by P. N. Elrod
Oozing through the back door, I found my way to the lobby, kept out of view of the front windows, and got Phil’s attention by waving at the night clerk. He crossed over casually.
“How’d you get in? The back’s locked.”
“Better check it, then. Any sign of Braxton?”
“He ain’t in the car?”
“I had a look. It’s some private dick on a divorce case.”
“Then I ain’t seen him.”
“I guess that’s all right, as long as they leave Miss Smythe alone.”
“It doesn’t mean they stopped lookin’ for you, though.”
“Yeah, but I’m being careful.” We went to the back door, which I had unlocked once inside. Phil let me out and locked it again.
After five minutes of studying the street I tentatively decided that my Buick was unobserved. I was back to feeling paranoid again and went as far as checking it for trip wires and sticks of dynamite. Bombs were an unlikely tool for Braxton, but then why take chances?
The car was okay and even started up smoothly. There was little time left to get to the broadcast, but the god of traffic signals was with me and I breezed through the streets as quickly as the other cars would allow. Bobbi had left instructions with the staff about me, and as soon as I was identified, a brass-buttoned usher gave me an aisle seat with the rest of the studio audience.
The room was smaller than I’d expected, roughly divided between audience and performers, with only slightly more space given over to the latter. There was a glassed-in control booth to one side filled with too many people who didn’t seem to be doing much of anything at the moment. Bobbi was on the stage, looking outwardly calm. She was seated with a half dozen other people on folding chairs, all of them dressed to the nines, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense for a radio show. Across from them a small band was tuning up, and in between, seated at a baby grand, was Marza Chevreaux, flipping through some sheet music.
I caught Bobbi’s eye and gave her a smile and a thumbs-up signal. She smiled back, her face breaking composure to light up with excitement. She was in her element and loving it.
A little guy with slicked-back hair and an oversized bow tie stepped up to a microphone the size of a pineapple. Someone in the booth gave him the go-ahead, he signed to the band, and they started up the fanfare of the show. For a minute I thought the little guy was Eddie Cantor, but his voice was different as was his style of cracking jokes. A studio worker in an open vest and rolled-up shirtsleeves held up big cards printed with instructions telling us when to clap or laugh. The audience liked the comedian, though, and hardly needed the prompting.
A deep-voiced announcer stepped in to warn us against the dangers of inferior tires, then the band came up again, and Bobbi was given a flowery introduction. She was standing and ready at the mike. Marza got her signal from a guy in the booth, and they swung into a fast-paced novelty number. It was one of those oddball songs that gets popular for a few weeks and then you never hear of it again, about a guy who was like a train and the singer was determined to catch him. Off to one side, a sound-effects man came in on cue with the appropriate whistles and bells. Before I knew it I was applauding with the rest of the audience and Bobbi was taking her bows. She’d gone over in a big way and they wanted more.
When the noise died down the comedian joined her, and they read from a script a few jokes about trains the song had missed. The tire man came on after them with his stern voice of doom, and that was when someone poked me in the ribs from behind.
Braxton had turned up another gun and was hunched over me with it concealed in a folded newspaper.
“Stand up and walk into the hall,” he told me quietly.
He was damned right that I’d do what he wanted. We were in a vulnerable crowd, and all I wanted was to get him alone outside for just two seconds. Showing resignation, I got up slowly and preceded him. The usher opened the door, his attention on the stage. He must have really liked tire ads.
The hall was empty except for Matheus, who was clutching his cross and looking ready to spook off. Braxton had done quite a job on him.
“I give,” I said. “How’d you find me this time?”
Braxton was smug. “We didn’t have to. We’ve been waiting. Last night you said Miss Smythe was going to be in a broadcast. I merely called around to find out which station and when. There was a risk you wouldn’t show, but it all worked out.”
If he expected me to pat him on the back for smarts, he’d have a long wait. “Okay, now what? You gonna bump me off ten feet away from a hundred witnesses? The wall between isn’t that soundproof.”
He hadn’t picked up on the fact that I wasn’t as afraid of him and his silver bullets as I’d been last night. The gun moved a degree or two left. “In there, and slowly.” He indicated a washroom across the hall.
“That’ll be some headline,” I grumbled, “ ‘Journalist Found Dead in Men’s Room; Police Suspect Lone Ranger.’ Matheus, you better stay out here, this could be messy.”
“Shut up.”
“Have some heart, Braxton, you don’t want the kid to see this. Save him some nightmares.”
The elevator opened at the far end of the hall and a man in a long overcoat got out. He noticed our group, looked at his watch, and walked away, turning a corner. He was just part of the background to me, but he made Braxton nervous. He was suddenly aware of the openness of the hall and didn’t like it.
“Move,” he hissed. “Now.”
I looked past him to Matheus. Our eyes locked for an instant. It was long enough. “Stay out here, kid.”
His expression did not change, nor did his posture, but I knew I’d reached him. He stood very still.
Braxton saw this exchange and his eyebrows went up, adding more lines to his dry, scored forehead. The gun wavered as he tried to decide whether to snap the kid out of my suggestion or shoot me outright. I saved him the trouble; when he came a half step closer and tried to urge me backward, I shifted my weight as though to comply and turned it into a lunge. It was faster, literally faster, than he could see and much faster than he could react.
The gun was now in my pocket, and he was staring at his empty hand as unhappy as any kid whose toy had been taken away. He looked up at me and thought he saw the grim reaper and made an abortive attempt to run, but I grabbed two fistfuls of his clothes and swung him around against the wall. His mouth opened and sound started to come out, but I smothered it with one hand.
Far down the hall I heard approaching footsteps. It was too public here, so I adopted his plan and dragged him to the men’s room. The door swung shut and I rammed a foot against its lower edge to keep people out.
He was trying to struggle, his body bucking ineffectually against my hold. He was finally getting a clear idea of just how strong a vampire can be at night, with all his powers.
“Hold still or I’ll break your neck,” I said, and perhaps I meant it. He subsided, his eyes squeezed shut. From the pressure of his jaw, he was trying to hold his chin down. I was hungry, but not that hungry. It’d be a cold day in hell before I’d touch his blood.
His breath was labored, the moist air from his nose blowing out hard over my knuckles, and his heart raced fit to break. He needed to be calmer and so did I. Emotions, the kind of violent ones he stirred up in me, would only do him harm. I sucked in a deep lungful of air and let it out slowly, counting to ten. Outside someone walked past, the same steps that had chased us in here. They paused slightly, then went on, fading.
His eyes turned briefly on me, then squeezed shut again. He had an idea of what I was trying to do and was on guard. It might be too difficult to break through to him without doing permanent harm. I shifted my grip and his eyes instinctively opened.
“Braxton, I won’t hurt you, just listen to me.”
He made a protesting sound deep in his throat. My hand relaxed enough over his mouth so he could speak.
“Unclean leech—”
“Listen to me.”
/>
“Damned, you’re—”
“Braxton.”
“—damned to—”
“Listen to me.”
His muscles went slack, his lungs changing rhythm slightly. I’d gotten to him, but had to ease up.
“That’s it, just calm down, I only want to talk.”
He looked up in a kind of despair, like a drowning man whose strength has gone and knows you won’t make it to him in time.
“Everything’s all right. . . .”
I didn’t understand how it worked any more than I understood the mechanics of vanishing at will, but I had the ability and now the need. My conscience was kicking up, but beyond moving to another state or killing him, there seemed no other practical way of getting rid of him.
“Everything’s fine, we’re just going to talk. . . .”
Without any more fuss, he slipped under my control. I relaxed and opened my cramped hands. His eyes were glassy rather than vacant.
“Braxton?”
“Yes?” It was the quiet voice this time, the reasonable one he’d used at my parents’ house.
“Where is Maureen Dumont?”
“I don’t know.”
I was disappointed, but not surprised. “When did you meet her?”
“Years ago, long time.”
“When? What year?”
“I was twenty-five or -six.” He struggled to remember. “I opened the store in 1908, she would come and buy books and talk. She was so beautiful. . . .” His voice was softer with the memory. “She would talk with me. I dreamed about her. She was so beautiful.”
What had he been like back then? The brittle body might have once been wiry, the seamed face once smooth. There had been a firm chin and dark eyes and skin; yes, to a woman he might have been handsome back then.
“Were you her lover?” I had to keep from touching him or he’d shake off the trance. Jealousy was foaming up inside; I couldn’t lose emotional control of myself.
“I loved her. She was so—”
“Were you her lover?” Stay steady.
His eyes were wide, blind, searching inward for an answer. “I . . . don’t know.”
“What do you mean? How can you not know?”
“I was, in my dreams. I loved her at night in my dreams. She would kiss me.” One of his hands stole up to his neck. “She would kiss me. God, oh my God . . .”
I turned away. I never meant to hear this. “Stop.”
He became quiet, waiting and unaware while I mastered myself. There was no point in hating him, no point in condemning Maureen; not for something that had happened nearly thirty years ago. She’d loved Barrett and Braxton and then me. Were there others? Had she indeed loved me?
“Braxton . . . did you take . . . did you ever kiss her in the same way?”
“No.”
It was something.
“She wouldn’t let me.”
Oh, Maureen. Yes, it was something. He hadn’t been that important to her. She’d been lonely and needed someone to hold and touch, if only in his dreams. That was it and that was all.
“When did you last see her?”
“Which time?”
I made a guess. “The first?”
“A year after we met. She never said good-bye; the dreams just stopped, I forgot them. But she came back.”
“When?”
“Twenty years later? Twenty-two? One night she walked into the shop. I knew her instantly and I remembered it all. She hadn’t changed, not aged a single day, but I—she didn’t know me, not until I said her name. I was frightened, I knew what she was, what she had done to me and what I would become unless—” He relived his fear quietly, the only outward sign of the inner turmoil was the sweat that broke out on his face. His heart was racing.
“Unless what?”
“I wouldn’t be like her, feeding on the living, sucking men’s souls from them. If I killed her first, then I would be free. I could die free of her curse. I began to hunt her.”
“When? What year?”
“In 1931.”
So this was the man. She’d run from him, leaving me standing in an empty room, a scribbled good-bye note in one hand and the life draining from my eyes. Five years of hurt, doubt, anger, and fear because this foolish man thought she wanted his soul instead of the warmth of his body when he was young.
“Did you find her?”
“No, but I found out about you. I knew what she’d done to you, but if I tried to help, you wouldn’t have believed me. Your only hope was the same as mine—to kill her—but then you died first and now you’re one of them. I’m sorry I couldn’t have saved you.”
It was pointless trying to explain it to him. Whether Maureen lived or died didn’t matter; we’d exchanged blood, and hoped. She’d loved me, and had expressed it by giving me a chance for a life beyond life so we would always be together. But then something had gone wrong.
“Do you know what happened to her? Do you know where she is?”
“No.”
“Are you the only one? Are there others hunting her?”
“Matheus, he believed me, he knows.”
“Who else?”
“I don’t . . . the old woman, she must know.”
“Gaylen? The old woman here?”
“Yes. She knows something, she knew back then—”
“What do you mean?”
Something bumped against the door.
“I asked, but she wouldn’t—”
Bump. “Hey, open up.” A vaguely familiar voice, but not Matheus.
“—tell me. She wanted—”
“Come on out, Fleming.”
“—life to live—”
“The kid says you’re in there.”
“Cheated. She was sick—”
“Who was? Of what?” The other voice was distracting, and I was losing the thread of Braxton’s talk.
“—strong . . . frightening. I told her my story, but it was you she—”
“Fleming, it’s now or I scrag the kid.”
What the hell? I yanked the door. He was in a long coat, which changed him enough from the last time, so from a distance he was unrecognizable when he stepped off the elevator, looked at his watch, and walked away. A long coat, which was all wrong because it was only mid-September and still mild. But he wore it because that made it easy to walk into a building with a sawed-off shotgun concealed under it. He shouldn’t have been here, he was supposed to be in a parked Ford waiting for Mrs. Blatski.
Malcolm grinned at my surprise, his dimples nice and deep, and without any more expression or warning he pulled first one trigger, then the other, emptying both barrels into the open doorway.
9
I was on the tile floor. It smelled of soap, cordite, burned fiber, and blood.
The impact of the blast had thrown me back against a washbasin, which altered the angle of fall and twisted me facedown. The agony of the shot passing through my body left me stunned as few things could. I fought to hold on to sanity and solidity. It was several long seconds before my shivering, jerking limbs recovered enough control to stand.
The door still hung open, and the air was thick with blue smoke. Ten seconds to find my feet, five more to stagger to the hall, but it was long enough. Malcolm was gone.
So was Braxton. He was on his back and not moving. The shot had all but cut his slight body in two. His blood flooded the black-and-white tiles. His face was calm and dreamy. Death had come so fast there’d been no time to react.
Matheus was on his side in the hall, one hand still clutching his cross. A smear of blood was over his right eye and a crimson thread flowed from it into his hair. Still alive.
The studio door opened. There was no time to explain, I vanished before anyone saw me, and sank down through the floors, hoping to reach the ground ahead of Malcolm. A few people were standing in the main lobby of the building. I took the risk of re-forming, but no one noticed; they were looking out the front doors. I pushed past and went outside. N
o Ford in sight, but there was a man running away, his long coat flapping. My legs gobbled up his fifty-yard lead and I hauled him up short and spun him around.
Watery eyes, a three-day beard, no chin, stinking of booze and sweat, he wore Malcolm’s coat or one just like it.
“Easy, Captain!” he wheezed.
“Where is he? Where’s the blond man?”
“Did what he said, was it good? I get another two bits if it’s good. Was it good?”
“What’d he tell you to do?”
“Wait on the stairs ’n run, Captain. Lizzen fer the bang ’n run. Good joke, huh? Was it good?”
It was good, it bought Malcolm enough time to get out another way while I chased down the wino. I ran back to the lobby. The doorman was the first official-looking type, so I collared him, said there’d been an accident at the studio and to call an ambulance, then raced upstairs to look for Malcolm. It was a poor chance at best, he’d be gone by now.
The studio hall was in a mess. Men were peering into the washroom, and a small knot had formed around Matheus. Some woman was crying and another man was holding her. The stage was empty except for the chairs and piano. Crossing the divider between it and the audience, I was stopped by the man in shirtsleeves. He gaped at my shredded clothes.
“Sorry, you have to stay out.”
“I’m with Bobbi Smythe, she was on tonight.”
“She’ll be backstage, but—”
The backstage door opened to a hall full of people all looking at me, questions on their troubled faces.
“Where’s Bobbi Smythe?” I asked no one in particular.
“I think she left,” a woman suggested.
“When?”
“She was here just a minute ago,” someone else said.
There was another set of washrooms down the hall. I opened up the ladies’ and called for Bobbi and Marza. No one answered.
“They must have taken the back elevator,” the woman told me.
That was down the hall and around the corner, with more people in the way.
“What the hell happened?”
“I heard an explosion.”
“Was it a bomb?”
