Kiss the Girls

in me that I could barely get over.
    Kate and I finally began to cover subjects a little closer to the heart. She asked why I was shying away from relationships
(because my wife had died; because my last relationship had imploded; because of my two kids).
I asked her why she was wary of meaningful relationships
(she was afraid she was going to die of ovarian or breast cancer like her sisters; she was afraid her lovers might die, or leave her—that she would keep on losing people).
    “We’re quite the pair.” I finally shook my head and smiled.
    “Maybe we’re both terrified of losing someone again,” Kate said. “Maybe it’s better to love and lose than be afraid.”
    Before we could really get into that thorny subject, Dr. Will Rudolph finally appeared. I looked at the time on the dashboard clock. It was 10:20.
    Rudolph was decked out in all-black party clothes. Form-fitting blazer, turtleneck, clinging slacks, snazzy cowboy boots. He got into a white Range Rover this time instead of the BMW sedan. He looked freshly showered. Probably had taken a nap. I envied him that.
    “Black on black for the good doctor,” Kate said with a tight smile. “Dressed to kill?”
    “Maybe he has a dinner date,” I said. “Now there’s a scary idea. He sups with the women, then kills them.”
    “That could get him inside their apartments at least. What a terrible creep.
Two
unbelievable creeps on the loose.”
    I started up our car and we followed Rudolph. I didn’t see any FBI coverage, but I was sure they were there.
    The Bureau still hadn’t brought in the LAPD on this. It was a dangerous game, but not an unusual one for the FBI. They considered themselves the best policemen for any job, and the ultimate authority. They had decided this was an interstate crime spree, so it was theirs to solve. Somebody at the Bureau had a hard-on for this case.
    “Vampires always hunt at night, huh,” Kate said as we headed south through L.A. “That’s what this feels like, Alex. Bram Stoker’s
The Gentleman Caller.
A real-life horror story.”
    I knew what Kate was feeling. I felt it too. “He is a monster. Only he’s created himself. So has Casanova. It’s another similarity they share. Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, they wrote only about human monsters roaming the earth. Now we have sickos living out their elaborate fantasies. What a country.”
    “Love it or leave it, bub,” Kate said with a drawl and a wink.
    I had done enough surveillance early in my career to get reasonably good at it. I figured I had earned a graduate degree in tracking during the Soneji/Murphy manhunt. So far, I’d noticed that the West Coast FBI was good, too.
    Agents Asaro and Cosgrove checked in on the radio as soon as we started to move again. They were in charge of the tracking unit on Will Rudolph.
We still didn’t know if he was the Gentleman.
We had no proof. We couldn’t move on Dr. Rudolph yet.
    We followed the Range Rover west through Los Angeles. Rudolph finally turned onto Sunset Drive and took it all the way to the Pacific Coast Highway. Then he headed north on U.S. Highway 1. I noticed that he was careful to keep the Range Rover at the speed limit inside L.A. But once he hit the open road, he started to fly.
    “Where the heck is he going? My heart’s in my throat,” Kate finally admitted.
    “We’ll be okay. It seems scary chasing him at night,” I said. It did feel as if we were alone with him. Where the hell was he going? Was he hunting? If his pattern held, he was due for another killing soon. He had to be in heat.
    It turned out to be a very long ride. We watched the stars brighten the coastal California night. Six hours later, we were still tacking on Highway 1. The Range Rover finally pulled off at a quaint, wooden signpost that read Big Sur State Park, among other things.
    As if to validate that we were really in Big Sur, we passed an antique van with a bumper sticker: VISUALIZE INDUSTRIAL COLLAPSE.
    “Visualize Dr. Will Rudolph having a massive stroke,” Kate growled softly.
    I checked my watch as we left the main highway. “It’s past three. Getting late for him to get into any serious trouble tonight.” I hoped that was the case.
    “If there was ever any doubt, this may
prove
he’s a bloodsucking vampire,” Kate muttered. Her arms were crossed tightly across her chest and had been for most of the long ride. “He’s going off to sleep in his favorite coffin.”
    “Right. That’s when we drive a wooden