Taste of Tenderloin (11 page)

After a few minutes, a
figure materialized on the screen: a woman, looking just like the
blindfolded statue down at the Hall of Justice. Only the scales
held by the TV Lady Justice were balanced evenly.

Declan sighed deeply with
relief.

At that moment, a feminine
voice in his head announced:
You did very
well, Declan Mulcahy. Very well indeed, considering it was your
first assignment. I am quite impressed by your effective and timely
performance. But, to validate to yourself that we have indeed
counteracted the Law of Catastrophic Isostasy, please peruse the
San Francisco Chronicle tomorrow morning, noting the complete
absence of any reported disasters
.

Declan nodded and smiled as
Lady Justice faded from the blank screen.
Yes,
he promised himself,
I will definitely check the newspaper
tomorrow
.

Early the next morning,
Declan walked
up O’Farrell, glancing
nervously across the street as he passed the Korean’s grocery. SFPD
yellow crime scene tape roped it off, and quite a few cops were
still on the scene, talking to pedestrians up and down both sides
of the street. A TV van from Channel 7 was set up nearby, too. It
looked like that Melendez lady talking into the camera. None of the
policemen seemed the least bit interested in stopping Declan or
asking him questions. Apparently they hadn’t interviewed the bag
lady, or maybe she hadn’t been able to ID him. Either way, he
breathed more easily and walked quickly past the cops.

Declan continued two blocks
up to the corner of Jones and crossed over to Homeboy’s liquor
store to buy a Chronicle.

Back out on the street,
Declan anxiously thumbed through the newspaper. No Oklahoma City
bombings, no hurricanes, no earthquakes, no tornados, no floods,
not even a thunderstorm reported in the Midwest. His held breath
trickled out across his dry lips. The voice in his head, the Lady
Justice, had been right. The intervention had definitely worked;
they had managed to keep the scales balanced.

Jacked up by the results of
the successful covert operation, Declan turned to head back home,
grinning at the dude in the Army cams who was apparently coming in
to get his morning taste of Old English up at Homeboy’s now that
the Korean was out of business.

The guy nodded and spoke as
he passed Declan. “Whassup?”

Declan didn’t answer,
surprised by the first verbal greeting in a month or so of
exchanging nods. He strolled on back down O’Farrell, the Chronicle
tucked under his arm.

Back in his tiny
apartment,
Declan went through the
newspaper, page by page, more carefully, making sure he hadn’t
missed something. He’d been right the first time; no disasters,
man-made or natural, reported anywhere across the country. He
smiled to himself, feeling pretty good.

Actually, really
good.

The best he’d felt since
leaving the hospital four weeks before. Yes, indeed.

After returning home to
San
Francisco from the Gulf and Desert
Storm, Declan had spent eight years going in and out of the North
Bay VA hospital a dozen times. The surgeons had done a pretty good
job on his bad leg—he had only a slight limp—but the doctors had
ended up with less luck with his damaged psyche, or so they
claimed. Over that time, the psychiatrists and clinical
psychologists at the hospital had built up an impressive ten-inch
file of extensive test results, observational anecdotes, and
diagnoses. Most of the technical jargon was incomprehensible to
Declan, with the exception of post-traumatic stress disorder and
the two words often tacked on at the end of a diagnostic rambling:
delusion and hallucination. He suspected that most of the
psychiatric babble was inaccurate, especially the treatment
prescriptions, because each time he returned to San Francisco from
Martinez—even when he attended outpatient therapy two to three
times a week at the VA center and took his meds faithfully every
day—he
still
couldn’t hold a regular job, attend City College for even a
short summer session, or maintain a relationship with a regular
woman. In fact, nothing seemed to work out right no matter how hard
Declan tried. After all these years, he’d finally decided that the
nightmare night during the Storm had done nothing to his head;
instead, it had permanently damaged his soul. Who could cure
that?

So repeatedly, soon after
each return to city life from the hospital, he gave up and just
drifted, living off his disability checks, drinking and taking
street drugs at the first of the month when he still had cash,
occasionally being arrested. His social worker was usually able to
talk the judge out of sending him to jail by promising to send
Declan back to the psychiatric ward at the VA hospital. Most of the
past eight years had been a monotonous blur.

But after Declan’s most
recent release from the hospital, life had finally improved. He’d
moved into his new apartment, stopped going to outpatient care at
the VA center, and quit taking the mind-numbing meds. The only
minor bump had been when Declan’s social worker, Ms. Latisha, had
come by one night the week before and hassled him about not going
to outpatient at Clement. She’d also bugged him about religiously
taking all his prescribed medication and staying off the dope and
booze.

“
You will freak out again,
hear and see shit not really there…” Yakety yakety yak.

She threatened to send him
back to the hospital if he didn’t conform. Of course he didn’t tell
her he wasn’t taking any of the damned pills. He just nodded and
replied agreeably half a dozen times at appropriate moments during
the harangue, “Yes, I will, Ms. L.” or, “You are absolutely right,
Ms. L.”

After she finally left,
Declan sat in the folding chair and stared at the blank TV, feeling
a little bummed out by her threats but knowing that, despite her
warnings, his thinking was the sharpest it had been since the
Storm. No hallucinations, no freaking out. Everything cool. Yes,
indeed.

A few minutes after
declaring himself perfectly stable, Declan saw something strange
materialize on the grey TV screen. A figure: Lady Justice. She
appeared just like she did down at the Hall of Justice on Bryant:
all in white, blindfolded, holding tipped scales. Really beautiful.
For several moments he just stared, admiring her. Then, even though
the statue’s lips did not move, Declan heard a female voice in his
head—not shrill and harping like Ms. L, but gentle and kind—and he
knew it was the Lady Justice speaking to him.

Declan Mulcahy, your
country needs your services again
.
A top secret covert military operation.
Do you understand
?

He nodded, then shut his
eyes and concentrated, thinking:
Yes, I
understand you. What kind of operation?

You will be a part of a
special unit, each person operating independently, counteracting
the Law of Catastrophic Isostasy—

The law of what?
he interrupted.

Catastrophic
Isostasy
, Lady Justice repeated.
You see, every time there is a major natural or
man-made catastrophe somewhere in the world—floods, typhoons,
earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, bombings, that type of thing—there
will be a corresponding disaster of equal magnitude occurring in
this country. A kind of global balancing of
violence
.

She paused at that point,
allowing him a moment to process and understand the impact of the
law.

Unless
, she continued, her voice rising slightly in pitch and
volume,
unless we intervene with a
relatively minor amount of counterbalancing force. This is your
job, a direct intervention preventing application of the Law of
Catastrophic Isostasy. Do you understand
?

I—I am not
sure
, Declan thought.

It’s like homeostasis, the
elements of the human body always tending to maintain a stable
state of equilibrium. A question of balance. You remember that from
biology in school?

Yes, I think so.

The Earth is just another
organism maintaining a homeostatic balance among various elements,
one action requiring a global counteraction: the Law of
Catastrophic Isostasy. But if we intervene, react with a certain
minimal level of effective force, then we can cancel out a much
more devastating national disaster
.

It was getting clearer,
making more sense.
I see. But exactly what
will we be doing to stop these terrible events from
happening
?

We watch, Declan. TV
newscasts like CNN; read the newspaper. We do everything possible
to keep current on catastrophes as they occur in other parts of the
world. Then
… She paused again, continuing a
moment later in a more business-like tone,
Then we search locally, identify and terminate elements that
originated in that other part of the world
.

Elements
? Declan thought.

Yes. For
example
,
after an
earthquake disaster in Japan, we must immediately eliminate a
number of Japanese-Americans. Or after a flood on the Ivory Coast,
a number of African-Americans will need to be
sacrificed
.

You mean we must
assassinate someone here to prevent a bigger natural
disaster?

Yes, but we use only
volunteers. I recruit each of them prior to your visit.

It was all clear now.
Counteracting the Law of Catastrophic Isostasy made perfect sense
to Declan. He would be balancing justice’s scales. He felt a surge
of excitement. He would be doing something valuable, contributing
to his country’s welfare. Like what he’d been trained to do in the
Marines.

This is all highly secret,
Declan Mulcahy. Discuss this with no one
,
especially your social
worker
.

No, I
understand
, Declan thought.
She gets only
name,
rank, serial number, and date of birth
.

Lady Justice actually
chuckled.

Several nights later, on
the
channel two 10:00 p.m. news, Declan saw
the announcement of the typhoon sweeping across the East China Sea,
devastating a tiny village on the coast southwest of Pusan, Korea.
Over a hundred casualties. After he turned off the TV, he was
visited by Lady Justice on the blank screen, who gave him his first
assignment: the termination of all three members of the Pak
family.

A week after the
successful
operation at the Korean grocery,
Declan watched the tail end of a CNN broadcast on a big screen at
The Good Guys on Geary Street. A small village in the Chilean Andes
had been almost totally destroyed that morning by a volcanic
eruption; one hundred and twenty-five villagers were missing or
identified as dead. He watched for a few more minutes, recognizing
the potential hazard to his country—Catastrophic Isostasy would
soon be kicking in, if something were not done quickly.

Declan hurried to the
closest Muni stop and caught a bus for home.

Inside his apartment in
the
heart of the ‘loin, he took his seat
and waited, staring at the blank TV screen. He didn’t have to wait
long, only a few minutes, before Lady Justice appeared.

Ah, Declan, you know about
the village in the Andes
?

Yes
.

This time, your operation
involves only one target. Edwina Sanchez, a recent illegal
immigrant from Chile, a man who dresses like a woman and works the
sex trade in the Tenderloin. He is very tall—six foot two—speaks
with a heavy Spanish accent, and usually wears a blonde wig. Late
in the evening, Edwina solicits business in front of the Majestic
Arms Hotel around the corner on Jones. You must complete the
operation tonight. Is all that clear?

Yes, it is,
Declan thought, nodding.

Your acquaintance on the
scooterboard will be able to help locate Edwina
Sanchez
.

Declan knew she was
referring to his friend Short Stuff, a double-leg amputee Marine
vet of Vietnam, now a street hustler who knew everything that
happened in the ‘loin.

As it got dark,
traffic
increased on Jones Street. Some
cars slowed as they moved by the Majestic and a chilling fog clung
to the dirty brick facade of the once grand hotel where many of the
ground-floor rooms were now available for a $5-hourly
rate.

When Declan first walked
up, Sweet Jane hit on him, all tricked out in her low-cut red
blouse, black vinyl miniskirt, and red high heels. She grabbed him
possessively, rubbing her breasts against his arm and licking her
glossy lips suggestively. “Hey, man, you ready to party or what?”
the redhead asked, her heavy perfume flaring Declan’s
nostrils.

He shook his head but
smiled. “Can’t tonight, Sweet Jane. Looking for Edwina?”