Sequel to HEADLOCK

[Burl Barer]

Several years ago I wrote a well-reviewed PI mystery, HEADLOCK. It was the first in a series. Sadly, the publisher folded and the sequel, MONKEY TRAP, remains incomplete and unpublished. <sigh> A nice publisher is interested in it, provided I make it less "ADD" -- I get a bit carried away with stories with stories and apparently disconnected digressions that do, actually, connect. So, a re-write is in order. Here is a sample of this "work in suspended animation" -- This is unrevised, in the full glory of its ADD symptoms,




People keep trying to kill me, and I’m getting tired of it.
No kidding. It’s big news. Front page story in the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin: “Another Attempt on Author’s Life: Jeff Reynolds Survives Midnight Marauder.”
Yes, I’m that Jeff Reynolds: Brilliant author, has-been clairvoyant, and the world’s worst private detective. Prior to the caper detailed in my best-seller, Headlock, I’d never cracked a case more complex that a twelve-pack of Pepsi. My Walla Walla, Washington private detective license is a shtick, a gimmick. You know, like the WWE Intercontinental Championship Belt.
“Excuse me, you’re Jeff Reynolds aren’t you?” The woman asking sits down uninvited on the next stool at the Pastime Café bar. I’m sipping Squirt, soaking up atmosphere, and contemplating what tunes I want played at my funeral. If she’d read the preceding paragraphs, she could forgo the redundant exposition.
“If you want to kill me, you still have time before they put the next issue of the U-B to bed,” I offer helpfully.
“Not right now, thank you,” she says. Her name, she tells me, is Dora Conke. She’s short with small hands, long silver hair, and a baritone voice. She’s maybe in her late ‘40s and is blessed with a mature undercurrent of seasoned sexuality that I find more stimulating that a boatload of Britney Spears impersonators. She knows the name I’m using these days, Jeff Reynolds. That means she also knows that people keep trying to kill me, and that I’m famous for more than evading death.
“Do you really see dead people,” she asks.
“Yes, mostly on American Movie Classics,” I answer pleasantly. “Just last night I saw Don Ameche and Clifton Webb. Webb was inspiring the Sousaphone; Ameche was inventing the telephone.”
“I’m serious, Mr. Reynolds. You have a reputation as being quite gifted.”
Gifted. Someone gave me away.
“I read in the paper that…uh…well…”
“People are trying to kill me, and I’m getting tired of it?”
“Yes, sort of. I read you last book…”
“Never say `last book,’ please,” I interrupt her. “Say `most recent.’”
“Okay, your most recent book, Headlock. It was quite fascinating.”
Quite.
“Now,” she says, shifting topic gears, “the `most recent’ attempt on your life, when that man broke into your home, you must have had a premonition, right?”
“I would rather have had ammunition.”
Truth is, I never saw it coming.
Obviously, he didn’t kill me. I’ll tell you about that later.
My famed intuition. To hell with it.
“America’s premier clairvoyant helps Homicide Task Force,” was USA Today’s headline eighteen years ago. I found the dismembered body of college co-ed Sarah Nussbaum, among others, when I uncovered the killer’s lair deep in the Issaquah woods. One year later I flew home from New York with an Edgar Award, the Mystery Writers of America’s highest honor, for Finding Sarah, my first person account of the entire horrid episode.
The homicides, to this day, remain unsolved.
Found the body; didn’t find the killer.
Being psychic gave me a headache, heartache, and I haven’t cranked “the gift” up over 25% in the past eighteen years. Hell, ten percent is enough to get me killed. Less than zero tells me that I can keep my life simple by setting down my Squirt, walking away, and forgetting Dora Conke ever asked me anything at all.
I’m too stupid to keep it simple.
If simplicity were my forte, I wouldn’t have met former movie actress Luna Bertrand for lunch in Beverly Hills. After all, that’s when people started trying to kill me.

****

In her Hollywood hey-day, they called Luna Bertrand “the poor man’s Anita Eckberg.” Today, they don’t call her at all.
Bertrand’s professional credentials: numerous mind-numbing B-movies and one apocryphal rumor that she had sex with the entire local electrician’s union in a failed bid to look brighter on screen.
Trust me, she’s no brighter in person.
Right now, she’s buying me steak at Meet & Potato’s, a trendy lunch spot. Brilliant authors such as myself never pass up a free lunch or a possible purloined plot. Actually, I’m primarily in Tinsel Town to do the last gasp promotion for the original version of Headlock before the movie gets made and the tie-in paperback comes out. You know, the one where they stick a replica of the movie poster on the cover and a banner that says `now a major motion picture.’ Of course, they’ll probably change the title. Last I heard, it was `Dogs of Heaven,’ placing it in people’s consciousness somewhere between animated animal antics and beauty shots of Richard Gere in a wheat field.
The obligatory mincing waiter delivers Luna’s salad and my medium-rare “hearty, yet light, nugget of tenderloin.” There’s more flash on the menu than flesh on the plate.
Perhaps Meet & Potato’s chef is vegetarian.
She reaches across the table, putting one diamond-or-zircon-augmented bony hand on mine. In transit, she almost knocks over her carafe of Zinfandel.
“In my luxury and leisure,” she intones unconvincingly, “I’ve learned all about you, Mr. Jeff Reynolds. You’re an award winning author, media celebrity, astonishing psychic, private detective...”
She drones on, reciting my resume almost verbatim - a talent perhaps tenuously acquired attempting memorization of such immortal movie dialog as, “Eeeek! You’re mad - the world will never stand being ruled by Norwegian robots!”
“May I call you Jeff?”
Sure. Call me Jeff.
Jeff Reynolds isn’t my real name, but it’s the one I’m using these days. Authors, disc jockeys, and professional wrestlers change identities with astonishing ease. One week you’re an all-American crusader vaulting into the ring to right wrongs; next you’re wearing a long blond wig, prancing about in a gold jumpsuit, and mounting a baby-faced country boy with a 2X4 on his shoulder.
I only have a chip on mine. She’s spit out my C.V., we both chew in ruminative self-absorption.
Luna looks off wistfully in the general direction of Paramount Pictures and the old RKO studio, as if recalling her glory days. Having no glory days to recall, the look is short lived.
“Motion pictures and the idiots who make them isn’t the real reason I asked you to join me, but as an actress, of course, I just can’t resist talking shop.”
She hasn’t had any shop to talk about since Bikini Death-Ray, a 1963 Italian-French-Canadian-Polynesian co-production never released in North America beyond the Texas drive-in movie circuit.
When patrons discovered the title’s “Bikini” referred not to skimpy swim attire, but the pacific atoll, there was a near riot of fanatical apathy. Today, her relationship to show-biz is on life support courtesy of Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter.
Ms Bertrand forces one of those make-up-crunching smiles that fall into the grimace category of unpleasant facial expressions. Soon, the large lips part like the Red Sea. Her delivery is dry; the remarks off-color. The target of her vitriol is a particular suspender-wearing movie producer who recently died under typical Hollywood conditions - a ‘toon dropped a piano on his head.
Just kidding.
“Person or persons unknown” stabbed him to death. There is nothing worse for your Hollywood career than being knifed in the back by an unknown. His dying words were no help to the authorities: “Monkey Trap.”
“Absolutely the biggest asshole in the industry,” she says. Perhaps Luna measured it during an audition.
“He was a drunk, a drug-addict, a sex-fiend,” Luna snaps as if doing color commentary on ESPN, “He completely sautéed his brains in cocaine and booze.”
“A noteworthy culinary achievement,” I respond cheerfully, “Sweetbreads ala indulgence.”
A long conversational pause, comprised of her dentures attacking spinach leaves as I dispatch the medium-rare remains of tenderloin, ends on a discordant note: “By the way…”
The phrase “by the way” is the human equivalent of Robbie the Robot yelping “Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!” It is only used to preface the most important, troublesome, accusatory, prying, or inappropriate statement.
“Weren’t you supposed to be so rich and famous after the success of Headlock that you didn’t need to take on any private eye cases, or do you snoop around now hoping for one more decent plot?”
Only one more? Luna is either attempting a friendly tease, or achieving an unfriendly attitude. I give her the benefit of the doubt.
She looks at her salad as if discovering a salamander molting in the romaine, then reaches into her purse and pulls out a newspaper clipping.
I’ve seen it before.
“Celebs Soaked as Dot Com Sinks.”
The feature story by Dale C. Unruh details the financial disaster visited upon numerous well-knowns who lost their fortunes investing in a Seattle Internet Filtering Company, Pirus. It is pronounced, “Pi-R-US” as in “Pi-R-Squared.” You can also say it, “We-Be-Screwed.”
“I was avoiding what I call, The Fletch Syndrome,” I say easily, acting nonchalant. “I planted my name among the losers as to not lose my readers.”
This goes over her wig-adorned head. She awaits an explanation.
Okay. I’ll explain.
“There was once an award winning mystery book entitled, Fletch - an excellent book with a sympathetic protagonist and one of the best twist endings ever, but….”
“But?”
“A big but.”
She squirms uncomfortably as if I’m referring to her excessive anterior.
“At the end of the book, the impoverished protagonist hit the financial jackpot. Which is fine in and of itself, but it also means that the author could never pen a sequel in which the main character was still the loveable underdog in over his head.”
“You’re quite incorrect, Jeff,” she disagrees politely, “Chevy Chase made more than one Fletch movie. I ought to know, I was on the studio lot when they were making the sequel.”
She doesn’t get it.
“What I mean, Luna, is that I didn’t really lose all my money, but I don’t want to write a first person narrative sequel in which I’m filthy rich.”
She squints at me. A hefty chunk of mascara breaks lose from her eye-lid and plops into her salad bowl.
I look for more meat on my plate
There isn’t any.
Perhaps she’ll share that salamander.
“How do you feel about blackmail, Jeff?”
“Doing it, preventing it, or experiencing it?”
“None of the above,” she says wearily. “I have a deep dark secret - one that would destroy my career, if I had one. At one time, I could have been blackmailed over it. Happily, if the secret were revealed today, the scandal would generate a brief, yet rewarding, comeback.”
“What’s the big secret?”
She puts up her hand as if stopping traffic. Her looks, I assure you, never did that.
“Were I to reveal it,” she continues, “no one will believe me. But if Edgar Award winner Jeff Reynolds reveals it, it will be one hot story.”
Hot Story.
“I was younger then, an ingenue, the war was raging…”
The Crimean?
“I was involved in something horrid, disgusting, repellent…”
She tacks on three more negative descriptives before plugging her verbal faucet with a large leaf of lettuce.
“So, Luna, you want me to investigate your past, and then expose the awful secret?”
“And I’ll pay you for it,” she announces as if revealing the surprise ending of Titanic. The amount she quotes is more than the budget of her last two films combined. Were there any steak left to chew, I’d be choking.
My face flushes; I loosen my tie.
“Wailer,” chirps Bertrand happily turning toward our table server, “bring Mr. Reynolds a Tall Cool One.”
Wailer?
Tall Cool One?
I must have misunderstood her. In May, 1959 a rock band from Tacoma, Washington was on the Dick Clark Show with their No. 36 national hit, "Tall Cool One." The Wailers had only been together for ninety days, wrote the tune in five minutes, recorded it in one take, with one mike, on one track of a portable Ampex tape deck at the Knights of Columbus Hall. It was if they had a charted hit in less time than it took you to read this paragraph.
How could it happen so fast?
Simple.
The Wailers were sitting around the residence of band member Kent Morril. Kent, banging on the baby-grand piano, happened to hit the one note that begins the tune, 'paooom' and that was it. They ad-libbed the song in a couple of minutes. It was just the same three chords. Then Kent’s mom thought of the title.
Yep. A note, three chords, and a mom is all it takes. Oh, it also helps if you know someone who knows Sal Mineo. Sal's Uncle Art was the Wailers' manager, and it was he who arranged a one take recording session at the Knights of Columbus Hall. The tape was turned to vinyl by Golden Crest, a New York label known best for children’s records.
“I didn’t realize you were so financially well-endowed,” I say to Luna, pocketing the check and sipping that Tall Cool One. I’m looking at her, but my mind is in Walla Walla’s VFW hall where regional bands such as the Wailers, the Bluenotes, and the Frantics performed on Friday or Saturday nights.
“My great wealth is, I must admit,” confesses Luna, “did not derive from my astonishing film career. I was married for several lucrative years to the late Mr. Noland Tubole, inventor of the Tubole Toilet….”
The Tubole, pronounced “two bowl,” is a “his and hers” two-seater toilet. With one side for him, and another for her, it eliminated the common complaint that men leave the toilet seat up. It was all the craze for a decade or two. The Tubole became the most popular “must-have” bathroom accessory since aerosol spray deodorant.
She’s pausing prior to her punch line about Mr. Tubole. A beat too long, mind you, and her delivery belongs on a truck. “…he died and left me flush.”
I laugh from obligation; smile out of courtesy. The majority of her inheritance, it appears, is now in the coffers of Max Factor.
“In the frantic world of plumbing accessories,” I intone as if I’m a movie preview, “Luna Bertrand held a straight flush.”
She laughs gleefully, stretches across the table and enthusiastically kisses me on the cheek. “Oh Jeff, you are just like I heard you would be - you are so damn likeable.”
I feel the smooch, smell her cloying perfume, and guard against condiments spilling into my lap. My body responses are here, but my mind is savoring the flavor of words associated with another day, another identity - the words “Frantics” and “Wailers.”
“Luna, dear,” I say while leaning in towards her with a mischievous conspiratorial attitude, “you know show-biz inside and out. So, imagine this: four recording artists all having hit songs…”
She’s enthralled. We’re talking shop.
“And all four, ” I pause for melodramatic effect, “feature the exact same saxophone solo.”
Luna leans back and looses a hearty, knowing laugh.
I’m being polite. It’s an inane cackle.
“Four artists, four labels, four publishers,” she recaps, “innumerable law suits with settlements in the millions.”
She’s correct in our contemporary world of artistic possession. Eight million dollars, I believe, was the suit filed by Huey Lewis and the News against Ray Parker, Jr. for the song “Ghostbusters” - a tune remarkably similar to Lewis’ “I Need a New Drug.”
“Up in the Northwest,” I explain, “the Wailers and the Frantics both had hit records at the same time. The Wailers had `Tall Cool One;’ the Frantics had `Straight Flush.’ Both songs featured identical saxophone solos.”
“That’s two of four,”says Luna, demonstrating her astonishing mastery of mathematics. “Who stole from whom?”
“Explanation #1: The Wailers heard the Frantics' "Straight Flush" before it was released and copied the solo note for note. Not far fetched, as `Straight Flush’ sat around for a while before being released, while `Tall Cool One’ was released immediately.”
“Explanation #2: The Wailers didn't lift it from the Frantics, they lifted it from "Short Shorts" by the Royal Teens - that song has the same sax solo as well.”
She thinks this over, holding up three fingers. Yes, Luna, that’s three out of four. When we reach number four, perhaps she’ll stomp out the number with her foot.
“So, the Frantics stole it from the Royal Teens,” says Luna, “and the Wailers stole it from the Frantics.”
“Nope. The Frantics skimmed their take from ‘Bacon Fat,’ an old R&B classic on King Records, which is also where the Royal Teens got it. You see, Luna, four records with the same sax solo in the same time period might be grounds for a law suit today, but back then….”
I smile and shrug. “It was nothing.”
“How naïve,” she says.
How pure.
“`Straight Flush’ could have come out far before the Wailers' `Tall Cool One,’ but the Frantics had to wait for Reisdorff and Boles' to finish putting out the Fleetwood's `Come Softly to Me’, the first of that trio's fifteen hit records. In 1959 the Fleetwoods were the only artists in the world with two number one singles.”
"When the Fleetwoods toured, folks were surprised that there were only three of them. But mostly,” I conclude, “ they were surprised that the Fleetwoods weren't black."
“In my day,” remarks Luna, “it didn’t pay to be black. I mean, how many roles could there be for Butterfly McQueen as opposed to Steve McQueen?”
“You’re correct, Ms Bertrand, they never offered Butterfly the Cooler King role in the Great Escape.”
“That proves my point perfectly,” she states as if that settles everything. Exhuming inexplicable joy from our fragmented conversation, she turns the topic back to my investigative assignment.
“There is danger to you in taking my case, Mr. Jeff Reynolds. And I don’t mean being soaked by a sinking dot com.”
That’s right, rub it in.
“Jeff, I want to make this clear.”
She’s acting serious.
Acting.
Serious.
“You may be murdered or assassinated or killed. One of the three.”
Dandy. I can see the headlines now: Author dies of multiple choice.

[Burl Barer]

The last two lines were originally the first two lines of the book.

[Lilo]

( I followed you here and joined JUST to comment on this, btw )

On topic.. I sort of like ADD books. I prefer to read a book in one sitting- so I like for a lot of interconnected story lines going on to keep me embraced in the story.

Love the last two lines :D