You Suck: A Love Story Read Online Free PDF Page B

the bejeezus out of everyone there. A pale and delicate hand reached out from behind the island, grabbed the collar of Tommy’s coat, and snatched him back around the corner as if he were a rag doll.
    “Tommy?” called the Emperor. The big man stalked around the concrete art bunker. Bummer and Lazarus had headed back down the street toward the waterfront, as if they had just seen a particularly fetching porter house steak hopping around down there that needed to be investigated. The Emperor found his friend C. Thomas Flood, held tight in the clutches of his girlfriend, Jody Stroud, the vampire, who had her hand pressed tightly over Tommy’s mouth and was furiously giving him noogies with the knuckle of her other hand. There was a hollow popping each time she connected, and muted cries from Tommy.
    “Jody, I must insist that you unhand the young man,” insisted the Emperor.
    And she did. Tommy twisted out of her grasp.
    “Ow!” Tommy said, rubbing his head.
    “Sorry,” Jody said. “Couldn’t be helped.”
    “I thought you were going to leave the city with that fiend,” said the Emperor. He had been there, with the royal hounds and Tommy’s crew from the Safeway, when they’d done battle with the old vampire at the St. Francis Yacht Club.
    “Well, yes, of course. He left already and I’m going to join him,” Jody said. “Just like I promised Inspector Rivera. But I wanted to make sure that Tommy was going to be all right before I left.”
    The Emperor liked Jody, and had been a little disappointed when he found that she was a bloodsucking fiend, but she was a pleasant girl nonetheless, and had always been generous with treats for the men, despite Bummer’s dropping into yapping fits in her presence. “Well then, I suppose that will have to do,” said the Emperor. “It appears that our young writer does require some adult supervision before being set loose on the City.”
    “Hey, I do okay,” Tommy said.
    “You shaved the cat,” said the Emperor, raising a wild eyebrow that looked like a gray squirrel with a
    Mohawk.
    “I-uh, we were testing him out, to see if I should get a cat to keep me company after Jody leaves.” He looked at Jody, who nodded enthusiastically while trying to look wide-eyed and sincere.
    “And…and,” Tommy continued, “I was chewing some bubble gum, you know, the kind that you can blow really big bubbles with-well, long story short, before I knew it, Chet had lunged at one of my bubbles and was completely covered with bubble gum.”
    Jody quit nodding and just stared at him.
    “So you shaved him,” the Emperor added.
    Now it was Tommy’s turn to nod and look sincere. “Regrettably.”
    Jody was nodding again, too. “Regrettably,” she echoed.
    “I see,” said the Emperor. They certainly seemed sincere. “Well, the sweater was considerate.”
    “My idea,” Jody said. “You know so he doesn’t get chilled. It’s actually my sweater. Tommy washed it and put it in the dryer, so it’s a little too small for me.”
    “And don’t think it was easy getting a cat that size into a sweater,” Tommy said. “It was like trying to dress a ball of razor wire. I’m cut to ribbons.” He pushed his sleeves up to expose his forearms, which were distinctly not cut to ribbons. They were, in fact, unmarked, if a little pale.
    “Well, good show, then,” the Emperor said, backing away. “The men and I will be on our way, then.”
    “Do you guys need anything, Your Majesty?” Jody asked.
    “No, no, we have been most fortunate this evening. Most fortunate indeed.”
    “Well, take care, then,” Jody said, even as the Emperor backed around the corner and headed up the street.
    She can be deceptively pleasant for a blood-drinking agent of evil, the Emperor thought.
    Bummer and Lazarus were almost out of sight, four blocks ahead. They had known, the rascals. The Emperor was disgusted with himself, leaving William there like that, at the mercy of the fiends. There was no