Los Angeles, January, 1969
Two little words that change lives forever: “You’re pregnant.”
Four others: “You’re all under arrest.”
This little house on the edge of Laurel Canyon might be the closest to Heaven Leroy Logan is likely to get, so naturally he’s wondering what exactly is going to screw it up. And when is it likely to happen?
It’s been a very bad three years, starting with George’s death, followed by drinking binges, wild extreme gambling, anger and depression. Leroy, feeling the government is responsible for something, attended rallies against the war, protest marches, even the Democratic convention in Chicago’s Grant park where he was maced, hit by a police baton and arrested for inciting a riot.
A month later he withdrew from world, bought these cottage in the hills above Hollywood and smoked marijuana with the musicians that infested the canyon.
It a serene and peaceful place when Kate’s here, merely quiet when she goes back to Whidbey Island. She comes down often and stays for weeks and those are the good times. When she’s here Leroy doesn’t feel the burning anger toward the war that cost him his son.
He and Kate have been accepted in this artist community as elder figures. They don’t try to fit in; wearing the tie-dyed shirts and fringed leather jackets the kids wear, or indulge in the drugs or orgies they either see or hear about.
They do smoke grass, though. It takes the edge of Leroy’s burn and makes Kate mellow, smiling at everything with a childish delight.
The kids call them Adam and Eva, names made up by Kate in one of those mellow moods. A few of the kids are more formal, still hanging on to the manners drummed into them in the middle class homes they grew up in, nineteen-fifties morals and customs not yet shed. They call them Mr. Adam and Ms. Eva.
The list of musicians is awe inspiring; Joni Mitchel, CSN, the Mamas and the Papas, the Byrds and Linda Ronstadt. Leroy and Kate have an open invitation to every house on the block because everybody loves Kate and Leroy’s her man. And the landlord to several of them.
“George would have hated this place,” Leroy says, contemplating the joint he’s been smoking.
“Probably,” agrees Kate, who’s never met him. “He was pretty gung-ho, Adelle said.”
“Opposite of me,” Leroy says. “He never got over me being a crook. Never gave me a word of credit for the houses, the tuition. His medical degree.”
George graduated from Loyola exactly three months and four days before his helicopter was shot down in Viet-Nam. On board were two wounded soldiers George had personally pulled from away from a mortar attack by the VC.
“He loved you,” says Kate. “He just didn’t know how to show it.”
“No, he didn’t. He loved his Mama; not me.” And he’s thinking; but I loved him.
Even the marijuana can’t mellow out that one.
The end of paradise starts when Kate says, “Ow,” and leans forward clutching her stomach.
“What?” asks Leroy.
“My stomach. Cramps.” Which is all Leroy wants to know, but she adds, “Not those kind; this is something else.”
Which leads to her taking a plane back home to Whidbey to see her own doctor and Leroy alone on the back deck listening to a lot of bands all playing at once, which is both pleasant and loud. There’s some acoustic stuff and he can hear Crosby, Stills and Nash practicing for their upcoming tour and maybe Neil Young’s out there someplace which would explain the loud.
A girl named Starshine tentatively comes around the side of the house. She’s dressed in the required beads and tie-dye and is barefoot and timid, head hunched into her shoulders like she’s a turtle and he’s a hawk.
Leroy waves her over and she says, “Shaun got busted for pot and I need—we need—your help.”
And there it is.
Starshine—and Shaun—are tenants in one of Leroy’s three houses here in the canyon. They’re part of a group called The Family Way, which is going to be really ironic in a short while. They have a manager so the rent’s usually paid, and they don’t sound to Leroy any worse than any of the other bands he hears night and day. Shaun’s the leader, guitar player, songwriter, lead singer and, in Leroy’s biased opinion, a complete idiot. He’s got hair to his shoulders, a handlebar mustache and wears black-and-white striped bell-bottoms and a leather vest with fringes and without a shirt.
Anyplace else in the real world he’s be a freak; here he’s respected.
Here is near there; there being LA proper, which is where he got busted, according to Starshine who’s drinking Kate’s Chamomile tea in one of Kate’s mugs she made in her pottery class. Leroy’s sucking on a beer.
She says, “It’s not just Shaun, either. The pigs have been busting all of us for no reason.”
Leroy takes exception to this since marijuana is still illegal in California and the police have, in his opinion, a habit of enforcing laws. “Pot’s not legal,” is what he says.
“I know that. But the pigs never bother us for pot. Not until now.”
“What’s new with now?” Leroy asks through the effects of pot and Papst beer.
“Now,” says Starshine, swelling with righteous anger, “Is the new top cop. Bret Saxby.”
“The new LA DA?”
“What?”
“New,” Leroy clarifies. “LA district attorney.”
Starshine thinks this over, seems to feel it’s outside the scope of this conversation and offers, “He’s this new law and order dick. He’s been busting musicians and street people a lot lately. He got Shaun this morning for nothing! Just some made up dope thing.”
“Made up? What; Shaun wasn’t carrying?”
“Of course he was carrying,” says Starshine with a tone usually used for morons. “But just a nickel bag and some blotter acid.”
“Oh,” says Leroy. “Long as he wasn’t carrying.”
“What I said,” she says. “So, will you?”
“Will I what?” Maybe it’s still the beer and the buzz but Leroy doesn’t recall a question being asked.
“Help. Jeez.”
At the best of times Leroy’s not inclined to help his fellow man or, present company, woman, so he says, “Well,” stretching it to its breaking point. “Why can’t Phil get him out?” Phil being the agent/producer/adult for the band.
“That’s just it,” cries Starshine, actually crying now. “He can’t! He says Shaun’s been denied bail and that’s unconstitutional or something. It’s all because of that new guy.”
“I don’t,” Leroy manages before Starshine plays her trump card. Everybody in the canyon knows about Leroy’s son and even though every one of them hates the war, they all respect a doctor—a kid their age—dying saving others.
She says, “This guy, this Saxby pig cop; he’s a war hawk.”
Somewhere down the hill somebody—Neil probably—hits an diminished chord on a very amplified guitar a whole lot of times.
And just like that the buzz is gone.
Kate accepts doctor visits as one of the prices she pays for being a woman. She notices—hard not to—that Leroy, and men in general, seldom see a physician unless gored or shot or needing penicillin in these make love not war days, but that women are always complaining about female problems.
And here she is, in the waiting room of a Seattle clinic, waiting to be seen for a female problem.
The cramps come and go and her body does this sweating/freezing thing like she’s standing in the ice cooler of hell. She’s used to having pretty good health so this is troubling her more than she wants to let on. It’s why she’s here instead of LA; Leroy doesn’t need to know.
A nurse takes her to a room, records her vitals, weight, temperature and tells her to wait some more. She’s reading the cover article in Life magazine about next week’s moon landing, Kennedy’s wish being finished by Dick Nixon, a man who’d probably rather invade the moon than just land on it.
The doctor comes in, sits down and says without preamble, “You’re
pregnant.”
Kate looks up from Life and says, “What?”
“You’re pregnant,” says the doctor, a dark-skinned Pakistani man named Phil.
Kate, age 41, says firmly, “No.”
Phil holds up a chart. “Denial doesn’t change the facts. You’re three months pregnant.”
Kate says, “Oh, Hell.”
There’s more, but the basic is; she’s three months pregnant, she’s in good health for a 41 year old woman and there aren’t any problems with the fetus. The doctor is saying something else but Kate’s got a ringing in her ears like tinnitus or one of the canyon bands after too much pot. Like mosquitos with Marshall amps.
She says again, “I can’t be pregnant. I’m on the pill. We use condoms. Belt,” she explains, “and suspenders.” She’s very clear on this point. She and Leroy talked about it a lot and decided that her having a child, even his child, was a very bad idea. Leroy, the father now of six, didn’t seem to care one way or another, so Kate made the decision. No children.
Phil says, “The pill has a nine percent failure rate. Condoms have a twelve percent failure rate. Together…?” He seems interested in the math rather than his patient who is climbing the walls while seated in the hard plastic orange chair.
“Failure rate,” says that patient, unaware until just this moment that such an idea existed.
Bret Saxby is looking at the latest poll numbers. He’s also got one eye on the mirror to see his reaction to those poll numbers. It’s always exciting to see a winner and Bret Saxby, watching Bret Saxby, is that winner.
He’s up six points in the national district attorney statistics. The polls are conducted by the Republican party and are heavily biased towards conviction rates. Conviction rates depend on arrests and arrests are common now that the police chief is on board.
Bret recalls his meeting with the chief; convincing him that Richard Nixon—our president!—is a law and order guy and that the citizens are tired of the protests and the rioting and the drugs. Bret suggested they could help each other. “I’ll scratch your back,” he’d told the chief, “If you scratch mine.”
Now, just eight months into their scratching Bret is seeing the results. Six points! If this keeps up he’ll be elected to Congress in just two years. From there to the Senate and from there…well; who knows?
Bret, looking at his reflection, is a package. Young, white, brown hair just a little bit long in the current fashion, but styled. Perfect teeth and a winning smile that says to the right people—the white people— “You just want to vote for me, don’t you?”
He’s thinking that would look good on a billboard, maybe down on Wilshire or on the 405 where all the commuters can see it every day sitting in grid-lock and he says it out loud. “You just want to vote for me, don’t you?”
The statistics don’t go to the personal level so Bret doesn’t know anything about Shaun Terrell, leader of the band The Family Way. Even if it did, Bret wouldn’t care. You want omelets? is his motto; Gotta break them eggs.
His secretary, Terry Fox, a twenty-four year old business major from Sanford with eyes on Bret as the marriage to most be desired, leans in and says, “You’ve got a visitor, sir. A mister…” She checks her pad, “Capshaw.” She smiles deeply and vanishes before he can ask, “Who?”
A well-dressed man pushes into the office, glances at the mirror with an I-know-what-that’s-for look and approaches Bret with his hand out. Not hand out like the hippies and bums on La Cienega that he passes every day, but a hand you want to shake.
Bret pumps it the required number of times, squeezing just so and gives the visitor a medium smile. He’s wearing a good suit, his handshake is as proper as Bret’s and his hair, although short, is correctly styled. His shoes…
Bret can tell a lot about a man from these first impressions and his thoughts about this one are: well-educated, well-off but not wealthy, a Republican, voted for Nixon over Hubert Humphrey, dislikes the hippies, is anti-drugs, pro-law, pro-war in Viet-Nam. Bret gets all this in the short walk and shorter handshake and adjusts his greeting.
“Yes, sir? What can I do for you?” A pitch-perfect tone that acknowledges the man as an (almost) equal, a fellow traveler on the road to America.
Which couldn’t be more wrong. Leroy does the same assessment and comes out better. This guy is a shark, he notes; practiced at choosing the right folks to eat and merciless about eating them. He’s born on third base and believes with all his heart that he’s hit a triple, has one eye on the back of the next guy up the ladder, the other on the rung below.
“Carlton Capshaw,” he lies. “I’m from the third district.” He names an area on the right side of the right streets; a place that tells Bret everything he surmised is correct. “I’m here to talk to you about a young man recently arrested.”
“Oh?” Bret’s antennae immediately quiver, like a bug sensing a shoe.
“A young man named Shaun Terrell, a musician, arrested for drugs in the—” Leroy glances down at some papers. “43rd precinct.”
Bret knows that precinct is in Hollywood, knows that Hollywood is infested with hippies and drug users and other trash and his estimate is about to go way down when Capshaw says, I’m hoping you can help me get him out of there.”
“Oh?” Bret says again, definitely lowering the status. There’s enough ice in that one word to sink the Titanic again.
Capshaw says, “Whoa, there; not what you’re thinking. I don’t know the young man, I don’t want to know the young man and I don’t personally care if he stays there until Dick Nixon joins the Democratic party. I’m asking for my son.”
“Oh?” Bret’s holding back committing. His first and second impressions are fighting it out and he wants more information before committing.
“See,” says Leroy as Carlton, “My son’s a manager for one of these new musical combos springing up all over town.” His voice is clear about how feels about them. “He sees this band, this—” He looks again at his notes. “This Family Way band, as his ticket to fame and fortune.” His tone also suggests, Kids? What are you gonna do?
He adds, “The boy wants to prove himself in business, you know what I mean? Of course, it’s my money he’s using to get started.”
Bret relaxes; this is one of his people. “So what can I do for you, sir?”
“Call me Carlton,” lies Leroy.
“And I’m Bret,” says Bret, unleashing the smile that brought him here.
“Bret,” agrees Leroy. “See, my boy, he’s invested a lot in this band; time and money and all, and they’ve got an audition with a bigwig at Capitol Records next week. It won’t help them if their lead singer, is in the hoosegow.”
Bret’s shaking his head already. “I’m sorry Carlton, but that’s police business; nothing to do with me. Have you tried them?”
“Yes sir; I did. And the police chief there was very helpful, but he says he can’t do anything without your sign off.”
“Well; that not entirely true. I’m bound by ethics…”
“I understand, Brett; I do. I also understand that the system can’t function without donations from concerned citizens. So I was wondering if a small token of my appreciation to a charity looked favorably on by the police department might help grease the wheels of justice, just this one time.”
“Well,” says Bret, meaning, of course it will. “I can’t interfere…”
“Say three hundred dollars?” Says Leroy.
“Better say…five,” says Bret.
That part of the charade concluded, Leroy moves to his second motive. He points to a picture of Richard Milhous Nixon in a frame on the wall behind Bret’s large desk. This isn’t a federal office so the portrait is personal, not required, which already has told Leroy a lot.
He says, “Best president we’ve ever had. Going to take ’72 in a landslide.”
“You’re a supporter?” says Bret.
“A believer,” corrects Leroy. “I believe in a strong America, a law and or
der America. Not some fake liberal Reverend or dead Kennedy.”
“Well said, sir.” Bret nods toward the bar. “Offer you a drink?”
Kate on the phone, says, “I’m fine, Logan. The doctor says it’s just the monthly cycle.”
“Great,” says Logan, eager to be off that topic and back on himself. “Lemme tell you who I met today.” He gives a long report on the band, the girl, the bust and finally about Bret Saxby, crusading DA. “He’s what we used to call a crooked politician. That’s—”
“One that won’t stay bought. I know that one, Logan.” Kate’s pacing the large kitchen at Whidbey imagining him out on the back deck down in the canyon. She can almost hear the music and she’s feeling sad not to be there, even sadder about the reason. For a moment she considers just telling him, let him take on a bit of the responsibility, but that goes away as fast as it came. Logan, despite having 6 children, is not father material.
Then again, she thinks, I’m no Adelle. As Leroy prattles on about this Saxby guy, Kate pictures Adelle Logan in the house Leroy bought her. Kids are in and out and her kitchen is filled with baking and children and homework and peace, not like this sterile room she’s pacing.
The thought makes her sad. She walks to the length of the twirled phone cord to the big patio door and looks out over the deck, past the water out to the horizon. A full bone-white moon is just rising and it seems huge, like the eye of a cyclops, watching her, maybe wondering what she’s going to do.
She shudders and walks back across to the refrigerator, the cord tangling behind her. She opens the door and takes out a bottle of chilled Chablis, looking at the label without really seeing it, then sighs and puts it back.
No more drinking; the doctor was firm. “Kate, “ he said. “You’re forty-one years old. You can’t be taking any chances. You need to stop drinking, stop smoking, get plenty of rest.”
“Sex?” She asked, joking.
“Sure,” he replied, absolutely missing the humor. “Can’t get more pregnant, can we?”
Now, back on the phone she interrupts whatever Logan is saying. “There’s an art seminar in New York I’d like to take. It starts in a couple of weeks, runs through the spring.”
“You’d be gone,” says Leroy, not accusing, just surprised..
“A while,” she agrees. “It’s kind of a big deal. My art professor says it’ll be a good fit for me.”
“New York,” says Logan. “Well, so when are you coming back down?”
“I’m thinking I stay here for a couple of weeks then fly east.”
“I’ll come up then.”
“No; it sounds like you’re in the middle of things there. We’ll talk on the phone.”
“Oh. All right.” There’s a silence that flows up the wire and Kate feels like crying.
I’m lying to him, she thinks. Then; It won’t be the last time.
With Kate gone, Leroy’s got time to kill and Bret Saxby seems like a good way to kill it. He goes to be early and alone but in the morning starts the process of scamming somebody who deserves it. His meeting with Saxby was easy; dress in the right suit and tie, say the right phrases. There are vocabulary words unique to all specialized fields and the police and politicians are no exception.
But the one meeting wasn’t enough to give him a hook; he needs more face time.
So Leroy’s on the deck, either thinking or falling asleep when Starshine wanders back. Still timid, like a puppy that doesn’t know if it’s going to be kicked our given a chew-toy, she edges toward the hammock Leroy’s draped in and says softly, “Adam?”
“Yo,” agrees Leroy, startled. “Oh; you. Hey.”
It’s only eleven, early for the canyon crowd. Starshine’s wearing a short denim mini-skirt and a gauzy shirt, barefoot and braless. Her hair is long and straight with bangs that almost cover her eyes. “Thanks,” she says. “For Shaun. For getting him out for jail and all.”
Leroy sits up, rubbing his eyes from all the thinking he was doing. “No problem. Is he back home?”
“Yes.” Her bare leg is up against the edge of the hammock, inches from his. He’s wearing shorts and a tee shirt and an amused expression as she leans in and begins running long fingernails down his leg. “He told me to come over and…thank you.”
The rubbing gets stronger.
“Kid,” says Leroy. “Stop that. Kate…Eva…wouldn’t like it.”
Starshine seems confused. “Why would she care? She isn’t even here.”
“Not gonna happen, girl.” Leroy slips out of the hammock.
“Why not? I like older guys.” She’s leaning in against him, her breasts swaying pleasantly and Leroy’s confronted with an odd new idea; he’s not going to cheat on Kate. Starshine takes his hand and starts kneading it.
He pulls his hand back and steps away, and Starshine gives that puppy look again, this time knowing she’s not getting the chew-toy. “Shaun says I’m supposed to do you.”
“Shaun’s an idiot. And I’m not an old guy. Or a nice guy, come to think of it.” He turns her around and pushes her on the ass. “Go home, girl. Back to Shaun.”
“But…”
“Scram.”
Three hours later he gets another visitor, this time being Starshine’s bandmate and lover, Shaun. He’s a thick slab of muscle wearing his usual fringe leather and no shirt combo. He’s got a Pancho Villa mustache and hair that hasn’t felt shampoo this year. He’s also got a pissed off expression.
“What’s you problem, Man?” He’s in jock aggressive mode, the whole peace-love thing forgotten in a wash of adrenaline, and he’s pushing his chest into Leroy’s space. Toothpaste or deodorant seem to be missing from his personal hygiene as well; Leroy wonders what Starshine sees in him.
“Back off, junior,” Leroy says. “I got no beef with you.” He steps back as Shaun steps in closer.
“Starshine says you pushed her away. What the fuck Man; I was trying to thank you.”
“She’s not yours to thank me with…Man. But you’re welcome. Glad I could help.”
Shaun’s confused so he gets angry. “You hurt her feelings, man. I should probably hit you or something.”
“Or something?” Leroy’s getting amused. He’s been threatened, sometimes with guns, by people Shaun here can’t even imagine. “Sit down kid. Let me explain things to you. I said siddown.”
He’s put a lot of Brooklyn in that last sentence and Shaun’s surprised enough—or stoned enough—to do it. The chair is a low-slung cloth over wire contraption Kate thinks is cute and Leroy considers a deathtrap so Shaun’s looking up at him from about knee level.
Leroy, still Brooklyn, like a history professor in mob school , says, “First; we do not pimp out our girlfriends. Second, we do not threaten people who don’t sleep with our girlfriends. Third, we say ‘thank you’ to the people who’ve just spent five hundred bucks to spring us from jail.”
“That’s what I was trying to do, man. That’s why I gave you Starshine.”
“Point of interest, Shaun. She is not yours to give.”
“About the money, Man; I’ll pay you back.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Okay, but, well…” Shaun seems as puzzled as Starshine was earlier, like, this usually works. Since it isn’t, he doesn’t know what to do. The marijuana he’s obviously been smoking isn’t helping.
Shaun’s about George’s age but where George was smart and driven, Shaun is just…loose. He’s like what you’d get if pasta could come out of the pot and say, “Hey, man.”
Leroy decides to bail him out, figuratively this time. “Listen, Shaun. We’re Okay. I Have Eva and we don’t sleep with other people. So go back to Starshine and tell her we’re cool.” He helps pull Shaun from the chair, an act similar to helping give birth to an octopus, and Shaun stumbles away to deliver the news that the old guy, Adam whatever, is pretty cool. For an old guy.
Leroy’s got poker games to lose and horses to donate to so he keeps busy, only missing Kate at odd m
oments, usually late at night. He wakes up in the dark and hears acoustic guitars and lots of singing and smells pot and eucalyptus and about two weeks later gets around to considering Bret Saxby again.
He’s got a fire going in the wood-burning stove because the house is always chilly and he’s doing his usual scotch and coffee as he considers the guy. He’s picturing Bret as he last saw him; smooth, smooth shaven and heartless. The kind of guy who could justify sending your son or daughter to prison for life for smoking the wrong kind of leaf. Bret’s the guy who uses prosecutions as a point system, putting people away so he can get promotions.
The kind of guy who would want a career-boosting arrest.
Leroy smiles and struggles out of Kate’s chair. He goes to the bedroom closet and inspects his suit. Time, he thinks, to get a better one.
Kate’s in a blue—blue—funk. She’s been playing every sad album she owns and even the stereo is getting depressed. She’s done Joni Mitchell and Billie Holiday, possibly the first time they’ve been played back to back. The Beatles are too cheerful, the big-bands she and Logan grew up on feel dated and her story about the art seminar is a lie.
So what is she going to do? She wonders. She can’t stay in her own house for six months, hiding from Logan and the world. First, because he’s likely to show up and wouldn’t that be a surprise?
“Hey, Babe,” she’d say, pulling out a stomach the size of a beach ball. “Have I got something to tell you!”
So she can’t stay here and she can’t do an art seminar because it doesn’t exist and if she listens to one more sad song she’ll never stop feeling sorry for herself.
This feeling of helplessness is new for Kate; usually she eats the world for lunch and asks for dessert. But this…how do I handle being pregnant at forty-one?
The phone rings and she knows it’s Logan because she doesn’t have any other friends and that depresses her even more. She ignores it and it eventually stops and she’s pacing the house from one end to the other, not smoking, not drinking and not coping with this at all.
I gotta get out of here.
But where?
Kate hasn’t heard from her family since she left it at fifteen, back there in Illinois in a place even more depressing than this. She figures it’s quite likely they’re dead, Mom and Pop, though maybe her brother and sisters are still around somewhere, probably in the same house, the same rut.
So, not home. Home, she read someplace, is where the heart is, and that certainly isn’t in Illinois.
Home is wherever Logan is, she thinks and gets depressed all over again. Three plays each of several albums—she’s wearing out the vinyl—and she’s ready to scream.
Pregnancy sucks.
Bret Saxby greets Carlton Capshaw like a frat brother; two-handed shake, lean in for an almost hug, trade sniffs of expensive cologne, pat on the back. “How have you been?” He steps back and looks Leroy up and down, says, “You’re looking good, my friend.”
Leroy’s amused by the show. All it’s cost him so far is five-hundred bucks for a bribe. Bret would probably hump his leg for a grand.
He says, “Been good. You?”
Bret launches into a story, maybe true, probably not, and Leroy offers one of his own, definitely not and eventually Bret gets to the point.
“What can I do for you, Carlton?” Bret did his homework before agreeing to the meeting and found several articles about Carlton Capshaw that had been salted in the places Leroy figured he’d look. Like most of his cons, Leroy follows the 70/30 rule whenever possible: seventy percent true, thirty percent lies. The trick, as always, is never letting the mark see that thirty.
So Bret sees a fellow Republican, a self-made millionaire in the paper products industry. Leroy can, and later will, go on about cardboard, telling stories and anecdotes about how he made his money and Bret will listen with bright cherry attention and total disinterest. Both of them playing the game.
Except Leroy’s a joker that Bret’s never seen before.
He says, “I just wanted to thank you for helping me with that boy last month. My son—he’s the manager of their band—he tells me they made their audition and Capitol records wants to see them perform.”
“Well, that’s great Carlton! Just the sort of success story I like to hear.”
“Of course, it’s going to cost me for the equipment and a van and all, but it’s so good to see my son take an interest in business, even if it is this new music crap.”
Bret’s seeing an opportunity to cultivate a new donor and Leroy’s here to see if Bret really is somebody worth taking down in a scam. Seeing if the mark deserves it is a new idea to Leroy but Kate, on last night’s call, grilled him and insisted.
“You don’t need mess up people just for the fun of it anymore, Logan,” she said. “You’re better than that.”
I am? If so, it’s news to him. Kate’s always been on the side of the angels—Leroy’s on the side of the wallet—but she seems extra devoted to this fair play nonsense lately. Today’s visit is to determine if Bret’s worth eating.
Somebody leads—doesn’t matter who, they’re both dancing, “Hey, I’m free this afternoon. What say we put on the feed bag?”
“Sounds like a great idea!”
They go to a place with martinis and steaks and people in power suits and ties and if Leroy isn’t really one of them there’s not a soul in the joint who picks up on it. By the third of those martinis they’re talking politics.
“Nixon’s got it right,” says Bret. “Law and order; that’s the ticket. Law. And. Order.”
“Amen,” says Leroy, who’d agree to anything on this scouting mission. It’s his goal to be exactly what Bret wants. “I was at the Chicago convention last year. Mayor Daley ran those punk bastards out of town on a rail. Mace, clubs; he showed them what’s what.”
“He did,” enthuses Bret. Richard Daley, boss hog of the Windy City, is one of Bret’s idols. After Hoover of course, and Nixon.
Speaking of Nixon; “You follow the war at all?’
“The Viet-Nam war? That’s no war,” says Leroy. “That’s a police action. We don’t have soldiers; we have ‘advisors.’” He does air-quotes and Bret’s nodding.
“Nixon’ll fix that,” he says. “Now that he’s got a mandate after whooping old Hubert’s ass. The people let him know; we want peace in the southeast and we want it our way.”
“Our way,” agrees Leroy.
“I hear old Dick’s sending more troops this year. Calls it ‘pacification.’ I call it God’s will,” says Bret.
Here’s the point Leroy’s been fishing for. “What about the draft? You for it?”
“Of course I’m for it,” says Bret from the safety of being too old to serve and too connected when he was younger. “You?”
“Of course,” lies Leroy.
George, his son, was drafted.
Bret’s going down.
Unless Kate says no. He calls her long distance to tell her about the meeting and she says, baffling him, “It’s not enough, Logan. You can’t do him just because…” she’s about to say, George, but stops in time.
Leroy says, “I’ve been reading his prosecution stats, Kate.” No need to discuss how he gets them; He’s been charming pretty record clerks out of their paperwork for decades. “He has the highest rates in the country for blacks and young people for drug offences. His record for middle-class whites is amazingly low.”
“That doesn’t tell the whole story,” says Kate.
“I bribed him $500 to let off a kid.”
“That makes him a jerk.”
There’s silence on the line and Leroy imagines her in a hotel somewhere in New York. It’s unnerving so he adds into it, “I don’t see how to make a profit on it, though.”
“You’re doing this for free?” Can a phone line sound amazed?
“Yeah; I think so.”
“Good God, Logan: why?”
“I’m bored. I miss you.”
“You do?”
“Of course.” Leroy’s maybe imagining things but she’s sounding fragile, a very non-Kate emotion.
“You’re so sweet,” she says, then, “I love you, Logan.”
“I love you, too, Kate.”
A pause and she tells him, “Take him down.”
Which might be the best phone sex he’s ever had.
Taking down a public defender in a town the size of Los Angeles isn’t an easy thing to do. Leroy makes plans and lists, tears them up and starts again, finally looks at a page that could be Egyptian, maybe Chinese, and smiles.
He turns on the TV, a rare event, and checks the news. After a while a talking head tells him what he’s looking for. The moon landing is in July. Three months away. That makes him smile even more.
Starshine’s evidently a morning person—Shaun most definitely is not—and she’s taken to hanging around in the mornings, sometimes making breakfast, sometimes smiling when he makes it for her. It’s a nice arrangement for them both once she gets over the shock that he’s not going to sleep with her. She’s a nice kid and she keeps Leroy from thinking about Kate too much or about George.
“Kansas,” she says when he asks. He could have told her just from the accent. “I hitched out last year.”
“You were, what? Fourteen?”
“No; sixteen.” She’s looking a lot older than that now, after the drugs and the sex and Leroy considers the cost that the free love movement is taking. Between it and the war, it’s a like a whole generation is being chewed up and spit out.
“Wasn’t that dangerous?” he asks. He’s made tea—she favors Kate’s expensive Chamomile—and she’s cross-legged on the stool at the breakfast bar.
“Not really. I mean, what’s gonna happen? Guy wants sex? Guys always want sex; it’s no big deal.”
They chat most mornings and he learns she has no thoughts beyond that day. No dreams, no aspirations. It makes him feel sad for her, like something important has been lost somewhere.
One morning he says, “Remember that prosecutor who nailed Shaun?”
“For dope? Sure.”
“I’m thinking about getting even with him for that. You think you and the band might be willing to help me?”
He sees the excitement rising. “Cool! Get even, like how?”
“I don’t know yet; I’m still thinking about it.”
“Is that what all those scribbles are?” she juts her chin at the pad on the floor near Kate’s canvas chair.
Leroy’s surprised at the observation and it shows. “What do you think they are?”
“I think they’re plans on how to scam a DA,” says Starshine. Then , seeing his amazement adds, “What? I’m young. I’m not stupid.”
You’re sleeping with Shaun, he thinks. So you’re not smart either.
Kate’s in Toronto at a bed and breakfast and the irony of being a single mother leaving home until the pregnancy ends is not lost on her. She remembers stories she heard as a young girl about cousins and school girls going to visit ‘Aunts,’ coming home six or seven months later.
She’s heard that Joni went through this just a few years ago and made the decision Kate’s going to have to make sooner or later.
What’s she going to do? Not an abortion. They’re illegal here and in the States and the back alley operations are too dangerous to seriously consider. That leaves keeping the baby or giving it up for adoption.
Is there another way? She’s in a small but pleasant room, part of an old estate that ran into hard times and cut up the mansion into rentable rooms. It’s run by two men, likely gay, which Kate doesn’t care about. They run a nice inn; clean, quiet and private.
Another way. Well; there’s Leroy, the father. As quickly as that thought enters her head it’s dismissed. Even if her Logan wanted to keep the child, he’s in no shape to do it. The scar of his first born dead at twenty-one is still fresh and he’s never been a hands on parent to begin with.
No, the thinks, I can’t do this to him.
So what does that leave? keep it or give it away.
She hates that she thinks of it as ‘it’.
She rubs her belly, swollen now and showing. It’s April and ‘it’ is six months along. How is she going to keep away from Logan for another three long months? Where will she stay? What will she do?
She doesn’t know—and if she did she probably wouldn’t care—that these are thoughts shared by millions of girls and women all over the world every day.
For Fast Kate Mulrooney, rolling her palms over an inflated belly, it’s all about herself.
And ‘it.’
Starshine starts coming over more often as the weather improves; by June she’s a fixture. It’s less for Leroy’s sake than that he has one of the only swimming pools in the canyon and this is a summer of high heat. Soon she’s got her girlfriends and the pool begins to fill up with girls. Mostly naked ones.
This isn’t a problem for Leroy, as he enjoys the show, and after a few small confrontations(“Hey, man!”) the men seem to accept that Leroy (Adam) is faithful to Kate (Eva) and not a threat. They often show up in the late afternoon with guitars and pot and leave before dawn. Leroy’s amused and fascinated; it’s like having his own personal zoo.
This peaceful condition continues all through May into June and ends rather abruptly when the crew shows up. The first is Tucker Doogan, the Australian ‘face.’ He’s been there a week when Jimmy James arrives with the Cowboy Kid, sharing a car from the airport.
Coming out on to the deck, seeing a half-dozen naked girls playing in the pool or lounging on towels in the mid-morning sun, the Kid’s eyes grow to cover half his face, while Jimmy announces, “Holy Shit, Logan! You got a Harem?”
“Relax,” says Tucker from under a pair of dark tinted glasses. “You get used to it.”
The Kid, still gaping, says, “You might.”
They grab seats in the shade to watch the novelty of naked girls just being naked, and Leroy decides to hold off business until later which becomes a good idea when Shaun and a couple of other guys show up around three expecting just Leroy and not pleased at the new arrivals.
Not pleased at all.
The new guys are professional crooks, but they’re con artist professional crooks, which means they don’t believe in fighting, and the local guys are stoned which means they’re not capable of fighting, but still, there’s a lot of aggression and posturing until somebody falls in the pool, then a lot of people fall in the pool and the girls join in.
Later, when the chaos settles down and Jimmy James turns out to be both a good singer and a better guitar player than anybody else there, the group mellows, gets stoned and falls asleep.
Except Leroy, who calls Kate.
“How’s the class going?” he asks, as always.
“Great, great. Learning a lot,” Kate evades, also usual. “The guys get there?”
“Yep. This afternoon.”
“How’d that go, with the girls and all.” Kate knows about the pool parties and doesn’t care. She knows Leroy’s faithful, except with Adelle, who doesn’t count, and it doesn’t bother her much. Being so far away and so alone makes her sad sometimes, like a dull throbbing in her chest right above the baby. It’s eight months now and the baby’s kicking.
Leroy says, “Pretty well. I think the Kid’s in love.”
“With which one?”
“Depends on what time it is.”
They talk a while longer, about crime and art and being apart and Kate sounds sad when she says, “I love you.”
“Me, too, Kate. When are you coming home?”
“Soon.”
“Great!”
“Gotta go. Bye.” And she hangs up.
Leroy’s thinking, something’s wrong here, but he lets it go.
The usual time to discuss plans is at night but here, with the guests scattered around, it makes more sense to get up early while everybody else sleeps. Except Starshine, the early riser who manages to join them by servin
g coffee and keeping quiet.
Tucker says, “What’s in it for us?” Which is always the first question, followed by, “Who’s the mark?”
Tucker’s got an inmate tan after spending eighteen months in Leavenworth. “Your guy Winston got me on an art swap. Found a guy who makes copies of French paintings from the seventeen hundreds. Perfect copies that I ‘traded’ for the originals.” He turns to Leroy. “This fellow has a real hard-on for you, mate. He visited me three times when I was inside, always asking about you. Might have been a mistake, you tricking him in person.”
“Water under the dam,” says Leroy. “He’s got a ways to go to get me.”
He turns the talk to the scam. “The mark is a DA in LA. He’s crooked and on the take, makes his nut bringing down people he doesn’t personally like.”
“How’s that going to bring in any cash?” Meaning, of course, for us? Law enforcement, like the clergy, is usually left alone by criminals for the simple reason that there’s rarely a pot big enough to be worth stealing.
Like this guy here. Leroy says, “This one’s more for the interest value than the money,” which is like saying, “let’s climb that mountain or jump out of an airplane.” It might be fun but what’s the point?
“What’s the point?” says the Kid.
“The mark deserves what’s coming,” says Leroy, to a whole lot of blank looks.
“It’s like poetic justice,” suggests Leroy and the looks start moving between themselves.
“I’ll pay you ten grand apiece.”
“All right, then!”
“I’m in.”
“Crikey, mate; I thought you’d lost your mind.” Tucker slaps him on the back. “So what’s the play?”
“It’s like this,” says Leroy and they all lean in to listen.
Even Starshine, who’s never imagined anything like this.
Kate spends most her time resting. She’s moved back to Seattle to be near her doctors and it depresses her to be so close to her home and not stay in it. But Logan might show up and she can’t be seen like this, the size of a small whale or medium hippo.
The doctors say,” You’re forty-one and having a baby this late is a major stress on your body. It’s urgent that you get a lot of bed rest.”
So she’s been idle and alone and fat and alone and her man is having fun with his friends without her and a lot of those friends are girls who are naked and she’s alone.
The doctor’s say,” You can’t drink, Kate,” and “You can’t smoke, Kate,” and of course, drugs aren’t allowed and how does anybody stay sane watching day-time television?
“Just hold on, Kate,” says one of her doctors, a pleasant woman named Janice. “It won’t be long now.”
Sure, thinks Kate; it won’t be long now.
Until what?
She still has no idea.
Leroy has a lot of ideas. He’s had three lunches and one dinner with Bret Saxby, each one cementing the friendship/donorship of Carlton Capshaw. He’s become the perfect Republican law-and-order guy; he even drinks the right drinks.
He’s found the place to run the scam, he has the perfect time in mind and he’s running the crew through their tasks.
“Any of you know anything about sound systems?”
“Like what?” asks the Kid.
“Like we’ve got to cut in on one concert and play our own.”
“Nah; I got nothing.” The others all are busy watching the girls.
“I know,” says Starshine. She’s been hovering around, dressed, a little, in tight shorts and a thin shirt. “A guy.”
“Do you?” says Leroy, interested.
“Um, yeah. Bobby Fisk? He’s our sound man. For the band? He can do anything with sound.”
“That’s great,” says Leroy. “Can you get him here? And while we’re talking about the band, can you get Shaun to come over this afternoon. I want to book them.”
“You do?” say a lot of people in various ways. They’ve all heard the Family Way band rehearse.
“Why, Logan?” says Jimmy James. “They’re not all that good. No offence ma’am,” he adds to Starshine, who’s never been ma’amed before.
“I’m counting on that,” says Leroy. “In fact, I’m hoping to make them a lot worse.”
“Sunday, July 20,” says Leroy. “Neil Armstrong is going to walk on the moon.”
“Yeah, so?” says Tucker, a man not much interested in historic events. To him, ancient history was when he entered Leavenworth. Recent history is when he got out.
“So,” says Leroy. “Sunday, July 20, we’re going to give a concert.”
“Middle of July,” says Janice, looking at Kate’s chart. “Say the 19th or 20th.”
“Thank God.” Kate’s tired of the whole birth miracle experience and wants her life back. Assuming I decide to keep the baby, she thinks. If I do, then it’s a whole ’nother life.
Leroy’s got a meeting with Bret in the DA’s plush third floor office. This time he’s brought his son.
“Bret,” he says. “This is Greg,” and pushes forward a long-haired young man in a nice suit and tie, obviously insisted on by his father. The boy has rebellion written all over most of his face and a large mustache covering the rest. His eyes are brown and sullen and his handshake, when compelled by a look from his father, is like squeezing pudding in a sock.
Bret, repulsed, manages to not wipe his hand on the boys’ shirt.
He leads them to chairs in front of his desk, the ones that let them see the framed photos of Bret with the mayor, with the police chief, with president Nixon. In that one Bret looks proud and Nixon look shifty.
“What can I do for you, Carlton?”
“I have some information that you’re going to want to hear,” says Carlton. “Tell him, Greg.”
“No.”
Carlton whaps the kid on the back of his head. “Tell him.”
“Ow! All right.” The kid looks mutinous but eventually speaks. “I manage this band, see…”
“Speak up,” demands Carlton, glancing over at Bret with an apologetic look.
“Okay. Jeez. The band—The family Way—is gonna do a concert, see? And they’re planning to make a statement about the pigs and the man…ow!”
Carlton has whapped him again.
“Go on,” says Bret, flashing the fake sympathy smile. “I’m listening.”
“Yeah, well…the band is gonna, they’re going to…they’re going to moon the audience.”
Bret doesn’t get it. “What? Carlton; what’s that mean?’
“It means,” says the kid, showing a little enthusiasm, “That they’re gonna pull down their pants and wave their bare asses at the crowd.”
“Why?” asks Bret, astounded. “Why would they do such a thing?”
“Cause of the moon landing this Sunday. You get it? The man’s sending people to the moon and the band is going to moon the audience.” He looks for approval from one adult to the other, doesn’t get any. “It’s like a statement, you know?”
Carlton says, “I heard him talking about it to Shaun Jepson—he’s the kid you busted that I asked you to get out…” Carlton’s sounding sorry he did that. “They were saying how it was like that Jim Morrison guy, likes to flash his stuff at the audience.”
Bret’s horrified. He’s never heard anything so revolting. “Why?” He manages. “Why, why…?”
The kid gets animated. “It’s a statement about how we feel about the government wasting all that money going to the moon, man. It’s all part of the war machine, government’s got to beat the Russians.”
Carlton says, “Remember I told you the band had an audition for capitol records? Well, Braniac here,” he indicates his son, who’s reverted to sullen, “He dreamed this up. They’re renting a ballroom—that I’m paying for—and they’re putting on a free concert because Capitol records wants to see them live. Then they figure, if they do some stunt, they’re more likely to get noticed.”
“And showing
their asses in public, is going to do that?”
“Everybody’s got to have a gimmick these days,” says Carlton.
“There’s like so many bands,” whines the kid. “It’s hard to get noticed anymore. Clive Davis is grabbing all the bands from the rock shows and the Doors are doing the whole ‘Lizard King’ shtick. I mean, what do you gotta do?”
“I thought I’d tell you, see if maybe you could do something to stop it, maybe,” says Carlton.
Bret gets it; the old man is willing to help his son but he doesn’t want the notoriety of his son getting busted for indecent exposure. Well, that’s too bad. Bret’s seeing major press with this one. The papers, radio, Hell, even television. This is something that can send a man’s career into orbit. He smiles thinking, into orbit; just like the moon shot.
And if Carlton gets splashed by the publicity, so what? That’s a price Bret Saxby’s willing to pay.
But he has to be sure. He’s a practical man and won’t fall for a trick. So he says, “I’ll need to see the band before I can do anything.”
The kid says, “No!” pretty quick but Carlton offers, “They rehearse in the canyon. Laurel canyon up north of Hollywood.”
Of course they do, thinks Bret. All the hippie drug-users hang out there. Bret despises the place even more than he does the perverts in Hollywood, even though most of his off the books profits come from there.
He says, “Can you get me in there to hear them?”
“No,” says the kid.
Carlton whaps him again.
“Ow! Yes.”
The Family Band is Shaun on guitar, Dave “Fuzzy” Williams on bass, Skip Manson on organ, Seth Parks on drums and Starshine and three other girls as backup singers. They’re outside one of Leroy’s houses, on a small raised stage in the back of the driveway. The weather is hot, the sky cloudless and the noise unbearable, like an airplane just crashed into a music store.
Bret and Carlton and Carlton’s kid Greg, drive up to the canyon and take up watching from a little chalet looking cabin up the street. Leroy owns this one, too, and paid the tenants to book a motel room someplace, handing them cash that he’s pretty sure will become acid before the day is done.
The Family Band finishes one song and begins the next after a lot of tuning and noodling around on their instruments. To Brett, so far, it’s the least offensive sound he’s heard. The drummer clicks his sticks, one-two-three-four, and everybody hits the same chord really loud and Shaun, grimacing like he’s got genital warts, starts screeching notes on his white electric guitar.
They finish that song, more or less at the same time and, facing the imagined audience, bow at the waist like Bret’s seen the Beatles do on Ed Sullivan. Bret likes the Beatles; they’re nothing like these people.
He’s heard enough. “Let’s go,” he says, but the kid shakes his head.
“No wait; this is the money song. You gotta hear this one.”
So they stay and it sounds exactly like the last one, maybe louder, certainly not any better. The backup chicks have moved to the front so they’re in a line with the guitar and bass player, which is at least nice to watch. The song grinds to a halt and the kid says, Wait for it…”
The band is about to take the waist-bend bow when they all suddenly spin around, drop their pants (men) and raise the short skirts, (girls). Nobody’s wearing any underwear. Just six bare asses waving at the driveway. They stay poised for a couple moments, then turn back and cover up.
“Moonshot!” yells Greg, giving a fist in the air salute.
Carlton whaps him across the back of the head.
“Ow.”
“It’s all in the timing,” says Leroy to his crew. It’s Saturday, July 19, and they’re dressed for the practice run. Jimmy James in an LA cop uniform, Tucker’s an electrician with a hard hat and vest, Bobby Fisk, the Family Band sound engineer, is waving a decibel meter.
They’re standing on the sidewalk in front of the Avalon Ballroom on Montrose Avenue next to a white cube van Leroy’s rented for the week. The van is full of soundboards and speakers and posters and whatever they think will help create a Big Store for the ten minutes it will be open.
How do you get two dozen hippies to show up at 6:30? Round them up—it’s like herding cats—put them in a rented yellow school bus and drive them there yourself.
By the time they reach the Avalon the bus reeks of pot, Leroy has a monster headache from the smell and if he hears the word “man” one more time, he’ll attack somebody.
But the bus arrives and the mob pours out like the worst school field trip ever and they gather as instructed around the barricades Tucker and the Kid have erected. Also as directed, they’re chanting, “ Moon shot! Moon shot” and raising their fists in time.
There are two massive speakers on poles and two white film screens showing the Family Band playing. The band is on a stage and the pictures, though poorly filmed as if by a guy with a shoulder mount camera, are in color. The music is loud and the sparse crowd is attracting people who have no idea what’s happening.
The marquee above the entrance has what looks like a hand lettered sheet draped on it that says “Live! The Family Band auditions for Capitol Records!”
Three mobile TV vans are held back by Jimmy James and two other guys dressed as police.
At 7:05 another white van pulls up across the street followed by three black ones with dark tinted windows.
The black vans contain twenty SWAT team members and armed police all in riot gear with night sticks, mace and tear gas.
The white van holds Bret Saxby, a communications technician, a lot of small black and white screens and Greg Capshaw, Carlton’s son. He’s as sullen as a prisoner but cooperative when pushed. He’s watching the screens and at 7:13 says, “It’s time.”
The nurse says, “Kate, it’s time.”
Kate’s sweating hard, breathing harder, hurting more than she’s ever hurt before. She says, “I can’t…” when a monstrous contraction shrinks her entire world to her lower body.
The nurse says, “Push!”
Greg Capshaw says, “They’re in the last chorus now. It’ll happen in thirty seconds.”
Outside, the music is louder, the crowd is dancing.
Bret Saxby gives the last order he’ll ever make. He keys a microphone and yells,” It’s time, boys! Let’s do this.”
The doors to the three vans open and an entire squad of police in riot gear erupt on the street. Somebody in the crowd sees them, shrieks and the crowd stops to stare in disbelief. The SWAT team cuts through them like an axe through warm butter as a couple of officers smash in the glass doors and the team—all twenty of them—with Bret Saxby in the lead with a bullhorn, swarm across the lobby and throw open the doors to the ballroom.
Bret Saxby yells, “YOU’RE ALL UNDER ARREST!”
At 7:17 Pacific Time, Neil Armstrong makes the announcement from the moon; “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for Mankind.”
Outside, Tucker and Jimmy pull on strings and the banner covering the marques floats down. The real marquee says, “Tonight: Celebrating the Moon Landing: A live television broadcast featuring Lawrence Welk and his Orchestra!”
Inside the ballroom, everything has frozen. A hundred pairs of elderly dancers, interrupted in mid two-step, stare wide-eyed at the police. The orchestra, led by a baton-wielding Lawrence Welk, sputters to a stop and the song they were playing, “How High the Moon,” in honor of the landing, shatters into separate notes. Half a dozen television cameras swivel their way.
Bret Saxby’s bullhorn falls from lifeless fingers to the floor with them.
In a Seattle hospital, Kate bears down hard one more time. The doctor leans in and a tiny wail fills the room.
“Congratulations,” says Janice. “It’s a girl.”
ONE WEEK LATER
Leroy, wisely thinking Laurel Canyon is not a good place for Carlton Capshaw, takes a local jet up to Seattle and a cab
to Kate’s place on Whidbey. Before leaving he pays off the crew from his own money, a first and last time that will ever happen. Tucker Doogan takes Starshine, now back to her real name of Connie Romweber from Oak Forest, Illinois, with him. Jimmy James, heartbroken over her loss, manages to console his grief under the care of at least four of the other girls. He stays on in Leroy’s house and plays guitar with the Family Band, now under contract with RCA.
Kate Mulrooney stays at the hospital for three days, holding her daughter most of the time. She still hasn’t decided what to do when she checks out and it’s without any real conscious decision that she takes a plane south.
It’s dark when she arrives, with a waxing crescent moon making an eerie glow as she rents a car and drives. The baby girl is in a basket on the floor of the car as Kate pulls to a curb and gets out.
She looks at the large house, hidden in shadows of thick trees, with only a light in the living room showing signs of life.
She stands in the dark watching the house for nearly an hour, still uncertain, then closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and walks to the passenger side, opens the door and takes a bundle from the basket.
She walks slowly up the concrete walk to the front door and rings the bell.
After a moment the door opens and Kate hands the bundle into the arms of the woman inside.
“Adelle,” she says.
“Her name is Dixie Rose…Logan.”
About the Author
I wrote my first novel in college at the University of Wyoming, played lead guitar in Pinky’s bar as a member of “Suzy Q and the Quad City Ramblers,” Got an English degree, then an engineering degree, worked a lot, got married to Traci (probably the best thing to ever happen), wrote several books with Raymond Dean White, retired recently from said engineering and started writing again.
Now I write cheerfully demented novels about con artists and overweight PIs, play guitar a lot (on a very well used and loved 1954 Martin D-18 (for those of you who have guitar lust—centerfold picture available on request) and generally am having the best retirement ever.
Other books by this author
Please visit your favorite ebook retailer to discover other books by Duane Lindsay:
Missing Amanda
Tap Doubt
Lone Rock
The Dying Time
After The Dying Time
The Rag, The Wire, And The Big Store Volume II (Coming December 1, 2016)
Connect with Duane Lindsay
I really appreciate you reading my book! Here are my social media coordinates:
Friend me on Facebook: https://facebook.com/duanelindsayauthorpage
Visit my website: https://duanelindsay.com
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