Chapter Fourteen
Durrutti met up with Maimonides in the La Cabana Bakery next door to the Instituto Laboral De La Raza on Sixteenth Street. Across the way was a four-storied brick fortress called the Redstone Building. Erected in 1914 the beehive of offices used to be known as the San Francisco Labor Temple, the site where the citywide general strike of 1934 had been planned.
Daylight’s last rays had bathed the Rubalcava Flower Shop, the Burger King and Walgreen’s Drugstore, Hwa Lei Market and the Kim Yen Restaurant in pornographic sunshine, exposing the unpainted plumbing pipes, jumbled telephone wires, and broken-down satellite dishes.
Durrutti was in a fey mood and remarked, as if he were addressing no one in particular, “Ephraim Rook has an office over there in the Redstone Building, don’t he?”
Toiling over a pastry, Maimonides was disinclined to respond. Food and talk did not mix. His preoccupation gave Durrutti an opportunity to scope him out. Ricky was no specimen of male beauty, but Maimonides wasn’t any prettier. The realization gave Durrutti a moment’s ineffable happiness. For a long time, he’d been laboring under the delusion Maimonides was better looking than him. To find out this wasn’t so did wonders for his self-esteem.
“Yeah,” Maimonides grunted. “Ephraim’s got a suite in the Redstone. For a couple of years now. Real classy. IKEA furniture. Stained glass windows. A gold samovar. The whole phony bit. He has a lot of money lately, I hear. Tons of it. It’s coming out of his ass, he’s got so much. And you know him ... if he’s got it, he’s gonna flaunt it.”
Durrutti bared his innermost feelings. “In case you didn’t know, Ephraim is bugging me.”
Maimonides was empathic. “So I notice. He’s a shit stirrer and he’s got no moxie. But you and him, what is it? Something special? There was always some vibe going on between you guys.”
Durrutti was relieved to get it out on the table. “Damn right there is. Ephraim’s been hassling me. We’ve got some shit going down over his girlfriend. I slept with her.”
“You slept with her? That must of killed him. He’s not strong enough to survive these things.”
“Yeah, it’s a mess.”
“Who is she? Someone I know?”
“The woman we saw on Capp Street the other day. You asked me about her. I told you I didn’t know who she was.”
Maimonides whistled. “That broad? The one with the tacky clothes? You and Ephraim are tussling over her? You’re a dork. She looks like a self-hating drag queen. Drop her right now. Leave her to Rook. For Christ’s sake, what’s wrong with you? Getting involved with her was a mistake.”
“I told him I ain’t messing with any of his business no more. I’m done with her shit and his shit. It’s over. But he won’t leave me alone. I can’t let him get away with that, can I?”
“You gotta protect yourself, that’s smart.” Maimonides was melancholy and his chest heaved as he prophesied. “I’m afraid it might get rough with you and him. Maybe it’s better this way. And maybe I can get in on the action. I hate to tell you this, but I predict you and Ephraim will have more trouble.”
“Yeah? Who are you?”
“I’m the rabbi of Mission Street. I know everything.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Great. That’s brilliant. Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome. And here’s how I know. I came up with Rook. We were proficient in violence and we had vast amounts of ambition. We were like one person. I was the left hand. Ephraim was the right hand. But the years changed us. The left hand injected drugs into itself. The right hand began to make a fortune. Ephraim Rook was no longer my friend.
“These days, him doing what he does, handling other people’s money for them? He’s an accountant, right? And a landlord? Hardly glamorous. The way he dresses and how he acts, like a big shot? The pussy. You’d never know it was the same guy who used to flog televisions at the flea market. Huddling in his car at dawn hoping to sell a portable black and white set by noon so he could eat. He was so poor, all his hair fell out. Me and him, we used to count pennies for coffee. Now he thinks he’s the greatest.”
“What should I do about him?”
“For the moment, nothing.” Maimonides was fatalistic and enjoying it. “But just wait. Ephraim won’t leave you in peace. It’s not in his nature. If he’s already got his hooks into you, he’ll want a bigger piece of your ass. Something that will hurt. But don’t worry. He’ll give you a signal first. Ephraim believes in advertising whatever it is he’s doing.”
Maimonides’s prediction unnerved Durrutti—more tsouris, the diminutive Jew didn’t need. The dungeon of his heart did not beat. No air passed through his lungs. The faces of Jimmy Ramirez, Sugar, Ephraim Rook, and Kulak rotated in the kaleidoscope of his agitated mind.
He looked out the bakery’s window—a summery night had fallen with a guillotine’s quickness; the stars in the sky were few and far between. Seeing them made him perversely optimistic, easing his fears—if a star could twinkle overhead, hope lurked in the Mission.