San Francisco Noir

by Peter Maravelis

  “I hate cigars and Republicans.”

  “Don’t be so uptight. We’re relaxing…follow me?”

  “Okay. So we’re relaxing…”

  “You know what these are?” He handled the stogie like a pool stick in his big hamlike hands. “Cohibas. The finest of all Cuban cigars.” He let that sink in for a moment. “And—illegal in this country.”

  “What’s it to do with me?”

  “Hey—I’m trying to show you that we all have our imperfections. But you’re not listening. So what you pissed off about? Go on, spit it out.”

  “I cited the Apache Hotel.”

  “The one that burned?”

  “But never for a fire hazard. Because none existed.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “It burned on my watch. I’m the fall guy, and I don’t want to be the fall guy.”

  “If that’s what you’re worried about…”

  “You don’t get it. Seven people died. I don’t think it was an accident.”

  “It was a fleabag hotel. Everything changes.”

  “It’s against city ordinance to tear down low-income housing.”

  He shrugged. “Someone was careless…that’s the way to look at it. It won’t be an inconvenience to you.”

  The way they looked at people as an inconvenience made me sick.

  “Why don’t you explain it to the seven stiffs in the morgue?”

  He rose from his chair, cigar swinging in his mouth. “Take a look outside. There, out the window.” He gestured to the lit-up skyline, the buildings glowing, sucking up whole dinosaur herds of energy, perched like toxic towers spewing radiation. “That there, let me tell you, is the highway to the future. You can ride it or you can, well…be run over by it.” He laughed at his own joke, his jowls trembling with fat.

  To me it seemed like a nightmare. “I intend to find the source of the Apache Hotel fire…in case you’re wondering.”

  His eyes turned gray like those of a great white shark. “You have a loft that’s not warranted. It’s, ah, how shall I say?…a safety hazard.”

  “I have the permits.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion. One of your neighbors might file a complaint. Claim it was illegal.”

  “We’re all illegal here. Except the Rammaytush. And we killed them all.”

  “So you’re a do-gooder, is that it? Look, Morales, nobody appreciates a smart-ass like you stirring up trouble for other people. Let me remind you—with your illegal loft, your shit smells just as bad. So think about it.”

  He went back to his cigar and I knew the interview was over.

  Huey was waiting for me.

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I’ll walk.”

  At 2:00 in the morning, Sixteenth and Valencia is a current of human electricity, AC-DC all the way. I’d caught the last show at Esta Noche, the tranny club on Sixteenth. I wanted to see “La Jessica,” advertised as one of the most beautiful illusionists in the world. The soft spotlight in the smoky club made her indeed seem beautiful, at least the illusion of beauty, draped in sequins and sheer glittering gowns that gave the impression she had a body like Angelina Jolie.

  But at 3 a.m., when La Jessica was out of costume, she looked like any other vato hanging around waiting to pick up a drunk to bounce or bed for money.

  She smoked a filtered cigarette and the apple in her throat bobbed with each phrase.

  “Mira, I was standing right here, mismito. And the flames just shot up at once, dios mio, it was like a woosh, licking up the side of the building.”

  “The flames didn’t come from inside of the hotel?”

  “No, chulo, from the outside.”

  “What else you see?”

  “Two men running away.”

  “You sure of that?”

  “I’m sure they were men. As sure as I’m La Jessica.”

  That was proof enough for me. That and the burned-out hulk of the building across the street, standing like some pre-Hispanic ruins in the jungles of the city.

  “These men, could you identify them?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? Did you get a good look at them?”

  “Well, they had big muscles, they were you know, muy fuerte.”

  I thanked La Jessica and went home to Alabama Street. I would have to return the next day, sift around for evidence. I walked into my loft without turning on the lights, without checking for messages, just letting the glow from the street fill up the emptiness inside me.

  I had nightmares, screams and bodies burning, people leaping from buildings to their deaths. I woke up early and reached for my file. There wasn’t much there—kinda like Oakland. The notes on my three visits, including the one Wednesday, three days ago, described the minor stuff I’d cited. The listed owner was F. Delgado, et al. The address was on South Van Ness, one of those old Victorian mansions in the heart of the barrio. It was on my way to the ruins of the Apache Hotel, so I dropped by on the off chance F. Delgado might be around. I didn’t know what I was going to say, but I can look someone in the eye and right away tell you if they’re up to something evil.

  In another century, the nineteenth to be exact, South Van Ness was millionaire’s row. Victorian mansions lined the blocks, ornate ladies in wood lace and wrought-iron curlicues. Even old man Spreckles, the sugar baron, had his digs here, on the corner of Twenty-first and South Van Ness. Later, after the earthquake, most of these notable scoundrels parked their hats on Snob Hill, leaving the best weather to us poor folks in the flats.

  At the door of one of these mansions from that era, all restored and pretty, I knocked once, twice, nothing happened. After I leaned on the doorbell, a maid finally cracked the door, but kept the security chain latched.

  “Look lady,” I said, “I carry no stinking badges.”

  She blinked once but didn’t budge. So I repeated: “No soy policía. Busco a un tal F. Delgado.”

  “No Delgado here…this Señora Lopez house.”

  Then a voice came from behind the door: “What’s the matter, Carmen?”

  A woman I had not seen in years and thought I would never see again stepped out. Sofia Nido was beautiful as ever. And seeing her brought back that summer in Puerto Escondido, so long ago it seemed like another lifetime. Ten years ago we had spent a torrid summer together, dancing on tables, making love on the beach, living like the apocalypse was here. But to her it had been a fling; she had come back to her fiancé, and we had gone our separate ways. I had never gotten over her and had drunk many a beer in her memory.

  “Roberto—what are you doing here?”

  “I guess I could ask you the same thing. I came to see a certain F. Delgado. Ring a bell?”

  “Can’t say that it does. But maybe my aunt might know. I’m her attorney.”

  “Any chance I can talk to her?”

  “What’s this about Roberto? Are you with the police? That is so unbecoming of you.”

  “It’s a bit complicated.”

  “I see. My aunt is very ill. She really can’t see anyone right now.”

  “Maybe when she feels better?”

  “Perhaps. But Roberto, excuse me, I’m late for an appointment. Can I give you a ride anywhere?”

  “I’m on my way to Sixteenth and Valencia.” It didn’t faze her, which was a good sign. I wanted to see how she’d react to the fire scene. But I forgot all about that watching her drive, her profile like an Indian goddess, her eyes big and dark.

  She drove a red roadster and moved smoothly into traffic headed down South Van Ness. “I hardly recognize you, Roberto. So, you’re with the city?”

  “Department of Building Inspection. I go after deadbeat landlords who don’t provide habitable housing. And with rents so high, many landlords are ripping someone off. Especially in this barrio. And you—why such short hair?”

  “I’m between men. Short hair makes me feel in control.”

  “Yes…and my girlfriend just left me.”

  “You
mean you’ve lost your touch with women?”

  “It happened when I lost you.”

  She looked at me hard and I wished I hadn’t said that.

  But she didn’t slap me, so I changed the subject and took a crazy chance. “Say, there’s a band playing tonight from Nueva York. You feel like maybe…?”

  She shook her head, in exasperation, I guess. “I can’t believe you asked me that. I guess I’m an idiot, but sure, why not? Haven’t gone salsa dancing in years.”

  I bailed out at Sixteenth and Valencia. “Pick me up around 9:00, in front of the old can factory. Later, alligator.”

  I watched her drive away. My emotions were so tangled up knowing how dangerous it was to be involved with her. And yet, that was exactly what I was doing. It wasn’t till later that I realized I’d forgotten to check her reaction to the smoldering remains of the Apache Hotel.

  A chain-link fence surrounded the area. Two cops were guarding the site, looking bored. A big tractor inside the gates was headed for the burned-out walls. I whipped out my camera, but one of them jumped in my face.

  “Morales—what the hell you want?”

  “Photos of the site.”

  “For your scrapbook? Get outta here.”

  Then the tractor slammed into the building and knocked down half a wall.

  “Hey, you’re destroying evidence. Who gave you the right?”

  “You’re a day late. The D.A. has all the photos they need.”

  “How can he, if you’re knocking down the building?”

  “Are you doubting me, you flat-assed Mexican?”

  “Look, Johnson, I know you hate my guts, but seven people died here. I want to know why.”

  “I bet you do. It’s on your ass, isn’t it? You’re the one that overlooked the fire hazards. This is on your conscience. If liberals like you have a conscience.”

  “Have it your way, pin-head.”

  The word was already out on the street, the frame was on. The bulldozer had knocked down the side of the building facing Valencia Street, but the fire had started on the Sixteenth Street side. I stood in front of Esta Noche and shot a whole roll, clearly showing the charred side of the building where La Jessica claimed to have first seen the flames. It was obvious to me what had happened. Something had caught on fire in the passageway, right underneath the fire escape. The bastards could have spared the fire escape, giving those inside a chance to get out.

  I saw Johnson on his walkie-talkie, so I made myself scarce.

  I wanted to meet with La Jessica again. Show her the photos and have her mark where she saw the two men and the flames.

  I went back to the bar on Twenty-fourth Street to drink a beer with the yellow dot on the neck and mull over the file. I went over my notes and wrote down everything that had happened. It was clear someone was trying to bury this thing, and quick. It was too messy for them. But who were they? Who was F. Delgado and the et al? They owned the Apache Hotel; their business address, the one on South Van Ness. I figured Sofia’s aunt was part of the et al, and Sofia was lying to protect her. Or, Sofia didn’t know anything about it—but as her aunt’s attorney, that seemed far-fetched. As a precaution, I left my files, my notes, and my camera with Miss Mary, and just kept the empty briefcase.

  I walked home to my loft in the deep gloom of evening. I was so absorbed that when I reached the gate that leads to the courtyard, I wasn’t expecting the reception I got. Someone grabbed me from behind in a chokehold. I rammed an elbow in his gut to break free, but then something that felt like a brick smashed me across the face. BLAM! Stars, fireworks, nothing quite describes the sensation. I dropped my briefcase and stumbled to one knee, my head spinning. Far away, I heard thunder, then a flash of lightning that seemed like a spotlight; but it was a pair of headlights shining on me. I couldn’t believe it was Sofia in her red roadster.

  She helped me to my feet and I felt like a lame idiot. “I got jumped. They stole my briefcase.”

  “Come on. Tell me in the car.”

  As she slid behind the wheel, I couldn’t help but notice how her dress fell between her legs in ruffles. Not now, I said to myself—don’t think about it now. It started raining before she even pulled away from the curb.

  The view from Sofia’s apartment took in the wet palm trees of Dolores Park and the fragmented lights of downtown. The pale halo of a street lamp floated in a black puddle. Rain fell over the rooftops of the city and on the rows of Canary Island palms lining Dolores Street; the rain washed down the buildings and the cars, sloshed into the gutters. I stood looking out her window, haunted by that infinite nothing that is everything, that certain emptiness of every nameless second.

  She switched on the light in the kitchen and the ochre-colored walls were covered with portraits of Frida Kahlo, the patron saint of pain. One had Frida with a necklace of thorns scratching out drops of blood. Another wall had Frida as the goddess Tlazoteotl, a bed sheet over her face, her legs spread, a dead baby half out her womb. And above the stove—Frida as a deer pierced by arrows. The kitchen looked like a monument to suffering, an apocalyptic gallery of pain and despair. I had a flash of Amanda—she liked to be tied to the bed—and shook it out of my head.

  I rested on the living room couch while Sofia wiped the blood from my brow, and I told her what had happened. “I didn’t get a chance to see their faces.”

  “The neighborhood is going downhill, getting so violent.”

  “I don’t think it was that.”

  “Then…?”

  “Not sure yet.”

  “Men always bring trouble. That’s for sure.”

  “I’ll leave whenever you want.”

  She tried to light a cigarette, but her hand was trembling. I took the cigarette from her mouth, lit it, and put it back between her lips.

  “Did the blood make you nervous…?”

  She shook her head. She was blushing now. I could see how needy she was, how desperate for something, I didn’t know what. She turned on the radio. A jazz trumpet drifted arabesque notes that swirled around her cigarette smoke.

  It hurt me to know a woman like her, so beautiful and so alone. I wanted to tell her she was beautiful, that I could be a good man to her. Instead, I told her the only thing I had ever kept secret from everyone, even myself. I told her so I could be close to her. In the candlelit room, the words seemed to take centuries to unfold. “I killed a man once.” The silence was so thick it cut. “I was seventeen; it was a gang fight. I hit this vato with a pipe and kept hitting him till he was dead. Muerto. Muertecito.”

  I could sense my words running through her like a hand-forged stiletto. Her eyes narrowed and she saw me for what I was, with all my flaws.

  “Why do you tell me this?”

  “I don’t know; it bothers me sometimes. I never told that to anyone, ever. Can you be trusted?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then that’s why I told you.”

  Outside, the rain had eased and the faint rush of tires reached me. After Amanda had jammed, I answered a few personal ads and hooked up with women who didn’t care what I did to them as long as they felt something. Some scenes were sick, and when I started enjoying them I decided to quit. Since then I’ve more or less lived the social life of a monk.

  I touched her shoulder and she turned to me. A pale vein in her throat pulsed wildly. She brushed her hair back from her face. The lamp light seemed like a witness to the crime. I reached to turn it off but she stopped my hand.

  “I want to see your face.”

  “Wait.” I held her hand. “So what’s this about? Who is this Señora Lopez at whose house I met you…?”

  “Are you still thinking about that?”

  “I don’t know. It’s all related. I can feel it.”

  “Everything is related, Roberto. After the last time I saw you…”

  “The summer of Puerto Escondido. You were with Raymond then.”

  “We were engaged but we never married. It was my last year in law school. A
weekend trip to Napa. We’d both overdone it. An accident along the side of the road. It was my fault Raymond was killed…”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “You don’t understand.” Her voice was soft and pained in the shadows. “…If I trust you?”

  “I’d do anything for you.” I said that, but I didn’t know for sure. In fact, I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to go on. She didn’t give me a choice.

  “I’m being blackmailed. The classic story. A young, gullible, ambitious young woman sells her soul to stay out of jail. I was scared after the accident. In shock, really, for months. Clearly it was manslaughter, but she quietly cleaned it up. She has that sort of power. So instead of being a jailbird, I’m an accomplice. She provides the fronts and I cook the contracts, make sure everything is legal.”

  “Your aunt?”

  “Who else? Señora Lopez, when she comes out of the shadows. Oh, Roberto, I want out of her grip. It’s like someone is violating you every day. It never goes away.” She took a long drag from the cigarette. “And she’s Felicia Delgado. It’s one of her pseudonyms. Her full name is Aura Felicia Delgado Lopez. I think she ordered the fire.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It’s an insurance scam. Plus, with the hotel down they can build something new, make a few extra million.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that. A fire like that will cause them lots of trouble, there’ll be an investigation, and…”

  “Who do you think you’re dealing with?” Her eyes flashed with righteous anger. “My aunt is rich and powerful and evil. She has the mayor in one pocket and the chief of police, the next mayor, in the other. If you stand up to these people, if you mess with their plans, they’ll hurt you. They’ll hurt you bad, Roberto. There is lots and lots of money involved. The Builders Association? Their whole blueprint for the Mission?”

  “I’m familiar with Callahan. I just had a relaxing chat with him last night. But look, it’s a matter of conscience. You have to decide for yourself.”

  She was quiet for a minute. “I have the documents in my office.”

  “And I have a witness. Tomorrow I’ll speak with La Jessica. Maybe all of us together can bring this vieja Lopez down.”