Bad Scene

by Max Tomlinson

  She pulled her ring top with a pop and they clinked cans. She took a sip of bitter malt liquor while he gulped a good third of his. The whites of his eyes glowed under the black light.

  “Cool pad,” she said.

  “Works for me.” He drank, took her in with an appreciative nod, making no bones about it. She remembered, as a sixteen-year-old, being flattered by such stuff.

  “That’s a kick in the ass,” she said, nodding at Stoned Again.

  He grinned. “Which reminds me.” He set his beer down on the floor, pulled something out from under the sofa. Placed it on his lap.

  An MC5 album cover with a pack of rolling papers and a bag of weed on it.

  “All right,” she said, but not too excited. Smoking dope was never her thing. A glass of Chardonnay was.

  He sat back down, brushing her leg, pulled a rolling paper out of the pack.

  “Who told you I had acid to sell?” he asked casually, tipping weed from the baggie onto the rolling paper.

  “Oh—some guy at Winterland.”

  “Winterland? Who did you see?”

  “Queen.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Oh yeah,” she said.

  Shuggy lined up fine green weed on the rolling paper. “What guy?”

  “What guy what?”

  “Told you I had some Lucy.”

  She’d hit a nerve. “Chuck, I think it was. I honestly didn’t listen. Why—do I look like a narc or something?”

  “You can’t be too careful.”

  She turned as she sat, put a hand playfully on her hip, jutting out her boobs. Keep the fish on the line. “Seriously?”

  “Well, if you are, it might just be worth it.”

  She play-slapped his arm.

  “I don’t sell to just anybody,” he said.

  “Well, excuse me,” she said, doing her best Steve Martin. “I’m not just anybody.”

  “I can see that. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. But I’m not some fucking street dealer either. I don’t mess with dime bags and loose joints.”

  “No offense, dude. So, what are you? More of a middleman?”

  “I got specific clients. I only deal one-on-one in special cases. Like you.”

  Maybe he was bigger than she’d thought. That might help to take him down. “Well, I appreciate you inviting me up, Shuggy.”

  “Take your coat off,” he said. “Stay a while.”

  “I’m cold.”

  He eyed her, licking the cigarette paper.

  She remembered being sixteen years old, a dumb kid seduced by a guy just like him. Roger had been ten years her senior at the time, rode a Harley, always had dope, and she had been a complete and utter moron, thinking he was paying her special attention and might be her ticket to freedom. But shortly after, she had become pregnant with Pam, and the rest was history.

  She shook the thought off, stood up with her beer, walked over to the SS poster. “My ex used to have this in the garage,” she said.

  “Yeah? Where was that?”

  “Denver.”

  “What happened to your ex?”

  “Got sent down. At Arrowhead Correctional as we speak.” Actually, he was dead, but the rest of it was true enough.

  “No shit?” Shuggy said.

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “What for?”

  “This and that,” she said, tiny-sipping her beer, studying the items on the mantelpiece in the dark. Roach clip. Razor blade and a length of straw on a mirror. She turned, looked at Shuggy twisting up the end of the joint.

  “Then what did he go to prison for?” Getting impatient. She could imagine him very impatient. Just like her ex. It gave her pause, even with the Bersa in her jacket pocket. She needed to manage this guy, draw him out.

  She frowned. “I’m not sure I should say. He used to ride, too. ’58 Hydra Glide.”

  Shuggy whistled a low whistle. “Nice.”

  “We had some times on it.”

  “I just bet.”

  “Had to sell it to pay the lawyer. Didn’t do a damn bit of good. Damn Hebrew took our money and my ex still got ten years.” More fiction but it was dipping into a life she had lived.

  “What do you expect from a kike?” Shuggy said. “But ten years? Babe, you don’t get a dime for nothing. Your old man wax somebody?”

  “Some nobody,” she said. “Some spook who jumped a friend, coming out of a bar in West Denver. Put him in a wheelchair. Well, Rog and a couple from his den took care of that burrhead but good. But, wouldn’t you know? Someone squealed and Rog got busted for it.”

  “Your old man was in a den?”

  She turned away. “Why are we talking about him, anyway?”

  “Because if he’s what you say, then he’s a brother,” Shuggy said.

  She turned back. “Are you shitting me?”

  “Do I look like a shitter?”

  “AYAK?” Colleen said. Are you a Klansman?

  “AKIA,” Shuggy said somberly, meeting her gaze. A Klansman I Am.

  Her visit to SF Public Library had paid off. But her back shuddered all the same.

  “Well, well,” she said. “Small world. Who would have thought the Klan would prevail in the People’s Republic of San Francisco?”

  “We do our bit, Carol Anne. There’s a lot of scum here.”

  Wasn’t that the truth? She toasted him with her nearly full beer. “Respect.” You sick bastard.

  She left her barely touched beer on the mantelpiece.

  “You gonna smoke this thing or what?” he said, holding up the unlit joint.

  “If you ever get around to lighting it.”

  “I’m waiting for you.” He patted the empty seat beside him.

  She strolled over, like a model on a runway, sat down casually next to him, six inches away, knees together. He was eating it up but he was cool, patting himself down for matches, found some, sat back, splaying his big legs wide, brushing her knee again, accidentally on purpose. This time she didn’t move hers.

  “You’ll have to try out the Bull,” he said, tearing off a paper match.

  “The Bull would be your hog out front.”

  “’74 hardtail. Almost as hot as a Hydra Glide.” He lit up the reefer. It had an acrid smell. “How much longer is your ex in for?” He held out the smoldering joint.

  She took it, gave it a small hit. It tasted sharp. Chemicals. She blew out the smoke before too much went down, handed it back. “Three more years until he’s eligible for parole. And he’s not really my ex—but I am waiting for him. That’s what you’re asking, right?”

  He took a miniscule hit on the joint. Handed it back to her. “Your old man and I have a lot in common.”

  She took the J, took a play hit. It tasted awful. Handed it back. “You wish.” The words seemed to echo. Something wasn’t right. Her head, even on a small puff, was buzzing. Shuggy wasn’t smoking. He tried to hand the joint back to her. She shook her head. It kept shaking even after she stopped.

  “What the hell was in that spliff ?” she said.

  He gave a crooked grin as he put a hand on her leg casually. His fingers were rough and calloused. “Just a little dust.”

  Angel dust. PCP. Elephant tranquilizer. The kind of stuff that made people boil their babies.

  “Jesus H.” She smacked his hand away. “You dusted me?” Roger got her drunk as a skunk when she was sixteen. Took her virginity the same night.

  “You’re the one who wanted to get high, Carol Anne.” Shuggy set the dead joint on the album cover on the arm of the chair. “What am I supposed to think?”

  “I did not say I wanted to get fucking ambushed.” She rubbed her forehead. Lordy.

  She stood up, wobbly, with her legs apart, letting him get another long look. On the hook. She was going to reel him in. Club him like a fish on the deck. She turned away. “I was just looking for a little Lucy.” She turned back. “And you try to fucking hit on me? You just got done saying my old man is your brother.”


  “Come on, Carol Anne. You came up here. Jesus.”

  She gave him the eye and a little smirk to go with it. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t think about it if my old man wasn’t inside …” She looked away.

  “Cool. C’mon. Sit down.”

  She sat down, next to him. Wiggled her butt into position as she straightened her legs out in front of her. “We take things at my speed. Got that?”

  “Cool. Your old man is one lucky motherfucker. That’s all I can say.”

  He was. Until she stabbed him in the neck with a screwdriver, left him to die on the kitchen floor. Went to prison for it.

  She stood up, head still spinning. “I got to jet. I got to feed the cat where I’m house-sitting. When are you getting some Lucy?”

  “Monday. Give me your phone number. I’ll call you.”

  Lucky’s note had said Monday.

  “What kind?” she asked.

  “Arenas Light.”

  Moon Ranch’s specialty. Was she getting closer to Pam? It was good news, she told herself, even as it was bad news. Her nerves tightened.

  “I can come by Monday,” she said.

  “Monday’s no good. Tuesday. Gimme your number.”

  “Don’t have one.”

  “You don’t have a fucking phone number where you’re house-sitting?”

  “She doesn’t want me using the phone.” Colleen strutted over to his phone, saw the number. She grabbed a ballpoint off the mantelpiece, scribbled it down on a loose rolling paper. Tucked it in her jacket pocket, gave it a pat. “I’ll call you.”

  “Call even if you don’t want to score.” A sly smile.

  “Hey, I know,” she said, as if just thinking of it, “I could meet some of your den brothers.” Maybe she’d nail the other dirtbags who beat Lucky half to death. Even a dude Shuggy’s size couldn’t have thrown Lucky into a dumpster single-handed.

  “You want to go to a meeting?”

  And if the deal on shooting the mayor held any water, she could pass that on to Matt Dwight as well.

  “Sure,” she said. “I’m overdue.”

  “Call me tomorrow.”

  “You got a meeting tomorrow?”

  “More like a gathering of the tribes,” he said. “Be here around seven.”

  “Deal.” She winked goodbye, left, the Stooges hammering away. She did her best to get down two flights of stairs, holding the banister to keep her wobbly legs in check, leaning over at one point to see if Lawrence the manager was in the hallway. He wasn’t.

  Outside, the San Francisco cold had manifested in wet fog, sticking to her bare legs like moist hands, and she thought of Shuggy’s. Too much like her ex. The fog was better.

  She got into the Torino, fired it up, relieved to get away, even as she planned how to handle tomorrow’s meeting. She wouldn’t tell Matt Dwight about her plans just yet, or her progress with Shuggy, since she’d been sworn to staying on the sidelines. She would just have to be careful. More careful than driving after smoking dust.

  She swung by Mr. Philanderer’s love pad on Polk. No activity. She dialed in the Jive 95, her head still warm and fuzzy. They were playing Wings. “With a Little Luck.”

  Luck. Lucky. She needed to check in on him.

  She didn’t feel like calling SF General, being told she couldn’t visit.

  So she turned on Sutter, headed over to SF General.

  Luck could use a little luck.

  At SF General, outside the ICU, still in her short skirt and her black leather coat, Colleen used the wall phone and asked for Nurse Stevens.

  Nurse Stevens said she would meet Colleen at the door.

  She appeared, hands folded, a subdued look, one of regret. Colleen startled, fearing the worst.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” Nurse Stevens said quietly.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Dead?” Colleen said, her head ringing with the news of Lucky’s demise.

  The overhead lights in the hallway seemed to buzz louder. Hadn’t Lucky been improving? Wasn’t he communicating?

  “I’m very sorry,” Nurse Stevens said. “Your friend stroked out. He didn’t really have much of a chance to begin with, to be perfectly honest. But, please know that we did our best.”

  “I know you did,” Colleen said. And here she was, thinking she might even find Lucky sitting up, perhaps smiling, her magical thinking playing a sick joke.

  On Lucky most of all.

  “I have to get back to work,” Nurse Stevens said.

  She thanked Nurse Stevens, who had given her a hard time at first, but was only doing her job. She stopped at the ER on the way out, asked if SFPD had looked into Lucky’s beating yet. The ER nurse didn’t think they had. Colleen went out to 22nd Street, feeling about as gray as the evening sky.

  She got into the Torino, stared at the fuzzy lights of Potrero, thought about a cigarette, decided Lucky deserved a moment of her silence instead.

  She stopped at a payphone on Potrero outside a convenience store, called Sergeant Dwight at 850 Bryant. He wasn’t in. She called him at home. He answered.

  “Herman Waddell,” she said.

  “Your source?” She heard the TV murmuring in the background.

  “That’s right,” she said. “But everyone called him Lucky.”

  “Called?”

  “He’s dead.” She started to choke up.

  There was a pause. The TV in the background went silent. Matt must have turned the volume down.

  “I’m very sorry to hear that, Colleen.”

  She could tell he meant it.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Maybe you’ll take that mayor thing seriously, now.”

  “How long had Lucky been at SF General?”

  “Two days,” she said. “And, as far as I know, SFPD haven’t followed up yet.”

  “Communication between General and SFPD isn’t always as smooth as it ought to be. But now it’s a homicide.”

  “So maybe Owens.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “Because he’s taking time off,” she said. “Which means they’re backed up.”

  “I’ll make sure Homicide knows about it,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Lucky died for this.”

  “I hear you,” he said. “But I need to remind you to stay out of it. And the mayor thing. Everything.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Did you hear me?”

  She fought a cigarette out of the pack, stuck it between her lips. “I hear you.”

  “I need you to do more than just hear me. I need you to promise me you’ll back off.”

  “I’ll stay away from the mayor thing,” she said. “And Lucky.” For now. “But I have some business with Shuggy Johnston.”

  “Some business how?” he said with some irritation.

  She lit up her Slim, took a drag, blew smoke into the wet night air. “I found out that I know someone who might be involved with Shuggy. I need to stop her.”

  “Someone like who?”

  Pam was personal territory.

  “Just someone I know.”

  She heard him take a breath. “I don’t care. Stay well away. Are we clear on that?”

  She had a Klan date with Shuggy tomorrow. She didn’t like to lie to someone like Matt. But right now, what mattered was Pam.

  “We’re good,” she said.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “You’re going to a party,” Alex said, “without me?”

  Alex was sitting on Colleen’s sleek leather sofa with the chrome arms, her feet tucked up underneath her, still wearing Colleen’s kimono. Hadn’t even gotten dressed. She had stayed over last night, too drunk to drive home to Half Moon Bay from San Francisco. Again. Her day had been spent nursing a wicked hangover. She sipped a cup of tea. Colleen stood in front of the mirror over the Edwardian fireplace, putting on mascara.

  “It’s not your kind of party, Alex,” she said, working the curled lashes of one eye with the wand. />
  “I beg to differ. Every party’s my kind of party.”

  “Not this one,” Colleen said. “This is work.”

  “Something to do with your friend Lucky?”

  “Yes.”

  Alex drank tea. “Feel like talking about it?”

  Colleen started on the other eye. “You know how I feel about discussing working cases.”

  “Now I really want to know,” Alex said, setting her cup down on the glass coffee table. “Especially since your friend died over it.”

  Wand in hand, Colleen turned. She was keeping her look relatively conservative tonight: good jeans, dry-cleaned, black pumps, burgundy blouse with the buttons done up. Now that she had Shuggy’s attention, the Fuck Me outfit could go.

  She brought Alex up to speed with Shuggy Johnston and her suspicions.

  Alex blinked in disbelief. “You’re going to a fucking Klan rally?”

  Colleen went back to work in the mirror. “It’s just a meeting of some of the local crazies, the local den being one of them.”

  “Well, that sounds cozy. Any activities planned? Like a lynching? Or are you just going to burn a cross on some poor bastard’s front lawn?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Colleen finished the upper lashes. “You know San Franciscans don’t have front lawns.”

  “That settles it.” Alex stood up, cinching the robe together. “I’m coming with you. Give me a moment to change.”

  Colleen turned. “No, Alex, you are most certainly not coming.”

  “I don’t want to read about you in the morning paper.”

  “This is precisely why I didn’t want to tell you.”

  “For good reason, Coll. What part of the term racist maniacs don’t you understand?”

  “I’m going to keep my eyes open. But I need to confirm who killed Lucky. And these knuckle-draggers are prime.” She wasn’t going to tell Alex about the mayor rumor. Or Pam. “Don’t worry.”

  “Don’t worry, she says. Are you taking Little Bersalina with you?”

  Little Bersalina was Alex’s nickname for Colleen’s Bersa Piccola, her 22-caliber pistol that was small but effective.

  “No need to, Alex,” she said. “These Klanners are more bark than bite.”

  Alex squeezed out a doubtful look. “Over four thousand black Americans were hung during Reconstruction, almost all of them by the Ku Klux Klan. In 1920, over eight million Americans—four percent of the population at the time—were card-carrying members.”