by P. N. Elrod
“You okay?” I asked. A dumb question, but every opening can’t be clever.
The sobbing had diminished to irregular hiccups. She twisted around to see me.
“Remember me now? I’m one of the good guys.”
She shook her head in denial and struggled to find her feet. I let her go, being between her and the nearest exit, and stood up as well. She backed away to the opposite wall and turned to stare. There wasn’t much of a show to see, all I did was dust off my knees and straighten my hat.
“How’d you get here?” she asked, her voice thick.
“I talked to your cab driver and he told me where he dropped you. Your former landlord gave me your name. Mine’s Jack.”
“What do you want?”
“Only to talk. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She still wasn’t ready to believe me. She kept her back to the wall and walked crab-wise to the other door and slipped into the next room, hitting the light. I followed and watched her pace nervously around, her eyes on the floor.
“Looking for this?” I held up her automatic.
She stopped dead cold, her heart racing fit to break.
“Take it easy, darling. I’ll just keep it for the time being.” I made a business of returning it to my pocket. “Why did you try to shoot me?”
“I didn’t know … know that…”
“What? That I wasn’t Leadfoot Sam? Why are you afraid of him?”
“Because it’s stupid not to be.”
If I’d been sitting alone in the dark, scared shitless from listening to approaching footsteps, I might have done the same thing. I could handle someone like Sam, but Doreen didn’t have my unnatural advantages.
“It’s a nice little gun. Did Stan give it to you?”
“It’s mine.”
“This place, too?”
“Yeah—yes.”
A plain backdrop nailed to the ceiling covered one wall. Several different light stands were aimed at it. A stack of pillows cluttered the floor next to a dressing screen. Another closed door interrupted the rear wall. I checked it. The room beyond was a washroom converted to a darkroom, its single window made lightproof with a thick coat of black paint.
“Where’s your camera?”
She didn’t answer, but her eyes darted to her suitcase, which was parked by the pillows.
“What about your photos?”
“I don’t have any.”
“A photographer with no photos. C’mon, Doreen.”
“Look, you just get out of here.”
“It’s too late for that.” I circled around and shut the inner and outer doors.
She kept plenty of distance between us and ended up against the backdrop. A photo of her now would not be too flattering. Her carroty hair was in every direction and her clothes were thoroughly mussed about. Both knees on her stockings sported ladders. She became conscious of me looking at her and abruptly retreated to her purse to find a powder puff. While she repaired things, I brought two chairs from one side and set them down facing one another.
“Park it here, Doreen. It’s time for a heart-to-heart.”
She closed her compact with a decisive snap. “Is it?”
“Uh-huh. It’s either me, the cops, or Leadfoot Sam. Take your pick.”
She didn’t like any of the choices. “Who are you, then? Why are you here? I don’t know anything.”
“Have a seat and we’ll find out.”
Her jaw settled into firm defiance. The tears and panic were gone and she was ready to deal with me. She glared, waiting for my next move.
livery little bit helped.
It took longer than usual. She was on her guard and I didn’t want to overdo the pressure. This was different from the simple suggestions I’d shot at Butler and the hotel manager. A give-and-take conversation was more complicated, requiring greater subtlety and care on my part.
“You can relax, Doreen,” I whispered.
After a long, long moment the tension leached from her posture.
“No one’s going to hurt you.”
Her lips parted and her eyes went glassy.
“Relax …”
Her face softened as her lids drooped and closed. She was asleep on her feet and as vulnerable now as she ever would be. I could get the answers I needed. All I had to do was come up with the right questions and listen.
While I thought on where to start, I noticed her body as though for the first time—her long legs and crown of fluffy red hair. I became very aware of her beating heart and the blood surging through it. I recognized the feeling stirring within me, but this time its irresistible intensity was startling.
Hunger.
Or thirst.
For a vampire they’re much the same.
The red life I’d taken and exchanged with Bobbi was as deliriously fulfilling as any sex I’d ever experienced as a living man. The blood I drank from animals gave me the joy of pure energy and strength greater than I’d ever imagined. Now I was facing a combination of the two: to have human blood in quantity—and to take it from this woman.
The temptation was a very solid, thriving thing and much more difficult to put off than on other occasions when I’d faced it with Bobbi. I had always taken care with her and found it easy not to overindulge for fear of hurting her. The difference this time was the woman herself. She was a stranger to me, unimportant, nothing more than a small-time blackmailer and hustler.
Someone no one would miss.
Her scent filled my head. Human flesh, a trace of cheap perfume, salt from the dried tears on her face, and beneath them all, the bloodsmell. The rest were like bits of flotsam floating upon its deep river. I licked my lips, my tongue brushing against my lengthening canines. To drink from that dark river …
I caressed her neck with the backs of my fingers; first one side, then the other. Lightly. Softly. She was utterly fascinating. It was as though, turn in turn, she were hypnotizing me.
Eyes shut, she responded with a slight tremor and sigh. 1 knew well how to give pleasure. She would love me for what I was capable of giving and doing to her. Because of the influence I was exerting she would not be able to help herself.
My arms wrapped protectively around her, pulling her body close. She swayed and rested against me, her heart quickening. Her head went to one side, exposing the tender white column of her throat. I tasted it with a slow kiss. The big vein pulsed rapidly beneath my lips. My mouth yawned wide, my teeth gently brushing over the thin barrier of her skin. We were both trembling. The blood suddenly welled up, pouring through me like scarlet fire as the first shock of ecstasy took us.
She would love me and I would love her. I was loving her.
Her heart fluttered against my chest. Her breath was full and warm as it whispered over my neck.
I had wanted her, I was taking her, and she was loving it. I drank from her and drank deeply. She was an endless fountain of shimmering strength.
Not endless.
It didn’t matter. She clung to me; she didn’t want it to stop. Besides, no one need ever know.
No one but me.
Conscience invaded craving. They mixed, separated, and tore through my brain like summer lightning.
I would love her to death.
I drew back, as though it were part of our love dance. She sighed again, turning it into a protesting moan. Two threads of blood trickled down her neck from the wounds I’d made.
To death.
But no one need ever …
Teetering.
I wanted her badly, more than anything else I’d ever dreamed of wanting.
To death.
I backed off until we ceased to touch. It helped. It helped more to picture her limp and heavy in my arms, her skin gray, her heart silent. I had killed before, but not for this, not for the convenient satiation of hunger.
The room was heavy with bloodsmell. I forced air from my lungs and did not replace it. I backed off another step.
The fusing of desire and
appetite was nothing new and had conquered stronger men than myself. The absolute power I had over her— over anyone I wished—was an awful, frightening thing. I retreated from it, seizing on the quickest escape with a desperate will.
My body dissolved and floated free, tumbling a little from the inertia of its last faint movement. I remained in that state until the fever ebbed away and the grip of hunger eased and finally released me. Still, it was a very long time before I re-formed, and then only after I’d pushed far away from her. I drifted through the thin partitions of wood and lath until I stood in the outside hall of the building.
Air, icy cold and bitter, cut at my throat and lungs. I drew a second painful breath and a third. It was glorious. I felt like a swimmer unexpectedly breaking the surface after being sucked to the bottom of a whirlpool. My legs still shook, but eventually everything settled down as the world started spinning along its usual course.
I stood and stared at nothing, and tried not to feel what I was feeling.
I felt it, anyway.
Terror.
She could have died. I’d come that close to going over the edge with her. And I still wanted to finish what I’d started. My hunger was quiet, but not yet sated, and tugged at me to return to her.
Was it because of my changed condition, or had this always been within me? Was I a rapist or an animal fulfilling a physical need?
Or both?
I’d had lapses of temper and of sanity and had used them against people; I’d never before had such a lapse concerning hunger or had ever been so close to killing because of hunger. Until tonight I’d regarded myself as being a man with a condition that could be controlled—that was under control.
That safe and comfortable image was altered now, and I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. I only knew I was scared.
And inside me, her blood fused with my own.
She was standing in the same spot when I returned, her face closed and defenseless with sleep. I made myself look at her, to see all that she was, all that I’d nearly destroyed. Her name was Doreen. She had a right to feel and learn and love, to choose for herself. She had a right to live.
She was human. I was not.
I went to the darkroom and wet my handkerchief under the tap there and used it to clean her throat. The marks were small and hadn’t bled much. She might not notice them. I drew her collar up a bit, then touched her cheek, not with desire, but with a caring that had been missing before.
“Wake up, honey.”
Her eyes flickered open.
“You okay?” I wasn’t sure if she would remember anything.
She nodded. One hand came up to touch the spot on her neck where I’d kissed her, then fluttered away in confusion. “I think … I mean …”
I searched her face for the least sign of awareness of what had happened. The only thing I could see was puzzlement. I should have been relieved, but was just too emotionally hammered out to feel much of anything. Shoving my hands firmly in my coat pockets, I turned my back to her and took a few aimless steps. “There’s a bar down on the corner. You think it’s still open?”
“Yeah, it’ll be open.”
“I thought maybe I could buy you something.” It was half statement, half question.
She accepted the offer with relief and gratitude. It went double for me.
She wrapped up tight and we walked across the street to a place with no name that I had noticed. Socially, it was somewhere between the Top Hat and the Stumble Inn. I bought a couple drinks at the bar and carried them to a booth in the rear, where we sat opposite each other. She put half of hers away in one needy gulp and fell back to catch her breath.
“All right?” I asked.
“Yeah. It was getting pretty cold up there in the studio.”
“Cold?” I was worried about how much I’d taken from her.
“They practically turn the heat off at night. I guess the idea is to discourage tenants from doing what I was trying to do. They got ordinances against taking a flop in a joint zoned for office space.”
“You have no place else to go?”
“I figured it’d be okay for one night, then I could look for another hotel.”
“Tell me about Stan.”
Her face clouded and started to crumple. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
Our encounter must have left a few positive aftereffects somewhere in her mind. Either that or she really did want to talk. I kept my supernatural influences to myself and waited her out.
“It’s just—the stuff I’ve done …” Tears ran out of both eyes and she blindly pawed the contents of her purse.
I gave her a clean handkerchief. I usually carried an extra. “It’s all right, Doreen. I’ve seen a thing or two.”
She brought the snuffling under control and cleared her throat by draining the other half of her glass. “Stan was the one with the ideas,” she explained, finally jumping in.
“Like that fancy mirror in his room?”
“Yeah. He was already doing stuff, but only in a small way. He’d get love letters and use them—that kind of thing.”
“Rich girls?”
“Not rich. He wasn’t in that crowd, but he did go for ones that had money of their own and a reputation to keep. He could spot a spoiled brat looking for thrills a mile away, then move in and take them. He’d get enough money from them to live on, but not so much that they’d scream for a lawyer or cop. Stan was careful not to push too hard. If it looked like she’d kick up a fuss, he’d back off and find someone else easier to deal with.”
“How did you two get together?”
“He needed a photographer.”
“And … ?”
“He heard I did artistic photos, so he came around and asked if I was interested. He had everything all worked out about the hotel rooms. A place like the Boswell don’t have any kind of house man, so it was easy to set up. We just moved in and I started taking pictures.”
“He didn’t mind being photographed?”
She smiled crookedly. “No, he enjoyed it. When he wasn’t playing Prince Charming for the girls, he was just about the vainest creature on Ciod’s green earth. He used to flip through the prints I made, get himself pretty worked up …” She began to blush. I was glad that she could still do it.
I smiled wanly. “I know what it’s like, Doreen.”
“I guess we all do.”
“What happened with Kitty Donovan?”
“She was just another mark.”
“You get pictures of them together?”
“No. She liked her own place better. Stan never could get her into that hotel bed.”
I was happy to hear it. “Then why’d he stick with her?”
“Because of the people she knew. She was his ticket into the good places and the people with real money.”
“Like Marian Pierce’s crowd?”
“Yeah, she was part of it. Stan thought she was ripe for picking, except he couldn’t get past that crazy boyfriend of hers.” The smile melted away. “Oh, God, I can’t believe he’s gone.”
I was fresh out of handkerchiefs and gave her the drink I’d bought as window dressing. “You loved him?”
“I didn’t have any reason to, so I guess I did. That’d explain all this, wouldn’t it?” She gulped down a sob and got control again. “Look, would you tell me what happened to him? I couldn’t ask the cops.”
“And they didn’t tell you?”
“Why should they? I was listening while they were in Stan’s room. The way they were talking about him … I put it together that he was … was dead. I couldn’t say anything, either. I was afraid they’d take me in if they found out about the racket we had going. It was horrible.”
And what I had to tell her was no comfort. I kept it short. “Stan was killed at Kitty Donovan’s place. Someone knocked him out and stabbed him. It was quick. He wouldn’t have felt much.”
She put her head down in her hands, moaning. I left the table to
get another drink.
“Trouble?” asked the bartender.
“Death in the family.”
He was sympathetic and pushed my money away. “On the house.”
“Thanks.”
“After this one, get her home, make her sleep.”
“You know her?”
“She’s been in a few times for a beer. She won’t be used to the hard stuff. It’ll hit her like a brick pretty soon.”
“I’ll watch out.” I went back to the booth. “Doreen?”
She raised her head with difficulty and blew her nose into the sodden linen. “I’m … I’ll be all right.”
“Sure you will.”
“Do the cops know who did it? Do they know why?”
“They’re looking for Kitty.”
“That little girl scout? She couldn’t do anything like that.”
“I don’t think she did. You knew him. Who wanted to kill him?”
She shook her head and kept on shaking it. “Leadfoot Sam, maybe. Stan owed him a bundle. That’s why I got out while I could. I didn’t want him learning about me and Stan or he’d try and muscle it out of me. I don’t have that kind of money, but he wouldn’t believe that.”
“I talked with Sam earlier.”
“You …” she blinked against the tears with surprise.
I made a calming gesture. “He’s not so tough once you learn how to handle him. Anyway, he doesn’t know what’s happened and I figure that that’s the truth. He can’t collect money from a dead man, so he’s not really a suspect with me. Can’t you think of anyone else? One of your clients?”
“Jeez, I just don’t know. There were plenty of ’em sore as hell or hurt or embarrassed, but not enough to kill. He was careful, I said.”
“Did he ever call one in?”
“What’d’ya mean?”
“The photos, did he ever use one and blow things for the girl?”
She was genuinely astonished. “Not that I know of. He only threat-
ened, it wouldn’t do him any good to push it that far. He’d just hold it over their heads. They’d either call his bluff or pay off. Almost all of them paid off. He knew how to pick and choose. If they didn’t pay, he’d just let it go and find someone else to work on.”
