Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story Chapter 21

Chapter 21Angel DustThe bed of Simons pickup was full of beer-sodden Animals enjoying the break of day fog and speculating on the marital status of the new cashier. She had smiled at Tommy when she arrived, driving the Animals into a psychosexual frenzy.She looked standardized she was being towed through the store by two submarines, tell Simon.Major hooters, said troy weight Lee. Major-league hooters.Tommy said, Cant you guys interpret more in a fair sex than T and A?Nope, said Troy.No way, said Simon. verbalize like a guy who has a live-in girlfriend, said Lash.Yeah, Simon said. How come we never see you with the little woman?Seagull sh erupted Barry.Simon pulled a pump shotgun from under a tarp in the motor transport bed, tracked on a seagull that was passing over, and fired.Missed again shouted Barry.You cant kill them all, Simon, Tommy said, his ears plangency from the blast. Why dont you just deal out your truck at night?Simon said. You dont pay for twenty coats of han d-rubbed lacquer to cover it up.The shotgun went under the tarp and the manager came through the front doors of the store. What was that? What was that? He was scanning the parking destiny frantically as if he expected to see someone with a shotgun.Backfire, Simon said.The manager looked for the sourending car.They were pass toward the Marina, Tommy said.Well, you tell me if they come back, the manager said. Theres a noise ordinance in this city, you know. He turned to go back into the store.Hey, boss, Simon called. The new girl, whats her name?Mara, the manager said. And you guys leave her alone. Shes had a rough time of it lately.She single? Troy asked.Off limits, the manager said. I mean it. She lost a child a few months ago.Yes, boss, the Animals said in unison. The manager entered the store.Simon ripped a beer from a six-pack ring. He held another(prenominal) out to Tommy. Fearless Leader, another brew?No, Ive got to get home.Me too, said Simon. Ive got to clean the bird shi t off the beast. You need a pester?Sure, can we stop in Chinatown? I want to pick something up for Jody.Simon shook his head. You worry me, son. manpower have been pussy-whipped to death, you know. He downed his beer and crushed the can. Out of the truck, girls Fearless Leader and I have to shop for tampons. buck Troy shouted.A half dozen beer cans arced into the air. The shotgun came out and Simon pumped out two quick shots. The beer cans fell to the parking lot unharmed. The shotgun went under the tarp. The manager came through the front door.Simon said, I saw it, boss. Was a baby- unconsolable 72 Nova with a stuffed gerbil on the aerial. Call it in.Jodys give were covered with a greasy spread the remains of Philly. The body had decomposed to dust in seconds after she finished drinking, leaving a pile of empty dress. After staring at the pile for a moment, she shook off the injure and gathered the clothes into a tract, which she carried into a nearby alley.The rail line-hi gh raced through her like an espresso firehose. She leaned against a dumpster, h aginging the clothes to her breast like a security blanket. The alley tilted in her vision, because righted, then(prenominal) spun until she intellection she would be sick.When the alley stopped moving, she fumbled through the clothing until she found a wallet. She wantoned it and pulled out the contents. This bundle of rags had been a person Phillip Burns, the license said. He carried crinkled photos of friends, a library card, a dry-cleaning receipt, a commit card, and fifty-six dollars. Phillip Burns in a convenient, portable package. She pocketed the wallet, threw the clothes into the dumpster, then wiped her hands on her jeans and stumbled out of the alley.I killed someone, she thought. My God, I killed someone. What should I feel?She passing played for sidesteps, not really looking where she was going, but listening to the troll of her own steps under the roar of the blood-high in her head . Philly had spilled into her shoes and she stopped and sat on the sustain to dump him out.What is this? she thought. This isnt anything. This isnt what I was before I was a lamia. What is this? This is impossible. This isnt a person. A person cant reduce to dust in seconds. What is this?She took off her socks and shook them out.This is fucking magic, she thought. This isnt some story out of one of Tommys books. This isnt something you can prove with in the bathroom. This is not natural, and whatever I am, it isnt natural. A vampire is magic, not science. And if this is what happens when a vampire kills, then how are the police finding bodies? Why is there a guy in my freezer?She couch on her shoes and socks and resumed walking. It was starting to get light and she quickened her pace, look into her watch, then broke into a run. Shed make a habit of checking the time of sunrise every morning in the almanac so she wouldnt be caught too far from home. Five years in the City had ta ught her the streets, but if she was going to run she had to describe the alleys and backstreets. She couldnt let anyone see her moving this fast.As she ran, a verbalize sounded in her head. It was her voice, but not her voice. It was the voice that put no words to what her senses told her, yet understood. It was the voice that told her to hide from the light, to protect herself, to fight or flee. The vampire voice.Killing is what you do, the vampire voice said.The human part of her was revolted. No I didnt want to kill him. seat him. It is as it should be. His life is ours. It feels good, doesnt it?Jody stopped fighting. It did feel good. She pushed the human part of her aside and let the predator bugger off over to race the sun for her life.Nick Cavuto paced around the chalk outline of the body as if he were preparing to perform a violent hopscotch on the corpse. You know, Cavuto said, looking over at Rivera, who was seek to fend off a reporter from the Chronicle at the yellow crime-scene tape, this guy is pissing me off.Rivera excused himself from the reporter and coupled Cavuto by the body. Nick, keep it down, he whispered.This stiff is making my life difficult, Cavuto said. I say we shoot him and own his wallet. Simple gunshot wound, robbery motive.He didnt have a wallet, said Rivera.There you have it, robbery. spacious blood loss from gunshot wound, broke his neck when he hit the ground.The reporter perked up. So it was a robbery?Cavuto glared at the reporter and put his hand on his thirty-eight. Rivera, what do you say to a murder-suicide? suck in over there killed this guy, then turned the gun on himself case closed and we can go get some breakfast.The reporter backed away from the line. Two coroners assistants yarn-dyed to the body, pushing a gurney with a body home 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 reduplicate of Kerouacs On the Road was lying in the chalk line where the body had been. Rivera slipped on a pair of livid 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, shed 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 campaign and perfect balance.Shed never been athletic in life the last kid to be picked for kickball, straight Cs in phys ed, no chance as a cheerleader the self-conscious, one-step dancer with the rhythmic sense of an inbred Aryan. entirely now she reveled in the movement and the strength, even as her instincts screamed for her to hide from the light.She heard the policemens voices before she saw the blue and red lights from 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 send on and saw the police cars and coroners 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 interdict. 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 helpmate into the window, but the wire-rein forced glass was clouded with dirt and age. She yanked on the bars again and they screamed in protest and came loose. She dropped the grating and was drawing back to kick out the glass when she heard movement behind the window.Oh my God, theres someone at heartShe looked around to the dumpster, some fifty feet away. She looked at her watch. If it was right, the sun was up. She wasThe 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.Its okay, Simon, said Tommy.They were in a Chinatown fish market, where Tommy was trying to purchase two massive snapping turtles from an 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 Im relative you, these turtles are defective, Simon insisted. Their eyes are all glazed over. These turtles are on drugs.Tommy said, Really, Simon, its okay.Simon turned to Tommy and whispered, You have to hand with these guys. They wont respect you if you dont.Turtles not on dlugs, said the old man. You want turtle, you pay forty bucks.Simon pushed his black trilby 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. Im 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 load ed them into the bed of Simons 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 shoulda made him clean them for you.No, I want to give them to Jody alive.Youre a charmer, Flood. A lot of guys wouldve just paid the ransom with candy and flowers. pay off?Shes got your nooky held hostage, aint she?No, I just wanted to get her a present to be nice.Simon sighed heavily and rubbed the noseband 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 pee that it busted right open. Then wed reach in and eat the heart right out of it and move on to the next one. Thats how you got to treat women, Flood.Like kicking watermelons?Right. Now you take that new cashier. She wants you, boy. But youre thinkin, I got me a piece at home so I dont need her. Right?Right, Tommy said.Wrong. You got one at home that youre buying presents for and saying sweet things and tiptoeing around the house so as not to raise up 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 dont put out, you go back to your cashier. Your old lady has to try harder. Theres competition. Its supply and demand. God bless America, its nooky capitalism.Im lost. I thought it was like watermelon farming.Whatever. Point is, youre whipped, Flood. You cant have no self-respect if youre whipped. And y ou cant have no fun. Simon turned on Tommys 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 coroners 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 aint got all damn day.Oh Christ, Tommy said, hanging his head.