by P. N. Elrod
“We’re a couple of guys standing around in cow shit.”
“We’re goddamn vampires, you son-of-a-bitch!”
“So?”
“You nuts or something? The things we can do—I can own this town! Didn’t you see that?”
“Yeah. From the first night I woke up, then I decided I didn’t want the worry. I’ve got my piece of the world, and I keep my nose clean. You need to do the same.”
“Or Gordy the goon comes after me?”
“You’re starting to get it.” I vanished from within the cattle pen and reappeared only a pace or so from Slaughter. He was less surprised this time, but still scowled, with a hint of jealousy behind his eyes. Maybe he thought I was showing off.
“Gordy has to find me first,” he said, as though trying to convince himself. “No one knows where I hide during the day.”
I chuckled a little. “You sure about that? Your life could depend on it. In fact, it does already. Just give us an excuse.”
“Goddamn cow-sucker.”
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”
“You can’t make me.”
“The idea is you do it on your own. Playing wet nurse ain’t in my line. You think I couldn’t force the issue? I’m older and stronger—”
A lie, but plausible to anyone who’d read Dracula.
“—I wouldn’t even break a sweat. . .but I’m trying to give you some respect.”
A flash from his eyes. Had I finally touched the right nerve? If he had the kind of upbringing that went with his tough guy manners, then he’d be starved for respect and acceptance. On the other hand, he was also scornful of anyone bestowing it. Bad enough if he started out with a general contempt for humanity, his change to something physically superior would tend to bolster that view. I had to get him to see farther than his own nose.
“You’ve been through the wringer and had it tough,” I continued. “I’m not talking about your life before your change, but what happened after you woke up dead. You were smart enough to figure things out and survive. That tells me you’ve got the smarts to get along without hurting others.”
“What’s it to you?”
“There aren’t a lot of us walking around. We look out for each other. I’m willing to teach you the rest of the stuff you need to know. Think it over. If you decide you’re better than the regular kind of mug you see, look me up. I’m usually at the Nightcrawler Club. Just ask for Jack Fleming.”
Slaughter made no reply, but he wasn’t sneering, so that was some progress. He needed me more than I wanted to deal with him, but no good would come of mentioning that fact. He’d have to think coming around to my view was his own idea.
I wasn’t especially excited about playing the mentor, either. He might be picking up on that. I didn’t like him. Sure, I saw myself in him, but those were the pieces of me that I’d outgrown and left behind. Having him hanging around would be a reminder of past mistakes and how much I still had to learn.
But balanced against that was something very basic and human: loneliness. We’re all alone, but there’s a lot more of it when you’ve got a condition that sets you even farther apart from others. We search for commonalities as a cure for that isolation. Like it or not, Slaughter and I had the vampirism in common. If not for that, I wouldn’t spare him two seconds of my time, and it wasn’t as though I wanted a new friend. I had to be altruistic to keep him from abusing the privilege.
“I’ll see you around,” I said. He was in the way. If I walked past, he’d bump my shoulder or try something equally stupid to provoke a fight. Schoolyard stuff: step across that line, I double-dare you. I’ll show you who’s the toughest kid in town.
Entertaining as that might be, it was late, and my suit had seen enough wear for one evening. I vanished again and floated high above him, moving swiftly away, not reappearing until I was clear of the pens and well onto the sidewalk. Now I was showing off, but I’d had a lot of practice and could make it look good.
He followed. A gray cloud that only I could see sieved through the fence near the ground, hovered a moment, then solidified into his shape. By then, I was in my car and driving off. I didn’t wave good-bye; always leave ’em wanting more.
* * *
At exactly sunset I woke as usual, but not in the usual spot at home. There, I had a well-hidden sanctuary in the basement of my partner Escott’s house. Because of Slaughter, I’d steered clear of its shelter in favor of an even better bolt hole in a tobacco shop. It was in a seldom-visited upstairs storage room that backed the office where Escott ran his not-too-busy detective agency. In a long box hidden beneath a lot of other boxes I was safe for the day. The only access was through the shop below and through a concealed panel in the common wall of Escott’s back room. Only he and I knew about it.
I didn’t use the box often. It was too reminiscent of a damned coffin. I’d never been in one, but hated the sight of them.
Leaving it and the small bag of my home earth behind, I dematerialized and pushed through the common wall, going solid again in the back room, which was dark. Ingrained caution made me pause and listen before moving another inch. It paid off; someone was in the outer office. He was quiet, but when I concentrate I can hear a gnat belch.
It wouldn’t be Escott; he was out of town running an errand for a client, nor would it be another client. I’d made a point of locking the door before turning in. Next time I’d buy a heavy bolt to beef things up. It could not be Slaughter; he had no heartbeat.
Wary, I vanished and eased my way through the next wall until I was just behind the visitor. Serve him right if I gave him a heart attack.
The general grayness of my perception took on form and color as I gradually went solid. The office light was on. After being in the box, I squinted against the brightness.
The man turned out to be Gordy. His back was to me, his massive frame seated in one of the fortunately sturdy chairs in front of Escott’s desk. Something must have come up for him to be here waiting for me. Normally, he’d just phone at sunset.
And he’d phone me at home. He didn’t know I’d be here. He knew nothing about the box above the shop.
But Slaughter might have followed me from the Yards. I’d checked for tails, but he could have managed and tracked me as far as the office. My car was right out front.
“Gordy?”
No jump of surprise. Gordy stood and turned like a machine, raising his gun to my chest level. His eyes were empty; his whole face was empty. I dove in fast and grabbed his arm. The big .45 boomed twice, blasting craters in the plaster before I could wrest it from him, He tried to get it back, but I gave him a hefty gut punch to distract him, shouting his name right in his ear.
He didn’t quite double over. I had to pop him again, harder. That did the trick. His knees hit the floor, but he still made a single-minded reaching motion for the gun. I shouted at him again, this time making eye contact.
“Listen to me, goddammit!”
He halted in mid-motion, then wavered. I took a breath to calm myself, backing away from my anger and fear, then:
“Wake up, Gordy! Come out of it. You don’t hear him anymore.”
He blinked and shook his head like a drunk, but awareness flooded back. “Jeeze, Fleming—what the hell. . . ?”
I sagged. “That goddamn little son-of-a—” The sudden shock of adrenaline trying to pound a hole in the top of my skull vented itself in multi-colored phrase. Gone was every shred of sympathy for Slaughter. If he’d been in front of me I’d have killed him then and there. Gordy was right; I was wrong, almost fatally wrong.
When coherency returned, I apologized to Gordy for getting rough.
“No problem,” he said, slowly boosting into the chair. “But you didn’t have to use a sledge hammer on me. I just wanna know why. How come I’m here?”
“Weasel-boy got to you.”
“Who?”
“Slaughter sent you over to drill me.” I held out the gun. He gingerly took it and
sniffed the muzzle. He looked at the holes in the wall.
“Who’s Slaughter?” Gordy asked.
I wasted a moment gaping at him.
Oh, crap. “You know what day it is?”
“Wednesday.”
“Try Thursday night.”
“I lost a whole damn day?” He never raised his voice. Any other man would be smashing furniture. “How the hell—”
“Hypnosis.”
He was fighting to believe me, looking around the office, unable to explain how else he’d gotten here. “Like what you do?”
“Exactly like what I do. There’s another vampire in town, and he made you forget all about him. I can find out more, but I’ll have to put you under myself.”
He thought about it. Taking his time. “Then I’d remember this guy?”
“Yeah. It would come back to you normal in a week or two—if he lets you live that long. You need to remember him.”
“You won’t make me quack like a duck? I saw a guy on stage do that.”
That caught me off-guard. “Uh—no, promise, scout’s honor.”
His head wobbled, indication that I’d amused him, and he marginally relaxed. “Okay. What do I do?”
This was a hell of a lot of trust on his part. I was strangely uncomfortable with that. “Just sit there. . .”
It didn’t take long to jog the whole business from Gordy’s memory.
After our cozy chat over the Stockyards fence Slaughter had turned up at the Nightcrawler not long before dawn. He’d located Gordy and put him under, then gave him careful instructions to go to a place called the Escott Agency. There he was to wait and shoot me as soon as I showed myself in the evening. Afterward, he was to return to the Nightcrawler as though nothing had happened.
I made sure Gordy remembered everything when I woke him up.
“Little son-of-a-bitch,” he muttered.
It was unanimous. “Simple but effective. If you got caught for my murder, you’d take the fall, and never know why.”
“If I’d shot you, you wouldn’t have died. Ain’t that right?”
“A metal bullet hurts, but isn’t enough. Slaughter doesn’t know how hard we are to kill or what weapons really do the job. Good thing he didn’t ask you.”
“Then we show him how it’s done.”
I was all for it.
“Is that yours?” He indicated something on the desk.
I’d left my fedora there in case Escott returned early from his trip so he’d know I was using the tobacco shop bolt hole. On the blotter next to my hat lay a shiny new hunting knife, the big one made famous by Jim Bowie. Some ancient Roman could have used it for a sword, the damned thing was of a similar size. It was out of its scabbard, ready to hand for. . .
“I think we can reasonably assume Slaughter knows how it’s done,” I said, feeling sick. “That’s not yours? You sure?”
Gordy frowned at it. “I would never bring a knife to a gun fight.”
True. He knew better. “Then Slaughter got it for you to. . .what, full dismemberment or just cut my head off?”
“Either way, you’re out of the picture.”
“But he doesn’t know I’d just vanish and heal if shot with a metal bullet. You wanna check what’s in your piece?”
He removed the magazine and ejected the round in the chamber. We examined the bullets. They were normal, straight from the factory. No tampering and not a sliver of wood in sight.
“He doesn’t know everything,” I said. “I can thank Bram Stoker for getting it wrong.”
“How’s that?”
“At the end of the book they stabbed Dracula with metal, and he turned to dust. Slaughter must have thought shooting would do the same for me, but if there was anything left—”
“Let’s skip that part.” Gordy checked his watch. “I’ve been here all day. Derner’s gonna be nuts.”
Derner was one of his office lieutenants. He answered the phones when Gordy was away, which almost never happened.
“Fleming. . .”
I correctly read the tension on Gordy’s face and pointed toward the back. He trundled off to use the washroom. The toilet was flushed and water ran. When he came back the sweat was off his face and he seemed more alert. He rubbed his stubbled chin, looking annoyed. He invariably presented a clean-shaved face to the world.
“Damn, I need coffee,” he said.
He never made offhand remarks like that. It told me just how shaken he was inside.
But his hand was steady as he used a handkerchief to polish prints off the rounds and put his gun back together. While he did that I found the two empty casings and pocketed them. Escott liked a neat office. I glanced at the bullet holes; those would have to be patched before he got back. I had a feeling this was not an incident I’d want him to know about.
I was itching to look outside, but didn’t dare and stopped Gordy from having a gander. “Slaughter might be watching.”
“Hell.”
It wasn’t likely, being so soon after sundown, but neither of us wanted to risk that he had found a temporary resting place in some nearby attic or cellar. He’d have gotten up at the same time as I and could be watching from the street to see how things progressed for his puppet.
“Wanna bet that he’s going to be all set to give you fresh orders? Maybe take over your operation?”
Gordy shook his head. He went into the back room, which was still dark. His shadow wouldn’t show against the blind as he checked the street from there, lifting a slat by only a fraction.
“Don’t see nothing, for what that’s worth.”
“Not a red cent. We’ll have to play this out, just in case.”
“Why bother? Let’s just go after him.”
“He’s too hard to catch. He finds out we’re onto his game, he vanishes—literally—and leaves town to set up someplace else. He’ll kill, if he hasn’t already. His next target could be you. He might hypnotize you again. He seems to like controlling people.”
Gordy nodded, accepting the possibility. “Then he’ll be at my club. Can you do anything?”
“I got an idea. . .”
* * *
Gordy drove himself back to the Nightcrawler. That he’d left behind his usual driver and strong arm again indicated Slaughter’s not-too-subtle influence. I made a more clandestine exit via the tobacco shop in the next street, wafting invisibly past the last customers. One of them shivered when I brushed too close and joked that someone must be walking over his grave.
I have never thought that observation to be particularly funny.
Outside, I streamed down the sidewalk until I found what seemed to be an alley at least a block away and there went solid. I felt naked without my hat, but had left it behind in case Slaughter dropped in to check on things. The idea was to make him think Gordy had succeeded.
As extra insurance, I’d put Gordy under again, priming him with the story that I’d turned to dust upon expiring. Dracula had done so, after all. Never thought I’d be grateful for such inspired misinformation.
Hailing a cab, I got a ride to the Nightcrawler and had the driver drop me in the building’s rear alley. I paid him off and vanished, aiming for Gordy’s private suite, ghosting up the side of the building to ease through the wall. I didn’t like how it felt going through bricks and mortar, lathe and plaster, but it beat the brittle resistance of glass.
If Slaughter saw me in this state, the game was up. There was no way I could tell where he might be, either, whether he’d been watching Escott’s street or gone on to the club. Gordy was of the opinion that Slaughter would swagger in by the front door and park himself in the big chair behind the desk all set to take over. I had no reason to disagree.
It struck me that Slaughter could have mistaken my position in the scheme of things, thinking that I was really in charge of the Northside territory. It would never enter his head that I’d be hanging around out of friendship. Slaughter would judge me by his limits; he sure as hell wouldn’t have a
ny friends: only enemies and people he could control.
Feeling the general shape of the area around me, I thought myself home safe. Materializing, I sagged with relief. It was where I’d been aiming to wind up: a large, pitch-dark closet. Without even a faint outside source of light I was as blind as anyone else given the circumstance and struck a match, careful to hold it clear. If I singed any of Gordy’s custom-made suits, he would not be happy.
In the seconds before the match burned down, I found what I wanted: a sawed-off shotgun high on a back shelf. Gordy assured me it was still loaded with some special shells he’d made up. We’d used it once before to deal with a vampire, and the memory was anything but pleasant. My fingers shook as they closed over its chill weight.
Wood can truly damage us or guarantee a kill. You just have to know to use it, whether it’s a stake in the heart, a club to the skull, or small beads loaded into a shotgun shell. On a normal human, the latter would probably do less damage than rock salt, but for guys like Slaughter and me, it’s a slow, ugly death. Press both barrels against the chest and pull the trigger. Messy, but effective.
Maybe I wouldn’t be able to do it. I’d killed before: by accident, in cold blood, and in the madness of rage. I wasn’t proud of myself, and on those rare, awful days when I was stupid enough to get caught away from the protection of my home earth, the bad dreams ate through my helpless brain like acid.
Slaughter was bad news, but was he worth another dent in my already battered conscience? Perhaps all he needed was an almighty scare and some sense beaten into him. That I could do and no problem.
However, Gordy would want him dead.
In such matters Gordy was usually right.
* * *
Ears flapping, I eased open the closet door. It was clear and quiet, but the next room over was Gordy’s palatial office, and there I heard activity, but not conversation. I pressed against the wall. At least three people, two of them breathing: Slaughter, Gordy, and one of the strong arms? That wasn’t right. We’d agreed to keep this party exclusive. Slaughter may have added a third guest.