LINK from novel TAR to sequel PORTLAND TAR

When the big guy dumped the smaller guy into the La Brea Tar Pits and then jumped in on top of him, the wino Reginald Von Beuler ran out of Rancho Park onto Fairfax Avenue and waved down a passing police car. The car was driven by a small black woman, with her partner a big chunk of white cop in the passenger seat. Being closest to the curb, it has he who addressed Reginald, quite politely but not without ironic condescension.

”How may we help you this evening, sir?”

Reginald told him what he saw. In his haste, he had not even---and anyway how could he?---given up his little bottle of high alcohol content port wine. It seemed the big cop was being good cop, because the woman said, “Don’t you know its illegal to drink in public?”

Nicer cop said, “He’s just carrying it.”

This encouraged Reginald to unscrew the cap. Even easy cop added, “But not to ingest, okay?”

Reginal screamed, “You’re not even listening to context. I’m on Community Patrol.”

“You say this happened in the Tar Pits?”

“Yes.”

The woman queried, “Not a hallucination, huh?”

“No.”

The lug asked the woman, “We check this out?”

“It’s a quiet night so far.”

The closest way to the Tar Pits was to just park at the curb. Both officers accompanied Reginald across the grass, and through a slice he assured them was in the fence.

At the big pit, the male cop asked, “So, where exactly?”

‘There.”

He said to the female, “There are bubbles coming up.”

“There are always bubbles coming up from this tar.”

“He says here.”

“What are we going to do? Take our uniforms off and dive in?”

In seeming reply to that, a tar coated figure resembling a baby pachyderm arose. Then the critter spoke and said, “Oh, thank God, municipal assistance.”

Reginald petitioned, “He threw the other guy in all tied up.”

The woman told the tar thing to turn around, and then handcuffed him.

The man said, “Call back-up and get Fire to send medical. I’m taking a swim.”

And he disrobed to his non-issue drawers and dove in like a slim high school athlete.

Damien was hallucinating. Hartman had got off him and must have resurfaced. But Damien was bound and drowning. The cruelty of the will to live! The delusion of hope. He thought somebody was there, pulling him up.

In the meantime, when she told him to sit down, Hartman ran away, hands cuffed behind him, and the female couldn’t shoot him in the back nor leave the other officer’s uniform, gun, taser, badge and cuffs on the ground. How far could the tar gumbie get cuffed? Reginald offered to watch the police gear for her, but…He even attempted pursuit himself, but was just not swift, not useful beyond reporting, but for sure he deserved a Good Citizen Citation, and she was going to recommend him for one if this ended well. Wouldn’t that be a civic event to remember.

And it did end well. The big cop came up with Damien, alive if barely, and an ambulance had arrived, so the medical crew took over.

Damien was in love, and he knew it was Allison’s hands bringing him up. She’d tell him otherwise later, but upon awakening in a hospital bed, that was what he believed. But social media soon saw it that the man they say had  been handcuffed but never found was himself a Good Samaritan who had  rescued Damien. And after all Damien’s prior negative publicity, the theory was that Damien was a spoiled crazed celebrity who attempted suicide in the Tar Pits to complete his metaphor, previously expressed in an interview in ELAY MAGAZINE, of the Tar Pits as a symbol of Hollywood and the City of L.A. That became social media theory despite the testimony of the two police and Reginald. How could Reginald be credible? And that big cop was lying about the rescue, just looking for fame, money and a promotion. The real hero, the big guy who ran away, was a scapegoat.

Damien had never wanted fame and he had enough of show biz. He went back to furniture moving, with his own Celebrity Movers, and Allison continued as a public school teacher.

                                   PORTLAND TAR               

                               novella by Patrick Breheny       

       He was having a dream, he knew that, a crazy one he had to wake up 

from.  Somebody was rocking the bed, or it was on rollers and moving. It was on small 

casters,  but with his weight and Allison’s and the box spring and deep mattress, it would 

take a giant to move it. It was moving. Everything was. The joists were groaning,…………..

cabinets banging open and spitting out books and knickknacks, glass splintering from 

 picture  frames, and from the kitchen came the clacking of dishes falling and breaking. 

     The whole joint was shaking. He was awake and so was Allison, and they were in an earthquake. .Being L.A. denizens, they didn’t have to shout to each other to get in a doorway, they just did it. He recalled that in the last one he actually woke up in a doorway, there by an automatic pilot instinct.

    The noise was the roar of a cyclone, trembling walls trying hard to hold against a force plummeting them, the ceiling flinging heavy chunks of itself at the floor. Even as he hoped God would help him somehow, he knew this was different than that idea, this activity was indifferent, he just happened to be present and irrelevant to the outcome. He was in the bedroom doorway leading to a dressing room alcove, she in the doorway to the bathroom, from where came loud smashing cracks and echoes as pieces of the moisture weakened ceiling flew like kamikaze into the ceramic bathtub/shower.

    It went on. He thought the building would collapse, hardly understood how it hadn’t.

Allison was in a navy blue jogging suit she used as pajamas, and she’d be more decent to run outside when---if---it ended, while he was only wearing boxer shorts, but might be able to grab his jeans…of all things to be distracting himself with, modesty.

     It stopped gradually. The shaking got less intense, paused, then returned, but the worst seemed over. After what could be the last rattle he lurched across the room and hugged her.

     “You okay?”

     “Oh, terrific. Why do we keep living here?”

     “I don’t know. I mean---I do---but,…I don’t know. I wonder if we can---Do you want  some coffee.”         .

    “If you think its possible”

     They disengaged and she moved toward the living room. From out of his view, she exclaimed, “God, look at this place.”

      He went into the kitchen and heard, “The TV’s not smashed,”, then “Ahh! The electric’s out.” That meant, by the wall clock, the quake stopped the electricity at 6:28.  

    “No coffee then. I don’t dare open a gas jet. There are new batteries in the radio if that’s not broken.”

    Not all the radio stations were up. Allison had to roam the dial before finding one, and sitting on the living room sofa they were introduced to a joking self conscious DJ who couldn’t play music if they wanted him to, but morphed to journalist and relayed what information he had. It didn’t seem to have been that bad. In a way, that wasn’t so great, because---what would bad be like?

     Damien hadn’t been smoking much, about three total the last couple of days, but he needed a cigarette now. He usually went out on the balcony because Allison didn’t smoke, but he imagined a not very far distant future news item about the guy who went on a weakened balcony for a smoke He stepped out first holding the inner railing, then gingerly distributed his weight, closing the sliding shatterproof glass door half way---glass that hadn’t shattered.

      He sniffed for gas before lighting the butt. Surviving the cigarette, he came back in, then went out to the corridor of the apartment building, just to see what was what. It was almost totally dark out there, just panels of light on walls, reflected from opposite windows he couldn’t see. A man and woman, idiot lowlife neighbors from down the hall, were out there with lit candles. He hadn’t smelled gas, but didn’t like their carelessness.

     He shouted, “What if there’s a gas leak?”

     The husky woman blew hers out. The guy, big too, middle aged, with a beard to compensate for what he was losing on top, growled, “You smell gas, pal?”

     “I thought I did ..”

     “You thought? I don’t smell any.”

      He thought, BLAM.

   . “You’re just not acting smart.”

    “You don’t seem so bright yourself.”

     Ah, People, can we all get along? as Rodney King had so recently asked. The real problem was that they’d be out there with candles even if there was a gas leak. Who could save us from each other? On TV, they constantly warned people in L.A. to have an earthquake kit that included things like water, cans of tuna, a flashlight. Some people were just procrastinators. Dysfunctional. That was too kind. Some people were brain dead.

      Back inside, Allison had gone into the kitchen and he joined her. She said,
”A few glasses survived and not everything in the refrigerator broke. We can have orange juice?”

     They sat at the kitchen table with the radio on, where before either of them finished half a glass, the world started moving again. ”Shee-hit!” the DJ/announcer said for them, and they were back in another doorway clutching each other, while the building had another grand mal seizure. To the DJ’s credit, he remained on air as a dedicated if terrified reporter until the radio jumped off the table and all the batteries bounced on the floor.

     It felt even stronger this time. He wondered how many times they were going to stay in this building and survive. They could have, should have, gotten out before the encore. Maybe it was an unfair moment to present her with such a proposition--- clenched together  hoping to live--- but if not now, when?

     He said, “Why don’t we get out of L.A.? Today.”

    Possibly because her response was based on an assumption they would survive, she quickly replied, as if suffocating, “Okay.”

     Could he hold her to that when—if—it stopped

     It stopped. There were more ceiling slabs on the floor, with razor sharp edges that would have slashed had they fallen on them, the rest of the dishes were broken, and this time everything in the refrigerator was smashed, the yolks and whites of eggs mixed with milk as if to make a cake, except looking slavered across shelves and on cartons.

     “I know you have to think about what I said…”

      “Only about where to.”

      “What if we clean up here, leave today, and drive up to the northwest---like Portland, Seattle, scout it out.? We can come back for everything.”

       “We can clean up when we come back too.”

       “We can’t leave this mess.”

      “We couldn’t finish a glass of juice. Let’s get out of here.”

      They fast packed, like within thirty minutes, two aftershocks to speed them along.

They had what they needed for a couple of weeks, each carrying a big suitcase and two shoulder bags. The building lights were on from the generator now, and they hurried down the stairs from the third floor---no elevator, no way---to encounter the manager Jerry on the first floor, who implored, only sort-of in jest, “Take me with you.”

    Sorry Jerry, but his comment pointed out they were privileged enough to just go like that. Who they were---who Damien had been---made it possible. And she was a substitute teacher, could be unavailable any time. He had his own business, could get cover for.

     It was noon when they left L.A., and around 10:00 PM , they were in Weed, way up in northern California above Sacramento and Redding, facing the challenge of traversing the Siskiyou Mountains into Oregon, which would be better in daylight, but they had  a bright night with a cloudless sky and full moon. Weed has one main street, and its I-5, a few blocks long, and consists of gas stations, convenience stores, motels and restaurants. Sixteen wheelers, logging trucks, tourist RVs and cars roll through, slowing for municipal rules, the occupants selecting to gas, sleep or dine as per disposition..

     Damien and Allison first took the option of food, at a place that looked like one of L.A’s  plastic themed Norm’s coffee shops transplanted bricks and glass windows hundreds of miles out into the sticks

    They were left alone to read the menu, then help arrived. The waitress was everybody’s plump aunt, with a voice quality that raised an expectation she might ask, “Would you like a sandwich dear?” What she did say was, “How are you folks this evening?”, as if she knew them well.. That wasn’t necessarily a particular of Weed. It was California. A New York waiter/waitress might inquire, “Are you ready yet?” or “What are we having?” In New York, except among peers, people were Mr and Mrs . Damien wasn’t sure about Weed mores, but in L.A. everybody was Bob or Walt or Miriam or Peggy, regardless of age, station or bank balance.

       Allison responded to the query with, “We were just driving around looking for  Weed.”

      This country woman was more worldly wise than appearance indicated, or she was just used to such banter, because she replied, “We’re all high here.”

    That even took Allison back The waitress---her badge said she was FELICITY---smiled to acknowledge her put on. “Altitude.”.

     The selection was similar to Norm’s too, but the nice surprise was that the food had a home cooked flavor to it, with the portions considerably more righteous.

    The meal gave them a boost of energy, and the clear night motivated them to continue driving to Portland. They got gas at the last station at the north end of town, and then, as Weed receded in the mirrors, it was Allison who came up with the inevitable farewell joke regarding the town’s name: “We’re out of Weed now.”

     Portland is seductive. Sexy. Downtown is clean, lit gently by street lights spilling an amber glow on sidewalks.  It’s clean and the buildings appear new. The feeling is easy urban, that this is the laid back enchanting gem of the northwest.

     Trashed from the road, in need of showers and sleep, they stayed that first night at the Unicorn Hotel north of downtown, but close---everything close to downtown in Portland.

Maybe it was the change of locales, or being travel fried, but Damien didn’t have an appetite for sex that morning, nor, it seemed, did she. He didn’t think too much about that, but he considered it. Allison. He once couldn’t leave her alone. Ever. And he was her favorite pastime. It was just---it had to be admitted---he was…used to her. Maybe you don’t always feel like having sex with your best friend.

    The next afternoon, they were sitting on a bench on the grassy strand that runs along the Willamette River separating downtown from the other side that is not at all like downtown, a funky area of older houses, stores and two story commercial buildings. They’d been over to look, had breakfast there. They were ignored an inordinately long time before offered service, unsure if that was just the pace of Portland (direction) or they’d seen the California license plate. Northwesterners didn’t care for California refugees spreading their culture---that Californication---and the less cosmopolitan an area  the stronger that sentiment seemed to be..

     They were  back now on the metro side  It was a sunny day, a rare phenomenon for Portland,  the Unicorn desk clerk had told them this morning, “Enjoy it while you can,” and they were looking out at the river now with boats pulling jet ski riders back and forth. Feeling he needed to have ‘a conversation’ about their plans, he put his arm across her shoulders, then took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, started to shake one out, but stopped because he saw she was going to stand and give some space.

     He returned the pack to his chest pocket, she stayed on the bench, and they sat silently for a few more minutes until he asked

     “Do you think you want to live here?”

     “You like it. I don’t know yet. We’re not regular people.”

     “We won’t be that anywhere. Nobody’s noticed me yet.”

     He was referring to his bushy moustache, which was working somewhat.

     “I’ll disguise more. Grow a beard. Shave my head or wear a hat.”

     It was about his recent fame, that TV show he’d been the star of, the star that came from nowhere, and he didn’t try hard to keep the career going when it cancelled, mostly because he wasn’t an actor and she wanted their former anonymous life back. He re-opened his furniture moving business, called it Celebrity Movers, and she went back to substitute teaching in the public .schools.  In L.A. there is a Celebrity Taxi, Celebrity Copies, Celebrity Motel, to name a few, but only Celebrity Movers was owned and operated by an actual celebrity and had celebrity clientele.

     She said, “I don’t want to go back to what we left, but can we see Seattle ?”

     “We’ll go up there too.”

       They did for a few days. Damien didn’t feel it as accessible, more spread out, even downtown itself hard to hold onto as a city concept. Portland was smaller, but its core of a few blocks with tall buildings gave it a cosmo nucleus, portrayed sophistication that he felt Seattle lacked, or at least he hadn’t found.

      In-town Portland was pretty and mesmerizing, and thus it was that, back in Portland, sitting in a booth in the bar of the Unicorn Hotel, when he asked for her vote, she said,

      “You want Portland, don’t you?”

      “Oh come on. I want to hear what you want.”

      “Both are easy. If you like Portland, we’ll try it.”

     This was her historical acquiescence to him, though he was beginning to not quite accept it as sincere. She was once always on his side, and he believed it, but a realization had filtered in that her needs couldn’t always coincide with his. Yet, he did favor Portland. True he didn’t know Seattle, hadn’t given it a chance, but…he liked getting his way. And she wasn’t petitioning for Seattle, probably didn’t care. He was thinking too much. About everything.

         He said, “How about we look for an apartment today?”

       “They have wi-fi. here”

         She opened the lap top. As she got on line, he refrained from telling her he’d scouted Portland rentals already while she was in the shower, and let her bring up the listings and search. He wanted to see the “gaslight entrance, cattycorner to the Oregonian newspaper, near the baseball stadium, two blocks from Burnside”.

     She kept referring to places out where the were, 84^th, a couple of highway ramps north from the center .He had to show some enthusiasm for her picks, yet direct her toward town to get a request for the place he wanted to see.

     Soon, getting his location affinity, she asked, “Why right downtown?”

     “Because I’m a city rat, and it has one. I didn’t feel that in Seattle.”

     “I think that’s what I liked about…” She stopped. It was as close as she’d come to expressing her preference.

      She scrolled some more, then, rearranging their beverages, slid the computer across the glass table top on the mahogany stained surface.

     “I don’t see anything else. You look.”

     He knew exactly what he was going to find, but cited to her first some of the trashier postings, with the deprecation they deserved, just not overdoing it to a point she’d think he was giving up. Then he said, “Oh, here’s one.”

     If he was being strategic, he admonished himself to quit it---feeling that by recognizing it,  it was no more than  awareness that a  bad habit was forming, one he had to break for his sake as much as hers. Certainly it was not something he could discuss with her yet, not while he was still doing it. And if she didn’t notice ---could it all just be in his head?

     Allison was driving the Mustang and they were on I-5 going downtown. Damien had called the manager’s number and told him they’d be stopping by .As they got near the exit they’d need to check the ‘gaslight’ lay out, he began reproaching himself as a jerk. How could he be like that with her, with all they’d been through together?  Unless all they’d been through was the reason, but he’d have to look at that too. Both ways. With her.

        He said, “What if we get a coffee at Powell’s Books?”

      “You don’t want to just see this place?”

      “Something I’d like to talk about first.”

       “We’re both here now.”

        “You’re driving.”   

         The reason she was driving was because she was tired of being a passenger.

         “Yeah…Well, yeah…Oh?.. Okay.”

        The what-they’d-been-through, besides earthquakes and riots, and the stalking and house break-in by Harry Hartman---and what she insisted was Damien’s reverie, but he was sure happened--- of finally being kidnapped by Hartman, tied up and dropped into the La Brea Tar Pits. If it happened, he could never explain how, possibly because of  trauma amnesia, he then was freed and got home.

    They also suspected something happened the night she was unconscious on their strip of beach in Malibu, the night Hartman broke in by climbing over the fence to the beach where she was lying.

      Allison became pregnant shortly after that. That was no surprise to them, they weren’t doing anything to prevent it. She had passionately loved and wanted the baby she didn’t know yet, as did he, infectiously but naturally too, and they’d eagerly anticipated being parents. But there was Hartman, his insistence the night he held Damien hostage in the Malibu house that he was  Damien, and his assertion that because he was Damien, Allison was his wife.

    Allison had been on the beachfront behind the house, a pill suicide attempt, or at least a cry for help, and that was where Hartman entered the house from.

    She had the baby, a boy. Devastating as the prospect was, they had to confront the doubt with DNA. The baby’s was not a match to Damien’s. He had the trust to believe what she told him, that there absolutely was no one else… but could they keep the baby? Damien, though he detested the prospect, said he’d support her decision. She anguished over it. It wasn’t the baby’s fault, she was his mother, and she didn’t want to abandon him…but they both knew it would  be unfair to the child. They’d never get past how he came to them.

      It was especially tough to Korean-American Allison, the child of an American GI and a Korean mother. Her mother had once been a Seoul bargirl whose own parents had survived the Korean War and the poverty and devastation of the years after. Her father, the quiet former military man, worked long hours, and when he was home didn’t talk. ‘Mother’ now had two master’s degrees, was on a school board in Connecticut and, even as she conducted seminars on child abuse pushed her only child,  by pressure, cajoling, and sometimes physically, to succeed  by any means possible, as she had.  Allison’s rebellion had been to use the dance and music lessons forced on her to become a dancer and guitarist, and to put three thousand miles between her and ‘Mother’

.    They released the baby for adoption, to be kept temporarily on one of those wards where babies stop crying because they’d learned nobody is coming-- and they had to wonder  what kind of people they grow up to be.

      This baby wasn’t on the ward long enough to find out about that, was stolen off it. They were sure Hartman had him, and some of the police did too, but Hartman was officially dead, a bum who, with Harman’s  ID, was pulled from McArthur Park lake, and positively identified by a relative, months before.

     Damien and Allison put on hold any attempt at parenting in the near future.

     Now in Powell’s friendly bookstore, where kids went in groups to do homework and projects, and you were free to research, browse and read with a latte, they sat at the front plate glass window facing  a slow downtown street even for Portland because it was on the perimeter.

        She waited for him, might have asked “So?” but didn’t.

       And when he gave up on her asking what it was they had stopped for, he said, “Look, I manipulated looking at this apartment. I knew what I wanted when you were searching. I’d been on the computer while you were in the shower.”

     She was raising a coffee in her hand, paused, finished the gesture and brought the cup to her mouth, concealing an expression there. Her eyes only communicated absorption. The cup came down, then she faced him openly. He couldn’t read anger, sadness, love for his contrition, disgust of it, even happiness. Nothing. Only a neutrality that went on uncomfortably long for him until finally she broke it by speaking.

      “It sounds interesting, so let’s go see it.”.

     “About the…dishonesty?”

     “I think you should stop doing that. It bothers you” And she smiled. “That’s why we came here?”

     “We can look at the books too.”

     “But maybe the building manager won’t wait all day for us. And if we live near here, we can always hang around this store.”

      The ‘gaslight entrance’ was charming but not authentic. The two lights around the doorway hadn’t been adapted for electricity, had always been electric, with red cylindrical bulbs designed to flow like gaslight flame. At night they probably seemed magical. They were on now in daylight, he suspected because he and Allison were arriving, fixtures as real as Disneyland and Vegas themes, props on a Hollywood sound stage.

        But they were there, and the building had its appeal, an exterior of white marble, old if not quite old enough to have been gaslight, clean and well maintained inside. The manager Stan was a 60’s guy who showed them one of the units. For what it was,  Portland trendy, the rent was half what they’d pay in L.A. They had to discuss it, told Stan that, then went and sat in their car, parked, along the side of the building.

      Damien asked, “What do you think?”

      “It’s lovely.”

     “You’re not just going along? You like it?”

     “I like it.”

      “Can you say something about it?”

      “It’s the nicest building I’ve seen here yet. Except for the Victorians.”

       ‘Teddy Rooseveltians. You’d rather we look at Victorians---Roosevelts?”

       “Is this Canadian compensation? Patriotism for America?”

       “Maybe something like that.”

       “No, I  don’t want to look at them. I just like that architecture. But those houses are so big people without a family share them .Like hippies. That’s no us. We’re not buying anything, its temporary, and this is fine.”

       “Yeah, it’s a bonus. We got away, so I don’t care either.”

       But he did, wanted this apartment, and for reasons he didn’t even fathom himself, loved that it was “cattycorner to the Oregonian newspaper and near the baseball stadium”     He was still being deceptive, and though he didn’t think she wanted to keep hearing him admit it, she’d probably like him to stop doing it.

    “Yeah I do,” he said.

     What he didn’t expect was that she would suddenly release a choking sob Except crying didn’t last even a second, was replaced by “Damien, stop it.” and, after catching her breath, “I’m not a psychiatrist. We have to live somewhere.”

      He understood at that moment he was breaking their pact. She was reliant on him. He wasn’t supposed to present her with problems, if he had any.. 

      He would have said something ---he wasn’t sure what--- except a woman around 30, hair tied back severely, without a trace of make-up, wearing a plaid shirt and jeans, Oregon fashion, walked up to the car on the passenger side at the sidewalk, where he was sitting with the window open, and said,

     “Can you keep it down? My kid is taking a nap and you woke him.”

      Were they talking loud? They were in front of apartment windows.

      “We didn’t realize it. We’re leaving.”

      Getting that, the woman left. He turned back to Allison, who was composed now, and she said , “Let’s go in and take it.”

      His synapses wanted to ask “Sure?”, but his mouth wisely spilled out “Okay.”

     When they rang the manager’s bell again at the front entrance, the woman who’d just asked them to be quiet came out. She smiled slightly, nodded and said, “My name’s Janet. I’m Stan’s daughter. He’s waiting for you.”     

     They more or less replicated L.A. She couldn’t teach in the public schools without establishing Oregon residency, which meant having a state driver’s license, a bank account, utility bills, but she did find part time ESL work with an English language academy. Damien wasn’t ready yet to commit to the extent of looking for a site for a business or buying a house, but he did get hired as at an estimator for a local moving company that was an agent for a long distance van line, so he saw potential customers for local and distance moves. Local moving wasn’t what it was in transient L.A. but there was some, with the bigger commissions to be found booking distance jobs.

         He wasn’t sure how to dress. An Oregon businessman might wear work boots with a sports jacket and tie. When he first went on estimates in L.A., before fame, he found out how attire affected people there. He started out like the other estimators, wearing a suit in a casual city. He went on one estimate for a Mexican family moving to San Antonio.  He sensed he could easily sell this job if he could connect with Jose, but Jose saw an FBI

 agent. Jose had money, a rented three bedroom house, kids running around with cups of punch in their hand, and a big friendly half collie who jumped on Damien’s suit with his front paws and licked his cheek. He tried joking about that, but couldn’t break through the barrier of white guy in a suit, and Jose kept addressing him as “Sir”. He didn’t get that one, and went on estimates after that informal and relaxed and usually booked the jobs.

    So, how to dress in Portland? He couldn’t see himself as genuine in boots, sports jacket and tie. Somehow you had to be from that area. But their neighbor Janet always seemed to wear what she did the day they first encountered her, and he could see himself real like that. He made sure the jeans weren’t faded, and that they and the shirt were pressed. For footwear, he went with black or brown sports shoes that were almost office.

Damien needed someone to run the L.A. business while he decided what he was doing in Portland.  Ken, his dispatcher, already did the logistics of booking jobs by phone and internet, scheduling estimates and moves, and assigning crews, and he made him manager. Damien could do bookkeeping, pay bills and salaries from Oregon. He didn’t want to use his own famed name, so on business cards he became---Harry Hartman again---defying the cosmos. When customers said he looked like Damien Rennard, he replied “I’ve heard that before.”

     They got comfortable being ordinary people. Yet, where they’d lived in Hollywood, there were lots of mornings when there was broken glass in the street from windows of cars that had lost a radio or tape deck. In Portland now, they had to park on the other side of nearby Burnside, and again he was encountering glass. And there was the local city TV news with stories they’d never heard about in L.A., of bodies pulled on two different occasions from the Willamette River, both local shady people who’d vanished. There was another incident where a homeless guy stabbed and killed another homeless while police were on the scene, unable to fire into a crowd of moving street people.

     Allison summed it up with: “We just haven’t left reality behind. At least they haven’t had any earthquakes.”

     They both knew that too was possible.              

      After Damien’s show cancelled, they both continued to go on auditions sometimes in L.A. A dancer had to have the pic and resume like the actors, so Allison was also sent on those occasional calls for an Asian-American actress. Both of them went now on Portland interviews. Damien was a big fish in a small pond---the Seattle branch of the Screen Actor’s Guild---and Allison just another fish in the small pond. The work available around Oregon-Washington was in local commercials, and smaller film roles cast at location because Hollywood production companies didn’t want to pay for transporting and housing bit actors.

     He quickly learned that if he could sell moving services dressed like an Oregon businessman, that didn’t apply to acting. What he’d worn on auditions in L.A. didn’t cut it up north. The threads on the thespians here were upscale and tailored. That nobody else dressed like that was irrelevant. The locals did for casting, and outclassed them.They both had the same theatrical agent, and went on more interviews than they’d ever gone on in L.A., yet nothing was clicking. Damien still seemed  molded to the character of his former TV show, as if that was only who he was

      Allison, in need of other pursuits, picked up her guitar again, a passion she hadn’t chased since New York, years earlier. And that led to late nights for Damien too at Paradym, the music club off edgy Burnside, where in the wee hours those tough rock and rollers were frequently, leaving the place, targeted and robbed by street people

     On the weeknights, Damien sacrificed sleep to accompany, or pick her up, and on those weeknights he was able to park in front. The muggings usually occurred on weekends when patrons had to walk a distance to a car. He hung around the club longer on weekends, but then had to park a bit away and take the risk. Sure with pepper spray or a folded knife in his pocket, but the attackers came up with their own shit and might not be alone. So far, he and Allison’s luck was holding.    

      One night, while Allison was up at the mike and Damien sat at the bar drinking slowly, a guy he already surmised, by exchange with the staff as either the owner or manager, sat a few stools over. He was in his sixties, had a beard, big tatted arms and a bikers build, but he was wearing a Grateful Dead shirt, hippie beads and sandals. Typecasting him, Damien came up with ‘Wolfman Jack As  Flower Child’, though paid little more attention until he spoke at him.

     “You guys are from L.A.”

     That was a statement, not a question, but, “Right.”

      “A good place to be from. Why you up here?”

      Despite the physical menace of his bulk and demeanor, not to mention the challenge  in  his words, he was smiling.

     “Expanding horizons.”

     “You picked a good area.”

    “Well, so far, so good.”

   “Nobody’s FROM L.A. Where else you been?”

    “A lot of places.”

   “I got all night.”

    “I met her in L.A. Before that, we both lived in New York, but we didn’t know each other there.”

    “The Apple. My home town.”

     Now Damien heard it, the cadence. This was a New Yorker, but one of the ones somehow not afflicted by the thick speech patterns, pronunciations like ‘New Yawk’ and ‘deese’ and ‘dose’. Damien asked,

        “Where in New York?”

       “The Bronx.”

       “Where in the Bronx?”

       “Fordham and the Concourse.”

      “Come on! You  been reading fan magazines?”

       “You’re going to tell me you’re from there?”

       “No, I’m not going to tell you I’m from there. I just lived there.”

       “Can I buy you a drink?”

       “Not yet. Maybe when I finish this one”

       He made a show of summoning the young lady behind the bar with the pierced nose and purple spiked hair, known as Spokes, and told her Damien’s next beverage would be on the house. Then he asked, “If you’re not a New Yorker, then where else you from?”

       “Tell me you’re not some kind of cop or something.”

       “Shit.”

       “Private investigator? National Enquirer? Anything?”

       “I aint a cop, and definitely no snitch.”

       “Well, this is not classified. I’m Canadian, born in Montreal.. My old man was in construction, a steel worker. He followed tall building going up, and we lived all over---Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, New York.”

        “How could you think I might be a cop?”

       “You never know”

       “You read the papers here, see TV? That last guy they pulled out of the Willamette?”

       “I heard of it.”

       “My partner. I’m a suspect.

       “That I didn’t know.”

       “Except I had nothing to do with it. I know, they all say that, but I didn’t. And its improved business, gave us an edgier reputation. But Bob was my buddy. I miss the guy, and they think I did it.”

        Damien tried one of those inadequate  phrases, the ones expressing sympathy. To say ‘sorry’ would be a lie, so he said,  ”My condolences.”

        “You believe me?”

       “I don’t know anything about it, okay.?”

       “My name’s Gus.”

      Gus extended his hand and they shook. Gus didn’t try to break his.

       “Damien.”

       “I know.  I’m innocent.”

       He got up quickly then and walked away. A performance?  It seemed to Damien Gus didn’t want to be seen crying.

     At home one day at dinner Allison said, “So, we’re normal people now, right?”

     He had to admit the National Enquirer and other tabloids had lost interest in him the last year. That was what she wanted, what he said he wanted, and yet--- he did miss it.

     He could go with a put-on and said, “You think so?”

    She continued with her premise:, “You and me, our normality is perfect.”

   “Really?”

   “Yes, its perfect because a perfect human being is imperfect.”

    “Like a perfect storm.”

    “Exactly.”

    “So, everything that can go wrong with us is and will?”

     “Right.  Perfect imperfection.”

     This bit of philosophical nonsense was the closest they’d come to each other since they’d been in Portland. Much as anything else, it had been adversity that bonded them in L.A.              

     Gus let Allison showcase every night at Pardym.. If Damien was going to meet her at 1:00 AM, he had to stay up late anyway, so his weekend nights at the club became every night. As an estimator, he was booking lots of jobs, and the office didn’t complain when he rescheduled his day’s agenda.. That became such a reality, they began scheduling him in the afternoon and later. He was amenable to going at six, seven, even eight evening for people working, so the arrangement was satisfactory to all.

     Gus, was a wheeler dealer, got her a recording session with North West, a Seattle label. She drove to Seattle on a weekday for the taping, which meant she’d be back in Portland early evening. When Damien came home around nine o’clock, Allison was snoozing on the sofa, the TV on low. She was lying fetal facing the back of the couch, and didn’t seem to hear him come in. When he squeezed in beside her feet, she acknowledged she was aware of him with a half wave, but reluctant to surrender her cozy dreamland continued a blissful sighing snore.

     Her purse was on the end table. There was a business card beside the purse, the table lamp illuminating the black print on white background, and he picked the card up. It read HARRY HATMAN, NORTHWEST PRODUCTIONS, SEATTLE, and had all he contact details. Harry Hartman, his nemesis in L.A., the stalker who had tracked and terrified them, invaded heir house, and---kidnapped Damien, dumped him in the Tar Pits he still believed, though that was disputed then as Pesent Truamatic Stress, or delusion, or something. Was it his sudden alarm that woke her?. She jerked as if poked, sat up, saw the card in his hand.

     ”Oh, Damien, no. It’s a different guy.”

     “Some coincidence.”

     “This Harry Hartman is too young, and he’s handled lots of bands. It’s a common enough name.”

      Damien couldn’t leave it alone and he did online research on the promoter Harry Hartman, who had a Jr after his name. His photos were in the cultural style of the 70s---shiny oiled hair, long sideburns jarringly out of proportion to the face, like an uncertain reversion in the 70s to the 60s, even 50s. There was no contemporary looking photo, and that was explained by a narrative that he had the mystique of reclusion, was a successful phantom whose dealings were handled by proxies.

     He looked long at one full face portrait and knew. Fathers and sons can be similar, but he had seen into Senior’s eyes, and it was them looking back at him from the picture.  

     Gus had the magic and persuasiveness to pitch radio stations across the country, and while he couldn’t turn her into a star, her song was getting play. Another evening at the club, as Damien walked in, Gus said, “Can I pull your chain?  Let’s slid in this booth.”

     They slidded into said booth, and Gus asked, “You know my old lady. Roxanne?”

     Damien did. Everyone called her Roxy, except Gus who alternately referred to her as Roxanne, with the reverence reserved for royalty, or ‘my old lady’. Roxy was often in attendance. Whether or not she had  ever  been a street woman, she had that aura, carried the hard lines of grief from addictions past and/or present.

     Gus acknowledged Damien’s unspoken appraisal by saying, “The worst is in the past. I just want to get your opinion about something. We’re taking a baby on consignment. I think it will be good for her, something to take care of, get her out of her own shit.”

     “Consignment?  You can sell the baby and get a commission?”

    Gus laughed. “No, no, we’re baby sitting. When the owner’s ready he’ll take it back His wife is missing in action right now, and he’s too busy.” 

    “You would do this just to keep Roxy occupied?”

    “Well, he will pay us. That’s what I mean by consignment, just not exact   Not that we need the money.”.

      “Whose baby is this?”

       “Well, you know the guy handling Allison The music guru in Seattle.”

      “Him!”

     “Him.”

     “ Jesus! Your old lady’s taking in Harry Hartman’s baby? That’s a serial killer in the making.”

     “Pardon me?”

     “You wouldn’t believe it.”

     “Try me.”

     It took a while, but he filled Gus in on their former life in LA., the TV show which Gus knew about, Harry Hartman’s stalking, the producers Nick Morrissey and his wife Jeannie Figueroa.

      “So there producers in L.A. thought you were delusional….”

     Allison too, about some of it, but he no need to tell Gus that. ”Right.”

      “Well, brother, what am I to think? I’m not a doctor. I wanted your advice. All I know is we’re watching a kid.”

       Damien had to wonder now if Gus wasn’t a Harry Hartman Sr operative.

      Allison said, “You think that’s my baby? It couldn’t be. It’s a coincidence”

      “You said there are no coincidences here.”

      “There have to be some, Damien.”

        Life didn’t exactly become normal, but appeared to be, and one evening about six, while Damien was still working, and Allison was through rehearsing for the club, relaxing to music on her stereo, there was a knock on the door.

     It was Janet, of the father/daughter team that managed the building. Janet said,

     “My Dad’s car broke down, and I have to get him .The baby’s asleep. I know this is inconvenient, we don’t know each other well, but could you please watch him for half an hour?”

    Thinking, ‘That baby’s always sleeping’ Allison said, “What would I have to do?

I don’t know about babies.”

     “Nothing. Just be there.”

     “If he woke up?”

     “Just tell him Mommy will be right back. Please?”

     Her L.A. life had made Allison a firm believer that no good deed goes unpunished, but this seemed a minor imposition, and she had nothing else to do at the moment.

    She followed Janet into the basement apartment, marveling that in Portland the building manager was also relegated below ground like the New York super.

     “You can stay in the living room, watch TV.I can’t thank you enough for doing this”.      

      She pointed at a closed door. “He’s in there.” If Allison thought it peculiar she didn’t show as well as tell,  did it really matter?  “Half hour. I promise.”     

      She left, and Allison was then sitting in a stranger’s apartment, watching a baby she’d never seen.  

.     She was halfway through the news when Janet returned with Stan. Janet thanked her again prolifically, Stan seconded that, she acknowledged, and went back to Apartment 212.

     Over a salad in the living room, she listened to music for thirty minutes more, when the knocks this time were aggressive, not ones you open a door to without inquiring who lurks. With irritation at the intrusion, she asked “Who’s there?”

     “Police. Open the door now.”

     “How do I know you’re police?”
     “We’ve announced.”

      “So? Maybe you’re not.”

      “Responding to a felony.”

      “What?”

      “Open up or we’ll kick it in.”

      With the security chain on, she unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door a crack. Two uniformed officers were out there, one young and pimply and looking 19 though he had to be more, and the other middle aged, graying and growing a belly. The elder stuck his foot into the gap space.

       So, they were cops. “I have to close it again to take the chain off.”

       He with his shoe inside said, “You have three seconds to do that.”

       He pulled his toes out, and she closed the door and released the chain. As soon as she did, they pushed in, slamming her with the door. Once inside, they roughly turned her around and pushed her face down into an armchair.

      “What the fuck…?”

      The younger one, she thought making points, asked, “You have any weapons? On you or here?”

      “No.”

      “You sure?”

       “What do you mean by weapons?”

       “What do you mean by weapons?”

       “We have knives for cooking. I have pepper spray in a drawer. It’s legal.”

       The older one, seeming reassuring and reasonable now that she was subdued, said,

        “We mean lethal. A gun. A switchblade.”

        “Nothing like that. I’m not a criminal. What is this?”

        The young one snarled “Where’s the other baby?”

        “What?”

          He took handcuffs off his belt and locked them on her wrists.

          The fat one, as she’d categorized him now, asked with his new calm voice,

          “What did you do with Mrs. Wilson’s baby?”

          “Who’s Mrs. Wilson?”

           “The manager. She says you offered to baby sit and switched babies.”

      When Damien came home and she wasn’t there, he thought she’d be at Paradym.. When she wasn’t there either, he told Gus he was going home, to tell her to call him, and that’s where he went again.

      There was a pulsing red light on the answering machine, signaling two messages. On the first Allison said, “God, Damien, I’m at the downtown police station, accused of kidnapping. Come over here when you get the message.”

       The second message was also her voice. “They allow one call, and let me have another, seem to think that will make me cooperative. This is unreal. Get here as soon as you can. Maybe you’re on the way.”

       The station was close enough that he was there in seven minutes, nine more for street parking because he wasn’t allowed in their lot.   He got as far as a reception desk staffed by a blonde female officer whose hair was tied back, but he thought shouldn’t be wearing lipstick, nor so attractive. He told her why he was there and asked about bail. She said, “She’s being questioned..”

       “For what?”

       “It’s an investigation.  There are no charges filed yet, so there’s no bail.”

       “She said kidnapping. That’s ridiculous. This is all a misunderstanding. Can I see her?”

       “You want to see her?”

      “Yes.”

      She picked up the hand set on her desk. He thought he saw a trace of a smile as she punched in a number, then said, ”Her husband’s here, says he wants to see her.”

       After a moment of listening, she hung up and said “Come back her behind the counter.”

      He did, and she opened a door behind the desk. He was then looking in on what he thought was a squad room, Allison sitting at the closest desk with two male detectives in suits ominously standing over her on each side.

      “Allison.”

      “Thank God.”

      One of the interrogators turned to him and shouted “You can’t talk to each other.”

      The female office reprimanded, “I told you you could see her. I didn’t say you could talk to a suspect.”  She closed the door again, pointed to a bench in the waiting room and said, “Sit over there.”

       He did for about two minutes, but realized his chemistry wasn’t cooperating.

      He went back to the desk and said, “If all I can do is wait, I’ll go somewhere and come back”

      “Don’t go anywhere.”

      “Why not?”

     “We might have to talk to you too Just sit there.”

     “I’m being detained?”

     “It’s voluntary at this point. We can make it mandatory. You’re a person of interest too.”

     “I guess I need a lawyer then. So does she.”

     “See, that’s why you don’t talk to her. She didn’t ask for one. I recommend you sit willingly for now, whoever you want to call later?”

     Who would he call? At night? He didn’t know any lawyers. He wasn’t being questioned yet. If, when, they started that, he could ask for one. So would Allison if she thought she needed one.

    They had vending machines, with coffee he selected black to avoid the fake cream chemicals and it was still a terrible brew from instant powder. Food was an assortment of candy, crackers and cookies, from which he selected his dinner of peanut butter and cheese crackers.

       From sitting, his nerves shifted from adrenalin surge to stress to sodden worry, until finally, of boredom, he dozed restlessly.

       A voice summoned him from a dream the details of which he immediately forgot because he knew everything about it was awful. The voice had simply said, “Hey”. .He opened his eyes and standing over him was the cop-in-a-suit who’d told him not to talk to Allison. On the off-white wall the institutional clock with black hands against a white background was showing 3:10 AM. The cop said, “I’m Detective Mann,” and took a pack of cigarettes from his chest shirt pocket, shook one loose for Damien and offered. Damien hadn’t smoke since the day on the balcony in L.A. between the earthquakes, but reached for this one, only to pull his hand back. This was a bribe. Why was the cop being nice?

      “Don’t smoke?”

      “No.’

     “Mind if I do?”

      There was a NO SMOKING sign under the clock. “Yes, I do.”

     He smiled, said, “Okay”, and put the pack back in his pocket.” Need to cut down anyway.”

      Damien wondered if he’d been blowing his exhaust fumes at Allison all night. He said, “It’s a disgusting habit.”

      “How long ago did you stop?”

      “What makes you think…? How do you know?”

     He laughed. “You’re so self righteous. Mind if I sit down?”

     His estate and he was asking for permission? And if Damien objected, he could end up in that Q and A room in back. Of course he might see Allison there.

    Detective Mann seemed to get that too. “You’re wife’s  in a cell now. She’s not charged with anything, but we have forty eight hours.”

      Then he sat on the couch beside Damien, left a pillow space between them.

     “She didn’t do anything.”

     If this sleuth was so good at mind reading, he should certainly know that.

     He said, “I’m afraid we have testimony to the contrary.”

     He had lots of questions, about Janet Winslow, the building manager’s daughter, of whom Damien told him he knew almost nothing, she was someone he occasionally ran into in the courtyard or the supermarket, they barely gave each other a nod or hello. He’d never seen her baby, had only been told of its existence the day they rented the apartment.

      In exasperation, he inquired, “Why would we steal a goddamn baby”

      To which Mann  conceded, “We’re looking for motivation too. Okay, I’ll tell you what. You  can go home.”.

     They’d kept him here halfway to daylight for nothing? But better not to argue with ‘You can go.’

      “When can I visit my wife?”

      “No visitors yet.”

      “How can I find out what you’re doing?”

       “Call here this afternoon. We’ll have an update by then.”

       “She doesn’t want a lawyer?”

      “She’s waived that so far.”

      “How do I know?”

      “I just told you.”

      When he called later, he was again told to call back the following day, the last day she could be held uncharged. The only way he could think of in Portland to find a lawyer, short of cold calling criminal defense offices, was to talk to Gus

     Gus wasn’t at Paradym in the afternoon, but Spokes was in cleaning up and she gave him Gus’s number. Gus knew a guy, made a call, then called Damien back, told him he could see the lawyer at his office on Salmon Street...

      The firm was in an eight story building.  Lou West, Gus’s legal connection, was a portly graying  guy in his fifties,  specialized in litigation, and based on the information Gus gave him, had already spoken to the police

      He told Damien, “Her arraignment is tomorrow. For a retainer, I can be there to represent her, but then I’ll bounce this to my criminal defense referral. The guy is the best.”

     The fee West wanted sounded to Damien like he was getting shafted   He’d have to also negotiate with the second lawyer, but he wasn’t committed to that, and he needed somebody representing her now.

     “Can I go see her?”

     “Not tell she’s arraigned, but I’ll see her. I’ll give her any message you want.”

     “Tell her its going to be okay. They can’t prove what didn’t happen.”

      “They can try.”

     He was in a row at the front of the courtroom with Lou West,, and in the other section across the aisle .Mann sat. After All Rise, the judge, a thin midde aged woman entered. Arraignments, West had told Damien, were going to be mostly, if not entirely, of people in recent custody. The first was a man on a simple assault charge. He had a bruised face, looked like he’d been assaulted, but that was perhaps explained by an additional resisting arrest complaint. The next was for disorderly conduct and public intoxication against a large woman who no longer seemed intoxicated nor disorderly, but rather quite demoralized and hungover.  

    Then came Allison’s turn. She was wearing the blue jeans and tan cotton blouse he’d last seen her in, that after a couple of days were looking as in need of refreshing as she was. She managed a slight smile when she saw him in the front row. West got instantly to his feet to announce, “She has representation, your honor.” 

     The judge summoned him into the sanctum where the prosecutor already lurked. West entered a not guilty plea, and a date set for a preliminary hearing. West asked for bail. The judge asked the prosecutor if he had any objection. He said she could be a flight risk. West said she had no passport, and was willing to wear a bracelet.

     The bail was set high, but Damien had  collateral. When the amount was established, he asked if he could speak to Allison. The judge told him she’d be shortly moved to the city jail, and visiting hours began at 11:00 AM---in an hour.---so he could talk to her then if she was still in custody.    

     As Damien was leaving the courthouse with West, Mann was waiting in the vestibule. He said, ”There’s somebody here to see you.” A tall man with a pastel green suit, looking out a window with his back to them, almost unnoticeably blending with the institutional paint, turned around. It was Detective McFarland of the Los Angeles Police Department, and he said, “Hello, Damien. They know all about your L.A. life here now. You can’t run away”

      Run away?  If adversity had been the glue that held Damien and Allison together in L.A., they were finding it again. Hartman had stalked and terrorized them there, until the final event at the La Bra Tar Pits, when Damien went into the tar. Though most believed that to be his imagining, he knew it happened. But as to them being in Portland now, Hartman couldn’t have orchestrated two earthquakes on the same morning in L.A.

     In LA. McFarland had always suspected Damien of something unspecified, while Hartman wanted to take Damien’s life---take it literally, including Allison, become Damien. His stated motivation was that Damien had used his name—a name Damien made up-- to advertise for an unlicensed furniture moving business, back before fame and fortune came. At the Tar Pits, Hartman revealed his motive to be jealousy over Damien’s life, especially Allison.  Damien was “the asshole who got everything I always wanted.”

     West took his elbow, steered him way and outside to the portico, then said, “There’s a bail bond across the street. When you finish there, you can go see her. The jail is up the street.”  Damien looked back up into the vestibule. Mann was still there, speaking to a guy who by attire and demeanor had lackey bureaucrat written on him, and McFarland, no longer visible, had blended back to wherever he went when he wasn’t active.

         West said, “Call me later,” and went down the imposing slabs of steps. Damien looked across the street at the garish neon sign of the bail bonds office, lit even in daylight to beckon the desperate. He began moving down the stairs also when Mann came out of td behind him, “Don’t bother with bail, Rennard.”

     It stopped him on the bottom step. “Why not?”

     With that confusing sense of humor that seemed aimed solely at himself,  Mann grinned and said, “It’s not necessary.”

      “What are you talking about? The judge just said…”

     “Wait up.”

     Damien took the last step to the sidewalk and stopped. When Mann reached him, he asked, “What?”

     “That’s the Court Clerk I was talking to in there. The state waived bail, but that’s confidential, understand.”.

     “Why would ‘the state’ do that?”

    “Sir, go pick your wife up at the jail. Its better she explain this to you than I do.”

     The jail was close enough to walk to. His car was street parked on the way, and he put more time on the meter, then continued a bit more, and found himself in front of an old intimidating stone edifice that proclaimed in letters long ago engraved in the masonry MULTNOMAH COUNTY DETENTION CENTER.

     The reception window had three inches of---he was sure---bulletproof glass, and beyond it sat a receptionist of unwelcoming demeanor, then behind her various uniformed personnel sat at desks, while apparent trustees in blue overalls shuffled about.

    The black woman behind the glass didn’t greet or ask if she could help. She didn’t say anything, He thought if he stood there a few more seconds she would, and finally she inquired, “WHAT?”   

    Well, this wasn’t a Kiwanis hall..

     “My wife’s getting released and I’m here to meet her.”

    “She made bail?”

     “It’s been arranged.”

      “Name?”

     He told her Allison’s name and she went into the computer a moment, then glanced back. “She’ll be out soon.”

     “Where does she come out?”

     “Right here.”

     She didn’t ay ‘Have a seat’, nor indicate where Allison might materialize from, just stared again through the window as if Damien had ceased to exist..

     There were a couple of battered plastic chairs, but they were claimed, so he stood and waited beside a wall, stood there for long minutes, until suddenly without warning two parts of the wall started to separate. That got him and two others alarmed and moving away. The wall was revealing itself as a camouflaged door to another room, where Allison stood on her side as confused as he was on his, and the first thing she said was “Holy shit!” A hoarse female voice, the speaker not in sight, said, “Go in there unless you’d like to stay longer.”

    She stepped into the reception area. There was a water cooler, and she went right to it, slurped up several deep drinks, then turned to Damien. “There’s only city water in there,  from a faucet. Let’s get out of here.”

    “I’ll second that.”

     He took her to a Mexican restaurant. While they waited for the enchiladas, she said, of Gus’s legal referrals, “How can he be helping us? That baby’s the one Roxy’s fostering.”

     “Aren’t we supposed to pretend?”

     “Hard to pretend Janet’s not in it. Did she even have a baby? Have you ever seen it?”

     “No. Maybe we were disturbing her that day”.

      “The prosecutor knows I’m innocent, but to clear me he wants us to pretend not to know what we do know. They say Gus killed that partner of his, Bob Evens.”

      “I have a feeling that Willamette takes in as many bodies as the Tar Pits.”

     “Maybe so.”

     “If they know you’re innocent, why do we have to be their accomplices?”

     “They said they’ll pay us.”

     “Do we need it?”

     “If those people set me up. I want to get them.”

     They had to meet Detective Mann again, but it was in the Public Defender’s office at the courthouse, because it wouldn’t have been very clandestine to meet Mann at police headquarters. If anyone wondered why Damien’s wife would need the indigent’s lawyer, meeting the PD at least didn’t speak of cooperation.

        As the sat at a desk borrowed by Mann, Damien said, “There’s something else I’ll be investigating. Hartman is in Portland, and Gus is a surrogate for him”.

       Mann looked disapproving. He said, “Just stay friends with Gus.. Both of you.  And Mr. Rennard, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but the police in L.A. believed you were delusional about a lot that happened there.”

        “McFarland is one cop. He’s not the police in L.A.”

       “He represents a consensus opinion.”

    If Damien was going to do this, to defend Allison and to prove his own premise, he would have to sleuth. The Burnside street dwellers were into more than mugging Paradym rockers, they also sold to them. Any time he drove over to the club, he was solicited by dealers, while driving and after he parked. He sensed these could tell him a lot about Gus. How to connect to them? Well, by buying.

      The robberies usually happened late at night, so daylight was a safer time to get acquainted, and the dealers were abound at all times. One afternoon he drove over and parked. On that side of town the buildings were smaller, two and three stories, grim, the storefronts abandoned by former owners driven out by the street activity..And there’s a different character to street folk in various cities. In LA. they kept a hip aspirational hope, as if just a shower away from that band gig or a casting audition. .On Burnside, they looked like standard bum stereotypes, in dirty clothes too big or too small, vintage Salvation Army or other thrift shop issue, and not to confused as northwest grundge. Grundge was a style. Burnside only spoke of despair.

     He came alongside Damien,,a guy wearing a shirt as black as sewer grease, a stained  baggy pair of blue jeans with shredded legs, and touted “Rock, twenty dollars.” A thin plastic medicine bag shielded the offering in his extended unwashed hand, and he’d said ‘twenty dollars’ with an emphasis that implied it was one hell of a deal. Damien didn’t reply right away only because he was thinking, Who would ingest anything out of that hand? His hesitation seemed interpreted as haggling.

    “Okay, fifteen.”

    “Is it real?”

     “Real. Fake goes for ten.” That was delivered with a grin revealing he was missing several front teeth, but that he had some  personality left too.

      Damien said, “If I buy one for fifteen, I want to buy you a hamburger too.”

     “You a cop?”

      “If I was, you’d be on the way to jail”

       “Maybe, maybe not. Some allow it. How else I can walk right up to you?. So, are you?”

     “I’m not a cop.”

     “Got the hots for me?”

     “You’re too beautiful for me. I just want to talk to you.”

     “I can’t be gone long. Supposed to work. Can you buy two to cover my time?”

     “Two hamburgers?”

     “I’ll take two of those too. No, two rocks.”

     “At ten each?”

      “If you don’t mind fake.” With the manic grin again, revealing the remaining teeth as tobacco stained, or lacquered by some kind of smoke..

      “I wouldn’t care if you sold me fake, except in principle.”

     “What’s you game?”     
     “I’m an altruist.”

     “Bullshit.”

      “We can forget it “

      “ Pay now, two for ten now, real rock,  then I’ll go with you.”.

      “First we eat.”

      “You renege, I can stab you.”

      “You worry too much.”

     His name was Wade, and Damien took him to what there was for eats that they could walk to in that skid row area---a place with two signs in front, one  incongruously offering a plate of sauerkraut with spare ribs, and chili dog enchiladas on the other. .

    They sat in a booth of discolored yellow vinyl excreting its grey stuffing. Wade couldn’t get through  two bites of the second burger, probably because his intoxicant of choice didn’t render much appetite, and when he finished he asked Damien to pay him .If Damien was going to cultivate Wade, he’d have to keep his offer to buy his dope, and give him some allowance. He slipped Wade twenty dollars and said, ”Keep your merchandise, and think about this. You won’t have to sell anymore to get your own dope.” 

     Wade said, “We can start playing that right now.”

     “I have to work out logistics. There’s no way to call you, so…”

     He gave Wade his business card with his cell number, knowing he’d just presented him with the finest opportunity of his sorry young life.

    When Wade said, “You know where to find me,” he affirmed Damien had made an offer he wouldn’t refuse.

      Spokes, who tended bar at Paradym,  had  hair that swept upward in a vertical DA, spikes joining at the top to form an orange and purple halo, a magical wheel on her rooftop. Damien didn’t gauge her as a crackhead or dealer---why would she be working?---but he was pretty sure she could direct him where to get it.  

    She was usually in in the afternoon, even before Gus got there, to stock the bar and do some cleaning from the previous, and Damien caught her on one of those occasions. He and she were the only. He sat on a bar stool, facing out to talk as she rearranged furniture at tables.

       “Early, Damien.”

       “Well, hoped to chat with you.”

       She hesitated moving a chair long enough to theatrically blink pink eyelashes at him.

        “Chat me up”

       What her comedy was indicating was that Allison was her friend, and she knew Damien wouldn’t be here to ‘chat her up’

      “I want you to do me a favor. A big one.”

      She turned around one of the chairs she had just set at a table, and sat facing him.

      “Let’s hear.”

      “You must know where I can get some crack.”

     “You mean…to sell?…You wouldn’t…”.

     “For smoking.”

     “You?…I can’t believe it….You don’t…Don’t start…Do you…?  And you can buy it anywhere on the street  Don’t they try to sell to you?”

     “Of course. That’s not safe. Its for…a friend.”

      “What are friends for?”

      “I want to wean him.”

      A lie, but a small one.  He would like to do that. He just didn’t think he could.

      She concurred. “Good luck with that.”

      “Will you help me?”

      “You have a gig girlfriend or something? Boyfriend?”

      “No.”

      “No skank on the side? Aren’t you afraid I’ll mention your request to Allison?”

      “She knows.”

      “Oh…What the fuck…?”

      “Can’t tell you everything, Spokes. You’ll help or not?”

       “It’s illegal, you know. I can get busted.”

      “Just make an introduction.”

      “Tell me you’re not a cop of some kind.”

      “I’m not a cop. Of any kind.”

       “If Allison’s with it, I’ll see what I can do.”   

         Another day, again on the ‘other side’ of Burnside, he searched for and found Wade, who greeted him with,

         “Where’s my shit?”

         “It’s coming. I can give you cash again today, but first I want you to tell me how you get your product.”

        “No names. I’m not a snitch.”

        “I’m not asking who.. Just how.”

        “An intermediary. A guy like me, further up the totem pole.”

       “How does he get it?”

       “Oh, well, you’d have to ask him as to specifically, but I know you’ve heard the rumor, no secret, been in the papers, on TV, that Gus is into everything. Gus and Bob Evens were partners before Bob went to the fishies, but I don’t know nothin’ about anything happened there. Don’t want to know. Now quit fucking around and keep your end of our agreement”  

         Spokes called a few days later to say she had what he wanted, come by, she wasn’t going to involve anybody else. Now that he could get Wade’s  prerequisites, where was Wade? There was only a two square block area he existed in, with no known residence, just the occasional place he spent a night on a sofa or section of floor. He had to hide somewhere when he smoked, but mostly he stood around, and he wasn’t standing. Damien had twice walked from Paradym , in the direction of the train station, and after turning a few corners he had traversed all of Wade World. Knowing he was uncool, he even asked a street homeboy if he’d seen Wade. He was surprised at the alacrity when he said, “I’m starting to realize I haven’t seen him in a while either.”

        He went back to Paradym  Spokes was scattering sawdust with an aroma of incense, somehow a blended theme of 19^th century saloon with contemporary hip .It made Damien’s lungs hurt. He sat at the bar, watching her work.

      “That stinks, Spokes.”

     “Yeah, well, it’s my job, and lucky you, you don’t have to stay. Your merchandise is here. I decided not to make any introductions, don’t want to involve anybody else”

     “Where’s Gus?”

     “Round and about.  Speaking of management here, you know I was Bob’s girlfriend?”

     “I’ve heard that rumored.”

    “There are things people aren’t focusing on about Bob Evens. He was into a lot of things, goes with being a club owner. Everyone knows Bob and Gus were partners. In everything. Mann was closing in on them, but not to bust, to bribe. Bob got him recorded asking, then he started blackmailing Mann.. Gus didn’t kill Bob. Mann did. I can’t prove that, but he had the motivation, Bob was a good guy. He had empathy. He used to set up a food program at the train station, right in front. Amtrak thought those hungry homeless would depress their customers, made a decision from far away to try to have him stopped, but they didn’t know Portlanders. We were going to boycott, and did picket the station with signs.”

       “What did Amtrak do?”

       “Not only backed off, but made it seem like it was their idea all along.  So, I have your poison, whatever you’re intending. Be careful here.”    

        “Thanks.”

         “I don’t want to see Allison get hurt.”

     As Damien was opening the door to leave it pulled out, and he pushed harder on it by reflex, as if meeting resistance not momentum, his shoulder into it, and only realized as it went out that it had almost hit Gus, who was standing there.

    Gus seemed genuinely surprised, not by the near miss---well, that too--- but to see Damien.

     “Ho! What’s the occasion?”

     He was apparently energized and preoccupied already about something, but…Did he know why Damien was there? Had he been listening? The street was so noisy that he probably couldn’t have heard.

      “I just came to get something from Spokes..”

      That was no lie, but he hoped Gus didn’t know and wouldn’t ask.

      “There’s bad karma. Don’t want to walk in Bob Evens concrete shoes.”

       Did he know what just transpired with Spokes and was playing Damien? It could be better if Gus believed what he implied, but Damien couldn’t allow as reality what wasn’t,

      “She’s a friend.”

      “What are friends for?”

      “Probably not fucking.”

      “Why not?’

      “Not my modis.”

      “Not mine either. Just having fun. Look, dude, since you’re here can you come back inside? Something I need want talk to you about.”

     Whatever it was, he didn’t seem angry, and Damien didn’t see a plausible excuse to use. He could say he had something to do, but was coming up blank. They went in, and Spokes said to Gus, “You’re putting in overtime?”

    “No, just too much on my mind to sit around. Spokes, I appreciate you’re so conscientious and work so hard, but can you do me a favor? Take a coffee break off premises. There’s something I need to discuss with my man here.”

     As Gus’s eyes moved from her, she signaled by facial expression, Be quiet, he knows nothing of our transaction.

    When she reached the door, Gus said, “Half hour, babe.”

    Just because chairs were was  pulled out, Gus and Damien sat at the same table he was at with Spokes, and Gus said, ”You seem to have a low opinion of Harry Hartman.”

     “I have a history with him.”

     “You believe this one is the same as the L.A. one”

     Just because Gus was Damien’s assignment didn’t mean he couldn’t be candid about this. And Gus hadn’t asked a question, he made a statement.

     “Yes.”

     “Well, I think you’re right .He’s trying to shake me down.  The son of a bitch says he has proof I killed Bob Evens. The trouble with that postulation is that I didn’t.”

     “Do you think Hartman did it?”

     “He could have.”

     Damien had to consider if he was presenting Evens killer with an alternative theory? Or was the killer presenting him with it?

      “Why don’t you go to the police?

      “Ahh! Ah, fuck. Why don’t I jump in the Willamette and save everybody the trouble?”

       “Spokes thinks Mann killed Evens.”

      “Yeah, I know. That’s possible.It wasn’t me. You want to know what Hartman wants?”

       “I don’t think so.”

       “Yes you do .He wants me to relinquish any agreements I have with Allison. He thinks he can make her a star, but not leave anybody else anything, including her. Janet has no baby. She’s delusional. But she knows what her make believe baby looks like---blonde curls, a cherub form a Botecelli painting. Roxie really asked her just to babysit. Janet believes Allison stole her angel. Hartman pulled this off.. You—she—you both need to be careful.”

       Damien didn’t know if he believed him, but if it was true he didn’t need to be told Hartman’s motivation. It would be to terrorize and control Allison, reclaim his ‘wife’        

        Did Gus know Damien was on him?  He just wanted to get out of this bar. Could he? He stood up and said,

       “I have to talk to Allison about this.”

       “I think you should do so.”    

        Now that he had his presents, he looked again for Wade. Nowhere around. Was he crashed somewhere? He knew he stayed up for days high, so when he did collapse it had to be for twenty four hours. There was no sign of him and Damien went back to the apartment.

       It was 4:00 o’clock, Allison was still teaching, and he turned on the local TV news. Portland police had received a tip, dredged the river, and brought yet another body up.

They had a name, Wade Jenson.  Damien didn’t know Wade’s  last name, so it could be a different Wade, but considering the upside down serendipity he was encountering, he didn’t think so. Had he put Wade in the river?

     He went back on the bricks, other side of Burnside, hoping but not believing he’d see Wade on his station. No Wade, but Homey was around, and Damien knew by his reaction to him, and reluctance to engage, that he didn’t want to be the messenger. To relieve him of that burden, Damien said, “It was Wade, right?”

    The guy nodded and turned away. Damien wasn’t a peer, and not being in the trenches with him, he was no one to commiserate with. Homeboy hadn’t said a word, but the conversation was over. He didn’t want Damien’s ‘Sorry’, didn’t want his regret, didn’t want anything from him, unless he decided to buy.

     Damien went his way, back toward his side of Burnside, alone, feeling grief and responsibility. Allison would be sympathetic, but could she even grasp or want to acknowledge his remorse? If he was culpable, so was she. Yeah, he’d recruited Wade, but they were only protecting themselves. And there was a much more relevant consideration now for both of them, besides what happened to Wade. How much long before Damien  and Allison went in the river? 

      She was home when he got back, in the living room, on the sofa, had Miles Davis Kind Of Blue playing, was halfway through a glass of pineapple juice to sustain on until they went out for dinner, as planned. .

      He turned Miles down.

      “Oh! Why?”

      “Something happened.”

     “What?”

      He sat beside her, left a little elbow space at the middle cushion.

      “They found another body in the river.”

      “Somebody we know, right?”

      “Right. Or  I knew. The dude that was getting me information. Wade.”

      “Can we just get out of here?”

       “They’ll come after us.”

       “We haven’t done anything.”

        “We’re in anyway.”

        “I’m through with Gus, with Paradym, anything to do with Hartman Productions. I just want peace and anonymity back.”

        “Amen.”

       She added, “We need to defend ourselves.”

       Intuitively, he decided if she wasn’t explaining how, he wouldn’t ask.

     After calling Allison, Spokes spent her break at the convenience store register with the older Asian couple who weren’t inclined to talk, but she did know what they liked---being joked with, treated like people. She told them her name was Spokes, not because of her hair but because she had a bicycle. She asked their names, and the man was Pat, spelled P-H-A-T  His last name was unpronounceable to her, but sounded something like McNamara. Asked where he was from, he replied Laos. She said, “Are you sure you’re not half Irish?”  

     They got with the repartee, and by the time she left, ‘Mrs McNamara’ said, “You come back from Paradym, visit again.”

    Only Gus was at the club, and he said, “Damien’s gone. I was just waiting for you.”, then he left too. Soon after, there was another knock on the door.

     She shouted through it, “Who is it?”

     The deep voiced answer was “Charlie Mann.

     “Who”

     “Come on.  Detective Mann.”

     So soon after Damien and Gus departed. Was he doling surveillance? Whatever his objective, he was inadvertently facilitating the plan she just worked out with Allison.

    She wanted him in, but thought, ‘It would be more plausible if he thinks he has to work for his mission, whatever it is.’

     “You have a warrant?”

     “Oh, come on. I’m a customer.”

     “Since when?”

     “Since now.”

     “We’re closed.”

     “If you’re nice to the police, we’re nice to you.”

     “You have to talk to Gus about bribes. I just work here.”    
     “Funny lady.”

     “I’m here all alone.”

     “I won’t come on.”

     “Yeah, but doesn’t that put you in a compromising situation?”

     “You wouldn’t accuse me. You’re a nice girl.”

     “Don’t hear that very often,” Though it was true, belied her appearance, and she enjoyed that it always shocked people to discover. ”So if not me, what do you want?”

     “A beer.”

    “You can get that anywhere.”

    “Not with your bonhomie.”

    She wondered it he’d talked to the ‘Mc Namaras’ .His arrival  was  advantaging her and Allison’s scheme and maybe she’d played resistance far enough She unlocked the door.

     He sat at the bar while she dusted bottles That was as comfy as she felt like getting with  Bob Evens killer, though she’d have to get to know him a lot better to execute the plot.

   Over her shoulder, facing the amber bottles in the magic mirror and watching him in it, she said, “I know you’re not here just for a beer.”

      “No. I need your cooperation. You know your boss killed that boyfriend of yours.”

       Hearing that from him, it would be hard to seem receptive, but subtlety was required for the plan.

     “I’m open to theories.”

     “That’s good. You’re the one person can tell me Gus’s activities before and after the murder.”

      “All I said is I’m open to theories.”

      “That’s how I’ll build one.”

      “But you’ve already reached a conclusion.”

      “I know more than you do.”

       You sure do, you bastard. ”I’ll listen.”

        Mann had a look in his face where he might think he was making progress he hadn’t expected. He said, “Don’t know what a  gal like you ever saw in him.”

       Against all inclination, she moved her chair closer. Their elbows made contact, her hair fell on his shoulder..He wasn’t seeming to notice that, but of course he had a sense of touch too, confirmed when his elbow moved from her elbow to press against her breast

      Mann tilted his face toward her at a 45 degree angle, saying, “I never intended for this to happen,” as he leaned in and kissed her.

       She put enough passion into her\ effort to convince him, but as he escalated to groping she said breathlessly, “Not here. Gus is coming back.”

       She thought Mann believed he had attained his initial objective of recruiting her loyalty, so was able to muster the self control to postpone the plus. She said,

      “We close at one, I leave around 1:30. My pick up is around the corner on Burnside. I’ll meet you there then. If you want, you can climb in the back to wait.”

     At 1:35, security Bo escorted her to the corner of Burnside and she saw the silhouette in the truck  “OK,”  she told Bo.

     Bo said “Somebody’s in your pick up.”

    “I know. It’s alright. Thanks, Bo. Good night.”

     Bo kept order in the club, didn’t get in anybody’s outside shit. He said, “See you tonight,” and left.

      Mann’s greeting was, “I’m parked nearby.” She didn’t care where Mann was parked, they were taking her vehicle.

      “I like my truck. It has a bed.”

     “Ohh. We can do better than that.”

      She was unlocking the door. “You’re right. Come and ride up here.”

      She believed her being such a cooperative young lady was motivating Mann to let her call the moves, and that was good.

     There’s a spot teenagers call “lover’s lane”, a lonely strip along the river, under one of the bridges, and that’s where she took him. She did it in the cab with him, disease free, pregnancy free sex given priority. When he wanted to extend the rendezvous, go to an after hours bar, she pled fatigue and drove him to his own car  

    Spoke arranged it. Allison wouldn’t tell Damien until later. Before the second rendezvous, Spokes told Mann he had a supplementary prize---Allison wanted a threesome. Mann thought a motel room would be better, but if the ladies were free and for fun, they could set some terms. Once again he was in Spoke’ pick up truck, but she’d put a camper shell on for this occasion.

      They parked again in ‘lover’s lane’, three in the cab, Spoke’s squashed in the middle, because that would let him fantasize more he was getting something he’d previously believed unattainable, and because Allison told Spokes she couldn’t stand to be pressed up against him..

    So, they got out of the cab, walked around the truck, and climbed into the back, where Spokes directed her company to sit on the side benches. Allison waited for Mann to sit, then sat across from him. Spokes sat beside Mann, kissed his cheek, opened a thermos of punch and passed around plastic cups. Mann was not to notice that the women’s cups were three quarters full. To distract from that. detail and initiate a good swallow, Spokes called a toast “To free love”  She and Allison raised their cups and mimed drinking, while  Mann swallowed most of the contents of his. Then it became a matter of stalling him five more minutes.

      Spokes filled the interval with a low strip tease, promising that Allison would become the main show. Spokes was only naked to the waist when Mann became sleepy, then shortly began snoring with his head drooped over his shirt buttons. They relieved him of his firearm, dropped the tailgate, then dragged him off and along the ground to a motorboat bobbing nearby, where, with considerable effort, they pushed him on board.

      It seemed it had become unofficial SOP to deposit bodies with concrete slippers on  to insure they’d stay down at least until somebody went looking and this was to be no exception. Spokes had the boat stocked with an old fashioned washtub, a bag of cement, sufficient water in large containers, and a big mixing paddle. The boat had benches across, side to side. They propped Mann up in one, shoes on, and put his feet in the washtub. Spokes also had rope for his wrists, lest he wake up, but he’d thoughtfully brought handcuffs with him, for what fantasized purpose they could only imagine.

    Spokes started the motor, and they coasted out to the middle of the river, then north along the coast .a way, to a point where she stopped and anchored  They then spilled cement into the tub, added water, mixed and waited for casting.

      Mann woke up only long enough for Spokes to say, “For Bob, asshole,” and   with the considerable effort of their combined strength, the tub slid on the slick steel surface to one side of the boat, the weight causing a steep tilt so that then only a gentle push was needed, not so hard  they’d get dunked. Mann went in with a splash and a scream, the motivation of expressed by his very last word, “COLD!” Spokes then turned the motor back on and they cruised down to the spot where they’d left the truck.

    They were in the living room. Damien asked, “Have you completely lost your mind?”

     “Mann wasn’t helping us. He was a player. I’m getting with the program here. Do unto other before they do it unto you.”

    “He better stay down a long time. They go after cop killers”

    “If they’re rogue?”

     “What if they’re rogue too?”

     He ran into Gus in the supermarket.

     Gus said, “Detective Mann is missing.”

      “Oh…Well, so?”

      “He was on me. Now they think I did something to him too. They’re going to look in the river, and he’s probably there.”

     Damien had to seem nonchalant about that.

    “Why are you telling me?”

     “You and Allison are the only friends I have.”

     If he really believed that, Poor man!

     Gus continued, “Come by the club today, huh? Spokes can be there.”

     “There’s nothing between us.”

     “Bring Allison then.”

     “She won’t go back. Why do you want me at the club?”

     “Just to chat.”

     “Gus, I have to go on. Things to do.”

     “You’ll try to be there?”

     “You better not hold your breath.”

      Damien was in front of ‘Gas Lamps’ that evening, had an 8:00 PM estimate on the other side of the river. It was fall now, dark at 7:15 and nippy, and the motor of the Mustang needed to shake off the chill before he could get moving.

      Warming up his old  car friend reminded him of another occasion in L.A. doing that. That was the night he was going to take this very same car for repairs, and Hartman  was here now in the northwest, in Portland and Seattle, had been while he was active in L.A..

Damien had a sense of one of those forms of Jungian synchronicity, of bad déjà vu, a feeling that compels one to look over his shoulder.

      And he did. A cloth was suddenly over his face, suffocating him, and, as he resisted, a forearm on his larynx choked him, and arms across his chest restrained him, two pairs  holding him. He struggled to breathe and did, but not air, something bitter yet sweet, and he went somewhere peaceful, a snug euphoric place he didn’t want to be, but where no harm came to anybody.

     He opened his eyes out on the river in a boat with Gus and Harry Hartman. He was on one bench facing  Hartman, large and ugly, with Gus beside him, pointing a gun at Damien. He knew he was asking a question all who’d been here before him asked, the one he’d once asked Harman in L.A.: “Why?” Though Hartman had already told him, he’d be eager to express it again. Gus had never shown any reason for revenge toward Damien--- but if he knew everything he’d surely have one.

     It was Gus who answered. ”You were cooperating with Mann.”

    “Just wanted to get the truth.”

    Being?’

   “If you killed Evens.”  

    “Because he did it.”

    “I can believe that now.”

     Hartman was sitting alone exactly in the middle of a seat so his weight wouldn’t topple the boat, sitting in a strong current that vertiginously raised and dropped it. The essential washtub was skittering around on the metal plated deck. Gus stuck his foot out to stop it, and missed. Hartman stuck a foot in, stabilizing it. From Gus came, “Good move.”

       Hartman said, “Thank you. So, good to see you again, Damien. It’s nice you woke up. I wouldn’t want you to miss the experience. Here we are again, another night, another cold body or water.”

        “And again I’ll ask, why?”

        Hartman addressed Gus, “Man has a right to know”, and to Damien he said, “Because I am you and you are me.”

       Gus said, “I am the walrus.”

       “I wouldn’t go that far.”

       Any stall was in his favor. Damien asked “Can you explain?”

       Hartman theatrically drew himself up with a huge intake of air, and clasped his hands together.  “Just like  last time, Damien . How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee as a summer’s day…”

      Gus observed, “A poet..”.

    “Young and handsome. Slim and athletic. Fame and fortune. Allison.”

      “Heavy shit.”

      Hartman continued, “I once used to pray. You know, to God. Since I was a child. And I got things, but never what I wanted. Always you people did. You. You people got it”. And with a face florid with a  rage of lifelong injustice, he roared “People like YOU.”

       “Harry, you really believe they were the only reason?”

      Hartman stared in outrage and incredulity at Gus. “We have an arrangement, sir.”

      “OK, right. Yeah. .Sorry. I forgot.”

     “You forgot?” Though Gus wasn’t sounding quite sincere, Hartman continued. to Damien

     “God never did shit for me, so I started praying to the anti.”

     Gus opined “Oh, my, my.” Because of the resemblance, Damien remembered  Wolfman Jack once saying that, the same way, after  being face  pied. ”So---did el diablo work out any better for you?”

     As Hartman contemplated a response to that with slow pondering, Gus stood, stuck the gun into his waistband, and began ripping open the cement bag

      Hartman replied  “Not yet. I have to dedicate myself more. He wants you to destroy everything to win his favor. Then you can start to win.”       .

      Gus picked the bag up and began pouring gravel into the tub, around Hartman’s foot.

     Hartman asked, “What are you doing?”

     “Can you keep holding the tub down a minute? It will all shake out otherwise. He has no incentive to cooperate.”

     “Well…”

     The width of the tub left Hartman with an uncomfortable leg spread. They were all having trouble balancing as the river waves seemed to inhale and expel, and Hartman was ready to fall over if he couldn’t brace. To do so, he raised his other foot and planted it in the tub also..

      Gus began pouring water in, and Hartman shrieked, tried to stand, slipped in the slick mix, then slid sideways on the bench. That motion started his feet rising from the tub, but Gus grabbed his legs to keep them in. As Hartman got his hands on the bench in an effort to raise his torso, Gus shouted, “Hold him down, Damien.”

     Hartman roared, “WHAT?”

     This was a fine turn of events Damien didn’t have time to meditate on. He threw himself on top of Hartman, grabbing his wrists to prevent the leverage he was attempting.

Gus continued pouring water, and Hartman demanded,

      “What do you think you’re doing?”

       Gus replied, “Committing justice, sir.”

      When the tub was full enough, Gus mixed the recipe with the paddle, then joined Damien to sit on Hartman. He said, “It’ll take a while to firm. Let’s talk.”

       “All I can say is, I had you wrong.”

       “I accept that. So, Hartman, what do you have to say for yourself?”

      Hartman had a windy way of talking at any time, as if the words were pushed through a filter, so with the combination of two full sized adults sitting on his diaphragm, and his being subdued in a reclining position, he was not much inclined to loquaciousness. However, he did at least offer as defense, “We all make mistakes.”

      Gus said, “Well, here we are with corrections.”    

     Damien had been invited to contribute to the interchange, and they had time to wait until the concrete formed. He asked Gus,

     “Why did you put me through this? I thought I was going in.”

     “I had to convince his majesty here. And, well, yeah, okay, for entertainment. Some payback, Damien, for mistrusting and monitoring me. No one else knows we’re out her. Isn’t that right, Harry?”

       There was no reply from Hartman.

       Gus continued, to Damien, as if ‘Harry’ wasn’t there,

       “Here’s the man runs everything here. Mr. Scag, Mr.Crack, Mr. Meth. And he’s duly paranoid. He couldn’t have anybody but me and him in on getting you because somebody might give him up. See, the upside for you, Damien, is that no one but you and me know we’re here with him.”      

      The slippers were hard and Gus got off the ‘sofa’. Hartman couldn’t go anywhere voluntarily, so Damien stood up too. Gus used a rope to bound Hartman’s hands. Damien was expecting that Gus would perform the ceremony, but Gus had another plan. He pulled two sets of those airline emergency inflatable vestss from a pack, filled with air, put his arms through one, and gave the other to Damien.

     “I gotta go now. If you do too, somebody will probably rescue him. Let your conscience be your guide here. But I can’t turn you in. I’m an accomplice. Hell, I’m the perpetrator.”

     He casually stepped off the boat, though screamed “Oh SHIT” at the shock of contact with the cold water, then began a quick paddle toward the shore.

     So it was Damien and Hartman, alone at last, again. Damien could reminisce. Last time was in the L.A. Tar Pits, where Hartman was in charge, with Damien bound and gagged. Hartman had pushed Damien in, then went in on top to insure he’d sink and stay down. Hartman had been in Los Angeles. Here he was again in Portland. Was he---everywhere?

     This was so impromptu he hadn’t had time to think it through. That could be a defense: Impulse. Passion. Driven to retaliate by the trauma of violation and stalking. Only the truth. Yet he was suffering from that conscience Gus cited, or maybe just at the prospect of getting caught.. Murder was murder. Hartman was prosecutable for his own deeds, if they could be proven.

    Hartman’s nose was running, and he kept drawing phlegm up with noisy vulgar suction.

   Damien chided, ”That’s disgusting. Stop that.”

    He whined, “I’m freezing.”

     “You won’t feel anything soon.”

    “It’s not in you to do such a thing.”

     “Never was. You brought it out.”

   “Tell me why.”

    “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

     “I told you.”

     “No.”

     “While we’re waiting.”

      It was disappointing that when he died he wouldn’t know anything anymore, continue to know Damien got even. Would it show him anything? Would he know it from somewhere?  It was tempting to keep him alive, cold and whimpering, a while more, but the longer they sat in the boat, the more likely it was they’d be discovered.

    Hartman pouted, “You’re not ‘good’. You just mean well, and I guess that’s good. But that was so easy for you, and we all know where good intentions pave the road to…”

    He couldn’t stand listening to it.

    “If you don’t want to go in right now, SHUT UP.”

     Hartman did just that, a hand to his offending mouth, his eyes bulging He began lifting the tub with his feet and pushing up with his bound hands, moving along the bench, CLATTER, CLATTER, CLATTER  If he got too close to one side, his weight would capsize the boat.

    “There’s nowhere to go, Har-ree.”

    It was then Damien saw the closed toolbox, bolted into the deck He opened it, surveyed, and took out a long screwdriver and a big heavy hammer.

       He started punching holes in the deck

      “Oh, no, no, Damien”

      “It’s no worse than going in directly”

      At first the water seeped slowly in but as he made more breaks the flow increased,  and he used  the bailing bucket to pour in from the river..

        When boat was swamped to within three inches of the rim, then Damien put his water vest on. Hartman had withdrawn completely within himself to blessed silence. Damien went for his swim without a goodbye, making a mental post-it to tell Gus not to bother going back for the boat.            

     He didn’t know until later why the water on the river had been so rough. He was back home in bed, holding hands with Allison after making love to her the way they hadn’t since L.A, Portland had shivered and shook from a 5.7 earthquake, not as strong as the two that  hit L.A. the morning they left, but an awakening. The river had been turbulent because the city had experienced foreshocks all evening, making the big waves.

     “He said I wasn’t ‘good’, I just meant well. How can you defeat bad by being good?”

      “You need a stronger power.”                                      

      “A power greater than evil? “

      “ I’m not joking.. He caused these tremors.”

      Damien didn’t want to endorse that idea, but…he didn’t completely dismiss it.      

     The tremors continued, low grade with little damage, but enough rocking and rolling to keep everyone’s adrenalin surging. The shaking never ended, just paused.

     Allison called Spokes early one evening while Damien was still working. She and Spokes had been ‘not being seen together’, and she inquired,

     “How you doing, Spokes?”

      “Allison! I’m a  wreck like everybody else. You and Damien bring these earthquakes  from L.A.?”

        “No, but I have an idea what to do about them.”

        “You’re kidding.”

        “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

        “I already think that, girlfriend., but Ill listen.”

         Spokes was a hobby scuba diver.  They couldn’t find what Allison was envisioning as a proper stake to drive into Hartman’s heart, but thought a silver broad sword fit by definition. Spokes put the mask and gear on and dove. She saw Mann where, and as, he should be. The fish had feasted, now not even fish food left, his skull teeth flashing a smile he’d never attained in life. There was no sign of Hartman though.

         She brought Allison along the second time, on a ‘diving lesson’, and they had to conclude Harman wasn’t in the Willamette river bed near the city. Could he have drifted in the current? Any more than Mann had. with that heavy stone shoe?

       Not many noticed that the already reclusive Hartman was out of circulation. Allison relied on Spokes for current information from Paradym.  Hartman’s kid had been back with Roxie after the supposed ‘baby switch’ but Gus and Roxie of course weren’t getting the monetary compensation now, and whether Roxie knew why or not, Gus came up with the plan for a place to dump Hartman’s kid.

      Janet’s pa had guardianship of her, and would go along with whatever could keep her restrained. .Janet was so delusional she believed her imaginary golden locks angel had been taken away, and could also be convinced he was returned. Gus and Roxie just had to patch into her crazy.      

     Allison and Spokes thought they knew what they had to do to stop the earth from moving, and the arrangement at Janet’s set an opportunity. Allison didn’t expect Janet would ask her to baby sit again, but one afternoon she parked in front of Janet’s window blasting music. Janet’s father, wasn’t home, had a day job, and when Janet came out, enraged, to confront Allison, Spokes grabbed HH III.

    This time the police didn’t even respond to Janet’s report of a missing baby.

      They took Spokes pick up, following their plan to share driving, first through  Washington to Vancouver B.C, .then up through Canada to the Yukon. When Spokes was at the wheel, Allison had to hold, feed, cuddle and comfort her baby. He was an innocent. It wasn’t his fault who and how he was born, but his father was in him and she’d have to let him go again.

     After two days in Canada, they reached the Yukon Highway, closed because of weather. At  _________ they chartered a prop plane that took them to a remote Inuit village. Allison stayed in the plane and waited.

     One woman and a baby were wearing thermal jackets as orange as the sun. The woman went to a lodge house, and once inside took down her hood to reveal a cascading headdress of purple and pink swirling  from her peak. She looked to be a diety, or sent by one, and the men in the room, who’d been smoking and drinking, stepped back in awe.

     . There was a counter with two trays in front of hand printed signs, PICK UP and DEPOSIT. She gingerly set the infant in DEPOSITS, then walked back out and got on the plane.

    As they lifted off, Allison believed they’d see him as a gift.. He’d grow up special. With her Asian features, he even looked a little like them. He’d never know who he was. If Hartman had survived, he wouldn’t know where the baby was. .

      Back in Portland, Janet knocked on Allison’s door and said, “I know you stole my baby” Allison decided to finalize the idea he was truly gone. “Yes, I had to do the terrible thing no mother ever should.do.”

       Janet replied, “I’ll tell Harry.”

        Did she know Hartman? Was he alive? Whether he was or not, in her reverie did she believe she could somehow communicate with him? Could she?

        After that, Portland quaked. San Francisco quaked. L.A. quaked. Down at the La Brea Tar Pits, the lost dreamers---actor extras who’d been on one too many casting cattle call, rockers who’d come to be stars only to shoot speed and sleep in dumpsters--- but kept their leather vests--- again crawled out of the guck, over the park gate, and lumbered along Wilshire Boulevard in a marathon race of the undead toward the beach, to the end of the continent.

      Allison tried to recant her statement to Janet but she didn’t believe the revision. An entire slice of the America broke away, from Vancouver B.C to Ensenada. And that caused a geological chain reaction. Asia .was struck by enormous tsunamis, while in Europe the Atlantic surged the other way, squashing and compressing the Middle East between them.

      The Atlantic current then rolled back and ravaged the cities and shoreline of the U.S. east coast. The Pacific waves didn’t return to the West Coast---what was now the West Coast with beaches in San Bernardino, Sacramento and Reno---so the US heartland didn’t get compressed like the Middle East.

    Okalahoma City was still more or less as it had been. Oh, yes, it shifted a few clicks toward Texas, but it did that smoothly, like it had skated on a track, leaving all its buildings and people intact. They claimed the last tornado had done worse.

    Of the West Coast cities, the one that fared best like OKC, also by some quirk of the earth movement, was Portland, and not a few there believed themselves ‘select’, recipients of a miracle.

      Some saw an apparition in the sky laughing and thought it was Hartman. Others saw the one, but many disagreed on which one. People got their books out, found quotes, and blamed the other’s books, or themselves and their kin, for their was no faith nor love left.

     Oh, there would be a reckoning, and they’d see who was laughing then. For the moment, what there was was vapor, but that laughing rage couldn’t go on forever. And with time, the image started to slowly dissipate, like sky writing of old, and with more time, when they looked again, it was gone.

        Replaced by a rainbow. That wasn’t much, but for the outcasts who’d survived--- among them Damien and Allison, Gus and Roxie, Janet and Spokes--- it was a sign another day had started. They had hope, if nothing else. A second chance. An epiphany. They had a re-birth, yet they had to wonder, would they just do the same shit all over again?

                                It could end here, OR….

     Detective Dayton of OKC PD definitely had a case for the OK Twins. Dayton had achieved national reputation for sleuthing, but only by tapping into the psychic talent of the twins Sharon and Edgar Mullen, and their friend Carmen Lopez (in the novella THICKER THAN WATER) on a chase through two states when Sharon was abducted.

    Dayton had been contacted because there were people in Portland who suspected  everything happening in the world resulted from the disappearances of one man. They were asking help Dayton’s help to find out exactly what it was that caused the apocalypse, and what they could do about it ---but that’s another story.   

                                        --as in—

        At the end of normal time, before detective Dayton could talk to the psychic OK Twins Sharon and Edgar Mullen (he always put Sharon’s name first because she was older, born a minute before Edgar) he had to think about what exactly it was he wanted them to gleam. He was thinking Strode Bollings’ disappearance from custody was related to that situation in Oregon. Strode, who had kidnapped Sharon, and was captured by Dayton with Edgar’s help, in a chase over two states, had just escaped jail before the apocalypse-with-a-small-a,  leaving his body and claiming another. That was the theory they were on, anyway, and it certainly had similarities to that situation in Portland.

       It was no doubt a symptom of denial that the three of them were still operating an independent film production office in the ‘new lofts’ area, which had been cheaper than  the old ‘loft area’, and now could be had for just a promise to pay rent sometime.

      Phone and internet services were not up yet, would maybe not be back until the rest of the world had them, speculated to not happen before the end of the century. Dayton went like a plaid capped sleuth of old and knocked on their door.

     Edgar opened the door, and Dayton could see the two young women inside. The room had no windows and was poorly lit from a skylight that accentuated the dust particles floating in the air, and even in afternoon they had candles lit.

       “Detective Dayton, what a surprise.”

       Dayton had called them once since the kidnapping, and that was to pursue Strodes’s vanishing act, but then everything else happened.

        “It seems like a long time, doesn’t it, but its not.”

        “Always flies when we’re having fun. Come in”

        He stepped aside to allow Dayton’s entry.

        “Social call?”

        “Hardly. Wish that it were.”  

                                                           …and OKC meets Portland…..