Beyond the Trees

BEYOND THE TREES

Copyright © 2015 by Wrondal Burch Woodall. All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

FOR MY MOTHER MARY LOU WOODALL

"The truth will set you free,

but first, it will make you miserable."

James A. Garfield

Table of Contents

PINK JELLO

ADIOS DUMBASS

SECRETORUM

WEIRD BUNCH

JIM-BOY

HUGE BEASTS

DOUBLOON MAP

LITTLE SNEER

DINOSAUR COUNTRY

GOD HUNTERS

PUPPET MASTER

FORTUNE TELLER

SHOTGUN DWARF

BLUE EYES

FOOTPATH MAGIC

HOLY MAN

SKULL MOON

TWO RIVERS

EPILOGUE

PINK JELLO

Los Angeles, 1963

Dressed in a black coat and striped vest, a rather rugged-faced man opened the door and changed my life forever.

My name is Mr. Dobbs, I said. I received a phone call requesting my services.

He ushered me into a raised front room. Mr. Cranston will be with you soon. He gave a curt little bow and disappeared.

Reflections, skipping off the sea, streamed in through a huge picture window. Bookcases, paintings and artistic do-dads lined the walls. A grand piano supported a tall silver vase holding a single red rose. I pulled a book from a shelf, a cloth bound early edition of Moby Dick.

Do you appreciate literature? I turned quick. My host had padded in hush across thick Persian carpet.

I read, I said.

What, the Sunday comics?

The book returned to its appointed resting place. Raymond Chandler or Hemingway entertain me sometimes.

Commendable, very commendable. Care for a whiskey?

Uncorking a cut-glass decanter, he poured us both a stiff one and handed me the drink, straight, no ice. Blonde, limp hair reclined in short curls on his skull. He appeared to be in his mid-forties.

It’s good of you to come right over, Mr. Dobbs. Pardon me for being abrupt. How much do you charge?

That depends. You want a cat rescued from a tree? If you possess a tall ladder, my rates are reasonable and thrifty. As the task becomes more complicated, the price goes up.

Understandable. Cranston coughed delicately into a silk handkerchief. A plaid sports coat, a blue dress shirt, a yellow scarf precisely crossed and held together by a jade stickpin, black slacks and boat shoes completed his fashion ensemble. He looked in good condition for a man of his age, if two hundred and fifty pounds of blubber is your idea of good condition.

My wife has left me. On her way out the door, she stole a valuable artifact from my collection. It's absolutely imperative I retrieve my property.

Why not let the police handle it? I said.

Whether she wishes to return home or not, I don't want Melinda going to jail. This must be handled with discretion.

Two hundred dollars a day.

That’s ROBBERY!!

You damn right it is. A week in advance. On the promissory note spell it, Jessup T. Dobbs… Dobbs with two b’s, by the way... artifact? What are we talking about?

Cranston paused long enough for his blood pressure to approach some kind of normal. Pearly peepers contemplated a high rent view of Pacific vastness.

I'm an antiquities dealer. The missing relic is an Assyrian king's ceremonial drinking cup, circa 700 BC, nearly priceless. Along with other investors, I'm part owner.

Finishing off the liquor, I walked over to the grand piano and struck a few notes at random-plink. Below on the beach, touched by wind and waves, strolled a young couple.

"Alright, my secretary will send over the required paperwork. Any ideas where I might look for the Missus, perhaps a forwarding address, or maybe a boyfriend’s name?"

Cranston chose to ignore my ill-advised dig at the sanctity of his marriage. His ever-expanding frame shuffled to a carved wooden desk. A drawer, festooned in gold filigree, squeaked open.

She’s acquired religion, some sort of holy man with a hard-on for rich bitches. He handed me a scrap of paper with an address written in pencil, 8386 Mulholland Drive. Melinda was approached on the street by disciples handing out literature and fanciful stories concerning a yogi named Jath. She became obsessed with the fakir. I instructed my driver to accompany her on excursions to a mansion up in the Hollywood Hills where lectures on so-called cosmic enlightenment took place. On the day of the theft, she drove the car herself and never returned. This SWAMI BASTARD has vanished off the planet accompanied by his followers and my wife. Other detectives worked the case. They were useless and fired without notice. You come recommended as a man of extreme perseverance, a real Fire-Eater is how one of your colleagues described you.

You employed amateurs before, I said. Now you've hired a professional.

It’s been two months since Melinda made the mistake of leaving me. I want results. I'll pay you a five thousand dollar bonus when the artifact is in my hands.

Do you have a recent photo of your wife?

His big mitt pulled an eight by ten glossy print from the drawer and shoved it at me. The image, shot in the style of an actress publicity picture, displayed a woman a good fifteen years younger than my new found employer. She had long dark hair and radiant bedroom eyes.

Cranston gave me a penetrating look he must have picked up from watching gangster movies. You carry a gun I suppose?

It’s part of the mystique of my occupation, but rarely used,

You won’t hurt my feelings if you use it on that yogi.

I’m not a hired killer.

I offered him a gold inlaid pen. Opening a small leather case, he turned away from me. As he scribbled, the back of his neck jiggled like pink Jello. Cranston tore along the dotted line. I grabbed the check.

ADIOS DUMBASS

The phone booth was stifling hot and reeked of stale urine. On the other side of the filthy wall glass, carrying a small radio, the kind with a handle and a tiny tin-can sounding speaker, a tight ass beach nymph glided, walking in life and air and casting her long lean shadow on the sand. I could hear blatant screamers abusing the lyrics to an insipid rock n roll song. In time to the music her hips rolled, tanned legs shaved delicate smooth and swinging loose and free from her pelvis. For at least fifteen or twenty seconds I forgot my ex-wife.

Not in a legal sense ex-wife, no divorce, she just high-tailed it one afternoon. After a hectic day at work, I arrived at our apartment and felt something premeditated in the air, tense and unexpected. A sheet of stationary, held in place by a smiling Bugs Bunny magnet, clung to the refrigerator. The page captured Roxanne’s beautiful flowing cursive in a short and not so sweet message, ‘ADIOS DUMBASS!’ I guess that note of repressed violence said it all... except for the other paraphernalia, like I still love her, am still hopelessly entangled in her innocence and wildness. No paper logic can explain this monkey business. Regardless of the empty spaces that mock me now, I continue to believe someday she will walk up resurrection road (the face at the window, the opened door) and we will kiss and laugh about how the arguments were so funny ridiculous, little dramas hardly worth serious attention. Then we make mad passionate love, SEX that makes you breathe like a steam engine, huffing, puffing, clouds of vapor masking facial contortions, the conductor yelling ALL ABOARD! the rails groaning beneath the mattress. Afterward we go to dinner at Rosa's restaurant down on the pier, with the L.A. coastline laid out in a necklace of jeweled lights and the KTLA radio tower winking its great red eye at a Soda Pop Moon. Holding hands, we gaze off into the purpled distance. Yeah, seriously.

Freddy, I want two hundred dollars on Bye Bye Gone in the ninth at Santa Anita. The receiver was almost too hot to hold onto.

No can do!

… big job in the works, I said. I’m good for it.

Crazy Al says you pay the whole enchilada by next week, or it’s the hard way. That means Rocco.

Screw Rocco! My foot kicked the folding door for emphasis. He’s too dumb to be a threat to anyone but himself. Don’t worry, I’ll have the money.

I’m not the one who should be worried. The phone clicked dead.

As I stepped out of the booth, an old car backfired. I jumped sideways and shouted. Too much black coffee.

Where are those smokes? Shuffling through my suit pockets the memory of going cold turkey on the coffin nails rushed back at me, raison d’etre? — something to do with bent over wheezing almost puking, after a respectable married man chased me... serious chasing down a dusty back alley in North Hollywood. Shooting through a half-open window, I had been trying to snap a clear picture of him dancing the horizontal bop with his teenage secretary. The goddamn shutter on that camera makes way more racket than necessary.

I climbed into my 58 Plymouth Fury two-door convertible, all burnished steel, cherry-red paint and a silver slam of chrome, a machine-age marvel sporting many civilized accouterments. A turn of the key and the wheels whirled fast and steady toward downtown Los Angeles. Summer heat waves shimmered along the backbones of the foothills. Slipping past the side window, outlined by the fencelines of the fields, a few old wooden oil derricks bobbed their iron heads. Like giant prehistoric birds, swinging their necks through a tall curvature, they pecked and tore at the rugged terrain. Standing next to one of the derricks, a young man in a cowboy hat tried to coax a horse to him. The steed was having none of it and skittered, reverse-pedaled and ran in circles, plunging, hard-breathing, eyes rolling wide. Spooked by the cryptic machinery towering over him and the ominous shadow passing in rhythmic arcs through his breeze-blown mane, the horse had reverted back to the wildness of earth before man. In a way, the animal reminded me of my life, strange and uncontrollable, never doing what I asked of it, moving in unexpected directions, stampeded by an apparatus over which I had little control.

SECRETORUM

Mulholland Drive looks down on the unwashed masses of L.A. from a catbird seat. Only the rich, or those cunning souls who feed off the rich, can afford these digs, living like rajahs along a stretched out mountaintop retreat.

The address Cranston gave me turned out to be a sprawling house built in the French Renaissance chateau style with gilded windows and little minarets and spires on the peaked roofs. It sat far back from the street amid terraced gardens and streaks of darting luster on the sky.

I parked in a circular driveway, exited the vehicle and approached the residence. Two gentlemen appeared from the front door and walked towards me. They were dressed in white shirts, brown ties, dark trousers and wide-brimmed hats, the type of hat a Quaker might wear. The bowlegged chum on the left had a short unbuttoned green dress coat spread over an ample body. His tall partner carried a walking staff with rune symbols incised in the polished wood and he wore a long burgundy colored duster.

We welcome you to the Tolapnic Society, said the bowlegged one. Thick red hair, unsettled and wandering, poked out beneath his hat. My name is Mr. Voegelin and this is Mr. Luce. I assume you are here for the seminar, but I’m afraid you are a little early, it doesn’t commence until three pm.

No, not here for the seminar, I said, the words just dropping onto my tongue. I was wondering if you had any information on the former tenant. He bought a wonderful set of encyclopedias from my company, but I understand he’s vacated the property. The encyclopedias are in the trunk of my car. If you can point me in Jath’s direction, I could make my delivery and would be much obliged to you.

A peculiar sort, said Mr. Voegelin. He left town with no notice and broke his lease. Several detectives have inquired of his whereabouts. Mr. Luce and I were glad to step in and take over the contract for this estate, a grand abode, perfectly located for our purposes, once owned by Joe Bob Turner, the original Singing Cowboy, who made his screen debut in ‘Arizona Range War’. Say! As an admirer of education, I’m sure you would appreciate our seminar today based on the hyperborean precepts and esoteric wisdom of Lemuria.

Leaning on his walking stick, Mr. Luce seized the opportunity to exercise his vocal cords. Yes, as might be expected, the lines of divine energy, the pathways of karma, brought you to our doorstep. Occult knowledge of the Lost Civilization of Lemuria, including teleportation and anti-gravity, was preserved for posterity on stone tablets known as the Secretorum, or ‘Secret of Secrets’. On that dreadful afternoon when the earth’s magnetic poles reversed and the waves came, the Secretorum floated away inside an airtight bronze sarcophagus, riding the floodtide for years amid horrendous storms. Mr. Voegelin, after much time and effort, discovered its hidden resting place. Using ancient enlightenment, translated and coaxed from its verses, we will instruct you in the Advanced Spirituality and earth shattering powers of the Lemurian culture. Forty people are scheduled for the symposium, but I’m sure we could squeeze you in. Cash, check, or money order of only a hundred dollars is accepted as the enrollment fee.

I drummed my chin with my fingertips. If I’m able to find my customer’s whereabouts, perhaps I could come back and enjoy one of your fine lectures. He made a down payment and when the full amount is collected I’ll have the cash for admission.

Humph, yes, yes, said Mr. Luce. The smoke from a skywriting plane spelled the name Mary.

Mr. Voegelin looked at me more closely. I didn’t catch your moniker?

Stepping forward, I shook their hands. "Tom Bendershot of the Worldwide Encyclopedia Company, we aim to open everyone’s eyes to all the information of the planet."

They insisted in shaking in the old Roman style where we clasped forearms. I noticed Masonic emblems, the Square and Compass, the Blazing Star, the Rough and Perfect Ashlar, the Arc of the Covenant, the Sheaf of Corn, hand stitched around Mr. Voegelin’s hatband.

To be honest Mr. Bendershot, we have found irregularities in the energy field that yogi Jath left behind. Glancing at his comrade, Mr. Voegelin cleared his throat and continued. Some of the initiates in our brotherhood claim to have seen Jath standing at the top of the stairs clothed in a long white robe and holding out his palms while touching both thumbs and index fingers, forming a triangle, the secret ‘Eye of the Pyramid’ sign. My wife screamed at the sight of him and called him Satan. Others swear that various evenings his lusty voice echoes down the hallways chanting, ‘GIVE ME BREAD, GIVE ME WINE!’ We ourselves have never witnessed these paranormal events, although occasionally we do hear an electrifying hum in the air, a whirligig type noise, very troubling indeed. Also, right after we moved into the residence a slanderous writer started spreading lies about us in the local press. This low-born author, who scribbles fancy words under the nom de plume of Rinaldo, goes to great lengths to satirize and crib together comedic claptrap about our serious metaphysical labors. He even had the audacity to refer to me as bowlegged! I’m not bowlegged, am I Mr. Luce? Shaking his noggin side-to-side, Mr. Luce gave fierce moral support. "There, you see. Because the literary insults and mudslinging began at the same time as Jath’s spectral visitations, we think the two incidents are spiritually connected. Our deep understanding of the arcane mysteries leads us to believe some unwholesome evil