A Body To Dye For (Stan Kraychik Book 1)

by Grant Michaels

  Just as we approached the school, Yudi yelled, “Stop here!” Then he opened his door and suddenly jumped out of the car. “You go without me. I’ll meet you when you finish with Jack.” He closed the door and waved me off. I was about to ask where we should meet, but he disappeared magically among the trees, just like a nature boy.

  I drove on to the climbing school and left the car in the gravel-covered parking area. There was only one other car there, an old Chevrolet coupe from the mid-fifties, intact but poorly maintained. In the bright sun, the once-gleaming black paint now had a dull matte finish with bluish streaks, and the heavy chrome was pitted and peeling with rust.

  The school was a small wooden shack. Through its open door I heard the buzz of country-western music from a radio inside. I knocked on the door frame, but no one answered. When I called out “Hello?” a voice shouted, “In back!”

  I walked around behind the shack and saw a man about fifteen feet up above the ground, grappling the underside of a horizontal projection of overhanging rock. He looked like a gigantic fly, defying gravity and creeping along a ceiling. “Just practicin’ my boulderin’,” he said. “Don’t get much chance durin’ tourist season.”

  I watched him, amazed.

  “What can I do for ya?” he said as he carefully crept and turned his body around to face me upside down.

  “I … I’m trying to find out what happened to my friend Roger … Roger Fayerbrock.”

  The man stopped wrangling with the rock and looked down at me with his head tilted oddly, like a praying mantis. He had short-cropped gray hair and about a week’s growth of grizzled beard. “Who sent ya?”

  “His friend.”

  “The little Filipino?”

  “He’s from Bali, actually.”

  “Who cares where he’s from? Can’t figure why Roger ever got mixed up with him.”

  “He has a certain charm.”

  “That what ya call it? Charm?” His upside-down face sneered. “Plain ol’ queer to me.” And as if to add dramatic flourish to his statement, he let himself fall.

  “No!” I heard myself yell as he dropped through the air.

  But he landed easily and upright on his strong legs. “It’s okay,” he said, grinning. “Do it all the time.” He walked toward me with an extended hand. “Name’s Jack. Jack Werdegar. Folks call me Wacky-Jacky.” His strong wiry body appeared to be in its forties, but his skin was already so weather-ravaged that I imagined he wouldn’t look much different in twenty years.

  I shook his hand. His grip could crush anything easily. My palm came back covered with white powder. “Chalk,” he said. “Need it for keeping a dry grip on the rocks. Gets real sweaty up there.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Never climbed?”

  I shook my head emphatically.

  “Then how ya know Roger?”

  “College buddies,” I said, already feeling his abridged syntax affect my own speech.

  “Huh!” he said with great doubt in his small shifty eyes. “Didn’t know he went to college.” He began methodically packing his gear.

  I said, “I was wondering if you had any idea why Roger went to Boston recently.”

  He looked up at me with a suspicious glance. “Far as I know, went to climb Ol’ Man o’ the Mountain.”

  “That’s what I heard, but he didn’t take any climbing gear with him back East. Isn’t that strange?”

  “Nah. Pick up what he needed there.” He stopped organizing his gear and faced me. His shifty gaze met my steady eyes. “Rumor says Roger got himself killed back there.”

  I nodded. “It’s true. That’s why I’m here.”

  He grunted. “You a cop?”

  I shook my head no.

  He said, “Rog never got to climb the mountain?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad. He was a good rock man.”

  And good dream material, too, I thought soberly. “Jack, I heard that slide on Washington Column really bothered him.”

  The man bristled. “Little pansy tell ya that? Can’t trust him, y’know. Imagination runs wild.”

  “I’ve often been accused of the same thing.”

  “Ya not like him, are ya?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Guess not. Ya don’t live here at least.”

  That was a cheery welcome-wagon attitude. I persisted anyway. “Why did the slide upset Roger?”

  “Don’t know nothin’ about rocks, do ya?”

  “I had a collection when I was young.”

  Wacky-Jacky laughed. “Best way to learn is to get on ’em.”

  “Doesn’t appeal to me.” There it was again, the contagious speech pattern.

  “Take ya on an easy slab. Probably love it. Most guys end up hooked on the buzz they get. C’mon. Ya’re already wearin’ sneaks. Get ya by on an easy slope.”

  “No,” I said, backing away slightly. “I’m fine right here.”

  He hoisted the coils of ropes over his shoulder. “Suit ya’self. Ya wanna talk, ya come to my place, and my place”—he jerked his thumb toward the cliffs overhead—“is up there.” They looked extremely high and far away.

  “Thanks, but I’m sure we can talk just as easily right here.”

  “Suit ya’self,” he said again, and headed toward the shack.

  I saw my opportunity walking away. “Wait!” I yelped.

  “Yeah?” he said, turning.

  “You said an easy one, right?” I asked tentatively. What choice did I have?

  He grinned. “Sure! Ya gonna love it!”

  He went into the shack and brought out a nylon web belt. “Put this on.” He pushed it into my belly. It had metal rings and pins and clips hanging all around it, along with hanks of nylon rope.

  I attached the belt around my waist. I felt like a telephone lineman. “I thought you said we’d do an easy one.”

  “We will. Just two pitches.”

  “Pictures?”

  “Pitches, man! Pitches! That’s the climb between two flat places.”

  “Why not just say slope then?”

  “Nah! Slope is different. Slope is … slope is … slope is the whole thing.”

  “So, many pitches make a slope?”

  “Ya got it. Hey, ya’re smart.”

  “Thanks, but if its going to be so easy, why do I have to wear all this stuff?”

  “Always gotta have some friends with ya, no matter how easy the climb.”

  “Friends?”

  “That’s what we call the safety gear, ’cause when it saves ya life, man, it’s ya friend.” Then the guy named Wacky-Jacky looked me over and winked. “Besides,” he added, “I like the way it looks on ya.” He cackled. “Better roll up ya pants, too.”

  “Why?”

  “Makes movin’ easier.”

  I did as he suggested and carefully rolled the legs of my baggy khakis up. He approved heartily. “Get ’em up higher. Yeah, like that. Hey, good legs!”

  “So people say.”

  I noticed, though, that he wasn’t wearing the same kind of equipment he’d foisted on me. When I asked him about it, he said, “I got the clips on my belt here.” He proudly showed me the metal hardware around the heavy leather belt on his jeans. “For the kind of climb we’re doin’, this’ll hold just fine in an emergency.”

  “Emergency, Jack?”

  “Don’t worry, kid. No one’s gonna fall.”

  “Hope ya right,” I said doubtfully in his vernacular.

  “Let’s go!”

  I was wary of his enthusiasm, but I wanted him to talk, so I humored him. I figured I would find out what I wanted before we started the actual climb. Then I could back out at the last minute. Besides, I had no intention of ruining my new ecru leather sneakers frolicking about on the rocks.

  I tried to question him as we walked, but all he said was, “Gotta be quiet now. Goin’ to church. The rocks are like church.” My plan to talk now and back out later obviously wasn’t going to work. />
  We arrived at the base of a steep hill of smooth granite. Close up, it didn’t look threatening, but it didn’t look easy to climb, either. Jack took a rope and passed it through one of the metal rings around his belt. He attached the other end of the rope to one of the rings on my belt. “Now we’re safe,” he said with a wink and a laugh.

  He turned to begin the climb up the wall of rock. He said, “Watch me go up. Then, when I’m up there on that ledge, I’ll give ya the signal to start. Just do it the same way I do. Keep ya hands and feet flat on the rock and ya fanny in the air. And don’t look down!”

  Sounded easy enough. I just wasn’t prepared for how smoothly and deliberately he moved, crawling quickly on all fours up the slope. When he was halfway up, about thirty feet, he called back to me, “See how?”

  “Yeah, Jack. But I think I’m changing my mind.”

  “Aw, c’mon! Ya don’t want me to drag ya up here by the rope, do ya?”

  “Uh, no.”

  He continued climbing up the rock to the first ledge. He attached the safety line to a rock up there, then pulled the rope so that it was taut. “Okay!” he called down. “You climb up now. Don’t worry. I got the rope secured.”

  My moment had come, so I launched myself up the rock. If nothing else, I’ve got good legs and feet, so I used them to clamber up the granite the way Jack had done. It was easier than I expected, especially with the extra grip my new sneakers provided. I pulled myself up onto the shallow ledge where Jack was, then stood up to survey the scenery with him. We were probably sixty feet from the ground, and even at that elevation, the view of the valley was different. The granite felt warm and strong, almost friendly.

  “It’s really beautiful,” I said. “Unspoiled. I hope it never changes.”

  Wacky-Jacky said, “Still some holdin’s down there.”

  “Holdens? Are they related to William Holden?” Hell, we were in California.

  Wacky-Jacky made a face. “Holdin’s! In-holdin’s!”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand. What’s that?”

  “Private land,” said Wacky-Jacky. “The owners are still holdin’ it.”

  Holding, I thought, In-holdings. Still didn’t make sense to me. “You mean there’s private land here? In a National Park?”

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  “But its protected, right? I mean, they can’t build on it or anything, can they?”

  “All kinds of rules s’pose to protect it, but ya never know.”

  I imagined some dreadful condo project with swimming pools and tennis courts and wire-link fences. “That would be a tragedy,” I said, looking out o’er purple mountains’ majesty.

  “Old, old fight. Still up in the air.” Then Wacky-Jacky winked at me again. I was hoping it was a nervous habit and not a courtship ritual. “Let’s get goin’,” he said. “One more pitch. But ya’re the anchor now.” He positioned me like a wedge between two rocks. “Now don’t move till I tell ya.”

  “Why not?”

  “So’s in case I fall, man, I don’t go no further than where ya’ standin’ here.”

  “Oh,” I said. Great! Now I had my life and his to worry about.

  He began climbing the second pitch, which looked much steeper than the first one. The simple flat hand and foot technique that had worked earlier no longer sufficed. Jack yelled back as he climbed, “Watch me! Look where my hands and feet are goin’. Ya gonna copy me!”

  “Fine,” I said, but I detected a serious note in his voice. When he finally reached the ledge at the top, he secured the rope again, then yelled down to me, “Okay, yar turn! Put ya hands and feet where I put ’em. Jus’ stay relaxed and alert!”

  Sure, I thought, but my hands had become sweaty just watching him go up before me. I took a deep breath and headed up the granite slab. I tried to mimic the method Jack had used to get up the second pitch, and for most of it I was fine. At one point I lost my footing and slipped back a few feet. I felt myself grappling madly along the rock, but then the safety rope stopped my downward movement.

  “Y’all right?” Jack yelled.

  “Just testing the line!” I yelled back, but I thought I’d died and been reborn in those seconds. Now I knew what these rock climbers were after: that surge of life-after-death energy they got when they didn’t die. And people call the things I do unnatural!

  But the real moment of truth came near the top of the pitch, where I would have to pull myself up onto the ledge. The rock became vertical for a few feet before curving slightly outward from the wall up there. I didn’t quite know where to make my next grip, and I made the idiotic decision to look down. I saw that I was over a hundred feet from the ground. All at once my guts got light and a unpleasant tingle spread across my shoulders. I closed my eyes. Mantra time. Then I heard Jack yelling, “What’s goin’ on? Hey! Ain’t no time for a nap!” I opened my eyes, but there was no way in hell I was going to move.

  He hollered instructions from where he was kneeling securely on the ledge directly above me. “One hand up here. C’mon guy, let’s go! Do it!”

  “I think I’ll just stay here for a while.”

  “Can’t! Gonna wear ya’self out squeezin’ the rock like that.”

  It was true. I was holding on so tightly that the fingers on both my hands were white and trembling already. He said, “C’mon fella.

  I gotcha on the safety line. Just put one hand up here with me.”

  “Help me!”

  “Better if ya do it ya’self.”

  Damn you, I thought. I don’t have to prove I’m a man this way. This was probably supposed to be some kind of rock climber’s rite of passage, but all I knew was I hadn’t learned anything about Roger, and now I felt I was on the verge of plummeting fifty feet to the first ledge, then crashing another sixty after that, safety rope or not. The valley didn’t seem so beautiful now.

  Wacky-Jacky continued coaxing me. “One hand up here, palm down.” He patted the ledge above me, as if to make it more homey. “Move it up here smooth and easy.”

  Okay, buster. I’ll be a man. In as casual a gesture as I could manage dangling one hundred feet above the ground, I released one shaking white hand, reached up high above my head, and slapped it palm down onto the ledge above me. “Good,” he said, beckoning me with his fingers. “The other one. C’mon, buddy.”

  Moving my other hand was going to be worse, though, because even if I dared to move it, I’d also have to shift both my legs at the same time. At that one moment, all my weight would be supported by the lonely hand, which was already grappling for dear life up on the ledge. Jack coaxed me. I took a big breath … then reached and grabbed with everything in me! Finally I had both palms on the ledge, wobbling in terror. “Now just walk up the rock,” he said. “No way, pal!”

  “A baby could do it, I’m telling ya! One foot in front of the other.”

  I tried, inch by inch, to do as he said. He cooed softly, “That’s it, boy. Easy does it. Come to Papa.”

  “Papa-Shmapa! Now what?” My ass was hanging out into the air, and my legs were bent so that my knees were up near my chest.

  He said, “Big breath, boy. Ready?”

  “Help!” I gasped.

  “Jeezus!” he yelled. “Look at that big ol’ rattlesnake nippin’ at ya butt!”

  It was do or die, so I did. I pushed down with everything I had in me and scrambled my legs up onto the ledge. I collapsed on the narrow ledge, breathless and speechless. I was home safe!

  He laughed. “Ya really got pumped there. Good thing ya didn’t fall ya first time up. Mighta ruined ya for climbin’.”

  “Not to mention living.”

  “How ya feelin’?” he asked.

  “Alive!” I gasped.

  “That’s the rush. Ya get to like it, then ya want more.”

  “Where’s that snake?”

  Wacky-Jacky laughed loud and long. “Ain’t no snake! Fooled ya!” Then he knelt down beside me and spoke low. “Y’know what’d be real n
ice right now?”

  “A double martini.”

  “I mean somethin’ that’d let ya know how alive ya really are?”

  “I’m feeling pretty alive right now, thanks.”

  He murmured, “We let off up here.”

  “What!”

  “It’s great.”

  “Here? On the rocks?”

  “Sure. C’mon.”

  “I’m fine, thanks. I’ll just rest for a while.”

  “Suit ya’self. I’m gonna.”

  He stood up and faced away from me, out toward the vast wilderness. From behind I could sense him unfasten his jeans and open them. He muttered to me, “Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m just havin’ a little fun.”

  “It’s all right, Jack. Do what you have to do.”

  “Just don’t get the wrong idea.”

  “Not at all, Jack. People are always spilling their procreative juices around me.”

  I could sense him unfurl himself from his white jockey shorts. I tried to ignore him and concentrate on the valley below, but I couldn’t help sensing him next to me, teetering at the rock’s edge as his body swayed in anticipation of the impending release. It was grotesque. I mean, my idea of kinky sex is satin sheets at the Ritz.

  It was then that I noticed how scuffed my new sneaks had got in the skirmish to get up on the ledge. Damn, I thought! I leaned forward to examine the damaged leather, and while doing it, I accidentally moved the safety rope attached to the belt on Jack’s jeans, which were already slipping lower on his hips. I don’t know how it happened, but the minuscule tug on the line must have been just enough to alter his precarious balance. It was as simple as now you see him now you don’t.

  I heard him yell at exactly the moment I felt the line spring taut next to me. Fortunately, he’d secured the rope, so he didn’t fall far. I looked over the edge and saw him hanging upside down in a state of demi-dishabille. His shirt had fallen over his face, so all I could see was his torso, his white jockey shorts, his legs, and his jeans, now gathered around his ankles. He wasn’t moving.

  “Jack?” I said. “Are you all right?”

  From under the shirt his voice sounded frightened but under control. “Is the safety line secure?”

  I checked it on the rock behind me. “Yes, it is.”