Tonight I missed another call from Janet Thrush. She phoned the apartment while I was with Cleo and crew at Jizz.
“Meet me Sunday morning at the donut shop,” she said in her message. “Try to be there ’round ten-thirty, okay?”
When I called back, the service answered so I hung up and put “Shipwrecked Heart” on the disc player. I tuned my old acoustic guitar and now I’m working through the chords of the song. The opening line of verse starts with a D, but then Jimmy changes keys and I believe the second line begins with an F-major seven, followed by a C, E-minor and an F. This is catchy but it’s not exactly Derek and the Dominos. If a klutz like me can play it, so can Cleo. She can also sing the melody in that fashionably wounded way that sells jillions of records for young female artists.
This is how I’m guessing it started. They were hanging out at the house in the islands, Jimmy and his bride. She probably walked into the studio and caught just enough of the track to know it was better than anything she had in the can. She asked her husband to play it again and he probably said no, it’s not ready. Then she batted her eyes and stroked his neck and asked if he’d give her the song and he said sorry, babe, this one’s mine. Time went by and Cleo’s label was hounding her and she kept nagging Jimmy for the cut. She probably flirted and teased and begged and cried and threw a hissy, but he wouldn’t budge. And when it became plain to Cleo that her husband was keeping “Shipwrecked Heart” for himself, she decided to kill him.
And what little she remembered of the song, she sang at his funeral.
Touching.
I messed around with the guitar until an hour before dawn. Then I packed what I thought I’d need, drove to the paper and promptly fell asleep on the floor by my desk. The janitors worked around me, and the phone didn’t ring. Now it’s nine o’clock and the staff trickles into the newsroom. Abkazion is one of the first to arrive. Somewhere between the elevator and his office door, he spies me and alters course as silkily as a hawk.
“Jack,” he says pleasantly, “you look like shit on a Popsicle stick.”
Abkazion is one of those editors who prefers to see his reporters rumpled and raw-eyed. It means they’re either working too hard or playing too hard—either way, he approves.
“It’s this damn story,” I say.
“Yeah, Emma told me. How’s it going?”
“Ask me in twenty-four hours.” I’m tempted to chum him up with my inflated Rick Tarkington quote, but that would require more energy than I can muster. Selling a story to the front page is hard work.
“How was Los Angeles?”
“Productive,” I say. “Thanks for the green light.”
“Thank Emma. She said you were hot on the trail.”
Abkazion isn’t tall but he has broad muscular shoulders and carries himself like the collegiate wrestler he once was. He is new to the Union-Register but already has endeared himself to the troops by disregarding several penny-pinching directives from corporate headquarters. He is the newspaper’s fourth managing editor in six years and, like the others, Abkazion took the job because he thought he could staunch the bleeding. Soon enough he’ll learn that he is working for vampires; vampires with stock options.
“That’d be a helluva twist,” he’s saying, “if it turns out Jimmy Stoma got snuffed by his old lady. You ever see ’em in concert—the Slut Puppies?”
“No, I never did.”
“Lord, he was a wild man onstage,” says Abkazion, “and he sure got the girls gooey. Know which song I really liked? ‘Basket Case.’ I think it was on Reptiles and Amphibians.”
“Actually, it’s from Floating Hospice” I say.
“You sure? ‘Bipolar mama in leather and lace’?”
“That’s the one.”
“You’re the expert.” Abkazion smiles. “I hope this story works out for you, Jack.”
It’s a kind thing to say. He knows my history here.
“When will Emma be in?”
“I’m not sure,” I tell him. “I think she called in sick again.”