Soon the Rest Will Fall (15 page)

A rendezvous was set for three o'clock in the court-house.

A single cumulus cloud dallied above the city, making eyes at the sun. A school of police choppers angled over Market Street to Rincon Hill. Pigeons cakewalked on the methadone clinic's roof in Stevenson Alley. A bomb threat at Golden Gate and Polk had closed the federal building. Traffic was brought to a standstill between Larkin Street and Van Ness Avenue.

At three in the afternoon, Robert oozed into the courthouse's Polk Street entrance. He made a beeline for Harriet and her lawyer. His wife was in a black chiffon dress, the same one she'd worn at their wedding. It was tight on her hips. She saw he was alone and protested, “Where's Slatts? You were supposed to bring him, damn it.”

Robert put up his hands in self-defense. “That ain't my fault. I couldn't find him.”

The shyster offered a compromise. “The judge doesn't know what you or this Slatts guy looks like. Nobody does. I'll tell him that you couldn't make today's hearing.”

“Then what?”

“You'll impersonate Slatts Calhoun.”

“That's crazy.” Robert's seasick eyes widened with disbelief. “You want me to be Slatts and give his testimony?”

“Yes.”

“Against myself?”

“Yes.”

“This is fucked up, man.”

The counselor goaded him. “It will make things move quicker.”

“Okay, what the hell. I'll do it.”

The threesome swung into the courtroom and sat down in a pew by the judge's podium. The stenographer was typing a file. The magistrate was a frail, light-skinned Mexican man. After reading a brief, he asked the shyster to join him at the bench. They conferred for a minute, and the lawyer returned with the news.

“You can testify,” he said to Robert.

The dilapidated ex-felon clopped to the podium. He had on a coffee-stained T-shirt, unwashed jeans, motorcycle boots. His face was green from sleeplessness and complemented the blue tattoos on his white arms. The judge spoke to him. “You're Slatts Calhoun, is that correct?”

Robert had to fight hard to remember who he was. It was a seesaw battle. For a moment, it was touch and go. “Yes, sir.”

“You are a witness in this case?”

The lawyer said, “Yes, your honor. He's the only one besides the plaintiff and the defendant.”

The magistrate looked lost in his black robes. His voice sounded tiny and far away. “The plaintiff Harriet Grogan says you had an affair with her husband. Did you know Robert Grogan was married when you met him?”

Robert tensed. The hunter in him feared a snare. “Yeah, I did. He talked about his wife all the time. They'd been together for a while. He said she was a good woman. I always wondered about that. I didn't believe him. He had a tendency to exaggerate.”

“Where did you meet Mr. Grogan?”

“In San Quentin State Prison.”

“And what were you doing there? Were you employed?”

“Myself? I was a prisoner.”

“There's no mention of this in the file. Please continue.”

“Yeah, so, me and Robert were cellmates.”

“For how long?”

“I don't know. Maybe three years, whatever. Felt like a century.”

“During any of this time, were you and the defendant lovers?”

“Oh, yeah, a bunch of times. He was my penitentiary husband, you know.”

“He was your what?”

“My, uh, boyfriend.”

“When did you get out of prison?”

“Four days ago.”

“And what did you do when you were released?”

“On Robert's invitation, I went straight to his crib. He said I could stay with him and his family.”

“Did you know his wife at all while you were serving time in prison?”

“No, like I said, I knew he had one and shit, but I didn't meet her or anything. He wanted to keep things separate. He kept her away from me. He thought everything would be less complicated that way.”

“Why's that?”

“Who knows? He had two wives. You'd have to ask him.”

“When you went to stay with them, what happened?”

Robert was cagey. “What do you mean, what happened?”

“Did you resume your affair with the defendant?”

“Sort of. We were emotionally involved. But we didn't have sex or anything. He was too preoccupied.”

“And on the afternoon of December the twenty-second, where were you?”

“I don't recall.”

“I'll refresh your memory. The plaintiff says you were in the parking lot of her residence. Do you recollect this?”

“Yeah, I was probably there.”

“The plaintiff claims she saw you with the defendant, her husband. Does this sound credible?”

“It does.”

“You admit then, you were there?”

“Sure. I spent a lot of time with Robert in the parking lot.”

“The plaintiff also says you kissed the defendant.”

“I don't remember that.”

“Were you aware that his daughter was in the apartment at the time?”

Robert bluffed. “No.”

“Then what happened? Stick to the facts, please.”

“Well, okay. A whole lot of things got messy. His wife didn't like me. Robert was tired of my antics. They threw me out of their place. And I got busted for shoplifting.”

“Are you on parole?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Are you in touch with your parole officer about these proceedings?”

“Yeah, she knows everything. I just talked to her about it. She's cool.”

“I have no further questions, thank you. You may leave the stand.”

Robert ambled from the witness stand and strayed out of the courtroom. In the hall he sidestepped a clerk toting a sheaf of papers. Then he hoofed it past the cops and the
politicians and custodians in the shadowy rotunda and made his way outside to Polk Street.

On the sidewalk, he cranked his ravaged face to the sun. His ears rang from fatigue. His feet were sore and itched. It was a postcard-perfect winter afternoon in the city. Hot and dry with a trace of whitish smoke in the sky from a fire in the Tenderloin. Two helicopters did a raucous minuet over the UN Plaza. Gunshots were going off on Market Street near the Bank of America.

 

Holding a Colt revolver in both hands, Athena Diggs crept into Robert Grogan's apartment. The door was ajar. That wasn't cool. It meant there was a problem. Folks didn't leave their shit open when they lived on Market Street. Not unless they wanted to get killed.

Athena's hair was tucked under a red and green silk scarf. Blue wraparound shades were glued to her nose. Her lean frame was sheathed in a pair of OshKosh overalls. Timberland boots shod her feet. In her pocket was a warrant for Robert Grogan's arrest. A judge had signed it late last night. Right after that other fool Slatts Calhoun slipped off the deep end. Now the cracker was on the run from the cops.

The parole officer listened for telltale sounds but didn't hear a thing. The pad was quiet. The lights were off. The television wasn't squawking. Neither was the radio. She pulled back the revolver's hammer, expecting the worst. It wouldn't be the first time she'd found a client dead. Men who came out of prison were at risk. A lot of ex-cons committed suicide because of depression. It was textbook. She glissaded into the living room, prepared to shoot the dog.

Remnants of the Christmas tree were under the coffee table. The couch had been massacred. A poster of the metal band Iron Maiden hung from a thumbtack on a wall. In the bathroom there was blood on the floor, dog hair in the sink. An army of flies laid siege to the deerskin in the toilet. There were no clothes in the hall closets.

Athena uncocked her revolver and cussed. “That goddamn motherfucker. I hate his ass.” The white boy had squirmed through her fingers. Even the mutt was gone. Robert Grogan was now a fugitive from the law. An all points bulletin would be issued for his arrest.

That evening police vans swept by the Civic Center as smoke from a warehouse fire in the Embarcadero obscured the Bay Bridge and the condominiums on Rincon Hill. At nine o'clock Robert ducked into a watering hole by the Quakers Meeting Hall on Ninth Street. The dive was a survivor from the South-of-Market real estate wars. An artificial Christmas wreath was tacked to the door. A couple of leather queens in studded wristbands, combat boots, dog collars, and kilts nursed beers at the bar. The jukebox banged out Miles Davis's “Bitches Brew.”

Slatts was sulking in the corner, morosely staring into the bottom of a gin and tonic. He was in a green polyester pants suit and white suede boots with a silver chain around his bullish neck. His teardrop tattoo signified a year in the California Youth Authority system. Robert slid onto the stool next to him and fussed. “You made it. Christ almighty, I was worried about you.”

“Uh huh.”

“You all right? You didn't get hurt or nothing, did you?”

“I'm okay. No thanks to you, dipshit.”

“Hey, mellow out. Let me get us some drinks.”

Slatts grumbled and said nothing more. Robert placed an order with the bartender, and the ex-cons were served a round of vodka gimlets. They toasted each other and then guzzled their beverages. In the bar's gloom, Robert's shaved skull glimmered with a ruddy light. Listening to the music with one ear, he drifted away on a cloud of anxieties.

Time was running out on him. That was for sure. There was no stopping it. The hours were ticking down. The fear in his guts, always there but usually at a slow burn, had reached a crescendo. He thrummed his fingers on the greasy bar top, unable to control his agitation. “I have a plan,” he declared.

Slatts was afraid to ask, but couldn't stop himself. “Is that so?”

Another tune came over the jukebox—Howard Tate's “Get It While You Can.”

Robert had his thinking cap on. “You know that liquor store? The one near the post office?”

“What about it?”

“There's a safe in there with money in it, lots of money. I've seen it.”

A man in a coma could tell where the conversation was going. Slatts had to laugh. “Go on. I'm listening.”

“I was thinking that we could wait until just before closing time and then walk in there and take it.”

“Take what?”

“Take the damn safe.”

“You mean, carry it out?”

“No, no, no, just the money.”

“Then what do we do?”

Robert's eager face was a pizza of bad skin and sleepless nights. “Run like motherfuckers.”

“Shit.” Slatts wasn't thrilled. “That's no goddamn plan.”

“It's the beginning of one.This is the foundation.” Robert was animated, moving his hands. “Nobody is on Market Street at midnight, just a bunch of winos. We'd blend in easy. It'll be a cinch, especially because it's Christmas.”

“What about the cops?”

“Who cares?” He didn't want to think about the law.

The robbery was basic. Making it complicated would fuck it up royally. In Robert's estimation, the liquor store was a cash cow. He wasn't worried about the surveillance cameras. All that was needed was a little reconnaissance on the place. “You in or out?”

Slatts negotiated. “What's the split?”

He was ticked that he had to do all the thinking. It had always been that way between them. Slatts was two steps behind him, mentally speaking. “It's fifty-fifty.”

“When do you want to do this thing?”

“Tonight.”

“I'm in. And you wanna know why?”

“Yeah, why?”

“This ain't for you. I'm doing it for me.”

The hustle was on. There was no turning back. A familiar warmth seared Robert's stomach. Talk about being scared. He was going to pull a job. If he failed, it was back to the joint for the rest of his life.

A hubbub broke out at the other end of the room. Robert turned half-heartedly to see what it was about. It sounded like a drunkard was hassling the bartender. That was standard fare in a wino bar on Ninth Street.

Dirt Man was chest-to-chest with the barkeep. The
booty bandit was swaddled in a pair of blue Ben Davis jeans and a bleached denim jacket with the sleeves torn off. His arms showcased a full array of Aryan Brotherhood tattoos. The bartender had a baseball bat in his mitts and was squared off to duke it out with the gangster.

Slatts vaulted from the stool and steamed over to the bar with his fists clenched. A foe had reappeared—bad news was poetry on a muggy night. He hawked a marbled pearl of sputum on the linoleum floor and thought about what to do.

Keeping the peace was his best bet. He didn't want to brawl. Not with Dirt Man. That would be lame. Didn't want to get all bloody. That would be stupid. Didn't want fisticuffs. That might bring the police.

It was smarter to keep his cool. It wasn't his business if the booty bandit was fighting with the bartender. Slatts had to do what the psychologist in San Quentin told him. Subdue his impulses. Practice anger management. Rein in his temper. Stick to his boundaries. Take care of his needs first. Without any further ado, he launched an elbow at Dirt Man's nose.

In retaliation, the booty bandit drove a knee in Slatts's groin. Groping for a beer bottle, Dirt Man slapped his hands on one and crunched Slatts in the noggin with it. The sound was dreadful, similar to an overripe watermelon encountering a speeding automobile. Slatts stepped back, his scalp cut. Emerald stars kaleidoscoped behind his eyes. Whoa, he thought.