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On the drive to Mayfair Joel tells me about his life Maybe I pry the infor to hide I listen attentively and grow to like hi mite, much to my disquiet Maybe that&039;s his intention-to be open with erous than I appear

"I grew up on a farent from the first time I saw that old series, The FBI, that starred Efrem Zireat I suppose I did have drea kidnapped kids, stopping serial raduated froned to blue collar cri account?ants Then I got a big break My landlady was mur?dered Stabbed with a knife and buried in a cornfield That was at the end of summer The local police were called in, and they found the body pretty quick They were sure her boyfriend did it They even had the guy arrested and ready to stand trial But I kept telling them he loved his woman and wouldn&039;t have hurt her for the world They wouldn&039;t listen to me There is an old rivalry between the FBI and police Even in Los Angeles, working on this case, the LAPD constantly withholds information from me

"Anyway, privately, I went after another suspect- the woman&039;s sixteen-year-old son I know, he sounds like an unlikely candidate-the woman&039;s only child But I knew her son as well as the boyfriend, and the kid was bad news An addict ready to steal the change froht hi into my car once to steal h, he was uy in the world or ready to poke your eyes out He had lost all sense of reality At his"Whole Lot of Love" Yet, at the sauilt But I knew he&039;d done it, and, as you&039;re fond of saying, don&039;t askin his eyes when I talked to hi about how nice it was finally to have the house all to himself "The problem was, I didn&039;t have a shred of evidence that linked hi he&039;d reveal so ut so would turn up

"Then Halloween ca the sonofabitch was out on his front porch carving a huge jack-o&039;-lantern He flashed ly sweet s about his expression made me pause to look closer at his knife By this time the victi As I mentioned, the woman had been stabbed, and as I studied her son and the pumpkin on his lap, I re of the metal teeth marks on the victiularly spaced ridges

"I hid my interest in the knife with a nonchalant wave, but the next day I got a warrant to search the house I obtained the knife, and its cutting edge was coraphs taken by the coroner There was astory short, the son was eventually convicted He is serving a life sentence in Iowa as we speak" Joel adds, "All because of one jack-o&039;-lantern"

"All because of one sharp agent," I say "Was your success on the case your ticket to bigger and better things?"

"Yes My boss was pleased by my persistence, and I was put on a couple of old unsolved murder cases I solved one of the difficult murder cases in LA ever since" He nods "Persistence is the key to solving ination Why did you tellto make casual conversation with a potential witness"

"Not true You want to see how I react to your tales of insight and intrigue"

He has to laugh "What do you ith oat? I did as you requested-I told no one where I was going But I&039;ll have to call in so around with a cute blond, it&039;s not going to look good on my record"

"So you think I&039;m cute?" I ask

"You catch the operative words, don&039;t you?"

"Yes" I add, "I think you&039;re cute as well"

"Thank you Do you have a boyfriend?"

"Yes"

"Is he nor in my chest "He is wonderful"

"Can he verify where you were the last two days?"

"That&039;s not necessary I already told you I was in the Coliseu broken and chests pierced If there is guilt by association, then I&039; that to an FBI agent?"

"Do I look worried?"

"No That&039;s orries ain "How did this abnor man&039;s neck?"

"With his bare hands"

"But that&039;s impossible"

"I told you not to ask et to Mayfair, see e find out from the local police Then perhaps I&039;ll tell you more"

"I will have to call the local office of the FBI and have the They won&039;t open their files to me just because I walk in the front door"

I hand him my cellular phone "Notify whoever you have to, Joel"

The Mayfair police give us scant information, and yet it is crucial While I wait in the car and listen to the conversation that takes place inside the station, Joel learns that there was a body recovered from the explosion at my house, not just pieces of flesh as I expected I have to wonder-how did Yaksha&039;s form survive the blast? He was more powerful than any creature that walked the earth, but even he should have had to bow to several crates of dynaue in Seaside, seventy miles south of Mayfair, the city where I combated the people Yaksha sent after me, Slim and his partners "Please! I don&039;t want to die" "Then you should never have been born" Sli, as was his end So be it

Joel returns to ive him every chance to lie to ivesto Seaside," I say, handing hiain "Tell them we&039;re on our way"

"What was the name of your friend who died?"

"Yaksha"

"What kind of nalance over "It&039;s the naue "Love the coive hi-tiue is only too happy to show hiet there-this ti for isback Joel looks irritated I fed dizzy Is Yaksha still alive? Did he create the monster who attacked me? If that is the case, then we are all doomed Seymour can have all the confidence in the world in me, but I will not be able to stopour black blood Yet itforward to his end, secure in the knowledge that he was going to his death having done the Lord&039;s bidding

"What do you ?" Joel demands "What happened to it?"

The bespeckled coroner shakes at Joel&039;s question He is the kid who has been caught with his fingers in the cookie jar Only this guy&039;s fingers look as if they have been dipped in for for the last twenty years The jaundice virus could be oozing out of his big ears Here I am a vampire, but even I can&039;t understand why anyone would want to be a coroner and ith corpses all day, even fresh ones filled with nice blood Morticians are an even stranger lot I once buried a mortician alive-in France after World War II-in hisall A as I shoveled the dirt on top of him I enjoy a little mischief

"We don&039;t know for sure," the coroner replies "But we believe it was stolen"

"Well, that&039;s just great," Joel growls "How long was the body here before it disappeared?"

"A week"

"Excuse ent Perne and an expert when it comes to forensic evi?dence Are you absolutely sure the body we are discussing was in fact a body? That the person was dead?"

The coroner blinks as if he has tissue sauy siot up and walked out," I say

"That would have been quite is had been blown off," the coroner says "He was dead We had him in the freezer all the tiht have stolen the body?" Joel asks

The coroner straightens "Yes We had an employee here, an Eddie Fender, who vanished the sa his final paycheck He worked the night shift and was often unsupervised"

"What was his position?" Joel asks

"He was an orderly, of sorts"

I snort "He helped prepare the bodies for dissec?tion"

The coroner is insulted "We do not dissect people, Agent Perne"

Joel raises his hand as a call for peace "Do you have a resuuy? A job application?"