Free From Berkeley with Love by Hamilton Waymire Page B

right shoe came to rest on the blackmailer’s envelope. I pulled it out from under my foot, extracted the letter and contemplated the photo again. If only I could’ve been a hippie. All this free love floating around, the chicks experimenting and just wanting to love the one they were with. Ironically, the girls of my generation, daughters of hippies, had been super uptight, at least in Platteville, Wisconsin. I held the page closer to my eyes. Blood rushed to my head. Hum. Maybe finding the pictures would be its own reward.
    * * *
    I arrived at the office at nine the next morning. Patty called at nine-fifteen.
    “I’ve got something for you,” she said. “Of course you don’t deserve it.”
    “I sure don’t. What is it?”
    “Steven Mathison Wainer, born 28 September, 1939. Currently registered with the Social Security Administration at 7614 Attlesborough Place, Santa Barbara, California.”
    “I love you, Patty.”
    “Whatever. You want the lady too?”
    “Sure. Shoot.”
    “She’s collecting disability checks in Berkeley—1879 Haycraft Avenue, apartment C.”
    “I’m sending you flowers.”
    “Want me to tell you where to shove them?”
    I said I still loved her and hung up before she could come back with something vicious. But I did make a note to send her flowers.
    The operator provided me with a phone number for a Steven Wainer in Santa Barbara. I called and got him on the phone. He wasn’t interested in auto insurance and hung up on me.
    * * *
    Traffic on the 405 crawled, as usual, and didn’t get much better on the 101. Nonetheless, my beloved Firebird made it to Santa Barbara inside three hours. Attlesborough Place was the most rundown street in the city. Compared to its neighbors, number 7614 held up well. The paint was flaking, the screen doors were warped, and the tiny front lawn had more brown in it than green, yet it seemed like a palace in these surroundings.
    I flicked my cigarette into the gutter and walked across the street. As soon as I set foot on the sidewalk, the neighbor’s pitbull lunged out of its dog house and hurled itself against the wire-mesh fence separating the properties. I tried to ignore it, but these attack dogs scare me shitless. Pressing Wainer’s doorbell produced no audible effect. I knocked. The long silence was broken only by the dog’s barking. I knocked harder.
    “You lookin’ for Wainer?”
    A skinny adolescent with tats up and down his arms stood behind the fence. I hadn’t heard him approach, with the dog raising hell and all.
    “Yeah,” I said and slammed the palm of my hand against the door.
    “He ain’t in,” said the kid. “You got a cig?”
    I took my Marlboros from my shirt pocket and offered him one. He took it and stuck it behind his ear.
    “What you want from him?”
    I shrugged. “I need to talk to him. It’s personal.”
    “Well, he ain’t in.” He squinted at me. “I might know where he’s at. What’s it worth to you?”
    I wanted to say it was worth not knocking him in the kisser, but his pitbull was staring at me none too friendly. I fished a twenty out of my pocket and held it out to him.
    He grinned. “Would Andrew Jackson have a twin?”
    “He has an evil twin who might just beat you to a pulp and feed you to that mutt of yours.” I stepped a little closer. “Now spill it.”
    His left eye twitched. I figured by the time he got the dog over the fence, I’d have my gun ready.
    At length he licked his lips and said, “There’s a tittie bar on Berlin Boulevard, name of Bobbie’s Den.” He pointed due south. “No boobs now,” he said with compassion, “but you can get blotto there twenty-four/seven.”
    He gave me directions.
    “What’s Wainer look like these days?”
    The kid snorted. “He’s like freaking bigfoot, man.”
    Not the kind of description I’d hoped for, but the little pusher didn’t seem inclined to elaborate.
    Bobbie’s Den was the saddest striptease joint I’d seen in my life, and not for