4th of July

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IT WAS JUST BEFORE 4:00 a.m. on a weekday. My mind was racing even before Jacobi nosed our car up in front of the Lorenzo, a grungy rent-by-the-hour “tourist hotel” on a block in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District that’s so forbidding even the sun won’t cross the street.

Three black-and-whites were at the curb, and Conklin, the first officer at the scene, was taping off the area. So was another officer, Les Arou.

“What have we got?” I asked Conklin and Arou.

“White male, Lieutenant. Late teens, bug-eyed and done to a turn,” Conklin told me. “Room twenty-one. No signs of forced entry. Vic’s in the bathtub, just like the last one.”

The stink of piss and vomit washed over us as Jacobi and I entered the hotel. No bellhops in this place. No elevators or room service, either. Night people faded back into the shadows, except for one gray-skinned young prostitute who pulled Jacobi aside.

“Give me twenty dollars,” I heard her say. “I got a license plate.”

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