by Jaime Clarke
Back in Phoenix, we were anxious to get our tape. We dialed Elliot and Hunter’s number, but their number was disconnected. We hadn’t heard from Rick in forever so we called him to find out what was going on but his phone number was disconnected, too. Daisy turned on the television while I checked the number with information and Daisy said, Look, it’s them. And sure enough over the shoulder of the anchorwoman was a picture of Elliot and Hunter with the caption SENATOR’S SON SLAIN.
Turn it up, I said.
Daisy hit the remote and the anchorwoman’s voice rose in the living room. The details of the murder were scarce. As far as the police were able to determine, Hunter and Elliot were shot to death in their home somewhere around midnight. Daisy noted that it was the day after we recorded with them. Holy shit, Daisy said, look at that. A picture of Elliot at the White House with his father, Senator Hawkins, flashed in a succession of pictures, mostly of the senator and his wife at various parties. The anchorwoman came back on and over her shoulder appeared crude sketches of people the police wanted to talk to. A neighbor woman told the police they were the last people she saw at the house. We couldn’t see it at first—Daisy was the one who really saw it—but sure enough the sketches were of me and Daisy and Rick.
Daisy said, Try Rick’s number again. Her hand shook as she beamed the remote control at the TV, switching it off. I dialed Rick’s number and the disconnection recording played in my ear but Daisy started to freak out, pacing the room, looking out the window like she was in the government witness relocation program.
I hung up the phone. Look, I said, we didn’t do anything, we don’t know anything. Daisy looked out the window again. We should call the police, I said.
But they’re gonna ask about Rick and now Rick’s disappeared and they’re gonna want to know why, Daisy reasoned.
I said we didn’t know why and that if we didn’t go to the police it would make us look guilty of something. We agreed to wait until the morning to call the police because we secretly hoped the police would figure it all out overnight or we’d hear from Rick. Once that shite was straightened out, we hoped to get our tape back. (We did feel sympathy for Elliot and Hunter, who were, as far as we knew, nice guys, and they certainly didn’t deserve to be murdered—if we could, there’d be a ton of things me and Daisy would like to undo.)
We called Stella and asked her advice. When we told her, the first thing Stella said was that now she could add us to her Murder Book. She laughed and you could almost hear the ocean in the background. We wished we were there instead of in Phoenix. We wished we were kicking through the waves and laying out in the sun.
Before we could ask Stella for her advice she launched into the latest target of her celebrity death obsession: Jon-Erik Hexum, the actor who starred in the early ’80s TV shows Voyagers and Cover Up. Me and Daisy remembered watching the shows when we were kids but we didn’t know right away who she was talking about. The really good-looking guy, Stella said, the one that looked like a model. We said we remembered even though we weren’t sure and Stella told us how in 1984 on Stage 17 at the 20th Century Fox lot, the set of Cover Up, there was a half hour break between takes of a scene involving Jon-Erik Hexum’s character, a weapons expert, and another actor. (Stella had a copy of the script.) Hexum was supposed to be trying to infiltrate an enemy group as a spy and in order to win over the enemy’s confidence he was to load his .44 Magnum with blanks and shoot one of his partners, who was posing as a jewelry smuggler in a Miami hotel room. So between takes Hexum was fooling around with the gun on the set when it accidentally went off. The noise startled everyone and, being a practical joker, Hexum sat on the bed in the makeshift hotel room, spun the barrel of the gun and put it to his head and said, ‘Let’s see if I’ve got one for me.’ Hexum pulled the trigger and fell back on the bed, blood gushing from his temple where a quarter-inch piece of cardboard lodged itself in his brain. Someone got a towel and a guest star put his fingers in Hexum’s mouth to keep him from choking on his tongue. There wasn’t time for an ambulance so Hexum was thrown in the back of a station wagon and rushed to Beverly Hills Medical Center, where six days later he was pronounced brain dead. He donated his heart, kidneys and corneas, Stella said. Apparently the heart had been donated to the owner of a Vegas escort service. There was supposed to be something funny about that but we didn’t see it. If you didn’t stop her, Stella would go on and on like that.
It was good to talk to you, Stella, we said.
She said, Come visit soon.
We were so tired we couldn’t sleep.
We had finally dozed off when there was a knock on Daisy’s front door. Me and Daisy jumped up, frightened, and crept towards the door. The sun was coming up like headlights way off in the distance and we could barely see the man on the porch, a tall, thin man with his red hair in a ponytail. His skin was so white it glowed and his nostrils flared.
The man raised his fist and knocked again. Daisy looked at me and I shrugged. She reached for the portable phone and with it securely in her hand she swung open the door, startling the man, who introduced himself as Fred Meyers, a reporter for the Arizona Republic. A second man stepped out of the shadows and introduced himself as Buttrey. I’m the photographer, he said.
Daisy checked to see if her mom was home, but she wasn’t. Then we all sat at the kitchen table and told Fred Meyers our story. He didn’t get too interested until we got to the part about Rick and Elliot and Hunter. Fred asked us if we ever saw any guns in the house. We said no. He asked us if we ever saw any drugs, or if anyone delivered a package while we were there. We said no. He wanted to know if we overheard Elliot or Hunter on the phone. Again we said no.
Buttrey said, I have to get to another shoot, so do you mind if I take your pictures now?
Me and Daisy said we didn’t mind but we did want to fix ourselves up a little. Buttrey said, Okay, but hurry. We changed clothes and made ourselves presentable and Buttrey took a picture of us sitting next to each other on the couch.
Fred gave Buttrey some instructions about what to do with the film and Buttrey took off. Fred said, I want to ask you girls some more questions. He ran through a list of names but there was no one we had heard of.
We volunteered that we didn’t know where Rick was either, that we tried to call him but his phone was disconnected. Daisy said, We can give you his phone number so you can track him down and he’ll tell you exactly what we told you.
Fred scrunched up his face and then looked down at the table. When he looked at us again he said, They found Rick this morning in a hotel room in Chicago, shot in the back of the head.
It was like being run over by a semi. Me and Daisy didn’t look at each other and I felt tears coming out of the corner of my eyes. Daisy put her head in her hands and started sobbing. It felt like we were in a really horrible movie. Fred said he was sorry and set down his notepad. We sat like that for some time and then we told Fred we didn’t want to talk anymore. I understand, he said, but we have to call the police now.
Why, Daisy asked, standing abruptly.
You girls are wanted by the police for questioning and I think it’s best if you just tell them your story, he said, to clear your names.
Fred got us to agree to let him call the police. He told them he would bring us down himself but wanted to ‘come in through the back.’ That phrase frightened us because we saw no reason we couldn’t just walk right in, tell our story, and walk right out. Suddenly we were very nervous about the idea of handcuffs.
Fred’s precautions turned out to be necessary though. Someone at the police station leaked to the media that ‘the two women sought in connection with the murder of the senator’s son’ were turning themselves in and man, you should’ve seen the mess. We did try to go in through the back, but there were an equal number of reporters around back as there were in front. Of course all those in front chased around to the back once they saw the ones in back crowding around our car.
Get back you wolves, Fred said as he
slowed the car.
For a moment we just sat there and nobody moved or said anything. A million faces pressed against the window of Fred’s car, but luckily the windows were tinted. A reporter crawled on the hood of the car and took a picture through the windshield but Fred stuck his face in front of the lens as me and Daisy ducked down.
Fred’s cell phone rang and when he hung up, he put the car in drive and rolled us out of the crowd. There’s a change in plans, Fred told us.
The change in plans was that we’d meet with the police at a prearranged meeting place, which turned out to be the Royal Palms Inn off Camelback. The police were already waiting for us in a cabana off the pool and Daisy said something about wishing she could go for a swim instead of talking to the police, who wouldn’t let Fred stay in the room with us. We protested and they said, Fine, you can call your lawyer, which should give the rest of the press enough time to find you here. We agreed that wasn’t such a hot idea, so we told them what happened. They nodded and took notes, stopping us to ask us to repeat ourselves, over and over. They kept asking us about the lyrics in the song ‘I’d Kill You if I Thought I Could Get Away with It.’ They wanted to know which one of us wrote it and we said we all sort of did. They kept repeating the lyrics: They’d find you and they’d know it was me / Our love is obvious / It’s so plain to see / It all points to me / It’s you I’d like to hit / I’d kill you if I thought I could get away with it. It sounded funny when they read it instead of singing it but they didn’t see that it was very funny.
Before we left we asked the police if they could give us our tape. It’s our property, Daisy said. The police looked at us squarely and said they’d see what they could do.
That night we saw ourselves on the news. After a picture of Rick they had footage of Fred’s car out back of the police station. You could see Fred in the driver’s seat, but that was all. The anchorwoman, Judy Kern, told the viewing audience that ‘two singers have come forward as the mystery women in the senator’s son’s home the day before Elliot Hawkins met his fatal end.’ Me and Daisy just looked at each other.
The next morning we had to walk to Smitty’s to see our picture on the front page of the paper. (Because she was gone so much, Daisy’s mom didn’t get the newspaper. I forgot to mention that Daisy’s mother was a freelance stewardess too, and sometimes in between flights for America West she hired out for private trips to Europe or wherever.) You know how sometimes pictures in newspapers look terrible, like mug shots? That’s what we expected. We were surprised at how, well, glamorous the photo was. In our minds we imagined the two of us sitting on the couch, straight as arrows, staring into the lens like deer caught in headlights. That was how we felt. But maybe because of the equipment, or maybe because Buttrey knew how to work a camera we looked totally relaxed and confident. We were leaning in towards each other, our faces slightly tilted up. We weren’t smiling, but we weren’t frowning, either. The headline read: MYSTERY WOMEN FOUND.
What do you think happened to Rick, I asked. Daisy shrugged. Could it be a coincidence, she asked. I said I didn’t think it could.
Sometimes when we’re down in the dumps, we get hot apple pies from McDonald’s to cheer us up. We’re cheered if the pie is really hot, the flaky crust melting away so the warm apple filling oozes into our mouths. We’re less cheered, however, if the pie has been roasting under a heat lamp and falls out of the box like the last greasy burrito at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
So we decided to get pies and while we were waiting to give our order, a little Mexican girl tugged on Daisy’s shirt. Can I have your autograph, she asked. Except she said, ah-oh-graph. Daisy looked at me and I said, Maybe she thinks you’re one of the Spice Girls. Daisy laughed and asked the little girl her name. Marguerite, the little girl said. Daisy took the pen and signed the McDonald’s napkin Marguerite held out for her. I spied Marguerite’s parents at a table piled high with burger wrappers and Cokes. They waved when I pointed them out to Daisy.
Marguerite asked me for my ah-oh-graph too and I signed below Daisy’s name. Thank you, Marguerite said and bounced the way happy children do. She ran back to her table, her little pink jellies clip-clopping against the tile floor.
We were so freaked out we took our pies to go.
Just when we were wondering, What next? we turned on the radio and heard one of our songs, ‘Do Fuck Off,’ coming through the speakers. It sounded great. Me and Daisy stared at each other, amazed. We remembered all the times we dreamed of having a song played on the radio. When the song had finished, House Hausler, the DJ, said, That’s a track from Masterful Johnson’s demo tape, recorded at the late Elliot Hawkins’s studio, an exclusive here at KUKQ. He said, I can’t say the real title on the radio, but we’re calling the song ‘D.F.O.’ The only thing that could’ve topped our being on the radio was if House played ‘Cruel Summer’ by Bananarama after us. But he didn’t.
How did he get our tape, Daisy asked. She looked a little hurt. I said probably someone from the police gave it to them. We agreed we wished we had an agent to handle things. The radio station was playing our song but you couldn’t buy our record anywhere and we weren’t making any money. We started to feel a little ripped off.
After a Taco Bell commercial, House said, Go ahead, caller. Is the song called ‘Day Fades Out’, the caller guessed. House laughed. (When we recorded the song, Elliot thought it was cool to call the song ‘Do Fuck Off’ without actually putting that lyric in the song—which shows you Elliot’s sense of humor.) Another caller guessed the title was ‘Don’t Forget the Ointment’. House was having such a good time he invited everyone to call in and make a guess.
Go ahead, caller: ‘Dog Fights Orange.’
Go ahead, caller: ‘Delia Fakes Orgasm.’
Go ahead, caller: ‘Dancing for Oreos.’
Caller: ‘Dental Freak Out.’
Me and Daisy were in near stitches we were laughing so hard. Daisy decided to call in and solve the puzzle but the line was busy. House played an old New Order song. (Ian Curtis, the lead singer of New Order when New Order was called Joy Division, hung himself right before the start of Joy Division’s 1980 world tour. He’s in Stella’s Suicide Book along with a fiber of rope that’s supposed to be the rope Curtis used.) Daisy kept trying until she finally got through.
Go ahead, caller, House said.
It’s called ‘Do Fuck Off’, Daisy said. She said it so fast that even with the five second delay House couldn’t bleep her out.
How did you ever guess that, House asked.
I’m the one singing it with Paque, Daisy said.
House’s radio voice crescendoed. Holy smokes kids, he said, it’s Masterful Johnson on the line. Which one are you, he asked. Daisy said she was Daisy and I turned down the radio and picked up the black and white Swatch phone next to Daisy’s bed. Hello it’s Paque, I said. We told House we were huge fans of the station, not just because we were but because that’s what a band’s supposed to say whenever a DJ interviews them in their hometown. House asked us about our musical background and we told him about how we started Masterful Johnson in high school and that Elliot and Hunter gave us our first real break. House asked if we could tell them anything more about the murders but Daisy told him our lawyer told us not to say anything, even though we didn’t have a lawyer. Do you have plans to release an album, House asked. We said we’d like to but that we didn’t have a label. We didn’t tell him that we didn’t have any other songs besides the two on the demo. We told him that Rick was our manager and was really the one behind us the whole way and we were a little lost without him. It choked us up a little to talk about Rick so House didn’t ask us anymore questions.
Here’s a second cut from the pride and joy of Arcadia High School, Masterful Johnson, House said in his radio voice.
I’d like to have you down to the station when you do release an album, House said off air. His radio voice was gone and his regular voice made you think of bees swarming. We said we’d love it and we’d call
if that happened. Hey House, Daisy said, will you play some Bananarama? House said he would and we felt as powerful as the president of the United States when the next song came on and it was ‘Robert De Niro’s Waiting’ from Bananarama’s 1984 self-titled album. It’s the first-best album, followed by 1991’s Pop Life. Really they never put out a shite record, but me and Daisy love ‘Venus’ from the 1987 album, Wow! Daisy said we should’ve asked House about the U.S. ‘Wild Life’ mystery and thought about calling him back but didn’t want to wear out our welcome. Besides, Stella investigated it and came up with what is probably the best explanation. She said that when Bananarama was released from London/Polygram in 1984 the album and cassette featured the full-length version of ‘Hotline to Heaven.’ When the record was re-pressed shortly after, the full-length version of ‘Hotline to Heaven’ became a 12” single and the album featured an edited version (3:45), about half the play length, along with ‘The Wild Life’ (3:50). But when the U.S. edition was pressed, the first release was used and so ‘The Wild Life’ doesn’t appear on any U.S. release. There is, however, a U.S. 7” single (3:17) with ‘The State I’m In’ as the B-side. Stella said she tracked down a 12” U.S. promo with the 3:17 version on both sides. She said there’s rumored to be a Canadian 12” with the dub mix and she thinks maybe there’s a Canadian 7”, but she wasn’t positive. Me and Daisy are always on the lookout for it though. We even stop at garage sales on the off-chance someone is throwing away gold.