shot from a gun.
Judy stood up, searching frantically for Michael. She had heard him shout with surprise and fear. Had the car hit him?
She saw him a few yards from her, on his hands and knees, white with shock.
“Are you all right?” she said.
He got to his feet. “I’m fine, just shook up.”
Judy looked to see the make of the black car, but it had disappeared.
“Shit,” she said. “I lost him.”
20
As Judy was entering the officers’ club at seven P.M., Raja Khan came running out.
He stopped when he saw her. “What happened to you?”
“Ricky Granger punched me in the nose,” she said. She had a bandage across her face. The pills they had given her at the hospital in Sacramento had eased the pain, but she felt battered and dispirited. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“We were looking for a record album called
“Sure. We hoped it might give us a lead on the woman that called the John Truth show.”
“I’ve located a copy — and it’s right here in town. A store called Vinyl Vic’s.”
“Give that agent a gold star!” Judy felt her energy returning. This could be the lead she needed. It wasn’t much, but it filled her with hope again. Perhaps there was still a chance she could prevent another earthquake. “I’m coming with you.”
They jumped into Raja’s dirty Dodge Colt. The floor was littered with candy bar wrappers. Raja tore out of the parking lot and headed for Haight-Ashbury. “The guy who owns the store is called Vic Plumstead,” he said as he drove. “When I called a couple of days ago, he wasn’t there, and I got a part-time kid who said he didn’t think they had the record but he would ask the boss. I left a card, and Vic called me five minutes ago.”
“At last, a piece of luck!”
“The record was released in 1969 on a San Francisco label, Transcendental Tracks. It got some publicity and sold a few copies in the Bay Area, but the label never had another success and went out of business after a few months.”
Judy’s elation cooled. “That means there are no files we can search for clues to where she might be now.”
“Maybe the album itself will give us something.”
Vinyl Vic’s was a small store stuffed to bursting with old records. A few conventional sales racks in the middle of the floor had been swamped by cardboard boxes and fruit crates stacked to the ceiling. The place smelled like a dusty old library. There was one customer, a tattooed man in leather shorts, studying an early David Bowie album. At the back, a small, thin man in tight blue jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt stood beside a cash register, sipping coffee from a mug that said “Legalize it!”
Raja introduced himself. “You must be Vic. I spoke to you on the phone a few minutes ago.”
Vic stared at them. He seemed surprised. He said: “Finally, the FBI hits my place, and it’s two Asians? What happened?”
Raja said: “I’m the token nonwhite, and she’s the token woman. Every FBI office has to have one of each, it’s a rule. All the other agents are white men with short haircuts.”
“Oh, right.” Vic looked baffled. He didn’t know whether Raja was kidding or not.
Judy said impatiently: “What about this record?”
“Here it is.” Vic turned to one side, and Judy saw he had a turntable behind the cash register. He swung the arm over the disk and lowered the stylus. A burst of manic guitar introduced a surprisingly laid-back jazz-funk track with piano chords over a complex drumbeat. Then the woman’s voice came in:
“I think it’s quite meaningful, actually,” Vic said.
Judy thought it was crap, but she did not care. It was the voice on the John Truth tape, without question. Younger, clearer, gentler, but with that same unmistakable low, sexy tone. “Do you have the sleeve?” she said urgently.
“Sure.” He handed it to her.
It was curling at the corners, and the transparent plastic coating was peeling off the glossy paper. The front had a swirling multicolored design that induced eyestrain. The words “Raining Fresh Daisies” could just be discerned. Judy turned it over. The back was grubby, and there was a coffee ring in the top right-hand corner.
The sleeve notes began: “Music opens the doors that lead to parallel universes.…”
Judy skipped over the words. At the bottom was a row of five monochrome photographs, just head and shoulders, four men and a woman. She read the captions:
Dave Rolands, keyboards
Ian Kerry, guitar
Ross Muller, bass
Jerry Jones, drums
Stella Higgins, poetry
Judy frowned. “Stella Higgins,” she said excitedly. “I believe I’ve heard that name before!” She felt sure, but she could not remember where. Maybe it was wishful thinking. She stared at the small black-and-white head shot. She saw a girl of about twenty with a smiling, sensual face framed by wavy dark hair and the wide, generous mouth Simon Sparrow had predicted. “She was beautiful,” Judy murmured, almost to herself. She searched the face for the craziness that would make a person threaten an earthquake, but she could see no sign of it. All she saw was a young woman full of vitality and hope.
“Can we borrow this?” Judy said.
Vic looked sulky. “I’m here to sell records, not lend them,” he said.
She was not going to argue. “How much?”
“Fifty bucks.”
“Okay.”
He stopped the turntable, picked up the disk, and slipped it into its paper cover. Judy paid him. “Thank you, Vic. We appreciate your help.”
Driving back in Raja’s car, she said: “Stella Higgins. Where have I seen that name?”
Raja shook his head. “It doesn’t ring any bells with me.”
As they got out of the car, she gave him the album. “Make blowups of her photo and circulate them to police departments,” she said. “Give the record to Simon Sparrow. You never know what he might come up with.”
They entered into the command post. The big ballroom now looked crowded. The head shed had been augmented by another table. Among the people crowded around would be several more suits from FBI
