That's how it goes around here. The moment Page One becomes a possibility, it's not my story anymore. Nonetheless, I always make sure to type out my byline in boldface letters:
By Jack Tagger Staff Writer
To delete my name from the top of the story, Emma must first highlight it with the Define key. I like to think it's a chore that afflicts her with a twinge of guilt, but who knows. She has her orders. She's heard about me and Race Maggad III; everyone in the building has.
The fact that I haven't resigned must chafe Emma, except on those rare days when she needs a first-rate obituary writer, as she does for MacArthur Polk. One measly fact error, one misspelling, one careless turn of a phrase could jeopardize Emma's career, or so she believes. Old Man Polk is like a god, she once said to me. He was this newspaper.
Which he greedily sold to Wall Street heathens, I pointed out, causing Emma to cringe and put a finger to her lips.
Every morning she asks how the old man's obit is coming along, and every morning I tell her I haven't started writing it yet, which drives her batty. Today I'm still in bed when the phone rings.
"Jack, it's Emma."
"Morning, sunshine."
"Mr. Polk took a turn for the worse," she says.
"Me, too. What a coincidence."
"I'm not kidding."
"Neither am I. Some sorta stomach virus," I say. "I won't be coming in today."
Long pause—Emma, grappling with mixed feelings. As much as she would revel in a peaceful Jack-free morning, she needs me there. "Did you call a doctor?" she inquires.
"Soon as I get my head out of the commode. I promise."
The unsavory image provokes another pause at Emma's end.
"Talk to you later," I say.
"Jack, wait."
Here I moan like a terminal dysentery victim.
"They put Old Man Polk on a machine over at Charity," says Emma. "They say his heart and lungs are failing."
"What kind of machine?"
"I don't know. For heaven's sakes."
"Emma, how old is he now? Ninety-five, ninety-six?" I picture her seething because she thinks I don't even know the old geezer's age.
Tersely she says: "Eighty-eight."
The same as Orville Redenbacher when he died!
"And how old is the new Mrs. Polk?" I ask. "Thirty-six, if I recall."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying the old man isn't going to die at Charity with a tube up his cock. He's gonna die at home in the sack, with a grin on his face and a jellybean jar full of Viagras on the nightstand. Trust me."
Emma's tone turns cold. "You don't sound very sick to me, Jack."
"Oh, it's quite a nasty bug. I'll spare you the grisly details."
"You'll be back in the office tomorrow?"
"Don't count on it," I say. "Gotta run!"
St. Stephen's is the trendiest church on the beach. I arrive early and sit in a pew near the door. In the front row I spy a snow-white noggin that belongs to either Cleo Rio or Johnny Winter in drag. Propped on a velvet-cloaked table in the center of the stage are a red Stratocaster and a small brass urn.
I count five TV crews, including one from VH1, hanging around near the confessionals. It's an eclectic, funky flow of mourners—sunburned dock rats and dive captains; pallid, body-pierced clubbers too young to be Slut Puppies fans; chunky, gray-streaked rockers from primeval bands like Styx and Supertramp; anonymous, half-stoned studio musicians with bad tattoo jobs and black jeans; and a sprinkling of pretty, unattached women in dark glasses, who I assume to be admirers and ex-lovers of the late Jimmy Stoma. One person I don't see is Janet Thrush—maybe Cleo told her not to come, or maybe Janet felt she'd be uncomfortable. Another person not in attendance is the tall, shimmery-haired guy from the elevator at Cleo and Jimmy's condo. It makes me curious; if he were a family friend, wouldn't he attend the funeral?
The church is nearly full when the notables begin arriving—the Van Halen brothers, the wild percussionist Ray Cooper, Joan Jett, Courtney Love, Teena Marie, Ziggy Marley, Michael Penn and an auburn-haired beauty who was either a Bangle or a Go-Go, I'm not sure which. It's a colorful group and the TV guys are hopping around like meth-crazed marmosets.
The last to enter St. Stephen's are the surviving ex-Slut Puppies: bass players Danny Gitt and Tito Negraponte, followed by Jimmy's keyboardist and diving buddy Jay Burns, who in midlife has come to project an unsettling resemblance to Newt Gingrich with a ponytail. Missing from the gathering is the band's notoriously moody lead guitarist, Peter P. Proust, who three years ago was fatally stabbed in a bizarre confrontation with a sidewalk Santa Claus on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. As for a drummer, the Slut Puppies went through a dozen and, according to the trades, not one departed on amiable terms.
Jay Burns and the two bass players walk stiffly up the aisle and file into the pew where Cleo Rio waits. Scanning the crowd, it occurs to me that this doesn't look or smell like the funeral of a man who turned his back on the record business. The church is packed with musicians and ripe with reefer.
As the priest instructs us to rise, two more women slip in the back door. They sit near me—one is black and one is Latin, both in their early twenties. Pals of Cleo, I'm guessing. The black woman notices the notebook in my hand and reacts with a shaded smile. "I'm with the newspaper," I whisper. She nods, and passes the information to her friend, who is mouthing along to the Lord's Prayer. Afterwards, the priest, an earnest Father Riordan, begins reflecting upon the short but full life of James Bradley Stomarti. It is painfully obvious to the whole assembly that Father Riordan never met the deceased, but he's giving it the old college try.
I lean over to the two women and ask, not too smoothly, "Were you friends, or just fans?"
"Both," the Latin girl says, flaring an eyebrow.
"Can I get your names?"
Maria Bonilla and Ajax, no last name.
"We're singers," Ajax says.
"Backup singers," Maria adds. "We worked with Jimmy."
I'm skeptical, since neither one could have been older than fourteen when his last CD came out.
"No kidding? On which album?"
The women glance glumly at each other, Ajax saying: "The one nobody's ever gonna hear."
At the podium, a former A&R man from MCA is telling a humorous anecdote about Jimmy blasting a mixing board with an Uzi during the recording of A Painful Burning Sensation. Normally I'd be taking down every word, but today the notebook is a prop.
To the backup singers I say, "Yeah, I heard he was working on some great new stuff."
"Not from us you didn't," sniffs Maria.
Again the door opens, and into the church strolls T. O. "Timmy" Buckminster, our so-called music critic. I shrink into the pew and lower my head, hoping not to be seen. Obviously the smarmy little shitweasel is here to cover the funeral—or, more accurately, the widow. He couldn't care less about Jimmy Stoma.
Buckminster boldly advances to the front of the church and squeezes into the second row, behind Cleo Rio and the former Slut Puppies. Danny Gitt rises and threads his way to the podium, where he makes a weak joke about why the band needed two bass players instead of one—something about alternating time-shares at a rehab clinic. The line draws a polite chuckle. Danny Gitt goes on to tell a few stories about Jimmy Stoma's wacky sense of humor, his unsung generosity, his passion for performing live onstage. I jot down a couple of quotes in order to maintain credibility with Ajax and Maria, who shoot me a look every so often. I'm waiting for a lull so I can quiz them about Jimmy's last project—undoubtedly the secret, unfinished album his sister mentioned...
A murmur rolls like a soft breaker through the crowd, and I look up to see Cleo Rio, dagger-straight in front of the altar. She's wearing a diaphanous, ankle-length black dress and a Madonna-style headset microphone. The bald, bomber-jacketed goon I saw at the apartment hops the rail and hands her an acoustic guitar. Cleo waits while the TV crews jostle into place.
"Lord Jesus,
" Ajax says to Maria.
And Jimmy's widow begins to strum and sing:
Who do you have at the end of the day,
Who do you touch in the deep of the night?
Me, you've got me.
Who do you reach for when the clouds go gray,
Who do you hold when no end's in sight?
Me, you need me.
Cleo's voice is weak and watery, but she affects a hard raspy edge on the last beat of each line. As best as I can tell, she's playing only three chords—an A minor, a barred F and a G—and struggling mightily. On the refrain the chords are identical but the sequence is reversed, Cleo now half-snarling:
Me, me, what about me?
You got yours but what about me?
Look in the mirror, what do I see?
Pretty little number, used to be me.
I hear Maria saying: "You believe this unholy shit?"
It is astoundingly tacky—Jimmy Stoma's widow has turned his funeral into a promotional gig. The guys from her record label must be turning cartwheels.
"Bitch," Ajax mutters.
"Whore," Maria says.
Cleo's style is grating—thank God she's only got the one hit. When she finally warbles the last note of "Me," a jittery silence grips the church. Eventually Tito Negraponte starts to clap, followed tentatively by the other ex-Slut Puppies. Pretty soon the place fills with applause that I interpret as unanimous relief that Cleo's solo is over.
Except she's still holding the guitar.
She clears her throat and sips from a glass of water ferried to her honey-skinned hand by the neckless bouncer. She says, "Here's a number—"
"Lord help us," groans Ajax, under her breath.
"Here's a number," Cleo says, "that me and Jimmy wrote just a few months ago. It's the title cut on my new CD and, well, I'm just bummed because it turned out so awesome and he's not around to hear me do it."
"Lucky him," says Maria to her friend. "Let's roll."
Ajax shakes her head. "Hang on a minute, girl."
I consider bolting for some fresh air myself, but I'm perversely curious about "Shipwrecked Heart." The widow Stomarti commences to sing:
You took me like a storm, tossed me out of reach,
Left me like the tide, lost and broken on a beach.
Shipwrecked heart, my shipwrecked heart...
The tune is pretty and pleasing to the ear, and I could probably learn to like it once I heard the whole song, but apparently that won't happen today. Cleo Rio is singing the same verse over and over, meaning she's either forgotten the rest of the lyrics or the lyrics don't exist—that is, the song isn't finished.
Ajax pokes me in the ribs. "You gettin' all this down? Ain't it unfuckinbelievable?"
"Maybe she's just nervous," I say.
"Ha!"
Afterwards, waiting to pay condolences to Jimmy's widow, I'm standing in the line between Ziggy Marley and the guitarist Mike Campbell, one of the original Heartbreakers. I believe Ziggy has taken notice of the notebook sticking out of my back pocket—in any event, nobody's chatting much.
Shaking the pudgy hand of Jay Burns, I introduce myself and say I'd like to get together for a profile of Jimmy that I'm writing. He grunts agreeably, which is a surprise. Then I notice he's completely ripped, eyelids at half-staff and a tendril of drool hanging from his lower lip. Tomorrow he won't remember agreeing to an interview; he'll be lucky to remember his name.
When I finally work my way up the line to Cleo, I notice that she's switched to black contact lenses in honor of the somber occasion. She greets me as if we've never met.
"Jack Tagger," I prompt helpfully, "from the Union-Register."
"Oh. Right."
I embrace her and say, "We really need to talk again."
Cleo pulls free.
"Oh, not now," I add solicitously. "Not today"
"I'm leavin' for L.A., like, tomorrow," Cleo says. "Talk about what?"
"Bad chowder. Bad autopsies." I smile. "Just a few questions. Won't take long."
Cleo looks like she's got a hockey puck lodged in her gullet. "You... no, g-g-get the fuck outta here," she stammers.
"You're upset. I'm sorry—"
Cleo turns to flag down the bald guy in the bomber jacket. "Jerry? Jerry, I wa-wa-want this g-g-guy outta here—"
But already I'm moving for the door. There seems no point in asking if I can tag along on the boat ride for the scattering of James Stomarti's mortal remains.
Outside in the parking lot, I catch up with Ajax and Maria as they're getting into a rented Saturn convertible. They inform me that they're legally not allowed to talk about the recent studio sessions with Jimmy Stoma.
Maria says, "We signed a, whatcha call it, a confidentiality agreement. I'd like to help you, man, but I don't wanna get blackballed. I need the work."
Ajax says, "Same here. I got a little girl at home."
"Then forget the sessions. Tell me about Jimmy. What was he like?" St. Stephen's is emptying fast. The limo drivers forsake the shade of an ancient banyan tree and, stubbing out their cigarettes, hustle back to their cars.
"Jimmy was real cool. A nice guy," Ajax says.
"And Cleo?"
Maria laughs acidly. "No comment, chico."
"Ditto for me." Ajax says, disgustedly. "Why you even gotta ask? You saw the bitch with your own eyes. She's in it for capital M-E."
"Think he loved her?"
Ajax howls and starts up the car. Maria waves me around to her side. "You're gettin' a little carried away," she tells me, not unkindly. "We're backup singers. You unnerstand?"
I watch them drive off. Then I go find my Mustang, toss the notebook on the front seat, crank up the air conditioner. I feel whipped, as I always do after a funeral service. But through the windshield I notice a scene that makes me grin—the widow Stomarti, clutching the brass urn on the steps of the church while being interviewed by Timmy Buckminster.
I roll down all the windows and crank up the Slut Puppies full blast and roll out of the parking lot nice and easy.
Rock on, Jimmy Stoma.
8
Janet Thrush opens the door and says, "Oh. You."
"I come in?"
"Look, lemme explain."
"Not necessary."
"About this getup," she says sheepishly. "I wanna explain."
Janet is decked out in a Halloween-quality police costume: shiny black boots, dark blue slacks with a gray martial stripe down the sides, a starched white shirt with a cheap tin badge on the breast, and a holster with a toy pistol. Hooked over the top button of her shirt is a pair of plastic reflector sunglasses with neon-blue lenses. In her back pocket is a ticket pad. All that's missing is a set of handcuffs.
"Sorry," I say. "Didn't know you had company."
"I don't have company. Not exactly."
She waves me in and signals me to keep my voice low. The small living room is lit as brightly as a TV studio, which evidently it is. She directs me to a corner and whispers, "I'll just be a sec."
Janet slips on the sunglasses and runs a hand through her hair. Then she steps into the lights and, cocking one hip, squares to face a video camera no larger than a pencil sharpener. The camera is centered on a coffee table next to a personal computer. Lines of words appear in staggered bursts on the screen, but I'm not close enough to read them.
Janet bends over the keyboard and punches out a message to her cybervisitor. Straightening, she announces, "Larry, you're still under arrest, so don't try anything funny. Call me back in twenty."
Once more she taps the keyboard and the screen goes black. Then she steps around the aluminum tripod racks on which the hot photo lights are mounted and jerks the plug from the wall. She swipes the shades off her face and tosses them on the coffee table.
"Wanna Bud?" she asks me.
"Sure."
"Or something stronger?"
"Whatever you're drinking is fine."
We move to the kitchen, where the temperature is at least fifte
en degrees cooler. Janet hands me her last beer and pops opens a cola for herself.
"See, it's Meter Maid-Cam," she says. "You know about this stuff? You on the Net? How it happened, I was sorta between jobs and this girlfriend a mine, about my age, tells me I can make real good money just by... well, she strips, you know, all the way down to her birthday suit. Myself, I stop with my undies. Anyhow, my girlfriend helped set it all up, got me my own Web site and 900 number and so forth. Her deal is Convent-Cam, she and three other girls dress up as Dominican nuns. You mighta read about 'em in Salon." Janet tilts the Coke for a long drink.