6. Elsa / Some Facts Come to Light

ELSA WAS JUMPY most of the time these days. She wasn’t short-tempered, but highly strung, like a cat as it sniffs before taking a step, ears pulled back at the suggestion of a whisper, whiskers sensing out possible danger in the air. She woke at least twice every night to a car horn outside or a door shutting somewhere in the building or people talking on the street. Her metabolism had sped up and she couldn’t bear to sit still. Since Bergman had lost his first step in court, she expected him to be vengeful, to resort again to illegal means to get them out of the building. So far there had been no indication of this, but she was edgy and expectant.

Jimmy’s new P.O. had dropped in on him twice unannounced. Like Elsa, Jimmy was suspicious and figured that Bergman might be preparing something for them. Certainly the police harassment had been partially successful, by frightening Lucky off. After the cops tried to bust in that night to arrest Sue, Kenny and him, he’d decided to move out. No one resented Lucky for leaving; and it was better that he left now rather than freak out during a crisis or confrontation. But they were all sorry to see him go.

Two days after the raid, Elsa filed a complaint against that cop, whose name turned out to be Jordan. There was no decision yet; it had only been ten days since she filed it and the Internal Affairs Bureau investigator had told her the investigation would probably take some months. But apparently Officer Jordan had heard about it, because he hadn’t so much as looked at her since that night. Now it was the other Park Station cops who stared at her when they drove past, turned their cars around and cruised past her again, and once in a while made a remark.

Since the raid, the tenants had found their neighbors more inclined to do something for the rent strike. Several people on the block made donations over $10, more joined the telephone and witnessing squads, and the most reliable witnesses to the raid gave affidavits. People were outraged at the police department’s complicity in opposing the rent strike, and their willingness to cooperate with Bergman’s apparent attempt to create a more confrontational situation for the tenants, the community and the police.

Elsa’s time was spent going door-to-door; visiting supporters outside the community; doing research at the law library for the lawsuits as well as for the criminal charges she faced trial on; and contacting the press. The raid had prompted several radio stations and newspapers to look into the situation. The leftist papers, and the more liberal of the radio stations, ran fairly truthful stories. Two large radio stations described the incident as “a near-riot over an attempt by police to arrest trespassers” and a so-called community newspaper in another part of town editorialized that the tenants had been unreasonable in not allowing the police to enter the building or to arrest the three people accused of trespassing because people who “expect to gain the support of the community” should take “the most reasonable course possible,” and “those with nothing to fear because they believe their position is correct” would submit to arrest, and challenge the police in court later.

To middle-class people with no experience with the police, a “peaceful” solution seemed simple. Elsa’s complaint against Jordan and the witnesses’ affidavits were vital in pointing out one reason why people in poor neighborhoods, and especially people fighting against injustice, were unwilling to let the police into their homes without warrants. The result was so often brutality, false charges, and harassment of all sorts. 

The group San Franciscans for Criminal Justice finally came out in support of the rent strike, or at least against police intervention in civil matters. They said as much in a statement which they released to the press and delivered to the Chief of Police.

So, on the one hand, the Tenants’ Association faced growing pressure from the police, and internal problems became even more critical and dangerous; on the other hand, their support was growing because of the attention the police harassment had focused on them. 

One night Loren and Mitch invited Elsa, Michelle and Juliet over for dinner. Both men commented how their studies had slipped since the rent strike started. “Are you sorry you got into it?” asked Michelle, direct as usual. Elsa smiled to herself and poured a glass of orange juice for Juliet.

Loren shook his head. He was putting dishes on the table: rice, tossed salad, a baked vegetable casserole, homemade bread. He and Mitch were vegetarians. “No, not now, anyway. When it first started I more or less stayed around because I thought it would be fucked up to leave, but not because of any great conviction on my part.”

“Besides,” Mitch grinned, “neither of us has enough money to move. Actually, at first, when everyone was just talking about it, we didn’t have any doubts about who was right, but we weren’t sure we wanted to get involved that much in something that heavy with people we barely knew. Then one night we both realized, here we are talking as if we’re brain surgeons with stock in IT&T, all the options in the world, just out of the goodness of our hearts not wanting to let other people down – when actually we’re financially destitute.” 

 “Yeah, that was the night we realized we had no choice, really,” Loren said. “I mean, sooner or later you have to stop running, right? Besides, I wasn’t about to let Bergman get away with the last month’s rent I paid when we moved into this place.”

“I guess we both suddenly realized we weren’t part of the privileged class anymore,” Mitch said.

“You sure aren’t part of it now, Loren,” Michelle said, “now that you’ve got charges of resisting a police officer hanging over you.”

Loren grinned ruefully. “What would my old man say to that!”

“What does he do?” Elsa asked. She loved hearing other people’s backgrounds. San Francisco had such a wide variety of people, all with such interesting personal histories.

“He’s a union organizer. Actually, I think it would be more accurate to say he’s a labor official. Probably corrupt. He grew up in an old Teamster family and never was a worker himself. His father was; but my dad just inherited the union job, like royalty. It was in Cleveland. They weren’t too happy when I applied to medical school. They wanted me to stay with the union, I guess.

“We weren’t poor in any way, but my family and all their friends had labor union attitudes and that rubbed off on me. I guess that’s why I didn’t want to leave when we formed the tenants’ union. At first it was really mind-blowing, I had my eyes opened fast. Things got heavy right off.”

“I don’t think any of us knew just how heavy it would get,” Michelle mused. 

“Your parents are college teachers, aren’t they, Mitch?” asked Elsa.

“Yeah, professors at a backwoods college no one west of Des Moines ever heard of. I grew up pretty middle-class in attitude, but we weren’t that well off financially because it was such a big family.”

“Were there many other black people in your town?”

“No, we were one of about fifteen families. I think that was harder on my folks than on me, though, because they’d both grown up in black neighborhoods and weren’t used to living around almost nothing but white people. But as much as they don’t like that town, they still keep asking me to move back home when I get my degree.”

“Do they know about the rent strike?” asked Michelle.

“No, I didn’t bother telling them. I know they’d just get upset; they don’t want me to rock the boat.”

“That’s what my mother said when I told her about it,” Loren said. “’Now why do you want to go and cause trouble like that, Loren?’ Isn’t that a perfect example of where the unions in America are at, when one of the main union families in Cleveland thinks their son being on rent strike is just ‘causing trouble’?” 

“Let’s just hope the next time they hear from you, it’s not from San Bruno,” remarked Mitch.

“You know, we do have to figure out what we’re going to do about the criminal charges,” said Elsa quietly, looking at Loren. 

“I know.”

“One of the possibilities is that just Alix makes a deal, and you and I take it to trial.”

“You know how I feel about it. I don’t want anything to detract from the conflict with Bergman – the unlawful detainer trial and the suit we filed against him.”

“The police fucking with us is the conflict with Bergman,” Michelle put in.

“I know, and I’m sort of inclined to agree that taking it to trial to bring that out would be worthwhile, and would help the rent strike politically. Except for the possibility of losing me and Elsa for a long time afterward. I mean, we could easily lose the case and go to jail.”

“It’s a risk,” conceded Elsa, “but it’s one I think we should take. There are a lot of things we can bring up in a criminal trial to expose Bergman that we wouldn’t be able to discuss in the unlawful detainer trial. And if we had a decent jury they wouldn’t convict us, not if we made it clear that the everything was connected to the rent strike – all the other visits by the cops to our building, those goons trying to kick Sue and Kenny and Lucky out, Bergman’s offer of money if we left.”

“But would Marty Singleton take it as far as we want?” asked Loren. “He’s pretty busy already; he’s hardly got enough time for the unlawful detainer case. We can’t pay him to represent us in the criminal case.”

“That’s true.” Elsa hesitated. “I’m thinking that the best thing to do might be to represent ourselves.” 

Everyone stared at her as though she were out of her mind. She continued: “It’s dangerous, I know, but we’ve been getting a lot of experience with the law, and to tell the truth I’m getting more and more fed up with Marty. You know how much we have to push him to get him to carry out what we want done in the unlawful detainer and the damage suit. In some ways the criminal case is more important, and I don’t want to be fighting my own lawyer as well as the government.”

“Why don’t we try and find another lawyer?” asked Mitch.

“Any ideas?”

“Well, not off-hand, but there must be some lawyer who would take the case for nothing because it’s political.”

Elsa shook her head. “I’ve already asked around. It sure doesn’t look good. They might consider it if one of us had a felony charge, or if we’d made a bigger splash in the media. But we’re not a cause celebre.”

Loren’s expression was troubled. “I’d like to think about it. Elsa. I never considered defending myself, it puts a whole new light on the case.”

“The other way to go would be for both you and Alix to accept the plea bargain – although one year probation is too much; it should be bargained down to six months – and for me to go to court. That way we only lose one person if we lose the trial, not three, and it would make it easier to prepare for. Plus, I think I’ve got the best case. I’ve filed a complaint against Jordan, and I think my being a woman might make it more possible to convince a jury of our side of things.”

“Maybe so,” replied Mitch, “but I don’t like the idea of anybody being on probation, either. I mean, if you’re on probation and get arrested, Loren, they don’t even have to convict you. They just revoke your probation and off you go, and even if you’re found not guilty on the new charge, you still have the probation revoked. So you end up having to serve time anyway.” 

“I know,” Loren sighed. “It’s definitely risky either way.”

Just then the buzzer from outside rang. Mitch to see who it was and returned with Paul. He still wore paint-spattered work coveralls. He worked for a small company that refurbished Victorians; currently they were re-doing a place on Central Street. Elsa had repeatedly urged him to quit the job, to no avail.

“Does anyone know where Karen is? I forgot my key.”

“I think she went over to Castro Street to sell the leather vests,” answered Michelle. “She’ll probably be back soon.”

“Do you want some dinner?” Loren offered.

Paul shook his head. “Naw, I’m not hungry.” He leaned against the kitchen counter. “Man, I had a close call today.”

“What happened?” asked Elsa.

“We’ve been scraping the old paint off the outside of the house, me and this guy Fred. So we’re up at the top of the scaffolding today, the third floor, and I’m standing in the middle of this two-by-eight, leaning over to get at one spot of paint. All of a sudden the board cracks.”

“Jesus,” breathed Mitch.

“You said it, bro. I reached over to the scaffolding but the bars were too far away. I thought I was a goner. Then the board breaks the rest of the way, just snaps in two. Lucky for me Fred somehow swung out and grabbed my arm. Just with one hand, and for a minute it seemed like we might both go over the edge. I managed to throw myself onto the metal and grabbed it with my legs.”

“Are you all right?” Loren said.

“Yeah, all that happened besides getting the shit scared out of me was these two fingers got sprained.” He held up his left hand to show the two swollen fingers. Juliet exclaimed, “Ooh, lemme see!” Paul obligingly extended his hand for her inspection.

“You didn’t go back up, did you?” Elsa asked.

“No, hell no, but believe it or not the foreman wanted me to. The nerve of that sonuvabitch! Everyone told him they weren’t going up until they get some better lumber up there. Hey there, Juliet, don’t be squeezing them fingers.”

Michelle gently grabbed her daughter’s hand. “You’re hurting Paul. Come over here.” She pulled Juliet onto her lap. “Elsa, do you still have that joint? I think Paul needs one.”

As the joint made its way around, Mitch said, “I almost forgot to tell you what I heard today. I went over to see a friend, Jack, to tell him about the rent strike.”

“Jack from the Fillmore?” Loren asked.

“Yeah. He’s in a community group there. He told me Bergman bought a building over there that everyone wanted the city to buy and turn into a youth center. A few years ago this was in the news a lot.” 

“You mean the old supermarket?” Elsa was amazed. A couple years back, an abandoned supermarket had been the focus of an intense struggle in the Fillmore. Local people wanted to convert it into a community center, much needed in the neighborhood. Heated meetings had taken place both in the community and at City Hall, with the city stalling, nixing, and declaring illegal almost every plan the people had come up with. Nothing had been heard about the project in the past year, and about that long ago Elsa remembered hearing that the people had decided to try and find another locale for the project. Perhaps they had become discouraged and had given up altogether.

“Yeah, that’s the place,” Mitch said. “Jack just heard it himself from a guy he knows who works for the city.”

“I wonder what he wants the place for?” said Paul.

“Knowing him, he’ll just let it rot away and build another Martin Luther King Place,” Mitch guessed.

Elsa’s mind raced and she didn’t say anything. She had a feeling this information was more important than anyone realized. And she intended on learning more.

A QUICK TRIP to the Recorder’s office showed that Sanford Bergman and someone named Celia Randle had purchased the supermarket two months ago. Bergman owned 75%, Celia Randle 25%. The deed of trust was held by Bergman’s corporation.

The name Celia Randle meant nothing to Elsa, nor to the several people she cautiously asked. Cynthia clued her in to the Voter Registration records, which were open to the public at City Hall. There, Elsa learned that Celia Randle was a married woman living in the Diamond Heights district, a Democrat, and she listed her occupation as “housewife.”

She talked it over with Michelle and Jimmy, not able to shake the feeling that something insidious lay behind this purchase. Why hadn’t there been any public outcry about it? Did people in the Fillmore even know that Bergman had bought the supermarket? What was he intending to do with it?

Michelle and Jimmy both agreed that something was probably fishy. The first thing to do was find out who Celia Randle was. Jimmy talked to a friend of his, who, without knowing the reason why, investigated Mrs. Randle. Several days later he reported to Jimmy that the lady in question was approximately 35 years old, had two children in their early teens, drove a Volvo, and was married to a Deputy City Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco. 

After Jimmy told Elsa what he’d learned, the two of them and Michelle walked through the Panhandle to talk.

Elsa was thinking out loud. “Probably Randle was involved in the city’s refusal to buy the building for the community. Remember when the non-profit community corporation that was taking the lead in negotiations with the city decided to look for another site? Do you think Bergman and Randle had anything to do with that decision? I wonder what plans he and Bergman have. That’s a key spot for developers, because it’s right next to six blocks the Redevelopment Agency leveled, where they plan to put high rises. We should find out if anyone’s applied for permits for use or repairs or destruction of the supermarket. And see if Randle owns other property.”

“If it’s as heavy as we think,” said Jimmy, “we have to be real careful. We don’t want to tip off Bergman or the city attorney that we know anything. He might have people watching the Recorder’s office to see if anyone looks up his records.”

Elsa considered. “They keep a record of what documents are photocopied, but not of what someone’s just looking at.”

“The way I see it, there are a few things we should do. I can go talk to the people in the Fillmore, nose around and try to find out what the thinking is on the community corporation, and on the whole project. Elsa, you can go through back issues of newspapers, the Sun Reporter and Bay Guardian and the Barb and even the two Hearst rags, see what stories there were about the youth center project and about the building itself. We should find out about permits. Michelle, you can handle that, but it has to be done in a way that no one knows what you’re looking at. Then if things turn out to be what we think they will, we could have a press conference. Bring it out. Expose the motherfuckers.”

“If we have a press conference we’ll need documentation,” Michelle said.

Elsa nodded. “Yes, but first let’s just investigate.”

“And this is all between the three of us, no one else,” Jimmy added, unnecessarily – except that he was saying it to assure them he wasn’t even going to tell Alix.

WITHIN A WEEK, after several days spent pouring over the microfilm machine at the library, Elsa had found nearly ten relevant articles. According to the articles, one of the city attorneys advising the government regarding legal problems in the purchase and administration of the building as a youth center was Richard Randle. City officials formed the opinion that it would not be wise for the city to turn over the administration of the youth center to the non-profit community corporation. Randle and other city employees – building inspectors, health inspectors, fire department investigators, and other bureaucrats – had run interference for elected officials. The elected officials were thus ale to pretend that they wanted nothing more than to do as the community asked, but alas, their hands were tied by the numerous obstacles turned up by their departments. Finally, the community corporation apparently got disgusted with the whole thing and gave up the fight for the old supermarket, and decided to find a less controversial site. 

No permits of any kind had been applied for in regard to the former supermarket. Although Bergman and Randle had paid $125,000 for the property, it was valued at $200,000. Michelle had not been able to find out if the building was insured.

Jimmy’s news was the most interesting. One of the people on the Board of Directors of the community corporation had, three years before that struggle, managed several of Bergman’s apartment complexes. This man had been one of the spokesmen for the neighborhood during the youth center fight and had been the most vocal at expressing his disgust and anger as he and the other directors threw in the towel on the old supermarket. 

They decided to write a press release that would allude only to documentable evidence of these facts. At the press conference they’d have copies of the relevant records and newspaper articles. The press conference would be in one week but they wouldn’t distribute the press releases until a few days before the conference, which would be held right in front of their building.

That evening, while the three of them were in Jimmy’s kitchen drafting the press release, Alix came rushing home, breathless and somewhat upset.

“What’s up?” Jimmy asked.

“Michelle, you remember that guy who set George up about six months ago?”

Michelle nodded. “George, the heroin dealer,” she told Elsa. Elsa remembered then. George had been arrested after consummation of a heroin deal; he was now serving time. The only other person, supposedly, who’d known of the deal was the salesman. Minutes after money and drugs exchanged hands, the cops had converged on the place and arrested both men. George, carrying the heroin on his body, was charged with possession for sale, along with the usual tacked-on charges like resisting arrest. Through plea bargaining, he ended up with a year in county jail and three years probation. The salesman, who’d already been on parole for a drug conviction, was only charged with violating his parole by associating with a drug user – despite the fact that he’d been arrested with a large amount of cash. Even then he could have been sent right back to jail to serve his suspended sentence, but instead he got only thirty days at Bruno and another couple of months tacked onto his parole. Since then, of course, the salesman hadn’t been around much, having the reputation of being a snitch.

“I heard he’s been coming around the neighborhood once in a while,” Michelle said. “He’s been at the Lucky Club a few times.”

Elsa shook her head. “Why are people even talking to that guy?”

“Listen!” Alix commanded, uncharacteristically. Everyone stared at her. “I was picking up Jasmine at day care and he saw me. He said he had to talk to me. I told him I didn’t want to talk to a rat and he said ‘it’s about your building.’ He said the narcs had been feeling him out about money. Asked if he needed cash and if he knew Jimmy or anyone else from ‘that building on Grove Street.’ He says they asked if he could sell someone in the building dope, or buy some from them, and that it didn’t have to be junk, it could be just weed. He says he told them he didn’t know anyone here personally but had heard everybody was clean.”  

Everyone was silent except for Juliet, singing to herself in the living room. Elsa spoke first. “They’re going to try to set us up.”

“You can’t trust what a snitch says,” Michelle pointed out. 

“Maybe he really did get approached by the pigs.” Alix sank a chair.

“No one here’s going to buy dope, so we don’t have to worry about that.”

Jimmy shook his head. “That doesn’t mean the cops won’t try to set us up. They might try to get in here on some other pretext and plant dope. Or send someone else in here to plant dope, then get a warrant.”

“But you’re getting paranoid just on the word of a junkie,” Michelle protested.

“Michelle, it could be that part of the cops’ plan to bust us would be to get us to do something crazy, based on the word of this guy,” Elsa said. “But whatever his part in it, we know there are reasons why the police would step up harassment of us right now. We should’ve been getting more aware of that. It took the rumor of this rat to make us realize we aren’t being careful enough.”

Elsa, Michelle and Jimmy went for their customary walk to discuss things privately. Afterwards they called an emergency meeting in the building. The primary change was that stronger security measures would be taken. The children were taken to a neighbor’s house to sleep. All dope was removed. The basement door and rear door would both be barred shut. Someone would always be awake and watching the street and building to be able to alert everyone else and activate the telephone emergency lines in the event of a raid. 

Tomorrow morning they would visit all the neighbors again. Elsa, Michelle and Jimmy remained mum about their discoveries about Bergman. They’d tell the other tenants on the day they sent out the press releases.

Alix went with the children to the neighbor’s house and Elsa took the first shift watching the street. At two o’clock, after being relieved by Jimmy, she climbed into bed with Michelle, exhausted but not able to sleep yet. Michelle woke and asked sleepily, “How did it go?”

“Fine. Real quiet. But I can’t shake this feeling.”

Michelle reached for her cigarettes. “That something’s going to happen?”

“You don’t think the timing is just coincidental? We’re ready to expose Bergman to the whole city, and on top of that to tie the city government in with him, and then this.”

“We’re still going to expose them, Elsa. Besides, it’s only a rumor, and not from a reliable source. Nothing’s happened yet.”

“I know. I’m just so edgy – I keep worrying that we aren’t solidified enough internally. We’ve been too loose. There are problems we still haven’t resolved. You and Jimmy and I take more responsibility and do more work than everyone else, but we get resistance every time we criticize someone for sloppiness in their work or whenever we come up with a new plan. That’s just one example. We’ve let our problems get too big. If we squabble and aren’t organized among ourselves, how can we fight someone like Bergman, let alone the city?”

“The man’s organized, no doubt about that.”

“Damned right. They know a serious situation when they see one. But some of the people here act like they’re in a movie and can just yell ‘cut!’ and walk away when things get rough or if they don’t like the way it’s going. But I didn’t get into this because I thought we’d win, or even because I thought it was a way to get a few months’ free rent.”

“It’s the principles involved. That’s what we’re here for.”

“Right. But what good is it to keep insisting we have rights and won’t tolerate abuse of them, but at the last minute, give in? Isn’t it worse to assert your rights that strongly and then give them up? Isn’t that worse than not taking a strong position in the first place?”

“Are you saying you think we’re going to end up giving up?” 

“Not by deliberate decision,” Elsa said. “But I don’t see that people who are loose and careless now will suddenly become more serious when they see something come down right before their own eyes. In fact, maybe they’ll freak out at the shock of reality.”

Michelle nodded. “We don’t have another three months to make harmless mistakes, that’s for sure. We’ll be paying for them from now on.”

“We already are, that’s what I’m saying. We – you and I – have let some of the others be loose and forgetful and irresponsible up until now, and maybe it’s too late to change them.”

“There’s someone in particular you don’t trust?”

“I trust the commitment of you and Jimmy. No one else. The others – I just don’t know where they’re at. For all I know, someone in the building could be setting us up.”

Michelle stubbed out her cigarette. “You really think that?”

“I might as well. It’s the same as not trusting people’s commitment, isn’t it?”

“Elsa, what do you want to do? Call it quits?”

“No. We’re too far into it now, it would be the worst kind of cowardice.”

Michelle took her hand and put it between her own as she lay back down. “We have to be twice as careful now as ever before. But you’ve got to get some sleep. It’s late, and we have to get up early tomorrow.”

But she couldn’t get to sleep for a long while. She lay beside Michelle’s warmth reviewing the past few weeks over and over. Could Jimmy have been careless in his inquiries, and have given someone enough insight so that Bergman had been clued in? Was Alix lying about the informant? Had Lucky set something up before he moved out? Had someone in the building been approached and offered money for information, or for something worse? Had Mitch inadvertently mentioned the old supermarket purchase to someone who realized its importance? Would someone forget to lock the back door one night?

OVER THE NEXT few days the tenants had long meetings to go over their security measures. They figured out how long it took to get from their watch post in the foyer to the phone in Jimmy and Alix’s apartment, how loudly the whistle sounded from the third floor, what parts of the street could be seen from which windows. The camera and tape recorder were kept loaded and ready. 

The most important security measure, though, was their community support. Their guideline was to always take the most peaceful action possible, but if self-defense was necessary, it would be used. Circumstances would determine their actions. If the police came without a warrant, a cross-bar would be put across the front door and they would have to batter their way in. That would allow time to phone witnesses and take pictures. If the police had a warrant, they would be asked to wait a few minutes until an observer from the community arrived.

On the third day after the rumor, Paul and Kenny complained they’d heard the same thing five times and didn’t need to hear it anymore. Sue worried she’d become petrified with fear if anything actually happened. Loren commented that it didn’t seem necessary to continue the night watch. But these attitudes were discussed; and mostly, everyone was glad for the heightened consciousness. 

Elsa mentally prepared herself to have to act in the face of something other than the calmness of everyone keeping his or her head and doing everything right. She slept in her clothes and with her revolver under the pillow. The press conference was three days away; after that, things would change. Whether for better or worse remained to be seen.