“And if the Patriot Party wins the election…”

“Wilson gets a city government that’s gonna do whatever he tells it to. Same thing if the Delatassos wipe out the Calabrese family and take over local organized crime. Then Wilson controls both the cops and the crooks.”

“But the Delatassos are supes, too,” McGuire said. “They’re vamps, for God’s sake.”

“I figure Wilson’s willing to overlook that – for a while,” I told him. “Shit, the Nazis had an alliance with Japan, remember? And the Japanese weren’t exactly what Hitler and his crew considered members of the fucking master race.”

“Alright, fine,” he said. “But let’s put the history lesson aside. The important thing–”

“Wait! Wait a second – something just occurred to me.”

He raised an eyebrow in my direction. “I don’t suppose it’s a miraculous solution to all our problems.”

“Sorry, no. In fact, it’s another problem – or it is if I’ve got things figured right.”

“Then let’s hope you’re wrong,” McGuire said. “But you better tell me anyway.”

“I just remembered something Christine was telling me the other night. Now that Victor Castle’s dead, that leaves a power vacuum in the supe community.”

“You needed your daughter to tell you that? You must be slipping, Markowski.”

“No, I figured that part out for myself. But what I didn’t know is that there’s a guy – a vamp – who’s angling for the job. And it sounds like he’s pushing pretty hard.”

“Pushing how?”

“The usual combination of carrot and stick. The stick is what you might expect – he’s known as a bad guy to cross, you should pardon the expression. Any supe who’s against him runs into a world of hurt.”

McGuire leaned back in his chair. “If that’s the way he does business, I’m surprised we haven’t encountered him before now. Or maybe we have – what’s his name?”

“Dimitri Kaspar.”

He shook his head slowly. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“The guy doesn’t have a sheet, at least not locally. I asked the Staties to check their database, see if he’s been busted anyplace else in Pennsylvania. But you know how that works.”

He nodded. “They’re going to get back to you – any day now.”

“Yeah, that’s about it,” I said.

“Still, this Kaspar just sounds like a run-of-the mill punk, whether he’s got fangs on him or not.”

“I’d agree with you,” I said, “except for the size of the carrot he’s offering to those who go along with him.”

“What kind of carrot are we talking about?”

“The usual kind – money. Apparently he’s been spreading a lot of it around. But here’s the thing, boss – this guy works at the Post Office, sorting mail. He should barely be able to make the rent every month, let alone throw cash around like he’s been doing. Unless he’s hit the lottery, there’s only one explanation I can think of.”

McGuire stared at me for three or four seconds. “You know, under other circumstances, I’d be inclined to say you were batshit paranoid.”

“Yeah, but just cause we’re paranoid doesn’t mean that Patton Wilson isn’t really out to get us.”

McGuire let out his breath in a long sigh. “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

“The bastard’s thorough,” I said. “You gotta give him that.”

“Alright,” McGuire said. “Whether you’re right about this vamp Kaspar or not, it’s pretty damn clear that Wilson is back, and he’s up to the same shit as last time – but on a much bigger scale. Question is: what the fuck are we gonna do about it?”

“Oh,” I said. “You don’t know, either?”

I got through the rest of the day somehow. I wouldn’t have minded going out on some calls, even though I felt beat to shit, but McGuire said he couldn’t authorize the overtime for half a detective team. He didn’t mind if I hung around the squad room, though, so I spent a lot of time at my desk.

Lieutenant Crestwell, the squad’s day-shift commander, came on duty at some point. McGuire must’ve asked him to leave me alone, because Crestwell didn’t acknowledge my existence all day, beyond a nod when he first entered the squad room. That was fine with me – I was busy thinking about the return of Patton Wilson. I wish I could say that some brilliant idea occurred to me as I sat there, but brilliant ideas seemed to be in short supply for me lately.

That bastard Wilson was angling to be the power behind three thrones – the local Mafia family, the city government, and the Scranton supe community – assuming you want to dignify any of those positions with a word like “throne”. Well, you couldn’t fault Wilson for nerve – the guy had the balls of a brass ape. Unfortunately, he also had both brains and bucks in abundance – maybe enough to make his twisted ambition a reality. Unless somebody stopped him. Somehow.

I realized that Christine would be rising at sunset, and she’d expect to find me at home. If I wasn’t there, she might assume the worst, so I called and left a message on her voice mail.

Hi, honey, it’s your old man. Listen, I won’t be there when you get up tonight, and I’m not sure if I’m gonna get home at all. Some crazy stuff’s going on at work – I’ll tell you about it when I see you, which may not be until tomorrow night. But there’s nothing to worry about.

I hoped that last sentence didn’t turn out to be a lie. I didn’t know what, if anything, Christine had going on with my partner, but I still didn’t relish the idea of telling her Karl wouldn’t be coming around anymore – ever.

Apart from a shower and quick change of clothes in the locker room, I spent most of the day at the station house. But as the sun finally lowered over the city, I was in another part of town, standing behind my parked Toyota Lycan, with the trunk key in my hand – waiting.

Today’s Times-Tribune and Weatherwitch.com both agreed – sunset was scheduled for 6.07. I checked my watch – it was coming up on 6.00. Of course, the jury was still out on whether vampires rise and sleep at meteorological dawn and dusk, or whether they’re obeying some other, more fundamental, impulse.

6.04: No sounds or stirring from inside my trunk, where Karl Renfer slept. Whether his current state was going to last a couple more minutes or go on forever was the question that had my guts feeling like a tightly clenched fist.

6.06: I found myself wondering what kind of funeral Karl would have wanted, and pulled my mind away from that thought as quick as I’d yank my hand from a hot stove. I’m not one of those nitwits who think the “power of positive thinking” ever changed one goddamn thing, but I was not going to stand here and think about Karl being dead forever. I was not going to do that.

6. 07: Full dark now – at least, it seemed that way to me. The interior of the trunk remained as quiet as the grave, a metaphor I banished from my mind the instant it showed up. I thought about Rachel and wondered what she was doing right now – as if I didn’t know. Wherever she was, she had the face of a clock or watch in view. She’d probably be trying not to stare at it, to distract her mind with other stuff – and failing, just as I was.

6.08: I was going to have to tell Rachel, eventually. After all, I’d promised. “Call me, either way,” she’d said. McGuire would want to know, too. I wondered how long I should wait before deciding to make the call that both of them were dreading. It seemed that I should–

“Hey – what the fuck is going on here?”

That pissed-off voice came from inside my trunk, and it was the voice of Karl Renfer – loud, and clear, and alive. Well, undead, anyway.

“Just a second, Karl!” I yelled. I nearly pounded my fists on the trunk lid in relief, but had enough sense to realize that Karl might misinterpret the sound, not knowing where he was. “Everything’s fine – just give me a second!” I started patting my pockets for the car keys, then realized that they’d been in my left hand the whole time.