Angels of Catastrophe: A Novel

by Peter Plate

  Lonely Boy was another saga. His family was from El Salvador. He had a younger brother in juvenile hall on an assault charge and another one buried in a village cemetery back in Colmillo. His father worked as a part-time janitor at St. Martin de Porres and his mother sold flowers in front of Walgreen’s almost every day of the week. Because it would drive his parents mad with grief, he worried about getting arrested by the cops and deported.

  He said to Durrutti, bending the harsh syllables of his adopted language, softening them with Spanish inflections, “That Chamorro, you know what he was doing, don’t you? It was messed up. The puto was trying to play the game from both sides. First, he came across all brotherly, saying he wouldn’t bust us if we played with him. He wanted us to run mota through him. He got a percentage and we wouldn’t get arrested. Safety guaranteed, that’s what he said. But then he stabbed us in the back. Chamorro said it was his job. My theory is, you do that, you lose. A man who betrays you, he deserves to die.”

  Lonely Boy’s eyes burned into Durrutti’s face. Sherm-fired brown eyes that had not a glimmer of light in them, as if all the hope in Lonely Boy had been vacuumed out of his soul and replaced with the dark soil of resentment. He clenched his jaw and waited for a reaction, waiting to see if Durrutti would flinch at the mention of death and betrayal. When the other man didn’t, he continued, asserting, “Yeah, the pendejo turned around after taking our money and weed and he busted the vatos. He laughed at us when we said it was unfair. In a case like that, there is only one way out. You know how it is, the more a man has, the weaker it makes him. Greed kills you, homes. That’s what happened to that pinche Chamorro.”

  Durrutti ventured into unknown territory and hazarded a new topic and said to him, “I’m trying to track down Jimmy Ramirez, but I can’t find him.”

  Lonely Boy laughed, not kindly. “Of course not. With this kind of heat on Mission Street, the homeboy’s made himself scarce. Don’t you know he’s always been like that? Jimmy’s only out for himself, the fucking Mexican.” Lonely Boy angled his head, regarding Durrutti with suspicion. “Anyway, what do you need from him? Anything he got, I got too, you know.”

  Durrutti blanched and backpedaled, saying neutrally, “Jimmy? I just want to talk with him.”

  “What for when you can talk to me?” Lonely Boy nagged. “I talk better than him all the time.”

  “It’s strictly business, nothing personal.”

  “Well, your business is your business. But you better watch yourself around his shit, that’s all I can say. He’s a fucking hoo-banging maniac.”

  Durrutti’s paranoid radar went up. Unwanted advice was the last thing he needed. It just added to the static in his head. He was all ears and fears when he asked Lonely Boy what he meant. “Why’s that?”

  Lonely Boy warmed up to the question. It was a role he relished, saying how he saw things, his view of the world. “For one,” he said, “the homeboy is unstable and his reputation is shit. He owes everyone money. He went through all my nephews, You know them? They live on York Street. And then his girlfriend left him after he ripped her off. That’s a no-no. You can steal from a man, but not from a woman, especially if you are sleeping with her.”

  Lonely Boy folded his muscular arms over his chest and looked resigned. “But you know, I still try to be friendly and shit with him. I have gone out of my way to tell that Mexican that even though he can’t be down with the Mara Salvatrucha, on account of us being Salvadoreños and everything, it don’t mean he can’t hang out and party with us. He can come over and do the social thing. Casual shit. Nothing heavy. But no, he’s tight with that black guy, what’s his name? You know, the one with el grande Afro.”

  “That’s Fleeta Bolton.”

  “What’s up with that shit? The dude is black.”

  “I don’t know. They’re close friends.”

  “It’s fucked up is what it is. And another thing.” Lonely Boy spat on the sidewalk, narrowly missing a pigeon, who flew off in a flutter of grimy feathers. “Chamorro? That’s just the beginning. We’ve got a war going on out here. Only the locos will survive it.”

  Lonely Boy was five foot tall, puro indio and built like a brick shithouse. He radiated a force field of malice. The vato loco snapped the fingers of his right hand and asked proudly, “Who do you think rules Mission Street?” He answered his own question with a smile, showing a row of brilliantly white and even teeth. “The motherfuckers who are willing to die for it, that’s who.”

  Chapter Six

  Durrutti’s parents had the wisdom to leave him with an education in law and order. Vocational training was necessary—in San Francisco, you can’t start too early.

  The hoopla began three months after his birth. His mother was a vivacious, sometimes malicious brunette who went by the moniker of Doby. She was a young woman entering post-adolescence, not pleased with being a mother and a wife. Doby had anticipated her husband’s exit from prison by renting a three room place on Geneva Avenue in Visitacion Valley, a grubby blue-collar neighborhood near the Cow Palace.

  Durrutti’s father was a ferret-faced teenager with atrocious teeth known as Frankie. After his release from Chino following a one year bit for burglary, he joined Doby and their baby boy, bringing with him his friend Freddy.

  Doby was very upset about this. Brush fires on San Bruno Mountain and the Zebra serial killings were the big stories in the local newspapers. The racially motivated murders had the city terrified. Doby could have cared less. She wanted to murder Freddy.

  Freddy was a twenty-year-old tow-headed recidivist who’d met Durrutti’s dad in Chino. They had been cell mates and lovers. After waiting a year for her man to get out of jail—living with her parents had been a death sentence—Dobie didn’t cotton to Freddy and didn’t want him around. She fought with Frankie about it night and day, arguing Freddy was a negative addition to their household.

  Being among the general population was too much for Freddy, more so than for Frankie. He couldn’t get a job because he hardly knew how to write his own name. He got busted for shoplifting—boosting a bar of soap at Walgreen’s Drugstore—and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Freddy was wily as a cockroach hiding from the exterminators. He avoided the cops for several months until one day a plainclothes police officer in the Mission recognized him and initiated a chase.

  Freddy gave his pursuer the slip and dashed back to his hideout on treeless, garbage-swept Geneva Avenue. The sun was beating down on him as he bustled into the in-law cottage with his Robert Redford hair all disheveled, his shirt unbuttoned and sweaty. Durrutti was in the baby crib playing with a .38 bullet his daddy had given him as a toy. Doby and Frankie were sitting on the sofa watching television with the sound turned off. Frankie was shirtless and unshaven and had a beer in his hand. Dobie was holding his other hand as she stared at the TV screen. Freddy danced around the living room in a near-epileptic fit, banging his knees against the coffee table.

  “They found me! This is it! The fucking cops are coming to get me!”

  He was practically in tears. A tough ex-con he was not. Neither was his host. Frankie and Freddy were good-time criminals. The soft kind. They were incapable of graft. They didn’t know how to rob banks. They weren’t hooked up with any gangs. They were journeymen crooks with no skills. They’d never hurt anyone—which was why they were failures. Balls of stainless steel they did not have.

  Doby made like nothing was wrong. Freddy’s problems were not her business. Her husband, being his former cell mate’s chief confidant, was more sympathetic. He stood up, let go of his wife’s hand and took another swig of beer. Then he handed the can to Freddy, put his arms around his friend and gave him a manly hug. “Go hide in the bathroom, dude. I’ll keep them outside. You don’t have to worry about a thing. I’ve got your back.”

  Freddy finished off the rest of the beer in a single swallow. His handsome face exploded with relief. “You’re a genius, man! Thanks!”

  He dragged himself into the john a
nd slammed the door behind him. He locked it and jumped in the bathtub, pulling the aqua blue mildewed shower curtain around him where he stood.

  A split second later two cops plowed through the cottage’s front door without bothering to knock. The first cop had his gun out, not a good sign. He pointed the weapon at the television set, then at Frankie. The other cop shouted, “Where is the bastard!”

  Durrutti had put down the bullet he was weaning himself on and stared at them with an infant’s indifference. Frankie jackknifed from the couch and spread his arms out in a placating, diplomatic gesture. His pulpy face was studded with unhealed jailhouse cysts. His mouth was a geography of tics. He wasn’t sophisticated enough to cope with this brand of trouble and he wasn’t smart enough to admit it. He bellowed self-importantly, “Wait a minute, gentlemen! What’s going on? You just can’t barge in here like this! What do you want?”

  Neither policeman answered him. They didn’t even condescend to look at him. Bare-chested, scrawny Frankie had his jeans held up by a motorcycle chain biker belt. His skinny arms were covered with unfinished India ink tattoos. He was a teenaged battlefield. The cops searched the junior one bedroom apartment, which took them less than a minute. They stormed into the bathroom and found Freddy trying to climb out the window.

  Freddy’s yowling was silenced by the mushy thud of a nightstick when it connected with his nose. The cops handcuffed him face down in the tub. Doby said to Frankie in the most bored, languid voice she could muster up, “I need a breather. You boys have fun. I’m taking the baby for a walk in his stroller.”

  Doby put Durrutti in his pram and rolled him out the door. She ignored the cops as she wheeled the stroller down the front steps of the cottage to the sidewalk. She stopped to brush a strand of hair from her nose, then leaned over to make sure the kid was strapped in his seat. She looked down at him with eyes that were neither cold nor warm. He stared back at her with the same expression.

  She said, “God help you, you little brat.”

  Chapter Seven

  Hunt’s Donuts was packed to the rafters with middle-aged Salvadoreno men when Durrutti slogged in through the door. The air was cigarette smoke, which clogged his pores and aggravated his shaving rash. Maimonides was parked at his favorite table in a powder-gray double-breasted quilted suit that complemented his brown leatherette ankle-high boots. It was time to renew the quest to find Jimmy Ramirez.

  As Durrutti sat down, Maimonides announced, “You know I’m dating a woman? She’s beautiful, very nice. She’s a social worker. I met her over by the Department of Motor Vehicles on Fell Street. I’m in love.”

  You’d have thought he was describing the resurrection of Christ. Durrutti was thrilled for him. The whole planet would benefit. He sat with Maimonides while the older man gossiped and finished his coffee and doughnuts. The two of them then left the bakery and piled into the Seville to resume the hunt for the Mexican.

  Cruising down Mission Street, the cars were bumper to bumper to Bernal Hill. The vehicular exhaust was a thick yellow cloud resembling tear gas. At the red light on Mission and Nineteenth Streets Maimonides spied a young soft-faced black man in chartreuse corduroy flares, a yellow rayon shirt, blue Gucci loafers with elevated heels and a world record sized Afro. He said, “Well, I’ll be fucked. See that guy? Correct me if I’m wrong, but ain’t that Fleeta Bolton? It has to be. Nobody else dresses like that. What is with him? His clothes are fucking blinding me.”

  Durrutti almost shuddered with excitement. Judgment hour had finally arrived and not a second too soon. He pounded the dashboard with both hands, delirious. “That’s Fleeta all right. Pull this boat over.”

  Maimonides eased the Seville to the curb with aplomb, cutting off a Muni bus and Durrutti leaped out of the Cadillac on a dead run. Fleeta, with a talent all his own, as if he had a ghetto satellite dish embedded in his brain, gyrated his neck, not moving his head, not doing anything that would mess up his Afro. He picked Durrutti out of the pedestrians surging around him. His unblinking coal-lit eyes touched down on the pint-sized white man as he yelled out a greeting.

  “Motherfucker in hell! Is that you, Ricky Durrutti?”

  If anyone could tell Durrutti where the Mexican was, Fleeta Bolton was the man. He was popular in the street. He went places Durrutti never did, saw people he never saw. He had connections, a cornucopia of them. Durrutti’s salvation was at hand. The hassle of finding Jimmy Ramirez had been wearing him down to a nub—he nearly went insane with joy.

  “Goddamn, Fleeta! I ain’t seen you in a long time! What’s up?”

  Durrutti had known Fleeta Bolton for three years. When he’d first met him, Fleeta had been mellow, a new-comer to the neighborhood from Ohio. Befriending Jimmy Ramirez had changed him. You could see it in his face, the confusion and the gradual loss of optimism. He looked at Durrutti with grave misgivings, patting his hair and saying, “What have I been doing? What do you think I’ve been doing, peckerwood? I’ve been hustling my ass off.”

  Not in any particular rush, Durrutti calculated what he wanted to say. Getting Fleeta to talk required strategic moves. Verbal talents Durrutti knew he didn’t have at his disposal. Like most things, he had to wing it. He leaned against a parking meter and nodded his chin sympathetically, trying to get in sync with Fleeta’s head space as the stressed-out black man related his latest string of adventures to him.

  “I had me a job doing the fish at the Foreign Cinema. You know that place? I got fired because they thought I was stealing shit. You know that ain’t my style. I ain’t crass. If I’m going to rip somebody off, I do it with class. I’m gonna have somebody else do the stealing for me. I will employ that person and pay him good money, just like they do it in the service sector. You hire specialists to do the deed. So that’s what I did. I hired this punk and it backfired. The turkey got caught with a hundred pounds of salmon and he folded on me. He ratted on my butt. I had me a good lawyer and I’m lucky I didn’t go to jail. Say, you got any weed?”

  Durrutti replied, hoping to get a word in, “No, I don’t. Hey ... you ain’t seen Jimmy around, have you?”

  Fleeta compressed his slinky face into a scowl. “Who?”

  “Jimmy. Jimmy Ramirez.”

  “Oh, you mean Mexican Jimmy.” Fleeta’s leonine visage was haughty; his Afro tufted in the breeze. The sun glanced off his smooth face, making the down on his cheeks shimmer. His eyes went reptilian at the mention of Jimmy’s name. He flexed his mouth in a tart grin. “That dork? He’s been giving me grief lately. I’m reevaluating our, you know, that friend thing. The platonic shit. The fact is, Jimmy is a thief. You either live with that or it pulls you down. I can’t decide where I’m at with it. What do you want him for?”

  Durrutti was careful, as if he were walking through a minefield. His paranoia was no match for Fleeta, who was more tweaked-out than anyone he knew. “I just want to talk to him, that’s all. You know where he is?”

  “You want to know where he’s staying?”

  “Yeah. You got a number for him? Some way I can reach him?”

  “If I did, you would be second in line after me. That’s the problem. The dude ain’t around. He was staying with his sister over on Shotwell. She had an apartment. But she got evicted. Then Jimmy went to a friend’s place on Bryant Street. I heard they had a fight and Jimmy got kicked out. Last I knew, he was crashing on Natoma Street.”

  “Is he still there?”

  Fleeta said, “Shut up and listen to me, will you? I’m trying to tell you something pertinent. On Natoma Street, all he ever did was work on his car. He was preoccupied, said he was depressed. Had his head under the hood all the time. Then one day he was gone.”

  This perplexed Durrutti. The street was too noisy, what with the papaya vendors, the hookers and the cars honking their horns. He had trouble hearing what Fleeta was saying. “What do you mean?”

  “The last time I seen him, Jimmy tells me he’s going to the Mustang Brothers to get parts for his Chevy. He says, wait here
for me and when I get back, we’ll talk about the money I owe you and how I’m gonna pay it back. And so I waited. I waited that morning and that afternoon. I smoked a bunch of joints. Watched some videos. But he didn’t come back.

  “Then I hear Jimmy owes money to lots of people. And he’s been getting into shit with some dudes for stealing their tools. Some cholos I would never mess with.” Fleeta squared his shoulders and said, “I should have never trusted that Mexican. Well, hell. Time to move on. You ain’t got no weed, huh? That figures. When are you ever gonna amount to something, Durrutti? I ain’t gonna hold my breath waiting to find out. Fuck it, I’m outta here.”

  The stoplight changed to green and before Durrutti could do anything, Fleeta sashayed across the street. As an afterthought he yelled over his shoulder, “When you find Jimmy, you tell the motherfucker I’m looking for him, too, damn it!”

  Chapter Eight

  Treat Street, where it split off from the Harrison Street artery, was a dusty jungle of two-storied row houses, pastel aluminum and plyboard live-work lofts and weed-ridden vacant lots filled with abandoned cars, plus a crop of dead trees planted in the sidewalk next to the occasional warehouse. Garbage was piled up on the pavement in picturesque heaps. The potholes in the roadbed were ankle deep. Homeless winos napped sprawled on the cement. BMW’s and Land Rovers, fleets of them, hogged every available parking space. Wealthy white people dwelled there. Some Mexicans, too.

  A few years ago, no one wanted to live on Treat Street. Not even the junkies. A dog wouldn’t lay down to die there. Nowadays Silicon Valley magnates were moving in, thinking zip of laying out a million dollars for one of the decrepit turn-of-the-century Edwardian Victorians on the block. You could almost comprehend their logic—living on Treat Street was far better than a mortgage in one of San Jose’s suburban wastes.