“Oh shit. I’m sorry. When did that happen?”
“About five years ago. He was in a car accident.”
“I’m sorry.”
They were silent for a moment. Rolly had her sympathy now. He might as well test it.
“You want to come home with me?”
Alesis stared at him, unresisting. It was like watching a balance tip up and down inside her head.
He started backtracking, trying to rationalize it for her. “It’s been a weird night and it’s an awfully long drive to North County.” Even saying it, he didn’t know what he wanted. He was either the smoothest operator or the nicest guy in the world, maybe both. She’d been sending him signals all night. He felt pretty sure of that. But seeing Moogus had left them both a little unsettled.
“You’re a nice guy,” Alesis said. “Let’s go.”
Rolly turned the ignition and pulled away from the curb.
When they got to his house, he cut the lights before entering the driveway. If there was one thing he didn’t want now, it was to wake up his mother. He pulled his equipment from the back of the car and they walked toward the house. It had taken eight minutes to drive to his house from downtown. Alesis had stared out the window for all but thirty seconds of it.
“Here it is,” Rolly said. He opened the door and turned on the light. The room looked awfully bare. There was nothing like bringing a woman home to reveal how pitiful your living conditions really were, even if she didn’t say anything. It all became clear the second she entered the room. You could see it all with her eyes.
“Geez, look at all these guitars,” said Alesis. “Do you really play all of them?”
Rolly closed the door, leaned the guitar case against the dining table.
“Oh, sure. I play all of them. Some of the time.” He was nervous. He tried to remember the last time there’d been a woman inside his house. A woman who wasn’t his mother. He couldn’t remember. Leslie had never been here.
He waved his hand toward the bedroom. “That’s the bedroom in there. You can have the bed if you want and I’ll take the sofa.” Why was he pretending he didn’t want her? He was old, out of practice, losing his touch.
Alesis turned and stepped close, her silk blouse brushing against him. He looked into her eyes. She was taking him in like a dark lonely tunnel on a steep mountain drive. She’d made a decision. He was glad someone had.
Wake-Up Call
Rolly’s eyes blinked open. Sunlight drilled into his head. It must be late. He reached over and pulled the alarm clock closer so he could read it. Ten-thirty exactly. He turned back over to look for Alesis, but she wasn’t there. He lifted his head, listening to see if she was still in the house, maybe in the bathroom or, God forbid, trying to make breakfast. He didn’t hear anything. He dropped his head back onto the pillow, stared at the ceiling, happily re-running last night in his head.
When they got to bed, Rolly figured they were in for a cuddle, maybe one of those slow, sympathetic little screws where both partners stay quiet, even at the end. But pretty soon, Alesis had turned it into something wilder. She came out of her sad little shell screaming like a stack of Hiwatt amps cranked up to ten, begging him to pick all her strings, run up the frets, and slam down the whammy bar. It was the kind of sex he wanted every night when he was twenty-one, never imagining he would prefer any other variety. Of course, when he was younger, all those acrobatics didn’t make him sore in the thighs, in his butt. It didn’t leave him unable to stand up straight because his lower back was so stiff.
“You’re one hell of a fuck for such a nice guy,” she whispered to him, her head on his shoulder, stroking his stomach afterwards. She was funny. “One hell of a fuck for such a nice guy.” He couldn’t get over thinking he’d heard that before. Then he fell asleep.
He opened his eyes. There didn’t appear to be any further adventures forthcoming, so he got up, crumpled the discarded condom wrapper that was on the nightstand and threw it in the trash. Alesis was a well-prepared woman. He put on a t-shirt and shorts and walked out to the living room. The guitar case from last night leaned against the wall by the phone. He thought he’d left it against the table. It had been late. He couldn’t remember. For once, he’d been thinking about something besides his guitar.
There was a note on the table, written in pencil on the back of an Ernie Ball guitar strings envelope.
“Decided to call a cab, after all. Had to go to work. Thanks for taking care of me. You’re a nice guy.”
Well, at least she’d left a note. He reread it for clues, measured the tone, took it to mean he had half a chance for another round if he wanted to follow up.
The phone rang. He picked up the receiver.
“You’re one hell of a fuck for such a nice guy.”
The voice was deep, nasal, definitely not female. Rolly almost jumped out of his shorts.
“What?”
“One hell of a fuck for such a nice guy.” There was a big laugh at the other end of the line. He couldn’t mistake that voice, even with its newly plugged, nasal tone.
“Moogus, what the hell’s going on?”
“Aren’t you going to ask how I’m feeling?”
Rolly flashed back to the scene at the Crab Shak, Moogus absorbed in his bloody towel with the policeman and paramedic beside him.
“Hey. Sorry. How are you doing?”
“I’m doped up on Vicodin and feeling fine. I’ve developed a lovely mix of dark green and purple around my left eye, but I’m pleased to report that my nose is only slightly damaged and my handsome profile should remain unblemished. Thanks for asking. Hey, how’s your girlfriend?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“You sleeping with her?”
“No,” Rolly lied. Having Moogus know anything about your sex life was only providing him with ammunition for later needling.
“Well, you should. I remembered where I know her from.”
“Where?”
“You remember that recording session we did about fifteen years ago for that movie?”
“What movie?”
“New Wave Nudes. You remember?”
Rolly didn’t remember, but he knew Moogus was going to help him. And he had the distinct feeling it wasn’t going to be all that fond a remembrance. They rarely were.
“That porn flick. Your lady friend was the star. That’s how I remembered. That line, it cracked me up: ‘You’re one hell of a fuck for such a nice guy.’ That’s what she says to this guy at the end. It’s like the last line of the movie. I knew she looked familiar. I’ve still got the videotape. I checked it out when I got home last night. She’s got this blonde, moussed-up eighties hair-do and she’s twenty years old, tops, but it’s definitely her. It’s a very impressive performance. I give her four stars for fornication.”
Rolly’s head was swirling. He didn’t know what Moogus was talking about, but it raised an icky swell in his stomach. He needed some coffee.
“You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?” said Moogus. “All those years of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll have just completely screwed up your memory, haven’t they?”
“Hmm?”
“Okay, let me take you through it again, slowly. This is like fifteen, sixteen years ago. That whole punk/new wave thing is happening and everybody in town has got a band. You and me and Bruce were living down in Ocean Beach, The P-15s, playing every frickin’ bar in town, five six nights a week. We weren’t making a dime though, ‘cause whatever we made went right back up our noses.”
“Yeah, we had that one bedroom near the boardwalk.”
“Yeah, okay, now you’re on it. So we played this party in Point Loma. Big place, with the view out to Coronado and downtown?”
Rolly imagined he could remember it. He’d played a lot of parties in big houses with views of the city. He couldn’t expect to remember them all.
“And this guy starts talking to us, tells us he’s producing a movie, says he wants to hire us to
play on the soundtrack. We’re not really buying it, but the next day he calls us, tells us to come by Mixed Up next week, bring our equipment and just do some jamming. He says he’ll throw us five hundred bucks for a couple of hours work.”
Rolly began to see a picture in his mind, still too dim to determine if it was real or just something he’d created from Moogus’ description.
“So we get there,” Moogus continued, “and they’ve got this video monitor set up to show us the movie. The guy from the party is there. He gives us a check for five hundred bucks. Of course, that asshole J.V. Sideman’s there to toot his lame-ass riffs. He’s always around when there’s easy money to be made.” J.V. Sideman played saxophone with every blues band in town. Moogus hated Sideman. Sideman hated Moogus. Their feud was legendary amongst local musicians.
“So they set up the recording gear, we do a little sound check, and then they start the movie. And it’s this cheesy suck and fuck flick. There’s some kind of plot about these girls starting a band, but they have to blow all these guys to get a record contract or something.”
Rolly sat down at the table now, rubbing his head. The memory was hazy, but definitely real. He could picture the session, but not the movie.
“Anyway, it’s definitely her. I’ve got the videotape if you want to see it. You can decide for yourself if your girlfriend there is worth pursuing.”
Moogus was having the time of his life. He started back into his usual rant about J.V. Sideman. Rolly let him roll, tuned him out, started running new thoughts around in his head.
He wasn’t all that upset about Alesis and the porn flick, if it really was her. She had things in her past she wasn’t proud of. So did he. Maybe that’s why they’d hit it off. That line bugged him though: “Pretty good fuck for a nice guy.” Maybe it was just a little joke she couldn’t even remember where she got anymore. But thinking about it, he started to feel there had been something just slightly scripted about it, about the whole evening. He felt another twinge in his gut. He stared at the wall next to the table, his guitar case leaning up against it. He was pretty sure that when they’d come home last night he’d put it against the table. It had moved.
He listened to Moogus, let him wind down. It was only polite. Moogus had taken a punch for Rolly last night, although Moogus didn’t know it. The least Rolly could do in return was let Moogus keep talking until he was finished.
“All right, buddy,” Moogus said, “I gotta go pick up my drums. I’ll see you next week.”
Rolly hung up the phone. He reached out, pulled his guitar case over to him, held it for a second, then set it on the table and popped the latches. He pulled out the Stratocaster and strummed a few chords, fiddled with the pegs until the tuning was right. He started singing,
There was a man, called Hercules
He had the kind of muscle, he could do just what he pleased.
But even he was not exempt
He had to clean the stable where a thousand cattle slept.
Item of Interest
The phone rang again. Rolly answered.
“Hey, Rolly. It’s Marley.”
“Hey. You get anything?”
“Not much. I don’t think I can do anything else without that encryption key. There was one file I was able to open. It’s an mpeg.”
“M peg?”
“Yeah, digitized video. Some scene from a sex movie.”
Rolly leaned his arm on the table, held up his head.
“Rolly?”
“Yeah.”
“Whattya want me to do? You want the disk back?”
“No, hang on to it. I’ve got a couple of things I need to figure out. I’ll call you back when I need it.”
Rolly hung up the phone, sat silent for a moment, wondering just how full of coincidences twenty-four consecutive hours could be. His stomach tweaked like crazy. He looked at the clock. It was eleven-thirty. He wanted to call Alesis, listen to her voice, find out if the tone of it would tell him anything. But he didn’t call her.
He needed breakfast, something substantial to chew on. A machaca plate from the taco stand began calling his name. He walked to the bedroom, threw on a pair of jeans. He put on his loafers, no socks, grabbed his wallet and headed out the front door. As he left the porch, he picked up the newspaper and tucked it under his arm. Maybe reading a few box scores would clear his head, a glance through the headlines. The rest of the world was in a lot worse condition than he was. He hoped so, anyway.
He headed over to Robinson, turned onto Fourth, walked up to the corner of Washington where the taco shop stood with its pastel-green slanted roof. It had a bright yellow sign with red lettering on it that spelled out “La Posta.”
The sun was out, warm, not quite hot. Rolly picked up his order, sat down at one of the concrete tables that fronted the shop along Washington. He tore off a piece of flour tortilla, dropped a couple of forkfuls of machaca into it, folded it over, and bolted it down. A little grease dripped from the corner of his mouth. He wiped at it with a napkin, took a sip from his Coke. His stomach felt better. He could start to think clearly now.
Whoever it was that had attacked Moogus had somehow confused him with Rolly. Perhaps they had seen Moogus at the party on Saturday night, carrying Rolly’s guitar case. It didn’t matter. Someone was willing to get rough in order to get at the disk. It was only a matter of time before they came after Rolly.
As for the video Marley found on the disk, it could be the same one Alesis was in, but it probably had nothing to do with the case. If Alesis had been in the movie, she no doubt had fans, Moogus among them. Curtis Vox might be a fan, as well. Maybe Curtis liked to carry dirty pictures of her around on his high-tech key chain, thrilled to know that a woman he worked with was a porn star. Rolly hoped it was something that plain and simple. Sometimes sex was just sex. But why had Alesis moved his guitar case?
Maybe it was time to stop playing big-time detective. He knew he was in over his head. It was time to accept his limitations and act rationally. He’d pick the disk up from Marley today, mail it back to Eyebitz.com, no return address. Ricky and King Gibson would be satisfied. They wouldn’t ask questions. Tomorrow afternoon, Fender would telephone Rolly to inform him that Eyebitz.com no longer required his services. Rolly could fill in his blank check for five hundred dollars and call it a day. He didn’t want to hear any more about Magic Keys, secret algorithms, or exploding computers. He didn’t care any more about options or money. He didn’t want to see any of these people ever again. He just wanted out.
He finished his meal, sipped the last of his soda, and watched the world on Washington Street pass around him. He liked watching people, taking in the small pieces of lives they played out in public, listening to the delicate second-line rhythms that fill in the spaces between the day-to-day beat of the city. He felt better now that he’d made a decision.
It was noon. Nurses and interns from the hospital across the street stopped by in their scrub gear to catch a quick bite, taking a break from twelve-hour shifts. Two gay men in matching white tank tops, khaki shorts, and sunglasses trotted up to the window, ordered bean and cheese burritos with a side of sliced carrots and chilies. A teenaged girl stood at the bus stop, dressed in an oversized pair of blue jeans, gray t-shirt, and navy-blue watch cap. She wore a small silver stud in her nose. Her left ear was pierced with six different pieces of metal. Rolly counted them all.
He opened the paper, checked the Padres score first. They’d lost again, three to two in ten innings. Things didn’t look good for a pennant run. He scanned through the world news. There were five-and-a-half months left until the end of the twentieth century, at which point computers all over the world were going to explode. At least that’s what it sounded like.
He moved on to the Metro section. Construction on the new baseball park was going to be held up again while various citizens sued the city. One of those suing the city this time was Max Gemeinhardt, Rolly’s lawyer. Max had purchased season tickets since the team’s
very first year in the majors, but he was dead set against taxpayer spending for corporate robber barons. At least that’s how Max described it. Max was always suing some arm of government, be it city, state, or federal. He’d actually beaten the IRS once when they tried to nail him for tax evasion. He sued them back, made them cry uncle. When it was all over, the IRS ended up sending Max a check for two hundred thousand dollars.
Max had been Rolly’s lawyer for the last five years, ever since the accident. He hadn’t charged Rolly a dime in that time. Max’s hobbies were birding and baseball. He used to listen to rock ‘n’ roll bands and chase women, but at seventy-two, he’d retired from both those pursuits. He had three ex-wives, ten million dollars, and a house built of glass on the beach in Del Mar. He didn't think much of anyone else who had a lot of money.
Rolly started reading again. A headline in the lower right corner of the page caught his eye. He read it again. The headline said, “Body found at Black’s Beach.”
Body Moves
Rolly read it again: “Body found at Black’s Beach.”
A body found at Black’s Beach was identified yesterday as that of Curtis Vox, chief technology officer at Eyebitz.com and a former student at UCSD. Authorities have yet to determine a cause of death, although the detective at the scene suggested that Vox may have fallen from the notoriously unstable cliffs above. Police at the scene observed torn clothing, some scratches and cuts on the body. When reached for comment, Eyebitz.com CEO Ricky Rogers said, “We are shocked and saddened to hear this news. Curtis was a friend, a great talent and a key part of the Eyebitz.com team. He will be impossible to replace.”
Mitch Ibanez, a former professor of Mr. Vox at UCSD, describes Vox as a student of great potential and promise. Police reported receiving an anonymous phone call early Saturday morning requesting a patrol car at the house where Vox lived, but no one answered at the residence when the patrolman arrived. An Eyebitz.com company party had taken place at the home the previous evening.
Black's Beach Shuffle: A Rolly Waters Mystery Page 8