Fogtown (17 page)

The second thing Stiv saw was his own right arm. The motorcycle jacket was in flames. The sleeve was roasting, the leather getting cooked from black to red. Before he could douse it, the sleeve fell off his jacket and onto the sidewalk. It lay there as if it were a carcass. Fire engine sirens jingle-jangled from over the hill. Stiv didn’t see any purpose in hanging around, so he started toward Market Street.

T
HE PAY TELEPHONE
on the Allen’s fourth floor was ringing off the hook. Five times. Ten times. Twenty times. Jeeter Roche heard it on his way downstairs. He was in his church clothes, a three-piece kelly green corduroy suit and brown wingtips. His rugged face was sweaty, his shaved scalp was pomaded; he had four ounces of uncut synthetic heroin and a copy of Somerset Maugham’s
Of Human Bondage
in his jacket. Jeeter related to the protagonist in the novel, a kid with a clubfoot. He’d met several guys in prison like that—dudes that he’d celled with.

In a mad rush to meet a customer, Jeeter didn’t want to tarry and answered the phone brusquely. “You have reached the Allen Hotel. If you’re looking for a vacancy, we don’t have any and don’t expect any in the future. So don’t call back, okay? You’ll only be wasting your time.”

The person at the other end was bossy and demanding. “I wasn’t looking for a room. I’ve got my own place, thank you. Who is this, anyway?”

“Who am I? That’s a very good question, mister. Let’s start at the beginning. This is Jeeter Roche. I’m the building manager over here at the Allen, the man in charge. Who are you?”

“Jeeter?”

“Yeah, Jeeter Roche. So what can I do for you today?”

“I want to talk to someone.”

“Really? This is an
SRO
hotel. Nine million people live here. There are a lot of folks to talk to. Now let me ask you a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“You calling the Allen, not many people do that. It’s a rarity and I’m suspicious. Are you a telemarketer? You selling something?”

“No.”

“You the cops?”

“No, I’m not the police.”

“Okay. How about from the probation department?”

“No.”

“You a collection agency?”

“No.”

“You say you want to talk to a tenant?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t know if I can let you. That’s private information. I can’t give it out.”

“I’m looking for a client of mine. His name is Stiv Wilkins.”

Jeeter wished a pox on Stiv and hee-hawed, “Yeah, so what about him?”

“May I speak with him?”

“That punk? What for?”

“You know him?”

“Maybe. He’s overdue on the rent. That makes him my business.”

“I need to talk with him.”

“Why?”

“It’s personal.”

“Who are you?”

“Me? I’m Deflass from the mental health clinic on Shotwell Street.”

“Who?”

“Deflass from the mental health—”

“I’m not deaf. I heard you the first time. I know the place.”

“You do?”

Jeeter digressed. “I was there for counseling back in the day when I was on parole. Of course you understand that was before I got my shit together.”

Deflass was unsympathetic and said, “Can I talk to Stiv?”

“Why?”

“We need to discuss something.”

“Well, you can’t.”

“Why not?”

“He ain’t available.”

“Do you know when I can get hold of him?”

“Not really. He’s being evicted.”

The social worker persisted. “But I just spoke with him this afternoon.”

“Is that so? Maybe you did, I can’t say, but he’s gone.”

“Where did he go?”

“Beats me. I’m not his keeper.”

“But you do know him?”

Jeeter was irritated. “Like I said, maybe.”

“But you’re the manager.”

“So? That doesn’t mean shit. It’s not like he and I are friends or anything.”

“You interact with him, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t. I just take his money.”

“Then you know what room he’s in. Can’t you leave him a message?”

“I don’t have the time.”

“Please?”

There were too many people making demands on Jeeter’s time. He wanted to sell the heroin, get it done with, then go home and read Somerset Maugham. A cockroach tried to sneak by him and he mashed it under his heel into the carpet. “No,” he said, and hung up the phone.
Striped woolen drapes banked the drug room’s windows. An Indian tapestry was thumbtacked to a wall next to an autographed poster from the country and folk singer Steve Earle. The rug was one of those hundred-dollar jobs from Target. Kilos of brown Mexican
mota
bulged from metal shelving. A butcher-block table was overrun with a seventy-five-pound bale of marijuana from Sonoma County. A three-paper spliff smoldered in an ashtray. A set of speakers blared King Tubby’s signature dub reggae; the thud of the bass was shaking the windowpanes.

Seated on a high stool by the window, Chiclet was collating money. More accurate than an adding machine, she bagged a grand in twenties. Setting it aside, she had a toke off the spliff. She was attired in a long black skirt and a sleeveless peasant blouse, and her mouth was painted carmine red. Her hair was smothered in jasmine oil and her eyes were sprinkled with kohl powder. Gold studs were affixed to her earlobes. Her shoes were open-toed suede pumps with tassels. The cash she was counting came from the Allen’s tenants. It was a collection of down-at-the-heel five- and ten-dollar bills. Rent money had less appeal than drug money. It never looked sexy. Dope money always did.

Dreamily, she looked out the window. The fog was phosphorescent in the car headlights on Market Street. She saw Mama Celeste at the corner and thought the harridan was familiar. Must be in the cleaning crew that Jeeter had temporarily hired to spiff up the building. Paid them five dollars an hour under the table. Gave them coffee and stale doughnuts for lunch.

But the longer Chiclet got a load of Mama Celeste, the more she was convinced the lady was shedding money from her army coat. Paper was falling on the sidewalk and getting blown into the gutter. Chiclet couldn’t decide which one of the substances in her system was causing the mirage. It might have been the Valium. Maybe it was the Placidyl or the weed.

A tap on the door brought her to her feet. You could always judge someone by their knocking. Jeeter knocked like he was leading an army. This person sounded timid. With the elephantine spliff in
hand, Chiclet bumbled over to the spy hole, fastened her eye to it, and chuckled when she recognized who it was. A miserable-looking Stiv Wilkins stood on her welcome mat. She opened the door a wee crack and asked, “What in the fuck happened to you?”

Half of Stiv’s quiff had been singed to the scalp. Both of his eyebrows were gone. The blister on his cheek had ballooned into a sizeable lump. His motorcycle jacket was missing a sleeve. Shrugging his shoulders, he was in no condition to divulge his most recent misadventure. He said, “Some bad juju.”

“You’d better come in before someone sees you.”

It was Stiv’s first time in Jeeter’s sanctuary and he was impressed with the ornate atmosphere. The only lighting in the room was a brace of votive candles. Sandalwood incense was burning in a copper dish. A bouquet of roses adorned an end table. The overpowering stink of freshly harvested late summer marijuana opened Stiv’s nose down to his feet.

He gumshoed it over an antique Persian carpet to the window and had a glance outside. Nighttime had turned the city into a ghost town—if it weren’t for the winos, there would be nothing in the streets. Chiclet followed Stiv across the room and while puffing on the spliff, she said to him, “Listen, Stiv, we have to talk. No bullshit.”

Conscious of her at his back, how close she was, he was guarded. “Please, no questions.”

“Forget that. What are you doing here, anyway?”

The pinging in his ears increased its tempo. “I don’t know. Maybe I don’t wanna go to my room yet.”

“You look totally like shit. I mean, really.”

The joint she was smoking smelled tasty. It was hydroponic chronic, homegrown indica with the highest
THC
content known to humankind. Stiv wanted some, but it was obvious that Chiclet wasn’t going to offer him any. She liked her weed too much to share it. He turned around to stare at her, but she was taller than him. It was useless trying to meet her eyes.

His motorcycle jacket looked like someone had been murdered in it. Removing it, he said, “Sorry to bug you. I’ll leave in a minute.”

Chiclet expelled a magnificent plume of smoke in his face. “Do you know what else?”

“What’s that?”

She took her time. “You’ve got a problem.”

Stiv scratched his head. “Who says I do?”

“Me.”

“That’s wonderful. What is it?”

“This guy has been looking for you.”

Talking to Chiclet was like pulling teeth. You could tell she and the English language weren’t on friendly terms. Not even close. And the weed had her moving so slowly, Stiv would be a hundred years old before she was done speaking. He said, “What guy? Can you get more specific?”

“Your friend.”

Stiv was skeptical. “My friend?”

“Yeah, a dude came around to our house asking me about you.”

“Who the heck was it? The man on the moon?”

“No, it was this dealer Jeeter knows. He was a fucking asshole.”

Stiv didn’t like what he was hearing. Chiclet was making a strange face. It wasn’t her stoned-to-the-gills face either. The weaselly glint in her eyes was unsettling and his instincts told him bad news was in the offing. He lowered his voice to a profundo bass. “Who was it? For shit’s sake, Chiclet, what are you talking about?”

“This motherfucking black dude.”

He sat on the windowsill, leaving a smudge on the drapes. He didn’t know what she was blathering about, and he was uninterested. He had other things on his mind and the less he knew, the better off he was. Whoever it was, it had to be someone he owed money to. Stiv was in debt to everyone. No one person in particular stood out. Debt was universal with him. He said, “You got a name for this character?”

Chiclet finished off the joint. Blue pot smoke did an arabesque in her hair. She replied, “I thought he was going to make me fuck him.”

This got Stiv going. Chiclet wasn’t eloquent, not even on the best of days. But neither was Stiv. Between him and her, they had the glossary of a twelve-year-old. He asked, “Who was gonna ball you?”

“That goddamn knucklehead. He had a scar on his face.”

An alarm went off in Stiv’s head and penetrated the jellied depths of his exhaustion. He pieced together the equation. The visitor had been black. He had a scar on his mug. He telegraphed evil. The picture grew clearer and Stiv didn’t like it one bit. Uh oh, he thought to himself. The description fit Richard Rood.

Stiv’s initial impression of Richard Rood had been a revelation. He had wandered into Café Flore on Market Street in June during a storm. The streets had been flooded. The sewers were backed up. He stepped into the bathroom and there was Richard humping a sixteen-year-old white boy. He had the kid up against the toilet. The lad’s pants were around his ankles, his hairless legs were opaque under the bathroom’s twenty-five-watt light. Richard looked at Stiv, displeased with the interruption, and then continued to toil over the kid’s plum-shaped buttocks.

Stiv said to Chiclet, “Does Jeeter know anything about this?”

“He sure does. He got into a fight with the dude right in front of Martuni’s Lounge. Jeeter got his ass cremated.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, and that guy is looking for you like a bullet. Do you know what else?”

“What?”

“Jeeter’s freaking out.”

Stiv was gratified to hear this. “Why’s that?”

“You haven’t paid for your room this week or from last week, have you?”

He was evasive. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, anyway, he’s gonna evict you.”

Catching her eye, Stiv was matter of fact with his answer, like he’d been rehearsing it. His wounded face was impish in the candlelight. “Yeah, sweetheart, I know that.”

“You know?”

“I heard him talking about it with you on the stairs.”

“You did?”

“Uh huh. This afternoon.”

Chiclet hadn’t offered an apology for splitting when Stiv had a seizure after going down on her. She didn’t even mention it. She was more concerned about the rent. This allowed Stiv to see for himself what he was worth. He was nobody. He was a tenant who was late with his money. He was just another
IOU
in her ledger. The disinterested, torpid light in Chiclet’s eyes confirmed it. He asked, “Do you know the time?”

“It’s midnight.”

He weighed her response. Every minute that slipped away was another nail in his coffin. He had to get as far away from Richard Rood as possible. God only knew what kind of state of mind the madman was in. Stiv said in a tight monotone, struggling to keep his voice level, “I gotta go see my wife and kid. We can settle the money later. Gimme an hour, all right?”

“You promise?”

Stiv threw the motorcycle jacket over his shoulders and cast a jealous eye at the marijuana on the table. He lied through his blackened teeth. “Baby, it’s a done deal. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

I
N THE HALL
Stiv recognized John Coltrane’s theme “A Love Supreme” pealing from a room downstairs. Hot with a fever, his lungs hurt. The metal taste in his mouth was back, and he was having difficulty breathing. “This ain’t good,” he sniveled. Steadying himself, he put a hand against the wall. The floor was undulating and weaving; the corridor was going round and round.

The phantom of José Reyna entered the passageway. The dead outlaw’s shirt had been torn to ribbons. His chaps were covered with burrs. His holster was empty. His boots deposited a spoor of blood and dust on the floor. José was hauling a twenty-gallon glass jar with his head in it.

After driving a herd of stolen horses from Mount Diablo through the Central Valley into Southern California to San Diego County, José Reyna returned north. The police ambushed him and his band of renegades in the marshes at Diablo Creek. The temperature was 115 degrees in the shade that day. Insects weren’t chittering. Birds weren’t singing. The year was 1837.