The Do-Re-Mi Read online

  Mama sits still like most always, hands folded on her lap, her mouth slightly open as though prepared to speak, though she hasn’t spoken a hundred words since last year. And now, with her stillness and grief, Mama looks all the more like Mary in Michelangelo’s Pieta, only with cornflower blue eyes, milky skin, and golden hair.

  Pop says, “There’s a river in Evergreen, and motels along the riverbank. I phoned, but they’re booked. How about you pray for a cancellation?” He looks over, winks, and runs a finger around her cheek.

  Mama hasn’t spoken all night.

  AT Quig’s, washboard and kazoo music wafted out of what they called the Chattagua Hall, along with singing, shouts, and laughter. A gang of small kids raced around playing hide-and-seek, ducking behind the teepees, lean-tos, and trailers.

  I stashed the pistol in a hole I scooped out of the loam behind the rear tire of my Chevy. At the entrance to Ava’s yurt, I whispered her name. I waited and called again, slightly louder. After the third time, she said, “Oh hell, come in.”

  She was cross-legged on her futon, reading scripture. I asked, “Good book?”

  Without looking up, she muttered, “Well, you’re alive anyway.”

  “I went down by the murder site,” I said, which wasn’t the whole truth but also was no lie.

  “Crutch came to the gate,” she said. “Quig had to go out and make a deal before Crutch would go away.”

  “Crutch who?”

  She slammed her Bible closed and finally looked up. "Guess."

  I slinked to a dark place, sat on the tarp, pulled my knees close, and rested my elbow in its sling on top of them. “What’d you mean about Quig making a deal?”

  “He promised that if you showed up again he would grill you and unless you could prove Alvaro wasn’t the killer he’d chase you out of the commune. I guess it was like a compromise, to save face. Quig’s half politician. He asked me about you and I said you’re probably crazy enough to kidnap and torture a Cossack. So when Crutch reports to Vic, the little monster will either decide there’s no deal and come inside the compound to kill you or wait outside and kill you there. How will you get out of this one, Clifford?”

  “Beats me,” I said, then sat mute. So did Ava, for the whole ten minutes before she picked up a medicine bag and headed for the bathhouse.

  I went to my Chevy, retrieved the gun from behind the tire, and climbed into the front through the rolled-down driver’s side window. If I opened a door, the dome light would beam and might tell Quig I had returned. I climbed over the seat, wedged the pistol between the mattress and the side-panel, sprawled atop the sleeping bag, and watched out the window to see if Ava would go from the bathhouse to the Chattagua Hall and report to Quig.

  But she came straight back and ducked into the yurt. A minute later, the lantern darkened.

  I slept, woke to the squawk of a saxophone, dozed until footsteps approached, then groped for the pistol. After the footsteps passed and faded, I slept until the first gray light.

  Nobody was outside except the white-haired gatekeeper and his bloodthirsty dog and a duo of topless girls practicing yoga beside the riverbank.

  The flap to Ava’s yurt was tied shut. I reached through a gap and untied the bottom, which allowed me to crawl in. I knelt beside Ava, watched her eyelids flick and her hand rise to wisp a cluster of hair off her cheek. Its mission accomplished, the hand fell beside her chin. I wondered, if I woke her with a kiss, would she clobber me? Instead I touched her shoulder with one finger.

  She jerked and bolted up, wrapping the quilt around her.

  “Morning.”

  “You . . .” She rubbed her eyes. “What?”

  “Could you sneak me out of here?”

  She raked her hands through her hair, coiled her legs underneath her torso, and stood straight up. She wore boxer shorts and a McNees Lumber T-shirt with the chainsaw-wielding beaver. In spite of the baggy shirt, I observed one of those waists so tiny you wonder how all the organs can fit, and full breasts that swelled and quivered with her breathing. “Go get in my car,” she said.

  I crawled outside. After fetching the pistol from my Chevy, I wrapped it in a bandana then tiptoed along the path to Simon's trailer and laid it on his lounge chair. While I crept back toward Ava’s car, one of the topless yoga girls turned and stared as if I, not she, were the exhibitionist.

  The Plymouth was unlocked. I climbed in and lay on the floorboard in back, while Ava hustled off, probably to the bathhouse. When she returned, she climbed into the car and gazed over the seat at me. Her hair was brushed, and her eyes were bright as if she had polished them.

  If I had waited for her to invite me up front, I would’ve been on the floor all the way to Babe’s. So I sat up and slid over the seat while behind us a tip of the sun cleared the peaks of the Trinity mountains. Ava glanced over at me, in a pout.

  I said, “Thanks.”

  “Do me a favor, please.”

  “Sure, what?”

  “Say the sinner's prayer right now, no matter if you’ve said it before. Because the Cossacks are going to kill you, and I want to hope you’re in heaven. Not like Jimmy.”

  Her comparing me to Jimmy could mean she thought of me as a boyfriend. The idea made my eyes water. She noticed, and her face softened. “Are you always crazy?”

  “Not anymore,” I said. “Pop’s on his way.”

  She studied my face and smiled for the first time since yesterday noon. “Can Pop leap tall buildings?”

  “Yeah.” I checked my watch. “He said to meet him at 6:30. Five minutes one way or the other, he’ll pull in. He’s got a gift for time. We used to drive a lot between Tahoe and San Diego. Alvaro and I would pick a town hundreds of miles down the road. He’d tell us what time we’d get there, to the minute.”

  But at 6:10 we found Pop’s mile-long silver-blue Eldorado parked at the curb outside Babe’s. I said, “He must be a little overanxious.”

  Ten

  THEY were in the first booth on the left, Mama facing the window. Pop was on the other side, turned with his back against the wall so nobody could sneak up behind him and he could see all around, a habit of his even in peaceful times or at home. He saw me and smiled. A second later, Mama gaped as though surprised to see me and lifted her arm and waved. Maybe not quite sure I was real.

  The cafe was busy. Loggers slumped over coffee in most of the booths. As I held the glass door open and Ava walked in, Pop slid out and stood. He shook Ava’s hand as if greeting a queen. “Tom Hickey.”

  I introduced her and asked Pop, “Did you tell Mama what’s up?"

  They both nodded. I said, “Jimmy Marris, the guy they think Alvaro shot, was Ava’s boyfriend.”

  A little moan came from Mama. Pop sighed and shook his head, then stared at my bandaged hand. “Who did you hit?”

  “A deputy handcuffed me tight and tweaked a nerve or something. No big deal.”

  Mama had swung her knees around. I helped her up and we hugged long and hard. When we separated, she kept hold of my good hand and offered her other hand to Ava. Their hands remained clasped at least a minute.

  Pop lay his arm across my shoulders. “Alvaro’s still on the loose. I stopped by the jail, talked to the night man. The sheriff’s supposed to be there around eight. So will we.” He turned to Ava. “Hungry?”

  “Uh huh.” From the smile she gave him, I supposed Pop had charmed her already. Once Claire Blackwood had told me, “Tom’s eyes, his voice, his gestures, posture and everything about him testifies that he’d never hurt a woman or let anybody else get away with it. He’s a genuine man.”

  We slid into the booth, Ava then me, with our backs to the window. Now and then Pop glanced past us to the street. Steph walked in, wearing her white uniform, drowsy and listing to one side. When she saw Ava, she beamed and reached over me to clutch Ava’s arm. “You doin’ okay?”

  “Uh huh. God’s helping me through it.”

  Steph leaned close to my ear and whispered, “You’
re screwed.” As she wobbled toward the kitchen, she called over her shoulder, “Be right with you guys.”

  Because Pop stared at me and raised his eyebrows, I said, “These bikers, the Cossacks, somebody messed with one of them and they’re blaming me.”

  Pop fixed his gaze on my eyes. “Take it from the top.”

  “Yeah, well Alvaro was camped down the river from here, up a forest road from a saloon called the Crossroads on the 101. Wednesday night I couldn’t find him so I slept in the car, a few miles off the highway. By the river. Late in the night I heard gunshots.”

  “How many?”

  “Three. Maybe four.”

  “How close.”

  “Say a half mile. Far enough so I didn’t lie awake worrying about them.”

  “What time?”

  “Two or three, I guess. Then first thing in the morning, I found Alvaro’s camp. I’d only been there a few minutes when the sheriff and his boys swarmed in.

  “Alvaro grabs a rifle and takes off. They shove me around, lock me up, and in another cell there’s Little Vic, stands four-foot-something.” I didn’t mention Hound Dog, hoping to avoid that topic. “Turns out Vic’s king of the Cossacks. He threatens to smoke me, maybe on account of he thinks I killed Jimmy and Ava’s sister’s his girl. Or maybe to get me out of town and make sure Alvaro gets convicted or dead so the truth won’t come out.

  “At the jamboree, they . . . Pop, the Chevy’s pretty much junked. They ball-peened it. The Cossacks did. All over. Hundreds of times. It looks like the offspring of a dinosaur and a golf ball.” Pop flipped his hand, meaning a car didn’t matter when Alvaro was in danger.

  Steph arrived with her notepad. Ava ordered tea and oatmeal with peaches. Pop ordered two omelets, Mama’s plain, his with ham. I chose the blueberry hotcakes. Steph moved to the booth straight across where three loggers in McNees T- shirts sat still and grim, eavesdropping.

  I said, “Ava can tell you what’s happened to Evergreen.”

  We all turned to Ava. “Greed happened,” she said. “The hippies planted marijuana all over the forest, so what could they expect besides some kind of mob to move in. Quig says the Cossacks are no better or no worse than like IBM or the Mafia or General Motors.”

  “Quig owns one of the communes,” I added. “Last night he cut a deal with the Cossacks, to turn me over to them.”

  Ava said, “If he decides you killed Jimmie and tortured Hound Dog.”

  Pop looked back and forth between Ava and me. “Tortured?”

  I said, “Somebody waylaid and interrogated this biker, is all.”

  The loggers across the room slapped money down on their check and sat still, listening. Pop watched them long enough so I guessed he was trying to catch their attention but none of them looked his way. He turned to the jukebox selector on the table by the wall and dropped in a quarter. His first choice was “Mood Indigo,” one of his favorite tunes to play when he moonlighted on clarinet with a jazz combo.

  AT 7:15, Pop turned south on the highway. Mama rode shotgun, resting or praying with her eyes closed. Ava and I were in back.

  After a mile, Ava touched my knee, just long enough to imply she might forgive me for last night, if I behaved henceforth.

  A plane zoomed low overhead. I told Pop it was probably the law scouring the woods for Alvaro.

  “Who’s investigating?” he asked.

  “Besides the sheriffs,” I said, “a guy who says he’s Bureau of Narcotics. Agent Knudsen.” I fished in my pocket for the business card Knudsen had given me. “He’s the only one who told me anything he didn’t have to.”

  “Such as?”

  “He said they found footprints around the camp that matched the ones at the murder scene. But he could be a phony. I think Jimmy’s mom told me he’s FBI, and he’s been keeping tabs on Alvaro.”

  “You think she told you he’s FBI?”

  “She was drunk, yelling at me. Does his card look for real to you? I mean, would a Fed’s business card be that rinky-dink?”

  “Could be,” Pop said, “if he’s FBI and the card’s a cover. I hear Hoover’s a tightwad who keeps account of paperclips. Did he show you any ID?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ask for any?”

  “No. I should’ve, right.”

  Pop filled, tamped, and lit his pipe and rolled his window all the way down. “So Ava, who’d Jimmy pal with? Bikers, hippies, jocks, fishermen?”

  “He thought the bikers were rats,” she said, “and the hippies he didn’t understand, like hardly anybody who grows up poor can make sense of the hippies living on purpose that way. But some of them are smart, and Jimmy liked that. He could talk to them about politics and philosophical stuff. He was pretty tight with a black guy named Simon for a while last year.”

  I groaned and notched another mark in the error column of my record. If I would’ve asked Ava that simple question, who were Jimmy’s pals, I might’ve tried harder and found a way to loosen Simon’s tongue instead of waylaying Hound Dog.

  Ava had stopped talking when I groaned. Pop had cocked his head my way. I said, “I’ve been talking to Simon but I didn’t know he was tight with Jimmy.”

  While Ava told Pop that Jimmy was also tight with his mom and with his uncle Brady, the deputy sheriff, Pop handed me a pocket-sized notepad and a ballpoint. Ava briefly characterized Jimmy’s half dozen best friends.

  I scribbled names and notes. Then I thought about Simon. Ava had told me Jimmy was half black. Besides jamboree musicians and a few hippies, blacks were rare as crocodiles around Evergreen.

  I directed Pop onto Highball Trail. As we passed the Crossroads, Ava said, “That’s the bar where somebody caught Hound Dog and took him out into the woods and tortured him.”

  “Not tortured,” I insisted. “Tortured isn’t the way I heard it.”

  Pop craned around to look at me. He didn’t have to ask if I was guilty. He could read my face as well as I could read “Run Spot Run.” He turned back to the road and asked, “How far to Alvaro’s camp?”

  “Four and a half miles.”

  “And the shooting happened near there?”

  “About a half mile farther upstream, they say.”

  Pop’s Eldorado floated over the bumps and sinkholes. With one hand resting on the ledge of her open window, Mama gazed into the forest where wild plums and pears shone bright as Christmas bulbs. Mama beamed at the sight.

  Our first stop was Alvaro’s camp. A blind person wouldn’t miss the trail, since the road and clearing beside it were etched with the tracks from where police cruisers had spun U-turns.

  We walked the last quarter mile. I led the way. Pop covered the rear. The trail was scuffed by so many foot-tracks, Willis might have imported a brigade of soldiers and marched them through it.

  His campsite wasn’t taped off. Either the sheriffs had gathered everything they considered evidence, or they figured they didn’t need evidencesince they meant to shoot him on sight. I wondered, if he got desperate, would he use his rifle and make the charge that he was a killer come true.

  The campsite looked like a pillaged garage sale. The string shopping bags, which on Thursday had hung from redwood limbs as Alvaro’s version of a kitchen cabinet and a dresser, lay torn on the ground beside the strewn remnants of his underwear, plates and pans, toiletries, and canned goods. His Paracho guitar, rosewood with an ebony fingerboard inlaid with mother of pearl, lay next to its case, upside down on the strings.

  After I packed the guitar into its case, I followed Pop into the tent. The sheriffs had sliced the canvas floor on three sides and peeled it back. Probably after they ransacked his pallet bed, books, and all, they cut the floor and heaved it to one side, in case he had buried treasure or corpses beneath it. Pop and I laid the floor back and spread Alvaro’s things around as we looked them over. The first objects I searched for were roach clips, whiskey bottles, any evidence that Alvaro had gone back on his clean and sober promise. I would’ve shoved them into my pockets.
Pop didn’t need another something to grieve. He brushed aside a pile of books, two Kurt Vonnegut paperbacks and a few comic mysteries.

  While I gathered Alvaro’s dozens of tapes — blues, rock, folk, mariachi — Pop thumbed through the magazines. A few of them he carried into better light near the entrance. “Tell me about Phil Ochs.”

  He passed me four magazines. Playboy. Mother Jones. Rolling Stone. Guitar Player. Each of them dog-eared to an article about Phil Ochs.

  “A folk singer,” I said. “Some of his songs are lyrical and sweet but he gets mean when he sings about injustice. Or capitalism. Or Vietnam. He’s got no problem with violent revolution and he admires some communists, like Fidel and Mao. He’s the headliner at the jamboree.”

  “Look at the dates on the magazines.”

  None of the issues were recent. The oldest dated back four years. Pop rapped his knuckles together. “Did you ever hear that Alvaro got mixed up in politics? Joined some outfit like Vietnam Vets Against the War?”

  I thought a minute and shook my head. “But if he did and if Jimmy Marris was mixed up in politics . . . what if the FBI knocked off Jimmy and framed Alvaro, to get rid of them both?”

  “Not likely,” Pop said. “But possible.”

  Mama was sitting on the big stump in the only pool of sunlight the towering redwoods let in. Hands folded in her lap, she glanced around the campsite and shook her head, looking distressed as though Alvaro had thrown a wild party and left the cleanup to her. Ava stood nearby, feeding crumbs out of my brother’s Tupperware breadbox to a party of squirrels. Pop asked her, “The little guys tell you anything?”

  “I’m trying to make it out,” she said, “but they talk so fast.” He asked her if Jimmy was involved in any kind of politics. Her face got defiant. “His mom thinks he was a communist, but he wasn’t.”

  I looked around for Alvaro’s tape player. When I gave up, I sat with Mama. Pop continued to snoop through debris but all he considered worth pocketing was a pair of aviator sunglasses he found half buried in the mulch under a redwood tree. When he showed them to me, I said, “You wouldn’t catch Alvaro wearing those things.”