Chinatown Blues by Frank Lauria

Author:Frank Lauria
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Over Easy Media Inc dba Rothco Press
Published: 2017-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” — Henry Miller

To work off the residue of adrenaline washing through my limbs I bicycled across the Golden Gate Bridge all the way to my place in Corte Madera. As soon as I got home I poured a tall glass of scotch and rolled a fat joint. Then I turned on KPOO my favorite FM station and sat on the couch listening to rhythm and blues which—if you think about it—is an apt description of existence.

I didn’t bother turning on the lights until my glass was empty and I had to get more scotch. The fine weed had gone a long way to restoring some balance to my psyche and the scotch blanketed my frenzied emotions enabling me to put things in some sort of perspective.

Tommy was the only one who could identify me and he was dead. However the others would certainly be looking for me around town. And they had plenty of company.

No doubt Taylor Kingston had already embarked on a mission to destroy me. Susan Wagner’s killer knew who I was and would definitely try again. Shark Boy would be inquiring about Tommy, and the Vandals had a standing bounty on my head.

I had morphed from invisible man to shoot on sight.

I spent the next ten minutes or so sending the photo of Paunchy standing behind Christine bound to a chair, to Detective Alvin Lee.

After navigating labyrinthine portals from Sweden to Hong Kong to Iceland, Alaska and back to Hong Kong, the photo was routed through Honolulu before arriving on Detective Lee’s computer.

At the very least Paunchy could be charged as a sexual predator. Unless of course the Tongs had Alvin on the pad.

The adrenaline had drained leaving me wrung dry and exhausted, I went back to the couch for a nightcap and awoke at dawn still on the couch, the radio playing blues. I left the radio on and went to bed.

Much later I got up with a soggy brain and sore limbs. After a long shower and good breakfast I put on fresh clothes, stuffed my backpack, and started driving north to Tahoe.

***

The Green Ghost was in good form. I cranked up KPOO on the FM and grooved on the blues until the signal faded somewhere near Vacaville.

Despite Len’s custom sound system the further I got from San Francisco the harder it became to get a clear station. I was reaching for my old iPod when the national news came over the speaker.

I settled back. Time I caught up on hard news and what was happening in the real world.

Right. What I heard was far from real, and as soft as toilet tissue.

The big news centered on the latest mindless obscenity by Donald Trump. For months he’d been polluting the campaign with his toxic rhetoric. It was clear he held truth, valor, and honor in contempt, and saw decent human values as a sign of weakness. Yet there he was, browbeating

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