by Herbert Gold
A meaty sergeant with a refrigerator bulk said, “Hand it over.”
Xavier enjoyed his life. He looked me up and down, saying, “Those shoes, they promote a lot of athlete’s foot, don’t they, Dan? The heat, the humidity. Tend to?”
Wearing a suit, a matching jacket and pants of some sort of worsted fabric, just hanging out while he awaited an arrival, Alfonso watched from a proper distance. He was dressed for medium civilian success. The deep furrows in his forehead, skin almost folding over itself with concern, told me he was figuring something new about this whole deal. Something wasn’t going how it was supposed to. He came closer. “If I may ask, may I ask what you doing here, sir?”
“You may,” said Xavier.
The sergeant was pulling at the tape on the package, just loosening it. He was planning to open it in front of witnesses.
“Visiting the bus station,” said Xavier, “which is a public place, I believe, although not a public utility. The ground transportation depot, a recourse for those who prefer not to fly.”
“Where’s Karim?” I asked.
“Karim? Oh, Karim.”
It was clear now. Karim was trying me out and Xavier was here to watch my performance and for extra fun. The refrigerator sergeant nodded to his partner. Then the duct tape screamed as he ripped the top of the box, which was filled with glassine envelopes containing a white powder. It would have been cocaine if it wasn’t baby powder, corn starch, powdered sugar …
“We’re gonna take you in,” the sergeant said to Xavier.
“I bet you think so. I bet you think so. I bet you want to,” Xavier remarked.
“Okay, mister.”
“For Dr. Scholl’s? Relief for hot itchy toes?” Xavier was hugely pleased with the turning of developments, showing teeth white as teacups and, for all I know, real. Under other circumstances I could determine the answer to this question by knocking them out of his mouth.
Alfonso grumbled unnecessarily in my ear, “Foot powder, bet it is,” and I didn’t even need to agree, and he added, “That’s part of the game sometimes.” He put his hand on my arm. He didn’t want to see me jumping the happy lounging fellow who stood alert and comfortable in our little group. Up close there was a new smell: a slosh of underground sewers and bus exhaust seeping through the odds against their seeping through, plus nearby Greyhound cooking and cleaning combined with the even more nearby tang of a tennis cologne.
Xavier looked to me as if he were photosensitive, a papery person-substance waiting to have interesting events printed upon him. I’m sure he was not a blank sheet to himself; as far as he was concerned, he had a soul that required aid and comfort from Priscilla, recognition from Dan Kasdan, public acknowledgment of personal distinction. In his heart of hearts he believed he had the right to all of the above.
Alfonso held tightly to my arm. As a warning. To keep me on earth and not jumping. I snapped loose and he grabbed again, hard and angry. “Try to think,” he muttered. My friend Alfonso was a meat-filled restraining order I had better obey.
A band of orange-clad Hare Krishnas, all wound up and banging away, chanting away, blissed away, steered itself through the terminal like a single organism of marauding leaf-cutters. Their shaved heads and shining orange robes—a smudge of reddish grease on their foreheads—made them look alien beyond the tinny, overwhelmingly sincere, mouth-breathing chant. One of them had acquired a brown stain across his cheek. He seemed different from the others, an imperfect earth being, growing along with his birthmark, evolving through time, the bearer of a scaly crust due to fungus, sun exposure, or parental flaws on delicate Celtic skin.
Behind the Hare Krishnas stood a large man in a white linen suit, shoulder pads, generous tailoring, with dark eyes seeming to be augmented with eyeliner, saying, “So now, my friend, is this what you want?”
“That’s it.”
“Nothing, and you have it now?”
“That’s my program, Karim.”
He bowed his head a little. It was a moment for him to seek out his own privacy. Then he raised his face toward mine and the smile was full of joy. He offered to share his pleasure with me. “I’m not even offended, Dan,” he said.
“Couldn’t resist though, could you?”
“I was sincere,” Karim said. “You are still learning the benefits.”
When he lowered his head again, I could see a shiny pink bald spot like a scar amid ample surrounding fur. Sharp teeth glinted in his smile as if a morsel were stuck there he still wanted to share with me. His mouth was strange, smiling, not smiling. Whatever further thoughts he had, they would not be offered at this time. I may have lost my chance with him. He really liked me, he had contempt for me; it was up to me to sort things out if I could. Karim was disappointed that our friendship was coming to this.
Alfonso cleared his throat; hated to interrupt. “You too,” he said to Karim. “I think Captain Nolan wants you to trot along to the station house. This is Captain Nolan.”
The man in uniform, as thick in the waist as Alfonso, stood spraddle-legged in front of Karim.
“I cannot believe you need me. I have another appointment.”
Captain Nolan did a slow stare. He had not achieved his rank by repartee. “I’ve got a pair of handcuffs here,” he said. “Do I have to use them?”
Karim lifted his shoulders toward me—see what trouble he put himself to on my behalf?—and strolled off with the captain, leaving Alfonso and me standing alone together with not much to say. I could see Xavier lounging in a blue-and-white, having an experience in the no-parking zone. I was checking down the menu of possibilities and options and finding nothing more here in the Greyhound terminal I really wanted. Xavier waved at me; still enjoying his experience. Alfonso grinned. This wasn’t what we had planned. “Now everybody happy?” he asked.
Part Four
Chapter 22
Much of my recent work experience had consisted in not working for Karim. This didn’t pay the bills; working for him might. But if not working for him was so much trouble, employment might be worse. I wasn’t ready to take a retainer from Karim Abdullah or Xavier, his semi-silent partner.
I needed to keep events registered with Alfonso; elementary prudence. Then I needed to let Karim know events were registered. He was still playing his Karim games with me during these not very busy times, proving that he lived on a plane above that of, say, mortals. It was occupied by avoiding, sidestepping, ducking, weaving during a slack period in the PI freelance trade. By now his hint about paperwork trouble with PI licensing in Sacramento was adequately discounted. Good sense would tell him not to bother. After our Greyhound morning together, he knew I had protection and he didn’t like trouble, either. Karim’s life wasn’t about trouble. Home free.
I sat in Alfonso’s office while he rested his feet on the desk during a call to Trenton. He was saying into the phone, “Much oblige, much oblige. Much oblige.” Then he turned to me without explaining about the call and said, “Yeah. Listening. Go on.”
I wasn’t sure about going on.
“Karim,” he said. “I heard you. Goddamn, let’s just get to it.”
He would soon be finished with the grit and stink of this San Francisco Police Department office. After returning from Trenton—“about my kid” was how he put it—he looked into his pension benefits. He was taking retirement a year or two ahead of time. At his rank, he could have waited, but he was starting work for the Pinkertons instead. Since all life had changed, Alfonso decided to change his life, too.
“This isn’t a good time for you,” I said.
“Shut up.”
“My problem can wait,” I said.
We sat there among the smells of disturbance, dust, papers, angry men. “No, it can’t,” he said. “I’ll tell you what. I got your problem in the computer, but that’s all I can do right now. Yeah, and Terrence knows, down at Central. How about we grab a bite tonight?”
Since he got back from Trenton, Alfonso was getting fatter, d
owning his barbecue or his Korean pork with kimchee and a cranky glare, stuffing himself for a reason beyond a need to lay on inventory in the ass and shoulders. I said, “Hey, let’s do something else besides eat,” and he looked at me, still cranky, chewing a toothpick, and asked, “What else is there?” I didn’t think he’d want to hike on Mount Tam; not the type. Maybe a movie, but he didn’t want that, either, even with the popcorn bucket and don’t spare the butter. A sociable visit to Janey and her pony at the Medal of Honor—no. Major drinking might work out for him, but I didn’t see it as a big help. Getting on with our routine of stuffing the gut seemed to be what he had in mind.
“So what do you say?”
“Alfonso—”
He stood up and I stood up. I wanted to tell him something about his son. I think he wanted to tell me something, too.
His phone was ringing. “I’ll pick you up,” he said, “get outta here,” and turned to the phone.
* * *
I stood waiting outside Poorman’s Cottage because he said he would roll on by, slow down and open the car door, didn’t want to see the mess I was no doubt living in; and since he was buying, he would pick the place where we might eat, might drink, might pursue the little hints and jostles I was putting out. “Course, we been hinting and jostling a whole long time,” the oozing caramel voice of Alfonso intoned over the phone.
“Do I have to hear a lecture?”
“You take your chance on that,” he said.
I stood on the crumbling pavement and breathed the air. The Potrero Hill butcher smell was gone with end-of-day wind; early-evening thermal inversion was bringing in the usual wash of sea damp and fog wisps. Kids from the Projects were playing some kind of beer-can hockey in the last daylight in the street down the hill from me, but they kept stopping and pointing my way, probably a nervous habit picked up from running illicit medicines for their dads, live-in uncles, and big brothers temporarily out of jail. When they saw Alfonso, they scattered in every direction, leaving the evidence behind—a crushed beer can.
I climbed in. There was a smell on the front seat of wrapping from some of yesterday’s bag lunch. I could also smell advice coming on. At least Alfonso had not replaced Mingus; animal companions didn’t do it for me, either. As he drove, keeping that wary cop eye on the street, he paused and looked longingly at the Thai Barbecue near the corner of Missouri and Eighteenth. The oysters, the rice, the cute thing done with strong coffee, cream, and sugar, iced, in a tall skinny glass. “Always remember where this must be,” he said, “’cause Missouri loves company.”
Ha-ha.
“Here, get out.” It was some kind of Filipino joint on city patronage landfill near the barge and houseboat encampment beyond the Fourth Street Bridge. There was a garden. There was blowing sand. For the pleasure of Alfonso there was a settling down for a South Pacific fried grease feast. I tried to tell him about cultures over there that take to burying pigs in the ground, building bonfires over the grave, and then eating what they dig up with many a lick, spit, and grunt and maybe twigs through their noses. But he wasn’t going to let me get off with anthropology gossip; he had an agenda for the night.
“Bein’ in the civil offense line,” he began, having given his order, “you’re not used to so many offenders in my own idea of offense—my department, I mostly deal with legal offenders, criminal justice system type. What you are mostly, your line generally, is civil offender.”
I might as well spread my cheeks and let him search me. He seemed to have prepared this tangled little speech. I didn’t see how it was any help.
“You know what I’m saying,” he said. “Not on top of the situation is where you are not.”
“What do you want to do about it?”
“You’re asking me? Suppose I ask you what to do about my own kid, my prostate, weight problem, how you feel? We got most of an order of lumpia too much—want it to go? … It be your job to tell me, supposedly a grown man, how to cut the crap and get on with the rest of my life? You want some golden-ager senior kindergarten counseling, brother? From me? Get real. You hear what I’m saying?”
I stared. I tried to feel sorry for this good cop hanging out with a known civil offender. It would be a relief from feeling sorry for my own lonesome legal self, wouldn’t it?
“Better,” said Alfonso, and he poked me. “I saw a glimmer across your face.”
“I don’t eat that stuff out of the microwave. I don’t know how you can.”
He sighed. “Subject ain’t my dining habits,” he said, and stared longingly at the lumpia oozing and seeping oil all over itself. “Hey, maybe you glad about not having the responsibility no more? Live a little poorer, okay, pay the child support, feel sad for yourself—but don’t have to please the lady? That spell relief? A little, hey?”
He continued staring shrewdly, pig-eyed, wrong but meaning to be wrong, my wrong pig-eyed pal. Knew I didn’t want to duck out on this one, not Priscilla, not Jeff. Giving me a shot of adrenaline, I guess, for conversation’s sake.
He wasn’t allowing me to talk about his son; wouldn’t permit it. He wasn’t allowing me to ask about Alfonso; didn’t let it happen. I knew enough not to push him. I wondered if my friend in his cunning was using his grief to make me feel shame. I was specializing too much in my own sorrows, and for one reason only—they were mine.
“Get set, ready, go,” he said. “Eat.” He sure could scarf the family-style South Pacific dishes with his delicate absorbent little Japanese chopsticks—carried sets of them like toothpicks in his jacket pockets for emergency chowing down—sharpening them first and getting rid of the slivers by rubbing them together. Hungry. And then he’d go ahead to some fancy Italian coffee place, a “caffé,” and have a creamy, sugary, mortal tiramisu, some new edible spansule for filling the arteries with goo. But the chopsticks still in his pockets, just in case, like the toothbrushes and the condoms.
“Coffee?” he asked. “You ain’t uttering much in the reply mode, are you? Coffee’s good, suppose to be, for the blues. You might could use some blues medicine.”
“You need your dessert.”
“Cutting down on the drinking, so I do tend to like the sweet stuff. Say what, there’s compensation everywhere you look. Hey—can I help?”
“You do,” I said, my throat constricted. “You do.”
Alfonso’s inappropriate laugh rumbled from deep in his belly. “That’s a good sign, pal.”
Appropriate laughter, the usual from Alfonso. It was okay. Something’s got to be okay. Hey—can I help? He had caught me by surprise with that one.
He wanted to get back to normal buddy bullshit before we were both embarrassed. Words tended to ooze easily out of Alfonso’s rumbling belly. The program was to get by and enjoy a little holiday every day. Over the years he had learned a thing or two, how to handle chopsticks, for example, even the washable Chinese plastic ones that let the chicken and noodles slide onto the shirt or lap. In the course of chopstick training he had developed certain experienced-older-guy tricks. Ate Tommy Toy’s Chinese with his own little disposable porous genuine-wood Japanese tools, the sweet-and-sour dishes, the slimy noodle dishes, the oily MSG dishes, the shrimps, the scallops, the many, many Chinese mushrooms. The mu shu pork he rolled into papery folded crepes like a San Francisco pro, truly a gourmet with other resources in his repertory besides mere ribs, rice, and fries.
“Back off,” he was saying. “Here’s my advice. Move, keep your hands in front of you, watch where you’re going, not where you been.”
“Am I under some kind of arrest?”
Suddenly he waved gleefully, using both hands. Whew. Waving away his burp, waving it off. His tongue was purplish, like his palms. Food and drink were not the real celebrants here. It was the gathered years. A little extra wiggle in the thighs and arms came with the times. He was trying to be a happy mortal man. Alfonso had no quarrel with the personal inevitabilities. Globules and corpuscles could set forth to rove beyond the digestive tract. Muscle
s might even go into hiding, although he knew they weren’t yet ready to disappear into the great chain of nonbeing. Disappearance would come in due course, the uprooting of the trunk. In the meantime, better a happy tub of gut than a wired complainer.
“Hate to get personal, man.”
“Go ahead.”
“You perpetrate, man, that’s okay, but you know what? Some people learn. You keep on doing it.”
“I can’t help myself.”
“They all say that. We call it, used to, recidivism, pal. That’s for kids with lots of time. Not you.”
“What’s for me?”
He was thinking of his son. I was sure of that. “That’s for them,” he said.
“What’s for me?”
“Try to enjoy. At our stage that’s what we got to use ourselves for.”
He gave me a full dose of late-middle-aged, high-IQ, ethnic-racial barbecue hospitality, covering the check with his paw. He was buying. Priscilla was right. It’s good to have at least one friend who understands when you’re down and you need to be treated as if you’re down. For dessert we didn’t go for the key lime pie; we had another couple beers.
Since he had filled out his retirement form, no more fitness standards to meet, many ethnic barbecues were having their way with Alfonso’s thighs, ass, belly, chins, but he could still move fast when he wanted to, especially his tongue. As a Pinkerton consultant, minority hire, he figured that they liked everything about him, including his heft—additional evidence of minority preference. He had gotten comfortable and could recommend it. He dipped his finger into the bleeding, mahogany sweet-and-sour sauce, licked it, and commented, “You’re going under”—sometimes a merciless tongue—“not.” He contributed a wheezy growl for emphasis. “Trying to go under, which is worse. Telling yourself how miserable you are.”
