Manhunt. Volume 7, Number 3, June 1959

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When I woke up I was lyin’ on the floor in a mess of rags and filth. I looked up and Kiley was sittin’ on the chair facin’ me. His eyes were bugged in death and his necktie was a bright red that started to lengthen and dripped twice in his lap.

In San Francisco, when you’ve stopped shaving every day and your hand shakes reaching for that first quick one, they’ll say you’re headed south of Market. It’s like going north of the bridge on Clark Street in Chicago or down Washington Avenue to Second in Minneapolis; liquor stores outnumber everything but pawnshops and at night only the bars are bright. Cops work in pairs here, and winos sleep on street corners until the wagon takes them to the drunk tank at Kearny and Washington. Any night, south of Market, you can find them: the snowbirds, the drunks, the whores, the bullies... and the men who are scared so deep down in their guts that they’re almost beyond fear.

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