by Declan Finn
Ryan was the first to slip into Mira’s hotel room, slipping the bellman a twenty to stay outside a moment with the bags so he could search.
Ryan stopped mid-search and turned toward the closet, peering at it closely. He waved to Mira to close the door. She peered at him a moment, and then did as he asked. The security expert looked at the closet, reached into his jacket, and pulled out a small Star Firestar .45-caliber handgun, and took the safety off before throwing the door open and jamming the gun into the hidden man’s face.
Morrie, the short, fat Jewish vampire from the setup crew, fell out of the closet, still in full costume. Ryan grimaced, tucked the gun into the small of his back and then hauled Morrie up from the floor, ready to ruin his face, starting with the Eddie Munster eyebrows Morrie spent a half-hour penciling on.
“What the hell are you doing here, schmuck?”
Morrie trembled an awful lot, and Ryan looked down at his open fly.
Sean grunted, grabbed the zipper, and yanked Morrie’s fly closed. Morrie gritted his teeth and damn near screamed.
“Now get out, ya perv.”
The vampire nodded. “Thanks,” he rasped. “I can get you fang implants at half-price if—”
“Out.”
Having evicted Morrie and after the bellman left, Ryan looked at Goran and Mira. “I’m sleeping in this room; I’ll start moving everything around, starting with the crib. That way, if anyone tries to break in, they’ll find me instead of you.” He stepped outside in the hallway, looked both ways, and unlocked the hotel room that was supposed to be his. When he came through the adjoining door from “his” room, Sean wore a big smile. “Don’t worry, you’re going to hate my next idea. This door stays open all the time; and it closes for no reason. The last thing I need is for a hit team to come in hoping to get me first and luck out by getting you instead; this way, if they come after your security first, I’ll hear them and be able to respond quickly enough. If they do come after you first, they’ll have a nasty little surprise waiting for them.”
Mira cocked her head to one side. “Is there not a slight problem with your idea? If they enter this room, hoping to find me, won’t you be caught off guard?”
Ryan beamed and reached into his pocket, pulling out two small nails. He held on to one nail and let the other drop, and it hung around his waist, linked to the other nail by a length of thin wire. He walked over to the door, pulled out a thick, three-inch pocketknife, and used it to pound one of the nails into the doorframe and the other into the edge of the door. He opened the door all the way, stretching the wire taught just below knee level. He slowly closed the door once more, careful to keep the wire inside the room.
“And this we call a tripwire. By the way, we’re both leaving 'do not disturb' signs on our doors, and we’ll each be coming out of the rooms we’re assigned. It may look a little suspicious if we’re seen coming out the wrong door. Understood?”
“It would defeat the purpose,” Mira replied.
“Bingo. Goran, pass off Marko to Mira, and help me with these boxes please. Grazie.”
The tall, lanky Serb followed Ryan into the next room. “Might I ask what are in these boxes?”
“Death, doom, and destruction, my friend…not to mention a few neat-o costumes that go over well at parties.”
***
Janowitz scurried through the hotel, trying desperately not to panic, and thought back to a previous convention, remembering how much worse life could actually be. At the moment, the hotel lobby was filled and getting worse—the hotel had overbooked for the first time C-Con had started its dealings with them. He suspected they had done it on purpose. As he shouted down the gathering angry customers—all of which dressed in costumes of varying arrays, some of whom looked like walking arsenals—staff members were already moving out of their hotel rooms to spend the night in the conference halls.
Suddenly, what sounded like a barrage of machine-gun fire went off, making everyone in the lobby drop to the ground (having seen enough disaster movies, the crowd was knowledgeable in how many casualties could come from a stampede, so they all hoped not to get hit).
Janowitz merely stood, petrified, and someone leapt from the floor and into him, pulling him to the floor. The only man left standing was a short, round, little old man with a yarmulke.
“Now this is what I call crowd control,” Mitchell Scholl said with a smile.
Janowitz stood, strode over the prone figures of guests in ridiculous costumes, and grabbed Scholl. “What sort of stupidity are you into, pal?” he demanded.
“I’ll have you know that I’m part of security at this show, my friend! And if you don’t unhand me right now, I’ll sic the head of security on you!”
He sighed and let the shorter man down slowly, too tempted to drop him. “What the hell are those? Squibs?”
“Yes, sir, they are! Although if you want to keep your fingers, you’ll step back…you’re standing on a highly explosive little disk.”
Janowitz grimaced and stepped back; he had been on top of what looked like a square, centimeter-thick detonation pad.
The door to the stairwell exploded outward, Sean Ryan sweeping into the lobby. He spotted Scholl quickly; his toymaker's short round physique was distinctive. “What the hell was that, Mitch?”
“Giving the Martians here a whiff of grapeshot!” Scholl announced proudly.
Ryan glowered at Scholl, knowing the reference went back to Napoleon Bonaparte’s idea of crowd control—cannon fire. “Mitch, upstairs. Let’s keep you out of trouble.”
Mitch smiled. “See? I told you I was with security.”
Janowitz nodded. “Yes, you are.”
***
Sean Ryan watched Scholl collect his toys and get into the staircase, then turned his attention to the crowd. He was about to open his mouth when another problem happened to walk in. She was about 5’10” tall, and blonde, with eyes so emerald-greenish that he could see them from across the lobby. He quickly concealed his eyes behind sunglasses to avoid being noticed, and thus be invisible. However, in this instance, it didn’t work, the blonde spotted him easily and swiftly made her way over the guests only starting to get up from the floor without even breaking stride. The way she moved with an easy bearing and deadly-serious manner broadcast her profession to the entire room like a broadband ESP signal—New York street cop; she might as well have worn her badge on her sleeve.
What do the cops want with me now? Answer: ask later.
Ryan casually turned and walked toward the nearest washroom, hoping to hide long enough so she’d give up, and then he could question Janowitz about why everyone in the lobby had been eating carpet. As he reached the washroom door, he felt a hand land on his shoulder and whirled as though someone was about to attack him. The police officer grabbed the other shoulder and gripped him firmly, lifting him an inch off the ground.
Sean blinked and looked over the cop. She was long, lean, and apparently strong. He met her eyes and smiled. “What can I do for you today, officer?”
“Depends,” she growled in a mildly deep voice. “Where do you think you’re running to?”
“The washroom; didn’t want to have to excuse myself in the middle of your interrogation.”
She smiled. “What do you think I was going to do? Torture you?”
Ryan was tempted to shrug, but he didn’t want to risk being dropped on the floor; he didn’t mind being dropped, given that he’d landed on his feet after falling off of the top of Helm’s Deep, but he did object to being dropped in public without being paid for it. “My girlfriend is the only one allowed to beat me up. She might get jealous.”
“You’re cute,” she said.
Ryan grinned. “So I’ve been told.”
“I’ve hated cute for years.”
“Oh. Might I at least have your name and what you want with me?”
“Detective McGauren.”
Detective? “Sean Ryan, but you knew that.”
“I’ve been hea
ring a lot about you lately, Mr. Ryan,” she noted. “Once from a friend of mine on Long Island, and while I was checking up on you, for Interpol.”
Ryan quickly thought about the woman before him. Her accent was faint, but it was there; an accent that sounded like it was from the Southern half of the United States, like Texas, but it didn’t have too much of a twang, which indicated that she was from upstate New York.
“Are you going to be causing trouble?”
Ryan shook his head and straightened his white and green windbreaker. “No, ma’am. I like living, thank you. I never try to piss off people who could hurt me. You came all the way out here to threaten me?”
“No; I’m stopping through on my way to coordinate with the locals; I’m going to be one of your guests here during the weekend.”
“I look forward to seeing you.”
Ryan blinked as she walked away, breathing deeply. Remind me to hide more often.
“She was mad at you,” a voice said to his left.
Ryan glanced at the newcomer; he was 5'11”, with graying hair, and eyes the color of frozen beach water. “Not yet. Have we met?”
The other man shook his head. “Nope. By the way, your guy with the squibs was lucky. He’d have been in a lot more trouble had he actually had a gun. New Yorkers would have returned fire. He’s lucky we’re on Long Island.”
Ryan grinned. “Understood. I’ll keep him in line. I’m betting you’re another cop?”
The man smiled. “Quite the opposite, in fact. You’re security, right?”
“Just the boss—I have dozens of undercover officers working the crowd,” Ryan added offhand. I just hope there are enough people eavesdropping to spread the word. Nothing beats driving people nuts like having them look for security personnel that don’t exist.
The taller man nodded. “And you came running down the stairs at the sound of gunfire?”
Ryan shook his head. “Nah, I always take the stairs, more room to maneuver than an elevator. Easier to shoot people, too. I just wanted to collect my friend and move along. What prompted the faux shootout?”
“An overbooking issue, I think.”
“Oh, is that all?” He sighed, looking over to Waldemar Janowitz, who looked as though the crowd was about to close in on him once more; Janowitz bore the unfortunate burden of a C-Con T-shirt, not only marking him as one who knew what was going on, but the bright orange color making it impossible for him to hide. “Well, I hope you enjoy your stay, Mr…”
“Kerikov,” he said. “Call me Eric.”
“Sean Ryan.”
“I know that, Mr. Ryan. I don’t think you’d remember me, but I’m with the setup and breakdown team. I hope I didn’t miss anything at Tuesday’s meeting.”
He sighed. Only the notification that there’s probably a hit team here. “Not really, you were lucky you didn’t; it was a real waste of time. You a newcomer here?”
“Nope, been here since C-Con Nine, I think, when it was crammed into the Javitz Center.”
“Oy, that must have been…sorry, I see someone trying to escape me. Ciao, Mr. Kerikov. I’ll see you around.”
Eric nodded. “Yes, you will.”
Ryan turned his back on the one identifying himself as Kerikov and moved to intercept Janowitz. He flowed through the crowd, slipping between the smallest of gaps between guests, finally laying hands on the C-Con organizer. He pulled Janowitz away, saying, “I’m sorry folks, Mr. Janowitz here is going to be preoccupied for the next hour or so; any complaints you may have involving the hotel can be lodged with the concierge—who’s right there!”
Ryan had pointed to an unfortunate individual who was too well dressed to be a busboy, and happened to not even work for the hotel; however, the crowd was distracted by his presence long enough to allow Ryan to escape with Janowitz to the hotel bar.
“That was fun,” Waldemar said. “I don't remember the natives being this restless before.”
“Welcome to conventions with angry customers,” Ryan answered. He removed his jacket and handed it to Janowitz. “Put this on, that shirt makes you a walking target.”
“Thanks. Was there something you wanted to see me about, or were you drawn by the gunfire?”
“You said you wanted to hook me up with some native guides who could explain to me some of the subsets of Live Action Role Playing people you have around here.”
Waldermar smiled. “There are more than just LARPers.”
Ryan nodded. “Right. Well, I was wondering how I could find…” he pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket, reading down the screen names. “Sexyvamp666, with about a hundred X's in it, kishote24601, MosheBaruch999, Muffers69, King Kong Kullen, and Ishkibibble.”
“Yeah, they’re all me, one voice per chat room.”
Sean and Janowitz turned on their bar stools to look at a fireplug of a person who shouldn’t be allowed out of her computer room; with her deep brown eyes and curling chestnut hair, she might have been pretty had she not been six inches shorter than Ryan and twice as wide.
“Mr. Ryan, I want you should meet Ester Guzman—the queen of e-published science fiction, owner of fifty e-zines, and all of her aliases come from the Haifa phonebook.”
“Charmed,” Ryan muttered.
She smiled. “Funny, I don’t look like Alyssa Milano… Likewise, handsome. How’s life been, Walter? I saw you get mugged by the mob.”
“Happy customers, Ester. Gotta love ’em.” Waldemar turned to Ryan. “Ester here knows more about subcultures of the science fiction realm than Paramount, Dreamworks, and ILM put together.”
“And all I’m going to do is explain to you exactly how much diversity you have to expect from this place,” Guzman said
Ryan arched a brow. “Like?”
Mrs. Guzman explained. “I’m partners with AOL and Yahoo because of one Iraqi kid whose dad invaded Kuwait, and his father told him about the magic wall that spit out money… an ATM…which got the kid into SciFi in the first place. So, my websites unite all sorts of people who come to this conference—there’s a lama; a pygmy; a Chinese bureaucrat from the People’s Republic; a kid of a Columbian drug dealer, who spends about sixteen hours a day writing some really sick stuff; and the kid of another PRC man who watched Flash Gordon, believing that, not only did Ming the Merciless invent science, but was also the hero…
“On the website, one can read all sorts of stuff from Haifa…like the Rabbi astronaut who needed to be put on celestial time so he could stop praying each time the shuttle rotated, making the sun rise and set in a matter of seconds. I came here to identify all of the people who submitted such drek, only to find that the Pygmy wrote the story of Ming to the rescue, and the coke dealer’s kid wrote about the Canadian space program.”
Ryan arched an eyebrow. “Canada can afford a space program?”
“It can’t, that’s the point—the damn things couldn’t get off the ground, and fell apart if they tried. The point is, don’t assume you know what exactly you’re dealing with at any one time.”
Sean smiled, remembering how he had instructed his security forces to avoid grabbing any short Jawas in the chest, in the realization that if they were short enough to be dressed as Jawas, the odds were that they were women, not exceedingly tall midgets.
“And the LARPers?” Ryan asked.
“What about them? At this Con, you have medieval LARPers, role playing with King Arthur stuff and long plastic swords, limited to outside use because of these damn security arrangements—”
“Thank you, I always know I’m doing my job when someone complains.”
“—and there are also the vampire LARPers, spy LARPers, R&D, D&D, the RPG’s—”
Ryan damn near had a heart attack. “Rocket Propelled Grenades!”
“No, you idiot, Role Playing Games. Must I go on?”
Sean sighed. “Any of these LARPers I should be concerned about?”
“Not really, but as I said, you can never tell; there is the occasional psycho here and ther
e, but you have better odds of being struck by lightning than running into some of those people. Granted, you have some folks who go so far as to have silver or gold fang implants—sometimes even horn implants. The psycho crowd can’t really be told apart from the ‘normal’ vampire crowd until they do something like gut someone or sacrifice virgins, as though you can find a virgin nowadays. You’d probably want to put them away for looking at Vamprotica.”
Ryan blinked. “What?”
“Vampire porn. You should look at one sometime—they even made a porn video entitled Muffy, the Vampire Layer, an eighteen-year-old blonde with her measurements bigger than her IQ, a taste for excessive pain, and doesn’t mind a little blood loss.”
“Isn’t that illegal in some states?”
Ester Guzman cackled. “You’re kidding me, right? Although if you want to see something that’s so bad it should be illegal, you should look at their music videos on Saturday night…they’re holding their ‘vampire balls’. You haven’t looked at the program yet?”
“They’ve printed it?”
“Yeah; I know they’re slow, but they get here eventually. Basically, the vamp LARPers make their own music videos by splicing together old songs with images from bad B-movies—every killer bug movie ever made—and occasionally some successful films. Just imagine the song I’ve Got You Under My Skin while a creature from Alien is bursting out of some guy’s stomach, or a bug crawling into someone’s ear, add a lot of strobe lights, and you’ve got the flavor of the event.”
“Sounds positively ghastly.”
She reached into her saddlebag of a purse and withdrew two booklets—one was the schedule, and the other was the booklet describing the guests. “Here, take two, they’re small.”
Guzman waddled away, content to let him leaf through the schedule. I’m surprised she wound up with a copy of the events before I did—and I’m head of security!
She stopped, turned, then waddled back, ala Burgess Meredith as the Penguin—all she needed was a long cigarette holder and a purple top hat. “By the way, there’s one more thing you need to know; probably nothing, which is why I barely remembered it. There’s a Most Wanted list out there.”