Dirty in Cashmere (6 page)

 

TWENTY-ONE

I had grave forebodings about Heller's untimely return from Mexico. His troubles began when the Greyhound bus from San Diego lit into the downtown depot and he and Mitzi staggered off the coach, bags in hand.

Heller wasn't glad to be home. But it was better than Mexico. In Los Mochis he got the runs. The final straw was Mazatlan, when Mitzi said she was pregnant and wanted to come back to the city.

From the bus depot it was a quick taxi ride to their apartment with Mitzi keeping up a steady flow of prenatal topics. “We're gonna have to get hazmat rain gear for me and the baby. I'm not going to eat any dairy products or leafy green vegetables while I'm pregnant. I won't eat local produce either. I don't want my breast milk contaminated.”

Heller had heard from 2-Time that Eternal Gratitude was on probation, courtesy of the Department of Public Health. 2-Time also said Bellamy was back at the club. This didn't shock Heller. Where else would a tormented oracle find a gig? Maybe this time Bellamy would lead his flock to the promised land.

The taxi flew through the alley behind the welfare office on Otis Street, then to Woodward, pulling up in front of their building. Heller paid the driver, gathered his luggage and exited the cab. Standing on the sidewalk he looked at the moleskin gray sky, a lovely shade of gray.

Mitzi and Heller trundled upstairs to their flat. Heller unlocked the door, ushered his wife into the fusty apartment, wishing he had a Xanax. Mitzi puttered into the living room, flipped on the lights and caterwauled:

“Daddy!”

Mitzi was in the middle of the room, red-faced, fists clenched, besieged by overturned furniture and slashed black velour drapes. A message was elaborately spray painted on the walls:

FUCK YOU HELLER. I WANT MY MONEY. 2-TIME.

A song slipped into Heller's mind. Sugar Pie DeSanto's blues classic “Hello, San Francisco.” Scissoring his arms around Mitzi's waist, he parked his chin on her head and listened to her heart thrum against his ribcage. He chanted in an off-key singsong melody, “It's all right, baby girl, it's all right.”

“The fuck it is.” Mitzi put her hands on his flabby chest and pushed him into a side table. Heller reeled backward, windmilling his arms, falling to the floor with a thud. Mitzi towered over him, hissing, “Nothing's all right.”

 

TWENTY-TWO

In the plaza at Mission and Sixteenth, beneath clusters of surveillance cameras and grimy palm trees, unlicensed Life dealers mingled with their customers, handing off tabs and palming bills. Life in the streets was unregulated, poorly manufactured, and full of toxic side effects, unnamed staph infections no antibiotic could kill.

Fog churned down the eastern slope of Corona Heights as I doubled back to Eternal Gratitude. A young, masked, bearded military veteran was sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk with a cardboard placard that read:

FALLUJAH 2006–2007.

Tourists walked around him, making like he wasn't there. I had ten bucks left from Doolan's advance. I laid five on the vet.

I still couldn't predict my own future. I suspected it didn't exist. Yet everything had a future. Animals and insects. Buildings and cars. Palm trees and rain clouds. Why not me?

I minced into the club, adjusting my eyes to the gloom, spying Rita at the counter, noting 2-Time wasn't at the door. There were no customers either.

“Hey, where's Doolan?”

Two red spots of disgust blazed on Rita's cheeks. “The jerk set up an office for himself in the chill out room. He's fucking up our scene.”

Rita was right. The Department of Public Health's presence at Eternal Gratitude would undermine the club's credibility with customers. I backed away from the counter, my legs struggling to work together. I wobbled to the chill out room and opened the door. Doolan was moored behind a steel desk. On the floor was a newspaper. The headlines were in big black letters. Contaminated seawater from Fukushima was crossing the ocean. It would reach San Francisco in approximately twelve to eighteen days.

2-Time said Doolan had third stage radiation sickness. He also said Doolan's doctor gave him a year to live. How you learned to cope with your death was sometimes the only thing that kept you human. That was one lesson I personally knew.

I saw Doolan's aura was cloudy white, dense with contamination. It smelled the same as cheap flea market perfume. It smelled so bad I had to bite my tongue.

A radio on a shelf above his desk was dialed into a talk show. A listener called in wanting to know the last time anyone had seen a black man in the financial district. Another listener called up to say white folks didn't believe the city's black population was shrinking because they always saw black people in the streets. The next caller said everyone was in the streets because there were no jobs.

“I want to tell you something,” Doolan started up on me. “You've got a bad reputation for being difficult. Just because you can predict shit, that doesn't make you special. How come you're not in college?”

“I was shot in the head.”

“Is that an excuse?”

“No. It's just the way it is.”

Doolan digested my philosophical input. “Me and you are going to Pacific Heights. My boss lives there. He needs your help.”

Nobody went to the exclusive neighborhood of Pacific Heights, unless they wanted to get busted for vagrancy. It was the richest part of the city. I didn't like the sound of it. I didn't want to go somewhere I'd get arrested.

I was querulous, and I was hungry again. I'd been counting on something to eat at Eternal Gratitude. In the least, some coffee and doughnuts. 2-Time thrived on that shit. He always kept some around.

“I don't want to go.”

“What's your fucking problem?”

“Nothing. I just don't feel like going anywhere, that's all.”

“You can't be doing this.”

Doolan was half dead. I knew he was thinking about what hospice he wanted to get into, because there was a lengthy waiting list for the good ones. Yet he had to fuck around with me, someone who'd been next to death. Oracles were fragile. We had to be handled with velvet gloves. We had to be finessed. We needed red carpet treatment.

“Let's get going, Ricky.”

 

TWENTY-THREE

Divisadero Street was a corridor of gas stations, hipster bars, secondhand vintage clothing outlets, toy stores, produce markets, and tourist hostels. The street's median strip was ornamented with saplings, a sign the neighborhood was upgrading, becoming gentrified.

With a bony hand fused to his sedan's steering wheel, Doolan drove us past the barbecue joint at the corner of Grove Street. KPOO radio station. The Hearing and Speech Center. Mount Zion Medical Center. He applied pressure to the gas pedal as we slipped by the chichi boutiques on California Street and crossed tree-lined Sacramento Street. The houses thereabouts were a potpourri of Tudors, Victorians, and Frank Gehry facsimiles. All the driveways had BMW sedans or Land Rovers, the ones that weren't in garages bigger than most people's apartments.

I hadn't said a word since we'd left Eternal Gratitude. I was still waiting for something to eat, feet propped on the dashboard, tapping my hands against my legs.

“Tommy? How come 2-Time and Rita aren't with us?”

“They're losers. They won't fit in.”

“But I will?”

“You might be nobody, but you're an oracle.”

He was buttering me up, fattening me for the kill.

At the top of the hill he executed a left-hand turn onto Broadway. From my window I had a glimpse of Alcatraz Island, the shores of Marin County, and the San Francisco Bay. The water was pimpled with whitecaps. The sky ebony black and unhappily marred with rain clouds.

Doolan turned right into a cul-de-sac and cut the engine. The sedan died in front of an orange stucco mansion with turrets and dormer windows. A vast, neglected lawn surrounded by a brick wall covered in red and white bougainvillea faced the street. A security camera semi-hidden in the bougainvillea winked at Doolan and me.

“We're here, Ricky.”

No way was I getting out of the car.

“That's nice. I'll just wait outside for you.”

“Fuck it.” Doolan sucked in a deep breath. He had enough radiation in his body to fuel a power plant. “I brought you along for a reason.”

“Why so?”

“You might know something about the contamination that nobody else does.”

 

TWENTY-FOUR

A slight hunchbacked white man in a single-breasted blue Marc Jacobs suit, yellow silk shirt, and John Lobb shoes accosted me and Doolan at the mansion's lacquered black wrought iron gate.

“Tommy! Is that the oracle with you?”

“Sure is. Ricky? This is Branch. My boss.”

I squinted at our host. Branch had a boxer's nose, broad nostrils flanked by scar tissue, dyed jet black hair combed off an aggressive forehead, a brow that jutted over hebephrenic brown eyes. He was somewhere in the no man's land between his late fifties and early seventies.

In turn, Branch measured me, absorbing my fraying jeans, unwashed since last week, the T-shirt ballooning to my thighs, the scar on my face.

He didn't offer to shake my hand.

Branch escorted us through a foyer and up a carpeted hall. Music gurgled in the background, soft piano jazz, tasteful, Mose Allison. Nobody else was in the house. I got the feeling Branch lived alone; he excreted loneliness, all dressed up with no one around. He shepherded Doolan and me into an office with a north-facing glass wall that commanded a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Marin's bald hills.

I flung myself into the first available chair, the leather cushion squeaking under my ass. My stomach growled with renewed determination. I was weak from hunger.

“Ricky, did Tommy tell you why you are here?”

“Not really.”

“Tommy says you're a seer.”

“I am.”

“Very good. He also says I can trust you because you've never been wrong. Since I value Tommy's judgment, I'm going to take a chance on you. You see, I'm the Department of Public Health's liaison with all the big businesses in town. My job is to make sure they stay happy in San Francisco. But since the Fukushima disaster and the contamination, things are getting iffy. And there's gonna be a mayoral election in a few days.”

“So?”

“There are two candidates. The polls say they're running neck to neck. Naturally, I want my candidate to win. The guy who downplays the contamination. Because that's the only way major industry is going to stay here. This is where you come in.”

“Me?”

“You.”

I was in a swoon. “Why?”

“For new tactics. To give our side the edge. You can predict the future. You know if things are going to get worse.”

The city had two realities. The first was a booming economic climate where everyone denied the contamination's impact. In the second reality, now unfolding, more and more people wore filter masks, inspired by the Department of Public Health's advertisements, which could be seen on Muni buses.

I assessed Branch's proposal. Let's say I predicted the right candidate. I'd earn a rep as a troubleshooting oracle. I might start a consultancy firm. Get some high class clients. If I failed? Too much paper was riding on what Branch was saying. I couldn't afford to fail. This wasn't Heller and 2-Time's amateur hour. It was a game where the stakes ran into the billions. It was enough to give me a teenage heart attack.

“I understand a vigilante shot you.”

“That he did. It's a fact. You can look it up in the library.”

“What do you know about him?”

“His name is Frank Blake and he's a chump.”

“He should've been prosecuted for what he did to you.”

“Yeah, right. Any moment now.”

“What's with the sarcasm?”

“People like him don't go to jail.”

I didn't want to talk about Frank Blake. He was off-limits. The one person I was willing to discuss him with was myself. Not Branch. Not the cops. Not Dr. Hess in General Hospital. Nobody but me and the bullet. The bullet described Frank Blake's hands as small with stubby fingers; the hands that'd pointed a gun at my face in a moment I don't want to remember.

Branch spoke above the uproar in my head.

“Are you healthy now?”

“I'm great. Real perky.”

“You'll be handsomely paid for the prediction.”

“That's cool by me.”

“But we have a problem here. A pretty big one.”

“Already? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Your clothing.”

“Wait a minute, man, don't get weird on me. I'm wearing the best shit I got.”

“Tough. Working for me, you'll have to dress better. I can't have you looking crappy, not in Pacific Heights.” Branch wrapped up our conversation. “The next time we get together? I'll have information on the candidates. Statistics. Demographics. Spread sheets. Photographs. To help you make an accurate foretelling. I'll tell Tommy where we'll meet next.”

I gaped at him. Help? A prediction wasn't algebra. It was a spiritual crapshoot. And him hassling me about my clothes? In my book, that was violence.

At the front door Branch said good-bye to us. He pointed to the adjacent mansion, an abandoned four-story Tudor with a gabled roof. A crude banner hung from the second-floor balcony. The banner screamed BLACK RAIN KILLS.

In Doolan's car I entertained severe doubts about meeting Branch. Predicting the next mayor? That was uptown, too rich for my blood. I lowered the passenger side window and let raindrops tickle my face. I was still hungry. Doolan turned over the engine, shifted into drive. His sedan boated downhill to Divisadero Street's flatlands.

 

TWENTY-FIVE

The second t
ê
te-à-t
ê
te between me and Branch—without Doolan—was five hours later at Le Central on Bush Street, a French bistro with considerable political history. Our booking was scheduled for six. At six-fifteen I trudged into the eatery. Large windows faced the sidewalk, booths and tables were tucked into the right wall, a bar ran parallel to the left wall. I was greeted by the ma
î
tre d'.

“May I help you, sir?”

“I'm Ricky Bellamy. Here to meet Branch.”

The ma
î
tre d' consulted his schedule book, riffed through a few pages.

“This way, please.”

I followed him past a row of tables. The people sitting at them were dressed up. At the bar every stool was occupied by someone in a suit. This was as close as I'd ever gotten to the financial district.

The
ma
î
tre d'
seated me at a table for two.

“Mr. Branch will be here shortly.”

A minute later Branch appeared. He was resplendent in a chocolate-colored Gucci outfit. He said hello to the maître d', then to four women at a table. He was smiling at everybody. He slipped into the chair opposite me, dumped a package and a calfskin briefcase on the tabletop.

“Good to see you, Ricky.”

Branch signaled the waiter, scored two menus. He handed me one. “Get what you want. Dinner is on me.”

That was white of him. I read the menu, couldn't understand half of it. All that French. I was also reading it upside down. Branch pointed this out to me. Eventually, I was ready to order. Flank steak and a salad. The waiter took our orders. I sat back in my seat while Branch quizzed me.

“You know anything about this place?”

“No.”

“Then let me tell you. See that table by the front window? That's where Herb Caen used to sit. The newspaper columnist. The most famous man in the city.”

I had never heard of him, but thought it best to keep my ignorance to myself.

“Le Central is where business gets done in this town.” Branch leaned forward, his smooth face dead serious, no smile now. “You want something from city hall?” He rapped his knuckles on the table, jangling the carefully arranged silverware. “You come here first.”

The bullet in me tightened. A warning signal I was overstimulated. Before I could defuse myself, Branch pushed the package across the table.

“I got you something. Open it up.”

I unwrapped the ribbons around the rectangular box. I lifted its lid and found myself staring at a polar white cashmere Zegna overcoat with a fur collar. I'd never seen anything like it. The damn thing was a magic cape. I pulled it from the box and tried it on while sitting in the chair, the rustle of silk in my ears. The coat fit me tighter than a condom. I was mightily pleased by its snugness.

“You like it?”

“It's super.”

“Now you're dressed for Pacific Heights.”

I traced a finger over the cashmere's satiny finish. I was humbled by its elegant smoothness. That coat meant more to me than anything. More than money. More than Life. Right there, I made a vow to myself. I pledged to never take off the Zegna. I'd wear it night and day until I died. Even after that.

The food arrived and we dug in. Branch demolished a platter of linguini pasta. He washed it down with an extra-dry martini. I gnawed on my steak, but couldn't finish it. My stomach was too small. The less you ate, the less you wanted to eat. The salad was unique, too. It had hard-boiled eggs in it.

Branch unpacked his briefcase and pulled out a pair of eight by twelve full-color photographs. Two pictures of men in suits. A white guy and a biracial dude. The white guy was leathery and bald with watery blue eyes. The other man was considerably younger, fronting a lavish toupee.

“These are the candidates.” Branch spread the photos over the tablecloth like he was dealing me a hand of winning cards. “Babe Jones is a fourth generation San Franciscan and a hardware store owner from West Portal. He represents the Irish and Italian blue collar constituencies in the city. The other guy is Ronnie Shmalker, a physician in the Haight-Ashbury. He's my man. All the big money in town is behind him. I want you to take a good look at their pictures. Just study them. That's all we're doing here, getting acquainted with the subjects.”

I devoted my energies to the photographs. First, Shmalker, then Jones. Shmalker had the magnetism of a cutthroat. Jones emanated mulishness.

“I don't know.”

“You don't know what?”

Branch's vibes were negative. I hesitated. Some vibrations obstructed reception, got in the way of a prediction. Worse, were the pictures. I derived no feeling from them. No emotions or coloration whatsoever.

“I can't say who the winner is.”

“First impressions are meaningful. What do you see?”

I heard the malice bugging beneath Branch's comment. When a cop with a gun threatened you, that was one thing. A man in a Gucci suit? He breathed and you started to sweat. I looked at the photos again as the busboy cleared the table, which broke up my train of thought. That's when I knew the Hondurans would hunt down 2-Time and Heller. Woe to them.

“It's gonna take time, Branch.”

“We don't have time. That's why I hired you.”

“Yeah, but these pictures don't tell me shit.”

“Don't give me that voodoo.”

“It's not voodoo, fool. These guys are the same.”

“You're wrong.” Branch stowed the photographs in his briefcase. “Dead wrong. Ronnie Shmalker will tell the public the contamination isn't a problem. Babe Jones won't do that. The asshole.”

“So now what?”

“I don't mean to make you feel bad, but I have money. You don't. I'm a rich man. I'm more successful than you. If I say you're wrong, you can believe it.” Branch rocked back and forth in his chair, having an autistic episode at my expense. “I'll see you at my house tomorrow. We'll talk more then. In the meantime, get prepared.”

How can I get him to understand? Predictions happened, or they didn't. You couldn't prepare for them. You didn't organize them. You didn't corral them. They just blew up in your fucking face and you grappled with the outcome. That was the formula.

“Sure thing, Branch.”