"Occult Crimes Unit – this is Sandra. How may I help you?"
"Hi, Sandy. It's Stan Markowski, in Scranton."
"Well, hi, Sergeant. How you been keeping?"
I decided to lie. "Not too bad, thanks. I'm surprised you're on the night shift – I thought you worked days."
"I do, but the night girl is out with the flu, so I'm putting in some OT. Can always use the money."
"Is Detective Brennan available?"
"No, she's out on a call, Sergeant. If it's urgent, I can patch you through."
"That's OK, Sandy, don't bother. But she did come in to work tonight?"
"Sure, I saw her less than half an hour ago. Care to leave a message?"
"No, that's all right. I'll give her a call tomorrow."
"OK, Sergeant. You take care now."
I put the phone away and said to Karl, "I can't handle watching the rest of this right now. Why don't we go get a cup of coffee – or, in your case–"
"Yeah, I know. Sounds good to me. We'll watch this shit later. Come on."
As we waited for the elevator – which, like usual, took forever – I looked at Karl. "Listen, some of the stuff I said to you back there in the room – I got no right to talk to you that way. I was just crazy for a couple of minutes, that's all."
"Forget it. If it was me, I'd have been worse. A lot worse. But then, everybody says I'm a guttermouth."
The elevator finally pinged, signaling the car was about to arrive.
"Do they really?" I said.
"Fuckin' A."
After a cup of java – and a lightly warmed glass of Type O for Karl – at the place around the corner, we went back to the squad and made ourselves sit through the rest of the torture video. Apart from the gender of the victim, this one wasn't very different from the one that the Feebies had shown us a couple of nights earlier. Thorwald had been right about one thing, though – looking at that stuff doesn't get any easier with repetition.
Afterward, we went looking for the two FBI agents, to see if they had any insights they'd like to inflict on us. However, Louise the Tease – whose real name is Louise Brummel, if anybody cares – said the two Feds had left a couple of hours earlier. Probably went off to spit-shine their holsters, or something.
I checked my watch. We could either find some busywork until our workday ended in twenty minutes, or just leave now. After the shift we'd had, I knew what I favored.
I turned to Karl. "What do you say – wanna call it a night?"
"Works for me."
As we walked through the parking lot, I said, "Hey, you got a minute? I'd like your opinion on something."
"That business with Christine you were talking about before?"
"Uh-huh."
Karl checked his watch. "We're not exactly pushing sunrise, so – sure."
As it happened, we were parked next to each other, so Karl leaned against the side of his car and said, "What's on your mind, Stan?"
I had my butt braced against the Lycan. "You ever hear of something called Drac's List?"
He nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think so. What about it?"
"You know that it's a kind of, I dunno, dating service that puts vampires together with humans who want to get bit by one."
"Yeah, that's what it is – more or less. So?"
"When I got home yesterday, Christine was on her laptop, looking at something. But she closed the computer when I walked in, and gave me some bullshit story about scanning the employment ads in the Sunday paper. Then she went downstairs."
"And you snooped."
"I'm a parent, remember? Not to mention a detective. Bet your ass I snooped."
"And you found she'd been scoping out Drac's List, instead of the Times-Tribune," Karl said.
"Yeah, exactly. I was pretty upset."
"Because she lied to you? Or are we talking about something else?"
"The lying didn't help," I said, "but what got to me was that she was cruising those ads. You know, looking for a… vamp freak."
"Stan." Karl's voice didn't sound happy.
"Look, nothing personal, OK? You know my feelings about vamps, uh, vampires have gone through some changes. I don't look at it the same way I used to."
"Gee, that's good to know," he said with a touch of sarcasm. "But…?"
"But she doesn't have to do that. She makes a good salary – she can afford all the bottled blood she needs. Even if she couldn't, I'd buy it for her. I even bring her plasma sometimes. She won't buy it for herself, it's too expensive."
Karl just looked at me.
"Dammit, she can drink it out of a fucking glass, just like you do. She doesn't have to act like a goddam…"
"Parasite? Bloodsucker? Undead leech? Which expression were you looking for, Stan?"
"That's not fair, dammit! I never think of her like that – or you, either."
We were quiet for a bit. Then Karl said, "You like fruit, don't you, Stan?"
"'Course I do. So what?"
"Apples, oranges, bananas, strawberries…?"
"Yeah, all of them, and some more besides. Is there a point you're trying to make here?"
"What if, starting tomorrow, you were told that you could never have fresh fruit again, Stan? No more frozen, either. Only the canned stuff. For the rest of your life. How would that make you feel?"
"That's not the same thing, and you know it," I said.
"You're right, it's not. Canned fruit tastes pretty good, if I remember right. But the difference between bottled blood, or even plasma, and the real thing, from a living person, it's like a choice between that powdered orange drink the astronauts used to drink, and fresh, sweet, juicy oranges."