San Francisco Noir Read Free Page B

war…” he stammered. “That’s all I meant. I know you wanted to be an attorney.”
    “Everything’s changed.”
    “My uncle—he said he would write a letter for you. Not just any school. Stanford. Columbia. His recommendation, it carries weight.”
    I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel a rush of excitement—that I didn’t sense a door opening and a chance to walk into another life.
    “Is it because he feels guilty?” I asked. “Because of what happened to my father? He was at the hearing, wasn’t he?”
    Johnny looked at me blankly, as if he didn’t understand.
    “I saw Jake yesterday.”
    Jake was Judge Molinari’s boy. He was a sweet-faced kid. His father’s pride and joy. He’d done his tour in Sicily and distinguished himself, from what I heard.
    “How’s he doing?”
    “Getting married.”
    “Good for him.”
    Back at the table, the Brit raised another glass. Beside him, Anne was beautiful. The way the Brit was looking at her, I didn’t guess he was thinking about his buddy overseas.
    I was born circa 1921. The records aren’t exact. It doesn’t matter. Like I said, there are times, these days, when I can’t place the current date either. It is 1998, maybe. Or 2008. The nurse who takes care of me—who scoots me up off my ass and empties my bedpan—she was born in Saigon, just before the fall. 1971, I think. French Vietnamese, but the French part doesn’t matter here in the States. Either way, she doesn’t give a fuck about me. Outside the sunlight is white, and I glimpse the airplanes descending. We have a new airport, a new convention center. Every place, these days, has a new convention center. Every place you go, there are airplanes descending and signs advertising a casino on the edge of town.
    I close my eyes. The Brit gets up all of a sudden, goes out into the night. I see Anne alone at the table. I see my father dealing cards in Reno. I see Julia Fusco in my father’s kitchen, fingers on her swollen belly.
    My kid. My son.
    A few days ago, for recreation, they wheeled us to the convention center. We could have been anywhere. Chicago. Toronto. I spotted a couple in the hotel bar, and it didn’t take a genius to see what was going on.
    You can try to fuck your way out. You can work the slot. You can run down the long hall but in the end the door is locked and you are on your belly, crawling through smoke.
    No one escapes.
    The nurse comes, rolls me over.
    Go to sleep , she says. Go to fucking sleep .
    “I was on Guam.” Anne and I were outside now, just the two of us. The evening was all but over. “The Japanese were on top of the hill. A machine-gun nest.”
    One of the marine choppers was overhead now, working in a widening gyre. The wind had shifted and you could smell the smoke from the prison.
    “Is it hard?”
    “What?”
    “The memories?”
    “Of the war, you mean.”
    “Yes, the war.”
    I didn’t know what to say. “A lot of people on both sides,” I made a vague gesture. “Us or them. Sometimes, the difference, I don’t know.” I felt the confusion inside of me. I saw the dead Japs in their nest. “I don’t know what pulls people through.”
    She looked at me then. She smiled. “Love.”
    “What?”
    She was a little shier now. “Something greater than themselves. A dedication to that. To someone they love. Or to something.”
    “To an idea?”
    “Yes,” she said. “An idea.”
    What she said, it didn’t explain anything, not really, but it was the kind of thing people were saying those days—in the aftermath of all the killing. I felt myself falling for it, just like you fall for the girl in the movie. For a moment, she wasn’t Anne anymore, the girl from The Heights. She was something else, her face sculpted out of light.
    She smiled.
    “I’m old-fashioned,” she said. “Why don’t you get me a taxi?”
    Then I had an idea. I didn’t have to go to Reno. I could just walk up Columbus with Anne. We could catch a taxi. And we could keep