We drove to another part of the city. We were in that industrial area near the freeway. A long time ago, we used to play in these empty lots as kids; riding our bikes down Pot Hill, as we called it. Now, giant commercial buildings, all chrome and steel, were in the throes of birth. We went under the freeway, took a side road behind a construction site, and parked. We were in Mission Creek. I knew this place well, another childhood hangout where we’d gone swimming. Now, fancy houseboats were docked with an occasional massive catamaran or sailboat. The pier creaked like backpacks on Guatemalan Indians. Nearby, the freeway roared with traffic headed downtown, and I could see the skyline of the city like a giant neon dollar sign flashing billions.
Huey indicated I should go to dock number 10. It was a fancy houseboat, but without any class; in fact, it was painted whorehouse-red. Callahan was alone in the back room, the air thick with scotch I could smell from where I was standing, ten feet away. He indicated I should sit down.
“You smoke cigars, Morales?” He was about to light a big stogie with a gold-plated lighter.
“I hate cigars and Republicans.”
“Don’t be so uptight. We’re relaxing…follow me?”
“Okay. So we’re relaxing…”
“You know what these are?” He handled the stogie like a pool stick in his big hamlike hands. “Cohibas. The finest of all Cuban cigars.” He let that sink in for a moment. “And-illegal in this country.”
“What’s it to do with me?”
“Hey-I’m trying to show you that we all have our imperfections. But you’re not listening. So what you pissed off about? Go on, spit it out.”
“I cited the Apache Hotel.”
“The one that burned?”
“But never for a fire hazard. Because none existed.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“It burned on my watch. I’m the fall guy, and I don’t want to be the fall guy.”
“If that’s what you’re worried about…”
“You don’t get it. Seven people died. I don’t think it was an accident.”
“It was a fleabag hotel. Everything changes.”
“It’s against city ordinance to tear down low-income housing.”
He shrugged. “Someone was careless…that’s the way to look at it. It won’t be an inconvenience to you.”
The way they looked at people as an inconvenience made me sick.
“Why don’t you explain it to the seven stiffs in the morgue?”
He rose from his chair, cigar swinging in his mouth. “Take a look outside. There, out the window.” He gestured to the lit-up skyline, the buildings glowing, sucking up whole dinosaur herds of energy, perched like toxic towers spewing radiation. “That there, let me tell you, is the highway to the future. You can ride it or you can, well…be run over by it.” He laughed at his own joke, his jowls trembling with fat.
To me it seemed like a nightmare. “I intend to find the source of the Apache Hotel fire…in case you’re wondering.”
His eyes turned gray like those of a great white shark. “You have a loft that’s not warranted. It’s, ah, how shall I say?…a safety hazard.”
“I have the permits.”
“That’s a matter of opinion. One of your neighbors might file a complaint. Claim it was illegal.”
“We’re all illegal here. Except the Rammaytush. And we killed them all.”
“So you’re a do-gooder, is that it? Look, Morales, nobody appreciates a smart-ass like you stirring up trouble for other people. Let me remind you-with your illegal loft, your shit smells just as bad. So think about it.”
He went back to his cigar and I knew the interview was over.
Huey was waiting for me.
“That’s all right,” I said. “I’ll walk.”
At 2:00 in the morning, Sixteenth and Valencia is a current of human electricity, AC-DC all the way. I’d caught the last show at Esta Noche, the tranny club on Sixteenth. I wanted to see “La Jessica,” advertised as one of the most beautiful illusionists in the world. The soft spotlight in the smoky club made her indeed seem beautiful, at least the illusion of beauty, draped in sequins and sheer glittering gowns that gave the impression she had a body like Angelina Jolie.
But at 3 a.m., when La Jessica was out of costume, she looked like any other vato hanging around waiting to pick up a drunk to bounce or bed for money.
She smoked a filtered cigarette and the apple in her throat bobbed with each phrase.
“Mira, I was standing right here, mismito. And the flames just shot up at once, dios mio, it was like a woosh, licking up the side of the building.”
“The flames didn’t come from inside of the hotel?”
“No, chulo, from the outside.”
“What else you see?”
“Two men running away.”
“You sure of that?”
“I’m sure they were men. As sure as I’m La Jessica.”
That was proof enough for me. That and the burned-out hulk of the building across the street, standing like some pre-Hispanic ruins in the jungles of the city.
“These men, could you identify them?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? Did you get a good look at them?”
“Well, they had big muscles, they were you know, muy fuerte.”
I thanked La Jessica and went home to Alabama Street. I would have to return the next day, sift around for evidence. I walked into my loft without turning on the lights, without checking for messages, just letting the glow from the street fill up the emptiness inside me.
I had nightmares, screams and bodies burning, people leaping from buildings to their deaths. I woke up early and reached for my file. There wasn’t much there-kinda like Oakland. The notes on my three visits, including the one Wednesday, three days ago, described the minor stuff I’d cited. The listed owner was F. Delgado, et al. The address was on South Van Ness, one of those old Victorian mansions in the heart of the barrio. It was on my way to the ruins of the Apache Hotel, so I dropped by on the off chance F. Delgado might be around. I didn’t know what I was going to say, but I can look someone in the eye and right away tell you if they’re up to something evil.
In another century, the nineteenth to be exact, South Van Ness was millionaire’s row. Victorian mansions lined the blocks, ornate ladies in wood lace and wrought-iron curlicues. Even old man Spreckles, the sugar baron, had his digs here, on the corner of Twenty-first and South Van Ness. Later, after the earthquake, most of these notable scoundrels parked their hats on Snob Hill, leaving the best weather to us poor folks in the flats.
At the door of one of these mansions from that era, all restored and pretty, I knocked once, twice, nothing happened. After I leaned on the doorbell, a maid finally cracked the door, but kept the security chain latched.
“Look lady,” I said, “I carry no stinking badges.”
She blinked once but didn’t budge. So I repeated: “No soy policía. Busco a un tal F. Delgado.”
“No Delgado here…this Señora Lopez house.”
Then a voice came from behind the door: “What’s the matter, Carmen?”
A woman I had not seen in years and thought I would never see again stepped out. Sofia Nido was beautiful as ever. And seeing her brought back that summer in Puerto Escondido, so long ago it seemed like another lifetime. Ten years ago we had spent a torrid summer together, dancing on tables, making love on the beach, living like the apocalypse was here. But to her it had been a fling; she had come back to her fiancé, and we had gone our separate ways. I had never gotten over her and had drunk many a beer in her memory.