Christopher Moore - Bloodsucking Fiends

Frank said, "We've been doing a lot of statues for people's gardens. Buddhas are big with the koi-pond types. That's what we needed the turtles for. Monk already sold one of them to a woman in Pacific Heights for five hundred bucks. Sight unseen."

"My turtles?" Tommy said. He looked more closely at the bronze turtle Frank was holding. "Zelda!"

"Can you believe it?" Frank said. "We did them both in less than eight hours. Lost-wax process would have taken days. I'll show you."

He led Tommy to the other side of the shop where a short, portly man in leather and denim was working beside a tall Plexi-glas tank filled with a translucent green liquid.

Frank said, "Monk, this is our neighbor, Tom Flood. Flood, this is my partner Monk."

Monk grunted, not looking up from a compressor that he seemed to be having trouble with. Tommy could see how he had gotten his name. He had a large bowl-shaped bald spot with a fringe of hair around it: the Benedictine version of Easy Rider, Friar Tuck on wheels.

"This," said Frank, gesturing toward the ten-foot tank, "as far as we know, is the biggest electroplating tank on the West Coast."

Tommy didn't know quite how to react. He was still stunned by seeing the bronze likeness of Zelda. "That's just spiffy," he said finally.

"Yeah, dude. We can do anything we can find. No molds, no wax carvings. You just dunk and go. That's how we did your turtles."

Tommy was beginning to get it. "You mean that that is not a sculpture? You covered my turtles with brass?"

"That's it. That liquid is supersaturated with dissolved metal. We sprayed the turtles with a thin metal-based paint that would conduct current. Then we attached a wire to them and dipped them in the tank. The current draws the metal out of the water and it fuses to the paint on the turtle. Leave it a long time and the coating gets thick enough to have structural integrity. Voila, a bronze garden turtle. I don't think anybody's ever done it before. We owe you, man."

Monk grunted in gratitude.

Tommy didn't know whether to be angry or depressed. "You should have told me you were going to kill them."

"I thought you knew, man. Sorry. You can have this one, if you want." Frank presented the bronzed Zelda.

Tommy shook his head and looked away. "I don't think I could look at her." He turned and walked away.

Frank said, "C'mon, man, take it. We owe you one. If you need a favor or something…"

Tommy took Zelda. How would he explain to Jody? "By the way, I've turned your little friends into statues." And this right after they'd had a big fight. He slunk up the steps feeling completely lost.

Jody had left him a note on the counter:

Tommy:

Imperative that you are here when I wake up. If you go out you are in serious, life-threatening trouble. I mean it. I have some very important things to tell you. No time now, I'm going to go out any second. Be here when I wake up.

Jody

"Great," Tommy said to Peary. "Now what do I do about Mara? Who does Jody think she is, threatening me? What does she think she's going to do if I'm not here? I can't be here. Why don't you keep her busy until I get home." Tommy patted the chest freezer and an idea came to him.

"You know, Peary, scientists have frozen vampire bats and thawed them completely unharmed. I mean, how would she know? How many times has she thought it was Tuesday when it was really Wednesday?"

Tommy went to the bedroom and looked in on Jody, who had made it to bed, but not in time to change out of her black dress.

Wow, Tommy thought, she never dresses like that for me.

She looked so peaceful. Sexy, but peaceful.

She'll be angry if she finds out, but she's angry now. It won't really hurt her. I can just take her out tomorrow morning and put her under the electric blanket. By sundown she'll be thawed out and I'll have handled the Mara thing. I can tell Mara that I'm involved. I can't start something new until this is finished. Maybe with the extra time, Jody will have chilled a little.

He smiled to himself.

He opened the lid of the freezer, then went into the bedroom to get Jody. He carried her into the kitchen and laid her in the freezer on top of Peary. As he tucked her into the fetal position he felt a twinge of jealousy. "You guys behave now, okay?" He tucked a few TV dinners around her nice and snug under her arms, then kissed her on the forehead and gently closed the lid.

As he crawled into bed he thought, If she ever finds out about this, she's really going to be pissed.

Tommy had been asleep three hours when the pounding started. He rolled out of bed, stumbled across the dark bedroom, and was blinded when he opened the door into the loft. He was just regaining his eyesight when he opened the fire door and Rivera said, "Are you Thomas Flood, Junior?"

"Yes," Tommy said, bracing himself against the doorjamb.

"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 that they had found under the dead bum. 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…"