by Jeff Rice
“Well, I…” I never got the chance to finish.
“Great! I’ll tell the girls at the door to keep an eye out for you. Take a seat in the second or third row when you come in. And, uh… take off your coat before it starts. We don’t run the cooler during the show. Too much noise.”
He hefted the box and handed it to me, then bounded around the corner, I presumed, in search of his wife.
When I got back to my place I had my first cigar of the day, and checked in by phone with Vincenzo.
“Meyer’s already beat you to it; you’d better talk to him.”
Meyer came on the line. “Hah! Hah! Got you this time, buddy. Our blood-sucking friend struck again last night.”
I could already see the body of another young woman lying crumpled and pale somewhere in the night. Jesus Christ! Another victim?”
“Not one, pal. A whole bunch of them. But, he didn’t kill anyone.”
“He didn’t kill anyone?”
“Naw, but he sure smashed up a few people. He raided County General last night and got away with every goddamn pint of blood in the place. Also…” there was a rustle of paper on the other end of the line, “also he took some needles, intravenous tubes and most of their glucose-water supply. It’s used to give nourishment to those patients who can’t eat. I’ve got most of the information here if you don’t want to wait for the paper to come out. By the way, how’s your cold?”
“Fine, just fine. Give me what you’ve got.”
He started to read. “Violence struck at County General Hospital Friday morning shortly before 1:00 A.M., and in its wake left one registered nurse and two orderlies critically injured.
“Listed in critical condition are orderlies William Benson, with a broken arm, broken collarbone and skull fracture; Oscar Wilson, with a broken back and several internal injuries; and Harriet Wilson, a registered nurse with a concussion, broken ribs and facial lacerations. Nurse Wilson is not related to the orderly.
“The incident occurred during the successful theft of the hospital’s entire supply of blood, whole blood, plasma and nearly all of the available glucose-water supply at hand. Several intravenous needles and tubes were also taken.
“Eyewitness reports from the three injured parties added to a report from the ground-floor nurse at the admission’s desk build up a fairly complete picture.
“According to Las Vegas Police Captain of Detectives Edward Masterson, the assailant entered the hospital’s ground floor through the emergency entrance and proceeded to the admissions desk. There, according to Nurse Roberta Harris, the assailant–described as about six-three to six-four in height, weighing about from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and seventy pounds, with a suntan and gray hair, and a brush moustache, wearing a dark blue or black single-breasted suit, old-fashioned fedora hat, and carrying a large medical bag–told Nurse Harris that he was a Dr. Hampden and that he had a patient en route to the emergency room by private car who had cut himself badly in a fall through a shower door.
“The assailant claimed he wished to check the hospital’s available blood supply in advance as the patient, he asserted, was a rare blood type. He said he wanted to arrange for blood from Parkway Hospital if more of the rare type was necessary.
“The nurse directed him to the nurse on duty in Hematology where the blood is stored and he left in that direction.
“A few minutes later, orderly Oscar Wilson, a former light-heavyweight boxer, discovered the ‘doctor’ busily loading his large bag and a smaller one beside it with containers of blood. He started to question the man who, according to Wilson, simply stood up, turned around, and shoved him against the wall. Wilson got up and tried to restrain the man who again pushed him away very hard this time, and turned back to the bags.
“Wilson then grabbed the man by his coat, spun him around and hit him as hard as he could with a right cross, which, he claims, ‘just bounced off him with no effect.’
“The man then picked up Wilson ‘like so much laundry’ and squeezed Wilson until he fell unconscious with what was later determined by X-rays to be a broken back. He was then thrown into a corner.
“Floor Nurse Harriet Wilson discovered Oscar Wilson slumped unconscious on the floor just as the man picked up the bags and started to leave. She screamed and he set the bags down and grabbed her by the neck. He slapped her face several times, and she says she fainted. Apparently, he threw her on top of the unconscious orderly.
“While this was happening, the other orderly, William Benson, came upon the trio and he, too, grabbed at the man. Benson, who weighs 220 pounds, wrestled the man to the floor and had him pinned momentarily. But the man pushed him off, grabbed Benson’s arm and threw him against the nearest wall. Then he rammed Benson’s head against the floor until he, too, was unconscious.
“After that, he apparently left the hospital unseen, by way of another exit. The admissions nurse does not recall seeing him again. The three injured parties were discovered a short time later.
“Clark County Sheriff Reese Lane has ordered that all roadblocks be tripled in strength and that checkpoints be stepped up at all bus terminals, at the Union Pacific Railroad Station and at McCarran Airport. All vehicles entering or leaving the area will be searched as will all persons and baggage at the airport.
“Persons with any information on the suspect’s whereabouts are urged to contact the Las Vegas Police Department or the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
“Citizens are cautioned not to try to apprehend the suspect. He should be considered extremely dangerous. He is believed to be responsible for the killings of at least four persons in this area since April 25 and is definitely responsible for injuring seriously the three persons mentioned here.”
There wasn’t much for me to do so I thanked Meyer and checked with “Bat” Masterson at the PD and then with Jenks at the sheriff’s office.
Then I sat down to begin my research. There were nearly three dozen books in the carton. About twenty were paperbacks. There were books dealing with ancient myths, legends and folktales, books that dealt almost exclusively with vampirism and lycanthropy, and a hefty volume on witchcraft thrown in for good measure. There were also some books dealing with factual material: criminal cases of actual “human monsters” taken from police files starting way back in the early 1800s and running right through to the Sharon Tate murders.
It was easy to see I’d never get through the mass of material in one weekend, let alone collate, condense and classify it into something workable, for I had already half-formed in my mind a report I’d give to my publisher as the basis for a feature story, as well as to the lawdogs as the basis for some possible insights into the nature of the man they were hunting. (Obviously, it was not my place to do so, as Dr. Mokurji had pointed out indirectly at the May 12 inquest. Neither he nor I were “criminal psychologist” but, then, it didn’t seem to me at the time that anyone else would bother to attack the problem from this angle.)
So, I started going through my phone numbers. I called Ella Paul, one of our paper’s “librarians” who was home on her day off. I explained the situation and told her if she couldn’t get overtime for her work for me that I’d pay her out of my own pocket. After some hesitation, she agreed, and I told her to come on over and bring enough food for five people in the form of cold cuts, beer and a couple of loaves of bread. Also a large can of coffee. I promised to pay her on arrival.
Next, I called Lester Jansen, at his apartment two doors down from me. Jansen was a refugee from a newspaper strike in L.A. and had come here to work for the competition down the street. He was taking some vacation time and just laying around watching old movies on TV and drinking. He said he couldn’t care less about vampires and the like but a promise of all the booze he could drink brought him on up with a half-ream of paper and his Olivetti portable.
Then I called Sam’s answering service and left a message for her to get back to me as soon as possible.
A call to the university b
rought two young, third-year students name Hooper and Curtis who agreed to work for ten dollars a day plus sandwiches and beer. They promised to show up at 5:00 sharp.
Ella got to my place an hour later, then Hooper and Curtis (I never did learn their first names) who worked hard and each earned a five dollar bonus.
We were well into it by 6:00 P.M. when Sam called. I left the crowd in the living room and took the call upstairs in my den. After I explained what I wanted she asked me if I was nuts. Did I know how much money she would be turning down on a Friday night to read some old books? And why did I think she would be interested anyway?
I told her I could never hope to justify the effort on a monetary basis, adding that she’d be giving up at least $400 and possibly more to help a friend something like “Are you that hard up for a piece of tail that you’d cook up a crazy story like this just to deprive a poor working girl of her hard-earned dollars?” With that, she hung up without waiting for a reply. But at 7:30 she showed up with a friend and fellow worker and both agreed to work on it until midnight if they could use the place to change clothes in so that they could catch their prospective “johns” after the late shows on the Strip.
Sam is a little bit crazy sometimes. And very nice. I can’t explain why she helped out but I can say this: when her friend left just after midnight, Sam stayed. It probably sounds ridiculous, here in black and white, but it’s the God’s honest truth. My little hooker gave up one of her two busiest “working nights” of the week to help me sort through a bunch of old books.
At 7:50 or thereabout I remembered about the play at UNLV and decided to leave my eager crew to their labors. I mumbled something about going to check out a lead on a story and headed out to the university. I figured on taking one more crack at Reynolds after the show. It was only a hunch but, at the time, I was sure he knew something. When I got there I called the office and told them the number of the pay phone nearest the theatre entrance and asked that they call me if anything broke. Six rings would do it. If I sat nearest the door I’d hear it and call back.
I got inside when the doors were just closing and the houselights were already dimmed. I settled back to enjoy the antics of a caricatured Henry the Eighth as he loved and betrayed his first few wives.
CHAPTER 9
FRIDAY, MAY 15, 1970
EVENING
The call came just after intermission and, as I was just finishing a drink from the nearby fountain, I caught the phone on the third ring. It was a new man who was working in the composing room who’d gotten the call from the PD. The newsroom had emptied like a plagued city just ten minutes before. The switchboard operator had put him through to me.
“I don’t know what’s up,” he began, “but the police department reports a body in the ladies’ room of the Crown movie theater, downtown. The call here came from a Captain Masterson and he said if you could be reached you’d know what it was all about.”
I did and was on my way in thirty seconds flat, heading up Tropicana and down the freeway to Charleston Boulevard. It took me less than ten minutes to get downtown and another two to convince the uniformed police on hand that I was a legitimate reporter and please could I double park for a few minutes.
Masterson spotted me and nodded for me to come over. I followed him inside and on the way paused at the cashier’s window to call Stefan who was dining with his wife at the Moby Dick Restaurant, as was his Friday custom. I told him what was up and he agreed to hustle down and take a few shots.
The Crown is a twenty-hear-old Fremont Street movie house that was just recently sold to a large chain. The transition had been so recent that the only sign of change was the new name, Crown, above the marquee.
Directly off the thirty-by-forty-foot foyer were two curving stairways of about a half-dozen steps each that led to the restrooms. The ticket taker Georgia Atkins, had gone to the john only to find it occupied. When its occupant didn’t leave after nearly thirty minutes, Miss Atkins tried to find out if she was all right. When there was no answer, she forced open the door and found a young girl, who looked to be about eighteen, seated, leaning against the partition. She was very pale and very dead. She was also fully dressed and the ticket taker couldn’t figure out why she was sitting there “of all places.” She called the night manager who called the police.
The uniformed police had made the discovery of the two holes in the girl’s neck and they’d called for Masterson who was in charge of the PD’s half of the combined forces unit investigating those murders involving neck punctures. The police photographers arrived in tandem with the fingerprint people and soon after, Stefan pushed his way into the crowded area. Masterson took the girl’s purse and checked the ID as we headed back to the foyer.
I took down the information along with a warning not to talk about the neck punctures. But we were all in for a little surprise.
The “girl” turned out to be a man, one Stephen Hemphill, twenty-three, an unemployed hairdresser who, it later turned out, was something of a well-known drag queen in local police files. He had no record of sex offenses, but had been picked up twice in the past year “cruising” the downtown area and had been politely invited to leave town. He should have taken the invitation.
He was blond, five-nine, and weighed about 145. There was a small amount of blood at the base of his skull beneath his Dynel wig where he’d been struck into unconsciousness. Aside from this one trace, and the unusual fact that this appeared to be the “vampire’s” first male victim, I suspected that the coroner’s autopsy would be the same. And I knew that it would be withheld from the public.
As Masterson’s people turned back the few curious souls who’d left the movie in progress in search of popcorn and become interested in the police action in the foyer, I called Vincenzo at home and gave him the preliminary report adding that we’d have pictures and asking if it was worth another “extra.” He told me it might be, at least as far as trying to get an edition on the streets with a partially replated front page. But that was as far as he felt he would go. We did, in fact, kill the regular 10L30 edition which was already on the presses, and get out the new front page in time to catch the midnight patrons on the Strip. I told him I’d drop off my copy at the office and leave it on his desk and that Stefan would leave the photos with the copy.
Then I called home to check on my “crew” who were grumbling that the beer had run out. I told them that help was on the way and asked for Sam. I told her in strict confidence what had happened downtown and said I’d be back in an hour. She said she’d stick around and that everyone was hard at work and to get the hell back and do my share.
As I left the Crown for home I turned to look at the ambulance removing Hemphill’s body and noticed the marquee: “Dracula Returns.” It seemed an apt comment and would have made a great headline if we’d been allowed to print the whole truth. As it was, it was a fitting epitaph for Hemphill.
When the copy was duly deposited and Stefan had pulled the first contact prints out of the soup, I left and stopped off at the Mayfair Market across from Foxy’s to get the beer, a fifth of White Horse, and several varieties of Danish from Freed’s bakery. I got back and we divvied up the food while I explained what had happened to the rest of them, adding that it was the fifth murder and that police still didn’t know how it was done and hadn’t caught the guy who did it.
At midnight Sam’s friend left and so did Ella who has a small but growing family and had a baby-sitter to take home. Hooper and Curtis stuck it out until 4:00 and by sunrise Sam called “time” and pointed to the bedroom. I watched her undulate up the stairway, cursed my cold, and followed. By the time I got there she was already in bed. I lost no time in following suit and found her under the sheets to be very warm and very naked.
“Easy, Simon Legree,” she cautioned. “I’ll think about catching your cold after we’ve had some sleep.”
As I said before, Sam and I had an understanding, a friendship. When we were both in the mood we brightened eac
h other’s lives a bit. When the occasion wasn’t just right, as it seemed to me then, neither of us forced the issue. It’s a good way to lose friends. So I kissed her lightly on the forehead, hoping my germs would be gone by “morning,” then rolled over and set the alarm for 1:30 and killed the light.
We both woke up around noon. She had slept well and I felt like a new man. She snuggled up close to me and we found ways of occupying the time until the alarm went off, after which she joined me in the shower and then made me one hell of a good breakfast, the first homemade one I’d had in that apartment since she’d helped me celebrate Christmas morning in ’69. A quick swim and another shower followed, and then we spent an hour or so sorting the notes left by my “research fellows.” Then Sam said good-by and I called Jensen who had disappeared around 2:00 AM unnoticed by anyone. He came up looking like death warmed over with a hangover that wouldn’t quit. I brewed him a fresh pot of coffee, stuffed some toast into him, and we spent a couple of hours together sorting what was left and beginning to type up my report.
I now had a fairly good idea of how close legend and fact could come. I’m including some of what I pieced together to show you that what followed over the next few days was not entirely unexpected.
CHAPTER 10
[What follows here is an extremely condensed version of nearly 300 pages of typewritten notes on the several volumes researched by Kolchak and his “staff.” I have included the most basic information on vampirism, and only the most famous of the criminal cases involving “bloodlust.” JR]
Since the beginnings of man’s existence there have been “creatures of the night” who have been accorded supernatural powers. Cavemen probably sat around their fires and conjured up great man-beasts that thirsted for human blood.
These “campfire stories” and the unrecorded acts of certain demented individuals in the days of prehistory, pre-police and pre-psychology gave way and gave rise to the folktales that abound with vampires, werewolves and witches. These legends have, today, grown into a sizeable body of fiction which, in turn, has for some years supported an entire segment of the motion picture industry which at times, in cycles like the moon, has rivaled even the production of westerns.