Ultraviolet. Nancy Bush
Masturbation’s supposed to be healthy. It’s the lying I can’t stand. You know what I mean?”
I nodded. I hate being lied to. Lying to others, however, is what I live for. An unfair dichotomy that rarely bothers me.
“Gotta get him out and someone else in.” She eyed me some more. “You looking to move? It’s a nice place. Not far off Hawthorne.”
Her words had the power to almost pierce me. It was like the whole world knew I was being kicked out. “I’m pretty happy where I am.”
“I don’t doubt it,” she said a bit ruefully. “That’s a nice cottage. I was just hoping.”
Aren’t we all?
“So, what brings you down to the Crock?”
“I’m meeting Sean Hatchmere here.”
“Who?”
I half twisted in my chair. “I think he’s with a band…maybe?”
“Oh. Yeah, the musicians. They’re all stoned or worse. That’s a stereotype and a fact. I’ve smoked some weed, but that other stuff’ll kill ya.”
Megan, I remembered, smoked Players as well. Sometimes I like the scent of a freshly lit cigarette, but the environs of the Crock were saturated with that stale, musty scent of old cigarettes, dust and, drifting from the kitchen, overused grease. I imagined boiling oil somewhere beyond that turned out jalapeño poppers, clam strips, chicken fingers and assorted deep-fried appetizers at an alarming rate.
“Didn’t you say you used to tend bar?” she asked.
“In Southern California. A place called Sting Ray’s.”
“If you ever want to moonlight, we’re always looking for someone to fill in.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said as Megan went back to fill another barmaid’s order.
I tried to put myself in the picture as an employee of the Crock. I liked the dress code. Pants, as opposed to shorts or short skirts. Easier to work in. But the hours, and the lingering smells, and the drunks…
Not that process serving, one of the offshoots of my business, doesn’t have its perils and pitfalls. While Violet’s case was on stall, I’d delivered a few notices with varying risks to my person. Three days ago I’d damn near gotten run down by a guy I’d served with divorce papers. The asshole got in his car while I was heading toward mine, suddenly shifted in reverse and stamped on the accelerator, roaring backward straight for me. I’m always a little more on my toes when I deliver people bad news, so I nimbly leapt out of his Porsche’s path. He reversed right into the street and broadsided a passing sedan, luckily catching it at the back wheel well, so no one was seriously hurt. Everyone started screaming and shrieking and a man the size of Greenland unfolded himself from the sedan’s driver’s seat and glared down at the prick in the Porsche. I gave Greenland my phone number, told him I’d seen the whole thing, then climbed into my Volvo and calmly drove around them. I’d really wanted to flip the Porsche driver off. He’d tried to kill me, after all. But it looked to me like justice would be served, so I just rolled down my window and whistled the theme from Rocky at him as I cruised past.
Maturity may not be my long suit. Doesn’t mean it didn’t feel good.
I finished my drink but held on to my silver glass as I strolled away from the bar and toward the back of the room where scruffy men in dark T-shirts and wrinkled pants checked the sound and lights. I watched a guy unroll a wad of thick electrical cable, his movements so deliberate I wondered if he was in a zone. A drug zone, possibly, although I’ve known other people who moved at the speed of sloth.
There was a grouping of two-person café tables in front of the stage and I snagged a chair. The lighting was dim, which was probably a blessing as I tend to get anxious when I see the accumulation of dirt and crud that seems to go hand in hand with small nightclubs. I can live with a certain amount of dog hair clinging to my clothes. But true dirt? Inside, not outside? Uh-uh.
My eyes narrowed on the dusty footprints layered upon each other atop the dark stage. Get a broom, somebody.
“Sean, get up the catwalk and check that spot.”
The speaker was an older guy with a frizzy, gray ponytail. He was pointing to a track light attached to a crossbeam above the far end of the stage. Sean was the guy slowly wrapping up the cable.
Could there be two Seans? I wondered hopefully. This one was slight with shaggy hair to his shoulders and a dopey expression on his thin face. Either he was under sedation or there was one very long neuron between sensory input and brain processing. He was, however, about the right age. Twenty-five, maybe?
Sean slowly balanced a tall ladder against the aforementioned catwalk. I held my breath as he climbed upward, his movements at a steady pace of .002 miles per hour. He trudged across the walk to the light, which he fiddled with and fiddled with while Frizzy Ponytail barked orders. Eventually they were both satisfied and Sean crept back down the rungs and returned to coiling cable. He’d sounded a lot more energetic on the phone.
I checked my watch. Eleven-thirty. Maybe I could get this interview over early and skedaddle before the witching hour. The thought of my bed was an invitation I wanted to accept sooner rather than later.
“Sean Hatchmere?” I asked, as he walked across the stage in front of me, his sneakers and pant legs passing by at eye level.
He stopped, shading his eyes against the lights to look down at me. “Yeah?”
“Jane Kelly.”
It took a moment. “Oh. Yeah. Ya wanna come on back?” He veered toward the rear of the stage and after a brief second of hesitation, I hauled myself onto the dusty apron and followed, brushing off my palms.
Behind the enormous speakers and false walls was a rabbit warren of alleyways fashioned from more enormous false walls and black set boxes. I could see the bright green of an EXIT sign through a slit between black curtains. Sean stopped ahead of me and motioned me into a room with a haphazard selection of folding chairs. The greenroom, apparently, where the performers waited before going onstage.
Sean took a folding chair and I pulled up one beside him. The light was dim enough that I couldn’t tell if his eyes were unfocused or not. “You wanted to talk about Dad,” he said. His voice was a near monotone, but I thought that might be just his natural way of speaking rather than a passive-aggressive kind of compliance, the kind I might have used in the principal’s office once upon a time.
“Violet didn’t kill your father, either purposely or by accident,” I said, forcing myself to sound positive. “She wants to find who did, and I’m trying to make that happen. I’m just gathering information. You’re the first person interested in talking to me.”
“You’re a private eye?”
“Something like that.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a work in progress.” I explained about the steps it took to be licensed, and Sean listened with apparent interest.
“That’s cool.” He bobbed his head. “You can’t, like, bust some-one for something, though, huh? Like drugs, or…stuff…”
“I’m not the police.”
“I dunno what I can tell ya. Dad was a control freak. Really wanted me to be a doctor, like he was. But y’know how that turned out.” He peered at me through hanks of hair.
“He got his medical license revoked,” I said.
“He was a lot more fun before that.” His tone was wistful. “All of a sudden he’s, like, climbing down my throat, turning my room upside down, sniffing around like a drug dog, y’know? Found a little stash of weed and thinks I’m a crackhead. Sends me to this rehab place with, like, these old people. Everybody’s got a prescription drug problem. I mean, really. Like housewives and businessmen and lawyers