"I'm Inspector Alphonse Rivera from the San Francisco Police Department." He held up a badge wallet. "You're under arrest" Rivera pulled a warrant from his jacket pocket "for abandoning a vehicle on a public street."

"You're kidding," Tommy said.

Cavuto stepped through the door and grabbed Tommy by the shoulder, whipping him around as the big cop pulled his handcuffs from his belt. "You have the right to remain silent..." Cavuto said.

Two hours later Tommy had been processed, probed, and printed, and as Cavuto had expected, Tommy's fingerprints matched those on the copy of On the Road On the Road that they had found under the dead b.u.m. It was enough for them to get a search warrant issued for the loft. Five minutes after they entered the loft a mobile crime lab was dispatched along with a forensics team and two coroners' trucks. As far as crime scenes went, the loft in SOMA was the mother lode. that they had found under the dead b.u.m. It was enough for them to get a search warrant issued for the loft. Five minutes after they entered the loft a mobile crime lab was dispatched along with a forensics team and two coroners' trucks. As far as crime scenes went, the loft in SOMA was the mother lode.

Cavuto and Rivera left the crime scene to the forensics team and returned to the station, where they took Tommy from a holding cell and put him in a pleasantly pink interrogation room furnished with a metal table and two chairs. There was a mirror on one wall and a tape recorder sat on the table. Tommy sat staring at the pink wall, remembering something about how pink was supposed to calm you down. It didn't seem to be working. His stomach was tied in knots.

Rivera had done dozens of interrogations with Cavuto and they always took the same roles: Cavuto was the bad cop, and Rivera was the good cop. Actually Rivera never felt like the good cop. More often he was the I-am-tired-and-overworked-and-I'm-being-nice-to-you-because-I-don't-have-the-energy-to-be-angry cop.

"Would you like a smoke?" Rivera asked.

"Sure," Tommy said.

Cavuto jumped in his face. "Too bad, punk. There's no smoking in here." Cavuto took great pleasure in being the bad cop. He practiced in front of the mirror at home.

Rivera shrugged. "He's right. You can't smoke."

Tommy said, "That's okay, I don't smoke."

"How about a lawyer then?" asked Rivera. "Or a phone call?"

"I have to be at work at midnight," Tommy said. "If it looks like I'm going to be late, I'll use my call then."

Cavuto was pacing the room, timing his path so he could wheel on Tommy with every statement. He wheeled. "Yeah, kid, you're going to be late, about thirty years late, if they don't fry you."

Tommy pushed back in his chair with fright.

"Good one, Nick," Rivera said.

"Thanks." Cavuto smiled around an unlit cigar and backed away from the table where Tommy sat.

Rivera moved up. "Okay, kid, you don't want an attorney. Where do you want to start? We've got you hands-down on two murders and probably three. If you tell us the story, tell us everything, about all the other murders, we might be able to waive the death penalty."

"I didn't kill anybody."

"Don't be cute," Cavuto said. "We found two bodies in your freezer. We've got your fingerprints all over a book that we found under a third body outside your apartment. We've got you staying at the motel where we found a fourth body. And we've got you with a closetful of women's clothing and eyewitnesses that put a woman near where we found a fifth body..."

Tommy interrupted, "Actually, there's only one body in the freezer. The other is my girlfriend."

"You sick f.u.c.k." Cavuto drew back as if to hit Tommy. Rivera moved to restrain him. Tommy cowered in his chair.

Rivera led Cavuto to the far side of the room. "Let me take this for a minute." He left Cavuto grumbling to himself and went to the seat across from Tommy.

"Look, kid, we've got you cold, so to speak, on two murders. We've got circ.u.mstantial evidence on another. You are going to jail for a very long time, and at this point, the death penalty is looking pretty good. Now if you tell us everything, and don't leave anything out, we might be able to help you out, but you have to give us enough to close all the cases. Do you understand?"

Tommy nodded. "But I didn't kill anybody. I put Jody in the freezer, which I admit is inconsiderate, but I didn't kill her."

Cavuto growled. Rivera nodded in mock acceptance of the story. "Fine, but if you didn't kill them, who did? Did someone you know force you into this?"

Cavuto exploded, "Oh Christ, Rivera! What do you need, a videotape? This little b.a.s.t.a.r.d did it."

"Nick, please. Give me a minute here."

Cavuto moved to the table and leaned over it until his face was next to Tommy's. He whispered, raspy and gruff, "Flood, don't think you can use a wiggle and a wink to get yourself out of this. That might work down on Castro, but I'm immune to it here, you got me? I'm going to leave now, but when I come back, if you haven't told my partner your story, I'm going to cause pain. Lots of it, and I won't leave a mark on you." He stood up, smiled, then turned and left the room.

Tommy looked at Rivera. "A wiggle and a wink?"

"Nick thinks you're cute," Rivera said.

"He's gay?"

"Completely."

Tommy shook his head. "I would have never guessed."

"He's a Shriner, too." Rivera tapped a cigarette out of his pack and lit it. "Looks can be deceiving."

"Hey, I didn't think you were allowed to smoke in here."

Rivera blew smoke in Tommy's face. "You had two people in your freezer, and you're giving me me s.h.i.t about smoking." s.h.i.t about smoking."

"Good point."

Rivera sat down and leaned back in the chair. "Tommy, I'm going to give you one more chance to tell me how you killed those people, then I'm going to let Nick back in here and I'm going to leave. He really likes you. This room is soundproof, you know."

Tommy swallowed hard. "You're not going to believe me. It's a pretty fantastic story. There's supernatural stuff involved."

Rivera rubbed his temples. "Satan told you to do it?" he said wearily.

"No."

"Elvis?"

"I told you, it's supernatural."

"Tommy, I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone before. If you repeat it, I'll deny I said it. Five years ago I saw a white owl with a seventy-foot wingspan swoop out of the sky and pluck a demon off a hillside and take off into the sky."

"I heard that cops get the best drugs," Tommy said.

Rivera got up. "I'm going to bring Nick in."

"No, wait. I'll tell you. It was a vampire. You can thaw Jody out and ask her."

Rivera reached over and turned on the tape recorder. "Now slow down. Start at the beginning and go until we walked you into this room."

An hour later Rivera met Cavuto behind the one-way mirror. Cavuto was not happy. "You know, I'd rather you just threaten that I would beat him up."

"It worked, didn't it?"

"There's nothing there we can use. Not a thing. If he sticks with that story he'll get off on insanity. It's too wild. I want to know how he got the blood out of the bodies."

"The kid thinks he's a writer. He's showing off his imagination. Let's let him sit awhile and get something to eat. I want to find the Emperor."

"That wacko?"

"He's been reporting seeing a vampire for weeks. Maybe he saw the kid doing one of the murders."

Chapter 29 Paying Respects.

Gilbert Bendetti liked his job, really liked his job. It was a government job, of sorts, so the benefits were good and the work easy. He liked working nights, too, it was quiet and he was usually in the morgue by himself, so he didn't have to feel self-conscious about his weight or his bad skin. He liked playing with computers and the lab equipment, and he liked answering the phone and acting official. Being the night man at the coroner's office would have been a great job even if he didn't get to f.u.c.k the dead, but with that, it was heaven.

Tonight Gilbert was bubbling with antic.i.p.ation. They had wheeled Miss Right in that afternoon and left him explicit instructions not to put her away, but to let her sit out to thaw for the autopsy. Some psycho had put her in a freezer. Sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d had put TV dinners under her arms. Now she was curled up on a gurney, teasing him. That c.o.c.ktail dress, that red hair he could hardly wait.

He checked the log and locked his skin books in the desk drawer, then loosened his lab coat and went down the hall to test her for flexibility. The last time he checked she'd started to get a little flexibility, but he knew that inside she was well frigid, despite the Salisbury-steak gravy dripping from under her arms.

He pushed through the gla.s.s door into the holding room and there she was, just as he had left her, her pouty lips beckoning to him, her lovely legs curled up behind her.

"My angel," Gilbert said, "shall I help you with those pesky panty hose?"

He straightened her legs on the gurney and pushed her skirt up. She was still a little chilly, but she was movable. Good, once rigor mortis set in, pa.s.sion could put you into positions that would challenge a yoga master. Gilbert had thrown his back out more than once.

Her panty hose were sheer black, but except for her right big toe, her feet were dusty. She must have been walking in her stocking feet. Indulging himself in some foreplay, Gilbert had sucked her big toe clean shortly after they brought her in. Foreplay, sorta.

He considered testing her with the meat thermometer, but she was so perfect, he didn't want to mark that lovely body. He reached up under her skirt, grabbed the waistband of her panty hose, and began to work them down.

"Black lace panties, my goodness..." He tried to remember her name, then checked her toe tag. "My goodness, Jody, how did you know I liked black lace?"

He peeled her panty hose off, stopping to loosen the toe tag first, then ran his hands up her thighs after the lace panties.

"And a natural redhead," Gilbert said, dropping the panties on the floor. He stepped back a moment to admire her and slip out of his lab coat. He locked the wheels on the gurney, pulled the TV dinners out from under her arms, and unzipped his pants.

"This is going to be so good. So good." He climbed over the end of the gurney, careful to stay balanced. Nothing ruined the mood more than toppling to the linoleum and bashing your skull.

He licked a path up the inside of her leg.

"Tommy, that tickles," she said.

Gilbert looked up. No, it's my imagination. He returned to his pleasure.

"No, let me shower first," she said. She sat up.

Gilbert pushed himself backward so violently that the gurney went up on its end, dumping Jody on the floor. Gilbert backed away from her holding his chest, his breath refusing to come, his withering w.i.l.l.y waving in front of him.

Jody climbed to her feet. "Who are you?"

Gilbert couldn't talk. He couldn't breathe. It felt as if barbed wire had been looped around his heart and was being yanked by a team of horses. He backed into a rack of drawers, banging his head.

Jody looked around. "How did I get here? Answer me."

Gilbert gasped and fell to his knees.

"Where's Tommy? And where the f.u.c.k are my panties?"

Gilbert was shaking his head. He rolled on his side, took two more tortured breaths, and died.

"Hey!" Jody said. "I need some answers here."

Gilbert didn't answer. Jody watched the black aura of his dying fade away, leaving only the residual heat signature of his body.

"Sorry," she said.

She looked around: the gurney, the big file drawers of the dead, the instruments of dissection this sure looked like the morgues in the movies. Something had gone seriously wrong while she slept.

She checked her watch, but it was gone. The wall clock over Gilbert's body read 1 a.m.

Why did I wake up so late? I've got to find Tommy and find out what happened.

She picked up her panties from the floor and wiggled into them. The panty hose she left where they lay, instead looking around for her shoes. She didn't see them. She didn't see her purse anywhere either.

Money. I'm going to need cab fare.

She crouched by Gilbert's body and rifled through his pockets, coming up with thirty dollars and some change. Almost as an afterthought she tucked his exposed member back into his pants and zipped him up.

"I did that for your family, not for you," she said. Then thought, I'm getting worse than Tommy, talking to dead people.

She started toward the door, then stopped and looked at the wall of drawers. The scenario cane over her like a sudden sneeze.

Tommy is probably in one of those drawers. The vampire killed him, and when the coroner came, they thought I was dead too. But why did he spare me? And why did it take so long to wake up? Maybe it was that med student. Maybe when I missed the meeting he told the cops when to find me. But he didn't know how to find me.

She went though the gla.s.s doors and down the hall where she stopped at the phone and called the loft. No answer. She dialed the Marina Safeway's number.

"Marina Safeway." She recognized Simon McQueen's drawl.

"Simon, this is Jody. I need to talk to Tommy."

"Who? Who did you say you were?"

"It's Jody. Tommy's girlfriend. I need to speak to him."

Simon was quiet for a moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was an octave lower. "You don't know where Flood is?"