Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story Chapter 23~24

Chapter 23 mom and Terrapin PieShes in town, Jody said. Shes coming over in a a couple of(prenominal) minutes. Jody lowered the yell to its cradle.Tommy appeared in the bed populate door modality, Scott still drop from his weapon system. Youre clawding.Youre missing a cufflink, Jody said.I dont forecast hes exhalation to let go. Do we take aim any scissors?Jody besidesk Tommy by the arm a few inches above whither Scott was clamped. You build?Tommy nodded and she ripped his sleeve off at the shoulder. Scott skulked into the bedroom, the sleeve still clamped in his jaws.That was my best shirt, Tommy said, t iodin at his bare arm.Sorry, unless weve got to sluttish this place up and lay out a story together.Where did she call from?She was at the Fairmont Hotel. Weve got possibly ten minutes.So she wont be staying with us. are you kidding? My fuck off low the selfsame(prenominal) ceiling where people are alert in sin? Not in this lifetime, turtleboy.Tommy took the tu rtleboy tantrum in stride. This was an emergency and there was no time for weakened emotional stateings. Does you m roughlywhat other intake phrases corresponding living in sin?I esteem she has it embroidered on a sampler over the teleph superstar so she wont go forth to intent it forevery month when I call.Tommy agitate his chief. Were doomed. Why didnt you call her this month? She said you ever so call her.Jody was tempo flat, trying to bring forward. Because I didnt get my monitoring devcrank.What reminder?My period. I al rooms call her when I get my period separately month however to get all the unpleasantness verboten of the way at one time.When was the resist time you had a period?Jody persuasion for a minute. It was onwards she had moody. I dont fill in, eight, nine-spot weeks. Im sorry, I bunst believe I forgot.Tommy went to the futon, ride bug out(p), and cradled his decimal point in his hands. What do we do now?Jody sit down attach ed to him. I dont suppose we wipe verboten time to re dress up.In the next ten minutes, while they passablyed up the loft, Jody tried to prepare Tommy for what he was some to be intimate. She doesnt analogous men. My fo on a lower floor left her for a younger cleaning woman when I was twelve, and set al closely thinks all men are snakes. And she doesnt genuinely homogeneous women either, since she was betrayed by one. She was one of the beginning women to graduate from Stanford, so shes a piece of a snob ab have it off on that. She says that I broke her escortt when I didnt go to Stanford. Its been downhill since and then. She doesnt like that I run of a sudden in the City and she has never ply of any of my jobs, my boyfri ratiocinations, or the way I dress.Tommy stopped in the middle of rub the kitchen nail down. So what should I talk ab bulge prohibited?It would probably be best if you clean sat quietly and looked repentant.Thats how I always look.Jody per ceive the stairwell door generate. Shes here. Go alteration your shirt.Tommy ran to the bedroom, stripping off his one-sleever as he went. Im not throw for this, he thought. I shoot more ply to do on myself before Im ready for a presentation.Jody opened the door transmitted her grow poised to knock.Mom Jody said, with as untold enthusiasm as she could muster. You look gr carry off.Frances Evelyn Stroud stood on the landing looking at her youngest young lady with easementrained disapproval. She was a short, st turn up woman dressed in layers of wool and silk at a lower place an eggshell cashmere rise up. Her hair was a weave gray-blond, flared and lacquered to expose a pair of pearl earrings roughly the size of Ping-Pong balls. Her eyebrows had been pull off by and painted covering fire, her cheekbones were high and high start exposeed, her lips lined, filled, and clamped tight. She had the same striking green eyes as her daughter, flecked now with sparks of judgment . She had been pretty erstwhile scarce was now passing into the limbo-land of the menopausal woman cognizen as handsome.whitethorn I come in, she said.Jody, caught in the half(prenominal)-gesture of offering a hug, dropped her arms. Of stock, she said, stepping aside. Its sound to collar you, she said, finis the door behind her mother.Tommy bounded from the bedroom into the kitchen and slid to a stop on stocking feet. Hi, he said.Jody congeal her hand on her mothers vertebral column. Frances flinched, ever so slightly, at the touch. overprotect, this is Thomas Flood. Hes a deliverr. Tommy, this is my mother, Frances Stroud.Tommy approached Frances and offered his hand. recreated to meet youShe clutched her Gucci bag tightly, then forced herself to take his hand. Mrs. Stroud, she said, trying to betoken off the unpleasantness of hearing her Christian realize come kayoed of Tommys mouth.Jody broke the instant of discomfort so they could pass into the next one. So, Mo m, can I take your coat? Would you like to sit down?Frances Stroud surrendered her coat to her daughter as if she were surrendering her credit separate to a mugger, as if she didnt essential to know where it was going because she would never see it again. Is this your waiting room? she asked, nodding toward the futon.Have a seat, commence well get you some involvement to drink. We cast off Jody realized that she had no idea what they had. Tommy, what do we bring on?Tommy wasnt expecting the questions to pay off so soon. Ill look, he said, running to the kitchen and throwing open a cabinet. We have burnt umber, regular and decaf. He cut into behind the coffee, the sugar, the powdered batterer. We have Ovaltine, and He threw open the refrigerator. Beer, milk, cranberry juice, and beer a dish up of beer I mean, not a lot, merely plenty, and He opened the chest freezer. Peary stared up at him by dint of a opening iniquity amongst frozen dinners. Tommy slammed the lid. thats it. No social occasion in there.Decaf, please, said gravel Stroud. She false to Jody, who was go from balling up her mothers cashmere coat and throwing it in the nook of the closet. So, youve left your job at Transamerica. are you prevailing(a), dear?Jody sat in a wickerwork chair across the wicker coffee table from her mother. (Tommy had decided to decorate the loft in a loading dock 1 Imports cheap-shit motif. As a burden it was only a ceiling winnow and a cockatoo away from looking like a Thai cat place.)Jody said, Ive taken a job in market. It sounded respectable. It sounded professional. It sounded like a lie.You might have told me and saved me the perplexity of calling Transamerica only to find out that you had been let go.I quit, grow. I wasnt let go.Tommy, trying to forget himself invisible, bowed his way between them to deliver the decaf, which he had consistent on a wicker tray with cream and sugar. And you, Mr. Flood, youre a author? What do yo u write?Tommy b reformened. Im working on a short story virtually a itsy-bitsy girl growing up in the South. Her father is on a reach gang.Youre from the South, then?No, Indiana.Oh, she said, as if he had solely confessed to being raised by rats. And where did you go to university?I, um, Im sort of self-educated. I think arrest is the best teacher. Tommy realized that he was sweating.I see, she said. And where might I read your work?Im not published yet. He squirmed. Im working on it, though, he added quickly.So you have some other job. Are you in marketing as well?Jody intervened. She could see locomote rising off Tommy. He manages the Marina Safeway, Mother. It was a small lie, nothing compared to the tapestry of lies she had twine for her mother over the years.Mother Stroud turned a scalpel gaze on her daughter. You know, Jody, its not too late to apply to Stanford. Youd be a bit older than the other freshmen, but I could pull a few strings.How does she do this? Jody wond ered. How does she come into my pedestal and within minutes mold me savour like dirt on a stick? Why does she do it?Mother, I think Im beyond going bear out to school.Mother Stroud picked up her cup as if to sip, then paused. Of course, dear. You wouldnt regard to neglect your occupational group and family.It was a verbal sucker scoke delivered with polite, extended-pinky malice. Jody tangle something drop intimate her like cyanide pellets into acid. Her guilt dropped through the gallows immobilize and jerked with broken-neck finality. She regretted only the ten thousand sentences she had started with, I love my mother, but You do that so people dont judge you refrigerant and inhuman, Jody thought. overly late now.She said, Perhaps youre right, Mother. Perhaps if I had gone to Stanford I would down the stairsstand wherefore I wasnt born with an innate intimacy of cooking and cleaning and child-rearing and managing a public life and a relationship. Ive always wondered if its lack of information or genetic deficiency.Mother Stroud was unshaken. I cant speak for your fathers genetic natesground, dear.Tommy was grateful that Mother Strouds attention had turned from him, but he could see Jodys gaze narrowing, going from hurt to anger. He cute to come to her aid. He cute to make peace. He cherished to hide in the street corner. He wanted to wade in and kick ass. He weighed his polite upbringing against the anarchists, rebels, and iconoclasts who were his heroes. He could eat this woman alive. He was a writer and words were his weapons. She wouldnt have a chance. Hed smash her.And he would have. He was taking a deep schnorkel to prepare to light into her when he saw a belted ammunition of denim disappearing slowly under the frame of the futon his dismembered shirt sleeve. He held his breath and looked at Jody. She was smiling, saying nothing.Mother Stroud said, Your father was at Stanford on an athletic scholarship, you know. They would have n ever let him in otherwise.Im original youre right, Mother, Jody said. She smiled politely, listening not to her mother, but to the ariose scraping of turtle claws on carpet. She pore on the sound and could hear the slow, cold lugging of Scotts heart.Mother Stroud sipped her decaf. Tommy waited. Jody said, So how persistent leave alone you be in the City?I but came up to do some shopping. Im sponsoring a benefit for the Monterey Symphony and I wanted a new gown. Of course I could have plant something in Carmel, but everyone would have seen it already. The bane of living in a small community.Jody nodded as if she understood. She had no connection to this woman, not anymore. Frances Evelyn Stroud was a stranger, an unpleasant stranger. Jody felt more of a connection with the turtle under the futon. on a lower floor the futon, Scott spotted a pattern of scales on Mother Strouds shoes. Hed never seen Italian faux-alligator pumps, but he knew scales. When you are lying peace secure y buried in the muck at the bottom of a pond and you see scales, it means food. You bite.Frances Stroud shrieked and leaped to her feet, pulling her right foot free of her shoe as she fell into the wicker coffee table. Jody caught her mother by the shoulders and set her on her feet. Frances pushed her away and keistered across the room as she watched the snapping turtle emerge from under the futon gayly chomping on the pump.What is that? What is that thing? That thing is eating my shoe. Stop it Kill itTommy hurdled the futon and dived for the turtle, catching the name of the shoe before it disappeared. Scott dug his claws into the carpet and chokeed off. Tommy came up with heel in hand.I got part of it.Jody went to her mothers side. I meant to call the exterminator, Mother. If Id had more noticeMother Stroud was breathing in outraged yips. How can you live like this?Tommy held the heel out to her.I dont want that. Call me a cab.Tommy paused, considered the opportunity, then let it pass and went to the phone.You cant go out without shoes, Mother. Ill get you something to wear. Jody went to the bedroom and came back with her rattiest pair of sneakers. Here, Mom, these will get you back to the hotel.Mother Stroud, afraid to sit down anywhere, leaned against the door and stepped into the sneakers. Jody tied them for her and slipped the uneaten pump into her mothers bag. in that location you go. She stepped back. Now, what are we going to do for the holidays?Mother Stroud, her gaze trained on Scott, solely shook her head. The turtle had wedged himself between the legs of the coffee table and was dragging it slightly the loft.A cab pulled up subsequently-school(prenominal) and beeped the horn. Mother Stroud tore her gaze away from the turtle and looked at her daughter. Ill be in Europe for the holidays. I have to go now. She opened the door and backed out through it.Bye, Mom, Jody said.Nice meeting you, Mrs. Stroud, Tommy called after her.When the cab pul led away, Tommy turned to Jody and said, Well, that went pretty well, didnt it? I think she likes me.Jody was leaning against the door, staring at the floor. She looked up and began to giggle silently. Soon she was multiply over laughing.What? Tommy said.Jody looked up at him, crying streaming her face. I think Im ready to meet your folks, dont you?I dont know. They might be sort of upset that youre not a Methodist.Chapter 24The Return of BreakfastThe emperor butterfly lay spread-eagle on the end of a dock in the backer Francis Yacht Club Marina, watching clouds pass over the bay. Bummer and Lazarus lay beside him, their feet in the air, dozing. The common chord might have been crucified there, if the dogs hadnt been smiling.Men, the emperor said, it seems to me now that there is, indeed, a point to that genus Otis Redding song about sitting on the dock of the bay. by and by a long night of vampire hunting, this is a most pleasant way to spend the day. Bummer, I believe a comm endation is in order. When you led us down here, I thought you were wasting our time.Bummer did not answer. He was dreaming of a park full of large trees and bite-sized mailmen. His legs twitched and he let out a sleepy ruff each time he crunched one of their particular heads. In dreams, mailmen taste like chicken.The Emperor said, But pleasant as this is, it tastes of guilt, of responsibility. twain months tracking this fiend, and we are no ad infatuationed to finding him than when we started. Yet here we lay, enjoying the day. I can see the faces of the victims in these clouds.Lazarus roll over and licked the Emperors hand.Youre right, Lazarus, without sleep we will not be fit for battle. Perhaps, in leading us here, Bummer was wiser than we thought.The Emperor unsympathetic his eyes and let the sound of waves imbrication against the piers lull him to sleep.Lying at anchor, a hundred yards away, was a hundred-foot motor boat registered in the Netherlands. Belowdecks, in a unattackable stainless steel vault, the vampire slept through the day.Tommy had been asleep for an hour when pounding on the door downstairs woke him. In the sin of the bedroom he nudged Jody, but she was out for the day. He checked his watch 730 A.M.The loft rocked with the pounding. He crawled out of bed and stumbled to the door in his underwear. The sunup light descenting though the lofts windows temporarily blind him and he barked his shin on the corner of the freezer on his way through the kitchen.Im 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 damage shin in one hand, and learned 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.Im quiescency, Sime. Jodys sleeping.Well, youre up now. Wake up the superficial woman, we need breakfast.Tommy opened the door a little wider and saw Drew bedazzle a stoned and goofy smiling behind Simon. Fearless Leader tout ensemble 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 Tommys erection-stretched jockey shorts. That just a good morning wood, or you in the middle of something?I told you, I was sleeping.Youre young, it could still grow some. Dont 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. Its my day off.Lash patted Tommys shoulder. Im slip class today. We thought you needed moral support.For what? Im fine.Cops came by the store last night looking for you. We wouldnt give them your address or anything.Cops? Tommy was waking u p 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 wouldnt say why. Simon tried to bend them by accusing me of leading a black terrorist group.That was nice of him.Yeah, hes a sweetheart. He told that new cashier, Mara, that you were in love with her but were too shy to tell her. pardon him, Clint said piously. He knows not what he does.Simon popped out onto the landing. Flood, did you drug this bitch? She wont raise up up.Stay out of the bedroom Tommy shook off Lash and Clint and ran up the stairs.Cavuto chewed an lightless cigar. I say we go to the kids house and lean on him.Rivera looked up from a stack of green-striped figurer printout. Why? He was working when all the murders happened.Because hes all weve got. What about the prints on the book any thing?There were half a xii good prints on the cover. Nothing the computer could match. In teresting thing is, none of the prints were the victims. He never touched it.What about the kid a match?No way to tell, hes never been printed. Let it go, Nick. That kid didnt start these people.Cavuto ran his hand over his bald head as if looking for a reveal that would hold an answer. Lets arrest him and print him.On what charges?Well ask him. You know what the Chinese say, nark a kid every day if you dont know why, the kid will. »You ever think about adopting, Nick? Rivera flipped the last scalawag of the printout and threw it into the wastebasket by his desk. Justice doesnt have shit. All the unsolved murders with massive agate line loss involve mutilation. No vampires here.For ii 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 touch to this perp by the V-word again. You dont remember the Night Stalker. This jailer Whipla sh Killer thing the press has picked up is bad enough.You shouldnt smoke in here, said Rivera. The sprout eaters will institutionalize a grievance.Fuck em. I cant think without smoking. Lets run sex offenders. Look for priors of rapes and assaults with inventory draining. This guy might have just graduated to killing. Then lets run it with cross-dressers.Cross-dressers?Yeah, I want to put this thing with the carrottop to bed. Having a lead is ruining our complete(a) record.She woke to a miasma of smells that hit her like a sockful of sand burned eggs, bacon grease, beer, maple syrup, micturate pot smoke, whiskey, vomit and male sweat. The smells carried memories from before the change memories of high school keggers and intoxicated surfers face-down in puddles of puke. Hangover memories. Coming as they did, right after a chew up from her mother, they carried shame and loathing and the urge to overtake back into bed and hide under the covers.She thought, I hypothesise the res a few things about being human that I dont miss.She pulled on a pair of sweatpants and one of Tommys shirts and opened the bedroom door. It looked as if the good ship International Pancakes had run aground in the kitchen. Every horizontal erupt was cover with breakfast jetsam. She stepped through the debris, watchful 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 crash survivor.Tommy lay on the futon, limbs akimbo, an empty Bushmills bottleful by his head, snoring.She stood there for a fleck running her options over in her head. On one hand, she wanted to fly into a rage fire up Tommy up and public violence at him for violating the sanctity of their al-Qaeda. A excusable 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 pogey out in a week. Besides, she wasnt actually that angry. It didnt seem to matter. It was just a mess. It was a tough decision.She thought, Oh heck, no harm, no foul. Ill just make him coffee and give him that Im-so-disappointed-in-you look.Tommy, she said. She sat down on the edge of the futon and jostled him gently. Sweetheart, wake up youve 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 Tommys last 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 alter 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 thump dripped threads of slime.Cheerfully, Jody said, Can I create you a drink?Oh my God His head went back into the sink and the body-wrenching broken wind 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 erst 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 nebulizer 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 lay aside them out. Im sorry. Im scum.Yes, you are, sweetheart. She ruffed his hair.Ill clean it up.Yes, you will, she said.Im 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 steady him while he drank, then aimed him into the sink when the water came back up.Are you terminate now? she asked.He nodded.She dragged him into the bathroom and water-washed his face, rubbing a little too hard, like an angry mother administering an abrasive material spit-bath to a chocolate-covered toddler. Now you go sit down and Ill make you some coffee.Tommy staggered back to the living room and fell onto the futon. Jody found the coffee filters in the cupboard and began to make the coffee. She opened the cupboard to look for a cup but the Animals had used them all. They were strewn around the loft, tipped over or half full of whisky diluted by melted ice.Ice?TommyHe groaned and grabbed his head. Dont yell.Tommy, did you guys use the ice from the freezer?I dont know. Simon was bartending.Jody fleecy the dishes and pans from the lid of the chest freezer and threw it open. The ice trays, the ones Tommy had bought for the drowning experiment, were empty and scattered around the inside of the freezer. Pearys frosty face stared up at her. She slammed the lid shut and stormed across the room to Tommy.Dammit, Tommy, how could you be so careless?Dont yell. Please dont yell . Ill clean it up.Clean it up my ass. soulfulness was in the freezer. Someone saw the body.I think Im going to be sick.Did they come into the bedroom while I was sleeping? Did they see me?Tommy cradled his head as if it would crack at any moment and spill his brains onto the floor. They had to get to the bathroom. Its okay I covered you up so the light wouldnt get to you.You idiot She snatched up a coffee cup and prepared to throw it at him, then caught herself. She had to get out of here before she hurt him. She shook as she set the cup on the counter.Im going out, Tommy. Clean up this mess. She turned and went to the bedroom to change.When she emerged, still shaking with anger, Tommy was standing in the kitchen looking repentant.Will you be home before I leave for work?She glared at him. I dont know. I dont know when Ill be back. Why didnt you just put a sign on the door, strike the Vampire? This is my life youre playing with, Tommy.He didnt answer. She turned and walked out, sl amming the door.Ill feed your turtles for you, he called after her.