The Juliet (13 page)

Paul sat on a stool at the bar. He was on his own and on display and not entirely comfortable about it. This was a beachside party, held in the middle of the beautiful blue day. The bar was enclosed but facing the waves behind a wall of sliding glass doors. Beautiful women wandered in and out in bathing suits, but no one was swimming. The floor was gritty with tracked-in sand.

Kimber Logue paused in front of Paul and looked him up and down. They were wearing the same outfit, essentially, except that Paul’s boots and hat were cowhide and his jeans blue cotton. He held out a hand, and Logue was amused.

“Look, it’s a farmer,” she said before pushing through. No one else seemed to register the remark; it was a private insult, and for that Paul Lattanzi was simultaneously relieved and enraged. He’d expected ridicule at this shindig. That’s what his agent sent him there for. Mixed in with the musicians and groupies were film directors and writers who imagined themselves somehow on the level of rock stars, and it was Lattanzi’s job to be seen and remembered. And to come off “edgy.” That was the only way he was going to survive in the new Hollywood, especially as an actor typecast for Westerns.

Paul had been given his orders. He was supposed to stir things up and blur the line between hero and bully. “Violence,” his agent had counseled. “That’s where we are. It’s a violent America, and you need show her your dark side, Rigg.”

Logue’s quiet dig would be a suitable catalyst for a public conflict only if she were a dude. There were still some rules in the world, even if Logue was known for violating them. Stories of her violence abounded. She liked to punch men and break windows as long as she had an audience.

Paul wanted to react to her insult in a way that would obliterate Logue’s smug smile, the admiration of her friends, and the unearned fame. He thought he kept his irritation under wraps, but the tiny brunette behind the bar asked him, “You okay?” Her fingertips were stained from mixing up a pitcher of Sangria, and she smelled like an orange grove.

“I’m in a mood,” the cowboy actor admitted.

The brunette offered him some relief. Apparently, pouring drinks was only a part of her paid duties.

“Thank you, no. Save your bj’s for folks climbing up the ladder, not those of us about to get kicked to the ground.”

She was charmed by his self-deprecation. “But Kimber’s your friend, right? You seem to know the right people.”

Paul grinned at her miscomprehension, sat up straight, and right in front of her eyes he became Rigg Dexon. “You’re a real cutie,” he said, stroking his mustache. He’d begun to reconsider her offer.

A fight broke out in another room. After Altamont, there weren’t any parties without fights any more, not even in a mellow setting like Big Sur. Rigg noticed that no one felt moved by the sounds of the struggle coming from the back room. Perhaps no one had any friends here. Then there was a crash and the high-pitched squeal of a man being forced to make unmanly sounds under duress. Rigg figured that was as good a sign as any to make his move.

To the pretty barmaid he said, “Excuse me, sweetheart.”

To a stoned man with three different cameras swinging around his neck, he said, “You may wanna tag along, son.”

* * *

The Gardener was a tall dude, scary young with a white-boy ‘fro. He dressed like a Hell’s Angel but drove a dirty white VW van that screamed “dope dealer.” It was parked outside the party between a blue Corvette and a yellow Stratos, both of which were pristine under the beautiful California sun. The dealer had chosen his nickname when he was more intimately involved with the cultivation of his product, but now that his customers wanted pills and blow more than they wanted herb, his handle took on a mystical aspect.

Logue sat in the back room on a low sofa beside the Gardener who was in a heated conversation with a bass player. So heated that the musician had crumpled into the cushions, protecting himself against the Gardener’s fist. The Gardener’s associates sat on the other side, chuckling, waiting their turn. There was Mikey, a solid built guy who wore two
jean jackets with the sleeves hacked off, one over the other. When anyone ever questioned him about it he claimed his style was “organically bullet-proof.” The other, Chip, was taller and leaner and looked a lot like a surf hero who’d been cranked too many times. Kimber Logue had already had her go at the bassist, with one of those down stroke punches that delivered the boom and didn’t require a lot of skill. Now she was straightening the lapel of her lavender jacket, comedian-style.

Logue’s wit was the source of her popularity, but privately her role was to know the wrong people and help them sell drugs to the right people. Unfortunately, the cultural gap between these constituencies was widening all the time. The Gardener and his crew were unpolished, unrepentant hippies in a hot-combed and blow-dried world, and they were touchy about it.

Mikey and Chip grinned at the musician, taking their time and discussing creative ways to hurt the man.

From Lattanzi’s point of view, it was a strange looking beat down, with everyone crammed on the couch together in a row like a violent family watching TV. The cowboy actor decided to step in.

Kimber Logue saw him first and let her sense of humor get the best of her. She said, “Oh how wonderful. It’s the Farmer. Mr. Farmer, meet the Gardener.”

The quip didn’t go over well. The Gardener thought he was being insulted, and while Logue backtracked, Dexon had time to assess the situation. The photog snapped away. The cowering bass player was the only non-famous member of his band. He sobbed, and his nose bled down over a t-shirt featuring a picture of himself.

Dexon reached down and grabbed the bass player, lifting him out of the sofa like a sack of potatoes. The heft of him, for he was as light as a feral cat, confirmed Dexon’s assumptions that the bassist was a junkie.

“I think this one is very sorry for your trouble.” Rigg’s voice rumbled under his semi-famous mustache.

The Gardener blinked as he considered retaliation. He was high and a little slow on the uptake. It was a party, after all. Kimber Logue sat only inches away from the dealer, pretending to be bored with the violence that had taken place on the other end of the sofa.

Rigg spoke to the dealer. “And I think you need to tell your friend to keep
his
pretty mouth shut.” Meaning Logue.

Dyke and fag jokes, especially those that vaguely threaten rape, have always had the uncanny ability to reach across socio-economic barriers. The Gardener, and then his crew, laughed hard at a cringing Kimber Logue, who had just been slaughtered with a single pronoun. This allowed the cowboy actor to make an exit, carrying the bass player out with him like an empty piece of luggage.

Click and whir. The photographer was happy.

Sluggishly, either because they were bored or satisfied to have made their point with the bass player, the Gardener, Mikey, and Chip followed Dexon out of the back room, traveling the entire length of the beach house in a bully parade, splitting couples and silencing conversations along the way. The cowboy carried the musician upstairs, led by the pretty bartender.

When the Gardener and his associates left the beach house, a sullen Kimber Logue trailed at a respectable distance. As soon as the doors shut behind her and she was outside where the cars were parked, the party started up again.

The Gardener paused at the van, waved for Logue to hurry up. As she stepped on the runner board she paused to flash her trademark wicked grin, and tip her ridiculous hat for anyone who might still be watching.
Goodbye.

* * *

1976: Pittsburgh, PA

Dom and two of his friends from class, Daniel and Tina, sat on the carpeted floor of Dom’s basement, which his family called the “game room” due to the presence of an air hockey table piled with laundry. The kids passed around a copy of
Rock Times
to squint at the picture on page three of the tabloid. The smeared, inky image was that of a cowboy carrying a man like a bride, with a caption that read:
Western Star Saves Rocker from Drug Crazed Cult.

Dom’s friends had questions that required answers, and as the hippest twelve-year-old at St. Sebastian’s, he always had some. His dad was a shop steward for the union, and that meant he had pocket money to go to Jim’s Records or Walden’s Books when he wanted. He had all the Von Daniken books, the first three volumes of the
Man, Myth, and Magic Encyclopedia
, and a stash of
National Lampoon
and
Creem
magazines that weren’t secret, but his mom didn’t want them laying out for the world to see.

Tina put her nose right up to the picture and asked, “Is that the girl who was cut up?”

“No, that’s a guy. Dave Yeller. He played bass with Eton Tramp.”

“Is he dead there?”

Dom shook his head. “Not yet. That happened later.”

“Then who was the girl they chopped up in the desert?”

Dom stood and crossed over to the hi-fi. He plucked out a single with an orange and white label from a rack full of discs in fragile paper sleeves. His personal collection, kept separate from his Dad’s and his brother’s. His brother Gary was the one who brought home copies of
Rock Times
from the clubs.

Dom explained, “Kimber Logue is who they killed in the desert. And then this song was released
posthumously.
Means after death.”

He held
Mystery House
by the edges and dropped it delicately on the turntable. As soon as the smoky voice and slow guitars commenced, Daniel frowned.

Dom asked, “Not your kind of thing?”

“No drums.”

“This is California Rock, man. The real deal. Try to listen, Danny.”

A green-eyed Princess of the East waits on her cowboy

She’s lost in the West, lost forever

Inside The Mystery House, up in that bad canyon

Up in that bad, bad canyon, waiting there forever.

Daniel shrugged. “Sounds like ‘Indian Lake.’ What happened to the bassist? How’d he die?”

Dom swayed along with Logue’s tone-deaf performance, hoping Tina would join in, but she was just as unimpressed as Daniel. “Well, the story is that Dave Yeller pissed off some biker Satanists at one of their rituals, and Rigg Dexon beat the crap out of the bikers and saved Yeller from being hammered to death. That’s their trademark. The cult uses hammers.”

Tina perked up. “So why’d they cut the girl up if they use hammers?”

Dom didn’t know. “Sending a message?” He meant that literally. As he heard it, parts of Logue’s body, wrapped in neat brown parcels, stamped and addressed, showed up on the doorsteps of musicians, producers, and directors. Eight sections in all, most accompanied by an appropriate section of the lavender-tinted snakeskin suit.

“Anyway, Yeller hanged himself in the stairwell of his mother’s basement.”

Daniel said, “Where do you get this stuff, man?”

Dom had to think about that. “Gary told me?”

Tina said, “I’m going to see
Gallows River
first day it comes out. I don’t care if it’s a Western. It’s supposed to be really hairy.”
Gallows River
was Rigg Dexon’s new film.

“You know they never found her head or hands,” Dom said. When the single concluded, he placed it back in its sleeve. He treated his records with great reverence.

Tina asked, “What do you think they did with them?”

“Probably rituals. Those are the powerful parts.”

Daniel was doubtful. “Don’t you think it’s more likely that they were mailed to like, mafia guys? You know, big deal crime bosses who weren’t going to complain to the authorities.”

Tina nodded. “Yeah, and they just pitched the head in the ocean. My sister said some kids found it rolling in with the tide like a coconut.”

“That’s impossible,” said Dom. “The waves and the sharks would have busted it up and picked it clean. I’m telling you, the head is all burned up and stuck on a pike in the desert.”

Dom’s seventeen-year-old brother trotted down the steps to the game room. It was two in the afternoon, but he’d only just woken up. He sneered at Dom and his friends and went straight to his dad’s beer fridge to grab a can of orange soda.

“Gary,” Dom said. “They burned that girl’s head up, right? The chick who sang
Mystery House
?”

Gary gulped the soda down in nearly a single go. The kids stared at his Adam’s apple, watching it work. When he was done, he burped and snorted. “Yup,” he said.

“See?”

But Gary wasn’t finished. “Then they tossed it in the ocean out in Malibu. When it came to shore it was just a pure white skull.” Gary peered at the kids, especially young Tina. He winked at her when he added, “David Cassidy’s got it in an aquarium full of neon tetras and knife fish.”

* * *

March 19, 2005: Centenary, NV

“They left me my watch. An expensive symbol, when you think about it. A gold Pierre Cardin with sapphire crystal glass. A very rare model, one of the first with a tiny window to count the days. I assume the Gardener wanted me to know how long I’d been out there in the desert if I ever came to my senses.” Nene Glatter let herself relax on Rigg Dexon’s sofa. They were going to be there a while.

She could see it in Rigg’s eyes. She was becoming younger, more familiar the longer he looked at her. He asked, “And how long was that?”

“Three days, beginning to end. I don’t know how long I was alone. I don’t know how long I was naked.”

When Kimber Logue got into that old van with the Gardener, Mickey, and Chip, they drove out into the desert and camped, much to her dismay; Kimber Logue wasn’t suited for rustic entertainments. At first it was just boring, the four of them smoking pot and drinking beer around a fire that sent sparks up into the sky. The Gardener wanted to tell them all the old stories about bad men and mining camps, a history he’d obviously grown up with, and at some point he was caught up. He’d run the entire gamut of what he knew, from John Wesley Hardin to Charlie Manson. Reaching the end made the Gardener sad and contemplative.