Chapter 12
Shortly after I arrived at the office on Wednesday morning Glenda MacPhearson called. “You need to see this guy’s record right away, but I can’t fax it and people are in and out of my office all the time, so you can’t drop by.”
“I understand,” I said. “Tell me when and where and I’ll be there.”
“I think I should come to your office. I can’t risk being seen around the base with this service record. Are you going to be around this morning?”
“Absolutely. You’re the best, Glenda.”
“You owe me for this one, buddy.”
Glenda arrived just before 11:00 AM in uniform. “Do I shake hands or salute?” I asked.
“How about a hug?” she replied and we embraced.
“You look great,” I said. “Before we get to Jo-Jo, tell me what’s new in your life.”
“I’m up for captain and the colonel on the base is giving me his full endorsement,” she said with a smile.
“That’s great. Is there any lucky young man looking to promote you to Mrs.?”
“As a matter of fact, I’ve been seeing the same gentleman for the past two years.”
“I hope you brought a picture,” I said. Glenda produced a shot of them both in uniform standing in front of an Army tank. “He looks like Will Smith. Is he a Tank Commander?”
“No, we just thought it would make a good picture. He’s a lieutenant in the infantry,” she replied. “How about you? Is there a future Mrs. Duffy in the offing?”
“I introduced my girlfriend to my parents last week. That’s a first since high school prom night.”
“It sounds serious for you,” she noted. “OK, enough with playing catch-up. We can do that when you reciprocate for this favor. I have to get back to the base soon.”
She pulled out a thick brown file folder with yellow post-it’s sticking out. “I can’t hand this file to you or allow you to make any copies, but, I’ve decided to review it today and I’ve been known to read out loud.”
“I understand,” I said. “I’ve been known to take notes when other people are talking.”
“You should have tried that when we were at UCSD,” she said and I smiled. “Anyway, Joseph Martin rose to the rank of sergeant over an eight year career with the Army. He enlisted at the age of 18 and received an honorable discharge at age 26.” Glenda flipped to one of the post-it pages. “He received extensive training in demolitions for both military operations and in support of the Army Corps of Engineers.”
“Do you mean as in blasting caps for excavation?”
“Blasting caps, dynamite, nitroglycerine - everything the Corps might use to move a mountain,” she said.
“I thought he was a communications guy.”
“He was during his first tour. Martin had ‘A’ and ‘C’ Schools in Electronics and Communications when he enlisted. But when he re-upped, he transitioned to Ordnance.”
“Anything significant after he made the move?”
“Oh yeah,” she said, flipping to another page marker. “He was on mine sweep detail in Iraq when a very unpopular captain got blown up handling a mine Martin was supposed to have defused. There was an investigation and it was deemed accidental. But I got the impression that the person who wrote the report didn’t agree with the finding.”
“Wow!” I exclaimed. “What did they do with him after the investigation?”
“He returned to the states where he worked on a dam-building project with the Corp of Engineers until he was discharged.”
“Did they use blasting caps?”
“It doesn’t say in the report, but what do you think?”
“I think I just found somebody with motive and opportunity. You’ve been a tremendous help, Glenda. When this thing is over we’ll do a double date someplace special, my treat.”
“Last time you told me that we ended up at a Ku Klux Klan rally,” she said.
“It was a heavy metal concert. I didn’t know the band was so popular with the skinheads,” I said.
“I think it’s safe to say I was the only African-American girl at the show.”
“Glenda, you’d stand out in a crowd at a beauty pageant.”
“And you’d stand out as a bullshitter at a used car sales convention,” she retorted.
It was Wednesday, date night, and I wasn’t even close to being ready for the reunion concert. I called Kelly. "You seemed so pleased that I shared my parents with you on our last date that I thought I’d invite you over to my place tonight and play guitar for you.”
“Why do I get the feeling I’m being multi-tasked again?”
“Because you have the instincts of a palm reader,” I replied. “As part of the investigation, I have to play guitar and sing at a club Saturday night. I’m nowhere near ready and I thought I could rely on your brutal honesty to give me some feedback.”
“I know this is a big case for you. If you need the time, just ask. I don’t want to feel like I’m an item on your To Do list,” she said.
“Actually, I’ve really missed you and I’m looking forward to telling you about it over dinner. Then if you could put up with my practice session I’ll make it up to you later.”
“Jason, it sounds like fun. Why don’t I pick up some Chinese and meet you at your place at seven?” she asked.
“Sounds like a plan, I’ll see you then.”
I tried reaching Cory several times throughout the morning, but there was no answer. I took a ride over to his apartment and saw letters sticking out of his mailbox. After trying the doorbell several times I gave up. As I was leaving, I saw one of his neighbors and asked if she had seen him. She gave me a very sour expression and said she had not. It was 1:30 PM, so I went to lunch at a local eatery, then returned later and got the same results. Since Cory lived only a few minutes away from Jack Pascal, I decided to take a chance that their recording session had ended on schedule.
I rang Jack’s doorbell and after about a minute Jack appeared. “Jason, this is a surprise.” From his bloodshot eyes and distinctive aroma I could tell he had just smoked some pot.
“I hope I’m not intruding, but I was in the neighborhood and I have a few more questions.”
“No problem at all. I just smoked a bong, would you like one?”
“No thanks. I have all of these songs I have to learn by Saturday night.”
“Oh yeah. The pot might loosen you up, but it’s not going to help your memory. Come on in and have a seat,” he said.
“I was hoping we could talk about GI Jo-Jo.”
“Sure, what would you like to know?”
“How did he get along with Terry?”
“About as well as everybody else. By now you know Terry was the band taskmaster. But somebody has to be the driving force or nothing gets done. GI Jo-Jo probably understood that better than any of us, being that he is ex-military and used to taking orders,” Jack said.
“How about his relationship with Delitah? Did that cause any friction or fights?”
“Terry wasn’t really interested in her. He never said it, but I always felt Terry thought of her as rock band window dressing. She was just part of the image. I seriously doubt he ever did anything with her.”
“Tell me about the morning Terry died. When you walked into the studio who was there?”
“Ian and GI Jo-Jo were working on resetting glass panels in front of the drum set. Vlad the Impaler and Mike the mic man were in the control booth.”
“Mike the mic man?” I asked.
“He’s the sound engineer.”
“Did you see either of them leave the studio while you were waiting for Terry and Nigel?”
“No. Ian was explaining to Jo-Jo how his changes were going to alter the sound of his drums as they reset the glass. It was only about five or ten minutes from the time I got there to when Nigel arrived. Terry came in just a few minutes later.”
“What happened next?”
“Terry hit the ceiling when he saw what Ian and GI Jo-Jo were doing. They shouldn’t have been making those changes while we were in the middle of recording a song,” he said.
“How come you didn’t say anything when you saw them?”
“I was doing my mantra. Terry and Ian just had this big scene at Denny’s and I was trying to get my head back to a place where I could relate to my bass. I wasn’t really paying attention to them until Terry yelled.”
“Did GI Jo-Jo help Terry with his equipment?”
“Now that I think about it, yeah. He told Jo-Jo to get his shit out of the car, then lit into Ian for being such a moron.”
“Did Terry go off on GI Jo-Jo for helping Ian with the panels?”
“He started to,” Jack replied, “but when Jo-Jo told him he marked the panel settings before moving them, that’s when Terry sent him to the car.”
“How long was Jo-Jo in the parking lot?”
“I don’t know. I was back into my mantra, trying to ignore the shit storm happening ten feet away.”
“It’s amazing that you guys were able to come together and finish that song with all of the problems that morning.”
“We would have finished it earlier without all of the dramatics,” he said. “Hey, do you want to crack out the Les Paul again and practice a bit for Saturday night? I hear you’re doing vocals too.”
“One last question,” I said. “Don’t most band members lay down their tracks individually in a recording studio?”
“Terry liked to feel, not just hear, the bass and drums. He also liked the synergy. Occasionally, he’d make one of us do an overdub, but usually it was a group effort. Thank God for Mike the mic man. Most engineers couldn’t handle it.”
I spent the next hour working on three songs. Afterwards I swung back by Cory’s place, but still no sign of him.
I returned to the office at 4:45 PM, and twenty minutes later Cory walked in looking like he just went 12 rounds with Apollo Creed. He had a black eye the size of a pork chop and his elbow was tucked into his ribs, like it was at the hospital.
“Where were you? I’ve been worried sick!” I exclaimed.
In a vernacular that was even more profanity-laced than usual, Cory conveyed that he left the hospital because he was angry and wanted to get even with the sons of bitches that laid him out. He was sure it was the Cerise Records people, specifically Vlad Torhan and Boris Melsin. He said they cleared it with their boss on a cell phone before beating him within an inch of his life.
“Where did you go?” I asked.
After he left the hospital, Cory went home and got his laptop and disks with several pictures of the Cerise crew. He then checked into a motel and began sending emails to various media trying to generate interest in a story on the Russian Mafia in San Diego. The only one that bit was California Confidential, a cable TV tabloid journalism show. Cory sold them the story and pictures for $2500.
“Why didn’t you come to me before you did this?” I asked.
He said it was because he knew that I’d talk him out of it. He felt that by getting the story out in the open the Russian Mafia would crawl back under a rock and stop being a threat to me and Jeannine.
“Did they say when they’ll be running the story?” I asked.
Cory didn’t know, but he was pretty sure it would be aired this week.
As I walked Jeannine home, I explained to her what Cory had done and I thoroughly inspected her deadbolt and window locks when we arrived at her apartment. She seemed a bit anxious about the prospects of our Russian adversaries getting really pissed off and readily agreed to the precautionary suggestions I made about not answering the door, screening her calls, and not leaving the apartment on her own.
When I returned to the office I called Kelly and arranged to meet her two blocks from my place, so that the cars would not be a telltale sign that we were in. I met her at the rendezvous spot just before 7:00 PM and we walked to my house with the Chinese food she had picked up.
Dinner was a little tense as I explained about the bomb Cory had dropped a couple of hours earlier. At 7:30 PM we tuned in to California Confidential. The plan was that if the Russian Mafia story ran we would continue with our original idea for the evening, except we would do it by the light of a single candle and without plugging in the electric guitar. As it turned out, they didn’t run the story and Kelly really enjoyed hearing me perform for her. I was definitely amped-up for the performance, knowing that I could be on the Russian Mafia’s most wanted list any day. Kelly’s adrenaline was also pumping since, by default, she was thrust into this high-risk situation. That night, our lovemaking was wilder than ever. I was wrong when I thought a night at home with the little woman was going to mean getting a good night’s sleep.