Stone Junction

  ‘So. Between jealous revenge and a growing fear about his probable involvement in the theft of nuclear materials, Gideon decided to alter the bomb in some way – perhaps so that it would detonate moments after it was armed, or perhaps by a remote device.’ Daniel started to say something but Volta anticipated him. ‘So why did your mother know something was amiss in time to yell a warning to you? I’m not sure, but maybe it was something she felt when she armed the bomb or – and I wouldn’t discount this as a possibility – she remembered Gideon’s obsession with the Mickey Mouse image, probably knew he made bombs, did know a Mickey Mouse clock had been used in the one she was carrying, and came up with enough doubts and dangers to warn you.’

  Daniel was shaking his head.

  ‘I know,’ Volta said, ‘the latter is fairly thin conjecture.’

  ‘Yes, it is – but more than that, it was the way she yelled for me to run. It wasn’t like there might be danger; it was immediate, urgent.’

  Volta sighed. ‘I know. But by your own description she was extremely nervous, enough so that a vague connection might have become an urgent truth.’

  ‘What does Gideon say to all this speculation?’

  ‘Nothing. Nor will he. He was killed in a car wreck less than a year later – hit head-on by a drunk driver, who is now serving an eight-year term for second degree murder.’

  Daniel said, ‘Circumstance, conjecture, a convenient death – it sounds awfully loose.’

  ‘I can’t disagree. But how would you like to check it out yourself? Investigative work is excellent training. Besides, you must be ready to come out of the hills for some bright lights and big city. It’s up to you, of course.’

  ‘I would like that,’ Daniel said. ‘I want some direct information.’

  ‘Done. I’ll set up a money drop for you in the city to support your investigation. You take care of the rest – lodging, food, and so forth. You’ll be on your own, but I’ll give you a number to contract me if you’re so inclined. I might be able to coordinate information and leads, and perhaps offer some instructions – suggestions, really.’

  ‘Why not give them to me now?’

  Volta smiled faintly. ‘Because I’m not sure what they are. Things have been moving very fast lately.’

  ‘I noticed,’ Daniel said. He was just about to ask Volta’s opinion on his sexual problem when he heard Mott railing at Pissgums down in the barn.

  ‘I must leave within the hour,’ Volta said, getting to his feet, ‘and first I must talk to Mott and Charmaine.’

  ‘What do you have to talk to her about?’

  Volta arched an eyebrow. ‘Business. She needs some supplies and new equipment for her lab.’

  ‘What does she make in that lab of hers anyway?’

  ‘She doesn’t always tell me, and I never ask.’

  ‘You just supply the materials and equipment on faith, right?’

  ‘Exactly. The same basis on which we provide your training. Please call and check in when you get to the city.’

  Daniel left the Rocking On a week later, three jars of chili and a quarter pound of trainwreck weed in his pack, farewell gifts from Mott. Charmaine was gone for the month, so he left her a good-bye note thanking her for her help. He promised Mott he’d call if he ran across any new drugs or happened to hear about a vintage bazooka for sale.

  Transcription: Telephone Call Between

  Volta and Daniel

  DANIEL: Hey, this is Daniel. I just went by the drop and there’s only a hundred dollars.

  VOLTA: We’re not a rich organization, Daniel.

  DANIEL: A hundred dollars won’t even pay rent. This is San Francisco.

  VOLTA: I understand. It’s a dismal situation. But frankly, the finances are in shambles. Our accountant fell in love with her secretary. There’s a hundred-dollar limit on all nonessential outlays.

  DANIEL: And checking out my mother’s death is nonessential?

  VOLTA: Since it’s already been done to some degree by others – who were paid eight hundred dollars – it’s difficult to justify financially. And people besides myself are involved in these determinations.

  DANIEL: Am I supposed to sleep in the park?

  VOLTA: It’s been done to good effect.

  DANIEL: I get it – part of the training.

  VOLTA: Not specifically, no. We do, of course, assume that any of our students has the wit to survive in an affluent society.

  DANIEL: What if I need to bribe someone for information?

  VOLTA: Bribery is the failure of persuasion. And you’re certainly not being trained to acquire information that could simply be bought.

  DANIEL: All right. A hundred a week is good enough.

  VOLTA: A month.

  DANIEL: You’re kidding. I’d rather devote my attention to investigating my mother’s death than finding out what garbage cans in which alleys are the best to eat from.

  VOLTA: Perhaps you’ll find attention sharpened by necessity.

  DANIEL: I thought I was supposed to get twenty percent of the truck farm profits?

  VOLTA: You are. A hundred dollars a month for fourteen months is fourteen hundred dollars.

  DANIEL: Fourteen hundred! It should be more like fourteen thousand!

  VOLTA: Daniel, you’ve confused gross with profit. Gross is total income. Profit is the gross minus operating expenses, which include everything from land payments and taxes – it is three thousand acres, remember – down to kerosene for the lamps. It also includes ceremonial expenses, like burning hundred-dollar bills, and instructional salaries – Wild Bill’s, for instance. Plus, of course, the five percent dues you’re supposed to pay as an AMO member. We assume your honor, so take it out at this end to save the tedious and entropic transactions of sending it to you only to have you return it. It makes life easier for our accountants.

  DANIEL: Maybe if they had more work, they wouldn’t have time to fall in love with their secretaries.

  VOLTA: If, out of some notion of formality, you insist on receiving the 5 percent we’ve withheld, I’ll send it tomorrow. I believe it’s around ninety-three dollars.

  DANIEL: (after a pause) No, keep it. Buy your accountant and her boyfriend a wedding present.

  VOLTA: That’s very thoughtful. You’re a credit to Wild Bill. And Daniel, do let me know if you turn up anything interesting.

  The first interesting thing Daniel turned up was a spirited blond named Epiphany Chantrelle. He met her in City Lights Books his second day in town. She took him home to a communal house on Treat Street, a Victorian three-story. The number of residents on any given day varied between two and twenty, depending on who was in town, or jail, or had just been released, or had left for Nepal, or returned from Chile. Nobody asked too many questions, and an almost self-conscious spirit of cooperation prevailed. There was always something cooking in the kitchen and the dishes got done. A neatly lettered sign over the sink read: ‘We’re all guests here.’ Beneath it someone had added Wild Bill’s familiar phrase, ‘One hand washes the other.’

  He slept with Epiphany that first night, after explaining as straightforwardly as possible that he probably couldn’t have sex with her again. And he couldn’t, though he tried several times before she eventually left for Detroit with a drummer from Rabid Lassie. He made love – once – with six other women, but when he found he couldn’t repeat, decided to try celibacy awhile. Perhaps the problem would solve itself.

  To anyone who asked, Daniel said he’d been working as a ranch hand since he was twelve, saved a little money, and had come to San Francisco to find out how people could live so close together.

  Gathering information on Gideon Nobel proved frustrating and tedious. He couldn’t find anyone who’d even admit they knew Gideon made bombs. He did manage to see the highway patrol report on Gideon’s fatal accident. Gideon’s Volkswagen had been hit head on by a Chevy driven by a drunk pipefitter named Harlan Maldowny, whose wife had left him a month earlier. Harlan was still in Vacaville on the sec
ond-degree homicide rap. Daniel thought about visiting Harlan but decided it would probably be a depressing waste of time. It clearly hadn’t been a hit.

  He checked out the list of Gideon’s North Beach friends that Volta had given him, or at least those that still remained. They recalled his passionate infatuation with Annalee, and some of the scenes he’d caused when rejected, but nobody thought he was the sort of man who would carry a torch or a grudge for very long.

  Daniel’s investigation took a diligent five months, two pairs of shoes, and too many bus rides. And it all checked out pretty much as Volta had presented it until he met Charlie Miller.

  He turned up Charlie Miller through Quentin Lime, an art critic who refused to believe Daniel’s line that he was an intern reporter considering writing a piece on Gideon Nobel.

  ‘First of all, Gideon Nobel was, if not an outright charlatan, the worst sculptor west of New York. Secondly, you’re much too young to be a reporter, even for an abomination like Teen Arts.’

  ‘I skipped a few grades,’ Daniel explained.

  ‘Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I refuse to discuss Gideon’s alleged work.’

  ‘Actually, I’m not so much interested in his work as I am in his life and his particular Bohemian lifestyle – you see, the focus of the article is on different artistic lifestyles.’

  ‘Well, that shouldn’t be difficult to uncover: He suffered quite publicly and volubly. I’m sure hundreds of people in North Beach alone could still provide you with the squalid details.’

  ‘What about his series of sculptures with the Mickey Mouse theme?’

  ‘Drivel,’ Quentin Lime sniffed, ‘pure, witless, kitschy drivel.’

  ‘It received some good reviews.’

  ‘Most reviews are written by morons about morons. Sensibility is at a premium in American culture these days.’

  ‘Did you know him personally?’

  ‘Never,’ Quentin Lime said icily. ‘We tended to frequent different social circles. Gideon considered himself a beatnik. He and Charles Miller wrote a miserable piece of self-promotion called the Three M Manifesto – essentially the crucial culture concept of “Mickey Mouse Moment,” which they, with childish illogic and grand infelicities of expression, advanced as a beatific state.’

  ‘I thought the Three M Manifesto had been published anonymously?’

  ‘I assure you that my sources, while I’m not at liberty to disclose them, are impeccable.’

  ‘This Charles Miller – who’s he? I haven’t heard him mentioned before.’

  ‘You’ve probably heard him referred to as High Life. Do you get it? Miller High Life. Bohemians are so witty.’

  ‘High Life, right, I’ve heard about him – but he’s in Spain isn’t he?’

  ‘Unfortunately, he returned two days ago, which means that in about a half hour he will be slouching at a back table in Cafe Trieste, holding court to an empty house. I hear he’s now billing himself as the Last Beatnik. Let us fervently hope so.’

  ‘Sit down, man,’ High Life motioned before Daniel could even introduce himself. ‘You know what the real work of art is, man? Life. Not just human life, but all life.’ He leaned forward confidentially as Daniel took a chair. ‘I used to be a painter. Now I’m the paint. You digging that?’

  Daniel said carefully, ‘I think I know what you mean.’

  ‘But do you dig the tragedy of it?’

  ‘I thought it sounded fine.’

  ‘No, man. And you know why? There’s no canvas. They’re all turning into fucking robots out there. Power-suckers. Women are buying electrical vibrators to fuck themselves with, man. Personal appliances – it’s a whole new market. You see, man, Marx got it right for his time, but hey, who could have imagined advertising? A whole industry devoted to the creation of desire! Like we didn’t have enough, right?’

  ‘I really don’t know,’ Daniel said. ‘I’ve spent most of my time in the mountains.’

  ‘Go back, man. It’s your best shot at sanity.’

  ‘I probably will, but right now I’m trying to gather some information on a sculptor named Gideon Nobel.’

  High Life looked blankly at a spot just over Daniel’s head.

  ‘I’m not a cop,’ Daniel assured him.

  ‘Man, everybody’s a cop or a reporter. Anybody that calls the cops is a cop. Anybody trying to write their way into the fame game is a reporter. You know what I’m saying? I mean, a person that calls the cops is a person that doesn’t have any friends. I don’t need that action, dig,’ cause I have friends. Maybe even this Gideon cat was a friend. Why would you want to know?’

  Given High Life’s clear antipathy to reporters, Daniel tried a different cover. ‘I’m writing a graduate paper on his life and work.’

  High Life cocked his head. ‘Oh yeah? Where you studying?’

  ‘Cal.’

  ‘Who’s department chair in art over there now?’

  ‘Polansky.’

  ‘You read the right catalogue, man, but Polansky had a stroke about three months ago.’ High Life started to rise from his chair. ‘See ya later.’

  ‘Actually,’ Daniel said, ‘I want to know about Gideon because I think he killed my mother.’

  High Life sat down. ‘Hey, that’s too much. What was her name?’

  ‘Annalee Pearse.’

  High Life looked at Daniel sharply, then shook his head. ‘Let’s fall by my pad, man. Do a little of the good shit and see if we can’t get this back on track.’

  Charles ‘High Life’ Miller hadn’t been properly stirred in the melting pot. He had General Custer’s flowing blond hair and the dirt-brown eyes of Sitting Bull. His upstairs apartment on Columbus was furnished with a mattress, three orange-crate bookcases, wine bottles shoved in a corner, and a refrigerator that ran constantly and noisily. High Life sat on the mattress and rolled a joint. He lit it, sucked down a little hit, passed it to Daniel. As he exhaled he said, ‘Brought this shit back with me from Spain. Basques grow it in the highlands. Best kept secret on the planet, this weed. It’ll knock your dick in your watchpocket.’

  Daniel took a few hits and passed it back, imagining Mott snorting in derision at the size of the joint. Mott’s, usually rolled in newspaper in the Rastafarian mode, required both hands just to hold on.

  High Life asked abruptly, ‘Your mother now, she the Annalee who Gideon had the bad hots for back in the late sixties?’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘How’d she die?’

  ‘A bomb exploded.’

  High Life nodded, staring at the joint in his hand. ‘Well, man, you know how it is – accidents happen.’

  ‘Not this time.’

  ‘I knew them both. Your mother couldn’t have been sixteen, seventeen. Stunning chick. Mysterioso. Make the scene for a few days and – poof – gone till you saw her again. Gideon was what? Early thirties? Very hip, definitely knew the scoobies from the doos. He went for her hard. He thought she might be an actual Moon Goddess. I mean, Gideon truly believed there are gods and goddesses who assume human form in order to increase their understanding of us. Anyway, I was in Vesuvio’s the night Gideon pulled a gun on Johnny Gilbert and threatened to blow him away if he didn’t quit porking your mom – that wasn’t very sensitive on my part, was it? But that’s what he said to Johnny Gilbert, who was a poet. She dug poets. But I’ll tell you, Gideon loved her as real as you can. He might have killed for her, but he’d never have killed her.’

  ‘She was in love with someone else.’

  ‘When are we talking about?’

  ‘Early 1980.’

  ‘No way. Me and Gideon were tight into the late seventies.’ High Life held up his thumb and index finger pressed together to illustrate how tight they’d been. ‘He’d gotten over your mother by then. He was an artist, and artists are passionate people. He wasn’t happy unless he was obsessed, taken with some glory vision, some monstro-truth, and when he was in it, he was in it, over his head. And when he came up, it ended. Like when he kne
w your mother, he was obsessed with moonlight. He used to go up on the roof at night and fucking moonbathe. He wrote letters to NASA threatening to kill any asshole astronaut that dared to set foot on the moon. He called your mom Diana – believed to his bones, man, that she was a genuine Moon Goddess. All he talked about was her and the moon. It lasted about two years. Then he got into Marx.’

  ‘Karl Marx?’

  ‘Don’t ask me how he made that leap, but he read every word of and on Marx for about two years. Then it was clouds.’

  Daniel asked: ‘What about Mickey Mouse – was that another of his obsessions? He did a series of sculptures, didn’t he?’

  ‘Oh yeah, he got into Mickey deep. He gave me the second sculpture he did. They all represented an hour of the day, dig, and mine was midnight. A little painted bronze of Mickey Mouse with his head up his ass. Best one in the series, I thought. But I had to sell it when I hit some hard times. You know, in some ways Mickey was his last shot. After that he became extremely interested in, uh … sonic sculptures, if you follow me – loud noises. I mean, after Mickey Mouse, what’s left?’

  ‘When did he do these Mickey Mouse sculptures?’

  ‘Umm, let’s see? Must have been around seventy-seven, seventy-six. Yeah, seventy-six, the Bicentennial, because that Christmas he gave everybody a Mickey Mouse watch with the hands pulled off.’

  High Life began a long rant against cultural idiocy, but Daniel tuned him out. In late 1976 they’d still been at the Four Deuces, but Annalee hadn’t been making her monthly city trips for a long time. It was highly improbable she could have connected Gideon to the bomb. And then Daniel surprised himself by immediately deciding not to tell Volta the new information, or not until he had thought it through.