Nothing intricatejust Jimmy playing an acoustic guitar and bits of harmonica. The nimble 12-string bridge is way out of his league, and undoubtedly was contributed by one of his famous pals or a first-rate session player. Ironically, there's no bass track at all, which makes the shooting of poor Tito Negraponte even more insulting.
Above all I'm struck by Jimmy's voice, so stark and subdued that Slut Puppies fans would never guess it was him. A light background harmony comes in on the last two refrainsI'm certain it's Ajax and Maria Bonilla, the singers I met at the funeral.
While the lyrics are a bit top-heavy with similes, the song is still more interesting than most of the formulaic crap on the radio. Over and over I play the piece, and from beginning to end it comes through as one voicedefinitely not Cleo's. I'd bet the farm that Jimmy wrote it long before he met her, and that he wrote it for another woman.
You took me like a storm, tossed me out of reach,
Left me like the tide, lost and broken on a beach.
Shipwrecked heart, my shipwrecked heart ...
Watching for your sails on the horizon.
Years we took the sea, together cold and rough.
The weather in our souls, we never got enough.
Shipwrecked heart, my shipwrecked heart ...
Dreaming of your sails on the horizon.
The waves won't let me sleep, night whispers to the shore.
Stars run behind the clouds, an empty sea wants more,
The empty sea wants more.
Shipwrecked heart, my shipwrecked heart ...
Watching for your sails on the horizon.
Watching for your love on the horizon.
Sitting beside me on the plane is a kid of Evan's age, maybe slightly younger. He seems curious about the open spiral notebook and the unmarked CDs stacked on my lap, but he's too shy to speak up. So I take off the headphones and ask his name.
Kyle, he says.
"Mine's Jack Tagger. You like music?"
Kyle is nineteen, it turns out, and attends the University of South Florida on a baseball scholarship. He plays third base and left field, which means he's got an arm. I ask what kind of music he likes, and he says Rage Against the Machine, Korn, stuff like that. "My girlfriend's favorite is PJ Harvey," he adds.
"That's promising. And, Kyle, how might she feel about Ms. Britney Spears?"
He makes a gagging motion with a forefinger.
"You should probably marry that girl," I say.
"Sometimes I think about it."
Kyle hails from Redondo Beach, where the love of his life works in a gym. She drove him to the airport this afternoon and waited at the gate until his flight was called. She's twenty, he adds, opening his wallet to show me a picture. I would have been stupefied if she weren't blond and breathtaking, a statutory requirement for female health-club instructors in Southern California. The name of Kyle's girlfriend is Shawna, and under the circumstances he seems to be holding up well.
"Would you mind doing me a favor?" I say. "Could you listen to a song and tell me what you think."
I hand the headset to Kyle and cue up "Shipwrecked Heart." As the track plays, he gives an approving nod and a thumbs-up. Obviously he thinks I've got a proprietary connection to the recording, some creative or financial stake, because the moment it's over he says, "Hey, that's sweet."
"It's all right if you don't like it. Just tell me the truth."
"But I do. I mean, it's sorta slow but it's ... I dunno"
"Pretty?"
"Yeah. Pretty," he says. "Like an old song."
"It was written a while back, but never released."
"Oh," says Kyle. "Is there, like, maybe a faster version?"
"I'm afraid not. Think your girlfriend would go for it?"
"For sure. Who is it, anyway?"
"Ever heard of Jimmy Stoma and the Slut Puppies?"
Young Kyle shakes his head no.
"Well, it's Jimmy solo," I say, "only he's dead now."
"Bummer."
"How about a singer named Cleo Rio? You know who she is?"
"I can't remember what song she does, but I caught the video a few times. My girlfriend calls her Princess Pube."
"What's your girlfriend's last name?"
"Cummings." Kyle knits his brow. "Why are you writing it down?"
"Because if you don't marry her," I tell him, "I intend to fly back here and propose myself. She sounds like a winner, Kyle, and winners won't come along often in this ragged sorry life. And don't think you're something special just because you can hit a hanging curve or turn a hot double play. You're not careful, you'll go home Christmas break and find out young Shawna's engaged to some buck-toothed surfer named Tookie. Now, promise you won't let that happen."
His eyes flick bewilderedly from me to the notebook. "Stick with me, son. I'm a trained journalist."
"Okay," he says finally. "I promise."
Improper lane-changing etiquette has resulted in two drivers pulling out semi-automatics and inconsiderately shooting each other in the diamond lane of the interstate. The traffic jam is epic, and by the time I reach my apartment in Silver Beach it's one-fifteen in the morning. Emma is asleep behind the wheel of her new Camry in the parking lot. Quietly I wake her and lead her upstairs, where I prop her in a chair, place a cup of decaf in her hand and make her listen to "Shipwrecked Heart."
She says it's good. "But"
"The answer is yes, she wanted it badly enough to murder him. Remember, Emma, this is supposed to be her big follow-up hit. She's already promised it to the labela title cut, co-written with her famous ex-rocker husband. But Jimmy says, 'Sorry, darling, this one's mine,' and all of a sudden Cleo sees her Grammy going down the bidet ... "
I'm so wired, so stoked by what Tito Negraponte told me, that I'm yammering at Emma like some hyper-caffeinated auctioneer. "Cleo's under incredible heat to put out an album before people forget who she is. That's the record businessblink twice and you're over. There's no ten years down the road, or even five years down the road. Not anymore. Plus, Cleo knows she'd better come up with a new pose, something that makes her look like a sensitive artisteinstead of just another big-eyed anorexic brat."
"This song's not exactly her style," Emma says. Like every other human under thirty, she has seen the widow's stripteasy performance of "Me" on MTV.
"Cleo's 'Shipwrecked Heart' won't sound anything like this by the time Loreal gets through with it," I explain. "He'll muck it up with synthesizers and a brainless dance mix, but so what. Cleo doesn't care about the music, she cares about the sell. In her head she's already storyboarding the video."
Emma flinches. "I can see her now. A scantily clad castaway on a long, deserted beach ... "
"Bingo. Problem isand this was painfully obvious at the funeralshe can't do the song until she learnsthe song. And she can't learn the song until she gets her hands on the recording"
"But that's not the only reason she wants it," Emma cuts in.
"Right. What we found on Jimmy's boat is your basic smoking gun." Even if Cleo got a copy and dubbed her own vocals, she couldn't release it as long as the master is floating around. If Jimmy's original ever surfaced, Cleo would beon the next train to Milli Vanilli-ville. Toast.
Because stealing from your dead spouse is not cool, even in the music industry.
"So now," Emma says, "Cleo's hunting down everyone who might have the hard drive, or know where it isyou, Jay Burns, Jimmy's sister, even this Tito guy. And the other bass player probably would've been next, if he hadn't run."
"That seems to be the scenario."
"Question is, how do we get all this in the paper?" Emma is sounding more and more like a serious news editor.
"First, I've got to make sure we're right," I say, "and I'll know that in about twelve hours."