For a Song

by Morales, Rodney;

  … we were comped for the mgm but I wanted to stay at the wynn. luxury suites, baby. Last night, after dinner at spagos, a group of us went to see jerseyboys. still a great show. met with the cast after. told them they have the best version i’ d ever seen. told them i’ d like to bring the show to honolulu. they were extatic about the idea.

  A May fifth message to the same group:

  i’ve shelled out a bundle on delahoya. you wouldn’t believe how much dinero. pero it’s cinco de mayo, so yo is counting on the mehican.

  Then he added:

  el tiempo es ahora.

  Both messages were signed “jh.”

  While I couldn’t find anything else from this author, who had to be Jerry Herblach, I did come across a few of Gerard’s more personal letters. These were in the Friends folder. As I scrolled through usernames, looking for names and parts of names, Helen continued to hover close behind me.

  I clicked on an e-mail from a few nights ago:

  Lovely evening. Let’s do it again soon.

  “I should tell you,” Helen said as she leaned close to my ear. “He had”—she cleared her throat—“an affinity for men. Usually younger men.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Oh, one day it’s John, the next day it’s Peter. He probably did it with every apostle….”

  I tilted my head back and lifted my eyes to see her face. Her hands were over her mouth. Her eyes were closed. A tear fell dramatically. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Oh god, I’m sorry. That is so nasty.”

  “It’s part of grief, girl.” I wrote down the e-mail address of the person Gerard had spent a “lovely evening” with.

  “He was the sweetest man, but we all have our devils, don’t we?”

  “Sure we do.”

  “Poor Gerard.”

  “His cell phone—” I said, remembering.

  “The police must have it.”

  “That’s likely. You have his cell number? Just in case?”

  She had to check the office phone list. After some moments she recited an eleven-digit number. I had to take the list away from her to get it right. I handed Helen back the sheet and she walked over to a filing cabinet and opened a drawer. She began to go through it.

  I turned back to the computer and clicked on the Family folder.

  I opened the most recent letter from suziepl321. “Darling Dad,” it began.

  “He has a daughter?”

  Helen turned to look at me. She nodded. Her face twitched.

  “Does she know?” I asked Helen.

  “I’m sure the police contacted her.”

  I sank in the chair. Leaned forward. My hands framed my face as I read the words on the screen: Can I stay at your place? This short note was part of a long thread, going back several bounces. I scrolled to the end, where she mentioned she was going to Kauai with someone named Ken and maybe he could join them there. It was followed by an announcement about Ken being recruited by someone named Libby Appel to direct one of the plays at September’s Shakespeare festival in Ashland, Oregon. A few exchanges later she was telling her father how she discovered that this same Ken had been sleeping with the woman he had cast as Ophelia. Gerard would always reply in loving words, “love of my life,” “my luvly one,” “sweetheart,” etc.

  I clicked on his last reply to her: Can’t wait to see you, luv. Of course you can stay with me. You needn’t ask. Ever.

  The FuckedUpShit folder was empty. Did he create a folder and leave it empty? Or did Gerard delete whatever was in it? I clicked on the Deleted Messages folder. I scrolled through the hundreds of messages that Gerard had intended to delete but had not taken the necessary step to remove completely. What caught my attention was an e-mail dated May 14.

  There was no subject. Just a two-word message: Game On.

  It had come from Gerard, sent to someone with the initials “CJ,” and the account address was kuulei@gmail.com. It cc’d the account of waverider221@gmail.com.

  I clicked through a hundred messages but found nothing else that appeared relevant so I went to the Sent Mail folder.

  One of the last e-mails Gerard sent was addressed to kuulei@gmail. It seemed to go on and on. I skimmed through it until I saw these lines:

  No, I’m not getting any help from him lately, which is a blessing, really. His style is to own you. That’s his M.O. Fucker used to text me all the time. saying shit like “I’m flying out to Chicago to see the Phantom,” or “I’m meeting with Geffen,” or “You should go to so-and-so restaurant. The osso bucco is heaven….”

  One day he texted that he was playing golf with a group that included Michael Jordan. Now I’m not even on his radar anymore (which works for me). He was always talking about building up our dear city as a major venue for stage and opera. Now he just wants to go to Cannes and hang out with Sophie Marceau. Be extremely wary of him.

  Another Sent e-mail, the date on it was May 5:

  Did you and Matt get to see LOVE? I never made it there last time, but like I told you, I did see Jersey Boys & it did inspire my rewrite. Art inspires art. Great art inspires more great art. We rise to the challenge. I feel re-energized, re-born. Committed, not to art as commodity, but to pure, soul nourishing art. (And I have you and Matt to thank for that.) Our dear Shaftesbury, on the other hand, will have his day in court….

  Near the end of the message he says:

  It’s been rehearsals, rehearsals, rehearsals. On a threadbare budget. Great cast. Everybody has been first rate. Well, almost everybody. They genuinely appreciate the opportunity to improvise. I tell you, they’re writing their own scripts. It’s pain in the ass work, to integrate these impromptu revisions, but I’m lovin’ it.

  In still another Sent e-mail, which left his outbox on May 6, he states:

  He knows I exist? Gee. Maybe it was a mistake. He probably pressed the wrong number on his speed dial. Anyway, he phones me at 4am!!! He’s drunk as hell, going on about how he’s been up all night, how his boy Oscar got screwed—cost him a shitload of dough, or maybe he said shipload. Like I give a rat’s ass. Then he tells me that there’s a new hotel going up that he’d like to see incorporated into the staging of Vegas: the Encore. Just like the last time, when he called at the same abominable hour and told me they just added another wing to the Venetian. I told him I can’t do this. I can’t keep changing my set. We’re way over budget. I haven’t even seen the money he’s promised. He keeps talking about “doing it large,” but “large” doesn’t come cheap. I try to explain to him, for like the fiftieth time, that it’s NOT about a specific time or a specific place, but the fucker isn’t listening. He just goes on about being relevant, timely, or risk losing the audience. I don’t know where he gets that shit from. Actually, I do know and I’m not gonna go there.

  One of his last e-mails, dated May 17, was addressed to kuulei:

  If it ever comes to a court case, if those UCLA guys come through, I’ ll testify on your behalf. Fuck the risks. This sucker could not have written it. No way. The only talent he has is for screwing people. I doubt if he can even play an instrument. I know he can’t write creatively, let alone in Hawaiian, and he sure as hell can’t sing. But what does it all matter when you can buy everybody off? Shit, he had ME in his pocket. No more. No more … I’m done, finished. Kaput.

  P.S.: I’ve been pulling hairs, deary. Next time you see me, I’ ll be bald.

  P.P.S.: Sorry to go off like this, dear, but I am so utterly snockered.

  His very last missive, which also went to kuulei@gmail.com, and liv-2surf.net on May 24, was short. All he said was:

  Forget the queen. Save the bishop.

  Game on? Save the bishop? Testify? And what’s this about UCLA and risks? I quickly forwarded those e-mails to my own account.

  I had just returned to the inbox when Helen reappeared at my side. She was carrying a calendar. She placed it on the table. The month of May lay before me, each day a square with scribbles all over it.

  “Let’s see,” she began. �
��Do you remember which night you attended the play?”

  “Two nights ago. The twenty-fifth.” I looked up at Helen. “Could we, ah, close the door?”

  “Good idea.” She went over to the door, shut it and turned the deadbolt, then returned. She dragged a chair closer and sat next to me.

  “Look.” She showed me what Gerard had written in barely decipherable chicken-scratch. “There’s something here. In-clig—In-clig-something.”

  “That’s a ‘d.’ The word is Indigo. That’s where Gerard and I went after the per formance on Friday evening. Seems he already had plans to go there. You don’t stop to write where you’re going when you’ve made an impromptu decision.” I could see Gerard grabbing his striped jacket, stepping into his sneakers and following me out the door.

  Helen traced the days in reverse with her index finger and my eyes followed.

  “He knew the waitress by name,” I told her. “Lily. He must have been a regular there.”

  “What intrigues me,” Helen stated, sounding more coherent now, “is that some items are scratched out. You see?”

  She pointed. Sure enough, Gerard, or someone, seemed to be trying to hide something. Whatever had been etched into the date of May 22 had been scratched out viciously. Same for May 24.

  “Did the police see this?”

  She placed both her palms on the calendar and slowly, calmly, shook her head.

  26

  I walked out of the theater with the calendar and several folders, enough to fill the flimsy, super-thin, plastic supermarket bag that Helen had provided. Another stack to work through. By evening, after poring through the flyers, the marked-up scripts, the different versions of The Rose and the Sword, one with an alternate act five, and the scrawls on napkins, including a few napkins with the Indigo imprint, I constructed my own calendar to do a better timeline reconstruction. I also found a few more names and phone numbers. These could have been cast or crew members, or friends, or acquaintances, or lovers. By no means a substantial list.

  But it was a curious list. As with his website, Gerard’s annotations on the scripts and his notes revealed a penchant for referring to people in code, usually by character names or titles, sometimes by the same Alice in Wonderland cognomens and attributions I had seen earlier. So there was Pierre, Souster, and the Earl of Shaftesbury mixing it up with the Mad Hatter and Alice. And since Gerard attributed similar “see him in court” and “song thief’ references to Shaftesbury, it was easy to discern that the name was code for Jerry Herblach.

  One of the folders alluded to a possible court case and within these references some comments about a song. I went back to Gerard’s words: … this sucker couldn’t have written it. Written what? What the fuck could this someone have not written that would elicit such a reaction? And why was he saying this in an e-mail? And to Kay, of all people?

  Finding her was still my top priority. I couldn’t do anything for Gerard, but if Kay is still alive….

  I made some calls to Arizona film offices and kept being rerouted, but my persistence ultimately paid off when I learned that Herblach had also been in Arizona recently, overseeing the production of Biden’s film. When the crew took a week off and headed to Vegas, Biden had not gone with them. Instead, just as Mia had told me, he had flown to Honolulu to attend Don Ho’s funeral. This was about a week before I won my little pile at Andy’s.

  Jerry left Vegas for Honolulu on May 8. The next day he was on hand to see the premiere of The Rose and the Sword. So much for neglecting Plotkin. It was possible that Les was still in Honolulu after the weekend and it’s entirely plausible that he too attended Plotkin’s play before returning to Arizona.

  The argument that Mrs. Loo mentioned, between Les and Kay—did it happen around then? When did Les last see Kay? I really needed to talk to Mr. Biden.

  With the way disparate threads were knotting up, my calculation was that this Amber person had to be tied in somehow with Kay. This was not a woman who wanted answers, this was a woman sent to—what? Why was she sent and who sent her?

  I pulled out my phone and tried Mia’s cell. No answer. I left her a voicemail, asking her to call me when she was free.

  Mia was never far from my thoughts. While I was convinced that my search for answers relating to Gerard’s murder was a key part of my search for Kay, and not a digression, Mia, on the other hand, was becoming a distraction. Even when Gerard’s death took hold of me, I still thought of her, imagining what part of the story I’d tell her when I saw her again, sorting out the way I’d tell it, what I’d need to leave out, but wanting to share almost everything. I’d imagine her responses, her expressions. I couldn’t remember feeling that way with Brenda, let alone anyone. But then this “partner” business was new to me.

  My cell phone went off. It was Connie. She apologized for not getting back to me earlier, said the call she had to take this afternoon was from the son who was serving time at Lompoc. He assured her that Matthew was fine. Said they had talked but he wouldn’t tell her where his kid brother was calling from. Still, this was hopeful. I asked Connie if Dominic, the one she called Donny, had mentioned Kay. She said no.

  “Last time we talked,” I told Connie, “you mentioned a side trip to Vegas.”

  “Yes, they were there. And there was a boxing match. He mentioned Oscar … let’s see—”

  “—De La Hoya?”

  “Yes, him. Oh god, he’s so handsome. Why he’d put that face of his at risk, I don’t understand.”

  “What else did Matt say?”

  “Just that everybody seemed to be pumped up. ‘Overstimulated,’ he said. This was in the MGM Grand. Ever been to the MGM Grand?”

  “Yeah. Couple times.”

  “It’s so huge. I literally got lost in it once. Had to flag down a housekeeper to help me find my way.”

  “Did he say who he was with?”

  “No, he just talked about—I think he termed it ‘post-boxing-match hysteria.’ I remember because I was looking through the shelves to see what I needed from the store, and right when he said it I was looking at a box of Post cereal.”

  “Post-boxing-match hysteria.”

  “Matt said the whole Strip slows down, stops stone cold dead for the duration of the fight, and when it’s over, the place explodes with activity. Like a shot of adrenaline. No one wants to go to bed.”

  Sounded like a typical Vegas night. “Any mention of the names Les Biden or Jerry Herblach?”

  “No. Those names don’t sound familiar. No, wait, wait. There was a name that made me think of Ben & Jerry’s so I think he did mention a Jerry. It might have been in relation to the film, the one they’ve been trying to get financing for—not to make, it’s already made. It’s to distribute. No, Keanu, we’re not getting ice cream.”

  The last comment wasn’t aimed at me, but I said, “Aw shucks.”

  “Sorry. He heard me say Ben & Jerry’s. Now I’m not gonna hear the end of it. Looks like we’re going to have to go to Foodland.”

  “So, no Les Biden.” Which would corroborate what I already knew.

  “He’s a director, right? Matt introduced me to him a few months back.”

  “Where was that?”

  “We were celebrating my birthday at Buzz’s, the one near Kailua Beach. Matt and Kay took me there.”

  “Les was filming in Arizona. Maybe that’s why Matt was calling from there. Do you know if Kay was with Matt when he called?”

  “He did say, ‘Kay sends her love,’ so I assumed she was with him.”

  “Did he say anything else about his plans? Where they were going? Which direction? Anything?”

  “No, not really. You see, Matt is very protective of people, including me, and he thinks he’s protecting me by being superficial. He doesn’t confide in me, not like he used to when he was younger.”

  “I think we all go through that, to some extent.”

  “He just says, ‘hi,’ ‘love you mom,’ ‘need anything?’ You know.”

 
; “Yes. I do know. Thanks.”

  I had thought to ask if she knew of any connection between Kay and Matthew and the corpse in the city and county morgue, but I refrained. The two of them missing, a possible acquaintance of theirs dead—she didn’t need that shit.

  It was Mia I had to ask.

  I hadn’t eaten anything substantial all day, so the spam musubi and canned iced coffee from 7-11 really hit the spot. I stopped at the boat for a quick change from pants to shorts, grabbed my Nikon Coolpix L12, surgical gloves, a pair of socks, and a few tools while I was there, put everything into the nylon waist belt I had bought at Runner’s Route, then drove into Mānoa and parked alongside the Chinese cemetery. Taking advantage of the darkening sky, I walked over toward the dead man’s domicile and stopped at a cluster of bushes and trees.

  It was peaceful and quiet; if you didn’t notice the sagging yellow tape, you’d never think a heinous crime had just occurred there. I walked barefoot up to the front door, the nylon pouch tucked under my t-shirt like a colostomy bag, and saw the huge padlock. After spot-checking the nearby houses for curious neighbors looking through windows, I ventured to one of the more discreet windows—the one partially hidden by a large tree—and got to work. I took out the waist belt, zipped it open, and took out what I needed—gloves, socks, and my multi-tool knife—and zipped it closed. I slipped on the gloves and socks and used the blade edge of the survivor tech knife to loosen the catch at the bottom of the window. I lifted the window open, threw the vinyl pouch onto the carpet, climbed through, and entered the murder scene.

  It was a dark and busy room. The heavy curtains and Persian carpet added to the gloom. Trinkets, vases, cups, trophies, and other artifacts covered every shelf—and there were lots of shelves. I looked at the photos on the shelves, on the wall, and above the electric fireplace. I saw pictures of a girl at different ages, assumed it was Suzie. One had been taken at one of the scenic viewpoints up Mount Tantalus. Diamond Head was prominent in the background. In the foreground, Suzie was holding hands with a guy, perhaps the fiancé who had just jilted her. There were photos of people in costume. Prominent on the wall was a framed photo of Oscar Wilde.