Practical Demonkeeping

came back with the address and the shortest route from Rivera’s location.
    “It will take a little longer for the employer. I have to access the Social Security files.”
    “How long?”
    “Five, maybe ten minutes.”
    “I’m on my way to the house. Maybe I won’t need it.”
    “Rivera, there was a fire call at that address this morning. That mean anything to you?”
    “Nothing means anything to me anymore, Nailsworth .”
    Five minutes later Rivera pulled up in front of Jenny’s house. Everything was covered with a gummy gray goo , a mix of ashes, flour, and water from the fire hoses. As Rivera climbed out of the car, Nailsworth called back.
    “Jennifer Masterson is currently employed at H.P.’s Cafe, off Cypress in Pine Cove. You want the phone number?”
    “No,” Rivera said. “If she’s not here, I’ll go over there. It’s just a few doors down from my next stop.”
    “You need anything else?” Nailsworth sounded as if he was holding something back.
    “No,” Rivera said. “I’ll call if I do.”
    “Rivera, don’t forget about that other matter.”
    “What matter?”
    “Roxanne. Check on her for me.”
    “As soon as I can, Nailsworth .”
    Rivera threw the radio mike onto the passenger seat. As he walked up to the house, he heard someone come on the radio singing a chorus to the song “Roxanne” in a horrible falsetto. Nailsworth had shown his weakness over an open frequency, and now, Rivera knew, the whole department would ride the fat man’s humiliation into the ground.
    When this was over, Rivera promised himself, he would concoct a story to vindicate the Spider’s pride. He owed him that. Of course, that depended on Rivera vindicating himself.
    The walk to the door covered his shoes with gray goo . He waited for an answer and returned to the car, cursing in Spanish, his shoes converted to dough balls.
    He didn’t get out of the car at H.P.’s Cafe. It was obvious from the darkened windows that no one was inside. His last chance was the Head of the Slug Saloon. If Masterson wasn’t there, he was out of leads, and he would have to report what he knew, or, what was more embarrassing, what he didn’t know, to the captain.
    Rivera found a parking place in front of the Slug behind Robert’s truck, and after taking a few minutes to get his right shoe unstuck from the gas pedal, he went in.

34
U-PICK-EM
    The Pagan Vegetarians for Peace called them the
Sacred
Caves
because they believed that the caves had once been used by Ohlone Indians for religious ceremonies. This, in fact, was not true, for the Ohlone had avoided the caves as much as possible due to the huge population of bats that lived there, bats that were inextricably locked into the destiny of the caves.
    The first human occupation of the caves came in the 1960s, when a down-and-out farmer named Homer Styles decided to use the damp interior of the caves to cultivate mushrooms. Homer started his business with five hundred wooden crates of the sort used for carting soda bottles, and a half-gallon carton of mail-order mushroom spores; total investment: sixteen dollars. Homer had stolen the crates from behind the Thrifty-Mart, a few at a time, over the period of weeks that it took him to read the pamphlet Fungus for Fun and Profit , put out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
    After filling the crates with moist peat and laying them out on the cave floor, Homer spread his spores and waited for the money to roll in. What Homer didn’t figure on was the rapid growth rate of the mushrooms (he’d skipped that part of the pamphlet), and within days he found himself sitting in a cave full of mushrooms with no market and no money to pay for help in harvesting.
    The solution to Homer’s problem came from another government pamphlet entitled The Consumer-Harvested Farm , which had come, by mistake, in the same envelope with Fungus for Fun . Homer took his last ten dollars and placed an ad in the local paper: Mushrooms, $.50 lb. U-PICK-EM, your container.
Old Creek Road
. 9-5 daily .
     
    Mushroom-hungry Pine Covers came in droves. As fast as the mushrooms were harvested, they grew back, and the money rolled in.
    Homer spent his first profits on a generator and a string of lights for the caves, figuring that by extending his business hours into the evening, his profits would grow in proportion. It would have been a sound business move had the bats not decided to rear their furry heads in protest.
    During the day the bats had