Texas Hold 'Em

by PATRICK KAMPMAN

  “Seriously?”

  He looked at me like I was an ignorant child. “They’re related to the Masons, who are related to the Illuminati, who control everything.”

  “Oh, come on. They’re just a bunch of old ladies who keep up even older landmarks.” If the Daughters of the Republic of Texas turned out to be anything out of the ordinary, it was far more likely they were a coven of witches. At least, according to Megan’s roommate Lacey, who was a witch herself. Lacey once told me that a lot of women’s groups were covers for covens. Personally I suspected most of them were what they claimed to be— in this case, the descendants of the original Texas pioneers and Republic soldiers.

  It was too late; Jacob couldn’t let my skepticism go unpunished. I should have smiled and nodded, but instead I had to endure forty-five minutes of convoluted exposition on the powers that control the world.

  Jacob was covering the role the post office played in the global conspiracy when the last few tourists crossed the street heading to their car, leaving the old mission deserted save for the two of us. At this point, even I felt like we stuck out like a sore thumb.

  “Don’t you think we should get going?” I interjected during a rare pause as Jacob took a breath, gearing up for a long-winded explanation of something to do with smoke detectors, cellular towers, and global surveillance.

  A quick frown of anger at being interrupted during his lecture came and went as he realized how long we had been out in the open.

  “You’re right. I got carried away. It happens sometimes. Come on.” He started off at an unexpectedly brisk pace, and I surged forward to catch up.

  I offered to drive, but Jacob insisted we travel his way. His way consisted of a ride on a city bus, multiple taxis, and a fair bit of walking, not in that order. We doubled back at least twice, and paused once for a few minutes in a urine-scented alley when Jacob had been sure we were being followed. All in all, it took about an hour to reach our destination, which, as the crow flies, was less than three miles from where we started.

  Chapter 4

  I was tired when we finally arrived at the long two-story brick building; at least, that was my excuse for staring openmouthed at the sewing and vacuum cleaner repair shop for a full half minute while Jacob unlocked the two deadbolts on the sliding metal security screen, then another two on the front door to the store.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” Jacob punched a code into an alarm keypad on the wall inside Silver Spur Sew & Vac, then waited for me in the open doorway. Two small security cameras, one piggybacking on top of the other, watched us as we walked into the showroom. Christ, the man was so worried even his security cameras had security cameras.

  I followed Jacob down a row of upright vacuum cleaners standing at attention. In the darkness of the store I could make out the shadows of hoses, attachments, bags, belts, and other parts that hung displayed on every inch of the walls.

  “Sewing machines?” I had a tendency to state the obvious, but this time it might have come out a little bit accusatory. Especially from a guy who worked part time at a Game Shack outlet in the mall.

  “And vacuums. What? A guy’s gotta make a living. Unlike the ones in TV shows, real hunters can’t all cruise around in classic cars spending money like water with no noticeable source of income.

  “Besides, they’re good business. Or, at least, they were. My dad used to sell them way back when. Started out going door to door, if you can believe it. Until he finally saved up enough for a down payment on the shop. Of course, nowadays people buy their appliances at those big-box stores, or order ‘em up online. So I don’t sell many here anymore. Mostly I just fix ‘em. Which is okay by me—the new stuff they build nowadays doesn’t last too long, so there’s plenty to fix. More money in fixing ‘em than selling ‘em anyway.”

  We crossed behind the counter and into a cluttered, neon-lit back room where half a dozen intact vacuum cleaners and a handful of sewing machines sat waiting to be repaired. Several more of the devices lay in various states of disassembly, their parts piled on workbenches. Rows of shelving held trays upon trays of spare parts. Some of them had so many cobwebs and layers of dust that they must have sat dormant since his father first opened up the shop back in the sixties.

  Jacob led me through the workshop to one more door. This one had another small keypad, where Jacob entered a code. Above the door were more security cameras, supplemented with a motion detector and fire alarm.

  The door slid to the side, revealing a small room with yet another camera. We got in, and Jacob slid the door shut and hit a button on the wall. The freight elevator rose with minimal complaint to the second floor, where we stepped out into a large loft. Unlike the shop on the first floor, which occupied only a third of the building’s space, the loft spanned the entire second floor of the structure.

  I realized then that Jacob was what the reality shows called a “hoarder.” But instead of collecting junk or cats, he amassed information: newspapers, magazine articles, computer printouts, maps, and books filled countless shelves.

  The shelves were not in neat rows either. We weaved our way through a labyrinth of the grey metal giants, each stretching from the floor to the twelve-foot high ceiling. By the time we reached a section of the loft that had been made into an office, I was so turned around I didn’t know which corner of the building we were in. I glanced back at the corridor we’d exited, wondering how long it would take me to find the elevator again in an emergency. I gave up, deciding I’d use a window for a quick exit if it came to that. I scanned for windows and found that the two I could see had heavy-duty security bars outside them. I tried unsuccessfully to suppress a trapped feeling.

  An old grey desk straight out of the seventies was positioned against a couple of modern plastic eight-foot folding tables to make an L shape in the corner. Three computers sat in a row on the tables; two were showing a password prompt, the third was connected to two huge widescreen monitors. Each monitor was split into six pictures. Across the top panes were feeds from cameras, across the bottom row were feeds from a second set of cameras with identical angles as the first. But instead of the nice color images of the ones above them, these pictures lacked detail. Five of them provided only a distorted grey-and-blue vision of the world; the sixth contained blobs of vivid reds and oranges and yellows, representing the two of us standing in the office. They were thermal cameras.

  To one side of the tables stood a full server rack, its lights blinking at various intervals indicating network traffic and hard drive use. On the old desk sat a fourth computer, its keyboard covered in tiny bits of debris, casualties of countless meals. The keyboard and mouse were surrounded by an army of papers, books, and, as far as I could tell, trash.

  “I’m not much of a computer man myself. Nephew set all of this up for me. Smart kid. Starting to college next year. A&M.” Jacob was puffed up and sporting a wide grin.

  Texas A&M and the University of Texas at Austin are long-time rivals, but out of respect for the obvious pride Jacob had in his nephew, I bit back the Aggie joke that had popped to mind.

  Jacob continued to smile as he sat down in a small office chair in front of the cluttered desk. The chair was old; the padding on one of its arms had been replaced with duct tape and the once-brown fabric was patterned with countless stains. It squeaked as he sat, and tilted a little too much to one side. The whole thing looked like it would cave under him at any moment.

  “Impressive setup you’ve got here. What’s it all for?” I asked, involuntarily inching closer to Jacob, readying myself to catch him when the chair inevitably collapsed.

  “Information! Grab yourself a seat and get comfortable. We’re likely to be here for a while.” He indicated a battered couch. Stuffing protruded through torn fabric in multiple places, and I worried briefly about getting a spring lodged somewhere uncomfortable. I chose a slightly less disgusting side chair.

  “There’s beer in that fridge if you want one, and some leftover pizza.”
He pointed to where a small brown fridge at the end of the couch did double duty as an end table.

  “Nah. Thanks, though.”

  “Suit yourself. Don’t mind if you pass me one, though.” I obliged and he screwed open the top of the Shiner, rocking back as he did so.

  “So, information, huh?”

  The chair creaked louder as he leaned even farther back, causing me to lean forward with it, my arms half outstretched.

  “Yup. This is where I store all of the things they don’t want you to know about.” He took another drink, then placed the beer on his desk, causing him to come forward to a safer angle.

  “I tell you, Chance, information technology and the internet were a big blow to them.” He swiveled in the chair and used a sweeping arm motion to indicate the piles of documents that had taken over the loft. Then he rolled across the floor a few feet and pointed to a top-of-the-line HP scanner on one of the tables.

  “Slowly but surely, all this is getting digitized. Do you know how much faster and easier I can find and disseminate information should the need arise? Not to mention that I can store it all on a couple of hard drives rather than in a room full of boxes.”

  I nodded along with him, wondering if the nephew was running some music servers or other questionable content on his uncle’s equipment, along with all of the Crazy. I refrained from mentioning the thought out loud. Jacob was paranoid enough without me adding to his heartburn. I shifted my focus to the problem at hand.

  “Well, it’s certainly a nice operation you’ve got going here. Can it help us find out who Robert might have been talking to?”

  The chair let out an ominous squeak as Jacob leaned forward in the chair, his arms resting on his legs, hands together dangling the beer bottle. He sighed. “It might at that. First off, tell me exactly what happened at this ambush.”

  “Well, like I said, we were all packed up and ready to head to California for that job you gave us. You remember? The easy one where we were supposed to exorcise a metric ton of demons from an urn? Anyway, as we were about to leave, Robert gets a call. I don’t know who it was from, but whoever it was, Robert trusted them enough to take a detour.

  “The tipster said that a vampire had just killed a family out at a ranch, and was now holed up for the day. So we swung by and made a pit stop, thinking we would be taking care of a single vamp. We assumed it was another crazy newborn like the ones we had been dealing with before. We went during the day, figuring it would be asleep. Easy kill. After that, we’d head on out to California as planned and dispose of the urn.”

  “You have no idea who called Robert?” asked Jacob.

  “None. That’s why I called you.”

  “You sure it was a setup? Maybe it was an honest tip, but the guy got it wrong?”

  I shook my head. “No, it was definitely a setup. I’m not saying that whoever provided the tip was necessarily in on it—they might not have knowingly sold Robert out—but the end result was the same: the vampires knew we were coming.”

  Tilting my head toward the ceiling I continued. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and the more I do, the more I think the ranch was the plan the whole time. I don’t think Katy’s death was an accident. I think someone wanted to get to Robert. Lure him out of hiding and back into hunting. Somehow they found out who and where his family was, and targeted the niece.

  “I think they killed her to get him started, then used a string of feral vamps to keep him hooked. Made it easy, so Robert would get careless. Then they picked a nice secluded spot and took him off guard.”

  Jacob nodded. “Makes sense, I suppose. Robert was always kind of a recluse. Other than me, he would have been the hardest of the group to track down. I wonder who made that call?” The question obviously disturbed him, probably because he had a limited pool of friends and they certainly overlapped heavily with Robert’s.

  “It must have been someone who knew Robert well enough to know he hunted vampires,” I said. “Someone whose word would be good enough for Robert to act on without any further research.”

  “Well, it’s not like Robert advertised that he killed monsters. If he did, he would have been locked up in a loony bin. That being said, he wasn’t as careful as I am about whom he talked to and what they talked about. That leaves us with a few possibilities.”

  “So, let’s narrow them down! I have to know who it was, Jacob. I have to find out who gave him the tip. It’s my only lead to finding my mom before anything happens to her.”

  “Look, Chance, I understand. Trust me. I want to know who it is, too. It’s a fair bet this informant is my friend as well, and I could be next on their list. Now, I realize you don’t want to hear this, but if vampires have your mom, she’s probably already been…compromised.”

  “I know, I know. Still, what do you want me to do? I can’t sit around and do nothing, not while I know she’s still alive.”

  “What makes you so positive she’s alive? I thought we went over this. Chance, I’m sorry, but your mama’s probably dead by now.”

  I shook my head. “I spoke to her the day before yesterday. The vampire called me up. Told me he had her and asked me to come meet him. He let me talk to her. She sounded okay.”

  “So he’s using her as bait?”

  “Well, that’s obvious. He basically said so.”

  Jacob nodded. “Just so we’re clear. Where are you supposed to meet him?”

  “Who knows? I hung up on him before it got that far. Do you think I’m going to let that vampire set up a meeting and walk into another ambush? No thanks. This time, I at least want some sort of surprise in my favor. That’s why I want to find the tipster. Maybe find out where this vampire is so I can ambush him for a change.”

  “I hear you. Well now, let’s think about this. Who could have called Robert? There’s me. Robert had me following the news for y’all, looking for patterns of violence that could be tied to possible vampire activity. But I didn’t call him.” He paused. “There’s your crew, but they were all with him when he got the call. Plus, they all got killed at the ranch, except for this Katy. Could she have been in on it? Maybe that’s why they left her alive.”

  “No way. She hated vampires more than any of us. Besides, she killed at least one in the fight before they knocked her out. If she’d been with them, I doubt that would have happened.”

  “So it’s not your old crew, and not you or me,” Jacob said. “Too bad you didn’t manage to grab Robert’s phone. That would have made life easy. But I suspect you were too busy saving your own skin to worry about that.”

  “Actually, I did grab it.”

  “Where is it? We can pull up the calls he received before the ranch. All I have to do is trace the number, and bingo! We have ourselves the name and location of the informant.”

  “I don’t have it on me.”

  “Well, go get it!”

  “I kind of threw the phone out somewhere in the West Texas desert on my way out to California. I didn’t want anyone using it to track me,” I added, hoping that a play to his paranoia would buy me some leeway. By his look, it seemed that only he got to make paranoid decisions.

  “You threw it out? Before even getting the numbers off of it? Come on, Chance—everyone knows vampires aren’t into modern technology. They’re not going to be tracing your phone calls, or hacking into your computer!”

  “If you say so.” I tried to ignore the paranoid man’s hypocrisy.

  Jacob swiveled in his chair, somehow remaining upright while he rolled to one of the computer terminals. “Well, let’s see what we can find out.” He logged in, brought up a browser and started typing while I got up to peer over his shoulder.

  “Here we go. I found an article on that ranch of yours. Says the place burned to the ground. Cops found the charred remains of the family, along with Robert and who I assume was the rest of your crew. They’re claiming it was a home invasion gone wrong. You must have been checking the news and seen all of that?” He looked over his sho
ulder for confirmation.

  “Nope. Been out of town for a while dealing with Solomon’s urn. I can’t believe they blamed us for killing the family! Wait, crap, what about me? Are the cops looking for me?” All I needed was to be framed for murdering some family. I leaned closer to the monitor and began scanning it for my name.

  “Not that I can see. Doesn’t say the cops are looking for anyone. Looks like these vamps want you all to themselves. They’re taking things rather personally.”

  “Lucky me. Won’t the crime scene guys figure out that’s not what happened?”

  “Doubt it. Vamps have gotten smart. Most of them don’t even kill anymore, what with all of the new tech the police have. Cleaning up a crime scene right takes too long. The vampires might not use a lot of new technology, but they’re smart enough to avoid it. Nowadays, when they do kill, they make sure to do a good job covering it up. In your case, they probably used your own guns to shoot up the family. Did you see them when you were there? The family?”

  I shook my head.

  “They were probably keeping them alive somewhere in the house. My guess is, after the ambush, they killed the family with y’all’s guns. Then shot up your team with any guns the family had, and with a ranch you can bet they had some. Then torched the place.

  “After that was done, the vamps would have paid a visit to the forensics guys, the coroner, and maybe even a detective or two to be sure. Used that mind-control crap on them. That way the post mortem would be nice and straightforward. Everyone died from either gunshot wounds or the fire that started during the exchange. A nice open-and-shut case with no witnesses or survivors to screw it up: family and burglars killed each other. Fire started during the shootout. Case closed.”

  He swiveled the chair slightly to face me. “Speaking of fire, it burns me up too that this makes your crew out to be a bunch of criminals. Robert was a good man. Shouldn’t have to be remembered like that.”

  “They all were.”