"Because Sharkey's what the Grim Reaper would look like if he had a better tailor and traded in the scythe for an Uzi. He's fucking Death incarnate."

  "I would hardly have expected such poetic language from… a representative of law and order, Sergeant."

  Milo walked over to the desk, where some bottles, ice, and glasses had been laid out. As he poured Scotch into a glass, I said, "If you think that was poetic, then you need to start reading a better class of poet."

  "Um, perhaps." Milo took a sip of his drink, then said, "Pardon my manners. May I offer you gentlemen a drink?"

  I shook my head again. "We're on duty."

  Then Karl chimed in. "Stan's right," he said. "Besides, I never drink… Scotch."

  I bet he'd been waiting to use that Bela Lugosi line ever since he was turned.

  "You pay Sharkey for a body, you get a body," I said. "Trouble is, you sometimes get a bunch of other bodies that you didn't pay for."

  "I heard a story about him not long after I started on the force," Karl said. "Sharkey was sent after some mid-level mobster named Wiley, and Wiley heard about it before Sharkey could find him. So he decided to hole up in his condo until Sharkey gave up and went away."

  "What he didn't understand," I said, "is that Sharkey never gives up."

  "Fuckin' A," Karl said. "So Wiley stocks up on food, keeps the drapes closed, and never answers the door for anybody. He stayed in there over a month, I hear."

  When neither of us said anything for a few seconds, Milo gave a loud sigh. "I suppose I'll have to feed you the next line, if only to move things along. So – then what happened?"

  "Sharkey blew the building up," Karl said. "He likes explosives – the guy he was after should have known that."

  "Didn't even have to buy any TNT," I said. "He got into the basement and dug up the gas line that ran underneath the building. Then he figured out a way to make it blow. The whole thing looked like an accident, if you didn't know better."

  "Sharkey got his man," Karl said. "Along with a bunch of other men, not to mention over a dozen women and children who were in the building when it blew. Now, this next part I'm not sure about, some say it's made up. But supposedly the mob boss who'd hired Sharkey got all kinds of upset over all the innocent people who'd been killed in the explosion. When he said something about it, Sharkey's response supposedly was, 'What's the problem? I didn't charge you for any of them'."

  Milo finished his drink and put the glass down. "This is all fascinating – or, rather, it would be if I had actually hired this Sharkey person, which I didn't."

  He sounded so convincing. If I hadn't seen his eyeballs do the hokey-pokey earlier, I might even have believed him.

  "The adult entertainment industry isn't run by mobsters, gentlemen," he said. "That might not have been the case more than thirty years ago, but in Miller v. California the Supreme Court essentially decided that our product is legal. Disreputable in the eyes of some, perhaps, but entirely legal."

  "What about all the human trafficking that goes on?" Karl said.

  "It's regrettable, to be sure," Milo said, although he didn't seem especially sad about it. "But it has nothing to do with the people I represent."

  He turned to me. "Do you actually believe, Sergeant, that the adult video studios in California have to kidnap young women off the streets of Budapest or Juarez, to force them to appear in, say, Debbie Does Dallas 19? Hundreds of girls seek work at the adult modeling agencies every month, and many are turned away for being insufficiently attractive. There is no need to kidnap anyone, even if we were so inclined."

  "But human trafficking does go on," I said.

  "Of course it does," Milo said. "And its victims either end up in forced prostitution or, if they are young enough, in child pornography. Neither of which has anything to do with my principals. Adult entertainment is a legal business, run by legitimate businessmen."

  "And those legitimate businessmen are getting worried," I said.

  "With good reason," Milo said. "There's no shortage of right-wing politicians eager to exploit something like this 'snuff film' phenomenon for their own benefit, to tar the whole industry with the same brush, as it were. And if these videos continue to be made, it's only a matter of time before they become public knowledge."

  "And so they sent you," I said.

  "They sent me to act in a legal capacity and protect their interests. My principals certainly would not countenance my hiring some… dhampir assassin to murder those responsible, tempting though the idea is."

  I stood up, and Karl did the same. "Well, thanks for seeing us, Mister Milo. Since you're planning to stay in Scranton awhile, I'm sure we'll talk again."

  "I look forward to it," Milo said, sounding almost as if he meant it.

  We had the elevator to ourselves for the ride down. "What do you think?" Karl asked softly.

  "I think a couple of things," I said. "One is, his eyeballs jumped when I said Sharkey's name."

  "That PDM stuff you were telling me about."

  "Uh-huh. Sudden changes in emotion produce immediate pupil dilation. And here's the other thing I think."

  We reached the lobby and the doors slid open. Before leaving the elevator, I said, "I never said anything to Milo about Sharkey being a dhampir."

When we reached the street, I saw a young guy in a scraggly beard was standing on the corner trying to hand out leaflets. Even in Supe City (which some people call Scranton) there isn't a lot of pedestrian traffic at almost five in the morning, so the guy was either an optimist or a lamebrain – or whoever sent him was.

  As we got closer, he held a leaflet out toward us. It was in color, printed on slick paper. Better than the usual stuff these street guys hand out, which tends to look more like crayon on a paper bag than an IPO for a software company. "Learn the truth about the Catholic Church, fellas. The time is nigh." He didn't seem very enthusiastic about it all. How can you respect a weirdo who doesn't even believe his own rhetoric?