by Ryk E. Spoor
I raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure the police went over all the files, and if it boots it should be in good shape. What do you want me to check?”
He looked suspiciously at me, then his gaze dropped. “For anything that might have been wiped. I’ve heard you’re really good.” He rolled his eyes, obviously annoyed with himself. “Okay, look, I’m not…I’ve never done this kind of thing before. My brother, M…Michael, he used this to take notes. He took notes on everything he did and kept it in a very exact format. Like this.” He opened the laptop and showed me a series of files with names that told me the location and date. “The cops didn’t find anything that showed he was in any kind of…” he hesitated.
I decided to wait, see what he had to say.
“Any kind of…strange investigation,” he finally finished. “Something different than the ordinary. They didn’t find anything specifically about drug running either, but they figured he’d run into his problem while on one of the other jobs. But I knew Mike, you know?” I nodded when he looked at me. “So I knew what his workload was like and how he did things. It just doesn’t look like there’s enough on the computer for those weeks.”
“All right. You want me to see if there’s anything showing that someone erased files in this format, and recover anything I can. Is that it?”
“Yes! That’s exactly it.”
I frowned. Lumiere PCs were pretty good about their erasure procedures, and bringing up stuff someone tried to delete…Maybe. But it’d be a bear. “That’s going to be very expensive, Xavier, and I don’t know if I should be doing this at all. Who owns this?”
“I do. Once they released Michael’s stuff, my mom gave me pretty much everything.” His tone wavered and I could see the effort it took for him to not begin crying.
Well, if the cops closed the case there’s nothing stopping me from poking around in it. “You want this done the way I’d do it for a top police investigation, I’m going to have to charge you what I would charge them. That’s about three thousand dollars, Xavier.” Actually, for an official investigation it’d be about six thousand, but I was willing to cut him a break—just not too much of a break, because this would take some work.
He didn’t hesitate; his eyes might have widened a bit, but he reached into another pocket of the backpack and pulled out a debit card. “You take Virtuoso cards?”
Man, I wish I’d had that much money to spend when I was his age. “You’re allowed to do this?”
“Mom said I can spend the money in that account any way I want.”
“If you say so.” I worked up the job on one of my standard forms with a clear, short statement of work, had him sign it, and ran the card. It cleared that amount without a problem. “All right, Mr. Ross, I’ll get to work on this. It will take some time, and I have other clients, but you can expect to hear something back from me no later than two weeks from now, and possibly as early as one week.”
He stood stiffly and nodded. “Okay.” Xavier stuck out his hand and we shook hands. “Thanks, Mr. Wood.”
I watched him leave, wondering. Then I took the laptop and put it back in my main work area.
“Time to start closing up,” I said to myself.
Chapter 9: Join Me for a Bite?
It is an immutable law of nature in any business that just as you go to hang up the CLOSED sign, the phone will ring or a customer walk in. It gets to the point that you automatically hesitate for a few seconds before finally turning the lock and setting the security system, not because you’ve forgotten anything, but because you’re giving the inevitable a chance to make its appearance less painful through preparation.
This does not fool the gods, however, so just as I stopped hesitating and turned the key, the phone rang. I gave my usual mild curse and picked up the phone. “Wood’s Information Service, Jason Wood speaking.”
“Ah, Mr. Wood. It is good to hear your voice again.”
There was no way I could forget that deep, resonant voice with its undefinable accent. “Mr. Domingo! This is…a surprise.”
I hadn’t heard from Domingo in several weeks, ever since we’d finished the Great Vampire Coverup, and hadn’t expected to ever hear from the blood-drinking gentleman again.
“No doubt. I was wondering if you would do me the honor of joining me for dinner—in the purely normal sense—sometime this week.”
Well, now, there was a poser of a question. And given that he had more than enough people to arrange his schedule, it must be important, especially if he was calling me personally. “Ummm,” I said smoothly. “Might I ask why?”
To my surprise, he, also, hesitated for a moment. “There are several matters I would like to discuss, but at least one of them was touched on during your first visit to my home. In a sense, you might consider this a business meeting.”
“I’m aware of certain elements of your business, Mr. Domingo,” I said, trying not to sound overly cold despite my distaste for drug-runners. “Without meaning any undue offense, I don’t think that I could be of much assistance, given certain preconditions of my own.” Such as wanting to stay on the right side of the law, for instance.
I was startled to hear a soft chuckle. “Would you be willing to take my word for it that you will find any business proposal I make to be neither overly onerous nor morally reprehensible to you?”
I considered that. “As a matter of fact…yes, I guess I would. All other things aside, you strike me as a man who takes his word very seriously.”
“Your perceptions are accurate. Can I take that to mean you will accept my invitation?”
“Now that you’ve piqued my curiosity, you’d have a hard time keeping me away. I can’t manage it tonight, but tomorrow night or Friday would do.”
“Excellent. Tomorrow night it is, then. I shall tell Morgan to expect you at eight o’clock. Have you a preference for a menu?”
What the hell, I knew he wasn’t hurting for money. “Since you’re buying, I have a fondness for fresh lobster and shrimp.”
“Noted. My chef rarely has a chance to show off; I shall let him know someone will be coming who can appreciate his work, as he has himself a preference for seafood dishes.”
“Great. Um, should I bring anything with me, this being partly business?”
“For this meeting, I think just your mind will suffice. If we reach a significant agreement, then we shall go into the more formal details.”
“Gotcha. Okay, see you at eight then.”
“I shall be looking forward to it. Good-bye, Mr. Wood.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Domingo.”
I stared at the phone for several minutes afterwards. “It appears I have an interview with a vampire.”
Chapter 10: Career Counseling
It was somewhat more comforting to be pulling into the huge, curving driveway in my own car under my own control.
The door opened as I reached the landing, and I saw the impeccably elegant butler/majordomo I remembered from the last visit. “Thank you…um, Morgan, wasn’t it?”
“Indeed, sir,” Morgan replied, with a small bow. “Your coat, sir? Thank you.” I handed him my overcoat, which he took and handed to another servant. “If you will be good enough to follow me, sir, Master Verne is waiting for you in the dining room.”
The manners in the Domingo household, I had to admit, had never given me room for complaint, at least aside from the initial threats. I followed Morgan to an absolutely magnificent dining room, with a genuine cut-crystal chandelier that shed a sparkling light over a huge elongated dinner table which could have easily seated fifty people. The panelling was elegant, real wood I was sure, and there were small oil paintings tastefully set along the walls.
Verne Domingo, resplendent in an archaic outfit, rose upon my entry and bowed. “Welcome to my home, Mr. Wood. Enter freely and of your own will.”
I couldn’t manage to keep a straight face, though I tried. After I stopped laughing, I spread my hands. “Okay, okay, enough. I see you have a sense
of humor, too. At least you have the looks to carry it off.”
“I thank you. Please, sit down and tell me how my chef has done his work. Alas, I am unable to directly appreciate such talents anymore.”
It was a shellfish dream—seven different dishes, small enough that I could eat something of each of them without feeling like I was going to put a large number of crustaceans to waste. As it turned out, small enough so that if I felt like a pig—and I did—I could make sure no crustacean went untouched. I sat back finally, realizing I’d overeaten and not regretting it one bit. “Magnificent, sir. I haven’t eaten that well since…um…I don’t think I’ve ever eaten that well, actually. Seven dishes, four cuisines, the spices perfect, neither over nor underdone…I’m going to miss this when I go home, I can tell you that.”
Domingo smiled broadly, giving a view of slightly-too-long canines. “Excellent!” He glanced to the side. “Did you hear that, Hitoshi?”
A middle-aged Japanese man came in and bowed. “I did. Many thanks for your kind words, Mr. Wood.”
“Jason—may I call you Jason?—this is Hitoshi Mori. He has been my chef for several decades now, but rarely has he had a chance for a personal command performance. I am sure he finds it good to know his skills have not faded.”
“They certainly haven’t. Domo arigato, Mori-san.” That was admittedly the limit of my Japanese, and I suspected that both Verne and Chef Mori knew it, because the chef simply bowed and thanked me again.
I glanced at Verne. “I’d guess then that your entire staff isn’t made up of vampires? I mean, Hitoshi-san must have people to cook for?”
Hitoshi bowed. “It is true that, aside from Domingo-sama, his household needs to eat. But it is also unfortunately true that a man can become too accustomed to a routine—either the chef to the tastes of the household, or the household to the work of the chef. Only one who is new can truly permit the chef to measure his skill.”
“Well, you have my vote. I’ve eaten in top-flight restaurants that served far worse. And I’m sure that at least one—the grilled lobster with the citrus and soy sauce—was an original.”
Hitoshi looked gratified. “You are correct, Mr. Wood. I am glad that my efforts meet with your approval.” He bowed again to Verne and me, and left.
“Okay,” I said, leaning back to let my somewhat overstressed stomach relax, “let’s cut to the chase, Verne. What, exactly, did you want to talk to me about?”
For the first time, I saw Verne Domingo look…uncomfortable. Almost as though he was embarrassed. “As I mentioned, it has to do with a discussion we began the first time we met. You described your objections to my profession, I dismissed them.
“I have…reconsidered some of my statements.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh? You no longer want to argue about whether drug-pushing is an acceptable profession?”
He cast a faintly annoyed glance at me, then nodded, conceding that I had the right to phrase it that way. “Philosophically, I remain of the opinion that your government is committing an act of extreme idiocy in criminalizing these substances. In terms of morals and practicality, however, I have considered your words and realized that there is far more truth to them than I was originally willing to grant.
“While, ideally, I sold only to those who were both wealthy and foolish, I discovered that this was, in practice, virtually impossible to maintain; some of my…products were inevitably being sold down an ever-branching hierarchy of smaller and smaller distributors, eventually to be marketed to the very unfortunates I would never have intended to ensnare. Moreover…”
He trailed off, then rose from his chair, walked over to a window, and looked out into the darkness.
I waited a bit. Finally, I said, “Yes?”
He took a breath—I noticed that he didn’t seem to do that habitually, which was a subtle but definite clue to his nature—and forced himself to continue. “…moreover, I found that I was not pleased with my own behavior, when I compared it with yours, or—in truth—that which I would perhaps have expected of myself in times past. I do not think my own people—those bound to me by oaths and by the power that makes them able to share my journey through time—could ever complain of their treatment at my hands, but outside of this isolated and self-contained circle, I have not been the sort of man I originally meant to be, not in…a very, very long time.”
He gripped the windowsill, tight enough that I heard faint crackling sounds and was sure that if I went there later, I’d find dents the shape of fingers in the wood. “Many things happened in the past centuries which soured me, made me less than I had been in many ways. I do not think, were I to talk with my self of ages past, that he would be proud of what I have become; in truth, I think he would pity me. I have had no true friends outside of these, my people, for a very long time indeed. I was, despite my unchanging appearance, becoming a bitter, cynical old man. I had…and still have…enemies who would consider that a triumph and amusement.” He turned to me. “I wish to try to change that. I would abandon this peddling of illegal substances, find some other venture to provide for myself and my people, and perhaps, find a way of, in some small manner, rejoining humanity.”
Other people might make a speech like that for effect; but in the way he spoke, I could hear pain under the restrained and dignified words. In my business, you often make a living by guessing who you can and can’t trust. Verne Domingo, vampire and drug-runner, struck me as a man whose word was inviolate and who would never say things like this unless they came from his heart.
I nodded. “For what it’s worth, Mr. Domingo, I agree with your philosophical position. I think people have the right to be fools, and that the criminalization of things like drugs was proven to be a failure during Prohibition. The same market forces that eliminated booze as a profitable black-market item here would pretty much eliminate the crime caused by drugs if we just stopped making it illegal to sell them. Doesn’t mean that this wouldn’t create other problems, but I think the new problems would be a lot more manageable than the old ones.” I studied him. “But I think you called me here for another reason—although I appreciate immensely your decision, and find it pretty darn gratifying that you decided to tell me this personally. So…what do you want from me?”
“In a sense…little more than you have already given, Jason.”
“Excuse me?”
“Aside from the words you have already spoken, which eventually led to this revelation, the fact that you have known what I am, and have nonetheless chosen to leave me to myself—and have even trusted me, to assist in hiding what happened here, and to come here and speak with me, on nothing more than my word.” He was looking at me very gravely. “I have trusted no mortal with my secret for a long time, save those who have become a part of my household. You have taken that trust and already repaid it.
“Yet I confess that there is another, more practical need I have of you.” He sat down again, looking slightly less formal than he had moments earlier. “As you can see, I live quite well; this involves the expenditure of money, for which I would prefer to have a visible source. It is undoubtedly true, however, that I am hardly a man of these times, and I have no idea what professions I could do well in.”
I blinked at that. “Mr. Domingo—”
“Call me Verne, if you would.”
“Okay. Verne, I’m not an employment agent or counselor.”
“This I understand, Jason. Yet it is true, is it not, that finding jobs or evaluating people could be construed as something involving finding and analyzing information?”
I chuckled. “Well, yeah, I guess you could put it that way. I could probably do a half-assed job at those kind of things, but a professional advisor would be a lot more effective.”
“This I cannot argue with,” Verne conceded. “However, to do their job to the best of their ability, such people would need to understand many things about me—including what makes my situation unique.”
I saw what he was gett
ing at now. “In other words, they’d have to be able to understand why you are in the position you are—most likely, they would have to know there is something weird about you, at the least, and may learn exactly what you are.”
“Precisely. Now, I have already confessed that I have been a sour old man for far too long, but that does not mean that I have decided it would be wise to spread the secrets of my existence far and wide. In fact, I suspect that this is one area in which I must remain as careful as I have ever been.”
I nodded slowly. “Can’t argue that. Despite The X-Files and other similar shows, the world is not ready for real vampires as standard citizens. And the angry mob these days carries automatic weapons, Molotov cocktails, and explosives.” I dropped into my professional mode and started analyzing the problem.
“Okay, Verne, let’s take this a step at a time. I find it hard to believe that you don’t have scads of money stashed away somewhere—you’ve had centuries, and it’s pretty obvious to me, just from your mannerisms, that you’ve been in the upper crust for a long time. So I guess the first question is, why do you need a job at all?”
He looked pleased. “Indeed, you cut to the heart of the matter. I do, as you surmise, have quite considerable wealth in various locations and institutions around the world. However, this is not as simple to access as you might think. Until recently, you see, there was little ability to examine the flow of funds from one country to another, and thus it was relatively easy for a man such as myself to move from one place to another and bring my fortune with me, needing only a rather simple cover story to explain why I had so much.”
“Gotcha. Transferring significant sums around, making formerly inactive-for-a-century accounts active, dragging in large quantities of gold or whatever, tends to draw the notice of the IRS and other agencies interested in potentially shady activities.” Having grown up in an era where the government was already well in place with computers monitoring any significant transaction, this was an issue I hadn’t previously considered. Oh, it had become more pervasive in areas since I was born, but the basic idea that income was watched by the IRS had been taken as a given. Someone like Verne, who had been living for hundreds of years in civilizations which didn’t communicate much between countries and who had, at best, spotty ways of tracing assets, would indeed find the new higher-tech and higher-monitoring civilizations a bit daunting, to say the least.
