Zig Zag


 
 
 
 ADVANCE PRAISE FOR ZIG ZAG
 “A book that starts with an epigraph from D.C. Berman already has me eating out of its hand but then J.D. O’Brien goes and ups the ante. Zig Zag is a cosmic American crime odyssey that’s reminiscent of Barry Gifford, James Crumley, Charles Portis, Elmore Leonard, and Charles Willeford. Wild, funny, and entertaining as hell. Capri Dall and Harry Robatore are characters I won’t soon forget.”
 -William Boyle, author of Shoot the Moonlight Out, City of Margins, and A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself
 “An at times funny, at times hard-boiled, at times sweetly sad crime romp set in some of the scuzzier pockets of Southern California. J.D. O’Brien lovingly limns these divey bars, rundown motels, and tickytacky apartments and brings to life the stoned and soused oddballs who stumble through them. It’s Elmore Leonard meets Warren Zevon with a wry sensibility all its own, and I enjoyed every page of it.”
 -Richard Lange, author of Rovers, The Smack, and Angel Baby
 “Feels like a great 70s movie.”
 -David Gordon Green, director of Pineapple Express, Joe
 “A rare debut crime novel with the hardboiled humor of Charles Willeford and Barry Gifford, J.D. O’Brien’s saga of a dope-smoking, Nudie suit-wearing bail bondsman is a freewheeling oater for the ages.”
 -Jim Ruland, author of Forest Of Fortune, Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall Of SST Records
 “A weed-soaked modern western packed with laugh-out-loud digressions and hard luck characters so real I half-expected to find one sitting on a barstool next to me long after I finished the novel. The kind of offbeat book that I can’t wait to loan out to friends.”
 -Duncan Birmingham, author of The Cult In My Garage and writer/director of Who Invited Them
 “J.D. O’Brien has written the perfect country & western novel.”
 -Mike Postalakis, author of L.A. By Mouth: The Essential Guide To Eating In Los Angeles
 
 
 Copyright © 2023 by J.D. O’Brien
 First Edition
 Hardcover Original
 Cover & interior design by Billy Simkiss
 No part of this book may be excerpted or reprinted without the express written consent of the Publisher.
 Contact: Permissions Dept., Schaffner Press, PO Box 41567, Tucson, AZ 85717
 Library of Congress Control Number: 2022933115
 ISBN: 978-1-639640-13-3 (Hardcover)
 ISBN: 978-1-639640-15-7 (PDF)
 ISBN: 978-1-639640-16-4 (Kindle)
 ISBN: 978-1-639640-17-1 (EPUB)
 The characters and events described in this book are entirely fictitious. Any resemblances to persons living or dead are purely coincidental.
 Printed in the United States.
 
 
 FOR THE EAGLE
 
 
 Once you zag, you suddenly see how choosing
 to zig could legitimize the whole rig.
 D.C. BERMAN
 
 
 CONTENTS
 Gettin’ by in van Nuys
 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 Bad Day at Big Smoke
 6
 7
 8
 9
 10
 11
 12
 13
 The Law in this Town
 14
 15
 16
 17
 18
 The Malibu Riviera Motel
 19
 20
 21
 22
 Far Out
 23
 24
 25
 26
 27
 28
 29
 30
 31
 32
 33
 34
 35
 36
 37
 The Road to Calico
 38
 39
 40
 41
 42
 43
 44
 Horse Opera
 45
 46
 47
 48
 49
 One for the Ditch
 50
 Acknowledgements
 Author Bio
 
 
 GETTIN’BY INVAN NUYS
 
 
 1
 WHEN HARRY CHECKS in at Reduced Rent-A-Car, Ken from the desk escorts him to the lot and unfurls a rinkydink red carpet leading to the driver’s side door of a Ford Fiesta. An added feature of the white-glove service package. The dingy carpet is matted flat and Harry sees the rest of his life laying there in front of him. Thirteen steps to the gallows.
 He removes his Stetson Sundowner like it’s made out of lead and hunches in behind the wheel. “I think the last guy must’ve smoked in here,” he says.
 Ken looks over the inventory sheet.
 “Let’s see if we have something else for you.”
 “Don’t bother,” Harry says. “I just don’t want to get bit for it.”
 He points to a bold line in the rental agreement that threatens a two hundred dollar charge for smoking in the vehicle. Ken makes a note and initials it.
 Harry nods. “Appreciate it.”
 Waiting to make an illegal left out of the lot, he adjusts the rearview and watches Ken roll the carpet like a boulder up a hill, the back of his shirt dark with sweat.
 Harry unwraps his Tareytons with a sense of ceremony. Each new pack is a present he gives himself every morning. He lights his first and cuts across Van Nuys Boulevard.
 Motoring north toward his office, he passes the pawn shops and car dealerships, the junk boutiques with trampy mannequins out front. Everything in this five-block radius looks sunbaked and secondhand. The Van Nuys Courthouse sits in the middle of it all like a criminal center of gravity.
 Harry feels invisible in the Fiesta. Just as well since he doesn’t want to be seen in it. Not around here. His heap breaks down every couple months, which is why he’s in this rented roller-skate to begin with, but at least it’s got some panache, some heft.
 He parks on Erwin and grabs his hat.
 Buckaroo Bail Bonds, established 1998, Van Nuys, California, is headquartered in an office above the Country General Store, a purveyor of time-tested western apparel. Harry Robatore, established 1954, Del Rio, Texas, is its founder, sole proprietor, and only original member.
 BAIL BONDS blazes in nondescript neon from a second-story window over Van Nuys Boulevard. The office windows don’t catch the kind of California light that looks romantic flooding through dusty venetian blinds. The sign doesn’t even blink.
 Late summer, everything sticky and slow, Harry doesn’t stray far from the window unit. His wardrobe isn’t conducive to the higher temperatures. He reaches for his cigarettes and isolates a loose thread over his breast pocket. Something is awry deep in the fabric of this shirt and it’ll be a slow unraveling from here on out.
 Eleven in the morning and his prevailing desire is to call it a