Funny Or Dead (A Detective Hank Strange Tale) By: Donald D. Shore

My name is Detective Hank Strange. I work for the L.A.P.D. Homicide Division. I'm good at my job. Real good.

The reason for that is I have what some might call a gift. I call it a curse.

I first discovered my condition as rookie on the force. An elderly woman had been murdered in her home and I was first on the scene. She had been strangled in her bed by an intruder. I stood there, beside the bed, and she turned to me, her face swollen and blue, and said, “It was the neighbor boy, little Jimmy Cadaver, who killed me.”

She turned away, her body still, as she said, “And I thought he was such a nice young man.”

The detectives arrived, searched the house, and decided the perp was a transient who frequented the neighborhood. I would have left it at that. Chalked it up to a freak hallucination on my part, except the woman kept talking to me, her voice inside my head, saying, “It was little Jimmy Cadaver who killed me.”

She wouldn't leave me alone. Every time I heard her voice, I would see her wrinkled swollen face in my mind, and hear, “It was little Jimmy Cadaver who killed me,” over and over again.

I had to shut her up, and the only way to do that, I figured, was to prove Jimmy Cadaver was the killer, and not the transient the detectives had pinned it on.

It's not as easy as you might think, to prove a murder. Especially when the only witness is a dead woman stuck in your head. But I set about doing it, working the case in my off time. I did it, too. Proved Jimmy Cadaver was a sick little pervert and a killer. Seems the nice little neighbor kid liked to photograph his victims. He had dozens of them on his computer.

After that, the old lady left my head, and I was promoted to detective in the homicide division. Now I get all the strange cases. The cases no one else wants, dumped on my desk.

So it was no surprise to me when I got the call to Tim Hayden's house. You might have heard of him, if you follow the careers of has-been stand-up comics. He was all the rage in the eighties, but no one had heard a peep from him since his last HBO special. Apparently, he took to the needle and never looked back.

Tim Hayden lived in a swanky pad up in Beverly Hills. One of those factory mansions. He must have bought and paid for it while he was still on premium cable. The gate was clogged with reporters and the driveway was crowded with police cruisers flashing their pretty lights when I arrived on the scene.

“Where is he?” I asked Detective Lovitz, who was busy interviewing Hayden's manager, a big man in an expensive pin striped suit named Ted Sawyer.

He looked up from the pad he was scribbling in and pointed a thumb toward a staircase that looked like a leftover prop from Gone with the Wind. “The bathroom,” he said.

“I wouldn't bother,” Lovitz called, after me, as I climbed the steps. “It's an open and shut case of accidental over-dose.”

“You know how it is, Lovitz,” I said, not bothering to turn around. “Just covering the bases. Looks like you boys have it wrapped up here.”

I shuffled past the forensics detail and made my way to the bathroom where Hayden's body had been found by his manager. Right away, I could see why they were calling it an accidental O.D.

I stepped past the crime-scene photographer into a bathroom bigger than my first apartment, and found the comedian slumped over on the can, his bloated body turned blue. He had a silk tie wrapped around his arm and a needle in his vein.

It was pretty open and shut all right, until I got that familiar sensation, like an ice pick to the back of my brain. That strange foreign presence. Emotions that weren't mine. A rush of fear and confusion that came with a voice only I could hear.

The voice said, Oh, Jesus what's happening?

It was Tim Hayden's voice, and if he was in my head, it meant this was no accidental overdose. This was murder. A rush of nausea came over me. My face must have shown it, because the crime-scene photographer said, “You all right, Detective? You look like you've seen a ghost. Or a dead body.”

There were laughs all around, except in my head, where a scared junkie was lamenting his recent death with wails only I could hear.

“I'm fine,” I said through gritted teeth.

Some ghosts are calm. Like the elderly lady I mentioned. She accepted her fate, no matter how terrifying or brutal the end was when it came. Others, like Tim Hayden, are horrified at the sight of their own dead body. Maybe it was because he wasn't ready for it, though I suspect all junkies see death coming around the corner. At least, they should.

I pushed Hayden to the back of my mind, something I've had practice with, and set about inspecting the bathroom. Everything pointed to accidental overdose and I didn't find anything to change anyone's mind. Detectives sometimes rush to a conclusion, just wanting to close one case so they can move on to the next, but generally they know what they're about, and with no forced entry and no signs of a struggle, this case was two breaths from being signed, sealed, and delivered.

“You finished here, Detective?” the photographer said. I was in the way of a good shot.

“Yeah,”I said, “I'm done.”

I went back down the stairs where Lovitz was still questioning the manager. I got to him just as he was saying, “He was a swell kid. We were ready for a come-back. He just couldn't kick the junk.”

The manager was a good ten years younger than Hayden, but he spoke about him like he was the older brother.

Lovitz closed his pad, said, “All right, Mr. Sawyer. If I have any more questions, I'll be in touch.”

Images flashed in my head as I looked at Sawyer's face. Hayden's memories invading my personal space. A kaleidoscope of Sawyer's many faces, swirling in my brain. Anger, ambition, greed, and disappointment. A potent cocktail for motive.

I said, “I have a question. Where were you last night, Mr. Sawyer?”

“I told your partner here, already,” said Sawyer. “I was in a meeting with Sal Dawson. The manager of the Avalon. You can call him if you need, too” He shook his head and dipped back into the act. “I just can't believe he's gone.”

I'm not gone! the voice in my head screamed. I'm here, Ted. I'm here. Can't you see me?
“Detective Lovitz isn't my partner,” I informed the manager. I turned to Lovitz and said, “I'll be taking over the case.”

Lovitz narrowed beady eyes on me. He wasn't my biggest fan.

“You saying this was murder, Hank?” Lovitz said.

“It was and I am.”

See, I have this fear. It hasn't been proven yet, but I fear it none the less. If a murder victim gets in my head, and I can't prove the case, will I be able to get them out? The thought is always lurking there in the back of my mind.

In the five years since I encountered that first victim, I've solved them all, and they go on their merry way, to wherever it is spirits go.

But I've always had help, see? The victims all knew what happened to them and pointed me in the right direction. This guy freaking out in my head, quaking for a fix, wasn't going to be much help. The night of the murder was just a greasy black spot in his drug-adled memory. Maybe it was the dope, or maybe he just didn't want to remember. Either way, it wasn't going to be easy.

“Just don't close the book on this one yet, Lovitz,” I said. “And Mr. Sawyer, don't leave town. I'll have more questions for you.”

“Of course,” Sawyer said. “Anything I can do to help.”

“Glad to hear it.”

As I took a last look around the house, one image kept popping into my brain as I sifted through the detriment of a junkie's abode. The face of a girl, an elfish waif with dark hair and dark eyes, but wore a bright smile. Janine Ledbetter. I found her photograph on the oak coffee table next to the overflowing ashtray, the raw emotions I felt ooze from Tim Hayden's mind overwhelmed me, made my eyes water with tears that weren't mine.

I brushed the tears away, and said, “So there was a girlfriend.”

“What's that?” Ted Sawyer said from behind me.

I turned around to face the manager. Lovitz had an eyebrow cocked. He had seen this routine before and had grown bored with my tactics long ago. To him, it must have seemed like a cheap magic act. Too bad for him, he could never figure out how I did the trick.

“The girl,” I said, holding out her picture. “Who is she?”

“That's Janine,” Sawyer said.

“Girlfriend?”

Sawyer shrugged as if she were of no importance. From the screams in my head, I knew she meant something.

“Just one of many, I'd say,” said Sawyer.

No, Janine...was special...

“Where can I find her?”

Janine...I need you Janine...Janine will fix me...she can fix this...

I fought through the voice in my head to hear Sawyer's answer.

“I don't know. I think she has a place off Sunset. Somewhere down in East Hollywood.”

Next to Tim Hayden's cries for another fix, his want of Janine Ledbetter was filling my head with another type of lust. I shook it out, or tried to, but it was still there. I gave an outside appearance of scratching my temple, as though I were in some deep thought, but really I was trying to maintain control of my own head and memories.

“You all right there, Hank?” asked Lovitz.

“Just thinking to myself,” I said.

And I was, really, but I was also fighting the sudden urge to rush out and get a fix myself. I've had a lot of spirits in my head in the last five years, but this was the first junkie, and there was going to be a learning curve.

I've heard a lot of people say junkies are weak, selfish people. I've said it myself, and it's been proven to me over and over again. But I never had one in my head before, and most likely, neither have the people who condemn them as such.

It's like the old cliche. Don't judge someone until you walk a mile in their shoes. Well, I was about to do a sprint through the mind of Tim Hayden, and I left my good running shoes at home.

I told Lovitz to have the lab boys run a toxicology exam on the syringe and whatever it was Hayden put into his veins last night.

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to track down Janine Ledbetter,” I said.

I didn't need to run Janine Ledbetter's name through the system to find her. I had a voice inside my brain telling at me exaclty where to go. Like an instinct, only a lot more demanding. I looked in the rear-view, and said to the eyes that didn't look like mine anymore, “Listen, Hayden. You're dead. Get used to it. The sooner you do, the sooner I can solve this case and send you to wherever it is dead junkies go.”

I'm not dead! I'm not dead! No...Oh, Janine..help me...

“Calm down,” I said, as her wrap sheet came up on my dashboard computer. It was a mile long and filled with as many blemishes as a heroin addict's arm.

Get me a fix...get me a fix.

“Get it together, man, and help me solve this thing. Then you can go to junkie heaven and have all the smack you want.”

I felt the cold chills of withdrawal cover my back in sweat, but Hayden quieted down long enough for me to browse Janine Ledbetter's arrest record. Mostly prostitution and drug busts. Hayden had good taste in women. The love of his life was as big a junkie as he was, only much younger.

The address jibed with Hayden's memory. Like Sawyer said, she had a place over in East Hollywood off Sunset Boulevard. I put the car in gear and headed that way, my pulse quickening with expectation. Only, it wasn't mine, it was Tim Hayden's. And it wasn't just love for the girl guiding us through Hollywood traffic, but Hayden's urge to get high. From the images flashing in my mind, I knew it wasn't just love the two bonded over, but pharmaceuticals. The deadly kind.

For the girlfriend of a wealthy, down on his luck comedian, Janine Ledbetter lived in a real dive. If you don't know the city the way a beat cop does, Sunset Boulevard sounds like the place where movie and rock stars go to live their fabulous lives in mansions built with money thrown at them from adoring fans. But there are two sides to Sunset Boulevard. Sure, you have the west side, where the rock stars party and the good times roll, but then you have the east side, where the money runs out and the only thing thicker than the cockroach swarms are the tears of failed actors and wannabes lining the streets in tents and tenements.

Janine Ledbetter lived on the east side.

The place smelled of insecticide and crack cocaine as I walked up the stoop to Janine's listed address. I had been here before, but only at night, when the cracks in the pavement and the peeling stucco of the apartment building walls were buried in darkness. Only that wasn't my memory. It Tim Hayden's

I knocked on the door expecting the little elfish waif to answer. Instead, I was greeted by a 6'2 giant of a man with skin the color of charcoal. Tim Hayden recognized him instantly, and his emotions became mine. I was filled with jealousy and a need to protect Janine Ledbetter, a woman I had never met, from this man, whose name, Reggie Jones, floated across my mind. At the same time, I knew this man could give me what I needed. A fix. The sweet nectar of the gods.

I shoved all this down with a grunt. These weren't my emotions. They belonged to a dead man, and I had to remember that, or I could get lost forever in the mind of a deceased junkie. Or so I feared. Either way, I wasn't taking any chances.

“Reggie Jones,” I said and flashed my badge. The big man's eyes didn't flinch. He stared at me like I was some kind of abstract piece of artwork he was trying to figure out. “My name's Hank Strange of the L.A.P.D.”

If cops made Reggie nervous, he did a good job of hiding it. He stood in front of me like a barricade holding the door cracked open.

I just need a fix, Reggie. Just one fix, man.

I fought through Hayden's desperation and said, “You want to invite me in or have this conversation out here on the stoop?”

“What you want?” said Reggie. “I ain't done nothing.”

“I doubt that, Reggie,” I said. “But I'm not looking for you. I'm looking for Janine Ledbetter.”

“What you want with Janine?”

“That's between me and Janine.”

“Janine ain't here,” he said. “You want to leave a message?”

“What I want,” I pressed, looking past Reggie into what little I could see of the apartment, “is for you to let me in. I told you I'm not here for you, but that could change real quick, Reggie.”

Without warning, Reggie pushed past me like a linebacker rushing for the end zone. I'm not a small man, but Reggie outweighed me by a hundred pounds. His big meat-slab of an arm almost shoved me over the railing and by the time I caught my balance, he was down the steps and on his way to freedom. I pulled my pistol and shouted, “Stop or I'll shoot,” but it was no use. Reggie was gone, disappeared around the corner and down an alley, and even if I gave chase, there was no way I would catch him.

Instead, I did what I came to do, and went inside Janine Ledbetter's apartment to have a talk with her.

The living room was a junkie's den. Ashtrays full of butts, a dilapidated couch acned with cigarette burns, and a television stuck on a channel full of static. An itch crawled up my back that was more than Hayden's thirst for the H.

Dig through the cushions, man, maybe they dropped a hit...

I passed through the hallway to the bedroom and I found the reason Reggie took off like an Olympic sprinter trying to make the team.

Oh, God, Oh, God, Oh, God...

Janine Ledbetter's body was laying on a dirty mattress set on the floor, her eyes opened wide, looking at nothing except the long passing of eternity. I reached down to feel for a pulse, already knowing she was dead. Her skin was cold to the touch.

Oh, God, Oh, God, Oh, God...

I regretted not chasing Reggie Jones, but like my daddy said, “If regrets were well water, we'd never go thirsty.”

I called it in and put out an APB on Reggie Jones. Then I went into Janine's bathroom to have a talk with Tim Hayden before the response unit showed up. I'm not one of those cops who beat confessions out of a suspect, but when I looked in the mirror and saw the glassy eyes of a failed junkie staring back at me, I slapped him as hard as I could. It was my own face I slapped, and I don't know if Hayden felt it, but he sure deserved it.

...dead...she's dead...

“Yeah, she's dead, Hayden. If you want to find out why, then straighten up and talk.”

...never hurt nobody...loved her so much...my salvation...

I slapped him again, harder this time. I felt the sting, and when the kaleidoscope pictures in my brain started to spin, I knew Tim Hayden felt it too.

Man...I just need a fix...makes it better.

The cold clammy claws of heroin addiction wrapped themselves around my body. My joints ached like a child's growing pains, and a cold sweat covered my skin. I've felt the emotions of the spirits in my head before, but never like this. This was physical, and it scared me.

I stared deep into my own pupils and saw a hint of recognition.

“You have to think, Hayden. What happened last night?”

Another kaleidoscope. Dizzying images swirling in my mind.

Faces of Janine and Reggie. Snapshots. Smiles. Needles. Everything behind a back-lit blur. They were at Tim Hayden's house. Reggie held little balloons full of heroin in the palm of his meaty hand. It was a party with just the three of them. A knock on the door. Hayden answered. Sawyer, looking like a disapproving father. They spoke. I can't hear what they're saying. Everything is like a silent sepia toned movie.

The door burst open and the vision faded away like an ephemeral dream. I turned, sweating, to and see a uniformed officer staring at me slack-jawed, like he had walked in on a junkie in the bathroom.

I said, “The body's in the bedroom..”

“Yeah, Detective. We found her.” He looked past me, confusion in his eyes. “We been here a few minutes.”

“Okay,” I said, “I'm done here.”

I pushed past the officer. It was like being torn out of a dream before you're ready. Like falling out of water a pool of water. I was inside Tim Hayden's mind, or what was left of it, and then I wasn't. It had never happened before, and I was scared. I was shaking and couldn't tell you if it was from Hayden's withdrawals or from fear. Fear that I was getting sucked into a dead man's head. I've had them in my head so often, I've almost gotten used to it, but I'd never been inside one of theirs. I didn't like it. It was a whole new world I was unaware even existed and it was one I wanted no part of.

I went out to my car and sat there, watching the blue and red lights of the response vehicles dance against the walls. Hayden was there with me, crying inside my head, screaming for a fix and mourning his dead girlfriend all at the same time.

Reggie Jones the answers I needed, so I put the car in gear and started my own search for him. I cruised the backstreets of East Hollywood searching for a six foot two black male with biceps the size of watermelons. I figured he couldn't be hard to find, but after an hour or so I gave up. I had an APB out on him, so he'd turn up eventually.

I blinked and found myself in Downtown L.A., where the streets are coated with smog, and the heroin sells itself. I was sitting inside my car, in a back alley off Spring Street with no memory of how I got there.

It was a heroin ally if I ever saw one, dark and dank enough for the peddlers to feel comfortable slinging ten dollar balloons to addicts who couldn't stay away.

“Damn it, Hayden,” I said.

I just need a fix, man. You want me to help you, get me a fix. It'll make me normal. Just one little hit to get me straight.

“You son of bitch junkie,” I said. It made me mad. He was dead, and sure, that was tragic enough, but he had lived his life, he had made something out of himself, even if he crashed and burned his career. But the girlfriend, Janine Ledbetter, was half his age, a kid in her twenties, and she was snuffed out before she ever had the chance to take off. “Smack time is over,” I told him. “I'm not putting that stuff in my body for no one. Look what it's gotten you, Hayden. You're dead because of it and so is Janine.”
We were murdered.

His voice was a low growl inside my head. I don't know if it was shame or something else. I thought maybe I was getting through to him, but it couldn't have been the first time someone had tried to reason with him. All junkies have a list of people who tried to reason with them, and one by one, they get checked off the list and give up, because there is no reasoning with a junkie. Once the H has them, it's all over. It's all they see and it's all they want. Apparently even after death.

“Yeah,” I told him, “you were murdered. You never saw it coming because you were too wasted on junk to see what was going on around you. Think, Hayden. Get control of yourself.”

He began a laugh that stretched out into a wailing moan, like a ghost you see in those cartoons and old movies.

You sound like Ted.

“Ted Sawyer?”

Ted told me if I got sober I could be back on top. He said...

He was weeping now.

...they would book me again. On the shows...he said they wanted me...but Janine...

“What about Janine?”

He hated Janine. He said...he said she was holding me back. He booked me at the Avalon. It was going to be my big comeback. He said if I did good there, the offers would come in. But he wanted me to get rid of Janine. He said it was the only way I could get clean.

“Did you break it off with Janine?”

I loved Janine. I love Janine...oh Janine what did you do?

“All right,” I said. “Let's go have a talk with Ted Sawyer.”

He said I was going to be back on top.

“Yeah, but instead you're six feet under. Let's go see what he has to say about that.”

Ted was my friend.

“It's the friends you got to watch out for, Hayden. Especially if they have a vested interest in whether you fail or succeed.”

I started the car and pulled out of Heroin Alley. I needed answers, and Ted Sawyer was going to give me some.

The sky was a milky streak of blood when I pulled up to Ted Sawyer's house. He had a nice spread in Malibu right off the Pacific Coast Highway, where long shadows of palm trees dripped like melting ice across the hood of my late model Ford. On the way, I had gotten the news from Lovitz my “hunch” was correct. He said Tim Hayden might have been murdered. Hayden's veins had been pumped full of pure high-grade heroin.

“This was beyond the good stuff,” Lovitz had said. “He knew what he was doing.”

“This wasn't a suicide,” I told him. “No note, no reason. He was about to make a come-back. Had a big show coming up at the Avalon. No,” I insisted. “Tim Hayden was murdered.”

“We're still running a check on his girlfriend,”

“Ten to one,” I said, “you'll find the same H in her system.”

Ted Sawyer answered the door wearing the same fitted pinstripe suit he had on that morning. His face was flushed and he had a phone in his hand. He looked surprised to see me.

“Mr. Sawyer, I'm Detective Strange. We met this morning.”

“Yes,” he said, “I remember. Come in.”

I stepped inside and took a quick look around. His house was a two story job with blue pastel exterior. It looked nice enough on the outside, but the inside was almost bare. There were the requisite pieces of furniture. Table, chair, big screen T.V., but nothing to tell me what kind of man Ted Sawyer was.

I followed him into the den. He put the phone down and went to a full bar and began fixing himself a drink.

“Can I get you anything, Detective?”

“Nothing for me,” I said. “I'm on duty.”

Sawyer finished pouring his drink, and turned around to face me, resting his back against the bar. He looked like he was trying to relax, or appear to, but he stood on the balls of his feet, as though he were about to take off in flight.

“What can I do for you, Detective Strange?”

“I just have a few questions,” I said. “No big deal.”

“Sure,” he said. “Anything I can do to help. Tim was like a brother to me. We were really close, as far as managers and clients go.”

He set his glass down without taking a drink and ran his hands through his product plastered hair.

“You still think he was murdered?”

I pulled a chair out from the table and took a seat. “I don't think it, Mr. Sawyer. I know it. I just got the call from the precinct. They found pure heroin in his system.”

Sawyer pulled out his own chair and sat across from me, his drink forgotten. His face was stretched, like someone had pulled the skin back as tight as they could and bound it in a bun on the back of his head.

“I knew that stuff would kill him one day. I told him a million times to cool it with the junk.” Sawyer shook his head. “He never listened to me.”

“What can you tell me about his girlfriend, Janine Ledbetter?”

He looked at me with eyes the color of cigar ashes. As though a good breeze would blow them away. “She was trouble from the day they met two years ago. I the was the closest I ever got to getting him into rehab. Then he met that little junkie at some party and after that they were inseparable.”

“How so?”

He looked at me like he didn't understand the question, then shrugged when he answered, “I mean, after he took up with her, she was just always around. We couldn't have a meeting without her being there, putting her two cents in.” Then his eyes seemed to focus on something far away. He brought them back to meet mine. “I thought you said he was murdered?”

“He was.”

“But you said he died from a heroin overdose.”

“Mr. Sawyer,” I said, “junkies don't shoot straight heroin. Not in the quantity we found in his system. Somebody gave Hayden a hotshot.”

“A hotshot?”

“Yes,” I explained. “A dose of heroin meant to kill him.”

“Who would do something like that?”

“That's what I'm trying to find out.”

He fumbled with his hands on the table, then got up and went back to the drink he left sitting on the bar.

“It was that Janine girl,” he said. “I'm telling you, she was nothing but trouble.”

“Tell me something, Mr. Sawyer.”

He looked at me, his ashen eyes cold and distant.

“Hayden had a big show coming up at the Avalon. What was he going to make at that show?”

Sawyer shrugged. “Money wise? Thirty to fifty grand. Depending on ticket sales and merchandise.” He stepped across the room and set his drink down on the table, still untouched, and put his hand to his chin, scratching just beneath his bottom lip. “The real money would come in later, with the offers for roles in television and movies. I was going to get him back on top, Detective. The man had talent like you wouldn't believe. He could step into a room and all eyes would be on him, and he'd have them all in stitches. Unless he was messed up.”

“He was messed up a lot, though, wasn't he?”

Sawyer's hand slid down and he put both of them on his hips, holding the tail of his suit coat back like a gunslinger. He nodded. “Yes, he was.”

I stood up and straightened the wrinkles out of my own suit. “Well,” I said, “I guess that about does it.”

He pinched his lips into a sort of apoplectic smile and guided me back to the front door. I put my hand on the knob, and then turned on him. “Oh,” I said, “just one more thing.”

“What's that, Detective?”

“Why didn't you mention this before? The show at the Avalon.”

He scratched at his chin again, his eyes dancing away. When they came back, he said, “I guess I didn't think it was relevant, Detective. I mean, there was always the chance Tim was going to blow it, so I never got my hopes up to much.”

“I suppose it's hard to manage a guy who you don't have much faith in,” I said.

He smiled, showing off his bleached whites. “Especially when you're dealing with a drug addict like Tim Hayden, Detective. Drug addicts are notoriously unpredictable. Believe me. No one wanted to touch Tim with a ten-foot pole before I got a hold of him.”

Thanks, Ted...

“Believe me, Detective. I earn my money.”

I nodded and smiled, opened the door, and turned back to him.

“How much do you stand to make now?”

He looked like I had slapped him. His mouth hung open for a moment and his ashen eyes went wide. “I don't understand.”

“Well,” I said, “aren't there contingencies for these kind of things? A back up act or something. Someone else to fill in now that Hayden is out of the picture?”

He looked back at the table where he had left his untouched drink, as if if he were willing it to be in his hands again, if only to have something to look at.

He turned back to me and said, “There is, Detective. In fact I was just on the phone when you arrived, scrambling to find a fill in act. The Avalon is a big deal. I put my career on the line for Tim, and this is how he repaid me.”

“I see. Well, if I have any more questions, I'll try to reach you at your office. Thank you for your time, Mr. Sawyer.”

“Sure thing, Detective. Like I said, anything I can do to help.”

He shut the door behind me and I went to my car. I felt Hayden inside my head, lurking.

Ted lied.

The voice inside my head was thin and cold.

I waited for Hayden to go on, but he remained silent as a tomb as we sat in the driveway watching the house.

“What was Ted lying about?”

I waited for an answer, and when I didn't think one was coming, Hayden said, Janine.

“What about her?

He introduced us. And rehab. That was my idea. I was about to go in. He took me to a party, introduced me to Janine. After that...

“No more rehab.”

No more rehab.

Hayden went silent. I felt him in there, his withdrawals working their way into my own system, but he was quiet. No more begging for a hit. I had to wonder how long it would last.

I pulled out of the driveway onto the Pacific Coast Highway. It was a hot dry night in Los Angeles and I was sweating junk through my pores. I felt like I was anyway. The Pacific Coast Highway winds through Malibu, with the ocean and pastel colored houses on one side, and a mountain ridge on the other. To watch Sawyer's house, I had drive up a few miles and turn around, going up into the hills that overlook the ocean.

I found a spot along the side of the road. Sawyer's house was visible beneath the white thumbnail moonlight. I couldn't see much, but his car was still in the driveway.

What are we doing?

“Police work,” I said.

I reached into the glove compartment and found the binoculars I keep in there. I scanned Sawyer's house, but the Venetian blinds did their job and kept me from seeing anything inside.

You're just going to sit here?

“Yep.”

I felt Hayden fidgeting around in my mind. My knee bounced nervously, a habit I never had. I was about to start chewing my nails, images of needles and thoughts of euphoria invading my own thoughts, when my cell phone buzzed.

It was Lovitz.

“Yeah,” I said, answering the call, glad for the distraction.

“Got the report back on Janine Ledbetter,” Lovitz's voice said through the phone.

“Give it to me.”

“Coroner is ruling it as an O.D. She had the same pure heroin in her system as her boyfriend, Tim Hayden”

“I thought so,” I said. Then, “Any hit on Reggie Jones?”

“Nope,” said Lovitz. “He's in the wind.”

“All right,” I said, as I focused the binoculars on Sawyer's house. “Let me know if he pops up. I want to talk to him.”

The line clicked dead without a goodbye.

“I have a feeling,” I said to Hayden, “he knows exactly who's going to fill in for you at the Avalon. Does Ted have any other clients?”

No...I'm Ted's only client...he wouldn't do that to me...

“You just said he lied to me, Hayden. Now, you're defending him. Can't have it both ways. If he's a liar, he's got something to hide, and I need to find out what it is.”

I can't do this anymore!

Hayden's voice erupted in my mind, like a screeching child making demands on an overwhelmed parent. Before I realized what was happening my hands were on the wheel with the engine running. We were rolling down a steep curve back to the highway with Hayden in charge.

“Stop it!” I yelled, but he wasn't listening. I felt him there, like a tumor, a solid mass ignoring me and taking over.

The car swerved, fish-tailed past an oncoming Mercedes, pissed off horn sounds trailed in the wind behind us.

“You stop it you son of a –,”

I can't take this anymore, stuck in here, this is insane, I don't want to be here anymore, just one hit...just one last hit...it'll be okay...

“Let go of the wheel, Hayden,” I said. They were my hands on the steering wheel, but they were numb, and no matter how much I tried to take control, it was no use.

The car bounced out onto the PCH, heedless of the steady stream of oncoming vehicles. Horns blared behind and in front of us, as Hayden pressed my foot down on the gas pedal.

“Damn you,” I said, “you're going to kill us!”

I'm dead...dead...I'm already dead!

“You want to kill me too? Or do you want to find out who did this to you?”

The car swerved into the wrong lane. I saw the face of the driver coming towards us. A face frozen in horror. Hayden pulled away just in time to avoid a head-on collision.

“What about Janine, Hayden? She was murdered, too, and whoever killed you killed her with the same pure heroin.”

He screamed inside my mind. It was like a razor sharp claw dragged against my brain. The car swerved left, off the road and onto a pull-over. My eyes went wide as I saw the midnight black edge of the cliff coming at us. Hayden slammed my foot down on the break and we slid to a stop right at the edge. He was crying and I was breathless. It wasn't so much the fear of death that terrified me in those moments, but the fear of dying with a spirit in my head. I don't know much, really not anything, about death and my condition, and I don't want to find out firsthand anytime soon. But I had a feeling it was a bad idea to go out with a ghost in my head.

I could feel my hands again. I reached for the gear shift and put the car in park, then took the keys out of the ignition. I let out a long breath, as if I had been holding it in all that time.

I waited for the sobs to ease up a bit, and said, “You get that out of your system?”

I just want everything to be the way it was...

“It's never going to be the way it was, Hayden. Life is change. So is death. You have to roll with it, or get swept under.”

This...this is hell.

“This isn't hell, Hayden. This is your chance to make things right. I don't know why you're in my head and I don't know why you can take over the way you did. But this is your chance to fix things. Don't let them get away with what they did. Let me help you get whoever killed you and Janine. I can't do it without you.”

The sobbing stopped. I wiped Hayden's tears from my own eyes.

Okay, he said.

“Okay.”

I started the car and headed back towards Ted Sawyer's place, but his car was gone. It was late. I was exhausted. There was no telling where Sawyer went, so I took us back to my place in Venice. It was a long, quiet drive. I couldn't tell what Hayden was thinking, and I didn't want to. I just wanted to get some sleep.

My place isn't as swanky as Tim Hayden's or Ted Sawyer's dives, but it's not the roach pad Janine Ledbetter called home either. Just a quiet little flat off Del Rio Drive on the bottom floor of a two story stucco deal. Like an old Spanish castle. I like it and it's all I need.

If Hayden had something to say about it, he kept it to himself, which was fine by me. My head ached as I got out of my suit and into my night clothes and laid out flat against my bed. I heard the neighbor's music playing softly on the other side of the wall behind me, and I let the music carry me off to sleep.

My joints and muscles ached as I came up off the bed the next morning. I knew what it was. Hayden's withdrawals were becoming my own. I had to get him out of my head.

What did the junkie say to the cop?

It was Hayden's voice, except he sounded different. Revived somehow.

“What?” I said, brushing my hair back and splashing water on my face.

Dig it...man.

“Dig it.”

He laughed. It was the first time I had heard him laugh since he became a voice in my head. I shook my head, trying to get the punchline, a smile creeping on my face. I didn't get the joke, if it was a joke, but the man's laugh was infectious.

Dig it...man.

“What does that even mean?”

He kept laughing.

Dig it...man.

“Okay. Dig it, man.”

I joined in his laughter. It felt good after twenty-four hours of being locked together, searching for a killer. It felt good for both of us to laugh.

I used to laugh a lot...

“You're a comedian.”

Yeah. I was...

I got dressed and headed out.

“Who's the manager of the Avalon?” I asked Hayden “The guy who handles the bookings?”

Sal Dawson. It took Ted five years to get him to book me. Five years. Man, I used to fill his club every night and he takes five years to book me.

“What convinced him?”

Ted did. He said I was prime for a comeback. People wanted to see Tim Hayden again. I was ready for it too. A whole new act. Dig it...man.

I drove up to the Avalon on Western Avenue, figuring that was the place to find Sal Dawson. Whatever Hayden said, or believed, I knew there had to be a reason, after five years of rejections, the man would suddenly change his mind.

The Avalon is an old club built in the twenties, with the old Hollywood art deco design. I parked the car at the curb. I felt Hayden using my eyes to search the street for a dealer. There were plenty of them on hand, I was sure, but I reminded him that wasn't what we were here for.

“We're getting close, Hayden. Don't blow it now.”

That's what I'm good at. Blowing it.

He was more talkative today. I hadn't made up my mind if that was a good or bad sign.

I entered the Avalon and found the office upstairs. A secretary behind a u-shaped desk glanced up at me as I approached, then placed her mascara rimmed eyes back toward her computer screen.

“I'm looking for Sal Dawson,” I said.

Without looking at me, she said, “Do you have an appointment?”
Her name plate at the front of the desk read Carol Boland. I took out the leather case I carry my badge in and opened it up. The light reflected off the shiny star and bounced across her long black eyelashes. I said, “I don't need an appointment.”

She looked up, her eyes going first to the badge, then to my face for the first time. She put on a smile as phony as her eyelashes and said, “I'll see if he's available,” and picked up the phone.

“Thank you.”

Tim Hayden let out a long whistle in my head. Dig it...man.

I had to agree with Hayden on that one. The girl was a looker, though she didn't seem to look my way much. Maybe if I was a famous comedian.

“Mr. Dawson will be right out officer.”

“Detective,” I said.

She smiled half-heartedly, and said, “He'll be right out, Detective.”

“Thank you.”

After an hour of sitting there, thumbing through Actor's Choice Magazine, the door opened to Sal Dawson's office and two men stepped out. From Hayden's thoughts, I knew the shorter man in the silk suit was Sal Dawson. The man whose back he was patting in farewell was a comedian who went by the moniker Mountain Lion.

Schmuck, Hayden said as Mountain Lion passed us without a glance. Self-important celebrities must go to school to learn that move. Especially the one you never heard of.

He's a schmuck and a hack. Been ripping me off his whole career.

The door to Dawson's office shut and Miss Boland looked over the top of her computer screen to say, “He'll see you now, Detective.”

I tossed the magazine down, stood up, and said, “Thank you.”

She watched me cross the lobby and as I took hold of the doorknob, she said, “You're welcome, Detective.”

I gave her a smile, and she smiled back, and I heard Tim Hayden say, Dig it...man, whatever that meant.

Sal Dawson was a little man in a big office. He had a view of the city from his corner of the world that made Los Angeles look grand and shiny, golden sunlight bouncing off the buildings outside like some kind of fairy tale world where he got to look down on all the little people scurrying around below. He looked up and smiled, reminding me of a car salesman about to put me in the ride of my dreams.

“Have a seat, Detective.” He motioned to the leather chair on the other side of his glass topped desk.

I took a seat and let my eyes wander over him. He had a nice round head, balding at the top, with the hair on the sides of his dome slicked down with product. He had a large, narrow nose that gave the impression his eyes were sunk too deep in his skull, but they were wide open, taking in everything, as he said, “What can I do for you?”

“I'm investigating the murder of Tim Hayden,” I said. Hayden was quiet, but I felt him there, brooding, dealing with his own issues. “I just have a couple of questions for you.”

Dawson leaned back in his leather captain's chair. He put his elbows on the arm rests and laced his fingers together beneath his chin. His body language said he was relaxed, but his eyes, those sunken lumps of coal, were trying to see through me.

“I was sorry to hear about Tim. He was a good guy but he had his problems.”

I leaned back in my own chair and crossed my legs. I wanted him to go on without prodding him, or leading him down any certain path. I gave him a nod to tell him to go on.

He smiled and his eyes went away from me, as if he were picturing something in his mind.

“Ten years ago, Tim Hayden could fill this club any night of the week. When he was on his game, he was really on it. He'd have them laughing out of their seats. It's a shame all that talent went to waste. He was about to really hit it big, too. The movie guys were getting interested. But the drugs...,”

Pictures flashed through my mind. Still frames of a movie, seen through Tim Hayden's eyes. A dressing room. Tim Hayden. People surrounding him. People he doesn't know. Hangers on. Groupies. Ted Sawyer. Sal Dawson. They're all there, surrounding Tim. His hand is holding something. A bag of white powder.

It's the smack Sal gave me, Hayden said, though I hadn't asked. It was for the shakes. Hayden laughed. To ease the pre-show jitters. Don't let this schmuck fool you.

Dawson went on. “The drugs are what did it. I've seen it a hundred times if I've seen it once. A guy gets big, gets a habit, thinks he can control it, but he can't. Ends up washed out on Hollywood Boulevard.” Dawson shrugged and let his arms fall to his desk. “Tim was lucky. At least he got to be successful for a while. He made enough money so he didn't wind up on the street, so...”

“So you booked him for a big show,” I said, breaking in. “Even though you knew he had a monkey he couldn't shake.”

Dawson twiddled his thumbs. His lips made a u shape as he thought about it. He said, “After five years of Ted Sawyer pestering me about it, sure. I gave him an off night. A Wednesday. A night where we didn't have much to lose if it didn't work out. Booked him five months in advance to give Ted time for promotion. If I made money on a Wednesday when we're usually dead, that's great. If not, no big loss.”

I could fill this club with twenty-four hours notice...

“The public has a short memory, Detective. Once you're out of the spotlight, it's real hard to get back in. Tim Hayden is getting more publicity now that he's dead than from anything Ted Sawyer could cook up. When was the last time you heard Tim Hayden's name before yesterday? He's all over the internet now. If I could sell tickets to see a dead comic, now would be the time to do it.”

“So you didn't expect to make much from the show.”

“Like I said, it would have been a nice surprise and I didn't have anything to lose by booking him on a Wednesday. And it finally got Ted to stop calling me.”

“How about a replacement?”

Dawson grunted a laugh. “I had to fill his night with Mountain Lion. You've heard of him? Funny guy, but not Tim Hayden in his prime funny.”

Not Tim Hayden anytime funny.

“Who manages Mountain Lion?”

Dawson shook his head. “Ted Sawyer. That's how he got the booking. Like, I said, it's a Wednesday night. I'm happy if I just sell a few tickets.”

“Can't say I do.”

“I was under the impression Hayden was Ted Sawyer's only client.”

He shook his head at me again, like I was a child asking why the sky was blue.

“No, Detective. Managers always have more than one client. Especially if their roster is full of past their prime comics, or up and comers. You have to pay the bills somehow.”

“How is it you get paid, Mister Dawson?”

“Me? I get paid a percentage of the gate. Ticket sales. So, no ticket sales, no payday. So here I am left scrambling to book a replacement act and end up with a guy named Mountain Lion. Can you believe that? Hollywood, right? Anyway, I talked him into doing a Tim Hayden tribute night. Get all his friends to perform in his honor type of thing. He was into it.”

I bet he was, the schmuck.

“Cash in on the publicity.”

Dawson shrugged. “It's the game, Detective. The Hollywood Hustle.”

Schmuck.

I agreed with Hayden on that one.

I left Dawson's office and found myself wandering the halls until I came to a double door that looked like it should be locked and wasn't. I pushed it open and found the dark recesses of the Avalon theater. I realized, looking at the darkened stage and rows upon rows of wooden chairs that rose to the back, that Tim Hayden walked me here like a dog. I didn't like how he controlled me, but feeling his longing as he looked up at that stage, I could understand why he brought me here.

I told myself I was walking down the aisle towards the stage of my own accord, but as I climbed the steps and looked out on the empty seats surrounding me, the dark stage lights that would shine down on show nights, the thousands of empty seats filled with wanton faces, I knew Hayden was controlling of me.

I was born to stand on the stage...I was born for it.

“Then why did you screw it up with the drugs, Hayden?”

I shrugged. It was Hayden, still, affecting my movements. I didn't like it, but maybe this was good for him. It's hard to deny a dead man certain things. I won't take drugs into my body, but if standing on an empty stage looking out at an empty theater helps comfort him in some way, who am I to deny a dead man's wish?

You don't know how good you have it, until it's gone. The drugs were part of it. They helped get up here and not care if I bombed or struck gold. I could rap all night and I'd have the crowd in the palm of my hands. Do you know what that's like?

“No.”

You couldn't. It's the best high you'll ever get. Better than any drug I ever did. But the come down, man. The come down is the hardest hit you'll ever take. You walk off that stage, away from the cheers and the applause, and you find yourself in an empty dressing room, all alone. Managers and agents in the office counting their money. Women coming to the door, coming in the room, thinking you're the same person they saw on stage. And you're not, so you have to keep the act going, even after you're worn thin.

But, man, while you're up there, here, everything is golden.

“They took that away from you, Tim. You had a second chance, and someone took it away. Janine, too. They took whatever chance she had away for good. The only way I'm going to find out who did it and why, is if you help me.”

Tim nodded my head. I know. I'm trying. I've been trying. I just can't remember anything about that night. Me and Janine, we wanted to get high. We had been trying to get clean for the gig. It was her idea to actually do it, so we threw everything out of the house. Locked ourselves in. Then...

“Then what, Tim?”

I don't know. Then...I said one more time. A celebration. We're getting clean and the show's coming up...I talked her into it. She called Reggie...

“Reggie Jones.”

Yeah. He could always score...

“Did Reggie score for you that night?”

He did...I think he did. I don't know. Maybe I don't want to know.

“Yeah, you do, Tim. You want to know, or I wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be stuck in my brain. Think. Try to remember. If not for yourself, than for Janine. She deserves it, doesn't she?”

“Am I interrupting something?”

I turned around and saw Carol Boland standing at stage right.

“No,” I said, “Just rehearsing for the community theater production of Old Man River. Try-outs are this weekend.”

She came closer. Out from behind her desk, I saw she was wearing a short red mini-skirt. With the sweater top she had on, it came off as office classy, or office chic, one of those where it means it's sexy but not too sexy. She batted her eyes at me, and I caught the swee scent of her perfume. It reminded me of a field of poppies. But that might have been Hayden's thought, not mine. I pushed him to the back, the best I could, and said, “What brings you down here, Miss Boland?”

She shrugged a shoulder, smiled, and said, “I like to come in here on my lunch break. It's quiet, and usually empty.”

“I don't see a lunch box.”

“I don't always eat lunch on my lunch break, Detective. It's just nice to get away from Sal sometimes. He can be a bit of a drag. High maintenance. You know how those Hollywood types are, don't you, Detective?”

“I'm learning,” I said.

“Anyway,” she said, looking out into the dark emptiness of the theater, “what are you doing in here? Employees only, unless there's a show going on. Then you have to have a ticket.” She turned to me, and said, “Do you have a ticket, Detective?”

Dig it...man.

I shook my head. “No. No ticket. I do have a badge. Does that count?”

She came towards me, high heels clicking on the stage boards to echo out into the empty chamber.

“Let me see it, and I'll tell you.”

I took out the leather case I keep my badge in and showed it to her again. Her eyes widened at the sight of the gold star.

She looked up and said, “I could get one of those off the Boulevard. How do I know it's real?”

I folded the case and slipped it back into my pocket. “It's real enough. You'll have to take my word for it.”

“A man's word doesn't mean much in this town. They'll tell you anything you want, just to get you in the sack.”

She turned away, a shadow crossing her face, and went on.

“I don't want to get you in the sack, Miss Boland,” I said.

She turned her head slightly, raising an eyebrow, silently questioning my integrity.

“What I want is some answers.”

“Answers to what?”

“How well do you know Sal Dawson?”

She turned around, crossing her arms, her eyes narrowed on me. “I've been working for Sal for four years, Detective. He's made promises he's failed to keep, but he's harmless enough, once you know how to handle him”

“What kind of promises had he made you?”

“Just the typical Hollywood cliché. Introducing me to producers. Directors. Getting me my big break into acting. He knows them all, you know. Every mover in Hollywood. Or so he says. I figured out a long time ago, Sal is one of those men who will tell you anything to get you into the sack.”

“And did he?”

She shrugged.

“Why do you stick around?”

She smiled. “What else am I going to do? Be a waitress? I've done it. I've done just about everything there is to do in this town, except act in a movie.”

I stepped towards her. “You could go home. Where ever home might be. You gave it a shot. There's no shame in going home.”

Her eyes went down to the floor. Her smile was gone.

“No, Detective. I can't go home. This is my home now, for better or worse.” She raised her face back up, the smile coming back, erasing any shadow of sadness that might have been creeping up on her.

“Anyway, Detective, I'm sure you had better questions than that.”

“Why don't you just give me the answers and we can skip the twenty questions.”

She turned away again, walking to stage left. When she turned to face me, I couldn't help but feel she was practicing a monologue.

“I'll tell you this about Sal. He knows how to tell you what you want to hear. He'll tell you the truth, too, like how he gave your head shot to a producer or director. But he'll leave out the fact he told them, sure she's a knockout, but she acts like a cardboard cutout. He'll tell you to your face how hard he tried. And maybe he did try. Try to sabotage you. You understand what I'm saying?”

“You're saying he's a two-face.”

Everyone in this town is a two-face...

“I would just say Sal looks out for Sal. Once you figure that out, he's a piece of cheesecake.” Her face had gone hard. A face devoid of emotion. “I have to go back to work.”

“That was a short lunch break,” I said.

She tilted her head to the side, as if saying Oh well, and turned to leave.

“One more, Miss Boland” I said.

She stopped and turned. “Okay,” she said. “One more.”

“Ted Sawyer. Tell me about him.”

“He's the one to look out for, Detective,” she said, turning to leave. “The managers always have the most to lose. Or win.”

I stood on the stage watching Carol Boland walk down the aisle and out the door.

Dig it...man.

“Why do you keep saying that?”

You've never seen my act.

Hayden sounded offended. I said, “I don't get out much.”

They made me say it in every show I guested on.

“I don't watch T.V.”

Jesus...what do you do?

I shrugged and stepped down the stairs. “I work.”

Work on secretaries...

The day was dragged on into evening and I hadn't made any progress on the case. Tim Hayden's withdrawals were creeping back under my skin. I was sweating and shaking from cold chills that didn't belong to me.

He started his whining again, and in my head all I could hear was his voice, saying over and over again, Just one time, man, just one time...it's not going to kill you...just do it for me..

Typical junkie rants. They start out friendly, as if it's just a suggestion. When that doesn't work, they get more aggressive. Insulting, even. God...why did I get stuck in here with you...I can't stand it...

Then back to pleading. Please, man...please...just one cop...one hit...that's all I'm asking for and I'll shut up.

I was beginning to wonder if Tim Hayden was dragging me to hell with him. I had to solve his case, and had to do it quick, before I found myself succumbing to his demands.

I was doing the work cops do, the glamorous stuff they leave out of all the movies. Paperwork. Going through any files I could find on the people involved in the case. Ted Sawyer. Some parking tickets. Nothing serious. Same for Sal Dawson. Didn't really mean anything. No one has a criminal record until the get caught. Either one of those guys could have been a serial killer, for all the records told me.

Janine Ledbetter. Hayden got quiet as I read through her file. It was like reading his girlfriend's diary. Busted for prostitution. Drugs. Hayden didn't seem to mind either one. He just kept looking at her mug shot through my eyes.

I had to admit, she would have been a pretty little thing, if she had cleaned herself up.

She was beautiful.

Reggie Jones. He had a record going back to age twelve when he got busted shoplifting spray paint at the hardware store. It got progressively worse from there. Multiple drug charges. Assault. Pimping. Just about anything except murder, and that was only because they couldn't make it stick.

What connected Reggie to Janine? There had to be something. Besides the drugs. Maybe the prostitution. There was something there, between the lines.

Reggie scored for us...he wasn't her pimp...she quit that when we got together...She wouldn't work for Reggie...he was mean...

“Women don't always tell us everything,” I said.

“Ain't that the truth.”

I looked up to see Lovitz standing in front of my desk. He was a short man in a suit too tall for him, and his tie had come loose at his neck.

“Any leads on Reggie Jones?” I said, hoping for some good news.

“Just that his mama hasn't see him and he's not in the lock-up.”

“What about the tail I put on Ted Sawyer?”

Lovitz sat his butt on my desk and put his hands on his knees, shaking his head. “Nada. The Lieutenant took the tail off. He said it was a waste of resources.”

“Waste of resources?”

“Yep.” Lovitz grinned at me. He didn't like that I had made detective so soon in my career, and made no secret about it. Most guys, it takes five to ten years to make detective. I made it in two. Of course I had help.

“You see, Hank, the Lieutenant thinks it was an O.D. So do the rest of us. You're the only one who's stuck on this as a murder case. Why don't you do us a favor and close the file on it. If you don't the Lieutenant will.”

“And what about the girlfriend? She's an O.D. too, with the same high-grade heroin in her system?”

“Just telling you what I heard on the grapevine, Hank. The Lieutenant wants it closed.”

I got up from my desk, took my jacket off the back of the chair, and slipped it on.

“What time is it?”

Lovitz checked his watch. “Nine oh five.”

“Great,” I said, turning away from Lovitz and heading for the door

“Where you going?”

“To do something you don't know anything about, Lovitz. Police work.”

“Get bent, Hank.”

I had one thing on my to-do list, as I climbed into my car. Find Reggie Jones. He was the key to all of this.

I drove out of the garage, with the streetlights glaring on the windshield like twin full moons, and that's the last thing I remember until I woke up inside a dark, stagnant room, laying on a dirty mattress, my tie wrapped around my arm, and a needled stuck in my vein.

My eyelids were heavy and my body didn't want to move. I felt it was okay if I just closed my eyes and lay back down on the mattress, and that's exactly what I did. It was like a waking dream. A euphoria I had never experienced. It scared me how comfortable I was in that dark room that smelled like insecticide and urine. Like floating in warm water. I opened my eyes again, with no idea how long I had been out that second time. The only thing I knew for sure, was that Reggie Jones was knelt over me, his face close enough to mine that I could smell what he had for dinner. And it didn't smell good.

He smiled, his white teeth glistening in the dark room.

“You been looking for me, mister officer,” he said, his elbows against his bent knees. “Look like you found me. Or I found you, more like it.”

My tongue was swollen and my mouth was as dry as an L.A. Summer during a drought.

“You're Reggie Jones,” I said, my mind not quite running as smooth as it should.

“Sho' nuff,” he said. His eyes went down to my elbow, and his smile widened. “What kind of cop is you, anyhow? I know them vice boys like to do the dirty stuff, but I thought you homicide pigs were on the straight and narrow.”

He reached down and pulled the needle out of my arm. I felt it slide out of my skin. He held it up to my eyes. “I hope that was a clean needle,” he said, sounding concerned. “If you got it from Sammy down there, I feel bad for you, son.”

I tried to sit up. He pushed me down without effort.

“God damn you, Hayden.”

“Hayden? Tim Hayden?” Reggie shook his head. “He was just another washed up junkie, man. Bound to leave this earth sooner than later. His old lady, too. They was two birds of the same feather. What my mama used to say. You just sit tight here for a minute, homey. You like the heron, I got something you gone love.”

Reggie took something out of his pocket and sat down, crossing his legs in front of him. “Bernice!” he yelled. “Bring me a spoon!”

I tried to get up again, and he pushed me back down on the mattress. He played with what was in his hand and watched me.

He yelled again, “Bernice, bring me a spoon! Don't make me tell you again, woman.”

I reached for the pistol in my shoulder holster. It was gone. Reggie smiled. He reached behind his back and brought up my service pistol. He put the barrel against my forehead. I felt the weight and the cold steel against my skin. Hayden stirred inside me, but he didn't seem to care. He was basking in his high like a sun-bather at the beach.

“You lookin' for this?”

He pulled the hammer back. The door opened behind him, letting in a dagger shaped wedge of light, silhouetting a woman I could barely open my eyes wide enough to see.

“I could do you like that,” Reggie said, taking the gun away from my forehead, and setting it next to his thigh. “Splatter yo' brains all over the wall there. All over the mattress. These junkies wouldn't care. They be back here twenty minutes later, shooting they dope.”

“Here, Reggie,” the dark silhouette said. “What you doin'?”

There was no concern in her voice. Just a dulled sense of curiosity.

“Give me that, and get the hell on out of here,” Reggie said, and snatched the spoon from the shadow figure. He pushed a hand against her leg, and the shadow almost fell.

“Damn, Reggie,” she said, with a tired sounding voice.

“Get on,” he said, but she had already turned and closed the door, cutting off the shaft of light.

There was a spark of light and my eyes fell to the lighter Reggie held. He had the spoon he had requested held over the flame. I heard a sizzle. The smell of moldy incense. Hayden came alive inside me.

“See,” Reggie went on, his face visible in the light of the flame, “I like doing it like this now. I mean, it's expensive, sho', but I can afford it. Not as messy. You just kind of drift off.” His eyes looked up from his work just before the light went out again and we were together in darkness. “Unless it make you sick. Then you puke on yo'self. But you won't be worrying bout that. No, sir, mister officer, you won't have no worries at all.”

I saw him in the darkness put the syringe he had pulled out of my arm over the spoon and draw on the plunger. My pulse raced in Hayden's anticipation of another shot of his medicine. I think right then, I hated Hayden more than I ever hated anyone.

“I like doing it this way because it's like I just sap away yo' life. Slip this junk in yo' vein and watch you float away. To heaven or hell, or wherever it is we gotta go to.”

He took hold of my arm. I felt the needle drawing closer.

“Why...” I said , my voice spilling out like molasses.

I felt Reggie in the darkness, his eyes looking at me.

“Why? Because it makes me feel like God. Or a doctor or something.” He laughed. “I don't know why. I just dig it, man.”

“Why kill Hayden? Janine?”

That stopped Reggie for a moment. I had to get up, get out of there. Get my gun back. All those things were going on in my mind, but I couldn't make my body work. Not with any real strength. If I had Hayden's help, then maybe, maybe I could at least offer up a struggle and not sit there and take a shot like a dog getting put down.

“Them fools? Man, like I said, it was just a matter of time fo' they offed themselves anyway.”

“Why?”

Reggie laughed again. He settled down back against his feet. “Man, you cops. You bout to die, and here you is still trying to make a bust. You want to know why I offed those junkies? I'll tell you this. I offed Hayden for the scrilla. For the change the Sawyer man put in my pocket, dig? Janine was just a girl who knew too much, ya dig? .

“You know, first I thought letting her get close to the funny man was a mistake. Thought she might light out on me. I could tell she was sweet on him. But she did right. She did what I tell her. You see,” he said, taking my arm again, straightening it out, “you got to train them. Like Bernice out there. You do it right, they do whatever you tell them to do. Whole time she doin' the funny man, she comin' back to me to get what she needs.”

No...

I felt Hayden come alive, the pulse of two raced through my veins, and I pulled my arm away, hard as I could. Reggie had too good a grip on me, or I was still too weak to break free, but it caught him off balance enough for me to drive my knee into his chin.

My arm slipped free and I pulled away, my back against the wall. I saw Reggie's dark form reach for the pistol next to him. I kicked out, my leg heavy, like I was underwater. I took him in the face with the flat of my foot and he fell back. I heard the heavy thud of my pistol hit the floor and I dove for it.

“Oh, you ready to play now,” Reggie said, his voice strained, like an abusive father ready to set his kid straight. “We gone play.”

I felt the pistol in my hand, then a sharp prick of a needle in my neck. My heart skipped a beat, waiting for the plunge that would send me into permanent darkness.

“Janine was a fighter, too,” Reggie said, “she a little thing, but she put up a better fight than you.”

I'll kill you..

I don't know if I threw my arm back or if Hayden did, but it knocked Reggie's hand off the plunger. I fell back on the mattress and pulled the needle out. Then I lunged onto Reggie's dark, pulsing form, landing on his back, with the needle in my hand. I, or Hayden, drove it into his neck. Before I could stop, my thumb went to the plunger and pushed.

Reggie stood up, his muscles working and straining beneath me, and threw me off. I fell back onto the mattress and he turned to face me, a great hulking behemoth.

He took a step towards me, his hand groping for the needle stuck in his neck.

“You –, “

He fell face down onto the floor before he could finish whatever he had to say.

I holstered my pistol and turned Reggie's body over. He was dead.

Good.

“He was our only lead, you jackass.”

He was a piece of shit. I'm glad he's dead.

I fell back onto the mattress, my head spinning, the junk working its way through my system. I had to get Hayden out of my head, and he wasn't helping.

He said it was Ted...

“I need proof, Hayden. The word of a dead pimp doesn't prove anything.”

Ted did this...

I struggled off the mattress to my feet. The door opened, the shaft of light cutting across my face as the silhouetted form of Bernice stood there. I braced myself against the dingy wall for support.

“Reggie?”

Reggie's dead...

“Reggie's dead,” I said, echoing Hayden's deadpan delivery.

She screamed, loud, and came at me, scratching me with nails sharp and jagged as claws. I pushed my way past her into a hallway littered with refuse and stumbled down a staircase lined with nodded out junkies.

Ted killed me and Janine...Janine...because of me...

“Why though, Hayden? I have to find out why if I'm going to pin it on him.”

Why...

I was outside where the moonlight cut through the smoggy midnight sky past the tall buildings and squat tenements of Downtown L.A.

My car was across the street and I went towards it, Bernice's screams following me outside. I fell into the driver seat, exhausted, my face bloodied from Bernice's nails, terrified of what was in my system. What I might have contracted.

It was a clean needle...packaged...always safe...Dig it...man.

“Shut up,” I said, and reached for the radio. I called into the dispatch. “Suspect Reggie Jones found. D.O.A. Send all available units.”

I hung up the receiver and slid down in the seat. I felt used up and tossed out. Like a soiled handkerchief. I didn't even know how to begin explaining this when the units showed up. They would want answers I didn't have. I decided to leave and fill the report out later.

Ted...

“Yeah, Hayden. Ted. He's the key.”

I started the car and headed towards Malibu after stopping at an all night coffee shop to get something speedy in my veins. Something to wash out the junk Hayden had slipped me.

I told you I'm the best at blowing it...

“That's just an excuse. Every junkie has one.”

He was silent after that and I was glad for it. I pulled up to Ted Sawyer's house just after two A.M. The lights were out but his car was in the driveway.

Ted...

I banged on the door and kept banging until the lights outside came on. Then I said, “It's Detective Strange, Sawyer. Open up.”

He came to the door looking more disheveled than I did, if that was possible at the time.

“Detective –,”

I came up with a backhand across his face before I could stop it. The force of the blow sent Sawyer back inside, and I followed, shutting the door behind me.

“What is this?” he said, rubbing at the welt forming on his face.

“Why'd you do it, Ted?”

It was my voice but Hayden was in control. I had to get back on top, but with the junk in my system it was like climbing a sand dune.

“What are you talking about? You can't just come in here and slap me around, Detective. I have rights.”

My hand went to my gun and slipped it out of the holster. Before I knew it, I had Ted Sawyer in my sights.

“Jesus Christ!” Sawyer yelled.

“I know you did it, Ted. Reggie told me. He said you set us up, me and Janine.”

Ted Sawyer's eyes went wide as saucers. “Are you crazy?”

I felt Hayden squeeze the trigger and my heart stopped. Luckily, he was a comedian and not a gun expert, otherwise he would have known to check the safety first.

“You can't do this. I have rights. I have one of the best attorneys in L.A.” Sawyer said, oblivious to the fact the only reason he wasn't bleeding out of a bullet hole was because Tim Hayden didn't know the first thing about guns.

One thing it did accomplish, though, was I was able to get back on top. I was in control again. I dropped the pistol to my side, and decided to make this work. If I couldn't I would be screwed in more ways than one.

“That's good, Ted,” I said, keeping the first name basis we had established. “You're going to need a good one to escape the death penalty.”

“What are you talking about? I didn't do anything. He was my client. Why would I want him dead?”

I didn't know, but I couldn't admit that to Sawyer. I saw his mouth twitch, almost a smile, because he sensed he had me. I wanted to slap him again, to put him back off balance, but I resisted the urge. It was hard, with Hayden inside me, his grip still tight on my pistol.

I stepped toward the bar and started making a drink, just to throw Sawyer off, and give myself something to do while I thought things out. Hayden's memories flowed through my mind like a river after a rain storm. Visions of Janine. Sawyer introducing them two years ago.

“You lied to me, Ted,” I said, turning around with a vodka cocktail in one hand and the pistol in the other. No matter how hard I willed it, Hayden wouldn't let me holster the damn thing.

Sawyer had gained back some of his composure. He sat down at the dining table and looked at me with his gray eyes.

“What did I lie about, Detective?”

“You introduced Hayden to Janine.”

“So. I forgot.”

I sipped the drink without really tasting it. It felt good in my cotton filled mouth.

“For someone you hated so much, it seems like a pretty big detail to forget.”

“Yeah, well, I had a lot on my mind, Detective. My friend just died. Jesus. Who do you think you are, busting in here, slapping me around?”

Sawyer kept rubbing his face, in case I had forgotten what Hayden had given him.

“Where did you meet her?”

“Who?”

“Janine Ledbetter. You brought her into the picture. Why would you do that, knowing she was junkie and a prostitute? You said yourself, she was bad for him.”

“She was. It was a mistake. I never should have done it. You see what happened.”

“I'll ask again. One more time. If I don't like the answer, you'll get more of what I came in here with.”

He looked at me, a determined hatred in his eyes. I don't make it a habit of talking tough, but I was working with what I had, and I was running out of time. I could feel it, like Hayden felt the itch of withdrawals.

Sawyer took his hand away from his face and set his palm down on the table.

“Reggie Jones,” he said.

“Tell me about it.”

“Reggie was a pimp. I used him to get girls for my clients.” He rolled his eyes at me like he was explaining simple math to a ten year old. “It's part of the business, Detective. You want to keep your clients happy, you get them girls. It's not a big deal.”

“Drugs are part of the business, too, right?”

“I never got Hayden drugs. “

Images swirled in my mind. Images of Sawyer and Sal Dawson and Reggie Jones. Hayden's memories all mixed up, and out of order.

They were there...the last night...

“You were there the night Hayden died,” I said. “You, Dawson, Janine, and Reggie.”

His eyes widened and his mouth went thin as a razor.

“Listen, Detective, I'll go along with this tough guy act, but we have to make a deal first.”

“I'm listening.”

“I'll talk. I won't even call my lawyer after you leave and level a lawsuit against the department that will bankrupt the city and leave you in the unemployment line. But you have to promise me none of it leaves this room. If any of this gets out, I'm done in this business, you understand?”

“Talk. If I like what I hear, we have a deal.”

Sawyer looked at me, sizing me up as his fingers played an invisible piano on the table.

“Okay, sure,” he said. “I was there the night Hayden died. We were celebrating the Avalon gig. Sal finally signing him. But I left early, and when I did, Hayden was alive. Stoned, but alive.”

“Who was there?”

“Like you said. Me, Sal, Reggie, and Janine.”

The picture formed in my brain, like a fog slowly receding. I saw them sitting in the living room, on Hayden's couch. Janine next to him, close, I could smell her scent. Reggie across from them, in a lounge chair. Sal Dawson standing, having a drink, saying something I couldn't make out. Party favors spread out on the coffee table.

“Why did you leave the celebration?”

“I don't like being around that stuff. I don't do drugs. They scare me.”

“I thought you and Dawson wanted him to get clean for the gig? Isn't that why Dawson finally signed him?”

“I thought so, too,” Sawyer said, his voice losing some of the edge. “But he was as ready to party as anybody there.”

“Who brought Reggie?”

Sawyer shrugged. He was deflated now, sitting there, his shoulders slumped. He didn't look at me when he said, “Dawson, maybe. He used him too, for the same reasons. I don't know.”

“Reggie said you killed me,” Hayden said, taking over again.

Sawyer looked up, his body tense again, eyeing me like a crazy person. “I didn't have anything to do with Hayden dying. That's not what I wanted.”

“What did you want?”

He buried his face in his hands with his elbows on the table, trying hard to make this all go away.

“Talk, Sawyer, or I bring you in on two counts of murder.”

He tore his face from his hands and looked at me. “You got nothing on me! I didn't do anything!”

“Reggie Jones says you did. He says you paid him to off Hayden and Janine. Right now, I'm believing him.”

“He's a damn liar.”

Sawyer stood up but I pushed him back down before he got too far ahead of himself.

“I had a nice little talk with Reggie just before I came over here, Sawyer. He had a lot to say.”

Sawyer stared at me with narrow eyes, his face red with building rage. “You're going to take the word of a pimp and known drug peddler? What kind of cop are you anyway? This isn't the fifties and you can't just push me around and beat a confession out of me.”

“You got something to confess?”
“No!”

I stepped away from the chair and put my back to Sawyer. It was hard to think with Hayden's thoughts and memories swimming around in my own.

“We were friends, Ted.” The words came from me, but belonged to Hayden. I didn't try to resist him. Instead, I let him out, to see where this would go. I was running out of options.

“I don't even know you,” Sawyer said, incredulously.

I turned my head around, so he could see into my eyes. Maybe, I thought, he would see Hayden in there somewhere.

“Remember that time out in Pacific Palisades?”

“Pacific Palisades.”

“Yeah,” Hayden said, as I stepped closer. “That little comedy club. You got me on the bill as a surprise guest. Just after you signed me. You said, there's no club too small...”

“You got to start somewhere...”

“That's right. I said, I started a long time ago. You told me the trick is where you end up.”

Sawyer shook his head. His mouth hung open like I had slapped him again.

“What is this...”

“It's me, Ted,” Hayden said. I closed the distance and put my hands on Sawyer's arms, my face inches from his own. “It's Tim. I know what you did. You had Reggie slip me pure grade heroin. You murdered me, Ted.”

“No!”

Sawyer squirmed beneath my grip but I held tight. “Look at me!”

Sawyer twisted his head away. I grabbed his chin and pulled his face towards mine.

“You did this to me, Ted. You killed me and Janine. Why!?”

“I had too!”

He spit the words out like they burned the inside of his mouth.

“The Avalon was a bust. No one was buying tickets...no one cared...”

Sawyer broke down. His face flushed and he teared up. I kept my eyes on his, burrowing deeper inside. Tim Hayden was upfront now. In control. I only hoped I hadn't given him enough slack to run away on me again.

“I'm broke,” Sawyer said. “Look around. I sank every dime I had into your career for the last ten years and I got nothing to show for it. An empty house and a mortgage so deep I'm drowning in it. I didn't want to do it –,”

“But you had no choice,” Hayden finished for him. “So you bump me off and have Mountain Lion perform a tribute show to me? That was the plan?”

Sawyer brought his hand up and wiped tears from his cheek, trying to regain his composure.

Don't let him..I told Hayden. Keep him off balance.

“Except you're not smart enough to come up with that on your own. If you were, it wouldn't have taken you five years to get me a gig at the Avalon. I wouldn't have been doing shows in the suburbs for nostalgia and chump change. Who put you up to it, Ted?”

Sawyer looked down, his chin pressed against his neck, trying to pull away, to get out of this, to figure out what was going on.

Keep on him, Hayden.

Hayden took Sawyer by the face and made him keep looking into his eyes. He saw something there. Something that didn't belong to me. Something that scared him. His eyes went wide, unblinking.

Sawyer said, “Jesus...”

“Who put you up to it, Ted?”

“Dawson. Sal Dawson. He cooked it up. He said the only way he'd ever book Tim Hayden was if he were dead. People only care about washed-up celebrities when they die.”

“Why her?”

“She knew about the whole thing. Reggie told her. Bragging to her. She was a –,”

A loose end, I finished for him.

Hayden took my hand off the manager's face and stepped back. Sawyer slumped down in the chair, his arms hanging limp at his sides. Hayden's mind swirled with images of Janine. Her pixie-like face, smiling, dark circles under her eyes. Then flashes of her dead body, stretched out on a soiled mattress.

“Is—Is that really you, Tim?” Sawyer shook his head slowly. He was sweating like a pig. “I can't believe – I mean – Your eyes –,”

Hayden spun on him. “It's me, you back stabbing Hollywood hustler.”

“But – how?”

“Mountain Lion, Ted? You were going to let that schmuck hack do a tribute to me?

“He's – he's a big fan, Tim. He loved the idea.” He shook his head again, clearing cobwebs from his mind.

“He's a schmuck and so are you.”

I felt Hayden getting weak, tired. I stepped forward and Hayden let me.

“Who else knew?” I said. “Mountain Lion?”

Sawyer shook his head. “No – I don't know. Me and Sal –, I can't believe it. I can't believe what we did. If I could take it back, Tim, I would. I swear it I would.”

“There's no taking it back,” I said. “Death is a one way street.”

I didn't bother cuffing Sawyer. He had his face buried in his hands when I called in the squad cars to pick him up for the murder of Tim Hayden. I let him sit there and cry himself out. The case wasn't finished yet. All we had so far was Hayden's confession and the hearsay of Reggie Jones, recently deceased. As they carted Sawyer off in the back of the squad car, I still felt Hayden lurking, exhausted, in my mind. I needed solid evidence to wrap this up and get Hayden off to wherever the spirits go when they're done with me.

Sal Dawson was the last link in the chain. I was as exhausted as Hayden, the junk he put in my system still dragging me down. I got a cup of coffee, the hardest drug I ever imbibe, and drove through the dark, silent streets of Los Angeles at three in the morning on my way to pay a visit to Sal Dawson, the promoter of the Avalon.

I was close to sending Hayden on his way to the afterlife and Sal Dawson to prison for murder. I was so close I could feel it, and Hayden felt it too.

It was four in the morning when we drove down the interstate towards Dawson's house in Burbank. The lights were out but there was a car in the driveway, so I knocked on the door to see if he was accepting visitors.

I wasn't looking at Sal Dawson when the door opened. Instead, Mountain Lion stood looking at me with the wide open eyes of a man wired to the brims on crystal meth. I didn't need Tim Hayden's ecyclopedic knowledge of drug symptoms to recognize a binge when I saw one.

Schmuck...

“Sal's not here,” Mountain Lion said without missing a beat.

“Why don't you invite me in anyway?”

I flashed my badge. His eyes bounced to it and back to me.

He's wasted...blast off, man, blast off!

“This isn't my place, I can't just let you in here...”

I had enough probable cause to push my way inside and say, “What kind of party are you having with the lights out, Mister Lion?”

“Hey, you can't just come in here...”

“Who is it?”

Like some pale apparition, Carol Boland appeared out of the darkness, wearing considerably less than the last time I had seen her.

“Miss Boland,” I said. “Why don't you put on some clothes and hit the lights so we can all have a nice little chat.”

With the lights on and Carol Boland decently covered, I led them both into the den, where it looked like the party had been going on. Hayden kept taking my eyes to the coffee table where, next to a bottle of Chivas, there was a glass pipe. The kind used for smoking either crack rock, crystal meth, or who knows what else.

“Sit down on the couch, the both of you.”

“I can explain this, Detective,” Carol Boland purred.

“I'm sure you can. But we can wait for your lawyer if you want.”

I looked at both of them and paced from them to the table and the crack pipe. I stopped my hand from reaching for it. Carol Boland and Mountain Lion watched with blank expressions.

“No, lawyer?” I said. “Good. Then why don't you just tell me where Sal Dawson is.”

When neither of them offered an answer, I said, “You can tell me now, or down at the station. I'll be sure to let all the papers know we have a famous comedian and his girlfriend in the lock-up for possession.”

“You can't do that,” said Mountain Lion.

“I can do anything I want,” I said. “Now start talking or get ready to walk the long walk. I'm tired of these games.”

Dig it, man.

“He had some business to take care of,” Carol Boland said, her voice soft and low, as if she thought she could get out of this by sounding innocent enough. She reached for her handbag on the end table and said, “Mind if I smoke, Detective?”

“Yes,” I said. “So he left the two of you here to handle some business at four in the morning?”

“Listen,” said Mountain Lion, “I didn't have anything to do with this.”

I bet...

“You start answering questions or the only tribute you're going to give is in the county pen.”

Mountain Lion was softer than Carol Boland, I saw it right away, so I wasn't surprised when he spilled.

“He went looking for of you,” he said. “Sal got word you're the only cop who wouldn't drop this case. He said he was going to take care of it, and left.”

“Shut up!” shouted Carol Boland.

Mountain Lion turned to her. “I'm not taking the fall for any of this, just so you and your boyfriend can make some dough off me.”

“That's right, Lion,” I added, in case they forgot I was there. “Look what they did to Tim Hayden.”

Carol Boland reached for the handbag. The pistol she held glinted in the lamplight light mercury. She leveled it at Lion. Part of me wanted her to do it. The Hayden part. The part that was still me, still the cop, slapped the gun away. A shot went off, shattering a glass cabinet, instead of Mountain Lion's brains.

I slapped her hard with the back of my hand and she dropped the piece. I had seen enough dead bodies in the last two days to last me through to retirement. I pocketed the pistol and said, “All right, Mister Lion. That's two you owe me. This is how you're going to pay me back.”

Mountain Lion stared at me with his white, pale face, unable to speak. But he listened and did what I told him.

I left the two of them in cuffs for the squad cars to pick up and set out to nab Sal Dawson.

“We're almost done, funny man,” I said on the way. “Then you can go off to where ever it is you need to go.”

He said, Dig it...man, but his heart wasn't in it.

I had Mountain Lion phone Dawson and say he saw me snooping around the Avalon. The guy was so cranked up from the drugs and almost being killed he couldn't wait to accommodate me. On the way I placed a call of my own.

A dark empty theater is the quietest place you can be. So when Sal Dawson made his entrance, the heavy steel door closed behind him like a rack of thunder. He walked down the aisle, right past me, to the stage. I watched him for a minute, searching for me. He climbed the stage to get a better view and I clapped my hands. The spotlight came on, illuminating the theater manager in a halo of intensity.

He looked out into the theater, blind and startled, and said, “Who's there?”
“It's just me,” I called out from my seat in the center stage row. “The man you murdered.”

His eyes narrowed, looking towards me.

“Detective Strange? What are you doing here?”

“You got it wrong, Sal. It's me. Tim.”

“What kind of game are you playing, Detective.”

“This isn't a game.”

I stood up and walked towards the stage.

“See,” I said. “I got it all figured out, Sal.”

“I don't know what you think you figured out, Detective, but I'm calling my lawyer.”

“You do that, Sal. But first, answer me this. When did you figure out you could make more money on a guy who calls himself Mountain Lion, than you could with me? I mean, I know I've been out of if for a couple of years, but baby, I was good. I was better than good. I was golden, man.”

“You're crazy.”

“Remember the first time I did the Avalon, Sal? You took me aside before the show. You told me you had seen a million comics, but I was that one in a million. Remember? You said, from here on out, it was going to be golden.”

Sal took a step back. The creak of the stage boards echoed throughout the empty chamber.

“Do you say that to all the comics who come through here? Did you say it to Mountain Lion? His show's canceled by the way. He's got some legal troubles to take care of.”

“I don't know how you –,”

I hopped up on the stage, only a few feet from Dawson.

“I told you, Sal. It's me. Tim Hayden. Look in my eyes if you don't believe me.”

I stepped closer. He shook his head in denial, but his eyes stayed on mine.

“I can't – it can't – ,”

“But it is. Tell me one more thing, Sal. Why Janine? Why did you have to kill her?”

“She – she knew to much. She knew about the plan – two years ago...”

“You been planning this for two years?”

“It was going to be great. You were going to be immortalized. Like all the great comedians.”

“You're not great until your dead?”

Dawson fumbled something out of his pocket. I didn't have to be a detective to know what it was. I stepped closer. I felt his hot breath on my face.

“You can't be...”
“But I am.”

I reached up and put my hands on his face. He felt it then. Felt the person inside me. The one I let out to have this one last time on stage. One last performance. Dawson fell to his knees, his hand thrown back, a syringe full of dark fluid clutched there, ready to drive it into my neck.

He yelled, “You're dead!” and drove the spike towards me.

I caught his hand and drove a fist into his face. He fell and I wrenched the syringe out of his grip.

“Hell, Sal,” I said, “If you wanted me dead, all you had to do was say so. We could have worked something out.”

“You're dead,” Dawson moaned.

I turned away, wrenching myself forward, and pushing Hayden to the back, and called up to the spotlight. “You get that, Lovitz?”

“I got it.”

I turned back to Sal Dawson, and said, “You're under arrest for the murder of Tim Hayden.”

I bent down and turned Dawson over to slap cuffs on him.

“Dig it, man.”

The End