Gypsy Blood

by Vernon, Steve

  He tried not to listen, but it was hard. A hook in his brain tugged him this way and that. They drove into the industrial side of town. Carnival looked for a warehouse or an empty lot. He was still wearing gloves. He’d bought a couple of pairs of rubber gloves from the convenience store.

  Nice and disposable.

  “Are you angry?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  He let his breath blow out all at once, trying to hang on to control.

  You need to lie better than that, if you ever hope to be a real Gypsy.

  “Great. Be a Gypsy. Join the club and learn to play the guitar like Django Reinhardt. Slaughter prepubescent pizza boys for fun and profit.”

  They drove down another street in silence. When Maya spoke again Carnival nearly jumped out of the car. She wasn’t breathing and he couldn’t see her in the rear view mirror. He had forgotten all about her.

  “I am made this way,’ she softly said. “I don’t glitter. I don’t recite poetry. I don’t aspire to any of the accepted Goth posturing. I kill and I feed. It’s not something I can change.”

  Carnival shook his head like a stubborn bull. “Anything can be changed.”

  “Is that why you told me you loved me?” she asked. “Because you wanted to change me?”

  Answer her boy. Try and tell the truth. You’re a bad liar, anyway.

  Carnival tried to change the subject.

  “Accepted Goth posturing?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.

  “I thought you’d like that.”

  “So what made you this way?” he asked.

  “I was born this way.”

  “Nobody is born this way. Nobody just starts out being a vampire.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  Ha. Your debating technique is amazingly mature. What next, great arguer? Will you double-dog-dare her to change?

  A breath of silence bled out between them.

  Maya spoke again. “I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember.”

  Carnival spotted an open back lot. No lights. Probably deserted.

  “How far back can you remember?” he dug a little deeper. “How about the Industrial Revolution? Do you remember the guillotine? The Civil War? The pyramids?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must have read a newspaper. Listened to gossip? Watched CNN?”

  “I’m old. That’s what I know. Older than wristwatches. Older than calendars.”

  “You’re not impressing me.”

  “I laugh at you humans. So scared of us. Yet you worship us. You make movies and write books about us. Someday we will rule you.”

  “Do you think?”

  “I know. I’ve been watching you, for so many years. Destroying the earth. Raping the air. You wrap yourselves in cream and fabric like gooey mummies as you shred the ozone. Soon you will have to hide from the sun. Soon you will only be able to come out at night.”

  Carnival heard the smile in her voice, but also the panic. She was still trying to hide from the fact she couldn’t remember her past.

  Maybe vampires are susceptible to Alzheimer’s?

  “How soon is soon to someone older than the Gregorian calendar?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Soon enough. Soon enough the time will come and that’s where we’ll be waiting for you. Out in the night.”

  Sure, Carnival thought, hanging out at your local palm reader’s.

  She still hadn’t answered his question.

  Carnival hated secrets. Especially when they’re not his own. He stopped the car. They were far enough back in the shadows that they wouldn’t be caught. He opened the door. He could be stepping out into a gang ambush but he wasn’t worried. Why should he? He had a vampire for company.

  “This is kind of against the law,” Carnival said. “I could get in a lot of trouble.”

  “He’s just a pizza boy. How much trouble could that be?”

  Carnival laughed. “We’re not measured by our bank statements.”

  “You think so?”

  He nodded.

  “Then go shoot a wino. At best you might make the obituary page if you’re lucky. Shoot the president and you’re on Entertainment Tonight.”

  She had a point, but Carnival wasn’t going to tell her.

  “That’s the problem with you mortals. You are all run by laws. Rules laid down by a bunch of dead people.”

  “Hey,” Carnival argued. “Some of my best friends are dead.”

  He’d meant it as a joke but the more he thought about it the sadder it sounded.

  Carnival and Maya stepped out into the darkness of the empty lot. He couldn’t see what lay in front of him.

  He was getting used to that.

  Chapter 37

  The Long Walk Home

  It took a half an hour to walk back. A cab would have been quicker but Carnival didn’t want to leave any trace of a trail.

  God is good, but always carry a knife.

  Half way home Carnival dropped each of his rubber gloves into two separate garbage cans. When he got back to the shop he called the pizza place.

  “Look,” he said, throwing Poppa’s best Rom accent into play. “I ordered a pizza from your place of business over an hour ago. Where is it?”

  Used properly, an accent tends to make other people uncomfortable, especially on the phone. This discomfort encourages a quick resolution, a quick hang up.

  “I am sorry sir,” the voice on the telephone replied. Our delivery man left with it at least forty five minutes ago. He should be there and back.”

  Delivery man? That boy? Whatever happened to truth in advertising?

  “Well he hasn’t got here, and he needn’t bother. I’ve ordered Chinese. I wouldn’t touch your pizza if you gave it to me.”

  Carnival cursed them in his best Sicilian and hung up fast. A distasteful phone call would be quickly forgotten. The boy’s body would be found, hacked up in his car six blocks away. He had taken the boy’s money. The police would blame it on thieves. His trail was safe, he hoped. He took what was left of the pizza out to the street. He handed it to the first vagrant he saw. The bum ran off into the darkness like he’d found the holy grail.

  Hey, I was hungry.

  “Eat this, Poppa.” he made a rude gesture.

  Nice.

  Carnival looked about the shop. The blood was gone. Even the pizza box. He propped the door open with the remnants of his broken chair and opened a back window.

  Good air in, bad air out. Ventilation is always important.

  Carnival brewed a pot of good gypsy coffee. Dark and sweet, boiled twice for strength. He filled a Thermos. He was going to need it. He opened up a fresh pair of rubber gloves. He’d need them too.

  There was still more killing to do tonight.

  Chapter 38

  Jack the Ripper Takes a Stroll

  Carnival sat in his room and flipped the cards one more time.

  Death, Death, Death.

  Who was he kidding? The cards weren’t supposed to work this way. Only in movies could they be so precise.

  Or maybe he was wrong.

  There’d been three deaths, hadn’t there?

  Olaf, Elija and the pizza boy. Maybe that was all the cards were telling him, three deaths and no more.

  There’s bad luck in threes, boy. Ask Shemp.

  The salt stood ready upon an overturned milk carton in lieu of a table. The salt would serve as a small but powerful ward. God is in the details.

  So is the Devil, boy. Open your eyes. The light won’t hurt them.

  There needed to be one more death outside the circle of the cards. Three deaths for Maya, but one for Carnival.

  Everybody gets a share. Murder all around. Even grievin’.

  “Shut up, Poppa.”

  Shut up, Poppa. Shut up, Poppa. That’s all you ever answer me with. You shut me in a cage in your heart to talk to me and then you won’t listen. Maybe you should listen. Maybe I know things. May
be I see things.

  “Poppa, please shut up.”

  Please now. At least you are learning manners. Fine. If you want my mouth shut, my mouth is shut. At least my eyes are open.

  “Right, Poppa.”

  Carnival opened the door and stepped out into the night. Poppa said nothing, and his silence was as loud as any morning thunder.

  He touched a lamppost and whispered a small charm.

  A lamppost across the street blinked out. Carnival crossed the street and touched the second lamppost. Further up the street another street light winked off. Carnival followed its beacon of darkness, lamppost after lamppost. He was looking for a girl. He found her eight blocks later, standing in the shadows.

  No street light.

  She was too old for the street lights.

  The lighted spots were all taken up by the flashy younger girls.

  This one was anything but flashy. She had long lank hair in a tacky Barbied-up Cher style of cut. Dyed and re-dyed until the original brunette was long lost to a skanky grass stained blonde color. She ran to skinny in that self-cannibalizing style that diehard junkies tend to lean towards.

  Carnival saw the bumps of her bones pushed out at the joints. Her skeleton ached for transplant. Her skin yellowed unhealthily, sagging like a loose pair of long johns and damn near worn out.

  A whore. My son has gone to a whore. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s an honorable trade. More honorable than palm reading by half.

  “Thanks, Poppa. Your kindness could fill a plugged thimble.”

  Carnival looked her over. Who knew what had brought her to this station in life? A troubled childhood, an abusive parent, an uncle with a weakness for stinkfinger? Possibly a faulty brain. Bad wiring. Who knew what series of detours, bad decisions, and tangential thinking had led her to this street corner? There couldn’t be any clear cut answer. There never was. Life was a long line of adverbs with damned few nouns.

  What’s to wonder about? She’s just part of the neighborhood. Part of the scenery. Just another toppled cross in the graveyard of life.

  Poppa was right. She was just part of the scenery like the burned out station wagon in the far back lot. Most cars were towed away after a month or so. The authorities didn’t like prying winter froze homeless bones from the abandoned wrecks. It took less tax money to tow them away. But they left this car. Maybe because it was nearly hidden by a heap of street garbage. The street folk wouldn’t touch it though. They claimed it was haunted by the ghosts of the welfare mom and two kids who’d been toasted in the wreckage.

  They were right.

  Carnival had stood out here for the three running nights of a summer full moon, listening to the spirits of the welfare mom’s children scream. They told him secrets – things he’d wanted to hear and things he wished he hadn’t.

  They told him secrets.

  Ah yes, boy, the Rom surely love their secrets.

  The city towed the cars but they couldn’t tow the women. The women were as constant as the tides. Move them along and they’d make their way back. They were rooted to the shadows, like weeds, you could never pull enough of them.

  That’s what you’re going to try to do, isn’t it?

  “Are you open for business?” Carnival asked.

  She looked at him blankly.

  “I’m standing here, aren’t I?”

  Carnival stepped closer. She watched his approach, nothing but eyes left; eyes that watched for business and the threat of police.

  Eyes like an alley cat and a heart like a cash register. This one is tough, boy. She may eat you alive.

  Maybe, but she used to be pretty. She still tried hard. She piled her lank haystack up high and hard with a half bottle of shoplifted hair spray. Lipstick and rouge, five finger discounted from the sample rack at a series of corner drugstores.

  “Slow night?”

  “What are you, writing a book?”

  “Just making talk. That doesn’t cost, does it?”

  “Depends.” She looked out at the night, and shivered. “They ain’t stopping like they used to. I watch them go by, they got credit cards for faces.”

  “They can’t be human if they don’t stop for a looker like you,” Carnival offered.

  Don’t pour it on too thick. This one can smell a rat’s fart.

  She laughed, sharp, like breaking glass. Her eyes crinkled in the corners, loosening a flake of cheap mascara to dust her right cheekbone. Carnival wanted to touch the renegade mascara off with the tip of his finger, but then he wouldn’t be able to find the coldness necessary to pull this next stunt off. And he would need to be very cold.

  “You’ve got to be looking for something.”

  “Everybody’s looking for something.”

  “Maybe you’re just looking in the wrong places.”

  “All the wrong places, that’s for sure.” Another car rolled by. She waved listlessly, clearly tiring of the game. They drove on by.

  You’re wasting time. Are you made of broken clocks?

  Poppa was right. If he didn’t do this soon somebody would stop and pick her up. Give her money to go with them. And then what could he do? Stand there and wait for her to come back? It was too late for any other choice.

  “I’ve got money at home, if you want to come.”

  “I’ll come. We’ll both come. You buy me, you’re buying some fun.”

  She smiled, proud of that sad little rhyme. Carnival nearly let her go at that. That ounce of spark, that touch of individuality nearly won him over.

  She leaned closer. Her breath stank like an opened tomb.

  “Are you up for this?” She asked.

  It’s a fair question.

  “Come on.”

  He took her home, and that’s where it all went down.

  Chapter 39

  A Clean, Well-lit Place

  Momma needed a place to live and she knew that she was close. It was the poorer part of town but Momma didn’t mind. It was the part of town she felt most at home in. The part of town farthest away from her father’s sad middle class pretensions of grandeur.

  She found the superintendent’s apartment and rang the bell. He was a big toadish man with thick shoulders and a stomach swollen well past his belt line. He leaned towards her as he spoke.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for a room. I saw the sign.”

  “You married?”

  “Yes,” Momma said and as she saw the walls of denial sliding across the superintendent’s eyelids she added “But he’s dead.”

  The big man leaned a little closer. Momma knew he wanted to touch her. She wasn’t flattered. It wasn’t lust he was showing her. It was more a matter of ownership. He wanted to know he could have her.

  “Third floor,” he told her. “Thirty five a night, first night up front. Cash, or maybe we can could negotiate.”

  He reached out one hand and touched her cheek.

  Momma smiled.

  The superintendent smiled back.

  He touched her shoulder.

  He was all hands, shaking and pawing, soon to be followed by the inevitable grope. He figured Momma didn’t have much of a choice. He figured he was going to get lucky and get paid at the same time.

  Momma smiled.

  “Show me the room.”

  She fumbled as she approached the staircase, giving him the opportunity to lead her. There was no way she would trust him behind her. He didn’t notice how easily she’d maneuvered him. He was just glad she was following him. He wasn’t that handsome a man and she figured this was the only hope he had of any kind of affection.

  An hour later Momma had her room.

  The superintendent lay upon the floor, whimpering.

  He couldn’t touch his hands.

  They were too far away to reach.

  Chapter 40

  Give Us This Day

  Carnival clicked the lights off. The snap of the toggles reminded him of any of a dozen old prison movies
where they throw the switch on the electric chair.

  No last minute pardons for this one, and none for you, boy.

  Rituals are best played out in darkness. The forces conjurers invoke find comfort in the absence of light.

  “You don’t like the light on?” the hooker asked. “I guess I don’t blame you much.”

  He felt the shame in her voice. She thought that he couldn’t bear to see her while they did it. She was right but not for the reason she figured. Still, he couldn’t leave her wearing that shame.

  You’re a good boy. Shame is a bad shroud.

  Yes, right, thought Carnival. A good boy.

  “Let me get a candle,” he said.

  “All right.”

  He wondered if the shame was always there, even with strangers. Could she hate what she was that much?

  Not hate, boy. That degree of shame is reserved for palm readers and lawyers.

  “Wow. The place sure smells of pizza.”

  Pizza and death.

  “Hang on.”

  Carnival lit a candle. A little glimmer won’t hurt that much. It was the least he could do.

  “A candle’s romantic,” he lied.

  That’s a big lie. I’ve seen some of the things you’ve dickered with by candlelight. Some of the bargains you’ve made. And you call me dark.

  “Gee,” she said. “You’re a real nice guy.”

  Ha. Hear that boy? You are a nice guy.

  “I used to dream that I’d meet a guy like that someday,” she went on. “I mean, I know it’s not you or nothing like that. You’re just being nice, is all. But I mean a real nice guy. Someone who’d look at me. Look at what I am. What I’ve made myself.”

  “You shouldn’t talk that way.”

  Careful Galahad. You’ve pledged your duty to one pair of skinny legs. Don’t spread yourself too thin.

  Carnival picked up the box of salt from the floor.

  “Why not?” she asked. “It’s what I am. A damn shame, that’s all. I’m a goddamn walking shame.”

  Carnival shook his head. “Shame’s what everybody expects us to feel when we do what we know we’ve got to do. Everybody tells us we’re supposed to feel.”

  He was talking as much to himself as to the woman. Trying to convince himself not to feel so bad for what he was about to do. She smiled at that. It maybe made it easier. He was just paying a fee, was all. There was no need for shame. “Old hookers like us don’t want to feel anything without a fee.”