23
I walk four blocks from campus back to Mirage Way, shaken to my soul by Bonwitch’s revelation. Another secret of my past revealed. A grievous secret. What’s next?
Home at last in my private world at the Garden of Abracadabra, I break open the bag of sour-cream-and-chives potato chips Twitch stocked in my pantry, play back my landline messages, fire up the iMac, and lose myself in the Internet. I’m debating whether to buy chocolate-covered ants online because the shipping is free when the intercom beside my door blurts with a nerve-jangling buzzt.
I shut the iMac down, jog across the living room, and toggle the switch. “Yes?”
“Kovac and Valdez.”
I can hear the strain in Kovac’s voice through the static. I have to sigh. I’m about to be dragged back into a supernatural murder investigation I never asked to be a part of. My great destiny? I want to uncork the wine Twitch left me and finish the chips.
I don’t do any of those things. I shout into the intercom, “See you in the lobby,” and buzz them in.
I pull on a white jeans jacket that matches the jeans, grab my house keys, and run out to meet them. As I stride through the archway into the lobby, I overhear the last strident whispers of their heated conversation.
“It’s too much for you, Jack. Why can’t you wait till tomorrow?”
“Because I have to take care of this tonight.”
“But you can’t–”
“Maria, do not tell me what I can and can’t do.”
“Hi, there,” I say. “Fab evening, huh? Cool for a change.”
Two very young, very unhappy police officers accompany them. A Hispanic-American guy and a Jamaican-American gal, the two of them glance around the lobby with wide, fearful eyes, hands hovering near their holsters. The police know power when they see it, Kovac told me, and it intimidates them. These rookies look way intimidated.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Teller,” Kovac says in his brusque way. As if he never sat knee-to-knee with me in his BMW. Never smiled at me with his eyes. Never gazed at me searchingly.
Fine with me. If he wants to play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I can play that game, too.
“You asked if I could be here, Mr. Kovac. Here I am.”
“Yes. It’s imperative that I speak with the vampires tonight,” he says as much to Valdez as to me.
“I’ve heard of this place, but I’ve never been inside,” Valdez says, nearly as wide-eyed as her rookies. “It’s beautiful!”
“Thanks. The place has a lot of power. And who are these people?”
“Officer Hernandez and Officer Montego,” Valdez says and the rookies nod briskly. “They’re going to go door to door and interview your tenants. That okay with you?”
I shrug. “You’ll have your people go do your police business whether I like it or not.”
Kovac bristles at my curt tone. “You want this case solved, don’t you, Ms. Teller? Tenants of the Garden of Abracadabra cleared of suspicion?”
“What do you think.” I make it a nonquestion. Kovac likes dishing out nonquestions. Let’s see if he can take one. I steal another look at the man, hoping to hide my shock. But I’m no good at concealing my feelings. No good, at all.
Kovac leans heavily on a cane. A cane. He looks haggard, the planes and angles of his face pinched, the scar from his eye to his jaw a harder, whiter keloidal line. The angry red aura flares from knee to toe, but the aura is odd. I can see no trace of other colors typically present around a human limb, even a limb in pain. No trace at all. It strikes me that Kovac is, from knee to toe, pure pain. He drags his left foot forward as if every step is a torture.
Valdez frowns, her brow a furrow of worry, her eyes dark with misgivings. She carries a bulky canvas bag on a long strap, which she nervously shifts from shoulder to shoulder.
Both of them look disheveled and done in as much by their argument as the eventful day.
I really don’t want to have to witness their little drama again. Her face pleading, his face impassive. The ruin of a relationship.
I want no part of their plan. I’ve got no duty as the super to do more than buzz them in and tell them where the vampires live. Let them go do their police business while I focus on my homework and what’s for dinner. I’m a working student, not a staffer in their investigation.
But I bite back my pique. Of course I want the case solved. Truth is, I don’t know if I can face Jake, Flame, and Cuddles again for past-due rent, a burnt-out hall light, or any other reason without allies on the side of the law. Whatever the vampires have done or not done, I want them to know the FBI and the Berkeley P.D. are on my side.
I want the vampires to know I’m not all alone.
Beats garlands of garlic bulbs by a mile.
“Scorpio Rising lives on the third floor,” I say. “I’ll take you there. The halls can be kind of confusing.”
Valdez looks doubtfully at the staircase, but Kovac hobbles across the lobby, his determination to climb the stairs written all over his face.
“Mr. Kovac, there’s a service elevator out back. It’ll be quicker than the stairs. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a stressful day. I’m not up for three stories of stairs.”
Valdez shoots me a look of deep gratitude.
I don’t want to play Kovac’s passive-aggressive sympathy game, but I am beat. I direct the rookies to start their interviews at Esmeralda’s apartment and lead Kovac and Valdez through the tricky halls to the service elevator.
We squeeze into the tiny car and ride up in stony silence.
Outside Number Twenty-seven, everything is dead quiet, dead still. Great floor to live on if you don’t mind undead disco superstars for neighbors. I now know the quiet and the stillness don’t mean a hearty party isn’t rocking on behind the door.
Kovac raps his knuckles below the peephole. No answer. He raps again, something stirs inside, and the peephole darkens. Without looking at her, Kovac holds out his hand to Valdez in a peremptory way.
I shake my head. God, the man can be rude.
She rummages in her canvas shoulder bag, pulls out a printout, and slaps it in his hand.
I peer around his shoulder at a composite of photographs. Left profile, right profile, front and center of the man I knew as Brand. Not snaps for your holiday greeting cards. Mug shots.
Someone trills sweetly behind the door, “Who is it?”
“Jack Kovac, FBI, Supernatural Crimes.”
“Detective Maria Valdez, Berkeley P.D.”
“Abby Teller, your super.”
“Gosh, thanks, but we haven’t reported any supernatural crimes tonight. Have a good evening.”
“I need to speak with Jacob Riese, also known as Jake, Francine Finkelstein, also known as Flame, and Catherine Gorton, also known as Cuddles,” Kovac snaps. “I need to speak with them right now.”
“Dear me. One moment, please.”
We wait in silence. We wait in silence far too long, but what can we do? This isn’t a SWAT operation where we smash the door down and charge in, shotguns blazing. Gosh, I don’t even own a shotgun. Valdez shifts from foot to foot on her two-inch heels, I flex my toes in my ballet flats, and Kovac leans heavily on his cane.
His cane. I still can’t get over his cane. Not a decorative cane, either, a fashion statement sported by gentlemen of an earlier era. It’s a functional medically prescribed aluminum cane with a rubber tip.
At last the door creaks open, and I brace myself for the obnoxious beat and falsetto vocals of “Disco Divin’”. But there is only more dead silence.
The Odd Person sashays out first, barefoot in baggy gray sweats. Flame follows, flouncing her orange-pesticide mane. Cuddles strolls out next, primping her frostbite-blue curls. Then Jake, the iconic Jake, his goatee and pompadour maggot-white against his sun-baked face.
Scorpio Rising flaunts sumptuous black satin robes sashed at the waist and four-inch platform shoes. They pose in the effortless way famous people do–a hand on a hip, a knee cocked just so–and glance around expectantly, as if paparazzi and popping light bulbs might appear down the hall, clamoring for a shot to sell to the tabloids.
The tips of their fangs extrude ever so slightly over the pout of their lower lips shiny with gloss. The otherworldly frigidity of the undead instantly chills the air, and I shiver, my breath streaming out of my mouth in a misty cloud. An aura of black magic as thick as molten tar surrounds each vampire.
“We don’t have to talk in the hall, do we?” Kovac says.
“Got a search warrant?” Jake says.
“No,” Kovac says.
Valdez shakes her head.
“What?” I say to my allies, but no one answers.
“Then take a freakin’ hike.” Jake waves bye-bye with his middle finger, swirls his robe with the aplomb of a silent-movie villain, and turns to go inside.
“Just a minute.” Kovac hands Jake the printout of Brand’s photos. “Did you see this man last night?”
Jake glances at the printout, then thrusts it at Flame. The two female vampires bend over the photos, giggling and whispering, then hand the printout back to Jake.
Jake flings the printout at Kovac. “We see so many people every night, I couldn’t possibly say.”
“Uh-huh. I need a saliva sample from each of you. Detective Valdez? Proceed.”
Valdez reaches in the canvas shoulder bag and pulls out latex gloves, a body-fluid collection kit, specimen vials and tongue depressors in a zip-lock bag. Her hands shake as she pulls on the gloves.
“Have charges been filed against any of us?” Jake says.
“Not yet,” Kovac says.
Jake grins, revealing the full curve of his fangs. “Then I don’t think so. This is harassment, Mr. FBI.”
“A witness saw the females feeding last night,” Kovac says. “I think you know feeding is a felony.”
Jake shoots a look of pure hatred at me. “I think you know there are feedings and feedings. A feeding, like a sexual act, may be a felony, but only when the victim is illegally forced. Oh, I almost forgot. And only when the State files criminal charges on the victim’s behalf. So give it to me again, Mr. FBI. Have charges been filed?”
Kovac ignores the question and stares Jake right in those eyes of blue ice a little too long. Which worries me. I’ve gazed in those hypnotic icy eyes myself. Kovac, apparently, has had practice with vampire eyes because he presses on with his questions.
“Feeding to kill is first-degree homicide with supernatural circumstances. This man”–Kovac brandishes the mug shots–“is dead. Along with two young women.”
“None of us fed on that person. Certainly not to kill. He looks like a criminal. Is he?”
Kovac ignores that question, too. “And you know, Mr. Riese, that feeding on a minor, like sexual acts with a minor, is a felony under any circumstances.”
“Goodness me, we don’t invite minors to our parties,” Jake says.
“I saw plenty of minors at your party last night,” I chime in. “I saw her”–I point at Cuddles–“feeding on a minor.”
“You must be mistaken, super,” the Odd Person says. “You know very well I ask for an ID at the door.”
“I didn’t show you my ID.”
“Darling, you threatened me.”
“I merely introduced myself.”
“Look, Jake,” Kovac says impatiently. “This man and the two women were found dead in Tilden Park this morning. It looks like vampire bites. Negative saliva results would clear you. You want to be cleared, don’t you?”
“Do we want to be cleared, children?” Jake says to the females. “No, I don’t think we want to be cleared of anything, Mr. FBI. We’re not contributing our DNA to your nasty little surveillance database. And I’ll think twice before I contribute to your holiday drive, Detective Valdez. Trouble us again, unannounced, without criminal charges or a search warrant or a court order to collect DNA or one shred of evidence tying us to any crime, supernatural or otherwise, and you’ll hear from our lawyers.”
His eyes of blue ice turn to me. “That goes for you, too, super.”
But I see a wariness in his eyes I didn’t see last night. “As long as you pay your rent on time, Jake. By the way, your lease states that no tenants may run a business receiving clients or customers at their apartment.”
The vampires trade troubled looks. Cuddles bares her fangs and hisses at me. But softly. Softly.
“We don’t receive clients or customers,” Jake says. “We’ve got fans. Friends. Devotees.”
“Friends who buy booze? Have you got a liquor license?”
“We don’t sell liquor. I told you that last night. If our fans and friends wish to make a donation for the drinks we provide for free, that’s their choice.”
“As you can see, Jake, I’ve got friends, too. My friends would like to know what you’re dealing at your parties. I’m quite sure I smelled crack and opium and marijuana last night. And how many of those ‘donations’ do you declare for tax purposes? Agent Kovac, didn’t the FBI bust Al Capone for income tax evasion?”
“Took a vicious gangster off the street,” Kovac says and shoots me a marvelous smile, twinkling out of his eyes.
Way to go. Teamwork, at last. But Valdez inhales so sharply, I wonder if she’s going to choke.
“Be careful, super,” Jake says. “We know where you live.” He reveals the full curve of his fangs a second time.
“And I know where you live. I’ve got a dozen excellent reasons to evict your undead ass, starting with your water bed.”
My threat isn’t nearly as scary as Jake’s but, to my satisfaction, he scowls. The two females stop giggling and whispering. Scorpio Rising has a great apartment at the Garden of Abracadabra, and they know it. A great apartment they don’t want to lose.
And now I’ve got witnesses–law enforcement witnesses–that Jake just sort of threatened my life. What could be better insurance against death by vampire bite?
********
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