Tears of a Clown Read online

chills, especially the Harnoncourt, Concentus Musicus.”

  “I’ve had twelve years of practice. I’d better be good by now.”

  “Well, you certainly have the awards to prove it.”

  The pianista takes her glass of bubbly, then saunters over and sits opposite her visitor in a soft comfortable chair. Jean refills Julia’s glass from a bottle sitting on the table between them.

  “Thanks,” Julia nods.

  “My pleasure.”

  “Wanna listen to the radio?”

  “Okay.”

  Julia gets up and turns the radio on a pop station.

  “I just had an idea,” Jean interrupts. “Why don’t you perform on my radio show some time?”

  “That’d be cool. Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it. Anything for a friend.”

  Julia plops down in her easy chair.

  “How come you never got married?” the teen queries her guest.

  “That’s a long story, Julia. I don’t want to go into that now.”

  “Sorry.”

  Jean goes over to her host, sits on the armrest of her chair, and fingers her black mane.

  “You have nice hair,” the DJ compliments her.

  “Thanks,” Julia gulps. “I paid enough for it.”

  “Do I make you nervous?”

  “Yes…no…yes…I mean…”

  Jean kisses Julia on the head.

  “Don’t be,” the visitor swears. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

  Julia downs her entire glass of champagne in one gulp.

  As is his habit, Al prefers to enter Julia’s house from the 2nd floor landing. This time made up to look like Beethoven, his hair is tousled and streaked with gray, and he’s wearing a ruffled white shirt buttoned to his neck as well as old-fashioned trousers no doubt recovered from the dumpster behind Value Village on Ochoa Rd. Climbing up the trellis, he sneaks over the railing to the porch. Like a kitten, he creeps over to the glass door and slides it open micro inch by micro inch. He hears soft piano music playing through the drapes.

  Slowly parting the heavy cloth barrier, he sees a nude Julia, her back to him, sleeping naked in Jean’s arms on the easy chair. Jean, similarly in her birthday suit, gently strokes Julia’s hair then gazes directly at Al. His hopes crushed, Al backs away from the scene.

  Minutes later, ambling dejectedly down the street combing his hair, Al doesn't notice Mar Vista pulling alongside him in his car.

  “Hey, kid,” Mar Vista wonders, “you live around here?”

  Al stops and looks briefly at the driver.

  “You’re that investigator from Jefferson County, right?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “My sister Laurel was talking about you. I’m Al.”

  “Hi, Al. Bad news travels pretty quickly around here.”

  “Like a fart in an elevator. I guess you must’ve heard about Chip by now. Somebody really hated him, boy. Nailed him good.”

  “Do you have any idea who’d do that?

  “Nope. How would I?”

  “Hm. There’s still a couple of places and people left to visit. The next stop on my itinerary is Julia Villa-Lobos’ house. You know her?”

  “Yeah. She lives right up the block. But, she’s kinda involved right now, if you know what I mean.”

  “Hmm. What do you know about Crenshaw?”

  “The mayor? He keeps a low profile, but I guess that’s his job.”

  “Do you know any Beverly’s?”

  “I know Beverly Tan, Chip’s girlfriend.”

  “Were they close?”

  “Nah. Chip was telling me he had some problems with her lately.”

  “Where does she work?”

  “I think she was a part-time DJ at KQVZ, figured it was one way of breaking into show biz. I don’t know where she is now, though.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep looking. In the meantime, go stay home with your family. Now’s the wrong time to be alone.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Mar Vista takes off. Al looks up the block at Julia’s house.

  Beverly and the mayor are lying naked under the satin sheets in his spacious bedroom. Crenshaw is smoking a joint. Beverly, her back to the mayor, is staring at paintings on the wall.

  “I still can’t believe you think I’d do such a thing, Jim,” she berates him. “As a matter of fact, how do I know it wasn’t you who dropped that ball off at my house this morning?”

  Crenshaw sits up and offers her the joint. She passes.

  “It wasn’t me,” he testifies.

  “Chip may have been a dope, but he didn’t deserve to die, especially like that.”

  “Stop pointing your finger at me, Beverly. I don’t appreciate it.”

  Beverly sits up. “Then marry me.”

  “What?”

  “You heard.”

  “Please, you’re still in high school. Are you crazy?”

  “Yeah,” she ascertains, “for you.”

  “Jesus Christ, woman. You’re putting me on the spot.”

  “Why?” she begs. “It won’t affect your political career one bit. As a matter of fact, it looks good for a city official to have a doting wife by his side, doesn’t it?”

  Crenshaw gets up, puts on his pants, stomps over to a shelf, whips out a bottle of bourbon, pours himself a glass, and downs it. He turns to Beverly.

  “I want you to leave here now.”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  “What do you think? You can just use me for your secret pleasures then discard me like a used tissue?”

  She dons an oversized shirt, stomps over to him, and holds up her empty ring finger.

  “I want something on this, or…”

  “Or what, Bev? Plant bombs in my mailbox? Blab to the press?”

  “Is that how you look at me? Like I’m some freaking blackmailer?”

  “It’s over, schoolgirl.”

  She pounds her hand on the counter. “This is bullshit.”

  Livid, she dashes the rest of her clothes on.

  “I was always there when you needed me,” she concedes.

  Crenshaw pours himself another drink.

  “You hear me?” she queries him.

  Sipping his drink slowly, she slaps it out of his hand. Crenshaw raises a fist to punch her.

  “You whore!” he screams.

  “Go ahead and do it, Jim! The press would love to know who busted my headlights.”

  “Get the hell out of my house!”

  Beverly ambles over to the bedroom door. “You ain’t seen the last of me yet.”

  She exits. Crenshaw crushes the glass in his hand. Blood drips down his arm.

  Mar Vista pulls into the unpaved parking lot of KQVZ FM that night. Set up in a rural outpost a few miles out of town, the station’s building looks like it was built into a little square schoolhouse. Parabolic bowls sit on the roof amidst several gray metal cabinets. Around the station are acres of unplowed fields populated mostly by deer, woodchucks and the occasional raccoon. There are no other cars in the dusty lot lit only by one halogen lamp atop a post.

  Peeking into every available window, he sees nothing as all lights are off. Using a combination jimmy and long-pronged tool, he toggles the lock in the rear door and gains entry into the dark building. Feeling along the walls, he finds a set of switches but just flicks one up. An elongated, overhead, fluorescent light flickers on. Traipsing down the half-lit hall, he hears the ever-running teletype machine tapping out current news events. Poking his head in from room to room, he sees no one in the studios or engineering suites.

  Walking into the broadcast booth, he sits in a black armchair and fiddles with the knobs on the Grass Valley console like a radio DJ. Around him are shelves of record albums and CD’s. In a glass cabinet, he sees the station operator’s license and other forms. He briefly goes through the drawers in the cabinet next to the tape machine. In the bottom draw, behind a stack of old records, he finds an ash handled,
five tined, boron tipped handclaw.

  Beverly is trudging up the hilly suburban street towards her house. The winding road is intermittently lit as only half the street lamps are on. The eerie silhouettes of bent pines dotting the landscape – their jagged tops closely resembling witches’ hats – give the area the feel of a Brothers’ Grimm folktale. On either side of the pavement-less avenue are steep embankments with cold spring water leisurely dripping out of random pores in the hill. Forced to walk in the street, she moves a little faster just in case oncoming traffic requires the space. Hearing a car some distance behind, she turns and sees it coming up her way. Its high beams are on.

  Instead of driving towards the middle of the road, she notices the car is aimed directly towards her. Frightened, she begins racing up the road.

  The car speeds up. She flies across to the other side of the street. The car also swerves over to the other side.

  “Help!” she screams, but of course, there is no reply from the woods.

  Nearing a covered wooden bridge, she trips and falls over a raised plank. Her left leg gets caught in the narrow space between two large, water beaten pine boards.

  “Damn!” she moans, as blood starts trickling through the rip in her pants.

  The car screeches to a halt about 100 feet away with its blinding headlights still in her eyes. Frantically, she tries pulling her leg loose but it doesn’t budge.

  “This is bullshit,” she murmurs, then, looking up, sees the mysterious auto back up, turn and drive off back down the road. Relieved, but in severe pain, she yanks again on her bloody leg a few more times till it is finally set free. Rising slowly, she hears a screech of wheels. Whipping around, she sees the same car with its blinding lights flying towards her again.

  Pulverized with fright, the car plows right into her, completely throwing her up nearly 10 feet in the air, causing her Raggedy Ann-like body to fly off the bridge to the stony embankment some 40 feet