Night Life

by Ray Garton

  "Well, that's not too far off the mark."

  "Not too far off—what the hell is going on? Who did you hire?"

  "Remember that scrapbook I showed you?" he said. "The one that started with that article in the New York Post about vampires in Times Square? Do you remember that?"

  "Yeah, I remember. What's that got to do with anything?"

  "I hired some private investigators to investigate the story. A man, Gavin Keoph, and a woman, Karen Moffett."

  "The more you talk, the more confused I get," Denise said, putting a hand to the side of her head. Those vertical creases were back between her eyebrows.

  "Just listen," he said. "They investigated it. For just a couple days. And they found... well, it turns out... vampires really do exist."

  Her reaction was very slow—her eyes slowly widened and her mouth slowly opened as she took a step back from him. "What... what are you telling me, Marty?"

  "I got a phone call from Karen Moffett. Before I hired them, see, I'd done a little investigating on my own. Well, Miss Moffett tells me I attracted the attention of some very, uh, unpleasant vampires. It seems I've, um, pissed them off. We could be in some danger, according to Miss Moffett. I actually talked to one of the vampires, Davey Owen. But he's not like the vampires that are pissed at me. He and his wife, they don't attack or kill or prey on people like these other vampires do. Anyway, he told me the best thing I could do to protect us was to rub garlic all around the doors and windows. So I had Nita and Mrs. De La Pena help me, and while you were gone, we hit every single window and door in this house."

  "You ... rubbed garlic .. . around the doors and windows?"

  "Well, only the doors on the ground floor that go outside. This Davey Owen guy also told me it would be a good idea to rub garlic on my body, which I've done." He stepped toward her again and put a hand to the side of her face. "I think to be safe, you should, too."

  Denise pressed a hand to her chest and said, "You want me? To rub garlic? All over my body? Martin... are you crazy?"

  "Dammit, I wish you'd quit saying that." He turned away from her and walked across the room. "You married me for my money, didn't you?" he said as he slowly walked back.

  "What?"

  "Because that's not the way you talk to someone you love."

  "Honey, what're you ... what're you talking about?"

  "Did you not hear me? What have I been saying?"

  "And you're .. . serious?"

  "I know it sounds crazy, and I know I've never really explained my interest in this before, how great it is, but I'm telling you now, Denise, and you have to believe me."

  A look of deep concern battled with a look of sadness on Denise's face. "Sweetheart, you said the new book wasn't coming along very smoothly, but I had no idea you were—"

  "This has got nothing to do with my writing."

  "I think we should call and make an emergency appointment with Dr. Van Wyck."

  "Dr. Van—why would I call him? He can't help us."

  "He might be able to recommend someone who could give you the help you need."

  "You want me to see a shrink?" Burgess said. He was afraid this was going to be more difficult than he had anticipated. "Denise, there's nothing wrong with me. Look, you want me to get one of the detectives on the phone? You can talk to Karen Moffett. She'll tell you that I hired her and her partner, and that they've found vampires—real vampires—living here in Los Angeles. You want me to do that? I'll do it."

  Denise slowly turned her head from side to side. "You wouldn't let me get Mom and Dad a car for their anniversary, but you can afford to hire two detectives? How much is this costing?"

  "Hey, a car would've been fine, but you wanted to get them a Hummer. Denise, what on earth would your parents do with a Hummer, besides menace other drivers? As far as I'm concerned, I've already gotten more than my money's worth out of this investigation, because they found vampires. Can you believe that, Denise? I mean, vampires—you know, Dracula—T vant to drrrink your blood.' All that's real!"

  Denise said nothing. She continued to stare at him, but the look in her eyes had changed. Now she looked suspicious, wary.

  Burgess blinked a few times when a crisp, vivid image of his ex-wife Sheila materialized in his mind. He felt heavy with sadness when he realized that, if Sheila were standing in front of him now, she would believe him. She would not only believe him, she would want to know what she could do to help protect them. He found himself, for a moment, missing Sheila.

  "You don't believe me," Burgess said.

  Denise stared at him awhile longer, then said, "Maybe it's ... I don't know, some kind of mid-life thing."

  Burgess had met Denise in a creative writing course he'd taught at UCLA. He remembered how she used to look at him in the classroom—as if he were some kind of god. She hadn't looked at him that way since they'd married.

  Now she looked at him as if he'd just written on the wall in his own feces.

  Denise had come early to class one night with a box containing every novel and short story collection he had written. She'd said she was a big fan and wondered if he would sign her books for her. He signed them. From the bottom of the box, she took a thin manuscript.

  "I'm sure people do this all the time," she'd said, "and it's probably rude of me to ask this of you, but I'm going to anyway, because I'm desperate to know if I'm any good. Would you read this for me, please?"

  "You understand," he'd said, "that if I read that, I would only be giving you my opinion, which doesn't really mean anything. I mean, if I say you're great, that doesn't mean you are. Just as if I say you're awful, that's not necessarily true. Do you understand?"

  Her face had burst into a broad grin that showed all her beautiful teeth, and she'd said, "Your opinion is the only one I want."

  The thing was, she'd turned out to be talented. Her story had him laughing out loud—the piece was genuinely funny, and the laughs came mostly from her intelligent, witty, rapid-fire dialogue. She was good, and she'd caught him completely off guard. He'd told her he wanted to send her story to his agent, Elliott Farber, in New York. Elliott was quite impressed, and suggested that Denise try her hand at a novel, which she'd been working on ever since. He and Denise had started up a secret telephone flirtation. Burgess had started staying up later—he'd waited till Sheila was asleep, then went to his office and called Denise on a prepaid cell phone. The phone calls led to meetings, and one thing, as they say, led to another.

  Burgess still regretted hurting Sheila. That had never been his intention. She'd found a pair of black panties in the glove box of his Porsche. She'd asked him if he were seeing another woman, or was he a cross-dresser, and he could not lie to her, not to her face. When he said yes, he'd been seeing someone, she'd said, "Move out. I want a divorce."

  After Sheila kicked him out, Burgess was certain Denise would break it off with him, and he would be completely alone. Marriage had not crossed his mind for a moment, and when that was where their relationship ended up, no one had been more surprised than Burgess.

  Only ten months of marriage, and already he was wondering if he'd made a mistake.

  Sheila would have believed him, he was sure of it.

  "Marty," Denise said. She stepped forward and snapped her fingers in front of his face.

  "Sorry," he said. "I got sidetracked for a second."

  "Marty, you're not well."

  "Oh, for god's sake, will you stop that. I'm perfectly fine, there's nothing wrong with me."

  "Have you been drinking?"

  "No, I haven't been drinking. I can get one of those detectives on the phone right away." He took his cell phone from his pocket, flipped it open, and triggered the programmed number. "I'll just have them tell you what they told me."

  Karen Moffett answered.

  "Miss Moffett, Martin Burgess here. I need you to do something for me."

  "What's that?"

  "I need you to tell my wife everything you told me."

 
"Mr. Burgess, we really don't have time for that right now. We're—"

  "You don't understand, my wife doesn't believe me. If she doesn't believe me, it makes it difficult to properly prepare for—look, she doesn't believe my story, all right? You need to convince her, Miss Moffett."

  "Convince her of what?"

  "That we're in danger from vampires."

  Karen Moffett sighed, then said, "All right, Mr. Burgess. Put her on."

  He turned to Denise and held the phone out to her. "This is Karen Moffett, one of the two detectives I hired. She's going to tell you that I'm not crazy."

  Denise took the phone. "Hello?" she said. "Yes, this is—no, it's Sykes-Burgess, my name is Denise Sykes-Burgess. Yes, go ahead." Denise listened for a long time. She slowly turned her eyes toward him. "Okay, wait. Who are you, again?" Denise held the phone in her left hand, and raised her right hand to her mouth so she could chew on the nail of her index finger. She had a bad habit of chewing her nails when she was nervous or anxious—there was very little left to chew. "You're serious." She turned away from Burgess. "No, really, I mean it, you're serious?"

  Burgess smiled, confident that Karen Moffett was explaining everything to Denise.

  Suddenly, Denise held the phone out to Burgess and said, "This isn't funny."

  Burgess could hear Karen Moffett still talking on the phone, unaware that no one was listening.

  "This isn't meant to be funny," Burgess said. "Listen to her, she's telling you the truth."

  "I don't know who you put up to this, Marty, but it's not funny and I'm not laughing." She turned the phone off and severed the connection with Karen Moffett. She handed the phone back to Burgess and put her hands on her hips. "That smell, I can't stand that smell!"

  "Well, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to live with it for awhile, because it's the only thing that's going to protect us from those vampires." He put the phone back in his pocket.

  "Vampires!" Denise snapped. "What's wrong with you, Marty?" Her face screwed up and she started to cry.

  "Please don't cry, honey," Burgess said as he put his arms around her.

  She pushed him away and said, "You stink."

  Burgess stepped back and sighed, exasperated. "Why didn't you listen to what Karen Moffett had to say?"

  "Because this is ridiculous!" she said before a great sob made her shoulders hitch. "You're scaring me, Marty. All this talk about vampires—that's crazy. There's no such thing as vampires."

  "If you would've listened to her, you would've learned that—"

  "I'm leaving!" she shouted, her fists bunched at her sides. She left the kitchen and went back upstairs. When she returned, she was buttoning up a red blouse over the bikini top. "I'm going to my mother's. Before I get back, you'd better do something about this damned smell."

  She snatched her purse up off the counter and went to the garage door.

  "Please don't go," Burgess said. He grabbed her arm and turned her around to face him. "Listen, honey, can't you see that I'm serious about this?"

  "That's what scares me so much," she said as she opened the garage door in the kitchen. "Martin, I can deal with just about anything, but if you're going to have mental problems... well, I'm just not cut out to handle that kind of thing."

  She went out into the garage. Standing in the doorway, Burgess said, "Get back before dark. That's when they come out."

  Denise started the Roadster as the garage door slowly began to open. She had the car's top down.

  "Did you hear me?" Burgess said. "Get back before dark."

  She ignored him as she backed out of the garage, then drove away.

  FOURTEEN

  Shortly after dark, Karen and Keoph got into the backseat of the Owens' Mercedes C240 sedan and Davey drove them into North Hollywood, in the San Fernando Valley.

  As they started out, Keoph leaned over to Karen and said just above a whisper, "Aren't you worried about what this will do to your professional image?"

  She nodded. "The thought has crossed my mind."

  "Because I'm sure as hell worried about mine" Keoph said. "If word gets out that you and I have been out vampire hunting, we're liable to become laughingstocks. I mean, I'd hate for it to get out to prospective clients. It could be very bad for business."

  "I won't be putting this job on my resume, that's for sure," Karen said.

  When Davey started talking, Karen and Keoph leaned forward and listened.

  "Mrs. Dupassie is a very old vampire," Davey said as he drove. "She's also very old physically."

  Casey said, "She was an old woman when she was turned—kind of a cruel trick, no doubt performed by some sadistic vampire with a sick sense of humor."

  "She's different than other vampires," Davey said. "For one thing, she's psychic. That's how she makes her living, doing consultations for people, mostly vampires, but some mortals, as well. Her customers also include many brutals. She's more plugged into the vampire underworld than anyone I know. You want to find out what's happening among vampires on the street, you talk to Mrs. Dupassie. You want to get something out on the street, you talk to Mrs. Dupassie."

  "We need to get the word out that you've called off your investigation," Casey said.

  "So we're going to talk to Mrs. Dupassie?" Keoph said.

  Davey said, "Yes, we are."

  They stopped at a run-down, pink stucco apartment complex with a faded sign out front that read Hollywood Palms Apartments. It was a U-shaped building with two levels of apartments, with a wrought-iron railing on the top, all the way around. In the center of the complex was a worn old fountain that hadn't seen any use in a long time.

  Karen whispered to Davey, "I thought you said most vampires were rich."

  "Mrs. Dupassie owns this apartment complex," Davey said, "along with a lot of prime real estate all over southern California. She doesn't have to live here—she chooses to."

  "Are all these apartments occupied by, uh.. ." Karen still had trouble saying the word out loud.

  "Yes," Davey said before she finished, "they are."

  Davey and Casey led them to a ground-floor apartment to the left, number 106, near the corner. The door was open with a screen door closed, and a television played loudly inside. Davey knocked on the edge of the screen door.

  The television went off and a small, frail-looking, chocolate-skinned old woman came to the door. They stepped back so she could open it.

  "Come in, come in," Mrs. Dupassie said.

  As soon as they entered the small living room, three cats scattered and hid.

  "Come to the table," Mrs. Dupassie said. She led them to a table in a small dining area. "I've made some coffee. Would you like some?"

  Karen and Keoph both said yes, and Mrs. Dupassie poured coffee into two cups and brought them to the table. She went back for her own. There were four chairs at the table. Mrs. Dupassie went to a chair against the wall, scooted it over, and sat down with them.

  Karen wondered how old Mrs. Dupassie had been when she was turned. The woman looked ancient— Karen guessed she'd been somewhere in her eighties. She had papery skin and a sunken, skull-like face. Her thinning silver hair was pulled back in a bun and she wore a simple green-and-white house dress that seemed too big for her small frame. Karen wondered how someone like old Mrs. Dupassie could end up being the informational center of the vampire underworld.

  To Davey and Casey, Mrs. Dupassie said, "I haven't seen either of you in awhile. How the fuck are ya?"

  "We're working on a new script, Mrs. Dupassie," Casey said, smiling. "It's coming along well."

  "Ah, that's fantastic, fanfuckingtastic," the old woman said as she reached over and patted Casey's hand enthusiastically. She smiled and revealed only a few teeth remaining in her head. Karen thought of the extra fangs she had tucked away in her upper gum. She turned to Karen and Keoph and said, "And who might you be?"

  "Mrs. Dupassie," Davey said, "this is Karen Moffett and Gavin Keoph."

  Before Davey could continue, Mrs.
Dupassie reached across the table and put her hand on Keoph's. She said, "You're worried you'll do damage to your professional reputation. Don't worry. You don't have a fucking thing to worry about, Gavin." She patted his hand a couple times, then sat back in her chair.

  The color left Keoph's face. He turned to Karen with a look of shock.

  "How can I help?" Mrs. Dupassie said. "What's the story?"

  Davey said, "They're private investigators, and they were hired by someone to investigate vampires. Prior to hiring them, their client had done some investigating of his own, and he got the attention of the brutals. One man has already been killed, and we're afraid that Karen and Gavin might be in danger."

  Mrs. Dupassie clicked her tongue and shook her head. "So much violence everywhere. That's a fucking shame."

  "Well, they've called off their investigation," Davey said. "It's over, off, they're no longer looking into the vampire underworld. We need to make sure word gets out about that, do you understand?"

  "Of course, of course," Mrs. Dupassie said, "that's perfectly understandable." She turned to Karen and Keoph. "You know, I believe I've heard word about you two. Recently. Yes, you'd be much better off investigating something else, if you ask me. Anything else."

  "Well, the important thing," Karen said, "is that we're not investigating this anymore."

  Mrs. Dupassie nodded. "That's very wise. I think you should—"

  Someone knocked at the screen door with a rattle. Mrs. Dupassie stood and headed for the door.

  "Hello, Norman," she said as she unlocked the screen door.

  The man who came in had to duck to get through the door. He was almost too wide to get through, as well. Norman towered over the petite Mrs. Dupassie. He carried a grocery bag in the crook of his arm, but it looked quite small next to him.

  Mrs. Dupassie took the grocery bag from him and went to the kitchen. She put the bag on the counter. She waved toward the table and said, "Norman, you've met Davey and Casey. This is Karen and Gavin. Everybody say hello to Norman."

  They all said hello at the same time, then laughed.

  Norman smiled at Davey and said, "Hey, Davey."