Orange County Noir (Akashic Noir) (22 page)

Hank Watson, charged with burglary, kidnapping, assault.
And that's just what got him into Texas' infamous Gatesville
reform school as a teen in the '40s. He later graduated to much
bigger, deadlier things. Hank needed special handling.

"Tenure reviews are next month," Hudson said.

There it was. Implied, limped around, now it was out on
the table.

"I've got to pick someone. Joan is just as qualified, and
with those legs, nicer to have around. Frankly, I think I have
a shot at her."

"This is unfair. My film went to Sundance."

"You know how many lousy docs play up there? Doesn't
mean squat. I was a judge at Sundance. Skied circles around
Redford." He waved a beefy, sun-splotched hand at the photos on the wall behind him.

A black-and-white of Hudson with Redford, the Sundance Kid himself, on skis. Hudson was clearly puffing out his
chest. It was next to a photo of Hudson holding a big-mouth
bass with David Jansen, next to a photo of Hudson karatechopping James Coburn.

On his bookshelf, enclosed in glass, stood his Academy
Award for Best Documentary, Nineteen Seventy-Something.

Hudson had the career and the life that had thus far
eluded me.

"My point is, as department chair, I do the picking. It's
completely autocratic. There are candidates you don't even
know about. It doesn't have to be you."

"Don't tell me I'm not good for Chapman. Freedom Kills is
going to air on PBS. I'm an asset and you know it."

"Chapman is your third university in less than a decade,
Josh. You're a newlywed. You don't want to continue dragging
that cute little wife of yours around like a bedouin. Orange is a
nice little town. Does Sarah know that with tenure, Chapman
helps finance the house?"

"We know."

"In this market, you'll clean up. Nothing makes one feel
more like a man than buying one's wife a nice house. Except
banging twins in said house when wifey goes to spa."

"I got the man thing covered, Hudson," though his words carried weight. The house, like the career, seemed like a dream
that was slipping away. "I just can't help wondering why you're
asking me."

"Because you want it bad. I've been in academia for forty
years. I can smell you young guns coming a mile away."

"I'm a young gun and I didn't even know it."

"And we both know the other reason."

Now it was my turn to glare. "Other reason?"

"Word gets around, Josh. You and Jeannie?"

"Hold on right there. She's a liar. According to her, she
was banging half the faculty, and I don't just mean the male
half either."

Hudson cracked a smile. "Of course. Jeannie loved to embellish. I just meant you'd understand my predicament."

"Yeah, I get it. I just haven't taken the plunge like you. So
that's why you're asking me?"

Hudson tapped his pipe. "There was love in that little doc
of yours. I'd put forth you became enamored of the darkness.
Tracking down those ancient ex-cons, getting their nasty little
tales, the horrors of the revolution during that prison uprising.
You have an interest in things that are out of bounds, young
man.

I couldn't deny it. The film, two and a half years in the
making, had become an obsession. When nothing else seemed
to be working out for me, the doc became my anchor.

I spent months interviewing former inmates of that West
Virginia prison, delving into their criminal lives before jail,
coaxing out their stories of what they did to survive in hell,
and describing in pathetic detail their eked-out existences as
old, broken, forgotten men. Three of my subjects had already
died. Two by their own hand.

But not Hank Watson. There's a brief montage of him do ing his strenuous jail cell work out in the Bakersfield YMCA
where he now resides. "Sixty push-ups, sixty seconds," Hank
said, looking into the camera. "Just for starters."

I made sure to document my subjects' participation in the
bloody prison uprising of 1980 that left twenty guards dead.
There had been torture, things done to others that could only
have been dreamed up by minds on ice.

There's a good chance Hank had been manning a blowtorch.

"Without tenure, Josh, it only makes sense for you to leave
Chapman. Move on when the semester's up."

"Sarah and I were counting on this. You're really sticking
it to me, Hudson."

My time spent on Freedom Kills had taken its toll on Sarah
and me. She had called the engagement off, and she wouldn't
put the ring back on until I was done shooting. Hank especially creeped her out.

"Are you in, or are you out after the next semester?"

"Tonight's tough, Hudson," my mind grinding out the
possibilities.

Hank Watson, convicted of murder in 1958, was coming
over to our apartment. The old friendless relic had appreciated all the attention I'd paid to him. If I asked him to, he'd
wait for me in one of those coffee shops in Old Towne spooking the college girls reading Derrida.

"Lifetime employment, Josh. These days, you have to
schlep mail to find that."

I could make this work. Sarah and I needed this. I could turn
this for good. "It's a deal, Hudson. You're going to owe me."

"Tenure."

"Yeah. Who's driving?"

Orange was unreal in the spring. It wasn't just the surprise
scent of blooming buttercup roses that came rolling into
Hudson's open car window as we drove through quaint Old
Towne. It was the preserved Americana of it all. Most of the
office buildings dated back to the Roaring Twenties. While
neighboring Anaheim was a revolving door of strip malls and
booty motels, Orange kept its history intact. I'd never seen
more antique stores in my life, but they made sense in an antique, lost-in-time town like this.

You could count on things not changing here. Sarah and
I loved it.

"Will you man-up and stop calling your wife?" Hudson
commanded.

"Don't worry, I didn't tell her I was about to break into a
coed's room to steal a batch of love letters."

Sarah was working late at the hospital, and wasn't due
back home for hours. I left a message on her cell, hoping I'd be
done with Hudson's little B&E before Hank came calling.

The truth was, I didn't want Sarah coming home and finding Hank hanging around. "That twisted old ghost loves you,
Josh," she'd said recently. He had become just as obsessed
with me as I was about capturing his gruesome stories for the
doc. He'd turn up at places I went. I chalked it up to old man
loneliness, and he thankfully faded away when we moved to
Orange County.

Hudson turned down a tree-lined street sporting a collection of some of Orange's hundred-year-old Victorians. He
rolled up to an imposing, unlit two-story with a receded garage tucked away on the side.

I was surprised to see Hudson pull out a key and unlock
the garage door.

"I thought we were breaking in."

"We are, you fool. Jeannie gave me a key to the garage so
I wouldn't have to park on the street."

"You two were very hush-hush, eh?"

"I'm an old hand at this, josh. At my age, you'll jump through
hoops of fire for a piece of tail a half century your junior."

"I hope to grow up by then."

"Your testicles need to drop first."

The neighborhood was quiet. Operating under moonlight,
we carried a ladder out of the garage and around to the back.
The turn-of-the-century Victorian, surrounded by cedars, a
chestnut, and the ubiquitous jacaranda, had been converted
into student housing. "Jeannie said she was going away with
all her housemates," Hudson whispered. "I'm sure they're
drunk and naked by now."

We placed the ladder against the beige wooden side. "I'll
go first," Hudson growled. He spryly scampered to the second story and disappeared inside the bay window. If carrying
a ladder and holding Hudson's hand was all I'd have to do, I
thought, then this was the right move. I followed him up.

Inside was dark and silent. I could smell patchouli mixed
with stale beer. I treaded down the hardwood floor of a hallway, a staircase behind me and three closed doors in front.

"Hudson," I whispered loudly.

No response. He'd only beat me by maybe half a minute,
but he was nowhere in sight. He clearly wasn't on the stairs,
unless the old fart had fallen over the railing.

If someone appeared, my story would be that I was here to
discuss a grade with Jeannie and I'd simply let myself in.

I tried the first door and peered inside. Nobody home. I
quietly shut the door. Where the hell is Hudson? I went to the
second door when my resolve left me. Something's not right. I'm
out of here.

The door opened before I could turn away.

"What took you so long?" Hudson reprimanded.

I entered the room. Filtered moonlight revealed a scattered mess. I bumped into a chair with jeans tossed over the
back. A vanity stood near the door, which Hudson quietly
closed behind its. Across the room, a lumpy bed with a fulllength mirror at its head.

"How about some light?"

"As YOU wish."

Jeannie's pretty face was above the edge of the bedsheet,
as were her hands, each tied to an opposite post. Her feet were
bound similarly.

"Whoa," I muttered, taking a step back. "Is she ... ?"

"I just want to say it wasn't a rape." His voice stunned me.
I turned to face him. He was holding a gun. "I didn't have to
force myself, of course. She was willing as always. Things just
got a little too rough, and I choked her out." He looked down
at his hands. "Didn't know I still had it in me. That kind of
power." He shook his head. "The house was empty, except for
the two of its, and then it was time for my appointment with
you. When I left, my path was clear."

"We better get those letters and take off, then," I lamely
offered.

"I don't know where the damn letters are. Doubtless they
will turn up. That's why I need you."

"Is this a joke, Hudson?"

"Strip down and get in bed with her."

"Have you forgotten your senility pills?"

"I may be old, but I've lived more life than you. And I will
continue to do so while you're buried, unsung, and turning
into compost."

I didn't move.

"I'm prepared for this, Josh. Hands on buttons."

"Hudson, stop now. What you did here was clearly an accident. You were in the throes of passion with a woman half
your age. A third or so, really, but it doesn't matter. Can you
imagine the press?" My mind was working quickly. "It was a
crime of passion. They'll paint you as this incredible stud."

Hudson seemed to mull this over. His body sagged, as if
someone let all the air out. "You're right. I don't know what
I was thinking. I'm through. I might as well go out a la Entertainment Tonight. They'll no doubt unearth my Academy
Award speech."

"Without a doubt."

"Just turn around and give me a head start. I have some
business to clean up."

"Of course, Hudson."

I raised my hands and turned to face Jeannie. I always
thought she was pretty, but on closer examination, I realized she was just kind of ordinary. Her youth was the main
attraction.

I heard a soft pop and fell hard to my knees. It was like
every nerve ending in my right foot had been blown apart.

"I have a silencer, Josh. And at the angle I shot you, it
would appear as if you pulled the trigger yourself. By accident.
A case of nerves, like anyone would have after murdering
their unbalanced, immature mistress. And then you cuddled
her corpse before blowing your brains out."

I cradled my foot. I was afraid to take my shoe off in case
the whole thing fell apart.

"Those rumors Jeannie spread, I guess they were true after
all."

"No, they weren t. No one will believe it," I said, shuddering.

"They'll believe it." Hudson stepped closer. "Are you cry ing, josh? I always knew you were a pussy. You young Turks
can never back up the talk."

I had nothing to say. I was in the most horrible pain of my
life, and he was gloating.

"Get undressed and get in bed and I'll do the rest. I've
considered having you write a suicide note, but I think things
will be self-apparent."

I felt my fingers work the buttons on my shirt. I stood tip
painfully, balanced on one foot.

"And don't worry about Sarah. I'm a great consoler."

"You won't get away with this." My voice was measured
and soft.

"Trousers."

It was hard to pull them over my sneaker. I was taking my
time about everything. Slow seconds were all I had.

"Now into the arms of Morpheus," Hudson said.

The bed was surprisingly warm. I got in one knee at a
time. I didn't want to touch her cold body. I didn't want to see
her dead naked flesh under the sheet.

I heard a crack, and the sound of metal hit the floor, followed by a groan.

I looked around.

Finally.

Hank, baseball bat in hand. He picked up the gun.