51

(Los Angeles, 12/24/68)

Merry Christmas.

He got the standard card and five-spot from his mother. This one: postmarked Racine, Wisconsin. He brought his dad the standard C-note and Reuben sandwich. Dad did his fuck-off number and pissed on his shoes.

Memo: work on your mother’s file. Query the Racine PD. Memo: your case file is updated. Your case is dead-stalled. Memo: get your ass to the rockin’ D.R. and voodoo-vamped Haiti.

Christmas Eve, the wheelman lot, Clyde Duber’s yule bash. Deli food and keg beer. Cocktails by the gas pumps, free uppers from the quick-script pharmacy.

Crutch circulated. He was amphetamized and holiday-lonely. Wayne sent Froggy to Panama. Fuck that place. All roads led to the D.R. All front-man reports would point there.

Phil Irwin was poking a spade chick on the service lift. Scotty Bennett brought some go-go girls in to give snout. Buzz Duber’s car was Santa’s Blow Job Zone. Fred Otash dispensed free play chips for his Vegas dive. Bobby Gallard shot craps with Clyde and Chick Weiss. They used Scotty’s pissed-on Vietcong flag as a blanket.

Crutch re-circulated and got re-blue. He was bored. Dwight Holly pulled him off the Marsh Bowen gig. He kept mum on Bowen’s fruitness and held it as a hole card. He kept up the spot tails anyway-they might go somewhere. Clyde had him working divorce gigs full-time. Buzz gave up on “the case.” He never had full-scale knowledge or full-on balls for the job. Buzz was a yuks amp; fucks guy. Donald Linscott Crutchfield killed ten Communists. Arland “Buzz” Duber extorted hookers for skull.

Scotty drifted by. Bobby Gallard schmoozed him up. Hey, boss-that Bowen chump got famous off that shit he pulled with you.

Scotty smiled and winked.

Scotty pointed to the 18’s stitched on his tie.

Scotty scrawled 19 in the air.

Peeper Christmas.

Crutch drove by Julie’s house, Peggy’s house and Kay’s house. The girls were his age. They always exchanged gifts after dinner. Dad rigged the same outside lights every year. Crutch knew the routine.

Julie’s window view was better than last year. Julie’s folks gave her geek boyfriend some geek reindeer socks. He got that “Oh shit” look. Julie nudged him-be nice, now.

The family knocked back eggnog. Dad got sclerotic-flushed. The geek shuffled his feet and displayed a wedding ring. Mom and Dad boo-hooed. Everybody hugged. Julie’s brother Kenny died at 1st and Arden. Two-car wipe-out, late ‘62. Kenny was a glue-sniffer and a whip-out artiste. He whipped it out on Buzz’s girlfriend, Jane Hayes. Buzz and Crutch kicked his ass, circa ‘61.

The Julie Show bombed. You’ll be so happy, boo-hoo. Crutch drove by Peggy’s house and Kay’s house. The window curtains were drawn. Next stop: 2nd and Plymouth.

Bright windows. No lawn manger-Dana Lund had taste. He killed his lights and waited. He shined his penlight on the dashboard and Christmas-lit Joan. He brain-tripped: Joan’s face and Dana’s story.

Her husband, Bob, died in Korea. Chrissie was four then. Dana went back to nursing and sold real estate part-time. She was born in 1915. She’d be fifty-four in March. She dated rich stiffs intermittently. She started touching up her gray hair in mid-’64. Crutch noted it then.

Chrissie walked through the living room. Dana followed her. Crutch choked tears back. Dana was wearing the sweater he bought her on the day he thought he would die.

Options: Trinity Lutheran Church or Marsh Bowen’s new pad. Midnight services de-blued him sometimes. Nix that: the pastor knew his peeper rep and hated him. He was still wired. That meant Niggertown by default.

Marsh Bowen was racially regressing. His pad on Denker was jig-upscale. His pad on East 86th was a coon cave. Cinder-block struts, window bars, spookedelic paint.

Clock in: 12:51 a.m.

Crutch parked and waited. The radio supplied distraction. He got Christmas carols and Brother Bobby X, live at Rae’s Rugburn Room. Brother Bobby ragged on the Jews and wished black folk an off-the-pigs New Year. Marsh Bowen walked out at 1:14 a.m. New vines: trim-cut and all blaaaaack.

Bowen walked past his car and schlepped it down to Imperial Highway. Bright lights there: all-night gas stations and coffee shops.

Cut him slack, he’s too close, he’ll see you.

Crutch waited two minutes and jammed southbound. He hit the corner and looked both ways. No pedestrians. He slow-cruised Goody-Goody’s and the Carolina Pines, big windows at both locations. There’s Bowen in the Pines, drinking coffee solo.

The place was semi-deserted. Crutch parked and ambled in slow. Fruit Alert: Bowen eyeball-trolled all the single men.

Walk in, get close, within eavesdrop range.

Crutch shagged a table two over. It provided a back view of Bowen. A waitress brought coffee. Aaaahhh, good-re-fuel those jets.

Bowen fidgeted and checked his watch. Fruit Alert: a fat Mex smirky-eyed him. Bowen shuddered and looked down.

Crutch checked the door. It popped open. He blinked. It can’t be. He rubbed his eyes-yes, no, yes.

Joan Klein walked in and sat down with Bowen. She removed her overcoat. She smiled. She took off her beret and shook out her hair.

She cleaned her glasses on a napkin. She looked older without them. She wore a black knit dress. Her knife scar was covered. Crutch went hot/cold/hot/cold/hot/cold.

Joan and Bowen talked. It was sotto voce. Crutch peeled and re-peeled his ears and couldn’t hear shit. Bowen sipped coffee. Joan sipped coffee and smoked. A white couple gave them a pissy mixed-couple look. Joan touched Bowen’s arm-one time, two times, three. Bowen three-time flinched. Crutch picked up sound waves. He got Joan’s husky voice. It burned straight through him.

He kept his head down. Their eyes never clicked. Joan’s talking more, Joan’s on the make, Bowen’s homo-reluctant. Joan kissed Gretchen/Celia at the rental house that night.

Crutch leaned closer. His ears throbbed. He couldn’t read Joan’s lips. Bowen coughed and said, “Weird dream of you.” Joan spoke a little louder. She said, “Safe house.”

That’s it, no more, back to soft talk and-

Crutch got un-wired and re-circuited and re-wired.

Safe house, rent house, fake stewardess Gretchen/Celia. Fake address: “Some Commie safe house.”

Crutch put a dollar down and walked out sloooooow.

Safe house, rent house, death house. Confluence, proximity-

His tools got him in. Horror House: the third tour.

No hippies or winos residing. Unchanged since last time. More dampness, new winter stench, accelerating decay. The floorboards creaked louder, the cold air stung more.

His last tour. He had to do visible damage. He couldn’t come back. Her presence here was a long shot. He had to try.

Lock picks, pry bar, crowbar, flashlight, penlight. Burglar’s jerry-rigged stethoscope, three hours to dawn.

He walked the house top-to-bottom. He opened every drawer and scanned every shelf. He cut open every piece of upholstered furniture. He looked behind every framed picture and pulled up every rug.

The house was cold. Cold sweat drenched him. He dropped his tools, wiped his hands dry and kept going.

He climbed ladders and checked every wall and ceiling beam. He beat rats to death with a shovel in the attic and combed every inch. He pried off the downstairs floorboards and poked through cobwebs, insect nests and dirt.

It was raining. Dawn was breaking slow. That gave him more time. He was dirt-caked. His sweat turned it to a thin mud.

He tapped every wall panel. He put his ear to the stethoscope and listened for hollow thunks.

It was Christmas morning, he heard church bells, he almost cried.