*****
In short, the crazy state of the planet very much resembled the movie that was making its revival at the Venice Fox Theater: "Monde Cane." Translation - A Dog's World. And, in the manner of such things, some of that dog shit flowed downhill to stink up Pepperland.
The week of the movie's revival, I got
the goods on a Santa Monica judge who was stealing firearms that were confiscated from felons who appeared before him. He then sold those weapons to line his own
pockets. To my chagrin the Funks used my evidence (including damning in flagrante photographs) to force the judge’s resignation,
promising that in return there’d be no embarrassing story and he could retire
with a full pension and all the honors that go with being a judge.
On the day I learned
about the deal I split early, cursing the Funk brothers all the way to the
Santa Monica city limits. I was ready to throttle someone, preferably a Funk,
or get rip roaring drunk – or maybe even both. But once I crossed into Venice I
felt a great weight lift from my shoulders and cursing no longer seemed
necessary and the violent images drained from my mind as if someone had pulled
some kind of cosmic plug.
Venice always had
that affect on me and I suspect it was the same for most Venice rats, as we
called ourselves. It was as if the very air you breathed was suddenly charged
with molecules of freedom and that magically made you feel lighter, and your cares small. If
you rolled down your car windows the salty sea breeze was always heavy with the scent of
incense, spice gardens and marijuana.
On the street, people
didn’t avoid your eyes and were quick to smile. A request for help rarely went
unheeded and sometimes drew so many people that they got in each other’s way.
Venice was also the most non-judgmental place on earth – in my view, at least.
Black, white, Hispanic, red Indian, right wing, left wing, Christian, Jew or Hari
Krishna, the attitude was: whatever floats your boat, man. And if that boat
springs a leak, we’ll help you plug it. Venice changed people. No one who moved
there was the same when they left. It was a place that healed, or at the very
least, unraveled the knots.
That’s how I felt
that day; my nerves taut from my Funk Brothers mad-on, suddenly relaxed as I
drove past the Santa Monica city limits sign. Instead of stopping at the Oar
House to anesthetize my piss off with dollar-a-pitcher beer, I kept my foot on
the gas and cut up from Main Street to West Washington, heading home.
In those days West
Washington (later, Abbott Kinney Drive) was an eclectic mix of used furniture
stores, shabby antique shops, bars, a couple of youth centers – one sponsored
by the actor James Earl Jones (for whom I'd later write a TV script) – liquor stores stocked with half pints and pony
jugs and a number of studios run by local artists and crafts people.
In an incredibly rare bit of wisdom the LA City Council had just made West Washington an arts and crafts zone, meaning artists could live on the same premises as their businesses. This made the street particularly interesting at night, when the shops/homes would be all lit up with people firing pots in their backyard kilns, or crouched in their front rooms, creating out of wood, leather, glass, metals and stones both rare and common.
You could see artists and musicians holding forth in their living rooms, waving jugs of wine as they made their points. Playwrights tried out their latest one-acts in their living rooms and puppeteers tested the limits of comedic and dramatic strings.
In an incredibly rare bit of wisdom the LA City Council had just made West Washington an arts and crafts zone, meaning artists could live on the same premises as their businesses. This made the street particularly interesting at night, when the shops/homes would be all lit up with people firing pots in their backyard kilns, or crouched in their front rooms, creating out of wood, leather, glass, metals and stones both rare and common.
You could see artists and musicians holding forth in their living rooms, waving jugs of wine as they made their points. Playwrights tried out their latest one-acts in their living rooms and puppeteers tested the limits of comedic and dramatic strings.
I had friends on that
street and sometimes I stopped by to see what they were up to, drinking their
wine, smoking their dope, and soaking up their art, hoping like hell that I would someday be able to
join them.
As for the junk
shops, I often paused to peruse their goods, reliving my own life in the exotic
junk scattered across the floor, heaped on tables and tacked to walls. I bought
glassware and dishes that my folks used to get as prizes for buying gasoline in
Clearwater, Florida. When my parents were my age, gas was maybe ten cents, or less, a gallon. And
the gas stations were competing so hard for those dimes that they kept towering
racks outside that displayed glasses and dishes and cups and saucers, all ready
to be yours when you filled up a coupon slip.
Anyway, the Venice shops were crammed with old rugs that looked better than my
tile floor; as well as lovely old bedspreads, suitable for curtains, covering
faded couches, a canopy over a mattress love nest, or even a dress suitable for
the Renaissance Faire.
I thought about
stopping to pick up something for our apartment – a piece to go with the
cable-spool table that had formerly been inhabited by termites. I also thought
about maybe scrounging a few glasses of free wine and tokes of free dope from
the resident artists.
Full disclosure: I had supported their cause in the newspaper for the Arts and Crafts Zone and they were maybe not exactly eternally grateful, but limitedly thankful enough to slip me the odd joint and glass of wine. It was against my journalistic ethics to be too greedy. But when did a glass of wine or two, or nice little pipe of the peaceful stuff get in the way of journalistic truth?
Full disclosure: I had supported their cause in the newspaper for the Arts and Crafts Zone and they were maybe not exactly eternally grateful, but limitedly thankful enough to slip me the odd joint and glass of wine. It was against my journalistic ethics to be too greedy. But when did a glass of wine or two, or nice little pipe of the peaceful stuff get in the way of journalistic truth?
However, as I made my
way home I suddenly realized I felt no need for such inducements. Venice had
worked its magic and I’d successfully shaken off the Funk
Brothers blues. Besides, there was business to be attended to. Serious shit,
that Mr. Cohen had been bugging me about.
During the past few
weeks a flurry of new tenants had taken up residence in Pepperland and there
was a lot of work to do. A musician had fallen for Alita and she with him. They
moved into one of the larger two-bedroom apartments next to Kerry’s place. Alita's roommate - Jan - didn’t want to pay for a two-bedroom apartment solo, so she took up residence in the Blue Meanie’s
old single unit. Her former apartment became the home of Jay Tompkins and his
roommate, Leigh, who was also fresh out of the Navy.
Leigh, a former corpsman, became one of the first paramedics in LA’s brand new program. They had a pet – Old Weird Harold. Harold was a very large black boa constrictor who lived in a glass aquarium and fed happily on white mice that Jay bought for a few bucks a dozen at a giant fish/pet shop by the name of Alan’s Pet Emporium.
Leigh, a former corpsman, became one of the first paramedics in LA’s brand new program. They had a pet – Old Weird Harold. Harold was a very large black boa constrictor who lived in a glass aquarium and fed happily on white mice that Jay bought for a few bucks a dozen at a giant fish/pet shop by the name of Alan’s Pet Emporium.
Jay mooned over Jan
and even coaxed her up to his apartment once for a private party. Unfortunately
for Jay, Harold had escaped his happy
home several days before and his hiding place had as yet been discovered.
Imagine Jay’s chagrin
after he plumped pretty Jan into his very best chair, an Akron throne basket
chair with a high back. Old Weird Harold smelled her lovely scent, stirring
in the depths of that chair. So then, just as everything was getting cozy –
there may have even been a little cuddling going on - Old Weird Harold made his appearance.
He slithered out of the back of the chair across Jan’s shoulders and when she realized what it was she shrieked and fled the apartment, never to return. Weird Harold, however, went on to live another thirty years and Jay had to seek feminine companionship elsewhere.
He slithered out of the back of the chair across Jan’s shoulders and when she realized what it was she shrieked and fled the apartment, never to return. Weird Harold, however, went on to live another thirty years and Jay had to seek feminine companionship elsewhere.
Meanwhile, a nice
Mexican-American couple, with two teenage kids, rented the large corner unit
that faced Washington Boulevard. In the big green building next door, a
Filipino waiter had moved into the upstairs single; and in our own complex the
lady artist moved and was replaced by a woman who came to be known to us as the
“Cat Lady.” More on all of that later.
Into this social mix,
the upstairs junkie had added a new girlfriend, which was amazing, when you
consider that the amount of drugs he ingested would normally unman a Gold’s Gym
testosterone freak. But I’d heard that she’d been casting moony eyes at the Mad
Bomber - to the growing annoyance of Mrs. Mad Bomber – so maybe it wasn’t that
amazing after all.
On that particular
day, the first item of business on my plate was what I’d come to think of as
“The Traveling Salesman Matter.” It was a tale right out of the old “Johnny
Dollar” radio show.
The tenant in
question was a traveling salesman who lived directly across from the Blue
Meanie’s old place, now occupied by Jan. Normally he was regular as clockwork
with the rent. He usually paid by mail, but two months had gone by and I hadn’t
seen a penny of the $75 a month he paid for the large single he inhabited. Jan
said she hadn’t seen a light on in the place for weeks.
There were those who
wondered if maybe the Blue Meanie had returned to eliminate a particularly
loathsome (to the Blue Meanie) “lurker.” Roger was a passionate adherent to
that theory, as was the Mad Bomber, who had never met the Blue Meanie, but was
enthralled with his legend.
A trained newsman, I
had no opinion whatsoever. My sole concertn was that Mr. Cohen was on my case
to do something about the non-paid-rent problem. The difficulty being that
there was no information on file about the salesman – he was one of the tenants
Mr. Cohen had inherited from the previous owners. In other words, I didn’t know
who the salesman worked for, what he sold – if anything - or what bank he used
– if any. He always paid his rent on time via postal money order.
As I parked in front
of our apartment I was running through some reportorial tricks of the trade I
might employ to ferret out the mystery of the missing tenant. But when I walked
into our house I was brought up short by the sight of Carol sitting with a
young woman, who was inappropriately dressed (for Venice) in a business suit.
There were cups of tea and a teapot on the table and at first I thought Carol
was interviewing a potential tenant.
Then I double-checked
the business wear and paranoia shot various chemicals into my veins and I
started wondering if the woman was maybe a collector for the Phone Company. I
had more old Ma Bell issues in those day then a drugstore magazine rack. Issues
I’d rather not discuss. Then I thought maybe she was a front for the Draft
Board, members of which I’d maligned in the newspaper for so long that
surely they wanted to draft my butt and send me directly to the nearest American
base under mortar attack by the Viet Cong. And fuck my medical deferment for getting the shit shot out of me a few years before.
But when the two
women looked up at me I could see that both had been crying. There was no
artifice here. No posing. The young lady was clearly as upset as Carol, who
burst into tears when she saw me.
“Oh, Allan,” she
wailed, “poor Mrs. Williams has… has… passed on.”
I hate that term.
Passed on? What the hell does that mean? Dead? Okay, if somebody is dead, just
say so. They are dead. There’s no shame in being dead. We all get there
eventually. I’m dead. She’s dead. We’re all dead. Big surprise.
But then it sank in.
She was saying that Mrs. Williams, an old hide – as Roger called her – I’d
grown quite fond of, was the person she’d described as having “passed on.”
Everyone in the whole city block of apartments that I managed was of the
opinion that Mrs. Williams tottered on water. She’d become sort of the
unofficial great-grand-mother of Pepperland and was always doing people little
favors. In turn, we all looked out for her, fetching groceries, waiting at the
bus stop with her and flagging down rude drivers who loved nothing better than
to blow past elderly passengers.
The young woman, I
learned, was Mrs. Williams’ social worker. “I
found her this morning,” she said, using yet another of those euphemisms I
despise.
Generally speaking,
when a person dies they are discovered – not found – in the same spot where
they expired. When that rule is broken, the police start looking for a killer. But this lady
appeared to be a very nice girl about our age and she was clearly concerned.
Mrs. Williams, she said, rarely answered her door when she knocked, so she
frequently had to let herself in with a key provided by the social service
agency.
She was embarrassed
about that and I took pity on her and gave her a sympathetic nod. Encouraged,
she went on to say that when entered the apartment she’d immediately discovered
Mrs. Williams lying on the floor, next to her bed.
“I think she died
last night,” the young lady said, holding back tears.
“The ambulance has
already taken her away,” Carol put in, wiping her eyes. “Now we’re waiting to
hear from her brother about funeral arrangements.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Her brother?” I didn’t know that Mrs. Williams had a soul in the world. “She
never mentioned a brother,” I added.
“He’s a priest,” the
nice social worker said. “He lives in a church retirement home in Michigan.”
She gave me a measuring look. “You won’t go into her place until he arrives,
correct?”
I shrugged. I was
getting used to people assuming that all apartment managers were cold-hearted
devils. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said.
At the same time, a
few black-hearted questions came into my mind. Mrs. Williams’ rent was due on
the 15th of the month – which was tomorrow. She had no last month’s deposit, or
a deposit of any kind. This meant that Mr. Cohen was going to be out her rent
as well as the missing salesman’s. I felt a little ashamed of myself for
thinking of those things. Maybe this cold-hearted business was catching.
After the lady left
and Carol and I commiserated about poor Mrs. Williams, I got on the phone and
started hunting down the salesman. Nearly two hours later I’d tracked down his
employer – he was an office supply salesman for the Papermate Company, whose
new headquarters were in the Marina. To my chagrin, I learned that Mr.
Traveling Salesman had left the company a few weeks before. His boss refused to
give me any details except to say that the poor slob “is no longer with us.”
The frosty,
disapproving tone did not bode well for Mr. Cohen’s rent. It was also one I was
quite familiar with. I started calling cop shops. This turned out to be a
surprisingly long, involved process. Days passed before I had the answer: the
salesman was in LA County Jail, waiting trial for doing nasty things to little
boys.
Yech.
I called a friend at
the DA’s office, who told me what had happened in explicit – and unsolicited –
detail.
Double Yech.
Bottom line (sorry)
the guy was looking at a minimum of five years in prison. His chances of
acquittal were about the same as any pedophile had of eventually emerging from
the prison system with a normal size rectum.
I phoned Mr. Cohen
and gave him the good news, the bad news and the not-so-bad news. The good news
was that Mrs. Williams’ brother was expected soon, meaning the apartment would
be released in a day or so. The bad news was the traveling salesman’s plight.
The less grim news was that if we acted quickly we ought to be able to rid
ourselves of the salesman, with no cost other than the lost rent.
The following
afternoon Roger jimmied the guy’s door and we entered. Coming in from the
bright California sun, we were temporarily blinded and I groped about for the
light switch. I found it, but that was no good because jail had also prevented
Mr. Traveling Salesman from paying his Department Of Water And Power bill. I
noticed, however, that the place had a familiar, musty smell to it – reminding
me of a used bookstore.
The door was only
partly open – it seemed to be blocked by something. I pushed harder, the object
blocking the door gave way with a strange kind of cascading crash and I found
myself blinking in amazement at a room packed floor to eyeball level with
towers of what appeared to be books and magazines.
Roger cranked the
door the rest of the way and the sunlight spilled in to illuminate the tower
I’d knocked over.
Then he giggled.
“Shit and fall back in it, Al,” he said. “Would you look at all those fuck
books.”
For a time my brain
had trouble believing what Roger – and my eyes – were telling me, which was
that the whole front room consisted of aisle after paper aisle of porn
magazines.
Rog grabbed at some,
leafing through them. I saw flashes of bare skin, genitals, you name it, posed
in every imaginable position.
Laughing his head
off, Roger kept sticking them under my nose, exclaiming, “Would you fuckin’
look at this, man. Look at it. Just look.”
I didn’t want to, but
it was impossible not to see that every sex, race, age and, in some cases
species, was represented on those pages. Some of the books were in black and
white printed on paper so cheap you’d get splinters running your fingers across
the pages. Others were in glorious color and on high glass paper. From what I
could determine, the periodicals were in every conceivable language, except
maybe Russian.
As we went through
the apartment it soon became apparent that every nook and cranny was filled
with pornography. There was space for a single bed near the kitchen, with
blankets, sheet and a pillow on it. Beneath the bed were two large suitcases,
which we later investigated, and found neatly stacked clothing that no doubt
belonged to Mr. Traveling Salesman, who was quickly becoming known to us as The
Perv. The rest of the apartment was devoted to his obsession. The two closets –
including a large walk-in – were filled with filth. As were the kitchen
cabinets and even the damned stove, which we discovered when Roger opened the door
to the oven and magazines came tumbling out.
The refrigerator
seemed to be the only appliance he used for its original purpose – witness the
carton of spoiled milk and open can of tomato soup, overgrown with green mold.
On the other hand, the built in ironing board had been removed and the tiny
closet it concealed had been turned into storage space for porn.
“This guy is one
seriously sick asshole,” Roger said, still chortling gleefully and leafing
through one publication after another.
I heard Carol calling
me and I poked my head around the corner and saw that she was standing just
outside the front entrance, Jason on her hip. Behind her was an elderly man in
priest’s getup.
My heart jumped and I
hastily called out: “Hold on, honey. I’ll be right there.” I waved frantically
at Roger to stay put and I came out just as Carol was starting to step inside.
The priest was about to follow. “Don’t come in,” I warned. “I think I saw a
rat.”
Instantly, she
withdrew, the priest moving aside to let her by. I got to the front door fast,
stepping out and closing it behind me.
“Roger’s dealing with
it,” I said.
I smiled at the
priest and held out my hand. Although he shook, he did not smile back. In fact,
his look was suspicious, maybe even a little angry. I wondered if he’d seen the
porn.
“Let me take you to
your sister’s place,” I said and gave Carol a warning look. She made her
excuses and returned home. I was an ex-Catholic kid and had some experience
dealing with priests.
I took the priest up
the rickety stairs, past the junkie’s apartment. Thank God he wasn’t home and
the curtains were drawn. Sometimes the guy got careless and you’d see his
blood-smeared works on the kitchen table.
As I let the priest
in I realized he hadn’t mentioned his name. I had the mad desire to laugh –
what if it were Father Williams? The lines from the Lewis Carroll poem popped
into my unruly brain: “You are old, Father Williams,” The young man said,/ “And
your hair has become very white;/ And yet you incessantly stand on your head -
/ Do you think, at your age, it is right?”
I pushed the
silliness aside, realizing, of course, that priests usually assume another name
when they take their vows. He was probably named, Father Kelly, or Aloysius, or
something. I looked around the room, which was the first time I was seeing it.
Mrs. Williams never let anyone in her house. The place was shabby, badly needed
paint and the few pieces of furniture were rickety to the extreme. An unmade
iron-framed bed sat in one corner and there were stacks of magazines and
newspapers here and there – but nothing like the stacks in The Perv’s
apartment. I noticed that the more the priest looked around, the angrier he was
becoming. I followed him into the kitchen and saw that cans, with holes cut in
their sides, had been upturned over the burners.
“Didn’t she even have
a working heater?” the priest growled.
I felt guilty,
although it certainly was no fault of mine. “I don’t know,” I said helplessly.
“I asked her several times if I could check the place out so we could fix it
up, but she insisted on her privacy.” I took a breath. “I understand what this
looks like,” I said. “But you know, we all loved your sister. We would have
done anything for her.” I shrugged. “Ask anyone,” I said. “Heck, Roger, our
handyman, adored her. He’d fixed the place up for free and Mr. Cohen would have
gladly paid for the materials.”
The priest just shook
his head, far from satisfied. Uncharitably, I wondered why I’d never heard of him
before. Had he abandoned his sister as an inconvenience? Was he laying his
guilt off on me?
There came a
tentative knock at the door. We looked up to see Jan and Alita standing there,
pretty as ever, but dressed demurely. They were holding a decorated basket
between them.
“This is for you,
Father,” Jan said, presenting the basket, a good Italian Catholic girl to the core.
“Everyone in the complex put something in there. We wanted to show you how much
we all loved your sister - Mrs. Williams.”
The priest was
immediately charmed and I soon discovered that he had quite a nice smile when
presented with pretty girls. He thanked Jan and Alita profusely, then turned to
me and said, “I’m afraid I’ve been rude to you, Allan and I want to offer my
sincerest apologies.”
We shook, this time
more warmly, and I invited him and the girls back to my house where Carol
poured wine for us all and the priest fussed over the basket and Carol and the
girls. I mumbled excuses, leaving them to their impromptu party, and beat feet
back to The Perv’s lair.
By now the Mad Bomber
had joined Roger and they were thumbing through the magazines, pointing out
particularly difficult sexual feats and features to one another. I kept looking
over my shoulder to see if anyone else was about to join the festivities.
“We have to do
something about this, Rog,” I said. “And I mean right away.”
Roger didn’t see the
big deal. “They’re just fuck books, Al,” he said. “Who gives a shit?”
To understand my
nervousness, you have to realize that pornography was illegal in those days.
Sure, things had lightened up the past few years, but not that much.
“The cops will give a
shit if they check this place out,” I said. “If nothing else, they’ll seize it
all for evidence against The Perv. They might even seal the apartment, then Mr.
Cohen is out the rent, and you’re out whatever you’re going to charge to fix up
the place.”
Roger’s attitude
immediately changed. Since Nancy and little Chris had moved in, he was starting
to take things more seriously. “That’s fucked,” he said.
“Maybe a little arson,”
the Mad Bomber suggested, his eyes brightening at the thought. He looked
around. “I can pretty well guarantee that the fire will stick to this
apartment. Near enough, anyway.”
“No arson,” I said,
to his immense piss-off.
“It was just a
fucking suggestion,” he said, grabbing a
handful of porn and heading home.
“This is going to be
tricky,” I told Roger. “Even though the guy’s in jail, he’s got rights, you
know? We just can’t grab all his stuff.”
“Yeah, but he sure as
shit don’t want the pigs to see it,” Roger pointed out. “He’ll be so far under
the jail they’ll have to pipe in the fucking sun.”
“Let me see what I
can do on that end,” I said. “You concentrate on this shit.”
Roger scratched his
head. “The thing is,” he said, “there’s so much of it somebody’s bound to
notice, no matter where we dump it. Maybe the Bomber was right and we ought to
burn it all.”
“I repeat,” I said.
“No arson.”
Roger sighed. “You
sure make things hard sometimes,” he said.
The next day I
tracked down The Perv’s attorney. At first he got shirty when I said I wanted
to vacate the apartment and dispose of the contents.
“You can’t do that,”
he said. “You’ll have to start eviction proceedings, which will take time. And
even then you’ll have to put my client’s valuables into storage and hold them
safely for him until he can dispose of his belongings in any manner he sees
fit.”
The guy was obviously
angling for some sort of money offer - to help pay his legal bill no doubt.
“It’s like this,
Counselor,” I said. “The only valuables that I’ve made any note of consists of
many thousands of volumes of pornography.”
“What did you say?”
The attorney’s voice went up an octave.
“Pornography,” I
said. “And I’m not exaggerating when I say that it numbers in the thousands.”
“No shit,” the
attorney.
“I shit thee not,” I
assured him.
“Let me get back to
you, Mr. Cole,” he said.
“I’d like to clear
this up by tomorrow,” I said.
“I’ll see what I can
do,” he replied.
The following day I
met Roger at Shanahan’s Market. He was hefting a case of beer. “I’m all set,” he said.
“How about you?”
“The lawyer said go
for it,” I replied, stuffing money for the beer in Roger’s shirt pocket.
We carried it down
Washington Boulevard until we came to the Right Wing Biker’s place, with the
flag waving proudly overhead.
“Here goes nothing,”
Roger said, unlimbering a single beer from the case.
He strolled over to
the stairs leading up to the biker’s domain. He went up a few steps, slid the
beer in front of the door and very tentatively tapped on the wall. The idea
was, if the Bikers were feeling super paranoid they would shoot at the sound of
the tap. The door was thin, the walls thick. Hence, Roger tapped on the walls.
After tapping, he
returned to where I stood, guarding the case of brew.
A moment later a bearded
figure opened the door, peered suspiciously around, then noted the beer. He
picked it up, almost sniffing it like a dog. Then he popped it, drank, burped,
rubbed his belly and returned inside.
He reappeared a few
minutes later, looking across the field at where we stood. Roger indicated the
case of brew at his feet. The biker waved for him to come on.
Roger picked up the
beer. “Those who are about to get fucked up salute you,” he said. He farted,
laughed and then strode across the field
and disappeared into the house.
Late that night I
heard motorcycles roaring back and forth in the alley outside our apartment.
Carol stirred, murmuring something.
“Go back to sleep,
honey,” I said. “It’s just the bikers on a mission of mercy.”
The next day the porn
was gone. A few weeks later the bikers were all sporting brand new chromed
parts on their choppers from the sale of all that porn and I was posting a “For
Rent” sign on the Traveling Salesman's apartment door.
NEXT: THE DOOR IN THE
FLOOR
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TALES OF THE BLUE MEANIE
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| Venice Boardwalk Circa 1969 |
In the depths of the Sixties and The Days Of Rage, a young newsman, accompanied by his pregnant wife and orphaned teenage brother, creates a Paradise of sorts in a sprawling Venice Beach community of apartments, populated by students, artists, budding scientists and engineers lifeguards, poets, bikers with a few junkies thrown in for good measure. The inhabitants come to call the place “Pepperland,” after the Beatles movie, “Yellow Submarine.” Threatening this paradise is "The Blue Meanie," a crazy giant of a man so frightening that he eventually even scares himself. Here's where to buy the book.
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STEN #1 NOW IN SPANISH!
Diaspar Magazine - the best SF magazine in South America - is publishing the first novel in the Sten series in four
episodes. Part One and Part Two appeared in back-to-back issues. And now Part Three has hit the virtual book stands. Stay tuned, for the grand conclusion. Meanwhile, here are the links to the first three parts. Remember, it's free!
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