After I had the couch cleared, I opened the closet near the unused kitchen. I dug around in there until I found a small black-and-white television which I put on a chair in front of the couch.

Lastly, I went to the fridge and snagged a six-pack, grabbed the ashtray, whiskey, and smokes. Then I did something I hadn’t done for years. I just sat my ass on the couch, turned on the idiot box, and stared like a goon.

“Ahhhhhhh,” I moaned in relief. Each and every wound on my body purred and tingled. The painkiller was working its magic.

I immediately began to nod off. Mo’Lock shuffled his feet, bored. I suggested that he check out whoever was watching the apartment, and he was out the door.

Then the phone rang. I started to answer it, but decided to let the machine get it. After the tone I heard Blout’s voice.

“Cal, are you there? Pick up.”

I shook my head and yawned.

“Well, listen. The test on the Uzi came back. Whoever shot at you had no fingerprints. They were burned off. The rest of the test came back empty. They couldn’t trace the weapon.”

I started into the bedroom, but Blout went on.

“Another body matching the others was found. This time it wasn’t some homeless guy. It was a history professor from George Washington University.”

I ran over and picked up the phone. “I’m here! What kind of professor was he?”

“Like I said, history . . . uh, it says here something about folklore and myth. Sounds like he might be a friend of yours.”

“Where was his body found? Sewers again? Because—”

“No, get this. The guy had been in a bad car accident about six months ago and lapsed into a coma—”

Lucky stiff, I thought.

“—and he stayed that way until this morning when he was found dead. When they cut him open, no gray matter, nothing.”

I stretched and felt some of the butterflies tighten. I was close to passing out. “Look, Blout, we found dick in that apartment. Can you find out what happened to Cain’s personal belongings? I noticed on the evidence list there were some books I’d like to take a look at.” I yawned right into the receiver.

“Have you slept yet?”

“Nope.”

“Neither have I. What say we check in with each other tomorrow?”

“Sounds good.”

I dropped the phone into the cradle, turned, reeled into the closet I call my bedroom, and was out cold before I hit the mattress.

11

I woke up on the floor the next morning. I was groggy, but felt pretty good. It was Sunday, just before eleven am—an eighteen-hour sleep. Eighteen hours of drug-induced, body-healing bliss. But soon enough my thoughts turned to the case. Something had been eating at me that I needed to check out.

Mo’Lock was waiting for me in the office. I had locked the apartment door and the front door and he had no key, but he still managed to get in somehow. I never asked how and he never offered the information. In the past, I would have been startled, but I was beginning to get used to it. It was just another ghoul thing, another of the seemingly endless talents acquired by those caught between life and death.