Thomas Flood, Sr., and Harley Businsky exchanged a look of horrified realization. They were rocked, shaken, crumbling.

Tommy pushed on. "And Patton - Patton - someone wrote someone wrote Patton Patton."

Tommy waited. The two men sat next to each other on his single bed, coughing and fidgeting and trying not to make eye contact with the boy. Everywhere they looked there were quotes carefully written in magic marker tacked on the walls; there were books, pens, and typing paper; there were poster-sized photos of authors. Ernest Hemingway stared down at them with a gleaming gaze that seemed to say, "You f.u.c.kers should have gone fishing."

Finally Harley said, "Well, if you're going to be a writer, you can't stay here."

"Pardon?" Tommy said.

"You got to go to a city and starve. I don't know a Kafka from a nuance, but I know that if you're going to be a writer, you got to starve. You won't be any d.a.m.n good if you don't starve."

"I don't know, Harley," Tom Senior said, not sure that he liked the idea of his skinny son starving.

"Who bowled a three hundred last Wednesday, Tom?"

"You did."

"And I say the boy's got to go to the city and starve."

Tom Flood looked at Tommy as if the boy were standing on the trapdoor of the gallows. "You sure about this writer thing, son?"

Tommy nodded.

"Can I make you a sandwich?"

If not for a particularly seedy television docudrama about the bombing of the World Trade Center, Tommy might, indeed, have starved in New York, but Tom senior was not going to allow his son to be "blowed up by a bunch of towel-headed terrorists." And Tommy might have starved in Paris, if a cursory inspection of the Volvo had not revealed that it would not survive the dampness of the drive. So he ended up in San Francisco, and although he could use some breakfast, he was more worried about flowers than about food.

He thought, I should just stick around and see who's leaving the flowers. Catch them in the act.

But he had been unemployed for more than a week, and his midwestern work ethic forced him out of his bunk.

He wore his sneakers in the shower so his feet wouldn't have to come in contact with the floor, then dressed in his best shirt and job-hunting jeans, grabbed a notebook, and sloshed down the steps into Chinatown.

The sidewalk was awash with Asians men and women moving doggedly past open markets selling live fish, barbecued meat, and thousands of vegetables that Tommy could put no name to. He pa.s.sed one market where live snapping turtles, two feet across, were struggling to get out of plastic milk crates. In the next window, trays of duck feet and bills were arranged around smoked pig heads, while whole naked pheasants hung ripening above.

The air was heavy with the smells of pressed humanity, soy sauce, sesame oil, licorice, and car exhaust always car exhaust. Tommy walked up Grant and crossed Broadway into North Beach, where the crush of people thinned out and the smells changed to a miasma of baking bread, garlic, oregano, and more exhaust. No matter where he went in the City, there was an odoriferous mix of food and vehicles, like the alchemic concoctions of some mad gourmet mechanic: Kung Pao Saab Turbo, Buick Skylark Carbonara, Sweet-and-Sour Metro Bus, Honda Bolognese with Burning Clutch Sauce.

Tommy was startled out of his olfactory reverie by a screeching war whoop. He looked up to see a Rollerblader in fluorescent pads and helmet closing on him at breakneck speed. An old man, who was sitting on the sidewalk ahead feeding croissants to his two dogs, looked up momentarily and threw a croissant across the sidewalk. The dogs shot after the treat, pulling their cotton-rope leashes tight. Tommy cringed. The Rollerblader hit the rope and went airborne, describing a ten-foot arc in the air before crashing in a violent tangle of padded limbs and wheels at Tommy's feet.

"Are you okay?"

Tommy offered a hand to the skater, who waved it away. "I'm fine." Blood was dripping from a sc.r.a.pe on his chin, his Day-Glo wraparound sungla.s.ses were twisted on his face.

"Perhaps you should slow down on the sidewalks," the old man called.

The skater sat up and turned to the old man. "Oh, Your Majesty, I didn't know. I'm sorry."

"Safety first, son," the old man said with a smile.

"Yes, sir," the skater said. "I'll be more careful." He climbed to his feet and nodded to Tommy. "Sorry." He straightened his shades and skated slowly away.

Tommy stood staring at the old man, who had resumed feeding his dogs. "Your Majesty?"

"Or Your Imperial Highness," the Emperor said. "You're new to the City."

"Yes, but..."

A young woman in fishnet stockings and red satin hot pants, who was swinging by, paused by the Emperor and bowed slightly. "Morning, Highness," she said.

"Safety first, my child," the Emperor said.

She smiled and walked on. Tommy watched her until she turned the corner, then turned back to the old man.

"Welcome to my city," the Emperor said. "How are you doing so far?"

"I'm... I'm..." Tommy was confused. "Who are you?"

"Emperor of San Francisco, Protector of Mexico, at your service. Croissant?" The Emperor held open a white paper bag to Tommy, who shook his head.

"This impetuous fellow," the Emperor said, pointing to his Boston terrier, "is b.u.mmer. A bit of a rascal, he, but the best bug-eyed rat dog in the City."

The little dog growled.

"And this," the Emperor continued, "is Lazarus, found dead on Geary Street after an unfortunate encounter with a French tour bus and s.n.a.t.c.hed back from the brink by the mystical curative scent of a slightly used beef jerky."

The golden retriever offered his paw. Feeling stupid, Tommy took it and shook. "Pleased to meet you."

"And you are?" the Emperor asked.

"C. Thomas Flood."

"And the 'C' stands for?"

"Well, it doesn't really stand for anything. I'm a writer. I just added the 'C' to my pen name."

"And a fine affectation it is." The Emperor paused to gnaw the end of a croissant. "So, C, how is the City treating you so far?"

Tommy thought that he might have just been insulted, but he found he was enjoying talking to the old man. He hadn't had a conversation of more than a few words since he arrived in the City. "I like the City, but I'm having some problems."

He told the Emperor about the destruction of his car, about his subsequent meeting of Wong One, of his cramped, filthy quarters, and ended his story with the mystery of the flowers on his bed.

The Emperor sighed sympathetically and scratched his scruffy graying beard. "I'm afraid that I am unable to a.s.sist you with your accommodation problem; the men and I are fortunate enough to count the entire City as our home. But I may have a lead on a job for you, and perhaps a clue to the conundrum of the flowers."

The Emperor paused and motioned for Tommy to move closer. Tommy crouched down and c.o.c.ked an ear to the Emperor. "Yes?"

"I've seen him," the Emperor whispered. "It's a vampire."

Tommy recoiled as if he'd been spit on. "A vampire florist?"

"Well, once you accept the vampire part, the florist part is a pretty easy leap, don't you think?"

Chapter 5 Undead and Somewhat.

Slightly Dazed French people were f.u.c.king in the room next door; Jody could hear every groan, giggle, and bed spring squeak. In the room above, a television spewed game-show prattle: "I'll take b.e.s.t.i.a.lity for five hundred, Alex."

Jody pulled a pillow over her head.

It wasn't exactly like waking up. There was no slow skate from dreamland to reality, no pleasant dawning of consciousness in the cozy twilight of sleepiness. No, it was as if someone had just switched on the world, full volume, like a clock radio playing reality's top forty irritating hits.

"Criminal Presidents for a hundred, Alex."

Jody flipped onto her back and stared at the ceiling. I always thought that s.e.x and game shows ended at death, she thought. They always say "Rest in peace," don't they?

"Vas y plus fort, mon pet.i.t cochon d'amour!"*

* "Do it harder, my little love pig!"

She wanted to complain to someone, anyone. She hated waking up alone and going to sleep alone, for that matter. She had lived with ten different men in five years. Serial monogamy. It was a problem she had been getting around to working on before she died.

She crawled out of bed and opened the rubber-lined motel draperies. Light from streetlights and neon signs filled the room.

Now what?

Normally she would go to the bathroom. But she didn't feel the need to.

I haven't peed in two days. I may never pee again.

She went into the bathroom and sat on the stool to test her theory. Nothing. She unwrapped one of the plastic gla.s.ses, filled it with water and gulped it down. Her stomach lurched and she vomited the water in a stream against the mirror.

Okay, no water. A shower? Change clothes and go out on the town? To do what? Hunt?

She recoiled at the thought.

Am I going to have to kill people? Oh my G.o.d, Kurt. What if he changes? What if he already has?

She dressed quickly in her clothes from the night before, grabbed her flight bag and the room key and left the room. She waved to the night clerk as she pa.s.sed the motel office and he winked and waved back. A hundred bucks had made them friends.

She walked around the corner and up Chestnut, resisting the urge to break into a run. Outside her building she paused and focused on the apartment window. The lights were on, and with concentration she could hear Kurt talking on the phone.

"Yeah, the crazy b.i.t.c.h knocked me out with a potted plant. No, threw it at me. I was two hours late for work. I don't know, she said something about being attacked. She hasn't been to work for a couple of days. No, she doesn't have a key; I had to buzz her in..."

So I didn't kill him. He didn't change or he wouldn't have been able to go to work at all in the daylight. He sounds fine. p.i.s.sed, but fine. I wonder if I just apologize and explain what happened...

"No," Kurt said into the phone. "I took her name off the mailbox. I don't really care, she didn't fit the image I'm trying to build anyway. I was thinking about asking out Susan Badistone: Stanford, family money, Republican. I know, but that's why G.o.d made implants..."

Jody turned and walked back to the motel. She stopped in the office and paid the clerk for two more days, then went to her room, sat down on the bed and tried to cry. No tears would come.

In another time she would have called a girlfriend and spent the evening on the phone being comforted. She would have eaten a half gallon of ice cream and stayed up all night thinking about what she was going to do with her life. In the morning she would have called in sick to work, then called her mother in Carmel to borrow enough money for a deposit on a new apartment. But that was another time, when she had still been a person.

The little confidence that she had felt the night before was gone. Now she was just confused and afraid. She tried to remember everything she had ever seen or heard about vampires. It wasn't much. She didn't like scary books or movies. Much of what she could remember didn't seem true. She didn't have to sleep in a coffin, that was obvious. But it was also obvious that she couldn't go out in the daylight. She didn't have to kill every night, and if she did bite someone, he or she didn't necessarily have to turn into a vampire an a.s.shole, maybe, but not a vampire. But then again, Kurt had been an a.s.shole before, so how could you tell? Why had she turned? She was going to have to get to a library.

She thought, I've got to get my car back. And I need a new apartment. It's just a matter of time before a maid comes in during the day and burns me to a crisp. I need someone who can move around during the day. I need a friend.

She had lost her address book with her purse, but it didn't really matter. All of her friends were currently in relationships, and although any of them would offer sympathy about her breakup with Kurt, they were too self-involved to be of any real help. She and her friends were only close when they were single.

I need a man.

The thought depressed her.

Why does it always come to that? I'm a modern woman. I can open jars and kill spiders on my own. I can balance a checkbook and check the oil in my car. I can support myself. Then again, maybe not. How am am I going to support myself? I going to support myself?

She threw her flight bag on the bed and pulled out the white bakery bag full of money and emptied it on the bed. She counted the bills in one stack, then counted the stacks. There were thirty-five stacks of twenty one-hundred dollar bills. Minus the five hundred she had spent on the hotel: almost seventy thousand dollars. She felt a sudden and deep-seated urge to go shopping.

Whoever had attacked her had known she would need money. It hadn't been an accident that she had turned. And it probably hadn't been an accident that he had left her hand in the sunlight to burn. How else would she have known to go to ground before sunup? But if he wanted to help her, wanted her to survive, why didn't he just tell her what she was supposed to do?

She gathered up the money and was stuffing it back in the flight bag when the phone rang. She looked at it, watched the orange light strobing in rhythm to the bell. No one knew where she was. It must be the front desk. After four rings she picked up.

Before she could say h.e.l.lo, a gravelly calm male voice said, "By the way, you're not immortal. You can still be killed."

There was a click and Jody hung up the phone.

He said, be killed be killed, not you can still die. Be killed you can still die. Be killed.

She grabbed her bag and ran out into the night.

Chapter 6 The Animals.

The daytime people called them the Animals. The store manager had come into work one morning to find one of them hanging, half-naked, from the giant red S of the Safeway sign and the rest of them drunk on the roof, pelting him with Campfire marshmallows. The manager yelled at them and called them Animals. They cheered and toasted him by spraying beer on each other.

There were seven of them now that their leader was gone. They wandered into the store around eleven and the manager informed them that they were getting a new crew chief: "This guy will whip you into shape he's done it all, his application was four pages long."

Midnight found the Animals sitting on the registers at the front of the store, sharing worries over a case of Reddi Wip.

"Screw this hotshot from back East," said Simon McQueen, the oldest. "I'll throw my fifty cases an hour like always, and if he wants more, he can do it himself." Simon sucked a hit of nitrous oxide from the whipped cream can and croaked, "He won't last longer'n a fart on a hot skillet."

Simon was twenty-seven, muscular and as wiry-tense as a banjo string. He was pockmarked and sharp-featured, with a great mane of brown hair that he kept out of his face with a bandanna and a black Stetson, and he fancied himself a cowboy and a poet. He had never been within six-gun range of a horse or a book.