Bloodsucking fiends (18 page)

"That's not funny. I was worried. They found a body out front last night."

"I know, I saw the cops all over the place outside, just before dawn. That's why I couldn't get back."

"The cops had my copy of
On the Road
in an evidence bag. I think I'm in trouble."

"Was your name in it?"

"No, but obviously my fingerprints were all over it. How did it get there?"

"The vampire put it there, Tommy."

"How did he get it? It was here in the loft."

"I don't know. He's trying to freak us out. He's leaving the bodies near us so the police will connect us to the killings. He doesn't have to leave bodies at all, Tommy. He's killing these people in a way that leaves evidence."

"What do you mean, he doesn't have to leave bodies at all?"

"Tommy, come here. Sit down. I have to tell you something."

"I don't like the tone of your voice. This is bad news, isn't it? This is the big letdown, isn't it? You were with another guy last night."

"Sit down and shut up, please."

Tommy sat and she told him. Told him about the killing, about the body turning to dust, and about being dragged into the basement.

When she had finished, Tommy sat for a moment looking at her, then moved away from her on the futon. "You took the guy's money?"

"It seemed wrong to throw it away."

"And killing him didn't seem wrong?"

"No, it didn't. I can't explain it. It felt like I was supposed to."

"If you were hungry you should have told me. I don't mind, really."

"It wasn't like that, Tommy. Look, I don't know how to file this – emotionally, I mean. I don't feel like I killed someone. The point I'm trying to make is that the body crumbled to dust. There was no body. The people the vampire is killing aren't dying from his bite. He's breaking their necks before they die. He's doing all this on purpose to scare me. I'm afraid he might hurt you to get at me. I've suspected it for a long time, but I didn't want to say anything to you. If you want to leave, I'll understand."

"I didn't say anything about leaving. I don't know what to do. How would you feel if I told you
I
had killed someone?"

"It would depend. This guy wanted to die. He was in pain. He was going to die anyway."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"Of course not. But I need you to try and understand."

"I am trying. That's all I've been doing. Why do you think I've been doing all these experiments? You act like this is easy for me. I've been a mess all day worrying about you and you're in a basement a few steps away. What about that? Who dragged you into the basement?"

"I don't know."

"Whoever it was saved your life. Was it the vampire?"

"I said, I don't know."

Tommy went across the room and pick up the paperback of
The Vampire Lestat
. "This guy, Lestat, he can tell when there's another vampire around. He can sense it. Can't you sense it?"

"Right, and that's why we have a dead guy in the freezer. No, I can't sense it."

Tommy held up the book. "There's a whole history of the vampire race in here. I think this Anne Rice knows a real vampire or something."

"That's what you thought about Bram Stoker, too. And I spent an hour standing on a chair trying to turn into a bat."

"No, this is different. Lestat isn't evil, he likes humans. He only kills murderers that are without remorse. He knows when there are other vampires around. Lestat can fly."

Jody jumped up and ripped the book out of his hand. "And Anne Rice can write, Tommy, but I'm not throwing that in your face."

"You don't have to get personal."

"Look, Tommy, maybe there's some truth in one of these books that you're reading, but how do we know which one? Huh? Nobody gave me a fucking owner's manual when I got these fangs. I'm doing the best that I can."

Tommy looked away from her, then at his shoes. "You're right, I'm sorry. I'm confused and I'm a little scared. I don't know what I'm doing either. Hell, Jody, you might have AIDS now, we don't know."

"I don't have AIDS. I know I don't."

"How do you know? It's not like we can send you down to the clinic to test you or anything."

"I know it, Tommy. I could feel it if I did. Except for sunlight and food, I'm not even allergic to anything anymore. Hand lotions and soaps I couldn't get near before without breaking into a rash don't affect me. I've done a few experiments of my own. My body won't let anything hurt me. I'm safe. Besides…" Jody paused and grinned, waiting for him to ask.

"Besides what?"

"He was wearing a condom."

Tommy resumed staring at his shoes, said nothing, then looked up at her and laughed. "That's incredibly sick, Jody."

She nodded and laughed.

"I love you," he said, moving to her and taking her in his arms.

"Me too," she said, hugging him back.

"That's really sick, you know that?"

"Yep," she said. "Tommy, I don't want to break this beautiful moment, but I have to take a shower." She kissed him and pushed him away gently, then headed into the bathroom.

"Uh, Jody," he called after her, "I got a present for you in Chinatown today."

There's an explanation for this, she thought, standing in the bathroom, looking at the turtles. There is a perfectly good reason why there are two huge snapping turtles in my tub.

"Do you like them?" Tommy was standing in the doorway behind her.

"These are for me, then?" She tried to smile. She really did.

"Yeah, Simon helped me get them home. I didn't think I could carry them on the bus. Aren't they great?"

Jody looked in the tub again. The turtles were trying to crawl on top of each other. Their claws screeched on the porcelain when they moved.

"I don't know what to say," Jody said.

"I thought that we could feed them fish and stuff, and you'd have a blood supply right here at home. Besides me, I mean."

She turned and regarded Tommy. Yes, he was serious. He was really serious. "You haven't…"

"Their names are Scott and Zelda. Zelda is missing a toe on her back foot. That's how you tell them apart. Do you like them? You seem a little reticent."

A little, she thought. You couldn't have brought me flowers or jewelry, like most guys. You had to say it with reptiles. "I don't suppose there's any chance that you saved the receipt?"

Tommy's face avalanched into disappointment. "You don't like them."

"No, they're fine. But, I really wanted to take a shower. I'm not sure I want to be naked in front of them."

"Oh," Tommy said, brightening. "I'll take them into the living room."

He pulled a towel off the rod and began maneuvering over the tub, trying to get a drop on
Zelda
. "You have to be careful; they can take off a finger in those jaws."

"I see," Jody said. But she didn't see at all. The idea of biting one of the spiny creatures in the tub gave her an industrial-size case of the creeps.

Tommy lunged and came up with Zelda, wrapped in swaddling clothes and snapping at his face. "She hates being picked up." Zelda's claws tore at the towel and Tommy's shirt as she attempted to swim through midair. He set the turtle on her back on the bathroom floor and readied the towel to lunge into the tub for Scott. "Lestat can call animals to him when he's hungry. Maybe you can train them."

"Stop it with the Lestat stuff, Tommy. I'm not sucking turtles."

He turned to her and slipped, falling into the tub. Scott snapped, barely missing Tommy's arm, and latched on to the sleeve of his denim shirt. "I'm okay. I'm okay. He didn't get me."

Jody pulled him from the tub. Scott was still attached to his sleeve and was determined not to let go.

Turtles hate heights. They don't even like being a few feet off the ground. It's the main reason they have resisted evolution for so long – fear of heights. Turtle thinking goes thus: Sure, first our scales turn into feathers and the next thing you know we're flying and chirping and perching on trees. We've seen it happen. Thanks, but we're staying right here in the mud where we belong. You're not going to see us flying full-tilt boogie into a sliding glass door.

Scott was not letting go of the sleeve, not as long as Tommy was standing. "Help me," Tommy said. "Pry him off."

Jody looked for a place on the turtle to grab – reached out and pulled back several times. "I don't want to touch him."

The phone rang.

"I'll get it," Jody said, running out of the bathroom.

Tommy dragged Scott to the doorway, keeping his feet safely away from Zelda's jaws. "I forgot to tell you…"

"Hello," Jody said into the phone. "Oh, hi, Mom."

Chapter 23 – Mom and Terrapin Pie

"She's in town," Jody said. "She's coming over in a few minutes." Jody lowered the phone to its cradle.

Tommy appeared in the bedroom doorway, Scott still dangling from his sleeve. "You're kidding."

"You're missing a cufflink," Jody said.

"I don't think he's going to let go. Do we have any scissors?"

Jody took Tommy by the sleeve a few inches above where Scott was clamped. "You ready?"

Tommy nodded and she ripped his sleeve off at the shoulder. Scott skulked into the bedroom, the sleeve still clamped in his jaws.

"That was my best shirt," Tommy said, looking at his bare arm.

"Sorry, but we've got to clean this place up and get a story together."

"Where did she call from?"

"She was at the Fairmont Hotel. We've got maybe ten minutes."

"So she won't be staying with us."

"Are you kidding? My mother under the same roof where people are living in sin? Not in this lifetime, turtleboy."

Tommy took the turtleboy shot in stride. This was an emergency and there was no time for hurt feelings. "Does you mother use phrases like 'living in sin'?"

"I think she has it embroidered on a sampler over the telephone so she won't forget to use it every month when I call."

Tommy shook his head. "We're doomed. Why didn't you call her this month? She said you always call her."

Jody was pacing now, trying to think. "Because I didn't get my reminder."

"What reminder?"

"My period. I always call her when I get my period each month – just to get all the unpleasantness out of the way at one time."

"When was the last time you had a period?"

Jody thought for a minute. It was before she had turned. "I don't know, eight, nine weeks. I'm sorry, I can't believe I forgot."

Tommy went to the futon, sat down, and cradled his head in his hands. "What do we do now?"

Jody sat next to him. "I don't suppose we have time to redecorate."

In the next ten minutes, while they cleaned up the loft, Jody tried to prepare Tommy for what he was about to experience. "She doesn't like men. My father left her for a younger woman when I was twelve, and Mother thinks all men are snakes. And she doesn't really like women either, since she was betrayed by one. She was one of the first women to graduate from Stanford, so she's a bit of a snob about that. She says that I broke her heart when I didn't go to Stanford. It's been downhill since then. She doesn't like that I live in the City and she has never approved of any of my jobs, my boyfriends, or the way I dress."

Tommy stopped in the middle of scrubbing the kitchen sink. "So what should I talk about?"

"It would probably be best if you just sat quietly and looked repentant."

"That's how I always look."

Jody heard the stairwell door open. "She's here. Go change your shirt."

Tommy ran to the bedroom, stripping off his one-sleever as he went. I'm not ready for this, he thought. I have more work to do on myself before I'm ready for a presentation.

Jody opened the door catching her mother poised to knock.

"Mom!" Jody said, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. "You look great."

Frances Evelyn Stroud stood on the landing looking at her youngest daughter with restrained disapproval. She was a short, stout woman dressed in layers of wool and silk under an eggshell cashmere coat. Her hair was a woven gray-blond, flared and lacquered to expose a pair of pearl earrings roughly the size of Ping-Pong balls. Her eyebrows had been plucked away and painted back, her cheekbones were high and highlighted, her lips lined, filled, and clamped tight. She had the same striking green eyes as her daughter, flecked now with sparks of judgment. She had been pretty once but was now passing into the limbo-land of the menopausal woman known as handsome.

"May I come in," she said.

Jody, caught in the half-gesture of offering a hug, dropped her arms. "Of course," she said, stepping aside. "It's good to see you," she said, closing the door behind her mother.

Tommy bounded from the bedroom into the kitchen and slid to a stop on stocking feet. "Hi," he said.

Jody put her hand on her mother's back. Frances flinched, ever so slightly, at the touch. "Mother, this is Thomas Flood. He's a writer. Tommy, this is my mother, Frances Stroud."

Tommy approached Frances and offered his hand. "Pleased to meet you…"

She clutched her Gucci bag tightly, then forced herself to take his hand. "Mrs. Stroud," she said, trying to head off the unpleasantness of hearing her Christian name come out of Tommy's mouth.

Jody broke the moment of discomfort so they could pass into the next one. "So, Mom, can I take your coat? Would you like to sit down?"

Frances Stroud surrendered her coat to her daughter as if she were surrendering her credit cards to a mugger, as if she didn't want to know where it was going because she would never see it again. "Is this your couch?" she asked, nodding toward the futon.

"Have a seat, Mother; we'll get you something to drink. We have…" Jody realized that she had no idea what they had. "Tommy, what do we have?"

Tommy wasn't expecting the questions to start so soon. "I'll look," he said, running to the kitchen and throwing open a cabinet. "We have coffee, regular and decaf." He dug behind the coffee, the sugar, the powdered creamer. "We have Ovaltine, and…" He threw open the refrigerator. "Beer, milk, cranberry juice, and beer – a lot of beer – I mean, not a lot, but plenty, and…" He opened the chest freezer. Peary stared up at him through a gap between frozen dinners. Tommy slammed the lid. "… that's it. Nothing in there."

"Decaf, please," said Mother Stroud. She turned to Jody, who was returning from balling up her mother's cashmere coat and throwing it in the corner of the closet. "So, you've left your job at Transamerica. Are you working, dear?"

Jody sat in a wicker chair across the wicker coffee table from her mother. (Tommy had decided to decorate the loft in a Pier 1 Imports cheap-shit motif. As a result it was only a ceiling fan and a cockatoo away from looking like a Thai cathouse.)

Jody said, "I've taken a job in marketing." It sounded respectable. It sounded professional. It sounded like a lie.

"You might have told me and saved me the embarrassment of calling Transamerica only to find out that you had been let go."

"I quit, Mother. I wasn't let go."

Tommy, trying to will himself invisible, bowed his way between them to deliver the decaf, which he had arranged on a wicker tray with cream and sugar. "And you, Mr. Flood, you're a writer? What do you write?"

Tommy brightened. "I'm working on a short story about a little girl growing up in the South. Her father is on a chain gang."

"You're from the South, then?"

"No, Indiana."

"Oh," she said, as if he had just confessed to being raised by rats. "And where did you go to university?"

"I, um, I'm sort of self-educated. I think experience is the best teacher." Tommy realized that he was sweating.

"I see," she said. "And where might I read your work?"

"I'm not published yet." He squirmed. "I'm working on it, though," he added quickly.

"So you have another job. Are you in marketing as well?"

Jody intervened. She could see steam rising off Tommy. "He manages the Marina Safeway, Mother." It was a small lie, nothing compared to the tapestry of lies she had woven for her mother over the years.

Mother Stroud turned a scalpel gaze on her daughter. "You know, Jody, it's not too late to apply to Stanford. You'd be a bit older than the other freshmen, but I could pull a few strings."

How does she do this? Jody wondered. How does she come into my home and within minutes make me feel like dirt on a stick? Why does she do it?

"Mother, I think I'm beyond going back to school."

Mother Stroud picked up her cup as if to sip, then paused. "Of course, dear. You wouldn't want to neglect your career and family."

It was a verbal sucker punch delivered with polite, extended-pinky malice. Jody felt something drop inside her like cyanide pellets into acid. Her guilt dropped through the gallows' trap and jerked with broken-neck finality. She regretted only the ten thousand sentences she had started with, "I love my mother, but…" You do that so people don't judge you cold and inhuman, Jody thought. Too late now.

She said, "Perhaps you're right, Mother. Perhaps if I had gone to Stanford I would understand why I wasn't born with an innate knowledge of cooking and cleaning and child-rearing and managing a career and a relationship. I've always wondered if it's lack of education or genetic deficiency."

Mother Stroud was unshaken. "I can't speak for your father's genetic background, dear."

Tommy was grateful that Mother Stroud's attention had turned from him, but he could see Jody's gaze narrowing, going from hurt to anger. He wanted to come to her aid. He wanted to make peace. He wanted to hide in the corner. He wanted to wade in and kick ass. He weighed his polite upbringing against the anarchists, rebels, and iconoclasts who were his heroes. He could eat this woman alive. He was a writer and words were his weapons. She wouldn't have a chance. He'd destroy her.

And he would have. He was taking a deep breath to prepare to light into her when he saw a swath of denim disappearing slowly under the frame of the futon: his dismembered shirt sleeve. He held his breath and looked at Jody. She was smiling, saying nothing.

Mother Stroud said, "Your father was at Stanford on an athletic scholarship, you know. They would have never let him in otherwise."

"I'm sure you're right, Mother," Jody said. She smiled politely, listening not to her mother, but to the melodic scraping of turtle claws on carpet. She focused on the sound and could hear the slow, cold lugging of Scott's heart.

Mother Stroud sipped her decaf. Tommy waited. Jody said, "So how long will you be in the City?"

"I just came up to do some shopping. I'm sponsoring a benefit for the Monterey Symphony and I wanted a new gown. Of course I could have found something in Carmel, but everyone would have seen it already. The bane of living in a small community."

Jody nodded as if she understood. She had no connection to this woman, not anymore. Frances Evelyn Stroud was a stranger, an unpleasant stranger. Jody felt more of a connection with the turtle under the futon.

Under the futon, Scott spotted a pattern of scales on Mother Stroud's shoes. He'd never seen Italian faux-alligator pumps, but he knew scales. When you are lying peacefully buried in the muck at the bottom of a pond and you see scales, it means food. You bite.

Frances Stroud shrieked and leaped to her feet, pulling her right foot free of her shoe as she fell into the wicker coffee table. Jody caught her mother by the shoulders and set her on her feet. Frances pushed her away and backed across the room as she watched the snapping turtle emerge from under the futon merrily chomping on the pump.

"What is that? What is that thing? That thing is eating my shoe. Stop it! Kill it!"

Tommy hurdled the futon and dived for the turtle, catching the heel of the shoe before it disappeared. Scott dug his claws into the carpet and backed off. Tommy came up with heel in hand.

"I got part of it."

Jody went to her mother's side. "I meant to call the exterminator, Mother. If I'd had more notice…"

Mother Stroud was breathing in outraged yips. "How can you live like this?"

Tommy held the heel out to her.

"I don't want that. Call me a cab."

Tommy paused, considered the opportunity, then let it pass and went to the phone.

"You can't go out without shoes, Mother. I'll get you something to wear." Jody went to the bedroom and came back with her rattiest pair of sneakers. "Here, Mom, these will get you back to the hotel."

Mother Stroud, afraid to sit down anywhere, leaned against the door and stepped into the sneakers. Jody tied them for her and slipped the uneaten pump into her mother's bag. "There you go." She stepped back. "Now, what are we going to do for the holidays?"