Bloodsucking fiends: a love story

wire-reinforced glass was clouded with dirt and age. She yanked on the bars again and they screamed in protest and came loose. She dropped the grate and was drawing back to kick out the glass when she heard movement behind the window.
    Oh my God, there's someone inside!
    She looked around to the dumpster, some fifty feet away. She looked at her watch. If it was right, the sun was up. She was…
    The glass shattered behind her. Two hands came through the window, grabbed her ankles, and pulled her inside as she went out.
    "These here turtles are defective," Simon said.
    "It's okay, Simon," said Tommy.
    They were in a Chinatown fish market, where Tommy was trying to purchase two massive snapping turtles from an old Chinese man in a rubber apron and boots.
    "You no know turtle!" the old man insisted. "These plime, glade-A turtle. You no know shit about turtle."
    The turtles were in orange crates to immobilize them. The old man sprayed them down with a garden hose to keep them wet.
    "And I'm telling you, these turtles are defective," Simon insisted. "Their eyes are all glazed over. These turtles are on drugs."
    Tommy said, "Really, Simon, it's okay."
    Simon turned to Tommy and whispered, "You have to bargain with these guys. They won't respect you if you don't."
    "Turtle's not on dlugs," said the old man. "You want turtle, you pay forty bucks."
    Simon pushed his black Stetson back on his head and sighed. "Look, Hop Sing, you can do time for selling drugged turtles in this city."
    "No dlugs. Fuck you, cowboy. Forty bucks or go away."
    "Twenty."
    "Thirty."
    "Twenty-five and you clean 'em."
    "No," Tommy said. "I want them alive."
    Simon looked at Tommy as if he had farted in neon. "I'm trying to negotiate here."
    "Thirty," said the old man. "As is."
    "Twenty-seven," Simon said.
    "Twenty-eight or go home," said the old man.
    Simon turned to Tommy. "Pay him."
    Tommy ticked off the bills and handed them to the old man, who counted them and put them in his rubber apron. "You cowboy friend no know turtle."
    "Thanks," Tommy said. He and Simon picked up the crates with the turtles and loaded them into the bed of Simon's truck.
    As they climbed into the cab, Simon said, "You got to know how to deal with those little fuckers. Ever since we nuked them, they got a bad attitude."
    "We nuked the Japanese, Simon, not the Chinese."
    "Whatever. You should'a made him clean them for you."
    "No, I want to give them to Jody alive."
    "You're a charmer, Flood. A lot of guys would've just paid the ransom with candy and flowers."
    "Ransom?"
    "She's got your nooky held hostage, ain't she?"
    "No, I just wanted to get her a present – to be nice."
    Simon sighed heavily and rubbed the bridge of his nose as if fighting a headache. "Son, we need to talk."
    Simon had distinctive ideas about the way women should be handled, and as they drove to SOMA he waxed eloquent on the subject while Tommy listened, thinking, If they knew about him, Simon would be elected the Cosmo Nightmare Man for the next decade.
    "You see," Simon said, "when I was a kid in Texas, we used to walk through the watermelon fields kickin' each of them old melons as we went until one was so ripe and ready that it busted right open. Then we'd reach in and eat the heart right out of it and move on to the next one. That's how you got to treat women, Flood."
    "Like kicking watermelons?"
    "Right. Now you take that new cashier. She wants you, boy. But you're thinkin', I got me a piece at home so I don't need her. Right?"
    "Right," Tommy said.
    "Wrong. You got one at home that you're buying presents for and saying sweet things and tiptoeing around the house so as not to upset her and generally acting like a spineless nooky slave. But if you put it to that new cashier, then you got one up on your old lady. You can do what you want, when you want, and if she gets pissy and don't put out, you go back to your cashier. Your old lady has to try harder. There's competition. It's supply and demand. God bless America, it's nooky capitalism."
    "I'm lost. I thought it was like watermelon farming."
    "Whatever. Point is, you're whipped, Flood. You can't have no self-respect if you're whipped. And you can't have no fun." Simon turned on Tommy's street and pulled the truck over to the curb. "Something going on here."
    There were four police cars parked in the street in front of the loft and a coroner's van was pulling away.
    "Wait here," Tommy said. He got out of the car and walked toward the cops. A