The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  “No.”

  “ ’ S’funny, ’cause I’m getting a cop smell off you.”

  I showed him an old press card and covered up the name with my thumb. “I’m a reporter. Is that close enough to cop to get the smells mixed?”

  He didn’t like it, but was still too curious to throw me out. “How about telling me what your interest is in Sam McAlister?”

  “He’s a friend of a friend.”

  Sam shook his head, his narrow shoulders slumped tragically. “Aw, that’s not nice, Russell. You come down here, drink my booze, and then fib. Shame on you.”

  “That’s the best I can do unless there’s something in it for me.”

  “What’d’ya have in mind?”

  “Information on McAlister and Doreen Grey.”

  “Gonna write a big story and name names?”

  “Nah, I just want to help some kid out of a jam.”

  It was the truth, but he didn’t want to believe it. “Ever think that you might be in a jam?” His gaze flicked to Butler, who was still looming somewhere in the back.

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  That was a barrel of monkeys to both of them. I smiled, too, just to show them I was a good sport. I was still smiling when Butler appeared behind me, gripped the seat of the chair, and steadily lifted it and me to the ceiling.

  ”You sure about what you can handle?” asked Sam.

  Butler bumped the chair up and down a few times so that my head brushed a ventilator conduit.

  I couldn’t help but smile again. “You should rent him out to carnivals. He’d make a great ride.”

  Sam nodded once, Butler grunted acknowledgment and without further ceremony, threw me and the chair across the room.

  4

  I’D been more or less ready for that one and went partially incorporeal the second he released me. Semitransparent and considerably lighter in weight and mass, I was able to twist around and gain control of my fall. The arrested spin wouldn’t look natural, but I was banking on the visual confusion of my blurred movement to cover up the stunt. The bad light shining in their eyes would help.

  The chair clattered as it hit first and skidded out of the way. When my feet swung under me I went solid again and landed upright on the concrete floor with only a mild jolt. My hand flailed and struck the far wall as I recovered balance, but it was much better than having my whole body smash into it.

  As though nothing unusual had happened, I made a calm business of straightening my clothes. Under all the show, I was plenty mad and needed the time to cool down before turning to look at them.

  Leadfoot Sam and Butler were rooted in place and openly gaping. Sam’s fingers splayed out flat on the table in preparation to jump in any given direction. When I didn’t move, he groped blindly for the bottle and drained away a healthy amount with a desperate swallow. It was terrible stuff; his eyes began to water. Butler came around the table, his mouth still open, and he studied me good and hard. His shaven head swiveled back to Sam.

  “Did you see … ?”

  Sam had no answer. Both of them had touched something totally outside their experience. When the world gives you that kind of a lurch it’s hard to know what to do. Alter a long, long moment, silent except for their harsh breathing and thundering hearts, Sam gave out with a brief laugh. It sounded nervous and artificial compared with his previous efforts. Whatever control he thought he had of the situation was lost, and that sick little exhalation was his response to the painful truth.

  I came forward and loomed over the table. Sam sat back in his chair, unconsciously putting distance between us.

  “Tell Butler to take a break,” I said. I used no influence on him; it wasn’t necessary.

  “Yeah.” Not an answer or a question, the word came out of him all on its own, a meaningless sound. The jokes and threats were gone now. He was afraid.

  Butler sensed it and didn’t want to move. I fixed on his eyes and told him to relax. Some of the sap went out of him. Without further hesitation, he turned and trudged up the spiral stairs. Somewhere above a door closed, leaving me and Sam alone in the basement.

  Sam’s hands were under the table and I could guess why. He’d be packing a gun the way a shop girl carries her face powder; it was part of the daily uniform. I pretended not to notice and let him keep it if it made him feel better. I didn’t feel like going to the trouble of taking it away.

  “We need to talk, Sam.”

  He slowly nodded. I took my time picking up the chair and bringing it back to the table. It was a tough old hunk of wood and hardly showed any new scratches as I put it right and eased onto it again.

  “Where you been tonight, Sam?”

  The question was plain enough, but not what he’d expected. “I been around.”

  “Around where?”

  “The Hot Spot.”

  “What’s that, a bar?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anybody see you there?”

  “Anyone who wants to bet on the game that’s coming up.”

  “How long were you there?”

  His answer left him well covered for the time of McAlister’s murder. I was disappointed.

  “Where was Butler?”

  “With me.”

  “Now tell me about Stan McAlister.”

  He’d lost some of his fear and was almost comfortable. “What about Stan?”

  “I know you were after him.”

  “He owes me money. What’d’ya expect?”

  His use of the present tense wasn’t lost on me. He hadn’t heard the bad news yet, that or he was wasting time as a bookie when he should have been acting in the movies. “I don’t expect someone like you to take bets on margin.”

  He was a little embarrassed. “It happens to the best of us.”

  “How’d it happen to you?”

  “We were having a few drinks and I was just drunk enough to do it. I went over the records later, saw that he owed me big, and got Butler to start looking for him. I got a lot of people looking for him, but he must have heard about it because he’s lost himself good this time.”

  “You got any people with a grudge on?”

  “Say again?”

  “You or your people want to bump him off?”

  “Huh? Why should I do that? If he gets bumped, I can’t collect my two grand. I’m not so rich I can shrug off that kinda loss. Is someone after him? Is that why you’re asking all this?”

  “You could say that. Who wants to kill him?”

  “Not me. You ask around.”

  “I’m asking right here. What do you know about his business? Who’d he come in contact with?”

  “How the hell should I know? I just take their bets; I don’t care how they get their money. Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I can’t. C’mon, Sam, give me a name.”

  “There’s Doreen Grey.”

  “Uh-huh, who else?”

  “He’s seeing a little blond named Kitty, but I don’t remember if she had a last name.”

  “What do you know about her?”

  “Only that she’s cute as a button. He takes her around, shows her the sights. I think she’s too clean for him, but he’s had others like her before.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know the type, girls that like to slum. They look peaches and cream on the outside but inside they got a taste for … well, Stan ain’t exactly rock bottom, but he’s pretty close.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  “I don’t give a damn one way or another about him. He’s a customer. All I want is the money he owes me.” Most of his confidence was back. “Your turn: what’s your game with Stan?”

  “I already told you, I’m trying to get some kid out of a jam. You gonna call Butler down for another tumbling act?”

  The reminder put him off a little, or so I thought. “Nah, I don’t need to do anything like that. What kinda jam?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  “Just try
ing to be friendly. You been asking a lot of questions and I been giving you the straight dope, so you at least give me one thing: where’s he hiding?”

  “He isn’t. Tell me about Doreen Grey. If you’ve got Butler watching for you, why didn’t he bring her in?”

  “Huh? Doreen? She wouldn’t know anything. She hangs around Stan, not the other way around.”

  He sounded so certain that I briefly wondered if McAlister himself had even known about the trick mirror—but only briefly. “She a girlfriend?”

  “Her and a dozen others that think they are.”

  “You mean he’s a pimp?”

  “No, nothing like that, though I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s just got a way with him and women. I wish I could figure it out, I’d bottle it and retire rich and happy.”

  “Is Doreen Grey her real name?”

  “Grow up, kid. Women like her never had a real name.”

  “Women like her?”

  “She’s a hustler, or was. Calls herself an actress or model. Do I have to tell you what kind of acting?”

  “Does she do photography?”

  “I heard she sits on both sides of the camera. She’s got a little studio for all the dirty work.”

  “Where?”

  It was on the same street where the cabbie had dropped her off.

  “This studio got a name or number?”

  “I dunno. A place like that doesn’t advertise to the general public. It’s over a grocer’s, second floor, you can’t miss it.”

  “You know a lot about it, ever been there?”

  He only grinned.

  I felt I’d gotten all the information I was going to get and stood up to leave.

  “Uh-uh,” he said. “You stay right there. We’re not finished.”

  “It’s getting late, Sam. I gotta go.”

  He brought his hands above the table. One of them held a fistful of black revolver. He was smiling all over his face again as he leveled it on me. “Not just yet, you don’t.”

  I sighed, trying to be patient. “Okay, what is it?”

  “Tell me where Stan is.”

  “With the cops.”

  “The cops? What for?”

  “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Cut the crap and tell me what’s going on.”

  If he’d been more polite, I might have answered without thinking.

  There was no reason not to tell him about McAlister’s death, but I have an inherent dislike of being pushed around, and he’d pushed me plenty already.

  “You’ll read it in the morning papers,” I said, and moved to go tip the spiral stairs. Behind me I heard the soft double click that meant he’d thumbed back the hammer.

  “Hold it, Lamont, not unless you want one right now.”

  I paused and looked at him. “Brother, I’ve already had more than one. All they do is put holes in the suit and make me mad.”

  “Think you’re tough?”

  “Let’s put it this way … do you really want to end up the evening with a hunk of dead meat on your hands?”

  “I don’t have to kill you,” he pointed out.

  “Yeah, you’re too late for that,” I muttered. He was getting on my nerves with the thing.

  “You step back here and sit like a good boy.”

  That tipped the scales for me. He needed a lesson. I turned, made sure he was watching, and vanished. When I re-formed, I was right behind him. It only took a moment, not nearly enough time for him to understand what he’d just seen or to begin to react to it. I wrapped one hand over his mouth and clamped another around the revolver. The idea was to prevent it from going off by keeping the barrel from turning, but I’d forgotten that by cocking it, it had already turned. But the gun didn’t go off when his finger twitched. The back of my thumb was between the firing pin and the bullet.

  Ouch.

  It wasn’t nearly as awful as actually getting shot. The pain was best compared to a bad toe stubbing—brief, but of an intensity all out of pro portion to the area involved. I knew now why they called it a hammer, since the firing pin had neatly nailed itself into me. My hand jerked away, taking the gun along, and I had to release my hold on Sam. I shoved him across the room and pried back the hammer to free my thumb from its painful trap. I must have looked like an idiot standing there alternately shaking my hand down and sucking the side of my punctured digit.

  Then Leadfoot Sam gave me something else to think about when he caught his balance, turned, and broke out a nasty-looking switchblade. In his confusion over the last few seconds, he must have forgotten that I was the one with the gun. I still held it loosely in his direction and was grinning at him. Actually it was less of a grin and more like a show of teeth. My fangs weren’t out, but the effect was just as satisfactory, if I could tell anything from his flinching reaction.

  “Hold it, Sam. Start thinking twice.”

  He did, with his wild eyes staring at the revolver in an interesting mixture of rage and fear. His next move might be to call Butler down, but I didn’t want any more witnesses. He needed distracting.

  “See this?” I broke the cylinder open, pushed the extractor rod, and let the bullets drop out. He stared, wondering what the gag could be. 1 turned the gun upside down to get a firm hold on the grip and cylinder, then gave them each a hard twist in opposite directions.

  The metal groaned quietly and snapped. I knew I was strong enough to damage the thing, but was pleasantly surprised at this development. I tossed the two pieces on the table. Sam’s jaw dragged the floor again. I was still grinning.

  “Sam?”

  He appeared to be very sick.

  “Do you know what evil lurks in the hearts of men?”

  He made a sick little sound in his throat.

  “Well, / do.” At that, I reached up and flicked my index finger hard against the bare bulb of the room’s single light. The glass shattered with a dull pop and plunged us into total darkness.

  The sick sound began to descend into a prolonged whimper.

  “So you watch yourself from now on … because that’s what I’ll be doing.”

  I couldn’t see him—our complete insulation from outside light prevented that—but I could hear his heart banging away, and by now I could clearly scent the fear smell rolling off him like a tide. He’d recover soon enough, maybe even convince himself he’d been tricked, but he’d never forget it. I didn’t care, as long as he gave me a wide berth from now on.

  Dematerializing, I swept past him, making sure he got thoroughly chilled. Some spine-tingling laughter would have been appropriate, but I didn’t trust mine to be sinister enough for the occasion.

  Once up the stairs, I bumbled my invisible way out. Butler and the driver were still in the back storage area, quite oblivious to what had been going on in the basement. 1 didn’t bother with them and seeped through the door into the rear alley, where the Caddy was parked. The keys were gone, but Escott had once taught me how to do a neat hotwire job. I figured after all the trouble I’d been put through, they owed me a ride back. Neither of them made it out of the building in time to see me driving away.

  I’d spent long enough on my forced detour and went straight to Doreen Grey’s studio. The general location was a short cross street with “T” intersections at both ends. Down on the corner the bar was open, but everything else was dark. A single grocery store with hand-painted signs obscuring the dusty windows took up space in the middle of the block on the left side.

  I parked the Caddy some distance away and walked. Next to the grocery’s door, narrow stairs led up to the second floor. On the vertical part of each step someone had carefully painted advertisements for the businesses within. None of them had to do with photography.

  Nothing to do but bull on and hope that Sam’s information was as square as he claimed. The stairs brought me to a long, dim hall lined with doors at regular intervals. The hall went through the width of the building and ended with another identical opening at the fa
r end that served the next street over.

  I checked each door and its sign. Two of them were empty and for rent, and one of them had no sign at all, only a number painted onto the aging wood. It was sufficiently different from the rest to invite closer inspection. Listening, I could pick up no sound from the other side. With no change in my posture I sieved through, solidified, and straightened in an unlighted room. The darkness was thick even for me. A little seepage from the hall around the base of the door was barely sufficient for my eyes to use.

  A table and some old chairs constituted the room’s total inventory, unless you counted the dust in the corners. As a reception area, it was stark and discouraging. Opposite the entry door was another, firmly closed. I listened here as well, then passed through.

  The room on the other side was as pitch black as my basement hiding place. Since my change, true darkness for me was rare, so this was not a comfortable thing to experience—especially when my ears told me I wasn’t alone. I held perfectly still. If I couldn’t see them, they certainly couldn’t see me.

  Odds were that the single set of lungs and swiftly beating heart belonged to Doreen Grey. She’d probably heard my footsteps in the entry and was scared to death.

  “Doreen?” I asked, hoping to put her at ease.

  My voice seemed very loud in the claustrophobic blackness, but not so loud as her brief, terrified scream and the gunshot that followed.

  The muzzle flash fixed an image of the whole room in my eyes. I got a general impression of the layout of the furnishings and a specific one of Doreen crouched in a corner holding a pistol in my direction. Her eyes and mouth were wide open, her arms held stiff and straight. All that crowded onto my retinas to be sorted out later, since a split second after the shot I was too busy ducking to think about it. Bullets don’t cause me any permanent damage, but I don’t enjoy getting hit.

  “Doreen! It’s me—the guy with the cab fare!”

  No second shot came.

  “What?” Her voice sounded as shaky as I felt.

  “I was at the Boswell House—cab fare—remember?”

  “Wha-what do you want?”

  “Talk, that’s all. Put down the gun.”