Taste of Tenderloin Read online

  I kissed her back, forcing a smile.

  Of course it wasn't scar tissue or an ulcer that had awakened her in the middle of the night. No way. It was the fucking iceworm. I'd probably infected her by having unprotected sex, just like I'd done with Diane. What an asshole. I had to do something to help her, for Christ's sake.

  But what could I do? I couldn't even drown the hidden devil in my own gut.

  10:00 p.m. Friday night: one week from retirement, everything slow and easy in the Tenderloin. Just hold on for another week, I prayed as we patrolled along the upper fringe of the 'loin. We cruised along, relaxed-like, absently checking out the hookers, junkies, and dealers along the street. Nothing really unusual happened, nothing out of line.

  Then we spotted Gent Brown signaling us over to the corner of O'Farrell and Hyde. Benny braked the car and double parked.

  "Yo, Skip, got a minute, man?" The Prophet asked, gesturing for me to step out for a private moment.

  I nodded, figuring he was ready to give up Big Leroy. Even though I was nervous anywhere near the Hyde Street store, I got out of the patrol car and moved closer to the old man. That's when I noticed his face looked funny, stitches out already, barely a scar noticeable on his cheek. Everything had healed up well; too well. Weird, because that had been a bone-deep razor cut only a week ago.

  "What's up?" I asked, squinting and checking his healed wound a little closer. Yeah, just a slight red mark, little more than a shaving burn.

  "It's you, man," Gent said, pointing an accusing finger at my chest. His tone wasn't sharp or strident as was usual when lecturing someone, but soft, gentle, like the expression on his face.

  "Me?"

  "Yeah, Skip, you gotta get your affairs in order, man. Time is runnin' out---"

  "Hold off, Gent," I protested, bringing up both hands.

  He just smiled, ignored my protest, and continued, "I'm serious, man, you only got a couple of days at most. You need to get rid of that ex-cop girlfriend. Your wife needs your support right now. You need to make amends, because the Grand Judgment Day beckons soon." At that point, he placed his hand on my shoulder in a fatherly gesture.

  Whoa!

  It felt like I had been touched with a live 440-volt wire. The electric shock traveled the length of my body and transported me to another place.

  I was home, back in the Sunset, in our bedroom, looking down at Diane stretched out on our king-sized bed. She was pale and skinny, asleep but gasping for breath. A bright green kerchief partially covered her bald head.

  The view shifted, and it was like time running backwards. I saw Diane and myself, both younger, in the backyard barbecuing with friends at my 40th birthday party; an even younger Diane in a new dress dancing at The Top of the Mark; earlier, in our first apartment in the Mission, making love, frantic and slippery, a couple of eager youngsters; our wedding day. All happy times in the distant past with hopes for the family that had never come.

  I shuddered and moaned, breaking the man's electric grip on my shoulder. The vision disappeared.

  Gent nodded, as if privy to all I had seen. "Hurry, make peace with her now, or you will be sorry on Judgment Day. Time to act is short. Give up the juice. Go home for good, Skip, leave the 'loin behind now." His tone had taken on a sharper edge, moving up in pitch. His eyes were clear and shining brightly.

  I pulled away from him, feeling weak-kneed, stunned by the shock to my system and especially the vivid vision or hallucination or whatever the fuck it was. Sweating, I nodded as if agreeing with The Prophet but quickly retreated back into the patrol car.

  "Let's get out of here," I whispered out of the side of my mouth to my partner. "Now, man, now!"

  Benny dropped the car into gear and drove off. Glancing over at me, he asked, "What happened back there, Skip? You look like you've seen a ghost."

  "Maybe I did, at that," I answered weakly, remembering how bad Diane had looked. Automatically, I reached under the seat for my Crystal Geyser bottle. The iceworm was awake and beginning to feed.

  Saturday night I awakened in a cold sweat.

  "What's the matter, honey?" Nicki asked sleepily, glancing at the bedside digital clock: 2:37 a.m.

  "Nothing, babe, just a bad dream. Go back to sleep," I said dismissively, but I was shaken because I had experienced the first part of the vision again, updated: Diane obviously dying, looking even worse than the first vision when The Prophet had grabbed my shoulder; her older sister at her bedside.

  I got up, went out to the kitchen and drained a Bud, idly glancing out the window at the signboard on the roof of the building across the way. A blue neon message flashed in the foggy night: NOW, SKIP! NOW, SKIP! NOW, SKIP!

  I blinked and the signboard was dark as usual at this hour.

  Holy shit!

  The booze had finally gotten to me.

  I was going around the corner big time, hallucinating, and Gent Brown had packed my bags.

  I paced about for a few minutes, finally focusing on the real cause of all my trouble.

  It wasn't Gent or even the booze.

  No, not really; it was the fucking iceworm.

  I had to do something about it for the sake of all three of us---Diane was dying, Nicki was hurting, and I was being driven crazy by the damned thing. Standing there in the dark at 3:00 a.m., I knew what I had to do. Okay, I thought, smoothing it all out in my mind, dividing it into three steps.

  A few minutes later, with no one up yet in the building, I dressed. I slid my Glock 9mm into my belt in the hollow of my back, concealed under my T-shirt, and took a long, deep breath. Finally, I awakened Nicki.

  "Babe, get up. I heard Smokey crying. I think I know where he is."

  "Wha---? Smokey?"

  She struggled up, confused, but finally grasped my meaning.

  "Yes, now slip on your stuff."

  Nicki pulled on her jeans and a T-shirt, running her hands through her hair. Then she looked at me expectantly, her expression still dazed. "Where is he?"

  "C'mon," I said, beckoning her follow me out into the hallway.

  The building was graveyard quiet.

  "This way."

  I led her down the hall to the old elevator shaft. As hoped, she meekly followed me, not asking questions, still half asleep and anxious about the welfare of her kitten. At the shaft, I pushed aside the boxes, exposing the gap in the elevator doors. "He fell down there," I said, pointing down into the blackness, the smell of something rotten almost making me gag.

  "Smokey? Smokey, baby, you down there?" Nicki said, kneeling and leaning forward into the shaft.

  I blinked, my eyes tearing up, my hands shaking as if I had Parkinson's. Do it now, man, I told myself.

  But I hesitated drawing my gun, thinking it would be easier to just give her a quick nudge...but she might survive the fall; then what?

  Nicki glanced back at me. "God, what is that smell?" she said, rubbing her nose. She peered back down the darkened shaft. "You sure Smokey is down there?" she asked, her voice tight, mixed with hope and dread. "Smokey?"

  "Yeah," I replied, resigned to the original plan. I pulled the automatic out from under my shirt, my hand trembling. I eased the weapon up, sucking in a deep breath. "He's down there, babe, I promise." Then, through my blurred gaze, I picked a spot just behind her left ear, steadied myself, and squeezed the trigger. The shot echoed loudly down the elevator shaft.

  Instantly, Nicki tumbled forward, disappearing into the darkness.

  Splat, then silence.

  "He's there, babe," I said, my voice a barely audible, scratchy whisper. "You found your Smokey." I wiped my eyes and runny nose on a hanky before tossing it down after Nicki, then added, "And the fucking iceworm ain't going to hurt you no more either."

  I turned away, fighting back the tears, and hurried down the hallway to the stairwell as I heard people in the apartments beginning to stir, awakened by the echoing gunshot.

  A little later, still very early in the morning, I found the extra key on the nail
partially driven into the back porch overhang, where it was always kept at our place in Sunset. After letting myself in quietly, I tiptoed down to the spare bedroom. Everything happened in slow motion as if I were watching some dark movie with time geared down. Diane's older sister, Robin, was asleep and snoring loudly. She was a physician's assistant, recently retired from the ER at UCSF. As I thought, she'd moved in and been taking care of Diane, at least the last week or so.

  I tiptoed down the hall to the master bedroom.

  Diane was asleep. Hospital-room bottles hung on supports on either side of the bed, one probably morphine, the medicine dripping down lines into shunts taped on the backs of both her hands. Her breathing was labored but steady, her lips chapped and flakey, her face emaciated and chalky pale. So skinny under her nightshirt.

  The iceworm was eating her alive.

  "I'm sorry, ba---" I whispered, a huge lump rising in my throat, choking off the rest of my apology.

  Well, I will take care of everything now, I thought, sucking in a deep breath, resigned to completing the second part of my plan.

  Choked up, teary-eyed, but able to move on automatic pilot, I bent over the frail woman I had once loved dearly, and I pressed a pillow over her face.

  She struggled frantically, but I pushed down with all my weight. Her feet made a few weak cycling movements, kicking off the sheet...then nothing. Diane was gone. She wasn't going to suffer anymore.

  I tiptoed back down the hall, past my sleeping sister-in-law, and then let myself quietly out of the house while the neighborhood still slept in the early morning fog.

  Back in the apartment in the 'loin, I sat sipping a Bud, thinking about the plan in the pre-dawn darkness.

  I felt better about doing something good for a change, helping both Nicki and Diane, their iceworms stilled. I sighed and looked down at the table, the Glock wiped clean and just sitting there waiting next to my beer. I picked up the can and drained the Bud. Surprisingly, my devil had been quiet all morning, ever since Nicki had tumbled down the elevator shaft.

  "Uh-huh, running a low profile, you shitty bastard," I said aloud, grinning wryly to myself. "Well, it's too fucking late, boyo!" I picked up my gun, jacking a round into the chamber. Time to take care of step three.

  But I faltered, an intense wave of fear washing over me, speeding my heart rate and pulse. My eyelid twitched out of control; my hands grew slippery and shook badly.

  "You can do it, man," I whispered unconvincingly, my grip on the Glock baby weak.

  That's when I heard it. A faint scratching sound at the hallway door.

  Then a familiar mewling.

  "No way," I whispered, shaking my head in denial but lacking any real conviction.

  I stood up, slipping the gun into my belt, and crossed the room, nervously easing open the front door.

  Smokey, tail standing up, walked in and brushed himself against my right ankle. He looked exactly the same; maybe a little scuffed up and dirty, but unhurt.

  Shocked, I remained in place for a few moments, rubbing my eyes. The kitten purred around my ankle. What the fuck was going on? An icicle stabbed into my gut, the iceworm waking in a frenzy. Momentarily ignoring the pain, I leaned out into the hallway, peering left down toward the shaft, half expecting to see Nicki.

  Nothing.

  But the cat was there, no question about that.

  Suddenly, it took off running, back out the door and into the hallway.

  "Wait, Smokey!" I shouted, following the grey kitten down the stairwell.

  Out on the street, I pulled up short, stunned and gasping for breath.

  The whole frigging Tenderloin appeared to be on fire from where I stood, smoke and flames leaping up from the nearby buildings into the darkness.

  Sirens wailed in the distance. A fire truck appeared, sliding around the corner, and then pulling up in front of my building, spilling out its crew. They pulled off their fire hoses and hooked up to the nearby water hydrants.

  A screaming patrol car braked just up the street.

  Looking that direction, past the firemen and cops, I spotted Smokey among the crowd. Folks from nearby apartments milled in the street, many only half-dressed, peering around wide-eyed at the inferno raging around them.

  On some silent cue, everyone began to move en masse downtown.

  I followed the crowd for several blocks. At the corner of O'Farrell and Market Street I paused, looked both ways, and watched what looked like all of downtown San Francisco spilling out from the nearby streets that fed into Market---hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people.

  What is going on?

  9/11 flashed into my head.

  Another terrorist attack? Maybe one of those suitcase nuclear devices going off around in a building, setting everything afire, people lit up with radiation?

  I noticed that some of the crowd did look kind of funny, not glowing with radiation, but wearing peculiar, stunned expressions, their clothes dirty and scuffed up. They shuffled along as if they'd stepped out of one of those George Romero movies.

  At that moment the ground bucked and the street in front of me cracked open with a loud snapping pop. The sidewalk rolled as if it had turned to Jell-O, knocking people to their knees.

  I grabbed the closest parking meter and hung on, looking up in awe as streaks of jagged lightning ripped across the sky. Lower, just above the building tops, neon blue balls of psychedelic fire were tumbling over and over, rolling westerly in the direction of Civic Center. Accompanying the spectacular light show was an orchestra of chaos: thunder, boulders crashing into nearby canyons, more sirens wailing from every direction, sporadic explosions in buildings. Debris tore away overhead and crashed down onto the street. Cars braked and collided; frightened people shouted and cried. Some were struck down by falling objects and screamed out in pain.

  Still clutching the parking meter as an anchor, I looked around at ground level, trying to take it all in.

  That's when I spotted them, down by the Ferry Building: black-cloaked horsemen astride ebony steeds thundering up Market Street, the magnificent beasts' eyes crimson, nostrils flaring and snorting fire, the riders scattering the crowd as they galloped by, four abreast, toward Civic Center.

  "Yo, Skip."

  Stunned by the whole phantasmagoric scene, I finally dropped my gaze, looking down at the foot of the parking meter.

  It was Short Stuff.

  I couldn't speak for a moment, but eventually managed a raspy whisper, "What's happening here, Double S?"

  He wasn't wearing his normal laid-back, half-assed cynical expression. Instead, he looked kind of whacked-out, awestruck himself. Still, he spoke calmly in spite of all that was happening around us. "Hey, this gotta be the shitstorm The Prophet been rantin' 'bout."

  "Shitstorm?" I repeated as fragments of building material crashed just a few yards away from where we stood, flattening a Volvo station wagon parked on the street and covering us with a thin layer of dust.

  "Yeah, ya know, that pocket-leaps jive he been preachin' 'bout," the crippled man said, wiping his dirty face on his sweatshirt sleeve. "Dead raisin' up...that's them muthahfuckahs out there, ya know, the stupid-lookin', scuffed-up ones, shufflin' along like a chain gang."

  I looked where he pointed, out into the crowd. Every other person indeed looked stoned, marching along in lockstep, zombie-like. But arisen from the dead?

  "Oh yeah, Skip, the shit done hit the fan, big time, ya unnerstan' what I'm sayin'?" Double S continued over the hubbub, snorting and spitting mud out into the gutter. "Uh-huh, and check him out, now. Guess he ain't jus a prophet no mo'. Uh-uh, he gotta be Da Man!"

  I glanced in the direction of his gesture; the crowd was gathering back in the street after the horsemen galloped by, coalescing tightly around a nearby figure.

  Gent Brown.

  All dressed up in a flowing golden robe, so bright it made me squint. He sure didn't resemble any Tenderloin wethead or stumblebum now, nor any street preacher either. No way. He drifted up
Market Street, gathering people behind him. The crowd moved in the general direction of Civic Center.

  Holy shit!

  Close behind Gent, in the middle of the crowd, was Nicki, wearing a dazed expression, shuffling along in step with the others. "Hey, babe!" I shouted and waved uselessly as she disappeared from view, lost in the hubbub.

  "C'mon, Skip, guess we bettah fall in our ownselves. Maybe get the word at Civic Center, ya hear me?" Double S pushed off on his scooterboard, not waiting for my response.

  At that moment the iceworm reared up, thrashing about in a frenzy, doubling me over. I grabbed my stomach, the pain incredible, and looked down, half expecting to see the devil explode out of my body like that gut-wrenching scene in the movie Alien.

  God Almighty!

  I had indeed gone around the corner, for sure. The iceworm had driven me crazier than a shithouse mouse. This must be some kind of crazy-ass shit, an elaborate, grand delusion. No, I wasn't following any hallucination to Civic Center or anywhere else. And even if they were real, I was going to do what was right. Finish what I'd started with Diane and Nicki. Take care of the iceworm now, once and for all, and worry about salvation and resurrection later.

  Sweat soaking my shirt, vision tunneling, and my right eyelid going bananas, I choked up. I was in bad shape.

  The revelation hit me hard: I could not do it. No way.

  As I had suspected earlier, before Smokey's scratching had distracted me, I just did not have the stones to go out the traditional cop way. The admission brought tears to my eyes.

  "You lousy, fucking pussy---"

  Wait.

  Maybe, just maybe, I could still go out stand-up. A good chance if all this was bogus, just happening in my head.

  With heavy legs, I stumbled past the debris on the sidewalk to a corner phone kiosk and dug two quarters from my pocket, hoping the damn thing still worked. Amazing: a dial tone.

  I called dispatch at the station, and, surprisingly, someone picked the phone up on the first ring. After identifying myself and giving my badge number, I laid it on them, the whole maryann.