Wexlersh was short with pale-gray eyes and a waxy white face that seemed out of place in California even in winter. He said, ‘What happened to your head?’
‘Walked into a low tree branch,’ Dan said.
‘Looks more like you were beating up some poor innocent suspect, violating his civil rights, and the poor innocent suspect was foolish enough to resist.’
‘Is that how you handle suspects in the East Valley Division?’
‘Or maybe it was a hooker who wouldn’t come across with a free sample just ’cause you flashed your badge at her,’ Wexlersh said, grinning broadly.
‘You shouldn’t try to be amusing, Dan told him. ‘You have about as much wit as a toilet seat.’
Wexlersh continued to smile, but his gray eyes were mean. ‘Haldane, what kind of maniac you think we have on our hands here?’
Manuello, in spite of his name, was not Hispanic in appearance, but tall and blond and square-featured, with a Kirk Douglas dimple in the center of his chin. He said, ‘Yeah, Haldane, share with us the wisdom of your experience.
And Wexlersh said, ‘Yeah. You’re the lieutenant. We’re just lowly detectives, first-grade.’
‘Yes, please, we await your observations and your profound insights into this most heinous crime,’ Manuello said mockingly. ‘We are breathless with anticipation.’
Although Dan was a superior officer, they could get away with this sort of petty insubordination because they were from the East Valley Division, not Central, where Dan usually worked, and most of all because they were Ross Mondale’s pets and knew the captain would protect them.
Dan said, ‘You know, you two made the wrong career decision. I’m sure you’d be much happier breaking the law than enforcing it.’
‘But really, now, Lieutenant,’ said Wexlersh, ‘you must have some theories by this time. What sort of maniac would go around beating people into piles of strawberry preserves?’
‘For that matter,’ Manuello said, ‘what sort of maniac was this particular victim?’
‘Joseph Scaldone?’ Dan said. ‘He ran this place, right? What do you mean he was a maniac?’
‘Well,’ Wexlersh said, ‘he sure to God wasn’t your ordinary businessman.’
‘Don’t think they’d have wanted him in the Chamber of Commerce,’ Manuello said.
‘Or the Better Business Bureau,’ Wexlersh said.
‘A definite lunatic,’ Manuello said.
‘What are you two babbling about?’ Dan asked.
Manuello said, ‘Don’t you think it’d take a lunatic to run a shop’ — and he reached into a coat pocket, withdrew a small bottle the same size and shape as those that olives often came in — ‘a shop selling stuff like this.’
At first the bottle did, indeed, appear to contain small olives, but then Dan realized they were eyeballs. Not human eyes. Smaller than that. And strange. Some had yellow irises, some green, some orange, some red, but although they differed in color, they all had approximately the same shape: They were not round irises, as in human and most animal eyes, but oblong, elliptical, supremely wicked.
‘Snake eyes,’ Manuello said, showing him the label.
‘And how about this?’ Wexlersh said, taking a bottle from his jacket pocket.
This one was filled with a grayish powder. The neatly typed label read BAT GUANO.
‘Bat shit,’ Wexlersh said.
‘Powdered bat shit,’ Manuello said, ‘snake eyes, tongues of salamanders, necklaces of garlic, vials of bull blood, magic charms, hexes, and all sorts of other weird crap. What kind of people come in here and buy this stuff, Lieutenant?’
‘Witches,’ Wexlersh said before Dan could speak.
‘People who think they’re witches,’ Manuello said.
‘Warlocks,’ Wexlersh said.
‘People who think they’re warlocks.’
‘Weird people,’ Wexlersh said.
‘Maniacs,’ Manuello said.
‘But this place, it accepts Visa and MasterCard,’ said Wexlersh. ‘With, of course, acceptable ID.’
Manuello said, ‘Yeah, these days, warlocks and maniacs have MasterCard. Isn’t that amazing?’
‘They pay off their bat-shit and snake-eye bills in twelve easy installments,’ Wexlersh said.
‘Where’s the victim?’ Dan asked.
Wexlersh jerked a thumb toward the rear of the shop. ‘He’s back there, auditioning for a major role in a sequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.’
‘Hope you guys at Central have strong stomachs,’ Manuello said as Dan headed toward the back of the store.
‘Don’t barf in here,’ Wexlersh said.