Dirty in Cashmere by Peter Plate Read Free Book Online Page B

passing too fast to make a wish on.
    I shut my eyes and visualized the radioactive elements that channeled through my blood. Cesium, plutonium, and strontium. How I kept testing negative, I didn’t know. Spike held my left hand. Gently, not too tight. Her palm was soft, fingers warm. I addressed her, unable to sugarcoat the future.
    â€œThe cops are gonna come here soon.”
    â€œTo do what?”
    â€œTake back these houses.”
    â€œThat’s crap. Nobody wants this street. I’m safe out here. And I need this place. Don’t you?”
    â€œOracles don’t have homes.”
    â€œDon’t be an asshole. Everyone needs a home.”
    The wind was singing in the telephone lines. I smelled the exhaust from the cars on Geneva Avenue. I heard distant gunshots near Mission Street, peppering the spaces where there wasn’t any wind or cars.
    The Hondurans’ bungalow was illuminated from within by hydro lamps leaking orange-white light into the street with the aplomb of a Halloween pumpkin. The rest of Guadalupe Terrace was scrolled in wearied blackness.
    The bullet turned in my brain, something that had begun in the morning, indicating the Haldol was quickly wearing off. My oracular tendencies were resurgent, on the upswing.
    Then Spike turned and kissed me. I didn’t see that coming. It was the last thing I expected from anyone in the universe. I opened my mouth a tad and cemented my lips to hers, the kiss absolving me of the loneliness I’d felt since Vivian Raleigh. To her credit, Spike didn’t complain about my insane breath.
    The half tab of Life kicked in. My toes were numb, my sphincter was tight. Spike fluttered her hands, buzzed on the vaccine. “I’m seeing colors and patterns.” In a few hours tomorrow would come like a woman telling a man their love affair was the best thing that’d ever happened to her.

 
    TWENTY
    Saturday dawned with a cap of reddish clouds topping the skyline. A northerly wind was gusting hard, stripping the sidewalk trees of their brown and gold leaves. I was broke and hungry. So I went back to Eternal Gratitude to rustle up some work.
    My thoughts kept returning to Spike and the emotional architecture that connected us. Last night she argued the bullet in me was inhibiting my spiritual development, and I had to get it extracted. Like I told her before, it couldn’t be done.
    The icing on the cake was the typhoon that’d bashed the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. More radioactive fallout had wafted over the Pacific Ocean to the West Coast. In the streets pedestrians now wore carbon filter face masks to protect themselves from airborne contaminants.
    I rang the club’s bell. Seconds later, 2-Time’s gaunt, lined visage floated up to the door, as if he were surfacing from the bottom of an aquarium. He wasn’t surprised to see me and shot me a knowing, weary look.
    â€œWhat the hell, Ricky. Why don’t you come in? Everybody else is here.”
    Inside the club the sound of the rain pitter-pattered against the skylights. The house sound system played “Everyday People” by Sly & the Family Stone while 2-Time and I watched Tommy Doolan from the Department of Public Health inspect the premises. A thin man with a bad complexion, done up in a sherbet red suit from Macy’s, Doolan walked the floor and stuck his nose into jars of Life. Thanks to 2-Time’s misconduct, Eternal Gratitude was now under the Department of Public Health’s jurisdiction.
    Despite the downturn in his fortunes, a garrulous 2-Time was seemingly pleased to see me again and whispered in my ear. “Heller is a motherfucker. He came in here when me and Rita were gone and robbed us of every penny we had. Then I hear he’s headed to Mexico. Him and that goddamn Mitzi.”
    After he finished checking the club, Doolan called a meeting. Without any formality, he notified everybody, meaning Rita, 2-Time, and me,