She Took My Arm As If She Loved Me (20 page)

“Okay.”

“So Dan, you have this clumsy kind of charm. Your kid got that sort of quality, too, only more so. Fresh.”

I didn't find this conversation enlightening or delightful. The conversation was circling something unsaid, and—in an open-air market with scales and bargain tables and organic certifications over the beans, rice, fresh vegetables, and bananas that certainly weren't from plantations in California—it didn't seem appropriate to be having a conversation where the disagreeable part was undefined. So I just stared. I didn't even like the farmerette anymore. She had no business knowing my name.

Karim was patient. He liked waiting. He smiled at the farmerette. His attitude toward her was different from mine.

“What're you telling me, Karim? What are you asking?”

“Jeff,” he said. “Your boy there's not exactly girly, but he's sweet, you know?”

I felt the heat rush to my face. “That's not how I think about my son.”

“No, you wouldn't.” Karim was satisfied and glowing in his knitted sweater coat. “Some people would, Dan. I'll tell you what.”

“What?”

Karim shook his head. “I'm thinking. I'm formulating. Then we'll converse.”

While I waited, I smelled the onions and thought of poison gas despite the fresh salty whiffs of other vegetables, the sugary undertow of rot. It was only a memory. I should have been thinking of good things, but I smelled tear gas. Nothing but a memory.

“You know that kid they took away in Italy one time?” Karim asked. “Father, grandfather, whole goddamn family was zillionaires?”

“Getty,” I said.

“Yeah, Eye-talian name like that. Gotti. Well, reminds me you got a boy, too.”

“No money,” I said. “No point in that.”

Karim shook his head. “Local people around here wouldn't be sending you pieces of his ear, like those Eye-talians did. For the fun of it, around here, they'd be sending you pieces of his asshole.”

The market seemed there. Karim seemed there. I was in a spot where people were buying and selling nice fresh produce outside and I could see the dome of the Civic Center. And my arm was reaching out to grab Karim by the soft wool of his collar, choking him while Karim twisted and said, “Dan, Dan, have a sense of humor, I ask you…”

Off to the side I could see the cute farmerette with a forked hammer, the tool a person uses to open crates of lettuce. She was bringing it toward me with a smile in her bright, unspoiled, girlish eyes. I let go of Karim and turned to her. Karim raised his hand to halt the descent of the hammer, the fork darting and silvery.

His voice was croaking and his throat must have hurt, but all he did was repeat gently, reproachfully, “Dan, that's not careful. People can do harm, Dan. Try to pay attention.”

I stood there, paying attention amid the fresh onion smells.

“Go ask your wife if you want to, the kid is fine. Why would I do a thing like that?” Karim's hand was gently massaging his neck. “Hurts, Dan. Shouldn't get so excited with a man you might be considering doing business with. I was just horsing around, kidding, already told you about my sense of humor, but what I mean is I sincerely hope you will consider how you can significantly improve your situation.”

“I don't want any business from you, Karim.”

“You're a man in need and so am I. At least we have to make that clear. Where we go in the future is up to us. You owe me the opportunity to present my offer, Mr. Kasdan.”

“I don't like the offers you're presenting.”

“Hey, hey, a little calm consideration. All I wanted was to get your attention.”

“You got it. I didn't appreciate it.”

“As I said, Dan, hey, hey. Calm. I deeply apologize, but this is one more thing I like about you—a passionate nature, it so much reminds me of my own.”

“Thanks.”

“Now let us put that behind us.” He made a sweeping ass-ward gesture with both hands. “Truly I have so much to give, someone who appreciates your qualities.”

“No.”

Karim enjoyed the vegetables and spice air of the market, the view of my temper, the prospect of accomplishing a task he had set for himself. He was fully engaged in his project and in some way that commitment was reassuring. In my present frame of mind (stumbling desolation and the ebbing of an adrenaline rush), I could even find space to admire him. Yet I repeated: “No. No deal.”

He was standing too close. He observed me with compassion. His warm breath reached my nostrils.

“I am sure,” he said, “as you think, think fully, my friend, you will find time to consider the opportunities. In my heart I feel most positive.”

*   *   *

I needed to take a shot at getting things clear with him. If he wanted me for laundering money or carrying goods, I wasn't going to do it. I suppose, yes, I could consider going along with finding someone for him. Maybe. Someone he really longed to locate. Or maybe even a collection. Priscilla had a point or two, she had a way of showing me things; but I didn't like Karim's procedures for approaching a deal. He wanted to start on top with an off-balance employee. I didn't need to be any more off-balance than I already was. I may have needed work, I could even see why Priscilla liked him—a man who had fun with his life, no matter what obstacles came his way, unlike others she could name—but I wasn't sure I could afford to be hired by Karim.

I headed toward the Mission with my feet jerking at the brake, the clutch, the gas pedal, forcing red lights, always the sign of a man who is absolutely determined, has his mind unequivocably made up, but isn't sure about what.

Karim lived in a tall wooden Victorian house on the wide boulevard of Guerrero, not too far from the Spanish colonial Mission Dolores with its graveyard filled with vigilantes and their victims, including the hero or victim named King William of William. I remembered telling Priscilla the story of my favorite con man, Dr. Lovejoy, buried here, who was asked by the vigilantes about to hang him if he wanted to speak any last words. “Not at this time,” he said. An inspiration to a man getting along in years.

Karim's stately Victorian made a statement about cash flow—Caribbean sloppy grace, vines, a palm tree, wooden steps through a jungle garden climbing a steep slope, rocks breaking through the planting on the hillside. The siding was rotten and splintered in honorable Victorian tradition; the palm tree had shed its leaves, leaving untended drifts to crunch underfoot, like some San Francisco version of snow, a peppery smell rising as my boots crackled through it. The high white structure and the leaf-strewn stairs looked like a house in Port-au-Prince. Quite a nice little ecosystem he had here.

My footsteps on dried fronds seemed to serve as a wake-up call. Karim filled the doorway, all in white, dazzling, a real beauty, white pants, shirt, some kind of almost-linen jacket, white shoes, and a beaded belt flashing tropical colors over a hard jutting belly. “Welcome, welcome,” he said. “So glad! Be welcome.”

His eyebrows were still carefully sculpted into wide dense thickets with clean outlines, the ever-present antlike dots of plucked hairs between the clumps. The eyeliner on the lids, with an added gleam of mascara on the lashes, highlighted his fortunate natural pigmentation. The effect was lively and bright, and certified that I was correct in my view—don't get involved with this enterprise.

“I just want to say,” I began.

“Come in, come in first, how can we talk without getting comfortable?”

“I know what I want to say. I'd rather not listen. I'm cutting down on my business these days—”

“I know. I fully understand, so when a good opportunity can be offered a good man—please do come in.”

I stood there, smelling the mixture of cologne and anger being propelled out at me by an absence of calm. I put on my nicest smile. Probably, if the wind was right, he could smell my own absence of calm. “I'm not looking for a job,” I said. “No point in going round and round about this. I've taken care to let my friends in the department”—I meant Alfonso—“know about your employee in my office—”

“You're not paying attention to your opportunities. You don't listen to what I have in mind.”

“That's right. Better if I don't know, also.”

The mass of muscular, pissed-off, white-suited smoothness was no longer beckoning me in. It was now blocking the door. “I don't hire people to come to my house to threaten me.”

“So we agree. Now keep your cleaning guy out of my office. He left his bucket behind, by the way. Okay?”

I stood there looking at the man's hide up close, the thick gray bristles under his chin, the creases at the forehead and the long deep lines in his cheeks, the heavy lips, and his odd green eyes, which gazed at me with something like concern. Jeff obeyed me when I said goodbye to him—“Eye contact!”—and knew it was important to meet folks' eyes. I met Karim's.

“In my heart,” he said, “Dan … I cannot feel right about asking you for something that you don't want to give. For that reason I have to inquire if your license has ever been questioned.”

He meant my private investigator's license. The answer was no. No harassment of runaway girls, no billing for services not performed; an occasional failure to fulfill the assignment due to excess psychopathy, as in the case of Jesus Christ Satan …

“Yet you have purchased brownies from a client, my friend.”

As I've said, I prefer not smoking. When I enjoy grass, I enjoy it in a form that doesn't leave me with a scratchy throat. “You can't do anything with that, Karim. If anyone gave me brownies, they're not a credible informant. Anyway, the licensing commission doesn't care about misdemeanor offenses.”

“Oh dear, would I want to see you in difficulty with your license? No and no. And in Sacramento, all that paperwork in the office, oh dear, with hardly a blemish in your file … I am only saying in another way that I have no wish to make difficulties for anyone.”

Of course he didn't. He only mentioned the possibility to let me know what a good friend he was. He only wanted me to appreciate keeping his friendship. Sometimes a person likes to eat a brownie and space away part of his weekend or an avoidable national holiday. Priscilla and I ate brownies together now and then, used to, once sat in the front row at the Surf to watch
2001,
huddled in outer space in the front row; used to, now and then.

“Are you threatening me, Karim?”

“No. I reiterate. No.”

Only mentioned was all, just so I could appreciate him even more fully than I already did. Personally, it's how I am, no different from other persons, I don't like hassles from the IRS or the PI licensing board.

I would try to take all of Karim's suggestions into consideration. I needed to get on my way.

One more time, almost mournfully, he asked, “So I don't suppose you are ready yet—”

“Not even for my own good. You're right that I need work just now. But not even.”

Palm fronds crunched underfoot like snow as I hurried down the steps. Steepness made me feel taller, the steep descents of San Francisco made me step lively when I was heading downhill, but it was necessary to hurry now. The man hadn't even said, Get the fuck out of here.

At my Honda I looked back up toward the stately old house on its slope. The door was shut, the curtains were moving slightly at the windows, and it was as if I had never been there.

Chapter 17

Some people, when they say no most firmly, most definitely, most angrily, teeth bared and jaw set—that's exactly when they are ready to say yes. Priscilla was not one of those people. It seemed I was.

Needing money was a good reason. Trying to become interesting again to my wife was a bad reason; so were desperation, despair, the dream of escape. But the bad reasons didn't cancel out that faithful old American decision to do something practical about trouble. I was in need, hungry.

I went crawling back to the house on Guerrero, reared up on my back paws like a foraging raccoon, but both Karim and I knew the real facts in the case. I was as empty as one of the Project kids.

Karim was gratified to see me without too much time having passed and his friendship for me growing cold. He promised it would be a happy day for both of us.

“Okay, one job,” I said.

“To see if you like it. Of course.”

“To get back to making a few bucks. But no drugs, I don't do narcotic jobs.”

“Be of good cheer,” he said. “Would I, my friend?”

“No drugs.”

He looked a little hurt. I had hardly begun and already I was worrying at him. “Let me tell you all I ask,” he said. “Not complicated, no outside travel, this is within your capabilities. It's only a collection.”

“For merchandise delivered, someone didn't pay for? What kind of merchandise?”

Karim shook his head. It wasn't supposed to be like me to complicate matters by asking foolish questions. “If it helped, I would tell you,” he said. “It would be normal to do so.”

One job, I repeated to myself. I was hungry, I was greedy. Better not to spoil my appetite by studying Karim's needs. I had once given someone else, Priscilla, control of my life, and didn't enjoy the consequences. They had been drastic. So why shouldn't I make the same mistake with Karim, give him power over me—with the difference that I would take it back. This time I was going to end up in charge myself. I would buy something nice, maybe direct the purchase toward new transportation, something sporty, the way men in my situation like to think (ragtop, stereo, leather seats); things for Jeff; maybe even something for Priscilla if presents didn't make me seem creepy, abject—just so she would see me undefeated, able to provide and surprise. I too could take to wearing white linen suits (joke) or the new Ralph Lauren après-tennis scent.