The Vampire Files, Volume Three

by P. N. Elrod

  “But I thought you wanted to—”

  “No more guys following him around,” Grant cheerfully repeated.

  And that was that.

  Mentally dusting my hands, I took myself away to materialize in an unused corner, then went back to the party, feeling very satisfied about myself and the world.

  Things had gotten noisier with the booze flowing so free, and the musicians decided to put in some extra playing time. It was much the same as it’d been on opening night, only the attention was divided between Bobbi and Adelle. Bobbi was busy for the moment, but I spotted Madison Pruitt at the chow line. I could take care of my business with him to fill the time until she was free.

  Maybe he wasn’t a creative type, but I did know better than to get between him and food and waited until he’d loaded a plate and carried it off to a table. He’d apparently been grazing for a while, as his area was crowded with empty plates containing identical remains of what he was now digging into. When Madison found something he liked, he stuck with it.

  “How you doing?” I asked, walking over.

  He looked up, mouth full, and said something unintelligible, but friendly in tone, gesturing for me to sit. For the amount of food he was always packing away he was ever on the gaunt and gangly side. His loose clothes were informal tweeds, lots of them, with two knitted vests under the coat. Either he was cold all the time or trying to pad out his thin form. I hadn’t seen him for the last few months. He’d been injured by scabs at an auto-plant sit-down strike, who gave him a concussion and broken arm. Both seemed healed up; he wore no cast, but there was a white scar over his left eyebrow that hadn’t been there before. He looked a little older, a little more worn.

  “Heard you had some bad luck with strikebreakers,” I said. “Glad to see you’re up and around.”

  He pushed his thick-lensed glasses back with a knuckle and bobbed his head. “Yeah, that’s what happened. They were animals in the pay of the fascist overlords. I tried to tell them about being exploited, but they wouldn’t listen. Too busy hitting me.”

  I knew what I’d let myself in for, but was resigned to it and listened as he gave me a very thorough account of his assault. He was grimly proud of it, and stopped eating long enough to show me the scarring on his left arm where it had been broken during his clubbing. I could admire him to some extent; qualities in him that could be seen as faults had given him a kind of obtuse courage. Maybe I thought he was nuts for what he was doing, but at least he was out doing it. I winced appreciatively for what he’d been through and told him he’d been badly used. He wholeheartedly agreed, and that led him off on another tangent about the parallels between the strikers and the Spanish Civil War. It was pretty convoluted, and he talked too quickly for me to even try to follow. When he paused for breath I broke in to bring the conversation around to where I wanted.

  “Ever heard of a guy named Jason McCallen? He might be a member of the party.”

  Madison looked cagey. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I’m just trying to get a line on who he is. Someone told me he might be a communist, and from what I’ve seen he’s probably a good one for the cause. He’s a big guy, very intense, Scottish accent.”

  “A Scotch communist?”

  “Scots,” I said, parroting Escott. “Scotch is a drink.”

  He thought for a bit, then shook his head. “I’ve never met him, but then the meetings can be pretty large. We don’t all know each other.”

  I shrugged. “Okay, it was a long shot.”

  “I could ask around.”

  One thing I didn’t need was Madison accidentally putting his foot into a bear trap. He’d been banged up enough. “That’s good of you, but don’t bother.”

  “Why you want to know about him?”

  “Just a little business deal I’m thinking about. I wanted to see how steady he was.”

  “Business deal?”

  “It’s nothing. How’s the American party doing these days?”

  The subject change was all I needed to keep him from asking more questions. He bent my ear until I happened to notice Ike LaCelle watching me from a few yards away. I didn’t think he’d heard anything, but wouldn’t put it past him to read lips. He broke into an instant smile and strolled up. Despite my having spooked him, he never once let it show and glad-handed me like we were the best of friends. I wondered what the hell he wanted.

  “Fleming! Good to see you!” His booming greeting had its effect on Madison, startling him so he paused a moment in his plate grazing to stare. LaCelle was practically sparkling with fond fellowship. “That was a hell of a show tonight, wasn’t it?”

  “Which one?”

  “Why, both of ’em, of course. Bobbi’s on the ladder to stardom, I’m sure of it, and Adelle’s never been better, don’t you think?”

  I agreed and introduced him to Madison, who stopped eating again long enough to shake hands.

  “I’ve heard of you, Mr. LaCelle,” he mumbled around his latest mouthful.

  “Oh, yeah? Well, don’t believe a word of it, I was drunk at the time.”

  Madison stared, uncomprehending. “I didn’t mean to imply anything about you in a negative sense, far from it. Marza—Bobbi’s piano player—told me what an important and influential man you are.”

  I could almost hear the acid in Marza’s voice were she to hear herself described as a mere piano player.

  “I’ve got the ears of a few people here and there,” said LaCelle. “Mr. Fleming can tell you.”

  To be agreeable, I nodded and resisted asking what other things besides ears he might have as trophies. He would not have been able to appreciate it.

  “Then you’re just the sort of man that’s needed to help further a truly great cause,” said Madison. He put down his fork, which was a dangerous sign. “Have you ever given serious thought about the contributions that the American Communist Party has made toward the betterment of the workers right here in America?”

  LaCelle seemed nonplussed for a second, but recovered quick. “No, Mr. Pruitt, I can’t say that I have.”

  “I think you’ll be surprised to learn just how much influence we’ve had on improving conditions in every . . . ”

  Oh, he was on a roll, all right. LaCelle listened and nodded in the right places, and damned if he didn’t pretend to be interested, but then he was already putting on a perfect sham of friendship toward me. Instead of hanging around actors, he should have been one. “Yes, you do have a point there, Mr. Pruitt. But tell me, doesn’t your family own Canuvel Steel?”

  Madison’s turn to be nonplussed. He wasn’t secretive about his background, but didn’t exactly shout it to people. “Only a controlling interest, but—”

  “Really? I think we’ve got a lot to talk about, then, but I can’t do it dry.” He turned to me, holding hard to his old-pals act. “Fleming, you look like a man who needs a drink, too. Lemme get you something.”

  “Thanks, but I’m fine.”

  He didn’t listen, though, and signaled a waiter. “What’ll you have? Grain or grape?”

  He was in a jovially insistent mood. It was easier not to argue. “Champagne’s fine.”

  He snagged three glasses from the waiter’s tray and shared them around. “A toast, gentlemen. In memory of a very successful evening for two lovely ladies, Bobbi and Adelle.”

  I couldn’t get out of that one, and he was too close for me to only pretend to sip. Madison gulped his down, LaCelle took a healthy swig, then smiled expectantly at me. I did the same, though it was like trying to drink gasoline. He grinned as though he’d accomplished something, and I wondered if he suspected anything about me being a vampire. It didn’t strike me as likely, but better to be a little paranoid than a lot sorry.

  While the champagne went to war with my picky digestive system, I smiled back and tried to pin him with a look. His nose was pretty red and his eyes had an unfocused cast. Damn, but he was too far along to be an easy mark; even Madison would notice the ef
fort I’d have to put into it to get past the booze. I’d have to try some other time—when I had more time. If I didn’t move soon, things would get very embarrassing.

  Before Madison could resume his proselytizing, I stood and excused myself, saying I had to go see Bobbi about something. LaCelle’s eyes flickered with amusement like he didn’t believe me, but nuts to him. Right now I had to leave and quickly.

  The men’s room was in the outer lobby, just go up a couple tiers and turn right. For me it was like a hike up the Matterhorn, and I had to do it casual in case LaCelle was watching. I also had to try keeping a normal face on so no one would notice anything was wrong. In the meanwhile the stuff I’d taken in rolled around my guts like red-hot marbles. Only just in time did I push the door open and stagger blindly to a stall so my body could reject what was now pure venom to me. A tearing cramp doubled me over, and I retched hard.

  The noisy unpleasantness was all done in less than a minute. Someone in another stall asked if I was all right, and someone else laughed and observed that I just couldn’t take it. I flushed the toilet, then washed my hands and got out before either man emerged to find the mirrors ignoring me.

  I was annoyed with LaCelle, but even more annoyed with myself for allowing him to steer me around as he’d done. Instead of suspecting me of being supernatural, maybe this was some kind of payback for scaring him last night. Having gotten him to do something he didn’t want, he’d just returned the favor. I’d have to start getting smarter about avoiding such pitfalls in the future.

  Still shaken and angry, I went back to the party in the main room, and it was pretty much as I’d left it, loud and full of life and music. Oddly enough, LaCelle had stayed to talk to Madison Pruitt, and I didn’t know which of them to feel sorrier for. LaCelle looked past Madison toward me, his head slightly cocked like a man waiting to see something. If he thought I’d come back for more manipulation, he was in for a disappointment.

  Gordy’s prime table by the dance floor had other people sitting there, smoking and talking as they drank more of his booze. Escott was up on the second tier with a group gathered around Archy Grant, who was telling a very animated story that was getting him a bushel of laughs. Escott wore a strange, tight smile through it all, as though he wanted to get the joke, but couldn’t quite. At least he wasn’t off in a corner alone.

  Then I spotted Gil Dalhauser staring intently across the room at Escott. Dalhauser was statue still amid the movement of the others around him. The look on his face as he concentrated on my partner was nothing less than murderous.

  This evening was getting too complicated.

  Making my way across so Escott could see me, I gave him a subtle high sign, then waited. Grant got to his punch line, and his crowd exploded with laughter, except for Escott. He continued with the smile, but no more than that as he broke away from them. It couldn’t have been because of not understanding the point; he must have had something else distracting him, and I had a good idea what it might be.

  “Dalhauser’s trying to fry you with his eyes,” I told him.

  “He has not escaped my notice. I’ve been doing a reasonable job of pretending not to see him, though. He seems content to simply glare.”

  “That’ll be Gordy’s doing. He put the word out that we were strictly hands-off in this town. Ike was ready to take a chance, but maybe not Dalhauser.”

  “The test will be how that policy holds up should either of us ever choose to travel outside the bounds of Gordy’s protective influence.”

  “You want to ask him about it?”

  “No, I prefer a little uncertainty in my life.”

  Well, if he didn’t want to worry about it, neither would I.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, peering at me.

  “I couldn’t get out of joining in on a toast. Had to go get rid of the stuff I drank.”

  “It certainly doesn’t agree with you. You seem very pale.”

  “Well, I am what I am, you know.” I wasn’t about to say “vampire” out loud, even if nearly everyone around us was drunk.

  “That’s just it, you usually have better color.”

  Even as he spoke I felt my stomach going into a knot.

  “Jack?”

  I resisted giving in to it and gulped hard. From here we were closer to the backstage rest rooms than the ones out front. I pushed away from him and down toward the dance floor, crossing it and ducking into the wings. Escott was right at my heels.

  Bobbi’s dressing room was closest. I hurried in and made it to the toilet in time as the next cramp hit. Nothing came out but spit. It tasted vile and was colored with blood. I used the sink spigot to rinse my mouth out and still couldn’t lose the taste. Escott hung close and watched, his face stitched up with concern.

  “Get your coat off,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just get it off.”

  There didn’t seem to be any reason not to, and I wanted to loosen my tie anyway. He hung the tux jacket in the closet, then got a towel and wet it.

  “Run this over your face,” he ordered, handing it to me.

  I did so. It came away red. “Shit, I’m sweatin’ blood. What the hell is this? Poison again?” My body had done the same thing once before.

  “That depends on what was in the drink you had. Alcohol is a toxin, after all.”

  “It was champagne. Just a little champagne.”

  “Then you’ve a deucedly poor reaction to carbonation—”

  “No, it wouldn’t hit me like this. No wonder he was looking so pleased. That son of a bitch Ike put something in it!”

  Escott asked a few more questions, and in between cramps and spitting into the sink I told him about what I’d overheard from Grant and LaCelle and the knight-in-armor bit I’d done on Bobbi’s behalf. I wiped bloody sweat from my face and neck, having taken off my shirt and undershirt to keep from staining them. The symptoms were subsiding, though. Each bout was shorter and milder than the last.

  “If he meant to croak me he’s in for one hell of a surprise,” I said, holding the towel under cold water to wash the red away. I swabbed it around my face and neck, and for once it came away clean.

  “I think you were given something nonfatal but inconveniencing. If you suddenly dropped dead, Mr. Pruitt would surely remember drinking that toast with LaCelle.”

  “Don’t bet on it.”

  “Yes, but LaCelle wouldn’t know that. I’ll wager what he slipped you was nothing more than an old-fashioned Mickey Finn, meant to publicly embarrass you when you passed out, apparently the worse for drink. A pretty little retaliation, don’t you think?”

  “I’m gonna hang him out in the wind for this.”

  “By all means, and I’d very much like to watch you do it. Do you plan to tell Gordy?”

  “Only if he asks. This is between me and LaCelle.”

  ESCOTT went out front while I finished cleaning up and dressing again, making sure there was no trace of blood on anything. Whether he was drunk or not, LaCelle was going to hear from me, either with hypnosis or a sock in the jaw. Or both.

  Madison’s table was empty, and I couldn’t spot him or LaCelle in the crowd. I started toward the casino room, but Bobbi called to me, hurrying over.

  “Where’ve you been?” she asked. Her expression went from pleasure to puzzlement when she got a close look at me.

  “A little cleanup work. You seen Ike LaCelle?”

  “Not lately. Jack? What’s wrong?”

  “He hasn’t given you anything to drink? Sent any to your table?”

  “No. Why?”

  That was a relief. “If he ever does, don’t have any.”

  “Why not?”

  “He tried to slip me a Mickey.”

  “What?”

  I explained a few things to her until she wanted to take a pop at LaCelle herself. “It’s my fight,” I said. “I gotta be the one to take care of him.”

  “Can I still be mad at him, too?”
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  “All you want, angel, just don’t mess up your career.”

  “Guys like him shouldn’t be anywhere near show business.”

  Now, there was an idea. I wondered what the climate was like in Greenland this time of year.

  “How’d it go with Archy?” she asked, knocking over my train of thought.

  “I think you’ll find any future work with him to be a lot easier. From now on everything will be strictly platonic as far as you’re concerned.”

  She was delightfully grateful, her expression of it improving my outlook considerably, but she wasn’t up to her usual energy.

  “You’re tuckered out,” I observed as she leaned against me.

  “Much more of this and I’ll need to prop my eyelids open with toothpicks. Is it too early to take me home?”

  “Not after the work you’ve done tonight.”

  “But the show was only an hour long, and I didn’t have to dance.”

  “And I saw you putting out three times more of yourself than you’ve ever done before.”

  “Okay, I’ll have one of the guys find me a cab.”

  “Not on your life. I’ll get you home.”

  “But you want to see Ike—”

  “Who doesn’t seem to be here. Tomorrow night’s soon enough for him. I’ll go find out if Charles wants to leave.”

  Escott had returned to the group around Grant, close enough to listen but far enough back to leave without drawing attention. Grant still noticed when I came up, and watched as we left, but never once paused in his latest story. When he was holding court he probably hated losing even one audience member.

  Once Escott understood I’d given up trying to find LaCelle and was going to drop Bobbi home, then return for him, he opted to leave, too. He wanted to stop at the office before going home himself, and that went along with my pausing to tank up at the nearby Stockyards. We got our coats and said good-bye to a lot of people, and I made sure about Jim Waters getting a ride home. Bobbi slumped against me on the front seat of Escott’s Nash and went right out. I put an arm around her to keep her from sliding around.

  Escott gave her what I could only call an envious look. “How I wish it was that easy for me,” he murmured.