The Vampire Chase

by Stephen Mertz

  “I thought I was tying you down, Laura. I’m not so sure now if I was, but that’s all past now anyway, isn’t it?’

  “I could have been so happy with you, Steve,” she said. “I wanted to be your woman so bad.”

  “Does Jeremy know about us?”

  “No. Past lovers are something we don’t talk about, It’s a mutual agreement.”

  “I hear he likes to play rough sometimes.”

  “He’s a complicated man. What was that hassle in the dressing room about, Steve?”

  “What did Jeremy say it was about? He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”

  “Worried about a girl in Cleveland? What about the mutual agreement?”

  She began to say something in anger, then caught herself.'

  “Why don’t we just stay away from each other, alright? You know too much about me. You know where all the weak spots are. You messed up my life once, Steve. And once was enough.”

  “I’m here on a job, Laura,” he told her. “I’ll see that it stays that way.”

  They both picked up the movement of someone approaching. Lee Brocchi and Jeremy Bates were crossing the room toward them.

  The party had picked up steam. Late arrivals were still pouring in. At the far side of the room Madison could see Keith Terrance and Mick Adamson. They were standing side by side, fielding questions from a local reporter. Withouthis makeup, Terrance looked like a huge, relaxed bear. Adamson didn’t seem as wired as at the gig. He was drinking a soda. Connie Frazer was with a group of people standing nearby. She seemed to have that front covered.

  Jeremy Bates, sans makeup, was as mild and friendly as before.

  “How’d you like the show?” he asked Madison as he and Brocchi came up. He slid an arm around Laura’s waist, drawing her to him possessively. “Is this the first time you’ve seen the band play?”

  “Pretty good, and yes,” said Madison. “That’s some powerful material. Who writes your stuff?”

  “We all do, in a way. I supply the rhythms and melodies, and Mick and Keith come up with the words.”

  “I hate to say this, but you don’t exactly come across as the satanic type, Jeremy.”

  Laura said, “The occult stuff is all Mick and Keith’s. They’re into that trip real heavy. But they needed music for their lyrics.”

  Brocchi joined the conversation.

  “They ran into Jeremy and he came up with all the right sounds,” he said with a trace of pride. “The group clicked, and people are hot for them, so Jeremy’s riding it out.”

  “But I’m not about to start attending any black masses,” Jeremy laughed. “Straight religion is scary enough for me. As far as Satanism goes, I’m blissfully ignorant.”

  How about you?” Laura asked Madison.

  “Just for the dollar sign.” He replied.

  “Hell, aren’t we all? I came in with Jeremy. I mother-henned the last bunch of rowdies he was with.” He looked at Jeremy as if provoking another round in a longstanding argument. “But those rowdies were a helluva lot easier to take than these loonies.”

  Jeremy laughed.

  “And the paycheck was a helluva lot smaller.” He gave his wife a lover’s hug. “Come on, babe. Let’s go hunt up some drinks.”

  They moved off down the table. Madison’s eyes followed them.

  “He must soothe over a lot of hassles with that smile,” he said.

  “I have some soothing over to do myself,” said Brocchi. He’d lost all the hard coldness that Madison had run up against in the dressing room. “I guess I over-reacted earlier tonight. Things get crazy right before a gig. The band told me to keep everyone out. I guess I should have made an exception in your case.”

  “Forget it. I was a little hyper, myself.”

  Brocchi’s face clouded. “Now I hope you can straighten things out with Keith,” he said. “Sometimes that boy comes on too damn strong for his own good.”

  Madison did a quick visual pan of the still growing party. Some more girls had arrived. Groupies, all arched breasts, provocative smiles and plenty of leg. Three of them had latched onto Keith. The drummer was in his glory. He was a good-looking guy without the stage makeup. Heavy on the brawn, hold the brains. The girls thought he was terrific.

  Mick Adamson was standing in a group that included record execs and Connie Frazer. Madison caught Connie’s eye from across the room, and she nodded slightly.

  He looked at Brocchi. “Terrance said something about using a knife on me. Anything to it?”

  “He’s a brawler,” said Brocchi. “He and Mick grew up together—tough. They became rock stars, but they still like to bust heads. We can’t work Dallas anymore because Keith decked a cop the last time they played there. Just go easy around him. Everything’ll be cool.”

  “Right. I’ll try to behave myself.”

  You could feel Brocchi’s body temperature begin to drop. Some of the hardness was coming back.

  “Who are you?’ he growled. “You don’t kiss ass enough to be a promo man, and you ask too many questions. What are you doing, setting one of us up for a bust?”

  Movement caught the corner of Madison’s eye. It was Keith Terrance. The drummer was heading toward the exit and he had depleted the groupie’s ranks by one. He had his arm around a willowy blonde girl, and they weren’t wasting any time.

  Madison started after them. He hadn’t expected things to click this fast.

  “Have Arn explain it,” he said to Brocchi. “If you haven’t figured it out already.”

  Brocchi looked like he was going to follow at first, but Shapiro’s name started him thinking. Across the room, Terrance and his new girlfriend disappeared through the exit. Laughing, yapping people with drinks blocked Madison’s way. By the time he reached the exit, Connie Frazier was there waiting for him.

  “You’re leaving me with my hands full,” she whispered, not frantic but getting there.

  “Just do your best to keep track of everyone,” said Madison. “If Brocchi starts asking questions, you don’t know anything. Have him call Arn.”

  “Steve, maybe you should call the police.”

  “Why? Because Keith Terrance picked up a groupie? Look, what’s the next stop on the tour?”

  “Kansas City.”

  “Okay. If you haven’t heard from me by tomorrow night, you get in touch with Arn, too.”

  Her breasts lifted as she caught her breath. That sensuous lower lip trembled, only it wasn’t passion. It was worry. “What should I tell him? Where will you be?’

  Madison started past her, out the door. “Missing in action,” he said.

  He regretted the words as soon as they came out. It was intended to bring a laugh, but it only brought a wince and more worry. He wanted to say some more but there was no time. Down the hallway he could make out Keith Terrance and the girl crossing the lobby toward the street entrance.

  Madison left the dining room and followed them into the night.

  5

  Keith Terrance and his lady friend caught a cab from the line in front of the hotel. Steve Madison waited until they were halfway down the block. Then he left the front entrance and grabbed the next cab in line.

  “Follow the cab that just took off,” he instructed the driver.

  The driver was a college age kid with round glasses, acne and wild hair down to his shoulders.

  “You’re kidding. What is this, a movie?”

  Terrance’s cab was pulling onto Michigan, heading north. Madison drew out his wallet and flashed a twenty under the kid’s nose.

  “Lights, camera, action,” he said. “You’re losing them.”

  The cab slipped into gear and pulled away from the curb. Traffic was light. By the time Terrance’s cab had merged with the northbound flow on Lake Shore Drive, Madison’s driver had fallen in behind at a comfortable distance. Madison settled back in his seat. His knowledge of Chicago’s layout was sketchy and mostly limited to the Loop. After some two miles the first taxi cut west and after two more
turns Madison gave up trying to keep track of where they were.

  Terrance had his driver pull up at midblock on a dark, treelined residential street and he and the blonde disembarked. The summer night was still; the sounds of the city muffled and distant. Madison’s driver parked a half-block back and killed his lights.

  Up ahead, the first cab pulled away. Terrance and the girl followed the short walk up to the house. The taxi ride hadn’t cooled them down any. They were all over each other even as they walked, their shadows becoming one as they stood on the stoop while the lady looked for her key.

  Madison gave his driver the twenty and started to slide out.

  “I’ll take it from here. Thanks.”

  The boy seemed strangely reluctant to take the tip. He sized Madison up one last time, then reached over the seat, proffering a thickly rolled joint.

  “Not that this is a regular service of the company or anything,” he grinned, “but if that’s your old lady maybe you’d better cool down a little first. I hate to see people get in trouble.”

  Madison slammed the door after him.

  “And I always thought Chicago was an unfriendly town. Don’t worry, I’m just going to watch.”

  The joint disappeared.

  “Oh. A kinko, huh?”

  The lights came on and the cab pulled away from the curb.

  Madison started toward the house into which Terrance and the blonde had disappeared. His footsteps echoed on the sidewalk. Incongruously, thoughts and images of Colorado came to his mind—packing a sleeping bag and a week’s provisions and riding up above the timberline. The city was as foreign to Madison as Vietnam had been. And he would have to be every bit as cautious in this jungle as he had been in that one. He pushed the images of home from his consciousness.

  It was an old neighborhood. The houses that lined both sides-on the street, each of them less than ten feet from the other, were bulky, dark shadows in the gloom. The hour was late. The street slept.

  Unlike the houses on either side of it, the one into which Terrance had gone was a one-story structure.

  As Madison approached, a light went on midway back. A narrow, paved walkway led between this house and the one next to it, leading directly beneath the square of illumination. The house next door was as silent and asleep as all the others on the block and Madison hoped it would stay that way. It would be hell to be dragged in as a peeping tom.

  He moved toward the window. The ledge was even with his line of vision. The bottom of the shade stopped a half inch short of the sill and while Madison couldn’t see much, he could see the old wrought iron bed and the area around it, and that was enough. The window was open a crack and he could hear too.

  Keith Terrance had just flung himself onto his back on the bed. He was grinning in anticipation and reaching out with both arms.

  “Come on, baby. Let’s get down. It’s late and I’ll be gone on the ten o’clock flight.”

  That was Terrance. Simple and direct. And the girl thought it was great. Her laughter was stoned and musical.

  “Don’t be in too much of a hurry, daddy. Half the fun is getting there. I enjoyed your show tonight. Tell me what you think of mine.”

  That was the kind of invitation that Madison always had a hard time refusing. He shifted slightly, and his narrow line of vision took in the girl. He hadn’t paid much attention to her until now. But then, the show was just getting started.

  She was a big, healthy girl with a wholesome sexuality that is rare among backstage ladies. And there wasn’t an ounce of misplaced flesh anywhere. She crossed her arms and pulled off her blouse, mussing her full blonde hair. She wore no bra and firm, hard-nippled breasts bounced and quivered with newfound freedom. All the time her hips were swaying back and forth as if she could still hear The Screaming Tree’s music. She latched her thumbs in the waists of the slacks and pushed them down. The panties went with them.

  Nude, glorious and willing, she approached the bed.

  Right about now, Madison’s conscience was beginning to bother him. He was enough of an old-time romantic to want to leave the two of them alone to their joy of sex. He had seen some skin of a very foxy lady, he was man enough to enjoy it and honest enough to admit that, but now there was a strong wish to walk until he hit a main stem and catch a cab back downtown.

  But there was the job. He thought about that as the girl began undressing Terrance. The drummer was running idle fingers through her hair as she worked off his clothes. There was a smugness to his smile that the happy girl couldn’t see as she labored.

  It seemed to be stretching things a bit to expect the nut in the band—if there was one—to strike again so soon after killing the girl in Cleveland. He’d hit four times in the last year all over the globe and while that was a busy enough schedule, it seemed against the law of averages he’d decide to play Count Dracula twice in only three evenings.

  Still, the murder in Cleveland had been a sex crime and there’d been no sign of a struggle. The girl in Cleveland had been getting it on with someone in the band just as the blonde girl was now.

  He brought his eyes back to the action on the bed. She was just unbuckling Terrance’s belt.

  The doorbell rang.

  Keith Terrance growled something about who the fuck could it be at this hour—and was answered as the person out on the front porch gave up on the bell and started pounding hell out of the door.

  “Keith! Keith, open-up for Chrissake! I think you’re being set up for a bust. Come on!”

  It was Lee Brocchi’s voice. He didn’t seem to care if anyone in the neighborhood should wake up and hear him.

  The blonde girl went to a closet and came back with a robe which she wrapped around those nice curves. Keith Terrance re-buckled his belt and pushed himself to his feet, his face a mask of anger.

  “Keep it warm, Baby. I’ll be right back.”

  He launched into a stream of fresh obscenities as he stomped from the bedroom. Brocchi resumed pounding louder than before, not sure if he’d been heard._

  Madison left the window and moved softly back toward the front of the house. He must have kept perfect time with Terrance. He peered around the corner of the wall just as the front door was yanked open.

  “Brocchi, what the goddamn hell—”

  The bodyguard’s manner was brisk and efficient. “Get your clothes on,” he said hurriedly. “We’re getting the hell out of here.”

  “The hell we are. Not with the nice piece of ass I got waiting for me back there. What are you on, man?”

  “I’m a helluva lot straighter than you are,” snapped Brocchi. “And think about your own ass for a change. Now do what I tell you and move!

  The drummer was starting to buy that something was really wrong.

  “What’re you talking about a bust?”

  Brocchi touched the guy’s arm and started easing him back inside.

  “I’ll tell you about it while you get yourself together,” he said.

  The front door closed behind them, blocking out the rest of their conversation. Madison looked out into the street. A taxi cab sat at the curb in front of the house, its motor idling. He turned and started back toward the window. Things were starting to happen now. It was that stage of an assignment where it was all you could do to hold on and see where people and events would take you. He’d turned up the heat and stirred and yes, things were beginning to cook.

  They stopped cooking abruptly.

  He’d been too single-minded, he realized later. Too damn intent on the happenings within that house to be as careful as he should have been out there in the darkness where the jungle was deadliest.

  He heard the blow before it struck. He knew in that last instant of thought that someone had come from the shadows of that other house.

  Now that the knowledge registered—it was useless.

  The violent blow slammed him behind his right ear and he knew nothing else. His body pitched to the walk. His mind exploded into unconsciousness...
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br />   The first thing he saw upon regaining consciousness were the two wide blue eyes staring back into his own. Awareness returned slowly by degrees and with awareness came pain. A dull, throbbing ache at first, then blistering needles all over but centered primarily between the temples.

  The blue eyes didn’t blink, didn’t move.

  They were less than twelve inches from his own. The fact that they did nothing but stare, told Madison intuitively that they belonged to a corpse.

  He realized that he was lying on a bare wood floor, on his right side. The corpse had been stretched out alongside him, facing him.

  He sat up.

  It was the blonde girl.

  He was too groggy and nauseous to be shocked. The room around him tilted but didn’t go into a spin. He dropped his head forward and it cleared. This was the girl’s bedroom. He recognized the wrought iron bed. A clutter on the table alongside the bed caught his eye: a bent spoon, candle, vials— a whole kit for shooting smack. Mutli-colored pills were scattered all over the place: on the table, the bed, across the floor, everywhere.

  He groaned and reached for his gun. It was still there under his jacket. That was enough for now. He left it holstered and tried to set his mind in order. Impressions of movement while he’d been unconscious drifted to him like vague memories of a mostly forgotten dream. He didn’t know how long he’d been out. He glanced at the window. It was still night.

  Then he knew what had pulled him around again.

  Somebody was pounding at the front door. The officious, authoritative rapping of someone who wanted in and wasn’t about to wait much longer.

  Through the narrow crack of the open bedroom window, through the stillness of early morning, came the static crackle of a police car radio. Then the sound of footfalls on the sidewalk between the houses. Heading for the back, trying to keep quiet. Moving fast.

  Madison climbed to his feet. His eyes returned to the girl. Deep purple bruises circled her throat. You could still make out the fingermarks. Someone had choked her and smashed her head against the hard, wooden floor. The back of her head was a pulpy mess.

  He turned and stepped into the narrow hallway that ran the length of the house. Someone was kicking at the front door now, just above the lock, trying to smash it in. Madison pulled out the .44 and threw a round at the door, aiming high. The report blasted the confines of the hall like a baby howitzer and a jagged hole the diameter of a good-sized punched itself through the thick slab of wood inches above head level.