He began down the stairs and then stopped: someone entered. Nicolai backed up the three steps he’d descended and hid himself in a niche. It was one of the gentry men and he was alone and looked frightened or, at the least, wary (frightened most probably, evinced by the fact that once inside he tried to leave, but was prevented by strong arms pushing him back into the castle). He was a younger man, but not young, Nicolai’s age. In his left hand was a folded sheet of paper, in his right a brick, and tucked in the front of his belt was a two foot wooden stake. He looked up the stairs toward Nicolai, didn’t see him, and consulted the map (that is what it was). It was not hand drawn, but printed on blue papera blueprint, Nicolai thought, retrieved from town records. He examined each of the doors in turn, found the one he wanted (checked it against the map) and put the map into his pocket. He then took a key from his jacket, opened the door, and with a breath entered the stairwell behind it, disappearing from Nicolai’s sight.
Nicolai waited a moment expecting another explorer, but none came, so he emerged. He must be searching for Uncle Rooka. The door through which the man had gone was the very door Nicolai himself had seen Rooka enter many times and it lead to his library, in the cellar, where Nicolai had never been. Out of that curiosity, and hopes that he might prevent any harm from coming to Rooka, Nicolai followed the man. He had to cross the foyer carefully so as not to be seen by those outside. This he accomplished by very slowly ducking from niche to niche around the edge of the room, he was fortunate that the door’s position did not require him to cross to the opposite side of the room, hence causing him to pass in front of the main doorway, now of course open to the world.
The stairwell was very short and from the foyer Nicolai could see its bottom and there a door, open, for the gentry man had already passed that way. Before Nicolai followed, however, he went to his bags which still sat on the foyer floor and retrieved the only semblance of a weapon that he had, which was a brass money plate for the old, now extinct, British one pound note; he’d purchased it at an antique fair some time ago and thought to give it to Rooka as a present (he must have a birthday sometime, though Nicolai knew not when). It was large, heavy, and made of brass, with sharp corners, and would make a nice brickbat, Nicolai thought, if he was fortunate enough to sneak up behind the fellow in secret.
He creeped down the stairs and kept them from creaking by walking with his feet apart, touching down only on the edges of each step. He stopped before the door at the bottom. The room was much like the one he’d followed the girl to before, arranged a bit differently and darker (one of the fluorescent bulbs was out and the other fluoresced erratically). The man stood in the center, his back to Nicolai, facing, hovering over, a bed (hard, not water) upon which Rooka lay asleep. He held the stake now in his left hand and the brick above it in his right, waiting, hesitating, contemplating, Nicolai realized, a brutal murder. Nicolai thought of throwing the plate at him, but did not trust his aim, instead he tried the direct approach. He moved quickly, but not quickly enough, the man heard him and turned. Nicolai stopped and the man held his pointed stick toward him.
“Please,” the man said, “don’t hurt me.” He sounded American.
“Don’t hurt you? You were going to put that stake into my Uncle Rooka.”
“Stake, what stake?” He looked at the stake in his hand. “Oh, that stake. This one, here. This isn’t a stake.”
“No?”
“No, no, no, this is a frog. No, not a frog, not a frog. It’s a snack, yes a little snack for me, see?” He began gnawing on the wood.
“What do you want, what do those people want?”
The man fell to his knees, “Please don’t kill me, I didn’t want to do it. They made me. They’re hungry for blood I tell you. I should have never come here. My friends and I are traveling, the Europe thing you know. We were at the hotel, this mob comes by, we follow it. Next thing they’re sticking a torch up my butt if I don’t come in and kill this man. I swear I wasn’t going to kill him, just maim him a bit. Please, please don’t hurt me.”
“Why do they want him dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you make them go away? Will you tell them that you’ve killed him and they should all go home?”
“Right, of course, they’ll believe me. I’ll do it. Thank you. Thank you.” He stood again, Nicolai turned to see him up the stairs and then suddenly the man pounced on Rooka, stake held high, brick at the ready. Nicolai saw him and without a thought hurled the money plate as hard as he could at his head.
Everything went black as the projector’s shutter swung in front of the last frame of film, money plate suspended weightless in the air, the bodies of all concerned frozen with fear and then white with the bright light of day. And then black again and then white again and then black againNicolai opened his eyes, Lucille was walking back and forth across the kitchen intermittently blocking the light which shone through the window. It must be late, noon or so, Nicolai surmised from the fact that a direct beam of light was able to hit his face from the south window. It felt nice on his face, warm and then cold when Lucille, passing in front of it, blocked it.
“Good morning,” she said. He growled. “What were you dreaming about? You were rocking and rolling like a bear. I woke up almost half off the bed.” She came over to him, followed the path of light, her form was silhouetted by it, and gave him a kiss, the cold gave him a chill. She stepped out of the light again. “I tried making some coffee, there was an old pot up there, but your range doesn’t work. You must not cook very much. Besides you didn’t have any coffee to make even if it did work, so I went and bought us some across the street. It’s not very good.” She gave him a cup. “I cleaned out a couple of mugs. I don’t like to drink from those wax ones.” He sipped the coffee, it was still very hot. He wished she would leave. “I’ve got to go.” He noticed that she was dressed in different clothes from the day before. “But I’ll come back tonight if you like. Jack thought you might not want to be alone, but I have another motive.” She sat down on the bed and touched him, causing him to spill some of the coffee. “Don’t worry, I won’t bite, but you’ve got to promise not to steal the covers again.” She kissed him and then jumped up. “Bye-bye, see you later,” she was half way out the door, “don’t worry about letting me in, I’ve got a key.” She dangled it and then went out letting the door close behind her.
Nicolai spilled some more coffee on himself. He sat up, hung his legs over the edge of the bed and hung his head, coffee held below in a lilting supporting hand. “It doesn’t make any sense.” He meant the dream, the visit to Rooka. “It just never happened, I’m that sure of it.” But it all felt so vivid, every detail was undreamlike. He did remember having some sort of mark on his neck, something he’d noticed during his passage, but that could have been anything. “I’d surely have remembered receiving a painful hickey.” Or would I? He got his wallet and went through every receipt. There was no plane ticket (he would have kept that) and there was no stub from the taxi (which, in his dream at least, he’d saved to present to Rooka for reimbursement). The money plate though, that he remembered. He’d bought it about a year ago with grand ideas about printing his own bills, but he’d never found an accompanying bottom half and so gave up and last he remembered the thing had been misplaced, lost. I would have kept the receipts.
While searching his wallet he did find a useful something else. It was a card from a massage parlor to which he’d treated himself years ago (extra cash, extra time) and had enjoyed tremendously. He, of course, had visions of hulking, powerful Swedish women with tremendous mammalian supplements roughly seducing the tension out of his muscles. Instead, a somewhat gimpish and skinny, but nice (and not in that particular meaning of nice, that funny sort of nice), middle aged man gave him a massage with accuracy and skill and only one small bruise. That’s not to say that Nicolai wasn’t disappointed, he was, but it was still a nice massage and he’d kept their business card because he’d always intend
ed on going back (he had actually seen a few Swedes giving massages to other men and hoped to try his luck again). Right now, however, the poignancy of finding the card lay not in the visions of Midsummer festivals on the fields of Sweden which it invoked, rather in the fact that a long time ago he’d scribbled Rooka’s phone number on the back of it. He was fortunate in finding it because he realized nowalways better to find the cure before the illhe had no other way of following Shyster’s (and Crooke’s) advicewhich seemed like reasonable advice even from its sly distributorsto call over there and straighten things out. He could have never guessed things like country and area code and didn’t even know the name of Rooka’s little village. Do they even have directory assistance over there? Perhaps someone will be at Uncle Rooka’s who can direct me or pass on a message, he thought.
If it’s about noon here, it’s got to be what, seven or eight or nine over there? He dialed the operator and asked her to place the call. The phone rang a couple of times. I wonder, he did, if his machine is still in place? Always hated that thing, those damn people who leave comical messages, and it’s always the unfunniest who do too, and doubly worse in Russian. The answer was not in Russian, but in another equally incomprehensible Eastern European language. Nicolai didn’t know what to say so he said what came naturally, “Hello?”
The voice, man’s voice, on the other end switched to English, “Yes, hello?”
“Hello?” Again Nicolai could think of nothing else and secretly hoped the other would say something more significant to start him off.
“Hello, yes, hello?”
Nicolai switched tactics, “Good-bye?”
“Good-bye.”
“No wait, hello?”
“I don’t have all day, you know.” He spoke very good English and Nicolai was glad at last to recognize the voice.
“Walter? Hello, is that you? Are you there?”
“Yes, this is Walter, may I ask who you are please?”
“Walter, this is Nicolai.”
“Oh, Master Vicoff, Lord Almightynot meaning you sir, of course, but in a general sense. We’ve been wondering if maybe you dropped off the earth, if you know my meaning. You’ve of course heard what’s happened to Master Vicoffthe other, proper that is, not meaning you’re not proper though some might claimMaster Vicoff. It’s been a mess up here these last months what with detectives fussing about and such and one wanting this snack and the other that beverage and the baths, oh they do take a lot of baths and some like it with bubbles. It’s a terrible lot to keep straight and I thought when Master passed I might return to my mom. I haven’t been home in some time, how is it there?”
“I’m in America now, Walter. I’m told there is some question about my uncle’s death, do you know anything about it?”
“America, sir? Travels will take you a traveling they say. I’m awful tired though and detectives asking all these questions. They’ve come from miles around I tell you. It wasn’t me that found him, I tell them, which they always forget and still ask me everyday it seems. It was one of the Master’s ladies and I would have thought they finally got to himthe ladies I mean, of coursebut these they think it was murder they say and of course are pointing fingers right at me saying naturally that I was jealous of the ladies which could not be further from the truth them not being of my sort which I go rather for the homebodies as can cook and raise a child instead of those wanting to go dancing and eating fancy foods and such, if you know my mind, sir.”
“I am very far from ever fathoming that, Walter, but I don’t understand, I’ve heard murder as well, but who would want to murder Uncle Rooka?”
“Oh, sir, Master’s not been as popular in town of late as he used to be. We’ve had all sorts of rioters up here. Most just picketing, usually against silly things, one or two with signs, then you give them a sandwich and off they are until the next day, but others come angry and claim that Master was holding up with the Bogey and to them I says, ‘Then you say I’m the Bogey on account of I’m the only one he’s holed up with’ and they say, ‘Shut up, Walter’. But then,” his voice became a whisper, “I have heard your name kicked around some.”
This gave him a jolt, “My name? What do they say? They believe that I was somehow connected with his death?” He had half such a notion himself.
“Well, sir, they don’t say directly, sir, least not within earshot, only they say you’ve disappeared and that makes it suspicious in their eyes. Couldn’t get in touch with you, they say. But of course, here you are now to put their minds at ease no doubt, and yours too to be sure.”
“Walter, if any of them are there now I’d like to speak to them.”
“Oh, they’re always here day and night, night and day. I’ll run and get one.”
“Walter”
“Yes, sir?”
“Let me ask you. Just before my uncle passed, died, do you recall if he purchased a ticket for me, if he was expecting a visit from me?”
“Visit, sir? Not that I recall, although he talked often enough of you. Broke his heart about your falling out as it were, sir. But if he dreamed it that I don’t know. And of course I should have if I were to drive you from the station. Shall I get one of the inspectors? There’s one what speaks good English.”
“Thank you, Walter.”
Walter put the phone down on the table. Nicolai was surprised to find how pleasant and reassuring it was to speak with him and especially on the point of his greatest fear. Although, in the dream at least, no one had been to pick him up, so it was conceivable that Walter knew nothing about the visit. Was it conceivable that he’d gone spontaneously, without an invitation, for one purpose or another? Not to his present mind, but the months he’d passed since then had changed many things and the fact was that he just wasn’t sure. What was he going to say to this other fellow though? Just find out what they think and tell them what you know, and don’t forget the money. The money! He had forgotten. It made him laugh. Who would have thought that even for a moment that singular obsession of mine would pass out of my vision; and yet he hadn’t thought about it since when? Ah, yes, Lucille’s lingerie. She’d had the most fantastic lingerie, soft cotton, white with a repeating print pattern of little blue baby’s breath upon it. Not that this girls underwear had anything specific to do with it, the two events, the two facts, simply, for whatever reason, intersected in time. He thought now of bundles of money wrapped up in her panties and bra and decided that was an even better intersection.
A man came on the line. “Salutations, Mr. Vicoff. I have waited a long time to speak with you.”
“May I ask, may I ask who I am speaking with?”
“My name is unimportant. What is important is who you are: Nicolai Vicoff, cherished nephew, grieving nephew, of Rooka Ignatius Vicoff.” Ignatius? Uncle Rooka had a middle name? He questioned this and the man replied, “You will forgive me for testing you. I had to be sure that you are who you claim to be. Now my mind is settled, but still uneasy. We have been trying to get in touch with you. Your phone, however, is now answered by a clever message which led some of us to believe that you had fallen prey to a swarm of killer bees. We were not amused and you may care to know that some good men lost their jobs because of your ploy, others their lives, but that would not concern a murderer.”
“All this talk of murders and murderers and surely you don’t think that I”
“I do not think, I only examine the evidence and listen; and I have learned many things. Do not think you are safe in Americaoh yes, we know you are there, and we are only a skip away from alerting the authorities and having you brought back. That day will come.”
“There is no point in casting aspersions. May we begin elsewhere? I would like to know how my uncle died and what it is that leads you to think he was murdered.”
“I see no reason to repeat what you already know, except my own humor, therefore I will.”
“How kind of you.”
“Yes. Yes. Two of my patr
olmen reported to your uncle’s estate after receiving a call concerning his death from a young lady. They returned sometime later to report having found the corpse and listed the cause of death as old age. A doctor was sent and the manager of his estate notified. All would have gone as you’d planned, if the report had not crossed my desk. It was then that my brilliant brain caught on to the whole scheme. ‘Murder,’ I said. You see I found it curious that a man of 110 would suddenly die of old age. Why should he die now, I thought, and not at 109 or 107 or even at 99? I decided to look into the matter myself, bearingas I am prone tothe weight of more than my fair share of work. The curse of a brilliant brain. When I found the deceased, I noticed a small detail previously overlooked, your uncle’s face was bashed in: a large hole in his skull, and most curious of all, the face of your Queen Elizabeth stamped clearly on what was left of his brow. On the mattress beside him lay what has since become known as prosecution exhibit A, an item of which I am prohibited from speaking. Exhibits B and C were revealed through further investigation and while I cannot reveal their contents, I may say they paint a rather neat picture of you. Incidentally, the two initial patrolmen later confessed to having some liqueur candies while on duty and have been executed. You made a quick get away, Nicolai Vicoff, and it took us many weeks to pick up your trail, but we will get you yet. The arm of the law is long and we have developed special exercises to make it longer, even on our shorter operatives. What have you to say for yourself? As if anything could help you now.”
I Thought My Uncle Was A Vampire, But He Was Just A Creep Page 18
