Police and Thieves: A Novel

by Peter Plate

  I locked the bedroom door and turned out the lights, getting down on my hands and knees. If I remained motionless, the police wouldn’t detect me; if I stayed out of sight, they’d never find me. Eichmann, enjoying my discomfort, the police sirens, and hiding out in the dark, said to Bobo, “You know, I was thinking we ought to get out of the neigborhood more often, go to more parties. I like being festive.”

  Whatever Bobo said next was drowned by the sound of breaking glass coming from downstairs.

  20

  It was dawn when Eichmann walked in the garage door. After being out all night long in North Beach’s foggy streets, one of his cowboy boots was missing. He took off the other one he still had on and removed his pants. As he stood shivering in his boxer shorts, the light from the driveway filtered through the gaps in the garage’s walls, dappling his watermelon-shaped belly. He extracted a warm beer from a case next to the hot plate and popped it open. He threw his head back and guzzled the brew, letting the off-white suds run down both sides of his mouth onto his shirt.

  Loretta was curled up like a cat on the couch, snoring throatily. Eichmann wiped his lips with a shirtsleeve and staggered over to her, calling her name under his breath. He perched himself gingerly on a sofa cushion next to her and sighed. The morning sun made him look a hundred years older than he was. She turned over and said something like, “Honey, what are you doing?” He dropped a hand on her breasts, letting it rest there, too tired to do anything else.

  He looked at his hand, his skin darker than hers. Loretta opened an eye, then fluffed the pillow and slammed her head back into it. Eichmann peeled the blanket from her shoulders, tracing his index finger down her ribs and her stomach, stopping at the hair between her desperately white legs. Like the hair on her head, the thatch had been bleached platinum with peroxide. He brightened when Loretta said to him, nearly asleep, “Put your finger in me, will you?”

  All of Eichmann’s relationships with women were problematic. I didn’t understand what he was putting himself through with Loretta, but even if I did know, what could I do? There were too many questions, and not enough answers. Knowing this, I tried to think about other things.

  It wasn’t difficult: Flaherty was on my mind. Thinking about him reminded me of my stepfather, a man who loved guns as much as any policeman did, if not more. Doojie Sr. believed in the intrinsic and artistic value of weaponry.

  My stepfather had two and a half fingers on his right hand. The other digits had been blown to smithereens by a stick of dynamite he’d set off in his parents’ living room. The backseat of the Hillman was always piled high with rifles, carbines, and animal traps. His favorite gun was a double-barreled silver-plated fowling piece from France with a burnished stock covered in carvings. But his arsenal was versatile: I was particularly awed by the Browning automatic rifle he kept, a gun as tall as me.

  Every Sunday we went out to the country south of Half Moon Bay to do some recreational shooting. We’d cruise the hilly roads near San Gregorio, scanning the roadside trees for wild game. More than once, he parked the sedan on the road’s shoulder and aimed a 30.06 Remington bolt-action rifle through a side window, firing off rounds at whatever was in the treeline, permeating the car’s interior with a cloud of gunpowder so impenetrable you couldn’t see anything through the windshield. “Goddamn it!” he’d yell. “I’m gonna have me some venison tonight!”

  Every other Sunday was target-practice day. That’s when Doojie Sr. trained me to fire a number of weapons, from a single-shot .22 deer-hunting rifle to a U.S. military model 1911 Colt .45 semiautomatic pistol. “It’s good for you,” he instructed me. “You get the hang of loading a gun, you can handle anything in this world.”

  Doojie Sr. also seeded my young brain with his knowledge of the penal industry. He’d been in a maximum-security penitentiary for several years and had had a lot of trouble with the police. He was an experienced hand when it came to running from the law. What would he do if he were in my position with a notorious narc on his case? I could hear him say, clear as the bells ringing for mass at Mission Dolores, “Doojie, I don’t know. They always caught me, didn’t they?”

  21

  The pounding on the door began shortly after Eichmann came home from North Beach. The racket was so atrocious and, given the hour, so insistent, it set my hair on end. I got out of my sleeping bag, hearing several voices in the parking lot. Eichmann sat up on the couch—Loretta’s arms were entwined around his waist. The noise was horrendous; he made a vile face, barking in a low-pitched growl, “Who’s there? What do you want?”

  “Open up, Eichmann! We’ve got business with you!”

  “Who is it?”

  “You know who it is! Let me in!”

  Loretta slung a bathrobe around herself, raking a hand through her newly re-peroxided hair. Eichmann sat up and bellowed in the loudest, ugliest voice imaginable, “State your business!”

  “It’s me, Dee Dee! And I want my money!”

  “You want what?”

  “My money!”

  The banging resumed like an artillery shelling. It was unbelievable—of all the turkeys we’d jacked up, Dee Dee was the first in line to seek retribution. Justice was going to prevail. I pulled on my pants and skipped over to the door, standing alongside Bobo. Eichmann said, just loud enough for the two of us to hear, “He’s got someone with him. Let them in and we’ll pretend like they’ve got us … and we’ll cream them.”

  I swung the door upward; nourishing sunlight blitzed into the garage, illuminating the dust motes swimming in the updraft. Then Dee Dee stalked in. His stringy, ratty hair was plastered to his misshapen skull. His thin, triangular face was covered with psoriasis; shreds of toilet paper were hanging from his cheeks where he’d been picking at the sores. The first person he saw was Loretta with her ghostly skin shining luminescent in the strong light. The folds of her sateen bathrobe hung loosely over her frame, showing the contours of her physique. She took a deep breath and her breasts heaved invitingly. Dee Dee’s undershot jaw dropped a good half foot.

  Maurice was making a show of his entrance. He was garbed in a medium-brown mohair suit with cigarette burns on the lapels, a pair of heel-worn Rockports, and a bolo tie. If the way he was dressed meant anything, like a marker in the ledger book of his personal wealth, Maurice had taken a downswing in the world. I knew he was carrying a gun and so did Bobo—he slipped off into the shadows behind the couch with a crowbar, staying out of Maurice’s sight.

  Dee Dee brushed past me without any visible recognition, padding in his Converse sneakers over to Eichmann. “I want my money. It’s time for payback. I ain’t going to say anything about the way you sliced me up. Just give me the cash and I’ll be out of here.”

  Eichmann bestowed a malignant smile on the intruders, his face creased and oily with ill humor. He was coiled on the couch cushions, ready to spring. “Well, look who’s here … aloha, Dee Dee. You’re so kind to come over and pay us a visit and as a bonus, I see you brought Horatio Alger himself.”

  The literary reference had Maurice slavering with homicidal angst, unable to control himself. His doughboy face was congested with blood; spit shot out of his mouth when he opened it. “You want to start something up, Eichmann?”

  Dee Dee hushed him. “Can’t you see he’s baiting your ass? Relax, man! I’ll deal with these motherfuckers!”

  Everyone fell silent; nothing was heard, not a sound. The two thieves stood together, giving Eichmann tremendous static. Psychologically, an atom bomb had gone off in the garage. Considering how it felt, we were weathering it pretty well. Loretta wandered over to the hot plate to heat up the water for some instant Folger’s coffee. She switched on the radio—the KFRC weatherman said the temperature would be in the high 90s with moderate air pollution, the hottest day of the year so far.

  Loretta was the only person stirring in the room, and all eyes were on her, as if she were an actress moving across a movie screen and we were the audience. The way Dee Dee was staring
at her breasts, he was having trouble concentrating on his business. His red-flecked eyes were glazed over with masturbatory zeal, the kind your parents warned you about when you were a kid. Maurice had his hands in his pockets, resting them on the butts of his guns. You could have split the tension in the garage with an ax. Dee Dee shifted his weight from one scrawny leg to the other, looking first at Loretta and then at Eichmann. “I want my money. You pricks took my cash, every cent I had. It wasn’t even mine. I’m in debt. I came over here to buy your weed and you ripped me off.”

  His request was inane. Dee Dee wanted compensation? What he really needed was a welt on his head. I couldn’t even begin to count the times he’d swindled me on deals. A hot, dry feeling started to smoke behind my eyes; I was going to cry, I was so mad.

  “You want your money?” Eichmann asked.

  Dee Dee drew himself up to his full height, all five and a half feet of him. He stuck his nose in the air. “Absolutely. I’ve got to have it. You can’t fuck up on me like that. I know my rights.”

  “You don’t have any rights.”

  Dee Dee was flabbergasted. “What are you saying, I got no rights?”

  “No one does. That’s why you’re here. Now it’s your turn to push us around.”

  “That’s only fair, ain’t it?”

  “No, it’s coercion.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When you take something without being invited.”

  “Like you did!”

  “It still doesn’t make it fair.”

  “Don’t talk that guff to me! I want my money!”

  Maurice must’ve been practicing sound effects in his spare time. He imitated Dee Dee’s nasally voice, going, “Yeah. We want it now. I ain’t got all day to hang around your faggoty-ass garage.”

  Eichmann was quivering with bitterness; the cords on his neck were standing out when he replied, “Faggoty-ass yourself. Watch the language, buster, okay? There’s a lady in the house.”

  “I don’t see no lady.”

  “I’m telling you to put a lid on it.”

  Loretta poured the coffee into a couple of chipped enamel cups and took one of them over to Eichmann, squatting down by his side. Her bathrobe parted, showing her beefy, delicately veined thighs. Her underpants were baby pink, riding high on the hips and cutting back at the crotch, revealing a thicket of bleached pubic hair. Eichmann accepted the cup, murmuring his thanks. He settled back on the battered cushions and said, “Let’s cut the shit, Dee Dee. I’ve got your money right here. I know I was being mischievous taking your cash. I should apologize to you.”

  “You going to say you’re sorry?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You should. It’d be good karma for you.”

  “Okay … why not?”

  “I accept it.”

  “I ain’t done it yet, dimwit.”

  “Where do you get off calling me names?”

  “Let it slide … now, c’mere and I’ll give it to you.”

  “You’ll gimme my dinero?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Under my pillow where I keep all my things.” Eichmann pulled out the shoe box and removed the lid. There was our money; stacks of used five-, ten-, and twenty-dollar bills filled the cardboard box, everything we’d sweated and sacrificed for. Dee Dee did a jig, gabbling to Maurice, “See! I told you the homeboys would capitulate!”

  Eichmann was offering the money to him like it was a donation to charity. The junkie was so confident he had the cash, he never saw what Eichmann had in his other hand. Just as Dee Dee reached out to put his grubby mitts on the box, Eichmann snatched it away from him, then he threw the cup of scalding hot coffee into the dope fiend’s eyes. Dee Dee jumped back, clutching his head and lurching away from the couch, blubbering, “Call a doctor! Get an ambulance!”

  Maurice tried to yank a pistol out of his jacket, but the hammer got stuck on the pocket’s lining, allowing Bobo to step out from behind the couch and thump him in the ribs with the crowbar. The Mexican’s face was chiseled out of pockmarked marble, eyes dead-hard, and his timing was immaculate. Maurice was caught off-guard and he whinnied, “What are you, a spook?”

  “No, I’m your daddy … who cares what I am? Put your hands up!”

  The attempted shakedown had failed with a flourish. Our foes were standing next to the coffee table, beaten again. They were on a losing streak, which intensified every time they came into contact with us. Their compulsion to do battle was dimmed by the separate parts of their strategy: They didn’t have the guile or the tactics to hurt us. Maurice conceded to Bobo, “You win. I told Dee Dee we had to get organized, but he likes to do things impromptu.”

  Dee Dee was on his hands and knees, debilitated, disoriented, and dry heaving. “My nose, man! It’s bad!” Maurice got an arm around his comrade and pulled him to his feet. Dee Dee’s seared face was covered with a myriad of tiny blood blisters, a lesson to our enemies to stay away from the garage. “You’ll pay for this!” he pledged, shrilling, “I’ll come back for you guys if it’s the last thing I ever do!”

  We shoved the hapless duo out into the parking lot. I closed the door behind them. Eichmann replaced the lid on the shoe box and said to Loretta, “Shit, that was work. What’s to eat around here?”

  If there was any poetry in the garage, something with a meter or a rhyme, or if nothing else, a verse that told us where we were going, I was somehow missing it. I stared up at the holes in the roof. Cobwebs dangled from the rafters. It all looked brutally naked under the sun’s circumspect gaze, and I said a little prayer for myself.

  22

  In the days following Dee Dee’s aborted putsch, Eichmann made repeated fraternal overtures toward me, sharing his clean clothing, his packet of instant bouillon cubes, and his imported Indonesian clove cigarettes. I didn’t know what to make of his uncharacteristic friendliness. I thought about it at night when I was suffering from insomnia, and every time I went out to meet a customer. I took it as a sign I could be honest with him because things were going wrong for me, extremely wrong.

  One afternoon in the garage when nobody else was around, we were sitting by the coffee table shelling and eating sunflower seeds. I asked him, “Can I tell you something?”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m not getting along with you anymore.”

  He winced with exasperation, trying to control his temper. “Doojie, you’re a schmuck. But this doesn’t come as a surprise.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You wear your dislike for me like a shirt you don’t take off—it stinks, you know?”

  “Then why don’t you do something about it and make things better between us?”

  Eichmann looked remarkably similar to a homeless man I used to know, a guy who’d been on the streets for years until we found him stuffed dead into a garbage Dumpster on Albion. My business partner’s hair was matted and shot through with bits of tawny-colored lint. His hands were shaking lightly.

  Eichmann took me in with his feline eyes and said with a smarmy grin, “I’m a dope dealer, a connoisseur of fine marijuana. I’m not a rabbi. You want me to be nicer to you? Get Flaherty off our backs.”

  A tidal wave of cynicism washed over me. I bit my lip. If this piece of advice was Eichmann’s idea of friendship, then I had to work magic to keep it going. Somehow, I had to banish Flaherty from our lives.

  The investigation into the Folsom Street shooting was moving slowly. The newspapers reported Flaherty had testified in an open hearing. The results were less than satisfactory. He was asked whether he’d tried to reason with the deceased before using his OC spray on him. Flaherty said yes with such vehemence everyone knew he was lying, but no one could prove it. When I read what he said in the paper, the patent falsehood of his testimony left a stinging aftertaste in my mouth. The newspaper also said the investigation was going upstairs to the Police Commission.

  The Police Commission was composed of a bunch of
cream-puffs. What were five civilians going to do faced with Flaherty and his lawyer? They wouldn’t do anything—Flaherty was free to roam the streets, persecuting me in the circle of hell I shared with Eichmann. Also, the landlord had paid us an unexpected visit at noon, letting us know our days in the garage were numbered.

  The landlord was wearing silk slippers with two-inch lifts built into the heels, bringing him up to five feet. “You must give me money,” he said. I looked around the carport and saw my life written into its tatty walls. Pay the rent? The man was a comedian, the kind that made you laugh hysterically on the inside where no one could see you.

  23

  After our imbroglio with Dee Dee and Maurice, I kept a low profile and hung around the garage. Proof the conflict with Flaherty was getting personal came about a week later. One day I was sitting on a stoop across the street keeping an eye on things, scoping out the Cambodian kids playing soccer on the sidewalk. Bobo and Eichmann were at the liquor store around the corner, and I don’t know where Loretta was.

  The vaselined sun was beating down on my head; I had to blink twice at what I saw—Flaherty was sneaking into the garage’s parking lot. He was alone, the Smith and Wesson dancing on his hip. Dust devils rose from the lot’s dirt floor with every kick of his Adidas. He approached the garage door warily, then rapped on the battered paneling.

  This was not so great. I got to my feet, and shrank against the nearest wall. When the narc realized nobody was in the carport, and seeing the door was padlocked, he extracted a thin brown vinyl case from his scummy goose-down vest. Untying the thongs that held the satchel together, he selected a rod with a hook at the end of it. Then he inserted the device into the keyhole of the Schlage lock that Eichmann said was thief-proof.