Taste of Tenderloin (18 page)

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
forced 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.”

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.