by Fred DeVecca
He handed me a business card. “My lawyers. They’re the best. Call them. It’s on me.”
I looked at the card. “They’re in L.A.”
“Raven, you are one naïve sonofabitch. I’m powerful. I can do pretty much anything. In L.A., some lawyers are way more than lawyers, understand? They’re fixers. They’re doers and they’re un-doers. These guys, these lawyers, they’ll travel if they need to. But they won’t have to. They’ll get it dropped. And they’ll get it dropped from L.A. Easy in, easy out. Easy come, easy go. Know what I mean?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I had a suspicion. “I like Karen,” I said.
He laughed. “She’s a hundred years old.”
“I like her.”
“It’s your funeral. Literally.”
“I’ll take my chances. I don’t want your help. Anyway, I thought you were in the hospital.”
“I was. I checked myself out.”
I didn’t say anything. I waited for him to go on.
“I heard a friend of mine needed help,” he continued. “I posted your bail.”
“You’re not my friend, Mooney, but I appreciate the bail. So thanks for that. But you set me up. And now you bail me out. And now you’re offering me God knows what.”
This was a guy who maybe killed two young women. Then hired me and Sarah to find one of them. This was a guy who set me up for murder, not to mention paternity, and now was offering me a way out. This was a guy who was totally unstable, untrustworthy, and fucked up. I wanted no part of him, except for a ride home.
“Let’s go for a ride,” he said as he got in. I got in and sat uneasily in the passenger seat.
“You okay to drive, Mooney?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. I’m great.”
“Well, you look like hell. You just got out of the hospital, where they pumped you full of morphine, and you smell like booze.”
Then I saw the bottle tucked between the two front seats.
“So,” he said, “let’s make this one short ride, okay?”
Luckily, the ride from the State police barracks to Mooney’s house was less than a mile. We made it there safely in a couple of minutes, though not without a minor scare or two. When we arrived, I realized my fingers were numb from clutching the seatbelt in front of me.
Mooney staggered out of the vehicle and invited me in. I refused. I needed to go back down the Hill of Tears to my own house.
We stood there on his paved driveway and he said, “They’ll drop the charges. They’ve got nothing on you. That is, if you play ball.”
“Fuck you, Mooney. You set me up. Now I don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I’m trying to help a friend in trouble. Isn’t that what you’ve spent a lot of years doing, helping your friends?”
I backed away. “Fuck you, Mooney. I’ll get out of this myself. I can’t take help when it comes from an evil place like your heart.”
“Suit yourself. Come in for a drink.”
“Give it a rest, Mooney.”
He held the bottle in his hand and took a chug.
“Thank your little girl for the booze for me. She kept me supplied while I was in that damn hospital. Only thing that kept me in there.”
“I will make sure to do that. But I gotta go.”
“Think about it,” he said.
“I’m done thinking,” I said. “Thanks for bailing me out.”
“No problem,” he said. “Anything for a friend.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Just My Imagination Running Away with Me
Time went by. I was awaiting trial, which Karen said could be a long time coming. I told her someone must have switched the DNA, because there was no way the fetus could be related to me. I wondered about the chain of evidence with the DNA sample Loomis had taken. Loomis was not used to following rigorous legal requirements and who knew how much reach Mooney’s “lawyers” had.
I had not understood until then what it meant to have pockets as deep as Mooney’s. Anything was possible. I think Karen believed me. She kept pushing to have the DNA retested.
Clara and Sarah believed me, of course. There was never any question. And meanwhile, no other people dove into the river. Things grew quiet again.
Sometimes you have to stop before you can go. We—Sarah and I—were going to go somewhere, possibly to New Orleans. I wasn’t supposed to go anywhere, but I would go wherever I needed to go. Screw ’em. Screw ’em all. Fuck ’em. Fuck ’em all.
I was sitting and drinking coffee at Mocha Maya’s, next to my theater, at a window seat where you can see everybody and everything and they can’t see you because of the way the glass glares on the street side.
The music system was playing the Temptations. Or was it the Four Tops? Or was it Smokey Robinson and the Miracles? No, it was The Tempts—“Just My Imagination.”
A great song. Gave me a gentle soundtrack, along with the customer buzz, to soothe my morning. It had been such a quiet morning that I had stopped to record the seetz-tee zee-tee zee-tee zee of a rather rare Bay Breasted Warbler while I walked across the Bridge of Flowers. The water was unbelievably smooth, reflecting the curves of the bridge base. If you closed your eyes and held your breath, you might be able to convince yourself that things were back to normal. Which they most certainly were not.
I knew this right away because I saw her again. I was sipping slowly and the coffee was bitter. I had not put in enough sugar. I like a lot of sugar.
I was watching people come and go and stop and move and live. Felicity was dressing her mannequin in front of Otis & Co. Ginny walked by as if headed somewhere important. Emily and Al pushed their baby. No one saw me there in the window, but I saw them.
And there she was again. It was her. Hair red but this time very short. She was wearing red-framed glasses. It was a warm morning, but she wore a leather jacket, flaps pulled up over her neck, and a pair of tight blue jeans. She walked hunched over, shy, sullen, silent, slow, as if she were trying to melt into the sidewalk.
It didn’t really look like Julie, not superficially, but it was her. I was positive.
She walked directly by me, right in front of the big picture window. She stopped, put her face against the window. I was about two feet away. If it were not for the glass, I could have reached out and touched her. Grabbed her.
She could not see me. Or did not.
Then she moved on.
She wasn’t going to get away. And she wasn’t going to land in the drink. I left my coffee where it was, on the small square table, steaming.
I was out the door and I was right behind her. She still was not aware of my presence. I touched her shoulder. She turned around and took a glance at me and turned around again and looked like she was about to start running.
But I was right there. I grabbed her by the shoulders and held on. She turned around again and slapped me across the face and started running.
But I grabbed her again and held on this time.
She turned around again, and in a voice that was most definitely not that of our dear Nutting Girl said, “What do you want, mister?”
Not even Julie was that good an actor.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Mooney’s Type
“I just want to talk,” I said.
It was true. That’s all I wanted. Even if she were Julie, that would be all I wanted. With her not being Julie, well that was as much as I could hope for. She looked like Julie. Sorta anyway. That was enough for me. I needed to talk to her.
“Who the hell are you?” She was trembling.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean any harm.”
It’s hard to lie. I can’t do it. Maybe a psychopath like Mooney can pull it off, but not me. People know this when they look in my face.
So Not Nutting Girl knew it, and she said, “Jesus, you can’t go around grabbing people like that.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Okay, fine.” And she started walking away.
; But I was right there in her face. “Please don’t go,” I said. “I’d really like to talk to you.”
“This is not a good time. I have to be somewhere.”
Then when she saw what was in my eyes, the desperation, the sadness that she was someone other than she might possibly have been, when she saw me take in a deep breath and hold it, when she saw the tiny tear form in my good eye—well, then she no longer had somewhere important to go.
We went to Mocha Maya’s, where my coffee was still hot. I bought her a cup too and we sat down.
“You scared the hell out of me,” she said. “All the girls on the film have been talking about you.”
I was shocked. “What? Me?”
“Yes, you. Following us around. Looking for us. Obsessed with us. Jesus, mister, what the hell is going on?”
I had the same, or similar, questions for her. “Girls on the film?”
I got my answer first. “Yeah, there’s like nine of us. Or there was. Till you guys started chasing us around. One of us is dead now, for Christ’s sake.”
I was beyond apologizing. Who could apologize for stuff like that?
“You guys were all in the film?” is what I finally did mutter.
“Yeah. We all have small parts. Had, I should say.”
“The movie’s over. It’s gone. You’re still here?”
“There’s nowhere else to go. And we all like it here.”
“Nowhere else to go?”
“It’s impossible to get work. We were all lucky to get this small gig. The rent was pre-paid for a while and we got a little pay up front and we enjoy this town. Or we did. We liked it a lot better before we started dying. But we’re still sticking it out. At least for the summer. With all this new energy in town, we might be able to get more work. Your town’s getting hot, mister.” She frowned, but she was so young that the expression left no trace on her supple skin. “But not if you old dudes go chasing us and killing us or whatever. What’s up with that?”
“I wasn’t going to kill you. I thought you were someone else.”
“Yeah, well, we all look basically alike. We’re Mooney’s type.”
“Mooney’s type?”
“Haven’t you spotted it? Mooney likes us small, thin, young, warm when you get to know us, but superficially distant, complex, and talented, beautiful redheads.”
I really looked at her then, trying to analyze the difference—what made her Not Julie. Eyes a bit smaller, face longer, features not as symmetrical.
“You guys aren’t all redheads,” I said.
“Yes we are. Or we all started out that way. Some of us had to dye our hair, change our look a little or everybody in that damn movie would look alike, but basically we’re all twins. None of us are as beautiful as VelCro was, though. God, that girl was from another planet.”
“I didn’t notice that. I mean I noticed VelCro was beautiful, but I never noticed Mooney’s type.”
“Jeez, go look at his movies. That’s all you’ll see.”
I had to admit, looking back quickly on his three previous films, that this girl had a point.
“Hitchcock was crazy about blondes,” I said, “or so the stories have it.”
She laughed at this. “It’s Hollywood, mister. That’s the way it’s done. There are directors who fuck the talent. That’s how we get hired. Some of us, anyway. Maybe most.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
The Girls’ Dorm
Her name was Dierdra. There were eight of them left, and they all lived in a warehouse on Water Street. It was scheduled to be converted to several separate lofts, but for now it was just basically one huge open space with a bathroom and kitchen area. It was kind of a dump so they got it cheap. When the film crew arrived, the production company had pre-paid the rent for a while. The “girls’ dorm,” she called it.
I’m not sure how I pulled this off, but I talked her into inviting me over. I think I did it by being humble, apologetic, retiring, and as invisible and harmless and pathetic as I could make myself. Which was not hard to do.
It was still early morning, so they were all there sleeping on various surfaces. A couple had real beds, some had sleeping bags on air mattresses, some futons, and one girl slept on a ratty old couch. It was one unfurnished, football-field-sized open space with a section containing a refrigerator, stove, sink, and a large rectangular, rustic wooden table with nine mismatched chairs. That’s where I sat with Dierdra, sipping coffee and talking in a low voice, little more than a whisper.
One by one the sleeping beauties awoke, stretching, wiping their eyes. And they really were genuine beauties—hair all different colors and lengths, but all classically beautiful with elegant facial structures and symmetry and uniformly tiny, slim bodies. A couple still had red hair.
One might have thought there was a factory somewhere cranking them out except for the fact that they were so damn human. They had eyes and hearts and souls. That’s the thing with great beauty—it comes from being human, and it halts all possibilities of lust. Well, at least for me. Might not be the case for some others, like Mooney, for instance. To me all humans deserve respect and honest, heartfelt love.
They paid me no attention. Men were probably a common sight here, though I imagined they were generally a bit younger than me.
They must have had a dress code—T-shirt and panties, though one gal wore men’s boxer shorts and one wore sweatpants. There was apparently no color requirement for what little apparel they wore. I noticed all the muted, pastel colors I saw on the flowers on the bridge, and many interesting feminine patterns. One young lady was totally nude. I tried not to stare. It wasn’t easy.
Soon they were all up and about and milling around. More or less fully dressed, they sat at the table, clutching cups of steaming coffee, and chatted amongst themselves. I was still invisible.
Had I been a younger man, or friskier, or in a better mood, I might have considered it heaven. As it was, I was fully conscious of the amazing pulchritude surrounding me, but I was at work and they were humans. No time for thoughts of heaven.
Besides Dierdra, they were Flavia, Petunia, Ambrosia, Gloria, Layla, Anastasia, and Vondra.
“All names that end in ‘A,’ ” I observed.
“The ‘A’ Team,” Dierdra laughed. “Yeah, Mooney likes names that end in ‘A.’ He likes the sound of ‘A.’ ”
I looked at her questioningly.
“Oh, those aren’t our real names. They are the names Mooney gave us to use professionally.”
“I knew there was a Victoria who started out as an Edith. Didn’t really know about the rest.”
I was a little befuddled about the names. “So, what? You guys just do whatever Mooney says? What is he, a Svengali or something? What does that guy have, anyway?”
“Well, hell. He’s a big director and he has some power. And he’s a charming sonofabitch. He can cast a kind of spell over you, you know? People want to do what he wants. Especially women. Women love that guy. Hell, I loved him.”
There was mumbled agreement around the table, and some sly laughter.
“I would have done anything for him,“ continued Dierdra. “Till I came to my senses.”
“What brought you to your senses?”
“Well, all these dead and disappeared girls had something to do with it.”
“Yeah, I guess that’ll make a guy look a lot less sexy.”
This drew some derisive chuckles from the gathering. “You’d be surprised,” said Dierdra, who was clearly their spokesperson. “To some, that’s kind of sexy too. It’s dangerous. Some of us are into danger.”
“That’s not my style,” I said.
“Mine neither,” said Dierdra. “You’re old and safe. Anyone can see that. That’s why you’re sitting here.”
I looked around the table at all those gorgeous young women.
“So Mooney was fucking all of you guys?” I asked in a forthright, if rather crude, fashion.
“Was he fucking you?” said
Vondra to no one in particular. At least I think it was Vondra. I couldn’t be sure. They still all seemed pretty much indistinguishable to me, but I thought I recalled the butterfly clip in her shoulder-length hair when she introduced herself. “I thought I was his one and only.”
“You?” said Layla, I think. Blonde hair, short. “I thought it was only me.”
“No, me,” Ambrosia chimed in. I’m pretty sure it was Ambrosia. Big turquoise ring. I was starting to figure out who was who.
“Me. Me,” said the one I was almost positive was Petunia. Her figure was curvier than the others’.
They were pulling my leg.
“We’re joking,” Dierdra said, “but only barely. The guy has a way of looking you in the eye and making you feel like you’re the only woman on earth. As hard as it may be to believe, there was a time when none of us knew about the others. When we all really did think we were his one and only. The bastard.”
“VelCro, or Juliana if you will, was his favorite, though,” Dierdra went on. “He was in love with her. He wasn’t in love with us. We know that now.”
“And Victoria,” one of them chimed in. Flavia most likely. She had the largest eyes, though a little two round. “He loved her too.”
There was more nodding and muttered agreement.
“Well,” said Dierdra, “he loved her until he got his time with VelCro. Then she was history, just like the rest of us.”
“At least the rest of us got it,” said Flavia. “We understood the deal. Poor Victoria didn’t get it.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Flavia answered, “She didn’t get it. She didn’t get the fact that directors will love you and leave you that fast.” She snapped her fingers. “At least he let us all stay in the film. Most don’t do that. She didn’t get it.”
“Well, she got it in the end,” said Dierdra. “She got it good. And forever.”
Maybe I was starting to get it too. “She got it?” I asked, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“Yeah, she got a nice swim in the river, compliments of Mr. Mooney,” said Dierdra. “She couldn’t let him go and she paid for it.”