The rat remained quiet. Draining the blood into the palm of his hand and licking it up from there sounded not only slow but primitive. There must be a more…civilized solution.
Garreth stood, looking around for inspiration. His gaze fell on a trash barrel. He carried the rat to it and peered in. Almost on top of the litter sat a coffee carry-out foam cup, lipstick on one side of the rim.
After this he would know to bring a cup of his own, maybe one of those collapsing things for camping, that fit inconspicuously in a pocket. For now, necessity ruled. He set the cup on a crate then, using both hands, broke the rat’s neck and brought out the switchblade.
The blade sprang open. He cut the rat’s throat and held it over the cup by its hind legs. The stream of blood set his throat and stomach burning in anticipation, even while his brain still recoiled. Blood is blood, he reminded himself. Blood he needed. And when the rat stopped dripping, he resolutely picked up the cup, lipstick away from him, and gulped down the contents before he had time to think further.
With the first taste, all revulsion vanished in a savage appetite for more. At the same time, the blood tasted flat, lacking, as though he drank watery tomato juice when he expected the peppery fire of a Bloody Mary. His skin crawled. All blood was not created equal, then, and what the hunger demanded was human blood.
Suck it up. This is all you’re getting.
He drained the cup to the last drop and went hunting another rat.
7
“Mik-san!” Harry came up out of his desk chair. “What did the doctor say?”
“You can have back your guest room.”
Around Homicide, other detectives converged on Garreth.
“Is that our Lazarus behind those Foster Grants?” Evelyn Kolb said.
Faye and Centrello pounded him on the back. “You’re looking damn good for a dead man.”
From the doorway of his office, Serruto said, “Better than the last time I saw you, anyway.”
The benefit of drinking heartily.
The lieutenant beckoned Garreth into his office and closed the door. “So. How did your physical go?”
“Better than I expected.” Needing, to his astonishment, minimal persuasion…once they passed the dangerous “say ahhh” where his fangs wanted to extend. Even in miserable daylight the blood pressure and heart rate Dr. Charles fussed about before somehow made it into the “normal” range, albeit just barely. He aced the reflex and treadmill stress tests. The rats had not given their lives and blood in vain. Garreth handed Serruto the evaluation form. “I’m cleared for duty.”
In anticipation of which he had stopped by his apartment last night for the tie tack replica of his seven-pointed star badge. Wearing a turtleneck instead of shirt and tie, he used it as a lapel pin.
Serruto frowned from the form to Garreth. “This soon? That’s hard to believe. You still look pale to me, and gaunt.”
Garreth shrugged. “I am losing weight, and the doc wants me losing even more.”
Serruto fingered the form. “Your neck is healed?”
Garreth pulled down his turtleneck to show just scars…deceptively livid in color, thanks to being touched up with blusher. “My family are fast healers, and I’ve been giving it every chance…doing nothing since Saturday but sleeping and eating, and drinking an herbal tea my Grandma Doyle swears by.”
Well, he slept plenty by day — except Tuesday afternoon when he dragged himself to the Drivers License Bureau to replace his drivers license and pick up his car at the Hall. Nights he spent decimating the rat population on the Embarcadero, feeding the little drained corpses to the bay.
Not a way he liked living, though. Last night he came close to being caught by a watchman…making him crouch behind crates with breath held until the man walked out of sight. He needed a way to hunt less often and lower his risk of discovery.
Serruto frowned at the evaluation. “I don’t know what the man’s thinking. But the shrink still has to weigh in. Two o’clock, right? Don’t miss it.”
“I won’t.” Not a lie. He wanted to work…to hunt down Lane. “Do you mind if I hang out here until time to see Leonard?”
Finally Serruto smiled. “Go ahead.”
He went to his desk, sitting back-to-back with Harry’s. Unlike the medical exam, the shrink worried him. Was passing a simple matter of hypnotizing the man and telling him: You conclude that I am psychologically stable and fit to return to duty. Or did he have to contend with tests which, like the ECG, created a material record? How did he influence those?
Harry looked across from ending a phone call. “Relax, Mik-san. Leonard isn’t going to eat you.”
His nerves showed? He sighed. “Maybe he will.”
He expected Harry to tell him he would do fine. Instead, Harry said, “If he doesn’t okay you for duty right away, it isn’t the end of the world. Go visit your folks. Visit your son.”
Garreth frowned. “You think I won’t pass?”
Harry hesitated a moment, toying with the phone he still held in one hand, a finger of his other hand on the switch hook. “Let’s face it; you’ve been strung tight since the attack. You pick at your food, even things you’ve always loved. You hardly talk. It’s like you’re looking over your shoulder. Some rape victims have this fear the rapist will come back after them. Is that what’s going on, you’re feeling Barber’s going to come back and finish the job on you?”
Garreth stared at him. Looking over his shoulder…yeah…good guess. Just not for Lane, though it had been like rape…forcing herself on him, stealing a kind of innocence, tearing his life apart as savagely as his throat, but with no hope of healing.
Harry released the switch hook and dialed a number. At her desk on across the room, Evelyn Kolb pulled her thermos from the knee hole of her desk and pumped herself a mug of tea.
Garreth eyed the thermos. What size was that…a quart maybe? Filling a bigger version of something like that with blood would take care of him for…three, four, five days? Except he needed to keep the blood from clotting. He picked up his own phone and dialed the Crime Lab.
“I’ve got a question. If a suspect wants to keep blood from clotting so we’ll think it’s fresher than it really is, what could he use? Heparin?” He remembered Marti mentioning that.
The blood specialist they passed him to said, “Probably not. Sodium citrate is cheaper and available at almost any chemical supply house. Plus it isn’t a drug, so it’s not controlled.”
“How much would he have to use?”
“Let’s see.” Garreth heard pages turning and mumbled calculations, then finally: “It looks like a cc of a two and a half per cent solution preserves two hundred and fifty milliliters of blood. That answer your question?”
“Yes. Thanks.” Garreth hoped so.
As he hung up, so did Harry, eyes gleaming. “We’ve got a lead in your case. I’ve tracked down Barber’s agent.”
Barber’s agent? Garreth stood when Harry did.
Harry frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Coming with you.”
“Whoa!” Harry shook his head. “Even if you were back on duty, you can’t have anything to do with this case, not when you’re the victim.”
Yes, yes…but he needed to hear what the agent said! Who knew what clue it might give him, knowing what he did about Lane, but slip by Harry. He stared Harry in the eyes, quashing guilt at treating him this way. “I’m just riding along. Let me ride along.”
After a momentary blank expression, Harry said, “Well, all right. As long as you’re just riding along. I ask all the questions.”
Garreth nodded. “Absolutely. I’m just a shadow.”
8