A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark

by Harry Connolly

  “And you bring them here, where they can survive on the donated blood Libertad delivers, without killing anyone.”

  “Yes, dear. Exactly. This is a safe place. For everyone.”

  “Mother said...” Albert paused, trying to figure a way to approach this subject. “Mother said it wasn’t safe to know you. She said you hung around with dangerous people and took crazy risks.”

  “Your mother and I have a complicated relationship. More than most sisters, I think.”

  “Mother can make turning on a lamp into something complicated. She once said you know how to do magic. Not sleight of hand, but the real thing.”

  “What a thing to say!”

  “She was drunk, but... Did Aloysius know about the vampires?”

  “He did, and more besides.”

  “And his murder? Why are you ‘going to be moving quickly’ on it?”

  “To protect what I’ve built, dear. The way Aloysius was killed suggests a vampire fed on him, which I don’t allow. Seattle is my city, and the peace I’ve created here is still fragile. Always fragile. But it mostly works, and has started to inspire similar projects in other places around the country. Do you see? I’m a role model.

  “But there are always those who think violence is the best, most lasting solution. It can be hard to give up old enmities, especially when holding onto them feels like virtue. Sometimes creating peace can earn you as many enemies as starting a war. But if someone out there thinks they can destroy what I’ve created without paying a price, they’re in for quite a shock.

  Marley sighed. “Then again, it might just be a new arrival in the city who doesn’t know the rules. Or maybe Aloysius was killed for a reason unrelated to me, or no reason at all. It could have been a coincidence that he was stabbed above a storm drain. Whatever happened, I intend to discover the truth, and I’ll depend on you to help me.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Help For Those Who Need It

  Albert was sharp enough to recognize the end of a conversation, so he started the car and pulled out of the lot. Marley uploaded Sylvester’s address to the car’s GPS, and within half an hour they were parked outside a small apartment building ten blocks from the West Seattle bridge.

  It had started to rain. Albert grabbed the long red umbrella from its place beside him and stepped out of the car. They had parked on rather narrow tree-lined street, and he couldn’t help but feel goosebumps run down his back as he looked around. Vampires are real.

  As far as he was concerned, there were too few streetlights and too many oaks blocking their light. The street was heavy with night shadows and there was no one in sight.

  His aunt had made clear when he came to stay with her that he was not permitted to carry weapons of any kind—it was her only rule and he’d promised to follow it. The scarred stump where his trigger finger used to be throbbed. If only…

  Albert took a deep breath and opened the umbrella. Aunt Marley was no fool, and she traveled the city unarmed. He decided to mimic her courage, wisely reasoning that the guns he’d left behind when he was discharged were probably useless against the undead. He held an umbrella over the door as he opened it.

  Marley climbed from the car, looking just as she always did. Was she confident she could deal with a runaway vampire or simply fatalistic? “Thank you, dear. Why don’t you wait out here while I speak to him? You look a bit too imposing for the conversation I have in mind, and you’ve just had a fright.”

  A fright? Albert nearly laughed. “If you say so.” He looked up and down the still, dark street. “Are you sure you’ll be all right? I mean, if there’s a new arrival in the city…”

  “No need to worry about that,” Marley said in her usually chipper tone. “You won’t be bored, will you?”

  “I’ll play more Tetris. It’s something I learned during my tour; a few minutes of Tetris after a nasty encounter helps prevent nightmares.”

  “How interesting! I’ll have to share that with some friends of mine.” With that, Marley marched to the apartment building and pressed the buzzer that said “Bustaverde” next to it. A man’s voice came over the scratchy intercom. “Who is it?”

  “Libertad sent me,” Marley said. “To help.”

  The door unlocked with a terrible buzz, but Marley didn’t move. She pressed the intercom button again and told him there was a problem with the door. Sylvester came downstairs to open it for her.

  He was a small, jumpy man with dark hair and an old-fashioned pencil-thin mustache. He’d intended for it to lend him an air of suave sophistication, but it actually made him look like a comical bit player in an old movie—which was a shame, because there was nothing comical about Sylvester’s life or the danger he was in.

  His face was shiny with sweat and he didn’t even try to disguise his surprise at seeing Marley. “She sent you?” he asked, as though it was an accusation. “A little old lady?”

  “She did, and aren’t you lucky? Now look over my shoulder. Is the person watching you still there?”

  He looked over her left shoulder. “Yeah. The Camry. And there’s a second one now, too. A Town Car.”

  “That second one is mine. Let’s go inside, shall we?”

  He led her up a flight of creaky wooden stairs. The stairwell bulb was dingy and weak, and the plaster walls had dust in all the cracks. His apartment door was so warped he had to lean against it to open and close it.

  The apartment smelled of garbage and sour milk and the carpet needed to be vacuumed. Sylvester lifted a pile of laundry off the couch and set it on the ottoman. “That’s all clean,” he said, “but I haven’t had time to fold it.”

  He gestured for Marley to sit in the space he’d just cleared and she did. He flopped into an easy chair, obviously exhausted.

  Marley took a shirt off the laundry and began folding it. Startled, Sylvester sat up and joined her.

  “I have two jobs,” he said. “It was three, but I got fired from the security thing because I couldn’t stay awake. That happened just this weekend. It’s hard to keep up with things here all alone.”

  “Alone? Where is your wife?”

  Sylvester’s left hand closed around the shirt he was holding as though he might squeeze juice from it. With his other hand, he twisted his wedding band. “My wife? What difference does that make?”

  “You have a suspicious character watching your home, don’t you? Do you think that doesn’t affect her?”

  “She’s away. She’s sick.”

  Marley stopped folding. “You can’t lie to me, dear.”

  “Okay.” Sylvester took a deep breath. “She left. Gone. She emptied the bank account on Saturday and took off.”

  They resumed folding. “Aren’t you worried that something has happened to her?”

  He was quiet for almost a minute while they worked together. Finally, he said: “She’ll be back. I used to worry. I used to worry about all kinds of things, but... She has a problem with gambling. She owns a cleaning company and makes more than I do—when she works—but it’s not enough. That’s why I....”

  “That’s why you stole blood from the donation center.”

  “I could lose my job.”

  “Yes, dear, and then who would cover your wife’s debts?” They were quiet a moment. “You know why the buyer wanted it, don’t you?”

  They had finished folding the laundry. Sylvester had nothing to do with his hands but stare down at them. “I guess so.”

  “Where did you drop off the blood?”

  Sylvester stood from the chair and took a pencil and slip of paper from his telephone table. He scribbled on it and offered it to Marley. She took it without looking at it.

  “Thank you. Your wife is lucky to have someone like you looking out for her, and you’re lucky that I don’t have you run out of my city. Here’s my card. Email me, dear, and I’ll connect you with a group that can help you cope with your wife’s problem. And if you get another offer like the one you had yesterday, contact me. In fact, I in
sist on it, for all our sakes.”

  He took the card she offered him with trembling hands.

  Marley’s phone rang. She answered. “Yes, Albert?”

  “Aunt Marley, there’s a guy in a Camry watching your building. And he just started dialing.”

  “That’s interesting,” she said, exaggerating her usual dramatic tone. “I wonder who he’s calling?”

  Not being a fool, Albert took that as a hint. “Why don’t I go ask?” He hung up the phone and stepped out of the car.

  There was no way for him to sneak up on the Camry, not when both vehicles faced each other on opposite sides of the street. Albert closed the door quietly, crossed to the far curb and strolled casually down the block.

  He could see the man’s face by the lights of his phone—his head was narrow and his hairline receding. He had a five o’clock shadow over a strong jaw—handsome, but he looked weary. He was forty years old, at least .

  As he watched Albert approach, the man in the Camry began to get nervous. Of course he’d noticed the Town Car when it pulled in, but he’d dismissed it when he saw a little old woman get out. Then she’d stood at the door of the apartment building until his target had come to open it; he couldn’t imagine any reason for that except that she wanted to be seen with the target. Now her big, baby-faced driver was walking toward the car. “He’s coming toward me,” he said into the phone. “He looks like he might be a plainclothes cop or something.”

  A voice from the backseat said: “Oh, he’s not a police officer, dear.”

  The man shrieked and dropped the phone in his mad scramble to turn around. There was a small shadowy figure sitting behind him. His elbow struck the car horn, blaring it accidentally, in his mad rush to get out of the car. He ran into the middle of the street and turned to gape at the back seat of his Camry. It was empty.

  “What the hell? What the holy hell?” He let out a stream of curses as he tried to control himself. He’d heard a voice and seen a figure inside his car. He was sure of it. Had it materialized like a ghost or had it been there, lurking and unseen, all day? Whatever courage he’d brought with him had fled. They should never have come to Seattle. Never.

  Albert didn’t slow his approach as he sized the fellow up: His skinny arms were thick with tattoos, and he was wearing leather pants and a leather vest without a shirt. He even wore a leather dog collar. Before Albert had gone to war, he might have been intimidated.

  Sylvester opened the front door to his apartment building, and Marley slipped by him into the street. She crossed directly to the man in the vest, meeting him in the middle of the street.

  “Welcome to Seattle, Kenneth.” she said. She extended her hand; he shook it warily. “Although I must say, I find it hard to believe that you and your mistress didn’t know you should speak to me before settling in my city.”

  Kenneth’s mouth hung open. “I know who you are!” He jumped into his car and started it up. Marley and Albert stepped back as he peeled out of his parking space.

  As the taillights grew smaller in the distance, Marley said: “That poor man. His license and registration seem to have fallen out of his wallet.” She held up both pieces of identification. As expected, they were from out of state. This time it was Tennessee.

  Albert grinned. “Well then, it’s good that we know where to return it.”

  Marley smiled and laid her hand on his arm. “Aren’t we helpful?” she exclaimed. “I’m sure he’d love to talk with us some more.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Philosophies Are Contrasted

  The address Sylvester had provided was in the northern end of Capitol Hill, where parking spaces were impossible to find but a shirtless man in a leather vest and dog collar would not earn a second glance.

  It was ten-thirty when they drove by Kenneth’s home. The house was tiny, small, and shadowy, with a dying garden out front. The Camry had been parked in the driveway, but there were no other spots on the street. Albert had to drive three blocks away and pay for parking at the local supermarket. He held the umbrella while they walked back.

  When they were just around the corner from Kenneth’s home, Marley said: “Albert, I know you’ve been trying very hard to get a job. Personally, I think you’re an exceptional young man who will find an excellent position, but at the moment I need someone who can help me. I wonder if you would be willing to officially come to work for—“

  “Yes.”

  “— me for a while. Oh, good. But you didn’t even ask what the job pays.”

  “If money was my thing, I wouldn’t have enlisted. Will every day be as interesting as this one?”

  “I hope not, dear. I have a large family, but not that large. But yes, every day will be interesting, if you are open to it.”

  “Thank you for asking me.”

  Marley stopped walking suddenly. She looked around the sidewalk, then lifted a round, flat stone slightly larger than a tea saucer from a nearby yard. She brought it toward a pickup truck—actually, a beautiful, gleaming black F-150 Harley Davidson SuperCrew—parked beside a mailbox and smashed the taillight on the driver’s side.

  “Aunt Marley! What are you doing?”

  “Investing, dear.” She replaced the stone carefully on the lawn.

  Albert looked around. No one else was in sight and no one seemed to have heard them. Still, smashing a car could get a person shot. “But... they could get a ticket. They could get pulled over by the cops. I’m not going to have to break off antennas and steal hubcaps in this new job, am I?”

  Marley knew what he was really thinking: Is my aunt suffering from dementia? Wisely, he held his tongue, making her all the more pleased to have offered him the job. “Stop fussing, Albert, and come along. We’re behind schedule.”

  Something about her body language convinced him to change the subject. “We’re going to visit a vampire now, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “Do you think it might have killed Aloysius?”

  “She, dear. I heard her voice on Kenneth’s phone. Vampires are he or she, just like anyone else. I don’t know if she killed him or not. It’s a typical vampire style, though, because it gives the authorities an easy explanation for the blood loss.”

  “You mean, laying his body over the grate of a storm drain? I see that. That makes sense.” They turned the corner and approached the house. Albert rolled his shoulders and flexed his hands to loosen them up. “What will you need me to do?”

  Marley stopped on the sidewalk in front of the house. By the streetlight, he could see that her expression was unusually somber. “This is important, Albert. I want you to pay careful attention to what I tell you, because this will all fall apart if you don’t follow my instructions exactly.”

  “I understand.”

  “I hope so, dear, because this is crucial. You must do precisely what I tell you.”

  “Okay. And what is that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “You hold the umbrella, dear, and open the doors, and stand beside me with a polite and pleasant expression. Nothing more. No matter what happens or what you see, that’s what I want you to do.”

  “What if you change your mind? What if you’re in danger from, you know, teeth?”

  “You’ll do only what I ask of you and you’ll wait until I’ve explained what I need in detail, or I’ll be forced to fire you. Then you’ll have to go back to sitting in office lobbies and empty restaurants with your resume in your lap, desperate for employment that we both know is beneath you, and we don’t want that, do we?” She patted his cheek. “Don’t look so worried, dear. We’re only bearding a vampire in her lair. What could go wrong?”

  She turned away then and didn’t see her nephew look up toward the night sky, fervently praying that she was joking.

  Marley didn’t lead Albert to the front door. Instead, they walked around the Camry through the side yard. Albert glanced nervously up at the house—the lights were on, but all the
curtains had been drawn. Someone could easily have been watching them through a narrow gap in the cloth.

  The backyard was small, about twice the size of Marley’s kitchen, but the overgrown trees and bushes blocked most of the light from the street. The far end was as dark as a cave.

  “Why hello!” Marley said to the darkness, as though coming upon unexpected guests at her own party. “Imagine discovering all of you back here. What a surprise!”

  Someone lurking in the darkness hissed at her to be quiet, making goosebumps run down Albert’s back.

  “She’s one of them!” a man whispered. “A renfield!”

  “No, she isn’t,” a woman said in a clear, low voice. She had a southern accent. “I told you about her, but I didn’t expect to run into her so soon.”

  Stepping out of the impenetrable darkness into the penetrable darkness, the woman revealed herself. She was a black woman in her late 20’s, her bare arms corded with muscle and her torso protected by a black tactical vest. She held a sawed-off shotgun, but it was pointed at the ground. Unfortunately, it was the ground right by Marley’s feet.

  “Nora, isn’t it?” Marley said, seemingly unperturbed by the weapon. “Welcome to Seattle, Nora. Now please go home.”

  Two others stepped out of the darkness behind her. One was a tiny blonde woman with a loaded crossbow in her hands. The other was a black man, almost as tall and broad as Albert, holding a katana in one hand and a huge revolver in the other. The two of them looked just old enough to buy a beer, which meant they had a few months on Albert. “I don’t take orders from you,” Nora said.

  “This is my city. You must have heard that things don’t work that way here.” Marley gestured toward their weapons. “No murders allowed.”