Thompson sat. He didn’t ask where the others were. He made no comment. A cinnamon roll appeared on the placemat before him.
“More coffee,” Bobby said, raising a black coffee mug decorated with a white motorcycle.
Thompson focused on the cup as Little Sister crossed over to Bobby. Then, as she took the cup, her glance darted at Thompson. Her cheeks reddened. And he knew:
She’s been lacing the coffee with her mother’s drug cocktail. As first a recruit and then a hang-around, Thompson had never eaten breakfast at Bobby’s house before. And that’s when Bobby drank coffee. Only at breakfast. He’d said that.
But won’t it taste off?
He watched her as she poured the cup for Bobby. They had a drip coffeemaker. She looked at Thompson and suddenly dumped the remaining contents of the coffee pot into the sink. Set it down. Brought Bobby’s coffee to him. Practically ran out of the room.
The front door opened again and Walker, Fug, and Monster came into the house. Walker sat down. Fug got the half-empty six-pack of cinnamon rolls and brought them over to the table.
“We use plates,” Bobby said pointedly. He looked around. “Where’d she go?”
Walker picked up the stack of paper plates and brought them to the table. He ticked his glance at his brother’s coffee cup.
Thompson took note.
“Tell her to come out here and make another pot,” Bobby ordered his brother. So maybe the O.M.s weren’t that enlightened about women after all.
Walker disappeared down the hall, and returned a minute later with Little Sister. She dutifully made another pot of coffee. It was a drip coffee maker, into which she inserted a filter, then poured in pre-ground coffee from a dark green bag.
“Today is town patrol,” Bobby announced. He wiped sweat off his forehead. Consternation went around the table. There had never been “town patrols” before. “There’s going to be a lot of civilians scared out of their minds,” Bobby went on. “They’re going to think leaving’s their best option. But we’ve been out there. We’ve seen what’s going on.”
Oh, shit, Thompson thought, and it looked to him like his brother O.M.s were thinking the same thing.
Little Sister ferried four cups of steaming coffee to the table. Then she edged the used filter packed with grounds out of its container and threw it into a white plastic trash can beneath the sink.
Thompson ate his cinnamon roll. Fug and Monster drank their coffee. Walker brought his mug to his lips, but he didn’t drink.
“Man, that’s hot,” he said. Then, “Bobby, maybe we should let them find out what’s in the desert.”
Bobby reached across the table and thwacked his brother on the forehead. Like he probably did when they were little. Walker didn’t even flinch. Like he’d gotten used to it through the years.
But Little Sister’s lips parted as if she were going to say something about it. A furtive look from Walker silenced her.
“Why’d we start patrolling the border, huh?” Bobby asked Walker. “Why’d we take our lives into our own hands by riding through the goddamn desert day in, day out? To keep America free!”
“Fuckin’ A, Bobby,” Fug said, taking a big swallow of coffee.
“This is our country, and our town, and our people!” Spittle flew from Bobby’s mouth. “And no fucking vampires are taking any of it away from us!”
— 12 —
“He’s a patriot, in his own twisted way,” Father Patrick said two weeks later, after Thompson had joined him in the parish hall. Father Patrick was sitting on the corner of a desk drinking a beer. It was almost midnight.
“One per-centers usually are,” Thompson said, drinking the beer Father Patrick had given him.
It was Thompson’s turn to be on patrol tonight. Last night, on his watch, Bobby had identified a Sonrisa citizen named Joaquin Mendez as a vampire and executed him with a single bullet in the back of his head. Fug and Monster, high as kites, had kicked the body and spat on it, then zoomed away to single out someone else. Walker had gotten his wish. The O.M.s were monsters, and Thompson figured it was only a matter of time before Walker felt safe enough to get the hell out of Sonrisa — with or without Little Sister, was Thompson’s only question.
Meanwhile, Thompson was at the church to help Father Patrick bury Mendez.
“Okay, I ran some tests with my little chemistry set,” Father Patrick said. The good father copped to being an occasional, small-time drug dealer himself, but Thompson knew by his body language that he was lying. Either Father Psychedelic was or had been a much bigger player, or he was making drugs himself on the side. Either way, the priest offered to check some coffee ground samples Thompson had snagged out of Bobby’s trash.
“It’s a definite that she’s been putting the cocktail in the coffee,” Father Patrick said, reaching around and setting a paper bag on the desktop. Thompson glanced inside. It was the coffee grounds minus a few handfuls.
“Walker knows I haven’t been drinking it,” Thompson said. “Neither has he.”
“And that brings us to tonight’s big event,” Father Patrick announced.
Thompson assumed he meant tonight’s burial. But Father Patrick threw off an aura of excitement as he rose from the desk and led the way from the parish hall to what looked like a potting shed. Mendez — brown skin, black hair — lay on a wooden table. He was wearing blue jeans and a blue T-shirt. His eyes were half-open, and glassy-dead.
And there were two large holes in his neck. Fresh. Thompson grunted. Then Father Patrick took the man’s left hand in his own and gently turned it over.
Chunks of veins and flesh were missing. Fresh.
Thompson’s stomach did a flip. He bent over to inspect the wounds more closely. He saw teeth marks.
“Do vampires eat human flesh? Isn’t that ghouls?”
“Or zombies?” Father Patrick asked. “Luther Swann hasn’t mentioned any flesh-eating vampires.”
Thompson exhaled. “When did this happen?”
“Earlier tonight,” Father Patrick said.
“Jesus. Do you think one of the O.M.s came in here? Did this under the influence?”
Father Patrick smiled grimly. “I don’t think it. I know it.”
Thompson blinked as Father Patrick reached around the corpse and picked up a laptop. He opened the clamshell and hit the power button. While it was booting, he said, “This isn’t the church’s. I brought it with me. When things started heating up, I mail-ordered a couple of cameras. They feed images to my laptop. I saved some pertinent footage for you.”
While Thompson wondered precisely which of the many heated up things prompted the priest to buy some surveillance equipment, Father Patrick clicked on a large blue arrow in a circle, and a grainy video started running.
“I wish it was clearer,” Father Patrick said. But it was clear enough.
— 13 —
Thompson had to work it just right. He spun his wheel and did his calculations and then he went to Bobby’s house. The guys were out, probably killing innocent people, which was what Thompson wanted. Not that they were killing people, but that they weren’t home.
He’d spent years sneaking up on criminals, so he was silent as death as he let himself into Little Sister’s room. To his surprise, she had a nightlight — a cross that glowed in the dark. It cast a soft glow across her empty bed.
Damn.
He’d planned to have a heart-to-heart with her, but she was gone. He thought about searching for her mother’s stolen herbs, but her absence threw him. As quietly as he’d entered the room, Thompson backed out. When he closed her door, Manuel opened his. Déjà vu.
The little boy’s face was blotchy with tears, and when he saw Thompson, he began to cry.
“Hey,” Thompson said, taking him by the shoulder and squatting down to his eye level. He had a bad feeling. “Hey, Manny, what’s up?”
“They left me here,” he said, with a hitch in his voice.
“They,” Thompson said, leading the witness.
“Walker and Angela. She said they’re going to get married and they’ll come back for me but …” He pressed his fists into his eyes, whining.
“Married.” Thompson fought to stay loose. To sound calm. “Were they going to see Father Patrick to get married?”
Manuel lowered his head. “No. He said Father Patrick didn’t like him. They have to go someplace else to get married.”
Father Patrick didn’t like him. “Did she say where?”
“He said they had to ride for a while. That’s why they didn’t take me. That’s what he said.”
Suddenly, unexpectedly, he threw his arms around Thompson’s neck. He wailed with grief. “But they’re not coming back.”
Shit, shit, shit, Thompson thought, as he let Manuel hang on him longer than he should have. Longer, because he had to catch up to them.
“If you help me find them, I’ll bring them back,” he told the boy. “Now, think hard, Manny. Did they say anything about where they were going?”
The boy was crying so hard he couldn’t talk. Thompson eased him away and cupped his thin little chin with his fingertips.
“Manuel, escúchame,” he said in Spanish. Listen to me. Tell me.
“No,” Manuel said, “nada.” They told me nothing. Then he said, “Walker said there should be another envelope in the post office box in the morning. He said they’d take it and he would buy her a Horchata and a wedding ring.”
The dusty town two towns over. An envelope with government money in it. The grocery store.
“How long ago did they leave?”
“I don’t know,” Manuel said. What was time to a nine-year-old?
“You’ve been a big help,” Thompson said. “I’m really proud of you. Now go back to bed and I’ll take care of this.”
“I don’t want to. I want to go with you.”