Dirty in Cashmere (7 page)

 

TWENTY-SIX

Rita was in Eternal Gratitude's doorway, observing a black man in a motorized wheelchair peel up the sidewalk, a boom box in his lap belting out James Brown's “Night Train.” She reached under her dress and plucked at a bra strap cutting into her collarbone.

It was a calm Sunday afternoon. No rain had fallen. The sun even made a cameo, before getting sandwiched in clouds. The morning had been another story. 2-Time fielded several calls from Life club owners. One in the Mission, two others in the Sunset district. All were victims of overnight raids by the feds—a prohibition was coming down the pipeline.

2-Time decided to get ready for it. In a quick deal he copped a thousand tabs of Life from a Tenderloin wholesaler. A guy with a manufacturing lab at Turk and Jones. But the batch was cut with strychnine, 2-Time vomiting five minutes after downing a tab. Now he'd just gotten off the phone with Heller.

“Heller got the shit kicked out of him. He was waylaid by the Honduran street dealer me and him robbed. Heller was coming out of the liquor store at Fourteenth and Valencia when the Honduran shanghaied him back to the Woodward Street apartment and stole all the money. Then he broke Heller's legs with a baseball bat. Fucking hell.”

The message was explicit.

The Honduran would be coming after 2-Time, too.

Rita hugged herself and retreated inside the club.

From where I was standing near the chill out room, I watched her stalk to the counter, her high heels clacking on the floorboards. She cut her eyes in my direction, quietly projecting an agenda I didn't want to touch. Heller, 2-Time, and the feds. Unremarkably, she said nothing about my new coat. To distract myself, I looked at the clock.

It was time to meet up with Branch again.

I dread the prospect. Branch is massaging me with threats, insinuations, demands, and generosity. He's invading me.

 

TWENTY-SEVEN

“What do you know about economics, Ricky?”

Branch, Doolan, and I were in a back room at the mansion, an enclosed glass-walled porch. Poised on the edge of a purple leather settee, Branch was in a mauve Brioni suit, silk ascot, suede loafers, his gelled hair massed like a storm cloud above his forehead. A tic worked overtime on his jawline.

I was stone-faced, camping on a plush couch, my kicks tracking dirt into the two-ply merino wool carpet. My cashmere coat was liberally spattered with mud from the street. I was miserable about that. Good clothes were high maintenance, really stressful.

“Not a whole lot.”

“This is an era of permanent scarcity,” Branch dithered on. “But nowadays there are new markets on the Pacific Rim. Beijing. Singapore. Hong Kong. Seoul. Vancouver. How long they'll last, nobody knows, because the contamination in San Francisco is putting a jinx on things. We need to fix that.”

“What's that got to do with me?”

“The mayoral race. Ronnie Shmalker has to win.”

“What if it's the other guy?”

Branch let his eyes do the talking. He didn't want my best prediction. He wanted one tailor-made, something like his suit. The bullet said: set this jive ass sucker straight. All the money in the universe couldn't buy the future. It was free. Whether you wanted it or not.

“It doesn't work like that, Branch.”

“What doesn't?”

“Predictions. What if I told you economics has nothing to do with the truth.”

“Shut your mouth. I'm not paying you for the damn truth.”

“So when do I get some paper?”

“When you make the right prediction.”

“The one you want.”

“You got it. Ricky? What race are you? I can't tell.”

“My dad was white and I don't know what my mom was.”

“What does that make you?”

“I'm whatever the fuck you want me to be.”

Doolan was beached on a velveteen divan in the room's far corner, partly listening to Branch and me, paying closer attention to the radiation infection tunneling in his gorge. The morphine he was taking for it didn't even dent the pain. On top of that, he'd heard Heller had gotten kneecapped by the Honduran dealer. It was only a matter of time before 2-Time got his. Doolan wanted to be somewhere else when that happened. He had enough on his hands chaperoning me.

I wonder if Doolan forgives the contamination for killing him. Can I forgive Frank Blake for shooting me? My left leg is lame. You tell my leg about forgiveness, and it will tell you to kiss off. I'm dirty in cashmere. When the day ends, I'll be down the hill at Eternal Gratitude. Don't talk to me about forgiveness, not now.

 

TWENTY-EIGHT

The last and most important debate between the mayoral candidates was held that night in the auditorium at Horace Mann Middle School in the Mission district. An overflow audience of roughly eight hundred people was in attendance, mostly working-class Mexicans and Salvadorenos from the barrio. The two candidates were seated onstage. Ronnie Shmalker was slicked up in a spiffy blue sharkskin suit, red tie, white shirt. Babe Jones was dressed in a gray polyester leisure ensemble, yellow bow tie, and brown oxfords, his bald pate shining under the overhead lights. The moderator, a young black woman from KQED television, was in a floor-length caftan, her hair molded into a chignon bob.

Branch and I had front row seats.

The debate jumped off when the moderator put Babe Jones on the spot. “According to statistics, the contamination from Fukushima is still here. What do you intend to do about this issue? And what is your stance on the Life clubs?”

He mopped his forehead with a starched handkerchief before answering: “We can't do anything, other than supporting charities and nonprofit organizations. We just don't have the resources. It's a job for the feds. But the cuts to the CDC and NIH budgets don't help any. And Life clubs generate revenue for the city. I don't see no problem with them nohow.”

Ronnie Shmalker was right behind him. “I agree with my opponent. The fallout from Fukushima is a concern for our representatives in Washington DC. On a local level? There's nothing to worry about. The contamination is negligible. But the Life clubs need to operate under strict federal guidelines. Personally, I think they should be banned.”

I slumped in my chair, dismayed by the candidates and their attitudes. Branch misinterpreted my posture.

“Got a prediction yet?”

“No. Those dudes aren't saying jack.”

“They're not supposed to. This is just a friendly meet and greet session.”

“That's uncool.”

“You sound like a fucking Boy Scout.” He extended his right arm, lassoed my neck and squeezed it. “I don't want to hear your shit. All I want is the winner.”

“What if I don't know?”

“You'd better find out.”

During the intermission I stood off to the side in the auditorium, near the restrooms. People milled in the lobby, talking heatedly about the candidates, nothing that I could get a handle on. Blips of conversation and forced laughter echoed against the walls, the din notching the ringing in my ears.

I was fretting as a young blond woman in a green silk dress came over to me. An unripe lesion glistened on her pert nose. She lightly touched my arm, establishing a tactile beachhead.

“I'm Ruth Dick. An aide to Babe Jones.”

I blinked. The carbon filter mask dangling from her neck was decorated with rhinestones.

“I've heard a lot about you, Ricky.”

“Who from?”

“Everybody. Doolan posted the results of the test he did with you. It's on his Fukushima blog. He gets thousands of hits daily. You're an oracle. The coolest thing around.”

The flattering remark kindled my paranoia and speeded up my heartbeat. I tried to make like I was indifferent. In my job you couldn't act too eager, otherwise people would drain you until you were a husk.

“I have a proposition for you.”

I hoped it wasn't sex. Please. I couldn't deal with that. The timing wasn't good. I was distracted. My hair was poorly combed.

“What is it?”

“Don't you know? We want you to work with our campaign. We'll pay you three times whatever Branch is paying you. Babe Jones would welcome an oracle on his team.”

If I jumped ship, Branch would crucify me. The worrisome thing was, I couldn't predict the winner yet. Something blocked me. The auditorium crawled with too many vibes. It was too soon.

So this is politics, I thought.

I was nostalgic for Heller and 2-Time.

“What the fuck is going on here?”

Branch was at my side, devouring Ruth Dick with unconcealed venom, staring at her like she was a short eyes, a child molester. The tic on his jaw had blossomed into a twitch that ruled the right side of his face from his brow to his chin. He couldn't stop blinking.

“I was talking to the woman, Branch. That's all.”

Ruth Dick attempted to speak out of turn.

“I had no idea you'd get so upset, Branch. I apologize—”

“Shut the fuck up.” Branch silenced her with an imperial flick of his left hand, three gold bracelets tinkling on his wrist. His oiled black hair was electric with anger. “You're a goddamn leech. Get the hell out of here.”

Managing to retain her composure, the campaign worker politely smiled at Branch, spun on her high heels and beat a judicious, swift retreat, merging with the crowd.

“If I ever see you talking to one of my competitors again, you're fired.” Branch fastened his right hand around my forearm. “Do you read me?”

“Like the Bible.”

“Good. Now let's get back to work.”

The rest of the debate told me nothing. It was a stalemate. The picture was opaque. The sole thing I could predict was no prediction. When the event was over and the crowd filed out of the auditorium onto Twenty-third Street, Branch interrogated me on the sidewalk, holding me hostage against a parking meter.

“You come up with anything?”

“No, man, I haven't.”

“We're running out of time. Each day is thousands of dollars going nowhere. You need to step up the pace, or we're fucking dead.”

It was a warm San Franciscan night. Faces came out of the dark. Fog pillowed the rooftops, muting the streetlights. The air was thick with car exhaust, the ocean's salt and incandescent particles of iodine. Branch and I parted ways. I caught a 14 Mission bus to Geneva Avenue. He hopped in a limousine back to Pacific Heights.

Instead of riding the bus all the way south to Geneva Avenue I had the driver drop me off by the Safeway. It was late. Nobody was out as I slunk to Tiffany Avenue.

Frank Blake's house was at the end of the street, a large two-story single family dwelling sheathed in white asbestos siding. The yard was paved over with concrete. All the windows were dark. To one side of the front door was a rusty mailbox. I tippytoed to the box and opened it a smidgen; a torrent of Indian restaurant circulars and Department of Public Health brochures cascaded around my shoes. A handprinted note was taped to the box's flap:

POSTMAN. DON'T LEAVE NO MORE MAIL FOR FRANK BLAKE. HE'S DEAD. HEPATITIS C GOT HIM.

A light blinked on in the house next door. A young half-dressed female appeared in an upstairs window. Bare breasted with tousled hair. Looking down at me. Looking much too much like Vivian Raleigh for my comfort.

I withdraw to the sidewalk. I start up Tiffany Avenue. I don't look back. For back there was the man who shot me. The girl who took my virginity. Ahead of me is an unlit section of Mission Street. I'm alone with snapshots of what I saw tonight, the lesion on Ruth Dick's nose, Branch's rented limousine with one hubcap missing. If I had any Life on me, I'd take it.

 

TWENTY-NINE

2-Time weaved through General Hospital, avoiding nurses, orderlies, and janitors. He turned the corner into the ICU ward and found the room he was searching for. The door was open and he popped inside.

The room was painted a stark lobotomy white. A west-facing window showed the hilly skyline from Twin Peaks to Ashbury Heights. In one corner a television was tuned in to a football game. Four male patients dozed in gurney beds.

2-Time creepy crawled to the last bed and stopped short.

Heller was snoring with his mouth agog, his right arm carelessly flung over his head. His legs were encased in heavy duty plaster casts, the cigarette burn on his face worse than ever. 2-Time bent forward to get a better look at him, whispering, “How long have I known you? All the way back to the 1990s. When you could rent an apartment for six hundred dollars a month. How many lines of angel dust did we do? It must've been thousands of rails. You could've put them in a single line and crossed the country from coast to coast. But our friendship is over. It didn't survive your treachery.”

2-Time fell silent and put his elbows on the gurney's railing. If he tried to imagine the future like Ricky Bellamy did, it scared the shit out of him. Who wanted to know all the fuck ups that were going to happen? Not him. The one thing 2-Time could predict was the inevitability of the Honduran dealer coming after him to break his legs.

The television droned like a mosquito in heat. Tiny pinpricks of light from the faraway Castro district did a tarantella through the window. All quiet, the night felt less sleazy than it really was.

“You're an asshole, Heller,” whispered 2-Time.

Even though he couldn't see the future, 2-Time understood my dilemma. I don't know how I endured seeing all of tomorrow's fuck ups. 2-Time said I was a doppelgänger? Everyone knew the doppelgänger always got his ass reamed. I had to accept that eventuality.

 

 

THE SECOND WEEK

 

THIRTY

I was in high spirits Monday evening.

The fundraiser for Ronnie Shmalker was a twenty-six-hundred-dollar-a-plate function at Branch's mansion. I appeared shortly after six-thirty. I was saluted at the front gate by a valet, a slim young Mexican cat in a black shirt, white tie, and red vest.

“Do you want me to park your car, sir?”

“I don't have a car.”

I met a greeter, the next layer of social protocol. “Good evening, sir. Are you sure you're at the right event?”

I forked over the invitation Branch had given me. The greeter opened the gate, and I schlepped into the foyer. I pushed on through the well-heeled crowd, moved past a triptych of Francis Bacon paintings and made a beeline to the interior courtyard.

A full-service bar had been erected under a canopy. A mob of besuited whites and Asians were scoring martinis, highballs, and wine from two bartenders while the house speakers blasted Howard Tate's “Get It While You Can.”

I looked for Branch, but didn't find him. I didn't see Doolan either. A rotund red-haired woman swaddled in a brocaded yellow Vera Wang gown broadsided me, her breath moistening my neck with a bouquet of cigarettes, wine, and curses. “I have to get away from this shit. It's so fucked.”

“Who're you, lady?”

“Julie Scott. I manage Ronnie's goddamn campaign. And you're the little fuckhead Branch just hired.”

Someone tapped me on the shoulder.

“Ricky! You came!”

I did a half turn and discovered Branch smiling at me. His smile downshifted into a sneer when he saw Julie Scott. Branch condemned her with a laugh colder than a refrigerator.

“You're plastered again.”

“Fuck you, Branch. I don't care.”

“I do. You're compromising Ronnie's public image.”

“That's big talk for an ugly little man. I've been in your bathrooms. There's nothing in them except suppositories and Ativan. And now you've got yourself a two-bit oracle. Why didn't you just find an astrologer? It would've been cheaper.”

“Fuck you, too, Julie. You need to be in AA.”

Branch grabbed me by the arm and towed me into the heart of the crowd. We made a pit stop at a couch where he superficially introduced me to a white man in a white tuxedo. Apparently the dude had been secretary of state under Reagan. He had to be a hundred years old, but he dressed well. Everyone at this soiree was immaculately decked out, down to the expensive carbon filter masks around their necks. Not me. Even with my Zegna, I was a ragamuffin. I radiated impoverishment. I hated myself for that.

I nodded at everybody, my head throbbing from the varying brands of narcissism ricocheting around the house. Branch then guided me upstairs to his office on the second floor.

The office's lights were sultry. A youngish man in a too tight chartreuse Armani suit accenting his meager shoulders and burgeoning potbelly stood by himself at the window, moodily staring out at the Golden Gate Bridge, the freighters in the bay, the sky pink and swollen with udder shaped clouds. From behind I couldn't tell who he was.

“Ronnie!” Branch whistled at him. “Bellamy is here!”

Ronnie Shmalker wheeled about, his angular face bloodless and white with red rimmed brown eyes that'd trawled a sea of unsleeping nights. His eyes hated me. To him, I was a circus act. At best, an asshole. He proffered a nicotine-stained hand.

“Hello, kid. I've heard great things about you.”

The bullet twitched in my skull.

His hand was still hanging in the air. I gave him skin, snapping off a brisk, upbeat handshake. But the moment didn't feel right. I was anxious. His aura wasn't victorious. I couldn't stop myself and before I knew it, I made a prediction. Ronnie Shmalker was not going to win the election.

Branch smelled my negativity.

“You okay, Ricky?”

“Yeah, dude, I'm good.”

“Let's sit down. You'll feel even better.”

After Branch got us situated in comfy leather chairs, he grilled me.

“Ronnie wants to know if he'll be the winner. Why don't you tell us?”

What could I say? If I told Branch the straight goods, I was dead. Flat out. Branch would blame me for the future, when no one person could be blamed for it. It was everyone's fault.

“I can't do it.”

“You're not in the mood, is that it?”

“Yeah.”

“When will you be ready?”

“Later.”

“You sure of that?”

Telling a lie was hard. Speaking the truth was harder. The territory in between, the strip of the unknowable, that's where I was. Ronnie Shmalker looked at me. A strange vibe passed between us. A telepathy with no idiom. The viscous sweat stains darkening the armpits of his Armani said he was medicated on Life. I gazed back at him and didn't say a thing.

Our meeting was adjourned. Gossip filtered throughout the fundraiser. No prediction yet. Wherever I went, in the kitchen or living room, people eyed me. Somebody asked me for an autograph. I graciously declined the request.

A little after eight I made my exit. Branch ambushed me in the foyer by the Francis Bacon paintings, self-portraits that made the artist seem otherworldly. Branch looked the same. Dried spittle flecked his lips. His white dress shirt was monopolized by a flamboyant red wine stain.

“When are you going to make a prediction?”

I inhaled his cologne and pulled away. In the background his guests were shouting to the sound of cocktail glasses breaking on the terra cotta floor. I wanted to clap my hands over my ears.

“I need money first.”

Branch thought about this for a moment. But I'd left him with no other choice. “Then I'll see you at Le Central in an hour.”

I traipsed outside, raucous laughter behind me. The greeter was still standing sentry by the gate. I looked upward; the low sky seemed to mock my somber mood as I walked past a row of double-parked limousines to the street.

Near the corner of Divisadero and Pacific I came across a lone poster on a telephone pole:

HOW CAN WE PROTECT OURSELVES FROM
CONTAMINATION? THE ANSWER IS WITH POSITIVE ACTION
. WHEN WE TAKE ACTION, HISTORY IS CHANGED. SO PROTECT YOURSELF. WEAR YOUR MASK. AVOID DAIRY PRODUCTS. WASH YOUR HANDS FREQUENTLY. TAKE REGULAR DOSES OF LIFE.

—Department of Public Health

November was never my favorite month. All those dying, mottled leaves. The wind heavy with airborne radioactive particulates. I don't have a mask. That doesn't stop me from limping toward Le Central and my money.