The sailor opened the jar and dipped his large pale nose into it.
“Pff! Smells terrible bad!”
“Well, you don’t have to go for that. I have a love potion here which is made of camphor and violets and gardenia. You mix it with two pounds of lard and rub it on your buttocks. Believe me, it makes you pump like a diesel engine.”
She turned to Larry and slowly winked. Her hair was brushed up into a large glossy bun and held with a silver hairnet. She wore a sleeveless jerkin of soft black leather, and tight black leather pants. He could smell the musk of her perfume from seven feet away.
“Then there’s this,” she was telling the sailor. “It’s a love-magnet. I call it the Pole-Ariser you hang it around your thing for three days and three nights—then, when you go off to sea, you leave it under the bed. Your wife won’t be able to go to any other bed, but any man who tries to get into the bed with her will have to jump out, whether he wants to or not.”
The sailor turned the magnet over and over for a long time, mournfully scrutinizing it in every light. Eventually, he said, “I take this one.”
“You won’t regret it, sir. Polarize your pole and safeguard your hole, that’s what I say. That’s $68 plus tax, full money-back guarantee.”
When he had left the store, Larry said, “Polarize your pole, what kind of sales-talk is that?”
Tara Gordon laughed. “Don’t criticize. They work. I’ve sold three hundred in two weeks.”
“How do you know they work?”
“Let’s put it this way, nobody’s brought one back yet. And for reasons of hygiene, we don’t exchange.”
Larry picked one up, and examined it. “I’ve discovered something,” he said.
“Oh, yes, and what’s that?”
“Mandrax is in town. In fact, I think he’s the Fog City Satan.”
Tara Gordon glanced quickly toward the door, almost as if she expected to see Mandrax standing outside, staring in at her.
“You’d better come back to the office,” she said.
She closed the office door behind them. She looked beautiful but pale. Maybe it was the make-up. Maybe it was staying indoors all the time, in this chilly black-velvet emporium.
“Aren’t you going to offer me one of your buffalo-chip vodkas?” he asked her.
“Maybe that’s a good idea,” she said, and poured them each a large glassful. “And it’s grass, not chip.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
“How do you know it’s Mandrax?” she asked, worriedly.
“Let’s say that I had a little visitation from the other side.”
“You? You’re a police lieutenant. Police lieutenants don’t get visits from the other side.”
“Well, this one did. And, besides, I’m not a police lieutenant just at the moment. I’m on suspension. I was foolhardy enough to tell Ms Fay Kuhn of the San Francisco Examiner that I believed in demons.”
“Oh, smart move.”
“I’m not so sure that it wasn’t. But anyway, sad to tell you, Wilbert Fraser got himself killed last night.”
“Oh, no! Oh, I’m sorry! I know he was a bitch and all of that, but—”
Larry nodded. “I know. And he didn’t die easily, either. Somebody was out to punish him; and I’m pretty sure that ‘somebody’ was the Fog City Satan.”
“But why should the Fog City Satan punish poor old Wilbert?”
“I don’t know for sure. But a reasonable guess is because he opened his big mouth and told me all he knew about the Black Brotherhood and Belial.”
Tara Gordon swallowed vodka and shivered. “How could the Fog City Satan have known that he talked to you?”
That question hadn’t yet occurred to Larry, although it was a highly logical question for Tara Gordon to ask. If the Fog City Satan had taken his revenge on Wilbert for talking to Larry, then she, too, must be just as much at risk.
Come to think of it, how could the Fog City Satan have found out? Only two other people had known that Larry was there: the young uniformed officer who had driven him to Wilbert’s house after his mother had been killed. And Houston Brough. And Houston Brough had already tipped him off that “I’m not actually your friend… who watches over you?” And to whom had Houston Brough reported back?
“You’re looking like you forgot which lady’s boudoir you left your shorts in,” remarked Tara Gordon, a little impatiently.
Larry slowly shook his head. “On the contrary. I think I just remembered.”
“You really believe that Mandrax is back?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Because a visitation told you?”
“Do you believe in visitations? I mean, no bullshit, no magnetic Pole-Arisers. Do you really believe?”
“My dearest lieutenant, I was born believing.”
“All right, then,” said Larry. “The little drowned girl that I saw at Wilbert’s seance appeared right by my bed and said ‘MAN’. Later, she said ‘AX’.”
Tara Gordon frowned. “No ‘DR’?”
“Ms Gordon, Tara—Mandrax is back, I’m convinced of it. I feel it.”
She sat on the edge of her desk and thoughtfully swung her legs. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Find the bastard.”
“I thought you said you were on suspension.”
“Belial and the Fog City Satan killed my mother, not to mention the Berrys, one of the nicest families I ever knew. I don’t give a shit about suspension.”
“Well—what do you want me to do about it?”
“Just let me have Mandrax’s last known address… and maybe some of the people who might have known him.”
Tara Gordon said, “What if I’m scared?”
“Nobody knows I’m here; not even my sergeant.”
She hesitated. Then she put down her vodka glass and went to the steel filing-cabinet. She unlocked it, pulled out the second drawer, and produced a tattered address-book with a picture of a very young Bob Dylan on the front cover.
“Here it is… 3522 Twentieth. That may not have been where he actually hung out, but I went to a couple of parties there once, and I got the impression that he was staying there; or at least crashing for a while.”
She licked her thumb and flicked through a few more pages. “My God…”she said, shaking her head. “All these boys I used to know. Look at this! Dwight Kreznick! I can’t even remember what he looked like. But I’ve put three stars beside his name, so he must have been good at something! Look—here’s somebody you might talk to—Jack Cole. He used to run a second-hand bookstore on Eighteenth Street. I think it’s a bar-b-q joint now, but I’m sure you could find him if you asked around. If you can imagine a six-foot Stan Laurel with jaundice, that’s Jack Cole.”
Larry left the “Waxing Moon” with a free magnetic Pole-Ariser in his pocket, and lipstick on his right cheek. He drove slowly and thoughtfully to the Mission District. The more he discovered about the Fog City Satan, the unhappier he became. Like the psychic spun-sugar on his moving hand, his investigation was beginning to tangle itself into a recognizable shape. However, he had to make an effort to stop himself from rushing to judgement. So Dan Burroughs subscribed to an occult magazine. So Houston Brough had been keeping a watch on him. Neither of those pieces of information would stand the test of significant proof. Nor would the fact that Houston Brough and Dan Burroughs were arguably the only people who knew that Larry had returned to talk to Wilbert Fraser on the night of his mother’s death.
In fact, he was beginning to realize that there was scarcely any point in searching for proof in this investigation. Even if he found it—even if he could get Edna-Mae Lickerman to shuffle up and down the County Court in her bullet-tattered sheets—even if he could produce a parrot with his own eye blinking out of its head—nobody would want to believe that somewhere in the city, there was a dangerous and ancient demon at work—a beast with an insatiable greed for human souls and human flesh.
By accepting the reality of the supe
rnatural, and the anguished spirits on the other side, Larry had lost his case even before he had arrested his perpetrator.
He drew up across the street from 3522 Twentieth. It looked as if he had drawn a blank. Mandrax may have crashed here in 1965, but now it was El Tazumal, the Mexican restaurant. Larry looked around the street to see if there was any sign of the black van that had rescued Edna-Mae, or anybody who remotely resembled Mandrax, but the nearest was a Dominican monk climbing out of a Winnebago and getting his sandal inextricably caught on the footstep. He looked as near as any monk could ever look to saying “shit!”
He drove across to Eighteenth Street, and prowled up and down a few times before locating what looked like the sleaziest local hangout. Bowdre Bar’N’Grill. Coors. Burgers. Try Our BBQ Chicken. Larry parked the car and cleaved his way through a clattering bead curtain into the cold, smoky, fatty interior.
He approached a high polished-steel counter, behind which a man in a paper beanie was aggressively scraping burned circles of hamburger off his hotplate.
“Looking for Jack Cole,” he remarked.
The man sniffed, and wiped sweat from his forehead. “Jack Cole? Jack ‘King’ Cole?”
“I guess.”
“You a cop?”
“Unh-hunh.”
“Got yourself a business card?”
Larry opened his billfold and laid a ten-spot on the counter. The man made it disappear without even hesitating in his scraping. “Jack Cole’s over at Fanny’s Bar, cross the street. What’s he done now?”
“Nothing serious.”
“That makes a change.”
Larry crossed the street in the blurry sunshine and found a narrow red-painted entrance with a broken neon tube outside saying Fannys Bar. Some local wag had added an “e” to the sign in spray-paint. Jack pushed through the single swing door and found himself inside one of those dark, refrigerator-cold bars where the hostesses carry pencil-torches so that they can write your order. There was a smell of yesterday’s perfume and cigarettes and disinfected but persistent vomit.
Larry went to the bar and asked for a Coors Lite. The barman was black and non-committal and didn’t look like the type you could tell your troubles to. Larry gave him $10 for the beer and asked, “Jack Cole in here?” with the clear implication that he could keep the change if he said yes.
“Skinnah-dood ovah by the play-unt.” The $10 vanished.
“The play-unt” turned out to be a dusty vinyl yucca in a potful of cigarette butts. The “skinnah-dood” turned out to be a hangdog-looking man with coathanger shoulders and a drooping felt hat. He was sitting over a draft beer with a bourbon chaser, drumming his long fingers on the table as if he were impatiently waiting for somebody to show. Larry scraped out the chair opposite and said, “Mind if I join you?”
The man gave the barest of shrugs.
“Your name Jack Cole?” asked Larry.
The eyes flickered in the darkness. “What’s it to you?”
“Tara Gordon suggested I talk to you.”
“Tara? That whore? I haven’t seen Tara Gordon since we both got blasted in 2001.”
“Listen, my name’s Larry Foggi. I’m looking for a guy who used to hang around here in the ’60s.”
Jack Cole snorted in one nostril. “There’s nobody left, man. They all got old, or married, or straight. Usually all three. Some of them even started to vote Republican. What you see now, this is all for the tourists, or for all of those people who think they have too much taste to live in the rest of America. San-Cuteness-on-Sea.”
“You’re still here.”
“Oh, sure. I’m like one of those senile granpas who pinch girls’ bottoms and lower their neckties into their minestrone when they’re eating and wet the bed every night, but the children can’t find a nice cheap nursing-home for you, so here you have to stay. Remember that ‘hope I die before I get old’ crap? It never works out that way.”
Larry took out his billfold and made a play of riffling through his cash. “Jack,” he said, “I’m looking for Mandrax.”
The silence seemed to go on and on and on. Jack didn’t raise his eyes, didn’t lift his glass, didn’t drum his fingers, didn’t reply.
Larry said, “Most people think that the Black Brotherhood were all burned and that Mandrax is dead. But I know that Mandrax isn’t dead and I want him.”
Jack Cole at last lifted his eyes. “Do you know what you’re saying?”
“I think so.”
“Do you know that every time you mention that name you might just as well be signing a piece of paper that says, ‘I Larry Loggia wish to die as soon as it can conveniently be arranged’?”
“Foggia.”
“What?”
“It’s ‘Foggia’. not ‘Loggia’. And, yes, I know all about Mandrax and all about the Black Brotherhood, and believe me, I’d rather not get involved. But it’s something I have to do.”
“Well… I’ve heard the rumors,” said Jack Cole. “A friend of mine came to me six or seven weeks back and said that he’d seen somebody who looked just like Mandrax driving a van down by the Embarcadero. I didn’t pay it any mind, not to start with. But then I heard about some more things, and I guess that convinced me”
“What things? Faces in windows, maybe? Faces on hands? People getting themselves shrunk up? Things that oughtn’t to be?”
Jack Cole gave him a long, steady look. “You know all about it. Why’re you asking me?”
“Because I want to find him.”
“That’s like a chicken hunting for a fox.”
Larry took out $50. “Come on, Jack. Bend to a little bribery. One address, that’s all it takes, and this limited-edition picture of Ulysses S. Grant can be yours.”
Jack turned his head and slowly conned the bar. Then he said, “I’d prefer Franklin, if you’ve got him.”
“The rest if the tip turns out good.”
“No Franklin, no tip.”
Larry reluctantly took out his last $100 bill and laid it on the table. Jack Cole sat looking at it for a very long time, as if he were finding it difficult to make up his mind whether to talk to Larry or not. Eventually, he picked it up, folded it in half, then into quarters, and tucked it into his shirt pocket. “There’s an old spice warehouse down by the China Basin. They were going to knock it down and turn it into something fancy, but in the end they changed their minds. Too expensive, wrong area. It’s on the south side of the Basin, just before you get to Pier 48.”
“And that’s it?”
“You want me to draw you a map?”
“For a hundred you should carry me there on your back.”
Jack Cole shrugged, and finished his draft beer. “Information is subject to inflation, old buddy, just like everything else.”
“You’re sure that Mandrax is there?”
“No, as a matter of fact I’m not sure that Mandrax is there. But Mandrax used to say that if ever he needed a place to hide, that would be it. He even took me out to see it once, asked me what I thought. I said it was great. Especially the smell, and the damp. It made Castle Dracula look like a Holiday Inn.”
“You must have known him pretty good.”
Jack Cole sucked in his cheeks. “Nobody knew any of the Black Brotherhood pretty good. I was close to some of them, for sure. But it was the same kind of closeness you get when you stand an inch-and-a-half away from a rattlesnake. Total freezing-cold shit-in-your-pants tension. I guess that was what made them so attractive.”
Larry stood up. “Okay, Jack Cole. Thanks for your help. But if it turns out dud, I’m going to be coming back here to Fanny’s Bar and I’m going to be asking you politely for my picture back.”
Jack Cole managed the ghost of a smile. “Appreciate the warning. I’d better spend it quick, in that case.”
*
He called Linda but she wasn’t home yet. He ate a solitary lunch at a cozy Cambodian restaurant on Sixteenth Street. He had known the proprietor, an elegant butterfly-lady known t
o all of her customers as Mrs. Krong, ever since she had first arrived in San Francisco six years ago. Her eldest son had been knifed in a Cambodian gang-fight and Larry had been assigned to find his killers. After six months, he had been obliged to drop the case, still unsolved, and four years later the file was still open.
Every time he ate there, Mrs. Krong asked him politely if he had made any progress. After that formality was over, however, she would feed him on all of her specialties, and laugh and tell him stories about her childhood in Cambodia. Her fish rolls with salad were sensational.
He called Dogmeat at Guido’s Bar. To his surprise, Dogmeat was actually there. “Dogmeat, I have an errand to run. Wondered if you’d care to come along.”
“Scusi? Is this some kind of Joe Cocker?”
“I’m serious. I’ll meet you outside Guido’s in five.”
He went through the usual ritual of offering to pay Mrs. Krong for the food; so that Mrs. Krong could have the pleasure of telling him no, no, he needed his strength to look for the devils who had murdered her son. Mrs. Krong had a sixteen-year-old daughter who always stood shyly outside, in the kitchen. She was so transcendentally beautiful that she often made Larry wish that he were Cambodian, and eighteen.
Dogmeat was waiting outside Guido’s at a vertiginous angle, as if he were standing on a hill, or leaning against a high wind. When he climbed into the car, all arms and legs, he smelled as if he had been drinking tequila. Larry knew from experience that Dogmeat and tequila didn’t mix. After seven, he would start weeping for the old days, the good old days, when they sang Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely—Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely—as they floated along the streets in the sunshine, and poked chrysanthemums down the muzzles of National Guard rifles, and everybody was permanently over the rainbow.
They all got old, or married, or straight. Some of them even started to vote Republican.
“Where are we headed?” asked Dogmeat, peering from side to side through his flower-power sunglasses.
“China Basin. We’re paying a guy a visit and I’d like you along.”
“I hope there’s some renum—remur—remun—I hope you’ re going to pay me for this. You’ re schneiding seriously into my Trinkenzeit.”
Black Angel Page 29