We sat in tense silence for nearly five minutes.
Finally Mitzi put her head in my lap. “They’re gone.”
She closed her eyes in a moment. “Better get some rest, Eddie, I think it’s going to be a long night.”
I craned around for a dry place to rest my head. “You mean we have to stay down here—“
“—until dawn. Yes.”
“I’ll puke.”
“Fine. Just turn your head.”
I leaned back, closed my eyes.
“Eddie?”
“What?”
“Sorry about before. About peeing on them. I just couldn’t hold it any longer.”
I sighed, patted her head. “It’s okay. Forget it.”
“No. I screwed up. You were depending on me and I screwed up.”
“It doesn’t matter now, Mitz. Try to get some rest.”
Silence for a minute.
“But did you see the look on that fat Mayor’s face with my pee in his eye?”
I sputtered laughter. “Yeah. Priceless!. Unctuous political toad.”
Which made Mitzi laugh.
And soon we were laughing together, carried away by it—probably letting off steam, nervous exhaustion--trying to smother each other’s cackling, which only made us laugh louder…
* * *
“—Eddie?”
My eyes blinked open.
We were still in the sewer, my back and neck muscles hating me.
I looked down at Mitzi, who was looking up at me with those big, hamburger eyes. I felt a pang under them.
“They’re here, Eddie.”
I started to push up violently but the manhole cover overhead was already lifting away with a metallic rattle, a weak shaft of early morning light lancing down, exposing us in our stinky little hiding place.
“Come on up, Ed,” Clancy announced above us.
I looked over at Mitzi.
She said nothing, but her eyes said everything.
“And bring that half-breed mutt with you.”
Mitzi nodded solemnly at me.
I stood, lifted her in my arms, and managed the iron rungs to the surface with one hand.
We came out of the stench into the sweet morning air of a narrow alley. We were right beside the shop. No wonder it took them so long to find us—they assumed we’d hightailed it for miles. Pretty smart, old Mitzi.
The mayor and his colleagues were washed and cleaned and spit-shined in their dark power suits and shoes.
“Welcome back to the sunlight,” His Honor invited.
I flipped him the bird. “You’re nuts if you think this means I’m voting Republican.”
He grinned a fatuous grin. I could see the beginnings of newly formed fangs gleaming proudly behind the fat lips. “That’s a shame, Mr. Magee. I think you’d have made a valuable member of the team, were it not for your strange devotion to that idiotic hound.”
“Who you calling a ‘hound?’ from Mitzi, shaking the stink off herself.
I refused to meet Clancy’s eyes. “So she told you my real name,” I said to the Mayor, “what else did she tell you about me?”
“That you taste great,” from Benson, who smiled, showing his own new set of incisors.
I nodded, dusting myself off. “Is this the part where you try to talk me into joining your side, taking the pledge, soaking my skinny ass in mud?”
“What makes you think that?” from a smilingly curious Crenshaw.
I shrugged. “Your numbers are small. You need to build your army. Why kill me when you can add me to the force? I didn’t get this far, after all, being stupid.”
Crenshaw nodded agreement. “True. However, there’s this little thing about trust, old man,” casually lighting his pipe. “Not everyone who gets turned makes a good vampire.”
I stuck out my chin at him. “’Turned,’” I mocked. “Like it’s a big honor. Like becoming a walking corpse makes you first in line for yo-yo string or something. You’re an incredibly conceited lot, you know that? But of course you do. Everyone who ever tried to rule the world suffers from that.”
“We prefer the term ‘patriotic’,” Benson beamed.
I nodded condescension. “’Patriots’! How about I take this nonpartisan cross from my back pocket and shove it up your patriotic ass?”
Benson chuckled delight. “Folklore, old man.”
I sneered back. “Is that a fact?”
“Afraid it is, Mr. Magee,” from Crenshaw. “At least these days.”
I looked over at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He puffed smoke at me. “When was the last time you went to church, Mr. Magee?”
He had me there.
“You call us conceited,” Benson said, “but when were you ever really concerned with anything bigger than own personal needs and goals, your priorities in life? We may kneel to Satan, but at least we kneel.” And he winced painfully at something.
Crenshaw pointed to a distant building, a bright glare of sunlight just cresting it. “Glasses on, gentlemen! Time to enjoy our first day in sunlight!”
The rest of them followed suit, plucking sunglasses from their shirt pockets.
“Mr. Magee, you’re about to witness epoch-making event!”
I appraised their shiny lenses. “You look like the goddamn Sopranos,” I said.
The mayor smiled. “But as you know, Mr. Magee, looks can be deceiving. Now kindly give us the pleasure of killing that bothersome mutt before we honor you with the same.”
I looked over at Mitzi. She was sitting calmly on the alley bricks, scratching her ear with a hind leg. “That ‘mutt’, gentlemen, overpowered your highness Alicia’s pet pit bull. Mitzi could easily rip my arm off without breaking a sweat.”
Benson was already reaching inside his coat, withdrawing a sharp-pointed length of wooden stake. “Perhaps you’d like to hold her for us, then. Let her die in your arms and all that kind of sentimental rot.”
I looked over at Mitzi again. She was yawning.
Something wasn’t right. Something was coming…
Then Crenshaw was screaming.
The most hideous cry of agonized pain ever.
In a moment the others were joining-in with him, backs arched in agony, clawing at their eyes, their shades breaking apart, spilling free. Noxious palls of smoke rose from red sockets where eyes used to be.
They ran.
But only in meaningless circles.
They danced a while, ran again blindly some more into walls and street lamps, screamed, but it didn’t last long. At the end, they lay still and quiet, three piles of smoking suits and power shoes, ready for the dumpster.
Mitzi yawned again at the mess in the alleyway, nose twitching. “Really stink on the inside, don’t they?”
I looked up in amazement at Clancy. “Switched their sunglasses to non-polaroid’s?” she winked. “While pausing at the mud baths, remember?”
My heart leapt around my chest. “Clancy! You’re not one of them!”
She made an indifferent face. “Why spend eternity with a bunch of politicians and lawyers, there’s already one hell. Especially when I can hang with a train wreck like you?”
Mitzi groaned. “Don’t let’s get maudlin.”
I shook my whirling head. “I don’t understand! Where…I mean, how’d you find us in that sewer?”
She was already dragging one smoldering body toward the dumpster. “Tracked you, my sweet Eddie.”
“’Tracked’?”
“Heard your entire conversation last night,” she grinned, heaving Benson into the coffee grounds, “those lovely things you said about my allegiance.”
I looked at Mitzi.
“Crenshaw’s smartphone,” she said. “Like the big radio at Alicia’s place?”
I looked down at myself, pulled Crenshaw’s cellular from my pocket. The green ON button was still lit.
“Works the same way,” Mitzi said.
“Sorry we had to keep you down in that
stink until the sun rose,” Clancy said.
I was gaping at Mitzi. “You were in on it?”
She yawned. “Well, some of us no longer use outmoded means of communication.”
I smiled at her warmly.
I think I never loved her more than at that moment.
“Someone want to help me with the Mayor, here?” Clancy panted beside the rusty dumpster. “He weighs a ton!”
THIRTEEN
Now we entered what was to become known as The Big Sweat.
We had gone to squirt a little dog pee into Alicia’s special formula vat, had apparently failed at that, and ended up killing three prominent members of her private vampire society along with her pet pit bull.
The question was: did the Queen of the Vampires suspect us?
She’d find out about the mayor and his two friends soon enough, but would she somehow connect the three of us with any of it? Mitzi, we assumed, was a somewhat unknown quantity, so most likely no problem there. I was probably in the clear unless someone saw me enter the shop that evening. The strongest connection to the malignantly powerful Alicia was Clancy who, in fact, was due to show up for work in a few minutes, being the employee who regularly opened the front door. Which meant we had to hurry like hell to get that dead pit bull out of there, clean up any traces of blood and violence in the limestone catacombs and elsewhere, and put the OPEN sign in the front window before any customers and/or Alicia herself showed up.
We dragged the pit bull outside and stuck him in the dumpster on top of the charred mayor and his crispy friends, scattered some garbage over the top of them, slammed the lid and hoped for the best. Clancy herself conducted the in-shop clean-up on the theory that she was expected to dust up in there anyway; if Mitzi and I got caught at the scene of the crime, how would we explain it? So we took off and left Clancy in charge of the shop as the minute hand approached the opening hour.
As I was twisting the ignition, I looked up from behind the wheel at the clanking noise of the garbage truck turning onto the shop’s street. I’d never heard a sweeter sound. Mitzi and I watched with relief as the truck’s big front fork lifted the dumpster over the cab and dropped trash, litter, debris, town mayor and cronies into the rear containment bay. Hopefully to be buried safely underground outside the city limits with no one being the wiser. Mitzi and I headed back to the Motel 6 without a backward glance, all fingers and paws crossed for poor Clancy.
I was so exhausted on arriving I fell across the motel bed and passed out…
* * *
It was after noon when I woke.
I double checked my cellular but there were no missed calls from Clancy at the shop.
“Maybe we should call her,” I said, still clinging to the phone, “just to check. You think?”
When Mitzi didn’t answer I looked around the mattress to find myself alone.
“Mitzi--?”
I finally saw her lying on her side on the floor, back against the motel door. I couldn’t tell whether or not she was breathing.
“Mitzi? Hey! You all right?”
She lifted desultory lids. “--huh? Yeah. Just tired.”
“Yeah. Me too. Did you get any sleep?”
“No. Yes. I don’t really remember.”
“Clancy’s fine, Mitz. Don’t worry.”
“I wasn’t. You’re the one holding the phone.”
I looked down at my hand. How do they squeeze all that crap into such a little piece of plastic?…
“She hasn’t called, has she?”
I checked the messages again. “No.”
“Not even to let us know she’s okay.”
I shook my head, a flutter of panic in my stomach. “Maybe she had a busy morning, lots of customers.”
“While we slept here all comfy-cozy.”
I ran a guilt-ridden hand through my hair. The Big Sweat had begun. “Maybe Alicia showed up. Maybe there was just no opportunity to call us.”
Mitzi closed her eyes again wearily. “Lots of ‘maybes’, Sport.”
I stared at the phone. “So do you think I should try calling her or not?”
“What if Alicia picks up?”
I’d thought of that. “I just ask for Clancy.”
“And who may she ask is calling?”
I’d thought about that too. “I give a phony name.”
“What if Alicia remembers your voice?”
I slumped. Shit. “Damnit, Mitzi, do you have any positive advice?”
Mitzi breathed shallowly. “She’s your girlfriend.”
I stared at the phone another second, finally flipped the lid closed and tossed it on the sheet beside me. “I’m sure she’s fine.”
Mitzi was silent.
I looked over at her all limp on the floor. Imagined I could see her ribs. “Did you eat anything today?”
“Can’t remember.”
“Come on, Mitz!”
“I’m not hungry.”
I stood up. “Me either, but I’m going to fix myself a cheese sandwich. You should eat too, you don’t look so hot.”
“Thanks.”
“Your eyes look swollen. And your coat’s not very shiny.”
“You could use a haircut.”
I slid off the bed with concern, went over and hunkered beside her. I placed my palm over her nose.
“Nice, Ed, suffocate me.”
“Your nose isn’t wet.”
“Your point?”
“A wet nose is a sign of good health in a dog. Sure you’re not sick?”
“Only of this conversation.”
“C’mon Mitz, you need to eat.”
“Just let me sleep, huh?”
“You’ve been sleeping all morning!”
“Ed.”
“What?”
“Don’t make me bite you.”
I gave up and began unpacking a few moving boxes, hoping Clancy had brought along some lunch meat and bread or even crackers. She hadn’t.
I kept looking at my watch. Kept glancing over at my phone on the bed.
The Big Sweat.
“I’m calling for a pizza,” I told Mitzi, reaching for the phone again. “Is that okay?”
The poodle on the floor didn’t answer.
* * *
“Mitzi--?”
I shook her shoulder.
It felt inordinately thin, or was I only imagining it? “Hey! Wake up!”
She finally lifted a lid halfway, voice rife with annoyance. “This motel better be on fire…”
I held my watch arm out to her, pointing. “It’s past six!”
“In the morning?”
“The evening! And still no Clancy! Something’s wrong! I’m driving over to the shop! C’mon!”
She could barely turn her head. “Can’t you go by yourself…?”
“I need your nose. And your ears. Come on, get up!”
She rocked up listlessly to a sitting position. “Are you sure she never called--?”
“I called her! She wasn’t there!”
“Who’d you talk to?”
“I don’t know, some teenage temp! I need you, Mitz, are you going to help me?”
“Settle down. If she’s not at the shop, what’s the point in going over there?”
“It’s a start!”
“Or a trap…”
“Damnit, Mitz, are you coming or not?”
She blinked, wiped a paw across her eyes. “…just let me…wake up here…”
I turned to her, impatience turning to concern. “God. You look like shit.”
“Yeah? Well, I feel like shit.” She pushed up on wobbly legs.
“At least have a snack before we g—“
We jerked around at a sound from the motel door.
The door knob rattled.
We froze.
A low warning growl started in Mitzi’s throat.
Then the knob turned and Clancy pushed in. “Hey.”
I slumped against the wall. “’Hey’ yourself! Where the hell have y
ou been? I called the shop! Some girl said you left early, didn’t know where!”
“I was with Alicia.” She crossed the room wearily.
I glanced at Mitzi. “Oh…?”
Clancy swung off her bag, dropped it in a chair, groaned and stretched. Her eyes fell on Mitzi. “What’s the matter with the dog?”
I turned to look, found Mitzi sitting there dreamily on her rump, eyes at half-mast. “I don’t know. She won’t eat.”
“She looks terrible.”
“I know.”
Clancy moved over, bent down and looked into the poodle’s eyes. When Mitzi tried to turn her head away, Clancy took her jaw firmly in hand and swung it back to her. “What’s the matter, old girl?”
“Nothing,” she snuffed irritably. “I just need to rest. You wanna let go of my jaw please and back off, that perfume is wretched.”
“Same kind I always wear. Why aren’t you eating?”
And to my shock Mitzi bore her teeth at her. “Is that all you two think about—food?”
I honestly thought for a moment she was going to nip Clancy.
Clancy straightened, eyes still accessing the dog with concern.
“What is it?” I asked tentatively, not liking at all the look on her face.
Clancy seemed about to answer, then turned, plucked her purse from the chair again and slung it. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk. You too, Mitzi. Up!”
And even Mitzi responded to the tone in her voice.
“Don’t wanna walk…”
“Well, you’re going to. We need to talk anyway.”
“About what?” I asked innocently.
“Don’t wanna talk...” Mitzi growled.
Clancy started digging in her bag. “I bought a leash.” She turned to the dog, held up the leash. “We can do this with or without—your choice.”
Mitzi groaned, pushed to her feet hatefully and stumbled toward the door. “…leash my fuzzy ass…”
Clancy opened it for her.
Turned and gave me an urgent look.
I followed.
* * *
We started down Topeka Blvd. past rows of used car lots, Mitzi leading but lagging at the same time, head down, a plodding, indifferent gait. “Where are we going?”
“The lake is nice,” Clancy said beside me.
“I don’t like the lake.”
“Since when?”
“Smells like dead fish.”
Clancy was watching her closely. “There are rabbits at the lake,” she said casually.
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