by Tim Kizer
“I’m coming out,” he told Stan and hung up.
“Can I cut your hair, dad?” asked Chris when Graham gently pushed him off his back and began to get up.
“I have to go to work, son. Go ask Mom if she needs a new haircut.”
“Okay.” The boy skipped out of the room.
Forty minutes later Graham and Stanley were standing in front of a hotel room door at the Embassy Suites Secaucus hotel. Graham felt a bit uneasy: these big hotels had surveillance cameras all over the place and he feared that the people he was about to meet were the kind a police officer should not be seen together with.
“Good luck, buddy,” Stan said, knocking on the door. “I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”
The door opened, and Graham saw Steve Shaw, Josephine’s husband, who, as he found out later, had made his fortune selling oil and who looked at least twenty years younger than his official age of seventy three. Eleven months later, Steve would be shot dead while taking part in the kidnapping of a woman in Delaware: see what lax gun laws do to you?
“Hi, Steve.” Stan crossed the threshold and hugged Steve. “Meet Graham, my best buddy.” He stepped aside to let Graham shake Steve’s hand. “Hi, Josephine.” Stan waved to Josephine, who was sitting in an armchair by the desk. Then he patted Graham on the shoulder, said ‘Goodbye everybody,’ and left.
“I heard you’ve been making some cash on the side,” said Josephine after introducing Steve and herself to Graham. “Doing favors for your friends, protecting hookers, taking dope from street pushers and reselling it.”
“Did Stanley tell you that?” Graham asked in a conspicuously calm voice. “That old rascal.”
“Don’t worry, Graham. It’s cool. You’re among friends here. I personally think that this war on drugs has created more problems than it has solved. If some idiot wants to snort coke, let him do it; that’s his brain he’s fucking up, not mine, or yours. I’m actually applauding you for finding a way to profit off of drug dealers.” Josephine smiled. “But we didn’t gather here to discuss what you’ve done. I would like to offer you an opportunity to join our team and make an extra buck along the way.”
“Can I ask what kind of business you are in?”
“It’s a long story, but I’ll be glad to give you all details once we come to an agreement. What we’re asking you to do is take over for Stan, who, as you know, is retiring in a month and won’t be able to provide us with the service we need.”
“Stan is working for you?”
Josephine nodded.
“I wish he didn’t have to retire. Who came up with that mandatory retirement crap anyway?” Steve said. “Working for us is easy. An occasional favor here and there is all we need. We’re not lawbreakers, Graham, but sometimes one of us may get in trouble with the law, and this is where you come in. Stan said you’d be perfect for this job, and we trust his judgment.”
“Yes, we heard very good things about you from Stan,” said Josephine.
Graham accepted their offer. He didn’t do it because he had a vague but real feeling that he wouldn’t last a day if he had rejected it; he agreed to work for them because a) he loved money and b) if this gig was good enough for Stan, who’d been around the block and knew which side was buttered, it was good enough for him.
One Saturday night five weeks later, when Graham had earned some trust with Josephine, she invited him to her house and showed him a four minute amateur video of Steve strolling in what appeared to be a busy pedestrian mall: endless storefronts lined the street on both sides, with no car in sight. Judging by the picture quality and the passersby’s clothing and hairstyles, the video seemed to have been shot during the VHS era; it must have had a lot of sentimental value to Steve since he had gotten it converted to DVD.
“Do you recognize this guy?” asked Josephine with a mysterious smile.
“Is it Steve?”
“Yes, it is. We shot this video on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Have you ever been to Santa Monica?”
Graham shook his head. He began to realize that this video had some deep underlying meaning, which he wasn’t too eager to find out.
“It’s a nice place. And the weather is gorgeous all year round,” said Josephine. “It was actually me holding the camcorder—a Sony Handycam; you’re old enough to remember those, aren’t you? I had just bought it and decided to take it for a spin.”
“They must have cost a fortune back in those days.”
“Yes, they did. You might have noticed that Steve passed by a movie theatre in the second half of the video. Did you catch the posters?”
Graham had indeed noticed the movie posters; he had a good eye for detail.
“Did you see the poster for Rocky IV? As a matter of fact, Steve and I ended up watching it that day. I love movies about men kicking each other’s asses.”
Graham nodded. Yes, he had noticed the poster for Rocky IV, which helped him establish that the video had been made sometime in the winter of 1985.
“What I’m trying to say here is, this video is fifteen years old. And I assure it wasn’t staged or anything like that. We actually shot it in December of 1985.”
“I believe you. It is an old video.”
“As you can see Steve hasn’t aged at all since that time, has he?”
Graham was about to make the same comment himself once his last doubt was gone that it was really a Rocky IV poster.
“Yeah, he’s taken very good care of himself.”
“How about me? Would you believe it if I told you that I’m actually ninety three years old?”
Later that night, Graham drank his first cup of vampire blood. Josephine’s hunch proved correct again: he didn’t mind living forever; he didn’t mind that at all. Besides, he got a major ego boost from the fact that they had never asked his buddy Stanley to join the immortals club.
“Welcome to eternity, Graham,” declared Josephine when he handed the cup back to her.
10.
“Welcome to eternity, Graham.”
Graham woke up.
4.39 a.m. He asked himself what idiot could be calling him so early in the morning. Penelope moved her arm. A moment later her hand landed on his neck, crept up to his chin, and finally slid onto his lips.
“Graham,” she moaned. “The phone.” She lazily shook his head from side to side.
“Okay, I got it,” said Graham. He shoved his wife’s hand on the bed and put the receiver to his ear. “Hello.”
4.40 a.m. It was the height of impudence! This moron should get his ask kicked for disturbing people’s sleep.
“Graham,” said Josephine. “Did I wake you up?”
Graham rose from the bed and headed for the hallway.
“That’s okay, Josephine. I was going to wake up anyway when you called.”
He walked out of the bedroom and marched towards the stairs.
“Did you have a bad dream?”
“I wouldn’t call it bad. It was more like a walk down memory lane.”
“You are off from work today, aren’t you? I don’t want you to be cranky all day from under-sleeping.”
“Yeah, I’m off today. I’m thinking of going to the steakhouse in the afternoon; you want to join?”
Once Graham found himself in the kitchen, he grabbed a can of Miller from the refrigerator and eased onto the chair by the window.
“I’ll try to make time, but no promises. What was your dream about?”
“It was about me meeting you thirteen years ago back in Jersey.” Graham took a swig of beer. “You, Steve, the Santa Monica video, Tony’s blood—the whole nine yards.”
“Oh, I remember those days very well. You were so calm and collected when you drank Tony’s blood for the first time. I was very impressed.”
“I’m good at reading people. I knew you weren’t bullshitting me, so why would I be nervous?” Graham pulled a cigarette out of the Marlboro pack and lit it up. “I had the same dream last week, too.”
“I
t must be stress. You need to relax a little, buddy. Want to take a vacation from work?”
“Nah. I love my work. What can I say, I love being a cop.”
“Too bad you can’t be one forever.”
Yes, she was right. If he applied to another police department under another name twenty years from now, it would take Human Resources less than an hour to find out that he had changed his name and was over sixty. He had to get his fingerprints erased from all the police personnel databases before taking another bite of the apple, and that could turn out a very difficult thing to do.
Well, there was still hope; nobody knew what kind of resources they would have two decades down the road.
“I think it's time we took care of Frank. We can’t keep beating around the bush forever.”
“We sure can’t. By the way, if we do move, are you going to divorce Penelope?”
“I guess I am. Her tits sag anyway.” Graham closed his eyes and took a puff of the cigarette. “When are we going to stop babying Frank? It’s time to take the gloves off. I want to hear the date, Josephine.”
“Graham, we shouldn’t rush ourselves. You know what they say: ‘Make haste slowly.’ Frank understands he committed a felony, and he wouldn’t confess to it even to his own mother if she were alive. If we just barge in and—”
“Josie, let's give it a shot. We haven't even tried yet, and you’ve already got your doubts. We don’t know how vulnerable Kelly is. We don’t know how long she can survive wherever he buried her. We need to act fast.” Graham glanced at the hallway, checking if Penelope was there, eavesdropping on him.
“Graham, we talked about it, didn’t we? We still have enough time. His memories won’t come back any faster if we bang him on the head. I’ll tell you what: if we don't come up with a better idea up by the end of the week, we'll do as you suggested. This Saturday, Graham. Saturday is the deadline, okay?”
“And what about that Cleveland guy?” Graham suddenly remembered their old pal Jerry. “I think we’d better kill him.”
“All in good time, Graham. Cleveland is harmless to us. It’s not that urgent.”
“I can kill him myself. You won’t have to spend any time on it.”
“Let me think about it. I hope this whole debacle will be over in a couple of weeks. And then you can kill anyone you want, okay?”
“He’s a loose end, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Yes, he is. We’ll get rid of him right after we take care of Frank. Sounds good?”
Graham nodded. Yeah, he could live with that.
“It’s not easy for me to keep patience, too,” said Josephine. “You think I enjoy seeing Frank alive? Every time I see this clown, I want to rip his heart out.”
“I’m going to tear his dick off and feed it to him.” Graham picked up a cigarette butt from the ashtray and crushed it between his right thumb and index finger.
“I have an idea. Move to my place for a while. It will make you feel better, I promise.”
“I bet my wife would love that.” Graham chuckled.
“She sure would.”
“I think she’s fucking someone at work.”
“Well, women love sex just as much as men.”
“I hope she doesn’t give me gonorrhea.” He laughed quietly. “So we’re not going to pick Frank’s brain tonight?”
“Not tonight. People make mistakes when they are in a hurry, and we can’t afford any mistakes right now. This misfortune will be over soon, trust me.”
“What if he tossed Kelly in Erie? How are we going to find her there?”
“Erie is just a lake, Graham, not an ocean. If Frank shows us the approximate location, it won’t take long to find her.”
“What if he doesn’t remember where exactly he dumped her? It can take us years to find a body in the lake, and we barely have a couple of months.”
“Come on, Graham, why do you always have to expect the worst?”
“Because I want to be prepared. Have you heard the expression ‘When it rains, it pours’? I’m afraid that’s what we’re dealing with here.”
“I still doubt Frank dumped Kelly in the lake. As I said, dead bodies float up to the surface sooner or later, and I’m sure he would have wanted to avoid that.”
“He could have tied a concrete block to her body, just like us.”
“Yes, he could.” Josephine paused. “We’ll figure something out. Let’s make Frank talk first.”
“Okay, got it.”
“Have you dreamt about Nico lately? Remember the night he got killed?”
“How can I forget?” Graham rubbed his sweaty forehead.
Kelly. What a dumb bitch. She should have gotten rid of her husband back in November, when she had had her daughter whacked.
Well, it must be just his nerves talking. Kelly wasn’t really dumb. In fact, she had been a very useful addition to the team. Her pretty face and tight butt had worked like magic on those poor bozos from the trains. What cracked Graham up was the fact that these guys must have seriously believed there was such a thing as a hot woman giving free blowjobs to random strangers.
And she also had an industrial strength pussy, which was always open for the guys from the gang.
“Two nights ago, I had a dream about that old fart killing Nico,” said Josephine. “And Albert had a dream about his first meeting with me.”
“Did Al stay the night at your place?”
“No. He called twenty minutes ago. He sounded a little nervous.”
“Are you nervous? I know I am.” Graham took another puff of the cigarette. “What if we don't find Kelly? What then? What if this jerk got lucky and actually killed her? What if Kelly’s transformation was incomplete when he fucked her up. You said yourself that Kelly must have gotten the bite the same night she disappeared. What if her wounds were so bad she couldn’t recover from them? Even full-blown vampires can be killed. Tony got killed, remember?”
“I’m aware of all this, Graham. Let’s not panic until we find out what happened to Kelly. We have to be cautious and patient. We must make Frank understand that we’re not going to report him to the police, that he can trust us.”
“Are we going to take him out after he gives us Kelly? This moron must pay for what he put us through.”
“Sure. I will personally skin this son of a bitch. But let’s worry about it later. Right now, we have to convince him that he can be absolutely honest with us.”
“It’s not going to be easy. I wouldn’t trust us if I were him. Sometimes you, Josie, look intimidating as hell without even realizing it.” Graham took a few sips of icy beer to cool down his brain.
‘Cautious and patient.’ She’d been telling them to be cautious and patient this whole time as if they were a bunch of immature kids looking for instant gratification. Sure, she was the oldest of them, but still, she wasn’t the only one possessing common sense.
“You’re flattering me, Graham.”
They both laughed. Then Graham asked, “So how us Al doing? Is he nervous?”
“I don’t know. He might.”
“That’s nothing to be ashamed of. We are in a tricky situation, after all.”
“By the way, do you have dreams about your life before you joined us?”
“No. At least none that I remember. Dreams are really easy to forget, you know. How about you? Do you have any dreams?”
“I had a dream about the night Nico got killed. It felt so real, too.”
“Was I in it?”
“You bet. Everyone was in it, including Travis and Jake.”
“I remember that night very well. The shapeshifting trick was pretty cool. Too bad Nico sucked at flying.”
“He sure did. He was too damn adventurous, if you ask me. I wonder how he managed to survive for five hundred years.”
“These dreams must make you nervous, Josie.” Graham grinned; it was a funny poke at Josephine, who liked to brag about her nerves of steel.
“They don’t bother me. It wa
s actually nice to see Tony alive again.”
“So, we're going to rough him up this Saturday?” Graham decided to change the subject. “Are we taking him to the boonies or do you want to do it in your basement?” He drank the last ounce of beer, effortlessly crushed the can in his hand, and emitted a belch.
“We’ll use my basement. And let’s try to spill as little blood as possible. You know how I hate cleaning up.”
“Whatever you say, Josie. I have an idea: what if we drag Marilyn in, too, and put some hurt on her right in front of this asshole? You think it will make him more cooperative?”
“Well, it depends on how much Frank cares about her.”
“You think he cares enough to start talking?”
“I have no idea. You should know it; you’ve cheated on your all wives. Did you love any of those whores?”
“You make it sound so nasty, Josie. They’re not whores. They’re just bored. Women love dick, they’re just ashamed to admit it. And my wives have cheated on me, too. Every single one of them, including Amanda. You think I cared? I don’t give a shit who Amanda is screwing in her spare time. I understand her. If I fucked her more often, she wouldn’t be cheating on me.” He leaned back, assuming a more comfortable position, and crossed his legs.
“Well, even if Frank has feelings for that woman, I doubt it will work. I think he loves his life more than pussy. But we could try it, of course.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Graham scratched his forehead. “What time did Frank call you the morning after Kelly went missing?”
“Around half past eight. He called right after Ron and I woke up.”
“That’s when you saw that last text message from Kelly?”
“Yes. And that’s when we realized that Tony didn’t come home the night before. Why do you ask?”
“I’m trying to see how much time Frank had to hide Kelly’s body. Looks like he had no more than three and a half hours to do it.”
Graham winced slightly when he realized he had just uttered the word ‘body.’ Given the context he had used it in, this word had a sinister connotation which might have been a sign of his diminishing confidence that Kelly was still alive. He had actually been making a deliberate effort to avoid saying it in Josephine’s presence so as not to appear a defeatist in her eyes.
