Angels of Catastrophe: A Novel

by Peter Plate

  Lonely Boy’s ramshackle unpainted home overgrown with bougainvillea brambles was the third building from the bodega at the corner—it stood out like a stiff middle finger to real estate speculators. You couldn’t say it was a Victorian, though at one time it had been. The house was tilted, sinking in on its own foundation. Cardboard slats were stuffed in the broken windows; a mountain of beer cans were rusting on the browned front lawn. Rap en Espanol was blasting from the living room. Two late model Hondas sat on cinder blocks in the oil-soaked gravel driveway. The telephone lines in front of the place were laden with blackbirds cawing loudly.

  Double-parked next to Lonely Boy’s house was a beat up black and white police squad car. In the front seat was a cop on solo patrol, a member of an elite unit investigating the Mara Salvatrucha. A hard-nosed, muscular, twenty-seven-year-old Jewish cop nicknamed Zets because of his lousy complexion—his skin resembled the surface of the moon up close. Zets was broad in the hips, waist and shoulders and bald with a pugnacious forehead.

  He had the disposition of a bulldog on amphetamines, and was ambitious. Some cops had a decent attitude toward the lowlife in the Mission—they wouldn’t push you around if you kept out of their way. Zets was as heartless as a public bathroom. He just didn’t like people. Which made him no different than a lot of folks in the neighborhood.

  Aside from a Filipino kid riding by on his bicycle, Treat Street was a vista of yesterday’s newspapers strewn on the macadam. A very pregnant calico cat slithered across the asphalt, shimmying under a parked car. Zets glanced at Lonely Boy’s crib, certain his man was at home. He removed his riot helmet to admire his hairdo in the rearview mirror. Most policeman modeled conservative hair stylings like your traditional crewcut, though a majority of the old-timers went for the flattop-with-fenders style. Others preferred the anti-semitic skinhead cut, big with the ladies. Zets had gone overboard by giving himself a mohawk. The outcome had been tragic. The mohawk, waxed with an unguent, refused to remain spiky, due to the riot helmet, and looked like a polyester throw rug.

  He inspected the dents in his riot helmet, reminding him of all the times he’d banged it trying to get out of the car. Then he slid it over his head and strapped it under his chin. Squirming out of the squad car with a nightstick in his gloved hand, he kicked the driver’s door shut with the heel of his riot boot. He was breathing heavily and unhappily remembering he’d forgotten to put on his nicotine patch that morning. He looked to his left and to his right as he stomped over to the cement walk that led to Lonely Boy’s front door.

  Your basic police nightstick is a model known as the PR-24. It is the king of nightsticks, revered worldwide. It is three feet long, made of hard wood and in pre-inflationary dollars, costs about seventy-five bucks. It is oblong and curved to resemble a sword; if you ever have the misfortune of getting hit on the head by one, you are guaranteed large medical bills.

  Zets went to the door and bumbled with the doorknob and gave it a rattle. A couple of minutes went by as he continued to stare at it. His face was bleak with confusion. Nobody was answering his summons. Not knowing what else to do, he hefted the billy club and had a bash at the door’s plywood paneling, wielding the cudgel in a two-handed stance.

  An upstairs window opened with a yawn. Lonely Boy, shirtless and barefoot in a pair of dirty khakis with a gun stuck in his belt, jumped out of the window and onto the roof. His chest was heaving; his ribs clung to his skin. A fine sheen of sweat glazed his drawn features. Zets’s persistent banging away at the front door had made him jittery. He slipped and nearly fell, sliding a few feet toward the rain gutter. Skittering wildly, he teetered at the roofs edge, windmilling his arms and losing his balance.

  At the last possible moment—in the fraction of a second when you know you’re going to die—in the instant when you stop caring—he regained his footing and leaped over a smelly air shaft to the adjacent building. He flapped his arms in midair, as if he were never coming down. Framed by an aureole of sunshine, he hung crucified in between the two houses, his hands reaching for the sky. His eyes were wet with redemption. His face was hard with exultation. Then he landed on the roof next door, scaring the shit out of a nest of pigeons. He vanished behind a brick chimney to make his escape, leaving Zets dumbfounded.

  Chapter Nine

  News of the cop shooting had swept through the neighborhood like the bubonic plague. The dope dealers shrank into the eateries such as the New Mission Cafeteria and the Acaxutla Restaurant, too afraid to ply their trade in the street. The residents of Clarion, Sycamore and Sparrow Alleys, packed like sardines into rent-controlled tenements, stayed inside their apartments and got drunk. The police beefed up their patrols; cops on Kawasaki dirt bikes peeled through the one-way alleys; cops in white riot helmets were grouped on every corner while helicopters ack-acked over the rooftops, making it impossible to sleep at night.

  Durrutti spent all his spare change on calls from the pay phone at the El Capitán Hotel to ask about Jimmy Ramirez. Nobody knew the Mexican’s whereabouts. Nobody seemed to want to know. The resentment people expressed when they heard his name was not lost on Durrutti. Jimmy wasn’t popular. Maybe it would be smarter if he didn’t find him.

  It wasn’t going much better for Maimonides. When Durrutti rang him, he asked how the dalliance with his social worker girlfriend was proceeding. He caught his partner at an awkward moment—Maimonides was high on Valium and spaced out and coughing into the receiver. “Ah, you don’t wanna know,” he balked. “Frankly, I can’t talk about it. But it’s over between us. The truth is, I’m incapable of intimacy. I hate it. That shit is rough on me.”

  “Intimacy?”

  “Yes, it kills me. I need my space. Lots of it. More than most people. I don’t sleep well, almost never, so we had problems in bed. She had this thing about touching me all the time. In the kitchen, it was just as terrible. At the Royan, I only got a hot plate. A two burner hot plate. So I have particular tastes when it comes to food and her cooking sucked. If you can’t cook on a hot plate, you shouldn’t even try. You’ll just disgrace yourself. From there, it was downhill. What can I say? I’m fussy. I like things a certain way and she failed to meet my needs. I’m big enough to admit it.”

  Durrutti felt bad for him. “You and her, that was quick.”

  “Not quick enough. She was getting on my fucking nerves. She was staying at my place. Just for a few days, she said. While she was apartment hunting. I like being clean and keeping things neat. Well, the babe,” he laughed bitterly. “She didn’t even flush the toilet behind her when she used it. I don’t need that kind of insensitivity. Seriously ... how do you have sex with someone like that?”

  Durrutti mulled over the question and came up with one of his own. “Can we go look for Jimmy?”

  The silence from Maimonides was oppressive. He said in a phlegmy tone thick with doubt, “You want to do this now? I’m resting. I don’t want to get dressed. Can’t it wait? What’s the big rush, anyhow?”

  “I’ve got a hunch about him.”

  “You have not. You have zero. This Jimmy Ramirez, is that all you have on your mind? You got the hots for him or what? It’s not healthy. So you’ll find him tomorrow, not today. Take a break, will you? He’s been around here for a zillion years. He ain’t leaving. They should put up a memorial to him: Jimmy Ramirez, born and died at Hunt’s Donuts.”

  “Look, I’ve got a dilemma here—”

  “Stop,” Maimonides groused, putting an end to their conversation. “I don’t want to think about your dilemma or whatever it is. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Your problems can wait until then. Good-bye, shorty.”

  Durrutti stayed in his room, feeling pensive. He didn’t know what world he was living in. He felt like he was carrying his soul on the tip of his tongue. Then came a knock at the door. Three hard knocks. A familiar voice, broiling with indignation, yelled, “I know you’re in there, Ricky Durrutti! Open up!”

  It was Ephraim Rook. Durrutti sat on his bed and broke out
in beads of sweat. This was unexpected. This was not wanted. Ephraim hated him for sleeping with Sugar. He didn’t forgive the younger man for insulting him like that. Durrutti wished it had never happened.

  “Let me in, Ricky! You and me need to talk!”

  Being polite with Ephraim was a task. It required athletic stamina. He shouted back through the wall. “What for?”

  “You know what for! C’mon, open the fucking door and let me in!”

  It was hard to believe they’d ever been friends. Somehow, things like that never lasted. Ephraim sounded like he was in agony, and at the end of his rope. Durrutti went to the door and threw it open. It was either that or listen to the old fart pound away on it.

  Ephraim swept past him into the room. Buff and hale for a man his age. He was bedecked in an eel-gray, thousand dollar Armani suit. His kinky orange hair, what was left of it, had been cut to camouflage his eroding hairline. Dermabrasion had eliminated the cystic acne scars on his seamed face. Clumps of gold jewelry hung from his wrists and stubby fingers like Christmas tree ornaments. A diamond stud glittered in his left earlobe.

  He wasn’t in a good mood. Getting cuckolded by Durrutti had depressed Ephraim. It made him feel useless and vengeful. Twirling his car keys in one hand, he appraised his tormentor. “Look at you. You’re skinnier than the fucking sausages they make these days.”

  A dialogue with Ephraim was never promising, unless you had a special aptitude for it, like talking to someone speaking in tongues.

  Rook eschewed to sit on the edge of the bed and sat down on the windowsill after running a well-manicured hand over it—even his fingernails looked expensive. He said, “Ricky, I’ve got be honest with you.”

  Durrutti owed it to Rook to hear him out. He’d screwed the man’s fiancée on a whim. Listening to him was the least he could do. “About what?”

  The aging money-man was someone from another time with roots back in Europe. He spoke with a Polish accent. He examined his cuticles and sighed with apparent sorrow. “I don’t know what the fuck Sugar ever saw in a loser like you. Maybe you can tell me. Is there something I’m missing?”

  Durrutti blinked in rage. “What are you getting at?”

  “You don’t have a pot to piss in. For example. Look at where you’re living. I hate to tell you this, but it’s not exactly wonderful. What did you ever do for her anyway?”

  Ephraim’s hubris was unbearable. Some people were born to make money. Some were meant to suffer in a wilderness of incomprehension. Durrutti’s destiny was to pay for what he’d done to Rook. It was his burden. He replied, “Me and her, we’re through. I made a mistake. What more can I say? I’m sorry.”

  Rook’s mealy face was haggard. His retort was a lesson in economy. “You’re sorry? How white of you. Now get this. Sugar is my first priority. You ever hurt her again, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  The threat invigorated Durrutti, deepening his interest and his investment in the conversation. He fell on the bed and fluffed a pillow. “Fuck off. I didn’t hurt her when we were together.”

  “Baloney. You turned her into a fucking neurotic. She told me everything about you two. You know Sugar. She can’t help herself.”

  The hell of breaking up with someone is compounded by the fact that they’ll divulge everything you did with them to their next lover. The hermetic code of love you devised and shared with that person is a foreign language no one is speaking anymore. Private secrets became public misery. To get Rook off his back Durrutti explained that Sugar was prehistory. “We separated months ago. We ain’t even talking anymore.”

  Ephraim didn’t buy that. He wasn’t interested in history. He didn’t care about the past. He was interested in territory, the acquisition of property. He didn’t want romance; he wanted real estate. He said, “That goddamn shiksa. I will be frank with you since you had sex with her.” He winked. “No, don’t deny it. She was a colossal headache. But she was mine. She was all I had. The best of the best. And you robbed me.”

  Durrutti was quick to engage. “How’s that? She left you.”

  Rook thundered, “Because you stole her from me.”

  “I did not.”

  “Did too. Every fucking time I turned my back, you were doing a number on her head. She just collapsed under it.”

  “We had a fling,” Durrutti scoffed. “That’s all. She took her freedom. What, you haven’t left someone before?”

  “She almost took my life and not without some help from you. I’m not a young man. I can’t take this shit anymore. But what’s your excuse. Did you like fucking Sugar?”

  Durrutti attempted to appease Rook. “I was just being her friend.”

  “Friend? You don’t even know how to spell the word. Friends like you, no one should have. It makes life so confusing.”

  The more upset Ephraim got, the clearer it became: he regarded Sugar as his most important liquid asset. His crowning achievement. His greatest trophy. His victory in life. The fuel in his gas tank. His raison d’être. Without her, he didn’t exist. She was his mirror. He explained this to Durrutti. “You don’t know her like I do. Sugar and I are soul mates. We were meant for each other. I hired the most expensive astrologer in this goddamn town to make sure. Sugar needs me.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “You, glad?” Rook unleashed one of his trademarks, the humorless laugh. “That’ll be the day. Since when? A black man will become the President of the United States before that happens. Glad, my ass.” He grew thoughtful, quite contrite. His ruddy features softened and blurred. “She left me because I have one fault in this lifetime. I loved her too much. I couldn’t keep my hands off her. I was so insecure and possessive. All the attention, it made her phobic. She said to me, ‘Daddy, I have to go.’ And what was I supposed to do, say no?”

  “And you blame me for this?”

  “Absolutely. You interfered with the flow of our process.”

  “Hey, I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “The fuck you didn’t. What we had, it was organic. Not artificial like you.”

  Insults are a staple of life. But the barrage of name-calling was getting on Durrutti’s nerves. A coldness rushed through his arms and legs. Deeper than anger. An emptiness that made him hyperventilate. Before he could stop himself, he walked over to where Ephraim sat and stood before him.

  It was a three story drop to the pavement on Mission Street. The sidewalks were congested with ice-cream vendors, homeless men and mariachi musicians. It would have been easy to push Rook through the window. The fall would kill him.

  When a friendship ended, it had to turn into something else. It wouldn’t rest or go away. Because of Sugar, something bad was looming on the horizon. Durrutti could feel it in his bones. He said, “You done talking, huh?”

  “Actually, I was just beginning.”

  “Get the hell outta here. I’ve heard enough.”

  Rook made his exodus with a sneer and a promise. He made a show of being tough that was transparent even to himself. He was just bluffing. The only thing he had going for him was his clothes. “You’ll pay for this, Ricky. You have my word on that.”

  Durrutti escorted Rook to the door and watched him retreat into the hall. Then he looked down at his own feet. What he saw wasn’t pretty. What he saw made him ill. A letter addressed to him from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms lay on the worn-out carpet. He bent over and picked it up. Kulak’s penciled scrawl greeted his eyes. He didn’t bother to open it. He knew what the Fed wanted without having to read his incorrigible handwriting.

  Chapter Ten

  The Federal Building looked as though nothing ever changed there. The tower’s concrete and steel walls were scratched and tortured by the wind. Shadows remained transfixed at right angles. The sun was merciless in exposing the defects of everything that moved on Golden Gate Avenue’s sidewalks. Homeless men from the Civic Center Plaza were outside the front doors begging and panhandling the lawyers, cops and judges for spare change. In
side the place law clerks were lockstepping like robots on caffeine.

  Kulak had changed, visibly so. The cop’s wart-ridden hands trembled when Durrutti plopped into a folding chair next to his desk. The drinking veins on his mountainous nose, which hadn’t been so pronounced during the first visit, stood out like beacons of despair. A patch of eczema was germinating on his jaw. It was gratifying to see the pressure was getting to him too.

  On his desk lay a pair of handcuffs, manila folders, a quartet of unwashed, lipstick-streaked coffee mugs and a boxy Dell computer the size of a tombstone. Durrutti’s police file lay on top of a stack of reports: his decade-old mug shots were stapled to the first page. He didn’t look so spectacular in the photographs-no one ever did when a picture was taken of them in a jail cell with blood on their face.

  You stay long enough in San Francisco, the city will transform you. Some folks end in South of Market side streets strung out on black tar heroin, the kind that causes flesh-eating abcesses. Others become millionaires and buy high-priced houses in Noe Valley. Seeing his mug shots again displeased him—he was getting older. He said to Kulak, “What do you have these pictures out for? Are we gonna play show and tell?”

  Kulak ignored the sarcasm and made a circle in the air with a nicotine stained finger. “I want to find the hook between you and Jimmy Ramirez. I want to connect you two.”

  Him and everybody else in the neighborhood. Durrutti had limped up and down Mission Street so many times looking for Jimmy, he was wearing out the pavement. He’d been to every bar, cafe, taqueria and bodega and pool hall in a two mile radius, but no one knew where the Mexican was. He wasn’t at the Mission Cultural Center and he wasn’t at the Burger King on Sixteenth Street. Jimmy had become a magician, and made himself invisible. He said truthfully, aware of the irony, “I don’t know where the bastard is. I wish I did.”