Zig zag, p.1
Zig Zag, page 1
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR ZIG ZAG
“A book that starts with an epigraph from D.C. Berman already has me eating out of its hand but then J.D. O’Brien goes and ups the ante. Zig Zag is a cosmic American crime odyssey that’s reminiscent of Barry Gifford, James Crumley, Charles Portis, Elmore Leonard, and Charles Willeford. Wild, funny, and entertaining as hell. Capri Dall and Harry Robatore are characters I won’t soon forget.”
-William Boyle, author of Shoot the Moonlight Out, City of Margins, and A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself
“An at times funny, at times hard-boiled, at times sweetly sad crime romp set in some of the scuzzier pockets of Southern California. J.D. O’Brien lovingly limns these divey bars, rundown motels, and tickytacky apartments and brings to life the stoned and soused oddballs who stumble through them. It’s Elmore Leonard meets Warren Zevon with a wry sensibility all its own, and I enjoyed every page of it.”
-Richard Lange, author of Rovers, The Smack, and Angel Baby
“Feels like a great 70s movie.”
-David Gordon Green, director of Pineapple Express, Joe
“A rare debut crime novel with the hardboiled humor of Charles Willeford and Barry Gifford, J.D. O’Brien’s saga of a dope-smoking, Nudie suit-wearing bail bondsman is a freewheeling oater for the ages.”
-Jim Ruland, author of Forest Of Fortune, Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall Of SST Records
“A weed-soaked modern western packed with laugh-out-loud digressions and hard luck characters so real I half-expected to find one sitting on a barstool next to me long after I finished the novel. The kind of offbeat book that I can’t wait to loan out to friends.”
-Duncan Birmingham, author of The Cult In My Garage and writer/director of Who Invited Them
“J.D. O’Brien has written the perfect country & western novel.”
-Mike Postalakis, author of L.A. By Mouth: The Essential Guide To Eating In Los Angeles
Copyright © 2023 by J.D. O’Brien
First Edition
Hardcover Original
Cover & interior design by Billy Simkiss
No part of this book may be excerpted or reprinted without the express written consent of the Publisher.
Contact: Permissions Dept., Schaffner Press, PO Box 41567, Tucson, AZ 85717
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022933115
ISBN: 978-1-639640-13-3 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 978-1-639640-15-7 (PDF)
ISBN: 978-1-639640-16-4 (Kindle)
ISBN: 978-1-639640-17-1 (EPUB)
The characters and events described in this book are entirely fictitious. Any resemblances to persons living or dead are purely coincidental.
Printed in the United States.
FOR THE EAGLE
Once you zag, you suddenly see how choosing
to zig could legitimize the whole rig.
D.C. BERMAN
CONTENTS
Gettin’ by in van Nuys
1
2
3
4
5
Bad Day at Big Smoke
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
The Law in this Town
14
15
16
17
18
The Malibu Riviera Motel
19
20
21
22
Far Out
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
The Road to Calico
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
Horse Opera
45
46
47
48
49
One for the Ditch
50
Acknowledgements
Author Bio
GETTIN’
BY IN
VAN NUYS
1
WHEN HARRY CHECKS in at Reduced Rent-A-Car, Ken from the desk escorts him to the lot and unfurls a rinkydink red carpet leading to the driver’s side door of a Ford Fiesta. An added feature of the white-glove service package. The dingy carpet is matted flat and Harry sees the rest of his life laying there in front of him. Thirteen steps to the gallows.
He removes his Stetson Sundowner like it’s made out of lead and hunches in behind the wheel. “I think the last guy must’ve smoked in here,” he says.
Ken looks over the inventory sheet.
“Let’s see if we have something else for you.”
“Don’t bother,” Harry says. “I just don’t want to get bit for it.”
He points to a bold line in the rental agreement that threatens a two hundred dollar charge for smoking in the vehicle. Ken makes a note and initials it.
Harry nods. “Appreciate it.”
Waiting to make an illegal left out of the lot, he adjusts the rearview and watches Ken roll the carpet like a boulder up a hill, the back of his shirt dark with sweat.
Harry unwraps his Tareytons with a sense of ceremony. Each new pack is a present he gives himself every morning. He lights his first and cuts across Van Nuys Boulevard.
Motoring north toward his office, he passes the pawn shops and car dealerships, the junk boutiques with trampy mannequins out front. Everything in this five-block radius looks sunbaked and secondhand. The Van Nuys Courthouse sits in the middle of it all like a criminal center of gravity.
Harry feels invisible in the Fiesta. Just as well since he doesn’t want to be seen in it. Not around here. His heap breaks down every couple months, which is why he’s in this rented roller-skate to begin with, but at least it’s got some panache, some heft.
He parks on Erwin and grabs his hat.
Buckaroo Bail Bonds, established 1998, Van Nuys, California, is headquartered in an office above the Country General Store, a purveyor of time-tested western apparel. Harry Robatore, established 1954, Del Rio, Texas, is its founder, sole proprietor, and only original member.
BAIL BONDS blazes in nondescript neon from a second-story window over Van Nuys Boulevard. The office windows don’t catch the kind of California light that looks romantic flooding through dusty venetian blinds. The sign doesn’t even blink.
Late summer, everything sticky and slow, Harry doesn’t stray far from the window unit. His wardrobe isn’t conducive to the higher temperatures. He reaches for his cigarettes and isolates a loose thread over his breast pocket. Something is awry deep in the fabric of this shirt and it’ll be a slow unraveling from here on out.
Eleven in the morning and his prevailing desire is to call it a day. Slip back into his house poncho and come in for a landing on the cradle curve of the sectional. Light up an enormo torpedo and pass a glacial afternoon with Hoss and Little Joe.
Lately he’s only been working when he needs to. Hitting the snooze. Listening to that lazy golden voice in his head. The take it slow voice, the fuck it voice. Most days it sounds like George Jones to him.
For stretches at a time, he’ll barely go into the office at all. A chunk of change will come in, five-ten grand, and he’ll soft-shoe around the apartment until he’s down to seeds and stems again. Like those guys you see at Arco putting a few bucks in the tank. Barely enough to get to the next station.
Harry has designs to move past the retirement-on-the-installment-plan model and set himself up permanent. He’s tired of a lot of things, but mostly he’s tired of waking up thinking, “How am I going to get fucked over today?” In the bail bonds business, you assume everybody is lying to you about everything. People will say anything to get out of jail.
His job isn’t complicated when it goes right. A bail amount is set. The client puts down ten percent and he covers the rest. The client shows up for court, Harry keeps his ten percent. When it doesn’t go right, when the client skips town or doesn’t show, Harry is out the whole nut.
The idea is to invest a little extra time upfront to save a lot of extra time later. Running credit history and criminal background checks, looking into assets and assumed identities. The main thing is to make sure they have collateral to cover the bond if things go south. Most of them don’t. If they don’t, or if they seem like a flight risk, Harry has to rope in a qualified signer. Someone who will stake their house or their diamond ring on this deadbeat.
Harry doesn’t believe he’s hit rock bottom in terms of what people will do to fuck him, but he doesn’t want to find out what that looks like. The routine is getting old. It has been for a while.
His old man always said Harry had a loitering manner about him. That he was born with an ass dipped in flame retardant. It wasn’t untrue. For a time, Harry tried to dress it up in Buddhist thinking. It only made things worse. If we’re just grains of sand drifting across the beach, why bother getting out of the house poncho at all?
If he survives until March, Harry will be the same age his old man was when he died. Right as he was about to retire from thirty-five years behind the counter in a Del Rio feed store. The fact that Harry’s been more or less retiring for a decade may be tied to a fear of suffering the same fate. It’s something he’s considered.
Harry resembles the old man physically, cast in the same mold
Tumbleweeding toward seventy, Harry’s starting to see himself as the kind of guy Tom T. Hall might’ve written a song about. An old pothead trying to turn over a new leaf.
Time to get to work.
A bondsman can’t approach a client directly. You have to wait for them to approach you. It’s easier for that to happen when you’re hanging around the courthouse. You just need to be discreet about it.
Some familiar springers are milling around. Jorge Alvarez paces, pre-tending to take an important call. Toss Papadapoli, the Ancient Greek, occasionally glances in the direction of a James Michener paperback without turning a page.
Harry’s primary competitor, Rick Devlin of Gold Key Bail Bonds, has the bus benches in the vicinity locked up so his smiling face is everywhere. It’s the kind of smile that makes you reach back to check that your wallet is still there. Harry doesn’t have that kind of advertising budget. He can barely afford the smallest square in the Yellow Pages.
Harry shoots the shit with an older court officer he knows and learns Cal Hensley got picked up this morning for public intoxication. Again.
He skims the report. Cal was found slumped against a concrete planter outside the James C. Corman Federal Building, clutching a half-empty pint of vodka. With another in his coat pocket. Unsteady on his feet and slurring his words, Cal was known to Officer Werner, who took him into custody.
Clients come from all walks of life but Harry’s tend to come from the lower staggers. His two most consistent clients are Hensley, a public drunk, and Lenny Disco, a public masturbator.
Both men look the part—Hensley ruddy and bearded with a prize-fighter’s nose, Disco with a lint-trap mustache that suits his predilection—and in both cases, the crime isn’t what they’re doing, it’s where they’re doing it.
Rick Devlin likes to brag about his high-end connections, celebrities he’s bailed out and can now claim affiliation with. That’s why he’s the one with his face on the bus benches and the custom limo.
Harry gets it. The payday cases can be great, if the money is right and the risk is low, but most of the time they’re more trouble than they’re worth. The guy who can afford the higher bond can also afford to get hid. It’s easy to get excited by the big numbers but small potatoes clients are more dependable.
The Cal Hensleys, the Lenny Discos. Guys who aren’t going anywhere.
Outside the courthouse, Cal holds up one hand to shield the sunlight and rifles through the pockets of his army coat with the other, patting himself down for a stray nip.
They walk the two blocks up Erwin and Harry clicks the key fob to unlock the Fiesta.
“What happened to the Olds?” Cal says.
“In the shop.”
Cal lowers himself into the passenger seat. “Again?”
Harry makes a stop at Louie’s Liquor and Check Cashing so Cal can cash a check and buy some liquor. Then he takes him to Tommy’s World-Famous Hamburgers on Victory to get something in his stomach. People assume Cal is homeless, but a small inheritance provides him just enough to rent a one-room efficiency, drink, and post bail.
He lets Harry pay for the chili burger.
They pull up in front of Cal’s apartment complex and Harry drops him at the curb with their signature sign-off. Two drunks in a midnight choir.
“Hey, Cal, they got Mogen David in heaven?”
“If they don’t, who the hell wants to go?”
2
CAPRI DALL WORKS at the Big Smoke dispensary on Hazeltine Avenue. She has an idea to rob the Big Smoke dispensary on Hazeltine Avenue.
The idea came two weeks into the job, the day she realized the security camera didn’t work. Two weeks after that was when Eddie, the manager, gave her a key to the place.
Now it’s week five and the idea is forming into a plan.
Each shift she’s worked has gone by slower than the one before. The constant throb of bass, the stale air overcast with vape clouds. Losers on the beat-up leather sectional, ripping bong hits and playing video games. Carvell the security guard mooning like a mental patient, hitting blunts and flipping through his gun porn. Days when she smokes along with everyone else, most days, it drags even more. Her boyfriend Ted acts like it’s a dream job she has. Standing there for shit pay while someone else makes all the real money.
Capri watched her mother work shit jobs all her life. Just so they could live in shit apartment complexes, ride around in shit cars, and scrape together enough money to pay the past-due amount on bills to avoid shutoff every month. And where did it ever get them? It’s a sucker’s game and she’d rather die than live that life.
Dancing was a way to survive for a while, but the cash had a way of disappearing and if she stayed anywhere too long the same guys would start coming around and it would get creepy. Some guys tipped in pills and she’d try to save them to sell but she’d end up taking them more and more.
She thought porn might be an easy exit plan but it’s even hard to make money doing that anymore. During webcam shows, she’d get a rush hearing the dinging of the tips coming in, like items being rung up in a supermarket, but it never added up to much. It was like that hopeful second when multiple crosslines light up on a slot machine, before you realize you’ve only won like ten bucks. But at least all the eyes were out there in the ether, hiding behind lame screen names.
It’s only eleven o’clock but it feels like it’s at least three. She tries to distract herself by watching the movie everyone’s howling at, some hip-hop pot comedy they watch every other day, but the only way she can endure another second here is to spend every one of them plotting her escape.
She has most of it figured out. Carvell the security guard is the only wild card. Something’s off about him. He’s always staring her down. She’s not sure if he’s suspicious of her or just another leering pervert. He doesn’t say much, but he’s an overreactor. The slightest issue with a customer and he’s in full defense mode. Like he’s looking for an excuse.
She runs it down in her head again. Big Smoke is a strip mall hole in the wall so it’s not like it’ll be a massive score. And there’s no way to take the money. One thing Eddie is strict about is not having a lot of cash on hand. Anytime the register has more than five hundred in it she has to put it in an envelope in the drop safe, not the storage safe. But if she does it on the right day, she could walk away with at least fifty thousand dollars’ worth of product.
Thursday afternoon they’re finally getting the big Acapulco Gold delivery. It was before her time, but the last batch apparently had a THC count in the high thirties and sold out immediately at sixty an eighth. They had to set limits on how much people could buy.
One of their suppliers, a friend of Eddie’s down in Hermosa, has a connection to some old-time grower in Mexico, one of the only people who can match the original strain. A couple times a year if they’re lucky, some will make it up the coast and Eddie will grab as much as he can. A large amount is supposed to be coming this time, along with the usual delivery of the supplier’s other strains.
It all arrives at the end of the day Thursday, so they won’t put it out until the next morning. Fridays and Saturdays are the busiest days so Thursday night would be the time to do it, before it’s even unpacked. Today is Wednesday. So that means tomorrow.
3
THE CUSTOM-WRAPPED LIMO for Gold Key Bail Bonds takes up three spots in front of the Blue Grotto Lounge. Rick Devlin’s smiling face billboards the evening traffic on Oxnard.
Harry parks the Fiesta and gives the limo a slow pass on his way in, fighting his nightly urge to key it.
Rick is posted at the Megatouch machine at the bend of the bar, under the blue halo of the Molson Canadian clock. He’s less handsome in person than he is on the limo and the bus benches but he looks like just as big an asshole. Sunlamped skin, mane of white hair. His fitted peach Polo shirt makes him appear barechested at a distance.
He’s playing Erotic Photo Hunt. The object of the game is to identify subtle inconsistencies in side-by-side shots of half-naked women. His finger hovers over the screen on a slow patrol.
“No strap on that brassiere there.”
