Free Police and Thieves: A Novel by Peter Plate Page B

something about it.”
    “Why? He did it. Isn’t that enough?”
    He mimicked me, “He did it … but you
saw
what he did.”
    “Yeah, so? What can I do about that?”
    “You have to do something. Why don’t you admit that to yourself?”
    “Because I’m covering my ass. It’s more complicated than you think. It’s like every which way I turn, I’m getting backed into a trap. You got any more questions, talk to Eichmann.”
    “You trust him?”
    “What choice do I have?”
    Eichmann said if we kept peddling weed at our present rate, by the end of summer we would have enough money to vacate the garage. That’s what we were aiming toward. It was incredible to think about it. I’d been a squatter for too long, for centuries. There was one hitch to the program—Eichmann also said we had to do things his way. Bobo agreed; he could care less. But I resented Eichmann’s authoritarian methods. He fancied himself a Jewish gangster, the next generation in a vaunted legacy. Benya Krik, Meyer Lansky, and now himself. A gangster from the ghetto who robbed the shysters and fed the less-than-privileged. In the meantime, I was trapped in San Francisco at the height of tourist season, and there was little I could do. I gazed at the dead man waning and waxing like a police-bulletin poltergeist.
    “What do you want from me?” I asked.
    He opened the jagged hole where his mouth used to be, and nothing came out.
    My grandmother was celebrating the first day of summer by cooking potatoes in a gigantic aluminum cauldron on the stove; a pot ofchicken was boiling madly on the next gas burner. Three hot custard cups of instant tapioca pudding were sitting on the sink counter. When the pudding cooled, the tapioca would congeal, the surface getting tough as rawhide.
    She hoisted the chicken pot from the stove, then shuttled it over to the kitchen table, slamming it down on a straw place mat, spilling some of the scalding broth on my grandfather’s arm—he didn’t even blink. He just sat there in his chair with the novel
The Family Moskat
by Isaac Bashevis Singer in his hands. The paperback was a tome of over five hundred yellowed pages. Whenever he wasn’t around, I touched the book like it was a talisman, hoping it would bring me good luck.
    The chicken was floating majestically in the water surrounded by opalescent blobs of fat. Satisfied the meat was properly cooked, she went back to the stove and returned with the potatoes. When she had everything on the table, she ladled chicken legs, broth, and potatoes onto her husband’s plate, pushing back her black hair when it fell over her eyes. Other than the frozen snarl of a zombie on her mouth, there wasn’t any expression on her ashen face, none whatsoever.
    Eager to eat, the old man reached under her serving hand for the salt shaker. Salt was the only condiment they used in their diet. She said pepper or any other kind of spice was harmful to their digestion. If he didn’t think the meal was adequately seasoned, the solution was simple: He could always add more salt. She also said boiling food was the best way to eat it. Boiling killed the poisons and the diseases that were in bread, fruits and vegetables, fowl, and beef.
    The old man shoveled the potatoes on his plate into his mouth with great relish, never pausing until he had all of the spuds down his throat. He dug into the chicken with his fingers, ripping the bones apart and sucking at the marrow after eating the gray,overcooked meat. His lonely chin gleamed with chicken fat; bits of potato were ending up on the table and in his lap.
    By the time she served herself, he was done with the main course. Eating was the only fun he had, and he did it with a speed that was disconcerting. My grandmother pecked at a chicken wing on her own plate, but her annoyance with him was clear. She disapproved of the old man’s eating habits, but what was the point in mentioning it to him? She pushed aside her teacup and muttered, “Let