The Do-Re-Mi Read online

  We were standing behind Willis and I hadn’t noticed him look our way when, as though he had rear-view eyes, he turned to Pop and said, “Your boy ain’t so cagey after all.”

  “What?”

  “The Mexican.”

  “You lost me, fella,” Pop said.

  Willis rolled his eyes.

  “You’re saying Alvaro tried to pick off Phil Ochs?”

  “Yes, sir. Ochs is a traitor. He makes our boys in Vietnam out to be murdering scum. Now, you give me a vet like your Alvaro, a shell-shocked Mexican gone loco from smoking that sinsemilla the hippies grow, already killed one man, he knows he’s a goner and figures he might as well take a big shot commie with him. Between you and me, if your boy had of picked him off, I mighta considered asking for leniency on both charges.”

  Pop rubbed his neck and spoke softly though his face had reddened. “My son’s a distinguished expert rifleman. Sheriff, Alvaro could clip a pea off the top of your head from a thousand yards. If he was shooting at Ochs, he could put a slug in one ear at the proper angle so it comes out the other.”

  I stood astonished that Pop, whose creed included the injunction not to give away any more than required, had told the sheriff something he might find a way to use against Alvaro. He must have a reason, I decided, and returned to thoughts the sheriff had sparked.

  “A man goes crazy,” Willis said, “could be he’s gonna lose his aim. But thanks for the warning. I’ll be sure and tell the hunters to shoot first before he gets his turn.”

  Pop said, “I told you how risky that would be. And if you think those heavies that came around were from Hollywood, you’ve been watching too much TV.”

  “You send ’em?”

  “Nope, but I’ve got an idea who did, and he didn’t make his fortune by inventing the hula hoop.”

  Willis snuffed and started to turn away. “Whoa, Sheriff,” I said. “The crazy vet you’re talking about isn’t Alvaro. It’s Hound Dog.”

  A crafty smile softened Willis’ poker face. “You’d like to see us take Hound Dog out of commission, wouldn’t you?”

  While a man dressed like a salesman going to a luau told the same story as the others, Pop and I gazed over the spectators at the forested hill rise beyond Big Dan's and Sugar Hill. At least eight men in uniforms climbed, ducking from tree to tree, each with a weapon held in position to drop and fire. On a hunch, I peered at the west and south slopes of Sugar Hill, hoping to glimpse the shooter creep around. Then I reasoned that even Cossacks weren’t so stupid as to shoot at somebody from their own neighborhood. But even before I completed the thought, the flaw in my reasoning appeared — I hadn’t a clue how stupid Hound Dog or some other Cossacks might be. For all I knew, the greatest brain-challenge any of them had faced was learning how to shift a Harley.

  I went to Willis and tapped his arm. “Have you sent anybody up to the Cossacks’ camp, just in case Hound Dog or another one of them runs in from the east all sweaty and packing a rifle?”

  The sheriff plucked a toothpick out of his pocket and held it in front of his chin. I wondered if he wanted to stab me in the eye. He stuck it into the corner of his mouth. “Suppose you go on up there and bring me a report.”

  “Why me? Because you’re scared to?”

  The sheriff crammed his hands into his pockets as though to restrain them then turned to Pop. “Get him the hell outta here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  On the way to the Cadillac, I asked Pop, “Why else would a biker want to shoot Phil Ochs, unless he’s the loco Vietnam vet Willis makes Alvaro out to be?”

  “How about — so the sheriff will pin it on Alvaro. Which could mean one of them saw Alvaro’s magazines, or talked to him, or overheard him talking about Ochs.”

  “Okay, let’s suppose. What’s that mean?”

  “You tell me.”

  My brain felt like a Mixmaster. “A Cossack killed Jimmy Marris?”

  “Killed him because . . .?”

  I gave the only wild guess that came. “Say Brady Barker's in their pocket and Jimmy Marris figured that out, say from a remark Lola made. And say Jimmy was trying to squeeze his uncle Brady into going straight.”

  “Why would Jimmy want to turn his uncle around?”

  “Ava said Jimmy talked about ethics. Maybe he thought he could turn Brady into a good guy? Or maybe he hated the Cossacks and wanted them gone so Ava’s sister would get a fair chance to kick her speed habit.”

  “What’s he care about Ava’s sister?”

  “For Ava’s sake, maybe?”

  “And how did the Cossacks learn about all this?”

  “Say, Jimmy let on to Lola, or to Ava and she let on to her sister, and Lola snitched.”

  Pop grabbed the scruff of my neck and kneaded. “You wouldn’t be hanging this whole mess on Barker because he pinched your hand?"

  "Maybe," I confessed.

  "Still," Pop said, "just because you’ve got motives doesn’t mean you haven’t hit on the truth. Did you run any of this by Ava?”

  “I just now dreamed it up.”

  “Could she be covering for her sister?”

  “Huh?”

  “The way you paint it,” Pop said, “if Lola snitching on Jimmy resulted in his death, she might get nailed as a conspirator.”

  I had to allow she might have. “Let’s go ask her?”

  Pop let go of my neck and walked around the car.

  The shooting had chased half the crowd from the jamboree and most of the deserters were already gone, so the line of cars exiting the lot was only a few minutes long. While we waited, Pop asked, “Mind if I drop you at Quig’s, let you talk to Ava while I run an errand?”

  “What errand?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about. If we split up for an hour or so, we cover twice the ground.”

  I knew by the set of his jaw and the way his fingers thrummed the steering wheel he didn’t intend to chat with Jimmy’s school teachers.

  “Nope,” I said. “I mean, about us splitting up. Nope. So where are we going?”

  Pop cocked his head and watched me long enough to know he couldn’t shake me. “The sheriff suggested we should talk to the Cossacks.”

  “Pop, they’re not going to let us stop by, have a chat and leave.”

  “Right. But if I go alone, and be nice and friendly . . .”

  “You go, I go.”

  “Clifford,” he said, “I’m so damn old I might keel over any second without their help. Whereas, you’ve got fifty good years, anyway.”

  “Yeah, and what do you think I’m going to do if the Cossacks waste you?”

  “I’d suggest, anytime you’re thinking about revenge, meditate on Numbers thirty-five in that book your mama’s always reading.”

  "About cities of refuge?" I asked, vaguely recalling a passage we read in my college Old Testament class.

  "And murder," he said.

  “Go right,” I said as our turn to exit came.

  He studied my eyes. I noticed him swell with pride and stiffen with worry or maybe a dash of fear. Then somebody honked and he swung onto River Road. Beyond Big Dan's, he turned off the road onto a trail only fit for motorcycles or dune-buggies. The dirt was soft and the path narrow but the Eldorado rolled along, knocking brush out of its way and scraping gouges in its previously immaculate sky-blue paint. Pop asked, “You scared?”

  “Yep.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’ll let you out and go alone.”

  “Forget it. Should I strap the gun on?”

  “No.” He stopped the car, shifted into neutral, and pulled the handbrake. He climbed out, went to the trunk and opened it. After moving a folded blanket, he picked up a weapon I had never seen. A scattergun. A Remington shotgun with the barrel shortened to about eight inches.

  For a moment I wondered if all these years Pop had fooled us into thinking he was an upholder of law when in truth he had worked as an enforcer for Harry Poverman. He caught me gawking and said, “I borrowed it. In cas
e we had to bust Alvaro out of jail. You ever use a shotgun?”

  “A couple times.”

  “Left-handed?” He pointed to my bandage.

  “No.”

  “Good. It’s only a prop.”

  “But it’s loaded, right?”

  He reached into the trunk behind the spare tire for a canvas pouch stuffed with shells. He handed it to me. “Don’t point this monster at anything higher than the dirt unless I tell you.” He reached under the seat for his holster and .38. He threw the strap over his shoulder.

  While we floated up the hill I readied the shotgun, loaded each chamber, locked the safety, aimed the barrel out the window and gave the trigger a half squeeze to get the feel. Then I unlocked the safety. On the middle stretch of hillside, I worried that I didn’t have the nerves for this job, that when Hound Dog or somebody reached to scratch himself, I would spook and the gun would spring up and one squeeze would topple eight or ten Cossacks.

  I told Pop that last year Alvaro and I camped atop Sugar Hill. He asked, “What’s the layout up there? Any buildings?”

  “An old barn with a room on top, full of bats and mice.”

  “What else?”

  “Lots of stubby black pine. A dead apple grove. An old outhouse. A well with a concrete cistern.”

  He chopped the wheel left to maneuver a switchback. Something clunked underneath us. Pop said, “Our family’s going to survive this trouble but our vehicles might not.”

  As we crested the hill, at least twenty bikers and a half dozen tattooed girls appeared in a ragged line fifty yards away, shuffling and swaggering toward us from their camp, which was a circle of tents around the old barn. “Leave your door open,” Pop said.

  We climbed out. I followed Pop. We stopped and stood directly in front of the Eldorado. I itched to lift the gun but managed to hold it aimed at the dirt.

  As they neared, Little Vic came through the pack and took the lead, walking a step ahead of Crutch, whose burgundy skin glistened with sweat, and on the other side a Cossack whose forehead from the middle down to his right cheekbone was marked by a scar shaped like a lightning bolt. I peered all around, looking for Hound Dog. If he was in camp, he was hiding or catching a nap.

  I caught a glimpse of Lola in the rear of the pack. Every few steps she rose onto her toes to peer over the others.

  When Vic was ten yards off, Pop raised his hand, palm out. “One of you fellas go sniping?” he asked, as though it were a casual inquiry. “How about you, soldier?” He pointed to a wiry, shirtless man with a Huey helicopter tattooed on his hairless belly. “You look flushed, like you might’ve just run up the hill.”

  Before the man could answer, Little Vic threw a silencing look his way. Then Vic turned to Pop and bared his teeth. “Who shot who, Grandpa?”

  “Come on,” Pop said. “Let me in on it. Which one of you boys made the communist wet his pants, down at the jamboree, even though you missed by a mile?”

  Vic barked a laugh. Most of the others joined him but the guy with the lightning bolt scar only leered at me.

  “You the new deputy, Grandpa?” Vic shook his head. “How many badges is Willy going to give out? Hey —” he turned to his followers. “I’ll bet he’ll give us some stinking badges if we ask nice.” The others chanted a chorus of affirmations.

  “So, Grandpa,” Vic said, “what makes us suspects?”

  “Proximity. Possession of firearms. Motive.”

  “Motive?”

  “Big Dan had you chased out of the jamboree yesterday. Right? Besides, this gig brings too many hippies to Evergreen. The more hippies, the tougher it is for you to rob them. Business sense dictates you shut it down.”

  Again Vic turned to his gang. “Hey, I like the old man. Sure he’s a pain in the ass, but he’s smart. What I don’t get, how’d he fuck up so bad when it came to making sons? Must be the mothers’ fault, huh? I mean, Alvaro is a ten centavo chingadero and the Pretty Boy here is a swish.”

  When Vic aimed a finger-pistol at me and Crutch leaned forward, my shotgun sprang up to about forty-five degrees. Pop flashed me a look. I let the barrel fall.

  “Little fella,” Pop said, “on account of you are clearly upset about something, we’re going to forgive you that crack as soon as you settle up with us on the bill for restoring Clifford’s ‘55. We shopped around. The best estimate’s two grand. You want to give it to us now, that’s okay, or you could drop it with the gatekeeper at Quig’s.”

  Little Vic woofed a laugh. “Or how about this — you haul ass off our hill, Grandpa. The swish . . .” He hitched a thumb at me. “He gets to stay and party with us. Crutch and Boomer . . .” He hitched his thumb first toward Crutch then to the man with the lightning bolt. “. . . they’re gonna follow you down, keep you company for an hour or so. Hound Dog, he’s sticking around for the party.”

  No matter if you’re a football fan, if you see a hail Mary pass a receiver plucks out of the sky in the end zone, you’ll thrill at the sight and treasure the memory. Watching Tom Hickey make his move felt the same.

  With the shotgun on my left side, Pop didn’t have to step, only reach, to grab it. He yanked it out of my hand so fast, I wasn’t aware of letting it go.

  And with the gun raised and sweeping across their ranks, he said, “Don’t misinterpret, the weapon’s not my ace in the hole. My ace is what I’m willing to do. Boys and girls, you’re looking at a dead man. Cancer in the back of my mouth, working its way up to my brain, where by next Easter it’ll kill me. Do I care about losing six months of misery? Naw. And you know what they say about misery loves company. I’d be delighted to take a bunch of you with me. Lola,” he called out, “come up here, would you please?”

  Her head poked up over a biker’s broad shoulder. Vic raised his hand and waved her forward. The gang parted a walkway up the middle and Lola shimmied through, prancing like stripper on a runway. She stopped beside Vic, but Pop used a finger to beckon her. “Get in the Cadillac, please.”

  Vic stood still. He tapped his lips. Then he gave Lola a nudge. When she failed to move he grabbed her elbow and shoved her toward the car.

  Some of the gang murmured. Lola gave her hair a toss and shimmied our way. At the shotgun door of the Eldorado, she turned and raised a bony middle finger at Vic and others.

  Vic said, “Give them a good time, baby.”

  She dove into the Cadillac. Pop asked me to keep her company, Once I was seated shotgun, with Lola in the middle, he announced to the gang, “Any more runs through Quig’s, or even one of you stops by there for tea and crumpets, we’re going to use the tank here to mash every chopper we see.” He patted the Eldorado. “And hear this — people are saying Alvaro’s loco, and Clifford’s getting the same reputation. Well, I’ll promise you my sons are level-headed, easy going, mellow, compared to me.”

  Pop climbed in behind the wheel and held the scattergun aimed out the window while he sped the Cadillac backward and whipped it around as if it were a Grand Prix racer.

  Fifteen

  WE crashed down the hill at least twice as fast as we had climbed it. Lola, between us, sat pressing her arms into her sides as if we had open sores she feared touching. Her chipped crimson fingernails dug into her knees. She craned around and looked up the hill. Then, hardly moving her lips, she demanded, “Where are we going? What’d she tell you about me?”

  “Who?”

  “Right, like you don’t know my so-called sister. The one with the halo.” She caught a clump of hair with her mouth and chewed it.

  From the base of the hill all the way to Quig’s, she cussed Vic. “Just you wait, Victor, you needle-dicked midget, I’m going to . . .” We parked beside the yurt and climbed out. Pop asked Lola to go inside. To our surprise, she did. I hung back. When Pop came around the car, I said, “Promise you were lying about cancer.”

  “Sure. I promise.”

  “Pop, did you notice the layout up there? Their tents circling the barn like an old wagon train.”

 
“What could that mean?”

  “Could be they’ve got some treasure in the barn. Like a meth lab. Like they moved the goods and all from the shack across the river from Alvaro’s camp, say after they killed Jimmy Marris down there.” Pop stared over the garden-field, jamboree meadow, and Big Dan's, at Sugar Hill. “And if they’re so bold as to brew the stuff in their own kitchen, would that mean they’ve got the sheriffs in their pocket?”

  Out of the yurt issued, “Bitch!” preceded by choice adjectives and other pet names.

  Pop unstrapped his holster and shoved it under the driver’s seat. He returned the shotgun to the trunk. We ducked into the yurt. Mama and Ava sat cross-legged on the futon. Lola stood with her fingers gouging her hipbones. Bent toward her sister, she yelled, “It’s my life, Holy Joe. Daddy can’t stop me and you can’t either and neither can these geeks!” She waved at Pop and me.

  “I didn’t send them,” Ava said.

  “Yeah, right.” Lola fished in one front pocket of her tight cut-offs for a hard pack of Marlboros and in the other front pocket for a lighter. I studied her features. Silver eyes, wide mouth and chin. She and Ava might be twins, I thought, one raised by angels, the other by a coven of witches. Lola was twenty pounds skinnier. Her breasts didn’t nearly fill the halter out of which a marijuana leaf tattoo grew. Her legs were dirty and nicked as if she had shaved with a hack saw. Her bleached hair, as long and thick as Ava’s, hung straight and stringy. She had a raspy voice and skin that looked infested with tiny blisters. I saw no needle tracks.