Read Online Taste of Tenderloin by Gene O'Neill - Free Book Online

else that struck Rudy as odd.
    Richie’s pupils weren’t
pinned, the normal condition for a user of opiates. Just the
opposite: they were dilated, arched at the top, squared off at the
bottom.
    “ Strange,” Rudy whispered
aloud.
     
    For Gavin, who has battled
the dragon
     
     

Bushido
     
    “ They are all
perfect!”
    Katsumoto’s final
words, The Last Samurai
     
    The Ugly Man paused at
the mouth of his alley and pulled up the
hood of his black sweatshirt. Gathering in the darkness around
himself, he stepped out into the foggy night. He shuffled down
O’Farrell Street like a wounded panther, limping along under the
shadowed overhangs, staying close to the barred and chained
storefronts. As usual, none of the denizens of San Francisco’s
Tenderloin even glanced in his direction. He’d once read, or
probably heard, someplace in the distant past that disfigured or
ugly— really ugly—people, instead of drawing attention, were actually
almost invisible. Normal adults looked away, quickly wiping out
what they’d glimpsed and passing by as if the ugly person didn’t
even exist—a subconscious wish fulfillment reaction, perhaps. That
had indeed been the Ugly Man’s experience in the ‘loin. When he
managed to avoid making any but cursory eye contact, he moved about
in the nighttime shadows with complete anonymity, unacknowledged,
unseen, feeling almost like an imaginary creature with no
name.
    It was long after
midnight—the time of heavy buying and selling in the ‘loin. Music
and laughter blared from seedy bars. The street was littered with
empty bottles, plastic wrappers, and discarded food scraps. Those
law-abiding residents with an indoor address in the ‘loin had long
ago disappeared from the streets for the safety behind closed and
double-locked doors, leaving a handful of cops and the unsavory
crowd of night people. A level of nervous tension hung in the misty
air over the mob of shifty-eyed dealers, dead-eyed junkies, heavily
mascara-eyed hookers, steely-eyed pimps, and the vacant-eyed
homeless, all scurrying about with an agenda like a scattered pack
of abandoned dogs scavenging for scraps. The Ugly Man slipped
along, bypassing a rheumy wino who argued loudly with an imaginary
friend in a littered doorway. He made absolutely no lingering eye
contact, avoiding any communication, a disabled phantom of the
street.
    Usually he avoided the late
night crowd in the Tenderloin altogether, but it was the final day
of the month, and he had used up the last of his SSI money two days
prior. He harbored only a wrinkled dollar bill and a pocketful of
change, most of which he’d acquired selling aluminum cans earlier
in the evening over in the Mission. His dire financial
circumstances had forced him to skip his early morning trip down to
Wild Bill’s Liquor Store on Leavenworth. He’d delayed his evening
trip too long. His hands were shaking badly, his mouth dry and
metallic, his body covered with clammy sweat under his clothes
despite the penetrating chill that hung in the air. As he dragged
his aching right leg along, he felt a growing nausea. Still, he
carefully kept to the shadows, shuffling along until the green neon
of Wild Bill’s glowed fuzzily ahead in the fog. Sighing with
relief, the Ugly Man pulled his threadbare black hood down,
completely exposing his horribly disfigured features.
    At the doorway he paused
and glanced down, waiting for a pair of customers to leave the
liquor store. Then he limped directly to the counter. The Indian
clerk recognized the Ugly Man immediately and announced with a
slightly British accent, “Ham and cheese sandwich and pint of Wild
Irish Rose, right?”
    He shook his head. “No
sandwich,” he answered in a husky, under-used voice, placing the
dollar and a portion of the change on the counter with a noticeably
shaking hand. “Only a half pint,” he added, swallowing
dryly.
    The clerk took a step
toward the back display, found the correct half pint, and placed it
on