The reporter backed away from the line.
Two coroner’s assistants moved to the body, pushing a gurney with a body bag on it. “You guys done here?” one of them asked Cavuto.
“Yeah,” Cavuto said. “Take him away.”
The coroners spread the body bag out and hoisted the body onto it. “Hey, Inspector, you want to bag this book?”
“What book?” Rivera turned. A paperback copy of Kerouac’s On the Road was lying in the chalk line where the body had been. Rivera slipped on a pair of white cotton gloves and pulled an evidence bag from his jacket pocket. “Here you go, Nick. The guy was a speed reader. Snapped his neck on a meaningful passage.”
Jody glanced at the lightening sky, ducked down an alley, and fell into a trot. She was only a block from home, she’d make it in long before sunrise. She leaped over a dumpster, just to do it, then high-stepped through a pile of crates like a halfback through fallen defenders. She was strong in the blood-high, quick and light on her feet, her body moved, dodged, and leaped on its own—no thought, just fluid motion and perfect balance.
She’d never been athletic in life: the last kid to be picked for kickball, straight C’s in phys ed, no chance as a cheerleader; the self-conscious, one-step dancer with the rhythmic sense of an inbred Aryan. But now she reveled in the movement and the strength, even as her instincts screamed for her to hide from the light.
She heard the policemen’s voices before she saw the blue and red lights from the their cars playing across the walls at the end of the alley. Fear tightened her muscles and she nearly fell in mid-step.
She crept forward and saw the police cars and coroner’s wagon parked in front of the loft. The street was full of milling cops and reporters. She checked her watch and backed down the alley. Five minutes to sunrise.
She looked for a place to hide. There was the dumpster, even a few large garbage cans, three steel doors with massive locks, and a basement window with steel bars. She ran to the window and tried the bars. They moved a bit. She checked her watch. Two minutes. She braced her feet against the brick wall and pulled on the bars with her legs. Rusty bolts tore out of the mortar and the bars moved another half inch. She tried to peer into the window, but the wire-reinforced glass was clouded with dirt and age. She yanked on the bars again and they screamed in protest and came loose. She dropped the grate and was drawing back to kick out the glass when she heard movement behind the window.
Oh my God, there’s someone inside!
She looked around to the dumpster, some fifty feet away. She looked at her watch. If it was right, the sun was up. She was…
The glass shattered behind her. Two hands came through the window, grabbed her ankles, and pulled her inside as she went out.
“These here turtles are defective,” Simon said.
“It’s okay, Simon,” said Tommy.
They were in a Chinatown fish market, where Tommy was trying to purchase two massive snapping turtles from a old Chinese man in a rubber apron and boots.
“You no know turtle!” the old man insisted. “These plime, glade-A turtle. You no know shit about turtle.”
The turtles were in orange crates to immobilize them. The old man sprayed them down with a garden hose to keep them wet.
“And I’m telling you, these turtles are defective,” Simon insisted. “Their eyes are all glazed over. These turtles are on drugs.”
Tommy said, “Really, Simon, it’s okay.”
Simon turned to Tommy and whispered, “You have to bargain with these guys. They won’t respect you if you don’t.”
“Turtle’s not on dlugs,” said the old man. “You want turtle, you pay forty bucks.”
Simon pushed his black Stetson back on his head and sighed. “Look, Hop Sing, you can do time for selling drugged turtles in this city.”
“No dlugs. Fuck you, cowboy. Forty bucks or go away.”
“Twenty.”
“Thirty.”
“Twenty-five and you clean ’em.”
“No,” Tommy said. “I want them alive.”
Simon looked at Tommy as if he had farted in neon. “I’m trying to negotiate here.”
“Thirty,” said the old man. “As is.”
“Twenty-seven,” Simon said.
“Twenty-eight or go home,” said the old man.
Simon turned to Tommy. “Pay him.”
Tommy ticked off the bills and handed them to the old man, who counted them and put them in his rubber apron. “You cowboy friend no know turtle.”
“Thanks,” Tommy said. He and Simon picked up the crates with the turtles and loaded them into the bed of Simon’s truck.
As they climbed into the cab, Simon said, “You got to know how to deal with those little fuckers. Ever since we nuked them, they got a bad attitude.”
“We nuked the Japanese, Simon, not the Chinese.”
“Whatever. You should’a made him clean them for you.”
“No, I want to give them to Jody alive.”
“You’re a charmer, Flood. A lot of guys would’ve just paid the ransom with candy and flowers.”
“Ransom?”
“She’s got your nooky held hostage, ain’t she?”
“No, I just wanted to get her a present—to be nice.”
Simon sighed heavily and rubbed the bridge of his nose as if fighting a headache. “Son, we need to talk.”
• • •
Simon had distinctive ideas about the way women should be handled, and as they drove to SOMA he waxed eloquent on the subject while Tommy listened, thinking, If they knew about him, Simon would be elected the Cosmo Nightmare Man for the next decade.
“You see,” Simon said, “when I was a kid in Texas, we used to walk through the watermelon fields kickin’ each of them old melons as we went until one was so ripe and ready that it busted right open. Then we’d reach in and eat the heart right out of it and move on to the next one. That’s how you got to treat women, Flood.”
“Like kicking watermelons?”
“Right. Now you take that new cashier. She wants you, boy. But you’re thinkin’, I got me a piece at home so I don’t need her. Right?”
“Right,” Tommy said.
“Wrong. You got one at home that you’re buying presents for and saying sweet things and tiptoeing around the house so as not to upset her and generally acting like a spineless nooky slave. But if you put it to that new cashier, then you got one up on your old lady. You can do what you want, when you want, and if she gets pissy and don’t put out, you go back to your cashier. Your old lady has to try harder. There’s competition. It’s supply and demand. God bless America, it’s nooky capitalism.”
“I’m lost. I thought it was like watermelon farming.”
“Whatever. Point is, you’re whipped, Flood. You can’t have no self-respect if you’re whipped. And you can’t have no fun.” Simon turned on Tommy’s street and pulled the truck over to the curb. “Something going on here.”
There were four police cars parked in the street in front of the loft and a coroner’s van was pulling away.
“Wait here,” Tommy said. He got out of the car and walked toward the cops. A sharp-featured Hispanic cop in a suit met Tommy in the middle of the street. His badge wallet hung open from his belt; he was holding a plastic bag. Inside it Tommy saw a dog-eared copy of On the Road. He recognized the coffee stains on the cover.
“This street is closed, sir,” the cop said. “Crime investigation.”
“But I just live right there,” Tommy said, pointing to the loft.
“Really,” the cop said, raising an eyebrow. “Where are you coming from?”
“The fucks going on here, pancho?” Simon said, coming up behind Tommy. “I got a truckful of dyin’ turtles and I ain’t got all damn day.”
“Oh Christ,” Tommy said, hanging his head.
CHAPTER 22
A NOD TO THE QUEEN OF THE DAMNED
It only took five minutes to convince the police that Tommy had been at work
all night and had seen nothing. Simon had done most of the talking. Tommy was so shocked to see his book in the cop’s hand that he couldn’t find the answers to even the simplest questions. He was, however, able to convince the cop that his shocked state came from a body having been found outside his apartment. Sometimes it paid to play on the “I just fell off the turnip truck from Indiana” image.
They hauled the turtles up the steps and set the crates on the floor in the kitchen area.
“Where’s the little woman?” Simon asked, eyeing the huge chest freezer.
“Probably still sleeping,” Tommy said. “Grab yourself a beer out of the fridge. I’ll check on her.”
Tommy palmed open the bedroom door, then slipped through and closed it behind him. He thought, I’ve got to keep Simon out of here. He’s going to want Jody to get up and…
The bed was empty.
Tommy ran to the bathroom and looked in the tub, thinking that Jody might have been caught there at sunrise, but except for a rust ring, the tub was empty. He looked under the bed, found nothing but an old sock, then tore open the closet door and pushed the hanging clothes aside. Panic rose in his throat and came out in a scream of, “No!”
“You okay in there?” Simon said from the kitchen.
“She’s not here!”
Simon opened the door. “You got a nice crib here, Flood. You inherit some money or something?” Simon said. Then he spotted the panic on Tommy’s face. “What’s the matter?”
“She’s not here.”
“So, she probably went out early to get a doughnut or something.”
“She can’t go out during the day,” Tommy said before he realized what he was saying. “I mean, she never goes out early.”
“Don’t sweat it. I thought you were going to teach me to read. Let’s drink some beers and read some fucking books, okay?”
“No, I have to go look for her. She could be out in the sun…”
“Chill, Flood. She’s fine. The worst that could happen is she’s out with another guy. You might be a free man.” Simon picked up a book from the stack by the bed. “Let’s read this one. What’s this one?”
Tommy wasn’t listening. He was seeing Jody’s burned body lying in a gutter somewhere. How could she let it happen? Didn’t she check the almanac? He had to look for her. But where? You can’t search a city the size of San Francisco.
Simon threw the book back on the stack and headed out of the bedroom, “Okay then, Slick, I’m out of here. Thanks for the beer.”
“Okay,” Tommy said. Then the idea of spending the day alone, waiting, threw him into another wave of panic. “No, Simon! Wait. We’ll read.”
“That one on the top of the stack,” Simon said. “What’s that one?”
Tommy picked it up. “The Vampire Lestat, by Anne Rice. I hear it’s good.”
“Then grab a beer and let’s get literate.”
• • •
Rivera, bleary-eyed and looking as if he had slept in his suit, sat at his desk looking over his notes. No matter how he shuffled them, they didn’t make sense, didn’t show a pattern. The only link between the victims was the way they had died: no motive. They wouldn’t get the autopsy report for another twelve hours, but there was no doubt that the same person had done the killings.
Nick Cavuto came through the squad room door carrying a box of doughnuts and a copy of the San Francisco Examiner. “They fucking named him. The Examiner is calling him the Whiplash Killer. Once they name the killer, our problems double. You got anything?”
Rivera waved to the notes spread over his desk and shrugged. “I’m out of it, Nick. I can’t even read my own writing. You take a look.”
Cavuto took a maple stick from the box and sat down across from Rivera. He grabbed a handful of papers and began leafing through them, then stopped and flipped back. He looked up. “You talked to this Flood kid this morning, right?”
Rivera was looking at the doughnuts. His stomach lurched at the thought of eating one. “Yeah, he lives across the street from where we found the body. He works at the Marina Safeway—was working at the time of the murder.”
Cavuto raised an eyebrow. “The kid was staying at the motel where we found the old lady.”
“You’re kidding.”
Cavuto held out the notes for Rivera to read. “List of guests. A uniform talked to the kid, said he was at work, but no one confirmed it.”
Rivera looked up apologetically. “I can’t believe I missed that. The kid was a little squirrelly when I talked to him. His friend did most of the talking.”
Cavuto gathered up the papers. “Go home. Shower and sleep. I’ll call the manager of the Safeway and make sure the kid was working at the time of the murders. We’ll go there tonight and talk to the kid.”
“Okay, then let’s ask him how he’s getting the blood out of the bodies.”
Tommy had spent two hours trying to explain the difference between vowels and consonants to Simon before he gave up and sent the cowboy home to wax his truck and watch “Sesame Street.” Maybe Simon wasn’t meant to read. Maybe he was meant to be all instinct and no intelligence. In a way, Tommy admired him. Simon didn’t worry, he took things at face value as they happened. Simon was like the strong, free and easy Cassady to Tommy’s introspective, overanalytical Kerouac. Maybe he would put Simon in his story of the little girl growing up in the South. The story he would be working on if he weren’t worrying about Jody.
He sat all day on the couch, reading The Vampire Lestat until he couldn’t concentrate anymore, then he paced the apartment, checking his watch and railing to Peary, who listened patiently from the freezer.
“You know, Peary, it’s inconsiderate of her not to leave me a note. I don’t have any idea what she does while I’m at work. She could be having a dozen affairs and I wouldn’t even know.”
He checked the almanac eight times for the time the sun would set.
“I know, I know, until I met Jody, nothing really ever happened to me. That’s why I came here, right? Okay, I’m being unfair, but maybe I’d be better off with a normal woman. Jody just doesn’t understand that I’m not like other guys. That I’m special. I’m a writer. I can’t handle stress as well as other guys—I take it personal.”
Tommy heated up a frozen dinner and left the freezer lid open so Peary could hear him better.
“I have to look to the future, you know. When I’m a famous writer I’m going to have to go on book tours. She can’t go with me. What can I say, ‘No, I’m sorry, but I can’t go. If I go away my wife will starve to death.’”
He paced around the turtles, who were struggling in their crates. One of them raised his spiny head and considered Tommy.
“I know how you guys feel. Just waiting for someone to eat you. You think I don’t know how that feels?”
When he could no longer look them in the eye, he carried the turtles into the bathroom, then returned to the living room and tried to get through a few more chapters of The Vampire Lestat.
“This is wrong,” he said to Peary. “It says that vampires don’t have sex after they are turned. Of course it only talks about male vampires. What if she’s been faking? You know, she could be frigid except for when she drinks my blood.”
He was working himself into a frenzy of sexual insecurity—something that felt familiar and almost comfortable—when the phone rang. He yanked it off the cradle.
“Hello.”
A woman’s voice, surprised but trying to not to show it, said, “Hello. I’d like to speak to Jody, please.”
“She’s not here,” Tommy said. “She’s at work,” he added quickly.
“I called her at work and they said she left her job over a month ago.”
“Uh, she has a new job. I don’t know the number.”
“Well, whoever you are,” the woman said, losing the pretense of politeness, “would you tell her that she still has a mother. And tell her that it is common courtesy to tell your mother when you change your phone number. A
nd tell her that I need to know what she is going to do for the holidays.”
“I’ll tell her,” Tommy said.
“Are you the stockbroker? What was it…Kurt?”
“No, I’m Tommy.”
“Well, it’s only two weeks until Christmas, Tommy, so if you’re still around, we’ll be meeting.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Tommy said. Like I look forward to a root canal, he thought.
Jody’s mom hung up. Tommy put down the phone and checked his watch. Only an hour to sunset. “She’s alive,” he said to Peary, “I’m sure of it. If she survived her mother, she can survive anything.”
She heard steam rushing through pipes, rats scurrying in shredded paper, the spinnerets of spiders weaving webs, the footsteps of a heavy man, and the padding and panting of dogs. She opened her eyes and looked around. She was on her back on the basement floor, alone. Cardboard boxes were scattered about the room. Moonlight and sounds of movement spilled through the broken window.
She got up and stepped up on a crate to look out the window. She was met by a yap and a snort and the growling countenance of a bug-eyed dog with a pan strapped to his head.
“Ack!” She wiped the slime from her cheek.
The Emperor fell to his knees and reached through the window. “Oh goodness, are you all right, dear?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“Are you injured? Shall I call the police?”
“No, thank you. Could you give me a hand?” She would have leaped through the window, but it wasn’t a good idea in front of the Emperor. She took his hand and let him pull her through the window.
Once on her feet in the alley, she dusted off her jeans. Bummer had fallen into a yapping fit. The Emperor picked up the little dog and stuffed him into his oversized coat pocket.
“I must apologize for Bummer’s behavior. There’s no excuse for it, really, but he is a victim of inbreeding. Being royalty myself, I make allowances. If it’s any consolation, it was only on Bummer’s insistence that we ventured down this alley and found you.”
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