He went to Mexico City and found an old book dealer who would sell him precolonial documents by the pound. Van sorted through them, choosing this one and that, and bought as many as his funds allowed. When he returned to San Francisco, he walked into Holmes Book Company, on the corner of Third and Market Streets, and sold some of his books for a substantial profit. Pleased with himself, he hurried home to tell Annette.
Before long, Van began making frequent trips to Mexico, his love of old literature suddenly becoming a successful business venture. He bought everything he thought could turn a profit – British first editions, rare comic books, old scrolls. He enjoyed not only hunting for rarities, but also haggling for the best prices he could get. He was finding his marriage, however, not so rewarding.
Upset by the tension the marriage had caused with her father, Annette had become more melancholy than ever, but Van had little sympathy for her emotional state. She was ignoring him just as his mother had ignored him all of his life, and to him that was a betrayal. Instead of comforting his wife, he belittled her, screamed at her, and eventually began physically abusing her.
Over the next year, any minor infraction was rewarded with a slap, a punch, and soon beatings that would leave the young girl bruised for weeks. Fearing for her life, Annette finally told Ruth and Gertrude what was happening, but they, too, were unsympathetic and insisted that she should try harder to make her marriage work.
Annette tried to be brave. She tried to please Van. Nothing worked. Van had so much anger buried inside of him, and she was available.
Annette toughed it out for as long as she could, but after a particularly brutal fight on New Year’s night in 1959, her fear of dying became greater than her fear of disappointing her mother. Annette called her father when Van left to go play music at one of his familiar haunts.
H. S. Player was furious when he saw the bruises and cuts on his daughter’s face. He helped her pack her things and hurried her from the apartment. The next day he called the law office of Felix Lauricella and arranged for a meeting.
On January 4, Mary Annette Best filed for divorce on the grounds of extreme cruelty and inhuman treatment. Her marriage to my father had lasted one year, four months, and sixteen days. She had barely escaped with her life.
Van was enraged when he found her gone, but there was nothing he could do.
The divorce was granted April 8, 1960, and Annette was awarded the furniture and the money she had invested in Van’s business. He was ordered by the court to pay her seventy-five dollars each month until his debt was repaid.
Annette remarried in 1961.
Van moved back to his small bedroom on Noe Street.
Van sipped on a Zombie while he waited for William at the Tonga Room, in the Fairmont Hotel. The bar, famous for its exotic drinks as well as its unusual decor, had become one of his favorite hangouts.
As the orchestra set up its instruments on a barge that floated back and forth across a seventy-five-foot lagoon in the center of the bar, Van stared at the document he had brought with him.
“Sorry I’m late,” William said, pulling out a chair. “Where’s LaVey?”
“Couldn’t make it,” Van said, flagging a waiter. “He can’t seem to get away from his flock these days.”
“So how have you been?” William asked, wondering what Van wanted to show him. He had sounded excited on the phone and insisted that they meet that day.
“Wait until you see this.” He held up the document for William to see. “Look, it’s the Spanish coat of arms. And look here,” Van said, pointing to the signature. “King Philip II.”
“Where did you get that?”
“Mexico City. There’s a run-down bookstore in La Lagunilla Market, near the old Santa Catarina Church. The owner is an old man who sits outside all day waving customers in. I walked by one day, and we started talking. He brought me into the back room of his store and let me go through everything he had. I got this for a pittance.”
“What’s its significance?” William asked.
Van put his drink on a nearby ledge and wiped the table off with his napkin before spreading the document across it. “It authorizes a young lieutenant to go to Nueva España to recruit soldiers from the native Mexican Indians in the sixteenth century. Apparently this lieutenant was of noble lineage, judging by his name and the care with which the scribe prepared this order. And look here: the king’s own coat of arms in addition to the Spanish coat of arms. You don’t come across documents like this every day. I can sell this for a tidy sum.”
William was impressed. He had thought my father was crazy when he first started foraging in Mexico. “It’s no way to support a family,” he had informed Van then. “It’s not stable income.” William had developed a lucrative business as a private investigator and had hoped Van would join him. Van had refused, preferring to traipse across Mexico searching for treasure.
“I’m happy for you,” William said.
“Thanks. I need this right now.”
William sensed something was wrong. “How’s Annette?” he said.
“Gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yes. She took off to her father’s months ago and filed for divorce. Said I was cruel to her. Can you imagine?”
William could, but he shook his head. “She was a little too young for you anyway.”
Van smiled. “That’s the way I like them.”
The two men ordered their dinner as the orchestra struck its first notes. As the evening progressed, rain poured into the lagoon, and thunder and lightning accompanied the band. It was all part of a show designed to transport guests to the South Seas. Menacing totems towered over guests, creating an ambience of mystery and excitement in the room as couples danced to the music in the orange glow of lanterns and hanging globes.
Van enjoyed the Tonga Room because of its Asian cuisine, the menu reminding him of the succulent dishes he had eaten in Japan as a child. He and William talked as they ate, catching up on what had happened while Van was in Mexico.
“Have you noticed what’s going on in North Beach?” William asked.
“What?”
“The beach is filling up with beatniks. They’re everywhere. I hear they’re coming from all over the country.”
“Oh, yes. I remember Herb Caen wrote an article about them in the Chronicle a few years back. He seemed to be making sport of them.”
“I think it’s interesting,” William said. “These kids are spouting poetry and quoting Kerouac like they know what they’re talking about. I can see where this is going, but at least they’re reading something. And the music there has gotten better. Lots of jazz being played in the bars.”
“We’ll have to check it out one night,” Van said.
William nodded his agreement as Van flagged their waiter again.
“I’ll get this,” Van said when the waiter brought the check.
“Big money,” William joked.
“I’ll let you know how it goes.”
Van would eventually collect a tidy sum for his document. He wasn’t as fortunate on other trips, though, and soon found himself in dire straits, his bedroom cluttered with old papers and books that had no value in San Francisco’s antiquities market.
Van decided he should branch out and began traveling up and down the California coast, stopping at libraries along the way that might be interested in purchasing his books. He was able to make a living