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Chapter 2

D’Agosta fell into the booth, still in a partial daze. He watched Pendergast slide prettily into the other seat, his red hair swaying sexily, his breasts under the silky blue blouse as pert as when D’Agosta had thought them real. Hell, maybe they were real. Pendergast was a secretive son of a bitch. Maybe...

But that was stupid. He’d seen Pendergast naked as a jaybird during the prison break and he would’ve remembered breasts. He was quite sure of that. Unless Pendergast had had them...added since then. With that kind of money, he could probably buy any parts he wanted. Or have any parts removed. D’Agosta’s eyes dropped to where Pendergast’s crotch would be under the table, wishing he could see it. There had definitely been a very decent penis attached to Pendergast during the prison break. D’Agosta even remembered being surprised at how decent, given how slender the man was...but maybe...

“Pendergast,” he heard himself saying. “Are you a woman trapped in a man’s body?”

The blue eyes crinkled slightly at the corners. “At the moment, vice versa, dear Vincent. Now, would you like to continue making unwarranted assumptions, or would you like to know what I’m working on?”

D’Agosta shook his head and waved his hand. “Go ahead.”

Pendergast opened his mouth, then closed it as a shadow fell over the booth. D’Agosta looked up and there was the bartender, who never came out from behind the bar, standing over them, pen poised over an order pad. His eyes were on Pendergast. “Get you folks something?”

D’Agosta noted that the bartender’s eyes were not just on Pendergast. They were devouring Pendergast, from his beautiful shining locks to his cornflower blue eyes to his sensuously pouting lips to his saucy breasts. D’Agosta was aghast to feel a stab of jealousy. He put a hand over his eyes, shaking his head again. He wondered what the bartender would do if he knew, then decided that the bartender was so gone on Pendergast that maybe it wouldn’t matter. Maybe it didn’t even matter to him, or at least not to his dick, which was still vacillating between limp mortification and rebellious half-mast. Oh, God.

“I’d love another white wine,” purred Alice Pearl, whose sultry voice still made D’Agosta’s erectile tissue quiver.

He sighed. “Gimmee a Bud.”

“Sure thing.” The bartender was speaking only to Pendergast. “Be right back.”

A long silence.

“Vincent?” Pendergast maintained the Alice Pearl voice, either wary of being snuck up on again or enjoying being in character just a little too much.

“What.” He kept his head down, his hand shading his eyes.

“Look at me, Vincent.”

Oh, God.

He raised his head and looked. Pendergast shrugged. “It’s just me, Vincent.”

“I...I know.”

“Very well.” Pendergast glanced around and his voice deepened somewhat, but a lot of Alice still came through. “There is a serial fetish burglar operating in a small city in North Carolina. I’m going down there as a decoy.”

“Why? Don’t they have any cops there who enjoy wearing women’s underwear?”

Pendergast apparently chose to ignore this vindictive little barb. “It’s a small department. And I believe he is escalating. He started with stealing panties and bras. Then a woman caught him in the act and he threatened her with a knife before escaping. He assaulted the next victim on the street and forced her to cut her breast, caught her blood in a cup, and drank it. The last time, he forced his victim to strip, and he did the cutting, drinking the blood directly from the wound.”

“How do you know it’s the same perp?”

“He wears a black cape and a Zorro mask. If he’s not caught soon, he’s going to kill someone. Once he graduates to homicide, he won’t stop.”

The bartender returned with their drinks, set them down, nearly spilling D’Agosta’s onto his lap while staring at Pendergast, and stood there with his mouth open, apparently searching for something to say that would impress Alice. Pendergast watched him for a moment, then Alice said, “Thank you very much, sir.” Her sweet voice now carried a Southern accent, and D’Agosta thought that it was the finishing touch. The lust in the bartender’s eyes seemed to quadruple. Surely he would pounce on Pendergast any moment now and make him his woman.

Then Alice reached across the table and laid her hand atop D’Agosta’s. She said, “Now don’t you go gettin a snootful, honeybun. You know I have plans for you later.” She winked a frisky blue eye and D’Agosta sensed Pendergast’s sly silver one behind it, paying him back for the women’s underwear crack. He blinked.

The bartender slunk away in abject misery, probably to disembowel himself. D’Agosta started to move his hand and Pendergast smiled winningly across the table as his slender hand suddenly became a vise. D’Agosta started to struggle. “Vincent! I have a plane to catch and I don’t want any more interruptions. Would it totally emasculate you to play along for a minute?”

D’Agosta sighed and capitulated. “How’s the FBI going to like you running around in drag trying to catch a nut who thinks he’s a vampire?”

“The term is haematophilia, or sexual arousal involving blood. And I’m not actively working with the FBI at this time.”

D’Agosta chose to let that go. Whatever Pendergast’s bureau status was, he’d disclose it when he was ready, and only when he was ready. D’Agosta had long since stopped asking Pendergast any personal questions. He’d rather attempt a conversation with the Sphinx. Instead, he said, “How do you know he’s getting sexual—er...” He found that he was uncomfortable uttering a term for what he himself was feeling while holding hands with Pendergast.

“The victims reported that it was quite unmistakable.” Pendergast’s blue eyes seemed to dance, and D’Agosta got the distinct impression that Pendergast really meant that sexual arousal was always unmistakable and that he wasn’t mistaking D’Agosta’s either.

Oh, God.

“Most of the victims worked at the local hospital at the time of the attacks. As a result, it’s now having staffing difficulties. I’ve secured a traveling worker position there as a nursing assistant.”

“A nursing assistant.” An image of Alice in a tight white uniform and incongruous high-heeled white pumps, bending over and possibly doing something naughty to a male patient, formed in D’Agosta’s mind. He whimpered.

“Yes. I have enough medical training from...several years ago...to pull that off. I could use a ride to the airport, Vincent. This little trip came up rather unexpectedly and the Rolls is getting detailed.”

D’Agosta sighed, figuring he had used up his allotment of sighs, probably for life. “All right.”

Pendergast rooted in his purse and dropped some bills onto the table. D’Agosta watched in horror, then hissed, “Take that back!”

Pendergast’s brows leaped in surprise. “Why?”

“You want all these guys to think we’re going Dutch?”

It was Pendergast’s turn to blink. “It is the age of women’s lib, Vincent.”

“Not for me, it’s not. I pay for my date’s drinks.”

Pendergast fluttered his lashes and practically swooned. “Are you sayin I’m your girl, sugar dumplin?”

Oh, God in heaven.

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