California Girl

by T. Jefferson Parker

  “I took it by accident,” said Nick. “It was wild, but in the morning I felt pretty good.”

  “Try smoking some dragon ball when you’re tripping,” she said. “The hash and opium mellow you out while the acid blows your mind.”

  “I’ll think about that,” said Nick.

  The woman trailed him a smile as she moved closer to the front of the room. Nick and Lobdell stayed in the back, quarantined by wing tips and hidden guns.

  A slender young man approached them. Hair in a ponytail, jeans and a loose woven shirt. Clear eyes, strong chin.

  “I knew Janelle,” he said. “I don’t know anything about what happened but I’ll help in any way I can.”

  “Are you Brotherhood?” asked Nick.

  “One of the original thirty. Richard Lucas. She was a very gentle girl. Terrific energy and curiosity. Used too much acid, if you ask me.”

  “I thought that’s what you guys did,” said Lobdell.

  A neutral look from Lucas. He considered the crowd. Then Tim Leary making his way through it. “We used to create space for light and vision. I’m not sure what we’re doing now. You can contact me here anytime you want.”

  “When did you see her last?” asked Nick.

  “The day she died,” said Lucas. “Late morning. She came into the store here and bought some incense. Patchouli.”

  “Was she worried or anxious?”

  Lucas smiled. Brightness in his eyes. “She seemed calm and happy like she always did. The world is a slightly darker place without her in it. Excuse me. I’m needed up front. Come by again if you want to talk more. The Brotherhood is misunderstood. We do good things. We’ve helped a lot of people.”

  Suddenly the room was buzzing with the syllable om. Leary now sat on the table cross-legged, fingers circled on his knees, smiling. “I can’t say om and smile, but I can’t keep from smiling! I confess! I’m a hope fiend!”

  After a few minutes the chanting subsided and Leary’s voice took over the room. For the next twenty minutes he talked about the psychedelic experience opening the doors of perception and the psychopharmacologic evolution/revolution that was taking place in the world and how Ginsberg was right, what the world needs is Johnson and Nikita and Mao and Ho and Kerouac and Burroughs and Mailer to all get together and drop heavy psychedelics and figure out a new holy apostolic method to strip the hate from the chromosomes of human experience and replace it with a little…illumination so the strings of the cosmos can vibrate in peace instead of madness!

  “And I thought my kids had imaginations,” whispered Nick.

  I don’t sense that we are alone here. The quest for internal freedom, for the elixir of life, for the draft of immortal revelation, isn’t new. I believe we are unwitting agents of a social process far too powerful for us to control or more than dimly understand. A historical movement that will inevitably change man at the very center of his nature, his consciousness.

  “He’s a lunatic with a big vocabulary,” Lobdell whispered.

  “I don’t think he’s crazy,” Nick whispered back. “It’s belief. Fervor. Passion. He believes what he’s saying.”

  “You just like his air freshener.”

  After half an hour of hopeful sermonizing, Leary invited everyone across the street to the beach for sunset and chanting.

  They crossed Coast Highway at the signal and weaved down the sidewalk at Cleo Street. Nick and Lobdell brought up the rear. Up ahead Nick spotted Ronnie Joe Fowler and Troy Gant. They looked back at the same time, made the cops. Then both looked to their left and ahead, where Janelle Vonn’s yellow cottage sat overlooking the ocean.

  Nick felt the sand crunching under his shoes as he walked down the concrete steps to the beach. The sun burned down in an orange pool. Catalina Island sat in it like a black rock. Nick glanced straight up to a sky of weightless blue with one star already twinkling.

  Fowler and Gant stood on a flat rock staring down at them. Fowler smiled and waved. Leary stood knee deep in the ocean, arms raised toward the setting sun. Some of the crowd joined him, others stayed on the wet bank of sand. More spread back into the sandstone and the seawall and Nick heard the communal syllable om again. A flock of seagulls cried overhead, dove through the air toward Leary, then straightened and glided out over the water by inches. A few minutes later the cool October night turned dark and Nick saw the flames of lighters and matches. The air around them filled with the sweet reek of clove and tobacco and marijuana.

  “Like cocktail hour,” said Lobdell. “Except you don’t drink it, you smoke it.”

  LATER WHEN the crowd drifted away they got Leary and Fowler off alone.

  They walked north along the waterline. “We—Rosemary and I—had Janelle to the house I think three times,” Leary said. “Just casual get-togethers.”

  “We heard they were be-ins,” said Nick.

  “Exactly,” said Leary. “Be-ins. Be in yourself. Be in the moment. Be in harmony with nature and those around you.”

  “Clever,” said Lobdell. “Janelle ever have any trouble at these orgies?”

  “None,” said Leary. “She was perfect.”

  “She was nineteen is what she was,” said Nick.

  “And there was very little if any orgiastic behavior at those gatherings,” said Leary.

  “Did you give her drugs?” asked Lobdell.

  “No. But I shared with her what I believe about LSD. How it will open the windows of the mind and the doors of perception. I think it’s the most important chemical tool we have for helping society. I make no secret about what I believe, gentlemen. But I don’t supply LSD to nineteen-year-old girls.”

  “The air freshener acid was powerful,” said Nick. “I got some on me by accident.”

  “And what did you see?”

  “More than was really there.”

  “What you saw is always there, Detective Becker! It was you who arrived fresh and new!”

  Leary had produced a flashlight. Nick watched the beam flicker along on the sand. To his right were the Laguna boardwalk and the old lifeguard tower. Beyond that Coast Highway and the Star Theater. They moved north away from the lights and into the darkness.

  “You ever see anybody bothering her?” asked Nick.

  “Men were attracted to her,” said Leary.

  “What about Cory Bonnett?” asked Nick.

  “Guy’s a nutcase,” said Fowler. “I can’t even be in the same room with that creep.”

  “He’d kick your fake hippie ass,” said Lobdell.

  “Cory is a man headed for trouble,” said Leary.

  The sand gave way to rocks. Leary and Fowler seemed to glide across them. Nick steadied himself, picking his way. In the faint moonlight it was hard to see the cracks and holes. The air had the tide-pool smell of ocean and of seaweed beginning to spoil.

  “Janelle was working for the Sheriff’s Department,” said Nick. “As an informant. We didn’t find that out until after she was murdered.”

  “I never trusted her,” said Fowler. “Didn’t I tell you, Tim? Didn’t I make her for a snitch right out?”

  “Yes,” said Leary softly. He sounded genuinely disappointed. “You did.”

  “So,” said Nick. “We thought if some genius like Fowler here figured that out, maybe that’s a reason to shut her up. That’s the kind of possibility that interests us.”

  “I never touched her,” said Fowler. “I got no interest in chicks that think they know everything. I crashed with some friends that night out in Dodge City. I’ll give you numbers. You can ask them. I don’t give a shit what you think.”

  Leary stood on the rocks. White shirt and pants flapping in the stiff coast breeze. Nick felt the soles of his wing tips growing slick from the brine. Could use some sandals with tire-rubber soles like the hippies, he thought. A wave rushed across the rocks. Soaked him halfway up his calves.

  “This world is full of experience,” said Leary. “And the temptation of experience.”

  “You and your
drugs are temptation,” said Nick.

  “But they’re not my drugs and they haven’t killed anyone.”

  “There’s that lady who jumped out of the skyscraper,” said Lobdell.

  “She was under psychiatric treatment,” said Leary. “LSD should probably not be prescribed for a potential suicide.”

  “Your first wife killed herself,” said Lobdell.

  “Yes. God bless her.”

  Fowler had jumped up onto the rocks. Nimble for a thick strong man. Whispered something in Leary’s ear, then laughed.

  “Dr. Leary, where were you on Tuesday night, October first?” asked Nick.

  Leary looked at him but said nothing for a long moment. “With my wife Rosemary and my son Jack. We ate at a Chinese restaurant downtown. That’s a nasty insinuation you just made, if you’re considering me a suspect.”

  Leary aimed the flashlight at himself. The light turned his flesh pale red and cast shadows upward on his face. Weird guy, thought Nick. Figured Leary had spent more days frying on LSD than he had spent on the job as a homicide detective.

  “Where I’m standing right now is called the Giggle Crack,” said Leary. He aimed the light down on the shiny black rocks. “See the crack, where the water comes in and flows out? In daylight it’s really quite beautiful. People like to see if they can get in, feel the tide swell around them. But there’s a sharp edge they don’t see and it snags their ankles and the water beats them terribly against the sharp rocks. The Giggle Crack has killed three people. Every ten years it claims a new victim. There it is again—the temptation of experience.”

  “Someone raped and strangled Janelle,” said Nick. “It wasn’t temptation that did that.”

  Leary shined the flashlight on Nick’s face, then tilted it back at himself. “Is this more to you than a case, Mr. Becker?”

  “I knew her when she was a little girl,” said Nick. “She used to sing and dance.”

  “I’m sure she was perfect in every way,” said Leary. “I’m sorry I can’t help you more. Goodbye. There’s a trail to your right that leads up the bluff. It’s easy to follow. There are feral cats in the brush. Their eyes glow faint yellow in the dark. They’ll lead your way. Good night, gentlemen.”

  Fowler handed Nick a piece of paper. “My alibis. Check ’em all you want.”

  They drifted away. Nick could see Leary’s white clothes slowly vanish.

  Nick and Lobdell climbed up the trail on the bluff, yellow cat eyes paired in the brush around them.

  24

  DAVID WALKED THE NEW CHAPEL that morning with young Darren Whitbrend. David leaned slightly forward, half a step ahead of his prospective partner, hands locked behind the small of his back. He was finding it very difficult to shake the words that brother Andy had written about brother Nick in this morning’s Journal. Max, their father, had called David just after 6 A.M., perplexed and fretful at the hostility between his sons.

  “Is televangelism a word?” asked David.

  “I heard it somewhere, sir,” said Whitbrend. “And thought it was perfect.”

  “Barbara tells me you’re a televangelism guru,” said David.

  “Guru was her word, sir,” said Whitbrend with a smile. Whitbrend was fair-complected and white-haired. Eyes small and quick. Round spectacles. He had a trim, wiry frame and a blunt face.

  “I think televangelism is the future of ministry,” said Whitbrend. “I think there will be a day, in my lifetime, when churches become the studios for Christianity. Faith will surge across the airwaves. Entire networks will be dedicated to God’s word. Empires built with satellites and antennas and closed-circuit broadcasts and pay-as-you-view events. A television set in every room and in every vehicle and in every public space. Screens so small they can fit in your pocket. Screens so big they’re placed on the sides of buildings. A staggering apparatus for transmitting faith and making money for God’s purpose.”

  David sighed and shook his head slightly.

  “Is that distasteful to you, Reverend?”

  “Grim shit,” David said.

  “Why?”

  Whitbrend was direct and comfortable with words. David wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

  “Like I said on the phone,” said David. “I love my congregation. I don’t want to lose them.”

  “With respect, sir, if you don’t televise, you’ll surely lose them.”

  “Preach to millions? How can one man minister to millions? I can hardly keep Mrs. Hartley’s allergic papillon straight from Mrs. Harley’s allergic grandson.”

  Whitbrend smiled. It was somehow transparent and conspiratorial at the same time. It forced David to figure out which and he didn’t appreciate the extra work. He noted that one of Whitbrend’s neat front teeth was capped and slightly whiter than the others.

  “Well, sir. As you and Mrs. Becker and I understand, one man can’t do everything. We see that it will take two. Two. You and whoever you choose for the astonishing journey you are making.”

  David eyed the young minister. Whitbrend’s résumé had billed him as a “nondenominational, faith-based evangelist in the tradition of Billy Graham.” He was twenty-two. But it was difficult to see the spark in him. Billy Graham could light up like a Texas bonfire. You could feel the heat. Whitbrend, however, seemed only intelligent. And probably tenacious. David pictured him behind the pulpit here in the Grove Drive-In Church of God, unknowingly leading the congregation—his congregation—into bored resentment. Faith was joy. God was joy. Jesus was joy. Whitbrend was a Lutheran-trained mutineer without pizzazz.

  Outside they toured the playground and storage buildings, the classrooms and the extra drive-in stalls. David felt like a homeowner entertaining buyers he didn’t want to sell to. They stood approximately two hundred feet back from the full-screen Raising of Lazarus, the optimal distance for taking it all in. The speaker-studded expanse of sky blue asphalt stretched all around them.

  “This is all well and good,” said Whitbrend. “But your congregation deserves more. You want to inspire awe.”

  David suspected he’d entirely misread Whitbrend. “This inspires me every morning when I see it,” he said.

  “With what? Not awe.”

  David thought for a moment. “Satisfaction. Every Saturday when the deacons and I run the street sweepers over it and dose it with Orange Sunshine. And the nice chapel we were just inside? And the painting up there? And the playground for the kids? This is a good thing, Whitbrend. I’m surprised you can’t see that.”

  “I see it, sir,” Whitbrend answered quietly. His face colored. “And I agree with everything you just said. But it’s quaint. You need majesty around you. Majesty a camera can capture and transmit. You need to broadcast your message from a place that looks like heaven. Sir, I understand that you are at a crossroads. You have a wonderful ministry here. But it’s growing and you need a partner. My belief is that the only way to keep the traditional congregation is through television. That was my thesis at the seminary. I’ve given it some thought. May I entertain you with my vision of the Grove of God?”

  “Go for it,” said David.

  “Keep The Raising of Lazarus,” said the young minister. “Erect three more screens at cardinal points, like they used to have here, and commission equally impressive Christian paintings for them. These will serve as your franchise images. They will draw the curious to your services. Guided tours will be free. Postcards and T-shirts based on the paintings will be in demand. More importantly, the paintings will become the visual introduction to the televised ‘Grove of God’ worship hour, produced and distributed by the Grove of God in Orange.”

  “This is the Grove Drive-In Church of God,” said David.

  “Get rid of all of the drive-in stuff,” said Whitbrend. “It’s space-consuming, air-polluting, and it already—honestly—feels dated and overstated. Like the giant rotating donuts and the huge plaster hot dogs you see in L.A.”

  “Drive-in worship is the soul of my congregation.”

&
nbsp; “Was,” said Whitbrend. “Bob Schuller started like this, then went on to much bigger and better things.”

  David waved aside thoughts of Bob Schuller. “The cars fill our lot every Sunday.”

  “But believe me,” said Whitbrend, “if they think that worshiping in their cars is convenient, they’re going to love watching your sermons on television, at home, still in their jammies, with cereal and a cup of coffee.”

  David pictured it. Family on the couch. Socks and slippers up on the coffee table. Milk dribbling on flannel. Kids with stuffed animals or plastic machine guns. Burps and farts and comments during his message. Not much different from inside the cars here on Sunday mornings, if you were honest about it.

  “And do what with all this land?” asked David.

  “Do you really want my opinion?”

  “No, but I’m dying to hear it.”

  Whitbrend smiled. “Listen. You tear out the car stalls. You tear down the outbuildings. Leave the playground. Convert the main chapel to a utility building, day school, study center, and business office.”

  Whitbrend lifted an arm and pointed to the north. “There, in what is now just asphalt and speakers, you build the Grove of God Chapel. It is magnificent without being showy. It is a true monument to God. You build it of mirrored glass that will magnify its dimensions when it appears on-screen, and will dazzle the viewer. Its look is neither modern nor old, but a…contemporary-Gothic synthesis that is both ancient and ageless. There is no asphalt around it, but a simple grove of orange trees—ten idyllic acres. The green leaves and bright fruit of the trees are caught in the reflective glass of the chapel. The chapel is the heart of the Grove of God. The center of Eden. The beginning of life. Through the beautiful trees winds a wide boulevard to and from the chapel. Not an asphalt boulevard. Brick. I think brick painted sky blue, like your asphalt, would be perfect. Inside, this is a chapel that God Himself would be honored to visit. Not just honored. He’d wipe His shoes before entering. And smile with pride. It is resplendent but controlled. It is internally wired for video and sound, of course. And from a pulpit of tasteful splendor you deliver the finest sermons of any televangelist in the country. That inspires me with awe.”