The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  “Nah, Lucky’s got him busy looking for Galligar.”

  Paco laughed. “He’ll need a set of gills to do that. My boys took care of him good.”

  “They screwed up, you mean. If they thought to shoot both of them we wouldn’t be stuck here now.”

  “I know, but we’ll get him to talk. You wouldn’t think he’d be this stubborn, would you? Stupid, but he’s got some guts.”

  Their voices faded away. I dreamed about Benny, an uneasy Jewish-Catholic now buried forever without services from either faith, just another guy out of Hell’s Kitchen scrambling for a buck.

  I dreamed about escaping. If I could get overboard with a life preserver I might be able to make it to shore. Even the prospect of drowning looked preferable to another session with Fred and Paco. All I had to do was get up off the floor. Fat chance that, they’d done their work too well.

  I dreamed about Maureen, dark hair and rare laughter, a nervous girl, looking over her shoulder, but needing love and giving fully in return. Was she safe yet?

  I dreamed, but could not rest.

  Hours later I opened my eyes. The lids seemed to be the only part of my body that could still move. I felt like a shattered piece of glass held together with weak glue. The wrong touch and everything would fall to pieces. It hurt to breathe and the air was hot in my lungs. The windows were still open, but there was no ventilation.

  I wasn’t thinking too straight, because even that hurt, but I wanted to get to one of the windows. Once there I’d think of what to do next.

  It was only ten feet away. Three steps for a healthy upright man, a few miles for me. Under it was a padded, built-in window seat. If I could get to it I would . . . but I couldn’t quite remember.

  I squirmed forward six inches and rested. I’d have to go easy and keep the glue intact. Six more inches and rest. Repeat. My shoulders ached from the effort, but then so did everything else, tell them to shut up and cooperate so we can—what? Window seat. It was a little closer. Six inches and rest. Window seats have windows, windows have air, we need air. We need to rest. Oh, God it hurts.... Shut up. Six inches and rest. Tears again, waste of energy, but they wouldn’t stop. Eyes blurring, from tears or pain? Where was the window? Rest. Don’t move, just lay down and die, serve them right. Anger. How dare they reduce me to this? How dare they make me crawl? Twelve inches that time. Anger was good, stay mad and escape. Keep crawling and hate their guts for it. Crawl so you can come back and do this to them. Crawl . . .

  But the glue came apart before I was halfway there and for a long time there was nothing.

  “Jeeze, you wouldn’t think he’d a made it that far.” My admirer was Paco. I was looking at his shoes. I wished he’d give me a good solid kick in the head and end it all, but he was no pal to do me favors.

  “Put him in the chair,” said Morelli.

  No, please don’t bother.

  They put me in the chair.

  I fell out of it.

  They tied me to the chair. Wrists and ankles. Rough hemp rope. I looked at it, not knowing what it was.

  “Fleming.”

  Oh, go away.

  “Fleming.” He tilted my head back. I choked on some whiskey. Something had happened the last time I drank, but I couldn’t remember.

  “Wake up, Fleming.”

  I was awake, unfortunately.

  “Look at me.”

  No, go jump in the lake. There was a lake all around us, which struck me as insanely funny. It hurt to laugh. Save it for later and laugh then, if there was a later. What was in the whiskey?

  “Fleming, look at me or I’ll cut your eyelids away.”

  That got my attention, but I didn’t look at him, only the slender knife in Morelli’s hand. Yes, it was possible they could hurt me more. The look in his eyes, his dark feminine eyes, promised that much. Lightly he drew the blade across the back of my hand, sure as a surgeon. Blood welled up from the cut. Yes, he could hurt me.

  “Fleming, you’ve got to talk to us, you’ve got to tell us where it is. Believe me, we’ve been going easy on you. You’ve only got a bad bruising so far, nothing that won’t heal. If you don’t talk it will get worse and we’ll start breaking things up inside you. You could bleed to death on the inside. Tell us where the list is and I swear on my mother’s grave, I swear we will let you go.”

  I almost believed him. Talk and die or don’t talk and die anyway. I’d be damned before I’d give them the time of day. They won’t kill me, not unless I told them and I’d never give them the satisfaction. Stupid, Paco had said. Yes, and stubborn.

  “Fleming, did you hear? Do you understand?”

  I nodded or at least tried to. My head dropped so all I could see was my lap. He pushed and I was looking at the ceiling which kept moving around every time I blinked. Something went down my throat. I gagged and coughed.

  In a little while my heart began to race. I was more alert. Fred put his hand in my field of view.

  “You see these?” he asked.

  Yeah. Brass knuckles. He gave me a good look at them.

  “Mr. Morelli says I don’t have to pull my punches anymore.”

  I caught a fresh whiff of stifling cigar smoke. “Talk, Fleming.”

  No, I’m too stubborn—

  “Fleming . . .”

  No.

  “Fred.”

  Oh, God.

  He hit me twice and we both felt the rib give way. I heard someone’s sharp whimper and passed out.

  It was daylight again when I woke. I was lying down, hot and shivering, with an ache all over as if my bones were too big for the skin and trying to bust out. Fred was looking at me. There was as much compassion in his face as a slab of concrete.

  “What?” he asked, and leaned closer. I must have said something. I tried to remember.

  “Leak.”

  “Tell me where the list is and I’ll help you.”

  “I . . . can use the toilet or the floor . . . you want another mess to clean?”

  He did not.

  In the end he had to find a container to bring to me at the window seat. When he tried to stand me up it was too much to bear. I lay helpless and watched it dribble into a tin can. There wasn’t much and it was dark with blood. I was sick again and thankful there was nothing in my stomach.

  He went away and told them I was awake. Somehow they kept me that way, hours or days went by. I lost track of time when the fever set in. Morelli gave me some aspirin and had them lay off me awhile. My buddy.

  The broken rib reminded me of its presence every time I breathed. Now and then I even thought of escape, but then we all dream when we’re sick.

  The day, from what little I saw of it, clouded over. There was some concerned talk about a storm, but no one made a move toward shore, except Fred, who, storm or no storm, wanted to go home. I heard something ominous about just one more try.

  I was tied up in the chair again. The three of them were looking ragged, but still had the benefit of soap and water. I could only imagine what I was like with a thick growth of beard and no food for the past few days, not that I cared.

  Morelli made his little speech, he had to repeat it several times before I understood. All I wanted was for him to douse that damned cigar so I could breathe.

  Outside it began to rain. There was little wind with it, just the steady soaking kind of fall that farmers liked. Too bad it was all going to waste out here on the lake. It got dark. They turned on the cabin lights and added to the heat inside.

  “Talk, Fleming. Where is the list?” He waved the lit cigar near my eyes. I thought I was past feeling more pain or even more fear until he twisted it down into the palm of my hand. My tongue bulged against my teeth, I tried to tear away, vision blurred.

  “Where is it?” Again and again until my wrists were bloody and my hand red with burns. My throat was raw, I wondered if I’d been screaming.

  “Talk, Fleming.”

  He stood back and let Fred have another try. Fred was out of patienc
e and wanted to get to shore. He took it out on me and smashed in another rib. I felt things coming loose inside. He was finally going to finish the job, and I’d be out of my misery.

  But I didn’t want to die.

  We were at the stern of the boat. They’d given up and were heading for shore. Morelli stood in the shelter of the hatch that led below, Paco was holding me up as Fred tied something to my ankles.

  “Slick says we’re not far from the house,” Paco was telling Fred. “One of his boys will row you to the dock. You walk to the house and pick up the car and meet us at the pier by the club.”

  “Can’t he call for his car at the club or get a cab?”

  “He says that’s out. Lucky’s got his car to look for that damned list and we gotta get back before he wises up to what we’re doing. Cab drivers, we don’t want; they got eyes and ears.”

  “All this work and nothing to show for it.”

  “Yeah, well, you gotta know when you cut your losses.” He lifted my face to his. “This is your last chance, Fleming. Where is it?”

  Where was what? I couldn’t remember.

  “He’s too far gone, Frank.”

  “Fleming? Ahh, the hell with him. Hold him up, there’s one more thing I been wanting to do.”

  Fred help me up. Paco pulled out his gun, a big one and he aimed it at my heart. It finally dragged a response from me. My last scream drowned out its roar as he fired.

  I felt nothing. A tug and a jerk of the body and then blessed release from the pain. My body was pushed backward, somersaulting into the dark water, and I sank quickly, leaving a stream of bubbles homing toward the surface. The weight of my ankles pulled me steadily down into cold, unbearable pressure. If I’d been breathing I’d have surely suffocated. The pressure grew and grew and I began to fight it. Something inside wanted out. I seized my inert form, encompassed it . . .

  I floated, just another bubble compressed into a moving plastic sphere by the water. I was going to float to heaven.

  I made it as far as the surface. The thing that saved me now drove me over the water. Some instinct rushed us straight to the nearest shore. My mind didn’t question this, it was perfectly normal the way the most outlandish things are normal when you dream.

  There was weight again. Solidity. Rain soaking my soaked clothes. Wind against my face, the same wind that drove away the clouds.

  I looked up and winced at stars as bright as the sun.

  11

  THE silhouette of a head eclipsed the lights of the cabin. It looked familiar. I moved my hand in a feeble gesture to it, my fingers brushed against heavy satin. Not too far away I heard a woman draw a sharp breath, making a little surprised noise, the kind women make when they open a drawer and find a bug lurking in their frilly things. My fingers closed on the satin, but let go almost immediately because there was no strength in them. The angle of light changed on the silhouette and revealed some bony features.

  “Take it easy, old man, there’s no hurry.”

  Escott? What the hell was he doing here? I blinked and made an effort to get my eyes working again. He was a little green in the gills himself, and for some odd reason he was wearing that silly purple bathrobe of his. My hand had clutched at the heavy quilted lapels.

  “Isn’t that too warm for the weather?” I asked idiotically.

  “There was no time to change.”

  “Why not?”

  “My invitation here was rather abrupt.”

  I thought about that one and blinked fully awake. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You’re concussed. Just take it easy and you’ll sort things out soon enough.”

  He made it sound as though everything were fine, but something was going on that was very wrong, and I couldn’t take it easy until I found out what. I got my elbows on the floor and pushed. Escott helped and I was sitting up, resting my back against a table leg. Feeling for damage, I found a bloodied patch on my head. It was sticky and the hair was matted.

  Escott moved and I could see the rest of the room. I was the center of attention of four pairs of eyes.

  Bobbi caught my attention first. She’d been the one who gasped when I first moved; she couldn’t be blamed for that since she thought I’d been killed. She was in a loose black garment, her version of a bathrobe. Her face was drained of color and pinched, her hazel eyes wide with whites showing. She sat rigidly on the window seat, her hands clutching the edge of the cushion with her shoulders up by her ears. I smiled at her and tried to make it reassuring with a slight wink, and she relaxed but only a little.

  Next to her but not too close was Slick Morelli. His eyes were big, too, his whole body radiating tension. Of the two of them he was the most frightened. For him this was the third time I’d returned from the dead. God knows what was going on in his mind as he stared at me.

  To the left, backed against the cabin door, was Gordy, his head crowding close to the low ceiling and his silenced .45 semiautomatic in his big hand. It wasn’t aimed at me, but at Escott. Maybe he’d wised up somehow, I couldn’t tell with him. He was looking more worried than scared and his eyes would twitch to one side, then back to me.

  The fourth pair of eyes were sunk deep in gray hollows, studying me and missing nothing. They were eyes that should have belonged to a victim of starvation, but their owner was anything but underfed, chronically unsatisfied, perhaps, but not underfed. The brown bristle of the beard ringing his lower face camouflaged the spare chins and made his head look like it was growing straight from the shoulders without the convenience of a neck. The skin on his bald dome was dull, and I wondered if he was unhealthy or just shaved too much. He alone looked almost relaxed, but then he apparently knew exactly what he was dealing with, in his hands and cocked with the wood bolt aimed at my heart, was a crossbow.

  Escott followed my gaze and looked apologetic. “Sorry, Jack. He turned that one up from my collection.”

  “How much does he know?”

  “Rather a lot, I fear. Allow me to introduce you to Lucky Lebredo, the rightful owner of the list.”

  “I know he’s the owner.”

  “Then you know I want it back,” he said. He spoke as though the least amount of contact with me, even verbal, would somehow soil him.

  “How did you find this out?” I gestured at his weapon.

  His eyes flicked from me to Escott. “Tell him.”

  Escott sighed and settled himself against the other table leg. “I’m afraid it got started when you rescued me from Sanderson and Georgie. Mr. Lebredo, through channels he refuses to divulge, got my name from Georgie Reamer. Being interested in Paco’s activities, he became curious as to why a relatively unimportant private agent as myself should be so permanently put out of the way, and how I managed to avoid such a fate. Georgie said I had help, and so Mr. Lebredo had a watch put on me and I was followed. He must have been a very good man, too. My trips to your hotel were noted and he became aware of our association, and had you followed as well.”

  “Even to—”

  “Yes, even to there.”

  Lebredo had a look of supreme disgust on his face. It was fine with me; I didn’t like him, either.

  “He learned of our visit to Frank Paco and of the little incident in the alley behind the club which cost me a bloodletting. He learned that you had been killed, apparently at least, by Morelli’s man during a clumsy attempt to obtain the list. The same day he visited your room to search for it and found you in your trunk and wondered how you got there from the street. The earth in your trunk struck him as being very odd. He is not an ignorant man, nor an especially superstitious one, but it did require some effort to piece his bits of information together to a logical, if unlikely conclusion. Your plaguing of Morelli confirmed his guess, and tonight he decided to make his move.”

  “So he kidnapped you to use as a lever?”

  “Yes. As I said, I had little choice in the matter when three of his men came crashing through my door. I couldn’t put up mu
ch of a fight with these stitches, either. I am most frightfully sorry about the crossbow.”

  I looked at Lebredo, he made me forget how much my head hurt. There wasn’t much to read in his face except for disgust, and that got old pretty fast, so I looked at Bobbi instead to see how she was taking all this. She was holding up fairly well, considering she was learning some things about me the hard way, that is, if it was making any sense to her. Her mouth tightened. I think it was meant to be a smile, at least she wasn’t afraid of me and that was something.

  “I want the list,” said Lebredo in a flat voice. “I want it tonight.”

  “It talks,” I said.

  The crossbow moved slightly, I was one finger twitch away from dying permanently. “Gordy,” he said.

  The .45 went off, the big silencer cutting the roar down to a manageable level. Escott jumped, jerking his hand. The bullet had gone between his spread fingers where they had rested on the floor. One of them had been nicked, he put it to his mouth. The guy had real guts, he wasn’t even shaking. His eyes were on Lebredo, bright and cold. If their places had been suddenly reversed, Lebredo would have been dead and not easily.

  The fat man ignored him and spoke to me. “I will give you that one warning. The next time Gordy will shoot off his arm.”

  Things were still, hearts and lungs were working hard. There were too many to tell one set from another, but I didn’t need that kind of information to know he wasn’t bluffing.

  I drew in a short breath. “Okay. I’ll get it for you.”

  “Jack—” said Escott.

  “It’s all right. I’ve remembered. Between Morelli and this boat, things jogged into place. I know where I left it.” I looked at Morelli. “I also know what you and Paco and Sanderson did to me.”

  “But it wasn’t—” protested Morelli.

  “Be quiet, Slick,” said Lebredo.

  “But it couldn’t—”

  His voice raised slightly. “I won’t tell you again.”

  Morelli shut up.