When I was an infant, no more than a year old, I took a drive with my mother and my stepfather, Doojie Sr., in his car, which was a second-hand Hillman sedan. He had a few guns in the trunk, but that was appropriate because it was the Fourth of July. I was in the backseat, staring at the thick, short club of my mother’s ponytail. I don’t know if Doojie Sr. was inebriated or not, but when we got into the center of town, we came across a cop directing traffic. He was standing on the yellow dividing line in the middle of the road, waving at cars.
There was bad blood between Doojie Sr. and the cop, some brouhaha about my stepfather getting beaten up at the police station when he was drunk. He was a gentle, sensitive man, and he did not take well to injury. So Doojie Sr. deliberately hit the policeman with the front end of the Hillman.
After this accomplishment, we drove home at top speed. Doojie Sr. told us to get out of the Hillman, and then he parked the car in the garage. He said to my mother, “They’re going to come after me. I want you and Doojie Jr. to keep your damn mouths shut, okay? Now, let’s get over to the neighbors.”
His ploy was brilliant. When the police came to arrest him, we’d claim we were watching television at the neighbor’s house all afternoon. We’d never even gone to town. The Hillman was in our garage, unused.
Twenty minutes later, the police showed up at the house and told Doojie Sr. they wanted to talk to him. I was sitting on the couch with my mother. Doojie Sr. was standing in the doorway with his friend Jack. The television was blaring out that afternoon’s edition of Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. Doojie Sr. looked at his wife and said, “They hate me. Shit, I’d better see what they want.”
He kicked open the screen door with his foot and went out onto the porch. Two police officers were at the front gate; the traffic cop Doojie Sr. injured was sitting in a squad car at the curb.
The two cops wanted to see the Hillman because they’d received a report from several eyewitnesses the car had been sighted causing grievous bodily harm to a police officer on active duty. Doojie Sr. said with a deadpan look on his hungry face, “That’s just terrible.” He escorted the policemen over to the garage and showed them the Hillman. “See?” he said with great satisfaction, feeling vindicated. “It’s been in here since last night.”
Both cops touched the Hillman’s hood to find out if the engine was warm. The metal was blistering hot, proof of Doojie Sr.’s guilt.
They took him down to the station, and he got the crap knocked out of him again.
With this kind of heritage, I needed some counseling, or I was going to sink into further trouble. The morning after I was stabbed, I was sitting in the most sunlit corner of the garage, meditating on my prospects. Eichmann came over to me and asked, “How’s your leg?” Before I could answer him, he added, “Louis said he was here when we were out. He talked to the landlord, and the landlord said we owed him money and that you’d been killed.”
“Who said that?”
“The landlord. He was working on his car in the driveway, changing his oil. There’s like eight million Pennzoil containers out there. He told Louis you’d bled to death in the hospital.”
“You tell me. Louis is going around informing everybody. He wasn’t happy to hear about your untimely demise. Sometimes I wish we didn’t have any friends, then we wouldn’t have to go through this.”
“What’s Louis saying?”
“That you’re dead. Now what are we going to do?”
“About what?”
“Jesus, I have to tell everyone he talked to that you’re alive. Do you realize what a hassle that’s going to be?”
From the way we talked, you’d have thought we were living in a shadow land between this life and the afterworld. Eichmann also said Louis wanted to meet with us in the Linda Street park. He had important news for us. The thing of it was, Louis was getting on my nerves saying I was dead, and I didn’t care if he had news or not. It was unsettling, hearing about your own death when it was the farthest thing from your mind. Loretta overheard our debate and asked, “What did he say?”
“The landlord told Louis Doojie was dead. Can you believe that? The landlord then said he wants rent money from us or he’s going to get the police.”
Loretta’s face went waxy. “He wants money because you’re living in this garage? Are you going to talk to him about it?”
“No, I’m not. We are in a nonnegotiable state of affairs here with him. Every day I’m in his garage, the more it becomes mine,” Eichmann said. Then he burped and added, turning to me, “We’ve got a meeting scheduled with Louis for this afternoon.”
I didn’t want to hear that. “What for?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I don’t know … what’s the matter?”
“You’re so secretive, like a spy.”
“Hey, there ain’t no spies in this garage. Do you know what we’re dealing with here? With the cops and everything?”
“I don’t want to know.”
“I bet you don’t. Hey, fuck it, do what you want.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You want me to say it again?”
Loretta stood there with her hands on her hips, her mouth caving in from the effort of holding back her confusion; her moony face was closed off with disappointment. Eichmann turned on me so fast, she was ashamed of him. She said to him, “What’s with you?”
He gazed at her with a blank look as clear as glass. “Nothing. What are you asking me for?”
“It’s like you want to start a fight with Doojie.”
“Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to start a fight with him or whoever?”
“Because you’re mad.”
“Mad at who? Who am I mad at?”
“Maybe Louis. Or Doojie. Maybe the police.”
“What for? I got no complaints about Louis. And the cops? Well, I don’t want to talk about them. And Doojie can just fuck off, for all I care.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
Whenever Eichmann was experiencing emotional pressure, his conversational skills suicided in his throat. Loretta knew Eichmann would’ve appreciated it if she could have said something supportive to him, like “I’m sorry, baby.” But she didn’t and wouldn’t. Not that hard-headed girl. Eichmann leered at me, daring me to voice an opinion that would piss him off. I saw an unreachable vacancy sluice through his liver-colored eyes. I knew he wanted to reach out and say, “Hey, let’s be nice,” but he couldn’t bend. He was inflexible, like a piece of rubber left out in the sun. I felt sorry for him and Loretta. Eichmann was in a jungle with her. If they got lost, nobody would ever find them.
I left the two lovebirds in the carport and went over to the park. On my walk, I saw two worlds. The psychological and social differences between Mission and Valencia were like night and day. You had an onslaught of cafés and boutiques on Valencia. Most of the people spoke English and talked about restaurant menus, the cheapest meal, and the coolest waiter. Mission Street after dark was populated by itinerant mariachi musicians who slept on flattened cardboard refrigerator boxes in storefront doorways.
I got to the Linda Street park at noon, nearly tripping over two homeless men blocking the entrance with their shopping carts. Louis was sitting by himself on a bench watching the tennis players on the courts. He was drinking a Miller’s Light, and judging from the haggard look on his face, he’d been to the casinos again. Louis enjoyed skiing holidays in Tahoe and gambling in Reno. Dull but wholesome entertainment for a man his age. He hailed me, “Hey, Doojie, what’s up?”
“Not much. So what’s with you?”
“I’m kicking it, taking in the scenery. How did your week go?”
“Not too bad. I got stabbed.”
Louis peered myopically at the messy bandage on my leg. “So I see. I ain’t even going to ask how you did that.”
“What’s the news you have?”
“It’s about that shooting you saw.”
I rearranged my face by setting my jaw in a hard line that made my teeth ache. “Louis, I didn’t see anything.”
“Yeah … right. And Doojie?”
“What?”
“Get some common sense in your head and see that Eichmann is a liability to you.”
I let that sink in. A liability. This implied several meanings. One, Eichmann had nothing to offer me, which wasn’t surprising. He’d given me shelter when I needed it, and we were working together, but anything he could do, I could do better. In the long run, I’d make it without him. Two, I was in too deep with Eichmann to get out. I needed help. Just to recognize I needed help was scary enough. “Is this your opinion, Louis?”
“Off the record?”
“Okay.”
“You stay with him, you’re going to find yourself doing time. You, not Eichmann. Mark my words. I ain’t no prophet, but I can see the writing on the wall.”
“You can?”
Louis finished off the bottle and tossed it to the ground, then got another beer from his vest pocket. He examined the bottle’s label with the scrutiny of an expert, then cleared his throat of phlegm. Louis didn’t look at me, which was his way of making a point.
“Of course, I can,” he commented. “I know the man.”
“You think Eichmann’s out of control?”
“Nah, he’s muddled … that’s worse.”
Bobo’s appearance canceled any further discussion between Louis and me. We’d have to save the gory details for later. The Mexican was lugging a twelve-pack of Coors, and walking in his shadow were two girls, old friends of Louis’s from west Los Angeles, who happened to arrive at the same time. Bobo put the beer on a rough-hewn picnic table and motioned for everybody to help themselves.
A minute later, Eichmann showed up with a fake leather jacket slung over his arm and a cigarette in his mouth. He wasn’t showing any of his earlier tension; he never did. Eichmann didn’t bruise easy. Some people, when they got their feelings ruffled, they wore the pain like a brown spot on a banana, but not Eichmann.
Louis introduced us to the women without any fanfare or pomp. “Boys, this is Heather and Ruby. They’re over here from Capp Street.”
Having heard that, I took another, longer, protracted look at the pair. Ruby was a thirty-year-old woman with tracks all over her arms. She was wearing a sleeveless gingham jersey dress that stopped a good foot above her knees, showing me every blood vessel, every vein, and every mole. Heather was a teenage girl in satin capris and suede clogs with piebald hair in a pixie cut. “The reason they’re here,” Louis said, “is because they know something.”
Eichmann frowned. The nervous tic on his mouth was out of control, causing his lips to curl up at random, revealing his crooked yellow teeth. “How’s that?”
Louis eyed him with the disinterest of a man looking at a cockroach. He said, “Hold your horses. These ladies know the police are searching for witnesses to the Folsom Street shooting.”
“That’s for real.” Ruby grinned. She shook her dark hennaed hair, drawing attention to a feathered and layered 1970s Judas Priest hairdo that offset the snowy whiteness of her complexion. “The narcs are looking for a witness.”
“How do you know?” I asked her.
She squinted at me with agate-colored eyes that were washed out, duller than the pebbles at the bottom of a riverbed. “People are talking.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“Dee Dee and a couple of others. Nobody you’d know.”
“You want me to give you names for free? Is that it? You ain’t even going to pay me?”
I laughed at that one. Gone were the days when someone would tell you a name for nothing. Gone were the nights when you could find someone to love for free. “No, I’m not going to pay you.”
Bobo read the glum expression on Ruby’s sallow face and wagged his woolly head. “Be quiet, Doojie, and let them say their piece, okay?”
Louis pinched Heather’s arm. “Chica, you got something to say?” The girl blushed under her makeup, highlighting the Revlon mascara tamped an inch deep around her eyes. “Speak up, doll,” he wheedled, “and tell us what you know.”
Heather said in a Xanax-slurred whisper, semi-inaudible, froggy-throated, “Me and Ruby know this narc. His name is Flaherty, and once in a while we party, you know. He gets wasted and he starts to talk. He says all kinds of shit. Most of it I don’t listen to. Just the other night, he was telling me he wanted the guy who saw the shooting.”
So this was what Louis wanted to share with us. Flaherty was the reason we were together. I wanted to take a photograph of our rendezvous. Louis, Eichmann, Bobo, me, and the two hookers kibitzing in the park. We could have cotton-candy tufts of fog in the background. Maybe a box-shaped kite in the sky above the treeline.
The picture would be black and white, a disposable composition, a monochromatic snapshot you could throw away, just like us.
“Okay,” Louis said. “Now you boys have something you can work with.”
“What’s that?” Bobo asked, genuinely stumped.
“These women know the narc who wants Doojie. Don’t you get the significance of that?”
What was there to understand? You didn’t need a college degree in science to add up what it meant—Flaherty would search the Mission to neutralize me. The news refertilized Eichmann’s tension and sparked it. I saw a mad red glare in his slitted eyes. His voice was sodden with indignation as he spewed, “This is what we needed. What could be better for business than having a cop on our backs? Thanks, Louis. And Doojie? Thanks a lot for making it happen.”