Nocturnal

by Mark Allen

  Rudy’s eyes drifted away, low and to the right. The anger left his face as his brain remembered and replayed the events across the movie screen in his mind. All pretense and attitude fled. He slumped back in his chair.

  “Why didn’t he kill you, Rudy?”

  “I don’t know.” Rudy whispered. I never saw him. Never heard him. He... used the night.”

  “He what?” Horn asked.

  “He used the night. He blended into the shadows. You ever watch a lion stalking its prey, blending in to the environment so the prey can’t see him? He was like that.”

  “You’re scared?”

  “Damn right I’m scared.”

  “Of what? The cartel?

  “The worst they can do to me is kill me. I’m lucky if they don’t have a hit out on me already.”

  Horn and Castle waited for the other shoe to drop.

  “This guy operates on a whole other level of deadly. He’s like some ninja assassin; like something out of a Goddamned monster movie.”

  Rudy relaxed his hands, slumped back in the seat. Both Horn and Castle recognized the body language. Rudy Valdez had given them everything he was going to give. No amount of questioning, leveraging, interrogating, or threatening would make him say another word.

  The door opened again, unexpectedly. The sudden movement disturbed the still air, causing a whoosh to move across the room. It faintly fluttered Rudy’s hair.

  Everyone turned his attention towards the door. In strode a middle-aged man, morbidly obese, bland features, although he tried to cultivate an air of importance. He wore an expensive suit, power tie, carried a Gucci briefcase, and wore stern face. “Don’t say another word,” he barked at Rudy. “This conversation is over.”

  “And who the fuck are you?” Horn asked, standing up, looking intimidating.

  “Michael C. Law,” the attorney announced. “I’m Mr. Valdez’s attorney.”

  Rudy folded his hands in his lap and smiled. He looked completely serene now.

  Castle flipped his folder closed and stood up. “I know you,” he said. “Well. I know of you. You’re a mob lawyer.”

  “Captain, put a leash on your dog here.”

  “Fuck you, you Goddamned shyster,” Horn spat. “You’re a fucking mob layer, and everyone here knows it.”

  “Well then, you’d better watch your mouth,” Law returned. “Talk like that can ruin my reputation. That’s called slander, and it’s a crime, Detective. Maybe they didn’t teach you about that in the Academy? Or maybe they did, and you just don’t care?”

  Horn picked up his folder from the table. “It’s only slander if what I say is known by me to be untrue at the time I say it. Didn’t they teach you that in Mobster Law School? Or maybe they did, and with you being a fucking mob lawyer and shit, you just don’t care about that?” He grabbed a grinning Castle by the shoulder of his rumpled suit coat and walked him out the door.

  Once they were gone, Mike Law put his briefcase on the table. He walked over and closed the door, then walked over to the two-way glass and adjusted a small dial to zero, effectively muting the sound in the room so anyone in the observation area could not hear what was being said.

  He turned around to Rudy. “What did you tell them?”

  Rudy eyed this new addition with open suspicion. “I don’t know you.”

  “I have been hired by Rick Oakley, at the request of Antonio Vargas, to represent you in this matter.”

  Rudy’s eyes narrowed. “Can you get me out of here?”

  “It’s too late in the day,” the lawyer replied, shaking his head. Rudy noticed the extra flesh under his chin waddled a bit. “It’ll be tomorrow before we can get you arraigned and get bail set.”

  “What do I do until then?”

  “Don’t say a word to anyone. Not the cops, not the guards, not the other inmates. Code of silence. You got that?”

  Rudy nodded his head.

  “I’ll try to get your arraignment scheduled for as early in the day as I can. I know a judge who may be sympathetic to our plight.”

  Rudy relaxed visibly.

  Law put his hand on his briefcase. “By the way,” he said, “I heard about the incident at the docks. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

  Rudy just stared at him.

  “Between you and me, what really went on down there?”

  “Privileged?”

  Law smiled, waved his hand.

  “I don’t have the first fucking clue,” Rudy raised his right hand. “Hand to God, all I know is, my friends starting got ripped apart, limb from fucking limb, and I got knocked the fuck out. By the time I came to, the cops already had me cuffed.”

  Michael C. Law, attorney for the defense, stood there, motionless, looking at Rudy. He knew Rudy was telling the truth.

  “Stay strong. I’ll have you out tomorrow.” He grabbed up his case.

  “One other thing.”

  Law stopped at the door, hand on the knob. “Yes?”

  “It’s past seven o’clock. I haven’t had anything to eat.”

  “What would you like?”

  “Carne Asada burrito.”

  Law nodded. “I’ll see to it.”

  Another thought occurred to Rudy. “Hey. Counselor. It’s Friday night. How are you gonna get me out tomorrow?”

  Law smiled. “I know a judge sympathetic to our plight.” Precisely what he had said before. Then he pushed himself out the door, and was gone.

  Rudy knew he was supposed to feel better, but he did not. He was not out of danger. Word was already out he had been a tough sumbitch with the cops. They might reward him, get him out. Or they could have an inmate shank him, or pay a guard to make sure he “accidentally” hung himself with his bed sheet.

  He still had to survive the night in lockup.

  Darkness spilled across San Diego. In a frantic dash down the western sky, the sun slid behind heavy cloud cover and faded to a dull white orb, hiding from the night’s onslaught. The sun plunged below the horizon, conceding defeat to the night.

  The vampire’s corpse lay in bed, mostly covered with blankets and a quilt. Heavy fabric curtains, held together with velcro tabs, covered the solitary south–facing window in the room. The bedroom, like the rest of the house, was completely dark.

  In bed, the vampire was nothing more than a dried, desiccated carcass. Muscles and sinew atrophied, his lips pulled back away from his teeth in a kind of permanent rictus. Eyes closed, mouth slackly open. Yellowish waxy skin, stretched like parchment across forehead, cheeks, and chin. No heart pumped within him. No air entered or exited his lungs. No blood circulated. No autonomic life activities or brain waves functioned.

  He was simply dead.

  As then, it had every night for the last century, the vampire’s body shuddered a bit, as the heart began to unnaturally beat, and beat, and beat. It beat against all the laws of God and nature. And it continued to beat as blood, thick as sludge, surged through collapsed blood vessels.

  Fingers, thin and bony, brought into a curl on both hands, unfurled now as circulation returned. Arms and legs moved.

  Glassy black eyes popped open and his consciousness came bursting forth all at once from the nothingness of his True Death. In that same instant, he took a deep, painful, beautiful breath. Chest on fire, lungs burning as bronchi expanded, and alveoli inflated once again.

  He sat up and coughed, his ribs aching with each exhalation. He rubbed his sternum, smacked his lips. He was still dehydrated. After sitting there a few moments more to let the room quit spinning, the vampire swung his legs outward and placed his feet gingerly on the floor. He pushed off the bed with his hands, and stood up.

  He staggered down the short hallway and into his kitchen. He opened his refrigerator door and peered inside. He had unscrewed the light bulb inside, so the fridge upon opening, resembled a dark gaping maw, with white wire shelving for teeth.

  He found what he was looking for, pulled it out. He looked at the blood bank bag, filled with packed re
d blood cells – donor blood he had bought illegally from a local blood bank technician with an uncanny ability to always bet on the wrong sports team.

  The vampire tossed the bag into the microwave. He programmed a few seconds, just enough to take the chill off, then punched START. When the bell on the microwave sounded off with a perky DING! he pulled the warm bag out. He twisted open the plastic stopper on the top of the bag, opened his mouth wide, and upended the bag over his head. The blood dripped like red syrup, in stringy dollops into his mouth. The first glop hitting his tongue caused him to exhale with a shudder.

  Like an addict getting their fix.

  A few more mouthfuls, and the vampire felt better. He put the stopper back in the bag, tossed the bag back inside the refrigerator. He stepped over to the faucet, filled a glass with water, and drank it down. While blood was his main source of sustenance, he could drink water in moderate amounts, especially when he was washing down packed red cells.

  The vampire walked out of the kitchen, knees steadier, legs stronger with each stride. In his bedroom, he pulled the curtain back and stared outside. He still had not turned lights on. Darkness allowed the ciliary muscles in his eyes to relax and his pupils to dilate. Less eye fatigue that way. The vampire often wore sunglasses at night, especially inside nightclubs and bars.

  Easier hunting prey when they don’t know a predator is among them.

  Peering outside, he saw everything clearly. Living less than a block north of Adams Avenue, he saw the main thoroughfare and it’s trendy eateries, coffee houses, and wine lounges.

  The vampire liked where he lived. He felt content, safe here. Nice neighborhood, mature, sedate, dignified. He lived in Kensington, one of San Diego’s oldest and more exclusive neighborhoods. Real estate here maintained its value well, even in the face of the recent economic downturn. Other San Diego markets, as with most of the rest of the country’s housing markets, had gone into harsh tailspins.

  Living in a 1940’s adobe Spanish-style two-bedroom rental, the vampire was taking a break from decades of home ownership. Technology had made it too difficult in recent years for him to simply the property to himself, pretend to die, and then show up as a long lost heir just in time to inherit.

  His current landlord liked him and left him alone. The vampire had explained to him that he was a day sleeper, his job required him to work odd hours, mostly at night. He could not go outside during the day because of a rare, but severe medical condition – a severe allergy to sunlight. Even the briefest of exposures to sunlight would cause him severe skin burns and excruciating pain.

  The landlord had assured the vampire it would be no problem. When he inquired what the vampire did for a living, the vampire had stated matter-of-factly that he handled financial investments in the Asian markets, hence the odd hours.

  Again, the landlord accepted the vampire’s logical explanation. He then happily accepted the vampire’s bank draft for first and last month’s rent, plus a discrete thousand dollar cash “bonus” tucked into a dark envelope so the landlord rented to him and not someone else.

  Since that time four years ago, the vampire had always gone out of his way to be a good tenant. He was unfailingly faithful to his word, making sure he dutifully fulfilled all of his obligations to the letter under his rental contract. He always paid his rent in full, on time. It was a matter of pride to him.

  He enjoyed his music, classic rock, mostly. He still enjoyed the older talents like Louie Armstrong, Duke Ellington, the crooners like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, but once rock bands like the Stones and the Beatles came along, the vampire was, as they say, hooked. He still listened – on vinyl, of course! - almost every night. He just made sure to play it low enough to not disturb his neighbors.

  Mainly, he kept to himself, lived quietly and alone. He never hunted where he lived. He was pleasant enough to the few neighbors he encountered. He ran into them infrequently, never engaged in long conversations, and always politely declined any invite – no, really, I have to get back to work - to their apartments or houses for a drink.

  The vampire dropped the curtain. It fell back into place, settling down with a ruffle and a slight furl. Realizing he was naked, he reminded himself to put some clothes on before going out tonight. It was a Friday evening, and he had not fed completely for several nights now.

  He was hungry. Tonight, he needed to prowl.

  He would hunt in the Gaslamp tonight, he decided. The sidewalks would be an ocean of people, surging from restaurants, then flowing to clubs, bars, or movie theaters. The vampire would be just another face in the crowd. He would move among them unfettered, sliding easily between warm bodies, thrilled by the sounds of their heartbeats, intoxicated with the scent life gives off.

  Ordinarily, the vampire hunted the trendy bars for the sake of expedience. But tonight, he craved something more... esoteric. So instead of his usual Italian suit perfectly tailored to a trim fit, the vampire chose cowboy boots, leather pants, a silk T-shirt, and black leather jacket he’d stolen off the corpse of a biker he had slaughtered back in the seventies.

  Friday nights downtown attracted all kinds: students, workers blowing a week’s pay in one night, hipsters trying to not look so proud about being so fucking cool, business executives wining and dining clients, and so on. But the Gaslamp also brought out certain predators: drug dealers, pimps, pickpockets, muggers, rapists, carjackers, and worse, all in these same clubs and bars.

  They slithered around, preying on the young, the naive, the weak, the addicted. Anyone they could exploit for money or sexual gratification. Selling drugs to some investment banker, the money and merchandise handed off under a table; or getting a girl drunk and then whisking her into a car or van conveniently parked with the engine running in a side alley when she stumbles to the bathroom. They could “disappear her” in a matter of seconds, most likely never to be seen again.

  But these predators, these would-be “bad people”, were too stupid, egotistical, shortsighted to contemplate there might be something else out there lurking in the blackness, stalking them even as they stalked their own prey, poised to strike in the blink of a human eye.

  They could never comprehend that something more evil, more malevolent, more demonic was hunting them, stalking them, then taking one of them down, ripping them apart limb from bloody limb so fast they would still be able to see what was eating them alive before they died.

  The vampire pulled the leather pants up over his naked skin. Then he thought better of it, and peeled them back off. He had made the mistake of wearing leather pants while not wearing underwear – “going commando” as he had once heard it called – and had regretted it. Living or dead, the laws of physics and friction still applied. The chaffing had been nightmarish to the say the least.

  Now, he grabbed something out of his nightstand drawer, then unfurled it in front of him, between his hands. Bending over and stepping in, the vampire pulled a stretch spandex pair of leggings on. The synthetic material caught at his ankles as he pulled them up, creating a new layer of protection, a “second skin”, as he tugged the top of the waistband. He adjusted himself up front, then snapped the grommets to hold them up. He picked up his shirt and jacket and walked, holding them off the floor.

  Stepping into the bathroom, he turned on the light. The bulbs blared, and he averted his eyes for a moment. His pupils adjusted, and it no longer like he was being stabbed in the skull. While he did not need light to see himself in the mirror, he wanted to see how he would appear to others.

  The vampire’s skin was ashen white, a hint of yellow, waxen. His dark hair hung limp, falling from his head with no body, no fullness at all. His nose was long and narrow, slightly pointed at the end. His cheekbones sat high, but his long angular face made for sunken cheeks, winding their way down to a thin-lipped mouth and pointed chin. He had died clean-shaven; now he never had to worry about five o’clock shadow.

  The vampire picked up a bottle of liquid makeup foundation, opened
the cap. He dripped a small amount onto his fingers, then massaged it onto his skin. Foundation could only do so much to make him appear living. But hunting in places where the lighting would be low made it easy to “pass” for human. He applied the makeup to his entire face and forehead, then ran it down his neck so his T-shirt would cover the rest. He took care to smooth out any unevenness.

  His eyes drifted downward at his reflection. His pallid torso was fit, trim, no body fat. His was a wiry physique, broad shoulders and narrow hips.

  He had been blessed with the lean body of a runner, or a swimmer He was grateful that in his time, people had eaten less food and had taken in fewer calories. Since everything eaten then was freshly grown – “organic”, they now called it – food had contained less sugar, less fat, no chemicals.

  People had been leaner, healthier. And since he had been a man then, physical labor had been a familiar friend. No gym memberships required; you just worked a job. Thank God, he thought. I’d hate to have to go on through the nights of eternity fat, never able to lose weight.

  Then his eyes came to rest on three rather peculiar circular scars on his chest. Old memories, best left in forgotten, came raging up to the front again. Two scars, each about three eighths inch in diameter, grouped close together over his sternum and left chest. The third sat lower on his anterior torso, to the right over the lower rib cage.

  Over his liver.

  That’s what you get when you take up a life of crime, you stupid ass. You get killed, and the people who love you wind up betrayed, hurt, and alone.

  Self-loathing was a wasted emotion, so the vampire pushed it out of his mind, back into the cobwebs of the past. He stretched his T-shirt on over his head. He shrugged into the jacket, adjusted a bit as the heavy garment came to rest across his neck and shoulders.

  The vampire took one last look at himself in the mirror. He pushed his lank hair away from his face, but it cascaded back across his skull and coming to rest in precisely the same place and orientation as before. He had performed this act many times over the years, always with the same result. He didn’t really expect any change – he was a walking corpse, after all – but it had become a ritual for him.