Blood Walk Part 35

"Please write down the name of her bank for me." The money belonged to her family; they should be able to find it.

The accountant scribbled on a memo pad and ripped off the sheet.

Folding the sheet and putting it away in the inside pocket of his sport coat, Garreth smiled at her. "Now please forget that I came back and we had this conversation."

He slipped out of the office.

Outside the reception area Harry held the elevator, calmly ignoring the glares of the pa.s.sengers. "Hard time finding the notebook? Strange. I don't remember you having one in there at all."

The doors closed and the car started down.

Garreth grinned while conscience stabbed him over the lies and half lies to come.I'm sorry, Taka-san; you deserve better.

"What sharp eyes you have, grandpa. No, it was just an excuse to spend more time in there and hint that we know who Lane's patron is. She didn't turn a hair, though. She's one cool lady."

Harry glanced sideways at him. "Why didn't you ask her before we left?"

Garreth gave him a thin smile. "You don't want to know I'm doing anything except riding along."And I don't want you hearing Lane Barber and Mada Bieber's names together. You'd go hunting the connection between them.

5

Watching Lane's apartment had to be the most uncomfortable stakeout of his career, Garreth reflected. Between the boredom of inactivity and weariness from the sleep he had missed since leaving Baumen, daylight dragged so heavily he felt as though he moved through mola.s.ses. Despite his gla.s.ses and the shade of Harry's car, his head also throbbed from the sunlight. Oh to have come in summer, when heat in the central valley would be pulling sea air in through the Golden Gate and blanketing the city in thick, beautiful fog. That might make the day bearable, and the jumble of police calls coming over Harry's scanner interesting instead of irritating.

What are you doing here anyway, Mikaelian?The object of agreeing to this was to fail, so the police would not learn the name of Lane's friend. He would do that best by being somewhere he could not possibly see the man arrive, such as at Harry's house. With Lien gone, either working at her studio or teaching her grade school art cla.s.ses, whichever she did on Mondays, the house would be empty. He could be sleeping. He ought to be. So why was he suffering this daylight vigil in Harry's car up the hill from the blue house?

A rich laugh echoed in his head.Because l want you here, lover.

Staring down at the house, he knew it was true. Lane had meant him to find it, and her trap still retained its power.Garreth fought the house's pull by lying back in the seat, closing his eyes, and forcing himself to listen to the scanner. For a while it worked. The radio traffic brought a flood of memories, of patrolling in uniform, of becoming an inspector and working for Robbery, then Homicide. The radio and car sounded and felt so familiar he could almost believe he had never left. An: "Inspectors 55," Harry's and his old number, even brought him automatically upright, groping for a mike to roger the call.

That shattered the illusion. He had no mike. Inspectors 55 were now Harry and Girimonte. And the blue Victorian house sat down the street whispering its siren call at him.

Garreth climbed out of the car and sauntered down the street. What the h.e.l.l. Without Lane around, what harm could there be in going down for a look?

At the house steps he resisted the urge to glance around for anyone watching him. Few people questioned someone who appeared to be a.s.sured-going about his business. Hesitancy or furtiveness, however, caused suspicion. Pa.s.sing the door of the lower apartment, pain burned at the edge of perception, warning him of the fire that would sear him if he attempted to enter the dwelling uninvited. Upstairs, however, the hallway and door remained cool. Rooms ceased to be a dwelling if they were empty or the occupant died.

Still, he hesitated outside.Watch the visiting cop get arrested for breaking and entering.

But he was not breaking in. He pressed against the door.

Wrench.

Darkness fill the apartment, delicious cool darkness without a single ray of daylight leaking in through the blackout drapes over the bay window. That alone told him a vampire lived here. The darkness of Lane's other apartment the first time he visited her in his human days remained indelibly imprinted in memory. He had been blind, groping his way uncertainly until she turned on a lamp.

Now he saw perfectly well and reveled in relief from the sun. Despite feeling Lane around him. She might not have lived here long, but she had imprinted herself firmly on the room, from her old-fas.h.i.+oned taste in furniture-overstuffed couch and chairs, a wicker basket chair, colonial-style desk and chair-to personal belongs. The typetray on the wall held an a.s.sortment of stones, animal teeth, marbles, a rodent skull, and other small treasures she had collected as a child. Books and toys filled bookcases built in on either side of the fireplace . . . children's books, others on the occult, on music, history, and medicine; old dolls; a cast-iron toy stove; a miniature tea set. Original oils and watercolors Lane had bought around the world hung on the walls while several small sculptures stood between old photographs on the mantel. Anna Bieber had identical photographs in her home, a wedding picture of her and her husband and another of Lane seated with her next youngest sister and a girl cousin on the running board of an old touring car.

The room echoed so strongly of Lane's presence that Garreth found himself holding his breath, waiting for her to appear, smiling seductively and offering him the world if only he would give up his ties to humanity.

An envelope leaned against one of the sculptures on the mantel. He noted it and started to turn away, then stopped short.

Precise, square handwriting on the outside said:Mada. He stared, his breath caught somewhere in the middle of his chest. Someone had been here who knew her real name?

Even as he imagined Harry coming in with a search warrant and stumbling across the note, his hand reached for it.

The square handwriting continued on the sheet of thick, cream-colored stationery inside.

Dear Mada, I wish I could bring this myself, but since I have not yet been invited in, Leonard is delivering it. Contact me as soon as possible. It is urgent. I regret not being able to be more specific, but this is a matter better not detailed in writing. For the moment, I can be reached it Leonard's.

Irina

Garreth shoved the note into his coat pocket along with the memo bearing the name of Lane's bank. No, this note must not be left where Harry might find it. It had clearly been written by another vampire.

Another vampire.

Remembering Lane talking about the vampire who made her, he took the note out to read the signature again. Could this Irina be Irina Rodek? A beautiful woman, Lane had said, describing her, exquisite as a Dresden figurine, with sable hair and eyes . . .

His grandmother's warning rang his head and cold trickled through him. Irina Rodek had eyes the color of violets.

Now the echoes in the apartment seemed less those of Lane than the clang of a closing trap.

It took several seconds to realize that the metallic sounds were real, but not in the apartment. They came from the lower hall.

Garreth caught his breath. Someone had closed a mailbox. Leonard?

Footsteps hissed across tile.

Garreth spun, looking for a place to hide. The man must not find- The thought broke off at the bang of the front door. Cursing, he sprinted for the apartment door. The man was leaving!

Wrench!

In the hallway, he vaulted over the railing onto the middle of the stairs and half scrambled, half fell down the rest of the flight to the lower hall. A car started outside. Jerking open the front door, Garreth raced across the porch and down the steps. As in his dreams, the brilliant suns.h.i.+ne slapped him like a hammer. He fought through it to the street. swearing every step of the way. The visitor was the man Harry wanted. What he saw of the man as the car pulled away matched the description Harry had given him.

But there was no chance to reach Harry's car in time to tail the man, no time for anything more than catching the BMW's license number.

Only when he had it written down on the envelope Irina's note came in did he remember that his object had been to miss the man. He laughed wryly. Foiled by cop reflexes.

Or had he done the right thing after all? Garreth fingered the envelope. If Irina really posed the threat his grandmother's Feeling indicated, he dared not stumble around in ignorance. He must learn something about her . . . what way she might be dangerous, and exactly how deadly. So he needed this Leonard after all.

He trudged up the hill to the car and started it. The scanner crackled to life. If only he had been able to tail the man. Then he would know who Leonard was and still be able to pretend the stakeout had failed. With just a license number, though, he had to tell Harry so his old partner could run a registration check on the car for the name and address of its owner.

Then again, he reflected, listening to the scanner . . . maybe not.

6

It took almost fifteen minutes to locate a black-and-white unit with a familiar face in it. Pulling up alongside on the pa.s.senger side, he rolled down his window and shouted across at the patrol car's driver, "Kostmayer. Dane Kostmayer. Hey, remember me, Garreth Mikaelian?"

The driver glanced over, frowning, then started. Another cla.s.sic doubletake. Grinning, he motioned Garreth to turn up a side street. Once parked, both officers climbed out of their car and Kostmayer loped back to meet Garreth at the rear b.u.mper with a staggering slap on the back.

"Mikaelian, you old devil. What've you been doing with yourself? I heard you quit after your partner got shot."

Garreth nodded. "I'm still a cop but in a smaller department." He pulled out his Baumen badge and ID.

"I'd say smaller," Kostmayer snorted. "So what are you doing back here? Vacation?"

Garreth nodded again. "Visiting Harry Takananda and looking around . . . and until I spotted you and got distracted, I was tailing one gorgeous lady."

"Tailing?" Kostmayer's partner said.

"We were drinking coffee at tables next to each other at Ghirardelli Square and started talking. We hit it off great, but when she left I realized she hadn't given me her name. So I jumped in my car-"

"Your car?" The partner pointedly eyed the California plate on the front b.u.mper.

Garreth shrugged. "Harry's car. He loaned it to me to use while I'm here. I was hoping to catch her and ask her her name, but then I spotted you and got distracted. Now it looks like I've lost her."

Kostmayer shook his head. "That's too bad. Sorry."

"Except . . ." Garreth smiled. "I got her license number. It's a personalized plate: PHILOS. Do you suppose I could ask for a little favor?"

Kostmayer and his partner exchanged glances and grinned. "Sure thing. Run it, Ricardo."

The partner slid into the car. Garreth heard him call Dispatch.

"I really appreciate this, Dane."

"A favor for an old friend. What's it like working in Baumen, Kansas?"

They chatted until the partner climbed back out of the car. "You didn't tell us she was driving a BMW. She also has a Pacific Heights address. That's nice taste in women, Mikaelian." He handed Garreth a page from a notebook, scribbled with a name and address. "But it looks like your lady is married. The car is registered to a Leonard Eugene Holle."

Garreth eyed the paper with pretended disappointment. "Maybe she's his daughter? Anyway, however it turns out, thanks again. I owe you one."

"We'll get together some evening before you leave and you can buy me a beer."

He stood watching while the two officers climbed back in their car and drove away, then grinned in satisfaction, headed for his own car. Now to have a little chat with Mr. Holle.

7

The short burp of a siren behind him several blocks later brought a quick rush of anxiety -was Kostmayer coming back for something?-which quickly escalated to low panic with a glance in the rearview mirror. The flas.h.i.+ng light behind him came not from a light bar but the pop-on bubble of an inspector's car. Had Kostmayer's partner used Garreth's name in checking the registration?

Had word of it reached Serruto?

Biting his lip, he pulled over. The other car stopped alongside. He found himself looking into the long face of Dean Centrello, and beyond him to a grinning Earl Faye at the wheel, hair as much of an unkempt mane as ever.

"Small world, isn't it?" Faye said.

Garreth groaned inwardly. A chance meeting. That b.i.t.c.h Lady Luck. He had had tohunt for someone to talk into running his registration but when the last person he wanted was a fellow cop, two former colleagues fell over him before he even managed to leave North Beach.

He forced a smile. "Hi, guys."

Centrello shook his head incredulously. "It really is you, Mikaelian."

Faye said, "I told you so. If you'd watch the evening news like a normal person instead of insisting your family eat supper around a table and talk to each other, you'd have recognized him, too." He grinned at Garreth. "Hey, man, it's good to see you again. Where you headed?"

Garreth shrugged. "Just driving."

"Oh, I thought maybe you'd made the guy who's been visiting the Barber chick's apartment. Harry said you were watching the place this afternoon."

A string of profanity ran through Garreth's head. So much for secrecy. With Faye's motormouth, Serruto would know about this meeting before the end of the day. "All right, yes. I got lucky, too. I have the man's name and address. I was just headed back for Bryant Street to tell Harry."

"That's two breaks for Takananda today," Centrello said.

Garreth raised his brows, and breathed a sigh of relief that neither man appeared to notice that driving west was a strange way to reach Bryant Street to the south.

"Someone dropped a dime on the Mission clinic shooter," Faye said. "He and Girimonte are out now picking up the turkey.

Hey, we're headed downtown, too. Follow us on in and we can catch up on old times while you wait for Harry."

Garreth saw no way to refuse without arousing curiosity, if not suspicion. He gave them his broadest smile. "Sure. Great."

Riding up in the elevator at Bryant Street, he felt the same prisoner sensation he had felt when meeting the reporters in Baumen.

Faye and Centrello seemed oblivious to his discomfort, though. If anything, Centrello's expression contained envy. "Harry says you're into running these days. It's sure thinned you down."

"Sometimes I think about running," Faye said, "and then I start wondering why should I deliberately inflict pain on myself and deprive my brain of oxygen. I remember this case last year. We were called out to the Great Highway early one morning for a body in the northbound lane by Golden Gate Park. More of a grease spot, really. The dude is squashed flat. Almost every bone broken.

And the first car must have dragged him . . . smeared blood and skin down the highway for a good hundred feet."

Garreth could not help smiling. Faye always relished a story with gory details.