His answer was part of a poem:
How about them toad-suckers,
Ain’t they clods?
Sittin’ there suckin’
Them green toady-frogs.
‘Toad-suckers,’ I said. ‘Have you ever seen one before this?’
‘I dated one when I was in high school,’ he said: ‘Barbara-Ann Hopper. She hung out with a crowd of older boys and they used to kid her about her name. They said she ought to try tripping with one of her relatives. So she did and she liked the effect. She said that sucking those little warty ones made her horny.’
‘Did you ever try it, Wilbur?’ I asked him.
‘No, but I tried her shortly after she had one.’
‘And?’
‘I didn’t care for the taste but I’d rate her eleven out of ten for the rest of it.’
‘Bufotoxin,’ I read from the report. ‘Walter Dixon’s saliva shows traces of bufotoxin. Where would a toad-sucker find a toad in London? You can get frog’s legs in a French restaurant but as far as I know there’s no pub where you can step up to the bar and ask for a little warty guy. You know of any?’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Wilbur, ‘but that woman who snogged me sure as hell had a toad connection.’
‘A toad pusher?’ I said. ‘You never know — London seems to be full of surprises these days.’
32 Detective Inspector Hunter
31 January 2004. When I saw the body I rang Burke on my mobile. ‘Istvan Fallok’s on his way to you,’ I said. ‘Running on empty.’
‘Fallok!’ said Burke. ‘I’d heard about Cecil Court from Wilbur but I didn’t know who the victim was. He’s still shaking from the bufotoxin snogging and the great big hopping thing.’
‘I’ll be over as soon as I finish with the crime scene,’ I said. ‘Don’t go away.’
‘I’m not going anywhere. Wilbur just went out for a six-pack.’
‘This one’s really hitting you hard, is it.’
‘Definitely worth getting out of bed for. See you.’
When I got to the lab I went through the door marked NO ENTRY — PROTECTIVE CLOTHING MUST BE WORN IN THIS AREA and walked into the post-mortem smell which is partly butcher shop, partly fecal matter, and partly Hycolin disinfectant. Burke and Wilbur in their blue lab gowns, plastic aprons and wellies were standing by a white dissecting table on which lay Istvan Fallok, being considerably more open than when last we spoke, in fact he no longer had any secrets whatever. Except, of course, the identity of his killer.
I joined my colleagues as they went on with their work in the quiet hiss of fresh air coming in from the blower. Wilbur recorded the contents of Fallok’s stomach and weighed it while Burke busied himself with the rib shears and I averted my eyes. ‘Salt beef on rye,’ said Wilbur. ‘This says surprise attack to me; if he’d known it was to be his last nosh he’d have had something better.’
‘I love it when you talk forensic,’ I said, ‘but what about a suspect?’
‘Are you kidding?’ said Wilbur. ‘The DNA from the saliva on Fallok’s neck and jacket is the same as the DNA from the saliva on Walter Dixon’s neck and jacket, and Dixon also got snogged in Cecil Court. And if you take a sample from my neck and jacket you’ll get more of the same from that bufotoxiniferous cutie who stuck her tongue down my throat: Miss Tweedle-O-Twill.’
‘Tweedle-O-Twill?’ I said.
‘That’s a Gene Autry song,’ Burke explained.
‘And she was wearing cowboy boots,’ said Wilbur.
‘Blonde,’ I said, ‘pretty, about five foot six, good figure?’
‘That’s her,’ said Wilbur.
‘Sounds like Justine Trimble,’ I said. ‘When we took a sample of her saliva from Rose Harland’s neck the DNA was the same as Fallok’s. We took samples from Fallok, Lim, Goodman and Justine. The sample just taken from Fallok doesn’t match any of those if my notes are correct.’
‘Right,’ said Burke.
‘So what have we got here?’ I said: ‘Two Justines? What, are they cloning her now?’
‘Vampires move with the times like everyone else,’ said Wilbur. ‘Anyone for a beer?’
‘Are you enjoying this?’ I said to him.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I get tired of the same old thing day after day.’
‘So do I,’ I said, ‘but you get your kicks in this nice clean air-conditioned lab while I wear myself out catching the villains and villainesses.’
‘If you’d had better A Levels you might have got into medical school and then maybe you’d be working in a lab too,’ said Wilbur.
‘Careful,’ I said. ‘The next big hopping thing that comes after you might be me.’
Wilbur got quiet then and concentrated on his work. I think his bufotoxin trip was still fresh in his mind. As for me, I had to tear myself away and go looking for new dots to connect.
33 Grace Kowalski
31 January 2004. The doorbell woke me a little after nine in the morning. Irv was still asleep and snoring peacefully. ‘Who is it?’ I said over the intercom.
‘Well, it ain’t Little Joe the wrangler,’ said J Two.
Afraid to think of what she might have been doing since she went out last night, I went down to let her in. She looked a mess and there were spatters of blood all down the front of her. ‘They got the gold,’ she said. ‘I was too late to stop them. Where’s my horse?’
‘You haven’t got a horse,’ I said. ‘You’re not in a film now, you’re in London.’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘How come he knew my name?’
Irv was with us by then. ‘Who?’ he said. ‘Who knew your name?’
‘The old guy who came on to me in Gaby’s Deli.’
‘What’d he say to you?’ I asked her.
‘He talked crazy, said he’d brought me into the world and wanted to know why I wasn’t in Geldings Green.’
‘Golders Green? Oh my God,’ I said, ‘that was Istvan. What happened then?’
‘Nothing right then, only after I threw up I didn’t feel so good and when I saw his neck I went for it. How the hell was I to know?’
‘Know what?’ said Irv.
‘That he’d run dry so soon. I never meant to empty him.’
‘You killed him?’ I said.
‘I guess you could say that — he passed out while I was still trying to get a little nourishment out of him and that’s all she wrote.’
‘Oh God,’ I said, ‘it’s all my fault. I wanted to teach him a lesson and this is what I did.’
‘You didn’t do it alone,’ said Irv. ‘I was in it with you from the beginning, and before that I was the one who got Istvan into this whole Justine thing, so I’m guiltier than you are. If I hadn’t gone to his place with a bottle of Bowmore Cask Strength Islay Malt he might be alive today.’
‘His last words,’ said J Two, ‘were, “That’ll teach me to let Irv Goodman give me a bottle of Scotch.”’
‘Thank you,’ said Irv. ‘How wonderful to have his last words to cherish.’
‘OK,’ I said, ‘we did a bad thing but beating ourselves up about it isn’t going to bring Istvan back. Maybe we can move on to doing a good thing.’
‘Like what?’ said Irv.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. J Two had fallen asleep in a chair and was snoring loudly. We were both looking at her and our eyes met.
‘Well,’ said Irv. ‘That’s why they put erasers on pencils, isn’t it.’
34 Detective Inspector Hunter
31 January 2004. We hadn’t been around to Hermes Soundways since Fallok’s death, so that was where PS Locke and I went next. Bingo, there were two people inside, Irving Goodman and a woman whom I hadn’t seen before. When Locke knocked they had to open, and when I’d identified myself to the woman I said, ‘Now then, who are you?’