Police and Thieves: A Novel by Peter Plate

staying with him. He told us to meet him at the Chevron station; that’s where we’d conduct the transaction. Eichmann had the money in a brown paper bag and he was getting impatient, hopping up and down on one foot. He kept wringing his hands, saying, “Yeah, I feel lucky today. Fuck, yeah. What time did Roy say he was meeting us?”
    “Three o’clock. I already told you that.”
    “Okay, okay. But it’s three-thirty now. Where is he?”
    “He’ll be here. Maybe he got hung up in traffic.”
    “There’s no goddamn traffic between here and Pacific Heights.”
    “He had to get the stuff up in Marin.”
    “Didn’t he say he was doing that yesterday?”
    “Yeah, he did.”
    “Boy, that’s great.”
    I got the last word in. “It sure is. We’re standing out here like fucking dorks waiting for him.”
    Eichmann whirled on me, bulldozing his chin into my face. He opened his mouth, his teeth green and fanglike. “It ain’t my fault! I’m doing the best I can! If you don’t like it, take a hike!”
    Bobo stepped in between us and gently pried Eichmann off me. “Easy, guys,” he crooned. “Take it easy.”
    And so we waited for Roy.
    The exhilaration of having stolen Dee Dee’s cash was a dim memory. The time had come to make more money. The motive? Bobo, Eichmann, Loretta, and I wanted to move out of the garage. All four of us were disgusted with not being able to take a shower or cook on a real stove.
    By the time four o’clock had come and gone, Eichmann was acting like he was on the rag. Bobo went down the street to the liquor store to see what they had in their delicatessen. The minute he got back, munching on a Mars candy bar, Eichmann turned sullen. “I didn’t think Roy would hang us up like this, the dick.”
    Our efforts were pointless. I began to hate Eichmann and myself. I was so busy dwelling on my negativity I didn’t pay any attention to the pickup truck that pulled into the gas station. Eichmann waved at the vehicle and said to me, “Well, I’ll be damned, that’s him. Doojie, you and Bobo let me do the talking.”
    “What for?”
    “Because I know Roy.”
    “So do I, and Bobo does, too.”
    “Let me do it, okay?”
    Roy rolled down his window and motioned for one of us to join him. Eichmann went over to the pickup, shook the dealer’s hand, and the two of them started signifying. Everything looked friendly. But just in case things got shitty, and you never knew when that would occur, we had our escape routes planned out. The options were Twenty-second Street in back of the Chevron station or San Jose Street where it bled into a dead end near St. Luke’s Hospital.
    Roy was in his mid-thirties, a commercial airplane pilot with a greasy suntan who sold weed in bulk quantities. He was from the Marina. During the great earthquake in 1989, the street he lived on was destroyed. Despite this tragedy, I was uneasy around him—I always felt he was patronizing me, something I was never going to come to terms with. Twenty minutes went by before Eichmann gave us the high sign to come over and schmooze with them. Bobo sniggered for my benefit, “We’re being included … how cool.”
    When we approached the truck, I saw a ribbed wooden camper shell attached to the pickup’s bed. Eichmann was all false smiles, smoking one of Roy’s Dunhill cigarettes. I noticed his eyes were dangerously gray and unpredictable. He said, “You guys remember each other, don’t you?”
    Roy acknowledged Bobo and myself with a blind stare, not even moving his mouth when he mumbled, “Haven’t seen you boys for a while. Sorry I was late.”
    Eichmann playfully punched him on the arm, hard enough to make it sting. “Hey, it doesn’t matter now that you’re here.”
    “You want to get in the camper?”
    “Sure.”
    “Then let me open the door.”
    We went around the truck to the back. When Roy popped the camper hatch and saw us, he got testy. “All three of you want to get in here? I’m not sure