Free California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker

Two Cities . He found Dickens sentimental but the wine was great symbolism. He pushed the manuscript away.
    Fall Wine, by Andrew James Becker.
    He picked up the phone and dialed Teresa Dessinger’s home phone off the back of the card she’d given him.
    “I’ll take the job,” he said.
    “Give me two weeks to get the reporter out.”
    “You said he was quitting.”
    “I said he was leaving. Good night, Andy. And good decision.”
    He lay in bed for a little while. Just before sleep he felt a very small smile trying to get onto his lips. Too tired to move. Thought about what had happened. Felt free. Unweighted. Ready to live. Smithy of his soul and all that.
    He slept better than he’d slept for weeks.
     
    THE NEXT MORNING Andy got to the sheriff’s station an hour later than usual. Slight hangover. No promising stories. He stayed late to jawbonewith the other reporters, fill them in on all the important press club business of the night before.
    Back in Tustin, he found J. J. Overholt in his office. Roger Stoltz was with him so Andy went to his desk and thought about last night.
    Stoltz came by a few minutes later on his way out. He was a man who never seemed to age. Same suntanned face and crisp mustache and cheerful brown eyes Andy remembered from nearly ten years ago. Same thick black hair, unruly like a boy’s. Andy instinctively disliked him.
    Stoltz asked about Clay. When Andy said he hadn’t heard from his brother in months, Stoltz said he was doing an important and dangerous thing over in Vietnam.
    “I’ll be glad when he’s back,” said Andy.
    “Me, too. I’ll be glad when all our men are back.”
    “You really think those Commies are a danger to us?” Andy asked.
    “They want this country, Andy.”
    Andy looked for zeal or imbalance in Stoltz’s eyes. Saw what looked like good cheer and conviction.
    “Your father’s really doing some fine things with the Tustin Birch Society chapter,” said Stoltz.
    Andy had seen the cars parked in front of the Becker home on meeting nights. And the Santa Ana Police Department motorcycles lined up at the curb because Max had managed to recruit some motor patrol officers over to the society.
    Andy had lingered for a few minutes at a couple of the meetings. Listened to the JBS party lines: “Get the U.S. out of the UN,” “Support Your Local Police,” “Goldwater in ’64,” “No on Fluoridation,” “Better Dead Than Red.” They showed films documenting Communist takeovers and atrocities, some of them gory and disturbing. Something about black-and-white film, Andy had thought, the way it captured body bloat and bullet-riddled corpses and blood. And films on the growing use of drugs—how to spot a heroin addict, what marijuana cigarettes looked like, how to tell if your teenager was under the influence of drugs.
    The Birch Society members were local men and women—smallbusiness owners, a savings and loan officer, a pharmacist, some defense engineers, a teacher, a dentist, a pilot. They were serious about the Communist conspiracy and seemed happy to have a newspaperman around. Roger and Marie Stoltz were there both times. They owned a small chemical company, RoMar Industries. Solvents and industrial cleaners.
    Max Becker had given a speech one night. Andy had never seen him speak before. It surprised him how passionate and eloquent his father was. His topic was the way the Communist conspiracy worked inside a free country. How they used drugs and music and subversive textbooks and ignorant politicians to brainwash the youth. The youth were the most valuable members of a free republic, Max said, and the most vulnerable.
    “Mom buys that JBS stuff, too,” said Andy. Though she’d remarked to him once that Roger Stoltz and the JBS were taking over Max Becker’s life.
    “She’s very well informed,” said Stoltz. “Well, say hello to them for me.”
     
    ANDY THANKED Old Man Overholt for six years of employment and gave his two-week notice. The