Page 5 of A Handsome Devil

“Because I killed a guy in jail.”

The swarming crowd receded from us in a reverse zoom, and I stared Truman directly in the face. Why the fuck did I say that? What was it about Truman that brought so much honesty out in me? Why was I entrusting him with my life?

Recognition flashed in his perceptive caramel eyes. He looked to his Indian friend, and they nodded with that unspoken agreement that only comes from years of working together.

The EMT’s siren in the street stabbed my frontal lobe and I squeezed my eyes closed with the torture. The pain zipped to my hip socket, collapsing my knees. The two men hustled me to the back of the building. Gratitude washed over me as the meat wagon siren and clattering voices receded into the background.

We passed a sort of lunch room where folks lounged, played chess, drank sodas. A dark room with beds, curtains covering windows. The bathroom, a spacious old-timey kitchen for the staff, and we were out the back door, a yard with a small lawn where a few dogs roamed around.

“Whose car?”

“My car.”

“Here.” Keys jangled. “Use mine. I’ll take the fall for it.” It was the gal who had looked at my driver’s license.

Truman told her, “Tell them he made a break for the tent city.”

I fell into the passenger seat of a late model Honda-type car. And who should be driving but Truman Oakley himself, his perfectly pointed nose in profile, his jaw set. I’d never seen a guy so determined, so sure of what he was about to do.

“Where we going?” I asked.

He didn’t answer for awhile. He sped as fast as he could down 16th Street, like he was heading toward 101. But pretty soon he hung a right onto Bryant.

“You going to San Francisco General?” I accused, looking for the door handle.

“Relax,” Truman finally said. “We’re going to my place.”

His place? His actual crash pad? Or did he have another treatment center? I shifted in my seat, jittery as a cat hearing a mouse in the wall. I knew this feeling well. I wanted more fentanyl. “Why are you giving me special treatment? You saved my ass from the cops.” I ground my teeth that I’d used the word ass in front of Truman. He was so damn upstanding, so sincere.

Again, it took him awhile to answer. We’d passed the exit for the hospital and were crossing Cesar Chavez.

And his answer wasn’t really one.

“Who did you kill?”

I froze like a Nintendo 64. What in the name of Krampus was I supposed to say? I was jonesing, itching for more Tango and Cash, and this cabrón was asking me who I knocked off?

I took the hair tie out of my bun. We were supposed to shower last night at the halfway house so at least we didn’t reek up the treatment center. Of course I hadn’t, being more interested in playing an inmate’s guitar. Combing my hair with my fingers, I said, “Okay, we’re even. I don’t tell you who I popped, and you don’t tell me why you’re singling me out for favors.”

We climbed the ramps of Bernal Heights so fast, the undercarriage banged at every roller coaster landing. “But I’m sheltering you in my personal house, my place of habitation, at great risk to myself. I should at least know if you killed, like, your roommate.”

He had a point.

High up here where he parked, we had panoramic views of the city. The homes were a mix of Victorian and Edwardian sprinkled with some newly-built condos. The 19th century homes were painted intricately, rose, violet decorative trim standing out against base coats of blossom, bubblegum, and carmine. One odd feature I’d never noticed was a few homeless tents made of random tarps set up under someone’s homey front balcony with floor to ceiling windows. We’d never had that shit back in my day.

I hoped that wasn’t Truman’s house.

Maybe half an answer would satisfy him for now. He had done a lot for me, a completely annoying fiend who’d ranted from his roof. I had to give him something.

“A guy who raped me. Many times.”

When I finally looked back at Truman, his face was wiped of all life. It was the first time I’d seen him appalled by anything—or even slightly stunned. Truman Oakley was the most down-to-earth, pragmatic, sensible guy I’d ever known.

And I’d managed to shock him.

“C’mon,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Which one’s your house?”

“All right,” he drawled, taking a giant breath. He backed the car into a space by the curb. Putting it into park, he turned off the engine and looked levelly at me. “I won’t ask you who. For now. Just one thing. Is anyone coming for you?”