San Francisco Noir

“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.”

I could sense my words running through her like a hand-forged stiletto. Her eyes narrowed and she saw me for what I was, with all my flaws.

“Why do you tell me this?”

“I don’t know; it bothers me sometimes. I never told that to anyone, ever. Can you be trusted?”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s why I told you.”

Outside, the rain had eased and the faint rush of tires reached me. After Amanda had jammed, I answered a few personal ads and hooked up with women who didn’t care what I did to them as long as they felt something. Some scenes were sick, and when I started enjoying them I decided to quit. Since then I’ve more or less lived the social life of a monk.

I touched her shoulder and she turned to me. A pale vein in her throat pulsed wildly. She brushed her hair back from her face. The lamp light seemed like a witness to the crime. I reached to turn it off but she stopped my hand.

“I want to see your face.”

“Wait.” I held her hand. “So what’s this about? Who is this Senora Lopez at whose house I met you…?”

“Are you still thinking about that?”

“I don’t know. It’s all related. I can feel it.”

“Everything is related, Roberto. After the last time I saw you…”

“The summer of Puerto Escondido. You were with Raymond then.”

“We were engaged but we never married. It was my last year in law school. A weekend trip to Napa. We’d both overdone it. An accident along the side of the road. It was my fault Raymond was killed…”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“You don’t understand.” Her voice was soft and pained in the shadows. “…If I trust you?”

“I’d do anything for you.” I said that, but I didn’t know for sure. In fact, I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to go on. She didn’t give me a choice.

“I’m being blackmailed. The classic story. A young, gullible, ambitious young woman sells her soul to stay out of jail. I was scared after the accident. In shock, really, for months. Clearly it was manslaughter, but she quietly cleaned it up. She has that sort of power. So instead of being a jailbird, I’m an accomplice. She provides the fronts and I cook the contracts, make sure everything is legal.”

“Your aunt?”

“Who else? Senora Lopez, when she comes out of the shadows. Oh, Roberto, I want out of her grip. It’s like someone is violating you every day. It never goes away.” She took a long drag from the cigarette. “And she’s Felicia Delgado. It’s one of her pseudonyms. Her full name is Aura Felicia Delgado Lopez. I think she ordered the fire.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s an insurance scam. Plus, with the hotel down they can build something new, make a few extra million.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that. A fire like that will cause them lots of trouble, there’ll be an investigation, and…”