Already Dead

by Charlie Huston

  Plus those places are soulless pits. Christ! Strip malls, housing tracts, business parks? Might as well pound a stake through your own heart and save some Van Helsing the work. Talk about a land of the undead.

  Anyway, Joe Pitt isn't my real name. I threw away my real name. A guy like me doesn't need a real name.

  In the morning I think about having a pint to help with my ribs, but I've gorged the last couple days and I don't want to overdo it. The ribs will take care of themselves. So I just hang out and watch some movies.

  I mostly watch horror movies. I don't really like the things very much, but they're good research. Left to my own devices I'd probably take a look at Treasure of the Sierra Madre or maybe Miller's Crossing. Instead I watch about half of The Abominable Doctor Phibes, until I see it's pretty useless, then I pop in Martin. I've seen it a few times, but it's about as accurate as vampire flicks get. I watch some of the best scenes again. Horror movies are how most folks get their ideas about real Vampyres and the whole supernatural world, so I like to keep up on them. I'll see most of the new ones when they come out, even the slasher stuff, and in the meantime I pick up the older ones on DVD.

  Couple years back I had some kid Van Helsing come at me with a cross and holy water. A Rogue in jersey had wasted his sister and the kid had seen it all from the bedroom closet. Now he was on a campaign to slay the undead. I don't know how he got onto me, I think he was just hanging around the East Village because there are so many vampire-looking freaks down here. Somehow he locked in on me. In any case he stalked me for a few days and decided I was an evil hell spawn. One night outside Doc Holiday's, he comes charging across the street with this crucifix and a spray bottle full of holy water. I let him chase me down the block a little to get away from the crowds on A, then I took the cross from him and asked him to stop spraying me with water. He freaked, called me Satan's pawn and stuff like that. I acted dumb, drank the holy water and kissed the cross and settled him down. He was pretty embarrassed, ended up crying on my shoulder. I gave him a pat on the butt, told him to see a doctor or something and sent him on his way. Then I followed him to his flop, broke into his room after he was asleep, bled him dry in the bathtub and made it look like a suicide. Guys like that kid are dangerous and you can't let them run around causing trouble.

  But I don't blame him, I blame the movies. That's obviously where he got his ideas and dialogue. Maybe if he had never seen Horror of Dracula he would have just mourned his sister and never went looking for trouble. But Evie likes them, the horror movies. I mean for real. So that's OK, we watch them together and every now and then I sneak in some Howard Hawks or Billy Wilder on her.

  Around three the phone finally rings and I talk to the woman Predo told me about.

  They say the King Cole room at the St. Regis is one of the most beautiful bars in New York. They're right. All that oak and those high-price hotel hookers and that Maxfield Parrish mural behind the bar, it almost makes it worth having to come uptown for the second time in two days. At least this time it's at night so I can leave the burnoose behind. The hostess at the door asks me if I'd like a table and I tell her I'm meeting someone. She smiles and indicates that I should take a look around. I step into the room and spot her right away. She's sitting in a corner of the room at one of the small cocktail tables. She's the only person sitting alone. She rises as I walk over.

  —Mr. Pitt?

  —Joe, you can call me Joe.

  —Joseph. How lovely to meet you.

  —Yeah.

  She blushes just slightly.

  —Oh, yes, you still don't know my name.

  —Nope.

  She starts to sit and releases a very genuine and slightly embarrassed laugh.

  —Sorry, I'm Marilee Ann Horde.

  My jaw clenches. Marilee Ann Horde. Thank you very fucking much Dexter fucking Predo. She watches me standing there.

  —Perhaps you'd like to sit and have a drink.

  I sit.

  —You must tell me, Joseph.

  —Yeah?

  —Whatever happened to your face?

  The conversation on the phone was brief. She told me she was uncomfortable speaking in detail over the open line and asked if we could meet. I said sure, but it would have to be that evening. She suggested six and I countered with nine-thirty. She said the Cole and I said sure.

  On the way up to 55th I made a plan for myself. Get the woman's story and lay off whatever errand she needs run until next week. Get the hell back downtown, go to the school and pick up where I left off last night before I got waylaid. See if I can pick up that musky sex scent the girl zombie had and find it anywhere else in the building or the streets nearby. That's not a dime-a-dozen scent. And all the while keep my eyes peeled for whoever the Coalition has creeping around. And if all else fails pick up Philip again. Nice plan, should have got me somewhere. Then I found out I was meeting with Marilee Ann Horde.

  She's drinking ridiculously expensive designer vodka on the rocks. I accept a glass of the same. —You come highly recommended, Joseph.

  —I get the job done. But I'm surprised Mr. Predo would recommend me to you.

  She smiles just a bit.

  —And yet.

  —Uh-huh. Look, Ms. Horde.

  —Marilee.

  —This isn't really my kind of job.

  —What kind of job is that?

  —The kind that takes place in your neck of the woods.

  —And what is my neck of the woods, Joseph?

  I look at her sitting there. Coy and quiet, a stylish thirty-three-year-old beauty. She's wearing a tailored summer suit in a subtle rose shade and a crisp linen blouse, her only jewelry the engagement ring and wedding band on her left hand. The stone in the engagement ring not the usual Upper East Side two-carat-plus rock, but a tastefully sized blue-while in a deco platinum setting. Her hair appears to be naturally golden, and she has its length twirled up and pinned neatly to the back of her head, just three perfect strands dangling to frame her face and accent her ivory neck. Her ivory neck. I take a large swallow from my drink and lean back in my chair.

  —Have you taken a look in the mirror lately, Ms. Horde?

  —I said you should call me Marilee.

  —Yes you did. Have you taken a look in the mirror lately, Ms. Horde?

  —Yes.

  —What would you say is your neck of the woods?

  I look down at myself, the old suit, rumpled shirt and scuffed shoes that I dug up for the occasion.

  —And what would you say was mine? And would you say, based on this, that I am the man for your kind of job?

  She puts her drink down on the table.

  —Actually, I would say this is exactly why you are the man for my job, Joseph. You see, my daughter has run away again, and I believe she is to be found in your neck of the woods.

  She leans in, close to me.

  —As you put it.

  The cocktail waitress comes by and Marilee orders us another round.

  This is taking too long. I figured blackmail. I figured drugs. I figured this woman would have some nasty little problem that needed to be swept up. I never figured missing children. I never figured Marilee Ann Horde.

  The Hordes are one of New York's original families, one of the few dozen that make up Manhattan's true society. Their money came from the usual sources, oil, timber, and rail, but these days they're better known for their biotechnology holdings and HCN, the Horde Cable Network. Marilee Ann Dempsey's family was more than a few steps down the food chain, quite a bit more I gather. But she apparently made up for it with style enough to draw the attention of Dr. Dale Edward Horde, the only son and heir to the house of Horde, as well as founder and CEO/ Chairman of Horde Bio Tech Inc. They've been married for fourteen or fifteen years and are one of those Manhattan couples who get plenty of publicity, but all skillfully crafted and honed. No Page Six blurbs for the Hordes. What it all means for me is that I can't shine this on. I have to find the damn kid, which means I have
to sit here and listen to the whole story instead of being out looking for the carrier. So our second round shows up and I try not to be too fidgety while I listen to her.

  She's leaning back now, holding her drink in her lap with her right hand, occasionally stirring the ice with her index finger.

  —Amanda has done this before. As a small child, she's only fourteen now, but as a very small child she frequently hid in closets or in the garden until someone found her. A way of getting attention. Not that she lacked, but she enjoyed scaring us. She would do it in public places as well, museums, stores; just disappear. At first we would panic and search high and low. When we realized it was a game to her, we resolved to wait her out, wait for her to get bored or lonely and come out of hiding. But she didn't. I once spent an entire day in Bergdorf's wail ing lor her to come out, and she never did. She stayed hidden inside a rack of dresses until we found her just after the store had closed. But she never ran far, Joseph, just somewhere hidden so she could watch us look for her. Then last summer she ran away for real. Not all that far as it turned out, but farther than before. When we first noticed her missing we were a bit surprised, my husband and I. It had been some time since she had last played her little game. But then we realized she was truly missing. We searched the town house, we had our Hamptons house searched, as well as the Hudson River estate. After two days there was no sign. We thought she might have been kidnapped. We called the police, but no one got in touch with us about a ransom and, frankly, the police were little help. Eventually, after some days, we hired a private investigator my husband has had occasion to employ. He found her almost two weeks later. She was living in the East Village, camping the kids call it. They go down there in their worst clothes and live on the street and panhandle and sleep in the park and pretend to be homeless. I guess.

  I nodded. It was true, there were more than a few well-off kids slumming on Avenue A in the summer. When the real squatters found them out they usually kicked the shit out of them and sent them home to mommy and daddy.

  Marilee takes a sip and plays with her ice some more.

  I make a little grunting noise and she looks up.

  —Yes?

  —No offense, but you seem pretty calm about your daughter being missing and all.

  She nods.

  —Well as I say, it's not exactly new to us, and it's only been a few days. But more to the point, we know she's OK.

  —How's that?

  —She's been withdrawing money from her account.

  —That could be anyone with her card and code.

  —Yes, she used her card at first, but her last two withdrawals were in person from a teller. It was her. They require photo ID.

  —When and where was the last withdrawal?

  —The Chase at Broadway and Eighth, two days ago.

  —How much?

  —Two hundred.

  —How much does she have access to?

  —She can withdraw up to a thousand a week, but never more than two hundred a day. If she wants more she needs her father or me to cosign.

  —And she's taken two hundred every day she's been gone?

  —Yes. First with her card, and the last two, as I said, from a teller. Perhaps she lost the card.

  —OK. Did you bring a picture?

  —Yes.

  She lifts a pocketbook that matches her suit from the floor, finds the picture and passes it to me.

  Her mother's eyes and neck, but the resemblance stops there. The girl in the photo is decked out in head-to-toe black with white pancake makeup on her face, hair dyed black, black lipstick, black eye shadow and black nail polish. Jesus fuck, she's a goth. Marilee sees something in my face.

  —Yes, Amanda does have something of a fascination with the undead. So really, Joseph, you can see why it is I called you.

  I look up from the photo, and Marilee smiles ever so sweetly.

  I've been outed. Dexter Predo has outed me.

  It's a given that a woman like Marilee has some sense of how things work, the exchanges that take place behind, beneath and above the scenes in Manhattan, the give and take of power. It is for that kind of favor brokering that the Coalition is known to a select few outside the Clans. But the fact that I have been outed by Predo indicates that she is operating at a much higher level of awareness, a level of knowledge at which most people are murdered to keep them silent.

  There are people that know about us. But they are few and most play a specific role. There are the Van Helsings, the righteous who stumble upon us and make it their mission to hunt us down. The Renfields like Philip, who glom on to us, half servile and half envious. The Lucys, both male and female, who have romanticized the whole vampire myth and dote over us like groupies. And the Minas, the ones who know the truth and don't care, the ones who fall in love. Van Helsings are killed, we use the Renfields and the Lucys to serve us and insulate us from the world. Minas are rare and precious beyond value. There is only one way to know if you have a true Mina: tell her or him what you are and what you do to stay alive. Not many make that final cut.

  Then there are the few men and women with true power and influence who know us. These are the ones to be feared. These are the ones the Coalition deals with and the Society hopes to sway. But the Society's goals will never be realized. We will never live in the open unless it is as freaks or prey. The people who might guide us out of obscure myth will never risk their positions and reputations to say to the world, Hey, look, vampires are real!

  And Marilee is one of them, a person who knows, and knows I know she knows. And so on. And here she is in the Cole having a drink with me in public. And if I had any doubts before, I now know for certain that if I ever have the opportunity to drag Dexter Predo into the sun, I will do so gleefully.

  She fishes an ice cube out of her drink, pops it in her mouth and crunches it.

  —You see, Joseph, I know what you are, but I'm still not certain what it is you do. Are you a detective of some kind?

  I'm still the deer in the headlights, just staring at her as she chews on ice.

  —Joseph?

  I blink once, slowly.

  —I'm a man, does things, gets things done. I'm a handyman. Someone has a problem they maybe call me and I maybe help to take care of the problem. Sometimes that means I'm a detective, I guess, but I don't have a license or an office or anything.

  She nods.

  —What about a gun, do you carry a gun?

  —Sometimes.

  —Now?

  —No.

  —And what about the other things you do? I know about them in theory, but details are hard to come by. Mr. Predo and the few other Coalition members we have met are so circumspect. I stare at her.

  —What about those other things, Joseph?

  —We can't talk about that here.

  She inhales deeply, exhales.

  —It's just that one hears the most fascinating stories. Is it true for instance about your sense of smell? Is it as acute as a dog's? Can you, for instance, tell what scent I used this morning?

  —I can smell it.

  —Do you know the brand?

  —No. But it's lavender oil.

  —You'd recognize it if you smelled it again?

  —Yeah.

  —Hmm.

  —If you don't mind, Ms. Horde, I'm not very good at parlor tricks.

  —We should talk about these things sometime, we really should.

  —Ms. Horde.

  —Yes?

  —Your daughter?

  —What about her?

  —She's missing.

  —Yes, she is.

  —What did you mean that she is fascinated with the undead?

  She takes another cube of ice from her drink, just sucking it this time.

  —Just that. She is somewhat fascinated by the undead, and the dead for that matter. You have eyes, she's a goth. She and her friends, they are all interested in anything macabre.

  —But when you say undead, do you mean in th
e abstract or in a literal sense? What I mean is ...

  —How much does she know?

  ---Yes.

  —Nothing. I don't know what you're accustomed to, Joseph, but it's not as if I make a habit of meeting with . . . your people. This is an aberration. Dale and I and some others in our circle know, but we would hardly go about sharing that information. It would tend to brand us as something rather more than eccentric.

  She smiles and licks the ice in her fingers. I can't quite get her. She's no Van Helsing, definitely not a Renfield, and lacks the proper sluttishness to be a Lucy. But she's something, she is definitely something. I slug down the last of my drink.

  —Two more things.

  —Of course.

  —The name of the PI that found her last time?

  —Chester Dobbs.

  —Huh.

  —You know him?

  —Of him. Why didn't you call him again?

  —To be honest, we did. He said he would look into it, but then called back the next evening and told us that his caseload was simply too great.

  I try to feature a PI turning down a case from a cash cow as fat as the Hordes. I fail.

  She's watching me.

  —And the other?

  —Hmm?

  —The other of the two things?

  —Oh, where did he find her the first time?

  She finally bites down on the cube she's been sucking.

  —Some abandoned building, a school I think it was, around Avenue B and Ninth Street. She was squatting in the basement with some other kids.

  She looks at my face, which I'm sure looks like I just got kicked in the gut.

  —Are you all right, Joseph? Is there something wrong?

  I don't shake hands. I don't say goodbye. I take a pass on all the social niceties and get the hell out of there and into a downtown cab.

  It's not her. I take a closer look at the picture while I ride the cab downtown, and I'm sure Amanda Horde is not the shambler chick I took care of the other night. Thanks for small blessings.

  The school is as it was last night. Cop car parked out front on freak watch, police barricade across the entrance. I go in the same way as before. The wall is a little tougher this time with my ribs still healing from Hurley's beating. The roof door I left open last night is still ajar. I go in. Same graffiti, same rats, same breeze, same smells. I reach the ground floor and go to the killing room.