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of misery. The words had barely escaped from his mouth when he had to deal with the cop’s response.
    Each policeman utilizes a nightstick differently. Some use an overhead approach. Others swing it like a bat. Still more policemen wield their billy clubs as if it was a pike. Mandelstam had been schooled in the traditional thrust and jab technique. Quick as a snake, he peppered Richard Rood’s ribcage with the tip of the stick.
    It was curtains for Richard. His legs gave out, and he couldn’t swallow. He turned blue in the face and his eyes did a circuit in their sockets. Then he collapsed to the pavement, and had a flash through the pain about the first man he’d ever kissed.
    Armed with a forged identification card, he’d been hanging out in a Fillmore district bar. The neighborhood was a historic black community that had been ninety square blocks before gentrification whittled it down to nil. An older hustler in a dapper silk suit motioned for Richard to join him. They smoked a medium-sized joint in the back by the pool tables and talked about the people they knew in common. It so happened the dude knew Richard’s mother. After a while they ran out of things to say. The hustler put his hand on Richard’s shoulder, turned his head so that his face was shining white from a lamp. He hooked his other hand behind Richard’s neck and drew him close. He gently kissed the younger man’s lower lip, saying, “That’s nice, ain’t it?”
    Richard’s face rushed to meet the ground. His last meal, clam chowder and a Greek salad with an espresso from the deli on Ellis Street, gushed out of his mouth and splashed down his suit. He went out like a light.
    Rood roused himself five minutes later. His head was on the sidewalk and his legs were in the gutter. Pedestrians were walking around him, making as if he wasn’t there. He jackknifed to his feet, got his billfold and slipped it back in his jacket. Getting harassed by the police was no big deal. But it killed his spirit every time. Like he was a square of toilet paper they could wipe themselves on. That cop was going to suffer for messing with him. Richard brushed off his pants and jacket and made a decision. He was done waiting for his money. It was timeto proceed to phase two of his plan. He had reached a verdict: track down Stiv Wilkins and regain what he was owed.
    The problem was, the task wouldn’t be simple. It required a strategy, an umbrella of ideas that fit together. Richard had his limits. He had his phobias. The nitty-gritty was he didn’t want to leave his patch. The strip of Market Street between Van Ness Avenue and Octavia Street was all he had.
    Whenever he left the four blocks that constituted his universe, Richard felt as if he was heading off-planet. Traveling to a foreign solar system. What with all the trouble going down, the cops acting loco about the Brinks money, things were just too hot. So he had a decision to make. Was the four hundred dollars worth the effort?
    The clock tower above the Goodwill store on Mission Street said it was a few minutes after eleven. Richard peered up the road at the Allen Hotel. That’s where Stiv lived in a room no bigger than a refrigerator. The walk to the Allen was lengthy, maybe three blocks. A journey that was too long for a man of Richard’s importance.
    He couldn’t be seen walking around like some low-rent dunce—his credibility was at stake. His stature would be diminished if anyone saw him taking a stroll to the Allen. Only suckers and folks with no class tooled up Market Street on foot. Beggars, panhandlers, winos, and junkies walked. The better classes drove cars. But the debt had to be collected.
    Richard recalled something he’d heard about Stiv, some gossip. Hearsay about a woman the punk was involved with, the wife of a dope dealer. That made him even angrier. He had no use for women, including any that were connected to Stiv Wilkins.
    Fighting the wind, he began his march to the Allen