The Do-Re-Mi Page 12

  “Yes.”

  “Was he growing weed?”

  Roy must not have expected so blunt a question. He stared then blinked as though his eyes hurt. “No.”

  “Did you hear the shots?”

  “No. When I sleep, I sleep hard.”

  “How about your wife and kids?” Pop asked. “Did they hear shots?”

  Roy stared past Pop and me, toward the open door as though he expected his wife to return. “Sara was already gone and the kids sleep harder than I do.”

  I supposed Pop believed Roy’s wife had ditched him. He sat nodding. I asked, “Who killed Jimmy?”

  Roy closed his eyes and kept still as though waiting for the air to whisper an answer, until Othello ran in and announced, “Daddy, we loused Daffy and Petunia. Now can we go?”

  “Mind your manners,” Roy said. “Go pack shoes and T-shirts for Oedipus and Ophelia, and you guys be ready and waiting in the truck.” He turned back to us. “I wish I could help, but . . . 1 can’t, that’s all.”

  I looked at Pop. When he stood, so did I.

  Roy sat with his chin braced up by his hand, staring at the candle while we walked outside. The cupids were in the cab of the old Dodge pickup, little Ophelia tuning the radio knobs, Oedipus at the wheel.

  I said, “Pop, his wife didn’t leave him. She’s the one I told you drove her VW into a ditch about two weeks ago. The one who swerved to avoid running down a drunk Cossack. She’s dead.”

  “Jesus.” Pop grimaced, then patted my shoulder and said, “Sorry,” as if he mistook me for Mama, who preferred we didn’t use her savior’s name as an epithet.

  “I’ll bet you noticed Roy looked like he’d heard of us both. I mean, everybody in town’s heard of me. But if he’d heard about you, doesn’t that tell us he was better friends with Alvaro than he let on.”

  “I hear you,” was all Pop said.

  We continued east on the trail, about a mile and past a couple For Sale signs on vacant lots. One featured a well beside a trailer pad or foundation with no structure.

  A hundred yards before the trail ended at an arroyo, behind a small grove of pear trees was a shack that might have been cloned from the shack where the hermit lived with her mastiff. But this place looked like a clubhouse for teenagers rebelling against their fastidious mothers. The ground outside and floor inside were strewn with Cracker Jacks boxes, Frito bags, stomped beer and soda cans and shattered bottles, the shredded remains of quilts and a sleeping bag. I found a wine bottle filled with Coleman fuel and capped with a rag, the kind of firebomb some people called a Molotov cocktail, and two large pieces from broken vials. I noted the smell of ammonia. “A meth lab,” I said, and Pop didn’t argue.

  It could belong to the Cossacks, I thought. Or to somebody the Cossacks chased off. Not to Alvaro, I hoped to God. But the year before his shotgun wedding to the army, while playing guitar all night in Tijuana nightclubs, he’d gotten fond of methamphetamine.

  Thirteen

  THE sputtering roar of Harleys intruded on our deliberations. “Across the river,” I said.

  We hustled to the car and Pop asked, “What do you think? Does their being where we were when the plane spotted us mean the pilot radioed Willis and he snitched our location to the Cossacks?”

  “Or the pilot, who was probably Knudsen, snitched us directly to the Cossacks. Maybe he’s not a Fed at all.”

  “Or,” Pop said, “the Cossacks could have a police-band radio.”

  “Whew.” I caught my breath and leaned back into the seat. “I like that answer best.”

  “We can like it,” he said, “but let’s not count on it.”

  In Evergreen, we stopped at the Richfield station. While I pumped gas, Pop said, “Tell me why Alvaro ran?”

  “He just got spooked? Like some holiday weekend, a couple months after Alvaro got out of the army, a bunch of us went to Mexico. San Felipe. He smoked a little grass and when the fireworks started across the bay I saw him twitch with every bang. And then, he started swilling tequila. Besides, the way those sheriffs came charging into the camp like a platoon of Viet Cong, I almost spooked and ran.”

  “He’s been home from the war two years now.”

  “Okay, but Alvaro knew the cops didn’t had it in for him. So, he’d heard the shots that night like I did, and when he saw the sheriffs — I don’t know — instinct or infantry training or something told him to run. And once they were chasing him, he didn’t stop for fear they’d shoot him down.”

  Pop shook his head. “Some guys might’ve done like you tell it but not your brother. He thinks fast. First, he knows we’re not going to let him take a fall for something he didn’t do. And he knows the odds of getting killed, or framed, rise like the moon-shot as soon as he runs. His mind makes connections in a jiffy, is how he survived on the streets in TJ, and in war.”

  “You aren’t saying if he ran he’s guilty, are you?”

  Pop reached for his pipe. “Or else he thinks a sheriff killed the Marris boy. Or he’s covering for somebody. As long as the sheriffs are chasing him, whoever really shot the kid can make his getaway.”

  “Who, then?”

  “You tell me.”

  I thought of people Alvaro just might cover for: Simon, Big Dan Mills, Quig, and other faces I had seen around Evergreen crowded into my mind. I even thought of Ava. “I give up.”

  “Someday,” Pop said, “when the killer’s long gone and the truth’s out, your brother can turn up and nothing’s lost.”

  “Except he’s busted for resisting arrest.”

  “Son, any rookie public defender could beat that charge, using the argument you gave about him being spooked.”

  “Okay, but why’s he so sure the truth will come out, that he’ll ever get cleared of the murder.”

  “Because he knows you. If the police fail him, enter Clifford Hickey.”

  “Make that Tom Hickey and I’ll buy it.”

  “Tom Hickey and son, then.”

  As we drove through Evergreen I tried to convince myself that, like Pop believed or hoped, Alvaro might have run with a noble purpose. But Pop was sixty-six, this past year of caring for Mama had worn him down, and the fugitive was his son. Given all that, even Pop could sucker for wishful thinking.

  Still, he could be right, which made me return to wondering who might be so dear, or valuable, to Alvaro that he would risk his life and sabotage justice to help a killer go free. My brother didn’t make tight friends easily and he had only lived around Evergreen the past few months. On the phone or in his letters, he mentioned no partners or sidekicks. Unless the fact that he had quoted Phil Ochs was meant to send a message.

  One of his Vietnam buddies might have shown up. I thought, Suppose a guy from his platoon came home and joined the Cossacks.

  Jimmy might have cheated the bikers on a dope deal or stolen one of their motorcycles. The snakes in my belly woke from their nap, to think my brother might be covering for a Cossack. Or, Alvaro could have fallen for a girl, even the sister of a Cossack.

  Traffic crept along River Road. Hippies in orange vests carried signs that advised people to park on the shoulder and walk to the jamboree. We followed their advice, joined a line and trudged like pilgrims toward the gate. Since Pop was as old as most anybody in this crowd and wore a baggy cotton sport coat and a straw fedora even though his face had a sheen of sweat, people stared and smiled, no doubt thinking he must be a blues musician. They weren’t far wrong. Until Claire’s death broke Mama’s heart and Pop could rarely leave her, he had blown tenor saxophone and clarinet with a jazz group at Harry’s North Shore Casino.

  The few Harleys in the parking area were Sportsters and one full-dress Power-glide. No choppers. I wondered if getting ejected yesterday meant I was banned from the jamboree for good. But none of the gatekeepers was anyone who had chased me out. Our gatekeeper was a bra-less hippie in a loose-knit top. Pop handed her a twenty for two admissions and told her to keep the change. She grinned. He asked where we coul
d find Big Dan Mills.

  “You an old friend of his?”

  “Could be,” Pop said.

  “Well then, Dan’s going on in a half hour, right before Phil. Look for him around the main stage.”

  The crowd was so thick, I doubted we could reach the main stage in a half hour without lowering our shoulders and charging through like a blocker and running back.

  Body heat and the sun made the jamboree air feel like tea kettle steam. From the heat and the crowd, I got edgy, near claustrophobic. I felt like socking the next person who clipped me from the side. But Pop weaved through the maze, alert and adventurous like a tourist who had just stepped off the cruise ship. I wondered if he had temporarily forgotten his wife was borderline catatonic and one of his sons was running for his life while the other might get jumped and stabbed by a Cossack disguised as an ethno-musicologist. He paused for double-takes. Of a garden spigot hanging from a man’s ear. A triple-braided beard. A gal in a T-shirt with holes in all the right places. A parrot riding the shoulder of a girl in a silk harem halter and bloused shorts. He killed a minute watching a dozen females from tots to grandmas dance around a black fellow with a Santa Claus beard who stomped a pedal that pounded rhythm on a bass drum while he blew screeches and moans out of a chromatic harmonica.

  I led the way around the portable shed where they locked up sound gear to a roped-off area behind the main stage. One of the Security hippies patrolled the periphery. Pop approached him, opened his billfold and flashed it like a badge then quickly folded and stuffed it into his coat pocket. The fellow cocked his head.

  “We’re here to see Dan Mills,” Pop said.

  The hippie squinted and must’ve seen from Pop’s expression that questioning us would only waste his time and effort. He shrugged and walked over to Big Dan, who was beside the stage, facing away from us and leaning on a mike stand as if it were the cane in a soft-shoe routine. The hippie tapped his shoulder and spoke. Big Dan turned and gazed as though trying to place us. Then he waved us over.

  As we climbed the rope, Pop said, “Mind if I handle this fellow, keep you from offending a guy who could help your career?”

  “Please do.”

  Big Dan Mills, though hatless, stood taller than Pop, including his straw fedora. Big Dan’s shoulders appeared too wide to fit through doorways. He was fifty-something, with bushy black hair and beard and leathery skin. His teeth looked capped. He shook Pop’s hand first. Then mine. “Yeah?”

  “Name’s Tom Hickey.” Pop laid a hand on my shoulder. “My son Clifford. He’s on the bill. So was his brother Alvaro.”

  Big Dan frowned as though Alvaro had run off just to inconvenience him.

  “You know Alvaro?” Pop asked.

  “I met him. Ochs said give him a break. He auditioned, that’s all. You’re gonna tell me he didn’t kill Jimmy Marris.”

  “And you’re going to tell me he did?”

  “Tom, I liked the kid, but you and me been around long enough to know — just because he’s a likeable kid, or even a good kid, don’t mean he didn’t shoot the boy. Hey, you and me been around enough to know anybody’s capable of anything. Charlie Manson’s bunch, do you think all them were born murderers?”

  “I hear Charlie doped and brainwashed them.”

  Big Dan grumbled, “Tom, it’s awful simplistic to blame those murders on dope.”

  Pop had no patience with anybody who patronized him. The way he sucked at his teeth as though trying to dislodge a strand of tobacco meant he would’ve rather made sure Big Dan’s repertoire would be strictly instrumental until his mouth healed. But he said, “Mister Mills, let’s get together sometime and discuss the human condition. For now, though, how about you tell us what all you know about Jimmy Marris.”

  “Never met the kid.”

  “Alvaro then. Who were his amigos? Why would the FBI keep tabs on him?”

  He rolled his eyes and glanced my way. I said, “Like, what kind of work does Alvaro do for Phil Ochs?”

  Big Dan shifted toward the stage as though looking for an excuse to ditch us. “Man, didn’t I just say I hardly knew him?”

  “Could be I don’t believe you,” Pop said.

  Mills laughed as if he appreciated a worthy adversary. “Partner,” he said, “I’m on the road half the time. The best I can do for you is ask around. Right now, I got stuff needs doing.”

  “Sure. Ask around," Pop said. "We’ll be back, or you can leave us a message at Quig’s.”

  We had only climbed the rope when a pair of Security hippies climbed it going in.

  Before we reached the concessions, one of the pair caught up with us. Out of breath, he gasped, “Big Dan said to tell you the Cossacks did a run through Quig’s.”

  When he scooted off, Pop said, “I guess Big Dan keeps an eye on every little thing. Let’s go check on your mother.”

  He agreed to go for the car while I used a short cut through the wasteland that used to be a community garden. I ran over the knoll where Ava and I had first talked, past the workshop where a woman was teaching autoharp and Alvaro would have taught slide guitar tomorrow had he not been otherwise occupied. In the garden-field, I tripped every few steps, over ruts, petrified squash, a rusted canteen, a pile of corn stalks, then careened down a steep slope and across the creek and up the grassy bank. I ran all the way, powered by fear that the Cossacks had snatched Mama, and maybe Ava, on account of my waylaying Hound Dog. When I tripped on something invisible, I flew and cracked my right knee on a craggy stone then attempted to spring up but tumbled sideways. Now my knee felt loose at the socket, my bad hand stung even through the tingling numbness, and the gouges in my back felt bloody while I ran limping and entered Quig's by the trail that led up to the Chattagua Hall.

  Outside the hall, the residents too broke or sick to attend the jamboree had gathered. I ran past a topless pregnant girl, the guy who had practiced yoga in the jail cell across from mine, an Asian fellow who talked with his hands, a freckled redheaded boy with a cast on his foot, and the boy’s plump little sister. I kept running, over motorcycle skid marks, around the bathhouse and gazebo, to the A-frame Pop had rented. The door was open. I dashed in calling, “Mama!” One look told me she wasn’t there.

  As I ran out of the A-frame, a police car bounded into the compound. Also, hippies were arriving on foot, some along the path and others from River Road. Word had spread fast through the jamboree.

  I reached the yurt and yanked up the flap so hard it ripped at the top of the zipper. When I saw them, I dropped to my knees and yowled from the pain that shot through my wounded knee.

  They were sitting side by side on the futon. Mama crawled toward me. “What’s wrong, Clifford?”

  She looked more alive than since before Claire died.

  I LED her outside and held her hand while we waited then watched the Eldorado skid into the compound and to a stop beside the A-frame. Pop jumped out and wheeled his gaze until he saw us. I let Mama go to him alone.

  Back in the yurt, Ava was sprawled on the futon.

  “Worn out?” I asked.

  “Uh huh.” She sat up. “Did you guys learn anything?”

  “Nothing that seems to matter. What did you do to make Mama so happy?”

  “Well, I was reading her a Psalm she likes and the next thing she asked if we could pray together, for your brother.” She flashed a stern look I couldn’t interpret.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It was hard.” She looked up above us, wearing a face that could mean a legion of spiders had appeared on the ceiling. “Maybe I’m not sure he didn’t kill Jimmy.”

  “Yeah, okay. Did the bikers hurt anybody?”

  “I guess not.” She stood. “Let’s go look around.”

  When we were outside, walking toward the sheriff’s car around which people had gathered, she said, “They just rode through, with Vic in the lead. They made five or six circles and loopty-loops. I’ll bet they were showing Quig what they can do if he doesn’t turn you ove
r to them.”

  If Willis noticed us, he didn’t let on. Pop stood with an arm around Mama, listening to the stories of people who had witnessed the Cossack invasion. As we approached, he let Mama go and reached for Ava’s hand. He kissed it as if he were a priest and she were the first woman Pope. Then he took me aside.

  He said, “Marry that girl, will you? I think she reminds your Mama of Claire, great big heart and all.”

  “She’s still not convinced that Alvaro didn’t kill Jimmy Marris.”

  “Well, all the better. It means she’s smart and honest. If you find a woman who won’t tell you pretty lies, you’ve already got a better deal than most men.”

  I thought I heard a gunshot, the same or a similar report and about as far away as those the night of the murder. But nobody reacted. I was about to conclude stress was giving me auditory hallucinations, when the police radio crackled. We turned to watch the sheriff go for it. He listened, mumbled a few words and tossed his clipboard onto the cruiser’s front seat. He ambled around the car and slid behind the wheel. As he started the motor, he told the crowd, “Somebody took a potshot at the communist.”

  A hippie with sores on his face and arms asked, “Which communist?” But Willis had already pulled away.

  Fourteen

  AVA agreed to stay with Mama as long as we promised to come back with any news. Pop and I followed the cruiser. As we passed the gatekeeper, Pop asked me, “This communist would be Dan Mills?”

  “Probably Phil Ochs.”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose and lifted his hat to wipe his brow. “Thank God,” he said, and I thought the same, because we, not the sheriffs, had noticed and made off with Alvaro's magazines.

  In the jamboree parking lot, while we waited for a rainbow-colored Chevy van to leave its slot, we saw Phil Ochs. He was riding out of the lot in the shotgun seat of an equipment van driven by the Texan Security hippie. The van must have picked him up at the gate, because a rowdy mob of at least a thousand clustered around the entrance.

  We parked and nudged our way into the middle of the crowd where Willis stood beside a long-necked deputy who was taking notes. A middle-aged woman in pigtails and a shirtless, emaciated speed freak with the sniffles interrupted each other, both telling the story of a bullet that zinged over Ochs’ head while he sang “Changes.” Nobody saw the shooter’s exact location, but it came from the across the river, most likely from the forested rise east of the Sugar Hill. Security hippies were guessing the bullet had probably hit the ground somewhere in the old community garden. While the witnesses repeated their story and the deputy listened for significant details, a Cessna I decided was Knudsen’s came buzzing out of the south.