She pushed the screen loose from the window with her left hand, got a grip on the windowsill, then loosed the tension in her legs and swung down against Kurt's building. Hanging by one hand, she removed the screen with the other and lowered it to the floor inside, then pulled herself up to the windowsill, where she crouched and looked around the room. Two people were in the bed. She could see their heat signatures rising through the covers and being dissipated by the cold breeze coming through the window. No wonder I complained about the cold. She stepped into the room and waited to see if the sleepers stirred. Nothing.

She moved to the side of the bed and looked at the woman with almost scientific detachment. It was Susan Badistone. Jody had met her at Kurt's office picnic and had disliked her immediately. Her straight blond hair was spread over the pillow. Jody twisted a lock of her own curly red hair around her finger. So this is what he wanted. And that's an after-market nose if I've ever seen one. But it's all about appearances, isn't it, Kurt?

Jody grabbed the covers and lifted them far enough to look under. She's got the body of a twelve-year-old boy. Oh Kurt, you should have let her finish the surgery schedule before you brought her home.

She let the covers fall and Susan stirred. Jody backed away from the bed slowly. She had kept all of her papers in an expandable file under the sink in the bathroom. She went to the bathroom and palmed the cabinet open. The file was still there. She grabbed it and headed for the window.

"Who's there?" Kurt said. He sat up in bed and stared into the dark.

Jody ducked below the light coming in the window and watched him.

"I said, who's there?"

"What's a matter?" a groggy Susan said.

"I heard something."

"It's nothing, honey. You're just jumpy after what that horrible woman did to you."

I could snap her scrawny blond neck, Jody thought. Then, in thinking it, in knowing that she could actually do it, she was no longer angry. I'm not "that horrible woman," she thought. I'm a vampire, and no amount of plastic surgery, or breeding, or money will ever make you my equal. I am a G.o.d.

For the first time since the transformation Jody felt calm, comfortable in her own skin. She waited there in the dark until they fell asleep again, then she climbed out the window and replaced the screen. She stood on the window ledge and threw the expandable file on the roof, then leaped up, grabbed the gutter, and pulled herself onto the roof.

At the back of the building she found a steel ladder that went all the way to the ground. The climb between the two buildings had been completely unnecessary.

Okay, not a particularly smart G.o.d, but at least a G.o.d who has her original nose.

Chapter 11 Lather, Rinse, Repent.

The Animals were humming the wedding march when Tommy walked in the store. Tommy was rattled from the cab ride from Telegraph Hill. Evidently the cabdriver, who had a nervous tic and the habit of screaming, "The f.u.c.kers!" at indeterminate intervals and for no particular reason, felt that if you weren't going to top a hill without all four wheels leaving the ground and land in a shower of sparks, you might as well not top it at all, and, in fact, should avoid it by taking a corner on two wheels and crushing your pa.s.sengers against the doors. Tommy was sweat-soaked and a little nauseated.

"Here comes the bride," Troy Lee said.

"Fearless Leader," Simon said, "you look like you just left a three-toweler." Simon measured the success of any social event by the number of towels it took to clean up afterward. "Was a time in my life," Simon would say, "when I only owned one towel and I never had any fun."

"You're not still p.i.s.sed at me?" Tommy asked.

"h.e.l.l, no," Simon said. "I had me a three-toweler myself tonight. Took two choir girls from Our Lady of Perpetual Guilt out in the truck and taught them the fine art of slurping tadpoles."

"That's disgusting."

"No, it ain't. I didn't kiss 'em afterward."

Tommy shook his head. "Is the truck in?"

"Only fourteen hundred cases," Drew said. "You'll have plenty of time to plan the wedding." He held out a stack of bride magazines to Tommy.

"No, thanks," Tommy said.

Drew chucked the magazines behind him and held out a can of whipped cream with his other hand. "Take the edge off?"

"No, thanks. Can you guys stack the truck? I've got some stuff I want to do."

"Sure enough," Simon said. "Let's go do it."

The crew headed to the stockroom. Clint stayed behind.

"Hey, Tommy," he said, his head down, looking embarra.s.sed.

"Yeah?"

"A pallet of kosher food came in tonight. You know, getting ready for Hanukkah and everything. And it's supposed to be blessed by a rabbi."

"Yeah. So?"

"Well, I was wondering if I could say a few words over it. I mean, they're not washed in the Blood or anything, but Christ was Jewish. So..."

"Knock yourself out, Clint."

"Thanks," Clint said. Taken with the Spirit, he scurried off to the stockroom.

Tommy went to the news racks by the registers and gathered up an armload of women's magazines. Then, glancing over his shoulder to make sure that none of the Animals was watching, he took them into the office, locked the door, then sat down at the desk and began his research.

He was about to move in with a woman for the first time, and he didn't know a thing about women. Maybe Jody wasn't crazy. Maybe they were all that way and he was just ignorant. He flipped quickly through the tables of contents to get an overview of the female mind.

There was a pattern here. Cellulite, PMS, and men who don't commit were the enemies. Delightfully light desserts, marriage, and multiple o.r.g.a.s.ms were the allies.

Tommy felt like a spy, as if he should be microfilming the pages under a gooseneck lamp in some back room of a Bavarian castle stronghold, and any minute some woman in SS gear would burst in on him and tell him that she had ways of making him talk. Actually, that last part wouldn't be too bad.

Women seemed to have some collective plan, and most of it seemed to involve getting men to do stuff that they didn't want to do. He skimmed an article ent.i.tled: "Tan Lines: s.e.xy Contrast or Panda Bear Shame? A Psychologist's View," then flipped to one ent.i.tled: "Men's Love for Sports a.n.a.logies: How to Use Vince Lombardi to Make Him Put the Seat Down." ("When one player falls in, the whole team gets a wet b.u.t.t.") He read on: "When it's fourth and ten and Joe Montana decides to go for it, would his linemen tell him that they won't go to the store to get him tampons? I don't think so." And: "Of course Richard Petty doesn't want to wear a helmet, but he can't drive without protection either." By the time Tommy got to the warnings about never using Wilt Chamberlain or Martina Navratilova as examples, he was completely disenchanted. How could you deal with a creature as devious as woman?

He turned the page and his heart sank even further. "Can You Tell Him He's a Lousy Lay?: A Quiz."

Tommy thought, This is exactly the kind of thing that made me stay a virgin until I was eighteen.

1. It's the third date and you're about to have an intimate moment, but when he drops his shorts you notice he's less blessed than you expected. Do you: A: Point and laugh.

B: Say, "Wow! A real man at last." Then turn and snicker to yourself.

C: Say, "Is that what they mean by microbiology?"

D: Just go ahead with it. He might be shamed into making a commitment. And what do you care if all your sons are nicknamed Peewee?

2. You decide to do the dread deed, and just as things are starting to get hot he comes, rolls over, and asks, "Was it good for you?" You: A: Say, "G.o.d, yes! That was the best seventeen seconds of my life!"

B: Say, "Sure, as good as it gets for me with a man."

C: Put a Certs in your navel and say, "That's for you, Mr. Bunnyman. You can have it on your way back up, after the job is finished."

D: Smile and throw his car keys out the window.

3. After fumbling in the dark, he thinks he's found the spot. When you tell him that's not it, he forges ahead anyway. You: A: Grab the lamp off the nightstand and beat him with it until he gets off you.

B: Grab the lamp off the nightstand and beat him to death with it.

C: Grab the lamp off the nightstand, turn it on, and say, "Would you look where you're at?"

D: Wait patiently until he finishes, wishing the whole time that you had a lamp on your nightstand.

The phone in the office rang. Tommy closed the magazine.

"Marina Safeway."

"Tommy, is that you?" Jody asked.

"Yeah, I have on my phone voice."

"Look, you're registered into room two-twelve at the Van Ness Motel the corner of Chestnut and Van Ness. There's a key waiting for you in the office. The papers and keys for my car are on the bed. I left some papers for you to take to Transamerica and some money too. I'll meet you at the motel office a little after sunset."

"What room are you in?"

"I don't think I should say."

"Why? I'm not going to come in and jump you or anything."

"It's not that. I just want things to be right."

He took a deep breath. "Jody?"

"Yes."

"Is there a lamp on the nightstand in your room?"

"Sure, it's bolted down. Why?"

"No reason," Tommy said.

Suddenly, from the back of the store, the Stones belted out "Satisfaction" from a boom box cranked to distorted fuzz level. Tommy could hear the Animals chanting, "Kill the pig!" in the background.

"I've got to go," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow night."

"Okay. Tommy, I had a nice time tonight."

"Me too," he said. He hung up and thought: She's evil. Evil, evil, evil. I want to see her naked.

Jeff, the failed power forward, burst into the office. "The truck is stacked, dude. The ski boat is charged! We're talking luau in the produce aisle."

The Clark 250, self-propelled, professional floor-maintenance machine, is a miracle of janitorial design. Approximately the size of a small desk, the Clark 250 sports two rotating scrub disks at the front of the machine, as well as an onboard reservoir that distributes soap and water, and a squeegeed vacuum that sucks it up. It is propelled by two overpowered electric motors that will drive its gum-rubber tires over any flat surface, wet or dry. A single operator, walking behind the Clark 250, can, in less than an hour, scrub four thousand square feet of floor, and buff it to a shine in which he can see his soul, or so the brochure claims. What the brochure neglects to mention is that if the squeegee is retracted and the vacuum turned off, a single operator can slide along behind the Clark 250 on a river of soapy froth. The Animals called the machine the ski boat.

When Tommy came around the corner of aisle 14, he saw Simon, shirtless, wearing his cowboy hat, cooking weenies over thirty cans of Sterno on a stainless-steel rack that normally was used to display potato chips.

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning," Simon said, waving a barbecue fork. "It smells like victory."

"Cowabunga!" Drew screamed. He was sliding through two inches of soapsuds behind the ski boat, towing Lash toward a makeshift ramp by a length of clothesline. Lash hit the ramp, went airborne, and flipped in the air with a battle cry of "Workman's Comp!"

Tommy stepped aside as Lash landed on his chest and plowed a drift of suds with his face. Drew powered down the boat. "Eight-two," Barry shouted. "Nine-one," said Clint. "Nine-six," said Drew. "Quatro-uno," said Gustavo.

"A four-one from the Mexican judge," Simon said into his barbecue-fork microphone. "That's got to hurt his chances for getting into the finals, Bob."

Lash spit out a mouthful of soap and coughed. "The Mexican judges are always tough," he said. He wore a beard of suds that made him look like a thin, wet version of Uncle Remus.

Tommy helped Lash to his feet. "Are you okay?"

"He's fine," Simon said. "His personal trainer is here." Simon grabbed a coconut off the shelf and lopped the top off with a huge knife from the meat department. "Dr. Drew," he said, holding the coconut out to Drew, who took a pint of rum from his hip pocket and splashed some in the sh.e.l.l.

"Down this," Simon said, handing the coconut to Lash. "Kill the pig, partner."

The Animals chanted "Kill the pig" until Lash had downed the whole drink, coconut milk and rum washing streams though his beard of suds at the corners of his mouth. He stopped to breathe and threw up.

"Nine-two!" Barry shouted.

"Nine-four," Drew said.

"Six-one," Simon drawled. "Penalty points for chunks."

"Fuego," Gustavo said.

Simon jumped in Gustavo's face. "Fuego? What f.u.c.king number is Fuego? You can be disqualified as a judge, you know?"

"Fuego," Gustavo said, pointing over Simon's shoulder to the chip rack, where three dozen weenies had burst into flames and were spewing black smoke.

The smoke alarm went off with a Klaxon scream, drowning out the Rolling Stones.

"It rings into the fire department," Drew shouted in Tommy's ear. "They'll be at the door in a minute. It's your job to head them off, Fearless Leader."

"Me? Why me?"

"That's why you make the big bucks."

"Kill that stereo and put out the fire," Tommy yelled. He turned and was heading for the front door just as Clint came out of the stockroom.

"The kosher stuff is all blessed, and I prayed over some of the gentile food for good measure. You know, Tom, the guys said that you might be getting married, and I'm getting my minister card in the mail soon, so if you need -"