by Herbert Gold
“I just want to say,” I began.
“Come in, come in first, how can we talk without getting comfortable?”
“I know what I want to say. I’d rather not listen. I’m cutting down on my business these days—”
“I know. I fully understand, so when a good opportunity can be offered a good man—please do come in.”
I stood there, smelling the mixture of cologne and anger being propelled out at me by an absence of calm. I put on my nicest smile. Probably, if the wind was right, he could smell my own absence of calm. “I’m not looking for a job,” I said. “No point in going round and round about this. I’ve taken care to let my friends in the department”—I meant Alfonso—“know about your employee in my office—”
“You’re not paying attention to your opportunities. You don’t listen to what I have in mind.”
“That’s right. Better if I don’t know, also.”
The mass of muscular, pissed-off, white-suited smoothness was no longer beckoning me in. It was now blocking the door. “I don’t hire people to come to my house to threaten me.”
“So we agree. Now keep your cleaning guy out of my office. He left his bucket behind, by the way. Okay?”
I stood there looking at the man’s hide up close, the thick gray bristles under his chin, the creases at the forehead and the long deep lines in his cheeks, the heavy lips, and his odd green eyes, which gazed at me with something like concern. Jeff obeyed me when I said goodbye to him—“Eye contact!”—and knew it was important to meet folks’ eyes. I met Karim’s.
“In my heart,” he said, “Dan … I cannot feel right about asking you for something that you don’t want to give. For that reason I have to inquire if your license has ever been questioned.”
He meant my private investigator’s license. The answer was no. No harassment of runaway girls, no billing for services not performed; an occasional failure to fulfill the assignment due to excess psychopathy, as in the case of Jesus Christ Satan …
“Yet you have purchased brownies from a client, my friend.”
As I’ve said, I prefer not smoking. When I enjoy grass, I enjoy it in a form that doesn’t leave me with a scratchy throat. “You can’t do anything with that, Karim. If anyone gave me brownies, they’re not a credible informant. Anyway, the licensing commission doesn’t care about misdemeanor offenses.”
“Oh dear, would I want to see you in difficulty with your license? No and no. And in Sacramento, all that paperwork in the office, oh dear, with hardly a blemish in your file … I am only saying in another way that I have no wish to make difficulties for anyone.”
Of course he didn’t. He only mentioned the possibility to let me know what a good friend he was. He only wanted me to appreciate keeping his friendship. Sometimes a person likes to eat a brownie and space away part of his weekend or an avoidable national holiday. Priscilla and I ate brownies together now and then, used to, once sat in the front row at the Surf to watch 2001, huddled in outer space in the front row; used to, now and then.
“Are you threatening me, Karim?”
“No. I reiterate. No.”
Only mentioned was all, just so I could appreciate him even more fully than I already did. Personally, it’s how I am, no different from other persons, I don’t like hassles from the IRS or the PI licensing board.
I would try to take all of Karim’s suggestions into consideration. I needed to get on my way.
One more time, almost mournfully, he asked, “So I don’t suppose you are ready yet—”
“Not even for my own good. You’re right that I need work just now. But not even.”
Palm fronds crunched underfoot like snow as I hurried down the steps. Steepness made me feel taller, the steep descents of San Francisco made me step lively when I was heading downhill, but it was necessary to hurry now. The man hadn’t even said, Get the fuck out of here.
At my Honda I looked back up toward the stately old house on its slope. The door was shut, the curtains were moving slightly at the windows, and it was as if I had never been there.
Chapter 17
Some people, when they say no most firmly, most definitely, most angrily, teeth bared and jaw set—that’s exactly when they are ready to say yes. Priscilla was not one of those people. It seemed I was.
Needing money was a good reason. Trying to become interesting again to my wife was a bad reason; so were desperation, despair, the dream of escape. But the bad reasons didn’t cancel out that faithful old American decision to do something practical about trouble. I was in need, hungry.
I went crawling back to the house on Guerrero, reared up on my back paws like a foraging raccoon, but both Karim and I knew the real facts in the case. I was as empty as one of the Project kids.
Karim was gratified to see me without too much time having passed and his friendship for me growing cold. He promised it would be a happy day for both of us.
“Okay, one job,” I said.
“To see if you like it. Of course.”
“To get back to making a few bucks. But no drugs, I don’t do narcotic jobs.”
“Be of good cheer,” he said. “Would I, my friend?”
“No drugs.”
He looked a little hurt. I had hardly begun and already I was worrying at him. “Let me tell you all I ask,” he said. “Not complicated, no outside travel, this is within your capabilities. It’s only a collection.”
“For merchandise delivered, someone didn’t pay for? What kind of merchandise?”
Karim shook his head. It wasn’t supposed to be like me to complicate matters by asking foolish questions. “If it helped, I would tell you,” he said. “It would be normal to do so.”
One job, I repeated to myself. I was hungry, I was greedy. Better not to spoil my appetite by studying Karim’s needs. I had once given someone else, Priscilla, control of my life, and didn’t enjoy the consequences. They had been drastic. So why shouldn’t I make the same mistake with Karim, give him power over me—with the difference that I would take it back. This time I was going to end up in charge myself. I would buy something nice, maybe direct the purchase toward new transportation, something sporty, the way men in my situation like to think (ragtop, stereo, leather seats); things for Jeff; maybe even something for Priscilla if presents didn’t make me seem creepy, abject—just so she would see me undefeated, able to provide and surprise. I too could take to wearing white linen suits (joke) or the new Ralph Lauren après-tennis scent.
To fulfill these complicated needs might take two or three jobs, but not a retainer, not a regular thing with Karim. No drug transactions that I would know about. Nothing on my conscience or in evidentiary records that anybody could discover. No sir.
Nothing that could provide material for the commission in Sacramento that oversaw PI licensing; no evident felonies, no misdemeanors if feasible; nothing that Karim could store up to use in asking for further services.
I was deeply engaged in the usual delusions that appetite provides.
Karim watched me with interest as thoughts traveled their various routes through my body, bumping into each other, lighting up, moving on. In his soul he sincerely hoped I was a sincere person, not responding to any threat about the board in Sacramento. He sighed, having things to do on a sunny morning under the palm trees on Guerrero.
Within my present capabilities was one job, for distraction’s sake and to pick up some useful, probably tax-exempt cash.
Maybe it was just like a legal collection, merchandise, a loan, a matter simply too delicate to get all bruised and depleted from being pushed through the crowded dockets of the court system. Sometimes legal orders just waste everybody’s time. Demands-to-comply and foreclosures are a pain in the butt to the entire society, an ecological disaster in how they waste computer time, legal-size paper, electricity, messenger boy sweat, process servers having to stand there and wait outside someone’s door with hard-boiled eggs in their pockets in case lunchtime came and went—oh, the digesti
on is wrecked—the whole crudeness of an overgrown legal system. Whereas face-to-face human contact with the warm glow of personal threat … I could help Karim cut through the crap for everybody.
“Okay,” I said. “Just point me in the direction we’re going. We’re in business.”
Karim was a happy man today. The name he handed me, on a slip of paper, was G. Press, and the address was the Clay-Jones Tower. He let me look at it and then took the paper back.
“You don’t need this. You’ll remember,” he said. “Twelfth floor.”
“Almost like the preppy clothes, J. Press.”
“What?” he asked. “G,” he said.
I would think George. I knew the Clay-Jones building on Nob Hill, elegant old San Francisco, with a doorman. “How do I get in?”
“You’ll get in,” he said. “Seven o’clock evening is a nice time to call. Details I know you’re good at.”
“Tell me about this person.”
“Do you need such answers, Dan? That’s one more thing I like about you—you know how to accomplish the job without unnecessary fuss. But it does take time for you to make up your mind, doesn’t it, my friend?”
Karim had a way of staring silently above his fluent gab, remaining on a different plane despite the chatter; and now he was doing it in fluent silence, nodding a little at a passing thought, staring into my eyes, seeping his attention into me, settling in places where I did not want him. He trespassed. I had the right to blow up. Or, since he had won me over, convinced me, I wouldn’t do that. I could still see hurting him for my pleasure. If profit came with the pleasure, so much the better.
I met his dark-lined eyes without flinching until he smiled again and nodded to dismiss my gaze. I could go now. “Friends?” he asked.
“Why not,” I said.
The idea of giving him what he wanted had been late in coming to me. In my own way, for my own purpose. We didn’t discuss fee. Karim’s prideful expanse of chest and belly, the generous body type, convinced me he would not stint. I thought, What the hell? I could use some unstinting tax-free cash and distraction. I was starting over in life. I was starting from the beginning and bound to prove myself if I could. G. Press. Gee, pressed to prove myself. No problem remembering details if you’ve read the Sunday magazines about how the stars do it. I was in business again.
* * *
I dressed for Nob Hill and Le Club, the lobby restaurant owned by a scavenger king known as Captain Garbage. What his fleet of clanking trucks collected in the early morning was not necessarily what they served evenings in the hushed and opulent restaurant—white linens, little lamps here and there, a romantic rendezvous for old folks and their parents. The doorman let me in because I said I was meeting Herb Caen. That was a fib. Maybe my nose got a little longer, but who was measuring?
“He doesn’t have a reservation,” the doorman said, creaking in his shoes.
“Herb Caen,” I announced, “doesn’t need a reservation.”
He looked at my clothes, which make the man. The man these clothes had made was no longer Kasdan, PI. It was a San Francisco personage wearing a gray fedora like one of the famous newspaper columnist’s.
“Yes sir,” said the doorman.
“Here, for you,” I said, looking away fastidiously, putting the five-dollar bill in his hand, bored with all this haughty negotiation, then glancing at my watch—Where’s Herb?
“Yes sir!” barked the doorman, now improved in spirits about the whole deal.
He went to blow a whistle for a cab (the parent of an old folk feeling poorly). I went for the elevator. G. Press, twelfth floor. Karim didn’t know everything, but he knew I’d remember a helpful detail, such as where the perpetrator lived.
On the door there was a little plaque, greenish where it had corroded, and the engraved letters GP. Tasteful copper corroding, done professionally; how antique, how decorator.
Where did it hurt with the tension and fear when I knocked on this door? No place. It hurt no place.
I had telephoned, heard the phone pick up, knew someone was home—no worry there. I had the usual inexpensive advantage of surprise, the person being visited suffering the disadvantage of maybe eating onions and worried about breath, or needing to make number two, or in the middle of a nap. People don’t enjoy neighborly drop-ins these days. But I was on track, no tension at all for me, and counting on some for the person heading toward a quiet dump when there’s a sudden rapping, buzzing, or belling at the door. In some other land, I could just nail a dead cat to the gate, preferably black, and go about my business, but in the U.S.A. we like to make personal contact with the client and urge him to do what’s right.
Why wasn’t I nervous?
Need I be troubled by this phenomenon?
Unless I backtrack and maybe pay the doorman to let me out of the building, explaining that Herb Caen just called on my cellular phone—I don’t see no fuckin’ cellular phone, sir—asked me to meet him instead at Wendy’s … unless someone answers real soon, I’m stuck and should let loose the nervousness I’m not feeling.
I heard a lock and then a chain being worked. Someone was there, someone was responsive to my mute appeal, someone was confident enough of security to open the door. My first words were sort of planned, like a beer commercial: “It isn’t going to get any better than this.”
“What?”
As I stepped firmly inside: “Let me explain.”
That was the plan. I wasn’t worried. I didn’t care if the door opened with a gun stuck in my face. This should have made me nervous, not being nervous.
The door opened and a thick-waisted middle-aged lady in a gold lamé jacket, dressed for God knows what lovely occasion, maybe me, was stuck in my face. “Is Mr. G. Press here?” I asked.
“There’s no mister. I’m G. Press.”
“I’m from Karim.”
Her eyes flicked over me. They were heavy-lidded fishy eyes, and I had to give her credit for rising above cosmetic surgery. “What do you want, From? Mind if I call you that?”
“Dan Kasdan. May I come in?”
The eyelids twitched, tired tiny muscles working beneath the untreated fatty tissue. It was very like a smile. “You wish to visit my flat? Why, if you wish to, please do.”
I moved aside and she shut the door behind me. I was in a land of showroom antiques, someplace dark, densely layered in rugs, gilt, weavings, hangings, with no child, other human tenant, or animals except for one sleeping ceramic cat on the couch and another (they must have been sold as a pair) curled up and stagnant at a painted mouse hole in the corner where the Persian carpet, telling the story of Xerxes with his boat over the Hellespont, came to its logical end by meeting a deep green wall. The fleet stopped here. The woman had a sense of history or humor, but the woman didn’t smile much. G. Press seemed to confine expressions of charm and amusement to subtle movements deep in the puffy terrains of her upper eyelids. A little slow-phlegm ripple, more alive by several layers of organic nature than her ceramic cats.
With the heavy curtains and myth-laden rugs, the heavy furniture, the general stockiness of decor—even the air seemed thick with heat and motes—I felt as if I were in Boston, Philadelphia, doing a job on the East Side of New York, not in breezy northern California. We don’t do the Hellespont in San Francisco, we do Scandinavian or Japanese simplicity or maybe Spanish mission rusticity. The lady was overdressed for expecting no visitors, but maybe she had plans or liked to give herself early-evening fashion shows. There was a long mirror on one wall and reflections of reflections in a glass door behind me. G. Press could see around any unexpected movements.
She stood with a drill-sergeant spread to her legs, parade rest, watching me take in her “flat.” Thighs apart, catching the air. Then she felt it was time to take control. “What do you want?” she inquired. “And get the hell out here.”
It was essential that I not let her do what she had in mind, take control, and that I stop wondering why Karim didn’t have the courte
sy to tell me G. Press was a woman. Even these days, it can make a difference.
“Like to leave as soon as possible, ma’am,” I said.
“Right now would be best.”
And so with maximum precision I answered, “But not possible, since I’m engaged to leave with what I came for. Otherwise it would just be a wasted trip.”
“Mr. Kasdan. You might leave with a lot less than you came with.”
I wasn’t going to fight a battle of the repartee with this thick-waisted person proudly modeling her gold lamé jacket and embossed eyelids. But I wasn’t ready to go yet, either. I was preparing to stare at her instead. This basic PI move often proves surprisingly effective when I put my heart and soul into it. I concentrated. I stared. I spent the moment wondering why a person alone at home would wear this metallic garment, making her ineligible to pass through any self-respecting metal detector but of no use in case of armed conflict. Was it some kind of beauty motif in her mind? Gold lamé with beaded pockets? Her concept of a perfect design for living in her living quarters was also modified by the remains of a snack on one of those hinged monk’s tables, a silver spoon sticking out of a cherry yogurt container that had been scraped pretty clean. But of course she hadn’t expected my visit. Otherwise she surely would have put out a low-fat cherry yogurt for me.
I continued staring. The trick is to give the mind something to do while the eyes burrow in there. She nodded appreciatively.
G. Press didn’t ask me to sit down, although the room contained ample chairs, an upholstered couch, a settee, more chairs, footstools, and that nice rug if we chose to squat crossed-legged amid the Persian fleet on the floor and negotiate her handing over to me what she owed to Karim. I didn’t look forward to squatting cross-legged and catching intimidating glimpses up her thighs.
“I notice you enjoy my afternoon coat,” she said. “Lamay.”
“I can see.”
“Is it too obvious? I feel better about myself if I look nice. It’s a question of self-esteem.”
Maybe she was a madam. Maybe she owed Karim for protection services. Maybe it wasn’t drugs. Maybe he only supplied drugs for her girls. Maybe it was none of my business and only a real estate transaction that had gone bad, or down payment on a gold lamé jacket factory—maybe none of my business, inappropriate, better I didn’t know. So I said, “Please stop shitting, ma’am. I don’t work by the hour, so I’d like to do what I came here to do and be on my way.”
