"I'm coming," he yelled. It sounded as if they were using a hammer on the door.
He did a Quasimodo step and slid down the stairs, holding his damaged shin in one hand, and cracked the downstairs door. Simon peeked through the crack. Tommy could see a ball-peen hammer in his hand, poised for another pound.
Simon said, "Pardner, we need to have us a sit-down."
"I'm sleeping, Sime. Jody's sleeping."
"Well, you're up now. Wake up the little woman, we need breakfast."
Tommy opened the door a little wider and saw Drew dazzling a stoned and goofy grin behind Simon. "Fearless Leader!"
All the Animals were there, holding grocery bags, waiting.
Tommy thought, This is how Anne Frank felt when the Gestapo came to the door.
Simon pushed through the door, causing Tommy to hop back a step to avoid having his toes skinned. "Hey."
Simon looked at Tommy's erection-stretched jockey shorts. "That just a morning wood, or you in the middle of something?"
"I told you, I was sleeping."
"You're young, it could still grow some. Don't feel bad."
Tommy looked down at his insulted member as Simon breezed past him up the stairs, followed by the rest of the Animals. Glint and Lash stopped and helped Tommy to his feet.
"I was sleeping," Tommy said pathetically. "It's my day off."
Lash patted Tommy's shoulder. "I'm cutting class today. We thought you needed moral support."
"For what? I'm fine."
"Cops came by the store last night looking for you. We wouldn't give them your address or anything."
"Cops?" Tommy was waking up now. He could hear beers being popped open in the loft. "What did the cops want with me?"
"They wanted to see your time cards. They wanted to see if you were working on a bunch of nights. They wouldn't say why. Simon tried to distract them by accusing me of leading a black terrorist group."
"That was nice of him."
"Yeah, he's a sweetheart. He told that new cashier, Mara, that you were in love with her but were too shy to tell her."
"Forgive him," Clint said piously. "He knows not what he does."
Simon popped out onto the landing. "Flood, did you drug this bitch? She won't wake up."
"Stay out of the bedroom!" Tommy shook off Lash and Clint and ran up the stairs.
Cavuto chewed an unlit cigar. "I say we go to the kid's house and lean on him."
Rivera looked up from a stack of green-striped computer printout. "Why? He was working when all the murders happened."
"Because he's all we've got. What about the prints on the book; any thing?"
"There were half a dozen good prints on the cover. Nothing the computer could match. Interesting thing is, none of the prints were the victim's. He never touched it."
"What about the kid; a match?"
"No way to tell, he's never been printed. Let it go, Nick. That kid didn't kill these people."
Cavuto ran his hand over his bald head as if looking for a bump that would hold an answer. "Let's arrest him and print him."
"On what charges?"
"We'll ask him. You know what the Chinese say, 'Beat a kid every day; if you don't know why, the kid will. »
"You ever think about adopting, Nick?" Rivera flipped the last page of the printout and threw it into the wastebasket by his desk. "Justice doesn't have shit. All the unsolved murders with massive blood loss involve mutilation. No vampires here."
For two months they had avoided using the word. Now, here it was. Cavuto took out a wooden match, scraped it against the bottom of his shoe, and moved it around the tip of his cigar. "Rivera, we will not refer to this perp by the V-word again. You don't remember the Night Stalker. This fucking Whiplash Killer thing the press has picked up is bad enough."
"You shouldn't smoke in here," said Rivera. "The sprout eaters will file a grievance."
"Fuck 'em. I can't think without smoking. Let's run sex offenders. Look for priors of rapes and assaults with blood draining. This guy might have just graduated to killing. Then let's run it with cross-dressers."
"Cross-dressers?"
"Yeah, I want to put this thing with the redhead to bed. Having a lead is ruining our perfect record."
She woke to a miasma of smells that hit her like a sockful of sand: burned eggs, bacon grease, beer, maple syrup, stale pot smoke, whiskey, vomit and male sweat. The smells carried memories from before the change — memories of high school keggers and drunken surfers face-down in puddles of puke. Hangover memories. Coming as they did, right after a visit from her mother, they carried shame and loathing and the urge to fall back into bed and hide under the covers.
She thought, I guess there's a few things about being human that I don't miss.
She pulled on a pair of sweatpants and one of Tommy's shirts and opened the bedroom door. It looked as if the good ship International Pancakes had run aground in the kitchen. Every horizontal surface was covered with breakfast jetsam. She stepped through the debris, careful not to kick any of the plates, frying pans, coffee cups, or beer cans that littered the floor. Beyond the freezer and the counter she spotted the shipwreck survivor.
Tommy lay on the futon, limbs akimbo, an empty Bushmill's bottle by his head, snoring.
She stood there for a moment running her options over in her head. On one hand, she wanted to fly into a rage; wake Tommy up and scream at him for violating the sanctity of their home. A justifiable tantrum was strongly tempting. On the other hand, until now Tommy had always been considerate. And he would clean everything up. Plus, the hangover he was about to experience would be more punishment than she could dole out in a week. Besides, she wasn't really that angry. It didn't seem to matter. It was just a mess. It was a tough decision.
She thought, Oh heck, no harm, no foul. I'll just make him coffee and give him that "I'm-so-disappointed-in-you" look.
"Tommy," she said. She sat down on the edge of the futon and jostled him gently. "Sweetheart, wake up; you've destroyed the house and I need you to suffer for it."
Tommy opened one bloodshot eye and groaned. "Sick," he said.
Jody heard a convulsive sloshing in Tommy's stomach and before she could think about it she had caught him under the armpits and was dragging him across the room to the kitchen sink.
"Oh my God!" Tommy cried, and if he was going to say anything else it was drowned out by the sound of his stomach emptying into the sink. Jody held him up, smiling to herself with the satisfaction of the self-righteously sober.
After a few seconds of retching, he gasped and looked up at her. Tears streamed down his face. His nose dripped threads of slime.
Cheerfully, Jody said, "Can I fix you a drink?"
"Oh my God!" His head went back into the sink and the body-wrenching heaves began anew. Jody patted his back and said "Poor baby" until he came up for air again.
"How about some breakfast?" she asked.
He dived into the sink once again.
After five minutes the heaves subsided and Tommy hung on the edge of the sink. Jody turned on the faucet and used the dish sprayer to hose off his face. "I guess you and the guys had a little party this morning, huh?"
Tommy nodded, not looking up. "I tried to keep them out. I'm sorry. I'm scum."
"Yes, you are, sweetheart." She ruffed his hair.
"I'll clean it up."
"Yes, you will," she said.
"I'm really sorry."
"Yes, you are. Do we want to go back to the futon and sit down?"
"Water," Tommy said.
She ran him a glass of water and steadied him while he drank, then aimed him into the sink when the water came back up.