Les Wiseman Encounters the Ramones 1985

http://www.scribd.com/doc/301045633/Ramones-1985-Wiseman

Young, Sexy & Well Heeled --The Vancouver Strip Scene 1981 by Les Wiseman

In 1981, I was considered something of an aficionado of ecdysiastic terpsichore. Here's my report from the front.



http://www.scribd.com/doc/80706897/Young-Sexy-amp-Well-Heeled

Photos by stalwart A. Waterhouse-Hayward.

Vancouver Punk 1978 by Les Wiseman

Due to the revival of interest in all things Vancouver Punk engendered by the showings of Susanne Tabata's feature-length documentary Bloodied But Unbowed, there has been unprecedented public demand for access to Les Wiseman's ephochal and earth-scorching article Punks on Parade, which first appeared in Vancouver magazine's September 1978 issue. Herewith, a link to that fabled document provided by El Dub himself.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/33565094/Vancouver-Punk-1978

Excelsior,

Les. Wiseman

Stillwater: A Memoir of Boyhood Part 6

King Tut’s Mummy

(for Chris Sherwood)



I remember a time, so long ago, that affected me for the rest of my life. I was about nine years old. The Tutankhamun exhibit came to Vancouver. We lived in Squamish. I was this beautiful blond lad with a brylcreem flick at the front of his hair, large front teeth, the future world my oyster. I was going to become an archaeologist. (There’s a bright idea --actually no dumber than what I ended up doing with my life, truth be told.) My parents always being supportive, said, we had to go to the exhibit of the treasures of the boy pharaoh’s tomb.

It was in downtown Vancouver, what is now Skid Row, but was then the home of Woodward’s, the town’s biggest department store, which also had a major food floor and hence was a very decent area. My dad, Charlie Wiseman, only went to Pierre Paris on Hastings Street for his shoes and I believe he ordered the caulked boots for the M&B logging camps and was thus a somewhat important fellow to Mr. Paris.

In those days, there were no more drunks than a usual downtown, a few junkies, but they were quiet and sophisticated and hung to clubs like the Smilin’ Buddha. Most of all, there was no crack and what that causes, and no crystal methedrine.

Every Christmas, we’d drive Highway 99 to Hastings Street and park the green Mercury Montclair in the fabled Woodward’s parking lot (on the enclosed downward spiral Dad used to like to lay on the horn and delight me with the echoes, while my mother gave him the evil eye) and go visit Woodward’s proscenium. This was the seasonal stroll of young Vancouver and by young, I mean children. Woodwards had a walk-through that had huge Christmas displays behind glass. Fake snow, big sleighs, polar bears, penguins and reindeer - plus a Santa - that moved. In these days of CGI, that might not seem like much, but robotic marionettism in 1961 was quite the crowd puller.

Mom, in her gloves and fur coat, that I nestled in to sleep on so many car rides, would move me awestricken from giant window to giant window along with most of Vancouver and its whelps. Dad, with his fedora and pipe smoking, sportjacket and open collar, would stride along -in Pierre Paris shoes, no doubt. I felt so secure. (I recall that 20 years later I told my mother that I had a perfect life as a child, “And it wasn’t until I moved out on my own that my life went for a total shit.” Language aside, it was an anecdote my mother would often bring up, vindicating her upbringing skills.)

Another sidebar: At Krak-A-Joke, purveyors of fine plastic dog doodie and vomit, in the 500-block Seymour Street, my dad, brother and I had found a plastic pipe -black stem and brown bowl, just like Dad’s.

While we would walk the street, I’d ask Dad to fill up my pipe with smoke. Which he would do, covering the bowl to not allow the smoke to escape and handed it back to me. Then, two roués on the town we would walk the street. I was always heartily pleased when proper ladies would look shocked and lift their gloved hands to their lips in shock as this insouciant youngster puffed his old briar while perambulating with his obvious corrupter. Dad enjoyed it, too. All ladies wore gloves in those days.

But, back to the point. On one of our trips to Vancouver, we went to see the Treasures of Tutankhamun exibit, which was housed in the Carnegie Centre. Through high-ceilinged corridors cordoned with scarlet velvet ropes, we walked and peered at gold and stone sarcophagi, hammered gold necklaces and bracelets and all manner of Egyptiana. Yessir, this was to be my destiny, to roam the sands of Egypt, to enter the chambers of the pyramids that no one had entered for thousands of years. My destiny, face to face.

We came to the mummies and they really looked like hell, all wrapped or partially unbound to reveal sepia and black leathered skin. Their eyeless, noseless faces grinned in a dehydrated rictus, their teeth charred stumps. I knew what I was getting into; one day I would be unwrapping these guys myself.

Then we saw the mummified remains of a baby laying in a rotted wooden coffin. I remained cool, but something inside me snapped quietly. Oh God, the poor little thing was all wizened with a bald head barely the size of a hardball. Small shreds were torn out of the scalp revealing the bone beneath and little whisps of reddish hair sprouted haphazardly from its head. The same leathery smile as all the others on its black, torn lips.

I was quiet on the drive home. Just snuggled into Mom’s fur coat and watched the raindrops on the windshield race and merge.

That night, snug in my bed, my faithful stuffed lion, Lambert, and his best friend an ocelot named Simba, tucked in my arms I drifted off to a place that would never be the same again.

I was running along the twisting corridors of Carnegie Centre. I was alone and it was dark. Behind me came the click clop of something following. That dead leathery baby, its arms unswaddled and reaching out for me. The coffin clomping along the floor, swaying from side to side as one would presume the standard form of locomotion for vertical square-bottomed coffins in a hurry. I knew its touch would instantly tranform me into something similar, tight, black, knotted skin tugging at my bones. I could feel the tension of my skin pulling tighter into strands and blackening, dying. No moisture, only eternal darkness, trapped within that little immobile body, stuffed under thousand of tons of stone for millennia. Shoved in a slot, stone on all sides, tight as a bullet in a barrel, there to hear my mind scream for all eternity. Urgently, that little child was trying to catch up with someone to be its friend, to keep it company in the dark where it was trapped, afraid, desperate.

Night after night, though I’d struggle to stay awake, that child would chase me down those darkened halls wanting me to join it in its forever damned fate.

I overheard my mother once recounting to a friend about the exhibit, “The mummy of the baby quite disturbed Leslie.”

And it still does, it still does. To this day, I can hardly look at that page in the souvenir book that we bought at the exhibit. Like the mummified child, that book lies packed deep in boxes, surrounded by masses of other books, pounds and pounds of books, paper, screaming to get out, wanting me to open it to its page and share its horrible fate. It waits in terror and desperation. Waiting for me.

Epilogue: A few years back, I was recounting this tale to some of the ladies in the art department where I worked. My friend Chris Sherwood listened intently and with brow furled, said, “You know that mummy from the Tutankhamun exhibit is at the Museum of Man at UBC. It stayed here. If you wanted to go out and see it....”

Truly, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end and I felt dank, entombing blackness pour into my skull. It hadn’t left. It was waiting still.

-- 30 --

The Great 1971 or 1972 Pink Floyd Caper

The Great Pink Floyd Caper

[This is dedicated to Randy Dahlquist, who also snuck in and was dealing with his own set of circumstances.]

I was in first-year university. Age 17 or 18. Didn’t have tickets for a band we loved called Pink Floyd, who were playing at the PNE Gardens auditorium. Creedance Clearwater Revival was filling the Pacific Coliseum with soon-to-be rednecks that night. So, I went in the back door of the Gardens about 3 p.m., said I was with the band. Had long hair, got waved through (just like an Obama event). I sat -zen like- onstage, under the piano, until a roadie asked me to help set up the gong --yes, the gong (that launched a thousand trips) on the back of Umma Gumma. Helped the guys out with various things, finding groupies to mend their trousers, which were those thin things Brits called loons. Roger Waters came out and nodded to me and sound checked One of These Days. When I nodded that it was cool, he nodded back and walked off.
Then they let the crowd in and I was standing centre stage and in walked the most beautiful hippie princess I loved from UBC.

She saw me.

It was awesome.

Finally, someone said, get off the stage and I went down and saw the Meddle show, with speakers 360 degrees (unheard of at the time) at the Vancouver Gardens. Mindblower. Floyd had strippers for the encore. I was about 18; I didn’t know that a large part of my life would eventually revolve around naked women. (It was a different time, you laughing fkrs.)

Couple nights later, the hippie princess is working the commisary in residence. I buy a chocolate bar and she says, "Hey, I saw you onstage with Pink Floyd the other night."

My chest and other parts grew large. "What did you think," I asked, referring to both the Floyd and myself. "I fkn hate Pink Floyd," she said. "I only went because my boyfriend said he'd cut me off if I didn't go."

I went back to my small Place Vanier room and thought a lot. There was a great lesson to be learned there. And oh how I learned it year after year after year....

--30 --

Stillwater: A Memoir of Boyhood Part 5

The Beatles Come to Stillwater:

I remember a summer game of tag on a big lawn beside a house that overlooked Stillwater’s main industrial area. Below where we played, a tiered set of sun-faded,grey, wooden stairs led down to what was essentially a marshalling yard. The big old building where my Dad worked as a personnel man and timekeeper was on the left side as you looked down. Logging trucks were parked on the right by a huge airplane hangar-like corrugated-aluminum machine shop like the top half of a giant culvert. Arc-welding constantly flashed through the doors. The rest of the land was dust, bordered by tall alders. An ancient wooden dock stuck into Stillwater Bay and, from about forty feet out, it was all log booms from one side of the bay to the other. Boom boats, those stubby little cartoon ships, bumped and rocked and shoved the booms around into some sort of order. Men in caulked boots ran along them with pike poles and pickaroons. Dust roads ran off to tattered residences converted from old bunkhouses along the shoreline.

There was a sort of gravel pit along one of these roads and it was full of trimmings from the alder trees that had overgrown the logging roads. It was a massive pile of small-cut branches and leaves maybe twenty feet tall. We could climb up the shell of this sort of amphitheatre and, huffing and puffing at the effort, could stand at the top of the precipice and with a hop, skip and jump go soaring through the air to land on our bottoms twenty-five-feet below on a soft cushion of flora. Today, the very idea makes me sick to my stomach. The potential for a stick prodding through somebody was there, but no one got hurt. Despite repeated attempts. It was one of those mystical, blessed summers.

Anyway, safe on the lawn of the foreman’s white picketed yard, overlooking the dustbowl and the bay, we were in a tizzy. All week, the TV was promoting the appearance of this group that all the bigger kids were listening to on their radios. They were called The Beatles and at The Hudson’s Bay in downtown Powell River, you could buy grey Beatles sportsjackets with black velour collars and even Beatle wigs. It was rumored that one of the big kids who went to high school in Powell River was actually sighted buying one of these toupees.

And this musical combo was to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, this night, Sunday. We were all crazy for it, especially the girls. We constantly quizzed each other on the four bandmembers’ names. Ringo was the flat-out favorite throughout North America and so he was with the girls in our crowd. He shook his hair a lot, girls screamed and gave those of us who would grow to be big-beaked a lot of hope. (Especially years later when he married the luscious Barbara Bach.)

As the appointed hour neared, we spun madly around on the lawn, even the simple rules of tag forgotten in our excitement. I would yell out the word, “Ringo!” and Mousie and Penny would scream. Then they’d regroup and tell us how they were going to do exactly that when they watched in their living rooms tonight. We -me and my buddy Kimbo- in no way thought that was excessive. With the small bit of testosterone that a nine-year-old lad has, I felt I might make a peep myself.

Eight o’clock and we were all ushered into the living room of the foreman’s big house. Stilted Ed murmured a few things about having met these “fine young men.” He’d been around the entertainment scene as the Talk of the Town columnist for eons before he unexpectedly became the biggest thing on television. He knew that long hair and loud music was to be tolerated and that, if it drew in an audience, he only stood to win.

Looking back on those performances of She Loves You and I Wanna Hold Your Hand, I can see how much appeal that band had. I can’t really listen to them anymore as I’ve heard all the songs ad nauseum. But when I was researching this piece and watching that performance on YouTube, there was definitely some great music and incredible charisma and magnetism. The New York audience screamed themselves silly, as did Mousie and Penny. I was charmed by the lads, never realizing their later songs Revolution #9 and Good Night would be the only songs of theirs I could tolerate, some forty-five years later.

A few weeks later on the Sullivan show, I saw a band that I knew would make everyone forget about The Beatles, they were just so much better: The Dave Clark Five.

Stillwater: A Memoir of Boyhood Part 4

The over-rated science-fiction author Harlan Ellison has always had some pretty good things to say. One of them was: “Mothers are meant to do three things: love you; feed you and give away your comic book collection.”
This is my tale of that.
I had ‘em all: Avengers #1, X-Men #1, Fantastic Four #4, Daredevil #1, Marvel Tales #1, The Hulk when the Hulk was grey, Tales to Astonish with Ant-Man, Journey into Mystery with that early Kirby or Ditko Thor.
And, lo, there came to be a thing called a rummage sale at Stillwater Community Hall. My mother, though I had proved to her that reading comic books gave me superheroic grades in reading in school, decided that my comic book collection was a waste of space. And, after all, you’ve read them, they’re finished. My mother, one of the great readers of all time, could not understand the joy of rereading or collecting. Not getting collecting, I sort of understand. We were always surrounded by what would now be called tchotckes -beautiful figurines of birds and courtly ladies and gents. Mom presents. I’ll never forget, one time, breaking something and my Mom just sitting down and holding her head and saying, “I’ll never have one good thing, kids keep breaking them. Everything I’ve got has been glued together.” It was a horrible moment. Certainly I didn’t break much. I remember years later when I broke something and she said, “Don’t worry about it.” And years later when she broke a Persian glass goblet, one of a pair I had given her with a bottle of Kahlua for us to toast a lonely Christmas, alone together, I remember telling her, “I didn’t give you those to cause you any pain. It’s gone, let’s just be happy we have each other and don’t have to worry about it.” A few years later she knocked over a brand-new television, but that wasn’t her fault. She had her routine for going to bed and drawing the curtains around the house and suddenly this new thing was in her way, not on a proper stand. Ah breakage, it all comes down to it doesn’t it? Breakage of spirits, of bodies, of lives. Such loss. Life, it isn’t for the faint of heart. Life, it doesn’t end well.
Mom’s favorite book was Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth. If you’ve read it that explains much.
Anyhow, the comics were donated under much duress and, likely, tears. That night, at the same hall incidentally as the unfolding of the Tale of Hot Dog Suit (see further back in this blog), my friends swarmed me. It was a wilding of sorts. “Man, get over there, there’s all these great comics and they’re all in PERFECT CONDITION. And, the lady there is selling them for A NICKEL EACH OR THREE FOR A DIME!”
My stomach and nuts descended that night to levels that I’m not sure they’ve ever recovered from.
While my Mom was compis mentis, I would recount this tale to her. She would always look guilty and say, “I didn’t know!”
“Those comics are worth $200,000 each now, Mom! I could’ve been a millionaire.”
When she had lost her mind, I still occasionally muttered it to her.
Now, I’m a semi-pro comic dealer. I’m not a millionaire. Though, Mom, I could’ve been.
And, yes, she loved me and fed me. She gave away my comic collection. She was a great Mom.

Stillwater: A Memoir of Boyhood Part 3

My Mom and I were sitting in the Westview Mall at the Woolworth’s lunch counter where they had that awesome grape pop bubbling away in some plastic vat and fairly palatable burgers. She said to me, “What do you want to go as for Hallowe’en.” Ever the freak, I looked around me and said, “A hotdog.” Never one to be daunted, Mom said, “OK.”
So, my dad, my brother, and my Mom got some chicken wire and formed a hotdog bun, my size from knee to neck. Then my Mom got some vinyl of a hot-doggish brown color. From this, she made a semi-elliptical skirt to my knees and a helmet, with eyes, of course. She covered the chicken wire with an old sheet that she died bun brown, and to make the edges authentic, she couldn’t spring for yellow paint, so we used French’s mustard. Nobody in our staid British family ate anything as spicy as French’s mustard except my bro, so he was SOL and Mom used up the jar. Right before we had to go to the town hall for the Halloween, she slathered my sides with French’s. Naturally, with any sort of mask, you lose a certain portion of your vision and with this mask a major portion. Also, because of the vinyl hood, hearing was highly impaired as well. Still, Mom, God bless her, had given me what I wanted, despite the patent absurdity of the concept.
Proud as Punch, I waddled out to the car and everyone got in. But me. This was a problem we had not considered. I could not bend, plus I was massive. I believe, because of the masses of French’s mustard that I was wearing, someone fetched a tarpaulin and covered the back seat. Then my brother and father tipped me over and, getting French’s mustard all over their shirts, loaded me horizontally in the back of the 1960 green Ford Mercury Montclair.
The ride to the town hall was reminiscent of Edgar Poe’s Premature Burial. I couldn’t see, hear or move. And I was particularly concerned that my chicken wire exoskeleton was denting out of bun perfection.
Eventually, we got there and I was unloaded in complete indignity, rather like a log being pulled off the greenchain. So, thus discombobulated, with only the most rudimentary vision and virtually no hearing, I went in to the gala event.
Of course nobody recognized me and I couldn’t eat or drink anything, so I just wobbled around. Some girl kept coming up and trying to be lovey-dovey to me and I kept telling her to leave me alone. It was the next day that my parents told me that the girl was my friend Reg. I don’t know if Reg carried on with his cross-dressing practice in later life, but he certainly had talent.
Then there was the judging of the costumes. I couldn’t tell this was going on as I was deaf and half blind, but someone shoved me in a ring and I shambled around in circles. The system was that they would call you out as you were eliminated, but since I was effectively removed from communication with the rest of the world, someone eventually had to grab me by the shoulders and lead me away from the competition. I hope the fkr still smells of French’s mustard to this day.
To say that the hot dog-costume episode was a disaster would be understatement. I eventually got removed from the iron-lung-like apparatus so I could enjoy the party. But, I was one tuckered little cowboy by then and all I wanted to do was go home to bed and take comfort with Lambert my lion.

* * * *

Stillwater: A Memoir of Boyhood Part 2

I remember the day John Kennedy died. (And I love the Lou Reed song of the same name) November 22, 1963. I was in fourth grade. The teachers were called to an emergency conference. Me, being a little keener (suck was the term used in those days) was told to look after the class of mixed grade fours and fives. When Mr. Cooper, our teacher, came back to the room I immediately started launching in to various indiscretions committed by my classmates. He told me that wasn’t important right now. That the president of the the United States had been fatally shot. And we were going to get the afternoon off. Parents were being called and anyone who couldn’t be picked up could be billeted for the afternoon with friends. They were working the phones.
My brother, being in the Canadian Navy, had instilled in me a hatred for everything Yank. I was cavalier, came home to Mom and told her that I was glad we got the day off and didn’t care about John Kennedy whatsoever. Realizing she would be talking to an idiot, she told me he was a good man, that nobody deserved to be assassinated and to be a bit respectful.
When my brother came home from working at the Powell River pulp mill, I laughed about Kennedy being shot. He just looked at me strange and said it was no laughing matter. So, I stayed quiet the rest of the day and spent it reading The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Animals, one of my favorite books, which I still have in the bookcase beside where I write, today.
Maturity gave me some perspective on the Kennedy tragedy, as did the Lou Reed song. Twenty five years later, noir novelist James Ellroy also made me realize I wasn’t a hundred percent off track with my feelings. Jack the Haircut.
They say everybody remembers where they were when Kennedy was shot and that’s my recollection. I’m not proud of it, but I was a kid.
In the early 1980s, I visited Jack Kennedy’s gravesite and leaped over the chain fence to light my Kool 100, just so I could say I did it. Pretty near lost the front of my hair and the guards at Arlington were not impressed. Neither were the United States Travel Service when I recounted the incident in a Vancouver magazine article called Bell, Book & Scandal. To his credit, my editor, Mac Parry defended the onslaught of letters by saying that many readers had written in to observe that my article was “brilliant.” Whether they did or not, I dunno. But I owe Mac for that one --and many others, but those are different tales.


* * * *

Jayne & the Satanists --Chapter 33

 

On the drive home, I voiced my thoughts to Lex.  “Maybe I could get a book out of this story.  Even if no one believed Ste. Germaine’s story as nonfiction, it wouldn’t matter.  The lunatic fringe would slurp it up, as fact and the relatively sane would find it a compelling tale regardless.  A bit of a world history through one man’s eyes and because of Ste. Germaine’s memory I can avoid the shitloads of research that such a book would normally entail.  What d’ya think, Lex, my man?”

He lay on the passenger seat, for once not rubbernecking the passing sights.  His eyes were half slits, just an occasional glimmer of emerald catching an overhead streetlight.  I thought his reunion with Ste. Germaine must have spawned many thoughts and memories.  They say a cat’s brain is about the size of a walnut, but this cat was doing some heavy thinking —and I was certain there was more to Lex than was contained in the confines of his hide. His tail quivered and whipped back and forth, smacking the dusty upholstery.  Turning to me, he let out a squawk.

“That’s an awful squeak coming from such a big boy,” I said.  He yawned, showing a brilliant pink healthy mouth and needle-sharp fangs.  Then he put his head between his paws and unleashed a loud sigh.  He’d had enough for tonight.  His tail twitched a few more times, then I heard a few preliminary snorts and his chainsaw snores fired up.

When we got home, I carried him out of the car and plopped him onto my bed.  He looked up at me, released a guttural squawk and fell once more into the caress of sleep.

 

*  *  *  * 

 

Next day, Jayne came with me to the library, where we looked up anything we could on the Mandylion.  Most people would not expect it, but Jayne was a bear for research.  Because she was famous for her body and the roles she landed were less than cerebral, she enjoyed any chance to learn about things that would give her something intelligent to think and talk about.  Of course, explaining to Mickey how popcorn works would probably wow that audience for days.

     We were deep in the theology section and Jayne struck gold first.  “Hey, y’know the Mandylion isn’t the only cloth with the face of Jesus.”

“There’s that shroud thing in Italy, right?  Full length, supposed to be his burial shroud that Joseph of Arimathea wrapped Him in as he lay Him in his own tomb.”

“Okay,” she said, dubiously.  “But there’s also this other one of just His face called the Sudarium.  And given what you’ve told me about Ste. Germaine’s run in with Him, I think it might be germane —if you will forgive the pun.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Okay, but this could be important.  At the same station of the cross where Christ stumbled and Ste. Germaine, known as Caraphilus then, yelled at Him to get moving, a woman who came to be known as St. Veronica took pity on Him and stepped up and wiped the grime and sweat and blood off His face.  After she stepped back into the crowd, she noticed that Christ’s face had been imprinted on her handkerchief.  Allegedly, this vera icon or true icon is in the Vatican and is one of three true relics that are brought out at special ceremonies in St. Peter’s.”

“So, this cloth really exists?”

“I don’t know. I’ve heard the Vatican has Jesus’s foreskin.  Do you believe that?”

“That does sound a bit suspect, but then again, they don’t bring that one out like they ostensibly do with the Veronica.”

“If they did, it doesn’t sound like it would be terribly impressive.”

“Don’t talk like that. It’s ... sacreligious or something....”

 

*  *  *  * 

 

The research corroborated Ste. Germaine’s story.  The Mandylion had disappeared in a raid of cursaders on Constantinople.  When Jayne and I broke for coffee, we tried to suss out Ste. Germaine’s story.  If this Hoxhok character was so stoked on being a North American native wizard, why would he get involved in something from the ancient Middle East.

“Well,” said Jayne, “I think it all has to do with the Easter period.  Y’see, Mormons believe that after Christ died on the cross and when he was resurrected, he was seen in North America by native people and that this knowledge was given to the church founder John Smith and that he then received the Book of Mormon and formed the Church of Latter Day Saints based on Jesus’s brief visit.”

“How do you know this stuff?”

She tapped her temple and grinned.  “Kidneys, man, kidneys.”

“So you think Hoxhok can increase his power here in the New World by accumulating Old World talismans that relate to the period between the crucifiction and the resurrection.”

“From what you’ve told me, Ste. Germaine was rattled.  I don’t take him for the needlessly nervous type.  So, yeah, that’s what I think.  He’s worried that someone —Hoxhok— is going to accumulate a psychic power that we haven’t seen in a couple thousand years.”

     “Jesus....”

     “Precisely.”

 

*  *  *  *   

A Cat's Christmas on Mars

 

A CAT'S CHRISTMAS ON MARS

 

Deathdogs, flamingos and flying bisons soar over immense herds of wildebeests.  The animals of the plain flock together forming a phalanx as the page is turned.

     The cat, a golden tabby, looks up and flips another page with its paw.  Casting a wary glance at its masters who doze turkey-sodden by the Christmas tree in the adjoining room, the cat moves its paw into the picture and with a quick claw movement plucks out a wildebeest.  The beast frets.  Its heaving chest pulsates as the cat flips it into the air, then holds it to the carpet with one paw as it looks away seemingly disinterested.  The panic-spawned bellows are as the sound of gravel rolling on tiled floors.  The cat lifts the bovine creature to its eyes and sniffs the smell of the high grass and terror-induced sweat.  The cat's eyes widen as its paws squeeze imperceptibly causing the animal's shrieks of panic to turn into moans of death agony.  The tiny ribs creak and bend and finally break until the small bit of fur vomits and excretes bits of blood and waste over the floor.  With a sniff, the cat bats the crushed, mutilated carcass back into the confines of the photograph.  The two-dimensional universe is returned to normal as a pack of jackals, spurred on to unnatural voracity and courage by the smell of blood, disperse the herd of stunned wildebeests, and leap with maddened blood hunger on the carcass.

     The gift books scattered about room show pictures of a place called Earth that over the centuries had suffered such radiation degradation that it had to be abandoned.  New mutations were cropping up constantly.  Few realized that mutations could be psychic as well as physical.

     The cat thrusts its muzzle into another photograph and grabs an elephant between its teeth.  Looking around guiltily he runs to a corner to masticate his prey. 

     The cat notices the boy, tow-headed in a new blue cardigan, come into the room and kneel over a book.  With tweezers the boy pulls an air bison from the pages.  The bison flits frantically on the tweezers while the boy inspects the beast.  The child's grip loosens however and the bison flies irratically around the room.  The cat leaps and within seconds is crunching bones between his teeth.  "Good Kitty," laughs the boy and pats the cat's head.

     "Here Kitty, you'll like this," the boy says.  He opens a book entitled The World of Disney and reaching in with tweezers he pulls out a black bipedal mouse wearing white gloves and red shorts with large black buttons.  He drops the mouse to the carpet and it scurries toward a corner.  But the cat is immediately upon it.

     The boy laughs and picks up another book.  Its title is The Night Before Christmas.  The boy turns to a page showing a jolly, fat man in a red suit.  The cat looks on hungrily.

Jayne & the Satanists --Chapter 31

In the morning, as I shaved, I noted with some satisfaction that my mustache might actually be called a mustache now.  I felt a burning from my arm and noticed that my slave mark had reddened during the night.  It was hot to the touch and I washed it with some alcohol and covered it with a bandage to avoid it chafing against my clothes.

     I had no idea what I was going to do as far as this whole occult issue.  But, it had been eating into my job hours.  So, I did what any good journalist, even one of my caliber, would do.  I went into the office, sat down at the typewriter and over the course of the morning wrote a three-thousand word feature on the issue, lashing together all my loose ends with the speculations that had been flailing around untethered in my subconscious.  By noon, I had quite a story, involving an unnamed prestigious moviemaker who was a Satanist poohbah, his vampish moll, the ritual preparation for the Feast of Hermaphrodite, the abduction and branding of a young private investigator (I didn’t want to get myself involved), ancient lore requiring child sacrifice as an emollient to the daemons and the unidentified human remains found in a park at LaBrea and Franklin.  And I implied that a reporter who had gotten too close to the source had ended up dead, as did his ex-ladyfriend.  I mentioned no names.  Just that Los Angeles should be on the look out for some secret ceremony somewhere nearby on the night of November 28th.

     I handed it in to Hy and went across the street for a Reuben sandwich while he edited it.

     As I was wiping my mouth, Hy sat down across from me.  He ordered a coffee, folded his hands and stared across at me.  I felt my stomach sinking.  He was going to kill the piece.  Too many informed sources, not enough proper attributions.  Too macabre for even our audience.  Too much speculation.

     “What’d you think of your piece?” he asked.

     “I thought it was a serviceable piece, exciting in its own way, the sort of offal that our shark readership would gobble up.  Why, what’d you think?”

     He stared balefully at me.  And ran his hands over his hound-wrinkled face and sighed.  “Y’know, you’ve been on waivers the last few weeks.  I didn’t think your stuff had zap.  I thought you were getting soft and complacent --sleeping with movie stars, farting through silk.  But, this piece really hums.  I think it’s the best thing you’ve done in years.  We’re going to publish it page one tomorrow and L.A. is going to be quaking in fear.  We’ll sell a zillion issues.  I’ve added an extra press run.  There’s real passion in that piece.  I had to cut a bit that was litigious, but we’re running it almost full length as you wrote it, with me having turned your punctuation into something the rest of the world could understand, of course.”

     I was bowled over.

     “But, and this is a big but, you know that if this comes out, you will be putting yourself at risk.  Even if you want me to kill your byline, it’s still going to rain shit on us for a while.  Are you up to it?”

     “Sure, I’ve been shit on by the best.  I’m willing to take the chance.”

     “Good.  So am I,” he said, picking up my lunch bill.  “Let me get this.”  He got up, leaving me sitting there, shocked and elated.  Wondering what can of worms would spring open tomorrow when the paper hit the streets.

 

Jayne & the Satanists --Chapter 30

 

Later that night, feeling metabolically mellow, but sexually frustrated, I wove my way home.  Lex greeted me with a throaty arpeggio.  He sniffed my torn pantleg and hissed.  "Lemme tell you about a nasty female cat I met." Muttering out the story, I fixed him some Dinty Moore and poured him a saucerful of beer.  I went out on the balcony to see if the girls next door were out.  The brunette and the redhead were out smoking cigarettes.  They had retired their bathing suits for the day and were dressed in pants and light sweaters.

      I made some small talk, but I could feel the cocaine wearing off quickly, giving way to the wine in my system and the beer I was drinking.  My knees were going soft on me and my lids were drooping.  I went inside and stripped and dropped into bed.  Lex came to keep me company and set himself on my chest for optimum petting.  Then, as was his habit, he nuzzled his nose into my slowly returning mustache.  I drifted into sleep with the odd sensation that I was inhaling his exhalations and he mine.

     Blame it on the drugs, I suppose, but that night I had disturbing dreams.  A man dressed in a long black trenchcoat walking through darkened streets of different cities, different centuries.  A man laughing as he watched people in mortal conflict.  His drawn aristocratic face etched with the character lines of cruelty.  And flames, cities and homes burning.  Their people crying out in despair and sorrow.  The screams of children and mothers.  Of fathers and husbands who had betrayed them.  A phantasm of naked grotesque bodies, coiling and slithering, their loins burning with need, yet no cessation of yearning, no calm. And central to it all: this pallid sickly god thing, its priapic organ throbbing and surging, its vagina clenching and questing like a hungry sea anemone.  Its head lolling weakly on its sloping shoulders.  Its dugs, modest but so round and firm, sweat-shining nipples painfully arching upward.  A thing whose sex parts were thriving while the rest of the body wasted.  And coursing through the corners of my dream screen, the eternal man skulking, leering, gesticulating, urging me to join him.  But, in that sourceless logic of dreams, I knew that if I went to him all would be lost.  Yet the urge to abandon everything was intensely seductive.  Abandon petty morality and convention and surrender to a never-ceasing abandonment to the sensual and sinful.  And in that dream, I saw Lex, an emaciated, battle-scarred Lex, crying out in pain, but lunging through the flames to attack the eternal man who always seemed to recede just further in the distance.  And Lex’s fur burned and his flesh bubbled and his head tossed from side to side in agony, yet he plunged on into the hell and snarled at the god thing that lay pustulent and beckoning in his path.

     And I awoke, sweat drenched and nauseated.  I flapped my hand around on the coverlet and found Lex snuggled in beside me.  When I touched him, he let out a sleepy trill, wondering what was going on.  I pulled his large muscular body to me and he began his reassuring purr.  And I told myself, he’s only a cat, but that was enough at that moment.  And I hugged him close and noticed that tears were falling from my eyes into his ebony fur.  And he looked at me with those mysterious golden eyes and nuzzled into my sweaty neck and fell asleep again.  As I did too, momentarily.

Jayne & the Satanists --Chapter 29

 

I decided to pay an unannounced call on Betty.  The bookstore clerk’s comment about a star-quality woman with black hair and big sunglasses had set my cogs to turning.  I had the smallest nub of a plan.  I was going to bring up a story I was working on that Joan Crawford might be a hermaphrodite.  The word hermaphrodite rhymes with bite, while the name Hermaphrodite has a long “e” on the end, like Aphrodite or Ol’ Blighty.  If I kept gabbling on about hermaphrodites, maybe Betty would let on what she knew.  If anything.

     Betty’s lawn needed a trim and gave yellow evidence of not having been watered in a while.  It didn’t surprise me.  I hadn’t really pictured Miss Pain as much of a domestic type.  What the hell did a domina do all day, anyhow?

     The neighborhood was quiet, not a soul out in the sun.  I knocked and heard a shuffling come from inside.  The drawn venetian blinds clicked by the door.  Then the door opened.  Betty stood there holding what looked to be Lex.

     “What are you doing with my cat,” I gasped.

     She smiled.  “This isn’t your cat.  This little kitty’s name is Celine and she’s a she.  C’mon in.”

     “That’s a huge cat for a female,” I said as I stepped into the cool of her living room.

     “Yes, she’s a big healthy kitty,” Betty said, nuzzling into the glistening black fur.

     “Where’d you get the cat?” I asked as Betty set Celine down on the floor where the cat stayed, eyeing me with slitted orbs.

     “A friend couldn’t keep it, so he gave it to me.”

     “Who’s that?”

     “Just a friend.  I do have friends, you know.  Now, would you like a cold glass of wine?”

     “That’d be great.”  As she walked out of the room, my eyes locked to the rear of her white shorts. I realized that angle of investigation had been summarily shot down.  I reached out for the cat, who took a few sniffs of my hand then grouchily batted it away.  “My cat, Lex, could beat you up,” I whispered to the cat.  Its ears flew back and it hissed at me, baring an ample set of fangs.

     “Leave the cat alone,” Betty giggled from the kitchen.

     She reentered the room holding two tall glasses of white wine.  She looked a wonder in a red and white checkered top tied above her navel.  Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail.  Betty’s skin was creamy.  “So, what are you doing out here in Mom-and-Pop land?”

     I went into my spiel about working on the Joan Crawford story.  I watched her eyes carefully as I used the word hermaphrodite.  It did no good since she immediately started barking with laughter to an extent that I thought she was going to pass wine through her nostrils.

     “Joan Crawford has a vestigial penis!  Oh my, Danny, you have the job of the century.  Where do you get this crap?  Couldn’t she sue you blue over printing something like that?”

     This wasn’t going the way I planned it.  “Well, you know, it could be true.  Such creatures exist.”

     “I’ve seen just about every sort of messed up sex type in the world.  Guys with little ones, guys with ones that are too big, girls who wish they were guys, guys who are growing tits, but come fucking on.  Real hermaphrodites don’t exist.  You’re too weird, Dan.”

     “They existed in mythology.”

     “So did dragons and unicorns.”

     I panicked.  “Well, there’s supposed to be some big Satanist shindig some time this month where they’re going to try and create one.”

     “Get a date with Joan Crawford,” she chuckled.

     “Have you ever been to the occult book shop on Wilshire?”

     “No.  Why?”

     “There’s a guy there that looks just like LaVey.”

     “Whoopee!  They all want to look like him.  I’ve got clients that look like him.”

     “Hmmm, good wine.  Let’s have some more, shall we?”  I stood to do the honors and at that moment the damned cat leaped at my right ankle, burying her front claws in my leg and kicking frantically with her back claws.  When I felt her needle-sharp teeth sink into my calf, I let out a yelp.

     “Get this damn vampire off of me,” I shouted.  Betty lurched and struggled with the cat to no avail until she threw her wine on it.  Then Celine, hissed and bolted somewhere to the back of the house.

     “That is a vile beast you’ve got there,” I sighed, looking down at the runs in my good pants.  Then, lifting my cuffs, I saw trickles of blood.  “Look what it’s done to me!”

     “Settle down, I’ll get you a clean cloth and some Handi-Tapes.”

     Betty ministered to my wounds, which were not as bad as they had felt.  She tired of my deriding her new cat and soon we fell into a mellow silence, sipping our wine.

     “Wanna fuck?” she said, out of the blue.

     “I’m a bit strapped for cash.”

     “Oh well, let’s drink our faces off then.”

     “I wouldn’t want to bare my jewels never knowing when that cat might sneak up behind me and take a swipe.”

     “Hey, that’s not a bad idea.  Some of my clients might pay extra for that.”

     “It’s all about money for you, isn’t it?”

     “Yup, and don’t try to psychoanalyze me.  I enjoy sex, but getting paid for it is an integral part for me.”

     “You must have had sex without being paid for it.”

     “Not satisfactory sex.”
     “Ever?”

     “Ever.”

     “Might as well bring the bottle out here.  Got any of that nose candy?”

 

*  *  *  *  

Jayne & the Satanists --Chapter 28

 

I had noticed an occult bookstore downtown over the years.  So, I drove over there.  It was a typically gloomy place and the guy behind the counter obviously idolized LaVey and tried to look as much like him as possible.  The walls were covered floor to ceiling with books and there was a central glass table with a locked glass chamber so you could look at, but not touch, the most prized tomes. 

     “Do you have a book here that would tell me about Hermaphrodite?” I asked the ersatz LaVey.

     “Oh yeah.  There’s been a real run on those, recently.  Over here,” he said, getting off his perch.  He led me to a corner and pulled out a volume called Hermaphrodite: Unbound by Shah Ali Madrain.  “This is the most popular one,” he said.

     “When you said there’d been a run on material on this subject, how many customers are we talking about?”

     “Oh, a good couple of dozen.”

     “Why would there be a run on this subject?”

     “The Feast of Hermaphrodite is coming up, I suppose.  These things come in fads.  Before this season, we hardly sold any on this subject.  Some months everybody wants something on Pan.  Other times on Samhain.  It comes and goes.”

     “Anything you’ve noticed about any of these people?”

     “Nothing in particular, though one dame came in here with a big hat and dark glasses.  Could’ve been a movie star or something.”

     “What color hair?”

     “Jet black, knockout figure, spike heels, very nice,” he grinned a sickening faceful of leering man-to-man lust.

     “Did a black guy come in and buy anything.”

     “Now that you mention it, a black man did come in here and bought a very special old book on Hermaphrodite from the rare books case.  Why are you asking so many questions?”

     “I’m a screenwriter.  I pitched a script based on Hermaphrodite to a studio.  I’m just worried about people trying to steal my idea.”

     He nodded.  Well, that girl could have been in the film industry.  A few muscle boys came in too.  They might have been stunt men.”

     “That black guy, what did he look like?”

     “Oh I can’t remember that.  Black as strong coffee, normal size, normal clothes.  Obviously had dough though.  The book cost five hundred bucks.”

     “Must have been one hell of a book?” I gasped.

     “All of them in the glass case are special.”

     “Got another one?”

     “No.”

     “What was it called?”

     “Arcanium Hermaphroditus.”

     “By who?”

     “The Comte Ste. Germaine.”

     “Who’s he?”

     “He is a being who surfaced in the 16th Century.  It is said he still exists, that he is the eternal man.  The most powerful of the adepts.”

     I thanked him for his time and bought the Hermaphrodite: Unbound edition.  “You really look a lot like Anton LaVey,” I said as I left.  He blushed and tried to stifle a pleased grin.

 

*  *  *  * 

 

I called LaVey from a payphone at a nearby tavern.  I asked him if he had the Comte Ste. Germaine book.  He did and said I could have the rare privilege of studying it in his library.

     I whipped right over.

     From LaVey’s demeanor, I knew a great honor had been bestowed upon me.  We sat at the library table and, with suitable pomp, LaVey opened a wooden box and withdrew a leatherbound tome.  “This edition is far more valuable than the one they had in that shop,” he announced.  “Turn its pages with care.”  He handed me a pair of thin cotton gloves.

     “Mr. LaVey, who is this author, Ste. Germaine?  The clerk gave me some cock-and-bull story about him being an adept who has lived for centuries.”

     Steepling his fingers, LaVey looked down the sharp planes of his cheeks at me.  “I have little doubt that, in a nutshell, that is true.  There have been many reliable reports of Ste. Germaine surfacing.  The one I put most store in is Lex’s.  He claims to have crossed paths with Ste. Germaine, several times.  I would say that man, or whatever he may be, would comprise one of the few chinks in Lex’s armor of fearlessness.  A man of consummate evil, Ste. Germaine has been at the root of many of the great horrors of the last four centuries.  There have been reports from, as those in your craft say, informed sources that have placed him at the Ford Theater on Abraham Lincoln’s fateful night and there is a great deal of information that he was a close associate of Hitler and Krepps.  He walks the world with all the leisure of an immortal and what unholy pacts he has made with the great forces to ensure his longevity can hardly be dreamt.  I have never, ever, claimed to have met Satan face to face and, perhaps, I have never wished for such.  However, legend tells us that Ste. Germaine has, in fact, had that honor.”

     “Would he be what they call the antichrist?”

     “No.  That would be too flashy a position for him.  He prefers to work behind the scenes, setting the clockwork gears in motion for men to sow their own damnation and agony.  The antichrist, who knows who that is?  Some believe he already came in the mid first century, as the Emperor Nero.  Others believe he was Napoleon, some even believe he is me.  According to the Bible, the third red heifer must be born in Jerusalem before the antichrist can be born.  And, as yet, there have been only two such births in the centuries since Christ’s death.  The antichrist remains, to my knowledge, something of immediate interest only to southern Baptist preachers.  I have studied the matter intensely and feel that we have nothing to worry about until the year 2012.  And you and I will be gone by then.  If suddenly we are wrenched from our graves to face the Final Judgement, I only hope we get a few years rest with the worms before having to toe the line again.

     “Ste. Germaine, however will be there in full bib and tucker, you can bet your soul.  What makes Ste. Germaine so horrifying is his connection to humanity, his lack of supernatural birth.  Some feel he is the only existing bridge between here and there.  I have been called the world’s greatest sinner and the most evil man alive, Mr. Holcomb.  Still, I would certainly rather meet Ste. Germaine than be him should the energies between the worlds be coursing through him constantly.

“Now, I have some experiments to work on.  Please feel free to stay here as long as you wish to study this book.  If you need anything, call Serena.”  Then he turned and added, with a bibliophile’s petulance.  “Although, I’m afraid I will not have you eating or drinking near that book.  And put the gloves on now.”

     “Of course,” I said, and that seemed to please him.

     In the course of the next hour, I learned of horrors the like of which I had not in my thirty-three years imagined.  I felt fearful just being in the vicinity of the tome, which seemed, after I gained some familiarity with it, to emanate vapors of yellow sulphorous evil.  The cult of Hermaphrodite could rival the Aztecs for sheer ritual bloodshed.  Hermaphrodite was a lesser god, hence, presumably, more amenable to communication with humans.  As the creature possessed the attributes of both sexes, it was to represent symbolically the polarity of the cosmos, good and evil, wisdom and ignorance, heat and cold, life and death and, most importantly, matter and spirit.  No wonder Ste. Germaine had been interested in it, for as LaVey had said of him, Hermaphrodite seemed a bridge between this world and another unseen.  And it seemed that bridge was constructed out of human bone and blood and suffering.

     The Comte Ste. Germaine recounted innumerable atrocities that he himself had committed to reach Hermaphrodite, however each attempt seemed to be doomed to peculiar failures.  However, I noted, the book was dated 1759.  An attempt since then may have met with success.

     Wearily, I rubbed my forehead and thought how screwy my brain had gotten.  I was now openly entertaining belief in alternate worlds, necromancy, daemons and a four-hundred-year-old mage.  And, though I had been in seedier places, I was sitting alone in the library of the world’s leading Satanist surrounded by one of the world’s largest collections of spook books.  Recently, I had contemplated shooting a man.  Occasionally, I slept with the world’s preeminent sex goddess.  I had a crush, maybe more than that, on a hooker who serviced the fetish trade.  Plus, I had a four-hundred-year-old cat who swirled into black mist and killed people.  As the cream on those strawberries, I made my living abusing the public trust and publishing patent lies about the rich, famous and beloved.

     I could live with the last part, but the rest was starting to rankle on me.

     I had grown used to seeing various renderings of this horrific god-thing with its legs splayed, showing both enormous male genitalia and a horrendous gaping female orifice, but when I turned the page, what I saw shocked me even more.

     There was a vile etching of what I could only think of calling a baby tree.  It was a huge oak, its branches twisted and contorted with some sort of innate malignity.  From dozens of the branches hung the bodies of infants, their skin streaked with trails of blood that dripped to the ground to be absorbed by the gnarled roots of this misshapen tree.  I quickly flipped the page to get this atrocity out of my sight, but what I found there was worse still.  A sketch of a bearded, sinister looking man with several babes stuffed under one arm while his other swung a child by its legs to smash its head on what appeared to be a rock altar.

     When a knock came at the door I almost leapt out of my skin.  LaVey glowered through the crack of the doorway.  “You have been at it for over an hour.  I was wondering how you were doing.”

     I licked my lips to get some moisture back into my mouth.  “I, I’m horrified.  The rituals for calling up this hellspawn are savage beyond all reason.”

     LaVey moved into the room and took his favorite black leather armchair.  As was his custom he steepled his fingers and stared at me before saying anything.  “Yesss,” he sighed.  “My Satanism is more of a philosophy.  But there are those who will stop at nothing.  My philosophy recognizes that there are standards and conducts that must be abided by, a fierce morality, if you will.  But, there are others who believe even crimes against the race of humanity can be perpetrated with impunity as long as the ultimate end is power.  Power is all, to them.  My views place a higher importance on understanding and tolerance.”  He paused, and pondered whether to say more, but decided against showing more of this softer side of his persona.

     “It is a disturbing volume, isn’t it?”

     I nodded.  “Horrible.”

     Again, LaVey merely blinked slowly and let his silence speak its truth.

     “Would you think someone would go to these ends to conjure up this Hermaphrodite.”

     LaVey nodded.  “I believe that it has been done previously, and that it will be done again.”

     “Could Hoxhok be Ste. Germaine?”

     “Ste. Germaine has always been white.  But, if Hoxhok is planning a rite to call up Hermaphrodite, he may well be attempting to recruit Ste. Germaine.  If that is the case, we have, and indeed the world has, something to seriously worry about.”

     “What would happen if you contacted Ariana and said you’d gotten wind of this big ceremony and wanted to be part of it?”

     “After an all-out war had been declared between our camps?” he scoffed.  “After he abducted my woman?  Ridiculous and impossible.”

     “Surely, you must have someone in your congregation who could infiltrate his little bun-toss.”

     LaVey stroked his beard in thought.  Then, our eyes met and we said as one: “Jayne.”

 

*  *  *  *

Jayne & the Satanists --Chapter 27

 

His car was a Rolls Royce.  I followed it out of the studio lot.  It took a predictable route to Scream’s mansion.  But, instead of turning right into Scream’s driveway, it went two driveways past it and turned left into a walled driveway that led to a mock southern gothic mansion.  I cruised past and headed back to the office.  What did I know about Bluestein?  His licence number.  Incredibly successful.  Didn’t limp previously.  No scandals.  Married to Anastasia Donovan, a starlet a number of years younger.

 

*  *  *  * 

 

     In the office, I called Jayne.  “Sandor Scream is Bunny Bluestein,” I piped excitedly into the phone.

     There was silence on the other end of the line.  Finally, “Could be.  Same build.” 

     I explained about the limp. 

     “Holy-y-y,” she said.  “I wonder how many other people know this?  It’s definitely news to me.  Bluestein is known as a devout Jew, who gives enormous amounts of dough to the synagogue.”

     “Maybe he’s hedging his spiritual bets by playing both sides of the fence.”

     “So, presuming you’re right, what are you going to do with this info?”

     “That’s a poser.  I still don’t have anything connecting Scream/Bluestein with any of the viscera or the deaths of Al Stirling or Bianca Hughes.  I guess I’ll just sniff around.”

     “Well, keep Lex with you.  He’s a handy kitty in a pinch.”

 

*  *  *  * 

 

I went to my files and pulled what I had collected over the years on producers and found some scraps of information on Bluestein.  Nothing illuminating.  He kept a low profile and his nose clean.

     I hammered out my story on Bean and Mitchell, then went home.  As far as I knew Jonny Fine was still unidentified meat.

     It was midnight when I got home.  I was greeted effusively by Lex and I petted him as I got his can of Dinty Moore stew ready.  I cracked a beer and poured some in a dish for him.  He lapped it up, let out a couple of cat-sized burps, which I did not know the species was capable of, and curled up on my lap as I mulled over what use my new discovery was to me.

 

*  *  *  * 

 

In the morning, I headed over to City Hall.  I asked to see Merlin Chambers’s holdings disclosure.  My hunch was rewarded.  Mr. Bluestein was listed as an executive officer on a holding company called Beaufort Holdings.  Unfortunately, because he did not hold any public office, I could not check Bluestein’s holdings.

     If they had an alliance above board, I wondered how many were hidden.  It would be a handy teaming.  Bluestein had tons of dough and Chambers could green light development and revenue projects, though naturally his name could not be associated with them because of the conflict of interest with his civic office.  But I had no doubt he was in there like a dirty shirt.

     I went to licences division and they told me that Beaufort Holdings handled several manufacturers of fine furniture, cedar lawn chairs and tables, prefabricated fireplaces and mantles.  Homey stuff.

     What was I doing?  I was not interested in making some business bust.  I wanted to figure out how these guys were connected with the taking of lives.  They could be audited from here to Thursday and I wouldn’t care.

 

*  *  *  * 

 

When I got back to the office, there was a message that LaVey had called.  I rang back.  “There is definitely something going on between Hoxhok and Ariana,” he said in that sinister voice that always made me think he could have been a great radio announcer.  “I think it will be a grand conjuring, a summoning of an extremely powerful spirit.  One that they feel can give them something.  Power perhaps, or something more tangible.  Treasure perhaps.  A supernatural ally.  Something.”

     “Hmmm, when on the occult datebook would be a good time to do something like this?”

     “The feast of Hermaphrodite is upcoming.  Because that old god embodies the characteristics of both male and female, the partnership of Hoxhok and Ariana would make sense.”

     “Why wouldn’t she just hook up with Scream?”

     “That is a good question and one that I am unable to answer at present.  Perhaps, Hoxhok originated the plan.”

     “How would they go about calling up this spirit?”

     “Hermaphrodite is more than a mere spirit.  He, she, it, whatever, is one of the old gods.  Blood must be shed in order to call up Hermaphrodite.  Blood as a burnt offering.  In short, Daniel, if they are planning on doing this, I would suggest murder will figure into the equation somewhere.”

     “Mr. LaVey, you’re a great help and you’ve always treated me well.  So let me tell you this bit of information.  I believe Sandor Scream is the movie producer Bunny Bluestein.”

     There was stone silence on the other end.  I ran down how I had reached this conclusion.  Then, “Thank you, Daniel.  I will take your suspicion under advisement.  I must ring off now.  I must think.  Good day.”

     I hung up wondering what sort of vendetta I might have unleashed.  

Jayne & the Satanists --Chapter 26

“Whether you believe me or not, you have seen that Lex can come in handy and is a good defender.  That is all you need believe.”

     “I heard from the medical examiner that there was a series of puma attacks a few years back.  That the victims were found missing their eyeballs.”

     LaVey’s eyebrow arched.  He sucked his cheeks in and ran his forefinger and thumb along the outsides of his Vandyke.  He locked his eyes with mine.  “So?”

     “Well, I noticed that Lex likes eyeballs.”

     “Yech!” piped in Jayne.

     LaVey waved his long fingers in a dismissive figure eight.  “Cats of all kinds eat the soft tissues first.  Surely, you’re not suggesting that Lex went on some sort of killing spree.”  It was not a question.

     “I suppose not.  I don’t find it any harder to believe than what you’ve just told me....”

     “Lex is a good cat.  That is all.  Now, you had some other matters to ask me about.” 

     And the matter was terminated.

     “Yeah, I snuck out to Zuma Beach the other night and saw a little ceremony that Scream also attended.  The newly resurrected Ariana was there too, dancing around and eventually boffing the presiding emcee, a negro fellow in a Pacific Northwestern Indian mask.

     “Ah, Hoxhok,” sighed LaVey.  “A piker, a charlatan, but a very dangerous psychotic, as well.  A believer in cannibalism, based on the Kwakiutl mythology of the Pacific Northwest.  He takes his name from the cannibal raven god.  He claims to be working on some transubstantiation of the human body to godness.  A mere criminal, I can assure you.”

     “But what is the significance of him pouring the pork to Ariana?”

     “There may be little meaning to it.  Sexual congress has always played a major role in pagan rites.  Or, they may be trying to meld their powers in order to perform an extreme spell.  Ariana is a very powerful woman, far more powerful than Hoxhok.  She may just have wanted to sample his wares, as it were.  Maybe she is excited by the exhibitionism of the act.  Or she may believe that Hoxhok is more powerful than I have expressed.  If it is the latter, then there is likely a reason for that.  Let me look into it and get back to you.”  With that, he stood and the interview was over.

 

*  *  *  *

 

Out in the car, Jayne spoke up.  “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this.  But there was some suspicion that Lex was involved in those puma attacks.”

     I nodded.  “I figured LaVey might be hiding something.”

     “The people who were killed were low echelon Satanists who used animals in their rites.  There was talk of... bestiality... being involved in the rituals.  They were horrible people.  They wanted to feel an animal die while they were having sex with it.  They thought they could absorb the creature’s essence or something stupid like that.  Anyhow, Lex got loose for a few days and various of these people turned up dead.  Doesn’t seem hard to make the connection.”

     “Sounds like they had it coming.”

     “Fucking right.  I hate people who harm animals.”

Jayne had pets at home that needed to be groomed and kids that needed to be looked after.  But she did not have any of her whirl of appointments today, so I persuaded her to take an hour off and go to the beach with me.

     We drove to Venice and she tied up her hair in a kerchief and popped on big bug-eye shades.  She rubbed her lipstick off and she borrowed an old windbreaker I kept in the car.  Try to keep the boys from attracting too much attention.  There was a nice breeze blowing, which kept the lovely sunshine from becoming unbearable.

     We walked to a little cantina and ordered beers and hot dogs.  Because of her physical attributes, a lot of people did not give Jayne much credit for brains.  She actually had an IQ of 163 and had studied at Southern Methodist University,  University of Texas at Austin and UCLA.  She, spoke five languages, and was a classically trained pianist and violinist.  She was very funny and witty and a great gal to chat with.  “Where do you get that amyl nitrite stuff?” I asked her.  “Seems to be a lot of it connected with this case.  I realize you probably get the ampules from a doctor or a pharmacist, but some of the people involved in this cult business have big bottles of the stuff.  Where would they get that?”

     “There’s a lot of chemists around town that make stuff like that, amphetamines too.  But the main guy is called Mr. Roderick.  He’s a swish that has a storefront on The Strip.  He makes beautiful sexy lingerie that he sells off the rack, but he also sells stuff from his back room.  If you want a catsuit made out of black rubber, he’s your man.  Want a foot-long dildo, or an artificial pussy, a man or woman doll with serviceable orifices, a special lubricant with Spanish fly mixed in it that will keep you hard for hours, or enough poppers to supply your next orgy, then he’s the man you go to see.”

     “Illegal drugs, heroin, cocaine?”

     “No.  Strictly stuff for sexual purposes.  He figures you can get your own illegal stuff.  What he does is relatively within the law.”

     “So if I went in there, would he sell me what I wanted?”

     “Sure, he’s not a crook.”

     “Does he make the poppers?”

     “Yeah, he makes it at home in his basement.  Some people make wine.”

     “Still, if they lit a cigarette, wine wouldn’t blow up half a city block.”

     “Some of the vino I’ve tasted sure would.”

     It was a pleasant idyll, but Jayne had to get back to her kids and menagerie.  She gave me a kiss redolent of beer and hot dog and sun-warmed woman.  I dropped her off at her car. 

Then I headed over to Mr. Roderick’s of Hollywood.

 

*  *  *  *

 

The shop was all glass and chrome with mannequins in feisty lingerie crowding the window.  Each appealing ensemble spurred me to reach for my wallet in order to drape Betty in its enticing texture.  But, I was aware that I’d blown too much dough on her recently.

     The swish behind the counter wore a blond rug styled in a Liberace pompadour.  He had one of those pencil-thin mustaches that always made me wonder how guys trimmed them so perfectly.  Maybe it was drawn on with eyebrow pencil.  His shirt was a satin blaze of pink carnations and his trousers were white and tight.  His physique was sylph-like.  He smiled like a frog about to tongue a fly.

     “A buddy of mine, Johnny Fine, said I could buy some amyls here,” I opened.

     He nodded and reached beneath the counter bringing up three sizes of vials.  “Personal size, party or orgy?” he asked. 

     “Party,” I said pointing to the middle bottle.

     “That’s four dollars,” he said.  “Will there be anything else?”

     I handed him the bills.  “I’ve been looking for Johnny,” I said.  “He doesn’t answer his phone, these days.  Any idea of where he might be found?”

     “You a cop?”

     “Nah, just wanted to get together with Johnny for some good times.”

     “I see.  Well, I don’t know that Johnny has many good times.  He keeps pretty much to himself.  I know, he sometimes stops over at the Hellfire Club to stare at his idol.”

     “You mean Ariana?”

     He looked surprised.  “You do know our Johnny.  Yes, I think his life revolves around Miss Ariana’s scraggy butt.”

     “You sound like you don’t like her much.”

     His brow knotted up into burls of skin.  “I deal in fantasy,” he said.  “There’s some people who don’t know where fantasy ends and step over the line and try and make their reality fantastical.  Those sorts of people are out of their minds.  Ariana takes fantasy too far, from a little harmless whimsy into a twenty-four hour a day lifestyle.  No, she’s not one of my favorite people.  I think she’s dangerous.  Anyhow, now she’s dead.”

     “Wasn’t she part of some witchcraft cult or something?”

     “Yeah, a bunch of sickies.  I wouldn’t go near them.”

     “Another buddy of mine, Ted, big muscle guy says he gets his pops from you.  I think he works for Ariana....”

     “Yeah, I know Ted.  What’s your point?”

     “Just seems that Ariana’s people use a fair bit of your product.”

     “Well, as you well know,” he said, pointing to the bag he had handed me.  “Andybody who’s had sex with pops ain’t going back to normal sex.  It’s just too good to step back.”

     I nodded, with what I hoped was credibility.  “Anyhow, on to other topics.  Do you know a dame who goes by the name of Betty Pain?  I was wanting to get ahold of her for a stag I’m throwing for a buddy.  This looks like the sort of place where she’d shop.”

     “Sure, I’ve made custom stuff for Betty.  Leather stuff.  She’s a great gal, life of the party.  If she comes in, I’ll let her know you were looking for her.  Have you got a number you can leave with me?”

     “Is she expensive?”

     “Very.”

     “Maybe I better look for something a little more affordable.  Keep Betty for my dreams.”

     I could see the disgust and suspicion rise in his eyes.  “Yeah, well, enjoy your poor man’s cocaine.”

     I nodded and headed out the door.  I went down the street to a tavern and ordered a beer while I wondered what I’d learned, if anything, from my conversation with Mr. Roderick.

     I went back to the office.  The editor told me it was time for an on-set piece.  I phoned around and sussed out who was amenable to a reporter showing up on their set.  A few seemed okay with the idea.  There was a horror flick being shot over at Santana Studios.  It starred Shannon Mitchener, a good-looking young guy who was taking his career places and Blondie Bean, a ditzy young comedienne who was spectacular looking and was seen to be a smart cookie who was really going to make something of herself.

     On-set interviews are a pain in that nobody is ever on time for their appointments because the schedule is always behind.  I have waited eight hours only to have five minutes with some thespian before they are called back to the set.  It’s quite frustrating, so I always take along a book and a pint of whisky for nips in the bathroom.  I made an appointment with the unit publicist and set off prepared for a dull afternoon.

 

*  *  *  * 

 

Santana Studios was not a major, but I had to give my name at the security kiosk just past the pearly gates.  I checked in with the administration office and the publicist, a drab woman who probably made a pauper’s wage but whose elbow rubbing with stars had given her an imperious mien, came out to escort me to the set.

     The movie was called The Dark Corridor, something about a dumpy cop, played by the great Kenneth McMillan, who was trying to track down a murderer, played by Mitchener, who was making himself crazy with drugs.  The object of his homicidal obsession was a hometown cheerleader who was the belle of the gridiron played by Bean.  McMillan had declined to be interviewed by me.  He had read my work.

     I was escorted to a chair by the craft services tables where I could see into a kitchen set where Mitchell had kidnapped Bean and was going through some insane-person rant.  McMillan stood nearby, occasionally raising a paper cup of coffee to that terrific bulldog face.  I got a glass of soda and excused myself into the bathroom where I knocked back a stiff highball.

     Watching acting is one of the more painful experiences one can have.  With all the repetition and retakes, I remain constantly astonished that movies ever actually get made.  I sat where I was told and cracked a book.  It was a good one, the new Steinbeck.

 

*  *  *  *

 

Time finally came when the director called a break and I was escorted over to a dressing room to interview Blondie Bean.  When the publicist left us alone, I was momentarily stunned by the woman’s beauty.  The camera did not do her justice.  She had long wavy blonde hair framing an incredibly cute All-American girl face: big eyes, turned up nose, lush lips and a golden tan.  Her body was tanned and toned, set off by a simple white T-shirt and shorts.  She padded around the dressing room barefoot.

     We started with the basics: what she thought of this role, what it would do for her career, how she came to the current level of her career, what she aspired to.  Then I got personal.  Any boyfriend?  No.  The studio set her up on dates for appearances at premieres and parties.  Didn’t she want a boyfriend?  Yes, but there wasn’t much time for that sort of thing.  Blah, blah, blah.

     When I got to talk to Mitchener, it was the same thing.

Journalism is like baseball, the legs go first.  After a while, you have asked the same old questions so many times you can predict the answers.  You just can’t get it up for research anymore.  Which was why I appreciated the creative aspects of my paper.  By next issue, Bean and Mitchell would be in a simmering cauldron of passions birthed on the movie set.  They would not be offended.  Any publicity is good publicity, as long as their names are spelled right.

     The publicist had left for the day by the time I wrapped up.  I swilled the last of my flask in the washroom and, feeling like I had done a good day’s work, I set out in the twilight wandering among the studios and sets.  Runners ran script sides onto sets from the hovels where writers were holed up.  Gaffers and grips ran chunks of boats and buildings from carpentry shops to soundstages where facades were being built.  Actors in monster suits, carrying their heads under their arms, shuffled past, their energy for the day gone, with hours of night shoots before sleep.  No security guards were hustling around being efficient.  It was a magic time in a place that made magic.  I felt mellow as a warm cat.

     I was walking past a huge airplane hangar, when a side door burst open and several men in expensive suits burst out in a blather of arguments and cigar smoke.

     One of them used a cane to help him hobble along.  He was heavyset and bald.  The familiarity of his gait, the physique.

     I watched the men walk away and round a corner.  Then I stepped into the soundstage they had just left.  I nabbed the first workman I could see.  “Who’s that exec who just left?  Bald, uses a cane....”

     The guy nodded.  “That’s Mr. Bluestein, the producer.”  My head spun.  Bunny Bluestein, one of the most powerful men in Hollywood was quite possibly Sandor Scream.