by Fred Zackel
"And no hard feelings?"
"Like I told you before, if she's not the one, she's not the one. Women are like the tide. They come and they..."
"I know how it goes." I shook out a cigarette. "What happened that you got a rain check?"
"Her old man walked in on us."
I grinned. "I see why you two never hit it off."
Alex went sour. "Joey used to xerox dollar bills and pass them at the coin changer in the laundromat. He was nothing but lowlife."
"How long before you and her were good buddies?"
"A year or so. Yeah, that's a long time, but Joey always bird-dogged her. We just said hello and left it at that."
"When did she start her band?"
"Her band? It was never her band. She said she could sing, so we let her. We figured a chick gave us a little class."
"So you hired her."
"She didn't want money. She just wanted out of the houseboat once in a while."
"You worked the Arroyo Grande, right?"
"That goddam dive."
"They paid scale, didn't they?"
"We bought our own drinks, too. That manager's a goddam ape. Knuckles dragging the ground. He looked like the Missing Link."
"He got along all right with Dani."
"Yeah. Any time she needed anything." He stewed in his anger. "Treating him like a human being. A goddam ape, that's what he was. That's how come we got a yearlong gig there."
"Did Joey ever come to the gigs?"
"At first he did. He'd sit down front, mooning over her like a groupie. And she sang right to him. It was disgusting."
"Why'd he stop coming around?"
"Because she had no room to mess around. He kept her straight, when he was there, but if he didn't show, she'd find somebody else, some turkey from the suburbs. The turkey would buy her a drink, and the next thing you know, she'd come up stage and say she'd be missing the next set, so why don't we sing around her."
"Where'd she go with the turkey?"
"The parking lot, mostly. Maybe over to his place, if he lived close enough. Maybe the hotel across the street. She knew how to cover her tracks. Like she never walked out the front door with a guy, and never walked in with one. She always made it seem like she was just going out for fresh air or a cigarette."
"Were you messing with her then?"
"No way. It was strictly business."
"Your decision or hers?"
"Both of us."
"How long did that last?"
He hesitated.
"You're not going to deny you did?"
"No. No. I did. That party was the first time."
"How much of what you said is true?"
"All of it, man, all of it."
"I don't buy that. I didn't when I heard it. For one thing, you said you were on deck taking a leak, watching the lights of the last ferry, when Dani ran past you."
"That's the truth."
"You also said it was last spring. May or June, right? But in the springtime, the last ferry stops a half hour before sunset."
"You checked with the ferry?"
"I didn't have to. I live in the Bay Area, too. I know how those ferries run. I've been on them once in a while. I've played tourist in Sausalito, myself."
"I got it. Sherlock Holmes. That's who you are."
"Can it. When was the party?"
"Thanksgiving. The day after. Thanksgiving Friday."
"And how much of what you said is true?"
"Most of it." He glared at me. "Hey, I did save her life."
"You said you didn't go to the party."
"Yeah, well, ah..."
"But you were there, weren't you?"
He admitted he'd been at the party.
"How did you save her life?"
"Just like I told you. She ran past me. I went after her and I caught up with her on the Bridgeway and pulled her out of the traffic."
"Why was she running?"
"Joey went berserk and tried smacking somebody. She was stoned, she was freaked out, so she took off running. The only thing she could think to do."
"She wasn't committing suicide?"
"She didn't even see the traffic out there. She was just running for the sake of running." The edge of his mouth tried to curl into a smile. "She tore her blouse on the fence. Her titties were hanging out." He had forgotten me. "She took my hand ..." He remembered me.
"So you took her back to your boat."
"Hey, she wanted me real bad."
"What about your date?"
"She was passed out." He caught my eye. "It was that kind of party."
"Did Dani stay all night?"
"No, she went home. I thought that was the end of it. Well, it wasn't. She came over the next morning. She wanted to talk."
"Did Joey come with her?"
"Naw. She told him she was just gonna tell me to get my date. She was still passed out on the couch. She had slept there all night."
"What did Dani want to talk about?"
"Leaving Joey. He was doing a lot of speed. He was going downhill fast, and she didn't want to go downhill with him."
"What was your advice?"
"I told her to think it over. If she wanted to leave him, she'd better leave him. And if she needed a place to crash, she could stay with me until she found a place of her own."
"When did she move in?"
"A week later."
"Weren't you taking a chance? After all, Joey was living down the boardwalk."
"I didn't think she'd stay the whole month."
"Why'd you let her stay so long?"
"Those blue eyes." He wasn't ashamed to admit it. "Her eyes were so big, she couldn't keep her eyelids closed. Even when she was sleeping, her eyes would be open." He shook his head. "They were spooky, I tell ya."
"Why did she stay so long?"
"She thought it was the safest place to hide. You know, like that story by Edgar Alien Poe. You hide where everybody's looking."
"Oh, was that her reason."
"I told you she was a bitch."
"Maybe you thought she had another reason."
He didn't answer me. He pretended to be fingering his head for blood. Maybe he had fallen for the blue-eyed girl. Maybe he hadn't, and he was putting on a show.
"Maybe you thought she cared about you."
When his eyes met mine, they were brittle and carefree. "She never cared about me. I admit it. But I didn't know that, not when she came on board. I didn't know what a bitch she was. And she used me good."
I played a long shot. "Is that why you hit her?"
"I didn't hit her." He gave me a filthy look. "She fell down the stairs."
"On a houseboat?"
"Hey, that's what she told me. She was over at her sister's house, and she fell down the stairs. Maybe she tripped on a roll of money. How should I know?"
"Did you kick her out?"
"She took off on her own. Christmas was the last time I saw her. Christmas Day. Merry Christmas. I got back from the 7-Eleven store, and she was already gone. Just moved out with all her stuff. She even took my stash."
"So you thought you'd liberate hers." I picked up the plastic bag of grass and hefted it again. At least a pound inside. "You got carried away, right?"
"She can afford it."
I asked him who Davey Huie was.
His eyes blinked. "He was our drummer. Why?"
"He picked up your last paycheck from the Arroyo Grande. Dani was with him. You think she's staying with him?"
"No way. He's a lush."
"Where does he live?" I listened to his recitation. It matched the address from the Arroyo Grande. I shrugged. "Maybe I'll give him a call sometime this weekend."
Alex seemed to relax at that.
I stood up to leave. He shifted in his bathtub, and his eyes brightened for the first time. As soon as I left, he could climb out and stand on his own two feet again.
"One last thing. Put everything back where you found it. Because if you don't, the hea
t'll be on you so fast you won't know what hit you."
"She won't miss it."
"I would. And I fight dirty."
I watched him. Reluctantly, he agreed. I turned on my heel and left the houseboat. No sense asking for another skirmish.
I waited outside behind an overturned dinghy. Someone nearby had their fireplace going. Wood smoke mixed with the fog, and a little mist drifted down the waterfront. The houseboats were almost sinister in the fog. The creaking of weathered wood, the boardwalk, the pilings, the houseboats. A hundred vessels swayed not as one with the currents and cross-currents.
Five minutes later I went back onboard. I didn't bother trying the door. I clambered up the roof again and lifted a half-inch of skylight. A great way to spend New Year's Eve.
Alex came from the bathroom. He had spent the time cleaning himself up. He went to Dani's telephone and started dialing. I couldn't see the numbers, but it was a local call, either San Francisco or Sausalito. He let it ring for a few seconds, then started talking.
"It's me. Right. I'm over here on my boat. Brennen's just left, and he's still after Dani. Listen to me. He wants to talk with Davey. How should I know? Listen, Davey'll be down at Jardin's Saloon getting loaded. It's New Year's Eve, remember?"
Before Alex hung up, I slid down and hiked to my car. I threw Joey's pound of grass in my trunk, then headed off towards the freeway and the bridge.
The holiday traffic crawled across the bridge, and storm clouds and fog haloed their headlights. Red flashers on the span announced there were four southbound lanes. They also announced CAUTION and ACCIDENT. A northbound Maverick had sailboated into a southbound Plymouth.
I huddled in the far right lane. The Golden Gate Bridge is a lethal weapon. There is no retainer wall between the lanes of traffic, just small rubber pods every dozen feet. The newspapers call it Blood Alley.
I thought about Joey Crawford's last ride.
Then there was a clear patch in the clouds. Over the eastern railing, the beacon flashed from Alcatraz. Six seconds later it flashed again. Then the winds off the Pacific brought more fog through the Gateway.
Maybe Joey had been lucky. Maybe he had gotten off cheap.
Chapter 12
From the Bayshore Freeway, which rises on steel girders above them, the San Francisco flats are just another commercially zoned district of single-storied buildings whose rooftops carry billboards for cigarettes, scotch whiskey and economy cars.
When you leave the safety of that freeway, drop down beneath its elevated security, you've entered the place where no city has a skyline. The flats are warehouses, train sidings, loading docks. Vacant lots and dead-end streets, broken glass and peeling paint, locked doors and tow away zones. Even the muggers steer clear of the flats. There's no business for them here.
But there is a nightlife under the overpass. A few neighborhood bars where night people by temperament or circumstance can find safety among their own kind and live out their fantasies. When the sun goes down, the night crawlers come from the long shadows to these lice-ridden firetraps. Nothing from the daylight world can threaten them there, for there is only loud music, dancing partners, chemical madness. They come to dance. The chemicals make it bearable.
Jardin's Saloon was the raunchiest roadhouse in the flats. It slouched at the intersection of Monterey and Missoula streets like a hooker on an off-night, a babyshit brown building catercorner to a welding supply company.
There was enough loud music coming through the walls to scare off any fire inspector dumb enough to be slumming in this part of town. And the blast of hot air that came from the swinging doors stunk of sweat and cigarettes, wet clothes and booze.
I took a deep breath and ducked inside the funhouse. The transvestite working the front door was too busy buying a handful of amy nitrate spansules from a black man in pink pants to check me against the legal age for alcohol. Yeah, this was not the daylight world, and it made sense best on chemicals.
The band was screaming Gimme Shelter, and the bodies on the dance floor glistened and smelled. Half looked like runaways from the Vacaville mental wards, and the others like Quentin graduates. I was the only joker in the house with a full set of teeth.
There were bikers and bearded ladies, leather boys and acidheads. Drag queens in short skirts and juice freaks getting fixed on warm red wine. Tenderloin trash and hippie nookie. Methadone junkies and panhandlers. There were six races and as many sexes drying their clothes with the dirty boogie.
I saw my quarry at the back bar. Davey Huie was half-wasted and talking to a man with two black eyes. He was dressed western style and both hands were taped with athletic bandages. He was a little clean for this crowd. His hair wasn't that long, though it touched the nape of his shirt and covered his ears. His jeans were faded and fringed, but they didn't seem holey, and his flowery cowboy shirt had all its pearly buttons. He wore a patched Levi jacket and a powder blue stetson. There was even a shine on his Frye boots.
I shimmied through the crowd as fast as I could. When I reached the back aisles, I scanned the back bar. Davey was still there, but his black-eyed buddy was gone. The empty stool by Davey beckoned. Maybe Davey knew where Dani had gone.
I pushed through the aisle and flopped onto the barstool, as if I'd stumbled onto a gold mine. The barkeep danced towards my end of the bar. I told him to bring me a beer.
"Anything else?"
"I can't think of anything."
"I bet you can if you try hard." He was a middle-aged leather boy, slim and wiry. He flexed his muscles with the beat of the rock band.
"Just the beer."
"Suit yourself." He pranced off.
I reached for my cigarettes, then matches. They weren't in my shirt pocket. They weren't in my jacket. I waited, cigarette in hand, for the bartender to prance back.
A pack of matches sailed through the air and landed by my hands. I lit my cigarette and then passed back the matches. "Thanks, man."
"I've seen you before," my benefactor said.
I shrugged. "Maybe you have."
"My name's Huie. Davey Huie."
I introduced myself. "But I've never seen you before."
"You useta live in Berkeley, didn't you?"
"Yeah, in Berkeley," I lied. "How'd you know that?"
"You remember me, don't you? I useta sit over on the benches in Sproul Plaza by the Student Union. I was the guy always playing the congas."
"Sure. Over by Sproul Plaza. Right by the Student Union. How come you got your hands bandaged?"
A wry grin. "Too much congas."
Davey was a lovable old mutt. His face was round as any basset's, with long black bangs over big dumb eyes, an eager-to-please mouth, and a permanently forlorn expression. Another guy trying to be everybody's pal.
I should've felt better. He had broken ice first. But he came on like a fruit trying to land another fruit. He didn't seem like a fruit, but this was San Francisco.
I noticed his glass was empty. It sat near mine like a tin cup from a beggar. The Chinese cowboy was another mooch, cadging drinks off the dumb. If he'd been female, he'd be a B-girl.
The bartender brought my beer.
I turned to Davey. "Whatcha drinking?"
"Tequila Marie."
I told the barkeep to get one. The barkeep gave Davey a hard, cold look—a woman's look at a rival—then went to the coolers. I felt like a nickel waiting for small change.
"So what've you been up to?" I asked.
"Oh, I was in a band for a while. It was bullshit, but a gig's a gig."
"You still doing it?"
He shook his head. "Our chick singer split on us. Everybody was fed up, anyway. I couldn't work with those people. They were all maniacs. How about yourself?"
"The same old shit. Just hanging around."
"Yeah, I know that scene. It's everywhere."
"One thing, though." I peered around, looking for someone. "I've been trying to locate this chick. She was s'pose to be here tonight, but I
don't see her. That ain't saying much tonight with this crowd, but she said she'd be here. Maybe you seen her. A plain jane in her late twenties. High cheekbones, a few acne scars, an oversized nose, brown hair cut short, big blue eyes."
He cut me short. "What's her name?"
"You wouldn't know her. She's from Sausalito."
He set down his drink. "What's her name?"
"Dani Anatole. Why? You know her?"
"That's the chick who split on us."
"That singer you were talking about?"
"Yeah. That's the chick."
"I'm sorry I brought it up. I didn't know she was a bummer."
"No, it's okay. What do you want her for?"
I tried being reluctant. "I'm just looking for her, that's all."
"Hey, you can tell me, man."
I backed off, suspicious.
"I'm no cop," he told me.
"So what? Neither am I."
"So a cop can't lie to you, not if you ask him if he's a cop. If he lies and busts you, that's entrapment, and they gotta cut you loose. It's the law."
I had a hard time keeping a straight face. Davey thought cops couldn't tell a lie. Expecting undercover cops and operatives to reveal themselves on request was worse than naive. It was downright stupid. Any lawyer could've told him that. Oh, maybe for a hooker, busted for soliciting, but not in any other kind of undercover work. Undercover boys didn't have to tell the truth. They just couldn't force you against your will to break the law.
"Dani was buying a stereo receiver from me," I said.
"Oh yeah? What kind?"
"Sherwood." I thought fast. "Sixty watts per channel."
"How much are you asking for it?"
"Four bills."
He whistled. "You got any more at that price?"
"Only this one. Dani's got first dibs, but if she doesn't show up, or if I can't find her ..."
"Is it hot?"
"Nope, it's just like new. Only got a cigarette burn on the right side. That's why it's for sale. It was a demo."
"A cigarette burn?" He smiled like a co-conspirator. "What are you getting in the deal?"
"I score a little weed."
"Four bills buys a lot of weed."
"A key of regular."
"A good price," he agreed.
"Well, we're both doing okay, since there's no money changing hands. It's a trade, a little barter between friends."