if you don’t see that check in the morning you call me, all right?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I gotta motor. Keep me posted.”
He hung up. I gave up, turned off the computer, and went downstairs to pull my car out of the garage.
Delores, a 1965 Mercury Comet Caliente convertible, carnival red, 289 v8, four-on-the-floor Hurst shifter, Holley quad-barrel carburetor. I got her for less than three grand back when I was working at the Chronicle. I dropped a lot of dough into her and spent many an hour flat on my back underneath her or leaning over the engine with grease under my nails. While she might not be a neck-breaker, I’d pitch her against any car out there for sheer cool cruisability. Old cars are a dime a dozen in the Bay Area, but mine always catches glances.
It’s possible to live in San Francisco without a car, surviving on the BART and the Muni and the buses, making it a rare city in America. But the lure of California is predicated on the mythology of the Old West—a horse for every man, the freedom to wander—and owning a car became essential when I moved down to the peninsula. Being freed from the forty-nine-square-mile bubble that is the City of San Francisco opens one up to the full pantheon of locales that make up the larger Bay Area, from Sausalito to San Rafael, from Oakland to Walnut Creek, from Daly City to Redwood City, and all the way down to San Jose.
I always keep my top down, so I hopped in, rolled out of the garage, and took a deep eucalyptus whiff of the red flowering gum trees that line the sidewalk on my street. I drifted down to Magnolia and onto Grand toward the 101 and seated myself at the All Star Café and wolfed a burger with some overdone fries. I thought I’d take a drive down 280 to Pacifica, but as soon as I got onto Old Mission I was done for, and pulled into Molloy’s. I parked Delores around back—that .08 blood-alcohol level in Cali scares the hell out of me, and I fully intended on blowing it. I sucked down half a dozen Jamesons, thinking about some twenty-one-year-old babe named Ashley, and before I knew it I was in the back of a cab, nodding off on the way back to Palm Ave., stumbling into my house, and still sitting up at four in the morning, Saturday drunk but feeling sober as Tuesday, staring confusedly into my own reflection on canvas.
3
I woke up late and groggy, shaved my tongue, and tried to wash the taste out of my mouth—like I’d been chewing on an old boot. I showered and cooked a hangover breakfast of hash browns and eggs, sat and smoked sixteen cigarettes, called a cab, and barreled out the door. There was one lead to follow, and I figured I’d better chase it quick.
For the second time in two days I almost killed myself walking out the front door. A flat Fed Ex envelope fumbled its way between my legs and almost sent me sprawling over the rail. I caught my balance, scooped it up, and ripped the zip. Inside was an envelope with my name on it and, sure enough, a check made out to me for $25,000. I almost jumped over the rail voluntarily, but remembered who it was from and doubted it would actually clear.
The cab took me to Molloy’s to pick up Delores. I drove straight to the bank to deposit the check, and on my way home I picked up the Chronicle, the Observer, and the SF Weekly. I sat at my kitchen table with a highlighter and a notepad, making a list of every gallery in town that might conceivably hang works by unknowns, with a special eye out for any group shows. I started pounding numbers.
It was slow going. It took me half a dozen calls just to get over feeling like an idiot: “Hello, are you currently exhibiting anyone by the name of Ashley?”
“Ashley who?”
To avoid answering that question, I settled on playing a dumb college student who knew that a girl from his class had a show but couldn’t remember which gallery.
Then I hit pay dirt.
“Dalton Gallery, can I help you?”
“I was wondering if Ashley is part of your group show.”
There was a pause on the line. He didn’t ask, Ashley who? He was quiet for a moment, breathing through his nose. Then, slowly, like a pot of milk coming to a boil and escalating quickly: “Yes, we do have one of her pieces.”
“Great. How late are you open today?”
“Four o’clock.”
“Thanks.”
* * *
It was still early, and it was Wednesday, and I usually go to the range on Wednesdays. I figured I had the time and that it would do me good. I didn’t feel like having to clean my gun later, so I hopped into Delores and rolled down Grand to the 101 access road and pulled into the Jackson Arms. There was a chill in the air, and the characteristic South City morning fog was stubbornly hanging onto the hills.
“Hey, Charlie, how are you?” Charlie, six foot two, had to be close to two bills, with red-cherry cheekbones, long, stringy hair, and a genuine smile that held one broken incisor. A big gun-toting California redneck, Charlie was salt of the earth and all woman.
“Crane, where you been?”
“Oh you know, here, there.”
“Just not here.”
“It’s been a long week.” I was eyeballing the excellent selection of handguns under the glass.
“Got to stay in practice,” Charlie said. “Get sloppy, I’ll have to show you how it’s done—and you don’t want to get outshot by a woman.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” I said, “I’m a feminist.”
“Pshh,” Charlie half-laughed, half-snorted. “You know what I always say: show me a feminist,” a wry crooked grin pulled up one half of her face, “and I’ll kick her ass.”
I’d been eyeballing Charlie’s Beretta Cougars. They’d only been on the market a few years and I’d yet to try one.
“You didn’t bring your .45?”
“No,” I said, “thought I’d take something for a spin.” Then I spotted the Mini Cougar .45, so compact and snug, with a pushed-in muzzle—like the pug of automatic pistols, but still packing a mean punch. “Let me try that.”
“The Mini Cougar?” Charlie made a face. “It’s been sticking. I oiled it yesterday and it didn’t help—I gotta break it down. Hey,” she moved to another case and reached in, “I know how you love your .45s, man after my own heart and all. But you want to try something with a small profile . . . you ever shoot one of these?” She held up a sleek black snub-nosed automatic, the line between the slide and the frame like a racing stripe. “Gangbanger special?”
“I think you know I haven’t.”
“First time for everything.”
California has a law against renting guns to a single shooter at a range; if you want to rent a gun, you have to bring a friend. This is in response to suicides on shooting ranges, but Charlie has known me for years and always lets it go. “This is the Glock 26, 9mm. The ‘Baby Glock.’ One of their latest models. Just came out in ’96.” She loaded up a clip for me, handed me a box of shells, eye protection, ear protection, and a couple of classic red-on-black human silhouette targets.
