The section along Folsom, stretching south and east from Fifth, has been in a state of flux for several years. Not so long ago it was a semi-industrial, semi-residential part of Skid Row; then the rough-trade S&M and gay nightclub scene moved in; now it was starting to resemble nearby South Beach, the South of Market area, and Mission Bay, showing evidence of the tentacle-like encroachment of technology-related firms, buildings converted into combination office-and-living space, and wannabe trendy restaurants and clubs. Of all the rapid-growth changes in the city these days, the gentrification of this area, what oldtimers call South of the Slot, was probably the most desirable.
Rick’s Tattoo Parlor was a leftover from the old days, a hole-in-the-wall squeezed between a couple of other leftovers — a Chinese takeout joint and a cheap liquor store masquerading as a neighborhood grocery. Red and blue lettering in the single window advertised “Rick’s Specialties”: Body Piercing, Full Body Portraits, and something called Body Frosting.
The interior was a long single room, brightly lit; a closed door in the back wall said there was another room or office behind it. The walls were covered with framed designs, hundreds of them in color and black and white. There were two big chairs, a cross between armchairs and barber chairs; in one of them a guy with yellow spiked hair, dressed in a leather vest over a bare torso and a pair of black leather pants, was having his left biceps tattooed with what looked like the gay pride symbol in a chain-bordered square. The man manipulating the electric needle, a complicated arrangement that fit over his hand like a set of brass knuckles, was in his late twenties, had greasy black hair pulled back into a ponytail, and was a walking advertisement for his art. He wore an armless T-shirt that displayed arms, shoulders, and neck bristling with gaudy tattoos. His entire left arm and shoulder was a fire-breathing dragon in green and red and bright orange; something that resembled a Rubens nude reclining on a bed of lettuce writhed and wriggled on his right forearm.
The needle made a humming, buzzing noise. Over it, without looking at me, he said, “With you in a minute. Almost done here.”
“Are you Rick?”
“Yeah. Just hang on, man.”
“I’m looking for Steve Niall.”
“Steve?” He glanced at me then, but I was nobody he knew; he returned his attention to his artwork. “Not here.”
“Where can I find him?”
“Man, I can’t talk and work. Hang on, okay?”
Okay. I hung on by looking at some of the framed designs. Labels identified one batch as Polynesian Tribal, another as Pure Fantasy, another as Traditional Seafarer. There were animals and cars and weapons and circus performers and film stars and a slew of X-rated items. Why anybody would want to walk around with an image of a copulating couple emblazoned on his skin was beyond me. Rick still hadn’t finished with the yellow-haired customer, and I was losing patience; but pushing him while he was creating on his human canvas would only buy me hostility. I picked up a magazine from a stack on a table, a trade publication called Skin & Ink, and leafed through it until the humming and buzzing finally quit.
Yellow-hair liked the finished tattoo and said so; money changed hands and he went out, making a kissy mouth at me on the way. Cute. The world is full of smart-ass jerks of all genders, ages, and sexual orientation.
Rick had the same wary look as the Southwick’s desk clerk, but without the evil eyes; his expression said he couldn’t quite figure me out. Point in my favor. “So you’re looking for Steve,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“How come?”
“I’ve got business with him.”
“What kind of business?”
“What kind do you think?”
“You tell me, man.”
“Steve’s business. My business.”
“Might be mine, too,” he said.
“I don’t think so.” I was feeling my way along, but I thought the handling was right. “Look, Rick, I can pay for what I want. If you’ve got a cut coming, get it from Steve.”
“Not you, huh?”
“Not me. Tell me where I can find him or I go to somebody else.”
“He know you?”
A lie on that was too easy to get tripped up on. I said, “No. We’ve got a mutual acquaintence.”
“Yeah? Who’s that?”
“Jay Cohalan.”
“Who?”
“Cohalan. Jay Cohalan.”
“Name don’t ring any bells.”
“He used to sleep with Steve’s sister.”
“Yeah? Uh, Candy?”
“No, Doris. Steve’s sister Doris.”
He relaxed. Flexed both shoulders and his right arm in a way that caused the Rubens nude to wriggle suggestively. It wasn’t a bed of lettuce she was reclining on, I noticed then. It was a bower of broad, thick leaves like those of a banana plant.
“Okay,” he said, “so you’re in the market.”
“I’m in the market.”
“What’s your pleasure, man?”
“That’s for me to tell Steve.”
“Yeah,” he said. He did that flexing trick again and then slid his gaze over a clock above the rear door. “Almost four. You know O’Key’s?”
“No.”
“Bar on Eleventh off Howard. Steve should be there by now. One of the booths.” I nodded, and he added, “Tell him I sent you. That way I get mine.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Rick made the nude wriggle one last time before I went out. And wink, by God, something I wouldn’t have thought possible. A goddamn come-hither wink.
O’Key’s was one of a dying breed, the kind of dark, dingy, brass-railed, creosote-floored watering hole that had once flourished South of the Slot. With its high ceiling and long, mirrored backbar and tall wooden booths, it reminded me of the old city newspaper saloons — Breen’s, Hanno’s, Jerry & Johnny, and the last of them, the M&M Tavern, that had finally gone under last year. But O’Key’s had never been anything more than a workingman’s neighborhood bar, that through neglect and attrition had degenerated into just another downscale saloon peopled with individuals to whom drinking was no longer a social pleasure but a way of life and death.
A dozen or so men and women were bellied up to the bar, but none of them was big, bald, hairy-browed. And none paid any attention to me; they had eyes only for the liquid escape in front of them. Two of the booths were occupied, a dispirited-looking couple in one and a lone man in the other. The loner was young and thin and rabbity, with a spade-sharp chin adorned by a scraggly goatee.
I’d gone in there tensed, wary, ready for anything; I let the edge come off a little as I elbowed space at the bar. I bought a beer from the fat bartender, carried it over to the loner’s booth.
He was smoking a cigarette in quick, almost furtive drags. It’s illegal now to smoke in bars and other public places in this state, but the patrons of joints like O’Key’s would flaunt laws a lot more enforceable than that one. Up close, he had a kind of oily sheen that changed my impression of him from rabbity to ratty. He was an odd mix of truncated and elongated: short, small, with delicate hands, tiny ears, a mouth like a hole poked in clay by somebody’s thumb; long arms, that sharp chin, a long, narrow nose. A single black hair grew at a bent angle from one nostril like a miniature periscope. I didn’t care to speculate on what might be living up there trying to peer out.
When he realized he had company his head jerked up, and he stared at me. I said, “Steve Niall?”