The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  This place was easy to go through; Anthony’s life was uncomplicated. The usual trappings of modern living were in their usual places, including a well-stocked liquor cabinet. No surprises there. Except for the piano, he didn’t seem to have any creative leanings. I found some check stubs in his desk indicating that he had a job at a place called Brockhurst and Sons, and damn near blanched at the amount he made. I couldn’t imagine anyone being valuable enough to a company to deserve a sweet and cool hundred a week. Not unless they were in the movies or the mobs. That was obscene. When I’d been reporting, I counted myself lucky to pull in seventy-five a month and thought myself well off.

  The desk was the kind with a hinged trapdoor on top. Lift and fold it to the right and a counterbalanced shelf within raised the hidden typewriter up level with the rest of the work area, which was now doubled. That was a very handy thing to have. Maybe I could get one of my own.

  Used carbon paper was crumpled in the wastebasket, along with early versions of the letters Dugan intended to send out. Keeping company with them were two origami animals, a giraffe and a pelican, made from discarded drafts. He’d probably amused himself folding them while Anthony typed.

  I found Anthony in his bedroom, snoring obliviously away in yellow silk pajamas. There was a taint of booze on his breath, mixed with mint mouth gargle. That told me he’d had something to drink but not enough to make him forget to brush. This would be slow going but hopefully not impossible.

  Turning his night table light on, I loomed over him, tapping his face a couple times to haul him from sleep. Once I captured his bleared and dumbfounded attention, I was able to give myself another headache.

  “YOU’RE sure that’s all of them?” Escott asked after picking me up.

  “The ones he had.” I fanned the crisp envelopes full of potential grief, holding them like a card hand. They were stamped, ready to mail. None had a return name, but the delivery addresses were neatly typed, including one on top for the FBI. I ripped it open. It was indeed the original to what I’d seen earlier. “How could Dugan think J. Edgar Hoover would ever bother himself with me?”

  “Because he likely would. I understand he is a very persistent investigator and a great one for collecting information, rather like Gordy. What about the other letters at large?”

  “Brockhurst will get them for me.” I shuffled this batch together and stuffed them in my coat pocket. The mist had grown thick and fast enough to qualify as rain. Tiny drops dotted the windows, and the wiper thumped back and forth without squeaking. I was glad not to be driving. “He was pretty cooperative once he was under.”

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “Slack face, eyes like a dead fish, and a suddenly slow heartbeat. I’m certain. He couldn’t have faked the last.” I’d also pretended to take a swing at him. He didn’t blink, even when the breeze of my passing fist ruffled his hair. “He has the day to get the rest from the other four people in his little circle, then come by the club tomorrow night to deliver them. I told him to say he found out the truth about Cousin Gilbert, that he really had been the mastermind in the kidnapping, his motive being the money. Brockhurst will look shocked and grieved by the betrayal.”

  “Let’s hope they accept it.”

  “If not, then I got their names and where they live. I should visit them anyway, make sure they’re set straight about Dugan. This will save Marie Kennard ten grand. And from a disastrous marriage.” Not a bad night’s work. I felt positivly chivalrous.

  “Was Brockhurst possessed of further useful information?”

  “I asked about family history. Their paternal grandfathers way back when were brothers. Both did pretty well for themselves and their descendants until the crash. By then Dugan was the only one left of his branch. He lost his shirt. The Brockhursts had gone into ball bearing manufacture, so they weathered things better. Anthony seems to idolize Dugan, thinks he’s a deep thinker, and Anthony’s given him financial help on the sly. He’s got an open offer for a job at the family business, but Dugan’s much too sensitive for the harshness of the cruel world.”

  “Indeed?”

  “My translation: Dugan’s too lazy or thinks he’s too good for regular work.”

  Escott nodded, thoughtful. “Yet he will put weeks of effort into committing a crime and lie his head off to con a young woman out of ten thousand dollars. The mundane bores him. He likes challenge to lift him from his ennui. Danger, too. He didn’t bring a gun to your little meeting, did he?”

  “Nope.”

  “And at least twice he mentioned doing various activities to ‘fill the time.’”

  “Boredom. Now that’s a hell of a motive for kidnapping.”

  “I can understand him, though.”

  I snorted. “He’s crazy. You’re not. Don’t go scaring me.”

  Escott chuckled.

  IT was great to walk into Crymsyn again and see everything running normally. The doorman told me we’d had a good crowd, people grabbing an early piece of the weekend by starting on Wednesday. They’d mostly gone home by now. I was just in time to close and felt like I’d missed a lot by not being here. Tomorrow would be less worry-making. With Dugan locked away, I could immerse myself back into my favorite routine.

  How long he stayed chained to that floor was up to him. His only way out of his cell was to write and sign a full confession. Then I’d take him to the cops. He could scream all he liked about it being obtained under duress, but everyone in the Gladwell household would lie themselves blue denying that they had anything to do with holding him against his will. We knew who would be believed in the end. Especially if I had anything to do with it.

  I had a lot of respect for Vivian for going along with our dangerous game. Escott had confided the general idea to her earlier today. All of it was based on the calculation that Dugan fully expected to leave his meeting with me alive.

  We figured he’d have prepared some pretty serious insurance for that, and it would have to be blocked by us in some way. I had to play the business very much by ear, let him tell me what he thought I should know, let him think he’d won, then follow and look for a weakness.

  Which had worked out well, up to and including the possibility of putting him on ice. He had plenty of brains, just not a lot of experience playing with the big boys. Good thing for him that he’d tried blackmailing me instead of Gordy; otherwise, Dugan would be fish food by now. Gordy was more practical about disposing of annoyances. More final. Not that I hadn’t killed before myself, in the heat of rage, cold-bloodedly, and out of my head with insanity. But I had enough deaths hovering over my shoulder, bleak company when in a gloomy mood. Maybe Dugan deserved to die, but I didn’t care to be the executioner.

  We’d intended to store him in the far end of Lady Crymsyn’s basement, hidden behind a bank of crates and old scenery flats, and take turns keeping watch. But once she heard these tentative ideas, Vivian volunteered her place and staff for the job, and the devil take the law if she was caught.

  Escott tried to talk her out of it. Any other client he’d have turned down flat, and devil take their bruised feelings in the matter. He failed with Vivian, which told me a lot about how far she’d gotten under his skin. Maybe he could bring her to the club some night to meet Bobbi, and we could double-date like college kids.

  Bobbi was in the main room, seated by the near-side bar. It was the best place to keep an eye on the patrons, the entry, and the show, which was winding down. She saw Escott and me come in, and immediately got that things had gone well. I’d have done it all even without a hug and kiss at the end, but I wasn’t going to turn down what was offered.

  “So?” she said as we shed our coats and sat at her table.

  “The good guys won.”

  “A tremendous success,” Escott added.

  Adelle was done for the night, probably backstage changing. Gordy and Bristow were still talking, which astonished and annoyed me.

  “How much longer is that gonna go on?” I as
ked.

  Bobbi leaned forward, impatient. “Who cares? Tell me everything. I’m ready to chew glass from all this waiting.”

  She got the short version; details could come later if she wanted them. Escott let me do most of the talking, lounging back in his chair to load and light his pipe. He looked contented.

  “What if he doesn’t confess?” she asked when I was done.

  “That, sweetheart, is the flaw in the plan. We’re going to ignore it.”

  “What? Oh, you stinker, don’t pull my leg.”

  “Well, not here and now. We could go upstairs . . .”

  “Oh, hush!” she said, going a little pink.

  Escott, more of a gentleman than I, pretended not to have heard.

  I went on. “Anyway, a signed confession is the frosting. The cake is good enough on its own. We don’t count on him to crack, but the longer he’s disappeared, the worse it’ll be for him with the law. Then it won’t matter.”

  Escott nodded. “If and when he emerges from his durance vile, he will find himself without friend or ally between him and a lengthy prison term.”

  “I was against this, you know,” she said. “Until I heard him talking to you. What a creep.”

  “How did that go?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “So it turned out?”

  “Clear as a bell. Wanna hear?”

  We went upstairs, and once more I got a good look at the stuff she and Escott had worked so hard to arrange. Wires threaded from holes drilled in the wall between the storage room and my office led to a simple-looking box with a brushed chrome face. The innards were probably stuffed with tubes and a spaghetti twisting of more wires and unbelievably complicated electrical tubes and other stuff. The box was linked by cables to other devices and looked intimidating to unfamiliar eyes. Bobbi worked switches and dials as easy as stirring a cup of coffee. They hummed, warming up. Then she went to a large turntable spinning an ordinary-looking seventy-eight record and set the needle on it to play.

  Dugan’s voice spoke from the grill of an amplifying speaker. He was underscored by static and distant dance music but perfectly recognizable to anyone who knew him.

  “. . . damaging. Your detective friend could lose his license, that blond singer with whom you keep company will never get decent work again. That large gangster will have no end of grief with federal investigators and could shortly find himself heading . . .”

  “Oh, brother, that’s great!”

  She shut him off and grinned. “That’s just the first one. The second’s still on the recording table. It does fifteen minutes a side. We lost a little when I had to put a fresh blank in, but not much the way that joker likes to talk. I was worried the background noise of the band would ruin it, but you can make out every self-damning word he says. Even if you don’t get a confession out of him, he can’t deny any of this.”

  “I don’t know if it will be allowed as evidence in court, but it would be a treat to have the DA in to hear it,” said Escott.

  “But I thought you didn’t want anything to do with a court case.”

  “We make sure it doesn’t come to that. If Dugan is stubborn about accepting his fate, we see to it he has a chance to listen to himself. I should like to be present to enjoy the look on his face.”

  “Won’t it be a bad thing for Jack, though? They might want to know what his big secret is.”

  I lifted a hand. “No problem. I just whammy them into disinterest. Now, how about we put that in a very safe place?”

  “After I make some copies.” Bobbi fiddled with a knob and the hum of power from the machine diminished. “I’ll take the originals to a place I know and have them turned into more records you can play on any phonograph.”

  “I should like to make a transcript first,” said Escott. “I’ll start right now. If the unthinkable should happen and either of those are broken . . .”

  “Yeah, I guess I could slip on some ice on the way over.”

  “I’ll need writing materials.”

  “In my office,” I said. We went there. I got Escott a freshly filled fountain pen, some pencils, and a thick pad of paper. He knew shorthand nearly as well as I, but I was better at typing. When he was done, I’d use my spare time to translate his scribbles into readable English.

  He poked at the vase of cut flowers. “These will want water.” He pulled the flowers and their greenery clear. Some stems remained behind, snagged on the microphone they had concealed. It was small, maybe as big as my fist, held by a short stand that fit into the bottomless vase. The cord ran through a hole in the table, down one of the legs by the wall, and then on through the wall. You had to know where to look to see it, and I’d kept Dugan plenty busy looking at me.

  “I’m going to leave things set up,” I said. “Never know but we might have a use for it again.”

  “But the recording equipment has to go back tomorrow.”

  “I can buy my own later sometime. Business is pretty good. Until then I can cover the mike with the vase, put some paper flowers in it.”

  “The curtains, too?”

  “Yeah.” Hidden in the curtain folds were two more microphones, hanging from either end of the rod at eye level. We couldn’t be sure if Dugan would stay in one spot and had allowed for his moving around the room.

  “You know ... I could make something better for the one on the table.” Escott stared at it, probably seeing something not yet there.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “What about a lamp? I could fashion a pedestal base out of thin wood, drill holes in the sides, back them with black gauze . . . It would be like a radio speaker but in reverse. The lamp would even work. Of course, there might be an echo effect with the wood around the mike . . .”

  “Talk it over with Bobbi.”

  He started sketching at the desk, focused on his new idea. “Um-hm.”

  Bobbi came in. “I got it ready to play. Talk what over with me?”

  “I’ll tell you; let’s leave him think.” Escott would be preoccupied for a while. I recognized the signs. I also had an idea about gutting a radio and putting the microphone in the speaker, but then someone might try turning the radio on, and that would raid the game. Arm in arm, Bobbi and I went downstairs. “How did the show run?”

  “No hitches.”

  “Good. Anything from our dancing newlyweds?”

  “Roland called to say they’d be rehearsing tomorrow. That’s a good sign. You probably should talk to Faustine, though. Smooth things out for the duration.”

  “I’ll do that the first—”

  Hog Bristow and his three apes emerged into the lobby like a rockslide: not much speed but plenty of force. Bristow was red-faced, his shoulders bunched high, his head low, unconscious imitation of his nickname. The four of them saw me on the stairs where I’d paused in mid-step. Bobbi went still, her hand tightening on my arm.

  Bristow pointed at me. “You tell ’im! You tell ’im good! No one messes. Goddamn bastard. Thinks he. Thinks. No one! You tell!”

  The lobby lights flickered warningly, dimming, then snapping bright.

  “Goddamn,” said Bristow, glaring up at them. “Goddamn dump!”

  With that, they rumbled over my floor, Bristow cursing and weaving so much his boys had to hold him up. The doorman hastily went to work and seemed relieved not to catch their notice as they passed by.

  “Good night and little fishes,” said Bobbi, breathing again. “What was that about?”

  “At least one bottle of booze too many.” This had to stop. I’d had enough. “Let’s see if Gordy can enlighten us. Wilton, start closing up.”

  Wilton, pale behind his bar, visibly swallowed and nodded a lot.

  Strome and Lowrey walking ahead, the third guy trailing, Gordy was just descending from his table. We met up at the bar on the far end.

  “Guess you saw him,” he said to me. He signed for Strome to keep going. “Bring the car to the front.”

  “What happened?” I asked, kee
ping my voice even. There were no bodies lying around, but the last straggle of customers were hastily gathering up to leave. The band wouldn’t have to play “Good Night, Sweetheart” this time to get them out.

  He shrugged, a little sheepish. “Hog lost his temper.”

  “I think he was born that way.”

  “Maybe. He got loud. His boys talked him down, but not by much. He’s plenty sore. Finally figured out that I’m not cooperating and never will. Tomorrow I’m supposed to let him take over or else. He won’t forget this one. He talked to New York today. They want him to finish things.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Where will you finish it?”

  His mouth twitched. “Not here. I like this place.”

  I was going to second that opinion, but Adelle came out, back in street clothes and ready to go home. She was all smiles for Gordy, unaware of Bristow’s drunken wrath, but she picked up on the tension. Her smile dampened slightly.

  “Anything wrong?”

  Gordy shook his head. “Nothing to worry about, doll. Later, Fleming.’Night, Bobbi.”

  Adelle seemed to want more information but had to walk out with him to get it. She sketched a puzzled wave over her shoulder at us and went along, taking two steps to Gordy’s one. He must have been plenty upset; he usually walked at her pace.

  I looked at Bobbi. “Wanna close this bar while I take care of the front?”

  “But . . . that is . . .” She gestured after them.