Would he know about Lazerbeam, the LP, Kip ‘n’ Rog, Bahari, the rest of it?
Of course he would.
Would he clock their every godforsaken move, seethe over every micro-win, plan his whole life around this one knot of hard resentment?
Of course he fucking would.
All the while, a riff was playing in my head, over a chord progression, sweet and hypnotic, louder and louder. The Jukebox Id was at it again.
I knew this riff…from the record. “Fair-Weather Freaks.”
But the Jukebox Id was pressing hard, dragging me in—I’d heard it somewhere else too. Somewhere brightly lit, somewhere—
The nursing home.
I turned to Fry who was petting Howard on the edge of the boat while she lapped up the cool bowl of pure white goodness.
“Freiburger,” I said, jumping to my feet, heading for the dock. “This guy, this Benji—I think I’ve got our man. And Cinnamon’s in danger.”
40
I tore into the alley behind Shalom Terrace and stuffed Hawley Senior’s Rock Island 9mm in my jacket pocket like kryptonite. I didn’t like guns, wasn’t good with them, had barely handled a pistol twice before—but I had a bad feeling about this dude. He’d been hiding in plain sight, the crazy fuck, and the second he saw my face, he’d know I was on to him. Cutting the windshield wipers and turning off the ignition, I bristled, hypnotized with bottled rage—because he was the nicest guy you’d ever hope to know, the most humble, generous, not one unkind—
But so what?
All that virtue was there to serve a monster wound, the ego-devil I-me-mine fever, and once you saw it…Your ship…has sailed!…you couldn’t unsee it.
And it was too late to play Johnny Reasonable, the caregiver. That was his game. I ditched the car and made for the Shalom, rushed in through the glass doors across the gloomy mustard carpet. Nurse Rosa was at her station, lining up pill bottles.
“Where’s Mr. Elkaim?”
“In his room, where else?”
This time I cut in, found him at the edge of his bed in blue pajamas and corduroy slippers, a little too happy to see me.
“Emil’s love has returned,” he said.
“I know, Mr. Elkaim,” I said. “Where is she?”
“Then you saw her. This is a miracle.”
“Yes, Mr. Elkaim, but where is she right now?”
“Why, you only just missed her. She went with Jensen to the market to—”
I pushed past him, out the glass doors into the rainy courtyard, past the Greek statue lady, frantic, out toward the back exit.
Just as I turned the corner, I saw them at the far end of the parking lot, under the back awning—I hid behind the soda machine, standing in the downpour. They were in some kind of heated exchange. Jensen was pissed. Cinnamon, rain drenched in black jeans and an army green parka and sneakers, was arguing with her hands, explaining something I couldn’t make out over the rain on the tin. I wanted to race across the courtyard, accost them, something, but Jensen looked keyed up, he could panic and hurt her—situation unstable.
I stayed low so as not to startle them.
Under the rumble of thunder, I could hear him plead. “But where’s the record?”
“Record? What record? There was none!”
“You fucking lying bitch, you recorded, in a studio, Rey told me—”
“Benji, it never came out. What the hell is this all about?”
Her tone was conciliatory, and it only fired him up worse.
“Well, who has the goddamn tapes?”
A silence, beating rain, the Fairfax traffic. I peered around the machine and watched their watery shadows.
“Tapes? I don’t know where the fucking tapes are, Benji. You’re talking about forty years ago—”
“Bullshit. Someone has a cassette, a master tape, something.”
“Dev kept the masters,” she said with a jittery shrug. “Why would you need that?”
“Don’t worry about why—”
All at once he pulled a gun and pointed it right at her belly. “You just take me to the tapes. Now—get in the car.”
“Benji, this is not—”
“Get in the car.”
