Mutt and Jeff the undercover policemen are winding down their day, writing up all that they have witnessed at Cafe Monstro, which is very little. They sit now at the checkered card table of Jeff’s apartment in Reseda, one typing and their other reading and correcting what the other has typed. They know what all undercover cops know, that what will happen will happen.
Kurt the artist is not working anymore in his studio above the cafe, he stops, pulls off gloves and sweeps up some shavings of wood as he clicks off the radio.
Saul, now, he is standing in the grass on a cliff overlooking the beach. He watches the sea and can feel the statue in front of Cafe Monstro watching over him, until he turns to go and close up.
Hooky, whose real name is Cliff, is supposed to be just getting started at his nightly rounds. There are campfires along the beach, kids singing, and he is eyeing the college girls he can chat up. But it’s not good tonight, he has drawn back to his hut, the roaring ocean calling him to sleep.
But when Hooky closes his eyes on his cot it is not Hollywood-ready young starlets in waiting that he sees but Korea. He sees his altimeter and pressure gage, he sees smoke, he sees blood and fire. He opens his eyes and closes them again; it is hot and so is Korea, so is the fire and the beach he is roaring down toward. What will happen will happen.
He awakens and rather than go find a campfire to hit up one of the college kids for a beer, he dusts off his pants and walks up the wooden steps, across the highway to Cafe Monstro.
Chapter 14
Saul was thumbing through an old book at the bar as he saw the man the kids all called Hooky come in. It was 1:30 and the place was empty. Truthfully, he could probably kick the two students who were drinking coffee at one of the booths out and close up now and no one would raise a fuss, just as on any given night he might stay open extra hours because who really cared? Even the undercover cops had given up and gone home.
Hooky wore a shirt so bleached and worn that Saul could not tell whether it had once been red or blue; it looked drained, darker lines at the seams carrying an old and forgotten message to the eye. His jeans were cut off at the calf and faded to pale blue, and his skin was walnut brown, hair bleached. He had deep recesses around his eyes; the kid was turning to leather.
Saul raised a half-hearted salute as Hooky came and sat across from him at the bar. As they shook hands Saul asked about his name.
“Yeah, Hooky, or Hookele.”
“What's that?” Saul asked. Though of course he knew because Saul read a tremendous amount.
“It's a Hawaiian thing,” Hooky said, looking down as though now, discussing it with another real adult, an older adult, he felt foolish. Well, let him. We all have to be confronted with ourselves from time to time. “It means Big Chief.”
“Ah. Saul.”
“Pleasure to know you, Saul.”
“So what's your real name?”
“Cliff.”
“That's a good name.”
“It ain't bad.”
“You know, it's funny,” Saul said. “My niece Frannie started working here and as far as I can tell, she runs back and forth to the beach twenty times a day or somethin’. But I don't think I've ever seen you in here.”
Hooky rubbed his fingers together. “I live a pretty lean life. I mean nothing by it. But beer costs money and I gotta make mine stretch.” He looked down, suddenly seeming more ashamed than Saul thought was called for.
“What do you eat down there?” Saul said.
“Oh, you know, crabs and abalone. Whatever I catch. I put 'em in a coffee can and cook them over a fire. Pretty good, really. Monotonous.”
“It sounds both those things.” Saul said, turning around and disappearing to reappear with a beer and a bowl of pretzels. “On the house. You want to see a book?”
Hooky had picked up a pretzel and stopped. “What?”
“I just figured,” Saul said with a shrug, “that there's no excitement here but let's see if we can find you a book.”
“Is this some kind of code—to”
“It's code for would you like a book. A nice book gets you through a lot.”
Saul led Hooky back through the beaded curtain to the back.
Hooky seemed impressed. ”I hear you guys are getting hassled by the Decency League.”
“You hear that, huh?”
“I still can't believe that's a thing.”
“Can you believe that? So how'd you hear about that?”
“I hear things.” Hooky was scanning the shelves and took down a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which as it happened was the forbidden book that the Decency Lady had wanted to get her hands on and would have found if he’d let her spend any real time in there. Hooky put Chatterley back and went on, “All I gotta do is sit still down there on the beach, and sitting still is this irresistible attractor. People come by and tell me what's up.”
“I got the same deal.” Saul walked to the back shelf and took down one of the blank books. “Here.”
Hooky took the book and glanced over the blank cover. “This a notebook?” And then he looked back down at it and there was a title on the cover after all.
Saul couldn’t see what Hooky was reading and he didn’t want to move and spoil it. Hooky told him a lot, though, his eyes dancing with confusion, and then narrowed to angry slits. Hooky straightened up, squaring powerful shoulders and slapping the book down on a shelf. “What do you know about it?”
“What do I know about what?” Saul picked up the book, turned it over. No title.
“Look, no disrespect. I appreciate the thought,” Hooky said, with no hint of irony that Saul could detect. “But I'm just... I'm here now, okay?”
Saul nodded. Play it safe. No idea what the kid was talking about and he hadn't seen the title fill in. He had some basic guesses. The kid was no kid, he was late twenties, pushing thirty. Certain things tear everyone up, but he was too young to have been in Europe or the Pacific or Africa. So the kid could be torn up by Korea, maybe, but God knew it could be prison or the foster system. Most of the people who came to the Blanks had a story and not a pretty one.
“You're here now?” Saul repeated.
“Yeah—you know. It's an okay life. I don't tell anybody what they have to do, and no one tells me.”
“I can understand that,” Saul offered. “I got things I don't like to go into myself. Less than some, you know. It’s worse for my brother. That's how it works.” It was indeed. Saul had come to the US and lived in boring working-class safety for decades while his brother and sister-in-law had to flee the Nazis with a baby.
But Saul wasn't working on that now. He had a man standing in front of him who needed something. And it was Saul's job to find that thing. He eyed Hooky carefully. “But let me ask you something. What do you think brought you in here today?”
Hooky had turned to look at one of Kurt's paintings, this one of Jesus raising a green, ghoulish and zombie-like Lazarus. “Your partner is insane, you know that?”
“Everyone needs a partner who's a little insane.”
“I was with the dead girl the night she drowned,” Hooky said.