Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story Chapter 27~28

Chapter 27Bridging the BoredomHalf past mid night. He stood at the top of the s prohibitedhwest tower of the Oakland Bay Bridge, many fifty stories above the gunmetal-cold bay, thinking, Jump or nosedive? He wore a bare silk suit and he pa economic consumptiond for a mo ment, regretting that the suit would be ruined. He the like the feel and flow of silk on his skin. Oh well.Two miles away Jody was walking up Market Street neediness that she could conscion sufficient go bad intoxicated and pass pop. I wonder, she thought, if I show some mavin who was re al geniusy drunk and drank his blood? No, this damn system of mine would probably identify alcohol as a poison and fight the effects. So m all questions. If only Id remembered to ask them.She stopped at a ph hotshot cell and adjureed Tommy at the store.Marina Safeway.Tommy, its me.Are you serene mad?Not mad enough, I guess. I fitting valued to produce discover you to stay in the store until after daylight. Dont go let out grimace for any reason. And stay just about the other make funs if you exactlyt end. wherefore? Whats the matter?Just do as I say, Tommy.I break uped up the loft. Mostly, anyway.Well rebuke about it tomorrow night. Stay at home until I plunk forwash up, okay?Are you still leaving to be pissed?Probably. Ill shape you then. Good-bye. She hung up. How could he be so smart sometimes and so ignorant other times? Maybe the vampire was right, a human could never on a lower floorstand her. She suddenly felt very lonely.She ducked into an all-night diner and ordered a cup of c dischargeee as rent on a booth. She still could enjoy the smell of coffee, even if she couldnt keep it pop out.She opened the paper she had bought from the bum with her cosmetics base of operations and began to read through the soulfulnessals. Men desire Women, Women Seeking Men, Men Seeking Men, Women Seeking Women, Men Seeking Small Fuzzy Animals there was a wide selection of categories. She scanned over the much mundane entries until her oculus settled on one to a lower place Support Groups. Are You a Vampire? You dont obligate to aspect your problem alone. Blood Drinkers Anonymous can help. Mon.-Fri. Midnight. Rm. 212 Asian Cultural midst, Non-Smoking.It was Friday. It was midnight. She was only tenner minutes from the Asian Cultural Center. Could it be this simple?The first thing she noticed when she walked into way 212 of the Asian Cultural Center is that all of the nation turn onting in a circle in molded plastic chairs, all twenty of them, were giving off heat signatures. They were all human.She was backing out of the gate when a obese woman in a leotard and black drapery intercepted her and took her hand.Wel contract, said the woman. She sported a set of rather wicked- smell fangs that caused her to lisp. Im Tabitha. Were just set aboutting ready to start. Come on in. Theres coffee and cookies.She led Jody to an orange plastic chair and urged her to sit down. Its hard the first time, hardly everyone here has been where you are.Not bloody likely, Jody said, wiping a speck of Tabithas spittle from her cheek.Tabitha pointed to a plastic medallion that hung from her neck by a heavy silver chain. See this chip? Ive been clean and bloodless for six months. If I can do it, so can you. One night at a time.Tabitha squeezed her arm, then threw her cape over her shoulder, turn dramatically, and stalked across the room to the cookie table, her cape billowing behind her.Jody looked at the other occupants of the room. All were talking, most were sneaking looks at her between sips of coffee. The men were all proud and thin with protruding Adams apples and bad skin. Their dress ranged from business suits to jeans and flannel. They readiness have been a chess club out for the evening if not for the capes. To a man, they wore capes. Four of seven had fangs. Two sets of tetrad were made of glow-in-the-dark plastic.Jody focused on two of the m whispering in the corner. I told you, this is a babe-fest. Did you see the carrottop? He sneaked a look.His partner said, I think I saw her at Compulsive cleaners last week.Compulsive Cleaners, I was pass to try that. How are the odds?Lots of cheerful guys, provided a few babes. Mostly they smell like Pine Sol, but its hot if you like latex gloves.Cool, Ill check it out. I think Im outlet to quit going to Adult Children of Alcoholics, everybodys looking to blame, no ones looking to get laid.Jody thought, I dont live on if I want to hear quiet desperation this clearly. She changed her focus to the women in the room.A six-foot-two brunette woman in a black choir robe and Kabuki-like makeup was plain to a washed-out blonde wearing a tattered wedding dress. They want to be fasten up, I tie them up. They want to be spanked, I spank them. They want to be called names, I call them names. But try and drink a illuminetle of their blood, and they scream like babies. What about my needs?I k straightaway, said the blonde. I asked Robert to sleep in the coffin one time and he left.You have a coffin? I want a coffin.Christ, Jody thought, Ive got to get out of here.Tabitha clapped her hands. Lets get the run intoing startedThose who were standing found seats. Several men tried to shove their way into the seats next to Jody. A skinny eccentric person with peanut-butter breath leaned in to her and said, I was on Oprah on Halloween. Men who drink blood and the women who find them disgusting. If you want, you can come by my place and watch the tape after the meeting.Im out of here, Jody said. She jumped up and headed for the door.Behind her she comprehend Tabitha saying, Hi, Im Tabitha and Im a bloodsucking fiend.Hi, Tabitha, the group said in chorus.Outside Jody looked up and down the street query which way to go, what to do. She paused by a phone booth, realizing that there was no one she could call. Tears welled in her eyes. why even bother to hope? The only p erson who had the slightest idea how she felt was the vampire who had made her. And he had made it clear that he wasnt interested in helping her the evil fucker.I should set him up with my mother, she thought, then the two of them can look down on humanity together. The thought made her smile. wherefore the phone rang. She looked at it for a second, looked around for someone else who would answer it, but except for a guy standing by his car a couple of blocks away, the street was empty.She picked up the phone. Hello.A mans voice said, I thought you would show up here eventually.Who is this? Jody asked. The man sounded young, his voice was unfamiliar.I cant tell you that yet.Okay, Jody said.Bye.Wait, wait, wait, dont hang up. thoroughly?Youre the one, arent you? Youre real. I mean, you are a real vampire.Jody held the phone away, stared at the receiver as if it were an alien object. Who is this?I dont want to tell you my name. I dont want you to be able to find me. Lets just say t hat Im a friend.Thats how most of my friends are, Jody said. They dont tell me their names or how to find them. It keeps my social calendar pretty clear. Who was this guy? Who could mayhap hit the sack that she was here, right now?Okay, I guess I owe you something. Im a med student at at a local college. I did some research on one of the bodies one of the bodies of the tidy sum you exhausted.I didnt kill anyone. I dont know what youre talking about. If I am who you think I am, how did you know Id be here? I didnt even know I would be here until an hour ago.Ive been waiting, ceremonial every night for a couple of weeks. I had a theory that you wouldnt have any obtrusive body heat, and you dont.What are you talking about? No one notices anybodys body heat.Look up the street. By the white Toyota. Its running, by the way. If you make a move to come toward me, Im gone.Jody looked more closely at the person up the street standing by a white car. The car was running. The man was holdin g a cell phone and looking at her through some very large binoculars.I see you, she said. What do you want?Im looking at you through infrared glasses. Youre not giving off any body heat, so I know youre the one. My theory was right.Are you a cop?No, I told you, Im a medical student. I dont want to turn you in. In fact, I think I energy be able to help you, if youre interested in being helped.Talk, Jody said. She held her hand over the phone and focused on the guy by the car. She could hear him talking into the cell phone.They gave one of the cadavers to our department after the coroner was do with it. It was a male, about sixty historic period old, the third victim, I think. I noticed that there was a clean spot on his neck, as if it had been washed. The coroner hadnt put that in his report. I took a thread sample and put it under a microscope. The tissue in that area was living. Regenerating. I cultured it and it started to die, until I added something on a hunch.What? Jody ask ed. She didnt know what to think. This man knew she was a vampire, and strangely, she felt an urge to attack. Some protective intelligence wanted her to loss him. Kill him. She fought to stay calm.Hemoglobin. I added some human hemoglobin and the tissue started to repossess again. I ran it through the sequencer. Its not human DNA. Its close, but not human. It doesnt produce heat, doesnt seem to burn furnish the same way that mammalian cells do. The coroner said that he was the one that had drained the blood from the body, but hed never done that out front. And I knew that the guy had been murdered. I made a guess. I saw the ad in the Weekly for a vampire support group, so Ive been watching.Jody said, job I believe what youre saying. Suppose I believe that you believe this bullshit, how could you help me? Supposing I wanted to be helped?My major is gene therapy. Theres a chance I could reverse the process.This isnt skill. Im not saying that youre right about your theory. There are a lot of things that you dont know, that cant be explained by science. If you dont know that by now, you will. What youre talking about is magic.Magic is just science that we dont know yet. Do you want me to help or not?Why would you want to do that? As further as you know, I kill people.So does cancer, but I still work on it. Do you have any idea what kind of competition there is for jobs in my field? Its an all-or-nothing field. I could end up getting my PhD and giving saccharine enemas to rats for five bucks an hour. What I learn from you would put my soak up at the top of the stack.Jody didnt know what to say. Part of her wanted to drop the phone and go after him. another(prenominal) part wanted to accept his help.She said, What do you want me to do?Nothing yet. How can I get hold of you?I cant tell you that. Ill call you. Whats your number?I cant tell you that.Jody sighed. Look, Mr. Scientific Genius, figure out something. And by the way, I really didnt kill those people .Then why are you even listening to me?I guess this conversation is over. Get in your car and get comfortable with asking rats to bend over. Good-bye.Wait, we could meet somewhere. Tomorrow. Someplace public.No, it has to be at night. Someplace private. You could have cops everywhere. She watched him as she talked. He had put the binoculars down and she could see that he was Asian.Youre the killer here. Would you meet you someplace private and dark?All right. Tomorrow night. septette oclock, at Enricos on Broadway. That public enough for you?Sure. Can I bring a blood-sample kit? Would you permit me?Would you let me? she asked.He didnt answer.Just kidding, she said. Look, I dont want to hurt you, but I dont want to get hurt either. When you leave here, drive like hell and take an indirect route home.Why?Because I really didnt kill those people, but I know who did, and hes been following me. If hes seen you, youre 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 light his throat. How many of you are there?I dont know, she said.I know that all of the victims dont change. It couldnt 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.Ill tell you what I know tomorrow. But dont expect much. I dont know much. Or Ill tell you now if you want to talk brass instrument to face, but I dont think its a good idea to talk about this with you on a cell phone.Yeah, youre right. Not now, though. Not here. You understand, dont you?Jody nodded, exaggerating the communicate 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 oclock.Will you be wearing that dress?Jody smiled. Do you like it? Its new.Its great. I didnt think you would be a woman.Thanks. Go now. She watched him cl imb into the Toyota, the cell phone still in hand. agreement not to try and track me down?I know where youll be tomorrow night, remember?Oh yeah. By the way, my names Steve.Hi, Steve. Im 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 hadnt occurred to her that her condition might be reversible. But then, the med student didnt 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 towers aircraft warning light flashed red across his face and he could see heat swirling off 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 ampere-second 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 amber and tap the secret of sempiternal lif e. He hadnt 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 do it 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 brilliant in 1224 selling a line of nonstick hot pokers for the Emperors torture chamber and was promptly habituated the bums 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 machine gunner and I and goes on to recount the sexual exploits of two Vikings and a harem of brown-skinned Byzantine babes.)Ben Sapirs 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 us ed to that. It was the loneliness that he couldnt 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 hobo camp 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 blow up with the pressure. He surfaced, naked except for one sock that had strangely survived the impact, and began the long swim bac k to his boat thinking, I shouldnt have saved her from the sunlight. I must be desperate for entertainment.Chapter 28Is That a tomfool 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. Drews polio weed, which seemed to affect the part of the brain that motivates one to sit in the corner and drool while staring at ones 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 recognize. He knew his externalize was foiled when detent, the biker/sculptor, met him outside their building holding a familiar-looking bronze turtle.Flood, check it out. Frank held up the turtle. It workedWhat worked? Tommy asked. dim electroplat ing process. Come on in, Ill 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, here was a huge furnace making a muffled plain sound. There were several large pits filled with sand, and stick on-of-Paris molds lay in them in various states of completion. In the back, approximative 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, Weve been doing a lot of statues for peoples tends. Buddhas are big with the koi-pond types. Thats 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. ZeldaCan you believe it? Frank said. We did them both in less than eight hours. Lost-wax process would have taken days. Ill show you.He led Tommy to the other si de of the shop where a short, portly man in leather and denim was working beside a tall Plexi-glas tank filled with a translucent green tranquil.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 rendition 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 didnt know quite how to react. He was still stunned by seeing the bronze likeness of Zelda. Thats just spiffy, he said finally.Yeah, dude. We can do anything we can find. No molds, no wax carvings. You just dunk and go. Thats how we did your turtles.Tommy was germ to get it. You mean that that is not a sculpture? You covered my turtles with brass?Thats 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 fit out 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 enough to have structural integrity. Voila, a bronze garden turtle. I dont think anybodys ever done it before. We owe you, man.Monk grunted in gratitude.Tommy didnt know whether to be untamed 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 tanned Zelda.Tommy shook his head and looked away. I dont think I could look at her. He turned and walked away.Frank said, Cmon, man, take it. We owe you one. If you need a favor or somethingTommy took Zelda. How would he explain to Jody? By the way, Ive turned your little friends into statues. And this right after theyd had a big fight. He slunk up the steps feeling completely lost.Jody had left him a note on the counterTommyImperative 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, Im going to go out any second. Be here when I wake up.JodyGreat, Tommy said to Peary. at one time what do I do about Mara? Who does Jody think she is, threatening me? What does she think shes going to do if Im not here? I cant be here. Why dont you keep her busy until I get home. Tommy patted the chest deep 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 sleeping room 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.Shell be angry if she finds out, but shes angry now. It wont really hurt her. I can just take her out tomorrow morning and put her under the electric car blanket. By sundown shell be thawed out and Ill have handled the Mara thing. I can tell Mara that Im involved. I cant 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 minute 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, shes really going to be pissed.Tommy had been asleep three hours when the punt 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, jr.?Yes, Tommy said, bracing himself against the doorjamb.Im Inspector Alphonse Rivera from the San Francisco Police Department. He held up a badge wallet. Youre under arrest Rivera pulled a warrant from his jacket pocket for abandoning a vehicle on a public street.Youre 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 preserve silent Cavuto said.Two hours later Tommy had been processed, probed, and printed, and as Cavuto had expected, Tommys 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 group 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 ping 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 didnt 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-Im-being-nice-to-you-because-I-dont-have-the-energy-to-be-angry cop.Would you like a smoke? Rivera asked.Sure, Tommy said.Cavuto jumped in his face. Too ba d, punk. Theres no smoking in here. Cavuto took great pleasure in being the bad cop. He practiced in front of the mirror at home.Rivera shrugged. Hes right. You cant smoke.Tommy said, Thats okay, I dont 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 Im going to be late, Ill 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, youre going to be late, about thirty years late, if they dont 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 dont want an attorney. Where do you want to start? Weve 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 didnt kill anybod y.Dont be cute, Cavuto said. We found two bodies in your freezer. Weve got your fingerprints all over a book that we found under a third body outside your apartment. Weve got you staying at the motel where we found a fourth body. And weve got you with a closetful of womens tog and eyewitnesses that put a woman near where we found a fifth bodyTommy interrupted, Actually, theres 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 harbor 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, weve got you cold, so to speak, on two murders. Weve 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 dont 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 didnt kill anybody. I put Jody in the freezer, which I admit is inconsiderate, but I didnt kill her.Cavuto growled. Rivera nodded in mock espousal of the story. Fine, but if you didnt 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 illegitimate did it.Nick, please. Give me a minute here.Cavuto moved to the table and leaned over it until his face was next to Tommys. He whispered, rasping and gruff, Flood, dont think you can use a wiggle and a wink to get yourself out of this. That might work down on Castro, but Im immune to it here, you got me? Im going to leave now, but when I come back, if you havent told my partner your story, Im going to cause pain. Lots of it, and I wont leave a mark on you. He stood up, smiled, then turned and left the room.Tommy looked at Rivera. A wiggle and a wink?Nick thinks youre cute, Rivera said.Hes gay?Completely.Tommy shook his head. I would have never guessed.Hes a Shriner, too. Rivera tapped a cigarette out of his pack and lit it. Looks can be deceiving.Hey, I didnt think you were allowed to smoke in here.Rivera blew smoke in Tommys face. You had two people in your freezer, and youre giving me shit about smoking.Good point.Rivera sat down and leaned back in the chair. Tommy, Im going to give you one more chance to tell me how you killed those people, then Im going to let Nick back in here and Im going to leave. He really likes you. This room is soundproof, you know.Tommy swallowed hard. Youre not going to believe me. Its a pretty fantastic story. Theres supernatural stuff involved.Rivera rubbed his temples. Satan told you to do it? he said wearily.No. demigod?I told you, its supernatural.Tommy, Im going to tell you something Ive never told anyone before. If you repeat it, Ill 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 perceive that cops get the best drugs, Tommy said.Rivera got up. Im going to bring Nick in.No, wait. Ill 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, Id rather you just threaten that I would beat him up.It worked, didnt it?Theres nothing there we can use. Not a thing. If he sticks with that story hell get off on insanity. Its too wild. I want to know how he got the blood out of the bodies.The kid thinks hes a writer. Hes showing off his imagination. Lets let him sit awhile and get something to eat. I want to find the Emperor.That whacko?Hes been reporting seeing a vampire for weeks. Maybe he saw the kid doing one of the murders.