(Continued from yesterday. click to read Part I here.)
It was a 22 minute walk down H Street to Pennsylvania Avenue to the Big House.
I handed a member of the security detail my clearance.
“Nice to see you Mr. Rondelle. You haven’t been here in a long time.”
“Hello Scooter, can’t say I really thought about you once.”
“Wouldn’t expect you to sir.”
“Sir, could you please remove that mask? We really don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable here. The boys will be glad to see you.”
In through the Rose Garden and down the hall I saw my crew, all seven of them. I knew they were all worshipping Hopeless Hickey like she was some kind of Disney princess. I had nicknames for all of them,
Hey Doc,
Scrunchie,
Roddy,
Smelly,
50Watt,
Shyguy
and P.O.’ed…”
They chattered excitedly,
“Hiya Johnny… Hey Johnny!
welcome back sir
we missed ya Johnny,
how’s it hangin?
Jiminy Cricket!
Johnny oh boy! Gosh!”
All right boys enough with the waterworks, where’s H.H.?
“She’s on her way I gotta say she’s been aces” gushed Roddy.
“She gave me a big hug the other day, exclaimed P.O.’ ed. “She just lights up the place.”
“I know she’s into me,” Scrunchie insisted.
They were always bragging about their relationships with Hopeless. They didn’t know we’d actually been an item on the down low before the world went crazy and me with it.
And suddenly at the end of the room there she was.
Silhouetted by the bright sun like a Charlie’s Angel, the lady walked towards us like she was walking the runway. She could have been a stewardess in a past life. Poised, powerful and close to perfect.
“Nice to see you again Ms. Hickey.”
“Hello Johnny, please don’t be so formal.”
“Boys, if you’ll excuse us?”
“Right see ya, Johnny.”
“Hi Miss Hickey”
“H.H. !”
“Hey Johnny, don’t take any wooden teeth from the Washington bedroom!”
When the detail was out of the room I turned back to Hopeless and came out slinging.
“How’s that pretty boy wife beater boyfriend of yours?”
“He never laid a hand on me Johnny, besides we aren’t together anymore.
I’m with something new.”
“Congratulations, who’s the new sucker?”
“I’m nobodies tootsie”
The dialogue was flying back and forth like an episode from the fourth season of the Gilmore Girls.
“Dylan Donovan”
“The banking guy who sold all those Bowie bonds? He’s old enough to be your father!”
“He’s only 53.”
“I rest my case.”
“Oh Johnny you were always impossible!”
“Put the chicken before the egg and the horse before the colt.”
“What?”
“Steal my thunder or strike me with a lightening bolt. In the end you could knock me over with a feather.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I.”
“Let’s move on shall we.”
I noticed her eyes were welling up a bit. She wasn’t going to cry but I guess I’d struck a nerve with my fancy word play. I had her off balance. The heavy raccoon eye makeup was damming up the water works but I wasn’t so sure it would hold. Since I’d last seen her there were blonde streaks in her hair, so many that I wondered if it was covering up the grey that probably came with this job. The blond with the two black eyes.
“Johnny I’m glad you are back even if you are a brute.”
“Let’s just keep things professional.”
“Whatever you say Johnny. There are a lot of moving parts in the big house these days”
I had her right where I wanted. I laid it on thick but it was from the heart.
“Just remember whatever they throw at you, whatever jams you get in,
whatever heat they expect you to take, I’ll run the interference, I’ll have your back, I just hope I don’t have to take a bullet for you too.’
“Oh Johnny!”
The dam burst and the mascara ran in rivulets, not unlike the shoe polish dye on Rudy G’s cheeks.
I moved in and wrapped my arms around her and she did the rest, moving in for a kiss hurling that tongue down my throat. My work was done.
“Ms. Hickey. Lovelier thoughts please.”
“Johnny you animal.”
Shall we get down to business Miss Hickey? Where’s the low hanging fruit?
“Okay Johnny,” she said taking the tissue I offered her. “Apparently Mogul had plans for you Johnny. He is aware you worked as a carney and a roustabout.”
“Also a grease monkey, a wildcatter and a ballroom dance instructor,” I reminded her.
“Well, it is your work in the carnival world that interests him. He’s looking into procuring a mechanical ride called The Death Grip. Do you know it?”
“No, but if it is something that exists I know people who will know. “
“He has a rally coming up and he’d like to have a few of them there to entertain his supporters.”
“I’ll look into it.”
“Excellent, (sniff) I knew I could count on you.”
An intern popped her head in.
“Excuse me Miss Hickey Number One is asking if you could personally bring him a fresh Pepsi and some magic markers.”
“I have do go Johnny. We’ll be in touch.”
I watched her go. That booty was made for walking.
+++
Unbeknownst to H.H. I was quite familiar with the Death Grip. Before I quit my last tour with Mogul’s security detail, the big guy had personally asked me about the nefarious machine.
The Death Grip was the sort of dangerous carnival ride you could lease out to community picnics, country fairs and rock festivals. Kind of a steam punk, burning man monstrosity that was actually dangerous. It also doubled as a slow roast Bar-B-cue smoker.
Why was Mogul anxious to have these machines at his rally? Where did you stash such things once they had been procured?
I had been roommates with a top roustabout who was known as Atomic Andy. The guy could fix any carney ride. Before we were roommates we were drinking buddies back at the end of the 90s. I found his number in my phone and asked him about best practices for purchasing and running a lethal carnival ride.
He gave me a little lecture about Beverly Astin Vanderer. Said she’d be down in Austin for SXSW.
She had been in a late 90s industrial grunge band called the Bleedings and used the stage name Bev Vander. Atomic Andy was obsessed with her and was always playing their albums at top volume when we lived together. Their music was not really my thing but Bev was a whole other ballgame. I remembered a poster on our fridge of a rock show listing for The Bleedings who were middle on a bill between Boogie Thief and Catch a Waif. I’d look at that poster as I took pulls from the vodka bottle we kept in the freezer. I had it memorized.
Andy explained it to me.
“She had some rides that she used to use in the Bleedings shows. When the band played, their fans would climb on these machines and get spun around and tossed back into the crowd. It was basically a stage diving machine that would leave everyone nicked up with little sweaty sores. It was really disgusting. They actually had RNs in sexy Halloween nurse outfits giving out tetanus shots afterwards.”
Andy said by coincidence, Bev had three of the machines in storage in Austin. I flew down there and scowered the clubs looking for Bev or someone who knew her. At Liberty Lunch I finally caught up with a cigarette girl who said she knew Bev although she was very cryptic about it.
Her name was Vandella. One of those girls with the heavy eye makeup, lots of tats and a love of horror films from the 1950s. She carried a big tin box with her that was full of various powders, joints, USBs and old school compact discs— yeah, a cigarette girl for the opioid era.
“Bev’s a real doll. We used to run together but then she started mixing fentanyl with dentist drugs and I couldn’t hang out with her anymore,” said Vandella as she checked her lipstick in the reflective surface of a compact disc. So much for the merch table.
“She’d pass out and then wake up laughing hysterically. It freaked me out.
Vandella passed me a flyer for a solo show Bev was doing at the Continental Club. The Bleedings were on hiatus as the money had run out. She was doing a cabaret thing accompanying herself on balalaika.
“I don’t mess with drugs that weren’t readily available before 1967,” she explained. “Hence the Benzedrine tubes, Owsley acid and mother’s little helpers. Can I interest you in some opium infused absinthe?”
“Thanks I’ll take a rain check. And Vandella, don’t snort all the profits.”
Bev was just finishing up when I got to the Continental.
She was pulling out all the stops:
Silver lame dress, stockings with garters, long gloves, and an eye patch and a monocle, it was the whole works but it wasn’t the Bleedings.
She sang something that sounded a bit like a standard but the lyrics were obviously torn from recent headlines.
Return to ruin
return my love
you can break my heart
you can call my bluff
whisper in my ear that sweet refrain
sing about our love in the old Ukraine
Kyvev
tell me what you know
Kyvev
let the secret grow
in a phone
in a file
is the secret in your smile?
let your secret show
tell me what you know
Kyvev
Kyvev
Kyvev
Did you return to set me free?
Kyvev
did you return to ruin me?
if love is just a song
let’s sing it till its gone
Kyvev
Kyvev
Kyvev
There was a smattering of applause.
“yeah that’s enough for one night, she drawled “Goodnight all you beautiful losers.
Don’t let your meat loaf!”
Like Vandella had said, Bev was pretty far gone when I caught up with her.
Hello Bev.
Johnny Rondelle
It’s been a long time.
Within seconds she was on me like a rabid ferret in a worn out mink.
Johnny you came back!
If Atomic Andy had only known that every time she came to New York I had spent time with her at the Gramercy.
She had what they call in the trade “a little too much show to carry” and she was desperate to downsize some of the massive Bleedings road show. She happily sold me the three Death Grips at a below market rate. Add that to Atomic Andy’s fee to refurbish them and I made a pretty penny marking the whole thing up including some high shipping costs to get them up to Mogul’s people in DC.
But that was then and this was now. That money was spent. And here I was wandering across the Rose Garden of the Big House. Anyway, I didn’t want to get a sweet kid like Hopeless Hickey involved in that so I played dumb.
Yeah I was falling for her again.
In fact I was practically falling over.
Whatever they had shot me up with was once again roiling through my system.
By the time I was out on the street by the west gate I was seeing spots and spitting up a foamy substance I couldn’t identify. When the white van showed up and the guys in the HAZMAT suits came out I thought I was hallucinating. Then I realized it was just my ride back to the hotel. They ushered me inside.
“We have to get you back to the Watergate Sir. It’s time to quarantine you.”
General Dickson was waiting for me in the room in a HAZMAT suit along with those two marines who had worked me over at the Pentagon and injected me with something.
“Congratulations Johnny, mission accomplished! You have really stepped up for your country.”
“Excuse me sir but could you attempt to illuminate me a little?”
“Oh, believe me Johnny you are plenty illuminated.
We injected you with a special mega dose of the virus along with a cocktail of steroid and Degeneron to ward off the worst symptoms. Johnny you’re a super spreader!
“You bastard, “I growled, “ What is your end game?”
“Johnny, Mogul is out of control and we had to take him down a peg or two and perhaps take him out. We knew you had access. We knew about your former relationship with H.H. and we knew you could get close.”
I was stunned.
“Hey I’ve never been a fan of Mogul but Jesus Christ Dickson, you guys have thrown me into the center of a coup.”
“No Johnny we just gave you a flu-like cold to spread around and you’re doing a super job!”
Dickson guffawed and the two marines started smirking as well behind their masks.
I realized that kiss with Hopeless was a big mistake. As we stood here I realized she was currently helping Mogul with his magic markers.Everybody had been using me and I’d had enough. I punched out the plastic of one of Marine One’s HAZMAT suit and flipped the other guy into General Dickson. Fists flew, groins were punished, and I might have bit into someone’s ear. I left them dazed and confused. Hey, I did my job.
I knew they wouldn’t be coming after me. I knew too much and they knew that I knew what I knew and they also knew I wasn’t about to let them forget that.