“The reason varies, depending on who you talk to. Some say the Vampfather has had it too easy for too long. He’s gone soft.”

I bet the two guys that Calabrese staked out to greet the sun would disagree, I thought.

“What else do you hear?” I asked.

“That Delatasso the elder isn’t bankrolling Junior. But Ronnie seems to have found a sugar daddy somewhere – he’s got all the money he needs. Enough to put a lot of soldiers on the ground, anyway.”

“Anybody know who the sugar daddy is?”

“There’s a lot of speculation, but not a lot of facts to hang it on.”

“What kind of speculation?”

“One of the New York families, or maybe a family from some other city, or the CIA, the DEA, the FBI, some eccentric billionaire.” He shrugged those well-tailored shoulders. “It’s all smoke.”

Robin tossed the wad of paper towels he’d been using in the trash and said, “Will there be anything else this evening, Officer?”

“Slide,” I said. “Also known as Hemoglobin-Plus.”

“Yes, I’ve heard about it. So?”

“So, who’s selling it?”

“The Delatassos, of course. You must know that much.”

“I do,” I said. “I mean who specifically?”

“Vamps – some vamps, anyway.” He thought for a few seconds. “Elves, too, or so I hear. There’s even been a rumor that some humans are dealing the stuff.”

That last one was more than just a rumor, but I decided to keep the fact to myself.

“Where’s it come from, do you know?” I asked him. “I mean, who makes it?”

“I haven’t the faintest,” Robin said. “I remember that one of my… clients told me he’d heard that it first showed up in Australia, a year or so ago. But then, my clients are sometimes full of shit.”

Mine, too, I thought. Let’s hope that you’re not one of them. Not this time.

Aloud I said, “I guess you heard about Victor Castle.”

“Of course I have. Everyone has. It’s a damn shame.”

I gave him raised eyebrows. “It’s a shame, because…?”

“Because he was a good guy,” Robin said impatiently. “Not a prick, like Vollman. Pity he wasn’t more vigilant – Castle, I mean. He should have seen this coming, or something like it.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because not everybody in the community agreed that he was a good guy.” He shrugged again. “Or maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe he was just in the way.”

“In the way of who?” I said. “Or what?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” Robin said. “And if I did, I probably wouldn’t say.”

I gave him a hard look. “You’re not usually so shy about sharing information, my friend. You scared of something?”

“Maybe I am,” he said. “Maybe you should be, too.”

Before I could think of a comeback to that, Robin turned away and walked the two steps to the door. His hand on the knob, he looked back at me, his handsome face as grim as I’ve ever seen it.

“I’ve been around a very long time, Sergeant,” Robin said. “And one of the things I’ve learned is – when the winds of change start blowing, you either bend or you break.”

Pulling the restroom door open, he said to me, “Take care you don’t get broken, yourself.”

Then he was gone.

“‘Take care you don’t get broken,’” Karl quoted as he drove us toward Spruce Street. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Something to do with those winds of change, I guess.”

“So somebody took out Castle because he – or she – wanted to be the capo di tutti supi. If we can pin a murder rap on the bastard, fine. But otherwise, why should we care?”

“Well, you might care, a little,” I said. “Being one of the supi and all.”

He thought about that for a second. “OK, maybe as a vampire it matters to me – a little, like you said. But as a cop, I can’t see how it makes much difference who’s in charge. As long as he’s somebody we can do business with, that is.”

We’d gone another couple of blocks before I said, “But what if he’s not?”

He took his eyes off the road just long enough to give me an odd look. “Say what?”

“I mean, say the new guy isn’t interested in doing business with us. Maybe he’s some kind of supe separatist and sees all cops as the enemy.”

He frowned. “I didn’t think we had any of those around here.”

“Me, neither. But there’s a first time for everything, I guess.”

Ever since supes began “coming out of the coffin” after World War Two, most of them have wanted nothing more than to integrate with human society. And they’ve been successful at it, too – with a few exceptions, on either side.

There are the supe haters, and some of those assholes are organized into groups, like the KKK used to be. And there are some supes who consider humans an inferior species and want nothing to do with us – until they get hungry, that is. Put those two groups within sight of each other and you could have a scaled-down version of a race war.

Race war. Something about that phrase sent a thought skittering across the back or my mind, but before I could grab it for a good look, Karl said, “This must be it, up here – on the corner.”

“Let’s go by it slow. I want to see if they have off-street parking.” The idea that had been trying to get my attention a moment earlier was gone now.

We drove past the small apartment building that Roger Gillespe, busboy and Slide dealer, apparently called home, then turned the corner on to Penn Avenue, to get a side view. There was no room behind the building for cars to park. That meant Gillespe’s vehicle – assuming he owned one – would have to be parked on Spruce Street, since there was no parking allowed in this section of Penn.

“Go around the block and back to Spruce,” I said to Karl. “I saw an open parking space – looks like it has a clear line of sight to the front of the building. We’ll see him when he comes out to his car.”

“What if he’s walking?” Karl said.

“Then he’ll have to walk right past us, if he’s on his way to work – and he oughta be. Manny said the kid’s shift starts at 6.”

I could have called the Motor Vehicle Bureau to find out if Roger Gillespe had a car registered in his name, along with the make and model, but I didn’t. When you ask Motor Vehicles for that kind of information, they take down your name and shield number. Same thing if a cop does a search for that stuff online. In case anything went wrong in the next few minutes, I didn’t want my interest in Roger to be part of any official record.

I just hoped that the guy hadn’t spent the night someplace else with his girlfriend, if he had one. Or boyfriend.

It was 5.42 by the dashboard clock when the front door of the building opened. The street lights showed me a slim young guy with red hair who came out, bounced down the three steps to the sidewalk, and turned left. He walked maybe fifty feet and stopped next to the driver’s door of a dark blue Volkswagen Geist that was parked at the curb. He reached into his pants pocket, as if searching for keys.

“That’s him,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Roger Gillespe didn’t even have the Geist’s front door open when we pulled up next to him, parked at an angle to prevent his car from going anywhere, even if he did get started up. He was still gaping at us when I rolled out of the passenger seat and showed him my badge.

“Police officer!” I said. “Don’t move!”

Karl was out too, his Glock pointed at Gillespe from across the hood of our car.

“Take your hand out of your pocket – slow!” I told him. “And it better be empty when I see it.”

He complied, so I said, “Turn and face the car, hands on the roof. Do it!”

As I began to frisk him, I said, “You got anything in your pockets I need to know about – any needles or sharp objects?”

“No, man, I got nothin’ like that.” His voice, deeper than I would have expected for his size, was unsteady. Not surprising, considering the big pile of shit he’d just found himself dropped in.