by Lee Killough
Holding its gaze, he slid a foot forward. The rat remained motionless. Step by step, he crossed the space between them. The rat never twitched. Within reach of it, Garreth squatted on his heels. The smell of the rat reached him, a musky rodent odor, strong but not as strong as the tantalizing scent of its blood. He steeled himself to touch the creature. Blood is blood. He drew a breath, smelling that blood…and reached for his prey.
The rat’s fur felt spiky in his hand. He waited for it to struggle, but the creature hung quiescent in his grasp. One wrench would break its neck, or a bend of his elbow bring it to his mouth, but he hesitated. Rats carried disease. How did pathogens affect the undead? They must drink diseased blood once in a while. Was it like buzzards, who he remembered someone telling him could eat infected flesh without sickening? Oh, yeah…it had been Marti’s girlfriend Janice the walking encyclopedia, the time she and her husband drove to Las Vegas with Marti and him and they spotted the birds eating roadkill along the highway.
Maddened by the rat’s blood smell, the hunger grabbed for control. Bite! Tear! Drink! Garreth fought back. All right…but do it his way, not the hunger’s. He remembered the switchblade in his pocket. That would keep him from having to actually bite the rat. Then what?
The rat remained quiet. Draining the blood into the palm of his hand and licking it up from there sounded not only slow but primitive. There must be a more…civilized solution.
Garreth stood, looking around for inspiration. His gaze fell on a trash barrel. He carried the rat to it and peered in. Almost on top of the litter sat a coffee carry-out foam cup, lipstick on one side of the rim.
After this he would know to bring a cup of his own, maybe one of those collapsing things for camping, that fit inconspicuously in a pocket. For now, necessity ruled. He set the cup on a crate then, using both hands, broke the rat’s neck and brought out the switchblade.
The blade sprang open. He cut the rat’s throat and held it over the cup by its hind legs. The stream of blood set his throat and stomach burning in anticipation, even while his brain still recoiled. Blood is blood, he reminded himself. Blood he needed. And when the rat stopped dripping, he resolutely picked up the cup, lipstick away from him, and gulped down the contents before he had time to think further.
With the first taste, all revulsion vanished in a savage appetite for more. At the same time, the blood tasted flat, lacking, as though he drank watery tomato juice when he expected the peppery fire of a Bloody Mary. His skin crawled. All blood was not created equal, then, and what the hunger demanded was human blood.
Suck it up. This is all you’re getting.
He drained the cup to the last drop and went hunting another rat.
7
“Mik-san!” Harry came up out of his desk chair. “What did the doctor say?”
“You can have back your guest room.”
Around Homicide, other detectives converged on Garreth.
“Is that our Lazarus behind those Foster Grants?” Evelyn Kolb said.
Faye and Centrello pounded him on the back. “You’re looking damn good for a dead man.”
From the doorway of his office, Serruto said, “Better than the last time I saw you, anyway.”
The benefit of drinking heartily.
The lieutenant beckoned Garreth into his office and closed the door. “So. How did your physical go?”
“Better than I expected.” Needing, to his astonishment, minimal persuasion…once they passed the dangerous “say ahhh” where his fangs wanted to extend. Even in miserable daylight the blood pressure and heart rate Dr. Charles fussed about before somehow made it into the “normal” range, albeit just barely. He aced the reflex and treadmill stress tests. The rats had not given their lives and blood in vain. Garreth handed Serruto the evaluation form. “I’m cleared for duty.”
In anticipation of which he had stopped by his apartment last night for the tie tack replica of his seven-pointed star badge. Wearing a turtleneck instead of shirt and tie, he used it as a lapel pin.
Serruto frowned from the form to Garreth. “This soon? That’s hard to believe. You still look pale to me, and gaunt.”
Garreth shrugged. “I am losing weight, and the doc wants me losing even more.”
Serruto fingered the form. “Your neck is healed?”
Garreth pulled down his turtleneck to show just scars…deceptively livid in color, thanks to being touched up with blusher. “My family are fast healers, and I’ve been giving it every chance…doing nothing since Saturday but sleeping and eating, and drinking an herbal tea my Grandma Doyle swears by.”
Well, he slept plenty by day — except Tuesday afternoon when he dragged himself to the Drivers License Bureau to replace his drivers license and pick up his car at the Hall. Nights he spent decimating the rat population on the Embarcadero, feeding the little drained corpses to the bay.
Not a way he liked living, though. Last night he came close to being caught by a watchman…making him crouch behind crates with breath held until the man walked out of sight. He needed a way to hunt less often and lower his risk of discovery.
Serruto frowned at the evaluation. “I don’t know what the man’s thinking. But the shrink still has to weigh in. Two o’clock, right? Don’t miss it.”
“I won’t.” Not a lie. He wanted to work…to hunt down Lane. “Do you mind if I hang out here until time to see Leonard?”
Finally Serruto smiled. “Go ahead.”
He went to his desk, sitting back-to-back with Harry’s. Unlike the medical exam, the shrink worried him. Was passing a simple matter of hypnotizing the man and telling him: You conclude that I am psychologically stable and fit to return to duty. Or did he have to contend with tests which, like the ECG, created a material record? How did he influence those?
Harry looked across from ending a phone call. “Relax, Mik-san. Leonard isn’t going to eat you.”
His nerves showed? He sighed. “Maybe he will.”
He expected Harry to tell him he would do fine. Instead, Harry said, “If he doesn’t okay you for duty right away, it isn’t the end of the world. Go visit your folks. Visit your son.”
Garreth frowned. “You think I won’t pass?”
Harry hesitated a moment, toying with the phone he still held in one hand, a finger of his other hand on the switch hook. “Let’s face it; you’ve been strung tight since the attack. You pick at your food, even things you’ve always loved. You hardly talk. It’s like you’re looking over your shoulder. Some rape victims have this fear the rapist will come back after them. Is that what’s going on, you’re feeling Barber’s going to come back and finish the job on you?”
Garreth stared at him. Looking over his shoulder…yeah…good guess. Just not for Lane, though it had been like rape…forcing herself on him, stealing a kind of innocence, tearing his life apart as savagely as his throat, but with no hope of healing.
Harry released the switch hook and dialed a number. At her desk on across the room, Evelyn Kolb pulled her thermos from the knee hole of her desk and pumped herself a mug of tea.
Garreth eyed the thermos. What size was that…a quart maybe? Filling a bigger version of something like that with blood would take care of him for…three, four, five days? Except he needed to keep the blood from clotting. He picked up his own phone and dialed the Crime Lab.
“I’ve got a question. If a suspect wants to keep blood from clotting so we’ll think it’s fresher than it really is, what could he use? Heparin?” He remembered Marti mentioning that.
The blood specialist they passed him to said, “Probably not. Sodium citrate is cheaper and available at almost any chemical supply house. Plus it isn’t a drug, so it’s not controlled.”
“How much would he have to use?”
“Let’s see.” Garreth heard pages turning and mumbled calculations, then finally: “It looks like a cc of a two and a half per cent solution preserves two hundred and fifty milliliters of blood. That answer your question?”
“Y
es. Thanks.” Garreth hoped so.
As he hung up, so did Harry, eyes gleaming. “We’ve got a lead in your case. I’ve tracked down Barber’s agent.”
Barber’s agent? Garreth stood when Harry did.
Harry frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Coming with you.”
“Whoa!” Harry shook his head. “Even if you were back on duty, you can’t have anything to do with this case, not when you’re the victim.”
Yes, yes…but he needed to hear what the agent said! Who knew what clue it might give him, knowing what he did about Lane, but slip by Harry. He stared Harry in the eyes, quashing guilt at treating him this way. “I’m just riding along. Let me ride along.”
After a momentary blank expression, Harry said, “Well, all right. As long as you’re just riding along. I ask all the questions.”
Garreth nodded. “Absolutely. I’m just a shadow.”
8
Harry asked the questions. Not that the answers gave them much information. In the office in her home in the Mission District, Bella Carver — sleek, dressed in a power suit — told them, “I have no idea where Miss Barber is. She phoned a week ago Tuesday afternoon and told me not to book her any gigs for an indefinite period.”
So it was his visit that spooked her, Garreth reflected. She put the escape wheels in motion right afterward.
“She said her mother is critically ill and she intends to stay with her until the crisis is over.”
“You don’t know where her mother lives?” Harry asked.
“No.”
Harry frowned. “You mean you don’t have any personal information on your clients?”
The agent frowned back. “Lane has a veritable encyclopedia of personal information, a bio for every occasion. All probably imaginary. Look, Inspector, I find her gigs and she pays me ten percent. That was our agreement. She gives me no trouble by performing drunk or strung out, or not showing up at all, and she brings me a steady income, so I don’t pry into her life.” Carver paused. “Once or twice I asked her personal questions and she changed the subject. She looks like a hot, foxy kid, but she’s ice and steel underneath.”
No kidding, Garreth thought.
As they left, Harry shook his head. “I could have learned that much on the phone. Where do you want to eat lunch?”
The never ending problem of dodging meals. Garreth grimaced. “I’m on a diet, remember? We can eat anywhere you want, as long as I can buy a cup of tea there.”
Harry’s brows rose. “You’re serious about the weight this time.”
“Of course.” As though he had a choice.
“Well we’re in the Mission. I vote for Italian.” He smirked at Garreth. “You can have salad.”
Garreth sighed. “Fine.”
Not fine at all. The moment they walked in the door of the restaurant and he smelled garlic, his lungs froze. Panic flooded him as he tried to breathe and could not.
“Garreth! What’s wrong?” Harry shook him by the shoulders.
Garreth struggled desperately to suck in air, but he might as well have been trying to inhale concrete. He would suffocate in here! Half dragging Harry, half carried by him, Garreth bolted for the street.
Outside, the air turned from concrete to cold molasses. Garreth staggered up the sidewalk until the last foul taint of garlic disappeared. Only then did the air return to normal consistency. He leaned against a building, head thrown back, gulping air greedily.
“Garreth, what happened?” Harry demanded.
He had no idea what to say. Would mention of garlic start fatal thought trains? “I don’t know but I’m all right now.” As long as he avoided garlic. Put one more piece of the legend in the truth column. “It was nothing.”
“Nothing! That wasn’t nothing, partner. Let’s get you to — ”
From the direction of their car, a radio sputtered. “Inspector 55.”
Harry hurried back to the car to roger the call. Garreth followed with unsteady knees.
“Public service 555-6116,” Dispatch said.
Harry’s brows rose. “Sound familiar?”
Garreth shook his head.
They drove to the nearest phone booth and Harry dialed the number. Garreth could not hear Harry’s end of the conversation, only see his lips moving through the glass wall of the booth, but as he talked, Harry became more animated. He ran back to the car at a run and jumped behind the wheel.
“Hey, Mik-san, are we still interested in Wink O'Hare?”
Garreth sat up straight. “Are you kidding? Did someone find him?”
“Rosella Hambright’s sister just dropped a dime on him. Seems he got peeved at his girlfriend and worked her over. The sister wants Wink’s hide for it. But she says we have to hurry. He’s getting ready to leave town.”
“Then let’s hurry,” Garreth said.
Harry started to pull away from the curb, then stopped. “Wait. You can’t go.”
What! No! “Come on, Harry. The sister said he’s getting ready to run. We don’t want to lose him!”
Harry shook his head. “Letting you ride along to interview the agent was one thing, and I don’t know why I let you talk me into that, but going on an arrest…totally different. Especially after that anxiety attack or whatever it was. You could get hurt. Besides, you don’t even have a gun.”
Garreth bent down and pulled the Undercover from its ankle holster. “Always be prepared.” He pulled off his dark glasses. “Look at me, Harry.”
Harry looked.
Garreth stared him in the eyes. “I’m coming with you. We worked this case together. We’re going to arrest the bastard together.”
They radioed in the details and collected two Northern District patrol units for backup on the way. When they arrived, Harry surreptitiously checked the house before they moved in…a decaying two-story building with poverty ground like dirt into its facade. Wink was supposed to be in the second-floor apartment. On his return, Harry reported that narrow, bare stairs led up from a front hall. Two windows overlooked the street. With only a few feet between it and the neighbors on each side, it had no side windows. In back, old wooden stairs in two flights rose to a narrow back porch with one window into the apartment and a window in the upper half of the rear door.
The wages of sin is the hell of hiding in stinking holes, Garreth reflected.
Harry deployed everyone, a uniform behind a patrol car out front, covering the front windows, another around the corner of a building covering the rear window. A third uniform would go in the front with Harry, and the fourth, up the back with Garreth.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” Harry asked.
“I’m fine. Let’s go.”
“We’ll give him a chance to come out. If he doesn’t, you break in the back door. I’ll go through the front at the same time. Back door and hall door are at right angles to each other, so we shouldn’t be in each other’s cross fire, but for God’s sake be careful about that.”
Garreth and his uniformed partner, a barrel-chested veteran named Rhoades, squeezed between buildings to the back and eased up the stairs, checking each tread for betraying creaks. Keeping low, they crossed the porch, then flattened themselves against the building on each side of the door. The jamb looked half-rotted, easy for kicking in.
With his ear pressed against the side of the house, Garreth heard Harry knock at the front door and call, “Wink O’Hare, this is the police.”
Nothing stirred in the apartment.
“Open the door, Wink.”
A board creaked inside and stealthy footsteps approached their door. Garreth met Rhoades’ eyes and by sign language indicated he would kick in the door then enter high. Rhoades would dive in low. The uniformed officer nodded his readiness.
“O’Hare, open up!”
The footsteps inside moved closer.
“Garreth! Get him!” Harry yelled.
Garreth raised a leg and smashed his heel into the door just above the knob. The door slammed
inward. With it a wave of pain like fire burned up his leg and through his body. He staggered sideways. At the same time a shot sounded explosively inside the kitchen and a bullet thudded into the roof of the porch.
Rhoades swore. Garreth tried to shoot back at Wink, pointing his gun around the edge of the jamb and tilting his head just enough to expose one eye for aiming. But fire exploded at him again, paralyzing his finger on the trigger.
“Shoot!” Rhoades yelled.
Garreth could not. Fire seared him. What the hell was this?
The question raced through his head between one heartbeat and the next. An answer followed… but he could not accept it. The prohibition against entering a dwelling uninvited was illogical. It had to be just a legend! He had no trouble at Harry’s place the morning he took refuge there. It made even less sense for a bullet from his gun to be blocked, too. Besides, this was a hideout, not a real dwelling…a hideout!
Wink disappeared from the kitchen into the rest of the apartment and two more shots sounded, this time followed by a man’s agonized yell. Garreth could not tell whether the shots came from Wink’s.45 or Harry’s Beretta.
“Harry! Harry!”
“Don’t just stand there!” Rhoades yelled.
The uniformed officer hurled himself through the door, shouldering Garreth aside. As a third shot sounded, he disappeared through the doorway on the far side of the kitchen.
With pain wrapping him in flame, Garreth pressed at the opening, willing himself through it. The hot reek of blood filled the apartment. “Harry, are you all right?”
“Get in here, Mikaelian,” Rhoades’s voice snapped.
The pain vanished instantly. Garreth stumbled forward, cold with fear.
Fear justified. Harry sprawled in the middle of the living room gasping while the uniform who had come up the front with him tried to staunch the blood welling from Harry’s chest. Garreth saw Wink, too, shoulder bleeding and screaming as Rhoades roughly cuffed his hands behind his back. Garreth dropped on his knees beside Harry, pulling out his handkerchief to use as a compress on the wound.