The Angels of Catastrophe (15 page)

The three men made contact at the phone booth with Robert grunting a hello to Maimonides. He ignored Durrutti, which was fine by the Jew because he didn't think Robert was worth a thin dime; the dour fuck-you scowl on his weasly face said as much.

Robert didn't waste a second getting down to the nuts and bolts of his business. Looking nervously behind his back, he hee-hawed and said with remarkable insouciance for a junkie, “You want a hot tip? Somethingjuicy? I've got news for you two. Headline-making news. This time you've fucked yourselves. You slobs have stepped in the doo-doo.”

Disrespecting Maimonides was not what Robert was getting paid for. Ridiculing his employer wasn't part of the contract. Mocking the man who gave you Ben Franklins was not wise. Maimonides grabbed Robert by his earlobes and ricocheted the stool pigeon's eggplant-shaped head against the telephone box, softening his skull for him. He did this in a calm and unhurried fashion while instructing Robert to improve himself. “What the fuck are saying, you frigging gargoyle? You can do better than that.”

Robert's sty underwent a change in hue, turning a malevolent shade of red. Taller than Maimonides by six inches he wasn't intimidated in the least. He shoved the geriatric ex-con away from him with his fists. “You dog fuck! You're gonna get waxed!”

Maimonides couldn't believe the junkie actually had the nerve to touch him. He peered down at his coat lapels and swore he saw bacteria. Robert was going to give him a staph infection. His reply was nonverbal and melodic. Without showing any emotion on his own pallid and ravaged countenance, hejabbed a pair of stiffened digits into Robert's groin.

In outer space, no one can hear you scream. On Valencia Street, nobody cared. Robert's desolate cry elicited no interest or concern from the nearby restaurant seekers. He was part of the background scenery. Maimonides gave the dope fiend a perfunctory slap in the face, leaving his fingerprints on Robert's cheekbones—a stream of green bile jetted from the man's pernicious mouth, spraying the nearby pedestrians as he yipped, “Ephraim Rook's gonna get you guys!”

Hearing that, Maimonides judiciously removed his hands from Robert's neck. Smarter that the snitch should remain alive and talking. He reached in his jacket for his smokes, dug them out and lit a Newport menthol. His idea of yoga. The interlude allowed Robert the dignity of zipping up his fly, which had come undone during the scrap.

With no urging from Maimonides, Robert opened up with a salvo that left Durrutti spinning. It seemed Ephraim had contacted the junkie at Esta Noche on Sixteenth Street. Esta Noche was the West Coast's premier Latino tranvestite bar. If you were into gender bending, it was the center of the universe. The racketeer had inveigled Robert to go for a ride with him in his Saab and then fed him drugs—high quality Dilaudid.

Ephraim wanted to know all about Maimonides and Durrutti. He was doing research on them. Developing an analysis. A template for their destruction. Or so he told Robert. He was curious as to their whereabouts, what bars they frequented, who they associated with, where Maimonides bought his clothes and why Durrutti didn't have a girlfriend after his breakup with Sugar. Ephraim wanted to put them under a microscope. He was going to invent a vaccination to wipe them out.

“Rook loathes you fucks,” Robert regaled them. “He's going around telling everyone how much he despises you two dweebs. He thinks you've disrespected him and he intends to punish you for it. He says the garbage must be cleaned up.”

“So fucking what. It's like déjà vu all the time.” Maimonides put his hands on his womanish hips and rued.
“Ephraim don't like me? He should kiss my butt and live to tell his children about it.”

Robert wasn't done yet. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand in a studied gesture. “Only a cretin would underestimate Ephraim. He's going to do something about you jerks. I believe him. Rook's got credibility and friends. That's something you bozos don't have. I mean, God, look at you fakes. You're pathetic.”

Maimonides bristled and
kvetched,
“Please, don't tell me about Ephraim's credibility. He'd pimp his own mother down the river in two seconds flat if he thought he could make a buck doing it. Oy, Robert, you've made me very unhappy. I didn't need to hear any of this. It's like things go from worse to worse. Somebody help me.”

He paid off Robert with a few stinky fivers and told him to get lost. Durrutti observed the junkie evanesce into the crowd near the Scenic India Restaurant and the Cafe Istanbul as the evening became chill; the wind from the west had a turgid bite to it. Maimonides arched his eyebrows and guffawed, “How about that Ephraim Rook? The man of the year. The hope of the Jewish people. What a morass he is. What do you want to do about him?”

Durrutti was listless. He imagined sticking a hand into a pool of blood and fishing out Ephraim Rook's body. He trained his one good eye on the stoplight at Sixteenth Street and watched it turn from green to red. “Fuck Rook. He's about the last headache I need right now.”

“This is so,” Maimonides said. “You have enough problems. More than most. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes for all the money in the world. But Ephraim must be dealt
with vigorously. He's going around stabbing us in the back. That, I cannot tolerate. My pride is at stake. Yours, too. You see Rook won't be content to just drag our good names through the mud. He will want to do more than that. He'll want to advertise our demise. Trust me when I tell you it will come down to the bottom line.”

Maimonides had a point, something Durrutti wasn't willing to concede. It seemed every which way he turned, he plunged deeper into a bog. His fate was being decided by strangers. His history was being written by his enemies. He said in spite of himself, “And what's that?”

In contrast to the rest of him, which was a showcase of impeccable grooming, a furze of wiry hair cluttered the nape of Maimonides's neck. His face was dark with bad thoughts, the kind that sent men to the hospital in an ambulance. He made a forecast. “The only thing we can be sure of. If you don't fuck him, he'll fuck you.”

“So what do we do?”

“I have a suggestion. It's a sweet one, if I do say so myself.”

“What is it?”

“You fuck him first.”

F
inding someone is always an inward journey, a flight toward one's self. The hunt for Jimmy Ramirez reminded Durrutti of how the Sioux in South Dakota searched for a missing person. The countryside in South Dakota isn't like the city. There is nothing out there except rolling plains mined with gopher holes. You can't just hire a private investigator.

An elderly couple in their seventies hadn't seen their son Marvin in twenty years, not since he'd relocated to Oakland on a BIA welding school training program. They didn't know how to find him—the letters they had mailed to California went unanswered. So they called on the local
wicasa wakan
for a consultation.

The medicine man lived in a government housing project on the edge of the prairie. Plywood and tar paper ranchette-style bungalows dotted the unlandscaped hill-sides. The road into the settlement was unpaved; dogs and kids on horseback were everywhere. The
wicasa wakan
was in his sixties, a retired cowhand who wore flannel shirts and cowboy boots and smoked Kool cigarettes. He was told about Marvin and after hearing the parents' tale he agreed to conduct an investigation utilizing traditional methods.

A week later on a Sunday evening, he and his helpers—
a son-in-law and his cousin—went to work. A one-room cottonwood log cabin at the back of his fields was stripped of furniture. The rough-hewn windows were covered with wool Pendleton blankets and wooden boards to make sure no sound, light or wind penetrated the cabin's interior. The walls were caulked with river bottom mud and draped with star quilts. Nothing dead or alive; no ghosts, no animals, no human beings, not even a fly could get inside.

In the middle of the cabin's hard packed dirt floor, the medicine man removed a set of owl's wings, a handful of
yuwipi
stones, several eagle feathers and a sachet of red willow bark from a plain canvas gym bag. He laid the items on the floor in a semicircle around him and built an altar. Marvin's parents and family and friends trickled into the cabin and sat down in a circle with their backs to the walls.

The medicine man finished the altar and, still kneeling, he signaled to his son-in-law to nail the cabin door shut from the outside—the noise of a hammer boomed and died away. He then chortled, “Nice and quiet in here now. Ain't nobody coming in or out.”

The sole kerosene lamp illuminating the room was extinguished, throwing the cabin into blackness. The air was heavy and dry, scented with sweetgrass. The medicine man began to sing and pray with four cycles of songs. He asked his spirit guides to visit him. He asked them to tell him where Marvin was.

Spirits come in many shapes. Some have form and are called
toutou.
Heeding the medicine man's plea, otherworldliness entered the cabin through the walls—blue lights materialized in the gloom and flashed helter
skelter and darted from one corner to another. Flying gourds cavorted in the dark and danced in midair, sometimes touching people and pecking them on the shoulder or foot. While the
wicasa wakan
sang, the darkness writhed with things unseen.

The
tonton
moved through the medicine man like dust through a vacuum cleaner and departed just as quickly. When the ceremony was over, he was fatigued and happy, eager for a cigarette. He informed Marvin's folks their son was healthy and safe and living in San Leandro, albeit divorced and residing in a trailer court. The nails in the door were removed and everyone trailed outside into the star-spangled night. In the half-bald overgrazed hills surrounding the cabin, a coyote yelped-Jerusalem wasn't far off.

The double glass doors to the Redstone Building were unlocked, enabling Maimonides and Durrutti to stroll into the place without being questioned or seen by anyone, which suited them fine. Discretion was necessary. Recognition, they didn't want.

The lobby was damp and chilly, an advertisement for pneumonia—Durrutti sneezed several times. Maimonides glanced at the elevator and was unimpressed by its lop-sided appearance. He said, “Let's take the stairs. We can get some exercise.”

The staircase was unlit and several steps were broken, rendering their passage treacherous and unpredictable.
Maimonides stubbed his toe in the dark and cursed. “Fuck, you'd think people would have the decency to fix these things. It ain't even a question of convenience. I'm talking about survival here. God, I hate the dark.”

Durrutti was surly with him. “Shut up already. I'm tired of listening to your complaining.”

“You shut up. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be doing this.”

“I didn't twist your arm. You're here because you want to be.”

“Thank you for reminding me. I nearly forgot that.”

They crested to the landing on the third floor and established a beachhead. Durrutti had a cigarette and Maimonides became all workmanship. He emanated quiet professionalism and pulled two silk stockings from his jacket, handing Durrutti one of them. “This is for you, my son. Silk is easy on the skin. You'll feel like a million bucks in it.”

Durrutti donned the stocking, slipping it over his head and Maimonides did the same as he removed the Charter Arms .44 revolver from his waistband. He thumbed the handgun's hammer and nudged Durrutti toward a narrow hall, saying
sotto voce,
“Down here.”

Paint was peeling from the hallway walls; a hot white light bulb dangled from an outlet in the ceiling. The drab brown linoleum floor squeaked under their feet. A janitor's industrial wash bucket and mop stood guard in one unfriendly corner. At the last office door in the corridor, Maimonides held up his hand to signal a halt. A lone light burned inside the office. The hypnotic percussion of a
manual typewriter filtered through the walls. A sign hung from the brass doorknob: closed for the weekend.

“This is it.” Maimonides murmured. “You ready?”

“Ready for what?”

“To do what we have to do. To achieve our goals.”

Durrutti wasn't sure. Decisions weren't something he was good at it. His eyes were dumb with hesitation. His tongue was chalky. “I don't want no bloodshed or anything to fuck up again. I can't handle no more pressure.”

Maimonides made a moue rich with condescension. Confessions bored him. “Don't gimme that sob story. It ain't up to us. We're only half of the dynamic here. The people in there, that's the other piece of the gestalt. We can't control what they'll do. If they don't screw up and if they cooperate with us, they'll be okay. If not, it's their tough luck.”