“Ms. Love, I truly am sorry. But I am a desperate man. I took desperate, foolish measures. I couldn’t let you get away without first talking. And I couldn’t let you summon the police.” He paused. “Men such as myself, we do not like the police.”
Men? He wasn’t a man. He was a vampire, a blood-sucking … she stopped herself. Evelyn wasn’t about to yield to the prejudices that many of her fellow humans held. She defended OTs. Their little firm specialized in OT law. She’d worked with ghouls, gargoyles, and her partner was a ghost. But this was her first face-to-face vampire.
“You left my restaurant before you’d finished your dinner, Ms. Love, before we had a chance to—”
“So you brought me back because of a half-finished hunk of chicken-flavored tofu? Is this how you treat all your customers who don’t clean their plates?” Anger was still winning out. She dropped her hands to her sides and unclenched her fists.
“No. No. No. You left before we could have a discussion. The invitations to your law school class … that was my attempt to get you here so we could talk. I want to hire you, Evelyn Love. I’m looking for a good attorney, and you specialize in—” He paused and it looked like he’d just bit into a lemon. “You specialize in OT cases.”
There are easier ways to hire a lawyer, she thought. “Look, Mr.—”
“Javor. Javor Vujetic.”
She wondered at the ethnicity behind his name. “Look, Mr. Vujetic. I keep regular office hours, and you could have—”
“Your office closes at five, Ms. Love. I usually don’t get out of my coffin that early. The sun and all of that, you know.”
“We have voicemail.”
“It is not my nature to leave messages. And I did not want to explain myself in an e-mail. I am very old fashioned. I prefer personal contact. Besides, I wanted you here, in my restaurant. I wanted you to see that I am a respectful businessman with only good intentions.”
Good intentions, my ass. Her left arm throbbed. “What if I hadn’t accepted your dinner offer?”
“I would have tried a different tact.” His expression changed and in that instant he had the eyes of a predator. Shivers shot through her. No doubt he had been the one watching her in the dining room.
“I don’t shirk from OT cases, Mr. Vujetic.”
“Precisely why I want to hire you.”
She sagged back onto the chair and used the towel to help dry her hair. At least the kitchen was warm. It had chased away the chill, and the scents that swirled around her were superb. No wonder the vampire had smelled of basil. “All right, I’m listening,” she said.
“This is about my brother, Dimitar. He is in jail, charged with grand theft, and so he is looking at a dozen years in prison.”
“Is he a vampire?”
“Yes.”
She suspected that length of time was nothing to a vampire, supposedly immortal.
“My kind do not fare well in prison, Ms. Love. Wooden shanks in the hands of prejudicial people, often fatal, you understand. I worry that any guilty judgment would be a death sentence for Dimitar.”
“Has he been arraigned?”
“A week ago. I asked around and learned of your reputation for helping our kind. I reached out right after that with my dinner invitation to your graduating class—”
“—so you could get me here,” she finished. “You should have left a message on voicemail. It would have been simpler.” And less painful, she thought. “If he’s been arraigned, he already has an attorney.”
The vampire nodded. “However, I do not believe that attorney will adequately represent him. I believe you will.”
She let a breath hiss out between her teeth. “This attorney—”
“Ms. Wyndam-Smyth from Brock, Davis & Davis. She was assigned by the court, since my brother initially refused my offer to hire someone for him. He is very proud and stubborn, Dimitar, independent, and he hasn’t the resources to pay for a good criminal attorney. This Ms. Wyndam-Smyth took the case … oh, what is the damn term … pro bono. As I said, my brother does not share my financial resources.”
Evelyn felt the tofu “chicken” arguing with the spring rolls in her stomach. Brock, Davis & Davis was indeed the enemy as far as she was concerned. She and Thomas had gone against Janet Wyndam-Smyth in a child custody case in November. Wyndam-Smyth was smart, but had not seemed especially formidable, had not done enough research or put her best effort into that case. Maybe that was why Brock, Davis & Davis offered her up for this one. This time around maybe they purposefully wanted her to lose.
“Ms. Wyndam-Smyth …” the vampire made another lemon face. “… her firm has no track record of representing OTs … only going against them. She made no attempt to get my brother released on bail, did not object to the district attorney claiming he was a flight risk. In short, I think Ms. Wyndam-Smyth sucks.”
Evelyn crossed her arms and hid her amusement at his terminology. “What is your brother accused of stealing?”
“Blood.”
Evelyn raised an eyebrow.
“From the blood bank. He works there. Worked there,” Javor corrected. “He is accused of stealing enough to qualify as grand theft. They say he took a few thousand dollars’ worth.”
“Blood.”
“He’s innocent, of course,” Javor said.
“Of course.” She hadn’t seen him blink once during their entire exchange.
“I want you to prove he is innocent.”
“I see.”
“So you will take the case, Ms. Love?”
“I’d have to meet with your brother. It would have to be agreeable to both him and me. But you said he doesn’t want your financial help.”
“His opinion has changed since spending time in jail. An attempt was made on him three days past, and he is now in ‘protective custody.’ He fears for his future. Finally, he is listening to reason.”
“We’ll see.” Evelyn handed him the damp towel. “If he agrees to my representation, and if I agree to take the case, I won’t be doing it pro bono.”
“I understand.” He tossed the towel into a hamper on the far side of the kitchen, his aim perfect. Then he reached into his pocket and withdrew a pen and checkbook, filled in an amount, and passed a check to her. “Will this do for a retainer? In the event you agree to defend my brother?”
The check was for twenty thousand.
“You can tear it up if you later decline.” He replaced the checkbook. “But I need to know very soon.”
“If I take the case, this will do for a retainer,” Evelyn said. “I’ll meet with your brother tomorrow.”
He smiled broadly, revealing his startling white fangs.
Chapter 3.4
“I do not trust Ms. Wyndam-Smyth, and so I will take my brother’s charity and let him hire you on my behalf. I do not like being in jail. I want to go home. I want to go home now, please. You’ll take my case, yes? You’ll get me home?”
Dimitar Vujetic looked anxious and Evelyn was certain he’d be sweating if he were capable. He only vaguely resembled his brother. His pale face held similarities, but Dimitar was the “Hardy” to Javor’s reed-thin “Laurel.” Dimitar’s orange jumpsuit practically screamed at the seams and the snaps didn’t close at the waist. Evelyn guessed him in the neighborhood of three hundred and sixty pounds—linebacker size.
He appeared roughly in his mid- to late-forties, though court records listed his age at five hundred and twenty-two, born in Serbia and naturalized as a United States citizen in 1792—shortly after the country started the naturalization practice. His hair was black with a few streaks of gray, short and with the bangs so straight across his broad forehead it looked like a bowl-cut. His mustache was thick and brushy.
“This crime I am charged with, I did not do it,” Dimitar said. He took up half the bench on one side of a Formica-covered table, his hands cuffed and hooked by a short chain to a peg in the center. The fingers were plump like sausages, the nails pointed and sharp looking. He fidgete
d constantly.
Evelyn sat across from him, noting his sad and nervous expression. Thomas Brock hovered behind her. Though it was Brock’s law firm, it was only because of her that they’d been able to keep it going—the undead didn’t have many rights, ghosts especially, and her presence was necessary in court to try cases. They needed to get the courts to recognize Thomas as a legal entity so he could try cases on his own … something else on their long list of “things to do.”
They were in a windowless room in the basement of County Jail #2 on Seventh Street, where those already convicted and sentenced were typically held. The place smelled strongly of pine-scented cleaner. Although Dimitar hadn’t been convicted, the city put many of its undead offenders here because there were two entire levels of windowless cellblocks, particularly important for vampires. It wasn’t like in the Twilight movies—vampires sparkling with glitter during the day—vampires shriveled and died a final time when struck by prolonged direct sunlight.
“I did not do this thing,” Dimitar repeated.
Evelyn consulted the folder. “I want to go over the charges and the basics,” she began. “This is a first offense. Your record before this point is clean. You are accused of stealing in excess of one thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of blood from—”
“I do not steal,” he said. “Thou shalt not steal. And I do not lie.” He made the sign of the cross, awkward with his hands cuffed. “Raised Catholic. By the way, that is all fiction, vampires fearing crosses. Sure. Sure. We cannot turn into bats, either. Otherwise I would fly out of here.”
“That is good to know,” Evelyn returned. “The part that you didn’t do it.” But in truth she did not need to know whether her client was guilty to defend him. She continued: “Our first task is to scrutinize the prosecutor’s claims to see if he really has enough evidence. It is his burden to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that you stole the blood. Thomas and I intend to challenge this evidence in court, either looking to get the matter dropped entirely or to win a ‘not guilty’ verdict at trial.”
“Not guilty,” Dimitar said. “I tell Ms. Wyndam-Smyth and the judge at my arraignment that I am not guilty. But here I sit. I want to go home, please. Get me home. I miss my Bella.”
“Bella?” Evelyn wondered at his accent. It wasn’t Serbian, but then he’d been gone from Serbia for a few hundred years. The scant records showed he’d lived on the east coast until the mid-1800s, coming to California during the gold rush days. Perhaps his accent was an amalgamation of dialects from the various places he’d lived. Other than a copy of his employment record at the blood bank, where he’d worked for the past nine years, there was little else in the file. His prior employment listed him as a San Francisco subway maintenance worker from 1972 to 2004. There were no work records prior to that.
“Bella. She is my world. Sure. Sure. You get me home, please.”
“We have to talk about the evidence—”
Thomas drifted closer and joined Evelyn on the bench. His ghostly closeness lowered the temperature and Evelyn shivered.
“Mr. Vujetic,” Thomas interrupted.
“Dimitar, please.”
“Dimitar. Evelyn is right. We do have to address the evidence. But before that, I’d like to know a little more about you.”
Evelyn could’ve kicked herself. Sure, she’d graduated with that coveted four-point-oh, knew the law well—having worked in law offices since she was a teenager, but sometimes she got so wrapped up in paperwork and filings that she didn’t think about the “human” element. That was going to have to change.
“You want to know about me, Mr. Brock?”
“Yes. What you do, where you live, how you—”
“Live? I do not live, Mr. Brock. I exist. You, more than most people, should understand that I do not live. Though, unlike you, I am able to change clothes. I can touch, and I can smell. But I cannot cry. Inside I cry, but no tears come. I exist.”
Chapter 3.5
The room fell quiet. The sound of wheels from a cart clattering on the level above followed by the ratcheting sound of a cell door opening and closing somewhere, penetrated the silence. Evelyn was the only one in the room that was breathing.
“Aunt Milka,” Dimitar continued. “She made me and Javor like this, vampires, back home in Zarozje. Me and Javor and her two children. Sava, the first vampire, made Milka, and Milka had wanted a family to share her condition and be with her through the centuries. She did not want to be alone.” He brought his hands in close and patted his stomach. “Milka, she made me like this forever. And she made it impossible for me to cry.”
So what you were in life, you were stuck with if you became an undead, Evelyn thought.
“In Zarozje, I ate too much. I had a bakery and ate what did not sell. Now I do not eat, and yet I have this.” He grabbed a roll of fat and wiggled it. “Milka, she cursed me to be like this forever.” He leaned forward so he could tug on his hair. “This I have … forever. If I cut it, my hair, it will not grow back. My hair is dead, like me.”
“Where is Milka now?” Thomas asked. “Is she in San—”
“Dead,” Dimitar said. “Truly dead. Like her children, truly dead many, many years ago. Forever dead. Vampires were hunted in Serbia back then. Hunted now, too, though not like then.” He paused. “Hunted here sometimes. Yes, even in San Francisco. An inmate, three, four days ago, stabbed me, but he did not pierce my dead heart, and so I healed. I want to go home, please. The guards, they do not like me either. But then some people hate all vampires.”
Evelyn thought about how pop culture had made teenage girls swoon over vampires—Twilight and Buffy.
She took a turn. “Dimitar, you and your brother came to America a long time ago.”
“Sure. Sure. To start anew,” he said. “To avoid the vampire hunters in Serbia.” Finally he smiled. He had only one fang, the other was blunted at an angle, broken off. “Land of milk and honey and opportunity, these United States, my brother told me. Gold in them thar hills. Beverly Hills. Swimming pools and movie stars. Texas tea, eh? Black gold. Golden Gate Bridge. Oh, dem golden slippers.” A stoic expression took over. “I like this city well enough. I have family here, my brother, some cousins. And I have friends, other vampires in the Tenderloin, Mrs. Miller, the neighbors in my apartment building, and some humans at the church. I am a good man.” He paused and stared directly at Evelyn. “But not all the vampires in the Tenderloin are nice like me and my brother.”
Evelyn opened her mouth to ask a question, but Dimitar continued.
“My brother, when he called last night he said you ran from him in the Tenderloin. He said that he chased you down and brought you back to his restaurant, so the two of you could talk. You were not wrong to run. My brother, he is a decent man. He hires respectable people, though only a few of them are human. But most of the vampires in the Tenderloin … from them you should indeed run, and run very fast. Those are vampires that it is all right to hate.”
Thomas leaned forward. “When did you move to San Francisco, Dimitar?”
“In nineteen hundred something. The years, they blur. You should ask Javor. He keeps track of such things. We made some money in the gold rush. Javor, he invested his share. He is very, very wealthy. He owns lots of places in the Tenderloin and elsewhere.”
“But not you,” Evelyn said. “You are not wealthy.”
He smiled broadly. “The expression is what—I live hand-to-mouth. Always have, always will. I have a low-rent basement apartment three blocks from the blood bank on Ellis, not far from Glide Memorial. That church, it has evening services, and I go, even though it is not Catholic. I give some of my money to the church; I tithe. Spend the rest of my money on DVDs, clothes from the Big and Tall catalog, books I mail order from Edward R. Hamilton, and things for Bella. Eh … I save some for public transportation because I do not drive. Otherwise I spend it all. My pension from the subway covers my rent.”
“Pension?” Evelyn mused aloud.
“Sure. Sure. That is why undead like me cannot get full-time jobs anymore I think, employers and the state … they fear paying pensions for a very long time. Paying two, three, four pensions maybe all for one person. Only just now are they passing laws limiting the number of pensions one person can get.” Dimitar looked serious now. “My dog, Bella. Mrs. Miller, she is my neighbor. Javor says she is taking care of my dog. She walks Bella during the day, when I cannot go out because of the sun. Will you check on my dog? Make sure Mrs. Miller is doing a good job?”
Evelyn nodded. A thought flitted: did he keep a dog so he could drink its blood? Don’t ask that. Don’t go there. I don’t need to know, don’t want to know. Though she supposed she’d find out when she looked in on the animal.
“Mrs. Miller, you get a spare key from her. She will open my apartment for you. And you check on my Bella.”
“You worked in the subway a while back? Long enough to get that pension?” This from Thomas, redirecting the conversation.
“Sure. Sure. I worked a lot of places, at night, or underground. I can work underground during the day, never make much money at these places, just enough for the DVDs and stuff and my dog. The subway? That was the only place I work full-time and long enough to get a pension. Sure. Sure. I worked there. And I worked in sewers a lot of years, though all part-time. The living? They don’t like that sort of work, the sewers and subway. Most of the living do not like the deep dark.”
“Why didn’t you go into business with Javor?” Evelyn wondered. “You wouldn’t need to worry about money.”
He shrugged and the gesture made the bench creak. “I told you I ran a bakery when I lived. I do not want to be around food now, Mrs. Love. And whatever I made with Javor? I would have tossed it away, as I said. It is my nature.”
“Ms. Ms. Love.”
Another shrug. “Do not want to be around food. Just what I buy for my dog, Ms. Love.”
The Love-Haight Case Files Page 20