F 9. Jason-a thirty-year-old Asian male from Newport Beach. Type B-negative. Very lean. Smoker. Hearty metallic taste with pepper and menthol notes.

"Naw. Muy flaco." Coyote raised his voice. The music was very loud. "Too skinny. Plus it took me a hundred years to kick my nicotine habit. I fang him and boom, I'm back to those goddamned Marlboros."

He kept flipping and stopped on G 34. Darlene-a forty-six-year-old from Willowbrook. Type A-positive.

"Bien gordita. I like them chunky." Coyote touched the order button. "She okay for you?"

In her picture, Darlene looked plump, happy, and most delicious, as juicy as a marbled steak.

"Sure," I answered. "But don't order until after we've met with Rebecca."

"Bueno." Coyote pulled his finger off the order button. "You can cover the check, no? I'll owe you until payday."

"I didn't know you had a job."

"I don't. But with the economy turning around, I'm optimistic. I've got resumes all over town, ese." Coyote tugged at my elbow and leaned close. "I've even applied as a pilot with Pan American." He winked.

"Pan Am went under years ago," I said. "Don't expect them to call."

"I'm not," Coyote said, laughing, "because I don't have a phone."

The band played harder and faster. The dancers hurried their frenetic pace to match the rhythm. The finale had the subtlety of a bottle truck smashing into a fireworks stand.

The band members, their bodies glistening with sweat, bowed to rowdy applause. The curtain closed before them. The house lights brightened. Vampires and chalices returned to their chairs.

I sipped my martini, munched nachos, and surveyed the surrounding vampires as I looked for an aura that betrayed danger.

Coyote scooped blood with a nacho chip and crunched on it. "?Nada, verdad?" Nothing, right? "Maybe the wolf presence has nothing to do with us or Rebecca."

"You believe that?" When on a trail leading from murder, there was no such thing as a coincidence.

A door to the left of the stage opened. The band filed out. Coyote and I remained seated, finishing our drinks as we waited for Rebecca to appear.

A minute passed and still no Rebecca. My kundalini noir sounded the alarm.

I folded a twenty under my martini glass, got up from the table, and approached the band members milling around the door. Coyote followed.

"Where's Rebecca Dwelling?" I asked.

The keyboard player replied, "In the dressing room."

Coyote and I went through the door and behind the stage.

Towels damp with sweat lay strewn on chairs and the floor. A chalice tidied up the place.

"You seen Rebecca?" I asked.

He pointed to a door at the far end. "She and a customer left that way."

"Vampire?"

"What other customers do we have?"

Smart-ass.

Coyote and I hurried past him. The other vampire had beaten us to Rebecca. Why hadn't I anticipated this? I should have told Coyote to stay behind in case the vampire and Rebecca came out another way.

The door opened to a hall that led past the storage rooms, the kitchen, and finally to the bar. And the way out. Damn.

Coyote and I went up the maze we'd come through and back to the bowling alley. I put on my sunglasses. Better not get careless and give myself away to unsuspecting humans.

We walked through the bowling alley. I looked over the top of my sunglasses. No suspicious auras.

Outside, heat waves shimmered over the empty cars in the parking lot. The intense California sun warmed me uncomfortably, and I retreated back into the shadow of the front awning.

The situation felt wrong. I walked around the bowling alley to the back.

A pair of pink human feet jutted over the rim of the Dumpster, toes up.

My kundalini noir twisted in distress. I didn't need to think too hard about whose feet they belonged to. I crept close-Coyote watching my back-and grasped the top of the metal Dumpster. I levitated and looked inside, hoping that I was mistaken.

The woman wore olive green capri pants and a yellow top. Her head rested against a pizza box, as if it were a pillow. A scarf in a flame motif covered her neck. Her eyes stared blankly at the sky. One blue flip-flop sat where it had been flung atop a plastic garbage bag. The other flip-flop had fallen into a big empty can of tomato sauce. A battered saxophone case was jammed into one corner of the Dumpster.

I touched her left leg. It was still warm.

I took off my sunglasses. The body emitted no aura. Rebecca Dwelling was dead.

Coyote walked to the Dumpster. He levitated to stand on the rim by Rebecca's feet and stared at her. He turned his ball cap backward, bent forward, and grasped her ankles. "Watcha." Look.

He lifted her body. A dozen flies took to the air and buzzed around us. "There are no wounds. No blood."

Coyote shook the body. Her ponytail and hands brushed across the garbage. "See how her head wobbles? Whoever attacked Rebecca twisted her neck like a bottle cap."

Even though she was dead, the way she dangled looked humiliating. "Do you have to do that?"

"Why?" Coyote answered. "If she starts complaining, that would be a good thing, no?"

Coyote let go of her ankles. Rebecca's head settled into a pile of juice cartons. Her legs doubled over so that she rested butt up in a perverse yogalike posture. Flies landed on the insoles of her feet. I wanted the toes to twitch, but of course, they didn't.

Rebecca's neck had been broken. I reached down and lifted her hand. I didn't see any hair, skin, or blood under the fingernails. There were no marks of a struggle on her or the surrounding ground. Which meant she was attacked with such surprise she didn't have a chance to defend herself.

She hadn't been dragged out here. Inside the Majestic Lanes, there had been no commotion. Rebecca must have known and trusted her vampire attacker.

My gaze returned to Rebecca's trim body and the still rosy skin. What a pity. Had I been more alert and less careless, I could've prevented her death. Here she was in her youthful prime, cut down to feed maggots.

Rebecca had been casually tossed into the Dumpster, which meant her killer wasn't worried about the police finding a corpse behind the Majestic Lanes. Maybe this happened often. After all, we were in L. A.

We were alone, but I figured not for long. To reassure myself, I touched the Colt pistol hidden under my shirt. "It's best that we leave." I didn't want to risk gunplay, not until I learned more.

Coyote turned his cap around. "I'm still hungry. Those nachos weren't much."

"After seeing Rebecca like that, you wanna eat?"

"Vato, no matter what happens, the world keeps spinning and your appetite returns."

I couldn't argue. We headed back to my car.

Coyote recommended a dive in Watts. Since I was the only one with money, I paid for the meal. We ate outside under a tattered picnic umbrella. Coyote had five beef and red chile tamales to my two. We smothered the tamales with blood from a bag I had stashed in my car.

I sipped a Carta Blanca.

Why was Rebecca killed? And why now? I assumed it was to keep her from talking to me.

The next question: what did she know?

I asked Coyote, "Why did you tell Rebecca about me?"

Coyote pushed a hunk of tamale through the blood on his plate. "Because, carnal, she was friends with Katz Meow. I knew Katz was looking for someone to solve Roxy's murder."

"How did you know that?"

"Vato, I listen to chisme, rumors. Roxy's death was suspiciously convenient for a lot of rich people."

"Like Cragnow?"