The Angels of Catastrophe

by Peter Plate

  “Don’t tell me nothing,” Fleeta lisped.

  Before the two of them got into an argument, Durrutti intervened and navigated the conversation to a more constructive position. “Okay, you assholes. Shut up.” He said to Fleeta, “You run into Jimmy yet?”

  Fleeta was eager to dump on Jimmy’s downsliding reputation and he replied in a voice dripping with silvery disdain. “Nope, but I’ve been hearing things about the dude. Very ugly things. The more I hear, the funkier it gets. Jimmy is a genius at making a bad situation worse. The brother has fucked my shit up, like royal. Because I’m his friend, everybody is acting strange with me. I can’t even go to someone’s house without them locking up everything in sight because they think I’m gonna steal from them. His karma is rubbing off on me and that ain’t good. What do you want him for?”

  Durrutti decided to take Fleeta into his confidence. It was a foolish move, but he couldn’t help it. He needed allies. He was scared and tired, fried to a crisp, well past the burnt-out stage. Which made him crazily talkative. “Can I tell you a secret?”

  Fleeta was attentive. His face went foxy, then ravenous. “I’m the man. Your best friend. Lay it down for me.”

  “You know the cop that got dusted? That Chamorro dude? The narc on Mission Street?”

  “Hell, yeah! It’s been on television every night! Every douche bag in the street knows about that!”

  “Well, Jimmy was involved with it.”

  Fleeta was aghast. His mouth went slack with shock and he banged his fist on the table, rattling the coffee cups and slopping coffee onto the floor. “My homeboy? Jimmy? He shot a motherfucking cop?”

  His voice was louder than a public-address system, truly superhuman. Fleeta should have been in the Guinness Book of World Records. Everyone in Hunt’s Donuts heard him. Maimonides groaned, his face going ashy. “What’s the matter with you, Fleeta, ha? Lower the volume. Show some discretion.”

  Durrutti knew he’d made an error in judgment by saying anything at all to Fleeta. He modified his indiscretion. “Jimmy didn’t shoot anyone. Not even close. But the gun that was used in the killing, it was in his possession at one time.”

  “Who told you that?”

  Most people who hustled in the streets were inveterate gossips. Fleeta was no exception. He thrived on rumors. Durrutti knew whatever he said, it was ammunition in Fleeta’s hands. Telling him something might backfire. He answered with the trepidation a man feels when he’s discovered himself in a cul-de-sac. “The cops did.”

  Fleeta’s pretty brown eyes sparkled with terror. His smile suicided and he put a hand over his mouth and said through his splayed fingers, “The police interviewed you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s the shits! What did you tell them?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did you say anything about me?”

  Maimonides ceased futzing with his arm and proceeded to get rancorous with Fleeta. “Oy gevalt. You think the whole world revolves around you? The cops don’t give a flying fuck about your shit. This is about Ricky.”

  Fleeta puffed up like a rooster in a barnyard cock-fight. “Don’t be disrespecting my ass, you. I’ve paid my dues. The pigs know who I am.”

  It became necessary to reeducate Fleeta. Durrutti reached across the table and playfully walloped him in the shoulder, hard enough to warn him to keep his cool. He said, “I didn’t say anything about you, Fleeta. I would never do that. But they’re hunting for Jimmy and they think I know where he is.”

  Fleeta rubbed his arm and appraised Durrutti with newfound tribulation as he leaned back in the chair, seeking to put some distance between him and the bitter-faced, dark-haired Jewish thug. He asked, “The cops breathing down your neck?”

  “Sort of. They want Jimmy, to ask him about the gun. And they want this other guy Paul Stevens for the killing.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s dead. He’s out of the picture.”

  “The police want a dead man?”

  “He’s their number one suspect. But they don’t know he’s dead and I ain’t gonna tell them.”

  Fleeta tabulated what Durrutti was telling him and said, “Fuck that noise. Whatever you do, fool, it’s gonna be too deep for me. I’m staying away from it. Hell, if I was rational, I’d leave this goddamn town.”

  This was not what Durrutti wanted to hear. He’d failed to exploit Fleeta’s sympathy. He hadn’t played his cards right. “Don’t say that, please. You’ve got to help me locate Jimmy. I need to talk to him real bad.”

  Fleeta heard the frantic catch in the other man’s voice and he smelled a deal. He smelled money and his face went rigid with ambition. “What will you do for me if I do?”

  Maimonides pulled three Rolex watches from his suit and said, “I’ll tell you what. You help Durrutti find this Jimmy Ramirez and I will give you a discount price on one of these, okay? What do you say to that? You’ll be getting a real treasure.”

  Fleeta was taut with derision; his facial muscles were striated with hate. He put a hand up and wagged a finger an inch away from Maimonides’s bulbous nose. “You think you can sell anything, don’t you? That ain’t no Rolex, man. That’s a fake.”

  Maimonides was mortified and offended. “How do you know that? It says Rolex on it, right?”

  “Are you retarded or what? That don’t mean shit.”

  During the Russian Revolution Durrutti’s grandfather had been a conscript in one of the warlord armies that had roamed the Ukrainian steppes. His zaydeh was the son of a Jewish serf and had nothing to his name except the shabby uniform on his back and a gold watch.

  It was a pocket watch, his pride and joy. To earn it he’d slaved for years, working a myriad of jobs. One night while the regiment was bivouacked on an abandoned dairy farm near the front in Crimea, Durrutti’s zaydeh and his squad went to sleep in a barn. In the middle of the night the commanding officer, a minor Muscovite noble, came in to count the soldiers to see if anyone had deserted. He saw the watch and woke the peasant soldier, kicking him in the leg, saying he wanted it. Zaydeh gave the timepiece to the officer, knowing he would’ve been shot for insubordination if he had refused.

  Maimonides said to Fleeta, “You wouldn’t know a fucking Rolex even if it hit you in the face. Look at you and your clothes. What do you know about anything?”

  Fleeta preened, “That’s an insult! Are you saying I don’t know fine jewelry when I see it?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Some of us have the ability. Others don’t. And those who don’t are too stupid to admit it.”

  “You sound just like that motherfucker Ephraim Rook,” Fleeta hooted.

  The light in Maimonides’s eyes flickered at the mention of the racketeer’s name, as though the wiring in his head was shorting out. He said to Fleeta, “Ephraim don’t concern you. He never did and never will. That’s because what he does is geographical and it is historical. Only certain people can be involved. In short, he is a Jewish problem.” Maimonides ran a hand through his curly hair and added, “Why didn’t you say you knew Ephraim? That changes everything. It implies you have a prejudice against me. What the fuck are you here for? To make trouble? Please.”

  Fleeta shot back, “What do you have against the brother? What did he ever do to you?”

  Maimonides jeered, “Rook ain’t your brother. You share the same mother? I don’t think so.”

  Durrutti hushed Maimonides, flashing a reproving glance at him. “You’re being a lummox.” Then he said to Fleeta, “Okay, what’s on your mind?”

  Handing the ball back to Fleeta made him feel better. It improved his ego. The sunlight bleeding through the doughnut shop’s scratchy window framed his Afro with a fiery corona. He said, “I just wanna make sure I don’t get killed, that’s all.”

  It was a humble request. Durrutti gave it some thought. A rabbi would have said there were sins on Durrutti’s soul. There was the sin of being born. There was the sin of bei
ng a chronic lawbreaker. Large and small, these transgressions were his and he had to atone for them. How, he didn’t know. The rabbi would say, put yourself in God’s hands. Durrutti didn’t believe in God and he was sure God didn’t believe in him either.

  Maimonides had his own methods of coping with sin. He was a felon who’d lived outside of society most of his life. He hawked up a lunger and let it fly at the floor and put his elbows on the table and stared at Fleeta. The black man’s virgin face was a huge contrast to Maimonides’s own battered, late-middle-aged punim. Maimonides’s visage, coated with a layer of talcum powder to hide the bumps on his skin, was a weather report of too many years spent in prison. He said, “Listen closely and I will tell you a story. What do you really know about Ephraim Rook?”

  Fleeta said, “I’ve known Ephraim for years. He and I—”

  Maimonides interrupted him. “Bite your tongue. You know nothing. Let me fill you in. Ephraim has no morals. He is a skunk. The worst type. This I know because Ephraim and I ran together. He was the fair haired boy. I was his shadow. He was the good criminal. I was the bad criminal. When we pulled a job, he planned it and I did the dirt. It went on for years like that. Then something went wrong and I took a rap for him. I went to jail and he left me to rot there. Ephraim has always had things his way. The new cars. The big house. The restaurants with the fancy menus in three languages. The chicks with the fine asses. Frankly, I’m sick of it. You think I’m envious? No, I am angry. Besides, Ephraim Rook ain’t your business. If it was, you and I would have discussed it. But we haven’t and we won’t. And here’s why. Between me and Ephraim, nothing is forgotten or forgiven. It’s just one of those things, like cancer or whatever. You have it or you don’t. Why do I have to keep telling you people that?”

  Fleeta took umbrage, half-rising in his seat. His mouth was stony. “Who do you mean, you people?”

  The black-tar swirl in Maimonides’s eyes crystallized into a pellucid intelligence. He said with sincere but meaningless compassion, “Don’t take this wrong, but you’re obviously no Jew. What can I say? You’re a goy. And probably better off for it.”

  Maimonides’s granite face left no room for argument. The cold-blooded finality of his pronouncement settled over the three thieves like a winter’s day, underlining the fact it was ninety-five degrees outside on Mission Street. The tension around the table was thick enough to cut with a hacksaw. The doughnut baker was up front and he gave the cantankerous trio a worried look. More than ready to call the cops on them if things got out of hand. Durrutti flipped him the high sign: no problems over here. The baker nodded and retreated into the kitchen.

  “You better hush your mouth. I ain’t gonna take no shit from you,” Fleeta said to Maimonides in an earnest voice.

  Maimonides carried a Charter Arms Bulldog .44 revolver, a pocket-sized cannon in his jacket. He put his hand on it and curled his fingers around the pistol’s rubberized grips. Touching the warm sticky grips sent a thrill up his arm. He said, “And if I don’t shut up, what are you going to do about it? Little, I think.”

  Fleeta Bolton had a razor blade hidden in his Afro. He could take a man’s nose clear off the bone with it—and Durrutti didn’t put it past him to resculpt Maimonides’s face. The atmosphere around the table was going haywire, compelling him to snap at both men. “C’mon, you guys. We can’t be quarreling like this. It hurts business. Let’s have some goddamn harmony around here, like pronto.”

  The second he mentioned business, Fleeta and Maimonides turned down the heat. Business was the only reason the three of them were alive. No one wanted to lose money and nobody wanted to compromise the scene at Hunt’s Donuts. It would be more intelligent to die first.

  Fleeta slapped his leg with his hand. “Okay, I’ll chill my shit.” He glanced significantly at Maimonides, who faked deafness and wouldn’t acknowledge him.

  Durrutti said to Maimonides, “Now it’s your turn, ace. Talk nice to Fleeta.”

  Maimonides was intransigent. He unrolled his shirt sleeve, covering the abcess. “No fucking way. I didn’t like what the asshole said.”

  Fleeta’s shoulders tensed up. “Who’s an asshole?”

  “Nobody,” Durrutti cut in, scowling at Maimonides. “Nobody’s nothing around here.”

  Maimonides hemmed and hawed, but seeing that his partner was mad at him, he became insecure. He couldn’t burn his bridges behind him, not with Fleeta and not at Hunt’s. He had his back to the wall and the only way out was straight forward. He squawked in a gruff heroin-inflected voice, “All right, whatever. Shalom, Fleeta. Forgive me. No harm intended.”

  The spell was broken. A truce was established and amplified when Fleeta asked Maimonides if he could see one of the watches. Maimonides obliged him, and feeling generous, he gave it to Fleeta as a gift. In a display of uncustomary honesty Maimonides also conceded the watch wasn’t a Rolex. Fleeta, to his credit, took no offense.

  Having survived another skirmish by the skin of his teeth, Maimonides unsteadily rose to his feet and excused himself, saying he wanted to get some bandages for his abcess at Walgreen’s Drugstore.

  Durrutti was left alone with Fleeta at the table. The silence between them was familiar, comfortable. Durrutti let it build as he studied the fidgety black man, concluding he had to woo him if he wanted his help in the search for Jimmy Ramirez. Testing the waters, he asked, “So what about Jimmy? What am I going to do?”

  “That’s easy. Leave it alone,” Fleeta philosophized. “Forget you ever knew him. If you don’t, he will drag you down.”

  “But I’ve got to find him.”

  “Don’t. See, Jimmy’s black magic. Anything he touches, it turns bad like he was waving a wand over it.”

  “Okay, but if you hear anything about him, you’ll give me a ring, yeah?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll think about it. It depends.”

  Fleeta’s plainly stated reluctance disconcerted Durrutti. “Depends on what?”

  “Many things.”

  “Like what?”

  Fleeta jumped up from his seat and brushed Durrutti’s chest with a finger. “Cops be getting killed and you and Jimmy are involved? I wouldn’t bet on your asses for anything. Staying away from you two should be public policy. Now I’m going to slide on out of here and pretend I ain’t never seen you before.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Durrutti met up with Maimonides in the La Cabana Bakery next door to the Instituto Laboral De La Raza on Sixteenth Street. Across the way was a four-storied brick fortress called the Redstone Building. Erected in 1914 the beehive of offices used to be known as the San Francisco Labor Temple, the site where the citywide general strike of 1934 had been planned.

  Daylight’s last rays had bathed the Rubalcava Flower Shop, the Burger King and Walgreen’s Drugstore, Hwa Lei Market and the Kim Yen Restaurant in pornographic sunshine, exposing the unpainted plumbing pipes, jumbled telephone wires, and broken-down satellite dishes.

  Durrutti was in a fey mood and remarked, as if he were addressing no one in particular, “Ephraim Rook has an office over there in the Redstone Building, don’t he?”

  Toiling over a pastry, Maimonides was disinclined to respond. Food and talk did not mix. His preoccupation gave Durrutti an opportunity to scope him out. Ricky was no specimen of male beauty, but Maimonides wasn’t any prettier. The realization gave Durrutti a moment’s ineffable happiness. For a long time, he’d been laboring under the delusion Maimonides was better looking than him. To find out this wasn’t so did wonders for his self-esteem.

  “Yeah,” Maimonides grunted. “Ephraim’s got a suite in the Redstone. For a couple of years now. Real classy. IKEA furniture. Stained glass windows. A gold samovar. The whole phony bit. He has a lot of money lately, I hear. Tons of it. It’s coming out of his ass, he’s got so much. And you know him ... if he’s got it, he’s gonna flaunt it.”

  Durrutti bared his innermost feelings. “In case you didn’t know, Ephraim is bugging me.”

  Mai
monides was empathic. “So I notice. He’s a shit stirrer and he’s got no moxie. But you and him, what is it? Something special? There was always some vibe going on between you guys.”

  Durrutti was relieved to get it out on the table. “Damn right there is. Ephraim’s been hassling me. We’ve got some shit going down over his girlfriend. I slept with her.”

  “You slept with her? That must of killed him. He’s not strong enough to survive these things.”

  “Yeah, it’s a mess.”

  “Who is she? Someone I know?”

  “The woman we saw on Capp Street the other day. You asked me about her. I told you I didn’t know who she was.”

  Maimonides whistled. “That broad? The one with the tacky clothes? You and Ephraim are tussling over her? You’re a dork. She looks like a self-hating drag queen. Drop her right now. Leave her to Rook. For Christ’s sake, what’s wrong with you? Getting involved with her was a mistake.”

  “I told him I ain’t messing with any of his business no more. I’m done with her shit and his shit. It’s over. But he won’t leave me alone. I can’t let him get away with that, can I?”

  “You gotta protect yourself, that’s smart.” Maimonides was melancholy and his chest heaved as he prophesied. “I’m afraid it might get rough with you and him. Maybe it’s better this way. And maybe I can get in on the action. I hate to tell you this, but I predict you and Ephraim will have more trouble.”

  “Yeah? Who are you?”

  “I’m the rabbi of Mission Street. I know everything.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great. That’s brilliant. Thank you very much.”

  “You’re welcome. And here’s how I know. I came up with Rook. We were proficient in violence and we had vast amounts of ambition. We were like one person. I was the left hand. Ephraim was the right hand. But the years changed us. The left hand injected drugs into itself. The right hand began to make a fortune. Ephraim Rook was no longer my friend.