Die Laughing 2: Five More Comic Crime Novels

by Ben Rehder

  What the hell does that mean? Rick wondered. Maybe he meant to say BUT a little advertising, not OR a little advertising. When you’re dealin’ with money, you’re dealin’ with your morals, BUT a little advertising or a damn T-shirt or something’s a little different.” That made more sense but still didn’t stack up as much of a philosophy.

  Rick wondered about the other guy. Who was he? Clay’s question about whether the guy had ever made a loan for sex narrowed it down to loan shark or regular banker. Clay narrowed it down even further at the end of the tape when he said, “I tell you what, lemme run by tomorrow and pick up that damn thing, you still out at the branch?”

  “Yeah,” the creepy guy said. “It’s out at the branch.”

  “You, is that where you’re at?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay I’ll run by and talk to you and we’ll see about that girl.”

  Creepy guy laughed and said, “All right! We’ll see ya.” Click.

  In Rick’s experience, there were only two things with branches: plants and banks. You still out at the branch implied this guy wasn’t a bank president, otherwise he’d be at the main office. Rick figured he was a loan officer, perhaps a manager, at a branch of a local bank. Rick grabbed the Yellow Pages. There were about thirty listed. Not exactly a needle in a haystack but still, a lot of legwork.

  Rick laughed as he tossed the phone book to the floor. He was beginning to think he’d wandered down the wrong career path. So far this amateur detective thing was fun. Of course he remembered back to his first year in radio when it was still a thrill and not just an efficient way of going into debt without having anything to show for your troubles.

  But he had to ask himself why. Why was he playing Kojak? Just because Stubblefield had screwed him over? What was Rick going to do, blackmail Clay for cheating on his wife? And if so, in return for what? The lesser job he originally signed up for? No, he wasn’t interested in blackmail. So what was he after?

  The only motive that came to mind was finding out what had happened to Captain Jack. Rick was naturally curious. But why, beyond being nosey, would he care about what happened? It wasn’t as if he’d taken a blood oath with the ancient fraternal order of Disc Jockeys, vowing to avenge the death of any fellow member. Besides, that assumed Jack Carter was dead. The only thing certain was that he had disappeared. But based on the rest of the tape, Rick couldn’t escape his assumption that Captain Jack was as dead as Jerry Garcia and probably less grateful.

  So that was it. Rick figured someone had killed Jack Carter. So why not just turn the tape over to the cops? Rick smirked while thinking you didn’t have to be Sidney Poirtier to suspect corruption in a small Southern police department. Besides, why take all the fun out of it?

  So. Where would he start? His theory hinged on one or more irate blackmail victims, so Rick thought he’d start there. But which one? Clay was out since he knew where Rick lived and worked. And if it turned out that Clay was as dangerous as he was dishonest, then revealing knowledge of the tape would just be plain stupid. So Rick would start with somebody who didn’t know him.

  The creepy banker guy seemed useless, nothing on the tape to blackmail him with. Ditto the women in charge of the Highsteppers and Maids of Cotton and the septuagenarian newspaper publisher whose only sin was erectile dysfunction. There was no dirt on the girl named Tammy but Rick thought she still might be worth talking to. But who was she? One of the beauty pageant contestants? How would he find her? This private eye thing isn’t as easy as it looks on TV, Rick thought.

  And what about the woman who wanted the golden shower? Rick figured that was at least minor blackmail material, more if it turned out she was in the choir. But Clay hadn’t provided a name for her, just a predilection.

  Then there was Lisa Ramey, the beauty pageant judge Clay said he was ‘takin’ care of.’ If it turned out she was married, she’d be open to blackmail. Rick decided to start by finding Lisa Ramey and seeing if she was married. If so, he’d start asking more questions.

  Rick listened to the rest of the tape again. After the part about Lisa Ramey, the accusations graduated from fetishes to felonies, and Rick wasn’t sure he was interested in crossing that line just yet. Not on his salary.

  9.

  J.C. Whalen walked into Rick’s office wearing sunglasses at two o’clock. He jerked to a stop when he saw the crowded room and said, “Bow me up like a cut worm on a cabbage leaf!” He lifted his glasses and looked around. “Nobody saved me a seat?”

  Rob started to get up from the floor where he was sitting. “Here, take mine.”

  J.C. held him down. “Thanks, partner. I prefer the back of the class.” He went to the far wall and leaned against it. J.C. looked around and said, “Where’s the teacher?” When no one answered, he shrugged and started playing a drum riff on his stomach. Pa-da-da-da-dapa-da-da.

  Rick walked in with a copy of Led Zeppelin’s fourth album in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. He set them on his desk then nodded at the two weekend part-timers he’d met a few minutes earlier. He turned to Rob. “Did we hear from the overnight guy?”

  “No, sir,” Rob said. “He doesn’t have a phone that we know of.”

  J.C. put a hand across one of his eyes and said, “Eyeeeee. Uncle Victor, the Midnight Pirate, doesn’t attend staff meetin’s. Arrrrrrrrgh.”

  “Anyway, he’s probably still asleep,” Rob said. “He told me once that he usually doesn’t get up until four or five in the afternoon. I’ll tell him everything, though, don’t worry.”

  Autumn Browne bounced into the room. “Okay, we got fourteen minutes courtesy of Peter Frampton.”

  J.C. blurted out, “Doooooo yooouu, you! Feeeeel like . . . a midnight pirate?”

  Rick held his hand up. “Okay, let’s do this,” he said. “I’m going to keep this short. As you know, I’m Rick Shannon, the new program and music director. As you’ve heard by now, we’re switching from a very broad rock format to some version of classic rock.” He turned and picked up the Zeppelin album. He slipped the record from its sleve and said, “Now I’ve worked in classic rock since before it was classic but this is the first time I’ve created my own version of the format. I haven’t decided the exact parameters, but I can tell you one thing right now.” Rick picked up the screwdriver and placed the tip into the groove at the start of Stairway to Heaven. “We’re not going to play the classic rock clichés.” He gouged the screwdriver through the grooves of the song until he hit the label.

  The jocks looked at one another.

  “I want you to stop playing the same old shit and go to the deeper cuts on the albums,” Rick said. “And I want you to play J.J. Cale and Ry Cooder and Frank Zappa and Canned Heat. I want sets that are thoughtful and inspired. I don’t want us to sound like every classic rock station in the country with a morning zoo crew and Two-for-Tuesdays and No-Repeat-Wednesdays and all that crap. I want us to sound so different that people will stop and listen. I want us to sound so unique that people talk about us. In the words of Joni Mitchell, I want to stand out like a ruby in a black man’s ear.” Rick tossed the record onto his desk and continued. “Rob’s taking the morning shift. I’ll do eight to midnight. Anybody interested in helping define our version of classic rock can meet here Sunday at noon. We’ll eat some pizzas, have some pop, and argue about the music.”

  J.C. perked up. “Who’s got some pot?”

  “I said pop,” Rick said. “But we need to talk later. Any other questions?” He looked around but no one had anything to say. “Nothing? Okay. One last thing, then. I want you to do every hour of your shift like it was mix tape for someone you love. All right? Let’s rock ‘n’ roll, guys. We’ve got some great music to work with, so let’s do it. Thanks for your time.” The staff scattered.

  Rick went into the control room and started an inventory of the station’s library. He pulled the obvious non-classic rock discs, anything past ‘79 or so. When he was finished, there remained a basic foundation for Rick’s i
dea of classic rock though there were some holes to be plugged. Rick would provide from his collection (and Captain Jack’s) and he’d ask staffers to provide what they could from their own collections until he got them for the station.

  Among the records not in WAOR’s library was the one Rick always played first when he started at a new station. Having anticipated this possibility, he had brought his personal copy. It was almost time for him to start his shift. He left the studio while Autumn was signing off the transmitter and program logs. When he came back with his record, she was on the phone taking a request. “Okay,” Autumn said. “I’ll tell the next guy. He probably knows.” She hung up and turned to Rick. “Ever heard of Captain Beyond? The guy who just called wanted some song about. . . breathing or being short of breath or something. He couldn’t remember the title. Oh, hang on.” She started her last record, Robin Trower’s Day of the Eagle, then looked back at Rick. “Wasn’t that, like, an old Elton John album? Like Captain Beyond and the Dirty Brown Cowboys?”

  “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy,” Rick said. “He’s looking for Captain Beyond’s, Sufficiently Breathless. Band formed by some Deep Purple and Iron Butterfly guys. Did a couple of good records in the early seventies that we don’t have.”

  Autumn unplugged her headphones and yielded the board to Rick. “It’s all yours,” she said as she went to file away her last couple of albums.

  Rick sat down in front of the board. He pulled out his copy of Johnny Winter And. . . Live and cued up his song. “Of course you don’t want to confuse Captain Beyond with Captain Beefheart.” He stuck out his tongue and wiggled it around. “Lick off my decals, baby.”

  Autumn said, “Excuse me?”

  “Title of one of his albums.”

  “Captain Beyond?”

  “Beefheart.”

  “Oh.”

  Autumn stopped at the door on her way out of the studio. “Know who I used to like? Captain and Tenille.” She sang a line from the chorus of Love will keep us together. “That’s pretty old,” she said. “Does that count as classic rock?”

  Rick put his hands together and spoke in an exaggerated Master Po voice. “Glasshoppa, you have much to rearn.” He gestured at the chair by the door. “Sit and I will show you tlue crassic lock.”

  “You know, when people talk about things being politically incorrect?” She pointed at Rick. “That’s what they’re talking about.”

  Rick feigned shock. “Porritcarry incollect? Sit and rearn.”

  Autumn looked at her watch. “Can I risten in my car? I’ve got to be somewhere in, rike, ten minutes.”

  Rick waved her off. “Go then, glasshoppa, but risten as you dlive about town.”

  “Okay, see you Sunday.”

  Robin Trower was winding down. Rick put on his headphones and cleared his throat a couple of times. At the top of the hour he opened his mike and said. “You’re listening to WAOR-FM, McRae, Mississippi. I’m Rick Shannon and this. . . is classic rock.” He slammed into Johnny Winter screaming “ROCK’N’ ROOOOOOOLLLLLLLL!!!” before Johnny and Rick Derringer tore the roof off the sucker with their version of Johnny B. Goode.

  Rick cranked the volume up until the windows shook and the jock in the AM studio looked over with concern. Rick waved, then sat back in his chair thinking, Is this any way for a grown man to make a living?

  10.

  The phones were always active during a format change. The worst Rick had ever been through was in the mid-seventies. He was working at a rock station that switched to something known in the industry as ‘beautiful music.’ The venom and fury of the calls were astounding. “You pissant motherfuckers suck! You better watch your ass when you go to your car! Somebody’s gonna kill you!” was typical. The reaction to WAOR’s change was far less threatening. “Wow,” one caller said. “I haven’t heard that song in thirty years. Thanks, man.” Of course there were some complaints, people wanting Metallica or Hootie and the Blowfish and other stuff that didn’t fit the new format. Rick took it all in stride.

  At eleven-fifty, the door to the studio opened. Rick looked up from the board to see an older man standing there, a worn leather satchel strapped over his shoulder. He had a blunt white goatee and pinched lips that brought to mind Dennis Hopper playing a rigid and discontented philosophy professor. He scanned the room before his eyes settled on Rick. “I’m Uncle Victor,” he said in a voice like dark chocolate.

  “How are ya?” Rick nodded. “I’m Rick Shannon, the new PD.”

  Uncle Victor squinted at him. “Do I still have a job?”

  Rick smiled. “Yeah, no problem. But we’re tweaking the format a little.”

  “Yes, I’ve been listening,” Uncle Victor said. “I think I understand where you’re going.”

  “Great.” Rick started his final record for the night, the Blood, Sweat, & Tears version of God Bless the Child. “We’re meeting here Sunday at noon to figure out the music.”

  Uncle Victor took the satchel from his shoulder. “That’s good,” he said.

  Rick thought it was an unusual response until he realized Uncle Victor was referring to the old Billie Holiday song he was playing. Rick felt oddly pleased to receive this stranger’s blessing on his music selection. As he started to gather his things, Rick said, “You really don’t have a phone?”

  “I don’t like the noise.”

  Rick stepped aside and said, “Yeah but makes it hard to order out for pizza.”

  Uncle Victor remained expressionless. He sat at the board and adjusted the master level downward the slightest bit. “I’ve never missed a shift,” he said as he pulled a record from his satchel. It was a copy of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. He cued Willie Dixon’s Mellow Down Easy. He put on his headphones and went about his work as if no one else was in the room.

  “Well, great talking to you,” Rick said. He filed his records then walked out of the studio thinking that anybody who came out of the gate with Paul Butterfield was going to be all right with the new format. He left the station confident that it was in good, if peculiar, hands.

  Rick stopped at Kitty’s for dinner. It was just past midnight and the place was quiet, only a few truckers having coffee. Rick ordered the tomato gravy on the fried grits along with a chicken fried steak, two of Kitty’s biscuits, and a beer.

  He got back to his trailer a little before one. He turned on the radio to monitor the overnight show. Uncle Victor was in a commercial break. “Universal Financial Services is the answer to your prayers. UFS? It’s the best!”

  Uncle Victor came out of the spot break into Big Brother & the Holding Company. He followed that with The Velvet Underground. The man was obviously fluent with the new format but he never referred to himself as The Midnight Pirate as J.C. had led him to believe. Instead he called his show ‘Uncle Victor’s Wax Museum.’ Rick liked it.

  He sat down in the Barcalounger and reached for his cigar box. Supply was running low. He’d talk to J.C. about that. He took a small hit on his pipe then started to think about how he was going to find this Lisa Ramey. He picked up the phone book with doubts that it could be as easy as that. But her number was listed, though it didn’t show an address.

  Rick went to his computer which he had set up earlier in the day. He searched the Web and found forty or fifty hits on Lisa Ramey, the majority of which were associated with beauty pageants. She judged them. She promoted them. And she used to participate in them. Rick found a picture taken at the Deckern County Motor Speedway. It was Lisa Ramey being crowned Miss Auto Tire & Parts 1995. No debutante, this girl. Sultry shoulders and misspent youth stacked on long legs sheathed in leather. Delta Burke meets Joan Jett.

  Rick poked around on the other websites until he found what he needed. He hit the print button. It turned out that Lisa Ramey was judging a pageant the next afternoon, down in Biloxi. Rick returned to the Miss Auto Tire & Parts photo. It somehow reminded him of when he was a kid and he’d go to the Mississippi State Fair and he’d see the posters for the fre
ak shows. And he was never sure if the seduction was fear or desire. But the next thing he’d know, he’d be digging in his pocket for coins.

  11.

  Rick got up around eleven. He had some coffee and toast while he read what he had printed out the night before. The Junior Miss Magnolia Blossom Pageant was being held at the Convention Center in Biloxi at two that afternoon. Just a five minute drive from the Gold Coast Casino! It promised. Day care available!

  The Junior Miss Magnolia Blossom Pageant would be what was known in the industry as a one-day regional. There were two dozen categories, each of which promised three or four winners, each of whom would be looking at a rhinestone crown and a fifty dollar savings bond for her trouble. The big winner would be ordained Overall Grand Supreme which, to Rick, sounded more like a leadership position in the Klan than a beauty queen title. At the bottom of page two there was some specific – and rather pointed – language about how the judging at this pageant would be fair. Winners at this pageant would not be selected based on who you know! Rick couldn’t help but snicker as he imagined some rabid pageant mom railing about how the integrity of these things must be maintained if anyone was going to take them seriously.

  Rick filled a go-cup with coffee then turned to the refrigerator. On the front door, under a magnet, there was a photo of Captain Jack with his arm around a pretty brunette, somewhere in the French Quarter. Rick put the picture in his shirt pocket and left. It was just after noon.

  Autumn Browne was working the noon-to-six shift. Rick called her from his truck. “Play me some Roxy Music,” he said. “The song Beauty Queen.”

  Autumn came back a moment later and said, “Don’t have the album. How about Miss America by the Spin Doctors?”