“You ordered Shortbread.”

“No. There’s a new sheet of paper on my desk. Came off the bottom of the box is all I can figure. Static electricity maybe. Anyhow, it’s a typewritten disbursement log for narcotics detail. For informants and drug buys, all that. Third from the bottom, in the amount of two hundred dollars?”

“Janelle Vonn.”

“Right.”

“On the Sheriff’s payroll. I like this.”

Verna looked at him and nodded. Took a big drink. “I thought you would.”

“Two hundred dollars,” mused Andy.

“So…”

“So you…”

“So, I’ve been hearing about Janelle Vonn all day, right? I mean the whole county building is buzzing with the beheaded beauty queen, so I discreetly visit my good friend-”

“Pam, in Assistant Sheriff Louden’s office.”

“Right, and she tells me, in absolute strictest confidence, that Janelle Vonn has been on the payroll for four years.”

Andy clicked straight back to his conversation that morning with Craig, owner of Blue Beat records. Thought of the merry stoners he’d seen hanging around in the back of the store-Timothy Leary and Ronnie Joe Fowler and that Indian fakir with eyes like wet obsidian. The sweet smell of hashish. And Craig saying while he hung the black light behind the counter so the Cream poster would light up blue, The thing about Janelle is she liked getting high, but she got it under control. Then she got into acid and really dug it. For her it was pure experience. Chick had a brain.

But, thought Andy, to collect a paycheck she had to hang with the heads. Tell some tales. Deliver pay dirt, sooner or later. Try LSD and find out she really liked it.

Craig didn’t know if Janelle had had a regular job or not.

Nick didn’t, either, as of midnight Wednesday. He’d said all the pay stubs he’d found in her cottage were old.

Karl Vonn didn’t know. Neither did Janelle’s degenerate brothers.

Andy clicked back to another conversation. Five months ago, May. Ran into Janelle coming out of the White House bar with three locals he recognized. One was a big blond hippie guy who owned a local leather store. Cory somebody. One a hotshot movie director just back from making a surfing film in South Africa. And Jesse Black, the musician, scruffy and lost-looking as always.

Janelle had looked vibrant and self-conscious. Unforgettably lovely. A nominee on Oscar night. None of that hippie stuff. A tailored black leather jacket with silver on it and red accents. Black satin pants, leather boots. Dark waves of hair faceted by streetlight. Red lips and dimples. Skin pale in the fog.

The three men acted bored while Janelle stepped away to talk to Andy.

Got my own pad here in town. I love Laguna. Everybody’s so friendly.

You look good, Janelle.

I’m so sorry what happened to Clay. Call me sometime. Here. I’ll write the number.

Now Andy wondered if Janelle could have afforded a place of her own in Laguna on a snitch’s salary. He made a note to ask Nick again if Janelle had had a job.

“What are you thinking about?” Verna asked.

He shrugged.

“Never mind,” she said.

What he was thinking about was the White House matchbook Janelle had written her phone number and address on. Tossed it in his change drawer. Never called because that night outside the White House his heart had fallen to the sidewalk and bounced to Mars and back. Even though he was twenty-six and she was just a year out of high school. Even though he was with Teresa and intended to honor that. Even though he understood that Janelle Vonn was more valuable untouched by him.

So he’d kept the matchbook. Looked at it a few times. Saw her cottage from the beach a couple of times. But never called.

“I’ll tell you what I was thinking about,” said Verna. “I was wondering why the cops were paying a fifteen-year-old girl to risk her life.”

“Me, too.”

THE BAND started off with “Satisfaction,” ran off some Byrds and Dylan. Andy and Verna took a booth for themselves because there was hardly any crowd.

Teresa blew in around ten, glasses slightly askew and hair messed up by the breeze. Against the fashion of the moment, Teresa had recently cut her pretty auburn hair short. The night she did it she’d told Andy she wanted it businesslike but had left plenty of craven sex in it for him. Proven it, too.

One of her other reporters was with her, the guy who covered Newport Beach. Chas Birdwell. Andy disliked Chas’s smug face and the degree he’d earned at Stanford as a classmate of Teresa’s. She’d fired her former Newport Beach reporter, brought Chas down from San Francisco, and put him to work. Told jokes only they got. Knew all the same people. Stupid football games. Reunion every year, some rich kid’s summer mansion up in Tahoe. All that shit you didn’t get at Fullerton State, especially when you dropped out after two years.

As Teresa came across the empty dance floor toward him Andy had to smile. Something about her. Tall and slender. Cagey eyes in a pretty face, a wild laugh. Great brain. When she sat down and kissed his cheek he could smell the pot in her hair. And see the big black pupils in her gray eyes.

Chas offered Verna a dismissive little peace sign, Andy a nod, as he slid into the booth behind Teresa and sat down.

Five minutes later Jesse Black ambled in. Black had a guitar case in his hand, a worn peacoat. Then behind him, the leather store hippie in some cool black leather jacket like you’d figure. Cory. Black stayed by the stage. Cory headed straight for the bar. Cory must be six-five, thought Andy. Black stood with a forlorn expression, looking at the band.

“Uh-oh,” said Chas. “Guitar boy thinks it’s open mike night.”

“His name is Jesse Black and he’s a better songwriter than you are a reporter,” said Andy.

“Whoa,” said Chas. “I’ve been put in my place.”

“Cool it, Andy,” said Teresa.

Verna leaned toward them. “He was-”

Andy found her knee under the table and squeezed it firmly.

“He was up in L.A.,” said Andy. “Making a demo tape the last few months. Working the clubs.”

“Right,” said Verna, placing her hand over Andy’s, still on her knee. “That’s about all I know about him.”

Chas nodded without interest. Shook the wave of thick blond hair off his forehead. Had one of those stiff imperialist mustaches. Like you should salute it.

Teresa looked at Andy oddly but he saw her curiosity melt into the high she was on. That’s why she smoked it, he thought. For the way it dulled one part of her mind and sharpened another. Close one window. Open another. They said the LSD was best of all. Sandoz. Blotter. Windowpane. Orange Sunshine. Purple Haze. Wasn’t sure if he had the balls to try it. Stories about people going permanently insane. Oops, wrong window. Didn’t seem to have hurt Tim Leary any.

“So, what have you two been up to tonight?” Andy asked.

Teresa recounted her night so far with Chas: a Newport edition editorial/advertising meeting at six, quick bite at the Crab Cooker at seven, fund-raiser for the Charity League at the Newport Pavilion, you know how those things drag on forever.

Chas chuckled. Verna nodded. Andy watched Jesse Black as he propped his guitar case against the carpeted wall beside the stage and pulled out a Martin with a pickup built over the sound hole.

The band finished “Taxman” and the lead singer welcomed Jesse Black onstage.

Everyone clapped. Maybe eight people. The hippie girls with the clove cigarettes extra hard. They were checking out Cory at the bar.

Chas clapped stupidly loud, the wave of hair over his forehead jiggling.

Black slung on his guitar. Plugged in and strummed a chord. Made his way to the lead singer’s mike, pulling his cord through the stands and monitors.

Little guy, young. Thin and pale. Dark stubble, dead eyes.

“Some songs for a girl I knew,” he said. Turned his back on the tiny audience and conferred with the lead guitarist.