The can tahs are useful in many ways, but they spoil a man or woman for Tak’s greater work.
Ripton calls the Owl’s Club in town. The Owl’s is open twenty-four hours a day (although, like a vampire, it’s never really alive). It’s where Brad Josephson, he of the gorgeous chocolate skin and long, sloping gut, eats breakfast six days a week . . . and always at this brutally early hour. That will come in handy now. Ripton wants Brad on hand, and quickly, before the black man can be polluted by the can tahs. The can tahs are useful in many ways, but they spoil a man or woman for Tak’s greater work. Ripton knows he can take someone from Martinez’s crew if he needs to, perhaps even Pascal himself, but he wants (well, Tak wants, actually) Brad. Brad will be useful in other ways.
