"That's the idea," Jody said. She smiled politely, imagining herself s.n.a.t.c.hing out handfuls of the woman's tastefully tinted hair.

"Now let's get the item number off of that," the woman said, making a show of holding the tag so that Jody could see the price. She sneaked a look for Jody's reaction.

"He's paying," Jody said, just to be irritating. "It's a gift."

"Oh, how nice," the woman said, trying to brighten, but obviously disgusted. Jody understood. Six months ago she would have hated the kind of woman she was pretending to be. The woman said, "This will be lovely for holiday parties."

"Actually, it's for a funeral." Jody couldn't remember having this much fun while shopping.

"Oh, I'm sorry." The woman looked apologetic and held her hands to her heart in sympathy.

"It's okay; I didn't know the deceased very well."

"I see," the woman said.

Jody lowered her eyes. "His wife," she said.

"I'll get the dress," the woman said, turning and hurrying away.

Tommy had only been in the Safeway once before when it was still open: the day he applied for the job. Now it seemed entirely too active and entirely too quiet without the Stones or Pearl Jam blasting over the speakers. He felt that his territory had been somehow violated by strangers. He resented the customers who ruined the Animals' work by taking things off the shelves.

As he pa.s.sed the office he nodded to the manager and headed to the breakroom to kill time until it was time to go to work. The breakroom was a windowless room behind the meat department, furnished with molded plastic chairs, a Formica folding table, a coffee machine, and a variety of safety posters. Tommy brushed some crumbs off a chair, found a coffee-stained Reader's Digest Reader's Digest under an opened package of stale bear claws, and sat down to read and sulk. under an opened package of stale bear claws, and sat down to read and sulk.

He read: "A Bear's Got Mom!: Drama in Real Life" and "I Am Joe's Duodenum"; and he was beginning to feel a pull toward the bathroom and the Midwest, both things he a.s.sociated with Reader's Digest Reader's Digest, when he flipped to an article ent.i.tled: "Bats: Our Wild and Wacky Winged Friends" and felt his duodenum quiver with interest.

Someone entered the breakroom, and without looking up, Tommy said, "Did you know that if the brown bat fed on humans instead of insects, that one bat could eat the entire population of Minneapolis in one night?"

"I didn't know that," said a woman's voice.

Tommy looked up from the magazine to see the new cashier, Mara, pulling a chair out from the table. She was tall and a little thin, but large-breasted: a blue-eyed blonde of about twenty. Tommy had been expecting one of the box boys and he stared at her for a second while he changed gears. "Oh, hi. I'm Tom Flood. I'm on the night crew."

"I've seen you," she said. "I'm Mara. I'm new."

Tommy smiled. "Nice to meet you. I came in a little early to catch up on some paperwork."

"Reader's Digest?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, this? No, I don't normally read it. I just spotted this article on bats and decided to check it out. They're our wild and wacky winged friends, you know?" He looked at the page as if to confirm his interest. "For instance, did you know that the vampire bat is the only mammal that has been successfully frozen and thawed out alive?"

"I'm sorry, bats give me the creeps."

"Me too," Tommy said, throwing the magazine aside. "Do you read?"

"I've been reading the Beats. I just moved here and I want to get a feeling for the City's literature."

"You're kidding. I've only been here a few months myself. It's a great city."

"I haven't had a chance to look around much. Moving and everything. I left a bad situation back home and I've been trying to adjust."

She didn't look at him when she talked. Tommy a.s.sumed at first that it was because she found him disgusting, but after studying her he realized that she was just shy.

"Have you been to North Beach? The Beats all lived there in the fifties."

"No, I don't know my way around yet."

"Oh, you have to go to City Lights Books, and Enrico's. And the bars up there all have pictures of Kerouac and Ginsberg on the walls. You can almost hear the jazz playing."

Mara finally looked up at him and smiled. "You're interested in the Beats?" Her eyes were wide, bright, and crystal-blue. He liked her.

"I'm a writer," Tommy said. It was his turn to look away. "I mean, I want to be a writer. I used to live in Chinatown, it's right next to North Beach."

"Maybe you could give me directions to some of the hot spots."

"I could show you," Tommy said. As soon as he said it he wanted to retract the offer. Jody would kill him.

"That would be wonderful, if you wouldn't mind. I don't know anyone in the City except the other cashiers, and they all have home lives."

Tommy was confused. The manager had said that she had recently lost a child. He a.s.sumed that she was married. He didn't want it to appear that he was trying to make a move on her. He didn't really want to make a move on her. But if he were still single, unattached...

No, Jody wouldn't understand. Having never had a girlfriend before, he'd never been tempted to stray. He had no idea how to deal with it. He said, "I could show you and your husband around a little and the two of you could have a night on the town."

"I'm divorced," Mara said. "I wasn't married very long."

"I'm sorry," Tommy said.

Mara shook her head as if to dismiss his sympathy. "It's a short story. I got pregnant and we got married. The baby died and he left." She said it without feeling, as if she had distanced herself emotionally from the experience as if it had happened to someone else. "I'm trying to make a new start." She checked her watch. "I'd better get back up front. I'll see you."

She stood and started to leave the room.

"Mara," Tommy called and she turned. "I'd love to show you around if you'd like."

"I'd like that. Thanks. I'm working days for the rest of the week."

"No problem," Tommy said. "How about tomorrow night? I don't have a car, but we can meet in North Beach at Enrico's if you want."

"Write down the address." She took a slip of paper and a pen from her purse and handed it to him. He scribbled the address and handed it back to her.

"What time?" she asked.

"Seven, I guess."

"Seven it is," she said, and left the breakroom.

Tommy thought: I'm a dead man.

Jody turned in front of the mirror, admiring the way the LED fit. It was cut down to the small of her back and had a neckline that plunged to the sternum, but was held together at her cleavage with a transparent black mesh. The saleswoman stood beside her, frowning, holding larger sizes of the same dress.

"Are you sure you don't want to try the five, dear?"

Jody said, "No, this one is fine. I'll need some sheer black nylons to go with it."

The saleswoman fought down a grimace and managed a professional smile. "And do you have shoes to match?"

"Suggestions?" Jody asked, not looking away from her reflection. She thought, I wouldn't have been caught dead in something like this a few months ago. Oh h.e.l.l, I'm caught dead in everything now.

Jody laughed at the thought and the saleswoman took it personally and dropped her polite smile. An edge of disgust in her voice, she said, "I suppose you could complete the look with a pair of Italian f.u.c.k-me pumps and some maroon lipstick."

Jody turned to the dowdy woman and gave her a knowing smile. "You've done this before, haven't you?"

After a visit to the shoe department, Jody found herself at the cosmetics counter where an ebullient gay man talked her into "doing her colors" on the computer. He stared at the screen in disbelief.

"Oh my goodness. This is exciting."

"What?" Jody said impatiently. She just wanted to buy some lipstick and get out. She'd satisfied her shopping Jones by reducing the woman in evening wear to tears.

"You're my first winter," said Maurice. (His name was Maurice; it said so on his badge.) "You know, I've done a thousand autumns, and I get springs out the yin-yang, but a winter... We are are going to have fun!" going to have fun!"

Maurice began piling samples of eye shadow, lipstick, mascara, and powder on the counter next to the winter color palette. He opened a tube of mascara and held it next to Jody's face. "This one's called Elm Blight, it approximates the color of dead trees in the snow. It complements your eyes wonderfully. Go ahead, dear, try it."

While Jody brushed the mascara onto her lashes, using the magnifying mirror on the counter, Maurice read from the Winter Woman's profile.

"'The Winter Woman is as wild as a blizzard, as fresh as new snow. While some see her as cold, she has a fiery heart under that ice-queen exterior. She likes the stark simplicity of j.a.panese art and the daring complexity of Russian literature. She prefers sharp to flowing lines, brooding to pouting, and rock and roll to country and western. Her drink is vodka, her car is German, her a.n.a.lgesic is Advil. The Winter Woman likes her men weak and her coffee strong. She is p.r.o.ne to anemia, hysteria, and suicide.'" Maurice stepped back from the counter and took a deep bow, as if he had just finished a dramatic reading.

Jody looked up from the mirror and blinked, the lashes on her right eye describing a starlike Clockwork Orange Clockwork Orange pattern against her pale skin. "They can tell all of that from my coloring?" pattern against her pale skin. "They can tell all of that from my coloring?"

Maurice nodded and brandished a sable brush. "Here, dear, let's try some of this blush to bring up those cheekbones. It's called American Rust, it emulates the color of a '63 Rambler that has been driven on salted roads. Very winter."

Jody leaned on the counter to allow Maurice access to her cheeks.

A half hour later she looked in the mirror, rotated now to the non-magnified side, and pursed her lips. For the first time she really looked like a vampire.

"I wish we had a camera," Maurice gushed. "You are a winter masterpiece." He handed her a small bag filled with cosmetics. "That will be three hundred dollars."

Jody paid him. "Is there somewhere I can change? I'd like to see how I look with my new outfit."

Maurice pointed across the store. "There's a changing room over there. And don't forget your free gift, dear, the Needless Notions Lotion Collection, a fifty-dollar value." Maurice held up a plastic faux-Gucci gym bag full of bottles.

"Thanks." Jody took the bag and sulked off toward the changing room. Halfway across the store she picked up the sound of the dowdy saleswoman from evening wear and turned to see her talking to Maurice. Jody focused and could hear what they were saying over the crowd and Christmas Muzak.

"How did it go?" asked the woman.

Maurice grinned. "She went away looking like a Donner Party Barbie."

The woman and Maurice exchanged a gleeful high five.

b.i.t.c.hes, Jody thought.

Chapter 26 At the End of the.

Night...

The Emperor worked a wooden match around the end of a Cuban cigar, drawing and checking until the tip glowed like revolution.

"I don't agree with their ideology," said the Emperor, "but we must give the Marxists their due they roll a fine cigar."

b.u.mmer snorted and growled at the cigar, then shook himself violently, spraying the Emperor and Lazarus with a fine wet mist.

The Emperor scratched the Boston terrier behind the ears. "Settle down, little one, you needed a bath. If we vanquish our enemy, it will be through gallantry and courage, not the stench of our persons."

Shortly after sunset a member of the yacht club had given the Emperor the cigar and had invited him to use the club showers. Much to the chagrin of the club custodian, the Emperor shared his shower with b.u.mmer and Lazarus, who left the drain hopelessly clogged with the fluff, stuff, and filth such as heroes are made of. Now they were pa.s.sing the evening on the same dock on which they had slept, the Emperor savoring his cigar while the troops stood watch.

"Where do we go from here? Must we wait for the fiend to kill again before we pick up the trail?"

b.u.mmer considered the questions, working the words over in his doggy brain looking for a "food" word. Not finding it, he began to lick his b.a.l.l.s to remove the annoying odor of deodorant soap. Once he achieved the desired balance (of both his ends smelling roughly the same), he padded around the dock marking the mooring posts against seabound invaders. With the borders of the realm firmly established, he went in search of something dead to roll in to remove the last evidence of the shower. The right smell was near, but it was coming in off the water.

b.u.mmer went toward the smell until he stood at the end of the dock. He saw a small white cloud bubbling out over the gunwale of a yacht moored a hundred yards away. b.u.mmer barked to let the cloud know to stay away.

"Settle down, little one," said the Emperor. Lazarus shook some water out of his ears and joined b.u.mmer at the end of the dock. The cloud was halfway between the yacht and the dock, pulsating and bubbling as it moved across the water toward them. Lazarus lowered his head and growled. b.u.mmer added a high whine to the harmony.

"What is it, men?" the Emperor asked. He put his cigar out on the sole of his shoe and secured the remains in his breast pocket before limping, stiff from sitting, to the end of the dock.

The cloud was almost to the dock. Lazarus bared his teeth and snarled at it. b.u.mmer backed away from the edge of the dock, not sure whether to bolt or stand his ground.

The Emperor looked out over the water and saw the cloud. It was not wispy at the edges, but sharply defined, more like a solid ma.s.s of gel than water vapor. "It's just a bit of fog, men, don't..."

He spotted a face forming in the cloud that changed as he watched to the shape of a giant hand, then bubbled into the head of a dog.

"Although weather is not my specialty, I would venture to guess that that is no ordinary fog bank."

The cloud undulated into the shape of a huge viper that reared up, twenty feet over the water, as if preparing to strike. b.u.mmer and Lazarus let go with a fusillade of barking.

"Gents, let us away to the showers. I've left my sword by the sink." The Emperor turned and ran down the dock, b.u.mmer and Lazarus close at his heels. When he reached the clubhouse he turned to see the cloud creeping over the lip of the dock. He stood, watching transfixed, as the cloud began to condense into the solid form of a tall, dark man.

The Animals began drifting into the store around midnight, and to Tommy's delight they all seemed at least as hung over as he was. Drew, tall, gaunt, and deadly earnest, had them sit on the register counters and wait for his medical diagnosis. He walked from man to man, looking at their tongues and the whites of their eyes. Then he walked toward the office and seemed to lose himself in concentration. After a moment he went into the office and came back with the truck manifest.

Drew noted the number of cases, then nodded to himself and removed a bottle of pills from his shirt pocket and handed it to Tommy. "Take one and pa.s.s it down. Who drank the tequila?"

Simon, who had pulled his black Stetson over his eyes, raised his hand with a slight moan.

"You take two, Simon. They're Valium number fives."

"Housewife heroin," said Simon.