Taste of Tenderloin Read online

  Micky D stood for several minutes until he heard the first of the intimate sounds beginning. It was Jenna making most of the noise. He couldn't help wondering what she looked like without the coat and scarf.

  The next morning he left his apartment just as the door to sixty-five opened to let out the guy wearing the silver and black jacket. His appearance shocked Micky D. The unruly red hair was heavily streaked with grey, and the young man had aged at least forty years. His confident expression was gone, and he avoided eye contact with Micky D as he limped off down the hall.

  "Jesus," Micky D swore under his breath. He snapped his fingers and stared at Jenna's apartment door, realizing why she had struck him as so familiar. Sure, there was a familiarity to her face, her pinched nostrils, and the clouded-ice eyes, but the sight of the transformed guy triggered the recall. Just like Rashad had described up in P Ward at the hospital.

  Jenna was one of the Visitors.

  They'd been playing dominoes in the rec room, but had stopped to listen to Rashad when he had begun to talk about meeting an alien.

  "Well, maybe not exactly an alien," Rashad said, struggling to control his high-pitched excitement. He looked across the table at Micky D. "She told my next door neighbor, Petey, that she actually came from the future, a time of a big red sun, where it was really muggy hot and everybody lived underground. A bunch of them were here in the Bay Area, collecting energy. She called them Visitors. Like I said, she was scary-looking, man. Platinum hair, piercing icy eyes, pinched nostrils, pale, bundled up and always cold, you know. And what she did to my friend and all them other guys..." Rashad's voice trailed off.

  "What did she do?" Micky D asked, putting the dominoes away. The game was over for the day; after his rap, Rashad would be too jumpy to concentrate and play.

  "Well, she was sucking the life out of them---"

  "You mean like a vampire?"

  "Nah, not exactly, not blood, but their youth, you know; like these young guys would go into her apartment and come out old men."

  Micky D just kept quiet.

  "She was screwing them silly, but somehow sucking all the youth out of them in the process." Rashad's brow was wrinkled deeply; his eyes looked off into space, obviously vividly picturing the memory. "Yeah, and she finally got poor Petey, too. Jumped his bones and put thirty years on him. But it must've been worth it, because after I saw him that last night when he looked to be fifty-five or sixty, he said he was going home with her."

  "Home?"

  "Yeah, the future, or another dimension, or wherever the fuck she came from, you know."

  After that, Rashad kind of sagged at the table as if just the memory of the Visitor had sucked the life out of him.

  "Well, what actually happened to your friend?"

  "There was a fire in her apartment that last night," Rashad said, looking off again at the green ward wall. "I got to her place quickly, but it was empty." He shrugged. "That was it, man."

  "What do you mean, that was it?" Micky D said, irritated by the abrupt conclusion of the story.

  "They never found either of their bodies," Rashad said, sighing. "She'd obviously taken him home. The life force she'd claimed from Petey and them other guys, maybe even the fire, helped provide the energy she needed to transport them both. I'm not exactly sure of the mechanics. But I am sure that she was one of them Visitors."

  At the time Micky D had just dismissed the story as no more crazy than others he'd heard or would hear at Napa in his six months there. But now, staring at the door to apartment sixty-five, he knew Rashad's story was true. Jenna was indeed one of the Visitors.

  Jesus, he had to tell someone right away.

  But who?

  The cops? His caseworker?

  He'd be back up to Napa in a New York minute if he went to them with a story about Jenna being a Visitor from the future.

  Blue. He had to tell Blue.

  But as Micky D left his building, he heard multiple sirens up near Van Ness, wailing like wounded animals.

  He hurried up the climb on O'Farrell and saw a group clustered at the mouth of the alley just down from the Korean's. Cops. And an ambulance easing through the crowd of gawkers. Micky D followed, finally spotting someone doubled up with his face to the ground. Micky D could make out the Ranger patch on the guy's green Army jacket, and the sight made him suck in a deep breath. No, it can't be, he thought.

  He pressed closer.

  A cop rolled the guy over.

  It was Blue.

  "Let me in," he cried, trying to push closer. He saw the chest of his friend's jacket soaked with blood. "That's my buddy."

  "Whoa," a cop said, roughly pushing Micky D back. "Give us room here, pal. This is a crime scene."

  "Yo, Micky D," someone said, tugging at his pant leg.

  It was Short Stuff, a legless guy sitting on his scooterboard, shaking his head sadly at Micky D. "Too late, dawg. Blue gone."

  Stunned, Micky D shifted to keep his friend in view as the EMTs checked Blue. He managed a hoarse whisper. "What happened, Double S?"

  The legless man shook his head sadly and said, "C'mon back here, man, where we kin hear. I'll tell ya."

  Micky D followed Short Stuff back beyond the edge of the crowd. Double S stopped and passed up a small brown paper bag from his lap. "Take a heavy hit, man."

  Micky D gulped down a fiery drink from the half-pint of Wild Irish Rose. The cheap whisky burned all the way to his gut. Another hit and the warmth began to spread out from his belly. He nodded gratefully.

  Double S took the bag back, fortified himself, then began to explain what had happened. "Blue been runnin' a little bidness onna side, las' six months or so since ya'll been down. Scorin' extra scripshun meds from other vets at the clinic---vikes, oxies, whatever. Street dealin' here at the Korean's, ya unnerstan' what I'm tellin' ya?"

  "I'm with you," Micky D said, his throat still raw from the whisky.

  "Well, dude hit on him this mornin' an' Blue ain't holdin', ya see. Dude goes off, gets up in Blue's face. Blue pushes him, dude whips out a blade." Double S paused to lubricate his vocal cords with some more of the Rose. "Blue's number up, man, 'cuz the dude stuck him right in the heart. Dead 'foh the Man got here, ya know what I'm sayin'?"

  "Ah, Jesus," Micky D murmured under his breath as he watched them load the covered body into the ambulance.

  "Keep it fo' the las' taste, Micky D," Double S said, handing him the brown bag.

  Micky D tapped the legless man's fist as he turned and walked away from the noisy scene, his vision tunneling down. But his feelings deep inside? Not much more than the brief twinge of guilt he'd felt hearing about Sweet Jane. His eyes were dry.

  Man, something must be wrong with me, he thought. Maybe the Puerto Rican had bruised more than his brain the night of the championship, scarred something deep inside him, hurt his ability to feel much of anything. Or maybe it had happened gradually, over the course of his professional career---an accumulation of damage. A lot of veteran fighters worried about that, constantly reminded of the possibility by the slurred, drunken speech of the old punchies hanging around the gyms. But this wasn't the Parkinson's syndrome thing, he decided; it was more like he'd finally lost the capacity to really care. If so, he knew Dr. Gee wasn't going to be able to fix it with any therapy or pills. No way, man. What could anyone do for a seriously battered and scarred soul?

  Even without taking his meds, Micky D slept all day and late into the night.

  Thumping.

  Loud knocking.

  Someone shouting.

  The sounds distorted, like distant echoes in a long tunnel.

  Micky D struggled up into consciousness like a drowning man breaking the surface in murky water. He finally burst into the waking world, gasping greedily. His body was covered in clammy sweat, his heart pounding, his stomach muscles clenched in a painful knot.

  "Mista Donahue, Mista Donahue!" Someone was shouting and hammering away at his apartment door.

  Micky D esc
aped from the tangled damp sheets and trudged across the darkened room in his shorts. He pulled open the door and faced the heavyset manager, Mr. Robinson. His shiny face was agitated as he stood in the hall, fog swirling about him. "Come quick, mon!" he said, too loudly.

  "What---?"

  It wasn't fog out there, it was smoke. Choking clouds of it engulfed the hallway. How could he have slept through a fire?

  The manager pointed down the hall to the stairs, sputtering almost incoherently, "Grab ya pants, get out."

  "Okay," Micky D said. He found his jeans and shower shoes and slipped them on, then he made it back to the door.

  "I gotta leave now," the manager explained, "help de old ones down lower."

  Micky D nodded his understanding, then pointed across the hall at the closed door to apartment sixty-five. "What about Jenna?"

  The manager, looking confused, shook his head. "Nobody live over dere."

  "Yes, there is!"

  Stepping across the hallway, Micky D ripped open the unlocked door to sixty-five and stepped into the smoke-filled apartment.

  No one, nothing there except bare floors and fire crackling everywhere.

  The manager coughed and covered his mouth with a handkerchief, mumbling, "Now we gotta go. Sixty-five vacant, no one livin' dere in a week." He grabbed Micky D's arm.

  But Micky D pulled free, squinting in the smoke. "There was a woman here yesterday," he insisted.

  The manager shook his head, his eyes widening as he reached out again for Micky D's arm. "Please, Mista Donahue. Mus' go now. No one dere!"

  Jesus, could he have imagined the whole fucking thing? Micky D held his ground, staring into the vacant apartment. Jenna, her guests, the wild sex sounds? Even Rashad's explanation?

  No.

  Pulse racing, he turned away from the frightened fat man, squinting and glancing first down the smoke-filled hallway, then back toward the roof stairwell.

  That's when he saw it, lying there in the hall near the roof stairs: the heavy black scarf.

  "She's still here!" he said, stumbling away from the confused Mr. Robinson.

  He ran up the stairs and out onto the roof, looking about frantically. The top of the building was completely engulfed in thick, dark smoke and scattered clusters of fire. He couldn't see ten feet in any direction. The intense heat from nearby flames made him flinch back. Glancing around anxiously, he figured he had sixty seconds at most to find Jenna and get her to the main stairwell or they'd be trapped. Desperate, he shouted out into the raging holocaust, "Jenna, Jenna, where are you?"

  From somewhere across from him in the smoke, he heard her answer over the roaring sound of the fire. "Micky D! Over here!"

  He dashed breathlessly across the roof to the Jones Street side, juking like an NFL running back, avoiding burning obstacles and a sudden column of fire that shot out of a broken skylight like a flamethrower. He finally spotted her---

  Jesus.

  She stood casually in the flames that leapt up off the side of the roof, smiling.

  It was Jenna, shed of her overcoat, wearing a funny round backpack and dressed in some type of one-piece, skin-tight, high-necked metallic garment that glowed with a cool blue luminescence. It hid none of her finely shaped body. She beckoned to him, defying gravity like a large bird hovering on an upsweep of hot air.

  Warily, he moved closer to the fiery edge of the building.

  She leaned toward him, extending both hands, her eyes glittering with excitement. "Come with me, Micky D. Time to go home."

  Home?

  Whoa.

  He drew back away from the woman's grasp, his vision tunneling down to a pinpoint as questions spun in his head like the smoke around him swirled in the wind.

  Where?

  Another dimension?

  An alien world?

  The distant future?

  And going with an alien? A Visitor?

  Below them, six stories down on Jones Street, a fire engine braked, its siren slowly winding down. Off in the distance, back-up engines shrieked loudly, answering its dying cry.

  Gazing into Jenna's steady and beautiful eyes, Micky D inched closer, his pulse racing wildly.

  Why not go? he asked himself. What difference does it make?

  He cared about nothing and no one anymore.

  Nothing.

  He reached out and grasped her warm, warm hands.

  Finally, Micky D sucked in a deep breath, steeled himself, and stepped out and away from the building's ledge...to join the gorgeous Visitor.

  5150

  We got the call Friday night at 11:45 p.m.

  "Car 3256, we have several reports of a black male acting oddly, highly agitated, scaring people...repeat, a code 5150 on Leavenworth between Post and Geary."

  A 5150: a psycho, someone behaving in a threatening and irrational manner, or a situation gone completely ballistic, everything dangerously awry---a call every cop dreads more than testing positive for an STD.

  "God Al-migh-ty," I panted under my breath, closing my eyes. The iceworm awakened in my gut and started feeding in an enraged frenzy, each electric crunch sending a bolt of icy pain tearing through my body. The iceworm, my special name for the ferocious little demon burrowed deeply in my lower intestine.

  I gasped loudly.

  Somehow, ingrained habits kicked in automatically. I sucked in a long, deep breath, squeezed my eyes even tighter, concentrated on a bright white dot for several seconds, then let the air trickle back out of my mouth and regained some degree of control. Blinking away the tears of pain, I reluctantly responded back to central dispatch in a shaky, hoarse voice: "Yeah, 10...4, this is car 3256 responding to the 5150, over and out."

  My partner, Benny Tomaho, stomped the brakes on our patrol car, spun a fishtailing U on busy Geary Street, and headed back toward Leavenworth, hitting both the siren and flash bar and narrowly missing a long-legged tranny hooker stepping off the median. She gave us the finger as we sped by.

  With a trembling hand I reached under the car seat, pulled out the Crystal Geyser liter bottle, and took a long pull. The high-proof cheap vodka made my eyes water, and it wasn't the first or second drink of the shift, even counting by fours. The huge hit of fiery liquor burned all the way down, the anesthetizing wave working itself out from my gut into my legs, arms, fingertips, and toes. For a moment or two I thought even my nose numbed. But I knew from past experience that the relaxed feeling from the jolt of vodka wouldn't last long, not permanently stilling the famished devil. No, the iceworm was locked in deep inside me, and no amount of booze or anything else would ever kill or dislodge it. At best, I could hope for only temporary respite, pray that it would be knocked out and stay asleep for awhile.

  "Motherfuck," Benny said, oblivious to my pain, as he worked his way through the Tenderloin traffic. We were still a couple of blocks away from the location. "Only fifteen friggin' minutes until end of shift, Skipper. Then we would've busted out for two days, free from this miserable, sleazy, smelly armpit of the city."

  Forget that weekend respite shit; small potatoes. I was close to permanent relief, 24/7. Two weeks---ten working days---until retirement from the San Francisco Police Department. Man, I was shorter than a mosquito's pecker. So please, I pleaded silently to a higher power, not some crazy-ass crap, not now, just a few nights before my escape from this ongoing nightmare.

  "Wow, look at the size of that mob," Benny said, his higher-pitched-than-normal voice interrupting my self-pity. He braked a half block up Leavenworth from Geary, near Post Street, in front of the crowded alley entry. "Yeah, somebody has got to be down. C'mon, Skip!"

  Benny jumped out of the car, pausing a few seconds to attach his baton and adjust his equipment belt.

  I hung back long enough to scrunch down partially out of view of the crowd and take another swallow from the water bottle. I wiped my eyes and coughed. The little hit didn't help much with the fucking worm fully awake and chomping away sharply.

  With an effort of will I fo
rced myself out of the car, my weak knees almost buckling under me. For a moment I steadied myself against the side of the patrol car. Then, letting Benny take the lead, I followed, shouldering slowly through the crowd clustered at the mouth of the dark alley, noticing thankfully the lack of any immediate gunfire. Still, I moved stiffly, scanning left and right, 5150 repeating silently in my head. In short, "showing a lotta white eyeball," as the guys back at the station said, describing a rookie on an edgy call.

  "Yo, Skip."

  I glanced down to where I had almost stepped on the legless black guy resting on his scooterboard. He tugged at my pants leg.

  "Hey, Double S," I said sheepishly, reaching down and tapping my knuckles against Short Stuff's fist, relieved to see someone in the crowd I knew well. "What's up? We got a 5150 a minute ago from dispatch."

  Double S was a hustler, knew everything that happened on the street in the 'loin; you could bet a bundle he'd know what had gone down.

  "Yeah, it be The Prophet got hisself hit, Skip," Short Stuff explained in a low whisper as I watched my partner continue working his way through the gawkers. He finally dropped alongside a man stretched out on his back in the alley. "He hasslin' wunna Big Leroy's ladies, Li'l Sister, and her john. You know his line, calling the dude somepin terrible, a...a forn-i-cator this time. Then on with his usual pocket-leaps rant, swearin' that shitstorm be hittin' the 'loin real soon. The dead be raisin' up, rippin'-n-runnin' like a mob of dope-sick junkie muthahfuckahs lookin' fo' a quick fix. Ya unnerstan' what I'm tellin' ya here, Skip? The dude was goin' off big time, barkin' and spittin' and pokin' his finger in this here john's face."

  "Yeah, I hear you, Double S," I replied, nervously checking the crowd. I kept my eyes open for anyone looking hostile or coming my way with his hands jammed in his pockets.

  "But The Prophet ain't lettin' it go, man, shakin' it like a pit bull wif a mailman's trouser leg in his mouf," Short Stuff said. "He callin' that john a whoremonger and Li'l Sister a jezebel, bof big time sinners in this here modern-day Sodomy and Gonorrhea, which was gonna bring on that pocket-leaps shit any day now."