SEVEN

One of the lessons Deanna Campbell tried very hard to instill in her daughter was that a hunter’s best weapon wasn’t a shotgun. Nor was it holy water. It wasn’t even a Claymore that killed a vampire, a demon, or a family of ghouls.

It was a library card.

But convincing her fifteen year-old skilled fighter of a daughter of this fact was an uphill battle in itself.

Early in the morning on their second day in San Francisco, Deanna took Mary with her to the giant white edifice of the San Francisco Public Library. The main branch sat on the corner of Larkin and Grove Streets, part of the city’s Civic Center.

It was a chilly day, and as they entered the building, there wasn’t much change in the temperature. Walking across the lobby, Mary spoke in a low voice.

“Mom, you know, we could handle this ourselves—me and Jack, I mean,” she added hastily. “You could go with Dad.”

“No thanks,” Deanna said. “You know how much I hate acting. Let your father play dress-up—he’s good at it.”

“I guess,” Mary responded, a hint of disappointment in her voice.

Samuel had been up late the previous night, posing as an FBI agent, so they had opted to let him sleep in. The visit with the coroner hadn’t yielded a lot of useful information, but once he caught up on his rest, he was going to do what he could with it and try to find a common denominator among the four victims.

Deanna smiled. She could see right through her daughter—who just wanted to spend time alone with young Mr. Bartow. She couldn’t really blame her, all things considered, but there was no way she was leaving her fifteen year-old unchaperoned with an eighteen year-old boy. Sure he came from a family of hunters, but that didn’t stop them from being teenagers.

Mary looked down, probably embarrassed at having been so transparent.

Then she brightened when she saw Bartow waiting for them at the entrance to the research room, leaning on his cane.

“We ready to go?”

“Absolutely,” Mary replied, a grin replacing her frown.

Deanna chuckled, and they made a beeline for the reference desk, where a young woman with long, straight dark hair, a large nose, and a bright smile sat on a tall chair. She was wearing a dark blue sundress and a light blue cardigan sweater.

“How may I help you?”

Putting on her brightest smile and over-emphasizing her midwestern accent, Deanna responded.

“Hi, miss—I sure hope so! We all just had the most swell time in Chinatown, and we wanted to learn more about the people there. Can you recommend some good books for us to read?”

The librarian nodded briskly.

“Well, I’ll see what I can do. You see, most of our books on the Oriental culture are in Chinese, and they’re at our Chinatown annex. We have a few books on Chinese culture here, though, and several of them are in English. Is there any particular aspect you have in mind?”

“It’s funny you should ask that, because everywhere we went, my daughter kept hearing people talking about something called ‘the heart of the dragon,’ and we’re just dying to find out what that might be.”

“Okay, that gives us a start,” the librarian continued, stepping down from her perch. “Well, the dragon is a very important part of Chinese culture. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

She took them to a huge cabinet with dozens of narrow drawers—the card catalogue where the titles were filed by subject. She deftly chose specific drawers, labeled in a system of numbers and categories, starting with “180 – Oriental Philosophy,” and within moments she’d turned up several books with historical references to dragons.

Ancient Chinese secrets, eh? Deanna noted with admiration. This woman really knows her business.

Several hours of reading later, however—covering every category from “Paranormal Phenomena” to “Paleozoology”— turned up very little that seemed germane to this particular hunt. They found plenty on dragons, but nothing quite matched what the clues seemed to indicate.

Closing the last of the books the young librarian had brought them, Mary looked up at her mother and Jack.

“Lots of references to people fricasseed by a big lizard, but nothing that explains the way the bodies were cut up,” she said. “Maybe it’s not a dragon we’re looking for, but somebody who’s been possessed by one. Somebody with a sword?” she offered skeptically.

Deanna shook her head to clear the cobwebs. Every depiction of dragons they had been able to find showed creatures with claws that were similar to those of an eagle, or a bear—none of them matched the precise cuts Samuel had described.

“I don’t know,” she said. “There’s nothing like that in any of the books I read, but it makes about as much sense as anything else.”

What was worse was that nothing they found made a single reference to a dragon’s heart, except in the vaguest possible sense. A person with the “heart of a dragon” was said to possess great strength of character—which didn’t exactly fit with running around ‘Frisco cutting people to shreds.

Deanna closed her own tome with a thump, then she, Mary, and Jack brought their books to the wooden hand truck that rested under a sign marked “returns” in precise block letters.

“Well, this was a waste of time,” Mary said with a sigh.

“Hey, c’mon,” Jack protested. “Sometimes knowing what you’re not hunting helps you figure out what you should be.” But even he didn’t look entirely convinced. Nevertheless, Mary clutched at the idea.

“You think so?” she said.

Deanna shot the young man a grateful look. She’d been saying the same thing for the last couple of hours, but Mary didn’t want to hear it, coming from her mother. So hearing it from someone closer to her own age helped a lot. It didn’t hurt that the source was a cute young boy.

The woman in the blue cardigan sweater was gone, and an older lady with dark hair done up in a beehive now sat at the reference desk. She looked to be of Oriental descent and was, in fact, the third librarian to sit back there since they had arrived that morning. Unlike the first, younger librarian who’d helped them, this one was a bit more formally dressed: a white blouse, a gray sweater, and a long maroon skirt.

“Did you find what you were looking for, ma’am?” the librarian asked.

“Not everything, I’m afraid,” Deanna said, exaggerating the disappointment in her tone. She almost forgot to put her “Midwestern Mom” voice back on, but caught herself just in time. As she had said to Mary, character acting was Samuel’s scene. Deanna preferred to either read about something, or shoot it.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the librarian said, sounding like she meant it.

“It’s all right, I suppose,” Deanna replied with a game smile. “We learned bunches about Chinese culture and about dragons, which was really swell. I just wish I knew what all those people meant when they talked about ‘the heart of the dragon.’”

The librarian frowned.

“What an interesting subject,” she said curiously. “Are you sure it’s Chinese culture you’re looking for?”

The question brought Deanna up short.

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, although there are many references to dragons in Chinese lore, the only reference I’ve ever heard to ‘the heart of the dragon’ was in relation to a Japanese warrior from one hundred years ago,” the woman explained. “In fact, he was called the Heart of the Dragon.”

Her interest piqued, yet managing to stay in character, Deanna pressed for more information.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “This was something we heard them talking about in Chinatown, not Japantown.” Then she chuckled. “For that matter, is there even any such place as Japantown?”

Mary elbowed her in the ribs.

“Mom! C’mon, this could be what we’re looking for.” She tugged nervously at her ever-present charm bracelet.

“Yes, dear,” Deanna said. Rubbing her side, she tossed the librarian a conspiratorial smile. “Teenagers—what can you do?”

“They certainly can be impatient,” the woman agreed.

“But to answer your question, there is a section of the city we call Japantown—in fact, that’s where my parents live.”

“Would you have any books that talk about the warrior you mentioned?” Deanna asked. “I’m afraid my daughter won’t let me rest until we find something.”

“There’s at least one I can recall—but it may not help you much, I’m afraid. You see, it’s a text in Japanese. I can have it sent over, but unless you read the language....” She trailed off with a shrug.

Jack stepped forward.

“That won’t be a problem,” he said crisply. “How soon can the book be delivered?”

The librarian shrugged again.

“It usually takes an hour or so,” she said. “But I’m afraid we wouldn’t be able to have it before the library closes for the day.”

“Can you hold it for us, though, to look at tomorrow morning?” Jack asked eagerly.

“Absolutely!” the librarian said, caught up in his enthusiasm. “I’ll just need your name.”

“John Riet. That’s R-I-E-T.”

“Very well, Mr. Riet, I’ll put in the request right away, and set the book aside for you to look at in the morning. Just come back to this desk and give your name.”

“Groovy.” He turned to Deanna. “I’ve got a friend who’s in the Oriental Studies Department at Berkeley. He owes my parents a favor, so he should be able to help out.”

That settled, they headed for the lobby and out the door into the brisk San Francisco afternoon. The sun was bright in the sky, so the air was warm now, and there was a pleasant breeze. One of the things Deanna had loved about this city the last time they visited was the constancy of the weather. It was as if the place was enmeshed in a permanent spring.

Mary peered curiously at Jack.

“John Riet?”

“John’s my real name, but since it was also Dad’s name, everyone called me Jack,” he explained. “You know, like Jack Kennedy. And ‘riet’ is Dutch for ‘cane.’”

“Oh,” she said. “Groovy.”

Deanna interrupted them.

“Mary, you and I need to go back to the hotel to see if Samuel has checked in or not.” Then she turned. “Jack, we can give you a call when we know what the next step is.”

“Right on,” he said. “Actually, I could come back with you, and we could have some lunch. I know a great place....”

Mary’s face brightened, but Deanna knew how Samuel would feel about that. Beyond the fact that he was certain Jack wanted to get Mary alone, his disdain for other hunters was nigh-on legendary. He was sure to balk at sharing yet another meal with the young man, especially so soon.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” she said sincerely, “but not today. We’ll call you, all right?”

“Sure thing.” Jack sounded as disappointed as Mary looked, so Deanna grabbed her daughter’s hand and practically dragged her toward the bus stop. It was just as she had said to the librarian.

Teenagers—what can you do?

* * *

Samuel hadn’t held out much hope for assistance in Chinatown as long as he was posing as an FBI agent. In fact, just generally being Caucasian would work against him. Maybe he’d send Mary in later, have her play the open-minded hippie trying to grok the Oriental culture, and shadow her.

So, after taking a nap, he decided to head to the first crime scene, where Michael “Moondoggy” Verlander met his death, located in the Inner Mission.

He still wasn’t happy that Deanna had convinced him to keep Bartow involved. Samuel had tolerated his presence, and yes, he’d been the one to bring them this job, but Samuel just didn’t like being around other hunters. They always assumed you felt the same way they did, but as far as Samuel was concerned, a jackass was still a jackass—and a lot of them had turned out to be jackasses.

As he walked down Guerrero Street, he saw a bunch of kids gathered together, shouting slogans. One of them was standing on a milk crate at the center of the group, making a speech. Some of the kids held signs that read things like PEACE and MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR. More than half of them were wearing tie-dyed shirts that gave Samuel a headache just to look at, and most of them were in desperate need of a haircut—including the women. Some were barefoot, others wearing sandals.

There was a boy sitting next to the speaker strumming on a guitar, but the tune couldn’t be heard over the shouting.

On the one hand, Samuel understood those who didn’t wish to fight in the war in Southeast Asia. Having served in both World War II and Korea, he knew there was a big difference. The former needed to be fought—the latter was mostly just an excuse to get people killed for no good reason. Vietnam seemed to be more of the same after Korea. But Samuel couldn’t in good conscience agree with the song by one of the Beatles who crooned: “Give peace a chance.”

Because if you did that, then you’d already lost.

The enemy wasn’t the Viet Cong, though, and it wasn’t the Chinese or the Soviets or the North Koreans. Hell, it wasn’t even the Nazis. The real enemy was largely unseen, and unknown, and a lot worse.

The only way to stop the real enemy was to fight. The only alternative was to lose and die. And Samuel had no intention of dying any time soon.

Still, he mused as he continued down Guerrero toward the apartment building, he couldn’t really bring himself to blame most people for feeling the way they did. Unless you knew—really knew—what the world was like, you’d think that giving peace a chance might be preferable to dying in a faraway jungle nobody cared about.

They still needed haircuts, though.

When he reached the third floor of the apartment building, he saw that the crime-scene tape was still attached to one side of the doorframe, hanging loosely toward the floor and fluttering in an almost imperceptible breeze. Given that the hallway hadn’t been swept and the windows not cleaned since before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, this particular bit of failed maintenance wasn’t much of a shock.

He was about to knock on the door, which was covered with peace-sign stickers and other odd decals, when it opened to reveal a very angry face. A huge hook nose was framed by tiny eyes and a thin-lipped mouth, which was ameliorated somewhat by the thick mustache its owner wore. Unfortunately, it was brick red, while his hair—including sideburns in dire need of a trim—was dark brown. The contrast was comical, and only Samuel’s experience with disguises assured him that the facial hair was real.

“Whaddaya want, man?” the face demanded.

Recalling something from both Bartow’s conversation and Verlander’s casefile, Samuel put on his most stentorian voice.

“Are you Frederick Gorczyk?”

“Who wants to know?”

Holding up the false identification, Samuel answered authoritatively.

“I’m Special Agent Jones.” One thing he’d learned early on was that FBI agents never referred to themselves as just “Agent So-and-so,” and they never called themselves “FBI agents,” either. It was a small thing, but it could make or break an impersonation.

Gorczyk blinked, some of the anger fading.

“Okay.”

Samuel continued.

“If you are Frederick Gorczyk, I have some questions for you regarding the death of Michael Verlander.”

“And if I ain’t him?”

Samuel gave a very small smirk.

“Then I’ll have to arrest you for trespassing.”

Gorczyk made a noise like an exploding pipe.

“I ain’t trespassin’, man, I’m Freddie Gorczyk.” Samuel noted that he pronounced it “gore-chick,” not “gore-zik.”

“My apologies for the mispronunciation, Mr. Gorczyk,” he said, and he motioned into the apartment. “May I come in?”

“Sure, fine.” Gorczyk, who’d been blocking the doorway the entire time, opened the door wide, turned, and led him into the small living room.

On the left was a wall filled with metal braces screwed into it, used to hold up wooden bookshelves. Most of them were stuffed with books, but one shelf had a record player, with speakers sitting on the floor beneath it.

On the right was a couch, and several stained posters decorated the wall advertising various concerts, festivals and exhibits. Samuel recognized a few of the bands from records Mary had asked him to buy for her as birthday and Christmas presents.

The carpet was cheap, stained and faded, but he could clearly see that it had been vacuumed recently. There was also a rectangular section cut out of it, right in front of the battered leather couch. Samuel recalled a mention in Verlander’s file about the coffee table being burned and the ashes and carpet going to the lab for analysis. That explained the cutout.

After looking over the living room in silence, Samuel turned to Gorczyk.

“I need to know what Mr. Verlander was doing in your apartment.”

“Messin’ it up, is what he was doin’! Look, I went east for Woodstock back in August, okay, man?” When Samuel didn’t respond, he continued. “And once I got there I realized that New York City, man, that’s where it’s at! So I stayed. I’d already asked Moondoggy—that’s ‘Mr. Verlander,’ okay?—to house-sit while I was at the festival, and I called him and told him to keep on keepin’ on while I tried to break in, okay?”

“Break in?”

“You know, get gigs. For my music, man.”

“So what happened?” Samuel asked.

Gorczyk started waving his hands wildly.

“He lost my cat, man! Broke my stuff, even scratched my LPs! Practically burned down my whole apartment. And then he got himself killed, so I can’t even get no restitution or nothin’.”

“I’m sorry for your problems, Mr. Gorczyk,” Samuel said with as much sincerity as he could muster—which wasn’t all that much, really—then added, “but I need details. Do you know who he might have entertained while he was here?”

“Anybody who got him grass, is who.” Gorczyk swallowed, adding hastily, “Uh, not that I know nothin’ about that, man. Not my thing.”

A glance into the kitchenette revealed a lot of empty potato-chip bags, and Samuel smiled to himself.

“I’m investigating a murder, son—I couldn’t care less about what you or Mr. Verlander smoke.”

“Yeah, okay.” Gorczyk didn’t sound like he believed that. Then he brightened. “Oh, hey, man, you know who you oughtta talk to? Mrs. Holzaur. She lives next door in 3C, and she’s always seein’ stuff. I asked her to keep an eye on Moondoggy, okay? She mighta seen somethin’. I don’t know if the pi—uh, the cops talked to her or not.”

Again, Samuel smiled to himself, but he decided not to respond to the veiled reference.

Instead, he crouched down near the cut-out bit of carpet, where he noticed some yellow crystals.

Sulfur.

Not that Samuel harbored any doubts at this point, but the sight of sulfur confirmed that this was something he and his family needed to take care of, and quickly.

It may or may not have been a dragon, but a demon was definitely involved.

Getting to his feet, he motioned to leave.

“Thank you very much for your assistance, Mr. Gorczyk,” he said. “You’ve been a great help.”

“Sure, man. Just hope you catch the guy. Moondoggy was a jerk, but he didn’t deserve what he got.”

Stepping out into the hall, the door clicking shut behind him, Samuel knocked on the door to apartment 3C. Unlike the door to Gorczyk’s apartment, 3B, Mrs. Holzaur’s door was empty save for the tarnished brass number and letter.

A short, wrinkled woman wearing a faded housedress, curlers in her hair, answered the door. A lit cigarette dangled from between her lips.

“Are you Mrs. Holzaur?”

“You a policeman, mister?” she asked in a raspy voice.

“Federal agent, actually—Special Agent Jones.”

“Too bad. I was hopin’ you’d be a policeman, on account’a I ain’t heard from none of ‘em.” She took a drag on her cigarette.

“I’m sorry, ma’am?”

Blowing smoke in Samuel’s face, Mrs. Holzaur coughed, then spoke.

“I told them policemen when that man was murdered, I told ‘em to talk to me, that I knew stuff about the yippies and the aliens and the Chinee and whatnot.”

“You’re talking about the murder of your next-door neighbor, Michael Verlander, yes?”

“He ain’t my neighbor. He was watchin’ the place for my neighbor. One’a them yippies, or whatever they call ‘em. My husband was still alive, he’d’a shot ‘em both, and that’s the truth.”

“No doubt, Mrs. Holzaur,” Samuel said quickly. “Now what’s that about aliens and—and the Chinee?”

“The aliens, see, them’s the ones who made the mary-jew-ana. Smokin’ that stuff, see, that’s what leads to people turnin’ into aliens, and then they’re gonna take over. Been tellin’ the policemen this, every chance I get, but they don’t do nothin’!” She took another drag on her cigarette.

One thing the Campbell family had learned early on was that the crazy ones were worth paying attention to—often there was good wheat among all that chaff. So he waited to see if Mrs. Holzaur would carry on about marijuana and the alien plot to destroy the youth of America. When she seemed to have abated, he began to ask questions.

“And how does the Chinese person fit into this?”

“It’s obvious ain’t it? That yippie fella asked me to let in his friend while he went out to meet with his alien buddies. Told me to let this guy—Albert—have something to eat.”

Samuel brightened.

“Albert?”

“Yeah, told me to give Albert some chow. Like I need to feed some Chinee kook.”

“Did you feed him?”

More smoke in Samuel’s face for that one.

“’Course not! Albert can chow down on his own damn time, you ask me. Damn Chinee, them people’re takin’ over! You watch, ‘fore too long, we’ll all be slant-eyed devils like them, and then where’ll we be, huh?” She dragged on her cigarette, then dropped it to the linoleum floor of the hall. “If my husband was alive, he’d take his shotgun to ‘em all, and that’s no lie.”

Samuel nodded noncommittally, careful not to show any sign of the elation that swept over him.

“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Holzaur. The FBI appreciates your input, and rest assured we’ll be giving your allegations the full attention that they warrant.”

“Yeah, right—you’re just like all men, all talk and no action, that’s your problem. If my husband was alive, he’d take a shotgun right to your head, I’ll tell you that for free.”

Samuel turned his back on Mrs. Holzaur, who continued to natter on to herself about aliens and yippies and the Chinee and what her husband would do with his shotgun. He had a spring in his step, because now he had a name.

Albert.

He somehow doubted that Moondoggy would want the loony lady next door to provide Albert with chow. But he might well ask her to let in someone named Albert Chao.

Now Samuel just had to figure out who Albert Chao was and what he had wanted with Moondoggy....