“Roberto-what are you doing here?”
“I guess I could ask you the same thing. I came to see a certain F. Delgado. Ring a bell?”
“Can’t say that it does. But maybe my aunt might know. I’m her attorney.”
“Any chance I can talk to her?”
“What’s this about Roberto? Are you with the police? That is so unbecoming of you.”
“It’s a bit complicated.”
“I see. My aunt is very ill. She really can’t see anyone right now.”
“Maybe when she feels better?”
“Perhaps. But Roberto, excuse me, I’m late for an appointment. Can I give you a ride anywhere?”
“I’m on my way to Sixteenth and Valencia.” It didn’t faze her, which was a good sign. I wanted to see how she’d react to the fire scene. But I forgot all about that watching her drive, her profile like an Indian goddess, her eyes big and dark.
She drove a red roadster and moved smoothly into traffic headed down South Van Ness. “I hardly recognize you, Roberto. So, you’re with the city?”
“Department of Building Inspection. I go after deadbeat landlords who don’t provide habitable housing. And with rents so high, many landlords are ripping someone off. Especially in this barrio. And you-why such short hair?”
“I’m between men. Short hair makes me feel in control.”
“Yes…and my girlfriend just left me.”
“You mean you’ve lost your touch with women?”
“It happened when I lost you.”
She looked at me hard and I wished I hadn’t said that.
But she didn’t slap me, so I changed the subject and took a crazy chance. “Say, there’s a band playing tonight from Nueva York. You feel like maybe…?”
She shook her head, in exasperation, I guess. “I can’t believe you asked me that. I guess I’m an idiot, but sure, why not? Haven’t gone salsa dancing in years.”
I bailed out at Sixteenth and Valencia. “Pick me up around 9:00, in front of the old can factory. Later, alligator.”
I watched her drive away. My emotions were so tangled up knowing how dangerous it was to be involved with her. And yet, that was exactly what I was doing. It wasn’t till later that I realized I’d forgotten to check her reaction to the smoldering remains of the Apache Hotel.
A chain-link fence surrounded the area. Two cops were guarding the site, looking bored. A big tractor inside the gates was headed for the burned-out walls. I whipped out my camera, but one of them jumped in my face.
“Morales-what the hell you want?”
“Photos of the site.”
“For your scrapbook? Get outta here.”
Then the tractor slammed into the building and knocked down half a wall.
“Hey, you’re destroying evidence. Who gave you the right?”
“You’re a day late. The D.A. has all the photos they need.”
“How can he, if you’re knocking down the building?”
“Are you doubting me, you flat-assed Mexican?”
“Look, Johnson, I know you hate my guts, but seven people died here. I want to know why.”
“I bet you do. It’s on your ass, isn’t it? You’re the one that overlooked the fire hazards. This is on your conscience. If liberals like you have a conscience.”
“Have it your way, pin-head.”
The word was already out on the street, the frame was on. The bulldozer had knocked down the side of the building facing Valencia Street, but the fire had started on the Sixteenth Street side. I stood in front of Esta Noche and shot a whole roll, clearly showing the charred side of the building where La Jessica claimed to have first seen the flames. It was obvious to me what had happened. Something had caught on fire in the passageway, right underneath the fire escape. The bastards could have spared the fire escape, giving those inside a chance to get out.
I saw Johnson on his walkie-talkie, so I made myself scarce.
I wanted to meet with La Jessica again. Show her the photos and have her mark where she saw the two men and the flames.
I went back to the bar on Twenty-fourth Street to drink a beer with the yellow dot on the neck and mull over the file. I went over my notes and wrote down everything that had happened. It was clear someone was trying to bury this thing, and quick. It was too messy for them. But who were they? Who was F. Delgado and the et al? They owned the Apache Hotel; their business address, the one on South Van Ness. I figured Sofia’s aunt was part of the et al, and Sofia was lying to protect her. Or, Sofia didn’t know anything about it-but as her aunt’s attorney, that seemed far-fetched. As a precaution, I left my files, my notes, and my camera with Miss Mary, and just kept the empty briefcase.
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.”