Taste of Tenderloin Page 4

  Richie hit up a dozen or so people before he finally sold two passes. Guess I gotta work on my sales technique, he told himself, shrugging off the lack of immediate success as he headed north.

  By the time he reached the Cajun's flat off Eddy and Jones in the Tenderloin, Richie was still in pretty good shape. His nose was running a little and he felt the hint of a cramp in the pit of his stomach, but he would be okay after he did some business with his connection.

  No one answered the knock at the second floor door. Strange. The Cajun was always home, or his lady, Sweet Jane, was---even holidays. They were both carrying major joneses and needed to take regular care of a large number of customers daily to feed their own habits. But even though he was a heavy user, the Cajun was a good connection; he always gave fair weight, and he and Sweet Jane never cut the tar. Not like those dope fiend assholes over on Sixteenth who worked the street, selling four balloons for one free one from their connections. Those balloons never weighed out to a quarter gram, and were sometimes cut with who knew what. You always had to be alert that you were actually getting good shit and not being ripped off. Besides the hassle, it was really easy to get busted doing business out on the street.

  No, Richie knew he was lucky to have the Cajun for a safe connection.

  He waited, sitting on the top step of the landing, noticing the faint but unmistakable odor of urine in the hallway, and getting edgier and edgier as the afternoon waned. Funny no one else had shown up to score their evening fix. Richie stood and stretched out his legs, which were beginning to get more than just a little stiff. Finally, he sucked in a deep breath, almost gagging on the nearly forgotten smell, and went back to the door to knock again. Maybe they were asleep the first time, he told himself, grasping at an explanation. Bang, bang, bang.

  But no one answered the door this time, either.

  He knew he had to do something soon. Even if it meant taking his chances over on Mission and Sixteenth.

  "Yo, Richie," said a voice at the bottom of the staircase. "'Sup, man."

  It was Short Stuff, a legless black dude who made his way around the Tenderloin on a scooterboard. Short Stuff always knew what was happening.

  "Say, Double S," Richie replied, walking down a couple of steps, "you seen the Cajun or his squeeze, man?" He could feel the sweat beginning to trickle down both sides of his ribcage from under his arms.

  "Nobody be seeing them two for a while, man," Short Stuff answered. "They busted."

  "What do you mean?" Richie said. "The narcs got 'em?" He hoped he was wrong.

  "Tha's right," the legless man said, a sympathetic expression on his round black face.

  "Oh, man," Richie said, unable to restrain the despair in his voice.

  "Say, Richie, why don't ya try the dealer they calls Doom?" Short Stuff suggested.

  Richie moved down the remaining steps. "I don't know him."

  "Chinatown dude," Short Stuff explained, exchanging a handshake as Richie reached ground level and bent over. "He supposed to be doin' that good white shit, man. 'Bout same price as tar."

  "Where's he set up?" Richie asked. An edge crept into his tone as his spirits lifted.

  "Chinatown...one of 'em tourist minivans, parked upper Powell someplace, just 'fore the cable car turn." He jerked on Richie's pant leg. "But they say you don't wanna fuck with the man call Doom, ya unnerstan'?"

  Richie nodded. "I got you, Double S." He slapped the man's raised hand. "I'm light now, my man, but I owe you a shooter of Jack Daniels."

  "All right!"

  Richie hurried up Powell, the T-shirt under his ragged Giants windbreaker completely soaked and sticking to his back as darkness settled over the city, the unusually thick fog shrouding even the street lights. The tourists had thinned out by this time; only a pair of couples waited for the cable car at the corner to take them back down to Fisherman's Wharf.

  He slowed his pace after reaching Washington, where he spotted a black Chrysler minivan with all its side windows shaded. That's it, man, he thought.

  "Say, homes, 'sup?" a huge black man asked.

  He scared the shit out of Richie, appearing from the dark alley like that. Richie had known there would be lookouts, maybe even bodyguards, but he'd expected them to be Asian gang members. The black giant was out of context. In his frantic state of mind, Richie didn't dwell on it. He'd have dealt with Frankenstein's monster to get to his connection.

  "Come to see the man," Richie replied after regaining his composure. He nodded at the minivan but didn't take his eyes off the guard, who was picking his teeth with the point of a pocket knife. His face bore the marks of a prize fighter---a flattened nose and scar tissue around both eyebrows.

  "That right? Hmmmm...whatcha wanna see him for?" His voice was soft, the words slurred and almost soothing, at odds with his intimidating size and features.

  "Business," Richie snapped, growing even more edgy, shifting his weight from one leg to the other and trying to kick out the aching kinks.

  "I see."

  The big man folded the thin blade and put it away, flashing the butt of an automatic in his belt. "Y'all sweatin', homes. How come? It ain't hot."

  "Not feeling too good, man, you know what I mean?" Richie said, wiping his nose and sniffing.

  The guy finally nodded, then moved backward into the darkness of the alley, gesturing for Richie to follow. "How much bidness y'all got planned?"

  Richie followed a step or two, keeping a little space between them. "A quarter," he replied, holding up one finger.

  "Lemme see the bread."

  Richie dug out the ten and three fives, holding them out front where the man could see.

  "'Kay. Open your coat and 'sume the position, there." He pointed to the dirty brick wall.

  Richie did as told, unbuttoning his windbreaker, spreading his feet, and leaning up against the wall.

  The man frisked him quickly and thoroughly, even brushing his groin.

  "Turn 'round."

  Richie turned about, noticing a flashlight in the black man's hand.

  "'Kay, push up both sleeves, homes...wanna see some history."

  Richie pushed up the sleeves of his windbreaker, exposing his bare arms to the strong flashlight beam.

  The man reached out and roughly fingered Richie's track marks, halting at the fresh bruise on his right inner elbow. "Alright, this way." He gestured with the flashlight for Richie to follow him to the minivan. He unlocked the side door but warned, "Be cool, y'all hear?" before he opened the door.

  "Thank you, Sandman," a dry voice whispered from inside the vehicle.

  Something about the sound made the short hairs prickle on Richie's neck as he slipped through the door to find the middle seats removed. He squatted on the floor as the door slid shut, immediately clasping his arms around himself. The temperature in the back of the minivan had to be thirty or forty degrees lower than outside. No air conditioning is this good, Richie thought, shivering.

  In the dim light from one overhead bulb, Richie stared at a tiny man seated across from him on the rear seat, his face partially shadowed. He could see that the man wore a wispy Fu Manchu mustache, but face didn't really appear young or old---just Asian. The little man was dressed in black: a square satin-lined hat and matching high-necked robe. His hands were crossed in front of him, disappearing into the long, wide sleeves of the gown. On the left breast of the robe was embroidered a white snow dragon, its wings folded but talons extended, its fanged mouth open and its gaze fierce---a striking adornment against the all-black background.

  "You name?" the man asked. The whispery, abbreviated English had a quality of implied threat, reminding Richie of the burring of a rattlesnake. He shivered again, trying to rub some warmth into his arms.

  "Richie O'Brien," he whispered back, thinking, Jesus, man, turn up the heat.

  The man in black nodded. "You call me Mis-ter Doom."

  Richie wondered if the name was Chinese or English.

  The interrogation continued. "
You customer of...?"

  "The Cajun in the Tenderloin."

  Still no expression on his face, the little man nodded.

  "You do business now with me." It was more of a statement than a question.

  Richie nodded.

  "You habit...how much a day?"

  "Quarter wakeup, quarter nighttime," Richie answered, wiping his nose.

  "Money?"

  Richie dug out his twenty-five dollars.

  The man nodded, withdrew his hands from the sleeves of his black robe, and reached for the bills. He took the money in his right hand, twisted, and slipped it into a concealed cubbyhole in the minivan's upholstery. In his other hand, he held two little cellophane bags containing small amounts of white powder. "This best grade China White, thirty dollar quarter gram. But, new customer special. Two quarter gram for you, Mis-ter ah-Brien, twenty-five dollar." He ran both title and name together, inflecting the last syllable.

  Richie reached for the baggies.

  Mr. Doom snatched both away.

  "So sorry, just one for now," he said, leaning forward and handing Richie one baggie. "I know what happen if you take both. All gone tonight. Come back here tomorrow morning. I not here, but Sandman, he give you other one." The second baggie was no longer in his hand, and Richie would have sworn it had just disappeared into the frigid air. The man leaned forward, extending his empty, long-fingered, delicate hand for a formal shake.

  Richie leaned forward, too, taking the man's hand in his, unable to restrain another shiver. Mr. Doom's hand was colder than if it had been sculpted from a cake of ice.

  But it was the little man's eyes that Richie found truly disturbing: no iris, almost all pupil. And they weren't round. No, they appeared to be arched and squared off at the bottom, a shape vaguely familiar. As the little man sat back, his face again in shadow, Richie shrugged off the unnerving feeling, telling himself the weird eye shape was only a trick of the dim light.

  "Goodbye, Mis-ter ah-Brien. I see you tomorrow night."

  He was back on the street, standing by the ex-fighter, Sandman.

  "See you, tomorrow morning," Richie said, hurrying away down Powell.

  "'Kay, homes," Sandman replied in his soft voice.

  At the almost-empty flat he shared with Lisha in the Haight, Richie dug out his rig from under the mattress on the floor and cooked up the China White with trembling fingers. He didn't even turn on a lamp, instead working by the light glaring through the bedroom window from a streetlight on Broderick. He almost forgot about the recent nightmares he'd had while nodding---

  "Whoa," he said to himself, remembering at the last moment. The bad dreams had seemed more like...an alternate reality. It was getting harder to wake up, to come back out of them. Before fixing, he got Lisha's cooking timer and set it for fifteen minutes. He hoped it would help bring him off the dope nod, draw him back to the bedroom from...wherever.

  Oh, yeah!

  Mr. Doom's shit was righteous, grabbing his stomach quickly but gently then sending wave after wave of stone-ass calm tingling through his body and finally smoothing out the kinks in his arms and legs. His eyelids grew heavy and sagged. He was drifting away to a rhythmic beat.

  Tick, tick, tick.

  It is night. Clouds blot out the moon and stars. But more than just dark, the city colors have disappeared, replaced by charcoals, indigos, and blacks---lots of blacks. There is a peculiar lack of night sound; no sirens, no cars, no shouting, no laughing. Nothing. Completely still. It is more than the sense of experiencing a quiet, dark night; the complete black silence is unsettling. You find yourself standing, squinting, and peering down the mouth of an alley, the nearby streetlight out. It is like staring into the abyss. You shiver, even though it isn't an especially cold night. No, but you have a compelling need to search this alley, this black, forbidding spot; it is this compulsion to step into the unknown that makes you shiver.

  Why?

  You don't remember. You have no explanation for this need, no clue of what may lie ahead.

  You take several tentative steps into the blackness, your right hand lightly touching the brick wall on the right side as a guide. You stop, sucking in several deep breaths, trying to calm your racing pulse. After a moment or two, your eyes adjust to the blackness, and you are able to make out things on your side of the alley for a few feet ahead. You move forward cautiously, keeping your hand in contact with the wall, which feels grimy, filthy. After a few more steps you come to the first of the garbage cans lining this side of the alley. Careful not to touch or rattle the cans, you slip around the obstacles. A few more steps and you become acutely aware of a smell, a clinging, sweet smell of decay---the familiar smell of something dead. It hangs in the air, growing stronger as you move deeper into the darkness. By now, you can just see across the alley to the other brick wall. Along that side there are a few cans, but mostly stacks of cardboard boxes.

  In the dark ahead, just out of sight, you hear something move.

  Not a footstep, nothing human like that. No, it's more like something brushing lightly against a cardboard box, a furtive sound, animal-like. You pause, cock your head, and listen carefully, straining to hear the sound again, searching for another movement from whatever lurks ahead.

  Nothing.

  Except for the cloying odor of death.

  You shiver again but plod ahead, forcing yourself to take each careful step, compelled by some deep inner need. You move out away from the right wall, cautiously treading the center of the narrow alley.

  The sound comes again, and it raises the short hairs on your neck.

  You have no idea what type of creature would make such a sound, but you have the sense it is something very dangerous. Overwhelming panic saps the strength from your legs and loosens your bowels.

  You are terrified.

  Straining, you try to penetrate the darkness ahead, to locate the source. It is too dark.

  Then, as if in response to your need, the clouds part slightly and the moon illuminates the remaining length of alley, its angle shadowing only the last three feet or so.

  It is a dead end, and you strain to penetrate the darkness at the very back.

  Nothing. There is nothing there.

  The alley is empty.

  A paper bag, pushed free by a sporadic breeze, separates from a pile of cardboard in the shadows and tumbles along past you, making the strange sound. You breathe a sigh of relief.

  But then you realize that you are alone at the dead end...trapped if something enters the alley now.

  The gap in the clouds closes, shrouding the moon. A wave of panic overwhelms you in the sudden darkness.

  Gasping for breath, you struggle to regain control of your senses, calm your thumping heart. Your pulse rate slowly drops down. Then, at the moment you seem back in control of yourself, you feel that creepy intuitive sense of being spied upon.

  Someone is watching you.

  You must get out. You turn and stumble back toward the dim light at the mouth of the alley, looking about frantically for a window, a doorway, trying to locate the person watching. There is nothing. The mouth of the alley seems so far away, so far. You try to run; your legs are still rubbery but finally respond to your will. In the back of your mind you are pleading silently: where is it, that sound that will draw me back?

  Run, run, run, faster.

  You stop, spotting the silhouette in the mouth of the alley. A man, a huge man, just standing and watching.

  Then: running! The faint sound punches through the darkness.

  And you are being pulled back, back, back.

  Rinnnng!

  Lisha's timer was ringing, a jarring, grating sound, but so welcome and wonderful.

  Richie sat up as the ringing ceased, the sheet over him soaked with sweat. Jesus, that was so real, he thought. Where was that place---a place where the blackness of night settled and smothered all sound?

  The next morning, Richie returned from Chinatown early and fixed again.

  T
he nightmare in the alley recurred, but this time the feeling of being watched was so strong that almost from the moment he entered the alley, he felt like someone was stalking him.

  Who? And why? He didn't know for sure, but he continually glanced back at the mouth of the alley, expecting to see the giant silhouette again. No one was ever there.

  Finally, the timer pulled him back to safety.

  Later, Richie rinsed away the dried sweat of fear. He stepped out of the shower physically clean, but his mind remained unsettled by the nightmare.

  Wrapped in a towel, he made his way into the kitchen and stopped at the table. There were two chocolate doughnuts sitting on a folded piece of paper. He took a bite of one of the doughnuts and opened the note:

  Richie,

  Ice cream in the freezer.

  Miss you, but you got to get clean. I talked to your mom and told her about the farm. She'll get most of the money. Aunt Elva will help with the rest. You can do it, like me. It's going good, a day at a time.

  Love you.

  Lisha

  A month or so ago before he'd hocked most of their furniture, Lisha had bailed out on him, going to her Aunt El in the Sunset. With the old lady's financial help, she had entered a treatment program up in Glen Ellen at Truman's Mountain Vista Farm, where she'd apparently gotten her mind right. She had been back from the farm at Aunt El's for about five days, but had called him only once. She had told him she had a sponsor now and was working a twelve-step program. She said she couldn't see him until he was clean. A few days ago she'd left a receipt for the paid rent.

  Richie made himself a milkshake with the ice cream Lisha had left. He washed down the other chocolate doughnut with the thick drink. Holy crap, he thought, she's blown the whistle to my mom. His mother had thought everything was cool since Lisha and he had gone through the methadone detox program back in December. What a joke. Each day they'd cut back the dosage at the clinic. As they had gotten down to where they could feel the new jones kicking in---about day twenty-six---they'd both started using shit again. And kept using steady for the next six months, until the day that had shaken Lisha so badly she had taken the action to get herself straight.