Blood Hunt by Lee Killough Read Free Book Online Page A

mutilating animals and went out to buy underground papers. When Harry came back to the office around two, they exchanged notes over coffee and doughnuts.
    Harry’s interviews in China Basin produced nothing for them. The underground classifieds had some cult ads, but no direct means of contacting the groups.
    “ We’ll have to get some scrawny kid straight out of the Academy who can get past their security,” Garreth said. “The ASPCA has some complaints of animal mutilation we might follow up on, too.”
    “ What about Chiarelli?”
    “ Still no word yet. Here’s everything Records currently has on the cults Faye and Centrello investigated.”
    And what, Garreth wondered, leaning back in his chair with a sigh, did it mean until they knew where Mossman had been? Until then, they had no way of establishing opportunity for the cults. Checking movements was treadmill work.
    Still, it needed to be done, and over the next four days they visited the cult groups Faye and Centrello listed, then those with ads that their rookie contacted for them. They visited people who had reported animal mutilations to the Humane Society. Garreth did not like most of the cultists he met — some he detested on sight — but he found them educational: women who simultaneously attracted and chilled him, people he would have taken for dull businessmen on the street, and some, too, who looked like escapees from Hollywood horror movies. No group, though, had a tall red-haired female member.
    None of Mossman’s jewelry appeared in the pawnshops.
    At the same time, they kept prodding their contacts for Wink O’Hare’s hiding place. Garreth spent his evenings in North Beach on a systematic search for the singer.
    One week after Gerald Mossman died, Garreth found her.
     
    4
     
    The singer looked every bit the babe Suarez said, and she did tower in boots with six inch heels. Dressed in a satin shirt and jeans, she glided between the tables of the Barbary Now, singing a sentimental Kenny Rogers song. And what a voice. Singing about lighting up his life brought a vivid memory of Marti and a lump in his throat. He had to fight off blurred vision to concentrate on the singer. The red hair, black in shadow, burned with dark fire where the light struck it, and hung down her back to her waist, framing a striking, square-jawed face. Watching her walk, Garreth remembered the description the bellboy had given of the woman in the Mark Hopkins lobby. She had to be the same woman. Surely there could not be two like this in San Francisco. He would slip something extra to Velvet to thank her for finding this woman.
    The hooker had called the office that afternoon. He and Harry were out, but she left a message: If you’re still looking for that redhead, try the Barbary Now after 8:00 tonight.
    So here he and Harry were, and here was a redhead .
    “ Nice,” Harry said.
    Garreth agreed. Very nice. He beckoned to a barmaid. “Rum and Coke for me, a vodka collins for my friend, and what’s the name of the singer?”
    “ Lane Barber.”
    Garreth did not blame Mossman for having stared at her. Most of the male eyes in the room remained riveted on her throughout the song. Garreth managed to tear his own gaze away long enough to see that.
    The barmaid brought their drinks. Garreth pulled a page out of his notebook and wrote on it. “When the set finishes, will you give this to Miss Barber? I’d like to buy her a drink.”
    “ I’ll give it to her, but I’d better warn you, she has a long line waiting for the same honor.”
    “ In that case...” Harry took out one of his cards “...give her this instead.”
    The girl held the card down where the light of the candle on the table fell on it. “Cops! If you’re on duty, what are you doing drinking?”
    “ We’re blending with the scenery. Give her the card, please.”
    Three songs later, the set ended. Lane Barber disappeared through the curtains behind the piano. She reappeared five minutes later in a