The Magician's Tale

by William Bayer

  Joel shakes his head. "It was more of a mood thing, like they were all smart guys, suddenly they all went slack and that's really funny except it isn't. But I keep thinking there's another level."

  "Me too."

  What I don't tell him is that the real reason I locked myself in my darkroom for three full days was so I wouldn't run over to City Stone Ground, corner Dad and try to coax out an explanation.

  The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is the last beachside amusement park in California. Tattered, tacky, tawdry but proud, it clings to the water, attracting kids and old folks nostalgic for those pre-Disney days when a rollercoaster, carny music and cotton candy were all you needed to instill the blend of forced humor and melancholy summed up in the hollow word "amusement."

  In my Art Institute days I did my share of picture taking here, roaming the boardwalk on weekends, catching images of the last hippies as they lurched, stoned, beneath signs depicting clowns with riotous smiles. Easy juxtapositions, art school stuff, but that was a time when nearly everything I saw through the viewfinder caught my eye. Busted windows, abandoned gas station pumps, feral street cats, overflowing trash barrels beneath thrashing palms—I would show Californians what they passed every day but didn't see, filtered through the fine artist's prism of my eye.

  I soon got over it, learned the difference between picture taking and photography. Still, I know, sometimes an amateur will catch an image by accident so strong a pro could shoot a hundred rolls and still not equal it. Whenever I see a photograph like that I wonder again about what I'm doing. Which is why I need Maddy to coach me and keep me on my path.

  Joel and I are standing outside a run-down Paddy bar called The Brogue two blocks back from the boardwalk on a street lined with raunchy motels. The gaunt and haggard man standing before us does not resemble the Lucius D. Waincroft I've been expecting. Time, I know, always takes its toll; Hale, I recall, looked far different than in his photographs. But the face of the Wainy now peering at us is totally unlike the proud, stubborn sergeant's face that appeared in the row of mug shot photos published in the Chronicle under the headline BUFFOONS. This man has rotten teeth, unshaven cheeks, burst capillaries streaking his nose. His eyes are milky, the left one twitching as he leers. When he bends toward me, I want to turn my back; instead I bow my head, forcing him to plant his kiss upon my hair.

  "Do ye not know me, Kay? What a fine woman you've become!" His breath reeks of cheap booze and rum-soaked cigars. But now those milky eyes are filled with merriment. "Remember Uncle Wainy? I've known ye since you were a wee girl."

  I have only the vaguest memory of him from childhood, being presented to him by Dad at cop picnics and sporting events. We used to attend those kinds of affairs before my mother turned agoraphobic, the first step in the decline that culminated in her suicide.

  He studies me. "You've got your ma's sweet eyes, Kay. You truly do. Fine gal, Carlotta. I miss her. . . as I'm sure Jack and you must do. Most likely you think of her every day." He chucks my chin. "You're an artist now, I hear."

  "Photographer."

  "Yeah, sure, but that's an artist too, I understand."

  As he turns to Joel the neon sign of The Brogue casts a shaft of light across his face—red light, I assume, though to me it appears as a glowing black bar. A dark uniform with some sort of security service patch on the shoulders hangs upon Wainy's emaciated frame.

  I step back to take his picture. He poses grandly, Napoleon style, hand thrust deep inside his shirt. A heavy gun belt from which dangle the tools of his trade—field radio, flashlight, nightstick, holstered automatic—droops below his waist.

  Flash!Whap! I catch an image: The Ruined Cop.

  "Five of seven," he says, "time to go to work. Hope the two of you don't mind walking along with me. That way we can talk while I do my job."

  As he leads us down to the waterfront, he explains that after Labor Day the amusement park is closed except on weekends. But that doesn't stop all sorts of riffraff from trying to force their way in from the beach.

  At the gate he introduces us to another uniformed guard.

  "Just going to show these young people the place, you don't mind, Mac?" Wainy says.

  The gatekeeper shrugs. We pass through the office, Wainy pulls his card, sticks it into a time clock, returns it to its slot, picks up his watchman's key, clips it to a chain attached to-his belt, then motions us out to the kennel area, where he attaches a leash to the collar of an elderly black rottweiler, whom, he tells us cheerily, the guards have nicknamed Crud.

  "Come on, Crudder. Come on, boy," he addresses the creature in a singsong. "Another night, another dollar, doggie—off to make our rounds. . . ."

  Soon we're walking along a spooky row of shuttered booths, dimly lit by occasional security lamps and the glow of street-lights beyond the fence. In season the booths here, faded signs tell me, offer soda, burritos, franks and taffy, or provide places where you can win a Kewpie by virtue of your marksmanship or by defeating an expert at guessing your weight and age. There are booths that sell horror masks, magic tricks, poopoo pillows, where you can be photographed beside cardboard cutouts of Bogie, Elvis, Marilyn, Reagan or the Pope. But tonight everything's closed down, the only sounds in this nightscape Crud's panting and the echoes of our steps upon the wooden walk.

  "Hale! Seen him, have you?" Wainy hoots, his chuckles resounding along the corridor of shuttered shacks. "He came down a few times. Asked me to open up. Ha! I wouldn't say a word, sent him packing. Last time he begged me. 'Please, Wainy, pleeeeease.' Didn't mind seeing him grovel, I tell you. 'No,' I said, 'I'd rather die a ghastly death than tell you anything, you no-good bastard son of a bitch.' That was about a year ago. I think he got the idea. Hasn't been back any rate."

  "What did he think you could tell him?" Joel asks.

  "Where we stashed the evidence—what else?"

  "Did you stash it?"

  "Ha! That's what Hale thinks. Got a bug up his arse. Bug's been nibbling at his 'rhoids since the day it happened. Hated me 'cause I wouldn't take a polygraph. 'Now why should I take it?' I asked him. My lawyer told me: 'Don't even think about it, Wainy. They're going to bounce you out, let 'em. But don't give 'em ammo they can use to shoot you down.' Good advice, so I hushed up, never told 'em a thing. Then they tried to take my pension. Was in and out of court five years over that. Case was settled in the end, though not so well for me. Which is why I'm doing this damn job here. Isn't half bad actually. Pays for the booze and smokes at least."

  He yanks on the leash. "Dammit, Crudder! Stop scamperinn', you stupid mutt!"

  But Crud, though old and overweight, pulls Wainy along faster than he wants to walk, forcing him to angle back like a thin man marching in the face of a ferocious wind.

  "These hounds're damn near useless," he says. "Still the company insists we use 'em. They think big black dogs scare off invaders. Theory is kids who try and get in here from the beach side will hear the dogs and think twice. Ratfuck! Kids don't give a damn. They're wearin' wet suits anyway. They just stick some sleeping potion in hot dogs, throw them at the mutts, the mutts gobble them, next thing you know they're lyin' on their backs snorin' like there's no tomorrow."

  The sight of Wainy trying to control Crud inspires me to take another picture. I step away to catch him in profile tilted backward as he fights the irresistible canine force.

  "Poor Billy!" Wainy exclaims over the suicide of Billy Hayes. "After the cops he tried all kinds of work. Not like your pop, Kay—who could always make one helluva loaf. Billy didn't know nothing' 'cept boxing and law enforcement. He took up coachin', tried to develop a couple kids, but soon as he'd find a prospect some sweet-talkin' manager'd steal the kid from under his nose. So old Billy finally threw it in. Won't say I haven't thought occasionally of doing the same. Only reason I haven't is . . . curiosity. I'm always wonderin' what's going to happen next. Never find out, will I, if I chow down my gun?"

  We enter the roller-coaster perimeter. Wainy uses his watch
man's key to open the gate. Inside, the wood and steel structure looms above us like the skeleton of an enormous dinosaur.

  "Couple of us here the other night," Wainy says, "caught ourselves one real live intruder." His milky eyes go cold. "Crud and the other fella's dog cornered him, then we surrounded him and beat him. Bloody pulp when we got done."

  Wainy hee-haws, then shows a leer that chills my blood. Does he think Joel and I will admire him for this? Is he trying to psych us, or doesn't he give a damn? Probably the latter, I decide. He's a wasted man living in an enclosed world of booze, mean memories and the beat we're walking with him now.

  "Won't be able to work much longer," he says, a propos of nothing. "Got lung cancer. Eatin' me up inside. That's why I'm so thin." He turns his head, spits. "Wainy's never been a squealer, and I ain't startin' now. So you won't get nothin' out of me, not even on my deathbed you won't."

  I glance at Joel in time to see his eyes catch fire. "You're saying there is something to be gotten out of you?" he asks.

  Wainy lets out with a crazed laugh. "You bet there is, friend!"

  "Come on, Wainy," I plead. "Tell us. Who'll be hurt by it now?"

  "Your dad for one. Why don't you ask him, Kay, see what he's got to say?"

  "About what?"

  "What'd you think, girl? It. Hear me? What the hell else we talking about? What're we doing, for Christ's sake? What'd you come down here for? Not to pay your goddamn respects. I know that. You came to ask 'bout the same thing Hale, that wheedling bastard, tried to sweet-talk an answer to. It! Stinkin' it. That stupid bag of—ha! give the man a Kewpie doll, Harry!—that bag of ever-lovin' shit-eatin' fuck-all ev-eye-dense!"

  Though Joel keeps at him, plugging him with questions, Wainy's done answering for the night. He goes silent on us, leading us back toward the security gate, mumbling something about having to feed Crud his dinner.

  "I'm not used to walking these boards with visitors," he mutters.

  "Saying you know where that evidence is, Wainy?" Joel asks again.

  But Wainy doesn't reply. He's finished with us, can't wait to see our backs. I try and stall him by asking him to pose again. He obliges but the humor of his Napoleon stance is lacking, as is the pathos when he was being dragged forward by Crud. Now he just stands there, blank, dejected, grim.

  Then I get an idea.

  "Take off your shirt," I tell him.

  "Kidding me, Kay?"

  "Uh-uh. Strip. I wanna see some skin."

  He hoots, but even so strips to the waist, handing off Crud to Joel.

  "Great!" I tell him, focusing. "Now put the gun belt back on. That's right, the way it was. Just let it hang there. Yeah!"

  Flash!Whap!Flash!Whap!

  "Now do something, Wainy! Give me a show!"

  He thinks a moment, perplexed. Then he gets a notion. He starts whistling, some sort of Irish ditty, then starts moving, raising his feet, pumping his arms, hopping.

  Whap!Whap!Whap!Whap!Whap! I can't believe my luck. The man's dancing an Irish jig right there in the middle of the deserted amusement park. He's got the ribs of a concentration camp survivor and the expression of a lecher, and still he high-steps, while Crud, incredulous, sits on his haunches watching his mad master dance. My motor drive hums, my flash strobes the night as I freeze him in absurd postures against the stanchions and girders behind. I shoot till he's exhausted, wheezes, coughs, finally bends forward to let the drool run free.

  "How you like them beans, girl?" he demands, crouched over, expectorating onto the boardwalk.

  I like them very much, I tell him. And, to myself, I give a title to what I'm sure will be a remarkable series: "Wainy's Last Hurrah."

  At the gate he bids us a sweet farewell.

  "Kind of you to drive down and see me," he says to Joel. They shake hands, then Wainy turns to me, looks deep into my eyes.

  "You're a grand-looking gal, Kay," he says. "Carlotta's eyes too. Such lovely music she could play. Break your heart with it she could. So beautiful it was to see her fingers rise and fall, the delicate way she caressed the keys. Be well and happy, that's what I wish for ye, Kay. I do."

  And with that, teary-eyed, he kisses me in the center of my forehead, then turns away.

  "Come on, Crudder boy. Time to chow down, doggie."

  He strolls with the big black dog back toward the kennel while we stare after him from the other side of the gate.

  Joel and I barely speak on our way north, the fast way this time, the one that mounts the hills, picks up Route 280 west of San Jose, then follows the freeway up the peninsula.

  "This is getting interesting, Kay. I'm thinking—maybe Hale was right."

  I don't respond because I know what he means—Hale's theory that there was some kind of obstruction-of-justice conspiracy in which Dad played a part. I really don't want to think about that. For one thing it strikes me as implausible. It was Dad, after all, who suggested we talk to the other cops. Why do that if he had something to hide?

  "My father's the most honest man I know," I tell Joel. "All he's interested in is baking honest loaves of bread."

  "Kay!" Joel sputters. "I wasn't—didn't mean—"

  But of course we both know what he meant.

  "Let's talk to Vasquez," I suggest. "Then, if you still want to interview Dad, I'll set it up."

  San Francisco sparkles as we approach it from the back; I always think of the front of the city as the Water side. The lit towers of the financial district stand like totems against the sky. A few minutes later, as we drive past the low buildings of SoMa, a distant growl of motorcycles rends the tranquil night.

  This is reality, I think, thankful to be home. Wainy's world, so dark and menacing, frightened me more than I realized.

  Joel drives me up Russian Hill through residential streets. I'm glad he doesn't choose Polk or Van Ness—I need quiet now, have no desire to pass through the Gulch.

  "I'll never forget the sight of that old man," Joel says, "whistling and dancing on the boards. He knows he's a goner, but still he danced till he dropped." Joel turns to me. "A dance of death, do you think?"

  "Or a dance of courage."

  I ask him to drop me a block from my building. After he stops the car he takes my hand.

  "Are you willing to follow this all the way, Kay—no matter where the trail leads? Because if you're not, that's fine. Just say the word. If you don't want to go on, I'll understand."

  I shake my head. "I'll go all the way with you, Joel. But thanks for giving me the choice."

  He kisses me. I get out, cross Hyde, then saunter along the hedge looking to see if Drake is watching me from within the park.

  "Kay!"

  His whisper cuts to my ears. I follow the sound until I see him standing in thick foliage beside the trunk of a Monterey pine.

  "Thanks for waiting up for me."

  "Will the doc be coming by tonight?"

  I shake my head, and as I do, note Drake's relief.

  Later, upstairs, safe in my flat, staring out at the Bay, I can still feel the press of Wainy's lips upon my forehead and the power of his scrutiny as he peered into my eyes.

  Joel phones at noon. I take his call in the darkroom, where I'm working up prints of Wainy dancing his jig in the night.

  "I spoke to S.F.P.D. Public Affairs. There'll be no sanctioned interviews with Vasquez on the T case or anything else."

  "His decision or theirs?"

  "Both I expect."

  "What do we do now?"

  "Ambush-interview him tonight when he gets home."

  By five we're set up, sitting in Melvin, on the opposite side of Valley Street from Vasquez's 1930s house. The street is lined with nice well-kept homes set side by side on small well-tended lots. The Noe Valley is known for its excellent climate, warmer and far less foggy than Russian Hill. A neighborhood of affluent young marrieds, yuppies, conservative gays, it costs plenty to buy a home here. Vasquez, who Joel tells me is married with three kids, appears to be doing well.
/>   I'm nervous sitting here, loaded camera and micro tape recorder in my hands, scrunched up in this uncomfortable little car. Especially as time passes, the sky darkens, and there is as yet no sign of our quarry.

  "What if he doesn't show?" I ask Joel.

  "We'll wait till seven. If he doesn't turn up, we'll come back in the morning, try and catch him then."

  "I'm wondering—is it really all that smart to surprise a cop? What if he thinks we're threatening him and pulls his gun?"

  "I'll identify us as press right away." He shows me his police press pass. "Flash this in his face."

  "And if he walks by?"

  "Whatever he does he'll give us a look."

  "Which is when I'm supposed to take his picture?"

  "You got it, kiddo! Now sit back, keep your powder dry."

  Still I'm worried. What can Vasquez possibly tell us in a situation like this, in full view of his neighbors, with his family hovering just behind the door? Joel says we're here to show commitment to our story, and if Vasquez gives us a "No comment," to put it squarely on the record. Still I'm nervous. I wonder how Dad would handle it. If Vasquez is smart, I think, he'll smile, invite us in, offer us Cokes, tell us he's sorry but under orders not to talk, then send us home with sincere regrets. And if he isn't smart, if we unnerve him? Then, I think, God save us from his wrath.

  He turns up finally, just about the time I'm thinking he won't, parks his car, a new silver Taurus, in his driveway.

  Joel touches my arm. "Go get him, kiddo!"

  He's out his side before I can open my door. After that I move fast, nearly tripping as I cross the street, all the while struggling to keep up with Joel and intersect with Vasquez before he reaches his front stoop.

  He feels ambushed all right. He stops to peer at us, alarmed. He's blocky and tall. I understand why Hilly felt intimidated. He has a head of thick black hair, wears heavy black-rimmed glasses, stands erect like a military man on parade.

  "Joel Glickman, Bay Area News!" Joel speaks so fast the words run together.