Soon the Rest Will Fall: A Novel

by Peter Plate

  “Please don’t do anything stupid.”

  “I’m not, I’m not. I’m just talking. Is that okay with you?”

  “Then keep driving.”

  He wouldn’t leave it alone. “I hate him. Look at his damn shoes.”

  The cop had on nondescript black oxfords, footwear for squares. Oxfords were an insult to anyone with decent taste. They represented boredom and mediocrity. A guy in oxfords never got the pretty girl. He was never the life of the party.

  Robert had a grudge against the officer, the result of the brouhaha on the hill. When no one had been looking, the lawman had rabbit-punched Robert in the kidneys.

  “The son of a bitch,” he fumed. “I ought to kick his butt. Teach him a lesson for fucking with me.”

  Harriet advised him. “Don’t do it.”

  “The hell with that.” Pressing down on the gas pedal, Robert steered the car over the yellow line. His hands were knuckle white on the wheel. His scalp drowned in perspiration. A drop of sweat ran down the bridge of his nose and fell in his lap. He shifted into first gear and said, “Here we go, nice and easy.”

  The Hillman was doing five miles per hour when it smacked the cop in the knees with the front bumper. Targeted him with the remorseless accuracy of a guided missile. The officer’s Santa Claus hat went one way. His Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses flew off. His nine-millimeter stainless steel Ruger pistol was unholstered and clattered to the asphalt. He somersaulted and then landed on his rump, feet splayed, arms akimbo.

  Robert didn’t stick around to gloat. Putting the Hillman in reverse, he executed a neat U-turn, avoiding the oncoming traffic, and peeled out in the other direction. Following this accomplishment he drove west on Market Street with the gas pedal to the floor. Two black-and-white squad cars and an ambulance sped the other way with their sirens ululating.

  Pulling up to the stoplight at Market and Seventh by the Donut Star coffee shop, Robert jammed on the brakes. A homeless man had overturned a shopping cart in the crosswalk. Smashed beer bottles were spread out on the tarmac, glinting like diamonds under the halogen streetlights.

  Back at the Trinity Plaza Apartments, Robert piled out of the car and gave instructions to Harriet and Diana. His voice was authoritative. “Okay, listen up. The cops will come after me for this caper. It’s guaranteed. You can bet your sweet ass on it. But fuck that. I’ll outsmart them.”

  Harriet wasn’t confident. “What should we do?”

  “You and the brat keep your damn mouths shut when they get here, all right?”

  “That’s your plan? God help us.”

  “Hell, no, that’s not it. That’s the prologue. You think I’m stupid?”

  “Don’t ask me.”

  “C’mon then. We’re going to Rita’s.”

  Rita was a widow who lived in the apartment next door. Robert concocted a ruse on the walk there. The ex-con was pleased with his ingenuity. “I’ve got something, a masterpiece. When the cops arrive, I’ll tell them we’ve been watching the tube with Rita all night. The car’s been nowhere. Why, we never even went downtown, you understand? That’s our alibi. It’s foolproof.”

  The plucky trio filed into Rita’s pad. The old woman was glad for the unannounced visit. The girl sat on a sofa in the living room, hood over her head, and watched a Christmas variety show on television. Harriet paced the floor, not saying a word. Rita withdrew to the kitchen to brew coffee. Robert stood at the window.

  Five minutes later, the police showed up in a single squad car. Two officers scrabbled out of the black-and-white cruiser. Robert saw them and gulped. “Oh, no, here they come. Say your prayers, folks.”

  The cops pranced up the staircase to the apartment as if they were going to a cocktail party. One of them twirled a nightstick. The policeman that Robert hit with the Hillman was in the squad car. His face was concealed behind mirrored sunglasses.

  The officer with the billy club spied Robert. “Hey, man, come on down here. We need to rap with you about something.”

  Tiptoeing to the door, Robert opened it and harangued the cop. “Sorry, dude, I don’t think I can do that. I’m busy.” Philosophical about his dilemma, he turned to Harriet. “They despise me. I don’t remember a day when it hasn’t been this way.” He ranted at the fuzz. “What is it that you boys want? I haven’t done a thing. I’ve been inside all night with my family.”

  The policeman itched to redesign Robert’s face with the nightstick. “Get your ass out here.”

  “What for?”

  “Because we’re telling you to.”

  It was absurd to resist. The police were onto him like white on rice and wouldn’t leave until they had their say. Robert threw his hands up in resignation. “Ah, fuck it. I might as well get on with it.”

  Slapping the screen door with his palm, he tramped into the patio. He kicked the welcome mat, put his thumbs in his biker belt. “What do you all want with me? I don’t have a beef with you. Never even seen you dudes before. I’m laying low and minding my own business. You know, watching the tube with my neighbor.”

  The cop repeated himself. “We have to talk.”

  “There isn’t anything to chat about.” Robert was miffed.

  “I haven’t seen or done nothing. Not a goddamn thing.”

  “We need to examine your car. Several witnesses on Market Street saw it hit a law enforcement agent on active duty.”

  “When was that?”

  “A few minutes ago.”

  “That’s terrible, just terrible,” he deadpanned. “Like I said, I’ve been here all damn evening.”

  “Where’s your ride?” the second cop asked.

  Robert took his time answering. There was no need to get hasty. No need to worry. Nothing would be won by getting angry. His strategy was infallible. He was in control. Let the police sweat it. “It’s down there in the parking lot.”

  “We want to see it.”

  “All right, that’s mellow. Let’s go.”

  Escorting the officers over to the Hillman, Robert showed them his wheels. The car had deer blood on the hood, deer hair on the windshield. He declared self-righteously, “It’s been here since last night. I haven’t driven it, see for yourself.”

  Both cops touched the sedan’s hood to find out if the engine was cold. If it was, Robert’s alibi was solid. But the metal was hot, evidence of his guilt. The lawmen looked askance at him.

  Suddenly nervous, Robert quibbled. “Hey, wait a minute. This isn’t right. You can’t pin that shit on me. I’m innocent. Maybe somebody else did it, I don’t know.”

  He was handcuffed and dragged in a headlock, kicking and shouting, to the patrol car. “Help me! Somebody, help me!” The police crammed him headfirst in the back. Wriggling around, Robert managed to get himself upright.

  It was a short-lived triumph. The two cops joined the injured officer in the vehicle and all three policemen took turns employing the felon’s mug as a punching bag. Robert egged them on, sneering through the clots of blood on his mouth. “Is that all you can do? You’re a bunch of pansies!”

  It dawned on Robert that he’d forgotten how to make love to Harriet. He wasn’t tender with her. Didn’t kiss her. Didn’t fondle her breasts. Not like he used to. In anguish, he nickered at the cops, “Fuck you, losers!” and passed out cold.

  TWELVE

  All around the world police stations are identical. They have monumental walls, numerous side doors and gun-slit windows, armored vehicles in the parking lot. 850 Bryant was no exception. The smoky green sky above the station was starless, dark as a coffin, grizzled with the traces of a cirrus cloud. The neon lights in the bail bond firms across the street were coquettish in the fog. Low hanging telephone lines creaked in a gusty, tropical breeze. The freeway overpass on Seventh Street was an orchestra of bumper-to-bumper traffic.

  A hawk zoomed through the sultry moonlight and alighted in a palm tree under the freeway. It had a pigeon squirming in its talons. Without ceremony, the hawk ripped the other bird to shred
s, tearing hunks of meat from its breast. Blood spotted the palm’s desiccated fronds.

  A twenty-foot-tall white Christmas tree ornamented with black glass bulbs guarded the station’s lobby. Uniformed beat officers, suited attorneys, meter maids, rumpled bail bondsmen, and stone-faced narcs flocked at the coffee machines. A janitor on his hands and knees polished the granite floor with a rag. A sergeant in tan camouflage overalls was positioned behind the information window. A jazz number gurgled from the CD player on his desk. Horace Silver’s “A Song for My Father.”

  A sullen Harriet Grogan hunkered on a bench in the visitor’s section, togged out in sunglasses, a long-sleeved silk blouse, yellow pumps, and a brown leather miniskirt. A velvet ribbon held her ponytail in place. Sterling silver earrings draggled from her ears.

  She looked at a wall clock. It was midnight on the dot. There was no word on Robert yet. The cop at the information window didn’t have anything to report. The guys in the booking room had nothing to say either. Harriet had to assume the worst. Her husband was on the bus to San Quentin.

  That’s it, she said to herself. I’m done with him.

  The felony wing’s elevator doors opened on the ground floor. Two attorneys with briefcases stepped out followed by a mob of sheriffs in combat gear. Then came a worried-looking bail bondsman. After him was a rotund plainclothes cop in a purple tracksuit. Robert was at his side. A juicy black eye marred the ex-con’s thin face. His shirt was shredded, his jeans were unzipped. He was missing his shoes—someone in the holding cell had stolen them.

  Whipping the shit out of Robert had mollified the cops, and he was being discharged. It was a Christmas miracle. Either that or the cop he hit wanted revenge outside the legal system. Anyway, the jail was already full beyond the legal limit with holiday revelers in there on charges of domestic violence, shoplifting, manslaughter, and robbery. The guards were afraid of tuberculosis. The narc gave him a shove toward the front door. “Get the fuck out of here, you piece of shit.” Robert stumbled, arms windmilling, and then regained his footing.

  Barefooted, he collected his wife and shepherded her to the exit. “Sorry to make you wait, tootsie,” he apologized. “It was hectic upstairs.”

  The hot night had shellacked the street with threads of silvered light. The pockmarked moon was just a smudge in the blackened sky. A police van was double-parked in front of the station. Two working girls quarreled with their pimp on the jailhouse steps. The women wore go-go boots, blue vinyl skirts, and cheap blonde wigs. The dude had on an ill-fitting brown leather suit. The smaller whore slapped him in the mouth with the back of her hand, crying, “What do you mean, I owe you money? I don’t owe you a goddamn thing, motherfucker!”

  Towing Harriet past the warring hookers, Robert lectured her. “You know, baby, the cops started that crap with me. No two ways about it.”

  His wife’s pumps clacked on the pavement, reverberating like gunshots. Her svelte hips moved to and fro in a mouthwatering rhythm. She removed her sunglasses, looked to see a wine-red moon emerging from the fog. Her bare legs were whiter than snow under the street-lamps. She cut her tawny eyes at Robert. He was the father of her child, not the man of her dreams.

  “That ain’t true,” she said.

  The accusation stumped Robert. Embarrassed, he searched his pockets for a fag. His shiner throbbed like Christ’s own wounds. He wanted forgiveness from Harriet for his sins, particularly the sin of anxiety. And he craved absolution for the crime of being selfish, not knowing when to think about other people. “Okay, okay, okay,” he conceded. “I started it.”

  “Of course you did, goddamn it.”

  “But it wasn’t my fault.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  He backed off. “Maybe you’re right. Where’s the kid?”

  “At the pad.”

  “By herself?”

  “Yeah, she’s reading a book. She doesn’t give a shit about us.”

  Robert put his hand on Harriet’s shoulder, giving it an affectionate squeeze. He’d survived forty-eight hours outside San Quentin’s walls. It was a record of sorts. Tomorrow would be a better day. He could feel it in his bones. “Take it easy,” he said. “Everything is hunky-dory.”

  PART 2

  Believe me, the secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

  THIRTEEN

  “We’re fine,” Robert said the following morning. “There ain’t a thing to worry about.”

  The sun’s red beams streamed through the kitchen window, lighting the room. He slouched at the table in one of Harriet’s nightgowns, a lilac chenille thing. Diana was seated next to him in a rayon skirt and a dress shirt. Harriet was at the stove in panties and bra, cooking a pot of deer and onions, potatoes, turnips, garlic, and paprika.

  “Your mom and me,” Robert told his daughter, “we’ve been going through some hard shit, all that hoopla with the cops. It’s been a bitch.” The admission was just short of oratory. He summarized it. “And you’ve been cool about it. No bad vibes from you or nothing. So we got you a Christmas present.”

  The kid smelled a rat. The old man was trying to bribe her. It was an attempt to win her confidence. It would never work. “A gift?”

  “Yeah, a token of our appreciation.” Robert grinned from ear to ear like a Halloween pumpkin. “Wait here and I’ll be right back.”

  Tying the gown securely around his waist, he gimped out the door. Five minutes later he returned with a mature black and gray German shepherd dog. The mutt was walleyed, had stumpy legs, and a dishonest face. Its fur was crisscrossed with scars. Houseflies did a fandango over its cropped ears. Shattered from imprisonment at the SPCA, the shepherd schlepped over to the refrigerator and lay down on the floor.

  Robert was satisfied with himself. “Ain’t he handsome?” Harriet chipped in. “Did you get it checked for fleas?” She signaled her daughter. “Take the dog and go outside and play. Your dad and me need some time by ourselves.”

  Diana didn’t want to do that. It was too warm out there. But her parents had to be alone. Just like junkies had to have drugs. Harriet and Robert could go to hell. Someday they would. She said to the dog, “C’mon, let’s go for a walk.”

  The merciless sun shimmered off the windows of the G&J Café as a bag lady in a moth-eaten fur coat sorted through a trash can at Seventh and Market. From a second-story window in the Grant Building, the liquid sounds of Art Pepper doing “Begin the Beguine” seeped into the breathless air. A hooker in hot pants talked to a junkie on crutches at Merrill’s drugstore. Winos toddled by Kaplan’s surplus store and the Islamic Society’s meeting place. A middle-aged Korean woman sold porno magazines next to the BART hole.

  The newly constructed federal building was a twenty story green-glassed blockhouse sheltered under a multi-angled steel mesh bomb repellent barrier. The monolith reared over the Ho King Grill and Travelers Liquors, the Ming Kee Thrift Store, and the Stevenson Alley methadone clinic, demoralizing the beggars and the hustlers that habituated the corner’s fast-food dives. Soon there would be more cops than ever on Market Street.

  The German shepherd looked up the street, then down the street. It wasn’t interested in the local scenery. Fleabites mottled its graying muzzle. The blistering sidewalks hurt its paws. The girl was a pain in the ass. “You have to sit when I tell you to,” she said. “I’m the boss here.” The dog was tense because it wanted to make a good impression and feared getting sent back to the SPCA. Angered by its predicament, it snarled at the winos camped under the Strand Theater’s marquee.

  Diana whacked the beast on the rump. “No barking,” she scolded. “It’s Christmas and you have to be nice to everyone.”

  Defeated by the heat, the child and the mutt retreated to the apartment. Robert was at the front door to welcome them. In the early-afternoon sunlight his gaunt face wa
s a poetic wasteland. The old cigarette burn on his forehead was brown. Blue and red veins stippled his cheekbones. The black eye had colonized his nose. He absentmindedly tugged at his gown. “Hey, you guys, there’s someone here I want you to say hello to.”

  Diana brightened. “Who is it?”

  “Somebody important. Let’s go see him.”

  “Is it Santa Claus?”

  “It’s better than that, chicken.”

  Father and daughter bowled down the hall, the dog eagerly leading them. There wasn’t much lighting in the apartment. The chintz curtains in the living room were shut tight. Harriet was marooned on the couch in a ratty lime green bathrobe. A big man with close-cropped blonde hair, dressed in an athletic jersey and skintight denim hip hugger flares sat at her side. He had two gold studs in each earlobe. His prodigious feet were squeezed into combat boots.

  Robert pointed a finger at the stranger and dithered. “Uh, yeah, this is Slatts Calhoun. He just got out of San Quentin today, and he’ll be staying with us.”

  Slatts’s unannounced arrival had Robert freaking out. He’d expected the dude next week, not this week. He wasn’t together enough to deal with his boyfriend. Not by a long shot. But that’s how the Department of Corrections was doing things. Slatts had been released eleven days early to make room in the pen for new fish.

  Harriet was pissed off. One minute she’d been in bed with Robert. The next thing she knew this guy was banging on the front door and yelling her husband’s name. Then he was in their house. Furthermore she was certain Slatts had been to a dermatologist. No one’s complexion was that good. She asked Robert, “Where’s he gonna sleep? We don’t have any space.”

  Robert rebelted the nightgown, cinched it. “Don’t sweat it.”

  Feeling dowdy, Harriet opted to go to the bathroom to fix her face. She heaved-ho from the couch, brushed past the coffee table, and scurried out of the room. Robert did not like her body language. Mouth constipated with resentment. Forehead terraced with unhappiness. Chin sharp enough to kill. That shit spelled trouble. He followed her into the hall, the chenille gown flapping around his ankles. “Babe, what is it? Are you stressing? Tell daddy.”