The Angels of Catastrophe by Peter Plate Read Free Book Online Page A

Frankie in the most bored, languid voice she could muster up, “I need a breather. You boys have fun. I’m taking the baby for a walk in his stroller.”
    Doby put Durrutti in his pram and rolled him out the door. She ignored the cops as she wheeled the stroller down the front steps of the cottage to the sidewalk. She stopped to brush a strand of hair from her nose, then leaned over to make sure the kid was strapped in his seat. She looked down at him with eyes that were neither cold nor warm. He stared back at her with the same expression.
    She said, “God help you, you little brat.”

Chapter Seven
    H unt’s Donuts was packed to the rafters with middle-aged Salvadoreno men when Durrutti slogged in through the door. The air was cigarette smoke, which clogged his pores and aggravated his shaving rash. Maimonides was parked at his favorite table in a powder-gray double-breasted quilted suit that complemented his brown leatherette ankle-high boots. It was time to renew the quest to find Jimmy Ramirez.
    As Durrutti sat down, Maimonides announced, “You know I’m dating a woman? She’s beautiful, very nice. She’s a social worker. I met her over by the Department of Motor Vehicles on Fell Street. I’m in love.”
    You’d have thought he was describing the resurrection of Christ. Durrutti was thrilled for him. The whole planet would benefit. He sat with Maimonides while the older man gossiped and finished his coffee and doughnuts. The two of them then left the bakery and piled into the Seville to resume the hunt for the Mexican.

    Cruising down Mission Street, the cars were bumper to
bumper to Bernal Hill. The vehicular exhaust was a thick yellow cloud resembling tear gas. At the red light on Mission and Nineteenth Streets Maimonides spied a young soft-faced black man in chartreuse corduroy flares, a yellow rayon shirt, blue Gucci loafers with elevated heels and a world record sized Afro. He said, “Well, I’ll be fucked. See that guy? Correct me if I’m wrong, but ain’t that Fleeta Bolton? It has to be. Nobody else dresses like that. What is with him? His clothes are fucking blinding me.”
    Durrutti almost shuddered with excitement. Judgment hour had finally arrived and not a second too soon. He pounded the dashboard with both hands, delirious. “That’s Fleeta all right. Pull this boat over.”
    Maimonides eased the Seville to the curb with aplomb, cutting off a Muni bus and Durrutti leaped out of the Cadillac on a dead run. Fleeta, with a talent all his own, as if he had a ghetto satellite dish embedded in his brain, gyrated his neck, not moving his head, not doing anything that would mess up his Afro. He picked Durrutti out of the pedestrians surging around him. His unblinking coal-lit eyes touched down on the pint-sized white man as he yelled out a greeting.
    â€œMotherfucker in hell! Is that you, Ricky Durrutti?”
    If anyone could tell Durrutti where the Mexican was, Fleeta Bolton was the man. He was popular in the street. He went places Durrutti never did, saw people he never saw. He had connections, a cornucopia of them. Durrutti’s salvation was at hand. The hassle of finding Jimmy Ramirez had been wearing him down to a nub—he nearly went insane with joy.

    â€œGoddamn, Fleeta! I ain’t seen you in a long time! What’s up?”
    Durrutti had known Fleeta Bolton for three years. When he’d first met him, Fleeta had been mellow, a new-comer to the neighborhood from Ohio. Befriending Jimmy Ramirez had changed him. You could see it in his face, the confusion and the gradual loss of optimism. He looked at Durrutti with grave misgivings, patting his hair and saying, “What have I been doing? What do you think I’ve been doing, peckerwood? I’ve been hustling my ass off.”
    Not in any particular rush, Durrutti calculated what he wanted to say. Getting Fleeta to talk required strategic moves. Verbal