“Gonna start soon,” said Yanoff, reading Schmidt’s mind.
“Yeah.”
They badged the uniforms and were passed through to the lobby of the small townhouse and climbed the steps to the third floor.
They saw the bloody handprints as they entered the apartment.
Schmidt and Yanoff had seen everything. Mob hits, homicidal hack jobs, gang war slaughter parties. They’d seen carnage ten times worse than this.
Even so, as soon as they entered the apartment, they both stopped and stood there in silence. The blood was terrible. Of course it was terrible. Everything about their jobs was terrible. In terms of the actual damage done, this wasn’t even on their personal top ten.
And yet …
They stood there.
It wasn’t the blood.
It wasn’t the degree of harm inflicted on this young woman.
It wasn’t that.
“Jesus,” murmured Yanoff.
“Christ Almighty,” murmured Schmidt.
They had seen everything, and yet …
Both of them knew that they hadn’t seen this before.
— 7 —
NYPD 6th Precinct
October 12, 5:51 p.m.
One Day before the V-Event
“Do you think they’d let me have some cigarettes?” asked the prisoner.
“Sorry, but I don’t think so. Smoking isn’t permitted in public buildings.”
The prisoner grunted. “Yeah,” he said darkly, “those things’ll kill you, right?”
They both laughed. It was brief and so brittle that the pieces of it fell around them.
“You called the police?” asked the interviewer.
“Yeah. From a pay phone. And, Christ, it’s hard to find a frigging pay phone anymore.”
“Everyone has cells.”
“I couldn’t call from my cell.”
“I suppose not,” agreed the interviewer. “Was that the first time you blacked out? Like that, I mean?”
There was a long pause.
“I … don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I don’t know. I can’t account for every night.”
“Wouldn’t you remember a night like — ”
“No, that’s not what I mean,” said the prisoner. “There were other nights, other chicks. But … I never woke up in someone’s place. Not like that.”
“What happened on those other nights?”
“I don’t know. I’d see some broad, I’d make a move, or I’d let her make a move. You know, at Starbucks or at a party. Maybe at a club. I know how to work that scene. It’s all acting. Everyone’s acting.”
“How many times did this happen?”
“I said I don’t know. How can you remember a blackout?”
“You remember those times when you woke up in an … um … situation. Like the first one?”
“I guess.”
“Tell me about those times. Tell me what happened.”
“I am telling you. I’d hook up with some chick and we’d go back to her place.”
“Not your place?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“No,” said the prisoner. “No way. You bring a piece of ass back to your place and then they know where you live. They know shit about you. Last thing I need is some chick going stalker and waiting on my doorstep. Screw that.”
“Okay. Let’s discuss what actually happened when you went to their places.”
“Well … mostly it’s what you think happened. We’d go there, we’d have some more drinks, do a line or split a blunt, and then I’d tap that and head home.”
“You didn’t sleep over?”
“I don’t like to sleep over.”
“Why’s that?”
“Like I said, man, it sets up a connection. I’m there for the pussy. I’m not looking to establish a meaningful relationship. Been there, done that, have the tattoo.”
“Okay. What about those nights? Did you black out on any of them?”
“I told you, I don’t know. You live that life and you’re always pretty much hit in the ass. By the time I’m getting my dick wet, I’m so sauced I could be screwing the hottest chick in the world or Rodan the Flying fucking Monster. Sober’s not a destination, you dig?”
“Sure,” said the interviewer, careful to keep his feelings out of his voice. “It’s all about the sex.”
“It’s about having a good time. Making a bad day end good.”
“But no sleep-overs?”
“No.”
“If you were that, um, under the influence … how did you get home every night?”
“Cabs, mostly. Sometimes I’d drive.”
“No accidents?”
“No.”
“No tickets for DUI?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Then I’d wake up in the morning.”
“Were there ever any signs of — ”
“Signs of what?” the prisoner cut in, his tone heavy with accusation and sarcasm. “Signs of violence? Blood, scratches? Yeah, the cops asked me that, and the answer is no.”
“Never?”
“No. Not once.”
“Did you ever contact any of those women again?”
“Christ no.”
“Did they ever contact you?”
A pause.
“Did they?”
“Sure. If I picked them up at the coffee shop, sometimes they’d come in again, looking to see if we had any chemistry, maybe hoping for another hook-up.”
“And —?”
“Once is fun, twice is a pattern. I’m not looking for anything more permanent than what I was doing.”
“It … doesn’t sound fun.”
The prisoner looked away for a moment. He sighed and then slowly turned back to face the one-way mirror. “What can I tell you, man? Life sucks and then you die.” He shrugged. “But I got a lot of pussy. More than you ever got, I’ll bet.”
“It’s not a competition.”
“Yeah. That’s the kind of thing a shrink would say.”
“I’m not a shrink.”
The prisoner looked genuinely surprised. “What?”
“Not in the way you think. Yes, I have a degree in psychology, but it’s only a bachelor’s. I’m not a therapist of any kind.”
“Then what the hell are you?”
“I’m a folklore professor from UCLA,” said the interviewer.
“Folklore …?”
“Yes,” said the interviewer, “I suppose it’s fair to say that I’m one of the world’s top experts in vampires.”
— 8 —
Mark Hotel, 25 E. 77th Street, NY
September 30, 9:01 a.m.
Thirteen Days before the V-Event
Yuki Nitobe thought it was all junk.
Her career, her supposed upward mobility. Fame, fortune, the works.
Junk.
She wasn’t sick and she wasn’t ice skating. It was her career that was circling the drain. The Pulitzer she’d won eleven years ago was a career high and she’d surfed along on that from one job to another, climbing higher each time. That story had been a godsend, and she’d stolen it right out from under another reporter. Yuki did not so much flinch at the moment of commission or in the weeks following when that reporter bleated and cried about it to their editor. The editor was old school: the story belonged to the reporter who filed it, and everyone else simply should have hustled better. Yuki was a hustler, and for a while that really worked for her.
Eleven years is a long time to wait for a second home run, though. Yuki sometimes wondered if the reporter she screwed had cursed her. It felt like a curse. Yuki went to Afghanistan three times and each time there was a freakish lack of anything interesting blowing up. She’d been in Libya covering the fall of Gadhafi but when the story went cold she came home; the following day the rebels found and killed the dictator.
That kind of luck.
Day late, dollar short, wrong time zone.
Her looks kept her on TV. She had a great face, with all of the exotic appeal of her Japanese parents and her American nutrition. Four thousand dollars’ worth of fake tits and the best smile money could buy; Yuki knew that she was a knockout. But she was a thirty-four- year-old knockout, and soon she’d be thirty-five. Pretty soon she’d cross that dreadful line when she would be referred to as either “still pretty” or, worse, “a handsome woman.” If she couldn’t gold plate her credentials she’d never sit behind the anchor desk. As it was, she was filing field reports that lacked actual news, pouring grease on the career slope.
Each morning she woke up to the realization that she was becoming a stereotype. The failed reporter with no real friends and no real future. Her own life would make bad TV. It would make a weak punch line for a dull joke.
She’d kill for a story that she could make her own. A really good hurricane with her first on the scene, or an earthquake with a triple digit body count.
Then she got a phone call from a friend of hers, police dispatcher Serita Sanchez. Well — not a friend, really. Serita was one of the people who fed tips to Yuki. And, well, not “fed,” exactly. Yuki paid for those tips and she paid very well.
Mostly it was money pissed down the toilet.
Until today.
Yuki was the first reporter who learned about the murder in the West Village. She was the first one on the scene. Serita gave her the address, the phone number, and the name of the victim. Serita wanted the money; the economy blew.
Yuki was ecstatic.
She broke speed laws and endangered both pedestrians and fellow motorists getting to the crime scene. Her cameraman, Moose, was already on the way, plowing through the morning mess to meet her there. Yuki had a good quality portable recorder with a crystal clear satellite uplink. If Moose was late, Yuki could still file a verbal report, which the station would play with her headshot as a placeholder for the live feed. That might even work. It would be like she was deep in Indian country, filing from the edge.