Free Snitch Factory: A Novel by Peter Plate Page A

under their eyes. Vukovich asked me when I went out the door, “Where are you going?”
    Client, I pantomimed, sucking in my cheeks, making my face look gaunt.
    Seeing Bart Rubio and Matt Vukovich mourning for Hendrix in their tacky maquiladora -wear, flaunting their Gap sweatshirts, Nike hightops and baggy Levi’s confirmed my opinion: social workers didn’t have a clue about fashion. Most welfare recipients had lofty taste in clothing, at least compared to the caseworkers. The clients just didn’t have the money to accessorize their wardrobes.
    Bad judgment, empty pocketbooks and no self-respect: that’s what the waiting room was about. Girl, I had to get out of there.
     
    Walking down the street, there was this guy in front of me, a scruffy bushy-haired penitente in a wheelchair pushing south on Mission. Baby-faced with a wispy beard, his black eyes were congealed with the singularity of purpose that belongs to idiots and madmen. A stainless steel crucifix was hanging from a mesh chain between his eyes. Other crucifixes hung on leather thongs from his chest, back and shoulders. Everyone who saw him, the gangbangers in their blue bandannas, the Catholic school girls, the cops driving by in their black and white vans, stopped to get a look at him. To absorb from him what they could not get out of themselves, a talismanic effect.
    After waiting for a funeral procession on South Van Ness Avenue to let me pass, I got to Shotwell without any hindrance. The pieces of a Harley-Davidson panhead were soaking in buckets of gasoline on the pavement by Mrs. Dominguez’s building. Even though none of my client’s
biker neighbors were around, I saw the imprints of their boot heels in the oil stains on the sidewalk.
    There was a pile of circulars from Thrifty’s, the state lottery program, and a Reader’s Digest on her doormat. This led me to surmise that Frances might not be in the house. If that was the case, I was going to be ticked off. I rang the bell, and nothing. I checked the door knob, but it didn’t budge. What a fuck in the ass. She wasn’t answering: this was getting me mad.
    “Hello? It’s me, Hassler.”
    The windows were shut and the curtains were drawn. I pounded on the door; nobody answered my knocking. I decided to sit down, to get stubborn, and to wait.
    For that hour of day, getting close to three o’clock, the street was dead. I had never been a patient person; it’s a trait for those people who can afford it. The stoop was uneven, and I pulled my dress over my knees, thinking I ought to wear pants on the job. Damn her. I didn’t know why Frances wasn’t making herself available. Like anybody, the woman was capable of irresponsible, untimely behavior, but I’d thought she understood the rules and knew how the contest was played.
    “Mrs. Dominguez. I’m getting tired. Open the door.”
    It took me a few minutes, then I deduced she wasn’t at home. It was exasperating doing this penny-ante stuff. I got to my feet, slipped a notice through her mail slot, a triplicate form that said she could get her food stamps down at the DSS.
     
    It was rush hour on Mission Street when I ambled past Lutz Plumbing, Rubalcava Flower Shop, La Cuban Panderia, Fay’s Club, Kun Woo Food Products and a billion Chinese ladies streaming out of the Capp Street haberdashery sweatshops. At the Sixteenth Street bus stop, a wall-eyed
pink-faced man with Down’s Syndrome was hammering away on a battered acoustic guitar.
    The guitar was propped on his hip. He leaned forward, working his stubby fingers over the frets, whacking the strings with a downward stroke, and singing out of key.
    “Hey-da-hey-da-ho-da-hey-da-do-da-do.”
    Some entertainers are born with the gift; others have to practice for a lifetime to get anywhere with their craft. I gave the guitarist a spare quarter and wished him good luck.

eighteen
    F rank was stirring beside me, smelling like a man who needed a shower. He was shedding his body hair on the