Homeboy

by Seth Morgan

  Joe slitted his eyes staring up at him, seething, Fuck your spic mammy plexes. This mother, bad as she was, was Joe’s to cop attitudes over, not Tarzon’s. He chewed his lip furiously, flipping through his mind like a Rolodex for any memory of her that might justify taking a beating. Yet the only sad pride of Beatrice Holly’s life had been that once she was a racehorse, a pricey L.A. pro. But the years took a heavier toll on her than others, then the booze. By the time she was twentysix, she was scalylegging the taco trade; rented a trailer next to the wetback camp; day in, day out goldtoothed pachooks scratching on its screen door hissing how they do for cooz. “Get em in, get em up, get em off, get em out,” the work song of the working girl became her requiem. So he ducked his head and said it both for her, and for himself for having taken root within her: “I’m sorry.”

  Slowly Tarzon backed around and regained his chair. He relit the Hav-A-Tampa Jewel. Why doesnt he ask where Rooski’s at? Joe fretted. That or charge me with a crime? He’d been booked on suspicion of murder only. The cops had fortyeight hours to bring formal charges or release a prisoner. If not for the murder, Tarzon could book Joe for the paraphernalia found in his boot, simple burglary of the pharmacy, or any number of stray cases fitting his M.O. that needed cleaning off the blotter. Why play This Is Your Life? Unless out of boredom and loneliness, a cop’s chief occupational hazards after alcohol. Joe checked the wall clock. Eleven thirtyeight. Twentytwo minutes until the witching hour when he must be either charged or cut loose.

  Tarzon’s eyes had followed Joe’s to the clock and met them back at his own with a wintry smile. He skimmed over some jacket entries going dum dee dum as if Joe’s pathological loathing for people who popped tuneless ditties was recorded there.

  “Whoa!” Tarzon stabbed a finger at an entry as though squashing a bug. “Here in seventyone you won the Eleanor Lasker Rider Cup … Where’d you learn your way around horses?”

  “That’s an eighthgrade composition prize. Miss Rider was a patron of the Monserrat School.”

  “What school?”

  “A Jesuit boarding school in Napa County. Three years after my mother died, an aunt I never knew I had kicked the bucket. She left money for me to attend Monserrat. It was the only break I ever got, though I didnt appreciate it then.” Joe paused, remembering nighttimes peeling the scabs from his knees so they’d bleed afresh on the chapel stone next dawn, dramatizing his devotion. “I got a crash classical education from the fathers,” hearing the Latin declensions ringing against stone walls rough as excavations. “When the money ran out, Father Aloysius picked up the tab for another year. Then cancer wormed his brain and the blackrobes turned me back to the state.” His memory tripped a reckless whim and Joe slanted Tarzon a twinkler. “Father Aloysius loved puns, the cheaper the better. He would have called this conference rooski business.”

  Tarzon betrayed no sign that he knew a pun from poontang. He chomped on the cheroot with a renewed ardor that had Joe wondering if he wouldn’t rather eat than smoke it. Then he launched into the meat of Joseph Holly Speaker’s computer portraiture; the recitation of California Penal Code numbers, Health and Safety violations; the panoply of arrests in various California counties and one in Washoe County, Nevada, where the authorities took a dim view of Bay Area junkies coming to dump hot traveler’s checks at their tables; the numerous probations, the stints at the work farm.

  Joe listened absently as though learning of the doubleganger reflection staring curiously back at him through the office window. Beyond, thick night fog rolled in through the Gate, chasing ghost ships with running lights like misty halos. The Alcatraz horn bloomed wetly; another answered, deeper; a freighter bellowed back like an enraged bull sea lion. Orange lights bedewed the Bay Bridge. Across black water a refinery belched fire. The doubleganger looked away.

  “Huh?” He’d waited so long for the question it came as a surprise.

  “Where’s Peter Chakov?” Tarzon had set aside Joe’s jacket and reclined backward so only the lower half of his narrow face was lit. “Rooski to you.”

  Joe knit his brow. “Rooski … Rooski …” With the junk wearing off, he couldn’t keep up the bluff much longer. He snapped his free hand’s fingers. “Oh yeah. I’ve heard of the dude. Heavy snitch jacket, they say.” He frowned hurtfully. “You dont think I run with informants, Loot?”

  With that cheroot perfectly centered, it was impossible to tell Tarzon’s grimace from a grin. “He’s your known crime partner. You’ve fallen together on several raps. Tell me where he’s hiding and I can still talk to the D.A. about a manslaughter or second degree.”

  Artful consternation drawn on his face, Joe chinked his chains shrugging. A pair of smashed blackframed glasses spun into the light.

  “Recovered at the scene of the crime,” the Hav-A-Tampa Jewel fired short bursts. “State issue. From the pen. Etched on the frame, Peter Chakov’s prison ID number … I was trying to give you a break asking his whereabouts. But now I’ve changed my mind. I’m tired of your bullshit. The only true thing you’ve said since you walked in here was that your crimey’s an informant. Snitch. He’d be dead his first night back in the joint. Rooski knows it. That’s why he’ll be turning his guts inside out like a rubber glove right at this desk soon as we find him. And we’ll find him, Speaker. Make book on that. And he’ll turn over on you like a bitch in heat. Punch you a oneway ticket to the little green room with the funny windows across the bay.”

  Joe’s stomach churned feeling cold perforated steel on the seat of his pants, a hand tapping his shoulder saying, “Take a deep breath, son. You wont feel a thing”; the dreadful sound of the thin chain pull and the cyanide pellets hissing into the bucket of acid like angry snakes.

  Tarzon set the Hav-A-Tampa in the Firestone ashtray and sighed. A small shiny key suddenly skipped across the puddle of light. “It fits your legirons too. Unlock yourself and get out of here. I’ve got reading to do.”

  Fumbling with his locks, Joe watched Tarzon reach for the next file in the In-tray. It bulged with computer roll and graph paper. Autopsy reports, Joe guessed. The name on the flag was Gloria Something Polish that looked like spilled alphabet soup. Oh yeah, he’d heard some scuttlebutt in the tank about Gloria Monday buying it. Whores might live by the bed, but they rarely died in one.

  Tarzon’s voice stopped him at the door. He turned, facing eyes bright as meat hooks. “Like they say in the movies, Speaker. This aint goodbye, just au revoir … motherfucker.”

  FRONT STREET

  “Shitfire, it was good this morning.”

  “What?” Joe’s naked body glowed orange through the oilcloth window shade. Lifting back its edge, he squinted in the crack of gray light.

  “What else? Fucking. It was Texastype good, which is plenty fine. You kept a slow hand and when you come it rung my ovaries.”

  “No sale, I hope.” Joe ducked for a better angle through the rusted fire escape slats. A squadrol whispered along the rainslick street; the traffic light at the corner blinked its feverish yellow eye. Last night’s dreams lay smashed with the bottles in gutter puddles reflecting dirty clouds raked by a broken skyline.

  “Tarzon wouldnt have cut me loose except to follow me. He needs me to find Rooski. Cops dont have a dopefiend’s special antennae. Set a junkie to catch a junkie.”

  Kitty sighed. “Guess it’s just as well you took your time. How long’s it supposed to hold me?”

  Joe looked at her, dropping the shade. “They’ll be playing me like frog pussy, watertight. I wont be coming around until I … take care of Rooski.”

  “How you going to take care of that idiot?”

  “I keep tellin you I dont fuckin know. I only know they left me no choice but to find him first. Then I’ll worry about what to do with him …” Joe flung back his head and cursed the ceiling. “They could send me to the chamber. Talk about limiting a dude’s options!”

  “I wouldnt wan
t Rooski hurt, fella.”

  He dropped his jaw, staring at her in outraged disbelief. “You think maybe I would? You think I’ve been waitin all my life to whip a world of hurt on Rooski’s freckled ass? Fuck!” He balled his fists, reeling clumsily, searching for an object to strike. He loosed an agonized groan, slammed the heels of his hands into his temples and sat defeated on the bed, bouncing. “Christ.”

  Kitty was reaching to stroke his bent head when it shot up.

  “There’s one chance,” he muttered fiercely. “One caper I’ve had on the drawing board only I didnt have the stones. I dont now either, I’m just plain desperate enough. We might score enough to get Rooski out of the country, not just fuckin Dodge. We might …” biting the word like a bullet.

  “What caper?”

  His mouth sprang open, then slowly shut. “You dont want to know, Kitty.”

  “I reckon not. I reckon all I want to know is my baby is gonna get off Front Street in one piece. I dont care how.” She sat beside him, resting her hand on his shoulder, and made a glowering survey of the desolate room. “Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.”

  “Yeah, and it’s got me blue to the bone.”

  “Cmon, fella.” She punched his arm. “Keep an eye on the sunnyside. Turn this last trick and we’re free. We can get out of this Life before it kills us.” She seized the arm and shook it. “We got what it takes to square up, Joe. Between us we got the grit and savvy to put all this behind us.”

  “You always loved long shots.”

  For a long moment she gazed at him with that veiled look with which women distill thought from feeling. A siren dopplered past; from the hallway a cry followed by thudding like falling down stairs. Lightly slapping her knees then, she rose and scudded on bare callused feet to the dresser. She shook a Winston from its pack, lit it, and turned jetting smoke through her nostrils.

  “You ever wonder why I stick with you, Joe?”

  He snorted without raising his head.

  “You have to. You got to wonder why I put up with all this shit. So I’m gonna tell you. A lot of men have loved me. I’m talkin bocoo. And there were a few I thought I loved back. But that’s all it was, a thought. An idea. I wanted to love so bad I could talk every part of my body into it but my heart …”

  “You dont need—”

  “I do so. Then I met a fella who wanted to love but couldnt. He believed in love, he’d just never known it. And watching him I realized I was watching myself, and I seen that wanting to love, struggling for it, is more real than just loving. It’s deeper, stronger, more honest. The other’s too easy and cheap. For cheap, easy people. The sort who fall in love like falling off a horse. Our kind has to suffer.” She took his hand and pulled him to his feet, leveling their eyes. “So we’re in this together, fella. You aint a long shot, you’re my only shot.”

  Joe ran both hands back through his matted hair, swallowing hard. With her nail Kitty underscored the tattoo over his heart, BORN TO LOSE, chuckling, “It’s only got one letter wrong …”

  Joe grinned reaching for his Levi’s. He turned to the window, buttoning them. “I cant spot them, but they’re there.”

  “Phew!” She fanned her hand beneath her nose. “What’s that smell like fish oh baby! … Cmon,” she stepped to the sink and wrenched a tap. The pipes brayed their rusty jeremiad while she wet a towel. “You got cum plasterin your pubes. Lemme clean you.”

  “No, I gotta book …”

  “Sure. The cops wont have to keep up with you, they’ll just follow the cats.”

  “No time,” Joe said shrugging into the dragon jacket. “Tarzon’s out trackin Rooski. I cant afford him gettin too big a jump on me.”

  “Be careful. If they catch Rooski he’ll give up all the drawings.”

  Through the wall a radio wondered how hard times came so easy.

  “Bye, Kitty …”

  “Shitfire! Aint you got a kiss in your pocket?”

  He didn’t know she was crying until he tasted salt on her lips. He reached with his thumb to dab at a tear shivering from the corner of her eye. She loosed a tiny snarl; her hand flew up slapping his aside. Staring at her, Joe groped behind his back for the pair of visegrips that served as a door knob. With a screech of rusty hinges he was gone.

  Kitty listened to the tumble of his bootheels down the stairs, then flung herself on the bed and stared at the fuckedup flophouse ceiling. Funny, now that he was gone, so were the tears. Wait a minute! He forgot his keys. Snatching them off the Pacific Gas & Electric spooltop which served as their nightstand, she jumped to the window. She snatched the shade aside and wrenched it open. The sooty cold wind snatched away her breath. She ignored the derelict flaked out in the doorway across the street, lifting his shortdog inside its paper sack, toasting her nudity. She leaned out … shit. The dragon was almost a block away, stretched skinny across his back by Joe jamming his hands in the pockets the way he did in a hurry. Tragic.

  Wrestling the window closed, she saw the derelict wasn’t taking a drink—he was talking fast into a radio hidden in the sack.

  Double tragic.

  Rigo La Barba slumped on the nod in the crushedvelvet front seat of his ’62 Impala lowrider at the corner of Sixth and Mission. He was called La Barba, the Beard, after his carefully groomed goatee.

  Next to the highgrade chiva he dealt, La Barba was proudest of his lowrider. It had jeweled vanity mirrors attached to the sun visors, a miniature crystal chandelier in place of the dome light, a goldplated chain steering wheel, and, next to the ivory Virgin atop the minklined dash, a keyboard on which he could play “Besame Mucho,” “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina,” or, more to the point, “Chinga Tu Madre,” according to his cholofied caprice. Over twentyeight handrubbed coats of topazflake lacquer, sequined rococo script announced La Barba’s philosophy on one rear fender: Low ’n’ Slow; and on the other he christened his chrome galleon Crystal Blue Persuasion.

  This whole automotive confection rode just inches above the pavement on electric shocks powered by a dozen Sears Diehards in the trunk. At the push of a button, La Barba could catapult the entire car three feet in the air. Or, should he scope a particularly oomphy muchacha rumbaing down Dolores Street, dump the front end, beneath which was welded a steel bar, and plume a roostertail wake of sparks down the street. Que macho, heaved each rucca’s brown barrio bosom. Every day was Cinco de Mayo in Crystal Blue Persuasion.

  The voice from the hungry face framed in the Impala’s window was like a bad long distance connection. La Barba turned down the oldies throbbing from satin door panels.

  “Que dice?” The cholo shaded his eyes squinting into the Mission forenoon.

  “Front me ten sacks, Barba. I’m out of pocket.”

  “I heard you were in la pinta, Joe.”

  “They rolled me out last night …”

  “No fronts. Too risky. You no pay me from la pinta. I give you just one so you no beg.” In a single swift motion La Barba reached behind a visor and palmed Joe a balloon.

  “You seen Rooski?”

  The cholo hissed like fat in a fire. “Fock no. Undercover down here onny dis morning asking me same ting.” He dug a crucifix from the nest of hair glistening where his chest spread the unbuttoned top of his Van Heusen. He touched it to his forehead, breast and shoulders, then kissed it. “In Mehico we say such as Rooski are tocado …” He tapped a forefinger to his brow. “Touched by God … He protex them and ponishes any who fock with them …”

  Suddenly La Barba sprang rigid; his arm shot up, pointing across the dash. The motion was so violent Joe thought at first he’d been electrocuted by his highvoltage beanmobile. He stared horrified at the trembling fingertip, waiting for the first wisps of smoke.

  “Mira!” La Barba croaked.

  Joe tracked the finger’s direction and his stomach opened like a trapdoor. A white fourdoor Plymouth was
parked in a loading zone on the next block. Two heads were silhouetted in the front seat.

  “They watching now. Watching you for Rooski. I no know you no more …” La Barba’s quick wrist flicks started the rolling chivaria’s engine and cranked up the Delco Powermatrix booster. Crystal Blue Persuasion glided from the curb low and slow, leaving behind a trembling echo of colored girls’ voices wondering will you still love me tomorrow …

  Joe scowled at the unmarked. The heads were motionless, locked on him. How were they dogging him so close? He was sure he’d shook them. All that folderol at the Hyatt Regency; up and down the service and guest elevators, through the kitchens and basement storerooms; and finally, trademark jacket over his arm and sunglasses lifted from the gift shop on his bent nose, out the front entrance with a herd of Midwesterners boarding a tour bus. Angrily he snapped his fingers. They must’ve picked him up again when he checked at the methadone clinic where Rooski often begged state juice.

  Joe stumbled jumping the curb and bolted down an alley.

  The last section of track where the Hyde Street cable car reaches Market at Powell is embedded in a giant turntable. The conductor rolls his car onto this circular slab of concrete, locks his brakes, and alights to push the car completely around facing uphill for its return trip to Fisherman’s Wharf. For this spectacle, the corner of Market and Powell is a tourist hub—and prime hustling locale.

  Hymie the Hat, wearing his trademark homburg, stood near the turntable hawking racing forms stacked in his toy red wagon. Hymie used to print and sell his own tip sheet titled Gift Horses at Bay Meadows until cataracts sealed the dapper little horse savant within a white waxen world and he was reduced to flogging forms. Gamblers old enough to remember his halcyon days traveled from miles around for the auspicial bonus attached to getting the last line from the Hat.