The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  “Not much choice. I can’t scrag him for no reason. They like him too much. So long as he behaves himself, I gotta put up with him telling me what he wants.”

  “Which you won’t give to him.”

  “I can’t. I do that, it proves to New York he’s right about me being soft. If I keep turning him down, sooner or later he either goes away—which means he loses face with them—or he takes what he’s after. He ain’t taking squat from me.”

  “But he’ll try?”

  “Maybe.”

  “How?”

  He lifted his wide shoulders a quarter inch. “He’ll think of something. But not tonight. I got him so drunk he won’t be able to move. If I keep him drunk, he might forget why he came to town in the first place.”

  “I can do that for you, if he’s sober. Send him off to Havana for a long winter vacation.”

  “I just might ask. In the meantime I’m learning plenty from him. He don’t know that I’m learning, either.”

  Gordy’s hobby, passion, vocation, specialty, and profession was information. For him, knowledge truly was power; he had an unofficial Ph.D. in the collecting of anything worth knowing where it concerned the mobs. He had good reason for putting up with Bristow, then.

  “I can help you there, too.” I didn’t mind making the effort if it sped the man on his way. “He won’t recall a thing, either.”

  “I might ask you that, too. But it can wait.”

  We ambled back to the main room and the bar on the other side. Adelle greeted him in what had become her usual affectionate manner, bestowing a peck on his cheek and taking possession of one of his arms.

  “All done?” she asked.

  “With business,” Gordy replied. “Home?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “See you, Bobbi. See you Fleming.” He escorted her out, a grizzly bear picking his steps carefully with a swan.

  “All done?” Bobbi asked in turn.

  “Just about.” I collected the register money, tips, and clipboard record and took them up to the office safe. The light was on for me, and I remembered flicking it off before. When I put it out again, it stayed out. Myrna was tired, too. I left the light behind the lobby bar burning, though. She liked it that way.

  “Busy night,” said Bobbi once we’d settled in my car. She’d wrapped up deep in her coat against the damp chill coming from the not-too-distant lake. It would take a few minutes before the heater warmed up enough to blow more than freezing air.

  “You pooped?” I backed from my parking place and headed toward her hotel apartment.

  “Not that much, but I can tell you are, mister gangbuster man.”

  Sadly, that was true. Now that the excitement was over, I was dragging like a sleepwalker. “It’s been a hell of a night.”

  “A two-week-long night for you.”

  Again, true. Escott hadn’t been the only one made crazy tense over the Gladwell case. I wasn’t in much of a mood for what relaxed me best. The only real recovery, mental and physical, would be resting the day on my home earth and visiting the Stockyards for a long drink. That I would do tomorrow. Though there was plenty of time for a stop before dawn, I wanted body rest first. Just sitting on the couch with my feet up and staring at nothing in the quiet of the house was what I craved more than blood. I’d used a lot of myself up this long night. Escott called it “mental digestion,” where you don’t think of anything, yet do a lot of thinking all the same.

  I escorted Bobbi up to her hotel flat, parting with a chaste kiss good night, and got myself home a couple hours before dawn. Not too surprisingly, Escott wasn’t back. He was either tied up with talking to cops or still providing support and advice to Vivian Gladwell. Maybe more. She was a pretty good-looking woman, and he had plenty of charm stored away for when he felt like using it. The last couple weeks must have thrown them into the same room a lot, and now that the crisis was past . . . well, I knew firsthand how a surge of relief could affect one’s libido. For both of them.

  Since resolving some problems out of his past, Escott had discovered girls all over again and seemed to be making up for lost time. Not that he was gone every night, but now that he’d opened his door again to romantic possibilities, he had more social invitations. The women couldn’t get enough of him. Must have been his English accent.

  I might introduce him to Faustine and see what he made of her Russian inflections. That reminded me of the Roland-Adelle duet.

  Collapsed on the parlor couch with the big radio playing low, I stared at my feet propped on the arm and considered a possible triangle with Adelle, Roland, and Faustine. Include Gordy and it made a cockeyed square with all the weight in his corner. A dangerous balance. Bobbi was right about me butting out, but I didn’t care to stand by when I could head off a disaster. Me talking to Adelle—or Roland—would help. It seemed the safest road, especially if no one remembered anything, and what Gordy never found out wouldn’t hurt anybody.

  But tomorrow was soon enough already to work things. I shut the radio off in mid-tune and went upstairs for a quick bath and fresh pajamas, then down to the basement for sack time.

  Soon after my change from being living to being undead, I was stuck for a safe place to hide from the day. I needed a totally private, fireproof refuge that wasn’t a mausoleum. Closed-in, dark, airless places full of coffins and skeletons gave me the heebie-jeebies same as anyone else.

  Then Escott invited me to move into his old brick house. The building had once been the neighborhood brothel, with lots of big rooms divided into little ones to accommodate the business. Escott’s sporadic but ongoing campaign of restoration compelled him to take a sledgehammer to those interior walls. The ground and second floors were finished, but the third floor and attic work had been interrupted by a surge in his private agent business. I told him to bring in people to complete the job; he could afford it, but he preferred doing things himself. It apparently reminded him of his days on the stage. Along with acting, he’d picked up plenty of carpentry skills.

  Escott had kindly walled up an alcove in his basement, creating a secure and secret lair for me to pass my daylight oblivion. It wasn’t flood-proof, as we’d found out last fall. During the season’s first hard freeze, a kitchen pipe cracked, and as my chamber was underneath, I had a hell of an awakening. My first alarmed thought was that the house had caught fire and the two inches of ice water covering the floor was leakage from the fire hoses.

  Thankfully, it wasn’t, and it could have been worse, but the flood was calamity enough. A plumber took care of the pipe, and a mop and bucket took care of the mess, but I’d had stacks of books and papers lying around, most ruined or nearly so. It prompted a new habit in me to keep things up on tables and shelves from then on.

  Vanishing, I let myself sink down through the small gaps in the kitchen floor where Escott had hidden an emergency trapdoor. It was under the table, covered by a rug. Directly below was my walled-up chamber with a few homey necessities: table, chair, a lamp I always kept on, my typewriter, and an army cot. On the latter was a length of oilcloth stitched into a long, flat bag that held a quantity of my home earth. It was both creepy and comforting. I’d cheated death but still had to bed down on a reminder of the grave. I didn’t know how, but its gloomy presence kept me from being aware of the passage of the hours. Without it, days were excruciating jaunts into purgatory because of the bad dreams between sunrise and sunset.

  I had other places to flop, but they weren’t as comfortable. Those were strictly for emergencies. Once in a while I’d mull over the possibility of fixing up a second permanent spot at the club, something even more secure than my locked office or the storage area under the tier seating. Lady Crymsyn’s basement was clean, dry, and bright with electricity, but someone had died horribly in one of its far corners years back. No ghost haunted that area, but the still-fresh memories of what I’d seen and imagined about that death lingered. Also, a couple of idiots had tried to kill me down there, so I took the hint that Fat
e had dropped and kept clear of the area.

  Superstitious? You bet.

  With a grateful sigh, I lay on my creaky cot and waited for the dawn. A silent, lonely pause, but brief if I timed it right.

  Through the walls, I felt the sun creeping up and fought to stay awake. Pushing sleep off for as long as possible caused it to take hold more suddenly. I went out quick, then, one second awake, the next not. It was better than the alternative, which was a gradual, unpleasant sinking into paralysis, eventually followed by a slow loss of consciousness. The progression was too much like dying, and I’d had enough of that for several lifetimes.

  I was awake. Then I wasn’t. Good.

  MY “morning” started at close to five in the afternoon. Winters could be pure hell, especially in Chicago, but I welcomed them for the extended hours of darkness. The equinox had turned, though, each new night a minute shorter than the previous one. I’d learned the value of not wasting them as they dwindled.

  I woke up hungry, my corner teeth out. Nothing surprising, I’d used a lot of myself last night. My body was never too subtle when it came to its need for blood, but it would have to wait a little longer. Dark as it was, there’d still be plenty of activity going on at the Stockyards, and my feedings were better done alone. Most people were apt to find my need to open a vein in an animal’s leg to drink down the fresh, warm blood flow revolting. Though normal to me now and turned into a pleasurable necessity, I couldn’t blame them for their reaction.

  Escott was back, his long form reclining on the couch much the same as I had done. In his case, half a drink waited on the table, and newspapers were scattered to hell and gone on the floor. He was usually much more orderly, but he had earned time off. His eyelids were sealed shut, and a soft snore originating from his ample beak of a nose made the paper on his chest flutter a little.

  I was about to ghost upstairs to dress, allowing him to continue undisturbed, but the damn phone rang. He jerked awake with an exasperated groan.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, guessing this must have been going on all day.

  It was a reporter for a paper I’d never heard of, and when I repeated his interview request aloud, Escott shook his head and waved off the prospect of getting his name spelled right.

  “He’s left for the week,” I told the receiver. “Don’t call back.” I dropped the earpiece on its hook and went to the front room, dropping into my usual chair by the radio.

  Escott sat up wearily. “There are occasions when I quite envy your ability to sleep through rows.”

  “It’s not exactly sleep, but I know what you mean. Why not leave the thing off the hook?”

  “Actually, I arranged for my answering service to take calls over the next several days. They’re only to put through Mrs. Gladwell, the police, yourself, Shoe, Gordy, and Miss Smythe, of course. How the devil did that reporter get past, I wonder?”

  “Probably pretended to be a cop. I’ve done it myself. The trick is to sound bored and keep talking.”

  Escott rubbed his face. “Perhaps I should go back to the stage. There wasn’t as much money, but it was less nerve-racking.”

  “You should take a vacation. All the papers talk about now is Palm Springs. Nice and warm there. The women are in swimsuits year round.”

  “Tempting as that is, I’m required to remain in town until this case is concluded.”

  “That won’t be long. The cops have the guys.”

  “For the time being. One of the men you caught is the last scion of a very old, respected, and influential family.”

  “Which one? Dugan?” He’d been better dressed than the others, better educated to judge by his speech.

  “Indeed. One Hurley Gilbert Dugan.”

  “So? He’s still a kidnapper and was set to murder that poor girl.”

  “Ah, but you’ve not heard that it was a terrible mistake, that he was forced into the crime by bad companions.”

  “What?”

  “My dear fellow, please don’t shout. It won’t improve the situation.” By now I should have been used to the world spinning screwball into daily disasters while I lay insensible. I wasn’t. In a quieter tone: “What the hell is going on?”

  “I have no doubt that Dugan was the ringleader, but he’s claiming to be as much of a victim as Sarah Gladwell. He’s spun a convincing story of being too easily influenced by some questionable types who befriended him in his friendless isolation, then threatened to kill him if he did not aid them in their nefarious kidnapping scheme. It’s in the papers.” He gestured at the drifts of newsprint lying all over the place. I caught a few of the more creative headlines. A lot had been going on, and none of it made sense.

  “And people are swallowing that crap?”

  “If one shouts a lie long and loud enough, it tends to be believed. I think Charlemagne began a rumor that a queen he once proposed to killed and ate her own children. Helped him save face when she refused his marriage offer. Many believed him because of who he was.”

  “Charles . . .”

  “I know, but the distraction of pointless trivia keeps me from smashing things. Besides, this is certainly a similar situation of someone shouting a lie to save himself. It’s so completely outrageous that the papers are listening. Only the first day, and they’ve generated miles of print slanted in his favor. By the time the trial comes up, it’s likely Dugan will get naught but a slap on the wrist, then off he goes back to his sad isolation, wiser for the experience.”

  I’d seen lies work before but could not understand it happening in this case. “What about the confessions?”

  “His three companions have willingly owned up to their share of guilt so as to obtain mercy from the court. They maintain Dugan was their boss and directed them in the crime, but Dugan holds to his story, saying they vindictively want to drag him down as well. I’ve a friend in the district attorney’s office who let me know on the sly.”

  “That can’t be possible. I primed him same as the others, gave him the works, the same confession to say. I know he was under.”

  “We may venture to speculate that in this instance your hypnosis failed for some reason. If he was intoxicated, you’d have had little effect on his mind. He was either drunk or . . .”

  “Insane,” I completed.

  “Indeed.”

  Oh hell.

  4

  “WAS he drunk?” Escott asked.

  “No. I’d have smelled it on him. Sensed it in other ways. He went out just like the others.” Or so it had seemed.

  Damned few people were immune to my kind of hypnosis. Drunks were difficult, but I could eventually get through the booze by either taking it slow or just waiting for them to sober up. With crazy people, waiting didn’t work. They tended to stay crazy and not go under at all. Their minds were somehow resistant to my will, and it showed. But not this time with Dugan. He’d played me and played good.

  “So the guy is nuts?” What a perfect pip. Loony bin cases I didn’t like one little bit, too unpredictable.

  “He’s moneyed and probably unbalanced,” said Escott. “I’m quite terribly shocked. No, I take it back; I’m bloody tired. Been at it all day. The Gladwell estate is under siege by the press. Mrs. Gladwell has hired bodyguards to keep out the riffraff. Some of the more vicious members of the populace are accusing the poor woman of staging the kidnapping herself, either as a means to get rid of a mentally defective child—”

  “Oh, good God.”

  “Or as a publicity stunt. Of course, they’re vague over exactly what it is she wishes to have publicized. It’s sickening.”

  “This changes things.”

  “Indeed. There is a serious likelihood that a clever lawyer could get Dugan free.”

  “No,” I said decisively. “I’m not going to let that happen. How can it happen with the other members of the gang talking their heads off?”

  “They’re seen as lying about his part in the crime to make things easier for themselves. If they implicate Dugan, p
erhaps they will have shorter sentences to serve. They each have records for various offenses. Dugan’s is clean—officially—so with—”

  “Officially? What’s he not done, then?”

  “Interesting chap. Took me a bit of digging, but I found a few choice items in his far past to consider. When Hurley Gilbert Dugan was ten, there was an incident involving the death of a governess. She was found in her room with the gas on, but nothing was proven one way or another. It could have been murder, suicide, or an accident, but after that, he was packed off to a boarding school. In the time he was there, another student died of an apparent fall down some stairs. Dugan was removed soon afterward, taken home again, and taught by private tutors. That was years past, though. I found nothing of further interest unless you want to count deaths in the family, which seem to be legitimate heart failures and disease.”

  “What was he, a one-man crime wave?”

  Escott shook his head and sipped his drink. “One should not leap to conclusions. Though they are suspicious, neither of the episodes are necessarily connected to him. I’ve witnessed stranger examples of coincidence in action.”

  I was less ready to give Dugan the benefit of a doubt. He’d not actually discouraged Ralph from his intent to rape Sarah—only called it disgusting. He and the rest had been industriously preparing to dump her in that pit afterward, dead or alive.

  “Look, if he’s got money, what’s he doing pulling a kidnap job?”

  “The very point he’s raised time and again to the press: that he has no motive. He’s stood on the front entry to his venerable family mansion, grandly pointing out to the photographers that a man in such a home has no need of mon—”

  “He’s not in jail?”

  “His lawyer managed to get him out after posting bond. I’m told the show before the judge was most convincing. At least the other three are where they belong.”

  “Not good enough!”

  Escott finished his drink, hanging on to the empty glass, running one long finger around the top the way you do on crystal to get it to sing. This one remained silent. “With Dugan’s lack of reaction to your intervention, he likely is insane but able to behave normally most of the time. We’ve both met that type before.”