Bloodsucking fiends: a love story

himself against the doorjamb.
    "I'm Inspector Alphonse Rivera from the San Francisco Police Department." He held up a badge wallet. "You're under arrest" – Rivera pulled a warrant from his jacket pocket – "for abandoning a vehicle on a public street."
    "You're kidding," Tommy said.
    Cavuto stepped through the door and grabbed Tommy by the shoulder, whipping him around as the big cop pulled his handcuffs from his belt. "You have the right to remain silent…" Cavuto said.
    Two hours later Tommy had been processed, probed, and printed, and as Cavuto had expected, Tommy's fingerprints matched those on the copy of On the Road that they had found under the dead bum. It was enough for them to get a search warrant issued for the loft. Five minutes after they entered the loft a mobile crime lab was dispatched along with a forensics team and two coroners' trucks. As far as crime scenes went, the loft in SOMA was the mother lode.
    Cavuto and Rivera left the crime scene to the forensics team and returned to the station, where they took Tommy from a holding cell and put him in a pleasantly pink interrogation room furnished with a metal table and two chairs. There was a mirror on one wall and a tape recorder sat on the table. Tommy sat staring at the pink wall, remembering something about how pink was supposed to calm you down. It didn't seem to be working. His stomach was tied in knots.
    Rivera had done dozens of interrogations with Cavuto and they always took the same roles: Cavuto was the bad cop, and Rivera was the good cop. Actually Rivera never felt like the good cop. More often he was the I-am-tired-and-overworked-and-I'm-being-nice-to-you-because-I-don't-have-the-energy-to-be-angry cop.
    "Would you like a smoke?" Rivera asked.
    "Sure," Tommy said.
    Cavuto jumped in his face. "Too bad, punk. There's no smoking in here." Cavuto took great pleasure in being the bad cop. He practiced in front of the mirror at home.
    Rivera shrugged. "He's right. You can't smoke."
    Tommy said, "That's okay, I don't smoke."
    "How about a lawyer then?" asked Rivera. "Or a phone call?"
    "I have to be at work at midnight," Tommy said. "If it looks like I'm going to be late, I'll use my call then."
    Cavuto was pacing the room, timing his path so he could wheel on Tommy with every statement. He wheeled. "Yeah, kid, you're going to be late, about thirty years late, if they don't fry you."
    Tommy pushed back in his chair with fright.
    "Good one, Nick," Rivera said.
    "Thanks." Cavuto smiled around an unlit cigar and backed away from the table where Tommy sat.
    Rivera moved up. "Okay, kid, you don't want an attorney. Where do you want to start? We've got you hands-down on two murders and probably three. If you tell us the story, tell us everything, about all the other murders, we might be able to waive the death penalty."
    "I didn't kill anybody."
    "Don't be cute," Cavuto said. "We found two bodies in your freezer. We've got your fingerprints all over a book that we found under a third body outside your apartment. We've got you staying at the motel where we found a fourth body. And we've got you with a closetful of women's clothing and eyewitnesses that put a woman near where we found a fifth body…"
    Tommy interrupted, "Actually, there's only one body in the freezer. The other is my girlfriend."
    "You sick fuck." Cavuto drew back as if to hit Tommy. Rivera moved to restrain him. Tommy cowered in his chair.
    Rivera led Cavuto to the far side of the room. "Let me take this for a minute." He left Cavuto grumbling to himself and went to the seat across from Tommy.
    "Look, kid, we've got you cold, so to speak, on two murders. We've got circumstantial evidence on another. You are going to jail for a very long time, and at this point, the death penalty is looking pretty good. Now if you tell us everything, and don't leave anything out, we might be able to help you out, but you have to give us enough to close all the cases. Do you understand?"
    Tommy nodded. "But I didn't kill anybody. I put Jody in the freezer, which I admit is inconsiderate, but I didn't kill her."
    Cavuto growled. Rivera nodded in mock acceptance of the story. "Fine, but if you didn't kill them, who did? Did someone you know force you into this?"
    Cavuto exploded, "Oh Christ, Rivera! What do you need, a videotape? This little bastard did it."
    "Nick, please. Give me a minute here."
    Cavuto moved to the table and leaned over it until his face was next to Tommy's. He whispered, raspy and