Police and Thieves: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

Latino. Bobo was smoking a Winston cigarette and telling me about his diet.
    “Enchiladas, tostadas, paella with that shrimp that comes from around here, carne puerco done up right over an open pit in someone’s backyard with a cold brew in your hand, there ain’t nothing finer than that. But I have to watch it, you know? The shit is getting out of hand. It has to stop.”
    “Are you going to talk to a doctor?”
    “What do you think I am? Lame? This is private. You’ve got to do it yourself. See, if you have problems with your body image,the way you look, it can ruin your state of mind, like permanently.”
    Being health-conscious sounded exciting. To eat properly would be a fantastic improvement in my daily regimen. Consuming fruits and vegetables and protein. Drinking lots of water. But I didn’t like to eat, which was a family legacy my grandmother brought to America from Russia.
    Bubbeh was eight years old when a pogrom swept through her neighborhood in Odessa. Many people, including members of her own family, were killed in the streets. A famine followed in the pogrom’s wake, and a neighbor concocted a meal of unhulled grain, immersing it in mechanical grease because there wasn’t any cooking oil. My grandmother ate a portion and fell ill, nearly dying. She feared food after that, and the tradition was passed on to me, subsequently becoming a cornerstone of my personality.
    Several Nicaraguan ladies were hawking evangelist magazines in front of Walgreen’s. Bobo saw his reflection in the virginal windows of Nuria’s Bridal Shop and shuddered. We were supposed to blend in with the other people on the sidewalk, but I was dressed for shirtsleeve weather in a winter-campaign Army jacket. Bobo said to me plaintively, not even hiding his need, “Doojie, forget what I said earlier. Let’s get on over to Pancho Villa’s, man.”
    “I don’t have an appetite.”
    “Well, I’m fucking ravenous.”
    “Why didn’t you buy a falafel or something when you went for the coffee?”
    “I didn’t want no Lebanese food. I had some hummus last night. It was good and spicy. But I just want something down home, you know?”
    “Then let’s go over to Whiz Burger.”
    “It’s too damn far.”
    The Mission Presbyterian Church’s bells were ringing onCapp Street, echoing unseen over the palm trees on the block. Two white women were talking at the Muni bus stop near the corner. I noticed them, not because they were being indiscreet, but because a drug deal is a drug deal. Unlike the junkies stationed by the Thor Hotel down the street, these women were dressed in Banana Republic blazers and stonewashed Gucci denim. I looked at their vitamin-fortified complexions, overlaying the pallor of short-term junk usage, and deduced they were suburban addicts from the East Bay, from middle class enclaves like Orinda, Lafayette, and Walnut Creek. You saw their type on Capp Street near the Victoria Theater trying to score coke and heroin from the hookers working the strip around the BART station. Bobo said, “You checking them out?”
    “Yeah.”
    “The older one owes me twenty bucks.”
    “Where do you know her from?”
    “Dee Dee.”
    “Are you going to ask her for it?”
    “Ah, I don’t know. Even if she has it, she won’t give it to me. It’ll be like trying to get water out of a rock.”
    “It won’t hurt to ask.”
    Bobo smoothed down his severely unwashed hair with both hands and sighed, “Okay, let’s hear what she says.” He stepped off the curb and pushed his way into the crowd, and I went after him. Anytime you were collecting money from people who didn’t want to give it up, visible control was the only protocol. I came around from the side and stopped. Bobo got to them first, extending his right hand in a wary greeting. The younger woman, a skinny brunette with a pierced nose, blanched when she saw the Mexican in his ancient Frye boots. She jumped up from the bus bench, but I murmured to her, “Please,