I walked past display cases: tongue and navel studs, including glow-in-the-dark studs, massive knuckle rings, sunglasses, pipes, beaded thingees, a poster for two popular claws — Ogre and Faust.
You're getting warmer, I thought as I entered the hallway, and then I met the fang master face-to-face.
He was expecting me, and he just started talking as soon as I entered his small shop.
"You've finally arrived, pilgrim. You know, when you go to the most interesting, and most dangerous, vampire clubs, the ones in L.A., New York, New Orleans, Houston, you see fangs everywhere. It's the scene, and what a scene, my man. Goth, Edwardian, Victorian, bondage apparel, anything goes. I was one of the first to custom-make fangs out here. Started in Laguna Beach, worked my way north. And now here I am, the Fresno Kid."
As he spoke, I became aware of his teeth, his elongated incisors. Those teeth looked as if they could inflict severe damage.
His name was John Barreiro, and he was short, painfully thin, and dressed mostly in black, much like Peter Westin. He was probably the most sinister-looking person I had ever met.
"You know why I'm here — the Golden Gate Park murders," I said to the fang maker.
He nodded and grinned wickedly. "I know why you're here, pilgrim. Peter Westin sent you. Peter's very persuasive, isn't he? Follow me." He took me into a small overcrowded room in the rear of the store. The walls were dark blue, the lighting crimson.
Barreiro had a lot of nervous energy, and he moved around constantly as he spoke. "There is a fabulous Fang Club in Los Angeles. They like to say it's the only place where you can meet vampires and live to tell about it. On weekend nights you might see four, five hundred people there. Maybe fifty of the fuckers are real vampires. Almost everyone wears fangs, even the vampire wanna-bes."
"Are your teeth real?" I asked him.
"Let me give you a little nip and we'll see," the fang maker said, and laughed. "The answer to your question is yes. I had my incisors capped, then filed to a sharp edge. I bite. I drink blood. I am the real-deal bad dude, Detective."
I nodded, didn't doubt it for a second. He looked and acted the part.
"If I might take a simple cast of your canines, I could make a pair of fangs just for you. That will really separate you from your detective peers. Make you peerless."
I smiled at his wit, but I let him talk.
"I make several hundred sets of fangs every year. Uppers and lowers. Sometimes double fangs. Occasionally I make a pair in gold or silver. I think you'd look great with silver canines."
"You've read about the other killings around California?" I asked.
"I've heard about them, yes. Of course. From friends and acquaintances like Peter Westin. Some vampires are excited by what's happened. They think it signals a new time; perhaps a new Sire is coming."
I stopped him. A sudden chill ran through me. Something he'd just said. "Is there a leader of the vampires?"
Barreiro's dark eyes narrowed to slits. "No. Of course there isn't. But if there was, I wouldn't talk to you about it."
"Then there is a Sire," I said.
He glared at me and began to move about again.
I asked, "Could you make tiger's teeth — for a man to wear?"
"I could," he said. "I have."
Suddenly he lunged up at me with surprising speed. He grabbed my hair with one hand, an ear with the other. I'm six-three and a lot heavier than he was. I wasn't ready for this. The small man was swift and he was very strong. His open mouth moved toward my throat, but then he stopped.
"Don't ever underestimateus, Detective Cross," John Barreiro hissed, then let me go. "Well then, now are you sure that you don't want those fangs? No charge. Maybe for your own protection."
Chapter 30
WILLIAM DROVE THE DUSTY WHITE VAN through the Mojave Desert at close to a hundred miles an hour. The Marshall Mathers LP was playing at maximum volume. William was really pushing it along Route 15, heading toward Vegas, the next stop on their tour.
The van was an ingenious idea. It was a damn bloodmo-bile with all the requisite Red Cross stickers. He and Michael were actually certified to take blood from anyone who volunteered to give it.
"It's up ahead a couple of miles," William told his brother, who was sitting with one bare leg out the open window.
"What's up ahead? Prey, I hope. I'm bored out of my skull. I need to feed. I'm thirsty. I don't see anything up there," Michael whined like the spoiled-rotten teenager that he was. "Don't pull any Slim Shady shit on me. I don't see a thing up ahead."
"You will soon," William said mysteriously. "This should snap you out of your funk. I promise it will."
Minutes later, the van pulled into a commercial parachute center known as a drop zone. Michael sat up and whooped loudly and beat on the dashboard with the palms of his hands. He was such a boy.
"I feel the need for speed," Michael yelled, doing his best imitation of the young Tom Cruise.
The brothers had been parachuting since they got out of prison. It was one of the best legal highs around, and it took their minds off killing. They hopped out of the van and headed inside a flat-roofed concrete building that had definitely seen better decades.
William paid twenty dollars directly to the pilot for a ride in a Twin Otter plane. There were two of them sitting near the tiny runway at the airstrip, but there was only one pilot and no one else at the parachute center.
The pilot was a dark-haired girl not much older than William. Early twenties at most. She had a tight, sexy body but a mean little weasel's face with badly pocked cheeks. He could tell that she liked his and Michael's looks, though. But hey, who wouldn't?
"No boards, so you're not sky-surfing. What are you boys into?" the pilot asked in a strong Southwestern accent. "Name's Callie, by the way."
"We're into just about everything!" Michael volunteered, and laughed. "I mean that too, Callie. I'm serious. We're into just about everything that's worth getting into."
"I don't doubt it," Callie said, and held Michael's eye for a few seconds. "Well, let's do it, then," she said, and they climbed up into one of the Otters.
Less than ninety seconds later, the small plane was pounding down the hardscrabble runway. The brothers were laughing and hollering at the top of their voices as they donned parachutes.
"You guys really seem pumped up, I'll give you that. You're free-fallers, right? You're both certifiable," Callie shouted over the airplane noise. She had a throaty rasp that William found, frankly, a little irritating. He wanted to rip a gaping hole in her neck, but that didn't seem too smart at this particular time.
"Among other things, yes. Take her up to sixteen thousand," William shouted back at her.
"Whoa! Thirteen thousand's plenty. You know, temperature at thirteen thousand feet's under forty degrees. You lose 'bout three degrees every thousand feet. Hypoxia sets in at sixteen. Too much for you thin-skinned boys."
"We'll tell you when it's too much for us. We've done this kind of thing before," said Michael, a little angry now, his teeth bared, but maybe she took it for a seductive little smile. It wouldn't be the first time that had happened.
William slid the pilot another twenty dollars. "Sixteenthousand," he said. "Trust me. We've been there before."
"Okay. You'll be the ones with frostbitten fingers and ears," Callie told them. "I warned you."