San Francisco Noir

by Peter Maravelis

  He was happy she was the one. God knows she deserved the honor. He had hit her too many times to count, cuffings and jabs, sometimes straight on, knuckles tingling up the length of his arm into his teeth a metal taste that told him one more and you better ice them down—otherwise, you won’t be able to hold a crowbar tomorrow. Then he’d unzip his pants. Sometimes she would be unconscious. That made it better. Nothing to prove. Often he satisfied himself, wiping clean on the curve of her cleavage. Ripped her panties to feel the silk tear between his fingers. It kept her guessing when she came to. Deep down they both knew it didn’t make a difference either way. They weren’t the first. It would happen again. Nobody ever got it right. He couldn’t remember the last time they had embraced without a bruise. You can’t kiss a shadow or a memory, he had been told. It was hard enough to stare someone in the eyes and wish them dead.

  Her eyes were like tunnels. No train coming. They had been blue once, but the beatings had darkened them as if they really were windows of the soul. And the speed they shot together sunk them into her head like a couple of billiard balls in the side pockets of a worn and tattered table. He didn’t enjoy looking at her. Nobody did. But when they had met, anonymous men at the Market Street Cinema stuffed money into her garter hoping to get a glimpse. She’d purse her lips and lean forward, bump and grind, making them feel special until the meter in her mind ran to zero, then it was onto the next toupee, leering Chinaman, aluminum-siding salesman. Twenty bought a Polaroid with her on your lap spreading herself, c-note for a nuzzle and a handjob, two and she flatbacked on a Murphy bed in her dressing room. Lately, there were no cash transactions.

  Briley’s neck snapped back and his head hit the wall a double blow. Just like her to get something for nothing. Vision blurred. But he could see a flash of brass pulling away. She had loaded up for her Briley Boy—something more than a fistful of fingers. Fine. Let her have her fun. He was enjoying himself too. He spit a piece of his tongue onto the carpet in front of her like a cat offering up a gift from the garden. He continued laughing. Nothing was funnier. Not even their wedding.

  She had said “I do” so many times nobody doubted her, regardless of the question. Saint Monica’s on Twenty-third and Geary wouldn’t take them. Neither would the Holy Virgin Cathedral, Joy of All Who Sorrow. No money for Vegas. So, Reno was obviously the place. Where else could she wear white? A ruffled rented tux, soon to be smeared lipstick. No veil. They stayed seven days at the Lucky Horseshoe until they were down to their last dime. Then she spun cherries for silver dollars in the parking lot. Hard luck. Jackpot. Enough for bus fare back to San Francisco. But she had developed a thing for a customer, some Detroit blizzard pimp giving her a tryout in the backseat of his snow-chained El Dorado. She didn’t want to leave. Briley convinced her. First with his fists, then with a hanger he heated over a Sterno can. Just like Dad used to do, across the ass so nobody could see the scars. She couldn’t sit still anyway. He bought two decks of playing cards and they each flipped solitaire in silence as drought-brown hills passed outside like legless camels. They rented a room above a nail salon on a treeless block back in the Richmond. Crumbling stucco and mold. They ate fog. The honeymoon was over.

  Briley felt his leg splinter as she brought down her heel onto the inside of his knee. There was a strange pop, and it went goofy like a chicken leg. Wing Chun. He had paid for the lessons. Sammy Wong’s: laundry and self-defense. Dragon, tiger, lotus, monkey. Shirts: $1.29. Six kids and an amphetamine addict. He was certain she fucked them all; dragon, tiger, lotus, monkey, any way they wanted, pocketed the money and practiced evenings when he wasn’t around. Parlor tricks. If he could grab hold of her, he’d show her some real chop-socky. Not some Hong-Kong four-star double-bill. Americans had invented the bitch-slap. She wouldn’t forget it. Size is what mattered. Who wore the pants. Who swung the belt.

  But Briley couldn’t move, and didn’t want to. He waved an arm in feeble defense of a lamp crashing across his shoulder. Ceramic explosion. Shards of clay cutting into his eyes, lids running red. Blood, not anger. Tiny helpless bursts. Just like the hamsters he’d had as a boy. Father foraging through the wire enclosure, hand full of shit and gnawed newspaper, coming up with a Vida Blue kick and a fur fastball. Splat. “That was because of you! Next time you’ll do as you’re told!” his old man would shout. Not likely. And the rodents multiplied like guilt, bad report cards, pornography, dirt under his fingernails. Dad left two alone: male and female. Breeding. He called their crap-covered coop the Garden of Eden, less like the Bible location and more like the strip club cross town where his mother was a “waitress.” Finally, Briley took the vermin to the toilet tank and watched them drown, whirlpooling away with a sudden suck. The stains stayed behind, above the bed, closet doors, wild ceiling caroms. Reminding him what he had done. No amount of scrubbing could make them come clean. Late at night, awake with one hand working his cock, he would stare at certain spots for hours, forming their faces, making sounds, having them do tricks. That’s when they became his pets. That’s when he named them.

  Briley tried to focus on his current situation and surroundings, but all he could see was a square of static encased in cheap plastic with the word Zenith below a row of busted knobs. At first, the poor reception had appeared as a woman’s face, a beautiful woman with a complexion clear as milk, eyes bluer than a breezeless sky, contented smile, mouthing the phrase, Fresh from the start. She stood in a living room of an impossibly clean house, something out of Pac Heights, not Briley’s plaster and pressboard roach trap. The ashtrays were empty too, magazines stacked, couch crammed with fluffy cushions, and although everything seemed immaculate and impeccable, the woman was vacuuming. Then electricity. It came down like a thunderbolt. Briley’s head gave way with a sick crack and he jerked spastically amongst the wires and shattered tube. He wanted to say something, not an apology, perhaps an epitaph. Something more than the cackle caught crushed in his throat. She stood above him screaming, replacing the other woman, replacing the static and white noise. Replacing himself. Waiting. He heard sirens in the distance racing toward him as if there was something left to save. No need. The best thing to do was quit moving. He knew that now. Take their best shot. Don’t cry. Go to sleep. Be still.

  KID’S LAST FIGHT

  BY EDDIE MULLER

  South of Market

  Danh woke up that morning excited. Today he was finally going to use the pruning shears. He’d learned about the technique at a lineup the previous week. Some guy was bragging how he’d done it to his ex-fiancée when she wouldn’t give back his engagement ring. Ever since, Danh had wanted to give it a try. Grab some rich bitch by the wrist and snip her clean, like a butcher scissoring a duck. There’d be lots of blood and screaming, but he’d just calmly pocket her fingers with the fat-ass jewels and be gone, quick as a hummingbird. Later, at Li Po, when it was his turn to buy, he’d toss a finger on the bar and say something funny, just for the reaction. After that, he’d be known as the craziest fucker in the crew. What to say when he threw down the finger? He hadn’t figured that part out yet, but it would come to him.

  Hanna hiked up the shoulder strap on the briefcase and checked her wristwatch as she blew through the doors of the Jewelry Mart. She wasn’t going to make the 2 o’clock briefing with the caterers. She’d driven all the way across town to get a deal on the earrings for Katie’s birthday, and for a second she regretted it. But only for a second, since nothing made Hanna happier than buying wholesale. At the foot of the stairs, she hesitated. It took her a couple of seconds to remember where she’d parked.

  Bud couldn’t remember why he was on this street. He was headed someplace, had something important to do. Back a couple of blocks he’d remembered, and his shuffle shifted into a determined stride. But then he started looking at buildings and street signs, recognizing places from long ago, and his head began filling with pictures and sounds from the old days and pretty soon he couldn’t recall what was obvious only minutes before. Damn it. Anger w
elled up in him, making it harder to hold onto a thought.

  Bud turned around and looked back. Maybe he’d dropped the answer on the sidewalk. Had he come this way? Maybe Joan had given him a note, to remind him what to do. From his jacket pocket he pulled a wad of paper.

  A hundred-dollar bill. Had she put it there? Yes, Joan put it there. He remembered that now. She’d told him he needed to go somewhere—where? The money was for when he got there.

  I’m supposed to buy something. Goddamn if he could recall what it was. I had eggs this morning, he thought. He could still taste the yolks, that’s how he knew.

  Hanna was almost to her car when the Asian kid appeared. She barely had time to gasp. He ripped the briefcase off her shoulder, but instead of running away with it, he trapped her arm between his ribs and biceps and grabbed her wrist. She started screaming when she saw the pruning shears. Instinctively, she made fists of both hands.

  “Open!” Danh shrieked. “Open!”

  Something slammed Danh’s left ear, hard and heavy as brick. To protect himself, he had to let the woman go. Another blow banged his skull. He swung the shears blindly, then took a third blow on the jaw, just below his mouth. Down Danh went, dropping the shears when his hands reached out to break the fall.

  That last right hand was the best one Bud had thrown since he decked Lyle Cooley at the Cow Palace in 1958. He’d set that up with a left hook, which missed high but made Cooley bend at the waist. Bud came over the top with a punch that had every ounce of his shoulders, hips, and legs behind it—Cooley was lights-out for three minutes. Every second of that fight was clear as a bell to Bud, to this day.

  The final punch in the flurry had hurt like hell; his knuckles had hit flush on the kid’s jawbone. Something might have busted. Bud instinctively flexed his right hand a few times, already feeling the swelling. His whole body vibrated. The fight had lasted about six seconds—the cleanest six seconds he’d experienced in a long time. He stood over the kid, left cocked, just in case the little fuck had some guts and wanted to fight. Of course he didn’t—he mugged women, for chris-sakes. The kid scooped something off the sidewalk and ran like hell, never looking back.

  Bud turned, expecting to see his manager, Joe Herman, smiling at him.

  “You saved my life,” Hanna said, trying to compose herself. “Or at least my fingers.”

  Bud stared at her, trying to piece things together.

  Hanna could tell right off the guy wasn’t all there. His clothes were neat and clean and his white hair was cut short, so she didn’t figure him for a street person. A line of blood had dried on his throat where he’d cut himself shaving. He was strongly built, handsome, seventy-something years old. But his eyes were glazed and suspicious.

  “Were you a boxer?” Hanna asked.

  “I still am.” Bud smiled, because he felt good.

  “Yeah, I guess you are.”

  She was already inexcusably late, but it would have been too rude to brush the old guy off—as if what just happened was merely one more example of life’s daily irritations, nothing more than a speed bump in her busy schedule.

  “My name’s Hanna,” she said, extending her hand. “I can’t thank you enough for stepping in like that. Not many people would have done it—or known what to do.”

  “Bud Callum.” Her hand felt like a leaf in his. “Good to meet you.”

  “Should we stand here?” Hanna asked, looking around nervously. “Maybe he’ll come back.”

  “Let him.”

  Bud’s adrenaline was still pumping, making him feel twice his size. He’d rescued this beautiful girl and she appreciated it. She had gorgeous skin and a lopsided smile and everything about her said money. He may not have known where he was, but Bud didn’t need any extra clues to know this woman was loaded.

  “What was your name again?” he asked.

  “Hanna. Eastman.” She walked toward her car. “Can I drop you somewhere, Mr. Callum? It’s the least I can do.”

  Bud couldn’t remember the last time he’d been driven in a car.

  “Yeah, that’d be good. ’Preciate it.”

  It made her uncomfortable, the way he stared as she called the caterer to reschedule. Maybe he didn’t like people talking and driving at the same time.

  “That’s one of those special ones, huh?” he said, after she’d tucked the phone back in her purse. “It goes up to some satellite or something, right? Not through wires, not like a normal phone.”

  “Right.” She felt a twinge of fright: Had this guy been away for the past twenty years? Just out of prison, or a mental hospital? How could you live in this city, today, and not have a cell phone?

  “When I was growing up we had one phone in the whole ’partment building, in the hall at the top of the stairs. All the families used it, that one phone, if somebody was sick or needed to call the butcher or his bookie. Now everybody’s got a phone. Little kids got phones. This morning I seen a kid talking on one.”

  Bud’s eyes lit up—he’d remembered something from that morning. Through his brain he chased the young girl with the tiny phone, hoping she’d lead him to wherever he was supposed to be. But, like the rest of day, she slipped away into a bunch of dim fragments.

  “Are you from here?” Hanna asked.

  “Yeah, I was born south of the Slot. Used to fight here professionally,” he said, marshalling thoughts into a familiar pattern, one that made sense. “Middleweight. I’m heavier now but not by much. I was right in the thick of it back then, fought all kinds of main events. The Civic, Oakland Auditorium. I was on the undercard when Joey Maxim fought Ezzard Charles here for the title. I fought in L.A. a bunch of times, but never back east. Here in this town, I was a big draw. I gave value—that’s what the promoters used to say. Those were the days. My days.”

  He watched the city glide by outside the window. Every street seemed to be under construction, like the whole town was being rebuilt. Nothing looked familiar. Inside, the car was as silent as a tomb; he couldn’t even hear the engine running.

  “Where can I drop you?” she said.

  He felt defensive, like he was being backed into a corner. His mind raced, but didn’t get beyond the usual place.

  “I fought Ray Robinson one time, can you top that? I beat him, too. Right up here at the Civic. Knocked him out in the sixth round. Set him up with a hook, made him bend at the waist. Then over the top I came with a big right cross. Bang! Just like that. The crowd went nuts. Local guy knocking out Sugar Ray, can you top that? I fought ’em all, one time or another. What a life I led.”

  It went on like that for blocks. A litany of Bud Callum’s ring accomplishments, each opponent growing in stature, each bout becoming a greater life-or-death battle. Hanna didn’t know anything about boxing, but she knew she wasn’t hearing the truth. It sounded too much like the lies Uncle Bob told the other residents at the retirement home, before they’d had to move him to the assisted-living facility. Before they dared even speak the dreaded A-word.

  Bud took his eyes off the street and peered at the woman. In profile, she looked like Nora. Same angular nose, same strong jaw. He was suddenly back in the apartment they had on Jerrold Street. He saw the kitchen curtains that she’d made and the ugly pink-and-brown speckled linoleum they both hated, and for a split second he smelled the burning remnants of the dinner he’d tried to make for her twenty-fifth birthday, when he had no money to take her out.

  “You look like my wife,” Bud said.

  Hanna blushed. “How long have you been married?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, cheeks reddening. “Was it recently? That she died?”

  “Tell you the truth, I can’t remember. I think it was a long time ago. She was beautiful, I remember that.” They fell quiet as traffic on Ninth Street surrounded them.

  “Where can I drop you?” she asked, delicately.

  “I guess I should go home. Can you take me?”

  “Sure. Where’s home?”<
br />
  “You know, where I live.”

  “Well, actually, I don’t know. What’s the address?”

  “I can’t remember right now. It’s around here somewhere.”

  She drove back and forth on the grid of one-way streets South of Market for the next half hour, while he searched for a landmark he recognized. The problem was, he recognized everything as it was sixty years ago, and delivered a running commentary about what used to be there: the bakery where the homeless shelter now was, a nightclub that had been the glass works, the office building that replaced Coliseum Bowl, the combination boxing arena and rollerskating rink. He knows exactly where he lives, Hanna suspected. He just wants somebody to talk to. Like Uncle Bob. She wondered if Bud Callum knew there was something wrong with him.

  “Mr. Callum,” she said, tentatively. “Are you seeing a doctor?”

  Doctor. Medicine. Prescription. Drugstore. That’s where he was supposed to go: the drugstore. Joan had gotten him a prescription for some kind of medicine she wanted him to take. Oh Christ, he could hear her now, bitching about how long it took to arrange that appointment at the free clinic. They had a huge fight when he refused to go. There’s nothing the matter with me! he yelled. But he went. Joan was unstop-pable; she always won in the end.