The Vampire Files, Volume Three

by P. N. Elrod

  Listened again. Nothing. Not at first.

  I tiptoed into the hall and noticed the door to the understairs closet was open. He’d been hiding there, being particularly quiet, and slipped out to shoot me—Escott really, since I was supposed to be dead—while I’d been busy with the mail.

  Time to close my eyes and really concentrate. Now that I was focusing on it I could hear them, like rats in the walls. I’d almost rather have the rats, they’re smaller and harder to catch, but they don’t pack any heat. Had to assume the human vermin lurking upstairs were all armed—they’d sooner be caught with no pants than leave their guns at home. Couldn’t blame ’em for it, it’s a rough world.

  I checked the Webley. Deiter had reloaded it, though where he’d turned up the .455 ammunition I’d like to find out. Escott often complained about the stuff sometimes being too scarce for him to target-shoot regularly.

  Tempting as it was, I left the Webley on the hall table. I wouldn’t really need it this time. Too noisy. No reason to disturb the neighbors, after all. Besides, Escott did have a number of other useful weapons lying handy around the house. Left over from his acting days were a few working crossbows, spears for the spear carriers—stuff he’d made as stage props. There were other, more practical items tucked away in odd places and overlooked like old pencil stubs. Also a dried out fountain pen, scrap paper, rubber bands, a bowie knife that needed sharpening, and a couple of blackjacks—normal stuff for this joint. Grinning, I picked out and hefted the larger blackjack, liking the feel of it.

  Near as I could tell from their breathing—the one sound besides their heartbeat they couldn’t stop—there was a guy in my set of rooms and another in Escott’s down at the end of the hall. They must have heard the business with Deiter, but hadn’t moved. Cagey bunch. I wondered how long they’d been waiting for Escott to come home. I was pretty sure from seeing Deiter’s raw amazement that I was not their intended target. That led to the question of who sent them. Had Deiter taken over things from Chaven? Was he trying to pick up where he and Kyler had left off? Escott wasn’t much of a threat when compared to Angela, so why still be bothering with him?

  I’d get the answers shortly, first I had to flush out some rats.

  Ghosting upstairs and thus making no sound at all, I vanished completely to enter my rooms. The door was nearly shut with the guy hiding behind it, probably peering through the crack to watch the upper hall. It didn’t take much to put him out of business. I went solid and whacked him behind one ear with the blackjack. He dropped with a very satisfying thump. Son of a bitch, but I was actually getting my wish about busting some skulls.

  Listened. The other guy held his place. I kept grinning, deciding to let him do all the work.

  “Psst! I got him!” I whispered, putting some excitement into it. He took the bait and rushed out to see, but by then I’d vanished and got behind him. Whack again. At this rate I’d be breaking Babe Ruth’s record for hitting ’em home.

  No lights were on, so I remedied that for a closer look and was surprised to recognize them both. They’d tried this hide-and-hit game the other night during an attempt to kidnap Bobbi from her dressing room at the Top Hat Club. She’d helped me get the drop on them, then the club bouncers took it from there.

  The big one was Chick, and the shorter guy with the scraped face was Tinny. Much more of this and there wouldn’t be any of the Kyler gang left to play with. I relieved them of their supplies of deadly hardware and went down to the front room to check on Deiter. He was still inert, but there was no need to take chances. I found some rope and trussed them up good, using dust rags I found under the sink to gag them.

  Then I stopped, stood back, and took stock of the situation. All three were downstairs now, tied up snug—and me with no idea on what to do with them. I couldn’t exactly take them to the cops. The more I thought of it the more exasperated I got, which was not a good state for me to be in when I started with the questions that were already bumping around up in my head. The last time I’d done the hypnosis stuff when I was angry had been with Frank Paco. That was why he went nuts, because my temper got away from me and tore things up in his mind. I didn’t want to do that to anyone else, even if they were rats.

  But the longer I thought about them and how they’d been waiting here to kill Escott, the worse I got. I needed time to cool down, to get in control again.

  So I said to hell with them and went upstairs to do what I’d come here for in the first place.

  BY the time I was clean, properly shaved, and in fresh clothes, I felt a whole lot better about me vs. the rest of the world. My captive goons didn’t have it so good. Chick had woken up and nearly spit out his gag—couldn’t blame him since it smelled (and tasted) like dust and furniture wax—but I stuffed it back in place despite his mumbled and no doubt obscene protests. He started to thrash around, so I fixed him with a look, and when I had his undivided attention told him to take a long nap. He instantly dropped off.

  No need to worry about Tinny, he was still out to lunch, but Deiter was starting to come around. He was taking his time, though, so I went to the kitchen and called the Shoe Box again.

  Coldfield answered.

  “Something happened,” I told him. “Three of Kyler’s goons were at the house to jump Charles. I got ’em quiet, but I don’t know what to do with them. Any ideas?”

  He said “shit” a few times then demanded details. There weren’t that many to share—well, that many I could share—but I filled in the blanks a bit, giving their names. He repeated the whole thing to Escott, then finally turned the phone over to him.

  Once more I said I didn’t know what to do with them.

  “You can’t let them wander loose.” His voice went faint as he turned from the receiver. “Shoe, do you think—”

  “Uh-uh, I’m in as deep as I ever want to get. I ain’t playing zookeeper to Kyler’s leavings.”

  Escott came back to me. “Give me a little time and I’ll see what I can arrange.” He hung up just as I heard Coldfield start with another objection.

  It looked like we all had a peachy night ahead.

  I got a glass, put some water in it, and went to the front room, sitting on the coffee table to face Deiter. Pouring the water on his face had been my initial idea to wake him, but Escott would only get all annoyed over having a damp couch. Instead I dipped my fingers and sprinkled. It had about the same effect. Deiter squinted and groaned and tried to move out of range, then his eyelids flew open.

  After that he just didn’t have a prayer.

  He went under fast and hard, and I pulled out the gag, certain he wouldn’t shout the house down. His eyes were as empty as a dead man’s. I didn’t like the look, but tough knuckles and all that.

  “Deiter, we’re going to have a little talk. You want to tell me everything. When I ask a question you will answer. Right?”

  His jaw trembled and went slack, matching the rest of his expression. “Uh-huh.”

  “Now tell me what’s going on with Kyler’s people.”

  “Kyler’s dead.”

  “I got that, what are his people doing?”

  “Keeping low.”

  “And who gave you the bright idea of coming over here?”

  “Frank Paco.”

  That stopped me short. Frank Paco was barely in shape to dress himself, let alone order a hit. “You mean Angela Paco?”

  “She was just passing Frank’s orders.”

  So, she was bulling through with her game of using her father as the front man, enabling her to run his mob. “You’re working for Paco now?”

  “He made us a sweet deal.”

  “I just bet he did. Did he hire all of you away?”

  “Some. Others are holding off, see what happens.”

  “You expecting something to happen?”

  “New York’s sending a guy out to pick up the slack.”

  “What guy?”

  “Sullivan, Sean Sullivan.”

  The name meant
nothing to me, though Irish mobsters were not rare and as tough as they come. While the others would kill you for a reason, the Irish would ace you just for the hell of it. “What’s he going to do?”

  “Pick up the slack.”

  “Yeah, I got that part, but what’s he going to do about Paco?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “What’s Paco going to do about him?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Deiter was, after all, just one of the soldiers, why should Angela let him in on the big decisions? Or maybe she didn’t know what to do herself.

  Yeah, fat chance of that. She’d moved in one big hurry today, hiring on muscle from Kyler’s leavings before they could scatter too far. “You were supposed to come here and kill Charles Escott for Paco?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Where is he? Where’s Angela?”

  “Flora’s Dance Studio.”

  “Where’s that?” He didn’t have the number, but gave the street name and that it was close to a movie theater. I realized the latter was an all-night place I’d been to a few times. I dimly remembered seeing a sign in the area advertising dancing, but the joint was always closed by the time I came around to catch a late feature. “How many people does she have with her?”

  And so it went, with me finally taking notes to keep it all straight. Angela still had her core of insiders: Doc, Newton, Lester, and, of course, Daddy Frank. No news of Opal, though. She hadn’t arrived by the time Deiter left with his friends to settle Angela’s accounts with Escott.

  “When does she expect you to report in?”

  “When the job’s done.”

  “What, later tonight, tomorrow?”

  “When the job’s done.”

  I was getting a headache. Too much of this eyeballing stuff makes me feel like I’ve got a rope twisted tight around my temples.

  The phone rang. I told Deiter to take a nap. Maybe Escott had a solution for me. Only it wasn’t Escott, but Bobbi. My headache lifted.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” I said. It was so great to hear her voice again I wanted to hug the phone. “I’ve missed you. Is it safe to talk?”

  “Yeah, Gordy drove us to a drugstore not far from your house. We can be over in a minute.”

  “Hang on, there’re complications.” I gave her the short version about my new guests and got some rather unladylike language back. “Easy, this ain’t my fault.”

  “I know, Jack, but how much longer is this going to go on? Oh, don’t answer, it’ll only aggravate me more. Look, can you blindfold these jerks or something? I want to see you.”

  I tried to think of a good reason for her to stay away, and did, several of them, but talked myself out of ’em. In their present state Angela’s goons were no threat to Bobbi. “Okay, but come in by the back way. Gordy can put the car in the garage.”

  “We’ll be right there.” She disconnected fast, maybe worried I’d change my mind.

  One minute, then two, with me waiting in the kitchen peering out the window every few seconds before I saw the car lights turning into the alley. Like Kyler, Gordy favored a Caddie, and I had a bad moment before I got a good look at his big form behind the wheel and could relax. He slowed and stopped long enough for Bobbi to slip out, then eased the car into the garage while she sprinted up the steps to the porch. I had the door open already and she nearly knocked me backward onto the kitchen table when she threw herself into my welcoming arms.

  “Easy, baby,” I said, laughing, “it hasn’t been that long.”

  “It’s been years,” she said, then fastened her lips onto mine as if to make up for lost time. It was better than great until she had to come up for air.

  For someone who had been dragged without warning away from her club engagement and forced into hiding for the last few days, she looked wonderful. Short platinum hair shining, hazel eyes bright, and a smile that made my knees go weak every time I saw it flash in my direction, I knew without a doubt I was the luckiest s.o.b. walking the planet. When I last saw her she’d been in her stage costume, a white satin safari outfit with patent-leather riding boots, incongruously topped by a fur coat and hat. She still had the latter two on, but had turned up a less showy pair of dark pants tucked into ankle-high hiking boots, and a red plaid flannel shirt.

  “What’s this?” I asked, holding her away for a look. “You going off to a cabin in the woods?”

  “Only if you come, too. The wife of Gordy’s lawyer loaned them to me. She loves to ice-fish.”

  “Well, the wife of Gordy’s lawyer has a helluva figure. You keeping okay?”

  “I’m fine, but you—” Her turn to look. I collected a frown.

  “What?”

  “You’ve been through the wringer—backward. Three or four times.”

  How did she always know? I pulled her close, just wanting to hold her. “Guilty. But I’m feeling better by the minute.”

  “Glad to hear it,” said Gordy, filling most of the doorway as he came into the kitchen. I lifted one hand away from hugging Bobbi and put it out to shake his. He always seemed a little surprised at the least sign of friendship from me. “Want to tell us your side of things?”

  “My side? What have you heard from others?”

  “Just rumors and not much of them because of the wire. I gotta find me some bright boy who knows phones and can clean this one’s line. It’s cramping my business.”

  “You need a vacation,” Bobbi told him with a crooked smile; it went away a second later. “Good grief, Jack, what happened here?” She let go of me as she got her first glimpse of the mess.

  “Kyler’s men came by the other night and threw a party. Then three of ’em came by again tonight for another one. They’re in the front room with the sandman for the moment.”

  Gordy strolled through the dining area to the front and looked over the casualties. “I can take care of ’em for you. This time tomorrow they can be part of the nearest WPA project, canal repair, maybe a new highway.”

  I’d have laughed, but he was completely serious. “Charles is already working on something. He’ll call when he gets it all arranged.”

  Gordy shrugged. Stuff like this was no skin off his nose; he was honestly trying to be helpful.

  “How are things at the club?” I asked, wanting to change the subject.

  “Same as before, but with less broken glasses and more lawyers. Should have it nailed together and running tomorrow.”

  “You in any trouble with your bosses because of this?” I knew he had to answer to people higher up.

  “They’re not happy. A raid they don’t worry about; a raid started up by one of their own boys on their own place, they get annoyed.”

  “So they know Kyler ordered it?”

  “Pretty much. He’d be in the stew now if he wasn’t already busy feeding fish.”

  “What’s your place in this fight with Angela?”

  “They want me to stay out of it while they settle things their own way. I wouldn’t be here now except to keep an eye on Bobbi. Be hell to pay with her when it’s time to leave.” His gaze slid in her direction and a smile barely showed itself on one side of his mouth. She made a face back at him.

  “To your lawyer’s place again?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Bobbi shook her head. “But not before I get some magazines to read. All they have are law books and stuff on sports.”

  “Can do,” he said, all affability.

  “And we give the phone number to Jack.”

  I found some paper and scribbled as she dictated. She was in the home of a mouthpiece named Anthony. It sounded familiar. “Do I know him?”

  “He’s the one who got Madison Pruitt out of jail that time.”

  Bobbi’s friend Pruitt, a dedicated communist, had the misfortune to be born into a very wealthy family. He took every opportunity to publicly live down the shame of having tons of bucks coupled with a long pedigree. A few months back he’d been arrested while helping some of his red brothers at
a sit-down strike turned riot at an auto plant. The muscle working for the factory owners broke his arm, and he was still having trouble keeping his eyes focused after a hit on the head with a club. Soon as he was out of the hospital, the cops grabbed him, then Pruitt’s mother stepped in with lawyer Anthony and posted bail. She’d reportedly whisked her wayward son off to a private island on a lake somewhere in upstate New York and was spoon-feeding him lots of castor oil to make him behave. No one in Bobbi’s group had seen him in a while, but they didn’t mind, since he was a bore. He was an even worse bore when talking politics, his only real passion besides food.

  “Has Charles got coffee here?” asked Bobbi. “I could use some about now.”

  “Try the fridge,” I suggested.

  She gave me a “you must be crazy” look. “He keeps his coffee in the icebox?”

  “Says the beans stay fresher. I wouldn’t know, so don’t ask me.”

  She poked around the kitchen until she turned up the necessary items and started making a pot for herself and Gordy. Usually, any odors to do with food and cooking made me nauseous, but coffee was the single exception to that rule. I couldn’t drink it, but it still smelled fine, made me wish I could have a cup.

  As the stuff brewed away I filled her and Gordy in on all the fun and games from last night, and discovered I was getting real tired of talking. Repeating things made me remember them, when I really wanted to lock them all in a box and lose the key. On the other hand, I could tell them the whole story. Last night with Coldfield I had to remember not to mention certain supernatural details, and it was a strain keeping things straight.

  “Sullivan?” said Gordy, when I got to the part about questioning Deiter.

  “You know him?”

  “Not personally, but I heard a few stories.”

  “Such as?”

  “He wasn’t directly in on it, but he smoothed the road out so someone could bump his brother.”

  “Why’d he bump his brother?”

  “Sullivan wanted his spot in the organization. Word was the brother was skimming off the top and would have been scragged anyway, but Sullivan made sure the right people heard about the scam. One funeral later and he steps into his brother’s shoes while they’re still warm. He didn’t raise a stink about the hit and that’s how lotsa guys figure he helped it along.”