"And you're sure you don't know how many of these Death Merchants are in the City, or where they might be?"
"Minty Fresh said there was at least a dozen, that's all I know. This woman and the guy in the Mission were the only ones I spotted on my walks. "
They heard a car pull up in the alley and Rivera went to the back door and signaled to the officers, then turned to Charlie. "You go home and get some sleep, if you can, Charlie. I'll be in touch. "
Charlie let the uniformed police officer lead him to the cruiser and help him into the back, then waved to Rivera and the basset hound as the patrol car backed out of the alley.
Chapter 23
23
A FUCKED-UP DAY
It was a fucked-up day in the City by the Bay. At first light, flocks of vultures perched on the superstructures of the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, and glared down at commuters as if they had a lot of goddamn gall to still be alive and driving. Traffic copters that were diverted to photograph the ranks of carrion birds ended up covering a spiral cloud of bats that circled the Transamerica pyramid for ten minutes, then seemed to evaporate into a black mist that floated out over the Bay. Three swimmers who had been competing in the San Francisco Triathlon drowned in the Bay, and a helicopter camera photographed something under the water, a dark shape approaching one of the swimmers from below and dragging him under. Numerous replays of the tape revealed that rather than the sleek shape of a shark, the creature had a wide wingspan and a distinctly horned head, unlike any ray or skate that anyone had ever seen before. The ducks in Golden Gate Park suddenly took to the wing and left the area, the hundreds of sea lions that normally lounged in the sun down at Pier 39 were gone as well, and even the pigeons seemed to have disappeared from the City.
A grunt reporter who had been covering the overnight police blotter noticed the coincidence of seven reports of violence or missing persons at local-area secondhand stores, and by early evening the television stations were mentioning it, along with spectacular footage of the Book 'em Danno building burning in the Mission. And there were hundreds of singular events experienced by individuals: creatures moving in the shadows, voices and screams from the sewer grates, milk souring, cats scratching owners, dogs howling, and a thousand people woke up to find that they no longer cared for the taste of chocolate. It was a fucked-up day.
Charlie spent the rest of the night fretting and checking locks, then double-checking them, then looking on the Internet for clues about the Underworlders, just in case someone posted a brand-new ancient document since he'd last checked. He wrote a will, and several letters, which he walked outside and put in the mailbox out on the street rather than with the outgoing mail on the counter of the store. Then, around dawn, completely exhausted yet with his Beta Male imagination racing at a thousand miles an hour, he took two of the sleeping pills Jane had given him and slept through the fucked-up day, to be awakened in early evening by a call from his darling daughter.
"Hello. "
"Aunt Cassie is an anti-Semite," said Sophie.
"Honey, it's six in the morning. Can we discuss Aunt Cassie's politics a little later?"
"It is not, it's six at night. It's bath time, and Aunt Cassie won't let me bring Alvin and Mohammed into the bathroom with me for my bath, because she's an anti-Semite. "
Charlie looked at his watch. He was sort of glad that it was six in the evening and he was talking to his daughter. Whatever happened while he was sleeping at least hadn't affected that.
"Cassie is not an anti-Semite. " It was Jane on the other line.
"Is too," said Sophie. "Be careful, Daddy, Aunt Jane is an anti-Semite sympathizer. "
"I am not," Jane said.
"Listen to how smart my daughter is," said Charlie. "I didn't know words like anti-Semite and sympathizer when I was her age, did you?"
"You can't trust the goyim, Daddy," said Sophie. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "They hate baths, the goyim. "
"Daddy's a goyim, too, baby. "
"Oh my God, they're everywhere, like pod people!" He heard his daughter drop the phone, scream, and then a door slammed.
"Sophie, you unlock this door this instant," Cassie said in the background.
Jane said, "Charlie, where does she get this stuff? Are you teaching her this?"
"It's Mrs. Korjev - she's descended from Cossacks and she has a little residual guilt for what her ancestors did to the Jews. "
"Oh," Jane said, not interested now that she couldn't blame Charlie. "Well, you shouldn't let the dogs in the bathroom with her. They eat the soap and sometimes they get in the tub, and then - "
"Let them go with her, Jane," Charlie interrupted. "They may be the only thing that can protect her. "
"Okay, but I'm only letting them eat the cheap soaps. No French-milled soaps. "
"They're fine with domestic soap, Jane. Look, I drew up a holographic will last night. If something happens to me, I want you to raise Sophie. It's in there. "
Jane didn't answer. He could hear her breathing on the other end.