“Sure. Can I bring a blood-sample kit? Would you let me?”
“Would you let me?” she asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Just kidding,” she said. “Look, I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t want to get hurt either. When you leave here, drive like hell and take an indirect route home.”
“Why?”
“Because I really didn’t kill those people, but I know who did, and he’s been following me. If he’s seen you, you’re in danger.”
The line was quiet for a minute, just the ghost voices of a cellular connection. Jody watched the Asian guy watching her.
Finally he cleared his throat. “How many of you are there?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“I know that all of the victims don’t change. It couldn’t work. The geometric progression would have the entire human race turned to vampires in a month.” He sounded more confident now that he had brought the conversation back to science.
“I’ll tell you what I know tomorrow. But don’t expect much. I don’t know much. Or I’ll tell you now if you want to talk face to face, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about this with you on a cell phone.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Not now, though. Not here. You understand, don’t you.”
Jody nodded, exaggerating the gesture so he could see. “The longer you stand there, the better chance you have of being seen by…by the other one. Tomorrow night, then. Seven o’clock.”
“Will you be wearing that dress?”
Jody smiled. “Do you like it? It’s new.”
“It’s great. I didn’t think you would be a woman.”
“Thanks. Go now.”
She watched him climb into the Toyota, the cell phone still in hand. “Promise not to try and track me down?”
“I know where you’ll be tomorrow night, remember?”
“Oh yeah. By the way, my name’s Steve.”
“Hi, Steve. I’m Jody.”
“’Bye,” he said. He disconnected. Jody hung up the phone and watched him drive away.
She thought, Great, another one to worry about.
It hadn’t occurred to her that her condition might be reversible. But then, the med student didn’t know about how the body had turned to dust. Science indeed.
Jump or dive, he thought. The silk suit whipped about his legs in the chill wind. The tower’s aircraft warning light flashed red across his face and he could see heat swirling off of it, dissolving over the bay.
His name was Elijah Ben Sapir. He stood five feet ten inches tall and he had been a vampire for eight hundred years. In human life he had been an alchemist and had spent his time mixing noxious chemicals and chanting arcane incantations trying to turn lead into gold and tap the secret of eternal life. He hadn’t been a particularly good alchemist. He had never been able to pull off the gold transformation, although by a bizarre miscalculation of chemistry he did manage to invent Teflon some eight hundred years before DuPont would find a use for it. (It should be noted, though, that archaeologists recently uncovered a Viking rune stone in Greenland that mentions a Jew who entered the palace of Constantine the Magnificent in 1224 selling a line of nonstick hot pokers for the Emperor’s torture chamber and was promptly given the bum’s rush to the city gates. The accuracy of the story has been questioned, however, as it begins, “I never believed that your letters were true until Gunner and I…” and goes on to recount the sexual exploits of two Vikings and a harem of brown-skinned Byzantine babes.)
Ben Sapir’s search for eternal life had been somewhat more successful. Granted, it came with the side effects of drinking human blood and staying out of sunlight, but he had gotten used to that. It was the loneliness that he couldn’t abide. Perhaps, after all these years, it would end. He was afraid to hope.
It had been a hundred years since a fledgling had lasted this long. She had been a Yanomamo woman in the Amazon Basin and she had hunted the jungle for three months before she returned to her village and turned her sister. The sisters declared themselves gods and demanded sacrifices from the village. He found them by the river feeding on an old woman, and he took no pleasure in killing them. Perhaps the redhead, perhaps she would be the one.
Dive, he decided. He leaped away from the tower, jackknifed into a dive, and plunged fifty stories to the black water. The challenge was to avoid changing to mist before hitting the water. That was too easy.
The impact of the water ripped the clothes off his back, the stitching of his shoes exploded with the pressure. He surfaced, naked except for one sock that had strangely survived the impact, and began the long swim back to his yacht thinking, I should’n have saved her from the sunlight. I must be desperate for entertainment.
CHAPTER 28
IS THAT A BLACKJACK IN YOUR POCKET?
Tommy booted the Emperor out of the store at dawn. It had been a long night trying to keep the crazed ruler away from the Animals while throwing stock and trying to figure out the logistics of his meeting with Mara, all while under the influence of Dr. Drew’s polio weed, which seemed to affect the part of the brain that motivates one to sit in the corner and drool while staring at one’s hands. When the shift ended, he declined the Animals’ invitation for beers and Frisbee in the parking lot, swiped a baguette from the bread-delivery man, and caught the bus home, intent on going straight to bed. He knew his plan was foiled when Frank, the biker/sculptor, met him outside their building holding a familiar-looking bronze turtle.
“Flood, check it out.” Frank held up the turtle. “It worked!”
“What worked?” Tommy asked.
“Thick electroplating process. Come on in, I’ll show you.” Frank turned and led Tommy through the roll-up door into the foundry.
The foundry took up the entire bottom floor of the building. There was a huge furnace making a muffled rumbling sound. There were several large pits filled with sand, and plaster-of-Paris molds lay in them in various states of completion. In the back, near the only windows, stood wax figures of naked women, Indians, Buddhas, and birds, waiting to be cut up and placed in plaster of Paris.
Frank said, “We’ve been doing a lot of statues for people’s gardens. Buddhas are big with the koi-pond types. That’s what we needed the turtles for. Monk already sold one of them to a woman in Pacific Heights for five hundred bucks. Sight unseen.”
“My turtles?” Tommy said. He looked more closely at the bronze turtle Frank was holding. “Zelda!”
“Can you believe it?” Frank said. “We did them both in less than eight hours. Lost-wax process would have taken days. I’ll show you.”
He led Tommy to the other side of the shop where a short, portly man in leather and denim was working beside a tall Plexiglas tank filled with a translucent green liquid.
Frank said, “Monk, this is our neighbor, Tom Flood. Flood, this is my partner Monk.”
Monk grunted, not looking up from a compressor that he seemed to be having trouble with. Tommy could see how he had gotten his name. He had a large bowl-shaped bald spot with a fringe of hair around it: the Benedictine version of Easy Rider, Friar Tuck on wheels.
“This,” said Frank, gesturing toward the ten-foot tank, “as far as we know, is the biggest electroplating tank on the West Coast.”
Tommy didn’t know quite how to react. He was still stunned by seeing the bronze likeness of Zelda. “That’s just spiffy,” he said finally.
“Yeah, dude. We can do anything we can find. No molds, no wax carvings. You just dunk and go. That’s how we did your turtles.”
Tommy was beginning to get it. “You mean that that is not a sculpture? You covered my turtles with brass?”
“That’s it. That liquid is supersaturated with dissolved metal. We sprayed the turtles with a thin metal-based paint that would conduct current. Then we attached a wire to them and dipped them in the tank. The current draws the metal out of the water and it fuses to the paint on the turtle. Leave it a long time and the coating gets thick en
ough to have structural integrity. Voilà, a bronze garden turtle. I don’t think anybody’s ever done it before. We owe you, man.”
Monk grunted in gratitude.
Tommy didn’t know whether to be angry or depressed. “You should have told me you were going to kill them.”
“I thought you knew, man. Sorry. You can have this one, if you want.” Frank presented the bronzed Zelda.
Tommy shook his head and looked away. “I don’t think I could look at her.” He turned and walked away.
Frank said, “C’mon, man, take it. We owe you one. If you need a favor or something…”
Tommy took Zelda. How would he explain to Jody? “By the way, I’ve turned your little friends into statues.” And this, right after they’d had a big fight. He slunk up the steps feeling completely lost.
Jody had left him a note on the counter:
Tommy:
Imperative that you are here when I wake up. If you go out you are in serious, life-threatening trouble. I mean it. I have some very important things to tell you. No time now, I’m going to go out any second. Be here when I wake up.
Jody
“Great,” Tommy said to Peary. “Now what do I do about Mara? Who does Jody think she is, threatening me? What does she think she’s going to do if I’m not here? I can’t be here. Why don’t you keep her busy until I get home.” Tommy patted the chest freezer and an idea came to him.
“You know, Peary, scientists have frozen vampire bats and thawed them completely unharmed. I mean, how would she know? How many times has she thought it was Tuesday when it was really Wednesday?”
Tommy went to the bedroom and looked in on Jody, who had made it to bed, but not in time to change out of her black dress.
Wow, Tommy thought, she never dresses like that for me.
She looked so peaceful. Sexy, but peaceful.
She’ll be angry if she finds out, but she’s angry now. It won’t really hurt her. I can just take her out tomorrow morning and put her under the electric blanket. By sundown she’ll be thawed out and I’ll have handled the Mara thing. I can tell Mara that I’m involved. I can’t start something new until this is finished. Maybe with the extra time, Jody will have chilled a little.
He smiled to himself.
He opened the lid of the freezer, then went into the bedroom to get Jody. He carried her into the kitchen and laid her in the freezer on top of Peary. As he tucked her into the fetal position he felt a twinge of jealousy. “You guys behave now, okay?” He tucked a few TV dinners around her nice and snug under her arms, then kissed her on the forehead and gently closed the lid.
As he crawled into bed he thought, If she ever finds out about this, she’s really going to be pissed.
Tommy had been asleep three hours when the pounding started. He rolled out of bed, stumbled across the dark bedroom and was blinded when he opened the door into the loft. He was just regaining his eyesight when he opened the fire door and Rivera said, “Are you Thomas Flood, Junior?”
“Yes,” Tommy said, bracing himself against the doorjamb.
“I’m Inspector Alphonse Rivera from the San Francisco Police Department.” He held up a badge wallet. “You’re under arrest”—Rivera pulled a warrant from his jacket pocket—“for abandoning a vehicle on a public street.”
“You’re kidding,” Tommy said.
Cavuto stepped through the door and grabbed Tommy by the shoulder, whipping him around as the big cop pulled his handcuffs from his belt. “You have the right to remain silent…” Cavuto said.
• • •
Two hours later Tommy had been processed, probed and printed, and as Cavuto had expected, Tommy’s fingerprints matched those on the copy of On the Road that they had found under the dead bum. It was enough for them to get a search warrant issued for the loft. Five minutes after they entered the loft a mobile crime lab was dispatched along with a forensics team and two coroners’ trucks. As far as crime scenes went, the loft in SOMA was the mother lode.
Cavuto and Rivera left the crime scene to the forensics team and returned to the station, where they took Tommy from a holding cell and put him in a pleasantly pink interrogation room furnished with a metal table and two chairs. There was a mirror on one wall and a tape recorder sat on the table. Tommy sat staring at the pink wall, remembering something about how pink was supposed to calm you down. It didn’t seem to be working. His stomach was tied in knots.
Rivera had done dozens of interrogations with Cavuto and they always took the same roles: Cavuto was the bad cop, and Rivera was the good cop. Actually Rivera never felt like the good cop. More often he was the I-am-tired-and-overworked-and-I’m-being-nice-to-you-because-I-don’t-have-the-energy-to-be-angry cop.
“Would you like a smoke?” Rivera asked.
“Sure,” Tommy said.
Cavuto jumped in his face. “Too bad, punk. There’s no smoking in here.” Cavuto took great pleasure in being the bad cop. He practiced in front of the mirror at home.
Rivera shrugged. “He’s right. You can’t smoke.”
Tommy said, “That’s okay, I don’t smoke.”
“How about a lawyer then?” asked Rivera. “Or a phone call?”
“I have to be at work at midnight,” Tommy said. “If it looks like I’m going to be late, I’ll use my call then.”
Cavuto was pacing the room, timing his path so he could wheel on Tommy with every statement. He wheeled. “Yeah, kid, you’re going to be late, about thirty years late, if they don’t fry you.”
Tommy pushed back in his chair with fright.
“Good one, Nick,” Rivera said.
“Thanks.” Cavuto smiled around an unlit cigar and backed away from the table where Tommy sat.
Rivera moved up. “Okay, kid, you don’t want an attorney. Where do you want to start? We’ve got you hands-down on two murders and probably three. If you tell us the story, tell us everything, about all the other murders, we might be able to waive the death penalty.”
“I didn’t kill anybody.”
“Don’t be cute,” Cavuto said. “We found two bodies in your freezer. We’ve got your fingerprints all over a book that we found under a third body outside your apartment. We’ve got you staying at the motel where we found a fourth body. And we’ve got you with a closetful of women’s clothing and eye witnesses that put a woman near where we found a fifth body…”
Tommy interrupted, “Actually, there’s only one body in the freezer. The other is my girlfriend.”
“You sick fuck.” Cavuto drew back as if to hit Tommy. Rivera moved to restrain him. Tommy cowered in his chair.
Rivera led Cavuto to the far side of the room. “Let me take this for a minute.” He left Cavuto grumbling to himself and went to the seat across from Tommy.
“Look, kid, we’ve got you cold, so to speak, on two murders. We’ve got circumstantial evidence on another. You are going to jail for a very long time, and at this point, the death penalty is looking pretty good. Now if you tell us everything, and don’t leave anything out, we might be able to help you out, but you have to give us enough to close all the cases. Do you understand?”
Tommy nodded. “But I didn’t kill anybody. I put Jody in the freezer, which I admit is inconsiderate, but I didn’t kill her.”
Cavuto growled. Rivera nodded in mock acceptance of the story. “Fine, but if you didn’t kill them, who did? Did someone you know force you into this?”
Cavuto exploded, “Oh Christ, Rivera! What do you need, a videotape? This little bastard did it.”
“Nick, please. Give me a minute here.”
Cavuto moved to the table and leaned over it until his face was next to Tommy’s. He whispered, raspy and gruff, “Flood, don’t think you can use a wiggle and a wink to get yourself out of this. That might work down on Castro, but I’m immune to it here, you got me? I’m going to leave now, but when I come back, if you haven’t told my partner your story, I’m going to cause pain. Lots of it, and I won’t leave a mark on you.” He stood up, s
miled, then turned and left the room.
Tommy looked at Rivera. “A wiggle and a wink?”
“Nick thinks you’re cute,” Rivera said.
“He’s gay?”
“Completely.”
Tommy shook his head. “I would have never guessed.”
“He’s a Shriner, too.” Rivera tapped a cigarette out of his pack and lit it. “Looks can be deceiving.”
“Hey, I didn’t think you were allowed to smoke in here.”
Rivera blew smoke in Tommy’s face. “You had two people in your freezer, and you’re giving me shit about smoking.”
“Good point.”
Rivera sat down and leaned back in the chair. “Tommy, I’m going to give you one more chance to tell me how you killed those people, then I’m going to let Nick back in here and I’m going to leave. He really likes you. This room is soundproof, you know.”
Tommy swallowed hard. “You’re not going to believe me. It’s a pretty fantastic story. There’s supernatural stuff involved.”
Rivera rubbed his temples. “Satan told you to do it?” he said wearily.
“No.”
“Elvis?”
“I told you, it’s supernatural.”
“Tommy, I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone before. If you repeat it, I’ll deny I said it. Five years ago I saw a white owl with a seventy-foot wingspan swoop out of the sky and pluck a demon off a hillside and take off into the sky.”
“I heard that cops get the best drugs,” Tommy said.
Rivera got up. “I’m going to bring Nick in.”
“No, wait. I’ll tell you. It was a vampire. You can thaw Jody out and ask her.”
Rivera reached over and turned on the tape recorder. “Now slow down. Start at the beginning and go until we walked you into this room.”
An hour later Rivera met Cavuto behind the one-way mirror. Cavuto was not happy. “You know, I’d rather you just threaten that I would beat him up.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“There’s nothing there we can use. Not a thing. If he sticks with that story he’ll get off on insanity. It’s too wild. I want to know how he got the blood out of the bodies.”
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