“His high school sweetheart?” Chas whispered to Teresa. “Died of a banana peel overdose?”

“That’s dumb,” said Teresa.

“What do you expect from a spoiled moron?” asked Andy.

“Let’s go outside,” said Chas.

“Piss on you.”

Teresa grabbed his ear and turned his face to hers. “What’s wrong with you?”

Andy jerked his head free. “I’m sorry. No sleep. The Vonn thing has me wired and weird.”

“Go home and sleep. I’ll be there later.”

“I’m writing tonight. First I want to hear some music.”

“Leave Chas alone. You don’t get to abuse the personnel just because the boss is in love with you.”

“Good. Yeah. That’s fair.”

For the next hour Jesse Black sang twelve of the prettiest songs Andy had ever heard. Sweet and smart. Passionate and humorful. Sexy, sad, beautiful. He was a good guitar player and his chords changed unexpectedly. His music sounded new and different in a way Andy couldn’t put a finger on. The band knew most of the songs, you could tell. Filling in at the right time, backing off for the rest. Nice voice, too. Clear, a little high, something innocent and yearning in it.

The last one Jesse Black did alone. A song he’d finished about two hours ago, he said. “Imagine You.” The band kept their places. Hung their heads and listened. Twenty-one-gun salute, thought Andy, rock and roll style. The drummer banged a stick on his high hat when he wiped his eyes, looked embarrassed.

A LITTLE while later Andy said goodbye to Teresa and walked Verna to her car. Kept walking up Coast Highway after she drove off. At St. Ann ’s he went down the concrete stair steps to the sand. From the beach he could see Janelle Vonn’s little cottage up on the rise. And the black ocean with a wobble of moonlight on it.

Should he have called her? Maybe learned what the inside of that cottage was like?

Would that have changed things? Changed what happened in the packinghouse?

He thought of Meredith in her red coat with the upturned collar and the falling stars. Married a dentist. Batch of kids already. Better that way. She deserved better than him.

Thought of Clay. That face of his. That grin. The confidence he had. His meanness that wasn’t quite mean. The assumption that he was right and he would win and his cause was good. A sniper near Kontum. Hearts and minds. How many like him dead by now-seventeen, eighteen thousand? Eighteen thousand! For what? It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it. He’d actually heard an army “spokesman” quoted as saying that on TV the other night. The words had been haunting him ever since.

Andy also thought of himself. Standing right here on earth, this brief little man. Thought of Jesse Black’s songs about Janelle and his own story about the Wolfman Terry Neemal and wondered at the difference between the two. He wanted to make something beautiful, like Jesse Black had made. Andy felt this thing inside that was Janelle but not only Janelle. Believed that a lot of people would want to have the same feeling if he could just give it to them.

Then he saw a light go on in Janelle Vonn’s cottage. Saw a man move past a window behind the curtain. One of Nick’s guys?

Nick himself?

Jesse Black?

Andy moved into the shadow of the bluff. Crunched along the ice plant until he made the stairs. Took them two at a time, trying to keep from slipping on the smooth sandy steps. Legs wobbly. Made the top and stayed with the shadow to the north wall of the house. Squatted down and leaned against it. Heart throbbing against his ribs so loud the world could hear it.

He could hear the man inside. Drawers quietly opening and closing. Closets. Cupboards. Hard shoes on wooden floors. Not urgent. Not covert, really. Methodical.

Ten minutes of that, then nothing. Andy’s legs sore now, the circulation cut down. He moved closer to the north window, got his face up to the bottom corner of the weather-beaten frame.

The curtain didn’t quite cover the pane so Andy got a peek in. Just a sliver but he made out the sofa and posters and part of a kitchen at the far end. A hallway leading back into the house.

Then the man coming from the hall toward him, into the kitchen. Just a split second of face in the light: white guy, late twenties, short dark hair. Suit and tie. He turned and came into the living room, sat on the sofa. Andy could see his profile. Dark eyes, looking up at the ceiling. Thoughtful. Considered. The guy sat there and stared for five minutes. Hardly blinked. Then he stood and went to the front door, locked it. Wiped the lock and knob with a white hankie and walked out.

Andy scrambled around the house, out of sight. Heard footsteps, a car door open and shut. The engine turn over.

When he heard tires moving on blacktop he peeked around the corner. A white four-door pulled up to Coast Highway and made a right. Got the California plate numbers.

He sat for a few minutes with his back against the yellow cottage. Wrote the numbers in his reporter’s notebook. Then up to Coast Highway and the pay phone at the market. Took forever for this guy with a ponytail and earrings and eyes red as rubies to hang up. Pregnant woman on the other one, feeding in dimes like a slot machine.

Nick picked up on the fourth ring and Andy told him what he’d seen. Nick made him say everything at least twice. Taking notes, Andy could hear. He checked his watch when he hung up. It was almost one in the morning.

Back down to the sand. Then along the moon-silvered beach to Cress Street and his home with Teresa. She was still gone. Probably closing the ’Piper, thought Andy. If Chas wasn’t such an asshole he’d be worried about her.

He sat in the living room for a while and thought. Nick hadn’t ventured a guess as to who the guy might be. But Andy wasn’t expecting one.

HE POURED a light drink and went into the little laundry room. His spot. Quiet with the door closed. Good light overhead. Typewriter on a rolling stand, a towel folded under the machine so it wouldn’t bang and echo too much late at night and wake up Teresa. Smell of dryer lint and detergent in here, always liked it.

He took the manuscript out of the cabinet and looked it over. Three hundred and eighty-one pages. His third full novel. Two others too worthless to show, boxed right there in the cabinet side by side, like a couple of beds in an empty room. Proof of something, Andy believed. Stubbornness? Devotion? Vanity?

He looked down at the paper and thought about the scene. Where the smugglers heading from Mexico to Laguna drop the Orange Sunshine and trip all the way through Baja. Don’t realize the federales are following them. Point where the adventure turns ugly.

Strange Trippin’ by Andrew James Becker.

He stared at the blank page for a while, tried to let his mind fill up with the story.

But it wouldn’t fill up. He couldn’t even get interested. Couldn’t think of anything but Janelle Vonn-Baby, time will pass you by but you can catch up if you try-in the packinghouse with her head ten feet away. And the guy in her house. And his unhappy brother trying to find out why.

Helluva first case. Now that was a story.