The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  He paused, at a loss. “But…it’s always hurt you to a greater or lesser degree.”

  “Not like this. Something’s changed, gone wrong. I think if I tried again…it could kill me. The last time I tried, I thought my head would explode.”

  “You’re serious.” He seemed flabbergasted.

  “Yeah, and it keeps getting worse. Maybe building up to—I don’t know. But I don’t dare try. It might even damage Evie.” I was more worried about damaging myself, though. “I’m deadly serious, Charles. I can’t help you.”

  “Well,” he finally said. “That is a bundle of news. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” It got quiet, and I thought he might ask more questions than I wanted to hear, but he held off. I motioned toward the office. “What d’ya want to do with her?”

  “Keep her out of sight, for one thing. Here should be safe enough until I can arrange for other digs. We can get her out before dawn.”

  “Why hide her if the killer doesn’t know she was in the room?”

  “Because you have half the city looking for whoever took that vicuna coat. The killer knows Evie’s the only other person besides himself who had any close dealings with Caine. Even Ruzzo might work it out. She could be murdered for no more reason than that.”

  “Okay. But we get her safe, then what? I may personally think it was Hoyle, but there’s no guarantee he’s going to be found. And if I turn out to be wrong, then who knows if we’ll ever find out who did it?”

  “According to you all we need do is check the hands of anyone involved and look for scratches. Admittedly it’s not too practical, and time will certainly heal the damage, but if—”

  “I know. I’ve got Strome and Derner checking that angle. Everyone who went out the Nightcrawler’s doors last night had to show their hands. They didn’t know why, but it cleared them. I managed to keep from tipping Kroun off about that detail just in case his boy Mitchell was the one. He’s missing, but he can be more missing if Kroun arranges it.”

  “Did he ever come in tonight?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I told about the deal I had with Kroun. “Damn, if I hadn’t been wound so tight about what he did to Bobbi I could have had a look at Mitchell’s hands then. Might have avoided some friction. Kroun’s real touchy about his territory. If Mitchell pulled that hit on his own, I think Kroun might send him over, but I can’t be sure. He could just as well send him back to New York.”

  “It would be a mistake on Kroun’s part to keep a viper so close.”

  “People get stupid.”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “I’m hungry!” Evie wailed.

  “Oh, my God.” He didn’t quite roll his eyes. “There are few things more inconvenient than a witness who’s not seen anything.”

  Actually I could think of worse stuff, but volunteered to remedy the food situation if he’d babysit.

  “Only if I may avail myself of your alcoholic stores.”

  “Avail away.”

  DOWNSTAIRS I gave the doorman five bucks and asked him to run over to an all-night diner that everyone usually went to after work. I told him to bring back a half dozen sandwiches, a dozen donuts, some milk, and he could keep the change. His eyes popped at the windfall, and he hurried off.

  Not inclined to hear more of Evie’s tiny little voice, I filled in for him as customers finished their last drinks and sauntered out.

  In the main room the band began “Goodnight, Sweetheart,” and the trickle became an exodus. Too many of the regulars wanted to stop and chat with the friendly owner, and there wasn’t anything to do but get through it until they said their piece and left. I used to enjoy that kind of stuff.

  Going to the lighting panel, I switched off the outside sign and the canopy light. Lady Crymsyn was officially closed.

  The main room was empty of customers, the band breaking up and packing away their instruments. The waiters were yanking tablecloths and flipping chairs onto the tables, in a hurry to leave. Stale cigarette smoke hung thick in the air along with the pungent cleaner stink. The bartender had already divided up the tips for them and handed me the till and clipboard. The liquor was locked away and the last glass wiped clean and stored. I wished a general good night to all.

  Wilton was closed out; I collected his till and clipboard and carried them upstairs, putting them on the desk over the papers. Escott sat on the couch next to Evie, patting her hand in what I hoped was a big-brotherly way.

  “I sent out for food. Should be here soon,” I said.

  “Excellent. Evie’s remembered something more.”

  I waited. So did he. She looked bewildered.

  “The smell?” he prompted.

  “Oh!” She seemed surprised. “Cigarettes. He smoked. Alan doesn’t smoke, says it’s bad for his voice. Whoever was there, it was all over his clothes.”

  “It was a man? I thought you were after Jewel for this. She smokes.”

  “She coulda made a man do it for her. It was a man. There was sweat, too.”

  “Sweat?”

  “I smelled sweat, and it was a man’s sweat.”

  “Don’t women sweat?”

  “Not the same. The smell’s different.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Escott patted her hand again. “He’s just getting used to the idea. Jack, I’m inclined to trust her senses on this one.”

  I read between the lines. Evie wasn’t an intellectual giant, but knew how to survive and get on in the world. Her edge was more to do with intuition than anything else. Some part of that would be geared to knowing the difference between male and female sweat. “Okay.”

  “Am I gonna stay here?” she asked.

  “For a few hours,” Escott said. “You may nap right here on this nice comfy couch if you like. We’ll watch over you.” He sounded like he was addressing a ten-year-old, and Evie didn’t seem to mind.

  I was glad he limited it to a few hours. When it got past dawn, I would be hard to explain. Sure I had a bolt-hole under the tiers of seating, lockable and light-proofed, but I liked the couch for myself, dammit.

  The doorman brought his delivery upstairs. I had the till money counted, ledgers updated, and everything sealed in the safe, so the desk was cleared for a feast.

  “I can’t eat all that!” Evie declared, eyes big.

  No, but she’d likely pack away at least half of it. I knew dancers. “Charles will help you, won’t you, Charles?” It was a long-running battle for me to make sure he ate if not well, then at least at regular intervals. He said he would be delighted to join her for dinner. I told him I needed to take Bobbi home and could I borrow his car?

  “Of course,” he said, handing over the keys to his Nash.

  “What about a hiding place for Evie?”

  “You’ve a phone and a phone book. I’ll get on very well indeed finding something.”

  She cocked her head. “You’re English, aren’t you, just like in England?”

  I had a moment of déjà vu. She’d said exactly the same thing in the same way the other night. Escott obviously recalled it, too, and shot me a thin smile. It was going to be a long night for him.

  Wilton and the hatcheck girl left together. Usually he or the doorman would walk her to the El. Coat and hat on, I made a sweep through the main room. All was quiet, the bartender and waiters having departed by the backstage exit. I yelled down into the basement, rousting out a lagging horn player before dousing the light and locking that door.

  All the dressing rooms but number three were closed and dark. I hesitated before knocking, unsure of my reception. Until that night Bobbi and I had never had any real fight. Not that that’d been a fight. It was more that I’d let her down in a big way and couldn’t make it up to her.

  But I still had to take her home. I tapped softly.

  Bobbi welcomed me in, nearly finished with her change to ordinary clothes. She greeted me a little too brightly, acting as if all was well again between us. It was, so far as the business with Mitch
ell was concerned, but not the business with me.

  “Are my seams straight?” she asked. She twisted around, trying to check them in a long mirror, the skirt of her dress raised high.

  “Uhh—they look Jim Dandy to me.”

  “Yes, but are they straight?”

  “I could get a ruler to make sure.”

  “You men…”

  “Oh? You ask other guys for help with your stockings?”

  “All the time.”

  The banter was there, but with an artificial note to it. I thought I should talk to her about things, but this just wasn’t the time. “We’re closed up, but Charles is staying on for a while. We’ve got a case going. I’ll take you home, then have to come back here.”

  “What case?”

  “It’s to do with the Caine murders.”

  “I saw the papers. Poor Jewel. Are the stories true?”

  “They’re totally wrong in a big way. It’s murder-murder, not murder-suicide.”

  “Does it have to do with Gordy?”

  “I don’t think so, but with Alan Caine having been employed at the Nightcrawler, I have to be around to keep the boat from rocking. That’s why I had to leave earlier and…and I’m sorry about that.”

  “Okay.” She looked like she might have more to say, but turned to straighten stuff on her dressing table. There seemed to be a lot of unsaids growing between us.

  WHEN we reached her hotel, Bobbi leaned across the seat and kissed me good night. It was a nice, safe kiss, very sisterly.

  “You wondering why not more?” she asked. She could always read me.

  I didn’t know how to answer that.

  “There will be when it’s the right time. You’ll know when.”

  After she left the big car and was in the lobby waiting for the elevator to take her up I gave in to a long shudder. No doubling over, no groans about remembered pain, no needing to vanish to head off the screaming. You could call it progress. But I hung on to the Nash’s steering wheel so hard that it bent in my hands.

  The fit gradually passed. I didn’t hurt all over, just felt like I should.

  Then I drove off quick. Headed for the Stockyards.

  No hunger, yet I needed blood. Craved it. Had to have…

  I’d stopped thinking and turned into an automaton.

  When I came back to myself I was slumped against one of the high fences of a cattle pen, my arms looped over it, holding me up. Every part of my body was stretched and bloated. Even my eyelids felt swollen. It was hard work to blink.

  I glanced at the pen’s occupants, half-expecting to see a dead cow lying in the muck, but they were still on their feet.

  Had I been careless coming in? This seemed to be the same spot from the night before. To cut down the odds of being seen I always went to different locations. This craziness was out of hand.

  Despite the excess of blood—my face was smeared with it—I began shivering from cold.

  It’s fear, you idiot. This is fear. Get that through your thick skull.

  “Okay, I get it,” I said aloud to the head-demons. “Now lay off me.”

  The glut made it easy to vanish and soar above the crossword-puzzle pattern of fencing. I had to go high, partially materialize, and look around since I couldn’t remember where I’d left the car.

  Dimly I recalled trying to pull myself away from gorging, but at the time there didn’t seem much point. I was well and truly started, why not keep going so long as I was there?

  Winced at the memory.

  God, yes, when I lost control like that I had every right to be scared. I had to keep myself away from Bobbi.

  The Nash was parked close by under a streetlamp, something I’d never normally do. The keys were in the ignition. It was just my good luck no one else had been by to find such a choice offering. I got in and checked the wheel. The damage wasn’t too bad, more of a bend like a warped phonograph record than anything else. It would need to be replaced, but was otherwise fine for driving.

  Where to drive to…?

  Escott’s office, to clean up. I’d not been careful during my binge.

  It was only a few minutes away. This time I took the keys when I got out.

  On the other side of his office door the place was much too quiet and dark. Though there was plenty of light filtering through the closed blinds—pitch-dark to anyone else—I wanted more and flipped switches on my way to the back.

  Eerie feeling in the washroom as I bent over the sink and scrubbed my face with cold water. I’d come here after staggering away from the gory wreckage of Bristow’s party. He’d been drunk, and his blood had turned me drunk and brainlessly foolish. That was the why behind my insanity then; what the hell was I doing to myself? That horror was over. If I kept up with this inner sickness, I’d only be finishing the job he’d started.

  Sickness. I made myself use that word. It was the right one.

  There wasn’t a lot of difference between me and Alan Caine. For him it had been gambling. For me it was blood. And before that booze. Roland Lambert was the same. He’d traded his drinking for womanizing, which had hurt the one women he loved. If he went back to the bottle…a different kind of self-destruction.

  But you could live without drinking, and if you absolutely had to, without women. There was no way I could live without blood.

  Perhaps I could limit things and prevent myself from overdoing. I had lately begun siphoning it into bottles, keeping them in the icebox for emergencies. One a night was plenty. More than enough. I’d been able to dole things out like that before my change. A beer a day, then cut loose with a good rip on Saturday night, only I’d just not have any Saturday nights. I could do that.

  Which still left the problem of Bobbi not being safe with me. In the throes of passion I could kill her.

  And then Escott would have to kill me.

  I’d make him promise to do it.

  If not him, then Gordy. What are best friends for if not to trust them with the hardest favors for you?

  Shaking cold water from my face, I dried off and told myself to shut the hell up before the dark possibilities chorusing through my head turned themselves into a grand opera.

  I went back to the car, started it, and let it idle, not sure where to go. Escott liked driving his Nash around at night. For relaxation. Used to, anyway. His insomnia was pretty much gone now.

  There were still some long, lonesome hours ahead, though. Before things had gone so far off course I’d either spend them with Bobbi or put in extra work at Crymsyn or pound on my typewriter or just read. Life had been so much simpler a week back. I’d had my share of horrors and grief, but could live with them. The good old days. Not nearly enough of those.

  Kroun’s advice to find a place in the middle of nowhere and do nothing but fish was very appealing. The wild temptation to take off this very moment was almost overwhelming. What tore it away were my countless obligations to everyone I knew. Between them and the drive to have my own business I’d cemented myself into the pavement in front of Lady Crymsyn and couldn’t leave. It was better than swinging from a meat hook, but I was still stuck just as firmly in place.

  I pulled into the alley behind the club rather than my special parking spot. If Escott wanted to get Evie away later without being seen, that was the place to do it. Ghosting out, I passed through the locked door and walked through the dark and silent club.

  Very dark and silent. Myrna wasn’t playing with the lights at all.

  “Myrna? You there, baby?”

  She must have tired herself out last night making that rose scent for me. It really had helped. For a time. I wanted to thank her, but how do you thank a ghost?

  At least the lobby light was still on. She was very dependable about that one. Before going up to the office I got into the phone booth, dropped in a nickel, and dialed the Nightcrawler. Derner didn’t answer, but someone got him for me.

  “Yeah, Boss?”

  “Have you heard about the trouble here tonight?”


  “Yeah, the guys told me. They’re mad as hell at Ruzzo—”

  “That’s great, but this snipe hunt for Ruzzo and Hoyle’s been going on too damned long. Is anyone actually looking?”

  He avoided sounding defensive. “They’re doing what they can do. The boys are covering all the hotels, from flops to the fancy places, boardinghouses, bordellos, and rooms to let. There ain’t a bed in this town they ain’t looked into or under. If Ruzzo’s in Chicago, we’ll find ’em sooner or later. But if they’ve blown town or run off to the sticks…maybe not.”

  “I want them even if they are in the sticks. Where does Hoyle hang around?”

  “Here, usually.”

  “Where else?”

  “We looked in those places. He’s letting himself be missing.”

  I gave out a disgusted sigh.

  “We got the word out you only want to talk with him, but since he’s trying to shoot you, I guess he misunderstood.”

  In some mobs “talk” meant beat a guy up, just not to the point of crippling him permanently. “Keep at it. Get me a location. We are not dealing with the Harvard debate team here.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Boss? That special guest we got was back here, looking hot under the collar. Anything I should know?” Derner was yet on guard against listening wires. Good man.

  “He’s lost his traveling friend.”

  “That’s what he said in so many words. He’s plenty bothered about something.”

  “Let him work it out. Help him however he wants, and tell me if anything screwy happens. I’ll be at my club until morning.”

  “Got it. Any word on the other boss?” That would be Gordy.

  “He’s resting is all I know. They’re taking care of him. Soft berth.”

  “Should I pass that on?”

  “Yeah.” It would be reassuring to a few that Gordy was still around. Certainly reassured me.

  I rang off and was about to trudge up to the office when someone banged loud on Crymsyn’s front door. What and who the hell now? Hoyle? But if it was a determined bad guy, he’d have shot the lock off, not knocked and given warning.

  Standing to the side just in case, I yelled through the door, “We’re closed!”