Free Police and Thieves: A Novel by Peter Plate

Twin Peaks, leaving the street in muggy darkness. A papaya vendor was sitting on the steps of the Sanwa Bank across the street. Si Tashjian was closing down for the night, moving bouquets of cala lilies and rhododendrons on a cart into his store. People were shot so often at the corner of Twenty-first Street, it was the Bermuda Triangle of San Francisco. The air was heavy with a dissonance that insinuated itself into your muscles, making them quiver as if they were attached to a battery of electrodes.
    Bobo asked me, “How’d you make out, Doojie?”
    “Not bad.”
    Eichmann piped up, “Damn straight. We’ve got the formula now.”
    For once in my life, I felt self-esteem. But it wasn’t about making money. Something else was changing me. It was Eichmann and Bobo. I couldn’t believe how old they seemed. Eichmann’s prematurely receding hairline and his sunken, sleeplesseyes made his face as prehistoric as the dinosaurs in the history books. Bobo slouched by his side, too tired to be anything except careworn. Whatever happened, no matter where I ended up, I didn’t ever want to feel as tired as they looked. Eichmann’s wolfish aura was making us too obvious in the street, noticeable even to himself, and so he suggested, “Let’s get back to the garage. We’ve got to put away the cash.”
    “You have a hiding place for it?”
    “Yeah, I’ve got a wall safe as big as Fort Knox … you fucking dumbo. I’m putting it in a shoe box.”
    “What are we going to do after that? It’s too hot to sleep.”
    “I don’t know. We can go for a walk and get some of that Indian ice cream at Bombay Creamery. You know that flavor they got? Lychee nut? It’s outrageous.”
    “I want a chicken taco.”
    “Then we’ll go to Pancho Villa’s.”
    “Think they’ll be open?”
    “If they ain’t, we’re going to starve tonight.”
    It was a plan. We had a short-term goal in life and the means to achieve it.
    We turned left off Mission onto San Carlos, as mellow as we’d ever been, passing a joint back and forth, laughing and reminiscing. The block of San Carlos between Twentieth and Twenty-first Streets used to have lots of empty Victorians; dilapidated, unpainted two-storied tenements worth millions of dollars despite the shaky earthquake-prone soil they sat on. Thinking about the real estate made me fantasize about having a house of my own someday. If I kept making money, I could get a place. Maybe not in San Francisco, but definitely in San Leandro or Oakland. Eichmann interrupted my reverie, saying, “Hey, what’s with those dudes?”
    “Who?”
    “Those mother humpers over there.”
    Two hefty strangers were spreading out to block our passage. San Carlos was long and narrow; there was only one way in and one way out. Both men seemed vaguely familiar in the way most of the people on Mission Street did, just a bit scruffy and hard pressed, down on their luck.
    “Who are those assholes?”
    “Don’t ask me.”
    They were drawing closer, maybe twenty yards away. If it weren’t for the telltale bulge of the radios, guns, and handcuffs under their down vests, I would’ve mistaken them for ex-cons straight out of prison. Flaherty’s spotty face emerged from the gloom, more hirsute than ever—I couldn’t believe it. Just when we were on the brink of getting over like champions, the cops had to come down on us. And there was no doubt about it, these characters weren’t out for a jaunt; they’d been waiting to meet us. A cramp deadened my legs, pinwheeling electrical bursts from my groin. Eichmann counseled, “Aw, forget them. They’re just trying to act bad. Whatever you do, don’t look at them.”
    “I ain’t blind, man. What do you want from me?”
    “Be casual.”
    “Like they’re not there? Like they don’t exist?”
    “Totally. Just keep walking and they’ll let us be.”
    It sounded diplomatic to me and I was willing to give it a try. A détente was better than nothing. But when the other