Patterson, James - Alex Cross 7 - Violets Are Blue

'There are a few things we aren't clear about,' I said to her. "That's why we came all the way from San Francisco to see you. Actually, I came from Washington, DC.'

'Long trip for nothing. Shaft,' she said. Gloria dos Santos had a zinger for every occasion. She wiped her hand over her face a few times as if she were trying to wake herself up.

'You're obviously high as a kite' Jamilla cut in. "That doesn't matter to us. Relax, girl. These men who attacked you hurt you pretty bad.'

dos Santos snorted. 'Pretty bad? They broke two ribs, broke my arm. They knocked me down 'bout six times. Fortunately, they knocked me right down a goddamn hill, side of a mountain, actually. I started rolling. Got up. Ran my ass off.'

'The initial report said that you didn't see either of them very well. Then you claimed that they were in their forties or fifties.'

She shrugged. 'I don't know. It was foggy. That's an impression I had. Earlier that night, I went to the Fang Club on West Pico. It's the only place where you can meet real vampires and live to tell about it. So they say. I was going to a lot of Goth clubs back then - Stigmata, Coven 13, Vampiricus over in Long Beach. I worked at Necromane. What's Necromane?' she asked, as if it were a question we would want answered. She was right. 'Necromane is a boutique for people who are really into the dead. You can buy real human skulls there. Fingers, toes. A full human skeleton if that's your thing.'

'It's not,' Jamilla said. 'But I've been to a shop like that in San Francisco. It's called the Coroner.'

The girl looked at her contemptuously. 'So I'm fucking impressed? You must be very cool. You must live right on the edge.'

I spoke again. 'We're trying to help you. We--'

She cut me off.'Bullshit, you're trying to help yourselves. You've got another big case. Those kinky murders in San Francisco, right? I can read, man. You couldn't care less about Gloria dos Santos and her problems. I got lots of them. More than you know. Who gives a shit, right?'

Two people were killed in Golden Gate Park. It was a massacre. Did you read that? We think it might be the same men who attacked you' I told her.

'Yeah, well let me tell you something you better get straight. The two men who attacked me were vampires'. Got that? I know this is impossible for you to wrap your little minds around, but there are vampires. They set themselves apart from the human world. That means - they aren't like you!

'Two of them almost killed me. They were hunting in Beverly Hills. They kill people every fucking day in LA! They drink their blood. They call it feeding. They chew on their bones like it's KFP-that's Kentucky Fried People, chumps. I can see you don't believe me. Well, believe me.'

The door to the interview room opened quietly. A uniformed patrolman popped in and whispered something to Detective Kim.

Kim frowned and looked at us, then at dos Santos. "There was a killing on Sunset Boulevard a short time ago. Someone was bitten and then hanged at one of the better hotels.'

Gloria dos Santos's face twisted horribly. Her eyes grew small and very angry. She flew into a rage, started to scream at the top of her voice. 'They followed you here, you assholes! Don't you get it? They followed you! Oh my God, they know I talked to you. Oh Jesus Christ, they'll get me. You just got me killed!'

PART TWO

BLOOD LUST

Alex Cross 7 - Violets Are Blue

Chapter Twenty-Two

I always liked working tough murder cases with Kyle Craig, so I was glad that he would be joining Jamilla Hughes and me in Los Angeles later that day. I was surprised, however, when I saw him already at the murder scene in Beverly Hills when we arrived. The body had been found at the Chateau Marmont, the hotel where John Belushi had overdosed and died.

The hotel looked like a French castle and rose seven stories over the Sunset Strip. As I entered the lobby, I noticed that everything looked to be authentic 1920s, but dated rather than antique. Supposedly, a studio boss had once told the actor William Holden, If you have to get into trouble, do it at the Chateau Marmont.'

Kyle met us at the door of the hotel room. His dark hair was slicked back and it looked like he'd gotten a little sun. Unusual for Kyle. I almost didn't recognize him.

'This is Kyle Craig, FBI,'I told Jamilla.'Before I met you, he was the best homicide investigator I ever worked with.'

Kyle and Jamilla shook hands. Then we followed him into the hotel room. Actually, it was a hillside bungalow: two bedrooms, a living room with a working fireplace. It had its own private street entrance.

The crime scene was as depressingly bad as the others. I recalled something typically pessimistic that a philosopher had written. I'd once had this same thought at a grisly crime scene in North Carolina: 'Human existence must be a kind of error. It is bad today and every day it will get worse, until the worst of all happens.' My own philosophy was a little cheerier than Schopenhauer's, but there were times when he seemed on the mark.

The worst of all had happened to a twenty-nine-year-old record company executive named Jonathan Mueller, and in the worst possible way. There were bites on his neck. I didn't see any knife cuts. Mueller had been hung from a lighting fixture in the hotel room. His skin was waxy and translucent and I didn't think he had been dead very long.

The three of us moved closer to the hanging body. It was swaying slightly, and still dripping blood.

'The major bites are all in his neck' I said.'It looks like role-playing vampires again. The hanging has to be their ritual, maybe their signature.'

'This is so goddamn creepy,'Jamilla whispered.'This poor guy had the blood sucked out of him. It almost looks like a sex crime.'

'I think it is,' Kyle said. 'I think they seduced him first.'

Just then the cell phone in my jacket pocket went off. The timing couldn't have been worse.

I looked at Kyle before I answered the call.'It could be him,'I said. 'The Mastermind.'

I put the receiver to my ear.

'How do you like LA, Alex?' the Mastermind asked in his usual mechanical drone. 'The dead pretty much look the same everywhere, don't they?'

I nodded at Kyle. He understood who was on the line. The Mastermind.

He motioned for me to give him the phone and I handed it over. I watched his face as he listened, then frowned deeply. Kyle finally took the phone away from his ear.

'He broke off the connection,' he said. 'It was like he knew you weren't on the line anymore. How did he know, Alex? How does the bastard know so much? What the hell does he want from you?'

I stared at the slowly revolving corpse, and I didn't have any answers. None at all. I felt drained myself.

Alex Cross 7 - Violets Are Blue

Chapter Twenty-Three

It was Friday already and we were in the middle of a nasty, sordid mess that wasn't going to be over soon. In the afternoon I had to make a tough phone call home to Washington. Nana Mama answered after a couple of rings, and I immediately wished that one of the kids had picked up instead.

'It's Alex. How are you?'

She said,'You're not coming home for Damon's concert tomorrow, are you, Alex? Or did you forget all about the concert already. Oh, Alex, Alex. Why have you forsaken us? This isn't right.'

I love Nana tremendously, but sometimes she goes too far to make her point. 'Why don't you put Damon on the phone?' I said. 'I'll talk to him about it.'

'He's not going to be a boy for very much longer. Pretty soon he'll be just like you, won't listen to a word anybody says. Then you'll see what it's like. I guarantee you won't like it,' she said.

'I feel bad enough already, guilty enough.You don't have to make it worse, old woman.'