The lower Fillmore district-just the other side of Van Ness Avenue from the Civic Center-is one of the city's neighborhoods in transition. Gone are the pig farms of the late 1800s, the jazz clubs of the World War II era, the blighted ghetto of more recent years. Gone too is Winterland-the former ice-skating rink that became a mecca for stoned, music-loving hippies in the sixties. What you have now is an uneasy mixture of urban cultures: luxury condominium complexes next to shabby three-story Victorian houses; trendy restaurants across the street from greasy spoons; a wine shop on one corner, a cut-rate liquor store on the other.
The house on Hayes Street where the members of the collective had lived immediately after their move to San Francisco was no longer there; that block had been cleared to make way for a high rise. But down the street I spotted Jude's Liquors, where D.A. Taylor had taken on odd jobs from time to time. I parked the MG and followed a plywood-covered walkway around the construction site to the store. There were bars over its plate-glass windows, and the neon signs and faded posters displayed there advertised at least two kinds of beer that were no longer brewed. When I entered, I spotted a young Asian man taking bottles of vodka from a carton and setting them on a shelf behind the counter. I showed him my license, said I'd like to ask him a few questions.
How long had he worked here? He was the owner, had had the store three years now, since the former owner died. No, he didn't know anything about the people who used to live in the neighborhood, didn't know much about those who lived there now. He commuted from the Richmond. This wasn't a good place to raise kids.
I went back to the MG and drove a few blocks to Page Street. The collective had had some kind of dispute with the landlord of the building on Hayes, and after only a few months had found another place not too many blocks away. That building still stood: three-storied, with a pink concrete-block facade and a sagging front stoop. Again I parked and crossed the street, studying the building. Climbed the steps and examined the mailboxes. There were no names on any of them; one of their doors hung open on broken hinges; a bell push dangled on exposed wires; the steps were littered with newspapers and advertising circulars. The building gave me no sense of the past. I could feel no connection between it and the violent plans that had been formulated within its confines.
I went back down the steps, looked toward the eastern corner of the street. A dry cleaner where Libby Heikkinen had occasionally picked up extra cash by clerking had turned into a too-cutely-named bakery-You Knead It. A young white woman emerged, pushing an infant in a stroller, a baguette protruding from her net shopping bag. But on the opposite corner was the grocery store whose owner had allowed the members of the collective to scrounge through the dumpsters for salvageable food-Rhonda's Superette. Rhonda Wilson had testified as a character witness for the defense. I hurried down there.
The grocery was the same as corner stores the city over: full of dusty boxed and canned goods that had been too long on the shelves, with narrow aisles, cracked linoleum, and antiquated, wheezing refrigerator cases. A middle-aged black woman sat behind the counter, going over some invoices.
No, she wasn't Rhonda Wilson. She and her husband had bought the store from her back in the mid-seventies. Rhonda had moved to Nevada, but she wasn't sure she was still there. No, she didn't recall anything about the people up the street who'd been arrested by the FBI-she'd still been living in Texas then and had never even heard about the case. Anyone in the neighborhood who might remember? Well, there was old Cal. Cal had gotten busted up in an accident at the shipyards back in the early sixties. On good days he sat out on the sidewalk in his wheelchair and passed the time of day with whoever came by; on foggy days like this you could usually find him in the family Dodge that his wife kept parked at the curb
'Cal's a do-gooder,' the woman added. 'Writes letters, takes up things that're wrong in the neighborhood with the folks at city hall. People like him; even the junkies and the cops on the beat like him. That car? It hasn't been moved in years, that I know of. But it just sits there and the street cleaners go right around it and nobody ever gives it a ticket.'
When I heard things like that, it restored my faith in a city that often struck me as increasingly cold and indifferent. I thanked the woman, bought a Hershey bar-the emergency chocolate supply in my purse was probably running low- and went out to see what Cal could tell me.
Twenty-Two
The faded maroon-and-white Dodge with swooping tailfins was parked three or four doors from the collective's last address. A pair of old men stood next to it, their arms propped on its roof, talking with someone inside. Both men were bundled in overcoats against the chill fog; one even wore a knitted cap with earflaps. I walked down there and loitered on the sidewalk behind them, waiting for them to conclude their conversation. It was about the possibility of the new downtown stadium to replace Candlestick Park. The men on the sidewalk were all for it; the man in the car-whom I couldn't as yet see-wasn't opposed to the idea, but he considered it evidence of the prevailing 'two-faced attitude' at city hall.
'They tell you one thing during the campaign,' he said in a gravelly voice, 'and after you vote 'em in, you got something else entirely.'
The man with the knitted cap said, 'Well, why don't you just write a letter, Cal, let the mayor know what you think?'
'I might at that.'
I was about to interrupt during the brief lull in the conversation, but the other man on the sidewalk stepped back a little, and the car's occupant saw me. 'Move aside, boys,' he said. 'Here's a young lady come to see me. I got better things to do than shoot the breeze with a couple of old farts.'
'You just too popular, Cal.' The man in the knitted cap motioned for me to step up to the Dodge, and he and his companion turned away. 'Catch you later,' he added.
Old Cal was perhaps in his mid-sixties, with white hair and the kind of dark skin that has an almost purple tinge. His upper body was powerful, with heavily muscled shoulders and biceps; in contrast, his crippled legs, covered by a green plaid blanket and extending from the car so his feet rested on the curb, looked deflated. One glance into his lively eyes told me that the ability to walk was the only faculty this man was lacking;
He smiled in welcome and jerked his head toward the departing men. 'That's what happens when a man retires,' he said. 'Ain't got no resources, neither a them. They'll sure as hell end up down to the Two A.M. Club and be shit-faced by a normal man's quitting time. Now, me-I ain't been able to work a day since sixty-three, but you can always find me here listenin' to what people got to say. Nighttimes, like as not I'm at my typewriter writin' letters, seein' things get done around here. Keeps a man going.' He paused, shook his head. 'Makes him talkative, too. Cal Hurley's the name. I take it you looking for me.'
I shook his extended hand. 'The lady at Rhonda's Superette told me where to find you.'
He took the business card I held out and examined it with interest. 'I like what I hear about you folks at All Souls. You don't put up with shit from city hall any more than I do. How's that fellow got shot last night? He gonna be okay?'
'… I don't know. He's in bad shape.'
'Shame. You the lady collared the sniper. Picture of you in the
I knew which picture he meant. Why the paper persisted in keeping that particular one on file…
I must have looked fairly depressed, because the lines around Cal Hurley's eyes crinkled in sympathy. He said, 'Whyn't you get in the backseat there? You look like you could use to sit. Cold on the sidewalk.'
I opened the rear door of the Dodge and climbed in behind him. The plush maroon upholstery smelled of cigar smoke.
Cal Hurley twisted slightly so he could look at me. 'This about that business last night?'
'No, although it's related in a way.' Briefly I filled him in on the background to my case. 'That pink house four doors down'-I motioned at it-'was where the people lived when they were arrested. I wonder if you remember anything about them.'
He didn't need to look to see which house I meant. 'Funny thing, that was. I took note of those kids right off, on account of them not fitting in here.'
'You mean because they were white?'
He nodded. 'All except for the Indian. You Indian, too?'
