Friction Shifting: A Drake Simo Mystery

By Dan Wesolowski

Drake Simo visits Pedro State Universitys art museum to see a painting by Joni Mitchell. The theft of Latina professor Constance Siennas digital print, Las Amigas and the Gringo Racist Devils, while Drake is in the buildingand a disproportionate reward for its recoveryensnares him in a rambling, raucous investigation.
Insipid ports of callthe hallowed halls of Pedro State, a decrepit trailer park, a labor line for undocumented workerstransport Drake closer to the crimes murky explanation. Incestuous attachments and false prophets encircle this mysterys musky womb of unholy alliances.
Substitute teacher and ex-bicycle racer Drake Simo, distractible and non-violent, is not your average shamus. He lives in the quirky college community of Skyview and solves crimes in an attempt to gain some degree of insightand earn money.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 10, 2003
• ISBN: 9781462840441

Dan Wesolowski

Dan Wesolowski lives near Santa Barbara, California with his wife, Anna. He bicycles 20,000 miles a year. He types his books on a manual typewriter.

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Copyright © 2003 by Dan Wesolowski.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PART ONE

Crime and Confusion

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

PART TWO

The Investigation

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

PART THREE

Resolution

58

59

60

61

In memory of the late Joe and Barbara Simonelli. Keep riding, Joe.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to my father for his support.

Thanks to Irina for her perspective.

Thanks to all the good people of Dos Pueblos High School.

Thanks to everybody who read my first two books, High School Pictures and Distant Vision.

And thanks, as always, to my wife and best friend, Anna.

They withdrew the digital print from the plastic bag, placed it on the table, and studied it for a moment. They nudged the computer art closer to the newspaper-covered window. Light filtered through the yellowed sheet.

I don’t see the problem. The graphics aren’t all that refined, and the color could be better. Pause. But I can’t find anything that offensive.

Uh-huh, sure.

They circled around it.

I have a cousin who makes better stuff on the pc in his bedroom. And he’s only fifteen years old.

Kids have the total edge with computers.

You know it. They can run those Photoshop programs by instinct.

Yeah.

They repositioned the print again and ran their fingers over the plexiglass on its surface.

But this is an original, another pause. We can probably sell it on ebay.

Sell it? I think it’s way ugly. I mean, it’s not even like art.

Maybe ten, twelve grand, freeway traffic was audible outside the window. Maybe more.

A cough. That much?

Absolutely. Let me think. I know somebody with an art gallery in New York.

A shrug. Whatever. I hate it. It looks like a sick cartoon or something.

I tell you, it’ll sell. All kinds of crappy art sell for big bucks. Sculptures of dinosaur turds sell for six figures.

PART ONE

Crime and Confusion

1

Drake locked his single-speed cruiser bicycle to the metal bikerack across the quad from Pedro State University’s art museum. Classes were in session, only a handful of students were passing through the school’s central plaza on this grey, late Monday morning, and long November shadows stretched across the square’s concrete. The UCEN, a multi-storied student center, loomed to his left. There hadn’t been any calls for substitute teaching, so he had a free day.

As he walked to the museum, he passed a group of students protesting against oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They were all dressed in white jumpsuits. Black splotches of various sizes adorned the suits’ cotton fabric. Drake nodded hello as he walked by the protesters.

Big oil kills wildlife, yelled one. His spiked hair was dyed orange.

Oil and the Arctic don’t mix, yelled another.

Drake nodded again and walked through the museum’s glass and metal front doors. Two students wearing hooded sweatshirts and carrying backpacks exited. A college-age woman with long blonde hair in a thick braid sat behind the chrome and metal reception desk. She was reading a Bible with gilded pages and copying passages in a tight miniature script on a pink sheet of paper.

Excuse me.

Yes, she looked up with her pen poised. Acne dotted her rosy cheeks.

Is there a painting here by Joni Mitchell?

I’m like, not really sure? she paused and twirled her pen.

I’m just filling in today and all. She scrunched her freckled nose. But there’s a brand new exhibit of some Chicano poster artists in one of the rooms back there. I mean, I think there is.

Oh, Drake nodded. His neighbor, Tom Sanford, had told him—

And some of their digital posters are like, really nice and all. Symbolic, you know? She pointed past the foyer’s doors to the building’s interior. Totally disturbing. But in a good way?

That makes sense.

Say what? she twirled her pen again.

Uh, thanks.

Sure, she smiled and went back to her Bible passages.

Drake entered the museum’s main room through a wide doorway. A scrawny individual in worn jeans and a cracked and faded brown leather jacket was examining a wall-sized abstract painting. A grey ponytail flowed down his back, and a black messenger bag was slung over his shoulder. He looked vaguely familiar.

Drake stepped closer to him and studied the expansive, textured, multi-colored surface. Blue streaks mingled with a white and yellow and orange background. He cleared his throat. I wonder what he’s trying to say.

"It’s not a he, my friend," ponytail turned. He had a thick, guttural accent and smelled of tobacco.

Excuse me?

"I said it’s not a he. This painting’s by Joni Mitchell, he coughed. And it shows true depth of emotion, amigo. You can feel her struggling to burst through the surface."

Yeah, Drake checked the identifying plate. Joni Mitchell. You know, that woman at the front desk just told me—

It’s not like a lot of that other junk back there, ponytail’s brown and wrinkled index finger pointed to one of the three doorways off the main room.

You mean the Chicano poster artists? I haven’t had the chance to—

You see, many of those digital posters display a certain nationalistic fervor, he paused and dropped his finger. But the images have no soul or passion. This is real. He jutted a stubbled chin at the rippled painting before him.

Drake scanned the large surface. I don’t know. Some of those colors seem to clash.

Ah, listen to me, amigo, the ponytail swished across his back like a ragged mop as he shook his head and moved closer to Drake. You have to feel the material beneath and between your fingers. You have to immerse yourself. He rubbed his fingers together. They were stained and dirty. His black eyes were small, dry and remote.

Drake edged back. Uh, yeah. I never really—

It simply can’t be done with a keyboard. Or on a computer screen. Rubbish, amigo. Rubbish.

Drake studied the man’s lined and pockmarked face. His hollow cheeks were coated with grey stubble. A gold earring twinkled in one earlobe. His dark eyes were back on Joni Mitchell’s painting.

Well, thanks for all the info. I’m just going to keep looking.

The man shrugged, shifted his messenger bag, and glanced around the room.

Drake nodded and walked into an adjacent room. On the way, he passed a bespectacled young woman with straight shoulder-length dark hair and Asian features. A laminated card on her tight black sweater read Jackie. A door on the far side of the room had a sign with red lettering that said ‘Emergency Exit Only. Alarm Will Sound.’ A red sofa was near the door.

The room’s walls were lined with brightly colored prints and posters. The majority displayed themes of political activism and seemed to portray the plight of farm workers crushed by corporate profit margins. One showed a beret-clad man with a fist in the air and Chicano Power stenciled in the space beneath his arm. His fist held a rake. Dollar bills were caught in the rake’s rungs.

Another print was set off from the others both thematically and physically. It caught Drake’s attention, and depicted a voluptuous, half-naked, kneeling Chicana woman superimposed against what looked like the Golden Gate Bridge. She had flowing black hair, wore a checkered bikini bottom, and had a pierced navel. The piercing was a small gold crucifix. A tanned and completely naked white woman with even larger breasts lay supine in the air before her. She had spiked blue hair and various piercings in her nose, lips, and eyebrows. A green knife with a handle shaped like a dollar sign protruded from her stomach. Bikini lines traced the pale flesh around her crotch and breasts. White satanic figures with pitchforks and hooves and outspread arms pranced on the water below them. Another devil was climbing the bridge. He had a long tail, dirty blond hair, and carried both a surfboard and a pitchfork under one arm. He was reaching for the naked woman’s pubic area with the other. The plexiglass-covered print was the size of a legal pad and titled Las Amigas and the Gringo Racist Devils. Constance Sienna was the artist. Drake bent closer to—

Progressive stuff, huh?

Drake turned. It was Jackie. She wore black stretchpants, bright red lipstick, and designer eyeglasses. Her black boots with thick soles and stacked heels clacked on the wooden floor as she walked toward Drake. Maybe she was twenty years old.

Well, actually I—

And like, the artist? She did it all through digital manipulation of scanned images. It is achieved through careful manipulation of a matrix of pixels.

Really? Pixels? Drake studied the print.

Totally, Jackie checked her red lacquered fingernails and tapped her foot. Amazing, huh?

Drake wasn’t sure what to say. Groundbreaking.

Unquestionably, Jackie nodded and licked a nail. And extremely valuable.

Actually, I came here to see a painting by Joni Mitchell.

"She is not a Chicana artist."

No, she—

Well, like, I really do not think she is in this exhibit or anything, Jackie fluttered her fingers and looked around. Maybe, like, another room?

Right. Her painting’s in the other—

Anyway, there should be loads more information at the desk, Jackie spun on her heel and clacked over to a younger couple talking on cell phones while studying an image of a beer can overflowing with grapes and human skulls.

Drake shrugged, turned, and walked into another room. As he did so, he noticed a camera above the doorway pointed toward the emergency exit.

A slim concrete beam occupied the center of this new room. Its base was a solid block of marble. Narrow grooves ran up the beam’s sides. The concrete appeared solid and was very weathered. Drake ran his fingers through the grooves and pressed a bit. The pillar didn’t budge. It probably weighed several hundred pounds. Drake stood back and circled. Vertical grooves were also on the other side. He placed a fingertip—

Hey. Like, do not touch that.

Drake turned. It was Jackie again.

Don’t touch it?

Right. Do not touch it, Jackie clacked closer and waved a hand in a shooing motion.

Really? Drake stepped back and studied the post. It looks like it’s been outside.

Right. It used to be behind the chancellor’s residence by the lagoon.

Oh, Drake paused. So it’s delicate?

Delicate? Jackie crossed her arms under her breasts. Look, do not be soo disrespectful of a deceased alumnus sculptor. She inspected the pillar for damage and cautiously tapped it with a red fingernail.

Is it broken?

Jackie rolled her eyes, shook her head, and kept tapping.

Drake heard a murmur of voices outside the art museum that signaled the end of eleven o’clock classes. It was almost lunchtime.

Jackie finished her inspection and spun on her heel. You know, I am like, constantly reminding patrons that this is very significant art. Timeless. Look, do not touch. You know?

Drake shrugged. Whatever. He could hear masses of students moving on the other side of the museum’s walls.

I mean, you should see some of the freshmen? Like, they have soo little appreciation of artistic nuance, she checked both her watch and her fingernails.

Drake nodded. Nuance.

Several students entered the room. They all carried backpacks and wore hooded sweatshirts of various colors. A male with purple hair and a red goatee was eating a bag of chips. Another was talking on a cell phone and rooting through the cargo pockets of his pants.

Yo, let’s find that poster with the chick with those big boobs. It’s tight, the chip-eater pointed to the doorway.

I’m on it, his friend kept rooting.

See what I mean, Jackie flapped her arms. They are soo—

A loud whoop-whoop-whoop filled the museum.

2

Oh my god. The freaking alarm, Jackie spun around and clacked into a room off to the left. Drake looked around. He yawned and touched the pillar again. Still rock solid. Jackie returned in a few minutes. Her glasses now were askew. Her sweater looked tighter. The alarm kept whooping. She went into the room with the digital prints.

Drake gave the pillar a little push and followed.

Oh my god. Like, somebody took the digital print by Constance Sienna, Jackie was pointing a red fingernail to an empty space on the wall.

The emergency door was wide open. Drake could see clusters of students walking by outside. Some looked into the museum and waved. A few walked inside.

Hey, do not come in here or anything, Jackie hurried to the door and tried to pull it shut. It wouldn’t completely close. Other students shrugged and bumped past her. Several more followed. Several exited.

The Bible reading receptionist trotted into the room. She was quite tall.

Quick Suzie, Jackie tugged on the door. Ouch, hey, she looked at her fingernails. One was broken. Damn it. Hey, Suzie, like, call the assistant vice-curator.

Suzie stopped abruptly. Uh, he’s on sabbatical? In Irvine?

Right. Shit, I forgot, Jackie sucked on her broken fingernail. Well then, just call the damn campus police. Hurry. Shit, Jackie looked at the door. And turn off the freakin’ alarm.

More students exited. And entered. And exited.

I’m on it, Suzie trotted from the room.

Jackie pulled on the door and cursed. The student with the red goatee and purple hair strolled past her. He was still eating potato chips.

Hey, you really cannot leave this way.

Whatever, bitch. I have to eat lunch, he dropped his chip bag on the floor and walked outside. His friend with the cell phone followed. He was still digging in his cargo pants. He raised his eyebrows at Jackie and flipped up the hood of his sweatshirt.

Asshole, Jackie gave him the finger.

The whooping stopped.

Finally, Jackie shook her head, stepped back, and studied her fingernail.

Drake noticed a rolled up magazine wedged behind the hinges. He pointed. That’s why you can’t close it. Drake bent over, yanked it free, and unrolled it. It was the current issue of Penthouse.

Oh, Jackie stepped forward and closed the door. Her designer glasses still were askew. She straightened them and looked at Drake. Thanks. Or something. I guess.

No problem, Drake shrugged. I think—

Hey, you know, did you like, not see anything suspicious in here?

Me?

No. Duh, whom do you think? she looked around.

Who do I think did it?

Oh my god, Jackie flapped her arms. Are you like, not hearing me or something?

No, but—

The police? They’re a bit delayed and all, Suzie returned with her Bible in her hand. Her cheeks were a bit flushed. There’s a major accident at Campus Point? Some surfers drove their SUV into the lagoon?

Drake nodded. Like many other female California students, Suzie spoke in questions.

Great. Shit, Jackie walked over to the empty space on the wall and tapped it with her nail.

Suzie joined her. Dr. Sienna? She’s going to be upset in a major way about this, you know? I mean, the gringo capitalist pig print? It’s one of her favorites? Suzie touched the naked wall and frowned.

It is her gringo racist devil digital print, Suzie, Jackie made a serious face.

Oh, Suzie tucked her Bible under her arm. Right. That’s, totally unfortunate?

Drake checked the room. He saw the man with the grey ponytail watching them. Drake nodded. The man shook his head quickly and retreated to another room. Other students entered and perused the exhibit. Drake looked at the Penthouse in his hand. He opened it and scanned a few pages.

You know, we should probably close the museum? Suzie flipped her blonde braid.

I know, I know, Jackie hugged herself. Tampras is going to be soo pissed. Damn it. She looked around. We are really blowing this whole thing. There are way numerous people in here. It is not being handled, you know? Shit. I even checked the incorrect exit first. The south one?

That’s too bad. But well, it’s like, lunchtime? Suzie cleared her throat. The police—

This totally sucks, Jackie clacked away.

Drake closed the Penthouse and looked at Suzie. Do you think I can leave?

Like, probably. I mean, I’m not in charge, you know? Suzie held the Bible with both hands. It was a large Bible. It’s beyond our control? She looked at the ceiling.

Drake looked her over. She wore jeans, white sneakers, and a baggy grey long-sleeved Pedro State University t-shirt. He rolled up the magazine. Another group of students walked past them.

Was the print valuable?

Oh, well, Suzie lowered her eyes. I guess, you know, every digital print is unique? I mean, it’s cutting edge artistic expression and all.

Drake shrugged. I’m not an expert, but wouldn’t a cutting edge copy be in her computer?

Her computer? Suzie scrunched her forehead. If it isn’t erased, I guess so, you know? Suzie glanced at her Bible. But, it’s still, like, missing now, right? Stolen? Gone?

No. I meant that if it’s digital art, can’t she just make another copy of the gringo racist devils? I’ve read somewhere that you can never really erase a hard drive.

Suzie flinched and gripped her Bible harder. Hey, I’m soo not like, into computers? OK? You’ll have to ask Jackie.

OK, Drake edged toward the door. He was hungry. Thanks for the help.

Sure. Suzie tilted her head. Hey? Mister? Like, remember Luke 12:15?

Drake didn’t. He waved goodbye.

More students were in the other room examining the concrete pillar. One held it with both hands and mimicked a humping motion with his hips while his friends laughed.

Drake saw Jackie on the phone as he passed through the reception area and exited. She made no effort to stop him. He briefly glimpsed the man with the grey ponytail on the far side of the quad before lunchtime throngs of students hid him from view.

3

Drake walked slowly toward his parked bike and tapped the rolled up Penthouse on his thigh.

Yo, dude, sign our petition.

Save the Arctic, the student with orange hair now had a megaphone.

Drake turned to the students in white jumpsuits.

Come on, dude. Sign. Do you want to see drilling in the Arctic? Should we trade a pristine wilderness for six months worth of oil?

We’re giving away a total treasure to make our president rich. Save it instead! Conserve! Downsize! Go solar!

Drake stepped to a folding table with several petition forms on its surface. He bent down to read—

Hey Mr. Simo, uh, sign here and uh, stop big oil, a seated student pushed a pen across the synthetic surface. He wore a t-shirt with a red X over an oil rig. He had shoulder-length blond hair and his face was deeply tanned.

Jesse?

Yeah. Right, umm, it’s me, Mr. Simo. I uh, umm, transferred here from uh, city college last September.

Jesse had been in one of Drake’s senior English classes two years ago at Pedro Beach High. Before Drake’s contract hadn’t been renewed for the following year.

So, uh, umm, are you going to sign, Mr. Simo? It’s a righteous cause.

Drake shook himself. Sure Jesse. Good to see you.

Yeah, uhh, umm, I’m uh, stoked to see you again, Jesse flipped his hair and scanned the students mingling in front of the university center. Like, uh, we have to stop these ummm, bogus oil companies. They’re uh, killing it.

Think so?

You know it, Mr. Simo. Uh, you know, Mr. Simo, did uh, the alarm just go off or something in the umm, art museum?

Drake hesitated. It did, Jesse. I was in there looking at a painting by Joni—

Huh, thought so, Jesse leaned back. He tossed his hair and laughed. His teeth were white and even. Stupid uh, freshmen are always umm, taking shortcuts to the Humanities Building.

Through the art museum?

Exactly, Jesse shrugged his broad shoulders. The uh, south exit. Or the west. It’s uh, lame.

A digital print was just stolen there.

Umm, no shit, really? Jesse took an apple from under the table and bit into its bright red surface. Uh, that’s umm, lame, too.

Drake looked around the quad. A car was edging onto the concrete. He pointed with his magazine. Here come the cops.

A white and blue campus police cruiser inched through the crowd and across the quad. It stopped in front of the art museum. Jackie stood in the museum’s doorway and waved her injured fingernail.

Save the Arctic, bellowed the protester with the megaphone.

Uhh, that’s really umm, over the top, Mr. Simo, Jesse took another bite. "You