Page 9 (1/2)

Chapter Fourteen

Powers for Good

The E on a black reat opera house, feeling s redhead in jeans co fit and the Emperor snatched the Boston terrier up by the scruff of the neck and stuffed him into the oversized pocket of his coat to quiet him

"Brave Bummer," said the old man "Would that I could still hold that kind of passion, even if it were fear But nified surrender"

He’d felt like this since he’d seen Jody outside the secondhand store, where she’d warned him away from the owner Yes, now he knew her to be one of the undead, a bloodsucking fiend - but then, not so ood one, even after he had betrayed Tommy Iff to the Animals He could feel the City’s eye on him, could feel her disappointment in him What does a man have, if not character? What is character, if not a ainst his friends and enereat city of San Francisco shook her head at hi with disappointment

He remembered a house somewhere and that same look on the face of a dark-haired wohost, and Jody was bending to scratch behind the ears of the steadfast Lazarus, who had never been agitated by her like his bug-eyed brother, who even now squirmed furiously in the woolen pocket

"Your Majesty," Jody said "How are you?"

"Worthless and weak," said the Eirl He’d never known her to hurt a soul What a cad he was

"I’ warm?"

"The men and I have this very hour vanquished a corned beef on a sourdough roll the size of a healthy infant, thank you"

"Tommy’s Joynt?" Jody said with a smile

"Indeed We are not worthy, yet my people provide"

"Don’t be silly, you’re worthy Look, Ee and recently shaven cat?"

"That’s the one"

"Why yes, we crossed his path not long ago He was at the liquor store at Geary and Taylor He seeetic than I’ve seen hio?" She stopped petting Lazarus and stood

"Little o"

"Thank you, Your Majesty You don’t knohere he was going?"

"I should think to find a safe place to drink his dinner Although I can’t claim to know hi in the Tenderloin often"

Jody patted the Emperor’s shoulder, and he took her hand

"I’m so sorry, dear"

"Sorry? About what?"

"When I saw you and Thoht, I noticed It’s true, isn’t it? Thoed"

"No, he’s still a doofus"

"I mean he is one of your kind now?"

"Yes" She looked up the street "I was alone," she said

The Emperor knew exactly how she felt "I told one of his crew frohtened"

"You told the Aniain one, yes"

"And how did he react?"

"He orried for Thomas’s soul"

"Yeah, that would be Clint’s reaction You don’t know if he told the other Aniuess yes, by now"

"Okay, don’t worry, then, Your Highness It’s okay Just don’t tell anyone else To the City just like we pros in order"

"And the other - the old vampire?"

"Yes Hi into the Tenderloin, her boot heels clacking on the sidewalk as she kept her pace just below a run

The Emperor shook his head and rubbed Lazarus behind the ears "I should have told her about the detectives I know that, old friend" There was only so much weakness he could confess to at one time - that, too, a fault The Eht, perhaps in the park by the Maritime Museuoing to re before To all of the furniture, books, and clothes Now the new loft looked almost exactly like the old loft had looked, except that it didn’t have a working phone line So To at the three bronze statues and waiting for Jody to call

Just the three statues left to move: Jody, the old vampire, and the turtle The old vampire looked fairly natural

He’d been unconscious when he’d been bronzed, but Tommy had the biker sculptors downstairs pose him as if he was in midstep, out for a stroll Jody was posed with her hand on her hip, her head thrown back as if she’d just tossed her long hair over her shoulder, s perspective She didn’t look skanky What made Abby say the statue was skanky? Sexy, well yes Jody had been wearing some very low-cut jeans and a crop top when he’d posed her for the electroplating, and the bikers had insisted upon exposing e than was probably decorous, but what could you expect frono out the Kama Sutra?

Okay, she looked a little skanky, but he didn’t see how that was a bad thing He had actually been delighted when she ca out of the ear holes to materialize, stark naked, in front of him If she hadn’t killed him, it would have been the fulfill time (There had been this old TV show he’d watched as a kid, about a beautiful genie who lived in a bottle - well, To over that one)

So the Jody statue stayed But the old vampire, Elijah, that was a different story There was a real creature in there A real scary creature Whatever bizarre events had brought them to this spot had been set off by Elijah Ben Sapir He was a reminder that neither he - Tommy - nor Jody had chosen to be vampires Neither had chosen to live out the rest of their days in the night Elijah had taken their choices away froger choices The first of which was how the hell do you deal with the fact that you have i in a shell of bronze, even if he is an evil dick-weed froes? But they couldn’t let him out He’d kill them for sure if they did Really kill them, too, a cory He’d had a future He ht have been a writer, a Nobel Prize winner, an adventurer, a spy Noas just a foul dead thing, and the furthest his ambition would reach was his next victim Okay, that wasn’t really true, but still, he was pissed off So what if Elijah was trapped in bronze shell forever He’d trapped the monstrous

Tommy picked up Jody’s statue and threw it over his shoulder and, despite his great vaainst the floor Okay, it had taken the two bikers and a refrigerator dolly to get the statues up here,was in order

It turned out he couldit over his back and let one of her feet drag, and so he did, down the steps, half a block down the sidewalk, and back up the steps of the new loft Bronze Jody looked happy in the new place, he thought The turtle took half as long She, too, looked pleased with the surroundings

As for Elijah, To in a city on a peninsula if you didn’t take advantage of the water now and then And Elijah evidently liked the ocean, since he’d come to the City on his yacht, which Toed to blow to smithereens

The vampire statue was even heavier that Jody’s, but To rid of it Just a short twelve blocks to the sea and that would be that

"From the sea ye ca that he e, or ed the bronzed vampire down Mission Street, he considered his future What would he do? He had a lot of ti out neays to ju to have to find a purpose They had iven Jody when he turned her - and as left of the money from the sale of Elijah’s art, but eventually that would run out Maybe he should get a job Or becohter

That’s it, he would use his powers for good Maybe get an outfit

After a few blocks To on the sidewalk, was starting to wear away The bikers had warned Tommy that the bronze shell was pretty thin It wouldn’t do to unleash a claustrophobic and hungry ancient vauy who had imprisoned him, so To through a trash bin until he found so Gulp cups, which he fitted on the va foot as skid protection

"Ha!" Touys in hip-hop alked by as To the cups on the va eye contact and they paused

"Stole it fro on Fourth," To, Of course, ere just wondering, and proceeded to th and speed, Toht, so they wouldn’t dare mess with host makeup was crazy - and ould they do with a four-hundred-pound statue anyway?

To the statue to the E If there was anyone around, he’d just stand at the rail like he was there with his gay lover, then shove the statue in when no one was looking He felt enormously sophisticated about the plan No one would ever think a guy fro just wasn’t done Toone up to Chicago to see the ain Tommy reckoned he’d been disappeared by the local Kiwanis Club

When he got to the E the waterfront, Toht there and call it a night, but he had a plan, so he dragged the vampire that last two blocks to the promenade at the end of Market Street, where the antique streetcars, the cable cars, and the cross-bay ferries all converged in a big paved park and sculpture garden Here, away froht seeht Tommy stopped forout of sorates by the streetcar turnaround Perfect There was absolutely no one around

Then the beeping started Toht hadn’t opened up to hi hiood twenty blocks away

Jody was quickstepping along the alleyway that came out in front of their old loft She still had twenty , and twentyit too close Tommy would be freaked She should have taken the cell phone with her She shouldn’t have left him alone with the new minion

She’d finally found Williae cat sleeping on his chest They’d have to remember not to leave Willia to be their food source Otherwise he’d go elsewhere for his alcohol, and that wasn’t going to work He wasway home on his own Maybe she’d let hiet their deposit back anyway

There was still a light on in the loft Great, Toet a key for the new place She was about to step out of the alley when she sar smoke and heard a man’s voice She stopped and peeked around the corner

There was a brown Ford sedan parked across the street froed men Cavuto and Rivera, the hoht they’d blown up Elijah’s yacht They’d moved just in tiet to the new place either It was only a half a block away, and she’d have to cross in the open And even then, what if it was locked?

She juht up when the alarm on her watch went off

It was toward the end of their second shift after returning to the Safeway that the Ani by himself in the wide backseat of the Hu desperately that the despair and self-loathing he was feeling was only the effect of a hangover, instead of what it really hich was a big fla enema of reality The reality was, they had spent more than a half a eness of it roll around in his head, and looked up at the other Ani around the peri not to make eye contact with one another They’d had nearly two seht, and they’d known it was co because they’d ordered it to make up for the tiet low So they’d sobered up, put their heads down, and thrown stock like the Ani close to dawn and it was dawning on all of theht have severely fucked up

Lash risked a sideways glance at Blue, as sitting between Barry and Troy Lee She’d taken Lash’s apartment on Northpoint, and made him sleep on the couch at Troy Lee’s, where there were about seven hundred Chinese farand the day, when Lash was trying to sleep, would screech, "What’s up, ive her a pound or a high five

Lash had been explaining to her that it’s ia, unless one was another African-American, when Troy Lee came in and said, "She only speaks Cantonese"

"She does not She keeps coa? "

"Oh yeah She does that to ive her a pound, oing to quit unless you give her a pound It’s just the way she rolls"

"That’s some bullshit, Troy"

"It’s her couch"

Lash, exhausted and already hungover, gave the wizened old woman a pound

Granny turned to Troy Lee "What’s up, randson

"That shit is not the saht"

Now half a one The li them a thousand dollars a day Lash looked out the blackout s at the hts, then turned to Blue

"Blue," he said "We have to get rid of the li to her since they’d finished stocking They’d brought her coffee and juice, but no one had said anything

Blue looked at him "Get me what I want" Not a hint of malice, not even a demand, really, just a statement of fact "Okay," Lash said Then to the driver he said, "Take a right up here Head back to that building where ent last night"

Lash crawled over the divider into the front passenger seat He couldn’t see shit out the blackened s They’d only gone about three blocks into the SOMA district when he saw so - like he was on fire - running

"Pull up alongside of that guy"

The driver nodded

"Hey, guys, is that Flood?"

"Yeah, it is," Barry, the bald one, said

Lash rolled down the"To, nodded like a bobble-head on crack

Barry threw open the back door, and before the li across Drew and Gustavo’s laps

"Man, a," To to - "

He passed out in their laps as the sun washed over the hills of San Francisco

Chapter Fifteen

Broken Clowns

Inspector Alphonse Rivera watched the broken clown girl - black-and-white-striped stockings and green sneakers - come out of Jody Stroud’s apartment and head up the street, then turn and look back at their brown, unmarked sedan

"We’re made," said Nick Cavuto, Rivera’s partner, a broad-shouldered bear of a ed for the days of Dashiell Hah and there were very few problems that couldn’t be solved with your fists or a smack fro Twoin the car on the city street - it’s unusual"

If Cavuto was a bear, then Rivera was a raven - a sharp-featured, lean Hispanic, with just a touch of gray at the te expensive Italian suits, in raw silk or linen when he could find them His partner was in rumpled Men’s Wearhouse Rivera often wondered if Nick Cavuto ay man on the planet who had no fashion sense whatsoever

The knock-kneed kid with the raccoon eyeher way across the street toward them

"Roll up your ," Cavuto said "Roll up yourPretend like you don’t see her"