The last face Andrew Morton saw before his consciousness finally fled to some safe darker place was that of Angela Devough. She was still laughing. The old man kept working the ink, deeper and deeper, down through the skin, down to the bone.
Once you start a thing like this, there was no turning back.
Chapter 25
Laying the Lure
Carnival finished his impromptu confession to Chollo. It was getting darker. The early evening air was as close and darkened as a monk’s hood. Chollo stared at Carnival as if the Gypsy had just confessed to cannibalism.
“So you’re dating a vampire?”
Carnival shrugged.
“Is your head working right?” Chollo asked. “Carnie, you’re fucking with disaster.”
“It’s not my head I’m listening to.”
“Not your big head, that’s for sure.”
Listen to the man. He is as wise as he is ugly and musical.
Chollo sat there staring into his empty bottle and chewing on Carnival’s story. Carnival let him digest. He’d been talking for the last ten minutes and appreciated the break. They sat in silence. Sometimes there just isn’t that much to say. Above their heads Carnival heard the tattoo needle working away like a steady cobra, getting down to the bones and the truth.
Chollo looked up at Carnival. “So what’s your heart talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
“For a guy who’s said ‘I love you’ to a bloodsucking creature of the night, you don’t seem to know too damn much. Hey esse, aren’t you supposed to be able to see the future? Don’t you know where something like this could lead to? She could be drinking you like a beer tomorrow night, or worse.”
Chollo took a swallow to punctuate.
Oh yes, Carnival thought, much worse. He hadn’t told Chollo about killing Olaf. He’d sort of skirted around that particular detail. The way he told the story Carnival was just an onlooker, not an accomplice.
Such a closed box you make of your life. We Rom love to keep our secrets.
“Are you going to see her again?”
“I better. She’s in there,” Carnival pointed at my storefront.
“She’s in your store?”
“Under the bed. I think. Hell, I don’t even know that for sure.”
Chollo whistled, long and low.
“You’re in a hard place.”
He stood up.
“You need me, you know where to get me.”
Carnival nodded.
“You’re still going to help my friend, Enrico?” It was only partially a question. Chollo trusted Carnival, vampire or not.
“Tomorrow night,” Carnival said. “There are preparations that need to be made.”
“Prepare what you need. Call me if you need any help. I got to go and whittle me a stake.”
He grinned that, but Carnival didn’t think he was kidding.
And then he was gone, singing Lydia softly down the street.
Carnival watched him go.
He’s a good man. He means what he said.
“Yup.”
A good friend, but ugly.
“You’re not kidding.”
If you need anybody shot or staked or massacred, I would count on him.
Carnival nodded.
“But this isn’t murder.”
No? What is it then?
“It’s a second date and god help me I want it to be perfect.”
You’ll need wine. Ugly as you are, you’ll need to get her drunk.
“Wine, and eggs, and a goose.”
It’s too late to cook goose.
“My goose is already cooked, Poppa.”
He went to the fridge and removed the carton of eggs. It was time to get to work. He needed to summon a one-legged man dressed in newspaper clippings. Charon had told him so.
He turned out the kitchen lights. He lit a yellow candle with a wooden match, and held the egg over the candle. The candlelight glowed softly over the eggshell.
Carnival chanted softly, almost thoughtfully, laying the lure.
Chapter 26
Chasing the Golden Goose
Elija Koonz lay in the darkness counting the stars. There were some stars missing tonight. The streetlights were eating them. They’d been eating the stars up for some time. The night was always hungry, Elija knew that. He could hear that hunger in the park sometimes, growling low and patient.
Elija ran his hands over his newspaper coat. He wanted to scratch but he couldn’t. It was his leg that was itching, right where it used to be. Phantom pains, the doctors called it. Ghost memories. What the hell did doctors know, anyway? They were nothing more than educated guesses, wrapped in sheepskin and clean white cotton.
His mother had named him Elijah at birth. Named after a prophet, she’d wanted him to stay close to God but the doctor misspelled the birth record and the error stayed stuck. Elijah became Elija and turned one “h” further from God. Elija used to be a stock broker. He’d lost a half dozen fortunes, none of them his. Actually, he hadn’t lost any of them. He’d just misplaced them into a series of offshore accounts. The accounts were percolating quite nicely under the guidance of another trustworthy broker.
Meanwhile, Elija played innocent and claimed bankruptcy, hiding his assets under the names of three dead and twice removed cousins. He took to the streets, figuring homelessness was a perfect camouflage. His masquerade succeeded all too well. Now he walked the streets, stapling financial pages and sports reports to his overcoat. There was magic in numbers, anyone knew that. Elija forgot who he was and become whom he was pretending to be.
It had started with surveillance. He’d been watching the papers for three years, living in the park and looking for signs of his name in the financial reports, hoping that he had been forgotten. He had planned to wait out the mandatory seven years and then discretely claim his funds and vanish below the border. Halfway through his second year on the street he forgot why he was doing this and settled into a comfortable partnership with insanity. When a body lets go, there’s no telling how far they’ll fall.
Elija became a wino and a professional bum. He taught himself how to bend his ankle up behind his buttocks and tie it back there. He’d lean on a crutch, so it looked like his leg had been amputated. He claimed he lost it in a war, never specifying which. Details were best left ambiguous. Then one day the circulation seized up and a doctor in a street clinic amputated his left leg clean off, a hand span from the knee bone.
Things have a funny way of working themselves out.
As a child, Elija believed in God. Then as he got older he learned to believe in the Dow Jones. Tonight he believed in nothing but staying alive one more evening. The transient have very little time for intangibles such as faith, hope and prayer. For the homeless, survival can hinge on a day old sandwich, a half smoked cigarette and a cup of well sugared coffee.
Tonight Elija was thinking about geese.
He wasn’t sure why he was thinking about a goose. They weren’t very good, not the ones in the park anyway. He’d caught one, once. He’d clubbed it with a stick while it slept. He’d cooked it over a small fire. The meat had been dirty and greasy, and left him puking tiny green worms for three long weeks.
He looked up in the sky. He saw a string of stars. Orion’s belt, he thought. He knew that one although he couldn’t have told you where he’d learned it. Orion was a hunter but Elija didn’t know what he was hunting for.
Maybe he was hunting for geese.
Elija heard a branch crack to his left. He became instantly alert. Sometimes the police took in their head to come through the park. Sometimes it was a gang of kids, looking for a quiet place to get drunk. Once a couple of lovers had clambered over the big iron fence and treated Elija to a free peep show.
Elija looked into the darkness. Sometimes he saw faces that weren’t even there. He had to be careful what he was looking at. It was hard to draw a line between something and nothing. A face pushed out of the darknes
s, small and goatish, an old man crossed with a dog.
“Psst. Elija. Be careful. The Ferryman has sold you out to the gypsy.”
And then, before Elija could speak, the figure hobbled off into the night on legs that bent backwards on themselves. Elija stared out into the darkness. A voice spoke to his right.
“Elija?”
Elija turned. There, in the darkness stood the most beautiful goose he’d ever seen. His mouth watered just looking at the big bird. There was no way such a downy white beast could harbor any form of parasites. Elija hobbled forward not daring to speak. His strange vision of the tiny goat-legged man was forgotten. All he thought of was the taste of that fat white goose.
The goose stood there, seemingly oblivious to Elija’s one-legged approach. Just as Elija was ready to pounce on it, the goose turned away, tipped its tail back at Elija, and laid an egg.
The goose walked away. Elija stepped towards the egg. It was a strange color for an egg. He’d seen white eggs and brown eggs, but this one looked yellow.
No.
Not yellow.
It was gold.
Gold, like prospector’s dream of. Gold like Krugerands. Gold like FortKnox.
Elija dropped to a three point landing, the only points that fate had left him. He picked the egg up. No question, he decided. This was gold. He looked up, afraid that he’d lost the goose, but there it was. Just far enough away that he couldn’t reach it.
It squawked and laid another fourteen-karat omelet. Elija hobbled towards the bird, trying to catch it. It was no use. The bird stayed just that far ahead of Elija. He followed it out of the park, scooping up eggs as he went, until he came to Carnival’s door. The door opened for the goose, like magic.
He paused for a half an instant. If he’d listened he might have heard that hunger, growling in the darkness. But he was too hungry to listen. He limped after the goose. He opened the door, went inside, and never came back out.
Chapter 27
A Spectator in the Peep Show of the Damned
There was blood, like in the movies, only worse.
What did you expect? You can’t open a throat without spilling a little claret.
It’s way worse than the movies. Those two little niblets Count Yorga used to leave don’t even come close to the mark Maya made in the one-legged man’s neck. She peeled his throat as if it were an orange. Carnival saw the muscles and tendons beneath the skin like in an anatomy book. Only that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the lightening. Not like thunder and lightning, but lightening. The way all the color slipped away. Everything went gray. Like twilight falling, all the many shades of meat slipping into some other space.
“Help me, Poppa.”
I won’t help you with this one, boy. You jumped into this blood hole, you can swim your own way clear.
First there was blind rat panic. The one-legged man’s eyes rolled like bingo balls in a cage. He knew something bad was happening. He didn’t know what to do about it. That’s when she first clamped on to him. You’d figure, okay there’s this beautiful woman hanging off his neck, you’d think he’d get a little excited at first.
No way. That’s just more movie talk. The one-legged man knew right off that this was a bad thing. As burnt out and fucked up as the old man had to be, he knew that this was definitely a bad thing.
The last bad thing in a long sad life.
Then it went dark in behind his eyes. The kind of dark you might see around three in the morning out your back window. The kind of dark you saw when you expected somebody to push their face against the window glass and yell booga-booga. Only the one-legged man wasn’t yelling. He just went dark and then he wasn’t there anymore.
“Do you have any idea where he’s been?” Maya asked.
Carnival swallowed what was left of the plonk, grateful that it wasn’t a burgundy.
He didn’t feel all that thirsty. He just needed something to look at while she was drinking, was all.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” he told her, taking another swallow of plonk.
That’s rich irony. The poor old drunkard didn’t get so much as a swig.
“Damn it.”
“Well do you?” she asked again. “Have you any idea where he’s been?”
“He’s been out on the street. Can’t you taste that hint of asphalt? The teasing bouquet of concrete and traffic cop?”
“He’s filthy.”
Ha! Now the pot is calling the kettle cinder-black. Listen to the lady who sleeps in the dirt.
The one-legged man’s lack of hygiene didn’t really seem to bother Maya. She glued her mouth to his neck. She was slicked in blood, only her skin seemed to soak it up.
You knew that, boy. Vampires suck. Like giant sea sponges strung up on two legs.
Carnival looked. This wasn’t like the movies. Not romantic. Not dramatic. No prettier than an all you can eat slop-fest in a spaghetti factory. He felt the sick rising into his mouth. His stomach wanted to empty itself of the memory of its last meal.
Nobody glittered.
You ought to turn away boy. Think about baseball, or some other counting game.
Carnival stared. Poppa was right. He ought to turn away but he couldn’t. He didn’t want Maya to think her feeding bothered him.
That’s love, isn’t it? Not minding if you’re sweetheart forgets to close her mouth while she chews.
Love? Maybe. Carnival was disgusted. For the billionth time he asked himself why he was doing this.
“Do you have to do this every night?” he asked.
“Only if I want to stay living.”
Open your eyes, boy. She’s talking truth.
“I’ll bathe the next one,” Carnival promised. “What flavor of soap would you like?”
She smiled a great red stained clown’s smile that cheshired away as she looked at him. “You’re sure there’s going to be a next one?”
Carnival wasn’t sure at all. He didn’t like this feeling at all.
Oh honey, I don’t mind if you smoke. My asthma gets better every day.
Poppa was right, but Carnival couldn’t tell Maya that.
“I said I’d take care of you.”
“Because you want to? Or because you said so?”
“There a difference?”
He didn’t hear the next part. She was busy gulping. She made a real messy sound, like a sewer sucker and swallowed another gulp.
“He stinks of old wine,” she said. “I should have opened him with a corkscrew.”
Carnival had enough.
“Look,” he said. “I did my best, and all you give me is grief.”
“I’m just telling you how I feel.”
“No, you’re complaining.”
“I can catch better on my own.”
“Are you always this fussy?”
“I was ready to drain you, wasn’t I?”
Ouch. That hurts worse than her bite.
“Don’t say things like that. I love you, Maya.”
“Love? You draw that word out like a knife. What’s it supposed to mean? You bought me a couple of drinks — that gives you the right to tell me how I should live my life? That’s not love. That’s plastic surgery.”
She’s right. You’ve just got to get a grip is all. Stop washing your gloves in the butter dish.
Yeah, that’s it, Carnival thought. He just needed to get a grip. Maybe she could teach him how.
She’s sure got a grip on your wino. She’s clamped onto his throat like a pit bull with lockjaw.
He has a name, Poppa.
Had.
Carnival watched Maya work. She was being particularly nasty. He could tell. She was pissed off at him and taking it out on Elija. Revenge by placebo, and Carnival got to watch.
Lucky you. A spectator in the peep show of the damned.
Carnival looked at Elija again, lying there cold as a November tombstone. That’s what death is, something cold and quiet with no coming back.
Usually.
“Don’t mind me,” Carnival said. “It’s been a few days since I’ve slept.”
He wasn’t lying. He’d spent the last couple days on floating on a river of panicked adrenalin and cheap coffee. Come to think of it, Maya looked just as bad, like she hasn’t been sleeping. Was the gray hair there last night? Wasn’t immortality supposed to make you younger?
You ought to ask her about it.
Not while she’s feeding. Besides, Carnival felt good. He could take care of his girl. He could feed her. Couldn’t he? She looked up like she could read his mind, blood spilling down her chin and around the edges of her fine sharp teeth like sloppish lipstick.
“He was supposed to die,” Carnival said.
Maya looked up, a question mark arching her eyebrows.
“I asked Charon for a name,” He explained. “Someone who had to die. He gave me Elija. Elija was marked to die tonight, so what I did doesn’t matter.”
“Are you sure? How do you know you weren’t marked to kill him?”
Ha. Some fortune teller. She has you there. You tipped your own game.
Poppa was right. Carnival paled as the realization hit him. In killing Elija he’d just fulfilled Charon’s prophecy. There was no way of knowing if Elija had been fated to die this night, or not. He had wasted his silver.
“You ought to make up your mind,” Maya said.
She’s right. You need to make up your mind. Are you in love with a vampire or not?
Carnival dug at his throat, nervously. He forced himself to stop scratching. If I kept it up I was going to look like Elija.
Don’t kid yourself. As bad as you are, you could never look that bad.
Poppa was right.
“Look,” Carnival said. “We need to hide this body.”
“Why bother?”
“I don’t want to get caught.”
“You’re caught already, aren’t you?”
She’s right. You are caught. Like a fly in a spider’s web.
“So you’re not going to help me hide this body?”
“No,” She said, biting the word off like a finger caught in an iron door.
Carnival was on his own.
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