Past Tense Read online

  But I was wrong. In the space of the next two hours, I was witness to a cornucopia of felonies—five drug deals and one drug bust, one simple assault, one attempted mugging, one larceny by trick, and six disturbances of the peace involving booze or braggadocio. One guy knocked on the car window and accused me of being a narc; another assumed I was a crack customer. A third offered to suck my cock. I hadn’t seen that much criminal activity in one place since the day I visited the stock exchange.

  There was so much going on, in fact, that I almost missed her. I would have missed her if I hadn’t been glancing in my rearview mirror periodically, mostly for self-preservation, because the building she came out of wasn’t the children’s project, it was Glide Memorial, the major social institution in the Tenderloin. Glide is a haven for hundreds of people who have no other source of sustenance, whether physical, nutritional, or spiritual. Its leader, the Reverend Cecil Williams, is as close as real people come to sainthood.

  Tafoya was walking with another girl her age, wearing the same tan slacks and pink shirt she’d had on the day I saw her at Danielle’s, obviously her best outfit. She was laughing with her friend and strolling easily through the fractious streets, but her senses were hyperalert all the same, as aware of who and what was around her as a point man for the airborne in the highlands, properly cognizant of the potential for disaster in the neighborhood in which she lived.

  She was like a daisy in a ditch, irrepressible and incandescent, a survivor of the undeclared war in the city streets. But there was a smudge of sadness in her eyes as well, an air of melancholy and resignation incongruous in one so young, a sadder-but-wiser aspect that might have been grief over her stepfather’s demise or might have been the residue of his misconduct.

  I waited until she turned at the corner, then got out of the car and followed her. The contrast between the girl and the environment was breathtaking. Tafoya was fresh and young and eager and alive; the neighborhood was derelict and decrepit and abandoned and forlorn. As if to accentuate the difference, she picked a thistle that was blooming out of a crack near the curb and carried it at her breast like a scepter; an archangel couldn’t have looked more beatific.

  The men along her route teetered on the brink of unconsciousness, undone by coke or booze. Women sat on the sidewalk and begged for change. Small children were herded and hurried along by parents terrified of letting them run loose. A dog ran free, a hunk of something brown and bloody dangling from its mouth—I hoped it was a slice of calf’s liver.

  After the dog disappeared, I shuddered and looked at Tafoya again; predictably, she seemed unfazed. Places like the Tenderloin seemed to have a chance at revival a few years back, but now no one wants them to thrive, they want them to become zoos that display the lower forms of human life within unbreachable boundaries, as cautionary lessons to us all. Americans are not a pretty people any longer; perhaps we never were.

  Her friend stopped at a bus stop and leaned against the pole to wait for her ride. The bus was two blocks away. It might get there in a minute, it might get there in an hour, it might not move for days. After one last whispered confidence, Tafoya waved good-bye to her friend and continued down the street. I meandered after her, prepared to buy drugs or beg change if that’s what it took to remain undetected, but before I had to do any business, she vanished in the middle of the next block.

  When I hurried to the spot where I’d last seen her, I found myself at the entrance to the Turk Towers, a misnomer if there ever was one. The towers were only three stories tall, a portion of which housed a defunct laundromat from which everything but a skin of lint had long been removed. The Turk part came from the street address but the only thing the street or the building had in common with the Ottoman Empire was that they were all three past their prime.

  Three names were printed next to the eight numbers on the security system by the door, but the device that let you speak to them had been ripped off. One of the names was Lumpley, the guy found dead in the jail. The apartment was 2-C, so that’s where I headed, with more than a little reluctance. I’d been ambushed in a Tenderloin walk-up once and had no desire to relive the experience.

  When no one answered in 2-C, I pressed all the other buzzers in the hope that someone would be expecting someone, but no one responded to my plea. Visitors weren’t likely to be good news in that part of town. I was afraid the lock might thwart me, but a moderate shove got me inside the building. I doubt I was the first to gain entry that way.

  The smell wasn’t as bad as I feared—no feces, no urine, no vomit—but the musk of mildew and rug rot was bad enough. The walls were smeared with green paint and gang graffiti, the floor was linoleum with an inadequate grip on its base. The brass chandelier was missing all bulbs but one, the potted plant had been potted too long. Someone had taped a poster of Whitney Houston to the opposite wall and someone had laid a blooming weed on the table by the stairway. The someone in both cases must surely have been Tafoya.

  As I climbed the stairs, they told me to lose weight; when I knocked on the door to 2-C, no one answered.

  I banged again. “Tafoya?”

  Still nothing.

  “Tafoya. My name is Tanner. I’m a friend of Charley Sleet’s.”

  There was a rustle and a thump and the sound of a voice being muffled. Sweat broke cold on my brow; my nerves vibrated like harp strings.

  I turned the knob. Locked. I pressed against the door. Some give, but only slightly. Inside, someone called out. I pressed my ear against the door.

  “Don’t. Please. I don’t want to.”

  “I give the asshole six rocks for some fly pussy, baby. What’s wrong? He told me how much you liked it. Said you and he did the bang-bang all the time, front, back, and sideway. So don’t do this to me, baby. Just lie back and let me do my thing.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Who dead?”

  “Devon.”

  “Yeah? Well, he die with my soup in his pocket, so the deal still on. Let me show you what I got for you, baby. You going to like it fine.”

  I banged on the door with my fist. “If the door isn’t open in six seconds, I’m breaking it down. The cops are on their way. You better quit while you’re ahead.”

  “Mr. Sleet?” a high voice called out, desperate and eager, then relieved. “Is that you, Mr. Sleet?”

  The second voice was raw and ravenous. “Get in line, motherfucker. I already got it up. You get second helpings.”

  “Leave her alone, buddy. Rape’s a bad rap.”

  I listened but heard nothing but thumps and bumps and groans.

  “Here I come, asshole.” I threw myself against the door and succeeded only in bruising my shoulder.

  “Help me, Mr. Sleet. Please help me.”

  “Keep your ass out, motherfucker. This don’t concern you—the bitch is bought and paid for. When we done, I let you know.”

  “Let her alone. She’s just a child. You’ll do time for life if you rape her.”

  “Shit, man, I doing life already. Folsom bound to be an improvement over Turk Street.”

  I lunged at the door again and this time the jamb started to splinter.

  “I’m a private detective,” I yelled. “I’m an officer of the court and I’m licensed to carry firearms. You don’t come out, I come in shooting.”

  The first part was true—I was licensed—but the last part wasn’t—I didn’t have my gun with me.

  Lucky for me, a siren sounded somewhere nearby. It didn’t have anything to do with me or Tafoya, but the guy in the apartment didn’t know that.

  A chain rattled beyond the door. An instant later, it flew open and a small black man scampered out of the apartment. His arm was crossed over his face, his shirt was ripped open to show a narrow pigeon breast, his fly was undone and his belt was flapping at his waist like a gill. I threw a punch at him as he ran by, but I was off the mark. I wanted to go after him, but thought better of it when I saw the door start to swing shut.

  The
face beyond the narrow gap between the door and jamb was so exquisite it made the entire building seem palatial. My heart did a reflexive bump and grind that put me in league with the guy who’d just left.

  Her eyes were wide with hope and fear—there’s lots of things to be afraid of in the Tenderloin and she’d just experienced one of them. Another was that the guy who came to the rescue was often worse than the one who caused the problem in the first place.

  “Are you Mr. Tanner?” she asked me, her voice stiff and coltish and stalwart.

  “Yep. Are you all right, Tafoya?”

  She lowered her eyes. “I’m fine. Is Mr. Sleet with you?”

  “No. How did that guy get in?”

  “Devon gave him a key, he said.”

  “Are you sure he didn’t hurt you? Maybe you should go to the hospital.”

  She shook her head. “Did Mr. Sleet send you to see me?” The hope in her voice was palpable.

  “Sort of,” I said, and sensed immediately that my little white lie was detected.

  “I’m not supposed to open the door to anyone,” she said coldly, and started to close it in my face.

  “You can call Mr. Morrison at the Children’s Project to vouch for me. I talked to him yesterday. He knows what I’m trying to do.”

  “They took our phone out,” she said simply, laying waste to my character reference.

  “What time does your mom get home?”

  She shrugged. “When she feels like it.”

  “Is there someone else who could come here while we talk for a while? It’s about Charley,” I added when she didn’t respond. “He’s in a lot of trouble. I’m trying to get him out of it.”

  I’d given up hope by the time the door opened fully once again. She stood in the entryway serene and alert, looking at me and then beyond me at the stairway where her attacker had retreated. When she saw it was clear, she stepped back. “I guess it’s all right. You did sort of save me, I guess. Do you want some tea or anything?”

  “No, thanks. But help yourself.”

  “I hate tea. I like Sunny D.”

  She led me into the studio. It was as neat as a pin and clean as a whistle, with cheap but sturdy furniture and minimal but complete accessories. The windows were painted black, the Pullman kitchen was tiny but sufficient, the rollaway bed was shoved tactfully behind a curtain, the walls were decorated with pictures of Jesus and Martin Luther King and Salt-n-Pepa and a tiny drawing with trees and flowers that looked to be Japanese. I’ll bet Tafoya had cleaned and straightened every inch of it.

  The only chairs in the room were part of an ancient dinette set. I sat in one, Tafoya sat in the other; I was afraid mine might buckle beneath me. Tafoya looked at me with a bright expectancy, as though I might be some sort of personal savior. I see that look a lot and so did Charley, probably because most of the people we deal with are so badly in need of one.

  “Have you spoken to Charley recently?” I asked.

  She hesitated, then shook her head. One thing young people don’t do very well is lie to strangers.

  I decided to detour rather than travel straight on. “Do you know what Charley’s been up to, Tafoya?”

  “I know what they say at the center.”

  “What do they say?”

  “That he killed some people.”

  “Do they say who?”

  “My stepdaddy, for one.”

  “Do you think he did it?”

  He eyelids fluttered. “I … yes.”

  “Why would he do something like that?”

  “Because of what happened.”

  “What did happen, Tafoya?”

  She paused. “Nothing.”

  “I don’t mean to pry, but it must have been real bad. For Charley to do what he did, I mean.”

  “It was bad but he still shouldn’t have done what he did to Devon. I could have handled it myself. Last time he did it I hurt him. He stayed away from me for a month.”

  I closed my eyes and plunged ahead, as usual in search of information I didn’t want to possess. “How long had it been happening, Tafoya?”

  “Since I was nine.”

  “How long has Charley known about it?”

  “Since he saw Devon slap me at the center one day.”

  “Have you talked about it with anyone but Charley?”

  “I talked with a caseworker once; welfare or children’s service or some such. But she didn’t do nothing. And Mr. Sleet made me talk to a woman who comes to the project on Saturdays. I been to her office a few times.”

  “Do you like her?”

  She smiled. “She’s okay.”

  “Anyone else?”

  She shook her head. “The police came, but Mama wouldn’t let them in.”

  “Were the police asking about your stepfather?”

  “I think so. I’m not sure.”

  “Did your mother know what her husband was doing to you?” I asked softly.

  Tafoya’s eyes flashed. “She says it didn’t happen. Not the way I say it did. She says if it did, I must have asked for it.”

  “You don’t believe her, do you?”

  Her lip puffed. “I know what happened, I know it was wrong, and I know Mr. Sleet did what he did to stop it.”

  “He’s been here today, hasn’t he?”

  “Who?”

  “Charley.”

  She shook her head.

  “I think he has, Tafoya. If not today, then yesterday.”

  Her back arched. “What if he was? What would it matter?”

  “It wouldn’t matter but it would help if you told me where he went.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  She shook her head.

  “What did he talk about?”

  She hesitated, then looked toward the rear of the apartment, toward what must have been her bedroom. “My stepdaddy.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Miss Derwinski.”

  “What did he say about her?”

  “That I should let her help me.”

  “With what?”

  She shrugged. “With life and stuff.”

  “Well, I’m trying to help Charley, Tafoya. Some men are out to get him and if you could tell me where he is I could go warn him that they—”

  “I don’t know where he is. Honest, I don’t.”

  She started to cry, deeply and convulsively, with obvious pain and anguish that had to do with more than Charley.

  “It’s all right. Don’t cry. I’ll find him some other way.” I gave her time to compose herself, then asked, “What did he talk about when he saw you down at the children’s project?”

  “We didn’t talk about much, really. I didn’t, at least. Mr. Sleet talked about sports a lot.”

  “Why didn’t you talk?”

  She grinned through a spray of tears. “For a while, I wasn’t saying much.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know, I just didn’t feel like it. Then Mr. Sleet talked to me and had that woman talk to me, too, and things got better. I talk all the time now.” Her smile bloomed as fresh as the weed in the foyer.

  “Do you have any idea where he went after he left here, Tafoya?”

  She shrugged. “Home, probably.”

  “Were you ever at his home?”

  “No.”

  “Did he ever take you places?”

  “He took me places to eat sometimes. He liked Chinese.”

  “Chan’s.”

  “Yeah. Chan’s.”

  “Anyplace else he took you?”

  “To eat?”

  “To anything.”

  “He took me to a graveyard once. He said his wife was buried there. He talked about her a lot. He said he went there every week to take her fresh flowers.”

  “What day was that?”

  “Sunday, I think. Yeah. We went there twice. Both times on Sunday. Like right about now.”

  I took Tafoya to the Children’s Project, told
Hank Morrison what had been happening when I arrived at her apartment, and asked if he could take care of it. He told me he could. I hated to add to his burden, but there was a place I had to be.

  CHAPTER

  30

  IF YOU DROP DEAD IN SAN FRANCISCO, CHANCES ARE YOU won’t be buried in the city, chances are you’ll be buried in Colma. Colma is five miles south of town and most of its landmass is cemetery. There are all kinds of cemeteries in Colma—Greek, Catholic, Irish, Jewish, Italian—legions of headstones ascending the hills and cascading down the vales, depositories of the dead arranged in ethnic and spiritual clusters as far as the eye can see. Wyatt Earp is buried there, and so is Levi Strauss. For some people it’s depressing to see so much evidence of mortality gathered in one place, but for me it’s a cheery sight, a reminder that so many have gone before. If it were really all that awful on the other side, I think we’d have heard about it by now.

  I’d been there when they buried her, of course—it was a May day that was raining and cold and gloomy, climatologically suited to the occasion. The mourners had numbered more than a hundred, many of them cops but many not, among them several homeless alcoholics and junkies that Charley and Flora had given a boost to along the way. What amazed me was how they managed to get all the way to Colma, since planning and promptness weren’t big parts of their lives anymore.

  It goes without saying that Charley had borne up well, stoic through the hymns, stalwart through the benediction. He’d invited all of us back to his place afterward, and although we didn’t really think he wanted us there, we didn’t see how we could refuse. He’d made a pot of chili and some green salad for the occasion, and thawed a batch of Flora’s famous brownies that she seemed to have prepared by the gross, and we’d all gotten drunk except Charley—I’d spent the night on his couch, too bent out of shape to drive home. When I came to the next morning, I was the sole remaining person on the premises—Charley had gone to work on schedule, leaving a thank-you note and a piece of cold toast in his wake. I never was sure what he was thanking me for, maybe that I hadn’t thrown up.

  As far as I know, he never did break down except in the tiny increments that were spread over the next dozen years, withdrawing little by little into a mechanistic, ritualistic existence that did a lot of good for others but not a lot for Charley. We’d worried about him in the beginning, to the extent of indulging in a frenzied spate of fruitless matchmaking some years back, but predictably it was all for naught. And as usual, Charley took care of the problem himself, a big hunk of the cure in the person of Marjie Finnerty. I hoped they’d had time to get somewhere close to happiness, because it was beginning to look like their time was running out.