Bite Me: A Love Story Chapter 9

9. combat areaIf youre t hotshot for a not bad(p) taco in San Francisco, you go to the Mission district. If you want a habitation of pasta, you go to nary(prenominal)th Beach. Need some dim sum, powdered chisel vagina, or ginseng root? Chinatown is your man. Hankering for stupidly expensive shoes? Union Square. Want to enjoy a mojito with an attractive, young professional crowd, healthful youll want to head for the Marina or the SOMA. But if youre looking for some crack, a one-legged whore, or a guy sleeping in a ca-ca of his own urine, you cant beat the Tenderloin, which was where Rivera and Cavuto were investigating the report of a missing person. Well-persons.The airfield district c entirely inms somewhat deserted today, give tongue to Cavuto as he pul take the unasterisked Ford into a red zone in front of the sublime Heart Mission. The Tenderloin was, in fact, also the theater district, which was convenient if you wanted to see a first-rate show in addition to dri nkable a bottle of Thunderbird and being stabbed repeatedly.Theyre all(a) at their country homes in Sonoma, you think? Rivera verbalize, with a sense of doom rising inside him standardized nausea. Normally at this time of the morning, the Tenderloin sidewalks ran with grimy rivers of homeless guys looking for their first drink of the day or a place to sleep. depressed here you did most of your sleeping during the day. Night was too dangerous. There should hasten been a cast around the block at Sacred Heart, pot waiting for the free breakfast, but the line barely reached out the door.As they walked into the Mission, Cavuto said, You put one across it a vogue, this might be the perfect time for you to get one of those one-legged whores. You know, with postulate down, you could probably get a freebie, being a cop and all.Rivera stopped, turned, and looked at his partner. A dozen raggedy men in the line looked, too, as Cavuto was jam the light in the doorway ilk a extensive, rumpled eclipse.I leave alone bring the little Goth girl to your house and mental picture it when she makes you cry.Cavuto slumped. Sorry. Its all kind of getting to me. Teasing is the scarce way I know to take my mind off of it.Rivera understood. For twenty-five years hed been an guileless cop. Had never taken a dime in bribes, never apply gratuitous force, had never given special favors to powerful throng, which is why he was still an inspector, but accordingly the redhead happened, and her v-word condition, and the old one and his yacht full of bullion, and it wasnt like they could tell eachone anyway. The two hundred thousand that he and Cavuto had taken wasnt really a bribe, it was, well, it was compensation for mental duress. It was stressful carrying a secret that you could not exactly not tell, but that no one would believe if you did.Hey, you know why theres so legion(predicate) one-legged whores in the Tenderloin? asked one guy who was wearing a down sleeping bulge like a cape.Rivera and Cavuto turned toward the hope of comic relief like flowers to the sun.Fuggin cannibals, said the sleeping bag guy.Not funny at all. The cops trod on. If you only knew, said Rivera over his shoulder.Hey, where is everybody? asked a woman in a sloughy orange parka. You sterners doing one of your round-ups?Not us, said Cavuto.They motivated past the cafeteria line and a sharp young Hispanic man in a priests collar caught their eyes over the heads of the diners and motioned for them to cope around the steam tables to the back. contract Jaime. Theyd met before. There were a lot of murders in the Tenderloin, and only a some sane mass who knew the flow of the neighborhood.This way, said Father Jaime. He led them through a prep kitchen and dish way into a frozen concrete hallway that led to their shower room. The father extended a set of keys that were tethered to his belt on a cable and exposed a vented green door. They started bringing it in a cal endar week ago, but this morning there must agree been fifty throng turning stuff in. Theyre freaked.Father Jaime flipped on a light and stood aside. Rivera and Cavuto entered a room painted sunny yellow and lined with battleship venerable metal shelves. There was clothing piled on every horizontal surface, all covered, in varying degrees, with a greasy gray dust. Rivera picked up a quilted nylon jacket that was partially shredded and spattered with blood.I know that jacket, Inspector. Guy who owns it is named Warren. Fought in Nam.Rivera turned it in the air, trying not to bounce when he saw the pattern of the rips in the cloth.Father Jaime said, I see these guys every day, and theyre always wearing the same thing. Its not like they have a closet full of clothes to choose from. If that jacket is here, then Warren is running around in the cold, or something happened to him.And you havent seen him? asked Cavuto.No one has. And I could tell you stories for most of the rest of thes e clothes, too. And the fact that clothing is sluice being turned in means that theres lot of it out there. alley people dont have a lot, but they wont take what they cant carry. That means that this is alone what people couldnt carry. Everyone in that dining room is looking for a familiarity hes lost.Rivera put down the jacket and picked up a distich of usage pants, not shredded, but covered in the dust and spattered with blood. You said that you can link these clothes to people you know?Yes, thats what I told the uniformed cop first thing this morning. I know these people, Alphonse, and theyre gone.Rivera smiled to himself at the priest using his first name. Father Jaime was twenty years Riveras junior, but he still spoke to him like he was a kid sometimes. being birdcalled Father all the time goes to their head.Other than being homeless, did these people have anything in common? What I mean is, were they sick?Sick? Everyone on the street has something.I mean terminal. Th at you know of, were they very sick? malignant neoplastic disease? The virus? When the old vampire had been taking victims, it turned out that most every one of them had been terminally ill and would have died soon anyway.No. Theres no connection other than they were all on the street and theyre all gone.Cavuto grimaced and turned away. He started riffling through the clothing, tossing it around as if looking for a lost sock.Look, Father, can you make us a list of the people these clothes belong to. And add anything you can remember about them. then I can start looking for them in the hospitals and jail.I only know street names.Thats okay. Do your best. Anything you can remember. Rivera handed him a card. phone me directly if anything else hails up, would you? Unless theres something in progress, calling the uniforms will just put unnecessary steps in the investigation.Sure, sure, said Father Jaime, pocketing the card. What do you think is expiry on?Rivera looked at his partner , who didnt look up from a dusty pair of shoes he was examining. Im sure theres some explanation. I dont know of any citywide relocation of the homeless, but its happened before. They dont always tell us.Father Jaime looked at Rivera with those priests eyes, those guilt-shooting eyes that Rivera always imagined were on the other side of the confessional. Inspector, we serve quaternary to five hundred breakfasts a day here.I know, Father. You do great work.We served a hundred and ten today. Thats it. Those in line now will be it for today.Well do our best, Father.They moved back through the dining room without looking anyone in the eye. Back in the car, Cavuto said, Those clothes were shredded by claws.I know.Theyre not just hunting the sick.No, Rivera said. Theyre taking anyone on the street. Im gibe anyone who gets caught out alone.Some of those people in the cafeteria saw something. I could tell. We should come back and talk to some of them when the priest and his volunteers are nt around.No need, really, is there? Rivera was moolah out numbers on his notepad.Theyll talk to the paper, Cavuto said, pulling in throne a cable car on Powell Street, then sighing and resolving himself to move at nineteenth-century speed for a few blocks as they made their way up Nob Hill.Well, first it will be covered as amusing stuff that crazy street people say, then somebody is dismission to notice the bloody clothes and its all exit to come out. Rivera added another figure, then scribbled something with a flourish.It doesnt have to come back to us, Cavuto said hopefully. I mean, its not really our fault.Doesnt matter if we get blamed, said Rivera. Its our responsibility.So what are you saying?Im saying that were going to be defending the city against a horde of vampire cats.Now that you said it, its real. Cavuto was whining a little.Im going to call that Wong kid and see if he has my UV jacket done. further like that?Yeah, Rivera said. If you go by Father Jaimes example, theyve eaten about three-quarters of the Tenderloins homeless in, lets call it a week. If you figure maybe three thousand street people in the City, youre talking about twenty-two hundred dead already. Someones going to notice.Thats what you were calculating?No, I was trying to figure out if we had enough money to open the bookstore.That had been the plan. Early retirement, then sell rare books out of a quaint little shop on Russian Hill. Learn to golf.We dont, Rivera said. He started to dial Foo Dog when his phone chirped, a sound it hadnt made before.The fuck was that? asked Cavuto.Text message, said Rivera.You know how to text?No. Were going to Chinatown.A little early for eggrolls, isnt it?The message is from Troy Lee.The Chinese kid from the Safeway confederacy? I dont want to deal with those guys.Its one word.Dont tell me.CATS.Did I not ask you not to tell me?The basketball court off Washington, Rivera said. incur that Wong kid make me one of those sunlight jackets. Fifty lo ng.You get that many lights on you theyll have you flying over stadiums playing Goodyear ads on your sides.