Wicked Game

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “Good.” He feeds me a large spoonful, consisting of banana, chocolate almond ice cream, and whipped cream. “Next?”

  “The carnival atmosphere.”

  “Good. You get a bite for each detail.”

  “The barkers, selling Bibles and tambourines and prayer books.” Another bite, this one from the mint chip side. “The roadies and the local guys working together to put up the big tent.” Ditto, this time a bit of each ice cream. He’s got the hang of it now. “People from the town setting up booths to sell lemonade or homemade crafts or funnel cakes.”

  “I remember funnel cakes.” His mouth opens, moist inside, as he spoons me another bite. “Add that to the list of things I miss tasting. Go on, what else?”

  “Testimonies.”

  “What’s that?”

  “People would stand up and talk about how they were healed, or how they used to be sinners until they discovered grace and shit.” I take another bite. “Some of them were shills, but some were believers.”

  “What’s a shill exactly?”

  “It’s the grifter partner who plays the bystander. In a game of three-card monte, it’d be the guy you see winning. It makes the mark feel more secure. The herd instinct. Do I get a free bite for my lesson?”

  He sighs and scoops another spoonful. “Only because of my undying love for you,” he mumbles.

  “What?”

  He looks up. “What?”

  “Your un-whatting what?”

  “Huh?”

  My eyes narrow at him. “What did you just say?”

  “When?” He holds out the spoon. “Come on, it’s dripping.”

  I accept his offering, my whole body running hot and cold. My memory flits back to his remark that nothing ever surprises me.

  “So what else?” He digs the spoon into the bowl. “We’ve still got half a banana split here.”

  I collect myself in a hurry. “I remember ...” What else? Counting stacks of money at the end of the night? Watching the dupes return to their ramshackle homes with empty wallets? “The hope in people’s eyes.”

  “Sounds big. Give me more.”

  “They’d come to the revival so beaten down, by the bad crops or the factory closings. After a couple hours of listening to my parents shout and sing, and watching their neighbors be healed onstage, they’d go home believing anything was possible.”

  Shane feeds me. “Your folks, they were something, huh?”

  “My dad, he was the best in the business. Charming, fast-talking, great-looking. He worked like a magician, full of misdirection and illusion. But he would’ve been nothing without my mom. They were like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Like two halves of the same person.”

  When the next spoonful comes, I turn my head away. “But maybe even their marriage was just part of the show. He hasn’t called or written her in two years.” My stomach tightens around the last bite of ice cream. “He’s never called or written me. Fucking asshole creep pig-weasel.”

  Shane puts the spoon back in the dish. “Are you sure he’s still alive?”

  “They would’ve told us if he died, as his next of kin. They would’ve told me if he were paroled. I testified against him, after all.”

  “They think he might come after you for revenge?”

  “I would if I were him.”

  Shane moves to join me on my side of the booth, bringing the bowl of ice cream. “Here, you’ve earned it.” He sits close to me and sips his coffee while I consume the banana split with renewed urgency.

  To distract myself from thoughts of my parents, I turn to a slightly less odious topic. “The station is screwed.”

  “Yeah. Our only hope is to find a will that says Elizabeth left everything to David. But then we’d have to prove she died, which is hard to do without a corpse.”

  I grit my teeth at the unfairness. “She was going to make it work. If Gideon hadn’t staked her, she could have canceled the deal with Skywave.”

  He frowns into his mug. “When she doesn’t show up for that meeting on Friday, they’ll know something’s up. Sooner or later there’ll be an investigation. We should start looking for a new home.”

  “We can probably postpone the meeting, but that’ll just be a temporary—” Breath stops in my throat. My spoon clatters to the table, then the floor.

  Shane picks up his own spoon and holds it out to me, but my hand is frozen. All of me is frozen but my mind, which spins like a gyroscope.

  “Ciara, you okay?”

  I grab Shane’s wrist, spilling his coffee. “I know how to save the station.”

  25

  I’m Not Like Everybody Else

  When devising a long con, the first revelation comes as a spark, a firecracker of an idea. The rest takes time and planning to perfect the entire game. Every player must learn his or her part, every loophole must be tightened, and every possible setback must be accounted for. This process often takes weeks.

  I don’t have weeks. I have until the day after tomorrow.

  David and I sit in Elizabeth’s office, searching for scraps of information about Friday morning’s phone meeting between her and Skywave. Luckily, her files are well organized, and her ancient computer has no security, since she was using Windows 95 as an operating system.

  “Let’s see if we can buy some time.” I hand David a piece of paper with a name and number on it. “Call Sky-wave and ask if we can postpone Friday’s conference call until next week. Tell this guy’s assistant that Elizabeth is ill.”

  I sit back in the chair while David navigates the labyrinthine phone tree to reach the Skywave head office.

  After a short conversation, he punches the hold button. “The soonest they can reschedule is in a month. But by then someone else might figure out she’s missing, and this charade won’t play.”

  “Then tell them never mind.”

  He puts the phone back to his ear. “Rather than postpone, Ms. Vasser would prefer to keep the meeting as scheduled.” He listens for several moments, then his eyes widen. “Oh, no. I mean, no, I’m afraid that won’t work.”

  “What won’t?” I whisper.

  He shakes his head vigorously.

  I lean forward. “What won’t work?”

  He holds up a finger. “One moment, please,” he says into the phone. He puts them on hold. “They want to meet in person,” he tells me. “They have something they want to show Elizabeth. Obviously we can’t do it.”

  “Why not?”

  His jaw drops, then his head shakes slowly. “No, Cia-ra. We can’t do what you’re thinking.”

  “Maybe we can. Tell them we’ll call back.”

  As soon as he’s off the phone, I grab it and dial the vampires’ extension, which rings several times.

  Shane picks up with a groggy tone. “Yeah?”

  “Hi.”

  “Hey.” He lets out a sigh like the one I heard as I fell asleep with him curled around me. “How are you?”

  “Overcaffeinated. Is Travis there?”

  He hesitates. “You called to talk to Travis?”

  “I’ll explain in a minute. Stay by the phone.”

  “Here he is.”

  “Yes, ma’am?” Travis’s voice is steadier and warmer than I expected.

  “It’s Ciara.” I congratulate myself for not adding, “The woman you tried to kill.”

  “What can I do ya for?”

  “Lots. First, I need to know if any Skywave execs ever met Elizabeth face-to-face.”

  “Not that I know of, but it’s hard to prove something didn’t happen.”

  “Those photos in your camera, were they the only ones you took?”

  “I downloaded a bunch to my laptop, but I haven’t shown them to Skywave yet. I was just about to give them a report when I was, well, butchered.” His voice dips for a moment, then picks back up. “Do you still have my camera? I want it back.”

  “Feel like taking a trip to Rockville?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

&nb
sp; “Afterward, we’ll stop by your office and collect everything you need. I see no reason why you can’t stay a detective just because you’re a vampire.”

  “I was hoping to be a DJ. I could start a new country music program, call it—”

  “We’ll discuss that later.” During intermission of an ice hockey game in hell, if David has any say in the matter. “Can you put Shane back on, please, and give him some privacy?”

  Travis chuckles suggestively and hands the phone over. Shane says, “So what’s next?”

  “Can we trust Travis?”

  “I think so. We took care of him in his first few hours of death, fed him and gave him a home. The transition period is really rough, and we were there for him. It’s like when baby ducks take after the first person they see, what’s that called?”

  “Imprinting.”

  “Yeah. We’re his mom and dads now, especially after Gideon rejected him. But what does he have to do with your plan?”

  I outline a quick rundown of the updates, most of which come to mind as I speak. David stands in the middle of the office, jaw slackening as he listens.

  After I finish, Shane lets out a low whistle. “Remind me never to piss you off.”

  “We’ll meet you here after sunset. Sleep tight.”

  “The sleep of the dead.”

  I set down the phone. David plants his hands on the other side of the desk, looming.

  “We can’t do this,” he says. “It’s one thing to impersonate her over the phone. You’re talking about identity theft.”

  “Why not? As a vampire, Elizabeth made sure there were no photos of her in the press. She wouldn’t even talk to the reporters at the Smoking Pig party.”

  “I don’t understand why we can’t just decline the buyout with a phone call or an e-mail.”

  “Because they’ll get suspicious and pushy. They’ll think we’re holding out for more money. Unless Elizabeth looks them in the eye and tells them she absolutely won’t sell, they’ll never stop until they get what they want.”

  His shoulders droop as he realizes I’m right. He sighs and heads for the door. “I’ll double-check the Internet and my old press files, make sure there are no pictures of her anywhere.” He slides his hand over the wall on his way out, as if it still bears her essence.

  I sit back in her leather chair, feeling like an empress on a throne. Its soft surface reminds me of her Mercedes.

  I pick up her keys from the desk. The car will be lonely without her.

  Shane sings R.E.M.’s “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville” as I drive Elizabeth’s car into the sprawling suburban city. David sits in the passenger’s seat, with Travis behind him.

  “Do you think Gideon is biting the children in his compound?” David asks me.

  “I didn’t see any evidence of that. But then again, I didn’t see anything they didn’t want me to see. Their smiley representatives made everything seem tightly controlled. Like Disney World.” A memory sparks. “Except there was one guy I don’t think I was supposed to see.”

  “Who?”

  “Some human with white hair, too far away for me to see his face. The others said he was a ghost.”

  “A ghost? Hmm. Maybe the spirit of someone Gideon killed.”

  “Now you sound like Lori.”

  “So you believe in vampires but not ghosts?”

  “I’ve seen vampires.” I meet Shane’s eyes in the rearview mirror and mentally add gloriously naked. “Now that we know Gideon was the cold presence in the parking lot, I’m even less inclined to believe in ghosts.”

  David silently ponders. “Something about that bothers me. Why was Gideon stalking you that first night? We hadn’t even started the campaign.”

  “Noah made the same point. Maybe there was another vampire senior citizen following me.”

  Shane stops singing. “Let ’em try to touch you. I’ll kick their ancient asses.” He returns to the third verse.

  I glance at him, then lower my voice to David. “Something odd about Gideon and the other vampires. They didn’t seem to have compulsions like ours do.”

  “Their environment is so regimented, they probably don’t need those sort of coping mechanisms.”

  “It’s not like they were normal. They were really faded, kind of robotic. But not, you know—”

  “Bonkers,” Shane says. He shifts into a version of Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love.”

  I pull up in front of Elizabeth’s swanky apartment complex. David grabs a few empty duffel bags from his trunk. As we walk to the door, Shane keeps himself between the humans and the jittery Travis, who watches us like an Atkins dieter with a stack of pancakes. But without the strength of desperate hunger, he’s no match for Shane, so I feel safe around him, if not particularly happy.

  Elizabeth’s basement condo looks like that of any other up-and-coming venture capitalist: leather furniture, stainless steel kitchen appliances, and hardwood floors begging for a good game of sock hockey.

  “Wow,” David says. “She never made enough working for the Control as a human to afford a place like this.”

  A thud comes from the kitchen, making us all jump. A large white cat struts into the living room and says prrrow.

  David breathes a sigh of relief. “I didn’t know she had a pet.”

  Shane squats down and makes little puss-puss noises to get the cat to approach him. He picks it up and checks the tag.

  “What’s its name?” David says.

  “There’s no name. It’s just a rabies tag.” He quickly slides the blue collar and tag off the cat, avoiding David’s eyes.

  “Let me see the kitty,” Travis says.

  Shane turns away. “No, you’ll bite him.”

  “I will not.”

  “Believe me, I was your age not too long ago. You’ll bite anything that bleeds. Speaking of which.” He nods at the insulated canteen on Travis’s hip. “Meal time.”

  “Oh. Yeah, thanks.” Travis pulls a fast-food straw from his shirt pocket and yanks off the wrapper.

  “Give me the cat.” David eases the beast out of Shane’s arms. “I’ll take him home with me. First let’s get him some food.”

  I flip through a pile of mail on the dining room table. “Travis, what are we looking for?”

  He jolts a little at being spoken to, especially in the middle of a drink. He bobs the straw in the canteen and wipes his mouth with a napkin. I look away from the red smear on the white paper.

  “Uh.” He smooths down the front of his shirt. “She probably keeps her important documents in a fireproof safe. Let’s try the closets.”

  We open the coat closet across from the kitchen, where David and Shane are searching for cat food. I hold the flashlight for Travis, who seems calmer now that he’s had a snack.

  “Should we be wearing gloves?” I ask him.

  “Naw, no one’ll dust for prints in here. It’s not a crime scene.”

  I look behind me into the kitchen. “It will be if David and Shane don’t leave that thing alone and come help us.”

  Travis snickers. “You don’t like puddy-tats?”

  “I’m more of a dog person. But I admire cats and their ability to take so much while giving so little.”

  “I had a dog. Ex-wife took him, and the house.”

  “Is that why you like country music?”

  He eases himself out of the closet. “Huh?”

  “Just a joke. Sorry about your dog.”

  “Yeah, well—” He scratches his stomach. “—don’t suppose I’ll get another one any time soon. Let’s try the bedroom.”

  Shane overhears and joins us. “Nothing personal, Travis, but we don’t leave new vampires alone with humans.”

  The detective just sighs and sips his breakfast.

  Elizabeth’s walk-in closet would make most women swoon. I, however, could really give a shit how many pairs of—

  “Oh my God.” I kneel before the hottest pair of red pumps. “These would look so amazing on me.” I check th
e brand. “Ferragamos! I always wanted a pair of—fuck, they’re the wrong size.” I hurl the shoe on the floor. It bounces under a row of skirts and hits something metallic.

  Shane shoves apart the skirts to reveal a foot-high combination safe. “Excellent.”

  Before he pulls it out, he eyes me clutching the other red pump. I toss it aside, chagrined at my estrogen outburst.

  “You didn’t see that.”

  Shane drags the safe out of the closet and carries it to the bed. While Travis and I watch, he kneels beside the safe and pulls a pencil and a sheet of graph paper from his back pocket.

  “What’s that for? “I ask him.

  “I’ll show you when I’m done.” He looks at his unwelcome audience. “It’s tedious and takes forever. Go do something else, quietly.”

  We obey. In the living room, David is inspecting the bookshelf under the long, high window, which is covered in heavy room-darkening curtains. He pulls out a few volumes that look like Control manuals. “In case the police come,” he tells us as he stuffs them in a duffel bag.

  I approach a large wall-mounted cabinet on the far side of the dining room. I fish Elizabeth’s keys from my purse and unlock it. “Whoa.”

  The cabinet contains an arsenal of anti-vampire weaponry: crosses, sharpened stakes, a long sword, a crossbow.

  And at the bottom, a gun shaped like a prop from a 1940s alien invasion flick.

  Travis approaches, giving the stakes a wary eye. “I never saw a piece like that before.” He picks up the gun. “What kind of—”

  “Don’t touch that!” David shouts.

  Travis drops the gun. I leap back, expecting it to go off. Instead of a heavy thud, it makes a hollow whap! against the floor. I bend down and pick it up.

  David stalks over to me. “It doesn’t fire bullets.”

  “It’s plastic.” I heft it in my hand. “Like a water pistol.”

  “It is a water pistol.”

  I look at the two bottles of holy water in the cabinet.A box of latex gloves sits next to them, presumably for Elizabeth’s safe handling.

  I scrape the gun’s rough surface with my nail to reveal bright pink. “Aren’t there laws against painting water pistols black?”

  “They need to be camouflaged for night ops,” David says. “And a Control agent would never carry a pink-and-yellow weapon. It’s a macho thing.”