“Jesus,” says Langmo, “that’s a one-way street.”
“Once a cop,” says Nietfeldt. Langmo was an Oakland patrolman for three years before joining the Bureau.
“After them!” says Langmo, affecting a theatrical baritone.
They radio in the Ford’s position and proceed cautiously up Precita. Shortly they arrive at a narrow wedge of park that effectively forks the road, but they can see the Ford, still pointed in the wrong direction, parked up ahead and to the left on Precita.
“Dumb-ass,” says Nietfeldt. He takes the right fork, intending to turn around so that he’s traveling with the traffic, but this turns out to be a mistake, and they wind through the hilly streets of Bernal Heights for a few minutes, looking to pick up Precita again, turning left onto it just in time to see the Ford finish executing a broken U-turn and head back the way it had come. The unidentified man still drives, but he’s alone now.
“She lives here,” says Nietfeldt confidently. 200 block. He picks up the radio; let someone else chase the Ford for a while. Lazy S. is here. Herself: right here.
10 p.m.
“Ever figure out your secret name?” asks Nietfeldt. He holds a burrito in both hands, its lower half wrapped in a thin sheet of aluminum foil. A strawberry drink sits before him on the dash.
“What’s that?”
“Take your middle name and the street you lived on last. That’s your secret name.” He takes a bite and chews, nodding. “Or it can be your confirmation name plus the street you grew up on. But I like it the other way. It changes more often.”
“What the hell do you do it for?” Langmo eats like a ravening beast, and his supper is long gone, the aluminum sheet stuffed into the empty paper cup on the floor. Nietfeldt eats slowly, partly from habit, partly to irritate his partner.
“For fun, you dummy.”
“OK. What’s yours?”
“Charles Lisbon. I’m actually cheating. The very last place I lived was out on Twenty-fifth Avenue.”
“That is cheating.” Langmo is irritable.
“Never even heard of it two minutes ago and now he’s telling me the rules.”
“If that’s what it is, that’s what it is.”
“The expert.”
“Anyway, I don’t get what the problem you have with it is. Charles the Twenty-fifth. Sounds positively royal.”
“There were only two Charleses. So what’s yours then?”
Langmo drags furiously on his cigarette and stubs it out in the packed ashtray. “Xavier Moraga,” he says, finally.
Polhaus has a San Francisco map tacked to the wall and he stands before it, a ruler and a pack of felt-tip pens in his hands. Holding the ruler in place against the map, he carefully draws a yellow line around the San Bruno complex. Then he draws a red line along the 200 block of Precita. Finally, he places an orange line along the 600 block of Morse Street. This last is way the hell out there, far from Postcard San Francisco, the Outer Mission or the Ingleside or something. Not a neighborhood he knows. Agents Bockenkamp and Protzman followed the Ford from Precita to this location. Its driver went into the house at number 625, entering through the door leading to the upstairs flat. Lights were already on up there. Tentatively, they made the man as Roger Rorvik. They waited until after the lights had gone out upstairs and then called it in.
The agents wander in, looking red-eyed, vaguely unkempt, but ready for his spiel. It’s muted, but Polhaus senses anticipatory zeal in the room. They’re days away, maybe hours. It isn’t just the Rorviks trundling around. Sooner or later whoever else it is will show themselves. Nobody comes to San Francisco just to stay indoors. If they’re here, it’s because they were dying to get back into circulation. Sooner or later they’ll come out. He’s willing to bet that they’ve been biding time in one shitheel town after another, all downhill from South Canaan. His guess is that the Precita place is the central location. Hence his candy red mark on the map. He is certain. He is so certain that his plans include round-the-clock surveillance at Precita, but no check of the job site in San Bruno and only occasional drive-bys at Morse Street.
“I suggest that we at least put a team on at Morse,” says Nietfeldt.
“Somebody was already there when Roger drove up,” says Bockenkamp.
“Maybe he leaves the lights on when he goes out,” says Polhaus.
“My mom used to do that,” says Langmo. “To scare away burglars.”
“Did it work?” asks Holderness.
Polhaus ignores them. “Precita is where we need to concentrate our attention.”
“What about San Bruno?”
“We already found them. We aren’t going to lose them again.” If his logic strikes Polhaus’s subordinates as flawed, they say nothing. “Anyway, we need all the firepower we can spare. Remember what happened the last time they were cornered in a house.”
“You planning on doing that in Bernal Heights, sir?” Nietfeldt raises his eyebrows. “The whole district’ll go up.”
“Personally I would have to mark my ballot against burning down the city,” says Langmo.
“This isn’t a democracy,” says Polhaus.
“Death to the fascist insect.” Nietfeldt leans in close to Langmo and whispers this.
The surveillance takes shape, establishes its cadence. A panel truck with curtained rear windows takes up a space on Precita right near the park, earning two parking tickets. Two other cars cruise the neighborhood. Men with pushcarts selling paletas, churros. The smell of fried dough in the air. The whole scene is very agreeable to Nietfeldt. An old city boy, used to catch the J-Church not too far from here and ride it to Mission High. His father would take them to Speckmann’s for sauerbraten and stuffed cabbage rolls. Stole his first kiss in a dark doorway on Liberty Street. How ironic, how literary, is that?
Another variant: your middle name and the place you first made out. Charlie Liberty.
That girl’s lips tasted like fresh sweet corn.
Day one. Roger Rorvik appears in the Ford around 10 in the morning, once again headed up the street the wrong way. Susan emerges from number 288 and gets into the waiting car. In the van, Bockenkamp and Protzman take pictures with a telephoto lens. Girl walking, girl waiting, girl with finger up nose. Langmo gets out of the sedan a block away and walks past the house, holding a rolled-up magazine in his hand. He and Nietfeldt rendezvous around the corner. Nothing to be seen from the street. Curtains pulled. A dreary day. McQuirter gets shit on by a bird and makes a big deal out of his new checked sports jacket. Somebody’s lunch order gets screwed up.
Day two. Rorvik shows around 10:30, headed in the right direction this time. Inside the van there is a spontaneous round of applause. Susan comes out and the cousins drive off. Another ticket is placed with the others under the van’s wiper blade. Failure to properly block wheels on grade.
“Hey, get over here and tell me if you think I’m parked at an angle,” radios Protzman.
“An angle to what?” asks Langmo.
“Don’t be a juvenile. I’m serious.”
Nietfeldt, driving for the hell of it with one finger on the wheel just to demonstrate the delicious responsiveness of GM power steering, rounds the corner onto Precita to comply with Protzman’s request when the door opens at 288 and who should come outside but a short bearded bespectacled fellow with dyed black hair. He walks down the steps leading to the sidewalk.
“You guys fucking see that?” Protzman’s overwrought voice crackles over the radio. Nietfeldt passes the house slowly, and both men take a sidelong look.
“Shepard?”
Langmo is studying their collection of Drew Shepard headshots, laid out in a strip. None shows him wearing a beard. None shows him in prescription eyeglasses. “Can’t tell for sure.”
The man stands with his hands on his hips, looking first one way and then the other, up and down the block. Then he turns and trots back up the steps.
At 11:30 Nietfeldt is about to say something about lunch when the call co
mes in.
“Two subjects, double-timing it. Heading your way.”
Nietfeldt sees two figures jogging toward them. The man from the stoop and, to his right, a woman. Shorts, T-shirts, sneakers.
“You know,” says Langmo, “I doubt they’re armed right now.”
“That’s definitely something to bear in mind,” says Nietfeldt.
“You think they do this every day?”
The joggers pass them. The man seems to be straining to keep up with the woman. Neither pays the car or its occupants any mind.
“What about her then?” asks Langmo.
“Well, it isn’t Herself. And it isn’t Shimada, that’s for sure.”
“Diane.” Langmo is looking at his photos.
“That’s my guess.”
“Drew and Diane. Tell me why am I not that excited?”
“We’re all here for the same person.”
“I feel as if, I don’t know.”
“You have a goal. You don’t have a partial goal.”
“The thing is, I’d rather have Herself and leave them.”
“Then you’re just too complex a lawman for me.”
Langmo looks at Nietfeldt, ready to needle him back, but realizes that he is speaking perfectly sincerely.
“This is the one,” says Stepnowski, poking one picture of a smiling Shepard with his index finger, “the one I was talking about before.”
The agents sit crammed around a table in a Mission Street taqueria.
“Oh, you’ll like it here,” says Nietfeldt.
“I missed this,” says Langmo. “What were you saying?”
“Check out his teeth.” Stepnowski jabs the picture.
“I fail to see what’s so great about this place.” Holderness picks up a bottle of green sauce from the table and gives it a sniff.
Nietfeldt leans forward as if he’s about to lay a hot stock tip on Holderness. “No rice.”
Stepnowski says, “Those upper front teeth don’t come down as far as the ones on either side of them.”
“Guy looks like a fucking vampire,” says Protzman.
“Smaller burritos, but they don’t fill them up with rice. Meat, cheese, beans. That’s it.” Nietfeldt is whispering.
“Maybe he just has little front teeth is all,” says Langmo.
“It’s good without the rice,” says Protzman. “Not as filling.”
“We need a good look at him.”
“I favor the carnitas,” says Nietfeldt.
“NO rice?” says Holderness, suddenly, as if the import of what he is being told has just sunk in. “You mean, NO rice at ALL?”
“The fuck you shouting for?”
Mystery Man goes into a laundromat two blocks down, carrying a white canvas bag marked us MAIL.
“Isn’t that a federal crime?” asks Langmo.
“Get in there and check out the teeth.”
“What business do I have in a laundromat?”
“Ask directions. What do I know?”
When Langmo enters, he heads for a phone booth in the corner, keeping an eye on the man across the two rows of Speed Queens. He lifts the receiver and speaks into it. He says, “The boy stood on the burning deck. Yup. Whence all but he had fled. The flame that lit the battle’s wreck shone round him. O‘er the dead. Right. Yet beautiful and bright—bright, yeah, uh-huh—beautiful and bright he stood. OK? G’bye.”
Mystery Man sorts laundry. Two piles, whites and coloreds. His mother would be pleased. So would the KKK. He opens the lid of one of the top loaders and is obscured from view. Langmo steps out of the booth and walks to the attendant, who sits on a high stool reading the Sporting Green, jingling his change apron.
“Change of a dollar,” says Langmo.
“Where’s your clothes?” asks the attendant.
“Oh, I just. Parking meter, you know.”
“Change for customers only.” The green sheet comes up again.
Langmo drops it. He turns, folding his dollar bill lengthwise, and here’s Mystery Man, ready to get his own change, lips pursed. Their eyes meet. Langmo breaks into a big smile and a shrug, meaningless but friendly. Mystery Man stares holes through him. Needless to say, he doesn’t smile back. Langmo gives him a last once-over; notes a scar on the man’s left knee.
6 p.m. Nietfeldt follows the Mystery Couple inside a bodega. The pair moves up and down the store’s two aisles. He heads for the cooler and gets a bottle of Coke, a bag of chips. Just another paunchy citizen who can’t make it till dinnertime. He takes his booty to the counter. The couple lingers in one of the aisles. The clerk rings him up; he asks for a pack of Larks. Pays, asks for matches. A man comes in and buys an Examiner.
“Good idea,” says Nietfeldt, to no one special. He grabs a paper and eyes the pair. While he fishes his change out of his pocket he notices a coffeepot behind the counter, and he asks the clerk to fix him a cup. But when the coffee has joined the paper before him on the counter, he remains lamentably alone up there. He opens the freezer case and takes out an It’s-It.
“Maybe next time you should make a list,” says the clerk.
“I thought it was the impulse buys that paid the freight in a joint like this.”
At last they come up. Rice, dried beans. The simple life. Of course they could have had meat for the same price if they’d just walked to the Safeway three blocks away. Maybe on top of everything else they’re fucking vegetarians.
Nietfeldt takes his groceries and his coffee and steps aside to make room. He smiles. The woman gives him a polar stare. The man does not return the smile, turning to ask for a pint bottle of plum wine. Nietfeldt tries to recall the timber and cadence of General Teko’s voice on the “eulogy” tape, but that was a guy pretending to be black, and this is just another overeducated Caucasian who happens to be asking for sweet wine.
Field Marshal Cinque’s favorite drink, Nietfeldt suddenly recalls.
Later they get the news over the wire: LCpl. Andrew C. Shepard, USMC, received an operation on his left knee during his hitch.
Polhaus is ready to go upon hearing this. Far as he’s concerned, tomorrow’s the first day of the rest of his life. No more explaining to asshole reporters why he can’t pick up the trail of the SLA. No more providing daily briefings to Director Kelley. No more Lydia Galton wincing whenever Hank pours him out a couple of fingers of scotch.
He’s actually been asked if he’ll miss working on the case once it’s been closed. As if he were some sort of artist laboring over his magnum opus, stringing it along, afraid to move on to the next project. Well, federal agents don’t suffer from completion anxiety. And unlike an artist, he hasn’t imbued the final product with his own likeness, flattered himself so much that he wants to keep gazing at it. His labors on the case have left no impression on its specific set of facts at all. Find, interpret, conclude. Plus soothe and placate. Wheedle and cringe. Rage and fawn.
Nineteen months—suddenly this is it. He knows that where the Shepards are, Galton is. Has to be. He’ll take his chances with a(nother) false arrest. (The way these longhairs piss and moan. Sworn enemies of the State Apparatus but invariably shocked, outraged, and happy to avail themselves of the civil courts when wrongfully arrested.) If he loses her this time, that’s simply that. Not that he’s a pessimist, but he’s already planned his resignation from the Bureau in that event, put out discreet feelers in the field of corporate security. He’s seen the pastures out to which they put you.
And if he catches her? Director of the Bureau? Governor of California? Surely the case has prepared him for a career in politics, but he’s acquired a love of anonymity over the years, working under Hoover’s showboat directorate. Something satisfying about wielding power incognito. Polhaus never wanted to be a cop, because he hadn’t wanted to wear a uniform while he waited to get into plainclothes. Perhaps politics wasn’t for him. In addition to which, all that COINTELPRO stuff might come back to haunt him.
So maybe just the old routine, tossing his jacket
over the back of his chair, eating his danish and drinking his coffee, bringing his newspaper into the bathroom with him. That’d be fine. Face the reporters one last time, their faces too familiar for him not to notice that they’d newly been stamped with bogus respect, tell them I told you so, and then throw them out into the street: The one who’d written that he looked “like a none-too-bright bloodhound whose quarry has just slipped out of reach.” The woman who’d called him “one of the last of the old breed” in a distinctly pejorative manner. The columnist who’d said that his “methods must be questioned and his motives, distrusted.” Gone at last!
Day three. For the first time agents have been positioned in the area around the clock. Nietfeldt and Langmo play chess through the night by the light of the dashboard, using a magnetic travel set. They’re both lousy players and spend most of their playing time either warning each other of lurking danger on the board or apologizing for taking each other’s pieces. Roger arrives for Susan at 10 today.
“Talk about banker’s hours. Wouldn’t harvest much cane for Fidel if they showed up in the fields after ten.”
Nietfeldt yawns.
11:30. A covered pickup stops outside 288 and turns on its flashers. A young Negro male exits the cab and climbs the stoop. He wears a white jalabiyya and matching kufi. That’s a new wrinkle. Out comes Mystery Man.
“Who’s the sheikh?” says Langmo.
Mystery Man takes cash from his pocket and together the two walk down the steps and to the truck, where the young man drops the gate and hauls a white joint compound bucket toward him. He removes the cover and takes from the bucket a fish, holding it by the tail. Mystery Man hands over some money and the young man wraps the fish in a couple of sheets of newspaper.
“He’d be better off selling that on Friday around here.”
Trance Page 56
