The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  One of them shouted that they couldn’t find Gordy. “Must have used the fire escape. Conrad’s out cold in the alley.”

  “Then we’ll catch him later. Let’s get this organized first.”

  Only now did they come down, dragging Sullivan’s body along.

  “Won’t it look funny moving him?” one of them asked.

  “We’re the ones who’ll write the report. No one’s going to question anything.”

  “They never have yet,” the other man assured his friend. They let Sullivan’s body drop. The second man pressed the plated .45 into Sullivan’s relaxed hand. I noticed the safety was still on, not that it would matter much.

  Adkins kept watch on me while they went outside to retrieve Conrad and the other man out front. Conrad was groggy and uninformative about his attacker and very annoyed that he couldn’t find his Thompson.

  “Gordy probably took it,” Adkins concluded. “We’ll get it back, don’t worry.”

  Now it was time for them to have a quick cigarette and make sure their stories matched up. They’d say they’d gotten a tip about a mob meeting from Maxwell and came to check it out, but it had been a trap. The shooting started, begun by Sullivan and his men and finished by Adkins.

  “Does Charles know what you do?” In any other place or time I would have the answer, but here and now . . .

  “Not yet. Maybe sometime later when he’s ready to step up from his nickel-and-dime problem-solving and do some real work. Then he’ll be ready.”

  “What about your bosses?”

  “We get results, they never mind those.”

  “But how you get them is wrong.”

  They looked at me, uncomprehending.

  I struggled to find words to make them see, but my emotions kept choking me. There were no words for it, only feelings, and these men were past anything so human. “It’s not just to clean up the world, Adkins. You want the headlines that made your name big before Repeal. The next one will be a real doozy: ‘G-men Nail Hoods in Fiery Shoot-Out,’ or do you prefer ‘G-man’? You can be the spokesman for this fine group of outstanding law officers.”

  “So what if I am? I’ve done a lot of good work. We all have. It deserves recognition.”

  “You just murdered a dozen people!”

  “Scum, Fleming. All scum—who would have murdered any one of us given the chance.”

  “Not this way.”

  “Of course, this way. You just don’t get it, but then you’re one of ’em.”

  “Oh, I am?”

  Contemptuous laugh. “Remember those calls to Gordy? Like tonight, him calling you to come help him out.”

  “The wire on his phone.”

  “Easy as follow the leader.”

  “But you can’t kill me.”

  A shrug. “Wait and see.”

  “Escott will know better. He won’t believe any lie you feed him about me being with the mob.”

  “Then you’ll be a tragic accident. You got curious, wanted to tag along with us, and got caught in the cross fire when all hell broke loose, very sad.”

  “He won’t believe that either.”

  “If he doesn’t, then accidents can happen to private agents the same as anyone else.”

  I bowed my head. I couldn’t change his mind by any means. He was too far gone. With those words he’d made the decision for me on what to do. Like it or not, I was slipping into their darkness. I would have to kill, after all. Turn executioner. Watch my own soul slide away forever.

  Hesitated. Wanted to hang on to who I was for just a moment more.

  That wasn’t going to happen. They’d have to finish up fast here before anyone else came.

  “Stand him over there by the stairs,” said Adkins. “We’ll say he started going up and that’s when they got him, that’s what started it all.”

  “Don’t think it’ll work,” one of them commented. “Why should they all come down here if they had the high ground? No need to get all dramatic, Merrill. Just say he lost his nerve when the shooting started and ran out in front.”

  “Okay. Get one of their guns and do it.”

  The man stooped and plucked a gun from someone’s hand. Checked the clip for ammo. Raised it up. He hardly needed to aim at this distance.

  I was set to vanish, to start my way to hell. The scene was already burning itself into my memory. I’d carry this and what I was about to do with me for the rest of my life.

  Burst of fire above and behind me. The man staggered and dropped. Strings sliced.

  Before the others could react, another burst rattled the room, it seemed to go on much too long. Could have been only a few seconds’ worth. Felt like eternity. Instinct made me hit the floor and curl up as the slugs hammered overhead and cut down Adkins, cut down all of them.

  The last man toppled.

  Silence.

  I couldn’t believe the silence. Shut my eyes against it for a moment.

  Didn’t want to see, but looked anyway.

  All dead.

  Head shots. All head shots. To get past the vests.

  Looked up the stairs.

  Angela Paco stood on the top landing, that silly hat still precariously clinging to her hair, her face new-penny bright. She had Conrad’s machine gun in her firm grip.

  She laughed down at the slaughterhouse, then whipped away.

  Bloodsmell making me gag. I stumbled up the stairs to escape it.

  Past the office, down the hall to the closet. She was there, pushing back the bucket and mop to lift the trapdoor slightly, just enough so she could slip her hand inside and pull out the first of the books.

  She saw me and grinned. “You know how to throw a hell of a party, don’t you?”

  “You came back for the—”

  “Yeah, a double cross against you, but I got to thinking I really should have them after all. Like insurance or something. I won’t need Opal, though, so you play Salvation Army with her, okay? How’s she doing?”

  “She’s fine. How long were you listening?”

  “Long enough to know you were in over your head.”

  She was right about that in more than the obvious sense.

  Before she could continue, Gordy surged up from his hiding place. Angela squawked and fell back, landing flat on her butt.

  For a second no one moved, then: “Hi, Gordy!” she said, beaming.

  “’Lo, kid.”

  “I don’t want any trouble.” Her hand was on the machine gun, but it was too bulky to bring around in the confined space. Besides, Gordy already had his gun on her.

  “Neither do I. How’s your old man?”

  “Getting better.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I came to get some stuff.”

  He nodded. “So get it.”

  She cautiously reached forward and drew the books out one by one until five were stacked in her arms. “I’m going now,” she announced.

  We made no objection.

  She stood, leaving the gun behind, and started walking.

  “Where you going?” I asked.

  She paused. Turned enough to smile at me. “I thought maybe Switzerland.”

  Gordy nodded at the books. “Think you’ll need those there?”

  “Probably not, but you never know.”

  “Maybe you’d like to cut a deal for them.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Call me at the club before you leave, we’ll talk about it.”

  “Okay.”

  She continued toward the fire-escape window. I followed while Gordy struggled out of the stairwell.

  She stopped at the window to look back. Big smile for me. She was a killer like the ones below, but unlike them, still strangely alive and enjoying that life.

  She came back, snaked an arm up to pull me down close, then planted a solid one right on my lips. “You owe me, blue eyes,” she whispered, then ducked through the window, her heels clattering on the metal escape as she descended. Her laughter, schoolgirl giddy, floa
ted up to coldly tickle my ear like the wind.

  GORDY had a look at what was downstairs and came back. Even he was shaken and suddenly in a hurry. He wiped the machine gun down and left it in the closet, then we followed Angela’s route down the fire stairs, got in his Cadillac, and drove away, simple as that. The bums by the movie house, if any remained, were well out of sight.

  He wanted to know what had happened. I told him.

  “Will there be reprisals from New York?” I asked, after a long thinking silence.

  “Not over this.”

  “I mean against you or Angela for Sullivan’s death.”

  “Not after I give ’em my version of the story. She ain’t even coming into it. Neither are you. So long as I’m running things, you and your buddy are strictly hands-off for every wiseguy in this town. That’s a promise. I owe you, Fleming.”

  “Uh-uh, we both owe Angela.”

  “They couldn’t have killed you.”

  “But I would have had to kill them.”

  “You ain’t cut out for that kind of work.”

  “I know. And I’d have had to do it. Then she stepped in. She can handle it a lot easier than I. I feel it, she doesn’t.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, she takes after her old man and then some.”

  I rubbed the spot on my chest where Frank Paco’s bullet had cut through my heart and changed everything. My heart didn’t beat anymore, but it was still there instead of a scraped-out empty space. The darkness hadn’t taken it away just yet. Angela had spared me from that, so yeah, I owed her. I owed her big time.

  I wondered if she’d ever try to collect.

  THE DARK SLEEP

  With thanks to Kevin, Teresa, and the Tuesday night gang for handling the usual hair-tearing with their usual aplomb.

  Thanks to the real Mary Sommerfeld for the high bidding

  (you too, Randy Paterno!).

  And a very special thanks to

  Nigel Bennett,

  Jim Byrnes,

  and John Kapelos,

  three extreme and inspiring talents.

  1

  Chicago, April 1937

  NORMALLY I wouldn’t be caught dead—or even undead—in this kind of eatery anymore, but my partner, Charles Escott, needed my help with a case. He had a skittish client who insisted on being along for the ride, and he wanted someone to hold her hand and keep her out of trouble—that is to say, out of his hair—while he worked.

  I looked across the table at Mary Sommerfeld, and tried to give her a reassuring smile, but she wasn’t having any of it. She kept darting nervous glances to her left, my right, and several times I had to stop myself from doing the same. If I wanted to see what was going on there, I could use the pocket mirror cupped in my palm.

  “Keep your eyes on me,” I muttered. “Try to eat something.” After all, I’d bought her the more expensive fifty-five-cent dinner (beverage extra), and I hated to see good food going to waste. I assumed it was good, anyway. My judgment on fine dining was no longer reliable. The only thing that didn’t smell nauseating to me in this joint was my untouched coffee.

  “But he’s not doing anything,” she muttered back.

  I took her to mean my partner. “Mr. Escott’s had lots of experience at this kind of thing. Give him time, he’ll come up aces for you.”

  She grimaced and seized a fork, glared at it, and made a point of wiping it thoroughly with her napkin, which I thought unnecessary. Granted, the joint wasn’t the Ritz Hotel, like what she was used to, but then it was a few steps above a greasy spoon, like what I’d been used to before I stopped eating solid food. It was clean and well lighted, with no lip-rouge stains on the glasses, and the ashtrays were emptied regularly. Not my kind of place these nights, but still fairly respectable.

  Escott had chosen it because you could seat yourself, hence my place in a booth with Miss Sommerfeld, and his at a table twenty feet away with Jason McCallen. From my vantage I could easily block the front and back exits in case McCallen decided to hoof it before our business with him was done.

  Our client wasn’t too happy being so close to him, but with her short dark hair hidden by a gray cloche hat and the rest of her covered up with a matching coat and galoshes, she looked like a thousand other Chicago women for this time of year. Besides, McCallen was angled away from us, and would have to turn to spot her.

  I’d tried to dress to blend in as well, leaving my pricey double-breasted suits and silk shirts in the closet in favor of a nondescript jacket and slacks, both in dark blue. My newsboy’s cloth hat was stuffed in a pocket, and I wore black shoes with gum soles. My hair was trimmed, combed, and slicked straight back from my face. The impression I hoped to give was that of a laborer taking his girl out on a Friday-night date. Nothing fancy, but not insultingly cheap.

  Miss Sommerfeld pushed her vegetables around and savagely speared a single kernel of corn. She shoved it into her mouth and chewed on it for half a minute.

  “Stop staring at me,” she growled.

  I broke off and looked down at the mirror. Instead of paying attention to business, I’d been distracted by how long it took her to eat the corn kernel.

  The tiny image in my hand shivered and settled. It was the same as the last time I’d checked, with Escott and McCallen at their table facing off over cups of cooling coffee. My partner was lean and tall, beak-nosed, dressed neatly in a stuffed-shirt sort of way, looking like a fussy bank teller. McCallen was just as tall, but more massive, with at least an extra fifty pounds of solid muscle riding easily on his shoulders and arms. He was big, hairy down to his knuckles, and dressed like a longshoreman. I couldn’t blame Miss Sommerfeld for seeking help with the Escott Agency in dealing with him.

  According to her story, McCallen had taken away an envelope of papers that were not his. They were worth a lot to her, enough to hire us to get them back again. She didn’t want publicity, so the theft went unreported to the cops, and her lawyers had no clue about the incident.

  When she first came to Escott’s office early this afternoon to rent his services as a private agent, he made a good stab at trying to find out the contents of the envelope, but she clammed up and shook her head.

  “It’s personal and private,” she told him. “Nothing illegal, I assure you, but they don’t belong to him. Will this cover your fee?” Then she put five matching pictures of Andrew Jackson on his desk and that was that.

  He called home at sunset to give me the short version of the deal and what sort of help he would need from me if I was available. I was—at least until around two in the morning when my girlfriend got off work.

  “Are you out of your mind accepting a case without knowing the whole story?” I asked, running a hand over my beard stubble as I leaned toward the mouthpiece of the kitchen phone.

  “Miss Sommerfeld’s within her rights, Jack,” he said lightly. “And it’s not as murky as you think. I happen to have more background on her than you do.”

  The background being that she was an heiress to a fortune in saltine crackers. No, really. McCallen had been a foreman in one of the factories or plants or bakeries or whatever it is you call a place that makes crackers. He’d been romantically linked with Mary for a couple of months, until her parents in Michigan heard what was going on and packed her off to Europe. A little hobnobbing with other rich kids in the south of France had done the trick. Mary found herself accepting a marriage proposal from some minor prince and returned home in triumph.

  “It is my opinion,” said Escott, “that the diamonds on her engagement ring could easily buy my house with some considerable change left over for lavish decoration.”

  “So you do a good job for her and maybe she recommends you to rich friends in need?”

  “That’s always a possibility.” He made no effort to dampen the smug satisfaction in his tone.

  “What about the papers? Got any idea what they might be?”

  “From her manner I’m assuming they’re indiscreet love letters written to McCa
llen when things were still amicable between them. She must have gotten them away from him at some point, then he thought better of it and stole them back. Her royal engagement could go up in smoke if he decides to use them against her.”

  “Where do you come by that?” I shifted from one bare foot to the other. He’d caught me just as I’d opened my eyes for the night. I’d launched straight out of my basement lair to catch the ringing phone and had only thin pajamas between me and any lurking draft. I don’t feel the cold like I used to, but I hate drafts.

  “She’s both angered by and frightened of him,” he answered. “I also believe there is more than a touch of guilt involved. You’ll see for yourself when you meet her.”

  Which I did after catching a shower, shave, and dressing according to his suggestion. I arrived at Escott’s office ready to play muscle for him should the need arise during his negotiations. He introduced me to Miss Sommerfeld as his assistant. She gave me a regal nod, perhaps practicing for her future life with her prince, then insisted on coming along to supervise. Escott started to object, but bit it off. I could almost hear him thinking about the hundred she’d dropped on the desk. With that kind of money involved, the customer is always right.

  Earlier that day he’d worked out a money deal with Miss Sommerfeld and arranged a meeting with McCallen by telling him he would hear something to his advantage. The idea was simply to buy the envelope and contents back from him. If McCallen decided to be cooperative, all was well and good, and we could close and tie it up in a bow tonight; if not, then Escott would have to get sneaky and really put me to work.

  Knowing a thing or two about human nature, I figured McCallen to be a blackmailer. All he had to do was sell what he had to any of the more jaundiced tabloids and he’d not only rake in a pile of dough for himself, but break up his old girlfriend’s pending marriage. That was the lesser of two evils, though. Another strategy would be for him to wait, then quietly squeeze money out of her over the years, which would pay a hell of a lot more in the long haul. Either way, Miss Mary Sommerfeld was in for a rough time.