Hunter of the Dead

by Stephen Kozeniewski

  Five

  The Red Scare…

  Maurice Valais ran his handcuffed hands through his sweaty, unkempt hair, trying to turn it into something akin to a decent man’s cut.

  “How long do you plan to keep me in here?” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

  In disgust, he kicked the leg of the metal table in front of him, realizing from the sharp knock it gave him that it was nailed to the ground. He pushed the chair back, and it screeched loudly along the tile floor. He rose and began to pace. Those were the only two things he had to do in the tiny interrogation room: sit at the table or pace.

  A huge mirror covered the top half of the entire back wall. Maurice had seen enough cop shows on the idiot lantern to know what that meant. The mirror was a ruse. The G-men were back there watching him, probably enjoying seeing him scurry around like a rat in a cage.

  “Fuck you,” he said, raising a middle finger in the rigid digit salute towards the mirror, “Fuck you and fuck your boss. Yeah, you can tell The Pepsi-Cola Kid I said that.”

  Maurice tried to kick over the chair but it was too heavy. Everything was metal and heavy and cold and inhuman. He slammed his back into a corner and sank to the ground, hanging his head in his hands.

  “Mr. Valais?”

  Maurice looked up. He blinked, realizing it seemed he had fallen asleep in the corner, though he had no idea whether for a few minutes or a few days. The door was a bright rectangle of light and a shadow figure stood ensconced within.

  “Congress ready for me? I won’t sign my own death warrant, I can tell you that.”

  “Actually, Mr. Valais, you might be happy to know that we’ve worked something out.”

  “What does that mean, ‘worked something out?’ Who are you?”

  The figure stepped through the doorway, and as the bright light of the hallways receded behind him, he came into more contrast. Maurice rubbed his eyes.

  “A Chinaman?”

  The Oriental stranger’s lips quirked. He was wearing a business suit just like a regular American, and he barely even had an accent at all. It was queer. Damned queer.

  “Malay, to be technical, but no doubt you’re not interested in technicalities at present. You can call me Topan.”

  The Chinaman extended a hand. Valais nodded.

  “I see. I shake your hand, you have some hidden camera around here, and snap, suddenly you’ve got photographic evidence of me giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Well, nothin’ doin’, bub. I’m true blue, all-American. I was quarterback of my high school football team, and, yeah, I fucked the captain of the cheer squad on prom night. No matter what you or your boss McCarthy say, you can’t take that away from me. Or all the slants like you I killed in Indochina, you can’t take that away from me either. I’m true blue, true blue, it doesn’t matter what you say.”

  The Chinaman retracted his hand, but the smile remained rigid on his face, as though in rictus.

  “I suppose it’s my own fault for trying to offer an idiot pleasantries,” the Chinaman said. “I’m fairly certain that if there were a hidden camera here…”

  “And you’re going to pretend there’s not?”

  “I’m fairly certain that if there were, your hands being cuffed would say all that needs to be said. But not to worry, Mr. Valais, I don’t work for Senator McCarthy. Why don’t you have a seat so we can discuss it?”

  Maurice licked his lips.

  “Thanks, I’m good here, Fu Manchu.”

  The Chinaman nodded, the smile finally fading from his face.

  “Perhaps you need some clarification about who I am,” he said, grabbing Maurice by the shoulder and pulling him to his feet as though he were a ragdoll. “My name is Topan. And I’m Malaysian. Not Korean. Not Japanese. Not Chinese. Malay.”

  Topan thrust Maurice at the table, which struck his jaw with a shudder that resounded through his whole body. He felt the hard chair strike his back, then his knees, and force him into a sitting position. Topan grabbed the other chair, the heavy metal nightmare, and dropped it on the other side of the table like it weighed nothing. He flopped down on it and stared deeply into Maurice’s eyes.

  “Are we clear?”

  “Crystal,” Maurice said, through the blood pooling in his mouth. He had nearly bitten through his tongue when Topan had tossed him against the table.

  “Good,” he said, nodding and placing a briefcase down on the table. “Now, as I said, I don’t work for Senator McCarthy. In fact, I’ve been working rather diligently to get you out of this congressional hearing. Can I assume that we’re at least both on the same side in not wanting you to go before McCarthy?”

  Maurice sensed a trap, but wasn’t entirely certain what it was yet. He simply nodded, and swallowed another mouthful of bloody saliva, wishing that his tongue would stop bleeding.

  “Good. Progress. Now, my pa…my boss has called in several favors. Both Nevada senators, a whole bevy of congressmen, and G-men up and down the chain. There’s a problem, though. You know what they all said?”

  Maurice shook his head.

  “‘There’s no crossing Joe McCarthy.’ No one wants to be considered a Red. It’s not the right climate for sticking your neck out like that. The best that that all these supposedly powerful men could get me is this meeting with you right now. How do you like that? American democracy in action.”

  “Hey, if you don’t like it, you can go back to…” Maurice paused as Topan stared him down, “Malaysia.”

  “It’s nice to see that your faith is not misplaced. So seeing as this is the best we could arrange, here’s what I’m going to do for you. I’m going to go over some of the questions that the Permanent Subcommitee on Investigations is going to ask you. Forewarned is forearmed or something like that, don’t they say that?”

  “I suppose.”

  Topan nodded.

  “So what’s going to happen is I’m going to ask you questions just like Senator McCarthy or his cronies would. And you’re going to answer them. And you’re going to do it calmly, and correctly, and you’re not going to sweat and you’re not going to sound nervous, because sweating and sounding nervous makes you look guilty. And then I’m going to redirect you, just like Senator McCarthy and his cronies would. And I’m going to try to make you sweat all over again, and you’re going to not let me. Think of it like a game of chess. You like chess, don’t you?”

  “I fucking hate it.”

  Topan nodded.

  “Good.”

  He turned his briefcase towards himself and opened it. Maurice tried to glance around to see what was inside, but Topan had already slammed it shut before he could catch a glimpse of anything. In his hands, Topan held a stack of white 3x5 cards. He shuffled through them as though they were a deck of cards before finally settling on one.

  “Ah. Here’s a good one. Maurice Valais, are you now or have you ever been a member…”

  “…of the Communist Party?” Maurice completed. “No, asshole. I told you I’m true blue. You’ll never pin a single un-American word coming out of my lips on me. Sure, I voted against Truman, but who wouldn’t? That’s not un-American, that’s just…by God, that’s more American…participating in the democratic…”

  “Mr. Valais,” Topan interrupted, “that wasn’t the question I was going to ask you.”

  Topan held the 3x5 card between his index and middle finger and held it out towards Maurice. Maurice leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, deliberately refusing to take it. Topan’s eyes narrowed and he simply placed the card down in full view. He sat back, waiting, knowing that Maurice’s curiosity would get the better of him sooner or later.

  And damned if it wasn’t sooner. Maurice glanced down, just for a second, but then he read the index card, faster than he even meant to.

  It read, “Maurice Valais, are you now or have you ever been a member of the secret Catholic organization known as the Inquisition?”

  Maurice blanched.

  “What are you…how are you�
�?”

  “Well, what did you think you were here to answer questions about, Mr. Valais? Your communist affiliations? Joe McCarthy isn’t an idiot. You don’t even have a soft pink past. You don’t even have a pro-union voting record. You were called here because in the course of all these wonderful diggings and investigations, the truth about vampires – well, not vampires because we’re too careful – but the truth about you retarded vampire hunters finally came to light.”

  An icy fist grabbed Maurice’s heart and refused to let go. He clutched at his chest, loosed his tie. Topan waited.

  “Breathe, Mr. Valais, breathe. It’s what you’re good at after all.”

  “You’re a…you’re…”

  “One of your long hated, long hunted enemies, yes. I don’t know what it is that causes you people to keep bashing your collective head against the wall pursuing us, but now here we are. All the mysteries of a thousand-year-long secret war about to be laid bare because of one gloryhound politician and one vampire hunter who can’t think to keep his tattoo hidden.”

  Topan opened his briefcase again, tossed a photograph from within onto the table next to the index card, and slammed it shut again. Maurice put his finger on the photograph. It showed him, sitting around a table with some of his Marine Corps buddies, easy, unforced smiles on all of their faces as they smoked cigars and tossed chips into a poker pot. And there, plain as day if you were looking for it, on Maurice’s barely uncuffed sleeve, was the double cross.

  “I don’t…this isn’t enough to hang me with. This is barely…this is nothing.”

  “Let’s try another question shall we?” Topan said, tapping the assembled top of his packet of index cards. Topan took one of the cards, set it at the top of the pile, cleared his throat (a deliberate, obviously unnecessary gesture for a vampire) and read it aloud. “Mr. Valais, is it true that you kept a record of your misadventures in this so-called ‘Inquisition?’”

  Maurice ripped his tie off. Still, it felt like his throat was constricting, choking him. Topan waited a moment, before tossing the index card off into a corner of the interrogation room.

  “No answer for that one? Let’s try another. ‘Isn’t it true you kept this diary in a green stenograph pad? This green stenograph pad?’”

  Topan opened his briefcase, tossed a steno pad on the table, and slammed it shut. His hand quivering, Maurice reached for the pad. In a moment of pique, he snatched it off the table, jumped up from his chair, ran to a corner of the room with his back to Topan and eagerly attempted to rip the book to shreds. He clenched his eyes shut and braced himself for the vampiric strength of the body slam which he knew was coming.

  When it didn’t come he slowly let his eyes open and turned back to look at Topan, who wasn’t even looking at him, he was simply shuffling papers idly on the table. Maurice looked down at the shredded pages he had left on the floor like a hamster’s nest. Blank. All of them blank.

  Slowly, he retook his seat.

  “Pleased with yourself?” Topan asked, still not looking at him.

  “What was the point of that?” Maurice asked, his voice hollow in his throat.

  With both hands, Topan tapped the stack of index cards together until they were all lined up perfectly.

  “I got the book back,” Topan said. “Obviously. I’ve already burnt it. That was the first thing I did and it cost me a great deal of money and effort and political capital. There is an innocent evidence clerk who will be in jail for the rest of his life because of you.”

  “Sacrifices have to be made,” Maurice said.

  “I’m glad you agree.”

  “In the struggle against your kind there will be sacrifices, yes. But if we don’t struggle, all the innocents will suffer.”

  “You sound like maybe you’re trying too hard to justify yourself. That’s the sort of thing that will make McCarthy smell fear. And pounce.”

  Maurice slammed his manacled hands, now balled-up fists, down on the table.

  “Why’d you tell me that story? That some man’s going to jail because of me? You expect me to recant? You expect me to throw my hands up in the air and say, ‘Oh, Lordy, I was wrong!’”

  “I already told you, Mr. Valais. I’m trying to shake you up. With a fake diary. With a story about the consequences of your actions. And you are very easy to shake.”

  “Stop toying with me, bloodsucker. Just kill me. It’s the only way your secrets stay buried.”

  Topan nodded. He leaned back, tipping his chair back, and crossed his legs up on the table.

  “You know, that was my House patriarch’s conclusion as well. First thing he said to me. ‘Topan, silence that man. Do whatever you have to do, bribe whoever you have to bribe, get to him, and end him.’ Normally an edict like that? No one would gainsay it. But I thought to myself that there might be another way. A better way. One that leads to a better ending for both your kind and mine.”

  Maurice snorted.

  “You went to the mats against a patriarch for me?”

  “No, not for you, Mr. Valais. Before I took on this task, I had no idea who you were. Not where you went to school, not where you were born, not your significance in the Inquisition hierarchy, not even your name. Of course I know all of that now. I know everything about you now. But the reason I went to the mats was for the opportunity you represent.”

  Topan opened his briefcase. For the first time, he left it open, though still facing away from Maurice. He reached inside and drew out two tiny objects, tossed them on the table.

  “Recognize those?”

  Maurice picked one of the pieces of metal up, examined it. Turned it over. Checked the inscription.

  “My mother’s wedding ring. And my father’s, I suppose. You’re threatening my parents if I talk?”

  Topan remained eerily silent. Maurice tossed the two rings off into the corner where he had ripped up the steno pad. They clattered and clanged to a stop.

  “You’re an idiot, then. You said you knew everything about me and you don’t even know I don’t speak to my parents? Hurt them, kill them, I don’t care. The old man never met a bottle that could keep him from tanning my ass. And the old lady touched me. They can both rot in Hell for all I care. Know everything about me. I’ll bet you didn’t know that.”

  Topan reached into the briefcase and pulled out another ring, held it up to the dim neon light before placing it down on the table.

  “That’s my high school class ring,” Maurice said, rubbing an identical piece of jewelry on his own hand.

  He picked it up. There were initials inscribed on the inside. N.H.

  “Nikki Howard. My old high school sweetheart. You really are batting .0000, Mr. Topan. I’m an Inquisitor. We don’t let family and relationships hold us back. And a girl I haven’t seen in twenty years? That’s supposed to sway me?”

  “You had a breakdown on the way here, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, in Richmond.”

  Topan reached into the briefcase and drew out a wrench. He let it drop heavily to the table.

  “Light Brothers,” Valais read, “I think that was the name of the garage.”

  Topan nodded.

  “It was. You remember your second grade teacher, Mrs. Kopas? Did you know she lost her husband in the war?”

  “Yeah. Maybe I knew that. I remember she always wore a…”

  Topan placed a yellow ribbon on the table.

  “What the hell else have you got in there?”

  Topan made a welcoming gesture.

  “Have a look.”

  Maurice angrily grabbed the suitcase and turned it towards him. The case was brimming with bric-a-brac. Some of the souvenirs he instantly recognized. Others he didn’t know at all. Most tickled something in the back of his mind, but didn’t immediately remind him of anything.

  “This pipe. That belonged to Tommy, my childhood friend. We used to smoke it behind the courthouse. And isn’t that Old Man Keene’s eyepatch? He was my neighbor when I lived in Cinci…”
>
  Maurice rifled through the briefcase, taking great handfuls of all manner of bracelets, keys, wallets, and personal mementos.

  “What are you trying to tell me? Are you threatening everyone I’ve ever known?”

  “Please, Mr. Valais.”

  Topan loosened his tie, unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt, and revealed his breast. A mark like a tattoo marked him, but it was actually a scar depicting a bifurcated red eye.

  “You recognize that, don’t you?”

  “House Cicatrice,” Maurice whispered.

  “You were particularly fond of harrowing my House. Tell me, in all your time focusing your energies on my people, have you ever known any Cicatrice to resort to petty threats?”

  Maurice sank back in his chair, letting two handfuls of personal effects scatter to the floor.

  “You’ve killed everyone I’ve ever met?”

  “Yes.”

  “But there are…police. Family members. You can’t just…kill all those people.”

  “It was time-consuming, yes. And costly. And Father Cicatrice was…ambivalent. But I convinced him to go through with my plan.”

  Maurice ran his hands through his hair.

  “But…why? Just so you could let me know you did something…unimaginably cruel before you kill me?”

  Topan laughed heartily. It was the sort of laugh only a vampire or a truly deranged murderer was capable of. The sort of laugh that seemed to delight in human suffering, even revel in it.

  “I’m not going to kill you, Mr. Valais. What would be the point of that now? No, you live. You live and you stand as a shining example of what happens to anyone who ever crosses House Cicatrice again.”

  The door opened. The light that streamed in seemed to come less from the choirs of heavenly angels than from the screams of Memnoch’s tortured souls. A soulless, bespectacled G-Man stood there, his dark glasses and gray suit and hands folded in his lap betraying what he wanted. He stated it anyway.

  “Time with your lawyer is up, Mr. Valais. It’s time to testify.”

  Maurice stared pleadingly into Topan’s eyes.

  “What do I tell them?”

  “Frankly, Mr. Valais, I don’t give a shit. You’re a drifter with no past and no connections to any person living in this country. They might conclude you’re a spy. They might conclude you’re a madman. That doesn’t matter to me. All that matters to me is that you understand this: you, Mr. Valais, are persona non grata. As literally and liberally as that term can be used. You are an un-person, a non-person.