"Heinous f.u.c.kery most foul," said the Emperor.
"Ya think?" said Cavuto.
b.u.mmer growled from his pocket sanctuary.
"You guys are not helping," Rivera said. Then to Lash again: "You have a description of this hooker?"
Lash described Blue, glossing quickly over the fact that she was blue, and spending entirely too much time describing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
"They were outstanding," Barry said. "I kept them."
Rivera turned to Troy Lee, who seemed the most rational of these insane b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.
"Explain, please."
"We found silicone implants wrapped up in the rug where we had left Blue."
"Uh-huh," Rivera said. "Intact?"
"Huh?" Troy inquired.
"Were they all cut up?"
"You think someone cut them out of her and took the body?" Troy asked.
"No," Rivera said. "So now you"ve lost three of your buddies?"
"Yeah. Drew, Jeff, and Gustavo didn"t show up tonight."
Rivera had Lash get the addresses of the missing Animals from the office and wrote them down in his notebook.
"And you don"t think that they might just be out partying?"
"We called all the phones, checked their houses," Lash said. "The door was hanging open at Drew"s, and Jeff had left half a beer in the driveway, which he would never do. Besides, Jeff and Drew might flake, but Gustavo wouldn"t. We even went to his cousin"s house in Oakland looking for him."
"And he did not esta en la biblioteca esta en la biblioteca either," said Barry, who, for some reason, believed that all Spanish-speaking people spent a lot of time in the library and had therefore checked there for the intrepid night porter. either," said Barry, who, for some reason, believed that all Spanish-speaking people spent a lot of time in the library and had therefore checked there for the intrepid night porter.
"No more bodies that you might have forgotten to mention?"
"Nuh-uh," Lash said. "Our money was gone, though. But we"d given it all to Blue anyway."
"I didn"t," Clint said. "Mutual funds, less ten percent for the church."
"You gave six hundred thousand dollars to a hooker?" Rivera almost slapped the kid. Almost.
"Well"-Lash looked at Barry and Troy Lee, then, trying to suppress a grin-"yeah."
Rivera shook his head. "Keep the door locked and don"t report this to anyone else."
"That"s it?" Lash said. "You aren"t going to arrest us or anything?"
"For what?" Rivera flipped his notebook closed and tucked it into the inside pocket of his suit coat.
"Uh, I don"t know."
"Me either," said Rivera. "Emperor, you stay inside tonight with these guys. Okay?"
"As you wish, Inspector." The Emperor scratched behind Lazarus"s ears.
"That okay?" Rivera said to Lash.
Lash nodded. "Are we going to be safe?" he asked.
Rivera stopped, looked around at the Animals and the Emperor and his dogs. "Nope," he said. "Let"s go, Nick." He turned and walked out the door.
The foghorn was lowing across the Bay as the detectives walked back to their car. Fort Mason, just across the street, was barely visible in the rolling cloud of gray mist.
"You think the old vampire is hunting the Animals?" Cavuto asked.
"Someone is," Rivera said. "But I"m not sure it"s him."
"You think it might be the redhead and the kid?"
"Could be, but I don"t think so. You know, even with the vampire, we always had an identifiable MO-broken neck and ma.s.sive blood loss, on a victim who turned out to be terminally ill, right?"
"Yeah."
"So if he went after these kids, why no bodies?"
"So it"s Flood and the redhead. And they hide their bodies."
"I think it could be worse than that."
"Like worse in a way that we"ll never be able to open the bookstore and may in fact end up doing time for taking the vampire"s art collection?"
"Like worse in that the hooker and the missing Animals aren"t dead at all."
"How is that worse?" Then Cavuto realized how that was worse.
They climbed into the car and stared at the windshield for a while without saying anything.
Finally, after a full minute, Cavuto said, "We"re f.u.c.ked."
"Yep," Rivera said.
"The whole city is f.u.c.ked."
"Yep."
26.
Being the Chronicles of Abby Normal: Star-Crossed Lover and Tragic Femme Fatale OMG! We are doomed by our forbidden love! We are like from different feuding families, from the wrong side of the tracks, he is like year of the Rabbit and I am a Leo, so we are even star-crossed, and it"s a well-known fact that rabbits and lions have a strained relationship. OMFG! He"s so hot! He rocks my stripy socks. If we had moors, I would so be off brooding upon one, my delicate jaw muscles clenched as I stared off into the mist, feeling my profound missingness for him. (I can"t believe that San Francisco doesn"t have a moor. Everywhere you go we have automated, coin-operated robotic bathrooms, or Frisbee golf courses, or some new stainless-steel epileptic razor-blade public-art thingy, you"d think the least they could do would be to install a decent moor-because there are a lot more people who like brooding than like Frisbee golf. I"m pretty sure moors can be used for other purposes, too, like hauntings and hiding bodies and family picnics and whatnot.) Thus I am forced to do my brooding at Tulley"s Coffee on Market Street.
It took most of the day for us to move the Countess and the vampyre Flood to Jared"s room. First we had to wrap them up in duct tape and garbage bags to protect them from the sun, then get them down the hill from the Bay Bridge in the garden cart, which was totally physically hard, and not like taking X and dancing or playing DDR all night, more like work. Then, when we were loading them into the minivan, these two cops come by.
And they"re all, "So, what are you doing with your piercings and your magenta-on-black hair, and what can we do to further repress your creativity? Bl.u.s.ter-blah-blah."
And Jared was all, "Nothing." All wussy and guilty-sounding. He had the front end of the Countess at the time and he totally just dropped her headfirst on the floorboard of the van.
So I was like, "f.u.c.ktard! The Countess is going to rip your nads off when she awakens!" (And she might, too, although when we unwrapped her she seemed unbruised.) And the cop was all, "Hold it right there, kid." With his hand on his gun like I was going to go all Columbine on his a.s.s or something. So I knew it was time for some strategy.
So I stepped over to the cop, and I started whispering like I didn"t want Jared to hear. And I"m all, "Officer, I"m really embarra.s.sed to even be seen like this. I"m a Kappa Delta pledge and we"re doing this hazing thing. I wouldn"t be caught dead dressed like this, but it"s like the most popular and powerful sorority on campus."
And the cop is all, "What about the guy? He"s not in your sorority."
And I was all, "Shhhhhhh. G.o.d, you want to hurt her feelings? They made her shave her head like that and she"s having a hard enough time with that and being totally flat chested. Frankly, I don"t think she"s going to make it. Everyone knows that KKDs are pretty. h.e.l.lo." I batted my eyelashes and sort of pushed my basically invisible b.o.o.bs together with my arms, as I have often seen done in music videos.
And the cop was all, "Can I see your student ID?"
And I was like, f.u.c.k, because I didn"t know which college would be most likely to have a sorority, so I went with my Berkeley student ID, because Berkeley is a well-known bastion of hippie behavior and higher learning in which a sorority girl would probably have to blow like a hundred football players just to keep her GPA up. And cops like football.
So he was all, "Okay, but make sure there"s plenty of airholes so your friends can breathe."
And I was all, "Sure thing. See ya later, cop."
So when we got the masters to Jared"s house, his stepmom was all, "So, I see you have your little friend with you."
And Jared had to play chilly, so he was like, yeah, we have a school project. And stepmonster was so proto o.r.g.a.s.mic that Jared was with a girl that she didn"t even say much when we dragged the bodies through the den. Jared was all, "They"re for social studies. We"re doing replicas of Egyptian mummies."
Despite the complete embarra.s.sment for me as a fellow woman, I"m grateful that when fathers pick their trophy wives, they don"t check resumes or SAT scores, because you couldn"t get away with that s.h.i.t with a woman of normal intelligence. But Jared"s stepmonster was all, "Oh, how nice for you. Would you like some juice?" Fortunately she wasn"t around in sixth grade when Jared and I actually did our mummy project. We got in trouble for charging three hundred dollars" worth of Ace bandages on my mom"s Visa, and my sister Ronnie has never fully recovered the feeling in her feet (and has an anxiety attack whenever she"s in an enclosed s.p.a.ce). But there was no gangrene or amputations like the doctors threatened, and we got a B, so I don"t see what all the noise and counseling was about.
Anyway, after we unwrapped the Countess, I knew I had to go back and feed Chet, like I promised the disgusting huge cat guy, and since we had now shared a moment of intimacy, I felt obligated. So we shoved the vampyre Flood under Jared"s bed, because Jared wanted to sit on the bed and play Xbox and it"s a single bed. So, anyway, I caught the bus on Twenty-fourth Street, and got back to the SOMA with just enough time to feed Chet before the old naked vampyre awakened from his undead slumber. And I took Jared"s dagger with me in my biohazard messenger bag, because I thought I would dispatch Elijah by decapitation as, like, an extra-credit thing for the Countess.
Shut up. It wasn"t like I went down in the bas.e.m.e.nt in my nightgown to check on a blown fuse when the radio clearly had stated that there was a psycho killer on the loose and he was probably in the bas.e.m.e.nt. I"m not stupid. I put on Jared"s motocross boots and his leather jacket and spiked dog collar, and tied my hair back, so I was totally Thunderdome-ready. How hard could it be to feed the cat and cut the head off a sleeping old guy, anyway? It"s not like they wake up. I mean, we bonked Flood"s head on the steps going to Jared"s room like eight times and he didn"t even groan.
So I would have been all good and totally in line to be Princess of Darkness or at least a.s.sistant Manager of Darkness, except when I was going up the steps I heard the dryer open. And I was all, Uh-oh Uh-oh. Since when is sundown like at five-o"clock? What am I, nine years old that I should have sunset at five o"clock? Sunset shouldn"t be until like eight or nine o"clock, right? Right?
So, I"m like, WHOA. And I froze. And I stood there for like a half an hour, not moving at all, because I didn"t buckle like the top buckles of Jared"s motocross boots, to show my casual bada.s.sness, so it was like I was wearing f.u.c.king sleigh bells. (I know, I"m a tard.) So I couldn"t move.
Then, after about a year, I hear this car pull up outside and the doors open, and I"m thinking-h.e.l.lo, Diversion, my old friend. And I ran out the security door and right into this tall blond ho. And she"s dressed all couture and s.h.i.t, like it"s fashion week at church or something, except she"s with three of the guys from the Hummer limo, and she"s pale as albino monkey c.u.m. And I don"t mean in a good way either. I mean in a sort of "Hey, Myrtle Joe Cornfed, y"all let go your stepdaddy"s p.e.n.i.s and get over here and turn the channel to NASCAR" "Hey, Myrtle Joe Cornfed, y"all let go your stepdaddy"s p.e.n.i.s and get over here and turn the channel to NASCAR" kind of way. I mean, she had no mascara on at all! kind of way. I mean, she had no mascara on at all!
Then she just picks me up by the arms and it hurt a lot, and I"m like kicking and thrashing and all, and she throws back her head and here come the fangs.
And I"m all, "No way. They"ll just let any-f.u.c.king-body into the coven."
And she"s all, "Not you. Unless you know where my money is."
And I"m all, "Step off, s.k.a.n.k."
And she goes to bite me, and something yanks her back off her feet and I go flying.
Next thing, I"m looking up at the old vampyre in his yellow tracksuit, who is holding the blond ho by the hair, and the pale limo guys are like coming in on him. And Tracksuit is all, "Against the rules, pet. You can"t go w.i.l.l.y-nilly turning everyone you meet. It attracts the wrong kind of attention."
And wham, he smacks her face on the hood of her Mercedes, leaving a face print on the paint, I swear on the crusty hippie grave of my mother.
So I"m all, "Owned! Bee-yatch! Dog f.u.c.king owned you!" Doing a minor booty dance of ownage, perhaps, in retrospect, a bit prematurely. (I believe hip-hop to be the appropriate language for taunting, at least until I learn French.) So they all turn on me. And I"m all, "awkward." So I started backing across the street. And crusty old vampyre bounces monkey c.u.m"s face off the hood of the Mercedes a couple of more times, then drops her and comes for me. The limo guys are all sort of standing by the car like they are waiting for instructions or something. Then one of them says, "Hey," and starts coming my way, too.
So I"m at the wall across the street, and I know I can"t run, so I reach into my bag and pull Jared"s dagger. And Tracksuit starts laughing-like really stoner laughing, pointing at my ensemble.
And I was all, "Shut up, f.u.c.kface, this knife and boots totally go with fishnets." Except for the Countess, I realize now that vampyres lose all fashion sense at death.
But then I hear this really loud thumper coming from down the alley, like club music you can feel in your breastbone, and this totally race-pimped yellow Honda comes screaming out of the alley. Who knew you could even get a car down that alley.
So the old vampyre has to jump back to avoid being run over and the limo guys jump back, and I was kind of hiding my head in my arms, but I hear, "Get in," and it"s the cool Manga-haired Asian guy who I"d seen outside the loft before.
And I"m all, "What?" Because the music is really loud.
And he"s all, "Get in."
And I"m all, "What?"
And by this time the old vampyre has jumped over the hood of the Honda and is about to grab me when there"s this flash. Really more than a flash, because it stayed on. But there was this blinding light. And the music goes down and I hear, "Get in."
So I look into the light, and I"m like, "Grandma, is that you?"
Okay, I didn"t say that. I"m totally f.u.c.king with you. I looked into the light and saw the Manga-haired guy, wearing sungla.s.ses, and he"s waving for me to get in his car. And then I see that the old vampyre is charred like Wile E. Coyote after a bad rocket shoes test. And so are the limo guys, and they"re smoking and limping away from the Honda, which is shining like a star or something.
And Manga is all, "Now!"
And I"m all, "Shut up, you"re not the boss of me." But I got in the Honda and we totally drifted around the corner, and when we"re a block or two away Steve (that"s his name, Steve) kills the ginormous floodlights in the backseat and I can sort of see again.
And he"s all, "High-intensity ultraviolet."
And I"m, "You, too."
And he"s like, "What are you talking about?"
I"m like, "I thought it was a compliment."