isco, with a view of the Bay, the San Mateo Bridge, and Alameda Count

te stucco, with round-topped windows and red tile roofs, a belvedere, a couple of verandas, gardens and courtyards, a hillside full of fig and olive trees, apricot, peach, and plum, bougainvillea, mimosa, periwink

that long ago from the Fairmont, ascended a short flight of steps, and stood looking out over a retaining wall that seemed in the morning fog to mark the edge of a precipice, or of the world. With only a few tree silhouettes, and both the freeways

yourself the illusion that what you do matters, but it don't look like you really give a shit." His shrink told him the same things. What did Ralph know? He looked in mirrors and saw somebody in OK shape for his age, he went and put in his regular time at the spa and the tennis court, had in his mouth some high-ticket dental work, with which he ate carefully and in style. His lovely wife, Shondra, what could he say? His kids - well, there was still time, time would tell. Gelsomina, the baby, was getting married today to a college professor from L.A., of a good family with who

ntunesimo party three years early, at the time a sensible move given the many talents then surfacing in his

private. The two Wayvones were down in the wine cellar, and Ralph could have just left him there, among the bottles. Instead he took the trouble t

family in Engl

lph rolling his eyes,

ke - Princ

tita, do m

di Montalcino, put away the year he was born to be drunk this day of transition to adulthood, though his

emade red through Cristal champagne, and hundreds of dolled- and duded-up friends, relatives, and business acquaintances would populate the hillside, most of them in a mood to celebrate. The only piece of uncertainty, not a problem really, was the music, with the San Francisco Symphony on tour overseas, the society combo Ralph Sr. had booked originally having run into a little snag in Atlantic City, where their engagement had been involuntarily extended till they made

ic devices active and passive. Young Ralph was waiting nervously at the Wayvone parking area, where everybody piled out again. The Vomitone ladies, Prairie included, had likewise made an effort to tone down their extravagance of image, with the help of wigs, clothes, and makeup borrowed from their straighter friends. Billy Barf, whose acquaintance with anything Italian was limited to the deuteragonist of Donkey Kong and a few canned-pasta commercials, insisted on speaking with his imperfect idea of an ethnic accent until Isaiah Two Four, detecting not only its inauthenticity but also its potential for insult, drew t

re our life," B

l, OK?" Isai

rhythm guitarist. "You blow this

Ralph Sr.'s trusted lieutenant "Two-Ton" Carmine Torpidini, arrived with a message for Billy. "Mr. Wayvone's compliments, says thank you for the contemporary flavor of the music, which al

anscendence - a salsa treatment of "More" from Mondo Cane (1963), slowing to ? with "Senza Fine," from Flight of the Phoenix (1966), a

of the untidy work he received his paycheck for. "Mr. Wayvone says he was hoping he wouldn't have to go into too many details with you, but that he was thinking more along the lines o

d sort of comprehension, "uh, well. Sur

n," mutter

ar strap. But Carmine reached over, removed the guitar from Billy's grasp, and began to tu

mean. " 'Way Marie,' what kind of arrangement do

with ten choruses of 'Ave Maria' and a Act of Contrition? No? So tell me, while you can, what's goin' on? Didn' Little Ralph say nothin' ta yiz? Hey! Wait a minute! What's this?" In the course of having the head on which it sat shaken back and forth, Billy's "Italian" w

person, my job is to take hard knocks and rude surprises, line 'em up in a row in some way folks can dance to, 's all I do, rilly, but as a connoisseur and from the story your face seems to tell a recipient of some of Life's hard knocks yourself, you can see the present crisis may not be worth emotional investment on the scale you contemp

s you're right, kid, and I'm disappointed to say so

, searching frantically for the keys to th

Barfs attention. Inconveniently by then, Billy, keys in fist, was on his single-minded way up to the parking area, so that the new bride, in her grandmother's wedding gown, was observed to go running after a non-Italian musician with unusual hair - not a breach of decency, according to more traditional-minded elemen

went by the professional name Meathook. "Best you can do's get you a li'l .22 caliber assault rif

rnia Penal Code section for murder, "only wimps depend on machinery, what Bi

ve town or hire some heavy securit

help me out her

" Isaiah said, "the

row, in a powder room or ladies' lounge of stupefying tastelessness, having an attack of THO, or Teen Hair Obsession. While the other Vomitonettes were run

way to find the face of her mother in what was left. She started picking again at her hair, with a coral plastic ratting brush a friend had shoplifted for her. Mirrors made her nervous, especially all these, each set over a marble sink with mermaids for tap handles, in a space lit like a

fringes and shadows, to creep herself out, no matter what time of the day or night, by imagining that what she saw was her mother's ghost. And that if she looked half a

saw another reflection, one that might've been there for a while, one, strangely, that she almost knew. She turned quickly, and here was this live solid woman, standing a little too close, tall and fair, wearing a green

so the pointed handle was now i

airie's earth-toned canvas one, on the tile counter, came a thin piping tune in three-part harmony, a

meanwhile digging down in her own bag to find and come out with a small silvery unit, still chiming the stop-frame hula

over her iridescent oblon

thought these old-timers had all been called in by now.

bookin' folks and bein' patched throu

Darryl Louise Chastain. M

's Pr

r there I thought you were some

hat DL Chastain, I always thought it meant Disabled List, sure it's you, yo

mercy." She nodded, faintly smiling, one side of the smile maybe a little higher than the other. "You're Frenesi's kid." She said the n

r mother's rumored return, and the DEA guy who might be crazy and his movie schem

And you're sure that

says that h

the tabletop between them. "Takeshi calls these things giri chits, sorta karmic IOU's. Takes a lot of speed, gets grandiose, wants to

ould clutch to anything right now. Why? What c

ould do. And couldn't. If Frenesi really was surfacing, anybody could find her. But w

's been what, 15 years, just about your lifetime, full of playin' make-believe, acting on faiths in things that

ear mine before yo

d Prairie, who didn't even like beer, and DL, who objected philosophically to all drugs, each too

on, either it's true or they got together long ago and cooked something up, right?" waiting for DL to tell her she was too young to be so paranoid. But DL only smiled back over the rim of the slender glass. "OK - my mom made movies for that Revolution you guys tried to have, she wa

ow could she not? "Brock Vond," very carefully, "had his own grand jury back then. They were all over the place, popping antiwar people, st

he's still chasing her, 15 years down the line, t

and if he came and took away your house, then he's after you too, maybe as a bargaining point aga

figuring things out too. Prairie hated to admit it, but so far what it sounded like was something dangerously personal between Brock Vond and her mother, territory she was as nervous about stepping into as DL appeared to be. Up on the table

and a little bit later, a full one in its place. At some point this older guy showed up, looking a little ragged, kissed DL's hand, and tried a grab for her ass that she must have been expecting because he never made contact, lurching instead past Prairie and nearly over a low wall onto the buffet table the next level

s starting to forget all that. Even thought you mi

won't let

d. "Shrink says I'm supposed to be lea

past right now, he's in the present tense again, badassin' around up

saw all this drug hysteria coming, I diversified on out of that whole market. Plus

oo early in the season. Brock's not answering his calls, apparently, and nobody knows just what

tted DL's arm a couple of times. "I'll have 'em get o

ntain, got to rende

nset was coming, and the two women still had

oman's door fifteen years later goin' 'Mommy, Mommy!' Hey. I have my privacy, had to fi

small shit next to this Br

atantly longing that DL had to stare down

akeshi's input on this. Any r

imeter of DL's scanner unit, and the McGarrett theme piped up agai

ourself. If it feels to

and mee

ked like some late-night overtime. "He-e-e-y, there she is!" Isaiah with a wet grin. "Great news, R

heading back t

come?" He looked over at DL, and Prairie introduced them and told him about the amu

h you guys the more I could get you in trouble. APB's out on the van, I don't know. . . ." Isaiah was loo

ok wanted to know, his upp

c green and yellow, and as Ralph Wayvone, for whom the gun-moll anthem was a great favorite, danced a kind of fox-trot with his newlywed daughter, DL came sauntering up to the mike in front of the reassembled Vom-itones, having with kuno

-zy with-an

lie, with-

ld have be

d have been

hat was it

sraeli m

day in

ets, jamm

. . what

you can keep

you can keep

in Merced

are of all m

blues, in s

a lotta go

o-zy with

ie, with-a

wn and on the final eight bars hit every other beat with a heavy rimshot, an old show-tune tactic American audiences are co

ts and night awakenings of jasmine to where she'd parked her car, a black '84 Trans-Am with extra fairings, side pipes, scoops, and coves not on

lighted Isaiah croon

in' or on a

ch you real quick

ing against light smog that only a few st

eyeball your house

ut it, Str

her goodbye through the window. "Only a co

asy. The Trans-Am backed, turned, and, to the stately Neo-glasspack wind chorale, combustion shaped to music, varying as she shifted gears, departed, the sou