The Big Fix

by Roger L. Simon

  “Who is it?” came a woman’s voice.

  “Moses Wine, ma’am. I’m an investigator.”

  The eye turned away. “It’s the welfare investigator, Harry.”

  “Tell him to go away,” replied a man.

  I knocked on the door. “I’m not the welfare investigator, ma’am. I’m a private detective. I’d like to speak with you for a moment.”

  I took out my wallet and held up my license, as if that proved anything. She opened the door a crack. I saw an elderly Filipino woman in her housecoat. In the kitchen behind her, her husband was eating his supper, some sort of noodle dish. He wore a hearing aid.

  “What’s this about?”

  “Sorry to interrupt your dinner, ma’am. It’s about the place next door . . . the one that was levelled.” I tried to enter the house, but she kept her foot firmly against the door.

  “Tell him to go away,” her husband repeated without bothering to look up from his dinner.

  “He’s not the welfare investigator, Harry,” she shouted to him. “It’s about the place next door.”

  “What?”

  “The place next door!”

  “Oh.”

  He finished chewing his food. Then, slowly, something dawned on him. He began to grin, turned and walked over to me. “Batman!” he said, flapping his wings like a reject from the corps de ballet.

  “He’s crazy,” said the wife. “Always seeing things. He’s very sick.”

  “I am not!” said the man, suddenly able to hear perfectly well.

  She turned toward him angrily: “Go finish your dinner!” I seized the moment to take a couple of steps inside the house. It was furnished plainly. A big Motorola color TV stood by the bedroom door beneath a travel poster of Okinawa.

  “There was never anyone in that house,” she told me. “It’s been empty for years.”

  “Nonsense,” he yelled at her, still dancing about the room. “You always go to sleep at nine o’clock. They don’t come until twelve . . . one in the morning.”

  “Who doesn’t come?” I asked him.

  “Strange characters,” he said, his eyes twinkling like an old Oriental storyteller. “Big black cape and red boots. Fancy clothes and make-up like women of the streets . . . but witches. You know what I mean?”

  I nodded my head like I knew what he meant. “Did they come often?”

  “One, maybe two times. Late at night.”

  “Where’d they go?”

  “Down the back stairs. With candles. Like this.” He held his hands wide to indicate a candelabra. His wife shook her head in disgust.

  “Did you see what they did?”

  “I ne—”

  “Quiet, Harry!” she interrupted. “You’re talking nonsense.”

  He waved her off. “I never saw anything except one time.” His wife looked away in irritation. “In back of house . . . King Nestor hit the witch girl with a silver stick. Phew! Lots of blood.”

  “King Nestor?”

  “The man with the cape. Batman! That’s what they called him.”

  “How do you know that?”

  I waited for an answer but he just laughed and waved at me and headed back into the kitchen.

  “What about a tall blonde woman?” I asked. “Or a guy with hair out to here. . . . real wiry?”

  But he didn’t appear to be listening. He sat down at the table to resume his meal. Then the wife came over and put her hand on my arm with a grave expression.

  “It’s hard for me,” she said, “taking care of him. He never remembers where he is. He’s senile.” I nodded to her and started out the door, but she caught my arm again. “Listen, mister, you’re a private detective. My husband’s brother in San Francisco . . . he owes us $235 for seven years and he won’t pay. Can you make him give it back?” She held tight to my arm, placing her forehead very close to mine. Her pupils appeared exceptionally large behind thick bifocals.

  “Sorry,” I said, pulling free and slipping out the door.

  The night was cool and damp from the ocean. I walked over to the lot. It was practically barren. All I could see from the sidewalk were some asbestos shingles piled to the side and the upended remnants of a toilet seat. I flicked on the flashlight and beamed it about the ground. The basement had been excavated, leaving only the bare bones of the foundation, a few concrete walls and the pilings. I jumped down, shining the flashlight on the cement. A well-fed rat darted across the floor and into a hole in front of me. Moving forward, I walked along the basement wall. At eye level I spotted a pile of rubble at the end of the property.

  I clambered out again and walked over, inspecting the debris. Most of the mound consisted of caked mud and broken pieces of concrete, but near the bottom I saw the edge of something more brightly colored sticking out from under a coffee tin—a shard of ceramic stuck in the moist earth. I dug it out with a sharp rock. A five-pointed star was drawn carefully on the surface, in the center of a circle with two points at the top. A goat was in the center and Hebrew letters appeared at the tip of each point. It was nearly twenty years since my Bar Mitzvah and I couldn’t make it out. I put the fragment in my pocket and headed for the car. Off in the distance I could see the old man standing at the Venetian blinds, watching.

  11

  LATE NEXT MORNING I went down to Barney’s Voodoo Store, a large magic shop on Hollywood Boulevard between a reducing salon and a lingerie boutique catering to topless dancers and transvestites. When I arrived, the salesmen were all occupied with kids buying itching powder and invisible ink. I waited by a shelf lined with cardboard boxes of miniature Egyptian mummies until the first one was free.

  “What’s this?” I asked, passing the fragment over to a tall man with a Walter Matthau stoop. He held it in his right hand, scrutinizing it closely and rubbing his chin with the back of his left. He had a heavy five-o’clock shadow.

  “The Pentagram of Solomon,” he replied, watching me. “Very rare . . . very rare indeed.”

  “What does it do?”

  “Wards off evil spirits. This one, of course, is upside down in the Satanist manner.”

  “What about the animal in the middle?”

  “The Witches’ Sabbath. The goat. An excellent symbol.”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “Who do you think would have one of these?”

  “Only the truly enlightened.”

  “Naturally.”

  “They’re almost impossible to find.” The salesman leaned in toward me out of the eager hearing range of a six-year-old girl dangling a rubber spider. “But,” he continued, “we at Barney’s have a few left, just a few, at $17.95 plus five percent for that mean man in Sacramento.” He eyed me carefully, waiting for my response. “We also have exclusive Satan cocktail napkins with the inverted cross at $7.50 the dozen. A great conversation stimulus.”

  I begged off and headed for the door. It was already eleven-thirty and I wanted to speak with Earl Speidel.

  I found him over lunch at Geronimo’s Gardens, a favorite gathering place of record-business types featuring a large papier-mâché sculpture of Geronimo surrounded by palm fronds. Earl was seated with Johnny Pace, the publicity director of Grit Records, a skinny amphetamine addict in a suede suit and yellow sunglasses.

  “King Nestor?” Earl shook his head in amusement. “Sounds like a new breakfast cereal. King Nestor, the sugar-frosted treat. And it’s chock full of vitamins and minerals, too.”

  “What about 23 Columbia Drive?”

  “Means nothing to me.”

  “Then how about this?” I removed the fragment from a brown paper bag and handed it to him. He examined it without a great deal of curiosity.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “The Pentagram of Solomon. Wards off evil spirits. Or in this case welcomes them . . . $17.95 at Barney’s.” He didn’t respond. “Ever see one before?”

  “How should I know? A record jacket for Black Sabbath?”

  “Very funny. What about Procari? Did he ever have
one of these?”

  “Procari had everything but the Bhagavad-Gita in Yiddish. You’re not interested in Procari, are you?”

  I took the fragment away and put it back in the bag. A waiter came up to take my order.

  “Try the organic maize,” said the super duper. “It’s made from an original Sioux recipe!”

  “Give me a BLT down and a Seven-Up. . . . Easy on the mayonnaise.” The waiter left with a sullen expression. “Tell me about Procari, Earl. You said they never found evidence of his death.”

  “I didn’t say that. They found pieces of his car—the Maserati—a silk scarf he always wore and his goddamn bones for crissake. The way he used to drive around, I wouldn’t doubt he could fly off a cliff at Palos Verdes. No one could come out of there alive. You know the place.”

  I nodded. An image of rocks jutting out into the Pacific flashed through my mind. Deadman’s Curve. It had earned that nickname a few years ago when a trio of bikers, high on reds, pushed a young woman in a Fiat over the apron and into the ocean. Minutes later the bikers flew over it themselves, chased in the opposite direction by the police.

  “But you mentioned something about his old followers still being convinced he’s alive.”

  “Well, sure. Every cult’s got its die-hard devotees, doesn’t it? Jesus is alive and well in Butte, Montana. James Dean has reappeared as a dentist in Sydney, Australia. Bird lives. You name it.”

  “Who are they? Do you remember any of them specifically?”

  “His biggest booster was this woman Isabel La Fontana. I think she lives in the Hollywood Hills someplace in a Norman-style building with a moat and a couple of German shepherds with filed teeth. They wrote her up a few years ago in an Esquire article on California witchcraft. I remember a photo of her in white make-up and claw-like fingernails painted black.”

  “Isabel La Fontana, that’s a stage name, isn’t it?”

  “How the hell should I know? She used to do a nightclub act back in the fifties, kind of an incestuous thing with her son.”

  “Dynamite,” Pace said, clapping his hands together. “Hey, what’s this about, guys? Anything old Johnny should know?”

  “Not if I can help it,” I said, leaving a couple of bills on the table for my uneaten BLT. I threaded my way through Geronimo’s Gardens and out into the parking lot. My decrepit Buick was wedged tightly against a 1932 Duesenberg, but I managed to squeeze it out without chipping any of the precious paint.

  An hour later, armed with a frayed copy of the May 1970 Esquire, I climbed up Kings Way to the Hollywood Hills home of Isabel La Fontana. But when I got there, I was puzzled with what I found. She lived in an imitation Norman castle, all right, but Isabel herself was a far cry from the Slinky Queen of the Night. Instead I saw a tired, pasty-faced woman some twenty years beyond the thirty-one ascribed to her by Esquire, with vague alcoholic eyes that didn’t always focus. When I crossed the tiny drawbridge leading to her front door, she was sitting in her faded pastel bermudas with her feet dangling among the goldfish in the moat, tossing dog bisquits to two panting German shepherds. The dogs greeted me with friendly yips and shy licks at the palm of the hand. Times had changed, Isabel readily explained as I followed her into the castle. A few years ago Satanism was all the rage. Then along came Esalen with encounter groups, nude therapy, rolfing, that kind of thing. People were mixed up. Misled. They didn’t realize the Devil was more than just another kookie Southern California fad.

  The furnishings were a testament to the erosion of Isabel’s empire. The castle was filled with a melange of imitation medieval bric-a-brac and the harsh synthetic furniture available at wholesale houses, the kind that looked great until the first cup of spilled coffee filtered through the fabric and rusted out the springs. My guess was that the better pieces had already been repossessed. We sat down on a Herculon couch opposite a wall of photographs of Isabel with various local celebrities. I recognized the former star of a TV situation comedy and the well-known owner of a chain of used car lots.

  “Aren’t there any Satanists left?” I asked.

  “A few. The sincere ones.” She fixed me in her alky gaze, as if sizing me up as a future convert. “What paper did you say you were with, Mr. Wine?”

  “The L.A. Bat, the underground newspaper.”

  “Oh, the Bat!” she exclaimed. “I love their classified advertisements . . . the personals column especially.” She paused while I took out a pad and paper. “People are so honest about their needs in it. And I don’t believe any of us should be ashamed of our needs. Do you, Mr. Wine?”

  “Not at all,” I said, noticing for the first time the thin pencil scar beneath her chin, the sure sign of a recent face lift. She rested her hand on my knee.

  “Tell me, Miss La Fontana, who do you regard as some of the more significant figures in the Satan Movement over the last few years?”

  “Well,” she said, leaning in closely. “Let me say straight off that Charlie Manson was a phony through and through. Not an authentic Satanist. He gave us a bad name.”

  “Did you have any true leaders?”

  “The Fallen Angel is our true leader,” she said gravely, taking me by the hand. “What is it that Milton wrote? ‘To do aught good never will be our task,/But ever to do ill our sole delight.’ . . . Would you like something to drink? A brandy?”

  I nodded and she poured us both a drink from a plastic flask on the end table.

  “To the Underworld,” she said, “and the Children of Darkness,” as we clicked glasses. I resisted a smile and drank, wondering whether it contained the juices of the poisonous mandrake root or some other bizarre potion. It tasted like cheap brandy.

  “Then you haven’t had any secular leaders in recent years,” I said.

  “Well, of course we’ve had some. Lemuel Fleet in San Francisco. Roger Hendricks, an expert in necromancy and the four cardinal points. Norbert Hertside, the Caballist.” She brought my hand to her lips and blew softly. “And there are those who consider me one of the leaders of our sect. . . . Have you ever made love with your hands manacled to a post, Mr. Wine?”

  “Not while I was awake.”

  “You should try it.” She clasped both her hands around mine and squeezed with great urgency. For a fleeting moment, despite her decay or maybe because of it, I felt the power she must have had. Or still had for all I knew. “Our beliefs aren’t as foolish as you might think,” she continued. “Remember the Manichean heresy, the forces of light and darkness grappling in all of us . . . in you right now. You will write good things about us in your newspaper, won’t you? We need your help.”

  “Sure . . . look . . . I, er, would like to attend a Black Mass.” She smiled, pleased with the request. “You think it would be possible for me to attend one with King Nestor?”

  She dropped my hand instantly and drew back, eyeing me with tremendous suspicion.

  “Who told you about him?”

  “Everybody knows about King Nestor,” I tried.

  “They do?”

  “He’s Oscar Procari, Jr., isn’t he? The son of the famous financier.”

  “Oscar Procari is dead. He died two years ago in an automobile accident.”

  I looked at her wide-eyed. “Are you sure?”

  “Oscar Procari is dead,” she repeated. “You can read about it yourself in the newspapers.”

  “Gee,” I said. “Someone told me he was still alive. That he didn’t want to expose himself for fear the wrong parties would take advantage of him.”

  “That someone was misinformed.” She stood and stepped away from the couch.

  “If he isn’t Procari, then who is he?”

  “You may leave now, Mr. Wine.”

  “But the interview has only begun. I have so many questions. . . . Did I say anything wrong?”

  “You’d better leave.”

  I ignored her request and walked over to a brass-framed photograph of a man in a black hood leading a ritual of some sort. A nude woman lay on a slab in front of h
im with a snake crawling up her stomach.

  “Is that him? Is that Procari?”

  “I said go, Mr. Wine.”

  “Why’re you afraid to tell me? I don’t understand.”

  “King Nestor has powers none of us can fathom.” She headed for the opposite side of the room. “He is the hope of our movement.”

  “Then he is alive!” I said, following after her.

  But she didn’t reply. Instead she slid her hand beneath a mirror, switching off the chandelier and leaving one lone candle flickering on the mantelpiece. The room became quite dim. I hadn’t realized it was without windows. Then she reached down to her right and picked up a large leather whip, cracking it sharply over my head. The two German shepherds appeared at the entrance of the foyer. This time they weren’t the amiable pets that had greeted me at the front door. Growling ominously, they seemed like a pair of refugees from the guard tower at Bergen-Belsen with a couple of my ancestors sloshing about in their bellies. In the faint light, Isabel herself, even with pastel bermudas and bleary alcoholic eyes, had taken on the imposing aspect of her old Esquire spread. And the whip she held in her hand didn’t help matters. She looked like she knew how to use it.

  “Do you have any more questions, Mr. Wine?” Her voice had become constricted, distant.

  “No, no. I don’t think so.” I was surprised at my own docility. I tried to laugh, but it didn’t seem very funny.

  “Then our interview is over.”

  “Yes.” I nodded and she guided me to the foyer with the dogs trailing a few feet behind us.

  She touched my leg with the whip in farewell. “I’ll be looking forward to your article, Mr. Wine. The Bat has always been one of my favorite newspapers.”

  In a moment I was out on the street. The sun was blinding. I turned back to the house. The few slatted windows were all shuttered. I could hear the dogs barking from within the thick Norman ramparts. They were probably ripping apart a piece of lean red sirloin steak. It would make a diverting spectacle but I had no inclination to go back and watch.

  12

  THE OCCULT IS about ninety-five per cent sham, I thought that night as I packed my pipe with as much hashish as I could possibly cram in the bowl, but that other five per cent could sure scare the shit out of you. I took a good heavy toke and held it in as long as I could, trying to dissolve the wave of paranoia which had engulfed me ever since I left Isabel La Fontana’s. In a short time I was feeling somewhat better. Perhaps I had been smoking too much dope of late but I consoled myself that I hadn’t yet passed Sherlock Holmes who, in The Sign of Four, took three cocaine injections a day and lay upon his sofa “for days on end . . . hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night.”