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.”
She shook her head like she wasn’t too convinced and lit a row of votive candles on the mantlepiece. They lit up an eighteenth-century painting of
La Anima en Purgatorio
, the fires licking up her chained wrists. I couldn’t help but comment.
“What’s up with the burning lady?”
“Oh that? A gift from my aunt.”
“You mean…?”
“The very same…”
“Why do you keep it?”
“Purgatory. Where souls have their sins cleansed by fire.”
She stared at me with those dark eyes that will stay with me a lifetime. Then she said something that changed my life.
“Did you love me then, Roberto? In Puerto Escondido?”
“I love you now.”
“Would you really do anything for me?”
“Double back-flips on a high wire.”
“I’m not joking,” she hissed. Without breaking her lock on my eyes, she held the burning tip of the cigarette an inch from my skin. When I didn’t pull back, she pressed the hot ember against my forearm and held it there for a quick second, just long enough to leave a red ring tinged with ashes. I didn’t flinch.
“Do I pass the test?”
She sat back and took another hit of the cig. “Why don’t we just leave? Turn over the evidence and get out of Dodge?”
“I don’t have it on me. The photos are stashed on Twenty-fourth Street. I’m thinking that’s what those thugs were after. And who would follow up on it? No, I have to stay.”
“Then I’ll stay with you.”
I flicked away the ashes on my forearm and grabbed her hair. I knew this scene. Knew it very well.
“Now it’s my turn,
cariño
.”
I pulled her to me, and she was on fire. Our mouths kissed, hot and angry.
I finally let her up for air and she said, “I’ve never kissed a man with a mustache before.”
Then I unzipped her dress, stopping my hand on the curve of her
nalgas
. She turned to face me and shrugged the top half of her dress off her body. She was naked above the waist, without a bra; a string of candlelight danced around her breasts, small as pomegranates. I placed one in my mouth and sucked the juice from it. We undressed each other before rolling onto the rug, the two of us twined together like serpents. I slipped my hand under her back and flipped her on her stomach, pulled her hair, and hissed in her ear—“I want you to be my
puta
.”
She didn’t hesitate in answering—“Make me do what you want.”
And I did, over and over, all night long.
I woke up alone in her bed Sunday morning. I didn’t have time to relish the night before. There was a note on the pillow and the morning paper.
Call me on my pager
—and her name scrawled in red. The headlines sent a shock through me: La Jessica had been found stabbed to death in her hotel room. The paper speculated that a john, angry at having discovered Jesus instead of Jessica under the wig, had taken out his rage with a twelve-inch blade. Somehow I was left unconvinced. La Jessica had struck me as flamboyant, a tease, maybe even a tramp, but not a whore.
I still had to wait for Miss Mary to open, so I went to the little hotel down the alley from Esta Noche. That’s where La Jessica had lived, and I wanted to hear what the street had to say about her murder. There was an altar set up in the hallway and her friends were there, weeping and sobbing. They all knew me and they spoke frankly.
“Those
cabrones
, why did they have to kill her?”
“Because she saw too much. Everyone knows that building was torched. And that’s why they killed her, Mr. Morales.”
“She went home alone that night. Pobrecita. So there wasn’t any john, that’s just lies.
Puras mentiras.”
I left the mourners to their grief and called Sofia but could only leave a message on her voice mail. “I turned up some interesting info. Meet me where I told you. Bring the documents.”
I waited in a café till about 6 p.m., Miss Mary’s opening time, and then hurried over to Twenty-fourth Street. As soon as I reached the bar I sensed something wrong. The door was ajar and the lights were off. I stepped in and Johnson and another cop were waiting for me. The place had been turned upside down and Miss Mary was in a corner, frightened to death.
“Lady’s going to lose her license. Receiving stolen city property.” Johnson had my camera and briefcase under his arm.
“The camera’s my personal property, Johnson. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s evidence now. Her license is gone. We’re merely retrieving what belongs to the city. Boy, Morales, did you ever fuck up.”
They left. I had just cost Miss Mary her gig. And I had a pretty good idea who had turned the cops on me.
I practically ran over to Dolores Street, and when I saw her roadster parked outside, I took the steps two at a time. I caught Sofia on her way out, with a little attaché case, all ready to go. I snapped. “You double-crossed me.”
SMACK!
I bitch-slapped her hard as I could. She stood her ground.
“You think I would do that?”
“You did.” And I let her have it again.
SMACK!
“Then why did I bring you this?”
It was the señora’s little black book, listing all the contributions, legal and illegal, to the mayor, the D.A., and the chief of police.
It wrenched my heart that I’d been so cruel to Sofia. “I’m sorry.”
“Let’s leave now, Roberto. Please, before anything else happens.”
“Wait. There’s something I don’t understand. If you didn’t tell them about Miss Mary…how did they know my files were there?”
I led her back inside and started throwing the cushions around, tearing out the stuffings. Nothing. She thought I was crazy. What was I looking for? The lamp? Yes. I tore off the shade. Nothing. Then I saw the painting, the gift from the aunt,
La Anima en Purgatorio.
And there it was in the frame. The wire I was looking for. I ripped it out.
“Your aunt bugged you. She heard everything we said last night. What do you think of that?”
“You mean
everything?
What a degenerate.”
“We don’t have a minute to lose.”
“What should I pack?”
“Nothing but your lipstick. Leave no clues behind.”
Night had already fallen as I took the roadster out Dolores Street and onto the freeway headed south. I knew a little cove out by Half Moon Bay, where a friend of mine ran a motel by the beach. We could hang there for a few days, gauge the fallout, figure out our next move. I took Highway 1 to Pacifica and right away we came upon fog. It was rolling in quick and thick, and as I started heading up Devil’s Slide I could tell the ride over would be dangerous.
I put the fog lights on and looked in the rearview. Coming up behind me was a white SUV. I nudged the roadster and it rose like a bird. I lost them momentarily, but at the same time I couldn’t risk hitting eighty or ninety on those twisting curves, blinded as I was by the fog. Headlights were creeping up again—it was the SUV and it didn’t look like it wanted to pass me. It wanted to ram me.
We were going uphill but would soon come to a peak that flattened out before dropping again. With the SUV a few feet from my ass, I revved the roadster and flicked on the bright lights, creating a mirror effect, then snapped them off and did a hard brake onto the narrow right shoulder. The SUV had a choice: Pull over and smash into me, sending us both over the three hundred foot cliffs, or pass me by. It passed me by, but not without a burst from an Uzi.
Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta
!