Soon the Rest Will Fall

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.”

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.

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

“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.”

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?”

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.”

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.

There are angels in heaven and demons in hell. Men dance in madness on earth. With his last ounce of energy, Slatts unloaded a fusillade of right hooks and left upper-cuts, and artfully reorganized Dirt Man’s mouth. Cut all his knuckles doing it. The booty bandit capsized, holding onto a stool. He jettisoned an incisor, getting blood on his spiffy denim jacket. In Robert’s opinion, it was time to split. While the bartender telephoned the cops, he hurried Slatts out the door.

In the pitch-dark street a blood-warm shower was coming down, the first rainfall in weeks. Thunder and lightning crackled in the bilious skies north of the city. The rain cascaded with reckless fury, beating down tempo on the heated sidewalks. The number 19 Polk bus skimmed by, splashing water on Robert’s jeans. Car headlights were mirrored in pools of rain in the road. Too drunk to feel the lacerations on his head, Slatts yelped triumphantly at Robert, “You see what I did to that dude?”