Bloodsucking fiends: a love story

Drew, Tommy said, "What do you think? How do we get it open? A torch?"
    Drew shook his head. "Too thick. It'd take hours to get through this. I say we blow it."
    "With what?"
    Drew grinned. "Common items you can find in your own kitchen. Someone's going to need to go back to the store and get me some stuff."
    Cavuto watched Troy Lee's Toyota turning around, put down his binoculars, and quickly backed the cruiser into a driveway behind the shower buildings. He hit the redial on his cell phone and the gate guard answered on the first ring.
    "Saint Francis Yacht Club, gate."
    "This is Inspector Cavuto again. I need to know the registered owner of the Sanguine Two ."
    "I'm not supposed to give out that information."
    "Look, I'm going to shoot some guys in a minute. You want to help, or what?"
    "It's registered to a Dutch shipping company. Ben Sapir Limited."
    "Have you seen anyone coming to or from that boat? Crew? Visitors?"
    There was a pause while the guard checked his records. "No, nothing since it came into harbor. Except that it fueled up last night. Paid cash. No signature. Man, that baby's got some fuel capacity."
    "How long has it been here?"
    Another pause. "A little over three months. Came in on September fifteenth."
    Cavuto checked his notebook. The first body was found on the seventeenth of September. "Thanks," he said to the guard.
    "Those guys you had me let in are causing trouble. They took a boat."
    "They're coming back through the gate. Let them do what they want. I'll take responsibility."
    Cavuto disconnected and dialed the number of Rivera's cell phone.
    Rivera answered on the first ring. "Yeah."
    "Where are you?" Cavuto could hear Rivera lighting a cigarette.
    "Watching the kid's apartment. I got a car. You?"
    "The kid and the night crew are on a big motor yacht at the Saint Francis yacht club-hundred-footer. Boat's called the Sanguine Two; registered to a Dutch shipping company. They've been out there a couple of hours. Two of them just left."
    "He didn't seem like the yachting type."
    "No shit. But I'm staying with the kid. The Sanguine Two pulled into port two days before the first murder. Maybe we should get a warrant."
    "Probable cause?"
    "I don't know – suspicion of piracy."
    "You want to call in some other units?"
    "Not unless something happens. I don't want the attention. Any movement from your girl?"
    "No. But it's getting dark. I'll let you know."
    "Just go knock on the damn door and find out what's going on."
    "Can't. I'm not ready to interview a murder victim. I haven't had any experience in it."
    "I hate it when you talk like that. Call me." Cavuto rung off and began rubbing a headache out of his temples.
    Jeff and Troy Lee were running through the Safeway aisles, Troy shouting out items off Drew's list while Jeff pushed the cart.
    "A case of Vaseline," Troy said. "I'll get it out of the stockroom. You grab the sugar, and the Wonder Grow."
    "Got it," Jeff said.
    They rendezvoused at the express lane. The cashier, a middle-aged woman with bottle-blond hair, glared at them over her rose-tinted glasses.
    "C'mon, Kathleen," Troy said. "That eight-items-or-less bullshit doesn't apply to employees."
    Like everyone who worked days at the Safeway, Kathleen was a little afraid of the Animals. She sighed and began running the items over the scanner while Troy Lee shoved them into bags: ten five-pound bags of sugar, ten boxes of Wonder Grow fertilizer, five quarts of Wild Turkey bourbon, a case of charcoal lighter, a giant box of laundry detergent, a box of utility candles, a bag of charcoal, ten boxes of mothballs…
    When she got to the case of Vaseline, Kathleen paused and looked up at Jeff. He gave her his best all-American-boy smile. "We're having a little party," he said.
    She huffed and totaled the order. Jeff threw a handful of bills on the counter and followed Troy out of the store, pushing the cart at a dead run.
    Twenty minutes later the Animals were scrambling through the Sanguine II with the bags of supplies for Drew, who was crouched in the opening with the stainless-steel vault. Tommy handed down the boxes of fertilizer.
    "Potassium nitrate," Drew said. "No recreational value, but the nitrates make a nice bang." He tore the lid off a box and dumped the powder into a growing pile. "Give me some of that Wild Turkey."
    Tommy handed down some bottles. Drew twisted the cap off one and took a drink. He shivered, blinked back a tear, and emptied the rest of the bottle into the dry