That was when the lights went out.
God’s electricity had killed man’s electricity, and the cannon roar aftermath of the thunderbolt wasn’t enough to hide the sound of her scurrying in the dark among the trays of the dead, trying to escape, heading for that door onto the garage.
I went after her, but she had knowledge of the layout of the place, and I didn’t, I kept bumping into bodies, and then she screamed.
Just for a split second.
A hard whump had interrupted the scream, and before I even had time to wonder what the hell had happened, the lights came back on, and there she was.
On her back, on the floor, her head resting against the metal under-bar of one of the dead-body trays, only resting wasn’t really the word, since she’d hit hard enough to crack open her skull and a widening puddle of red was forming below her head as she, too, stared up at the ceiling with wide-open eyes, just another corpse in a roomful of corpses. Bolo’s dead body, where I’d pushed his dead weight off of me, was—as was fitting—at his mistress’s feet.
I had to smile.
Bolo may not have had many brains in that chrome dome of his, but he’d had enough to slip her up.
Death of a Vampire
By PARNELL HALL
Sergeant MacAullif was less than pleased. That wasn’t surprising. Less than pleased was his default position, the attitude he usually affected whenever I walked into his office. Which was hardly fair. I’d done him a favor once, and he’d gotten me out of a tight jam now and then, and when you added it all up, it wasn’t like we’d hurt each other much. Except the time he threw me up against my car, or the time he tried to push me through a wall. If the truth be known, I think his ritual expression of disgust was no more than that, a ritual expression, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, except that everything was fine, everything was normal, everything was par for the course. If MacAullif ever seemed glad to see me, I’d be worried.
Only this time he had cause.
“A vampire?” MacAullif said.
There is no way I can do justice to the skepticism, sarcasm, and mistrust with which MacAullif managed to imbue the word.
“That’s right.”
“You want me to find a vampire?”
“I’d be relieved if you could. I’m afraid he might be dead.”
“Aren’t vampires already dead?”
“Good point. I see you’re up on vampires. That will help.”
“I’m not up on vampires,” MacAullif said through clenched teeth. “I was ridiculing the notion.”
“I noticed.”
“What are you really here for?”
“I’m a private investigator. I don’t have the resources of the police department.”
MacAullif sighed. “Oh, hell.”
“Can you trace a guy for me?”
“Is he a vampire?”
“I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might subject me to ridicule.”
“Who is this vampire?”
“Morris Feldman.”
“Not Valmont? Or Count Gootsagoo? Or whatever?”
“Sorry.”
“Who is he? Aside from the obvious.”
“That’s what I’d like to determine.”
“What makes you think he’s dead?”
“His girlfriend hasn’t heard from him.”
“You think someone killed him?”
“That’s a possibility.”
“How do you kill a vampire? Silver bullets?”
“That’s werewolves.”
“Cloves of garlic?”
“That’s French bread.”
“Come on. How do you kill a vampire?”
“Stake through the heart.”
“Of course.”
MacAullif opened his desk drawer and took out a cigar. His doctor made him give up cigars; still, he liked to play with them in times of stress. I’d seen him play with them a lot. “Who hired you?”
“The girlfriend.”
“Who’s she?”
“Debbie Dwyer.”
“Why does that name sound familiar?”
“She runs an escort service. You’ve probably patronized it.”
He leveled the cigar. “You want me to do this or not?”
“She’s a college student at Columbia University.”
“What’s she studying?”
“Pre-law.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Not at all.”
“How’d she get involved with a vampire?” MacAullif made a face. “Geez, I can’t believe I asked that question.”
“She’s a goth.”
“What?”
“You know. She wears that white and black makeup, looks like death warmed over.”
“From that you conclude she’s a goth?”
“Not a rough deduction.”
“It is with your track record. I think it’s safe to assume she’s something else entirely, and you misdiagnosed it. How’d you get mixed up with her?”
I flashed back to my first meeting. Which seemed somewhat appropriate when dealing with a vampire, not to be fettered with normal time constraints. Not that vampires can time travel. At least as far as I know. Even so.
It was almost a week since she had walked into my office. I was surprised to see her. First, because she looked like she did. Second, because I don’t get a lot of walk-in clients. The Stanley Hastings Detective Agency primarily services the law firm of Rosenberg and Stone. Richard Rosenberg is one of New York City’s premier negligence lawyers. I’m his top investigator, which isn’t saying much. His cases are mostly trip-and-falls, someone suing the city of New York for having broken their leg on a pothole or a crack in the sidewalk. I stop by every morning to check my messages and pick up my mail, but most of the time my office is closed. So walk-in clients have a rather small window of opportunity.
Debbie Dwyer made it.
She knocked rather faintly, like the scratching of a cat, so I wasn’t sure there was someone there. I opened the door, expecting to see the corridor empty. Instead, I found a young woman with coal black, spiky hair and white makeup accentuated by black shadow around the eyes and black liner around the mouth.
“Yes?” I said. It was the wittiest private eye remark I was able to come up with on the occasion.
“Mr. Hastings?” she said.
I hate that. Granted, she was college-age, and I am not. Still, it is the sort of thing I dislike having flung in my face, being addressed as sir or mister, knowing the worst is yet to come in the form of a devastating young fella.
“What can I do for you?”
“I may want to hire you.”
The word may was disappointing. I liked the word hire, however. I needed money.
“Come in.”
I sat her in the client’s chair, then went and sat behind my desk, as if interviewing prospective clients were a daily routine.
“What’s your problem?” I asked.
“It’s my boyfriend.”
“Yes?”
“Promise you won’t laugh.”
“Why?”
“He’s a vampire.”
“I didn’t promise.”
She made a face. “Don’t be like that.”
“Like what?”
“Closed-minded. Think of the movies.”
“Movies?”
“You know, in all the movies when someone is trying to warn everyone or looking for help or whatever, and the police won’t believe her because her story is a little out of the normal. Say she has premonitions.” She scrunched up her nose. I could tell she was getting close to dangerous ground. “Sometimes it’s supernatural. Ghosts, the undead, or something, and everyone in the movie theater knows what she’s saying is absolutely true, and they’re really pissed off at the cops for not paying attention to her. You ever watch a movie like that, and you’re thinking, ‘How can the cops be so stupid?’ You know what I’m saying?”
I knew exactly what she was saying. I als
o knew the difference between a movie and real life.
Still, there was that possibility of money in the offing.
“Go on,” I said.
“So. Morris is a vampire.”
“Okay.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “I don’t expect you to believe me. I don’t expect anyone to believe me.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to know if he’s for real.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to know if he’s a vampire.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding you? I want to hire you. Do you want the job?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I have a date tonight. When he drops me off at my dorm, I want you to follow him and see where he goes.”
“Why can’t you do it yourself?”
She made a face.
“Oh, I see. You tried.”
“He’s on guard against me following him. It’s gotta be someone else.”
“You mean you don’t know where he lives?”
“No.”
“You got his name. Haven’t you Googled him? Or some sort of Internet search?”
“I came up empty.”
“Isn’t that interesting in itself?”
“Fascinating,” she said dryly. “Look, you want the job or not?”
I wanted the job.
There was only one problem.
ALICE was amused. I expected her to be amused. I just wasn’t sure what form her amusement might take. On the one hand my wife has a good sense of humor. On the other, she is perfectly capable of ridiculing me within an inch of my life. “You’re involved with a vampire?”
“In a way.”
“And what way might that be?”
“I’m involved with his girlfriend.”
“What a surprise.”
“I’m not involved with her. I’ve been hired.”
“How old is this girlfriend?”
“Oh.”
Alice smiled. “Okay, we’ve established young. Are we talking thirty-something?”
“I don’t see how the exact age makes any difference.”
“Good God, is she a teenager?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?”
“She’s a college student. At Columbia University. Pre-law.”
“Ah. And what does she look like, this college student?”
“Oh.”
I tiptoed Alice through the whole goth bit. Needless to say, her commentary was withering.
When I was done, as usual, she put the whole thing in perspective. “Well,” she said. “We need the money.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Alice cocked her head. “She pay in advance?”
“Oh.”
THAT night I was at Columbia University outside Miss Pre-law, goth-dressing, vampire-dating’s dorm. I had changed from a suit and tie, my standard PI gear, to a leather jacket and jeans, my standard vampire-tailing gear. I was trying to look inconspicuous, which wasn’t all that easy. The problem with Columbia University is it’s full of college students, and they tend to be young. I get older every year. Coeds were looking at me strangely. After a while, it dawned on me in my current outfit I must have looked like a pervert trying to pick up young girls. I should have worn a tweed jacket, passed for a professor. The problem is, I don’t see myself as old enough to be a professor. Whereas, in truth, I’m probably old enough to be the father of a professor.
They were back at eleven thirty. I spotted him first. Remarkable, since I knew her. But then he was a vampire. Not that he wore a cloak or a cape or a hood. Or had fangs. Or any of your standard cliché vampire gear. He was actually wearing a leather jacket, not unlike mine, though mine was brown, and his, of course, was black. Granted, his collar was up, but that didn’t have to be vampire, it could easily have been motorcycle tough. He also wore a black T-shirt and black jeans. All in all, his vampire was no wilder than Debbie’s goth. No, what caught your eye was the lean face, light blue eyes, and thin lips.
It was the lips, in particular, that merited attention. Unusually thin, as if he’d deliberately sucked them in, covering up his teeth.
He kissed her good night at the door. Then, in a flash, he ducked down a side alley next to the dorm.
Damn! There I was, waiting for him to go back out the main gate of the quad the way he came, and the son of a bitch takes a shortcut to the side street. I fell all over myself trying to follow, but by the time I got there, he was gone.
You ever ask anyone which way the vampire went?
DEBBIE was pissed. “You lost him?”
“I never had him.”
“What?”
“ ‘You lost him’ implies I was following him, and he got away. That didn’t happen. He was gone before I even started.”
She made a face at me. Trust me, it’s no fun to have a goth make a face at you. “Oh, isn’t that clever? What are you, a moron? Didn’t you see us come back to the dorm?”
“Yes.”
“Then you saw Morris. If you saw him, you had him. You had him, and you lost him, end of story.”
“I take it I’m fired.”
“Fired? Fired from what? You haven’t done anything yet.”
“I staked out a dorm.”
“You expect me to pay you for that?”
I hadn’t expected her to pay me at all. But she was pissing me off. “In this business there are no guarantees.”
Her eyes blazed. “What the hell are you talking about, guarantees? It’s not like you tried and failed. It’s like you didn’t do anything.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“How much do you think I owe you?”
“You don’t owe me a thing. Good luck with your vampire. I hope the next private eye you hire does better.”
She immediately began to backtrack. “Don’t be an old grouse,” she said. I wasn’t thrilled by the adjective. “It didn’t work last night. Now you know better. Now you’ll do better. I’m seeing Morris again tonight. Be there when he brings me home.”
Having graciously relented and allowed me another shot at vampire surveillance, the goth proceeded to launch into a lecture on how this time I shouldn’t fail.
There were a lot of things I could have said right then, but I’d have had to interrupt her. And nothing was going to help. I shut up and let her rant.
THE vampire was wearing a sports jacket. The fact that it threw me was rather unsettling. It meant I’d accepted the premise. That I was thinking it funny for a vampire to wear a sports jacket.
I was dressed differently, too, in a polo shirt and khaki pants. I had my hair parted on the other side and felt sheepish about it. It was as if I were wearing a disguise so the vampire wouldn’t recognize me. Leaving out the word vampire, it still seemed strange. In my line of detective work, a disguise is about the last thing I’d ever use. I tried to tell myself it’s not a wig or a mustache, just running a comb though my hair in the wrong direction, but I wasn’t buying it. Nothing was going to keep me from feeling like a fool.
I was positioned at the mouth of the alley, as opposed to the night before, when I’d been on the other side of the quad. If he went down the alley, he was mine. If he went anywhere else, I’d have time to follow.
After a lingering kiss, (no, his mouth did not venture anywhere near her neck), he turned and walked off as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
I followed him out of the quad at 116th Street, where he ignored the bus stop and subway station on the corner, instead crossing Broadway and looking uptown as if to hail a cab.
That was a problem. If I wanted to follow him, I’d have to hail a cab, too. If I crossed Broadway to get one, he’d see me. Which is why I didn’t do that. I stayed right where I was. I’d grab a cab going uptown, make him make a U-turn at 116th. I walked a few car lengths downtown, so when I hailed a cab he’d have room to get left and ma
ke the turn. There was nothing coming uptown at the moment, which concerned me. I looked to see how the vampire was doing.
That’s when I saw the other guy. He was crossing Broadway, just the way I said I shouldn’t, jaywalking to reach the north side of 116th, right in position to hail a cab.
Only he wasn’t looking for a cab. He was spying on the vampire, while pretending he wasn’t, looking to all intents and purposes exactly like I was afraid I’d look, and probably would have. He was an older man, older than the vampire, anyway, though probably not older than me. Nobody’s older than me these days. He had heavy beard stubble, like he hadn’t shaved that morning. If he had shaved that morning, he had very heavy beard stubble. He wore a gray suit and white shirt, open at the neck.
Cabs were coming, which was good news for them, bad news for me, as none were coming uptown. Which put me in the position of having to sprint across Broadway, hoping to finish a poor third.
The vampire hailed a cab. Now there’s a phrase I never expected to say. But he did, and as it pulled away from the curb, the heavy-bearded, fearless vampire tailer stepped out and hailed another.
I was about to make the mad dash across Broadway when a cab pulled out of a side street, and I hopped in. I was tempted to say, “Follow that vampire.” It was bad enough saying, “Follow that cab.”
“Make a U-turn right here, follow that guy getting into the cab across the street.”
The cabby was a stocky Hispanic in no mood for trouble. “Hey, buddy, what is this?”
I flashed my license. I felt foolish, as usual, which is why I seldom do it. “I’m a PI, it’s a boy-girl thing, no one’s getting hurt.”
The cabby wasn’t sold. “What’s your interest in this guy?”
“None. I’m interested in the guy he’s following.”
The cabby nearly twisted his head off turning to look at me. “What the hell?!”
“You want the fare or not?”
That settled it. The cabby started the meter, pulled out from the curb. He hung a U-turn at 116th Street, and away we went.
It didn’t take long to catch up. The vampire was tooling down Broadway, and his shadow was right on his tail. The guy was following way too close. If I’d been in the cab, I’d have made the cabby drop back. I made my cabby drop back and was a good half a block behind when the vampire’s cab signaled for a left turn.
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