by J. R. Rain
He looked at me with what was supposed to be a stern face.
“The name’s Charles,” he said.
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
“Glad that’s cleared up.”
“I heard you could be difficult,” he said. “Is this you being difficult? If so, then I’m disappointed.”
I smiled. “Maybe you have me confused with my father.”
Charlie sat back in my client chair and smiled. His domed head was perfectly buffed and polished, cleanly reflecting the halogen lighting above. His skin appeared wet and viscous, as if his sweat glands were ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.
“Your father has quite a reputation in L.A. I gave his office a call before coming here. Of course, he’s quite busy and could not take on an extra case.”
“So you settled on the next best thing.”
“If you want to call it that,” he said. “I’ve heard that you’ve performed adequately with similar cases, and so I’ve decided to give you a shot, although my expectations are not very high, and I have another P.I. waiting in the wings.”
“How reassuring,” I said.
“Yeah, well, he’s established. You’re not.”
“But can he pick up a blind side blitz?”
Charlie smiled and splayed his stubby fingers flat on my desk and looked around my office, which was adorned with newspaper clippings and photographs of yours truly. Most of the photographs depict me in a Bruin uniform, sporting the number 45. In most I’m carrying the football, and in others I’m blowing open the hole for the tailback. Or at least I like to think I’m blowing open the hole. The newspapers are yellowing now, taped or tacked to the wood paneling. Maybe someday I’ll take them down. But not yet.
“You beat SC a few years back. I can never forgive you for that. Two touchdowns in the fourth quarter alone.”
“Three,” I said. “But who’s counting?”
He rubbed his chin. “Destroyed your leg, if I recall, in the last game of the season. Broken in seven different places.”
“Nine, but who’s counting?”
“Must have been hard to deal with. You were on your way to the pros. Would have made a hell of a fullback.”
That had been hard to deal with, and I didn’t feel like talking about it now to Charlie Brown. “Why do you believe in your client’s innocence?” I asked.
He looked at me. “I see. You don’t want to talk about it. Sorry I brought it up.” He crossed his legs. He didn’t seem sorry at all. He looked smugly down at his shoes, which had polish on the polish. “Because I believe Derrick’s story. I believe he loved his girlfriend and would never kill her.”
“People have been killed for love before. Nothing new.”
On my computer screen before me I had brought up an article from the Orange County Register. The article showed a black teen being led away into a police car. He was looking down, his head partially covered by his jacket. He was being led away from a local high school. A very upscale high school, if I recalled. The story was dated three weeks ago, and I recalled reading it back then.
I tapped the computer monitor. “The police say there’s some indication that his girlfriend was seeing someone else, and that jealousy might have been a factor.”
“Yes,” said the attorney. “And we think this someone else framed our client.”
“I take it you want me to find this man.”
“Or person.”
“Ah, equality,” I said.
“We want you to find evidence of our client’s innocence, whether or not you find the true murderer.”
“Anything else I should know?”
“We feel race might be a factor here. He was the only black student in school, and in the neighborhood.”
“I believe the preferred term is African-American.”
“I’m aware of public sentiment in this regards. I don’t need you to lecture me.”
“Just trying to live up to my difficult name.”
“Yeah, well, cool it,” he said. “Now, no one’s talking at the school. My client says he was working out late in the school gym, yet no one saw him, not even the janitors.”
“Then maybe he wasn’t there.”
“He was there,” said Charlie simply, as if his word was enough. “So do you want the job?”
“Sure.”
We discussed a retainer fee and then he wrote me a check. When he left, waddling out of the office, I could almost hear Schroeder playing on his little piano in the background.
Kindle or Nook
Also available:
The Vampire Club
by
J.R. Rain
and Scott Nicholson
(read on for a sample)
Welcome
The vampire dropped from above.
The girl recoiled in shock, then let loose with an ear-shattering screech. The vampire stepped back, seemingly impressed by the set of lungs on his soon-to-be victim. As she screamed away, he waved his hands slowly like a maestro.
And then those human lungs faltered and the scream turned into a gurgle. The concert was over.
Staring hypnotically with his obsidian eyes, the vampire approached the helpless girl. She began whimpering. He eased up alongside her, peered down at her exposed neck, and frowned. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away a bit of something.
His tongue slithered out as if summoned by a flute-playing Indian snake charmer. A shudder ran through the girl. He opened his mouth and stretched back his lips, revealing his long and slender teeth. He gripped her shoulders like a lover and sank his teeth deep into her neck—
And I could no longer control myself. Quivering, I leaped from my seat in the movie theater and, waving my fist for needed emphasis, shouted: “God, yes!”
Next to me, Buddy burst from his seat. “Suck it, baby, suck!”
And then Juan further down: “You know you like it! You can’t hide it, baby!”
Janice still further: “Suck like there’s no tomorrow!”
And then finally the professor, with his old and gritty voice, boomed: “Suck until you urinate blood!”
Which was, for me, a new one.
We are The Vampire Club.
Welcome.
* * *
My name is Andy Barthamoo, leader of The Vampire Club, which meets every Tuesday night at 7 p.m. in a small room in the basement of Western Virginia University’s library.
There are five of us, and we have one thing in common: we love vampires. We love them from the tip of their pointed teeth to the tip of their leathery batwings, devoting much of our pre-adolescent, high school, and college years in search of them.
You see, we want to become vampires.
However, we have yet to come across any documented proof that vampires truly exist. Until now....
* * *
On this particular Tuesday night, as I stood before the other four members of the group, I had some interesting news to share. Once all the members had assembled before me, I began the meeting. “Now friends and colleagues, I have asked you this question before and I will ask you again: what is the purpose behind our club?”
Four hands shot up. I would have expected no less. “Buddy,” I said, pointing to the blond football player in our group.
Buddy stood, all 215 pounds of him. “To gather evidence to prove the existence of vampires.”
“Very good, Buddy,” I said, and then paused for dramatic effect. “I believe I have found such evidence.”
There was a gasp or two. Probably Janice, though she’d never admit it. She had a way of hiding her true feelings, which is why she resisted her no-doubt undying love for me.
“This past week while doing research in the Virginia Times Library, I came across a newspaper article from the 1820s.” I opened my DayRunner and removed the photocopied article. I cleared my throat and read: “‘Stranger Shot Eleven Times, Dies Two Hours Later—Old man Andrews says he’d never seen anything like that in all his life. �
�Course I’m blind as a bat,’ says Andrews.’”
“Interesting,” said Juan, pulling at the goat hair on his chin.
“Now, as you will soon discover, this stranger behaved very much like a vampire.” I looked each member in the eye, stopping a bit longer with Janice and, of course, adding a wink. “And if so, there’s a chance he’s alive today. And I know where to find him.”
“Where did you get this article?” asked Juan.
“A weekly newspaper called The Inquireth.”
“A tabloid!”
“My assignment didn’t specify what newspaper I had to use—”
“A tabloid story about a mythical creature. Sure you didn’t confuse it with the Incredible Bat Boy? We can’t accept it as fact, Andy, or anywhere close to the truth,” Juan said.
“I thought the same thing, until I read between the lines and discovered the writer could not have made this up. He hit too close to vampiric truth. And it was before Bram Stoker, back when vampires were legend and not yet mainstream fiction.”
“Just read the article,” said Professor L. He smiled and nodded his gray head at me. “And we’ll see what exactly you’ve stumbled upon.”
Professor L was not only head of the Vampire Studies department, he was its only teacher. This was the only university in the nation that offered Vampire Studies as a major, and it attracted the devout, which was pretty much us four. You couldn’t just spout lines from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to get in. You had to know about Carmilla, Varney the Vampire, Vlad Dracul, and Nosferatu.
I cleared my throat dramatically, gazed at a promotional poster for The Lost Boys on the far wall to help me focus—Corey Haim had been my hero when I was a kid—then read the article aloud:
“It is common knowledge that evil is brewing in our Pennsylvania. Folk have been disappearing across the state for the last year. Most thought it was Indians, yet there have been reports of a pale-faced demon haunting an area right before a person is discovered missing.
We all know we all got sort of a start when a pale-faced stranger turned up in our town last week, staying at Buford’s Boarding House. He called himself ‘Laumer,’ and never said whether it was his first name or last. We all kept a suspicious eye on the stranger, but he seemed harmless enough; indeed, he was very charming, though rarely seen except at night.
But when old Al Hockborough disappeared, we knew we were in the presence of evil, perhaps Satan himself. A committee was formed, addressing the issue of the stranger and what to do about him. Four of the ten in the committee, including yours truly, wanted to burn him. Sure, give him a trial, and then burn him. Al was a great guy. He didn’t deserve to die by the hands of Satan. The others in the committee, led by Ed Royce, wanted to search his residence; maybe we’d find old Al.
At Buford’s Boarding House, we confronted the stranger at noon, though he was somewhat bedraggled. He was once again all charm, and let us search his residence at will. Nothing unordinary. He expressed his extreme concern over the disappearance of Al, and that times were indeed hard enough for a traveling man without people disappearing and heaping suspicion on innocent strangers.
It was pretty much back to the drawing board, though some of us didn’t like it, especially Ed Royce. ‘Fire’ could be the only word to describe our town’s blacksmith. He really had it in for the stranger, though most of us accepted the fact that his presence was purely coincidental to the disappearing of Al.
We were not surprised then when two days later gunfire shattered the night like fine crystal in the hands of a newborn. Roused from their sleep, most folks stumbled out of their beds to find the stranger dying in the streets. Ed and his gang stood by explaining, while the stranger lay gasping in the street. “He tried to kill Edith! We caught him just in time.” That’s when Edith answered curtly, crying. “He just offered to carry my bags home!
“Then why did he attack us?” demanded Ed.
“Maybe because you bullies cornered him with your guns.”
“Look at Billy, Sheriff, the stranger done him in good.” And Billy was a terrible mess.
“He also just disappeared on us,” said Hank. “When we looked again, he was behind us somehow. We shot at him,” Hank went on, “I knows I hit him a few times, and the others did, too, but he kept on running.”
“And that’s when he ran into me,” said Ed Royce. “One shot was all I needed.” The stranger died two hours later.
The sheriff investigated further, and it was agreed it was in self-defense that the stranger had to die.
If he was an innocent man, God forgive us. And if he was the killer, may God deal with him appropriately.”
They were silent, mulling over what they had just heard. I gave them a moment to reflect before spurring them into a conclusion. “Now, Buddy, who and what was that article really talking about?”
“A vampire, of course!”
“Indeed. The clues are all there. But I have another question: Who is this Edward Royce, and how did he and his gang kill our vampire?”
“The answer,” said Janice, “was the bullet. A silver bullet.”
“Exactly!” I stepped from behind the podium and circled the room. “Fact: we have researched vampires extensively. Fact: we have read all the vampire fiction, and though usually it’s a good read, most of it should be burned. Fact: we know more about vampires than anyone else alive. Question: can a silver bullet kill a vampire?”
As expected, four hands shot up in unison. “Juan,” I said.
Juan stood. “In our studies, we have uncovered voluminous accounts of vampires. The trouble is that most vary as to the true characteristics of vampires. So what we have done, as you all know, is sort through all the slush and find similarities. We are the uncoverers of fact.
“Simply put, we have uncovered the truths and dispelled the fallacies; and, unbeknownst to most folks, a silver bullet can wound a vampire but not kill a vampire. Our vampire is not dead.”
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About the Author:
J.R. Rain is an ex-private investigator who now writes full-time. He lives in a small house on a small island with his small dog, Sadie, who has more energy than Robin Williams.
Please visit him at www.jrrain.com.