Retrieving his keys and wallet from his pockets, I went back to the car. Twenty minutes later I left it sitting at the curb in the same area where I’d gotten rid of Comstock’s. I took what money was in the wallet to add to my funds and then dropped the wallet in a Dumpster on my way to the bus stop.
Saturday night, I returned to the bar. It was busy, but I was able to grab the one vacant seat at the end of the bar.
“Your usual?” Milly asked when she came over.
I chuckled. “This is only my second time here, so I’m not sure that applies, but yes, the red wine.”
“You got it.” She hustled away, returned quickly with a glass of wine that she set in front of me. “How do you like the neighborhood, now that you’ve been here for…a week?”
“A little over, and I like it,” I replied. “I haven’t met many people but the ones I have seem friendly enough.”
“Like Dex.” She grinned.
“Yeah.” I made a point of looking around. “Has he been in tonight?”
“Not yet. It’s early though, so give him time.” She winked before moving down the bar to take care of someone else.
I could give him all the time in the world and he still wouldn’t show up, but I couldn’t say as much. She wouldn’t believe me if I did.
Scanning the room, I saw several people I remembered from the last time I’d stopped in. Not terribly surprising as it was a neighborhood bar, unlike the one in New Orleans where I’d worked, or the ones there where I’d hung out. I caught a couple of guys glancing at me but ignored them. One thing I knew for certain, I should be very careful about connecting with them unless it was only for sex. My loathing of humans made it too easy for me to kill one without a second thought. Hell, given the chance I’d willingly eliminate everyone sitting there without a qualm.
Why did these weaklings have the right to live a full life while I, being their superior in every way, was consigned to the dark because of what I am?
Angrily, I tossed back the last of my wine and got to my feet.
“Not waiting for Dex?” I heard Milly say.
I turned to look at her, bit back my immediate response, and smiled. “Nope. If he shows, tell him I said to call, would you?”
“Sure. He’s got your number? Never mind, of course he does.” She gave me a lewd wink and returned to her chores.
“Don’t mind her,” a man said as he slid onto the stool I’d vacated before someone else beat him to it. “She’s a matchmaker at heart.”
“Lots of luck with me,” I muttered. “I’m not looking.”
He laughed. “That’s not going to stop her.”
I shrugged, and left. I’d walked to the bar, having decided I needed the exercise. Yeah, I know. Vampire here. We don’t gain weight, or get out of shape, or what have you. It still felt good to pretend it was something I should do. The bike was for going farther away, like downtown to find supper. My neighbors—presuming they paid any attention to my comings and goings—and as far as I could tell they didn’t—probably wondered why I took off soon after sundown and returned an hour or so later without bringing back take-out.
Thankfully, they didn’t seem into the whole ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ thing. I’d gotten a wave or two when I went by one of their homes, but that was it.
It was almost ten when I got home. The first thing I did was get online to check the local news. I’d done that last night, to see if Dex’s body had been found, which it hadn’t, it seemed. Tonight was a different story. After the national news, the anchorman said, “In breaking news, the body of a man was found early this afternoon by a couple hiking in the mountains above Highway 6, between Golden and Black Hawk. According to one of the state patrol officers our reporter talked to it appears the victim was attacked by a wild animal, or animals, although it’s up to the medical examiner to verify that. The victim had no ID on him, but his fingerprints identify him as one Dexter Wilde of Denver.”
That should cause a stir at the bar, I figured, almost tempted to return to see how people were reacting. Of course they might not have the news on, since the TVs seemed to be permanently set to one sports channel or another. I refrained, going down to the basement instead to work on my panic room. I’d already removed the rec room door and was in the process of covering the hole with bricks I’d removed from the wall behind the furnace. I was being careful, even though I was the only one who’d see they were gone as I had no intention of bringing anyone down to the basement—and I wouldn’t use the panic room unless there was a true emergency. For that, I would leave a barely perceptible gap at the top so that I could mist in. I’d left the sofa, table, and chairs, and brought down a few books from my collection to give me something to keep me occupied if I had to stay inside for more than a few hours.
I’d found a half bag of plaster under the workbench in the garage, as well as a small tub, so I mixed up a batch and set to work. There was something satisfying about falling into the rhythm of layering the bricks one by one. When I was finished, I’d have to distress the plaster so it matched what was in the rest of the visible basement. Then, voila, no way to know that there was a well-hidden panic room which I hoped I’d never have to use.
* * * *
I’d just gotten back from feeding Sunday evening when there was a knock on the front door, immediately followed by the sound of the doorbell. When I went to see who was there, I was faced by a middle-aged woman holding a cake on a paper plate, covered with plastic wrap.
“Hello.” She smiled brightly. “I know I’m way late, but I have tried before, but you weren’t home, I guess. At least not during the day which is when I tried. Anyway, welcome to the neighborhood.” She shoved the cake at me. “I’m Mrs. Franklin but you can call me Eleanor. Me and my husband live in the house across the street—” She pointed to one across and down two from mine. “Can I come in?” She didn’t wait for a reply, walking into the living room while I juggled the cake to keep from dropping it in my surprise at her boldness.
“Looks almost the same as before,” she commented, walking around the room. “He didn’t take much with him.”
“No, ma’am,” I replied as I set the cake down on the dining table. “He said he didn’t need most of it, which was lucky for me.”
“Eleanor, please, umm…” She tilted her head in question.
“Lucas—”
I didn’t get to finish as she said, “So, Lucas, tell me all about yourself.”
I resisted rolling my eyes, or doing something worse like taking her downstairs to kill and bury. Okay, burying in the basement wasn’t happening, but damn it was a tempting idea.
“Not much to tell. I moved to Denver a couple of weeks ago after contacting Mr. Comstock about buying his house. He was glad to get out from under, or so he said, so he facilitated the sale and here I am.”
“That sounds like him,” she replied. “He was real antsy to get moved down to Arizona. Do you have a job?”
“Not yet. That’s next on my agenda.”
“Doing what?” She picked up the picture of me and my family sitting on the bookshelf. “Lovely people. You take after your father.”
“So I’ve been told,” I agreed. “Not sure what sort of job I can find. I guess I’ll find out.”
“What did you used to do?”
“Bartending.”
She laughed. “God only knows there’s enough of them in the city. You should be able to find something. I can ask my husband. He’s a cab driver so he might know.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I protested. I had the feeling if she did, she’d be back every night to pass on suggestions. Not something I wanted to deal with.
She waved my words away, saying, “It no trouble at all. Neighbors have to stick together.”
I knew I should have taken one of those remote cabins in the mountains even if they were falling to pieces. Not really, but…
“I’d better get out of your hair before my husband thinks you’ve seduced me,”
she said, grinning. “Don’t eat all of that in one sitting.” She waved toward the cake before going to the door.
“I won’t, I promise.” As if, although it did look good.
I let her out, and then took the cake into the kitchen, sticking it, in lonely splendor, in the refrigerator. I debated checking the online news to see if they’d come up with any new theories about Dex’s death. “What the hell,” I muttered, opening the laptop and turning it on. A fast search let me know the coroner had determined Dex must have run into a cougar, startling it, and the cat had attacked rather than retreating. That worked for me. The detective from the state patrol office only had one problem with his death—the fact his car was nowhere in the vicinity and his keys and wallet were missing.
The detective’s theory as quoted on the site? ‘Mr. Wilde was carjacked, knocked out, and his attacker dragged him into the trees where his body was found. He ran into the cougar after he came to and started back to the road.’ “Close, but no cigar,” I said before closing out the site to look for a movie on Netflix.
Chapter 6
Finding a job when you’re a vampire can be problematic at best if you don’t want to be the night clerk at a sleazy motel, or a janitor who cleans up after businesses have closed. Sure, I could get one as a security guard, patrolling buildings after hours…if I had the credentials. I don’t. So it was back to what I’d told Eleanor—looking for a job as a bartender, which was at least feasible since bars in Denver stay open until two A.M.
Eleanor’s husband came through, so I had some recommendations. Yeah, I had to put up with her dropping in a couple of evenings to let me know, but I was able to deal with it by firmly ‘suggesting’ I needed my sleep if I was going to spend the day hitting them up.
Obviously daytime wasn’t when I did that. I’d leave the house as soon as I was dressed for the evening, stop to feed somewhere, and then make trips to the bars in question, as well as a few I’d found out about online. Ninety percent of them weren’t hiring, which I’d figured would be the case. A couple that were, were looking for someone to start work at opening.
The third night, at a bar called The Hub, I finally got lucky. It was in Baker, a gay-friendly area of the city from what I’d found out when I’d explored Denver during the first week I was here.
I ordered a glass of wine and when the bartender came back with it I asked, “Any chance your boss is hiring?”
He looked at me as if I was a gift from the gods, and not because he was gay, which he was. After all, this was a gay bar, so it was to be expected. “Damn, man,” he said. “If you know the difference between a Cosmopolitan and a martini and how to make them, you better believe he is. Give me a sec and I’ll let him know you’re here. What’s your name?”
I told him, and then asked, “For nights?” before he took off.
“Yep. The last guy quit out of the blue, damn him.”
I wasn’t the reason he had, although I’d gotten to the point where I was considering enthralling the next one I ran into at a bar to make him do just that.
While I waited, I checked things out. The place was on the small side with the bar along one wall, booths on the one opposite it, and a few tables scattered between them. A pocket-sized dance floor took up the rear of the room, with a short hallway behind it which I presumed led to the restrooms. To the right of the dance floor was a door with ‘Kitchen-Stay Out’ on the sign next to it. Grumpy cook or to keep out nosy patrons? Either-or, I figured.
“Mr. Barrett?”
I nodded, looking at the man who’d asked. He was close to six-foot and on the paunchy side, with salt-and-pepper hair worn a bit too long, in my opinion.
“I’m Mr. Parks. Greg tells me you’re looking for a job.” He gestured toward a vacant booth. “Why don’t we sit there and you can tell me about yourself.”
Once we were seated across from each other he asked, “Do you have any experience?”
“Yes, sir. I worked at a couple of clubs in New Orleans, one of them for over two years.” That was stretching the truth, but he’d never find out differently.
“You don’t look old enough,” he replied.
I grimaced then chuckled. “I know. It’s the bane of my existence.”
“Why did you leave?”
“Honestly, I got tired of the city and all the tourists. Before you ask, that was a year ago. I bummed around for a while, met a guy and we hit it off, so I moved in with him, but he turned out to be too controlling so I split and came out here.”
“He supported you?” Mr. Parks asked.
“Yeah.” I feigned embarrassment. “Does that bother you?”
He shrugged. “Not really.” Then he began asking if I knew how to make various drinks. When I rattled off the ingredients, he seemed impressed. “Do you have references?”
“Not written ones,” I told him. “But I’ve got the names of the clubs and the men I worked for, and their numbers.”
“Great. Let’s go back to my office and you can fill out all the paperwork.”
The office was along the hallway, opposite the restrooms. It was tiny and messy but I wasn’t about to point that out as I pulled the only chair other than his up to the desk. He handed me several sheets of paper—employee information, a W-4, and the I-9 which proved I was a U.S. citizen. Then he asked for my driver’s license to photocopy. When I gave it to him, he pointed out that I’d better get a Colorado one. “The cops frown on out-of-state licenses after you’ve lived here for thirty days.” I put that on my mental ‘not to-do’ list. If I did get stopped, all I needed to do was enthrall the cop and he’d leave without asking for ID or writing a ticket.
“That should cover everything,” Mr. Parks said when I finished with the forms. “When can you start?”
“Tomorrow night,” I replied.
“Excellent. I have to check your references but I’m certain they’ll be fine. Unless I call to tell you otherwise, you’ll be working from six until two, with three fifteen-minute breaks, Fridays through Tuesdays.”
At that point I took control of his mind, making him believe that he’d called the clubs in New Orleans and that I’d gotten glowing recommendations. Then, I ‘convinced’ him that my hours would be eight to two. Coming in a six wasn’t happening, at least not until winter when it was dark by four P.M. according to a weather site I’d come across online.
When I released my hold on him, he held out his hand, saying, “I’ll see you tomorrow night at eight. Don’t be late.”
I shook his hand, promised I wouldn’t be, and left his office.
“Did he hire you?” Greg asked as I walked past him.
“Yep. I’ll see you tomorrow at eight sharp.”
“Eight? How do you rate?” he asked.
“He figures you’re more than capable of handling things until I get here?” I replied, grinning.
Greg snorted. “More like he wants to save a couple of bucks. Okay, I’ll see you then.”
I was headed to the door when something occurred to me. Going back, I asked Greg, “What should I wear?”
“The same as I am.” He chortled. “There’s no dress code as far as Parks is concerned as long as you’re wearing pants and a shirt.” Given that he had on jeans and a tight T-shirt with the logo of a popular band, I’d figured as much but I wanted to be certain. I thanked him and took off.
* * * *
Friday night, I dressed in jeans and one of the T-shirts I’d picked up after leaving The Hub the previous evening. Checking to be certain I had my wallet and keys, I locked up, got on my bike, and headed to work—with a brief stop along the way to feed.
I found a lot close to the bar with an attendant, slipped him a twenty to keep an eye on the bike, and walked down the block to the bar. When I entered, the first thing I saw was the bartender, and it wasn’t Greg. As I went behind the bar he hurried over, holding up a hand.
“Hey, it’s all good,” I said. “I’m Lucas. I’m supposed to start working tonight.”
&
nbsp; “Okay. Parks said we had a new guy coming in. I’m Nick. Let me show you what’s what.” He shot a look at a man who was waving to get his attention. “If I get time. Beers are in the cooler, the back bar is stocked, order pads are there,” he gestured toward the cash register. “Have fun.” He winked and went to see what the man wanted.
A couple settled at one of the tables in the center of the room, and since there weren’t any waiters, I figured Nick and I were it and walked over to take their orders.
“You’re new,” the younger man commented, eyeing me with obvious interest.
“I am,” I admitted. “I’m Lucas. How can I help you?”
“We’ll take two draws,” the older man replied sharply, telling me what beer. I didn’t need to read his mind to know he was pissed at his companion. His expression said it all.
“I’ll be right back,” I told them.
As I walked away I heard the older man say, “Stop eying the help or we’re out of here.”
“There’s nothing wrong with looking. I’m not going to…”
I missed the last part because Nick was laughing as I went past him, but I had a good idea what it was.
“He’s always kvetching like that,” he said. “Why they come in here is beyond me.”
“Older man with a young boyfriend and he’s jealous,” I replied. “Twenty-to-one it’s the kid’s idea and the old guy’s afraid to say no.”
“Yeah, probably.”
I filled two glasses, grabbed a couple of coasters, and took them to the table. By then things seemed to have calmed down. They were deep in conversation, holding hands. The older man paid, I thanked him, and left.
The rest of the night went much as expected. I met some of the regulars, got chatted up by a couple of guys, asked if I was free after work by a third one—an invitation I politely declined—and made a decent amount in tips. By the time two A.M. rolled around I was ready to get out of there. Nick and I did closing chores, while Parks came out to take the night’s receipts, cash, and card slips from the register. The cook, a grumpy older man, finished up and headed out.
I Hunt by Night Page 5
