HOUSE OF JAGUAR

by Mike Bond

  More cameras had arrived, more people with little steno pads and tape recorders, and it was easy to stand in their midst and look earnestly into the round black camera eyes with their blinking red lights, to answer the questions of the friendly men and women with the little note pads.

  “Mr. Murphy? I’m Phyllis Steen of WFSF. What’s your political viewpoint?”

  “I learned in Vietnam not to care about politics.”

  “But you must have a feeling now about Guatemala?”

  “We should get out of there and let them solve their own problems.”

  “Even if that means the Communists win?”

  “I never met any Communists in Guatemala, just people.”

  “You don’t see them as a threat to our way of life?”

  Then it was over and he was no longer news, the reporters talking about the mayor’s six p.m. press conference. Cyndi Wheaton shook his hand and looked into his eyes. “Stay in touch.” He walked up Mission Street in the milky afternoon sun, a lacy fog dropping over Twin Peaks, bringing a trace of California winter.

  36

  HE WAS HOME before six and turned on NBC. At a corn auctioneers’ meeting in Fargo George Bush was expressing his deep love for the people of North Dakota. Then came national sports; a left fielder who had just signed a four million dollar contract was explaining his philosophy of life. On national weather there were clouds over the west, rain over New England, and sun in the south. Then came California and local news, with good coverage of the mayor’s press conference. He switched to CBS in time for the local news and carpet advertisements, then ABC for more on George Bush, the mayor, and the weather.

  He called the Bay Area Committee, no response. He drove to South Van Ness through clogged and fuming traffic; no one answered the Committee’s bell. At a Burger King telephone he tried to find Cyndi Wheaton’s number but it was not listed. Don’t rush things, he told himself. His meeting with the press had been too late for tonight’s news; tomorrow there’d be a story in the Chronicle, then more on TV.

  When he got home the phone was ringing. “Mr. Murphy?” An anxious, woman’s voice. “It’s Priscilla Benson. Your neighbor.”

  “I remember.”

  “It’s really time we talked about your trees. They’re getting worse and worse!”

  “You’re the president of the Sea Cliff Improvement Committee. If you want the trees along the sidewalk trimmed, then fine. Just leave mine alone.”

  “How would it look with some trimmed and the others left to grow wild, like yours? My husband’s a judge, you know, he sees these things from a legal point of view.”

  THE SILVER PLATE gleamed resolutely in the wavering candlelight, set off against the white damask tablecloth, the rich reds and blues of Royal Doulton, the silver-plated candelabra, Nancy’s dark dress and the oval of cultured pearls around her neck. Lyman thought of Kit Gallagher kissing her there, repressed it.

  The heavy Kilkenny crystal felt good in his hand. The merlot sparkled, tasted like cooled purified blood. He smiled at Jason sitting across from him with a napkin tucked into his collar, felt it was a false smile, tried to make it true. Jason smiled, winked back.

  He smiled at Christina. He wrinkled his brow inquisitively, asking her to smile back but she didn’t. He had to admit he hated her, her teenage pout, plucked brows, and straightened hair, the diamond crescents in the ears he’d told her not to pierce.

  Nancy glanced at him through the candles. “Look at the grin on Poppa!”

  “Just thinking of an old joke.” His standard answer, teasing her. Just thinking of what if all of you were dead, and I could walk alone on the hills where no one’s ever been.

  “Daddy never tells what he’s thinking,” Jason said.

  “Daddy never thinks,” Christina added.

  “Daddy’s buying us a lovely new house,” Nancy countered. “So don’t you hurt his feelings.”

  “Daddy has no feelings,” Christina answered.

  “Goddammit, Jason, can’t you hear the phone!” Lyman turned to Christina. “And take those goddamn things out of your ears!”

  “They’re mine, Daddy. I don’t have to.”

  “It’s for you, Daddy,” Jason called.

  As he walked round the end of the table Lyman flicked his napkin hard so it caught Christina just below the ear, making him smile. “Yeah?” he said into the phone.

  “I need you to come in, Howie,” Curt Merck said. “We’ve got good news.”

  “It’s my kid’s birthday, for Christ’s sake.”

  “You had someone you were looking for, down south?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We think he just tried to get on TV, in San Francisco, tell his story.”

  “Shit no!”

  “We made sure that no news is good news. But you may want to go out there, discuss it with him?”

  “Absolutely. Tell NoCal to stay out.”

  “I can’t, Howie, it’s their turf. But I’m telling them he’s yours.”

  DAWN FOG wrapped the house; the foghorn bellowed balefully. Murphy dressed and walked up through the dripping, quiet streets to Geary, dropped fifty cents in a Chronicle rack.

  Nothing on the front page, nor on page two or three. On page fourteen of the second section he finally found it, a small article in the gutter beside an I Magnin ad for see-through underwear: “S.F. Tourist Claims Army Attack.”

  San Francisco – A local resident who had recently traveled to Central America declared yesterday that US Army personnel are assisting the Guatemalan Army in its campaign against Marxist guerrillas. Joseph Murphy, 39, also alleged that US troops participated in a raid against a guerrilla-held stronghold.

  In Washington, a Defense Department spokesperson, Joanne Quinlan, categorically refuted Murphy’s claim, and explained that no US military personnel “have been in recent years nor are now on duty in Guatemala.” Quinlan added that Communist revolutionaries trying to overthrow the country’s democratically elected government often dress like soldiers and commit atrocities against the people, but that such incidents have been “on the wane” in recent years due to the government’s military successes against the guerrillas.

  He threw the paper in the trash and crossed Geary through early traffic to Dunkin Donuts, where a boy with pimples and a white paper baker’s hat served him weak coffee and two jelly-filled rolls coated in powdered sugar.

  37

  HE CALLED The Chronicle but Melissa would not be in until midmorning and the operator wouldn’t give him her home number. At nine-thirty someone answered the phone at the Bay Area Committee.

  “It’s OK coverage,” Cyndi said. “The Chronicle’s the best in the country for Central American news.”

  “They didn’t say anything! They acted like it was made up!”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t follow...”

  “I got a call last night at home, from the DEA. They say you’re a drug smuggler and your plane got shot up by the Army and you’ve made up this story to get them back.”

  “What’d you tell them?”

  “That I didn’t know where to find you.”

  He was waiting for Melissa Maslow when she arrived at the Chronicle. When do I get the whole story?” she said. “Now, or when you’re in prison?”

  “I told you the truth!”

  “It’s a sign you’re guilty, saying that.” She led him across a wide low room of people hunched before green screens. The air smelled of warm newsprint, electricity, Coffee-Mate and cigarettes. She took a chair from another desk and put it beside hers, snapped on her computer terminal. “Tell me about the drugs.”

  “Turn it off,” he said. “You tell me.”

  She flicked off the computer. “After we talked in the Rathskeller I called DC. They denied any US involvement, blamed the Communists.” She picked up a pencil, ticked it against her teeth. “By the way, my story was much longer. It got cut, up there,” she p
ointed at the ceiling. “Editorial.”

  She leaned back in her chair, playing with the pencil. “DEA called last night, wants to talk to you about some drug shipment from Guatemala...”

  “That sucks! I was down there looking at El Ceibal, there’s ruins all up and down that river.” He made himself relax. “What about this General Arena? The Guatemalan grass shipments?”

  She ignored him. “And you’re just a San Francisco real estate investor, don’t even know how to fly?”

  “Of course I know how to fly. Taught free of charge by Uncle Sam. That doesn’t make me a drug pilot.”

  “DEA said I should talk to some guy in City prison who just got nabbed with four million in coke. I saw him this morning, brought him photos of ten men, including one of you taken at yesterday’s press conference. He picked you out instantly.”

  “Who is this guy?”

  “Normally I wouldn’t say, but it’ll be in tomorrow’s paper. Carlos Bonaventura, originally a Cuban from Miami. Why are you making such a fuss, instead of running for Panama, Colombia? DEA has you made!”

  He glanced at the room of people clinging crablike to their desks, their hands raised in adoration before the flickering green screens. “You know it’s not true, Melissa... What would you do?”

  “Turn myself in. Or leave. Fast.”

  FOR A LOW-PROFILE place you couldn’t beat the Oasis. Three hundred units in two long, two-story barracks at the junction of the Bayshore and Monterey Highways, forty-nine dollars cash for color TV and two double beds and a shower with a massage head that sometimes worked depending on the room, with couples coming in and out at all hours, nobody seeing anything but sex or money or getting somewhere down the road. Lyman checked in as Tim Merriweather but left no trace of himself in the room, got back into the Acura he’d rented at the airport and drove downtown, parked on O’Farrell and walked up Polk to a girlie joint, dark and sour-smelling after the bright street. He paid ten dollars for five tokens, locked the door of a booth behind him and put the tokens in the slot. The floor was sticky. A black plastic wall before him slid up and there was a Turkish-looking girl with heavy thighs and purple nipples dancing on a little plate turning around in an octagon of mirror windows. She smiled rotten teeth to welcome him and pushed her cunt against the window. He showed her a five and slid it into the slot and when the little plate came around again she shoved herself up and down his window. The timer buzzed and the black wall came down and he stood waiting for a moment then went out of the booth down the hall to the end through a door marked STAFF ONLY, and up narrow stairs to a suite of offices on the third floor. A fat man in a Scorpions T-shirt was talking on the phone with his feet on the desk. He finished his call. “You again.”

  “I want a PPK and a hundred rounds,” Lyman said, “and this guy’s picture and address. And I want you out of my way.”

  THE PAY PHONE was beat up and didn’t work when Murphy put two quarters in it. He walked down California till he found another. “Steele and Friedman,” a woman said. He asked for Saul Friedman.

  “He’s in conference.”

  “Please get him out. Tell him it’s Joe Murphy.”

  A minute later Saul came on. “Murph, what’s the rush?”

  “I want you to sell Sea Cliff and every other piece of property I’ve got in forty-eight hours.”

  “You fucking nuts?”

  “Sell it to CMC, Bayview, anybody, best price you can. Spread it around, not in a lump. Don’t tell anybody the whole show.”

  “You’re out of your mind. You’re going to get creamed.”

  “And I need you to hire movers to get all my stuff out of the house by tomorrow night. In storage. And draw up an affidavit that all my stuff belongs to a woman named Dona Villalobos. I’ll spell it −”

  “I’m not doing this, Murph. Don’t jerk me around, I’ve got a client waiting.”

  “Who the fuck you think I am, the paper boy?”

  “You really want to do this?”

  “I was a paper boy once, actually, in Texas. Yes, I really want to do it.”

  “Even the Porsche?”

  “Yeah. No, keep that out. That and my bikes, and the Ford three-quarter ton. Sell the rest.”

  “Why? You’re going to get creamed there too.”

  “I got the kind of problems we always talked about.”

  For a moment Saul said nothing. “Damn.”

  “All cash, Saul. Everything. And one last thing −”

  “Let me tell my secretary, tell this guy to wait.” Saul came back on. “Murph, you gotta think this over.”

  “Everything sold in forty-eight hours. Then within twenty-four more hours you wire it all to the regular setup in CI? I’ll take it from there.”

  “You’re really screwing me up, Murph. I was taking Chris kayaking tomorrow, out at Point Reyes.”

  “Tell him I’m sorry. Tell him if I ever get out of this I’ll take him hunting in Montana, whatever he wants.”

  “You ought to drop all this, come with us.”

  “One more thing. You’re going to hate me for this...”

  “Probably.”

  “Can you go see a chick named Sherrie Cunningham, 154 Alabama? Write that down − 154 Alabama. She’s about twenty. A junkie. I need you to support her if she goes back to school, gets into detox, goes straight.”

  You shouldn’t fuck junkies, man, you’ll get AIDS.”

  “I’m not. Don’t go there alone.”

  LYMAN DROVE out Geary through Golden Gate Park till he was sure there was no tail, then cut across to the Sunset, parked in an Esso garage and stuck the PPK and hundred rounds up behind the Acura’s firewall. He took the trolley downtown and rented a Dodge from Asia Rentals with a license and a credit card in the name of Lucian Hayward, registered at the Hyatt Regency under the same name, drove out Mission to Noble’s Gun Shop and bought a used Zastava 9mm and forty rounds for four hundred and fifty dollars, using the same ID.

  The sun was a thin orange disk sinking into gray beyond the rooftops. He drove down Twenty-fifth Avenue into Sea Cliff, passed by the house, parked two blocks further, and walked back on the far side of the street. The gun was heavy in the holster under his armpit, slippery with sweat. The houses were white and vast, no one in sight. Murphy’s house had tall pillars like the Jefferson mansion, no lights. This can’t be the guy, Lyman thought. He sat in his car for several hours till a car pulled into Murphy’s driveway. It was low and lean but Lyman couldn’t see what kind. He started the Dodge and drove past the house as the garage door came down. He idled to a halt. Lights came on in the front rooms. He parked and jogged back along the sidewalk, keeping his left arm against his ribs.

  “MURPH!” she said, “How sweet of you to call! It’s only been what, six weeks?”

  “Lay off, Angelica. I’ve had a bad time.”

  “Sorry to hear. Who is she?”

  “Can I come over?”

  “There’s some people here. Little party. What the hell...”

  He went down to the garage and started the Kawasaki, let it run for a few seconds then pushed the door button and roared up the driveway, turned left and accelerated to the corner, passing a tall black man who turned around suddenly and sprinted back down the walk. Strange, Murphy thought, never seen him before. He gunned the bike round the curve and up Twenty-fifth Avenue, swung left toward Pacific Heights, burning the lights.

  From its curving driveway her house cascaded on levels down through lemon trees, rhododendrons, acacias and palms to a lower lawn with fountains, all overlooking the gingerbread gables of Pacific Heights, the Marina, and the Bay. There were cars in the driveway and up on the street. He hugged her then sat on the kitchen counter watching her green eyes. Music thundered from the faraway front of the house. “Got anything to eat?” he said.

  She poured him coffee and set it on the counter with a Sara Lee cheesecake and a bottle of Bushmills. “I’ve got people to take care of, in th
ere.”

  “I’ll be right in. How’s Eric?”

  She glanced at the clock over the sink. “He’s had his book and he’s already in bed.”

  “Can I go see him?”

  “Just for a bit.”

  He drained the coffee and filled the cup with Bushmills. “You’re going to an early grave, Murph,” she said.

  He lit a joint and passed it to her. “I’ve already lived longer than I ever thought I would.”

  “That makes you attractive to women but not necessarily a good prospect.” She inhaled the joint, held it. “I’ve given up waiting for you.”

  “You’ve been balling every guy in town while I’ve been gone.”

  “My fuck rate’s far lower than yours.”

  “Like that morning in Cleveland when you screwed the Sam Colter Band? All five of them?” He put the Sara Lee box in the trash under the sink. “AIDS will make us all virtuous again.”

  “There’s other ways to whore yourself.”

  “You should know.” When she said nothing he looked up, but she was lighting the joint. “This isn’t life, Angie.”

  “You’ve always said that. You’ve just never found anything better.”

  Footsteps came through the hall and sunroom into the kitchen, a tall man with a black beard and a bit of a belly, black leather jacket and gray slacks. “Murph!” he extended a hand. “When she didn’t come back, I should’ve known it was you.”

  “Hello, Mitch. Angie’s been telling me my fortune.”

  “Shouldn’t take long,” Mitch said. He glanced at Angelica. “Just kidding.”

  “Murph thinks I fuck too many people,” Angelica said.

  Mitch took a film canister from his breast pocket and tapped some coke onto the counter, scraped it out in a line with a book of matches that said Enjoy Life... Eat Out More Often. “Guests first,” he smiled.

  Murphy shook his head. “How’s the new album?”

  “She’s losing her voice.” Mitch bent over the counter to sniff up the line. “Too much coke and Benedictine and parties. Now this album’s done, she takes a year off, raises her kid, lives a normal life.”