. I put some money into
the Plymouth a while back. It used to be an old rust bucket. And it gets
me around pretty good, too. I didn't have any trouble getting here, even
with the steep grades."

He nodded, and finally pocketed the five dollar bill I had given him. He
winced as his fingers stuffed it into his pocket. "I hear you are
investigating Ron Harrison's death" he said, almost as an afterthought.

"Word travels fast in a small town, I guess."

He laughed. "Words always travel faster than we think they do. It's the
nature of words. Words are sacred, they have wings and soar through the
sky."

"Old Indian wisdom?" I said, smiling.

"Maybe" he said. "Or maybe it's Egyptian, I forget." He laughed again.
"Stop back in again with your beautiful Plymouth. We will share more
words with each other."

"I can't very well see how I can avoid it, Mr. White Feather. You're the
only gas station in town."

Trying to concentrate on the drive back into Colton I didn't think about
the case much. On a regular case I would have gone at that point to my
office and started a new case file. But seeing that my file cabinets
were about sixty miles away, I checked into the small hotel in town.
After grabbing some dinner at a local steak house I wandered down the
street on foot looking for a place to have a few drinks. The little
tavern I dropped into wasn't much by the look of it on the outside, and
it wasn't anything special on the inside either. Nevertheless it had a
good crowd. Pretty much every male in the tavern was wearing a plaid
shirt and a cowboy hat, and I felt totally out of place in my suit and
old 30s style fedora. I took a stool at the bar and a female bartender
came down to me. She looked to be about thirty, but was probably more
like forty, and was dressed in mostly black with the exception of a
crisp white blouse. There was something about her that reminded me of a
fifth-grade English teacher. For some reason, I liked her off the bat.

"What'll it be, stranger?" she said, almost laughing.

"Uh, whiskey, I guess." Before I could add anything about the ginger ale
I normally mixed it with she took off down the bar. When she came back
down she slammed an entire bottle of Canadian rye, two-thirds full, onto
the bar in front of me. Then she slammed down a shot glass. "There ya
go" she said, giving me this wonderful, slightly satiric smile.

"Gee, thanks" I said. "Although I'm not sure if this is gonna be enough
whiskey. I have to sleep in strange bed tonight."

"We've got another bottle" she said, almost laughing but not quite.

I drank and smoked, and made intermittent conversation with the
bartender, who's name turned out to be Rhonda. The crowd slowly thinned
out over the next two hours. I kept looking at the door, half-expecting
Virgil Earp himself to walk in, looking for a card game.

By the time the evening was over the bottle was empty almost to the
bottom. Rhonda looked at the bottle and visually measured the remaining
contents. "That'll be about twenty bucks worth, I think."

Back at the hotel I stripped and got into bed. The mattress was lumpy
and felt like a giant pancake, and the pillow was so soft that I might
as well have had my head resting on a wash rag. Nevertheless, after
smoking a last cigarette I slid myself under the covers and fell right
to sleep, thinking about Rhonda's hips under the tight black skirt and
they way her eyes looked when she made a joke.



GO TO PART II.



1 Comment

Those Songs We Sing to Ourselves (Part II)

Thursday, 24. April 2008, 22:12:38

, ,


PART II.

I followed the little map that Don Harrison had made for me, and after
running up and down the same section of road about three times finally
spotted a little cabin back off in the distance behind a group of
redwoods. The dirt drive only went up halfway to the cabin. For the
remainder I had to get out and walk up a small hill. It was only about
20 yards, but by the time I got up the hill my bum ticker was pounding
like crazy and my breathing was heavy and difficult. I was glad to
finally get to the cabin. Once inside I collapsed into a chair.

I looked around the cabin, resting a bit. "I sure as hell hope this is
Ron's cabin" I said to myself. There was really nothing to identify the
owner. I imagined somebody coming through the door suddenly, finding me
there. So I figured the first thing I ought to do was to find something
that would indentify the owner. The cabin was essentially one room, with
a little section off the back that lead to what I supposed was a
bathroom. The light was very dim due to there only being two windows in
the whole place. Over against the wall was a large dresser, about six
foot long. It was no doubt the same dresser on which Sheriff Baker had
found the Smith revolver. I decided that would be a good place to start.

There were some papers in the left top drawer of the dresser. Looking
through them, I found Ron Harrison's name on a couple of them. So I did
have the right cabin. In the right top drawer I found some underwear and
some socks and a box of .44 caliber shells, the same as the murder
weapon, as well as a gun cleaning kit. As for the gun itself, I assumed
that Sheriff Baker had it. The bottom drawers of the dresser held
clothing.

Towards front of the cabin there was a gun cabinet. It was empty and
unlocked. Since it didn't make any sense to have a gun cabinet without
any guns, I could only assume that Ron had gotten rid of them or had
decided to store them elsewhere. The small drawer at the bottom of the
cabinet held a couple boxes of .12 gauge shotgun shells and a half dozen
boxes of Winchester .30-06 rifle cartridges.

It was at that point that I noticed a big, dark spot on the wood
planking of the floor over in the direction of the fireplace. The spot
was about four feet in diameter. Sheriff Baker was right, the holes that
had been put into Ron Harrison were major, and there had been a lot of
blood. With that much blood, I figured it would have taken Harrison
about twenty seconds to bleed out, maybe thirty if he was unlucky and
had to lie there in his own blood a bit longer.

Above the fireplace there were a couple of racks for some fishing rods,
but no poles. On the fireplace mantel there were a few photos in frames,
one of a guy looking something like Ron Harrison, but young and skinny
looking and wearing a WWII era G.I. uniform. The photo took me back to
my own days in the army. I had probably dragged in a couple of thousand
guys just like Ron who went out and got too drunk or who otherwise got
into some sort of trouble. And somehow they all looked the same in my
memory -- young, innocent, ignorant of the war and the damage it could
do to men. I put the photo back on the mantel. "Poor bastard" I said to
myself and to nobody in particular. It was totally shitty to have
survived two wars only to end up shot at home in your own cabin. I felt
my temper rise a bit. Whoever had shot Ron Harrison, I was beginning to
develop a serious dislike for them.

There was another photo on the mantel also, a much older one that I
assumed was of Ron and Don's parents. There was also a little white
sculpted bird that looked like it had been carved out of bone of some
sort, and a small clock that had run down. Finding the key to the clock
sitting next to it, I looked at my watch, set the hands and wound it.
"There ya' go, Ron." I put the key back next to the clock and stuck my
hands in my pockets and looked at the clock until the minute hand
advanced from seven to eight, from eight to nine, from nine to ten.

The closet at the back of the cabin next to the bathroom was piled with
all sorts of stuff. There I found the missing fishing poles, an
assortment of mounted fish and a big Elk head on a wooden back that had
been taken down from the wall. There was also some camping gear, and
hanging from a dowl rod at the top of the closet were a bunch of shirts,
pants, jackets.

I checked out the bathroom, but it was of the most primitive sort, with
a few shelves but no cabinets. Then I walked around the cabin a bit
more, slowly, seeing if my eyes would rest on anything interesting. But
after a few minutes I decided that if there was anything in the cabin
that might provided any information as to what had happened that it just
wasn't registering in my brain at that point. My stomach started telling
me that it was ready to be fed. I decided to come back later and take
another look around after lunch and with a fresh set of eyes.

Back in Angel Pines I ordered the pork-chop special from Michelle, who
gave me a smile when I walked in but who nevertheless still seemed a
little leary of me. No matter what kind of trouble she had gotten into
in Los Angeles during her time there, and it was my guess that she had
been in some sort of trouble, I seriously doubted wether it had anything
to do with Ron's murder. That was an assumption, of course. I wasn't
going to rule her out totally as a suspect. I had run into all sorts of
people who were willing to do bad things to hide a bad past. But it just
didn't add up. If anything, the fact that Ron had placed trust in
Michelle about falling off the vegetarian wagon suggested that he didn't
know anything about her that could have gotten him into trouble. Ron
hardly seemed the type, even with the little I knew about him, to resort
to blackmail. And if Michelle had been involved with any rough types in
L.A. who had followed her up to Angel Pines it didn't make any sense to
kill Ron Harrison. The only scenario in that vein that I could come up
with was that Ron had tried to protect Michelle and it had thrown him
into problems with someone from her past. But if that was the case, they
would have been all over Angel Pines prior to the murder, would have
stood out as surely as I stood out being up there. But there had been no
report of that. With regard to Michelle, I figured that her past was
dead and buried and hadn't been a factor in the murder.

"You're a good cook, Michelle" I said as she cleared away my plate.

"Thanks. But I'll tell ya, with prices on things going up like crazy,
it's been tough here serving good food at a reasonable price."

"Inflation has hit a lot of people. I have to pay 50 cents more these
days for a box of bullets." I smiled, and gave her a wink so she would
know that I was kidding.

"Oh, I think I have your number. Your a softy at heart. I bet you don't
even use those bullets."

I laughed. "Very seldom, anyway. But I seriously object to being called
a softie. I'm a really tough guy." I pulled my hat down close to my eyes
and squinted, tilted my head back and let my cigarette hang out of my
mouth a bit. "See? Tough guy."

"Uh huh, right" she said, giving me a wink back.

As I came out of the diner I ran into dumb-ass Jimmie, who had been
conspicuously absent at the diner. "Hello, Jimmie" I said as I passed
him.

"Hey, your zipper's open" he yelled after me.

I paid him no attention. I climbed into the car, trying to get my mind
focused back on the case after the heavy meal. But as I leaned forward
and stuck my key in the ignition I noticed that my zipper was in fact
undone. "Son of a bitch" I said to myself. I turned off the engine and
just sat there a minute.

Jimmy might be the equivalent of the village idiot, but that didn't mean
he didn't know things, maybe things that other people might not know. If
I was going to put down five bucks, I would have bet that Sheriff Baker
hadn't bothered interviewing the kid. I zipped up my pants and got out
of the car and went over to him. He was sitting on a bench outside the
Post Office reading a Superman comic book.

"Jimmy, how's it going?"

He looked at me like I might be teasing him. "Uh, okay."

"Jimmy, you spend quite a bit of time here in town, I take it."

"Yeah, so?"

"Nothing wrong with spending time in town, Jimmie. I was just thinking
that since you are here in town quite a lot, that you might have seen a
few things."

"Like, what kind of things?"

"Well, for instance you ever see Ron Harrison with anybody? Somebody
from out of town, maybe? Or somebody from here in town that he might be
having problems with? Or being really friendly with?

"What if I did?"

"That would be interesting information, Jimmie. If it were true
information, of course."

Jimmie got out of the chair and walked up to me. "I saw Ron and Jane
together a couple times" he said in a serious voice. "They came into
town together. In Jane's truck. She dropped him off. Then she left. It was
pretty early both times. Nothing open yet. I was here 'cause my mom comes
in at dawn to sort mail. I help her sometimes."

"Jane? Who's this Jane?"

"Jane Stewart. She lives here, out a ways. A couple miles up West Pines
Road. Has a cabin. A nice one. She comes into town every once in a while
to get her mail and shop for groceries and stuff. They say she doesn't
like people much. One of those...types who stick by themselves. You know
what I mean?"

"Hermits?"

"Yeah! A hermit."

My read was that he was being straight-up with me about it. "You ever
see them, well, act kinda friendly towards each other?"

He laughed at that. "You mean, like they was making out together?"

"Never mind" I said. "Can you draw me a map up to her place? I'd like to
talk with her." I flipped open my notebook and gave it to him along with
a pencil.

"I could give you the mailing address, but it wouldn't mean anything to
you. There aren't any signs. Here's this street. Then you go up about
two miles. Then take a left. It's the only turn-off right there. Then
you go another three miles or so. It's a cabin set back, top of the
porch beam is painted blue. Ha!" He handed me back the notebook and
pencil. "Blue. Ain't that a killer? A blue awning on a cabin?"

"Hmm, I don't know much about cabin decoration. Anyway, I appreciate the
information."

"Hey, your shoe's untied!" he said as I walked off.

"Very funny, Jimmie" I said, without turning around.

As I got back into my car I remembered Jimmie's serious attitude as he
drew the map and gave me the directions. Dumb-ass or not, the kid wasn't
stupid. It was understandable that he could have scored 92 percent on
the Postmaster test. Which only reinforced a view I had held for a good
long while -- that people are very seldom all black or all white. We're
all of us shades of gray.

Even though it was a lot further out, Jane Stewart's place was a lot
easier to find. It was only about fifty feet back off the road. And then
there was the bright blue awning in front. I pulled up behind a pick-up
truck in the drive and got out. The area around the cabin had been
cleared of trees a good way back. Off to the side of what would be
called a front yard in the city a woman in a thick, red-plaid jacket
stood holding a rake, watching me carefully.

"Mam. My name is Pat Maginess. Are you Jane Stewart?"

"Yes..." she said suspiciously.

"I'm a private investigator from Los Angles, Miss Stewart..."

"That's Mrs. Stewart"

"Sorry. Mrs. Stewart. Anyway, I've been hired by Don Harrison to make
some enquiries up here. Can I have a few minutes of your time to ask you
some questions?"

"Questions concerning what?"

"The death of Ron Harrison."

She looked down at the ground. Then she started in with the rake. "I've
got to get these pine needles raked up" she said, not looking at me.
"They're a fire hazard." She raked a bit. "I didn't know Ron Harrison.
Not really."

"Well, I have a witness in town who saw you with Ron Harrison on a
number of occasions. You drove him into town. It sounds to me like you
did know him."

She jerked the rake handle up to ninety degrees and looked at me,
putting her gloved hands on the top of handle to rest them. She had
short, carrot-red hair and even from six feet I could make out the
freckles around her eyes and on her cheekbones. I was willing to bet she
had freckles in a lot of other places. Even with the heavy outdoor
jacket on it was clear that she was thin as a stick. She looked to be
about 45, but it was tough to tell with redheads. Her deep blue eyes
bored into me, registering nothing of what was running through her mind.

"Let's go inside. I have a pot of coffee on" she said finally.

Once inside she directed me to a big, overstuffed blue chair in front of
the fireplace and handed me a tin cup of coffee thick as dirt. "I've
already had a good number of cups today. So pardon me if I don't join
you." She sat down in a large wooden chair a few feet from me, crossed
her legs, folded her hands. Jane's cabin was about the same size as
Ron's, but newer and with more windows and it was more nicely
decorated -- what is sometimes called the feminine touch. It was obvious
that her favorite color was blue. There was a lot of blue in the room.
"Now. What's this you say about a witness?"

"It's like I said, Mrs. Stewart. A witness in town saw you and Ron
Harrison together. Mornings, from what he said. So you knew him."

"Yes, I knew him. But why is that any of your concern?"

"Ron Harrison was murdered. I was hired to look into it. That makes it
my concern."

For a second I imagined that she was going to come over to my chair and
slap me. But then she looked down at the floor, sighed, and then looked
back at me and smiled.

"I'm sorry" she said. "That was rude of me. What did you say your name
was?"

"Maginess. You can call me Pat if you want."

"Mr. Maginess, do you know why I moved here, here to Angel Pines?"

"They say you're a hermit of sorts."

She smiled. "Well, I suppose that's true. But I'm talking about the real
explanation. The one nobody around here knows. Would you like to hear
it?"

"Sure" I said, trying to swallow a bit more of the coffee.

"Do you know Emily Dickinson?" she asked, turning her body a bit more in
my direction to tell her story. "No? There's this poem of hers -- she
talks about not understanding why the sky didn't tumble down on her.
Well, Mr. Maginess, the sky did tumble down on me." She paused for a few
seconds, gathering her thoughts, and then stared at the ceiling. "I'm
not from Angle Pines originally, Mr. Maginess. I'm from San Francisco. I
met my husband right after high school. We married in '35. And we were
incredibly happy...in spite of the lack of children. And then the war
came. Carter, my husband, came home one day from his job with the Park
Department and told me he had joined up in the Navy. We had a terrible
fight about it. But it was too late, he had already singed the papers.
He tried to console me. Told me he was going to be on a ship, and that
he would be safe on a ship and that he'd come back to me. Ha, safe on a
ship. I think you can guess what happened. You seem like an intelligent
man."

"He was killed in action."

She nodded. "I never will forget the telegram. The little envelope with
its little blue seal. Such a tiny little letter, really. And that's the
day, Mr. Maginess, that the sky tumbled down on me..."

"For a while I could hardly do anything but lie in bad. But then I
decided that I had to do something, take care of myself. Carter's boss
at the Parks Department lined me up with a job as a secretary there. I
went through the motions. I was a good secretary. And then one day I
decided to take the ferry, just to feel the sea air brush across my face
like it had when I was a little girl. We were a few miles out. I was
standing along the railing near the bow. And then, suddenly in the
distance, a whale breached only about a hundred yards from the ferry. It
caught me by surprise and for a moment I couldn't breathe. It was
magnificent, Mr. Maginess. Have you ever seen a breaching whale? It is
majestic. After the ferry got back in I ran to the library and checked
out every book on whales they had. I started reading about them, and
about Orcas. Eventually, I discovered what we humans are doing to them.
I couldn't believe that we would hunt such creatures for so little
reason. But that was just part of the horrible destructiveness that I
realized was all around me. Do you know what I mean by horrible
destructiveness, Mr. Maginess?"

"Well I know that it isn't all joy and light, I can say that much."

"Yes, then you know. And then I met someone. I won't mention his name.
He was a member of a group devoted to vegetarianism and saving species
that had become rare due to the horrible destructiveness of we humans.
We started going for coffee after the meetings. And eventually we came
up with a plan to open an office to help make people aware of what was
going on. I saved every penny of my salary that I could. And I put in a
few thousand dollars from Carter's insurance money. We found a small
street-level office space and started fixing it up. I started coming
alive again, Mr. Maginess. But no, it wasn't to be. One day I went to
our office, it was a Saturday, only to find the doors locked. Then man I
had worked with wasn't there as he was supposed to be. I tried calling
him. By the following Tuesday I was worried that something had happened
to him. I talked his landlord into letting me into his apartment. But
when we went in we found that his things were gone. As if he had never
lived there. I screamed, I was furious, and I ran down to the bank. All
the money we...I had put into the account for our Whale Fund was gone.
He betrayed me, betrayed me...and the sky tumbled down again, Mr.
Maginess. A month later, I moved here. At first I thought that I would
just nurse my wounds and then go back to the San Francisco. But I
stayed."

"And what of your relationship with Ron Harrison?"

"Ah, I was driving back from Angel Pines one morning. I saw Ron, walking
down the road, just walking down the road with his hands in his pockets.
I passed him by at first, but there was just something about the
expression on his face as I glimpsed it in the rear view mirror that
made me stop the truck. I got out and walked toward him. The look in his
eyes, Mr. Maginess, you should have seen it. He had just gotten back
from Korea. And I knew, I knew that he had seen the horrible
destructiveness of it all. All those horrible things that people do to
each other. I invited him back here for coffee. We started spending time
with each other. One thing led to another."

"Why keep it a secret?"

She looked at me and smiled again. "I'm kind of a traditional woman, Mr.
Maginess. And I will never marry again after Carter. I made that vow
when he died."

It suddenly occurred to me that the little white sculpture on Ron's
fireplace mantel hadn't been a bird. "The little white sculpture that
Ron had. That's a whale, isn't it?"

"Yes, she said. "I gave it to him. It's made out of whale bone,
unfortunately. Made by the Alaskan Indians. But for me, of course, it
was more than just a piece of native art. It was a symbol of what we
humans are doing to them. I gave it to Ron as...a pledge. You know.
Pledge?"

"Uh, yeah. I think so, Mrs. Stewart. And so Ron became a vegetarian,
too. And gave up hunting and fishing along with it."

"Yes. But you should know, I didn't ask him to. He wanted to. He said
that was his pledge to me in return. His promise..." Her mind seemed go
out into the ether somehow. "And now...he's gone. All the death. All
that pain. The horrible destructiveness of this world. All the death.
All those horrible things people do to each other." She stopped for a
minute and I sat there thinking that she would continue. Then, almost
so softly I could barely hear it, and still looking down at the floor,
she began humming some song to herself. I couldn't make out the song,
but it had a gentle lilt to it, a minor key ballad. And then she started
singing the words also. I couldn't make those out either. She was in
outer space. It was suddenly like I wasn't even in the room.

I let her sing. Then, looking at my watch, I realized how late it had
gotten. Out the window I could see that it was pretty much dark. In just
the little while we had been talking the cabin had grown dim also, a
fact that I hadn't noticed it had happened so gradually. Concentrating
on the interview, I had inadvertently set myself up for a drive in the
dark back to Colton around the mountain roads. I needed to continue the
interview with Jane Stewart. But it would have to wait until the
following day.

"Well, Mrs. Stewart. I had better get going." Jane looked up at me
standing there in front of her and smiled, humming her song. But it was
obvious she only half-heard me.

I pulled the collar of my suit jacket up around my neck as I left the
cabin. I had forgotten how fast it can get cold in the mountains after
the sun goes down, and there was a serious chill in the air that I
hadn't experienced earlier. For a bit I considered going back to Ron's
cabin and staying the night there. But then I decided to tough it out
and go the mountain roads. The hotel bed in Colton was possibly worse
than the one in Ron's cabin, but at least Colton had a few restaurants.
And I had to admit the thought of seeing Rhonda again and the old-west
feeling of having that bottle in front of me had something to do with my
decision.

The drive back into Angel Pines was easy. The road was flat and there
was a fence of 150-foot pine trees on either side to keep the Plymouth
pointed in the right direction. As I hit Angel Pines I took a right and
cruised through town. Everything was closed down -- the diner, the Post
Office, the grocery. But it was the gas station that concerned me. It
was closed too, and the plan I had earlier to fill up before leaving
town was now impossible. I checked my gas gauge. If I was lucky, I
figured I could hit the gas station on the outskirts of Colton before
running out of gas.

The dark road back was a nightmare. I would run into a straight section
of road for about a hundred yards, then the road would curve to the
left. Then there would be another straight section, and then the road
would curve right. As the road straightened and curved, the grade would
go up or down, often steeply. The only light was from my headlights, and
their range was limited. I was constantly upshifting and downshifting
due to the grades, hoping like hell that my concentration wouldn't slip
and take me off the side of the road and down the side of the mountain.

I was about fifteen minutes out of Angel Pines when I heard a sharp tink
on the roof of the Plymouth. A few seconds later, there was another one.
And a few seconds after that a big glob of water hit the front
windshield. Within a minute the tinks and drops increased. And then,
suddenly, it was if Noah had been right all along and the final
catastrophic downpour had come. I turned on my windshield wipers, but
they were virtually useless fighting against all the rain that was
coming down. "Son of a bitch" I said, banging my hand on the steering
wheel. I cursed the dark and the rain. I cursed myself for being such a
damn fool.

There was no way I could keep driving. The dark and the roads were bad
enough, but with the rain only a suicidal maniac would have kept on
driving. I began looking for a place where I could safely pull over and
park until the storm passed. It took a while, but I finally spotted a
small area of dirt on the left side of the road up against the high
granite of the mountain wall. I pulled past the area and then drove into
the oncoming lane and backed into the spot, hoping no other vehicles
would come along as I did so. The Plymouth fit into the side area pretty
much like a hand in a glove. My driver side door being blocked by the
granite wall, I got out on the passenger side and swam through the rain
a few feet to check and see if any of the Plymouth was sticking out onto
the road. But the front right bumper was off the road by about two feet.
That wasn't much, but I figured I was safe as long as other drivers
watched where they were going. In the rain storm, it would be tougher.
There wasn't anything I could do, I just had to hope for the best. I got
back into the car and stayed on the passenger side.

I had barely noticed the cold earlier in the drive due to the exertion
of the almost constant upshifting and downshifting and the kicking of
the clutch. But now, stationary in the passenger seat, I began to feel
the cold creep into my body. I hadn't been out in the storm very long.
But the rain was so furious that it had soaked me down to my underwear.
Which of course only made the cold worse. I thought about my raincoat,
nicely tucked into my suitcase back in Colton. "Damn idiot" I said to
myself.

It looked as if I would be stuck there for a while. I checked the glove
compartment for supplies. I found a half-pint of whiskey, a pack of
chewing gum, a small pair of binoculars, a bunch of old gas station
receipts, and a ball of twine. Only the whiskey and the chewing gum were
of any use. I didn't think the twine was going to help me in my current
situation.

My chill grew. The storm continued. I hugged myself tightly, but after a
while I began to shiver. It was if the cold was invading my muscles, my
entire skeleton. I started rocking forward and back, trying to get a
little motion going to warm myself up a bit. But it didn't work. "When I
get back to L.A., I'm going to bronze that damn ball of twine and put it
on my mantel" I mumbled to myself.

I felt my brain drifting into space, and the image of Jane Stewart in
her cabin singing to herself popped into my head. I considered turning
on the radio, but to do that I would have to let the car run in order
not to run down the battery, and I was running low on fuel. Besides, I
didn't even know if I could get any reception nestled against the
granite wall.

Then, as if someone had opened a big umbrella over the mountains, the
rain stopped. In the space of an instant all was quiet. I got out of the
car. I figured that maybe I could walk a little to warm myself up. There
wasn't anywhere to walk in the little niche I had parked in. So I
crossed the road and carefully skirted the edge. There was an area just
big enough to walk on before the hill plummeted down. I walked back and
forth, back and forth. But the chill wouldn't go away.

Finally, I looked up. The sky was totally clear. It was as if there had
never been a storm, or never would be one. And I had never seen so many
stars in all my life, there seemed to be thousands of them. I was never
really good at reading the constellations, but there was a luminous band
sitting on the horizon that I was pretty sure was the northern arm of
the Milky Way. There I was, one poor and very cold human on one tiny
planet. And then there was all of that, all those stars, and who knew
how many worlds around them. They seemed to glow in the night sky as if
by some sort of magic. I thought of a movie I had seen a while back,
The Day the Earth Stood Still. And then I thought about Jane
Stewart. And suddenly my heart sank. I had a bad feeling about Jane, and
what had happened to Ron.

"Shades of grey" I said to myself. But there was no use going over that.
I needed to get back to Colton. I climbed over into the driver's seat in
the Plymouth and started the engine and threw it into gear. As I drove I
kept an eye on the gas gauge. The rain had stopped but the driving was
no easier the second half of the route. After what seemed like hours I
finally pulled into the filling station outside of Colton. My suit was
still wet and my hair was plastered on my head and my hands were still
shaking a bit from the cold. The pump jockey looked at me like I was
from outer space as he took my money.

Once in Colton proper I headed directly to my hotel room. I stripped
down and took the hottest shower the hotel plumbing could manage. Then I
threw on a dry pair of skivvies and jumped into bed an pulled the covers
over me. But I just couldn't seem to get warm. I thought about getting
up and making a call down to the desk to get another blanket. But the
last thing I wanted to do at that point was to get out from under the
covers. And eventually, I got hungry too. But I stayed in bed. Hunger
seemed far less worse than the cold at that point.

I fell asleep. But every so often I would wake up. I was still cold. and
yet for some reason I began to sweat. My mind wandered to this subject
and that. I drifted in and out of sleep. And then, with the clock coming
up on two, I started thinking about the war, about the mountains in
northern Italy.

Late in the war, while I was working for Army C.I.D. in Italy, me and my
partner Pete Collins got some information through one of our informants
that that there was a high-ranking Nazi general holed up in the north in
a village called Ivrea who was trying to get help to get out of the
country. Me and Collins hopped the next mail flight to Turin, where we
requisitioned a jeep and drove the remaining forty miles to Ivrea. But
instead of a Nazi general we found an Italian colonel named Salvatore
Cuomo. In spite of the mistake Cuomo turned out to be on the Wanted
list, for reasons known only to the Defense Department.

We tied Cuomo's hands and put him in the jeep. It was near dark at that
point, and since the single hotel in Ivrea was boarded up we drove
outside of town and started looking for a farmhouse where we might stay
for the night. Collins went up to one house, talked a few minutes, and
came back.

"Good news and bad news. The good news is we can stay. The bad news is
we have to stay in the barn."

I cursed under my breath. "Wonderful. This is like some sort of joke you
hear. The one about some guy and the farmer's daughter."

Collins laughed. "I wish there was a farmer's daughter. Trust me, I
really do wish that one."

The barn was occupied by a solitary milk cow who was already asleep for
the night. There were also some empty horse stalls. We had our choice of
the central floor area or the horse stalls to sleep in. We chose the
horse stalls, which weren't nearly as bad as we had expected seeing as
whatever horses had been kept there in the past had obviously not been
there for a good while.

"They probably ate them, the poor bastards" Collins said. We tied up
Cuomo's feet also so he couldn't escape and then divided up the stalls.
I took the stall near the door, we put Cuomo into the next one, and
Collins slept in the stall on the other. I spread out my army blanket
over some ancient straw and folded my leather jacket to use as a pillow.
I turned over on my right side, then rolled over on my left, then turned
on my back. Nothing helped. An hour later I was still awake.

It was then I heard what sounded like music. I listened for a few
minutes, and finally determined that it was coming from the next stall.
Cuomo was singing to himself. It wasn't very loud, but it was loud
enough. I got up and went into his stall.

"Hey, cut that singing out. Just go to sleep."

I returned to my stall. I tossed and turned some more. A half hour later
the singing started up again. "Son of a bitch" I said to myself and to
no one in particular. I got up again and went to Cuomo's stall.

"I said stop that singing, damn it. You're keeping me awake. Go to
sleep, or I'll put you outside tied to the jeep."

A short while later I finally managed to fall asleep. But it didn't make
much difference. I was woken up some time later by more of Cuomo's
singing. Thinking that it was pretty much useless at that point, I stuck
my palm between my left ear and the leather jacket and stuck a finger in
my right ear.

By morning I had gotten a little sleep, but not much. I went into
Cuomo's stall and cut the ropes on his feet.

"If you have to take a leak, we're going to do that before we leave,
okay?"

"Que?" he said.

"You know, take a leak. Urinate."

Cuomo nodded. He was sitting up, his legs slightly bent, looking at me
with large brown eyes over a well-trimmed moustache. From the look of
him, he hadn't gotten much sleep either.

After we did our morning toilet I helped Cuomo up into the rear of the
jeep. Collins hopped into the driver's seat. started the jeep up and as
was his habit took off like a bat out of hell. I turned and looked at
Cuomo. "And no singing!" I yelled at him above the roar of the jeep.
"Si" he said, a bit sadly.

I looked at the mountain scenery, which was quite beautiful, and my
thoughts drifted. Eventually I got to thinking about the damn song
again. The melody kept going through my head.

"What was that song that you kept singing last night?" I asked Cuomo.

"The song, yes, it is a song my mother sing to me. It is called The
Pretty Flower of Spring. Very nice song, very nice."

"The Pretty Flower of Spring, huh. Tell me some of it."

"Que?"

"Tell me some of it. You know, the lines of the song."

"The words" Collins yelled back at him.

"Yeah, the words to the song. How does it go?"

Cuomo thought about it a minute.

"It go -- Shepherdess on the mountain, good-bye, good-bye. My dreams,
they have died in an instant, my pretty flower. My dreams have died in
an instant, pretty flower of the Spring."

Collins looked over at me.

"Don't say it" I said.

"I wasn't going to." Collins downshifted hard and the engine screamed.
Forty-five minutes later we were back in Turin.



GO TO PART III.

No comments

Those Songs We Sing to Ourselves (Part III)

Thursday, 24. April 2008, 22:07:39

, ,


PART III.

I fell asleep again, this time till daylight. Finally crawling out of
bed I felt weak and my muscles ached. I lit a smoke, but started
coughing immediately and put it out. Putting on a shirt and a pair of
pants from my suitcase I put my shoulder holster back on and then tied
my tie and pulled on my jacket. The suit that I had worn up from L.A.,
which had gotten wet in the storm and which I had thrown onto the floor
when I got to my hotel room, I shook out and put on hangers and placed
as near to the radiator as I could to dry out. There was time for a
quick breakfast, which made me feel a little better, but I knew I was
seriously sick with something at that point. Sick or not it was time to
get back to work. "The Army's not payin' ya to lie in bed" they used say
to us. Old habits die hard. I got in the car and headed back to Angel
Pines.

The air was still cool but the skies were deep blue with almost no
clouds. My body was still achy and cold, and I tried to keep warm
drinking coffee from my big thermos, which I had them fill at the
restaurant where I had eaten breakfast. With the constant steering and
shifting it was impossible to use the cup and I threw it on the
passenger seat. I kept the thermos nestled between my legs, and when I
would hit a level section of road I would pull it up and take a couple
of big gulps. All the while I kept looking for the little niche where I
had parked the Plymouth when the storm hit the night before. I had
developed a pretty good trained eye over my years of doing investigative
work. But by the time the road leveled out just short of Angel Pines it
was obvious that I had missed the niche in spite of my best efforts.
Which didn't help my mood any. I wasn't sure why it meant anything to
spot the niche. But it did for some reason, and my screwy brain was
greatly disappointed.

Not wanting to repeat yesterday's mistake I hit the filling station
first thing on coming into Angel Pines. Nick White Feather was in the
same chair he had been sitting in the first time I ran into him. He gave
me a nod as I got out of the car and started pumping some gas into it. I
also spent a few minutes cleaning of all the glass on the car, which was
very spotted due to the rain storm the Plymouth had been through.

"Here's another Abe Lincoln, Chief" I said to him. White Feather smiled
and took the bill. "I like Lincoln" he said. "He's the best of all the
presidents on money."

"What about Andrew Jackson?" I asked him. "He's worth a lot more."

"No, I just like Lincoln" he said. "Jackson was not so good to my
people, really."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot. Sorry to bring up a touchy subject."

"That is quite all right" he said. "Jackson was here for a while, but he
is no longer here. But I am here." Once again, with great difficulty,
Nick stuck the fiver down into his pocket.

I decided to bunt. "Chief, you ever talk with Jane Stewart any? The
redhead who lives out here a ways?"

Nick looked me in the eye, and then jerked his chin up slightly. "She is
a wounded mountain lion, that one."

"What makes you say that?"

He shrugged. "I like pie" he said. "I like lemon meringue best. But I
like all sort of pie, really. Last Fourth of July, we had a community
feast here. Don Harrison paid for the feast, and sent out flyers to
everyone. We all gathered down by the gazebo that you see there on the
edge of town. It is difficult for me to climb stairs these days, but I
wanted pie. And the pies were on a table inside the gazebo. So I
gathered my strength and climbed the seven stairs of the gazebo and got
some pie. Then I sat down on a bench inside the gazebo and ate the pie
that I had won for myself. Sitting next to me on the bench was the
Stewart woman. We talked a bit as I ate my pie."

"And what did you talk about?"

"We talked about pie. I told her that I liked lemon meringue pie best.
But we both agreed that the cherry pie was very good."

"And what else did you talk about?"

"Nothing. Just pie. I finished my cherry pie, and the Stewart woman
kindly went and got me a piece of pecan pie, which she said was very
good also. Then Michelle came up on the deck. That is when I saw the
Stewart woman's eyes focus on Michelle. And as she did so, I felt the
lion-spirit in her reel back, and I felt the wounds in her. Then she
came back to the bench and gave me the pecan pie. But she continued
looking at Michelle. We didn't talk after that. The lion-spirit had
taken her over."

I hardly knew what to say to all of that. But it seemed clear that
Stewart had obviously had some sort of bad reaction to Michelle's
presence at the gazebo. "So, Jane Stewart had problems with Michelle. Is
that what you are saying, Chief?"

White Feather shrugged. "It was obviously something. Something which
brought her great pain."

I walked around in tight circles, my hands on my hips. At that point I
was not only cold but greatly saddened as well. "Oh lord, Chief. I
swear, the world is just nuts sometimes. Thanks for the conversation.
And the information."

Nick nodded. "Be easy on the lion-woman, Little Feather. She is not a
bad person."

"I'll remember that, Chief" I said. I didn't mention anything about him
calling me Little Feather. I had no Indian in me to the best of my
knowledge. But I took it as a compliment.

I drove the short ways to the diner. I walked in and up to where
Michelle stood, wiping down the counter. I didn't bother to sit down.

Michelle gave me a smile. "Coffee?" she asked.

"Michelle, I just have one question to ask you. And please, tell me the
truth. This is important. Michelle, were you having an affair with Ron
Harrison?"

She looked at me like I was crazy. "Were you having an affair with Ron
Harrison?" I repeated, much more emphatically this time.

"No!" she said, shaking her head. She blinked, then gave her head
another shake. "No! We were friends. Just friends."

I looked her in the eye. "And that's the truth?"

"Yes, I swear. We were friends." She took me by the hand. "Come back to
the kitchen. I have to tell you something." I walked down the counter
and she opened the counter gate and we went into the kitchen where the
refrigerators were.

"I have to tell you this private-like" Michelle said, pretty much
whispering it. "I was having an affair. But not with Ron. It's Don
Harrison that I've been involved with. It's been going on for a while
now. We've been very careful. His wife, she doesn't know. Nobody knows.
Not even idiot Jimmy."

That was it, then. Michelle and Ron hadn't been involved. Which really
only made me feel worse. My stomach seemed to sink another two inches,
like I was going down in a fast moving elevator. I walked out of the
diner and started the car and about fifteen minutes later was pulling
into Jane Stewart's drive. Her truck was there, and I thought to myself
that the one thing that you could pretty much always count on with a
hermit was that they would be home.

Before I got out of the car I checked my .38, mostly out of habit. Then
I lit a cigarette. I was in no hurry to confront Jane. The sky was about
to tumble down on her once again. I figured it could wait a few more
minutes before it did.

She didn't seem surprised to see me when she opened the door. But then,
I had been sitting in her drive for fifteen minutes. "Oh, Mr. Maginess"
she said. "What a surprise to see you back."

I let that one go. "Mrs. Stewart, I was wondering if I could have a few
more minutes of your time. I have a couple more little questions that
I'd like to ask about Ron. And I think you are the only person who can
fill me in."

"Very well" she said, waving me in. "Would you like coffee?"

"I think I'll pass" I said, taking off my hat. "Maybe we could sit down,
though. Over by the fireplace. Would that be agreeable?"

I had often found that when trying to get a confession it was best to
keep the person a little off balance, but not so off balance as to cause
them to clam up. As such I decided to take the small wood chair that
Jane had sat in the previous day. I then waved her to the big blue chair
that I had sat in. As she sat down I could feel her nervousness. She
held herself pretty much upright in the chair, not leaning back in it but
leaning forward, her hands resting on her knees, her legs crossed
tightly.

"Mrs. Stewart, why don't we have a little talk together, okay? A very
honest talk. There are some times when honesty is best. In fact I would
say that honesty is usually best. And this is the time for it, I think.
Why don't we just be honest with each other? How would that be."

"All right..." she said, her nervousness even more apparent.

"Good. So you and Ron were seeing each other. And you were intimate. Did
you love Ron, Mrs. Stewart?"

Her eyes as she looked at me were beautiful. But now the nervousness had
turned to fear.

"Yea, of course." Her voice was cold. I thought of Nick White Feather
and his description of the lion-woman. "I would hardly have an affair if
I didn't love someone."

"I don't think you would, Mrs. Stewart. I really don't. But let's get to
that Truth thing, okay? You loved him. But did you trust him?"

She flew out of the chair at that and, walking over near the other wall,
paced back and forth. "Trust?" she said. "Just tell me, why should I trust
anyone? Why, if we are being honest, why should I trust anyone?" She was
practically screaming the words out.

"Maybe because they are innocent of what you think."

"Innocent!" she said, laughing. "Innocent? I don't think there's any of
us that are innocent. We're all guilty. There's just too much darkness,
too much to fight."

I walked over to her and jerked her arm so that she would face me. "No,
Ron Harrison was innocent, Mrs. Stewart. He was a good man. A good
person. And he loved you."

"Love? He loved that little Hollywood slut!" she said, trying to tear
herself away. But my grip held. "He betrayed me! With that little young
blonde. I followed him. He would see her at the diner. And who knows
when else. He betrayed me!"

I took her by both arms this time and looked her in the eyes. "No, he
didn't. He was eating meat. At least occasionally. That's why he was
going to the diner. It was the vegetarian thing, the stupid vegetarian
thing. It wasn't about love, dammit. It was just about a stupid
cheeseburger!"

At that she did scream, horribly. "No!" She fell into my arms and I held
her tightly. "No" she said, sobbing so hard that I felt her whole body
shake. "No, no, no...he betrayed me, he betrayed me" she said, sobbing
into my chest. Then she collapsed entirely, a rag doll. I reached around
and picked her up in my arms and carried her over to the bed. Her body
felt like it weighed about ten pounds. I place her gently on the bed,
then sat down next to her. She was still crying. I pulled out my
handkerchief, but her hands were over her eyes.

After a good long while she finally stopped crying. And a bit later her
hands came down off of her face as well. Strangely, the look in her eyes
was now a determined one. "I killed him" she said flatly. "I killed
him."

I took my handkerchief and brought it up to her cheeks to wipe them,
and she allowed me to do it, still staring up at the ceiling. As I ran
my handkerchief over her cheeks it popped into my mind that I was wiping
away her freckles too. I looked at my handkerchief, half expecting to
see them there on the surface. But there were no freckles. There were
only tears.

"I had been following him. For a month, I think. That morning I followed
him into town. I parked by the trees over by the gazebo so that he
wouldn't see my truck. Then I walked to the diner where his jeep was. I
looked in the window. I saw them talking together, and laughing. It
wasn't the first time I had seen him go into the diner. And I was
sure...I was just so sure."

"Ron drove back to his cabin. I walked in on him without knocking. I
said terrible things to him. He said he loved me, that he had no idea
what I was talking about, that he wasn't involved with her. I didn't
believe him. I want over to the dresser where I knew he kept the gun. I
had tried talking him into getting rid of it across the months, but he
just said that he needed it out in the woods to protect himself against
wild animals. I pulled the drawer open slowly and lifted the gun. It was
so heavy in my hand. I turned to him, and his eyes widened. He threw up
his hands, once again telling me that he loved me. Then I heard the
explosion from the gun. Ron looked down at his chest. I shot him again.
He fell onto the floor. I went over to the bed, and threw the gun down
on the floor. After sitting there a while I picked the gun up and went
over to the dresser and took one of Ron's socks and tried to wipe my
fingerprints off of it. Then I set it on the dresser and drove back
here. I didn't even look at Ron when I left. I just came home and sat in
the big blue chair. The next thing I remember it was dark. And I
remember feeling such a peace inside myself. Like everything had been
crazy but that it all then made sense. Does that make any sense, Mr.
Maginess?"

Unfortunately, I had heard the same type of story before. "Yeah, Jane.
It makes sense."

At that point my stomach felt like somebody had stabbed me in the gut
with a big-ass knife and was twisting it around and laughing at me. I
knew I needed to get back to Colton and to a doctor.

"Jane, would you be willing to tell the police that? To go with me back
to Colton and make things right?"

Jane looked at me and nodded. And, strangely, she smiled. "Yes."

I decided not to bind Jane's hands. It was a risk, but I just couldn't
do it to her. As we headed to Colton, Jane was very quiet. She looked
out the window at the valleys below, which were covered in a slight
haze. And then she began to sing, like she had done the day before at
her cabin. It started with the soft humming. And then the words. My
nerves were on edge due to the pain, and part of me wanted to ask her to
be quiet. But another part of me wanted to let her sing on. I decided to
let her sing.

In any case, I had more serious problems to worry about at that point.
Halfway to Colton the pain in my stomach became so bad that I knew I
couldn't continue driving. I looked for a place to pull over, then
killed the engine.

"Jane, I'm bad sick. I can't drive any more. It's my stomach."

Jane looked at the gear shift, sizing it up. "I can drive."

We traded places. Jane proved to be a very good driver. It did occur to
me that it would be real easy for her to get suicidal with all that had
gone on and for her to just yank the wheel and take us both off the side
of the cliff. But there was nothing I could do. My life was in the hands
of a misguided murderess. Luckily, the pain kept most of the worry out of
my brain.

Having been in Colton a lot more times than I had, she knew her way to
the sheriff's office. We walked in and I took her back to Baker's
office. Luckily, he was in. I went in uninvited and collapsed into one
of his guest chairs. Jane stood behind me. I could tell that she was
getting nervous now that the moment had come to actually turn herself
in.

"Jeez, Maginess. What the hell is the matter with you?" Baker said,
coming around to my chair. "Are you shot?"

"No. Just my stomach. This...is Jane Stewart. She shot Ron Harrison."

Sheriff Baker looked at Jane, then back at me, then back at Jane. "Is
that true, Miss Stewart? You shot Ron?"

"It's Mrs. Stewart. And...yes, I shot him."

Baker called his secretary and had her call for an ambulance. I didn't
see any need to take an ambulance five damn blocks, but I knew I sure as
hell couldn't drive myself and I wasn't in any mood to sit there and
suggest alternatives. A while later they pulled the gurney in and then
put me on it and wheeled me out. Ten minutes later they had me in the
emergency room under an x-ray machine.

It took about half an hour to develop the x-rays, a half hour that
seemed like an eternity. They wouldn't even give me any ice-water,
saying that if I needed surgery that the water wouldn't be good. I just
had to lie there in pain. Though they tried to keep me busy by putting
an IV in my arm, which also hurt like hell.

Finally, the doctor came into my little cubicle. "Well, sir, I think you
have pneumonia."

"Pneumonia? Are you crazy? It's my stomach that's killing me, doc."

"Yes, well, see the thing is, uh, Mr. Maginess, in certain cases of
pneumonia the patient's stomach muscles tense up trying to protect the
lungs. It's what we call an autonomous reflex. And after a while of
that, the muscles go into spasms. I've heard it's quite painful."

"You heard right" I said, moaning.

"Don't worry, we're going to get you on morphine to quiet down your
stomach muscles. That'll stop the pain. Then we'll check you into a room
here and start working on that pneumonia. I hope you didn't have any
plans for the next few days."

A nurse came over and put a bag up on the IV pole and stuck something
into something else. "A morphine drip" she said. "You'll be feeling
better soon." And she wasn't kidding. Within five minutes the pain in my
stomach had disappeared entirely. It felt so great to be out of pain
that I fell asleep.

Then I got woke up by a rattle of the emergency gurney they had me on. A
nurse and an orderly wheeled me to the elevator, and then we went up to
the second floor, and then into a very large hospital room containing
eight beds. As far as I could tell, only one of the beds was taken.
"This is the ward" the nurse said. "As you can tell, this is a small
hospital. We have another six beds down the hall if we would ever need
them. So far, we haven't. Now, I think we'll put you over here by Mr.
Belkins. You two can keep each other company."

They had me strip down to my skivvies and put me in a hospital gown.
Then I got up onto the high hospital bed. The nurse checked my IV one
more time and folded my clothes up and put them over on top of a small
table to the side of the bed. Then she cranked up the back of the
hospital bed so that my back was at a forty-five degree angle and
fluffed my pillow. "There, I think that will do it. I'll be back in with
your other medication. Why don't you take the time and say hello to Mr.
Belkins?"

She left, and I turned and looked at the guy in the bed next to me. He
was skinny, looked to be in his fifties, with brown hair that was
turning grey, and sort of had the face of a turtle. "So, what are you in
for, Belkins?" I said. There was no response. He was sound asleep.
"Wonderful" I said to myself and to no one in particular. There not
being any real view out the second floor windows except blue sky, I
stared at the ceiling a good while. Which, on the morphine, turned out
to be more interesting than it sounded.

The nurse brought my other medication in and then left. Then I stared
at the ceiling some more. A bit after that, Sheriff Baker came in.

"How are you feeling?" he said.

"Just great, now. How did things go with Jane?"

"We got a full confession. On paper. I sent it over to the D.A. We put
Jane in lockup and ordered her in a late lunch. If nothing else, it'll
giver her something to do."

Baker stood beside the bed, looked around the ward a bit, twirled his
trooper's hat on his finger.

"So she loved him, then" he said. "The Stewart woman."

"Yeah, she loved him."

"And yet she killed him."

"Yeah. She did that, too."

Baker shook his head sadly. "I told you I'd give you a medal if you
managed to solve this one, Maginess. Turns out, I'm fresh out of
medals."

"That's all right, Sheriff. I've got enough medals. I keep 'em in a
drawer and never look at 'em."

Baker smiled, then put his hat on. "I'll just not and say I did, then."
Then, giving me a little good-bye salute, he walked out.

I went back to staring at the ceiling a while.

"Belkins" I said. "You awake?"

There still was no response. I got up carefully from the bed, careful
not to do anything to screw up my IV, and got my cigarettes from my
jacket over on the table. Then I climbed back into bed and lit one up. I
hadn't had a smoke since early morning, and even that had just been a
couple of puffs. But the cigarette made me cough this time just like
earlier and I put it out. "Must be the pneumonia" I told myself.

The nurse brought in a big cart. "Time for dinner, gentlemen" she said,
smiling. "I think we have turkey and gravy and potatoes. Yum yum!" She
set my tray on a small adjustable table that ran across my lap, then
went over to Belkins and fixed him up too. "I'll be back to pick those
up in an hour" she said.

The turkey and gravy turned out to be typical, bland hospital food,
almost flavorless and badly in need of salt. I ate it anyway. When the
nurse came back she smiled. "Good, glad to see you are eating." Then she
went over to Belkins again. "Oh, Mr. Belkins, you weren't hungry I take
it? You really should try to eat something. Well, maybe you'll feel more
like eating tomorrow." She put his untouched tray on the cart along with
mine.

"Are you sure he's even alive over there?" I asked.

"Oh, he's very much alive. He has a pulse" she said, smiling.

"Coulda fooled me..."

The night seemed endless, like some sort of strange, dream-altered
version of a regular night and with all sort of odd noises filtering
into the ward from who knew where. By the time the nurse brought in the
next morning's flavorless breakfast I was more tired than I had been
when I had started the night. I ate the breakfast. I tried another
cigarette, and this time managed to smoke half of it before the coughing
fit started. So evidently I was improving. I tried to get some sort of
communication going with Belkins. But as usual, he was non-responsive.

The nurse did bring me in some magazines. The newest of them were about
two years old. Which further confirmed my theory that hospitals and
doctor's offices subscribed to some sort of used magazine service that
only provided old magazines. I leafed through an old copy of Life, stopping
for a while to look at a beautiful photo of Ava Gardner. Then I started
thinking about Rhonda the bartender. There was a phone over on the bed
table, and I considered getting a number from the operator and calling
the tavern. But then I decided it might be better to just wait until I
got out of the hospital. I would almost certainly be in need of a few
good whiskeys by then anyway.

I started thinking about the Harrison case. Of all the cases I had
worked on, this one had been the most pathetic. It was just all so
stupid, really. I began to play the what-if game. I thought about what
might have happened if Ron and Jane had just been more honest and open
about their relationship with each other, if they hadn't hid it from the
rest of the town. Or if Ron had been more honest about not being able to
hack the vegetarian thing and about stopping in at the diner now and
then. Or if Jane had simply confronted Michelle about her suspicions.
But the problem with the what-if game is that is was meaningful only
after the fact, and essentially worth nothing.

Just before lunch, Don Harrison walked in. "Sheriff Baker called me last
night" he said. "Told me about Jane Stewart and all. Said you were in
the hospital. Pneumonia, he said?"

"Yeah. I got caught out in that cold rain storm the other night."

"Well, I certainly hope you will be all right, Mr. Maginess, I want to
thank you from the bottom of my heart. Now that I know what happened to
Ron, I think it will make things a little bit easier. Knowing that his
murderer has been brought to justice and all." He reached into his
jacket pocket, unfolded a check and handed it to me. "Is that
acceptable?" he said.

I looked at the amount. "Yeah, that's about right. In fact it might be a
little bit too much."

"i threw in some extra for the hospital bill." Then he pulled out an
envelope, opened it and took out some papers and unfolded them. "And I
wanted you to have this. I stopped at my lawyer's on the way here. It
should all be in order. It's the bonus we talked about."

I looked through the papers. They were essentially a transfer of title
of Ron Harrison's cabin into my name. There was also a recent property
tax receipt and a two-year old real-estate appraisal for the cabin. "I
can't take this, Don. It's too much."

"Mr. Maginess, please, take the cabin. I only have one son, and he lives
in Chicago. He left Angel Pines a long time ago, and hasn't been back
since. He would have no interest in the cabin. Besides, he's doing very
well for himself anyway."

"What about Michelle?" I said.

"Oh, Michelle is already taken care of. She'll get the diner. Please,
take the cabin. Perhaps you could keep Ron's memory going. I would
consider it a favor."

I agreed. "I guess we'll be neighbors of sorts, then."

He smiled. "I'm looking forward to that" he said.

After he left I got to thinking that it might be really nice having the
cabin. If nothing else, it might be a good safe house for a client to
hide out in if I ever needed that. And I thought of Carmen, too. Even
though she would be a partner in my business after she had been trained,
at the current moment she was still just making a secretary's wages. I
figured that Carmen would really like that area, being very athletic and
all. And there was a great irony too in the fact that Carmen was a
vegetarian. Which made it seem even more appropriate.

A little later I got out of bed and turned the top crank to raise the
back of the bed a little more. Then I got back into bed to check it out,
got out and turned the crank a little more. When the top was to my
satisfaction, I got out of bed again and turned the bottom crank, which
brought up the knees. When I finally had that one set too the bed felt
great, totally relaxing. "I've got to get one of these at home" I said
to myself. I started wondering about how much one would cost. The next
time the nurse came in to give me my pills I asked her how much beds
like that ran if an ordinary person wanted to buy one. But she didn't
know.

"You alive over there, Mr. Belkins?" I yelled over at the other bed. I
laughed at the silence. "Maybe, maybe not." I lit a cigarette.

I imagined what I would put into the case file on this one once I got
back to Los Angeles. Something about it being an imperfect world,
perhaps. About things seriously screwing up, about ideals that come
crashing down around our heads and about making mistakes -- bad ones.
I thought about Jane Stewart singing the little song to herself in her
cabin, and about the Italian colonel during the war. And I thought that
in some way that the songs should be part of it too, of what I would
stick in the old file cabinet eventually. Something about the songs.
Those little songs we sing to ourselves to make ourselves feel better.
Those songs we sing to ourselves to try to make ourselves feel better.
Those little lies we tell to make it seem all right, to make ourselves
feel better.

But in the end, it never does get any better.


THE END


11 Comments

Hollywood Confidential (Movie Review)

Monday, 18. February 2008, 20:42:26

, , , ...




I picked up a used copy of Hollywood Confidential (1997) about six months
ago at a pawn shop. I came home one night after having had a number of
ryes and put the movie on and promptly fell asleep. So a few weeks ago
I tried it again, this time without the rye.

There don't seem to be any reviews of this movie out there. Even the
usually thorough Thrilling Detective doesn't have this P.I. listed in
the ranks. So I thought I would do a quick review and tell you a bit
about the movie.

Here's the set up. Stan Navarro (Edward James Olmos) is a former cop who
now heads his own large private investigative agency in Los Angeles. He
has a whole team of junior P.I.s working for him, all of them ex-law
enforcement people with rather troubled pasts just like Navarro. As the
movie opens we find one of Navarro's investigators, a guy named Lee,
tailing a Hollywood acting teacher and her sleazy boyfriend. Lee has
ambitions to write a P.I. novel (or perhaps a screenplay much like
Hollywood Confidential) and as he follows the acting teacher he dictates
into a little microcassette recorder. He will do this intermittently
throughout the movie, providing a bit of old-fashioned first-person
P.I. novel narrative.

Lee is following the acting teacher because it is thought that she might
be blackmailing one of her clients. There is also another of Navarro's
P.I.s, a woman named Sally (Charlize Theron of all people) who is working
undercover at a swank nightclub investigating some employee theft
that they suspect is going on. These two threads form the two subplots
and will continue on through the majority of the movie.

The main plot of the movie deals with a little matter that Navarro is
working on for one of his clients, a high-power attorney and agent named
Bliss. Bliss has a client who is a famous film director. The director is
married, but has been having an affair with a young woman on the side.
When the director wants to call it quits, the girl, Heather, just won't
go away nicely. So Bliss hires Navarro to pay the girl off and make the
problem go away. Navarro doesn't want to take the job. But when Bliss
threatens to cut off the 300K or so of work he sends him per year if he
doesn't, Navarro reluctantly goes along with it.

Navarro himself meets with Heather. He gives her 10 grand in cash and
tells her she needs to sign a confidentially agreement and leave
town. The only trouble is that Heather is young and naive and unwise to
the way things work in Hollywood, a true lamb among lions. Heather
refuses the deal. Navarro can't force her, and he backs off. The next
thing you know Heather is calling the famous director again. Which gets
an instant call from Bliss telling Navarro to increase the pressure. He
also sends Navarro more money, this time a 100K pay-off to get rid of
her. Navarro tries once again, but the girl just won't take the deal.

I can't go on any more at this point without writing in a plot spoiler.
But let's just say that there are details about Heather and the
relationship that eventually emerge when Heather attempts to commit
suicide, and which further explain the motivating factors involved.

I found the character of Heather to be too over the top. There's just
too much written into the script emphasizing her innocence -- which of
course they make sure to contrast with the narcissism of the Hollywood
types. It's not only hard to believe that anyone could be that naive
these days, but it's difficult to imagine that Heather, no matter how
innocent, wouldn't just decide to say to hell with all of it and to take
the 100K and make a new life for herself.

At the end of the movie, in the guise of one of Lee's writing classes,
we are given a reading of Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium" pretty much in
it's entirety, which once again funtions to point out the vacuousness of
Tinseltown -- as if we haven't gotten the point by then. But in the end
Navarro plays it tough in true private-eye fashion, turns the tables on
Bliss and the famous director, and things turn out reasonably okay.

There were some really good ideas in this movie, but even good ideas
can turn out bad if you push them too far. I would say that Hollywood
Confidential is worth a viewing from the acting standpoint. Olmos is
always good, and it seems that his presence inspired both Cheron and
Richard T. Jones to the extent that both give really good performances.
And a couple of ryes might help this movie too. Just don't drink too many
of them and fall asleep.

I have to give this one a 3-1/2 GU, with at least 1 GU of that rating
being for the stars and the acting.


P.M.P.I. Rating (Out of 5)





No comments

Smith's New Cannon: The 327 R8

Wednesday, 26. September 2007, 21:17:09

,





Smith & Wesson has been very busy lately developing a new group of
firearms to add to their already impressive lineup. This is the new M&P
style model 327 R8, a scandium alloy and stainless revolver that loads 8
(no, that's not a typo, it's 8) .357 rounds into the chambers.

Whoa! I'm sure Pat Maginess would have loved to have slid this baby out
of his shoulder holster -- but only if he absolutely had to, of course.


SPECIFICATIONS:

Model: M&P 327 R8
Caliber: .357MAG/.38+P
Capacity: 8 Rounds
Barrel Length: 5" 2-Piece
Front Sight: Interchangeable Patridge White Dot
Rear Sight: Adjustable V-Notch
Grip: Rubber
Frame: Large
Finish: Black Matte
Overall Length: 10.5"
Material: Scandium Alloy Frame/Stainless Steel Cylinder
Weight Empty: 36.3 oz.



2 Comments

Margin for Murder (Movie Review)

Thursday, 26. July 2007, 21:36:08

, ,



Kevin Dobson.



I happened across a movie the other day called Margin for Murder (1981).
The info on the cable tab said that it was a Mike Hammer movie. So I
watched it.

Margin for Murder turned out to be a lot closer to Spillane than
the rather watered-down Hammer series with Stacy Keach. Wrinkled
raincoat and fedora aside, Keach just isn't Mike Hammer. Margin for
Murder gives you the real thing -- a screenplay that almost could
have been written by Spillane himself.

The teleplay was by Calvin Clements Jr., whose prior credits included a
wide range of television shows ranging from Gunsmoke to Wonder
Woman. Not very impressive, really; and so it's very surprising to
find here a script of such high quality and faithfulness to the Spillane
stories. According to an IMDB reviewer, Clements was nominated for an
Edgar Award in 1981 for this teleplay. But I wanted to confirm that, and
a database search at the Mystery Writers of America site (who give out
the Edgar's) didn't get me any result either for Clements or Margin
for Murder. So maybe he was nominated and maybe he wasn't. I hate it
when I run into research problems like this, and I apologize to my
readers.

Whether Clements was nominated or not, he certainly wrote an excellent
teleplay. The movie features Kevin Dobson as Mike and Cindy Pickett as
Velda. The more familiar face of Charles Hallahan plays Det. Pat Chambers.
All of the actors do a good job in this, but given the strength of the
teleplay they have a lot to work with and would have had to have been
pretty crappy actors indeed not to have succeeded with this one. Mike
says exactly the things and does exactly the things in this movie that
you would expect him to say or do in a Spillane novel, as do Velda and Pat.


Cindy Pickett.


It would be difficult putting Margin for Murder and Kiss Me, Deadly
side by side. Kiss Me, Deadly is not only an excellent translation
of Spillane but is an acknowledged noir classic. Margin for Murder
has none of the sophisticated production values of the former. But it does
give a very dead-on Mike Hammer tale, perhaps more so than Kiss Me, Deadly.
The earlier movie was filmed closer to Spillane's own period, a 1955 version
of a 1952 novel. Margin for Murder is Spillane translated forward three
decades. I would perhaps give an edge to Kiss Me, Deadly between the
two, but both are very good and luckily you don't have to pick one or the
other -- you can have the pleasure of watching them both.

Even though Margin for Murder came out in 1981, the producers
seem to have been a little behind the times when it came to filming
this. Most of the clothing and hairstyles are more reflective of 1978
than 1981. Which doesn't affect the story in the slightest, of course.

The set-up is right out of I, The Jury. When a good friend of Hammer's
gets murdered, Hammer swears to find the killer and get revenge. Talking
with his friend's mother, he finds that his friend has left 100K worth of
diamonds, obviously the product of some shady deal. From that point it's
just Hammer interviewing witnesses and making a lot of noise and enemies
until the bad guys jump out of the woodwork. The ending, though, is a bit
more tame than the ending of I, The Jury.

If the movie has one weakness it is in the plot. This was a TV movie,
and like most TV movies back then the plot isn't a very sophisticated
one. It basically just takes you along to the places that you pretty
much expect to go. A real Spillane mystery would have kept you on
the edge a little more.

So taking a little off for the weak plot, I'm going to give this one a
4GU rating. If you like Spillane and want an "authentic" Mike Hammer,
you should definitely check it out.



P.M.P.I. RATING (OUT OF 5)




2 Comments

On Sleuths

Monday, 16. July 2007, 19:40:45

, ,



Miss Marple. She's definitely off my guest list.



Private-eyes are professional investigators who are hired by a client
and who get paid for what they do. They might take on a pro-bono case
every once in a while as a favor, and they might have to do some
investigating every once in a while to get themselves out of a jam. But
in the main they do what they do, whether they like what they do or not,
to make money to make ends meet. It's a business, not some sort of a hobby.

Then there are sleuths. Sleuths are amateur investigators who don't get
paid and who basically just go around sticking their noses into other
people's business whether people ask them to or not -- and they usually
don't. They tend to be rich dilettantes or well-off widows who associate
with the middle or upper classes.

Sleuths don't seem to know how to drive, or at least don't own a car.
They take taxis or have somebody pick them up at the train station. The
rich sleuths occasionally have limousines. The limousine driver is usually
an inscutable Frenchman who spends most of his time when he's not driving
leaning up against the car with his arms crossed.

Sleuths do other things, of course. Some of them knit or crochet. Some
are gourmet cooks. And some are experts at croquet.

But the one thing that's certain about sleuths is that wherever they go,
trouble inevitably follows. Whether it is Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher,
sleuths seem to run into mysterious deaths all over the damn place. Which
is kind of creepy when you stop to think about it. Sleuths go to a nice
formal dinner, and somebody gets whacked over the skull with a candlestick.
They go on a long summer pleasure cruise, and somebody ends up getting
murdered with a candlestick. They take an overnight train trip, and the
next thing you know a dead body is found lying next to a bloody candlestick.
Not that the murder weapon is always a candlestick, mind you. Sometimes it's
a fireplace poker.

Every once in while some criminal will try to use poison -- only to end up
getting the glasses switched somehow and end up killing the wrong person.
They seldom use guns. Guns are big, noisy contraptions that tend to leave
powder residue all over your new silk jacket. A butcher knife is good if
you really hate the person you are murdering. But knives are such messy
things, too. You'd hate to get blood on that nice new gown that your secret
lover and co-conspirator bought for you on that last secret trip to Brighton.
Better to just keep with the candlestick idea. And if you can wipe it clean
with the monogrammed handkerchief that you have stolen off of your sister's
unfortunate ass of a boyfriend and leave next to the body to frame him for
the murder, so much the better.

Just a little bit of advice for my readers. If you want to invite that
sociable if rather sartorially unkempt private-eye to dinner, then by
all means do so. You shouldn't have any problem as long as you keep the
booze flowing. But if you run into one of those sleuthing types, turn
around and head the opposite direction as fast as you can -- before
you become the next person to be on the receiving end of a candlestick.




4 Comments

"Remember Me" (Part One)

Thursday, 22. March 2007, 02:19:21

, ,




"Remember Me"

a Pat Maginess private-eye story

by

Edward Piercy


(Proof of 3/21/2007)


What we obtain too cheap,
we esteem too lightly.

-- Thomas Paine







Los Angeles, 1953


I woke that morning from a dream about my ex-fiance in which she was
wearing a bathing suit and high heels and for some reason a sweatshirt
over the top of it all. She was looking better than I had ever seen her,
and I wondered just what it was that made her look so awfully good, whether
it was the bathing suit or the fact that I was surprised to see her or whether
it was just the residual fond memory of a past which, these days, I didn't
think about so much anymore.

More surprising than the sweatshirt was the fact that we were standing
in the middle of a group of strangers around the door to some sort of
chapel. I turned from Christine to look inside the chapel, and as I did
so some music started playing in the background and into a flower-lined
niche set into the wall a casket started to slowly slide on some sort of
conveyor into the niche. The people turned to view the casket as it
appeared. As for me, I felt the opposite way about it. I turned back
towards the door and when I did, Christine was gone. Instead there was
Brooke standing there, dressed to the nines in a black dress and hat
with a short veil. She was wearing white dress gloves and held a white
corsage. "It's so sad" she said. Then she extended a gloved hand. "It's
just so sad" she said again. I reached out and took her hand.

I pulled myself up and sat on the side of the bed. I rubbed my eyes as if
doing so might make the memory of the dream go away. It was just one of
those crazy and almost inevitable dreams, perhaps. Nevertheless I didn't
want to think about things like that -- coffins and funerals and such.
And I really didn't want to think about Christine, either. There's a
time for everything, I guess; but sometimes you have to force yourself
to move forward whether you feel like it or not. I thought about Brooke
in her black dress and white gloves. It was almost as if I could feel
her hand in mine, just from the memory of the dream, and I began to ache
inside for want of her.

I forced myself into the bathroom and shaved and showered. I put on a
nice light green shirt with my grey suit, put on my shoulder holster and
jacket and headed off to work. It was a beautiful morning, nice enough
that as I drove the good ways from Glendale over to my office on
Wilshire I gradually forgot about the weird dream and set my mind on
what might be in store for the day ahead.

First thing that I noticed when I got to the office was that Carmen, my
secretary and apprentice of sorts, was wearing an outfit that more or
less matched my own. She had on her new, long grey skirt and a mint-
green, long sleeved blouse. She pulled a case file out of the file
cabinet and lifted herself up from a squatting position.

"Well, it seems we're twins today, Carmen" I said, holding out the front
of my jacket. After a bit she got my point. She put the case file on her
desk. She smiled and struck a glamour pose, one hand behind her head and
the other on her hip. "We look so good!" she said. I struck the pose,
too, and she laughed. "And the best pair of P.I.s in Los Angeles, to
boot" I said. She laughed at that too. It was a minor exaggeration,
perhaps.

I grabbed a cup of coffee and started in on the paperback novel I had
been working on. If a call came in for a new case to interrupt my
reading, that would be fine with me. Business had been pretty good
lately. But at that moment we were between cases, and I always hated
that. Carmen read through the old file, a divorce case.

"Can I ask you a question, Mr. Maginess?" Carmen said after a while.

I set the novel down and went for another cup of coffee. "Sure, Carmen.
Fire away."

"What do you think happened with you and Christine?" she said.

I was taken aback at that. I was expecting her to ask a question
concerning the old case she was reading, or maybe a question about
investigative techniques. I didn't expect the question I got, and I kind
of internally shuddered, remembering the morning's dream.

"I don't know, Carmen. I really don't. Not that I haven't thought about
it long and hard. I guess the best I've ever been able to come up with
is that Christine was just too...perfect. Just too much of a perfect
kind of person for a guy like me. I've got too many flaws, I guess."

I went back to my desk and picked up my novel again, hoping that would
be the end of it. But it wasn't.

"And Brooke. She's not perfect" Carmen said flatly.

"Well, she's currently in prison. I'd say that might involve a flaw or
two. Not to mention a few other things."

Carmen half-smiled and shook her head. She went back to reading the case
file.

I was on my fourth cup of coffee and halfway through the novel when the
door opened. A guy walked in, big, confident looking, clean-cut. He
looked over at Carmen at her desk and checked her out. Which made me
nervous. I didn't like the way he leered at her. Finally he took his
eyes off of Carmen's chest and sauntered over, hands in pockets.

"You're Maginess, I take it."

"I am."

"My name is Mike Hammond. I'm a private investigator from New York. I
think I might want to hire you."

"Okay, Hammond from New York. Why don't you have a seat. You can tell me
all about it."

He looked at the chair in front of my desk as if it might be too dirty
for him to sit in. After a few seconds, he sat down anyway.

"Got any booze?" he said.

I laughed. Then I pulled a bottle of Canadian out of the drawer and
poured us a couple. "You want ice? I got it if you want it."

He took the drink and belted it down with one fluid motion. "Too late" he
said, slamming the glass down. He grinned like a impish schoolboy. I took
a sip of my drink and looked him over. He was about forty or so, tall and
with the body of a boxer. He was dressed in the newest east-coast men's
fashion, thin-lapelled suit and thin tie, crisp white shirt. He wasn't
wearing a hat, and his blonde flat-top looked like he had stepped right
out of the barber chair.

"Were you a Marine?" I asked, just to get things going.

"Yeah. You?"

"Army."

"Well, I won't hold that against you. You any good as a private-eye?"

"I've got a pretty nice little nest-egg in the bank, let's put it that
way."

He shook his head sadly. "Then you must be pretty good. Me, I spend it.
I've been hoping to save some up for retirement, buy a little bar or
something. No money. Court costs, mostly. I can't seem to stay out of
trouble."

"So what's your trouble now?"

"My secretary is missing. I have a hunch she came out here."

"How long has she been missing?"

Hammond hesitated, then stood up and put his hands in his pockets. "Over
a year now."

I swore under my breath. A year. I would be lucky to find the wallet in
his damn pocket after a year. "Christ, Hammond."

"I know. I wasn't thinking straight. I kept thinking she'd just dance
right back into the office one day and give me a big kiss. I was
stubborn. I admit it."

"Well, that's all water under the bridge. Let's start with what we've
got. You say she came out here? To Los Angeles?"

"I think she did, yeah. I'm guessing. She always did talk about us
coming out here, moving the agency. She likes warm weather. She likes to
show off her curves. A winter coat isn't for Velma. In any case she's
not in New York, I know that much. So this made the most sense."

"Family? Friends?" I said.

He shook his head and sat back down in the chair. "Pour me another, will
ya?" I poured him a double this time. He took it a little slower with
the new one. "No, all her family was from New York. They don't know
anything. She wasn't really all that close to them anyway."

"Uh huh. Look, Hammond. Why don't you look for her yourself? You're in
the business."

"Two reasons. First, she knows me. She might spot me checking around and
then fly farther. And she knows how I think, too. She's good, Maginess.
The smartest gal around. She's got her own P.I. license and she carries.
Second reason, I don't know the lay of the land. This might as well be
Borneo. I'm lost here. I need some local talent."

I turned my chair slightly and looked out the window. It was a big city
out there. Maybe not as big as New York, but big enough. I turned back
to Hammond, who in the interval had gotten up out of his chair again and
was walking around in a tight circle. And every once in a while he'd
take a good few long seconds intermission and look over at Carmen.

"Carmen" I said "would you go down to Eddie's and get me today's
newspaper, please? And see if they have the new issue of Strange Stories
in."

"Okay, Mr. Maginess." Carmen grabbed a few dollars from the petty cash box
and headed for the door. Hammond's eyes followed her the entire way. I
noticed that Carmen was looking Hammond over a bit, too. And that one
really did make me nervous.

"She's a tall one, isn't she? And built. What's with the shoulder
holster?"

"Her choice. More convenient that way. At least when it doesn't scare
the crap out of everybody she runs across. She usually wears her suit
jacket over it."

"Hmmm. Maybe I should get to know her a bit" Hammond said. "Give her the
benefit of my...experience."

My temper rose a bit at that, but I let the comment slide for the time
being. "Hammond, you could get a new secretary. They got agencies for
that. What is there between you and this girl, Velma?"

He suddenly got defensive. "That's none of your business."

I got up out of the chair and went to the front of the desk and leaned
against it. I pulled a pack of smokes out and tapped a few up and
offered Hammond one. He took it and lit it. I lit mine. When I figured
enough time had gone by, I continued.

"Don't be stupid" I said.

He looked at me like a fighter would sizing up the guy across from him
in the ring. Then he smirked, and laughed to himself like he had just
remembered some ridiculous joke he had heard.

"Okay, Maginess. Fair enough." He pulled an envelope from his pocket and
handed it to me. "I'm just a schmuck. I don't have the right words to
talk about it much. That's a letter she left on my desk. Before she
blew town. It'll explain a few things."

I read through the letter. It was only a good sized paragraph long, but
she didn't mince words. The feeling I got as I read it was that she had
put up with too much, and was tired of it all. It was the letter of a
woman spurned, but not because of someone else, but simply because
someone didn't seem to care nearly enough in return. "But no matter what
you do, Mark" the letter concluded, "take care of yourself. And if you
can, remember me sometimes. You know, good old Velma. The girl you've
kissed a thousand times. Remember me good or remember me bad. But
remember me."

"So she didn't really disappear, then. She left you. She quit."

He got defensive again. "Yeah, she left me. So what? She left me. And
now I want her back. She belongs with me, Maginess. We're a coin, me and
her, there's no one side without the other."

Whatever Hammond's motivations might have been, a job was a job. And
there certainly wasn't anything illegal about realizing what a fool
you've been and wanting to get your girlfriend back. I thought there was
a pretty good chance that even if I found her, Velda might not want him
back. But that was between her and Hammond.

"I assume you brought a photo with you."

He reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled a picture out and
handed it to me.

"That's Velma. Velma Kazanzakis."

The woman in the photo was about thirty or so, with short dark hair and
full lips. She was beautiful, and it was easy to see why a guy would
travel across a continent to find her.

"How old is the photo?"

He had to think about that one. "Shit, Maginess. Five years maybe."

"So she'd be about thirty-five now?"

"Yeah. Thirty-six, I think. So where do you plan to start?"

"First things first. I've got two rules on this one, Hammond. First, no
interference. As you say, if she spots you and she doesn't want to see
you, she might leave town. Assuming she's here in the first place, of
course. For the interim, you're on vacation. Just go out and do the
tourist thing for a while and call in once a day in case I need to talk
to you. If you want to work a case, go back to New York and work some
other one. This is my case. And the second rule is, keep your frigging
hands off my secretary. And I'm very serious about that."

He thought about it. It was obvious he didn't care much for either of
the rules. In fact I doubted that a guy like Hammond cared about any
rules whatsoever. But he relented. He didn't like it, but he knew he
wouldn't have my help if he didn't. "Okay. I agree" he said, crushing
out his cigarette on the floor.

"You know, I've never been to New York, but here in L.A. we've got these
nifty things called ashtrays. You should try one. They work real good
when they're not too full."

"Sorry, Maginess. I just had my mind on Velma. Wasn't thinking
straight."

I went back to my chair. "There aren't that many investigators here in
L.A. Maybe fifty or so, last time I counted. And not all of them use
secretaries. The chances of her finding a vacancy with one of them isn't
good. She might have gotten lucky, of course. So I'll check them out
anyway. If Velma didn't get a job like that, her options are limited. At
least doing anything that she's used to. House dick somewhere, maybe.
But she's a woman. They might not want a house dick who's a woman.
Anyway, if she sticks to her trade, we might have a chance there. If she
just gets a job among a million secretaries or waitresses, I'd never
find her that way. But I'm going to start with the peepers and security
places. See if she's playing the old trade somewhere. And I'll check out
her permits, too. See if she's gotten new ones here in California."

"Yeah, that sounds good" Hammond said, pulling his chin. "And if you
come up with anything, let me know and I can trace an addre