Act of God

entrance. To my right stood album covers of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Zombies, and groups that trailed off from there. A laminated page from Billboard magazine showed Creedence Clearwater Revival, Blind Faith, and Iron Butterfly having records in the top-ten LP category. Across the room hung posters from Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Barba-rella, the last showing Jane Fonda in a French-maid pose wearing less clothing and holding a ray gun that looked like the prototype for a portable hair dryer. There were racks with bell-bottoms and tie-dyes and leather vests and bowler hats, clogs and sandals and Carnaby Street two-tones on shoe shelves under them.
    “Help you?”
    I turned to see where the gravelly female voice came from. She was about my age, standing in front of a display with various forms of kitsch on it. Black hair parted in the center and combed long and straight like Michelle Phillips used to wear hers, a peasant dress from the Mama Cass collection brushing the ground at her feet. It was hard to tell with the dress, but the woman seemed to be below medium height and above medium weight, with a virtually boneless face and a flower in her hair over the left ear. You wouldn’t have placed her even as the heavier woman from the photograph in Darbra Proft’s bedroom.
    “Darlene Nugent?”
    She stood a little straighter, nearly upsetting a lava lamp by her elbow. “You’re the one on the phone.”
    “That’s right.”
    “I got a can of Mace under here.”
    “Oh, my.”
    The voice to my right belonged to an elderly woman with hennaed hair and a conservative suit, holding a hand to her mouth.
    To the elderly woman, I said, “Nothing to worry about, ma’am.”
    Reassured, the woman faced Nugent. “I came in here to purchase something for my grandson, because he lived in San Francisco during the summer of 1968. However, I must confess that I cannot bring myself to do so.”
    Nugent said, “How come?”
    “There are pornographic photos back there for a play entitled Oh, Calcutta , I believe it is, and others with a naked white man kissing an oriental woman in all sorts of... poses.”
    “And you’re offended, right?”
    “That’s right.”
    Nugent nodded her head. “So fuck off, blue-hair.” Stunned, the elderly woman teetered a bit in her sensible shoes, then stalked out of the store, the cowbell jangling wildly as she slammed the door behind her.
    I said, “Great customer relations.”
    Nugent came back to me. “Who are you and what do you want?”
    “My name’s John Cuddy. I’m a private investigator from Boston .”
    She glanced at my ID, but seemed to be forming a thought before she did. “ Mannix, huh?”
    “Not like on TV, Ms. Nugent. This is real.”
    A sweep of the hand that took in her inventory. “This is real, too, pal. It just isn’t reality. See the difference?” ‘j “This is history, but real. Only today is reality.”
    “That’s right.” She seemed to relax a little. “You ever have somebody do your chart?”
    “My chart?”
    “Your astrological chart. You know, signs and moons and which houses things are in.”
    “Not recently.” I
    “Too bad. I got this woman, she’s Armenian, but a real wiz with the zodiac. All the biggies used them. Marilyn, Janis...”
    “ Nancy .”
    “ Nancy ?”
    “Reagan.”
    A hand to the hip, like a pregnant woman trying to relieve some pressure. “You’re one of those, huh?”
    “One of those what?”
    “One of those guys, demonstrated against the war in ‘sixty-nine, then voted for Death Valley Days in ‘eighty.”
    “Wrong on both counts.”
    “Both? You weren’t against the war?”
    “I wasn’t against it until I was in it, and by then it was a little late for leafletting at shopping centers.”
    For some reason that seemed to soften her. “Okay. What can I do for you?”
    “I’ve been hired by your nephew to find your niece.”
    “My...? Will-yum?”
    Everybody seemed to have a different derogation of my client’s name. “That’s right.”
    “So where’s Darbra off to?”
    “That’s what I’m trying to find out. She went to New Jersey for a vacation, came back, and disappeared.”
    “And you figure I know something about it?”
    “You’re a close relative.”
    “I’m her aunt—Jesus, that still sounds odd to hear me say, you know? That I’m aunt to somebody in her twenties. Anyway, I’m Darbra’s ‘aunt,’ but that doesn’t make us close.”
    “She called you a