The Vampire Chase

by Stephen Mertz

  As he worked over the powerful weapon, he thought about his scheduled meeting with Mick Adamson for nine that evening at the gravel quarry. Of course, it could be a trap. It was only last night that someone had snuffed another human being simply to frame him from the picture. Maybe tonight they were going for the direct approach. If that were the case, the setup would have to be damn near airtight before Adamson would put his neck on the line by luring Madison out there. The singer would have to feel certain that Madison wouldn’t walk away alive.

  Which was all the more reason to go, if forcing people’s hands was the name of the game.

  If it wasn’t a trap then maybe, as the singer had hinted, Madison would learn something from Mick that he could use. Although Mick had seemed far more interested in learning facts than in divulging them.

  With his cleaning chores completed, Madison carried the .44 back to bed with him, setting it within easy reach on the pillow beside his head. He set his alarm clock for eight o’clock, just in case, and flicked on the T.V.

  He fell asleep midway through a rerun of I Love Lucy that he’d seen twice before.

  10

  The sign read: Sloan Gravel Company.

  The area was bordered by a high chain-link fence. Beyond the fence the interior was bathed in the faint silver glow of a three-quarter moon. The hulking outlines of parked heavy-duty dump trucks took on a vaguely sinister air. The conical shapes of mini-mountains of gravel were like ghostly pyramids, pointing their tips at the clear dark sky. Two heavy padlocks held the front gates securely shut, supposedly without effort. He dropped to the opposite side with a muffled thump.

  It was precisely nine o’clock.

  Traffic was light on Route One-Sixty-Nine, just a few hundred yards behind him. Occasionally the full-throated roar of a semi rose above that of the cars. But those sounds, and the occasional hum of a jet overhead on its way to or from nearby Fairfax Mun Airport, were the only reminders to the lone man in the darkness that was surrounded by a metropolitan area. The light at the foot of those gravel pyramids was solitary, silent and uninviting.

  Madison strolled forward along the dirt road which led on to run between the gravel heaps. His footsteps seemed to echo. He reached beneath his jacket and checked the looseness of the Magnum within his shoulder holster.

  He wondered where Adamson was.

  The alarm clock had brought him awake an hour earlier. He’d ducked under the shower again, only a fast reviver this time, and had quickly dressed and made his way out here in a hotel-furnished rental car.

  The car was parked at the shoulder a half mile away. Madison had been early. He’d kept an eye on the front gate of the place for close to twenty minutes. A quick reconnoiter before stashing the car had ascertained that the front entrance was the only entrance. But no one had showed. So, Madison was the first one there unless they had been waiting since before dusk, and that didn’t seem likely. People who plan to kill people try to avoid the sunlight.

  Madison had entered the grounds 99 percent certain that he was alone on them—but still cautious.

  If this wasn’t a trap, he had a feeling that he knew what The Screaming Tree’s lead singer was so anxious to talk about.

  When Madison had first asked Brocchi where the road manager had been after the night of the girl’s murder in Chicago, Brocchi had answered that he’d been out drinking with Adamson. Madison knew this was untrue, and he suspected that Adamson had asked Brocchi to alibi him. He’d have a damn good reason as he was spending the late-night hours with his band mate’s wife. Now that Mick was aware that Madison knew the truth of his whereabouts on the murder night, he’d naturally be afraid that Madison might tell Jeremy. He would be coming here tonight to talk Madison out of any such action.

  Madison had a little polite blackmail in mind. He still wasn’t sure how deeply Brocchi was involved in setting him up for that girl’s murder in Chicago. Mick had been hanging around a lot lately with Brocchi, and maybe, through accident or design, he’d picked up something that Madison could use to determine Brocchi’s guilt or innocence in the matter. And with what he knew about Adamson and Laura, he figured he’d have enough of a lever to make the singer sing. It would be his price for keeping silent about Adamson’s betrayal of a friend’s trust. An image of Jeremy Bates driving off with Connie Frazer flashed across Madison’s mind. He didn’t owe the guitarist a thing!

  So here he was. Still trying to solve a murder. Still hot on the vampire chase. Standing in the dark. Waiting for something to happen.

  Waiting alone.

  Madison’s body was more loose-jointed than usual, his knees slightly bent. Every battle sense, never lost since the jungle days of Nam, was finely honed to detect any movement whatsoever from the shadows.

  There were none.

  It was as if he were alone in the world.

  He got tired of waiting.

  “Mick!” he called. “It’s me, Madison!”

  The rising roar came suddenly from the direction of the highway behind him, beyond the fence. It had begun as a rumbling part of the traffic flow, but had suddenly burst from the pack, gears shifting expertly as the roar rose still further to a rapidly gaining white hot scream.

  Madison spun—and was blinded. He stumbled back, one arm lifting to shield his eyes while the other hand darted beneath the jacket to his shoulder holster and came out with the Magnum on full cock with the safety off. Ready to blast.

  The truck roared down on him.

  The deafening howl of the engine and the height of the headlamps told him what to expect. Probably a Mack Truck. One of those, twenty-five-ton dump truck jobs. Thirteen gears, two sticks. A monster. The screaming truck barreled up the access road that led from the highway. It plowed through the front gates at full throttle, tossing aside the links of metal like the unwanted toys of a temperamental child.”

  Madison hadn’t hesitated through indecision. The truck driver knew his shit. He’d catch any attempt to dodge and still squash Madison like a bug. But he might be so sure that Madison was stunned by the powerful lights that a move at the last possible instant could do the trick.

  At the last second Madison jumped sideways, hitting the ground with his shoulder and rolling, propelling himself from the path of the monster. Madison came out of the roll and onto his feet. He could taste the settling dust. The .44 was up, fanning the darkness.

  A hundred yards away the driver of the truck was still working the complicated gear shift. The rolling, mountainous shadow never slowed down. It swung in a wide circle, powerful headlamps slashing the dust-clouded darkness. Then it came back at him again.

  This time he was ready. He stood squarely in the full glare of the approaching lights, aiming the Magnum in a classic shooter’s crouch, left hand bracing the shooting wrist.

  He had one wild impression of being trapped in a tunnel with a powerful express train barreling down on him and nowhere to run.

  Then he fired.

  He picked off the right headlight and the monster became a cyclopsed. But he had misjudged. The truck was coming down on him faster than he had calculated. Its engine was screaming. And once again he was on the thinly wired edge between living and oblivion, with only reflexes to decide his fate.

  He leaped again, this time to the other side, behind the lower reaches of one of the gravel pyramids. The driver caught the move this time. But in reacting, he over-reacted. He tugged on the wheel too hard, cutting in too sharply onto the pile of gravel. The front tires began climbing the slope long before they could get anywhere near Madison. The driver spun the wheel and corrected his mistake. The cyclops gunned out down the road a stretch. Then it swung around again. The single spotlight caught Madison and held him, and the monster came forward for the final death charge.

  Madison crouched. He took a two-handed aim again. But not at the remaining light. The Magnum boomed in his fist. It was echoed by the fainter explosion of the truck’s bursting right front tire.

  The bastard had nine o
ther wheels, but the front hit slowed him down. The truck began to wobble horribly in the moonlight.

  Madison straightened.

  There was hurried movement from the darkness to his left.

  A form materialized before him, charging. A long, slashing steel blade glinted in the darkness, ripping downward at him,

  Madison twisted to receive the attack. His upper body swung free from the path of the descending blade. His hands grasped the wrist below the knife hand and twisted brutally until the knife dropped. His right leg straightened, and his foot neatly tripped the attacker and sent him spinning.

  Madison’s vision was still pin-dotted from having stared into the truck’s headlight. He couldn’t make out any physical characteristics of his attacker. He was barely able to make out the shadowy form, or to see what it was doing.

  Without warning, the form’s hands grabbed his ankles and yanked, releasing and pushing at the same time. Madison tumbled onto his back on the rough pebbled ground. Somehow the Magnum went skittering from his fingers.

  Now his vision was returning. Now, as he looked up and saw the still shadowy figure of his attacker. The figure was stretching its arms above its head. And the arms supported an enormous jagged rock. With a grunt, the figure began pitching the jagged edge toward Madison’s head on the downswing.

  The rock never connected.

  A gunshot echoed amidst the pyramids. The sound of a ricochet. The rock sailed backward from the shadow’s grasp, away from Madison.

  The shadow lashed out with its foot. The foot connected with Madison’s jaw, sent him reeling away again. Madison landed on his hands and knees. He thought he saw his gun laying a few feet ahead of him in the moonlight. Or maybe it was three guns.

  “Get the hell out of here!” a voice shouted warningly. “Trouble!”

  A truck door slammed somewhere in the distance. And the slapping sounds of two pairs of retreating feet drifted to him. His vision was still blurred from the vicious kick, but at least the three Magnums that had been swimming before his eyes a moment ago had now solidified into one. He grasped the butt and his finger slid around the trigger. He was on his feet, literally angry enough to kill.

  New footsteps approached from his right. Feminine footsteps. He lowered the .44 hammer; held his fire.

  Connie Frazer approached him in the moonlight.

  She was dressed in white slacks and a light- colored blouse that rode with the up-down sway of her full breasts as she approached. Quite a woman...and looking mint julep cool despite the short-barreled .38 she carried at her side.

  Madison looked off in the direction from which he had last heard the retreating footsteps. Apparently they were abandoning the truck. Maybe it even belonged here. But in any case, they would have a car waiting somewhere in the vicinity as a precaution. By now they had enough of a head start to make pursuit a waste of energy.

  He looked back at Connie.

  “I thought you were down on the law of the gun,” he said. “You shoot like Annie Oakley.”

  “It comes from going for a summer with a guy who was a police cadet,” she explained. “He was always dragging me to the firing range. But don’t slow down to thank me for saving your life. I know how busy you are.”

  “That is one I owe you,” he admitted. “Anytime you need me, Connie, anywhere you are, just holler. I’ll save your life as many times as it needs it. By the way. How did you get here?”

  “I was coming in one entrance of the lobby back at the motel while you were going out the other,” she said. l called after you, but you were so intent on something that you didn’t even hear me. I figured that anything that had you that occupied must be important. So, I thought I’d tag along and see what was up.”

  “You mean you were watching the whole time that homicidal crazy was trying to run me down with a truck?”

  She nodded.

  “I was betting on the truck for a while,” she said. “So where do we go from here? Do you have any idea who was driving it? Or who his friend with the knife was.”

  “No,” said Madison. “But I know who set me up for them.” He rammed the .44 into the shoulder holster angrily. He grabbed Connie’s hand that wasn’t holding the .38. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go calling. Now it’s my turn to dish out some lumps.”

  They took off toward their parked cars at a dead run.

  Connie said nothing on the ride back into town. She had parked closest to the quarry, so they took her car,

  Madison wasn’t worrying about how he’d get his car back. There were other things on his mind right now. His hands gripped the wheel, the knuckles white, as he tooled in and out of the traffic flow, eyes staring straight ahead. His face was a set mask of silent, powerful rage. The gas pedal stayed close to the floor all the way back to the motel.

  11

  Madison wheeled the rental car into the Holiday Inn parking lot and screeched to a stop, peeling rubber, amid the out-of-state cars and the vacationers stretching their legs while one of their party registered at the front desk. He left the car, moving at a brisk, stiff-legged pace through the lobby’s front entrance.

  Connie Frazer jumped out after him without bothering to slam the car door behind her. She hurried to catch up with him.

  His grim singularity of purpose was already turning heads in the lobby. More heads turned as the stunning blonde reached his side. They passed through the doorway leading to the stairwell together. His long legs took the stairs two, sometimes three, at a time. With effort, she kept up. The .38 was now residing in her purse.

  “Steve, maybe you should cool off before talking to anybody,” she said. They had just passed the fourth floor and were still climbing fast. She was beginning to lose her breath. “Maybe they’ll be waiting for you.”

  Madison didn’t slow down.

  “That’s fine with me,” he said. “I’m looking for a fight. I don’t like being set up like a clay pigeon in a shooting gallery.”

  Then they reached the musicians’ floor. Madison slammed through the stairwell doorway and stalked directly to the room that was shared by Mick Adamson and Keith Terrance. Connie came up beside him as he tried the knob. The door was locked. He pounded on it fiercely.

  It was opened a moment later by Keith Terrance. The heavyset drummer was barefoot, dressed in faded blue jeans and a white T-shirt. A television blared in the room behind him.

  His manner wasn’t surly, but he didn’t seem to have much interest either.

  “Yeah, what is it, Madison?”

  “I’m looking for Mick,” said Madison.

  “Then you’ll have to look somewhere else. I haven’t seen him since about three this afternoon.”

  “I’d like to check for myself, thanks.”

  Terrance started to say something in protest. But Madison was already brushing by him. A fifteen second search proved that the drummer had been telling the truth. The singer wasn’t on deck. Madison turned and stalked past Terrance, back into the hallway.

  Something in Madison’s manner had warned Terrance to keep himself in check. As Madison and Connie next moved down to Lee Brocchi’s room, the drummer followed.

  Madison repeated his routine, pounding on the door. The door was yanked open irritably by the stocky road manager. He appeared to have been napping. He squinted like a man who’s been yanked from a sound sleep.

  His glance took in the three people before him, then centered on Madison.

  “What the hell do you want?” he seethed. “The first time I’ve been able to slow down enough to take a nap in what seems like twelve years, and you—”

  “I want Mick,” snarled Madison. “Right now. Where is he?”

  “How the hell should I know?” snarled Brocchi right back. He was coming awake in a hurry. “I haven’t seen the dude since this afternoon.”

  “You’re forgetting what you told me this morning in Chicago,” Madison told him. “You’re paid to keep an eye on things, remember? And you strike me as a guy who takes a lot of
pride in a job well done.” Madison kicked the door open the rest of the way. He shoved Brocchi with two powerful hands and stepped into the room as the road manager stumbled backwards. “Now tell me where that little turkey is,” he demanded. “I don’t have a helluva lot of time.”

  Brocchi caught himself, then held his ground. He eyed Madison for a moment, then looked beyond him at Keith and Connie, who had also entered the room. His head snapped in the direction of the doorway.

  “Both of you, split,” he said. “This is just between the two of us.”

  “Connie stays,” said Madison. “A few things have changed since the last time we spoke, Lee.” Brocchi didn’t pause to consider.

  “Okay,” he said. “Keith, beat it.”

  Now, finally, anger did rise within the drummer. He started toward Brocchi.

  “Now wait a minute, Lee. I don’t like being talked to that way—”.

  As he passed, Madison reached out and grabbed Terrance’s arm above the elbow in a steel-like vise.

  “Aren’t two rounds enough, Keith?” he asked. “I’d think you’d get tired of waltzing with me. Why don’t we just do this one very mellow? This is Lee’s room. Let’s do like he asks, okay?”

  He released the drummer. Terrance stood there unmoving at first, rubbing his arm. He stared from one to the other of the three faces before him. Then he turned toward the door.

  “Fuck the bunch of you,” he growled. “I was just getting down with some good T.V. when this bastard started coming on heavy.”

  He was still grumbling as he slammed the door behind him on his way out.

  Brocchi shot Madison a tight grin.

  “It looks like you’ve mastered the art of handling Keith,” he said. “Just call his bluff.” The grin went away. He nodded toward Connie but was still looking at Madison. “This morning you told me she was just along for cover. Shapiro told me the same. Is that one of the changes you were talking about?” Madison nodded.