Revolution Number 9 (26 page)

“That be all?” said the clerk, totaling his purchases.

“Got any straight razors?”

“Think we do,” said the clerk. “I’ll check.” He went into a back room, returned with two razors in plasticized packages. “Not a popular item nowadays,” said the clerk, holding them out. “We’ve just got these two left.”

“I’ll take the big one,” said Ol’ J.P.

C
harlie walked up a steep hill and looked down at the bay. He had to think. Instead, he watched boats cutting across the water, leaving wakes of red foam in the rays of the late afternoon sun. They reminded him of
Straight Arrow
and Cosset Pond. The next thing he knew he was in a phone kiosk, calling home.

“Hello?” It was Emily.

Again he found himself unable to speak to her.

“Hello? Hello?”

Charlie got ready to hang up. But then she said: “Charlie? It isn’t you, is it?”

And he answered: “Yes.” The word came strangled, muted, rough, and perhaps only partly true, but it came.

“Charlie?”

“Yes,” he repeated, this time with more control. San Francisco Bay, the boats with their sails cupped to the breeze, the foaming red wakes, the famous hill he stood on: none of it seemed real. Reality was this electronically reproduced voice
from three thousand miles away, marred by hisses and hums in the wire.

“Charlie,” she said, “are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t sound all right. What’s going on?”

Charlie had trouble recalling the cover story: Uncle Sam, a grandfather’s will, choice hunks of real estate, statutory time factors—was that it?

“Charlie?”

“Everything’s all right,” said Charlie. “It’s just taking longer than they said.”

“What’s taking longer and who is they?”

“Uncle Sam. The lawyers. This inheritance business.” His voice coarsened again, this time from having to force out the lies. He didn’t want to lie to her. He wanted to confess, as he should have done at the beginning. Or better, to have not begun at all; to have kept his mouth shut about twenty-six across—Malik’s goddamned power saw—and to have kept Ben Webster off the turntable. But now what was he to confess? Was he a criminal, a murderer? What had he done? What was he responsible for? He no longer knew. There were unresolved questions, no longer only of motive but of fact: yes, there were problems with his inheritance, the inheritance Blake Wrightman had left to Charlie Ochs. In that sense it was not a lie.

“Is he with you?” said Emily.

“Who?” said Charlie, aware that he was failing to communicate in the easy shorthand of a good marriage.

“Your uncle,” she said.

“No,” said Charlie, “not at the moment.”

“How is he?”

“Who?”

“Your uncle, for God’s sake. He has cancer, doesn’t he?”

“I guess he does.”

“You guess?”

“He doesn’t talk about it.”

Silence. He thought he felt her mind, clear, quiet, with its reserves of power, probing from across the continent.

“Where are you?” she said.

An inevitable question, was it not? And had he an answer ready? No.

“Where are you? It sounds far.”

“It’s not far,” he said. “I’ll be home soon.”

Silence. She was waiting for him to be more specific about where he was, but she wasn’t going to ask again. He said nothing, searched his mind desperately for a smooth way out of the conversation.

“What’s gone wrong, Charlie?” She sounded impatient, like a teacher with a balky pupil.

“Nothing. I miss you, that’s all.”

“There’s an obvious solution,” she said, softening her tone a little.

“Is there?”

“Of course,” she answered with surprise, surprise that he wasn’t following her. “Come home.”

Her mention of an obvious solution had thrown him off the track of their conversation, back into what he was doing. He felt a strong desire for her help; he wanted her to think with him at that moment, to put her mind to work on Klein, Malik, Goodnow, and the rusted and incapacitated bomb still in its place under the old ROTC building. But he couldn’t imagine a way to begin and just said, “I’ll be home soon.”

Silence.

“I’d better go now,” he said.

Pause. “Fine.”

Charlie was about to tell her he loved her; the phrase pressed inside him to get out, but he held it in, not wanting to abandon it among all the falsehoods he had spoken. So he said, “ ’Bye.”

And she said, “ ’Bye.”

And that was that.

Charlie stepped away from the phone. He was still in red sunshine, as were the bridges and the hilltops of the East Bay, but the water was dark now, the boats fading into invisibility. Charlie, who had walked up the hill not to call Emily but to think, had a thought. Perhaps his contact with Emily’s probing mind had inspired it.

He checked the telephone kiosk. No directory; not even a place for one in the kiosk’s design. Charlie walked down the hill
and went into a café near the bottom. There was a pay phone by the door, and Bay Area directories hanging beside it. Charlie opened the yellow pages, turned to the
P
’s, found the listings for printers. He scanned it down to the
W’
s. There it was: Wine Printing and Engraving. The address hadn’t changed.

Charlie took a taxi into the Mission, looking out at the half-remembered streets, as though clarifying a dream. He got out in front of the house: a three-story Victorian that had been in need of repair when last seen by him and was now beyond it. The house was dark. Charlie walked up to the door and knocked.

No response. He peered through the little square window in the door, saw nothing. He knocked again, with no result.

Nine-thirty, too early for bed. The shop was in the basement, the office on the first floor, Mr. Wine had lived on the second with his girlfriend, and Brucie had had one of the two rooms at the top. He himself had lived in the other for three or four months.

Charlie raised his hand to knock again. The door opened. A woman with a cigarette in her mouth looked out. Charlie hadn’t heard her approach because her feet were bare. As was most of the rest of her: the woman wore only a towel that stretched inadequately around her abundant body, and headphones. It was hard to tell her age by the light of the street lamp; but probably closer to forty than thirty.

“Oh,” she said. “I thought you was someone else.”

“Sorry if I disturbed you. I’m looking for Brucie Wine.”

“If you’re talking I can’t hear you,” the woman said. She took off her headphones, shook her hair. It was wet. A few warm drops landed on Charlie’s face. He smelled chlorine. “You needed me,” she said.

He took it as a question and answered, “Very briefly.”

The woman gestured with the headphones. “Anne Murray. I was just relaxing in the hot tub with some tunes.”

“Then how did you hear me knocking?”

She drew on her cigarette, giving him a long look. “I felt the vibes. This old dump is like a medium for vibes, if you know what I mean.”

“I think I do,” Charlie said. “Does Brucie Wine still live here?”

The woman flicked on the outside light, studied Charlie’s face. “You don’t look like a cop.”

“Why would I be a cop?”

She ignored him. “But neither did the little son of a bitch that busted him. And that question about hearing the knock was like a cop.”

“I’m not a cop.”

“What are you, then?”

“A fisherman. And an old acquaintance of Brucie’s.”

“Let’s see your hands.”

Charlie held out his hands. She felt them. Hers were warm and plump. “Yeah,” she said, the cigarette dangling from her lips, “could be.” She let go, her fingernails scratching lightly across his palm. “You know Brucie?”

“I knew him years ago. I’m passing through and thought I’d look him up. Is he in some kind of trouble?”

The woman frowned. Perhaps she was closer to forty-five. “No more than usual,” she said. “Or maybe a teeny bit more. But it’ll come out all right. Like before. He’s making his lawyer rich is all.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Spics, this time. It never ends.” The towel slipped a little, revealing demiglobes of breast. She did nothing about it. “Wanna come in and wait for him?” she asked. “He’ll probably be an hour or two.” She gave him another look. “At least. Maybe you’d like to relax in the hot tub.” He felt her smoky breath on his face.

“I’m not an Anne Murray fan,” Charlie said. “And my schedule is tight. Do you know where I can find him now?”

She hitched the towel up to her armpits and flicked the cigarette out into the night. She’d lost interest in him; perhaps it was his lack of musical taste. “He’s at a meeting.”

“Can you tell me where? I know he’ll want to see me.”

“At the usual place, I suppose,” she said. “Polly’s.” She gave him the address.

“Thanks,” Charlie said.

She switched off the light. “And tell him not to be late,” she said from the shadows. “Laverne says not to be late.” The door closed.

Polly’s was a bar beside a Daihatsu dealer off South Van Ness, a fifteen-minute walk. “Beer,” read the sign above the window. “Wine, Liquor, Drinks.” He got the idea. Through the window he could see a dark room with a few human figures in it. The door was open, exhaling a complex mixture of rough smells: perfume for an anti-universe. Charlie was about to go in when a dog barked savagely, right behind him.

He wheeled around, saw a pit bull lunging at him, jaws open wide. Charlie jumped back. The animal came jerking to the end of its chain, emitting strangled, murderous sounds. Charlie saw that the chain was fastened to a No Parking sign, and his heart rate returned to normal. “Easy, boy,” he said, and to his astonishment the dog lowered its head and sidled back into the shadows. A car went by. Its headlights illuminated the features of a Chinese man sitting in a parked car a few spaces away. His eyes were on the dog and they were murderous too. Charlie entered the bar.

A jukebox glowed silently in one corner. Otherwise Polly’s was dim. It took Charlie a few moments to distinguish the customers: two women in jeans and jean jackets at a table near the front, a fat man in a sleeveless T-shirt near the jukebox, two black men at the table next to his, a Latino in an unraveling straw hat at the table in the back. Brucie Wine’s face was out-of-focus in his memory, and of course he must have changed, but not into anyone Charlie saw here. He approached the bar.

The bartender, a woman as tall as he was and almost as broad, was reading a paperback romance called
Wild Magnolia
. She wore black leather pants, a black halter top, and had a black and red Iron Cross tattooed on one forearm. “Somethin’ to drink?” she said, laying the book on the bar.

“A beer,” Charlie said.

“Like what?”

He named one. His eyes grew accustomed to the light. He noticed the decor: unlit Chinese lanterns trailing spiderwebs,
blown-up black-and-whites of circus women, a framed poster that read “Impeach the Fucker.”

The bartender set a bottle in front of him, forcefully. “Buck and a half,” she said.

Charlie handed it over. “Has Brucie Wine been in?” he asked.

The bartender looked at him. Her eyes were round and blue; beautiful, possibly, but unsympathetic. “I don’t like trouble,” she said. “But I’m ready for it, believe me.” She glanced down at something behind the bar.

“Don’t worry,” Charlie said. “I’m an old friend.”

“The dickhead has a friend?” She pointed her chin at something behind Charlie. “Voilà,” she said. He turned and saw a man coming through a swinging door that read, “Hombres,” zipping up his pants. Potbellied, snub-nosed, splayfooted: Brucie Wine. He had hardly changed, although it couldn’t be said that the years had been good to him. He shook his ponytail, walked over to the Latino’s table and sat down behind a long-necked Bud. Charlie picked up his drink. “Trouble, you mop up,” the bartender called after him.

Charlie moved to the table nearest Brucie’s, sat so Brucie could see him. Brucie, ten feet away, took no notice of his arrival.

The other man at Brucie’s table, who had his back to Charlie, said something Charlie couldn’t hear. Brucie sucked his teeth and said,
“Dinero.”

The other man talked some more. He seemed to be arguing, but calmly, reasonably, even deferentially. He removed his straw hat and held it in both hands.

Brucie said:
“Dinero
, man,
dinero
. Capeesh?” He took a long slug from his bottle, avoided eye contact with the other man. The other man rose and walked away. He put on the straw hat, pulling it low over his eyes, but not low enough to hide their stricken look. Brucie noticed Charlie then, and shook his head complicitously, in recognition of their shared white man’s burden.

“Still writing poetry?” Charlie said.

“Huh?”

“ ‘What a cool day for a treat. Lots of chickies really neat.’ Poetry, Brucie.”

Brucie’s eyes narrowed. Then they widened. He got up, slowly, backed away, carefully, like a hiker encountering a coiled snake. He bumped into the wall. “Don’t,” he said.

“Don’t?”

“Oh Jesus God,” Brucie cried, his voice breaking. “He’s gonna fuckin’ kill me.” Then he darted around his table, knocking the long-necked bottle on the floor, and bolted outside through the door. Charlie went after him.

“Hey,” yelled the bartender after him: “Mop up.”

B
rucie Wine, car keys in one hand and the pit bull’s chain in the other, was fumbling at the door of an acne boy’s dream car as Charlie ran outside. Like a desperate figure in a nightmare, Brucie was moving frantically but getting nowhere. He saw Charlie, said, “Oooooooo,” hunched over the keyhole, made still more frantic motions and finally flung the door open, banging it hard against the No Parking sign pole. Then he ducked down to get in the car, bumped his head, entangled himself in the dog chain, and fell on the sidewalk.

Charlie came forward. The pit bull puffed up its muscles and growled. Brucie, lying on his back, repeated, “Oooooooo,” and aimed a kick in Charlie’s direction. At the same moment the dog lunged at Charlie, jaws open wide. They closed on Brucie’s upraised calf.