Police and Thieves: A Novel (19 page)

“Ah, you know, I’ve got some gigs going making bucks. Everything is copacetic. You hear I got me an old lady?”

“You got a girlfriend? That’s unreal. Who?”

“You know Rhonda?”

“The bartender at the Chameleon? With the pentagram tattoo on her arm?”

“Yeah, her.”

Rhonda outweighed Dee Dee by a ratio of four to one. I asked him, “How’s business?”

“I’m prospering. The scams I got these days? They’re panning out.”

“Where you living at?”

“Around. I got me a room over on Jones Street near St. Boniface’s. Sometimes I stay at Rhonda’s. But she’s got too many animals, man. They fuck with my allergies. You?”

“I’m in the same place.”

He raised his eyebrows at that one. “So I hear you ain’t in business no more.”

“Yeah, I’m on a hiatus.”

“What’s that? A barbiturate? Let me buy one off you.”

Dee Dee operated by the code of junkie denial—he would never admit to setting us up for a bust. Even now, he couldn’t look me in the eye. If I harassed him about it, I’d get zilch. That’s how I saw the situation, but Dee Dee, perversely enough, couldn’t leave it alone. He said, “I’m sorry about what happened.”

“Huh?”

“You, dude. In the park, remember? Things got kind of loco.”

“What got loco?”

“You guys did. That’s how it gets when the wealth starts pouring in.”

“Wealth?”

“Uh-huh. You started making some money, and y’all got too uppity. You started getting into a trick bag, shortchanging people, fucking them over. Good people … Maurice still ain’t too happy with you.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“You see, Doojie, I was brought up differently than you. I’m
old-school, class of 1976, a fine year. I’m from way back in the day. I know how to finesse things. You don’t see the narcs on my butt, do you? What goes around comes around, that’s what I say.”

“Are you saying I deserve to have Flaherty on me?”

“That wasn’t my thing! What are you tying me up with that shit for? Don’t be fucking with my head, Doojie! You got some gumption mixing me up with that!”

I shoved Dee Dee against the Laundromat’s window, holding him there until his legs buckled. He was breathing fast, almost hyperventilating; his rancid body odor made my nose run.

“Leave me alone, Doojie! I ain’t done nothing to you!”

“You tried to get me busted.”

“No, I didn’t! That was a coincidence!”

“You’re lying, Dee Dee.”

“No, I’m not! You got it wrong! Me and Eichmann had a deal! You delivered the goods and the narc walked in on us!”

“It was more than that.”

“Was not!”

“You’re making this up.”

“Why would I do that? Why would I want to fight with you guys?”

“Because you hate us.”

“Hate? I don’t hate anybody! Nobody is more into that peace thing than me!”

“C’mon.”

“No, you don’t get it. I’ve changed! I’ve reformed! I got no grudges against anyone!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“For sure?”

“You know it!”

“Absolutely?”

“Damn it, yes!”

“You swear to God?”

“Okay, okay, it was all about Eichmann. He was the bad egg. But I wasn’t down on you or Bobo. That was an accident.”

“An accident?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“The cops were an accident?”

“Doojie, trust me. I didn’t have anything to do with them.”

Being light and portable, Dee Dee went sailing when I pushed him through the window; the large glass pane broke into a million fragments as he landed on the floor, shredding his hands into ribbons. He looked at me and silently mouthed, I’ll get you some day. The last I saw of him, the vatos at the Laundromat were going through his pockets, slicing his pants with their knives.

The newlyweds were holding court inside the hall. Eichmann and Loretta were standing next to a table where you could get a cup of Kool-Aid spiked with gin for a buck. A turntable was cranking out the late Van McCoy’s “Do the Hustle” and the guests were dancing to the song.

Loretta was putting on a considerable amount of weight; the calories had taken the expressway to her tits, making them fuller than ever. She was changing in other ways too—modeling a Charles Manson–style maternity dress made from dungaree scraps with Birkenstock sandals on her swollen feet, a bottle of lime-flavored Calistoga mineral water at her side. Not even twenty-three years old and she was deep into the pose of a nouveau hippie mother. Eichmann got a glimpse of me and caterwauled, “Asshole, where have you been? Hey, everybody, Doojie’s here!”

Eichmann made a production out of my entrance, sauntering toward me, holding a fattie. I gave him the once-over: Living at his aunt’s wasn’t doing him any harm. Eating three square
meals a day and having a bed to sleep in with your girlfriend, you couldn’t beat that. But he was getting fat; you could see it around his eyes, how the skin was crinkly. His hair was grizzled and dry like he was turning thirty, not twenty-two. He had on a cheap sharkskin suit with a white buttoned-down shirt under it, a seedy ensemble that did little to cloak his grubbiness.

I knew the script: He wanted me to congratulate him for being the greatest man on earth because he got to formally hump Loretta every night for the rest of his life. It sounded like a grade-B horror movie to me. Poor Bobo. So far, Loretta was the only woman he’d ever known. He might as well have been married to her, which somehow made his departure to the Northwest seem even more sad than it was. I didn’t get it—I was at Eichmann’s shindig, and I was succumbing to depression.

“You got your money in a safe spot?”

Eichmann was referring to the cash in the shoe box that we’d split three ways. I thought of Bobo again and replied, “Yeah, thanks.”

“You going to put it to good use and invest it?”

“We’ll see. I’m sitting on it.”

“Myself, I’m getting back into business.”

“Oh, yeah? Doing what?”

“I got plans, big plans. This time, there’ll be no fuckups, none. You interested?”

“Depends.”

“I’m planning on doing wholesale. No more retail. Those days are over.”

“Wholesale?”

“Yeah, pounds. Buying and selling lots of them. I can get seventy-five-pound bales if I have to. Medical marijuana. Designer weed. The profit margin ain’t great, but the turnover is high. I make contracts with the domestic growers. I refigure the percentages.
The money will add up. You want in?”

Before I could digest the plot he was sketching out for me, Loretta came over to us. Taking no note of her husband, she asked me, “Aren’t you going to kiss the bride?”

A chunk of lipstick was caught between Loretta’s teeth. She held out her arms to me and I closed my eyes, yielding to her hug. My cock stiffened perceptibly; I tried to back off, but she held me tight, hissing ardently, “Where do you think you’re going?”

She thrust a knee between my legs, drilling my mouth with her lips. The viciousness of her kiss made me agitated, very horny. I didn’t begrudge her copping a feel off me. This was the last time she’d ever touch another man or woman; Eichmann would see to that. Already he was policing her, grating, “That’s enough. Just kiss the little turd and get it over with.”

I went outside to see what Louis was doing. He was getting into mischief with the kids from around the corner on Sycamore; they’d brought a packet of fireworks to the party for the bride and her groom. Louis was on his knees positioning a bottle rocket over the lip of a beer can. The kids got the projectile situated and lit the fuse, whooping when the thing flew up, jetting onto the roof of the King Hotel. “Look at that mother go!” Louis rejoiced. He set up another rocket, and a kid, no more than six, put a match to it. I was so busy watching Louis do his thing, I didn’t notice that Eichmann had joined us.

“So what do you say, Doojie? Pounds. I can get them cheap without any difficulty. I can get a variety of imports. Mexican, Colombian, Jamaican, anything you want.”

“It’s better than doing eighths.”

“You know it. And with it comes a better breed of customer, too. Nicer people, no weirdos, and easier hours. Best of all, no getting your hands dirty.”

“You say you got a connection?”

“A grower for the indica. He’s got a warehouse in east Oakland near Fruitvale. He can pick his crop and bring it to me in an hour. For the imports, I’ve got to go to Daly City.”

“Close, huh?”

“Yeah, just a quick ride down Two-eighty and I’m back in the city inside half an hour. But I want to ask you something.”

“What is it?”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“I want you to come in on it with me and be my partner.”

“What would I have to do?”

“What you’re good at. Making deliveries. Doing the sales, the hands-on stuff. You know, talking on the phone.”

“It’d be the same thing I’ve always done.”

“No, it wouldn’t. The clientele would be superior. Instead of going to Mission Street to drop off a dime bag at the Thor Hotel, you’d be taking a taxi to Diamond Heights to deliver a pound.”

“No, I can’t do it.”

“Of course you can. You get in the goddamn cab and tell the driver where to go.”

“It’s not that.”

“What is it, then?”

“I don’t know … I just want to think about things the next few months.”

“You don’t want to do business?”

“No.”

Eichmann pooh-poohed me. “Look at you … you’re still living in that garage. I’m going to make big money! What’s your problem, faggot?”

“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with what you’re doing.”

“That’s right. Par for the course, you ain’t saying shit.”

“I’m just not into it.”

“You mean it, don’t you? You’re turning me down. You’re rejecting me and my proposal. Fuck, I can’t handle this. You shit, you’re breaking my heart. I’ve been thinking about this for days.”

“I’m not rejecting you. You’re being extreme.”

“Extreme? The problem is you, man. You ain’t true blue. When I remember all the effort I put into making money for us … I gave you everything!”

“We did it together. We each did our part.”

“Don’t be sounding like a communist with me! Later with you, dude!”

Loretta materialized by his side. Eichmann touched her stomach, leering at me. “C’mon, we can forget Doojie. Let’s go mingle with the other guests. At least we know they’re our friends.”

I wasn’t insulted. Eichmann wasn’t threatening anymore. He took Loretta’s arm and stomped off, never looking back at me. I stared at his square head and said a prayer for him: have a nice life, sucker. Louis, who’d been keeping his distance from Eichmann and me, cracked open a fresh quart of beer and gave it to me. “Here you go, Doojie. Let’s drink to our young friends getting hitched. This is a memorable day.”

“You think they’ll make it?”

“For the baby’s sake, I really hope they can.”

“I ain’t so sure about them.”

“Eichmann has grit. He’ll make a good father.”

I knew Louis was honoring me by giving me the first swallow from the bottle. I tilted it so a spoonful of the brew spilled into the gutter—it was my way of remembering the dead. Then I raised the quart to my lips and took a snort, knowing the fortified malt liquor would clear my head.

Louis growled, “Good stuff, huh? Hey, what do you
know … those children might’ve caused a fire with those rockets.”

The top floor of the King Hotel was wreathed in smoke, spiraling upwards from the roof, but it didn’t look too dangerous. We didn’t see any fire engines, and the cops across the street weren’t responding, so we settled back on the hood of a parked Ford and passed the bottle.

“You ever been married, Louis?”

“Yeah, I was once.”

“What’s so good about it?”

“Marriage? You get to sleep with someone every night … there ain’t anything finer than that. I don’t like being alone.”

“Me neither.”

Loretta and Eichmann came back outside to look at the fire, and then set to squabbling about it. She was convinced it was going to ruin their reception. She flat out declared, “I never want to do anything in the Mission ever again!”

Eichmann tried to appease her. “It’s not that bad. We can tell the landlord what happened and maybe he won’t charge us for renting the space. We’ll claim fire damage and shit.”

Louis said to me, earnest and confidentiallike, “A whole lot of drama out here today.”

He wasn’t kidding. The King Hotel’s tenants were streaming onto the pavement, some people in their pajamas, some in their underwear. According to one of them, the flames were spreading to every floor in the building. Spurts of black smoke engulfed the neighboring Elbo Room nightclub, billowing into the sky, shifting when the wind changed, erasing the streetlights, the telephone wires, and the skyline west of Valencia.

Eichmann pushed Loretta up against a parking meter and angrily kissed her, not even breathing as the smoke eddied around him. He embraced his wife, gazing at her with love and confusion on his face. This was just the beginning for him. We were at the
gateway to a new time in life. Some of us would make it in, others wouldn’t, but nobody could take away what we’d already been through. That was the beauty of it all. Nobody could say I wasn’t a survivor.

I finished off the bottle, and Louis pragmatically suggested we go over to the Busy Bee Market and get another one. The sidewalk was clogged with the King Hotel people and their belongings. I was telling Louis we should leave when I saw someone emerge from the smoke, a blurred figure. Whoever it was, he was by himself.

A fire truck came flying down the street. I couldn’t make out what Louis was saying because the truck’s siren was so loud. He gestured at the man I’d seen a moment earlier. For all I knew, the party was falling apart. The truck skidded over to the curb; three firemen in rubber boots and hard hats jumped off the back, dragging hoses onto the asphalt. Louis yanked at my arm and shouted in my ear, “Goddamn it, would you listen to me?”

I followed the curve of his outstretched arm to see what he meant. A corpulent man in nondescript clothing was coming out of the smoke, no longer a blur in the haze on Valencia Street. He moved one leg slower than the other, and he didn’t swing his arms. His pants sagged around his waist as if he’d undergone a dramatic weight loss in a brief time. His hair had been recently cut, leaving his swarthy face open. He swaggered up the sidewalk with his thick-lashed eyes trained on me, pushing aside anyone who got in his way.