San Francisco Noir (6 page)
Raymont had brought a gun in case Robert had to be dealt with. Corella crept up behind him, reached inside his coat pocket.
Raymont tried to catch her by the arm, missed. “What you playin’ at?”
Corella gripped the weapon with both hands, waving it back and forth, at Raymont, at Lorene, at Raymont. She was crying.
Raymont held out his hand. “Put that down.” Then: “This was your idea, girl.”
Corella fired. Lorene screamed as the bullet hit Raymont in the shoulder. He howled in pain, cursed, reached for the wound, said, “I’ll kill you,” through clenched teeth, but then she fired again, this time aiming for his face. The round went through his eye. Lorene’s screams grew piercing. Raymont tottered, reached for something that wasn’t there, and slowly collapsed to the floor.
“My God, Corella, why, Lord, what—”
Corella raised the barrel till it pointed at her mother. “Quiet,” she said, barely above a whisper, then fired. The bullet ripped through Lorene’s throat. The second went straight through her heart.
Robert came back from the Philly cheese steak shop on Oakdale he liked, chewing gum to counter the smell of the greasy cheese and grilled onions on his breath. He found the door unlocked. Odd, he thought. Careless of me. Smokehounds could just waltz in.
He went straight for the bedroom, make sure all was well, and stopped in his tracks. A man he didn’t recognize sat slumped against the wall, a bloody hole where one eye had been, another in his shoulder. Lorene lay in a heap beside the bed, ugly wounds on her chest and neck. And Mr. Baxter lay in his bed, motionless as a hunk of wood, eyes and mouth gaping.
Corella sat on the floor against the wall, clutching a pillow, staring at nothing. A pistol rested on the floor, not far from her feet.
“They killed him,” she whispered. “I came in…” Her voice trailed away. She glanced up at Robert.
Robert’s eyes bounced back and forth—the gun, Corella. “You?”
“They killed him,” she said again. Practicing.
Robert studied her, then said, “It’s all right. I understand.”
He went to the bedside, checked to make sure Pilgrim was dead, then checked the other two as well. From a box beside the bed he withdrew a vinyl glove, slipped it on his hand.
“You hurt?” he asked Corella, walking over to the gun, picking it up.
She shook her head. Then, looking up into his face, she said, “He never signed those documents, you know. You get nothing.”
Robert crouched down in front of her. “Sometimes it’s not about the money.” With one hand he forced her mouth open, with the other he worked the barrel in. “Sometimes it’s just the right thing to do.”
Two days after the funerals, Marguerite Johnstone sat in her office, meeting with Pilgrim’s surviving daughter, Cynthia. She’d traveled from Hannibal, Missouri, for the services. Her mother had stayed behind.
“Your father had me draft two estate plans,” Marguerite explained, “one he executed the last time I met with him, the other he was saving.”
Cynthia tilted her head quizzically. “Saving?”
She was quite different from Corella, Marguerite thought. She had Midwestern manners, played the cello, wore Chanel. More to the point, she was Korean. Or half Korean, anyway.
“He wanted to see how his ex-wife followed through on certain promises. Obviously, that’s all moot now.”
Cynthia shuddered. “It sounds so terrible.”
The night of the murders, the police received reports of gunfire in the neighborhood but that was like saying it was dark out at the time. No one could pinpoint where the shots came from till Robert called 911. The detectives working the case had their doubts about his story but he’d held up under questioning and passed his gunshot residue test. Besides, the new mayor was lighting bonfires up their buttholes—their phrase—because of their pitiful clear rate on the dozens of drive-bys and gang hits in that neighborhood. Last thing they wanted to do was waste time on a domestic. As it sat, the case had a family angle and a murder-suicide tidiness to it, and that permitted them to close it out with a clear conscience. If justice got served in the bargain, fabulous.
“The documents your father actually executed leave everything to you. The Excelsior house has so little equity and is so heavily leveraged, I’d consider just walking away. Let the lenders fight over it. The Hunter’s Point lot—forget the house—might bring fifty thousand. That’s a guess, we’ll have it appraised. That leaves the cash payout from the annuity.”
Cynthia looked up. “And that would be?”
“In the ballpark of half a million.”
The girl’s eyes ballooned. “I had no idea. I mean, my father and I, we weren’t in touch. My mother, she’s become more and more…traditional. She felt ashamed. She and my father weren’t married and they—” Her cheeks colored. She wrung her handkerchief in her lap. “I wrote from time to time but never visited. Not even after his accident. Corella was the one—”
“It wasn’t Corella’s decision to make. It was your father’s property. That’s the way it works.”
“But—”
“From the way he talked about it, I gathered it was precisely the fact you didn’t hang around, waiting for him to die, that made him feel benevolent toward you.”
Cynthia pondered that, then shrugged. “It still feels a little like stealing, to be honest.”
“You can’t steal a gift, not under the law anyway.” Marguerite glanced at the clock, reminding herself: billable hours. “Are there any questions you’d like to ask?”
Cynthia put her chin in her hand and tapped her cheek with her forefinger. Too cute, Marguerite thought. The innocence was beginning to grate.
“I hope this doesn’t sound crass,” Cynthia said finally, “but when will I get my check?”
Marguerite bit her lip to keep from grinning. Families, death, and money, she thought. Didn’t matter your race or creed—or how far away you lived—the poison always bubbles up from somewhere, often long before the dear departed’s body grows cold.
“That depends on the insurance company administering the annuity. Why?”
Cynthia shrugged. “Nothing. I was thinking about maybe traveling.” She blushed again. “It’s my boyfriend’s idea, actually.”
Interesting, Marguerite thought. “‘Travel is a privilege of the young.’ I read that somewhere. Why didn’t your boyfriend come with you?”
“He lives here. We just met.” The color in her cheeks deepened. “It’s sudden, I realize, and he’s really not my type, but I’ve felt lonely here and he’s very kind. He introduced himself at the church service. You may know him, actually, he took care of my father.”
T
here was a festival of tiny Virgin de Guadalupe statues casting nets into the water. They hopped along the edges of the flooded soccer field, whispering about uncles who used to fish there. Huge hairy homeless men huddled in the predawn drizzle: When will the sun come out again, Mothers? The men placed large eggs in front of the statues. Or not.
Gina trudged through the little park, her mouth opened in a big yawn, her heavy eyes unfocussed, her hair flattened in wet curls from the sputtering rain. Soccer field was flooded again—they built the thing on top of one of the Mission district’s old springs. Whole place used to be one big marsh, birds and fish and everything. Maybe someone should put a couple ducks there or something. Remind folks. Except the birds would probably get eaten. Would that be a good thing or not? Gina wasn’t sure. She’d figure it out over coffee.
She was trying to savor the last moments of night before a harsh winter’s sun gave everything edges—
“Hey! Get outta my way!” An agitated man wearing burgundy plaid jogging shorts and blueberry running shoes continued pumping his legs as he glared at her.
She stared at his legs. Did he actually shave them? What was in his mind when he did that? Like leg hair would slow him down? “Shhhh,” she said. “People sleepin here.”
“Dickhead.” A deep voice Gina recognized rumbled from the depths of a sleeping bag. She saw Lucas’s head appear for a moment before he burrowed back beneath the gold-striped plastic tablecloth which covered the upper half of him. “Go home.”
The jogger’s knees lifted higher,
pop pop one-two one-two
, as he bounced in front of Gina. He huffed, in the direction of the tablecloth, “This is a public park! Not a hotel!”
A couple more sleeping bags twitched, someone groaned. “Every fuckin mornin.”
Lucas turtled out, muttering, “Dickhead gets up befo the sun jus to spoil our mornin.” He nodded to Gina. “Mornin, Gina.”
“Sun’s not comin up today. Go back to sleep.”
The enraged jogger hissed, “You people are crap.”
Gina put her hands on her hips. “What people? Who people? Just who izzit you callin crap?” Her hands clenched as he ran across the lawn and down the steps to his SUV parked at the curb. She hollered at his retreating butt, “You rich fuckin bastaaaard!” She turned to the park’s no longer sleeping crew. “Oh. Sorry.” She headed toward the little mall at Sixteenth and Bryant.
The people who opened Peet’s in the morning didn’t smile a lot—this was important to Gina: Just pour the damn espresso into the cup and give it to me.
Double espresso. Spoonfulla steam milk. She poured the sugar over the top, circling the cup three times—
“Got you a serious sugar jones, Gina?”
Bleary-eyed, Gina glared at her coffee, “Mornin, Lucas.
Don’t talk about jonesin before coffee.” She lifted her head and motioned at the Safeway parking lot outside the window. “Gonna be a crappy day, Lucas. Another crappy day.” She poured half her coffee into a paper cup, handed it to him.
“Yup. Yup.” Lucas rubbed his stubbly chin, scratched his do-rag back over his graying curls, grinned his seven-tooth grin. “Up before the sun again. Haaaaah.” He waved at the chaotic lot, the oily drizzle. “Yunno, the world is how ya make it.” He shrugged deeper into his baseball jacket. “Got a extra cigarette you can spare?”
Gina smiled at her grubby pal. “Pfft. They don come with extra. Only twenty to a pack.” Cocking her head toward the lot, she said, “Come on back out into the wilderness with me and we’ll bring up the sun, smokin.”
She lit two cigarettes. Not gonna share one with Lucas no matter how little he annoyed her in the morning, that man’s mouth surely been some nasty places. She watched him cough on the exhale. “Sorry I woke yas this mornin.”
Lucas blew the smoke into the sky over the lot. “Nahhh. Weren’t you. That guy got somethin wrong with him. Yunno.” He watched the crows and the cars bark and circle in the morning light. “Goin down Sixteenth this morning, Gina. Anythin you want?”
Gina snorted, an unladylike noise. “I want it all, Lucas. I want it all.”
“All Sixteenth Street?” His laugh was a sustained growl. “C’n you
i-magine
what it’d be like just to keep it clean?”
“Pffft. What about the DPW?”
Lucas raised a grizzled eyebrow. “Yeah. What about em?”
“Right. Let it rot.”
“No. If it’s yers…” Solemn nod, years of living at the edges. “If you want it, you gotta care for it.”
Grumpy, “Yeah. Sure. Okay.” A creek used to run all the way from where they stood, started over on Seventh, emptied into the bay. Sewer line now. “You’re right. I don’t want it.” Last drag. “What you want, Lucas? What you willin to take care of?”
“Weeeeeee-ell. I cheer you, smokin the sun come up. That about good enough for my day.”
“I’m not cheered up.” Gina smiled up at him. “Not me. Not cheerful. Not in the mornin. Nope.” She turned her head, her smile fading as she saw three cop cars slide into the parking lot, sharks circling closer to a shiny black car with three shiny brownskin teenagers inside it.
The boys were oblivious, windows down, coffee cups raised to each other, their laughter shading from ghetto falsetto to royal belly roars: “Didja see that man looooooook at us? OOoooooooh yeeeeeeah. He be one jealous muthafucka nowwwww.”
Six doors opened, six cops approached the car, three hung back, two at each side, one stepping forward. “Out. Out of the car. Now.”
Gina saw the whole morning slide straight into the shitter, the tender motion of their wild night, their grand friendship—she watched their lives slip off their faces as the cops approached.
One of the cops pawed at his gun, his shoulders twitched with anticipation.
Wind it back. Way back. To the moment of celebration. Never moving forward.
Stolen car, beautiful car pounding through the night, windows down, rockin sound, good friends. Nothing on their minds, nowhere to be. Just cruisin. Maybe drivin across the bridge to Oakland howlin at the moon, back again headin west as the sun came up behind them, racin chasin and pul-lin into Safeway’s big lot, grabbem some wake-up-the-day, no one even know the car be gonnnnne yet. Three coffees, lotsa cream, take the whole sugar jar. Oh lookit that fiiiine girl, just a fine young girl. Fine. Here’s to all the fine young girls! Here’s to a night under the moon at seventy eighty ninety a hunnert miles an hour! Here’s to friends and Here’s to Forever.
Gina’s breath came slow and shallow, her eyes riveted on the three boys standing, leaning on the car, one foot behind the other, casual, doomed. The police talked then the kids talked, waving their hands in the air. Even though she stared and stared directly at them all, she couldn’t stop the forward motion from falling into the gray nothing forever of jail.
She felt Lucas fade away to her left—a soft sound like a sucker punch—right at the edge of awareness. Her lips curled in a snarl, she flung her coffee cup at the closest police car. Failed to get a splash on the tires. Grand gesture. Didn’t save a single soul.
Gina spun away, headed out Bryant Street, following some long buried waterway, work forgotten. The sound of her boots snapped the cement into grains of sand, the glare of her eyes destroyed every condom dropped in her path. She cut up to Seventh and Folsom, creek’s mouth, digging in her pocket for bills to catch a bus ride out. North. Out of the city. Like her granma used to do when things got tight in the kitchen. Far away for a day of friendly trees. There’d be lots of green shit on the hills. Big ol winter river.