Night Life

by Ray Garton

  They were silent at the table for awhile as Casey's muffled voice came from the kitchen.

  "Are you two sure you want to continue this investigation?" Davey said. "If I were in your position, I'd tell my client to go to someone else."

  Keoph said, "We've already committed ourselves to this investigation."

  Davey shrugged. "If you say so. But you're going to be putting yourselves in—"

  Casey came back into the dining room near tears and said, "Walter's been murdered."

  Davey's eyes widened. "What? Who called?"

  "It was Kenny Weller, Walter's chess buddy," Casey said. "He lives down the street from Walter, remember him?"

  Davey nodded, frowning. "What happened?"

  "Walter called 911 last night and said he was being attacked by someone. He was killed during the call. By the time the sheriffs deputies got there, Walter was dead. Kenny said he was bled to death and ... beheaded. His head was missing."

  "Oh, my god," Davey whispered. He turned to Karen. "They followed you."

  "What?" Karen said. "Who? What do you mean?"

  "They've been looking for Walter all these years," Davey said. "And they followed you to him."

  "Wait a second," Karen said. "Why would they be following me? How would they be following me?"

  Casey said, "They must know about your client."

  Davey scrubbed his right hand down his face as he said, "Oh, god. Poor Walter."

  "What about my client?" Karen said.

  Davey said, "Has your client been investigating this himself? Has he done some poking around on his own before hiring you?"

  Karen turned to Keoph and they both nodded. "Yes," Karen said, "he's been looking into it himself."

  "Then he got their attention," Davey said. "And they've been watching you. That's how they found Walter."

  "Who's been watching me?" Karen said.

  "The brutals," Davey said. "They've been tailing you. Which means they know you're here. You've put us all in danger."

  "Wait, wait just a second," Karen said with a hand on each side of her head. She lowered her hands and took a deep breath. "Why would they take his head?"

  Davey said, "As a trophy. As proof to others that they'd killed Walter Benedek, the man who tried to expose them with an article in the Post."

  "That was eighteen years ago, and it didn't work," Keoph said.

  "They don't forget, Gavin," Davey said. "They're very vindictive."

  As she went back to her seat at the table, Casey said, "Kenny said there was another body in Walter's house. A mostly headless, naked, decayed corpse."

  Davey smiled a little. "Then he got one. Good for you, Walter."

  "What do you mean?" Keoph said.

  "When a vampire is killed," Davey said, "the body immediately begins to decay to its natural state. For example, if I were to die, my body would do eighteen years' worth of decaying, because I was turned eighteen years ago. Walter obviously killed one of the vampires that came after him. He always said he wouldn't go out alone."

  Keoph turned to Karen and said, "We need to call him and let him know."

  Karen knew he was talking about Burgess. The only possible reason the vampires could be following them was that they had been keeping an eye on Burgess. He needed to know. She stood and took her cell phone from her purse, put the purse on her chair. "I need to make a call," she said. "Is there someplace I can go for some privacy?"

  "Right through that door to the kitchen," Casey said, pointing. She still had a stunned look on her face from the news of her friend's death.

  Karen took the cell phone into the kitchen.

  Davey needed to talk to Casey. He stood and said, "Would you excuse us a minute, Gavin?" He turned to Casey and said, "Come on."

  They went into the living room.

  "What are we going to do?" Casey said.

  "First of all, we're not going to panic," Davey said. "If they wanted us dead, we'd be dead by now. So they're watching us. That's all they're doing so far."

  "But what about those two detectives?"

  "What about them?"

  "We can't just let them go out there knowing the brutals are following them. It would be a death sentence."

  Davey covered his face with his right hand and sighed into his palm. He thought of how good their life had been since they had come to Los Angeles. Over the years, he'd often felt suspicious of his good life, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Whatever it was, he'd always known it would have something to do with vampires. They were like a shadow that was always cast over him and Casey. It had been only a matter of time before they came back into their life.

  He dropped his hand and said, "You're right. We have to get them out of this. Come with me."

  Davey headed down the hall to the kitchen, with Casey right behind him.

  "Mr. Burgess, I'm trying to tell you that you're in danger," Karen said.

  "How am I in danger?"

  "When you personally investigated this, you got the attention of some particularly nasty vampires. They don't want to be exposed, and for all they know, that's what you're planning to do."

  Davey and Casey came into the kitchen, and Davey reached for the phone.

  "Is that your client?" Davey said.

  Karen nodded and said, "Yes."

  "Let me speak to him, please."

  She hesitated, but Davey asked again. She handed the cell phone to him.

  Davey put the phone to his ear and spoke sternly. "You have to call this investigation off right now. Both of your detectives are in danger because of it, and so are you. You have to call them in and stop this investigation immediately."

  Davey's eyes met Karen's and she felt a chill. Beneath his dark frown, his eyes were concerned as they looked at her. His eyes looked like they meant business, and they worried Karen. She suddenly felt a sense of urgency about what he said—that she and Keoph were in danger. She was still in Los Angeles, a city she knew well, but suddenly she felt alone in some foreign land where she did not speak the language.

  "Your only option," Davey said, "is to stop this investigation." He listened for a moment. "My name is Davey Owen. I was a friend of Walter Benedek. He's been killed because of your investigation. Your detectives will be next if you continue, I have no doubt about that." He listened again, then said, "All right," and handed the phone back to Karen.

  She put it to her ear and said, "It doesn't really matter if you call the investigation off or not, I'm stopping it. I'm sending Keoph home to San Francisco, and we're going to forget about this."

  Burgess sighed. "All right. Call it off. Keep your first payment, and discontinue the investigation."

  "Thank you, Mr. Burgess," Karen said. "Now, here's what you need to do—cut some garlic cloves in half, then grind them into the wood all around your windows and doors. Do it every day. Do you understand me?"

  "Are you serious?"

  "I'm very serious, Mr. Burgess. You're in danger. Rub the garlic around all your doors and windows. Will you do that as soon as we hang up?"

  "I... I can't believe you're serious. So ... they really exist?"

  "Mr. Burgess, you're the one who wanted to know if there were really vampires. Well, now you know there are, and some of them are pissed off at you for looking into them. They don't want to be investigated."

  "I... I see. Garlic. Around the doors and windows. Will that work?"

  "It won't hurt."

  "What else should I do?"

  Karen turned to Davey as Keoph joined them in the kitchen.

  "What's going on in here?" Keoph said.

  Karen said to Davey, "He wants to know how he can protect himself."

  Davey reached out for the phone and she handed it to him. "Do what she said, rub garlic around your doors and windows—a lot of it. And it wouldn't hurt to rub it on your body, as well. That's about your best defense. We have a terrible allergic reaction to garlic." He listened a moment, and nodded. "Yes, that's right, I am. Yes. ... Yes, we do, w
e really drink blood.... No, crosses don't work at all. Most of the mythology is nonsense. But not all of it... . No, my wife and I drink only bottled blood. No one gets hurt. We don't prey on people like the vampires you've stirred up."

  Karen rolled her eyes and took the phone from Davey. "Mr. Burgess, I'll call you later, all right?"

  "Yes, please do."

  "As soon as you hang up, get that garlic and get to work."

  "Oh, I will, I will."

  She closed the cell phone as she turned to Davey. "You convinced him. He called it off. I guess we'll be leaving you alone."

  "No," Davey said. "It's not that easy. Somehow, we've got to get word on the street that you've canceled the investigation. You can't just walk away from this. They'll only follow you. They need to know you're no longer a threat to them."

  "How do we do that?" Karen said.

  "We'll worry about that," Davey said. "Like I said, we lined up someone for you to talk to tonight, and now it's even more important that you meet with her. We'll take you to her tonight. In the meantime, you stay here."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Martin Burgess's wife Denise was out playing tennis with a friend. He wore a blue T-shirt that read, WHEN IS THE WIZARD GOING TO GET BACK TO YOU ABOUT THAT BRAIN?

  There were a lot of doors and windows in their Topanga Canyon house. He wasn't going to be able to do it alone. He went into the kitchen and found his cook putting dishes in the dishwasher.

  Mrs. De La Pena was a rotund Mexican woman of fifty-one, and the best cook Burgess had ever had. Her English was clumsy, but it had never been a big problem.

  Mrs. De La Pena turned to him and smiled. "Garlic?" Burgess said.

  She pointed to two silver bowls suspended by thin chains from the ceiling; the top bowl contained red and green peppers, the bottom was filled with cloves of garlic. Burgess hurried to the bowl, reached up and took a handful of cloves and put them on the counter. He turned to Mrs. De La Pena again and said, "I need a sharp knife."

  She went to a diamond-shaped block of wood on the counter with a dozen or so knives in slots. She removed one and handed it to Burgess.

  He quickly cut the cloves in half.

  "Mrs. De La Pena, here's what I want you to do," he said. He reached up to the window over the sink, removed a couple potted violets from the sill and put them on the counter. He took the halved cloves in a fist and rubbed them back and forth on the window-sill vigorously, ground them into the wood. "I want you to do this, Mrs. De La Pena, around every window. Do you understand?"

  Mrs. De La Pena stared at Burgess as if he had just sprouted a bill and quacked like a duck.

  "See? I want you to do this all the way around the window." He scrubbed the garlic over the sides, then the top of the window.

  "Yes, yes, I understand," Mrs. De La Pena said. "But. . . why?"

  "Just do it, okay, Mrs. De La Pena? Please?" He smiled.

  Frowning, Mrs. De La Pena shrugged and picked up some garlic cloves. "All windows?" she said.

  "All the windows on the ground floor. I'll get the doors."

  Mrs. De La Pena went across the kitchen to the window that looked out at a vine-covered embankment beside the house.

  Burgess cut some more cloves in half and put them in a Tupperware bowl. He left the kitchen and hurried around looking for Nita, the housekeeper. He wasn't even sure she was in the house. On his way up the stairs, he called her name.

  She leaned out of a bedroom into the upstairs hallway. "Yes?" Nita Coolidge was a wiry black woman in her mid-forties. Burgess had no idea how he would explain this to her, but he needed her help.

  "Nita, I'm going to ask you to do something that's going to sound crazy," he said as he went down the hall to join her in the open doorway of one of the guest rooms, where she'd been changing the sheets. She held a pillow in her right hand and a pillowcase in her left.

  "What's that?" Nita said.

  "See these garlic cloves? I've cut them in half. I want you to rub them into the wood around all the windows on this floor.

  Nita frowned as she looked from the garlic to Burgess. "No disrespect, Mr. Burgess," she said, "but have you gone off your nut?"

  Burgess went into the bedroom and to a window. "Like this," he said as he scrubbed the garlic back and forth on the sill. "On the sides and tops, too. You'll need a step-ladder for some of them."

  Nita put her hands on her hips. "Let me get this straight. You want me to rub that garlic inta the win-das."

  "Yes."

  "Well, if you want me to, I will. But I'll tell you right now, Mr. Burgess, I ain't cleanin' it up."

  "Don't worry about cleaning it up right now, Nita, just get it done. I've got to do the doors downstairs, and then I'll come up here and help you."

  "Whatever you say."

  Burgess hurried downstairs, where Mrs. De La Pena was in the living room rubbing garlic around the windows. He went into the kitchen and cut up some more garlic. He took it to the front door, went outside, and rubbed it around the doorway. He went back inside and did the same there.

  In the next hour, he managed, with the help of Mrs. De La Pena and Nita, to cover all the windows and doors in the house. He wondered if he should rub it around the garage doors as well, but decided that would be impractical. He did go out and get the windows in the garage, and he covered the door that led from the garage into the kitchen.

  The house reeked of garlic.

  Denise was a neat freak. She was probably going to have a fit. But he couldn't worry about that yet. He had one more thing to do.

  Burgess gave Mrs. De La Pena and Nita the rest of the day off and saw them out. Then he cut up some more garlic cloves—he'd used up nearly all the garlic in the bowl, and made a mental note to buy more, preferably at bulk rates—and took them upstairs to his bedroom. He took his clothes off and tossed them onto the bed. He stood in nothing more than briefs and a pair of white socks. He rubbed the garlic all over his body.

  He had written three books about vampires. The fact that they really existed at once excited and frightened him. That some of them were out to get him made his stomach cold with panic.

  When he finished rubbing it all over himself, Burgess put the garlic cloves on the bed and put his clothes back on. He picked up the cloves and took them downstairs with him.

  In the kitchen, he heard Denise drive up in her BMW Z4 Roadster convertible, heard the garage door open. He put the remaining garlic cloves on the counter and then washed his hands at the sink with liquid hand soap.

  Denise entered the kitchen from the garage wearing a white-and-pink tennis outfit and carrying her racquet. She put her purse on the counter and her racquet on the kitchen table.

  "Hi," she said in that cheerful way she had. It usually made Burgess want to get her down on the nearest flat surface and make mad love to her, but he was preoccupied.

  He returned the smile and said, "Have fun?"

  "Yeah. I think Micha and her husband are getting a divorce." Micha was the friend with whom she'd been playing tennis.

  "Did she say that?"

  "Not in so many words, but she's making noises. She said—" Her nose wrinkled. "What's that smell? Is Mrs. De La Pena cooking something?"

  "I sent her and Nita home early today."

  "Why? And what's that smell? Is that garlic?"

  "Yes, it's garlic."

  "Where's it coming from?"

  "Let me explain."

  "I have to take a shower first. Hold that thought." She hurried out of the kitchen, and Burgess heard the muted thumps of her footsteps going upstairs. From the hall, she shouted, "It's up here, too! What is it?"

  Burgess left the kitchen and went to the foot of the stairs. "I told you, it's garlic."

  "But why does it smell so strong up here?" She appeared naked at the top of the stairs, a towel in one hand.

  Burgess's eyes took a snapshot of Denise standing there on the landing, her posture casual, completely naked. So beautiful, so blond ... and so young. He
often wondered if he'd made a mistake in marrying her. She was always telling him he was crazy.

  "You know," she'd said in bed only a few weeks ago, "sometimes I read your writing, and I wonder if you're crazy."

  "Oh, come on, now," he'd said. "You know we have the kind of relationship where, if I were crazy, I'd tell you."

  "No, I mean it. The things you come up with in your books—well, some of them are completely insane. Don't you think sometimes that maybe you are a little crazy? Just a little?"

  "To tell you the truth, I wonder that almost every time I look at you."

  "Huh?"

  "I wonder if I was crazy for marrying you. I'm worried you'll get tired of me, that eventually, I'll just bore you."

  She'd laughed as she rolled over on top of him, then kissed him. "Oh, baby, you know that's not true. If I thought for a moment that I might get tired of you, I wouldn't have married you."

  When he explained the garlic throughout the house, she might very well call him crazy again, and this time, she might really mean it.

  "Take your shower first," he said.

  She disappeared from the landing, went to the bathroom, and closed the door.

  Burgess paced in the hall, wondering how he was going to explain the garlic to Denise. He went into the kitchen and ate a banana. He planned to order pizza for dinner later—with extra garlic. If it helped to have garlic on his outside, it wouldn't hurt to have some inside, too.

  Denise did not take long in the shower. She came downstairs wearing a white bikini bra, a pair of denim cut-offs, and thongs on her feet. The patch of skin between her eyebrows was wrinkled vertically. But it disappeared briefly as she smiled at him and said, "Did you miss me today?"

  She went to him and he put his arms around her. "Terribly. I always miss you terribly."

  She pulled away from him abruptly and said, "My god, Marty, you reek!"

  "Look, honey, there was something I had to do."

  "Something you—Marty, why does this whole house stink of garlic?"

  He went to her and put his hands on her upper arms. "Listen to me. I hired—"

  "Get away from me," she said, pushing him back. "You smell like you've been lying in a vat of garlic."