"One thing I know," Macklin says in the quiet that follows Ike's explanation. "None of you ain't never seeing my black ass again. Nice meeting this interracial pep club, but I'll be on my way if it's okay with you nice folks."

"If that's your final decision, we'll be on our way," Ike tells him.

"What about these handcuffs?" Macklin asks.

"They're yours now," Betty says. "They belong to you. Enjoy them."

As a group we begin walking away from Macklin. He screams, "You can't leave me here handcuffed. We're from the Palmetto State."

Our laughter infuriates him, and he begins cursing us with creativity and panache, which tickles rather than frightens us. The sheer outrageousness of the encounter is taking a giddy toll on all of us.

Then Ike spins around and grabs Macklin by the throat. "We need your help, Macklin. Do we get it or not? Be quick, make a fast decision. And try to make a smart one."

Macklin takes it all in, then calms himself. "What can I do for you fine ladies and gentlemen?"

Betty turns him around and removes his handcuffs, and Ike says, "Sheba-give me your wallet."

With reluctance, Sheba passes her wallet over to Ike's outstretched palm. He does not take his eyes off Macklin Jones as he removes three hundred dollars and presents it to Macklin with a small flourish. "There's more where that came from. We're out here looking for a man named Trevor Poe. He played piano in the city for a lot of important people. Here's a flyer, Macklin. He's got AIDS. You find him for us and we'll give you five thousand bucks, no questions asked. On the flyer, I wrote down everything you need to find us while we're here. If you want to start your shitty life over again, we can help. Thanks for robbing us today, Macklin. I think God brought us together."

"I think it was Satan," he mumbles.

"I'll second that," Sheba says, taking off her sunglasses and glowering.

Macklin stares at Sheba. They are evenly matched in their capacity to attach hatred to their glaring. "I've seen this twat before," he says at last, looking away from Sheba to the rest of us. "She was in a Nike commercial or something."

"Or something," Sheba says, and we rush to catch the cable car returning down Powell.

Every city has its Tenderloin. It's the part of town where you can feel the air change as you break through some invisible epidermis of squalor, a down-at-the-heels, joyless place where a city has gone wrong and can't figure out a way to right itself. Though the Tenderloin is in the heart of the city, it seems like a bad piece of fruit, left too long in the sun and attracting the attention of flies and hornets. Although the Tenderloin was once lovely, and much of its architecture is still a pleasure to behold, it has spent itself with all the intrigues required by dissipation. In San Francisco you know that you are entering a rough neighborhood because no room has a view. In the Tenderloin, all vistas are worthless and disheartening; all alleyways smell of urine, strewn garbage, and cheap wine. On Monday, we are to deliver meals to seven hotels, more than a hundred meals. Our plan is to stick together and work with the utmost speed as we enter the Hotel Cortes. Sheba pacifies the deskman as the rest of us spread out through a hotel that does justice to the word fleabag fleabag. It smells of the kind of mold that grows on expensive cheeses, but also of a darker variety that has metastasized in dampness and air shafts and crawl spaces, untouched by disinfectants.

With six boxes of lunches, I sprint up a flight of steps that seems in danger of collapsing beneath my weight. Molly brings up the rear, with Niles and Fraser matching her step for step. I knock at the first door and hear a faint stirring, but the movements seem overcautious. A weakened voice finally asks, "Open Hand?"

I call: "Lunch is served."

The man laughs as he unlocks the door. Thus I make my first acquaintance with a human skeleton so ravaged by AIDS I do not think he will see the next sunrise.

"Are you Jeff McNaughton?" I place his food on an unpainted desk. He looks translucent in his thinness and I watch blood flowing through the veins in his forehead. His flesh looks like it is made of onionskin.

"I ordered beluga caviar with blinis. Also a bottle of iced Finlandia to wash it down. I do hope there were no mix-ups," he says.

"I can't lie to you, Jeff. Someone substituted sevruga at the last minute. It was an outrage. But I'm just a delivery boy. My name's Leo King. You'll be seeing me for the next couple of weeks."

The man begins a spasm of coughing. "I won't last a week, Leo. I've got the Pneumocystis pneumonia. It's come back to me."

"You need me to call anyone?" I ask. "Your parents? Your family?"

"All the calls have been made," he says. "None of them answered."

"I'm looking for a friend." I pull out a circular. "His name is Trevor Poe. You know him?"

"The piano player." Jeff studies the photograph. "I used to see him play in bars in the Castro, but we were never formally introduced."

"If you hear where he is, will you call me?" I ask. "You can reach me at the number below his picture."

"No phones at the Cortes," Jeff tells me. I help him over to the desk and open his lunch for him. "I won't be leaving this room, Leo. And you're the only name on my dance card, sweetheart. Thanks for lunch."

On the next door I knock loudly, and it is answered by an older man, who is in much better physical condition than his younger companion. Rex Langford is the older man and Barry Palumbo the younger. Barry's eyes are open but offer no sign of greeting; he could have been a mannequin if I could not hear his raspy breathing.

"You're early. Unprecedented," Rex says.

"First day. At the rate I'm going, I'll get lunch to some of these guys by midnight."

"New on the block, huh?" he asks. "Somebody at Open Hand hates your guts. No one lasts long delivering meals to the Cortes."

"My name's Leo. Anything I can do for y'all?"

"Y'all. Music to my ears. A concerto at last. A country cousin come to town."

"Where are you from?"

"Ozark, Alabama," he tells me. "It's not far from Enterprise, which boasts a sculpture of a boll weevil on its main drag."

"You're joking, right?"

"Sadly, I'm reporting the gospel truth. The Louvre has its Venus de Milo, but Enterprise, Alabama, has its boll weevil. Both represent something essential about the souls of each place."

"It must be odd growing up in Ozark, Alabama," I say.

"Growing up is odd, no matter where you do it. That's my only piece of observed wisdom. It's yours for free," he says.

"I like it. I accept it as a gift."

"Where are you from, cracker-boy? Do I detect the slight memory flaring of Mobile in that accent?"

"Charleston, South Carolina. There's a Huguenot influence in both accents." I place a circular in his hands. "I'm looking for a friend. Trevor Poe's his name. You ever run across him?"

"Did he go to the Baths?" Rex asks.

"Trevor lived at the Baths."

"Then our lives may have abutted," Rex says. "If you get my drift." "If you have any friends who visit, would you ask them about Trevor Poe?"

"Most of my friends are dead. Except Barry over there. Say hello to Leo, Barry. He brought us lunch; isn't that nice?"

"Hello, Leo." His voice sounds half-human.

"Barry's blind," Rex says. "I feed him. Then he throws up. Then I feed him again, and he throws that up too." "I can't help it, Rex," Barry whispers.

"It's nice of you to do for him, Rex," I say.

"Not nice at all. It's all I've got to do," he says with a shrug. "He'll go, then I'll go. But there won't be anyone to help me."

"Do you have any money, Rex?" I ask.

"Of course not. Both Barry and I get welfare checks, but that goes poof into the wind. Medicine, rent for this penthouse, and so forth."

From the bed, Barry calls out, "Will the guy who brought lunch call my sister Lonnie?"

"I'll be glad to call Lonnie," I tell him.

"We were so close when we were growing up. No sister ever loved a brother like Lonnie loved me."

"I'll call her tonight, Barry."

"Her husband hates me, so hang up if he answers the phone. I'd love to have her visit me one last time. Give him her number, Rex."

Rex writes on a piece of paper and hands it to me as I exit. I walk down the hall toward my next delivery and open the paper: "Don't bother," it reads in a barely legible scrawl. "She says it's God's will he's dying-calls it a pervert's death. But thanks anyway."

Each day we return to our elegant quarters on Vallejo Street spent and defeated. We follow up leads that come in by the hundreds based on Herb Caen's column. We received three letters from men who claimed to be Trevor Poe, as well as five ransom notes from people claiming to be holding him hostage. I speak to kooks, weirdos, five private detectives, dozens of Trevor's former lovers, his masseuse, his barber, his neighborhood grocer, and three psychics who promise to discover his whereabouts.

At the first week's end, we gather on Saturday evening for a serious conference. We have been efficient, yet we all agree that we are no closer to finding Trevor than we were before leaving our jobs and homes in Charleston. We vow not to give up yet, but to dedicate ourselves to one more week. We go to bed exhausted and praying for a break.

The next day, I am not expecting what I find in room 487 at the end of still another lightless hallway in the Devonshire Hotel. I notice that none of those hotels give much room for hope to hide in, and the Devonshire is worse than most. I know something is wrong as soon as I knock on the door of room 487.

I am greeted by a silence that unnerves me, with no stirring or rustling about or shuffling of unsteady, slippered feet. I try the doorknob and it comes off in my hand, but the door swings open on rusted hinges. Inside a young boy is sleeping, his blond curls and full lips giving him the look of a figurine trapped in an unnatural stillness. He cannot be more than twenty years old, but his attractiveness is offset by the smell of excrement that seeps through his silk pajamas and the cheap sheets that cover him. I place his food on a dresser, then touch my hand to his forehead. When my hand feels the coldness, I know he has been dead for hours. The peaceful expression on his face is an act of mercy that death can sometimes bestow on someone in unbearable pain. His clothes hang neatly in a filthy, mouse-befouled closet, and I find his wallet in the back pocket of his best suit. His driver's license contains a picture of him smiling with some coyness and impish humor. His name is Aaron Satterfield, and he once lived in an apartment on Sacramento Street.

Inside his wallet, I discover several photographs of interest. There is a series of photos of Aaron and four of his friends dressed as cowboys at a Halloween party in the Castro. The same group of five mug for a camera in one of those lamentable curtained booths you find in cheap bus stations. On the back of the photo, Aaron has written these words: "All dead, except me."

In the top drawer of his bedside table, I find two letters, one from his mother and one from his father. Because I am present at their son's deathbed and they are not, I feel I have a right to read those letters. A part of me has to know the story of why this gorgeous child died alone. It is the Satterfield family of Stuart, Nebraska, who should be standing over the body of this blond, wasted boy, and not me. As that thought preys on me, I wonder how long the tears have been running down my face, and if they are tears of pity or rage or a molten combination of both at the same time.

The father's letter could not have been pithier or more to the point: "Faggot. If you are dying as you claim, I declare it God's will. That you have been something foul and unclean in the eyes of God is no surprise. It is Bible written and Bible promised. I would not send you a penny I made from working on my farm. May God have mercy on your soul. I have none. Your father, Olin Satterfield."

After I finish the father's letter, I sit there trembling and tearful while I pray to God and ask him not to allow me ever to think like the people of God if it requires me to be anything like Olin Satterfield. No matter what your Scriptures say, Lord, I will not do it. I open his mother's letter and read, "Dearest Aaron, this hundred dollars is the last of the nest egg I have saved since the day I married your father. I don't know what he would do if he found out I'd been sending you money all this time. I wish I could be beside you right now, taking care of you, cleaning up for you, making sure you were eating right, holding you and telling you stories you used to love as a child. I kiss you now, and it carries all my love and all the hurt I feel for you. By the power of prayer, I believe that Jesus will cure you. He died on the cross for people like you and me and especially for people like your father. Your father loves you as much as I do, but his stubbornness won't let him feel it. At night, he wakes up crying and it has nothing to do with the wheat or the cows. I love you as much as Jesus does, Mom."

The death of this pretty half-child proves to me that I have come to one hotel too many in this beleagured city. If I wished to spend my life working miracles among the dead and the dying I could have gone to medical school, but I was born to write frivolous, witty columns about the pulse rate of Charleston. My time among young men dying of starvation because of some ruthless virus loose in their bloodstream is starting to wear me out. I want out of San Francisco, and the sooner the better. At this moment, I don't give a damn whether we find Trevor Poe or not. I want to sleep in my own bed and work in my own garden and walk down streets where every house is familiar to me. Mostly, I want to run away from the presence of this dead Nebraska boy, and yet I sit beside him on his bed, staring at his lovely, inanimate face. Then I smell his shit again and spring into an action that surprises me.

I remove his sheets and pajama bottoms and clean him up with a towel I find in his sink. Gathering the towel and the sheets and the pajama bottoms together, I open up a window and hurl the fetid pile into the alley below. I find some Paco Rabanne aftershave lotion in his shaving kit, and after I shave him, I liberally sprinkle him from his cheeks to his thighs with the sweet-smelling cologne. Carefully, I comb his hair and style it the way I found it in his wallet photograph. I cover him with a blanket he had kicked off the bed, and I feel a certain satisfaction when I have completed my assignment. To me, Aaron Satterfield is ready for anything-a baptism, a laying on of hands, or a meeting with the godhead. When I finish I burst into tears, and of course, that is when Molly Rutledge finds me.

"We've been looking all over for you," she says, then realizes the situation. She goes over and touches Aaron's face with remarkable tenderness and says, "Oh, my God. What a beautiful boy."

I hand her the two letters and she reads them without emotion or commentary. "He looks as though he died while dreaming something nice, Leo," she says afterward.

"Yeah, I had the same sickly sentimental thought when I first saw him too."

"I guess what I mean is that I'm glad his suffering is over," Molly says, choosing not to react to my acidulous tone. My weeping embarrasses me and I wish I could've finished it before she entered the room.

"We'll have to call the police," Molly says. "They'll take him to the morgue. We can let his parents know tonight."

"Why weren't they here?" I ask. "Or why didn't they bring him home?"

"Shame. Pure human shame on his father's part. Fear of the father on the mother's. I bet the father tormented this poor kid from the time he was born. Come on, Leo; we'll do your last floor together. They're waiting for us. If we were all as slow as you, these boys in the Tenderloin would starve to death." Molly takes my list and adds, "Just three more rooms then we're through for the day."

She touches Aaron's face again with her soft, manicured hand. "What've we gotten ourselves into, Leo? This time out here will change us forever. It'll mark us in ways we don't know."

"Was it hard downstairs in this dump?"

"It was awful. We're not going to find any nice death by AIDS. It's like all of them, every one of them, have been nailed to their beds."

"We're not going to find Trevor, are we?" I say. "We're just putting on a show to make ourselves feel better. Make Sheba feel better."

Molly wipes the tears from my face with a handkerchief. "Remember who we are, Leo. We're folks who get things done. We're going to find Trevor and take him home with us. We might lose him in the end, but he's going to be surrounded by people who love his ass when he dies. We aren't gonna let him die like Aaron Satterfield. Get the picture?"

"Yeah, girl. I get the picture."

And Molly licks the last tears that roll down my cheek.

I try to regain control of the situation, that terrible moment of time. "Why did you do that?"

"Because I wanted to. It tasted good. Like an oyster. Or a pearl from an oyster. Salty like the ocean off Sullivan's Island. I liked it that you cleaned this boy up," she said.

"How did you know I cleaned him up?"

"Ike and Betty were standing near the alley when you threw all the stuff out the window, then Betty ran up to tell me you needed some help. Ike gathered up all the stuff and put it in a Dumpster. Said it smelled like hell."

"Why didn't Betty come find me?"

"She thought I could handle it," Molly says. "Plus, Betty's calling the cops. An ambulance is on the way. Let's finish and get out of here."

"Good idea. Sorry I took so long."

"You're forgiven, Toad," she says, smiling. "Just this once."

That evening I pick up the phone in the small office off the kitchen and dial for information in Stuart, Nebraska, where I ask for the number of Olin Satterfield. With the compassionate telepathy that made her famous among her friends, Molly Rutledge enters the room behind me carrying tumblers with two fingers of Jack Daniel's on the rocks.

The phone rings twice and the father answers.

"Mr. Satterfield," I say. "This is Leo King calling from San Francisco. I'm calling with news of your son."

"There must be some mistake," he says. "I have no son."

"Aaron Satterfield is not your son?"

"Do you speak English? I just told you that I don't have a son."

"Do you have a wife named Clea Satterfield?" I ask, studying the name on the second letter I hold in my hand.

"I may and I may not," he replies.

With some effort I control my temper, and say, "If Clea Satterfield has a son, sir, I would like to talk to her."