Taste of Tenderloin Read online

  Double S paused to take a breath and spit in the gutter. He looked around furtively before continuing. "Dick-shriveled the trick big time, ya know what I'm sayin'? John jus' turned away from Li'l Sister and hauled ass outta there, like my man Carl Lewis. And Big Leroy jus' up the street glarin', hearin' ever word of that rantin' and ravin' bullshit by The Prophet, jus' as plain as bad bref on a wino behind a Sterno binge."

  "Pissed off Big Leroy," I said, peering over the heads of the crowd, searching for but not spotting the giant pimp's shiny head before finally taking another look over at my kneeling partner. Benny was busy on his cell phone, obviously calling in the EMT troops.

  "That crazy dude's bad, man, no one to fuck wif," Double S continued when I glanced back down at him. "Big Leroy pushed The Prophet inna alley, then he growled, 'Fool, I gonna make sure ya'll 'member inna mornin' when ya look in the mirror, 'member not to ever mess again wif my bidness' then his hand was a blur, leavin' a black line from jus' under the outside corner of Prophet's lef' eye, 'cross his cheekbone to the corner of his mouf. Din't bleed fo' almost half a minute, ya know how a real sharp cut do. Then I see it open a bit and spot white cheekbone, jus' 'foh it gush red. Mean, nasty-ass cut. Ya unnerstan' what I'm sayin' here, Skip?"

  "Yeah, you're saying Big Leroy purposely marked The Prophet for costing him business," I said, a little too loudly.

  The legless man grimaced as if I'd struck him with my baton on one of his stumps. He glanced about anxiously to see if anyone had overheard me before nodding slightly, confirming my blurted accusation.

  I slipped him a couple of bills. "Hey, thanks man, get yourself a snack and some joe up at All Star Donuts."

  Short Stuff took the money, grinned, and scooted off up Leavenworth toward Post Street. Of course I knew he wasn't buying donuts or coffee with that bread. No, my man was dabbling with the glass pipe.

  When I got closer to where Benny kneeled over The Prophet, I saw that my partner had given the injured man a clean handkerchief to staunch the flow of blood down his left cheek. The frail-looking old black man was propped up on a stack of cardboard, pressing the red-soaked hanky against his slashed face, deflecting the last of Benny's questions. Not looking too bad, really, all things considered.

  He nodded at me as I kneeled.

  "Yo, Skip," the old man said like a ventriloquist, trying not to move his mouth much.

  I nodded back, smiling wryly.

  We'd known each other for I guess about five years, ever since he'd shown up in the Tenderloin. Back then The Prophet wasn't a religious nut, just plain old Gent Brown.

  "Got yourself in a little deep with Big Leroy?" I said, not really expecting him to acknowledge his attacker.

  "Jus' preachin' the Word, Skip," he said with effort, chopping off the sentence as if he were short of breath, the hurt obvious in his dark eyes. "Bad times is comin', jus' 'round the corner for all the sinners here in the 'loin." He pressed on in spite of the pain. "The Man be comin' back. I see it clearer and clearer---"

  I held up my hand as he warmed up, having heard his apocalyptic rant a number of times, including two weeks before, after a pair of teenage crack dealers had beaten the shit out of him with a piece of garden hose and a toy bat down on Taylor Street. He'd apparently broken up a sale with his spiel. "Okay, save your breath, and take it easy, Gent, the ambulance will be here any minute now." I patted his shoulder, lit up a Winston, and gave it to him, knowing the cigarette would keep him quiet for a moment or two, hoping the EMTs would hurry. Benny's handkerchief was sopping wet with blood, but Gent was not really in shock or anything---his eyes were clear, he was alert and coherent despite the deep cut. A tough old geezer, I thought, shaking my head with grudging admiration.

  The EMTs showed up about a minute later, and I nodded goodbye as they loaded Gent into the ambulance. It wouldn't have done much good to press and get a statement from him because he wouldn't implicate Big Leroy. Preacher or no preacher, Gent Brown wasn't into suicide. Benny and I would just have to catch the giant on the street sometime and try to shake him up, which wasn't too likely; the mean-ass pimp was tougher than a piece of stale beef jerky .

  Anyhow, the iceworm was resting, maybe even asleep. I felt pretty relaxed myself now that the 5150 was resolved. I absently watched the ambulance take off and the crowd disperse, thinking back on The Prophet's transformation.

  I had first met Gent Brown when I'd responded to a shoplifting call up on O'Farrell near Van Ness about five years before. He was a common wethead back then, a Tenderloin stumblebum. He'd tried snagging a liter of red from the Korean's liquor store. Big mistake. Mr. Pak had thrown down on Gent with a .44 Magnum cannon that he kept within reach under the checkout counter, stopping the old bum from leaving the store with the shoplifted bottle and keeping him frozen in place, staring at the open end of that handgun, as Mr. Pak called 911.

  I didn't think too much about it at the time, just took Gent Brown outside for a get-yourself-cleaned-up lecture before I dropped him over at St. Anthony's for something to eat---an overcrowded jail wouldn't have helped him at all.

  But the same kind of no-account life went on for Gent for the next four years, the old boy stumbling around the 'loin, panhandling, shoplifting, doing whatever it took to keep himself full of antifreeze. Feeling sorry for him, I slipped him an occasional buck or two at the end of the month when his social security was long gone. Then something odd happened to him one night, around midnight in an alley where he had his cardboard tent set up. The next day, he told me he'd had a vision, that he'd got "The Call" from a skinny-ass transvestite named Angel who had died a month previously of some infection complicated by her AIDS. Which I guess makes you kind of wonder about the Big Guy's recruitment staff.

  Anyhow, whatever really happened, Gent cleaned up his act overnight. Got a room in the Reo residential hotel on Hyde, lived exclusively off his SSI, and quickly became one of the good guys around the 'loin. He volunteered at St. Anthony's handing out clean needles and condoms to junkies, helped homeless folks hook up with needed social services, and preached on the street. Soon after that, he became known around the 'loin as The Prophet.

  But about six months ago his preaching turned to hardcore fundamental sermons, and lately they were laced with hard-edged fire and brimstone rants about the evils of the city, going off about all the sinners and the coming of the apocalypse. He turned from helping poor people to getting in their faces over their weaknesses and vices, becoming a major pain in the ass to a lot of folks down in the 'loin. Almost a low grade 5150, usually drawing an audience of little more than parking meters; folks scattered when they saw him coming.

  This was all too much for me to worry about, because I had a six-pack of troubles of my own.

  On the way to my apartment on O'Farrell, I picked up some taco chips, bean dip, a quart of vodka, and a twelve-pack of Bud: dinner. The bean dip was my concession to health food.

  Inside the shabby digs, I flicked on the TV---Steve McQueen movie, one of my favorites, the Devil's Island one---and settled into my easy chair, popping a can of beer, relieved that the call hadn't turned shitty, not like that fiasco at the Bluenote four years ago last month.

  Michael James, my long-time partner back then and a good man, had taken a .22 hollow point in the head after we'd rolled on the 5150 and walked into the open door of the seedy bar over on Jones. A homeboy, dusted-up good with PCP, had his piece out and capped Mike, who had strolled in a half-step ahead of me. At the sound of the gunshot, I had hit the deck and dug in, my equipment belt twisted around and my holstered piece trapped underneath me. I'd stared into Mike's frozen expression, shaking like a dog shitting peach pits. The bartender had finally slipped out from behind the bar and subdued the perp with a baseball bat to the back of his head.

  For months after that night I'd had nightmares, seeing Mike's surprised face with that innocent tiny blue-ringed hole in his forehead oozing just a drop or two of blood, then waking up in a clammy sweat. After that, I got up close and
personal with some serious boozing. I called in sick often or showed up for work hung over, and of course I drank on the job. Before that I had always been a decent blue, cited twice, a half-assed hero on one occasion when I had saved a toddler in a hostage situation. But that all changed when Mike bought it. After that night every 5150 froze my shit.

  Then, a little over two years ago, the ballbuster.

  We'd responded to a 5150 at a neighborhood market down on Hyde. My heart had been hammering, my pulse racing, my asshole puckered up, and my judgment messed up big time.

  A Latino wearing a blue bandanna around his forehead bolted out the front door of the market just as we pulled up in front. My partner jumped out of the patrol car, weapon drawn, and shouted, "Halt! Halt! Halt!" He fired off a warning round into the air, following the book, SOP.

  The guy pulled up to a stop after that, not quite a half a block away. He turned to face us, wearing that blue headband and a grey Pendleton shirt outside his baggy tan pants.

  It turned surreal at that moment, everything moving in super slow motion, like I was detached from it all, watching an NFL replay on Sunday. My partner ordered the guy to raise his hands. Instead of obeying, he smiled goofy-like and reached inside his Pendleton near his belt. His hand came up and out, holding something dark---

  And then he flew backward, looking startled as a big wet crimson stain spread across the front of his grey Pendleton. His knees gave way as the strength drained from his legs, and he collapsed.

  I looked down in disbelief at the gun clutched in my sweaty hand. God Almighty!

  In shock, I shuffled closer to the crumpled figure.

  My partner bent over and lifted a black comb from the guy's hand.

  Turned out the dead Latino was a twelve-year-old kid from the neighborhood. After sniffing glue with a pair of friends, he had entered the grocery and scared the owner with his erratic behavior. The frightened storekeeper had called 911. As we'd arrived, the boy had bolted out of the store right into us, confused, only reaching for his stupid-ass comb, apparently a nervous habit. All I had seen was a .38 Special.

  Of course there was an IAD investigation and hearing, but I was cleared after two months. I took an additional two months off after that, not getting much from the visits with the head doctors. Just sat around home, often fighting with Diane, mostly getting well acquainted with various brands of cheap vodka and shaking hands with a steady supply of Bud tall boys. I checked out all the HBO and Showtime movies, seeing some of them two, three times in one day, remembering nothing. Eventually economics forced me back to work. I tried several times to transfer out of the Tenderloin. No luck. They stuck me with a series of rookie partners like Benny, who would move on soon; nobody wanted to partner up steady with me.

  I got up from the chair, stumbled across the room, and flipped off the TV---McQueen was floating away to freedom on a raft. I really liked that final image. Half a dozen empty beer cans were sitting on the TV tray I used as an end table next to my Eazy Boy recliner. The chair had been the only piece of furniture I'd brought along when I left Diane and our Sunset place a couple months ago.

  She'd come home last April with the bad results from Doctor Serra at Kaiser. They'd said colon cancer, inoperable, but of course I knew better. She had the iceworm, same as me; I must have infected her sometime before that doctor's visit.

  So I left Diane, not wanting to watch her die. Or maybe just to get away from her nagging about my drinking. Who knows? My thinking was not too clear at that point. In any event, I'd moved into this studio dump on O'Farrell on the edge of the 'loin. Oddly, the medical experts at Kaiser could find nothing wrong with me even after several GI probes and X-rays with that barium crap. The fucking iceworm only burrowed deeper, able to hide from the doctors and the tests. Hibernated sometimes. For sure, the damn thing wasn't killing me fast like it was with Diane.

  I sighed and shuffled into the tiny bathroom to take a piss, glancing at my mug in the mirror over the toilet. It said fifty-two on my California driver's license, but my reflection was a stranger, some beat-up old guy, at least sixty-five. "Man, hang on," I instructed the reflection. "Two more weeks, dude."

  At that moment, the front door burst open, startling me.

  A familiar voice said, "Hey, Skippy, you home?"

  Nicki Machado, my roommate.

  "Yeah, babe, in here taking a leak."

  She peeked around the corner, trying to raise her eyebrows like Groucho Marx and leer lustfully at my johnson. She was a little worse for wear; her mascara was smudged, her lipstick not quite centered on her usually attractive full lips, and only one cheek had been rouged, making her look clownlike, silly not sexy.

  She frowned uncharacteristically. "Couldn't find Smokey anywhere again today," she said, referring to her kitten that had disappeared two nights ago. Of course I knew what had happened to the cat. In a drunken frenzy I'd tossed it down the old elevator shaft at the end of our hall, through the doors permanently stuck apart eighteen inches or so. The kitten hadn't made a peep, just a sickening, echoing wet splat. So I'd restacked the two big cardboard boxes in front of the open shaft---management's idea of hi-tech security. The boxes may have been too heavy for a toddler to move, but were easily scooted clear by the three elementary school age Asian kids who sometimes played out in the hallway. So far the owners hadn't been cited for safety violations, or if so, management had ignored the citations.

  Nicki had probably done most of her evening's searching down at The Greek's, the bar around the corner.

  My roomie was in her late forties, a cop on disability for the last year or so---shot up in a botched liquor store robbery over in the Haight. Still had a trim, athletic body, except for her two extra belly buttons---the ugly red 9mm scars near her navel. She had dark, sexy good looks when she was sober and dressed nice, which wasn't too often anymore.

  She spotted the groceries and vodka on the counter. "Hey, Skippy, fix you a drink?" she asked cheerily, sampling the taco chips and bean dip.

  I nodded.

  We each had a couple of generous hits from the bottle, and then Nicki got friendly. Kissing me. Exploring the inside of my mouth with her tongue. Placing her hands under my T-shirt, caressing my chest and stomach, tentatively edging her hand inside my shorts. She broke off and whispered huskily, "You wanna do the short yo-yo tonight, Skippy?"

  I nuzzled her neck. Yeah, not a bad idea, I thought. It had been quite a while since a one-on-one.

  A few minutes later, the radio station K-FOG played backup to our rassling match. The two of us lay naked and sweaty on the bed, Nicki on top like she preferred, pinning my shoulders down with her hands. She moved her hips slowly in time to the Eagles' long instrumental introduction to "Hotel California," her eyes closed, her expression dreamy. As the song ended, Nicki bucked, shuddered, moaned, blinked, and smiled; then she kissed me sloppily on the lips.

  "Skippy, you're a stud," she rasped. "You lay right there and I'll get you a drink."

  It had indeed gone better than usual. Last couple of times, Nicki had been too dry, and by the time she'd returned from the bathroom with the KY gel, I had lost interest; too tired, or too old, or too limp, or just too fucked up from the booze to work up enthusiasm again. Often the iceworm was reawakened by all the sweaty activity, gnawing away like mad and ruining everything.

  She got up, not trying to cover up her slight, girlish breasts with their huge, dark aureoles, the nipples still engorged and standing out almost half an inch, or even hiding her thick, unruly black pubic thatch, now damp. Unembarrassed. No false modesty with Nicki. Something else I kinda liked about her.

  "Got a letter from Ray today," she said, her voice slightly slurred, smiling and handing me the drink of vodka---three fingers neat.

  Ray was her son, a computer whiz working in North Carolina. He'd been concerned about her welfare after the shooting, wanting her to come out and stay with his family. But Nicki had resisted his calls and letters to date, telling me that Ray had a young wife a
nd a two-year-old to care for. He didn't need a boozy old lady hanging around; besides, she was going back to work real soon, right after she got her act cleaned up.

  She was probably right about the old lady part, but deep down we both knew she wasn't going back to police work ever again. It would've been so easy for her to give in, let her son take care of her, but she still had a little pride left---something else I envied. And she wasn't any trouble living with me in the tiny apartment, even with her kitten.

  I felt a little surge of guilt well up into my consciousness over snuffing Smokey just because he'd been meowing loudly to get in at the same time the iceworm had reared up and gnawed away unmercifully, but I managed to force the feeling to the back of my mind: something I was getting pretty damned good at ever since going back to work after whacking the Latino kid.

  I got up and joined her for another drink, both of us sitting around and chatting drunkenly in our birthday suits, not much giving a shit how we looked. A couple of worthless, broken-down old cops trying to provide some needed comfort to each other.

  Late that same night, Nicki awakened me with a loud groan. She sat up next to me in bed, then doubled over in pain. Through clenched teeth, she described an icy gnawing sensation deep in her stomach. "Maybe scar tissue broken loose, Skippy," she whispered weakly, rubbing the two scars near her navel, her face contorted with pain. "Or even an ulcer. I been hitting the juice pretty hard ever since the shooting, you know."

  I nodded, making no comment.

  She described the sharp, biting pain in detail between gasps for breath.

  I nodded, got up, and gave her the last of the vodka mixed with a little milk from the fridge. "Maybe this will help."

  She grimaced, but managed to get the mix down. In a few minutes the pain lines in her face eased up. "I feel better. Thanks, Skippy." She smiled and kissed me gratefully on the lips.