The Mailman Read online

  THE MAILMAN

  JEREMY BATES

  Copyright © 2017 by Jeremy Bates

  First Edition

  The right of Jeremy Bates to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-988091-17-4

  For a limited time, visit www.jeremybatesbooks.com to receive a free copy of the bestselling novel The Taste of Fear and the award-winning novella Black Canyon.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  “The killer awoke before dawn…”

  —Jim Morrison

  Los Angeles, 1985

  Chapter 1

  Watching her husband eat the bacon-and-egg breakfast she’d made for him, Jade thought only one thing: I don’t love you anymore.

  It was a terrible thing to think about the man you had married and promised to love through sickness and in health, and Jade wasn’t sure she believed it. They’d been together for twenty-one years, she and Mick. They’d had their ups and downs. She was just in a down moment. It was the depression, she told herself. Not Mick. He was the same man she had married. He hadn’t changed. It was she who had changed.

  Seated at the kitchen table, Mick wore a three-piece white seersucker suit and a red linen necktie. The duds were a step up from his usual attire of Polo shirt and Levi jeans, but right then she thought they made him look as though he should be selling ice cream from a truck, or pacing a Southern courtroom. His soft brown hair, graying at the temples but still covering everywhere it was meant to cover, was parted to the side and brushed back from his forehead. His ordinary face was cleanly shaven and smelling of Old Spice, which was sharp enough to cut through the kitchen aroma of fatty grease and crisped pork.

  “Do you really have to dress up for these guys today?” she asked as she rinsed under hot water the cast-iron skillet she’d used to fry the eggs. Through the window above the sink, she had a view of the backyard and the Hollywood Hills beyond. The bushy gardens were overgrown and infested with weeds. She’d been meaning to get out there and clean it up ever since they’d moved into the midcentury faux-Tudor home. But each morning she’d put it off, telling herself tomorrow.

  Mick crunched bacon audibly between his teeth, then chugged back half a glass of orange juice. Had he always been such a noisy eater?

  “They might be a bunch of degenerates,” he said, dicing his scrambled eggs with his fork, “but I’m not. Half my job is to look good.”

  Mick was an Arts & Recording executive at Chrysalis Records, a British label that had signed Jethro Tull, Blondie, Billy Idol, Ultravox, and Spandau Ballet among other big names. The “degenerates” he was talking about were apparently all the rage right now, consistently selling out The Troubadour and The Roxy on any given night. Jade had listened to one of their demo tapes. Their songs were all about drugs and prostitutes and giving their middle finger to authority. Mick, however, put a more eloquent spin on the lyrics, calling them a spirited defiance against Regan’s and Thatcher’s prudency and censorship.

  If everything went well today, Mick expected to sign them to the label.

  “I hope they actually show up,” she said.

  “They’ll show up,” he replied sagely. “They’re broke. They need money, and fast, or their drug dealers are going to start breaking arms and legs.”

  “What kind of advance are you offering?”

  He finished the rest of the eggs on his plate and dabbed his lips with his napkin. “Seventy-five grand. Half upon signing the memo contracts today, the other half when the real contracts are executed in the next couple of months.”

  “What will they do with all that money?”

  “Who knows? Pay off their dealers and order a whole lot of pizza and expensive wine, I suppose.”

  Jade set the skillet in the drying rack and turned off the tap. “I hope you know what you’re getting into, Mick.”

  He stood. “These guys might be a toxic squad of gonzo assholes, but they’re the real deal. They can sing and play. They’re going to be the next Aerosmith. Bigger.”

  “The most dangerous band in the world,” she said, repeating a phrase Mick had used before. She carried the coffee pot to the table.

  Mick shook his head. “I should get going.”

  “What time’s the meeting?”

  “Not until noon. But I have calls to make before then.” He straightened his tie and picked up his briefcase, which had been resting on the chair next to him. “How do I look?” he asked.

  “Great,” she said, thinking her initial impression of the suit had been too harsh.

  Mick leaned close, turning his face perpendicular to hers, like he always did. She obediently planted her lips on his freshly shaven cheek. She didn’t approve of this. A kiss should be mutual. This cheek thing was cheating. She was giving the affection; he was receiving it. She always wondered if this was some sort of psychological power trip on his part. She should say something…but what was the point? They’d probably just get in a fight. It was easier to remain silent. Smile, cook, clean, play the doting, submissive wife. That’s what he wanted. That’s what her life had become.

  Mick exited through the back door, and she followed. The morning was bright and brisk, laced with the fresh scent of spring. Mick rounded his canary-yellow Corvette and opened the driver’s door. He asked her, “What will you do today?”

  Jade shrugged, wrapping her arms across her chest. She wore jeans and a sky-blue sweater, but the air carried an out-of-season chill. “Write a book, compose a symphony, you know, the usual.”

  “If you want something to do, I’m sure the library could use a volunteer. You might enjoy that, getting out, meeting people.”

  Jade nodded. But she wasn’t going to volunteer at the library. She liked books, and she liked to read…but Christ, she’d once had so many dreams, ambitions. How had her once seemingly endless number of opportunities been whittled down to staying home all day or volunteering at the local library? She wanted to do something with her day, her life.

  “See you this afternoon,” Mick said, blowing her a kiss. He slid into the low-slung seat and pulled the door closed with a loud bang. The sporty engine chugged to life.

  As Mick tooted the horn and rolled past, Jade noticed a glob of white bird crap that had dried on the windshield. She followed the car down the fern-lined driveway, arms still folded across her chest. She watched it turn right onto the street—no blinker, she thought disapprovingly—and then accelerate away with a loud vroom.

  Jade took a deep breath, drawing the cool, fragrant air into her lungs. What a beautiful morning—so why couldn’t she appreciate it? Why did she have to feel so…empty…inside?

  She started to return the way she had come but stopped next to the hose reel, which was
attached to the side of the front porch. Atop the loop of green hose were her orange-handled garden clippers. She picked them up and went to the rose bushes that lined the eastern property margin.

  She should have pruned the bushes during the winter, but she’d put off this task, just as she’d put off weeding the backyard. Now she went about decapitating the smorgasbord of faded and once-showy flowers. She also removed all the dead or broken stems and branches. She felt an incursion of guilt for destroying such beauty, albeit decaying beauty. But that was the thing with roses. The more vigorous you cut them back while they were dormant, the more they flowered in the summer. One of life’s great many ironies, she supposed.

  As she snipped and clipped the deadheads, careful not to prick her ungloved fingers on the army of thorns, she found herself thinking, He’s a good man, Mick. And I do love him. Of course I do.

  Really, how could she not? After all the years together, all the time spent together? Yes, there was no one on the planet she cared for more. He was kind, generous, charming (when he wanted to be), caring if not affectionate—

  “Morning!”

  Jade glanced over her shoulder. The mailman stood before her mailbox at the bottom of the driveway, smiling up at her. He was young, early twenties. He had a straight posture and chiseled, movie star looks. His postal-blue shorts and shirt fit him snugly, showing off an athletic frame. She had never seen him before, but then again, she rarely paid attention to the mailmen.

  “Hi,” she replied, her voice croaky from a lack of use.

  He continued down the sidewalk, past a large sycamore sporting a new coat of green springtime leaves, before disappearing out of sight behind a greenbelt of scraggly, arid vegetation.

  Jade went back to pruning.

  Chapter 2

  Mick stood at his office window, staring past his faint, glass-caught reflection at the sunbaked streets of Hollywood and Los Angeles stretching to the fog-smeared horizon. Anxiety fluttered inside his gut, unobtrusive but impossible not to notice. He glanced at his wristwatch: 12:47 p.m. The meeting with The Tempests was scheduled for noon, which made the band close to an hour late. He’d harbored no fantasies they’d be early, or even on time. But this was pushing it.

  Come on, you bastards, he thought, rocking on his heels, his hands clasps behind his back. Don’t leave me hanging here.

  Mick had first heard about The Tempests during a visit to Vinyl Fetish on Melrose Avenue, one of the record stores he would frequent to find out what was happening on the underground Hollywood rock scene. The melee of teens hanging around out front were from all over—Sherman Oaks, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Malibu, Encino, Van Nuys—but they were only talking about one band: The Tempests. One clean-cut kid gave Mick The Tempests’ latest flyer. It showed a picture of the five rockers slouching against a cinderblock wall in some graffiti-filled parking lot. And below that:

  LOUD AS FUK [sic]/ BAD AS FUK [sic]/ THE TEMPESTS/ 11 PM/ Sat. April 24th/ STARWOOD THEATER/ $2 off with flyer

  Mick went to the show. He’d been to the Starwood countless times before. The staff knew him well and showed him to his own table in the VIP section. The opening act was largely forgettable, while The Tempests were a train wreck, all of them drunk and on heroin and snorting lines off the top of the Marshall amps during the blackouts between songs.

  But, man, could they play.

  The drummer, a blur of curly hair and drumsticks, seemed intent on bashing his kit in two. The bassist thrashed his fingertips raw. The lead guitarist chopped out power chords like a mad butcher. And the singer wailed his ass off, either pogoing on the spot like a reincarnated Sid Vicious or running headlong around with an adamantine energy, as if he were fronting a stadium show. They were as loud as a fighter jet screaming through your kitchen, and the headbanging SoCal crowd loved it—punks, metal heads, stoners, psychos, and preppies alike.

  Sitting at his table, his beer forgotten, Mick got a tingly feeling inside him he only got when he was witnessing a band he knew could make it, and make it big. The Tempests had a rawness and authenticity that had been lacking on the Hollywood scene since the days when Brian Jones and Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin would stagger up and down Santa Monica Boulevard hunting for the next whiskey bar. Sure, they had the big hair and the feminizing makeup like everybody else lately, but they were different, real. You could tell they lived the down and dirty they sang about.

  After the last song, Mick went looking for the manager and bumped into an A&R rep from a competing label. The guy was pumped about The Tempests’ performance and wanted Mick’s reaction. Ears still ringing, Mick told him he thought they were shit, they had no talent, they were drug addicts, and they would never make it off the Strip.

  When he found the manager backstage, a fresh-faced, chubby country girl named Michelle who seemed too naïve to be involved in the slummy underground rock scene, he said, “I want a meeting with your band as soon as it can be arranged.”

  She smiled sweetly and said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  ♂

  Mick met with The Tempests the following day. As it turned out, they were living out of a storage shed in the cross section of Hollywood and downtown LA, fifty yards off Sunset Boulevard, which you got to via an alleyway littered with smashed bottles. The five rockers were all hair and leather and jewelry, and despite it being late morning, they were sitting in front of the garage on stolen lawn chairs, drinking vodka and whiskey and smoking pot. Mick pulled up a chair and chatted with them for a good hour. He flattered them while being genuine. He told them they were the loudest band he had ever heard, the best band since AC/DC, and, in the right hands, they could become superstars, probably sell more records than anyone with the exception of Zeppelin or the Stones. All the while he turned a blind eye to the bass player who twice left to peddle heroin to customers, and to the half-naked feral girls who kept poking their heads out of the shed to see what was going on.

  At the conclusion of the meeting, Mick told The Tempests he wanted to sign them to a record deal. They demanded six figures, which was an unheard-of advance for an unknown artist—made all the more audacious given right then they likely couldn’t scrape together five dollars between themselves. Mick, however, accepted on the spot. They might be a band with a massive drug and alcohol problem that seemed determined to destroy itself—really, they were a ticking time bomb waiting to blow—but their raw talent trumped that, and he knew if he didn’t sign them when they were still relatively unknown, Electra or Warner Bros. or Asylum would snatch them up, they would live up to their hype, become the biggest, baddest rockers on the planet, and he would never forgive himself for letting them slip through his fingers.

  Mick turned away from the window now.

  Bob Corker, the CEO of Chrysalis Records, shifted in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. Thumbing through an old copy of Rolling Stone he had undoubtedly read before, he covered a yawn with the back of his hand. Fred Taylor, one of the best-known entertainment attorneys in the music business, sat next to him in a thousand-dollar suit, his hands folded neatly on his lap, a small, patient smile on his lips.

  Mick picked up the receiver of the red rotary phone that rested next to his brand new Apple Macintosh computer (which he’d turned on once in the brief time he’d had it, not knowing what to do with the damned thing and its newfangled mouse contraption). He hit a button on the phone. “Genie,” he told his secretary when she answered, “give Michelle another call, will you?”

  “Yes sir,” she replied, and they disconnected.

  “I hope this isn’t all a big waste of my time, Mick,” Bob said without looking up from the magazine.

  “They’re coming,” he insisted, though in the back of his mind he was thinking about the A&R rep he’d run into at the Starwood.

  Had he swooped in at the last minute with a better offer?

  “You’ve vouched for these shitheads,” Bob said. “You told me you would have them under control.”

  “I do, they l
ike me. Look, they can be a bit moody. Difficult, sure. But they still get out there every show and play their asses off. They’ll be here.”

  “Ten minutes, then I’m going for lunch.”

  Mick clenched his jaw, and the anxiety inside him was no longer so unobtrusive. It was making him nauseous.

  The phone rang. He pressed the receiver to his ear. “Yes?”

  “No answer at her home,” Genie said. “I left a message on her machine. Is there any other number you want me to try?”

  He didn’t have any other numbers. “No. Just buzz me when they get here.”

  Bob made a grunting noise of the sort that meant he didn’t believe Genie would be buzzing him any time soon.

  Mick hung up and glanced at his wristwatch again.

  Where the hell are you guys?

  Chapter 3

  Jade spent the day puttering around the house. She vacuumed and did the laundry and sorted through one overflowing closet. At eleven o’clock she sank into the sofa and flipped between The Price is Right and a rerun of The Love Boat. Afterward, in the kitchen, she ate a sandwich and an apple for lunch, then went to the living room to play the piano. She got through Edward MacDowell’s “To a Wild Rose” and Lennon’s “Imagine” before her fingers became sluggish and she felt unmotivated and heavy.

  She thought about weeding the backyard but decided she had done enough garden work already. Instead she went to the bedroom to read. She was in the middle of Wilbur Smith’s The Angels Weep, which followed the adventures of the Ballantyne family of Rhodesia. She especially liked that Smith’s books were set in Africa. She often daydreamed about visiting the continent, having a romantic adventure of her own. But of course she knew the reality would fall far short of the ideal. It would be hot and sticky and filled with bugs and poverty, and she would likely get mugged if not raped on some winding little backstreet...