1958 San Francisco
Struggling jazz musician, Frank Valentine, suffers a midnight beating, leaving his left hand paralyzed. Jobless, penniless, and desperate, Frank agrees to join his best friend, George, and three other buddies to distribute a gangster’s heroin for quick money.
What he doesn’t know is that George has more dangerous plans…
Inexperienced in the ways of crime, Frank quickly slips deeper and deeper into the dark vortex of San Francisco gangsters, junkies, and murderers for hire. To make things worse, Frank’s newfound love, a mysterious, dark-haired beauty, is somehow connected to it all.
And when it becomes clear that a crime syndicate is bent on his destruction, Frank realizes that the easy road out of purgatory often leads to hell.
Chapter One
There’s something twisted about a place that’s colder in the summer than in the winter. Just about anywhere else in the country, July evenings are warm and balmy, but on most summer nights in San Francisco, a cold damp fog blows in from the Pacific and drops a shroud over the entire city. But I loved it. You could immerse yourself in it, let it obscure and limit your view so the whole crazy world wasn’t more than a hundred feet in front of you. As I walked through the fog on the way back home, I imagined myself cocooned inside that cold, white blanket where no one could find me. The fog conceals a lot of things too; I didn’t see the ’53 Club Coupe Chevy as I neared my apartment building. Sickly green in color and beat to hell, the heap was unremarkable except that it was an oracle of my coming misfortune.
I lived on the edge of the Tenderloin near O’Farrell and Larkin Streets. My apartment was on the top floor of a three-story, wood-frame job, wedged between a sex shop and a liquor store where winos did their shopping and addicts robbed at regular intervals. It was two a.m. by the time I had reached my street. The cold had seeped through my clothes, and all I wanted to do was fall into bed. Even this late you could find a few hookers or guys looking to score dope, but tonight there was no one around. The few isolated streetlamps barely pierced the fog for more than a couple of yards, and the only sounds were my footsteps echoing off the buildings. A car door closed up ahead, but I didn’t look up. It wasn’t until I saw their legs that I noticed the two guys blocking the sidewalk. A flash of panic ran through me.
“What know, man?” one of them said.
They stood in the shadows, but I recognized the speaker from the round gut that hung over his beltline and the thick New Orleans accent. He was a small-time dealer that I bought reefer from. Daniel Devrees.
“Oh, man, Disease,” I said.
“Don’t call me that.” He sounded like the kid bullied too many times on the playground who could finally exact his revenge. “You know I don’t like it. People that owe me money don’t get to call me anything but sir.”
The initial panic had subsided, but a deeper dread was growing a knot in the pit of my stomach. Daniel took a few steps forward and moved into a pool of light. The frayed edges of the brim of his straw porkpie hat threw a saw-toothed pattern across his diminutive nose and round cheeks. At the age of thirty, he had already lost a substantial portion of his hair, and he tried to hide it by always wearing that same worn hat. I’d never seen him without it.
“I haven’t got it,” I said.
Daniel motioned for his companion to come forward. My stomach tightened when I saw the guy was carrying a baseball bat.
“What the hell does he have that bat for?” I tried firm, but my voice quivered.
“Why, this is Mickey,” Daniel said, then flashed me a Cheshire-cat grin. “Get it?”
I didn’t think he meant the mouse. The punk stood almost six foot four with biceps that bulged from his rolled-up sleeves. His black hair was slicked back into a ducktail with half a can of pomade.
“Ain’t it perfect? Mickey? Mantle? Don’t you get it? Mickey here is batting a thousand when it comes to people’s heads. He was on his way to becoming a home-run king in the minors until he blew out a knee. It just made him madder than hell, and now he likes to take it out on everybody else.” Daniel chuckled as he rolled a cigarette around in his mouth.
“What did you bring him for? We had a deal.”
“It ain’t my money, brother. That’s another department.”
“What are you talking about? Ernie said it came from you.”
“Well, Ernie told you wrong. I’m not allowed to do loans. At least not a two-grand floater like yours. So I referred it to the guys that do. The outfit is always looking for an easy mark like you to hustle.”
“What outfit? This is the first time I heard any mention of a goddamned outfit.”
“Not just any goddamned outfit. The outfit, man. The one that knows where all the bodies are buried, if you dig what I’m sayin’. That’s who I work for, and that’s who you owe the money to.”
“Ernie said nothing about that. If I had known, I would have said no.” I heard the fear bordering on pleading in my voice.
“Ernie, Ernie. Blame it all on poor Ernie. You know, your biggest mistake was hooking up with that guy in the first place.”
“I didn’t know, goddamnit.”
“Makes no difference to me whether you did or not. A deal’s a deal.”
“Give me a break. Please. Two thousand dollars isn’t that much.”
“Not that much? Hell, any more than that and we’d have to break both legs and dump you in the bay. Consider this just a friendly incentive.”
“I’ll pay you back.”
“No more whining. Look, I don’t want to hustle you, but I’ve got no choice. They’re puttin’ the screws to me now, and that’s where our friendship ends. I told you last week that trouble was coming if you didn’t cough up the dough.”
“Give me some more time. I’ll borrow it from my friends if I have to.”
He took a deep puff from his cigarette and pushed the smoke out of his lungs, letting the smoke hang in a swirling cloud in front of his face. He tried to be menacing with the smoke thing, like some big-time gangster, but his eggplant-shaped face usually inspired me to laugh. I wasn’t laughing this time, though. All I wanted to do was wrap my hands around his triple chin. Or run.
“Business is business,” he said. “I’ve got my guys to answer to, and they’re not old friends like we are.”
“Look. I’ve got a line on something. One of the cats I played with tonight is going to give me some studio gigs. Give me a few more weeks. We’ll make it fifty percent interest.”
“This is just a formality, but I have to ask. To make things official and all. Have you got the money?”
“I’ll get the money, man. I swear.”
“I’ll ask one more time. Have you got the money?”
My mind raced. My only chance was to get out onto Geary Street and flag down a car or hope to catch a patrolling cop. I could outrun Daniel, but I wasn’t so sure about Mickey. My survival instinct decided for me. I bolted for safety.
Mickey was ready for me, and despite his supposed bum knee, he was on me in three strides.
My back exploded in an electrical shock. My knees hit concrete, and I went face-first onto the sidewalk, bounced, and rolled, ending faceup. I fought for breath as my mind tried to work against the torment, screaming at me to breathe, to run, to beg. I was only vaguely aware of Mickey and Daniel standing over me. Through the haze of tears, I watched the bat rise, then heard the whoosh of air as it crashed into my ribs. My lungs froze and I panicked. My legs pushed me along the sidewalk, a vain attempt to get away. I’m not sure if I said “no, stop” in my mind or out loud. Mickey grabbed a foot and dragged me back. Daniel’s face came in close to mine.
“I never wanted to do this. I tried to talk ’em out of it. I really did. But they insisted on Mickey giving y’all a few batting lessons. I’m sorry, man, but my hands are tied.”
Daniel straightened. They waited. Probably allowing some of the shock to subside so I could appreciate the full impact of Mickey’s next lesson. I made eye contact with Mickey. He smiled and raised the bat. As it came down, I turned. It hit the concrete with a hollow thud. I got up onto my hands and knees and crawled. Reason left me. The bat slammed into my side and I went down. Mickey grabbed me by the shoulders, lifted me up, and shoved my back against a brick wall.
“One more and we’re outta here,” Daniel said. Mickey wound up for his swing. “Not the head, man,” Daniel added.
Mickey raised the bat for his home-run hit.
I’ll always regret what I did then. It was instinct, but it changed my life. Mickey swung, and I thrust my left arm out to protect myself. The bat smashed into my wrist. A million volts of agony short-circuited my already overloaded brain. I figure that Mickey, angered that he’d hit the equivalent of a foul ball, ignored Daniel’s warning and hit me in the head because everything went black.
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