The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  Sluggish memory reminded me I should still have matches and candles in my pockets. I made my unsteady fingers work and fired up a match.

  That was bright. Ow.

  I lit a candle and checked around. Someone had dragged me off the main path, stashing me by a battered old table. Record books and clipboards suggested that it served as a work desk for some fearless soul. A bare bulb with a frayed string pull dangled temptingly overhead.

  Getting to my feet was hard, but once there it wasn't unbearable so long as I didn't move my head much. I yanked the light on, bathing the place in twenty-five watts of electric glory.

  No one came charging from the remaining shadows. I was happy.

  Having been through this before I knew better than to touch the sore spot on my head. Nothing good ever came of that. Bloodsmell hung in the still air, but wasn't mine. It was some lingering trace of the trail I'd followed, meaning the damage hadn't broken my skin, probably due to—

  Where the hell was my hat?

  I squinted around in the too-bright light. No hat. That made me mad. I liked that fedora.

  No, I wasn't thinking straight, but after the whack I'd gotten I was doing pretty damned good.

  Staggering down the maze, I found my now rumpled topper on a crate along with my first candle. Its wax was still soft, not more than five minutes had passed since the attack. Damn, I hurt worse than a lousy five minutes' worth of unconsciousness. Someone had blended the items into the general junk. Add a little dust and they'd stay lost in the background for years.

  Was that the plan for the missing Jerome Schubert? I looked at the mountains of tarp-shrouded boxes with fresh unease, and listened hard, but no sound of a heartbeat came from any of them. Good if he was alive, really bad if he was not.

  Off to the side on the bare cement floor lay a woman's shoes. They might have been my client's new mules, but female footwear all looks the same to me. I thought I'd recognized her tone in that gasp and brief scream. Perhaps she'd followed me. When I got clobbered, she sensibly ran. If she was anywhere near I'd have heard her.

  Farther into the basement, then, where there was at least one bad guy who'd already decked me. No chance that he would get a second try.

  I was still armed, my .38 Detective Special snug in its shoulder rig, but if Dorothy was down here I was reluctant to start slinging lead, however much someone deserved it. This place was full of alternative weapons, though, and in two seconds I had the reassuring weight of a genuine Louisville Slugger in one hand. For all I knew it could have been the same hunk of wood applied so effectively on my shins and skull.

  Which still hurt. I limped along until the faint lub-dub of a heartbeat teased at my eardrums.

  Not far ahead.

  Loose-limbed and dazed, Cooley lay in the glare cast by another hanging bulb that had been left on. As I came within his field of view his eyelids flickered with awareness but no real conviction. He looked the way I felt, which was damned awful. Someone had lambasted him good, which was tough luck for the guy. At the same time I wondered what he was doing here. His heartbeat told me he wasn't a member of my particular union, so he couldn't have been following the scent of blood.

  I set the bat and candle to one side, patted down his pockets, and found a flask. Plenty of people had gotten into the habit of carrying one during Prohibition. Back during my non-blood-drinking days I'd done the same. His was silver-plated with a cap that doubled as a shot glass. Nice. I dribbled half a finger's worth of hooch in and held it to his lips, careful not to move his head. He wouldn't thank me for that.

  The smell of the stuff was about as appealing as gasoline, but I still felt an urge to take a sip as well. Fresh blood was my only poison now, but I could wait.

  Cooley choked down his booze and grimaced.

  "Who's the bad guy?" I asked. "Becker?"

  He growled.

  "Where is he?"

  Another growl, accompanied by his right hand flapping once against the floor. I took that to mean Becker was not too far ahead.

  "Is Dorothy with him?"

  "Donno," he managed to say with some effort.

  I gave him another shot of firewater, pulled a tarp from something, and covered him to the chin. Maybe I don't feel it much anymore, but it had to be cold down here. His eyes flickered again, puzzlement crossed with I wasn't sure what. Some of these tough guys don't know how to react to common decency.

  Snagging up the bat and snuffing the candle, I moved on, trying to be quiet by going on the balls of my feet. In my own ears I sounded like a stampede. At least someone was leaving the lights on ahead.

  Before long I picked up the faintest mutter of voices. The speakers were around a corner made of thick support pillars and shelving. Some of the stuff must have been down here since before the Spanish-American War.

  A man and woman were arguing, the tones intense.

  I peered around a final obstacle.

  Becker was faced away from me, arms down stiff at his sides, hands clenched, a baseball bat in one fist. Sometimes I hate being right.

  Dorothy, flatfooted without her shoes, was backed into a dead end, this part of the maze stopped by a brick wall. For all that, she looked defiant and sounded dangerously angry. "Tell me where he is."

  "You need to get out of here," said Becker. It had the tired cadence of repetition.

  "Not without my husband."

  "You go back upstairs and don't say nothin' to—"

  In the time it took them to make that exchange I'd slipped behind Becker and with remarkable restraint lightly swatted the back of his head with the slugger, using just enough force to rattle him. He dropped, stunned to immobility, but not unconscious. I kicked his own bat away and put my foot on his throat.

  Dorothy stared at me, mouth wide open, big brown eyes popping.

  I grinned back. Though my corner teeth weren't out it still seemed to scare her. "You okay?"

  "I thought he'd killed you! When you fell and didn't move and—"

  "Not even close. Where's Jerome?"

  That jarred her from further questions about my miraculous recovery. "I don't know." She looked down at Becker, eyes going hard. "Yet." She picked up his bat and hefted it.

  "Let's just get out of here, find your father, and…"

  She shook her head. "My problem, and I will take care of it."

  I heard the scrape and scuff as someone approached. Cooley rounded the corner, wobbly, but with his gun in hand. He took in the little scene, scowled at Becker, then holstered the gat.

  "Cooley," she snapped, "where's Jerome?"

  He started to shake his head, then stopped, one hand half-raised to touch the sore spot. He must have known better too, and turned it into a shrugging gesture. "Donno. I thought he might and followed him down here." He pointed at me.

  "Why would I know?" I asked, surprised.

  "I hear stuff. You get results an' no one can figure out how. You seemed to be on top of things."

  Only partially, after I'd picked up on the scent of blood. Clearly he'd missed my ignominious retreat up the stairs away from the big bad dark below. The rest had been luck. The sour kind. My head…

  "You followed him, and I followed you," said Dorothy. "And Becker was here already. Jerome must be here too, right?" She looked to me for concurrence.

  I stalled, using the moment to sniff the stale air for blood—nothing—and listen for a fourth heartbeat in the immediate area. The three that were present would mask its sound. "We'll have to search."

  "This place is too big, and I'm in a hurry. Slap it out of Becker."

  "What?"

  "You heard me."

  I'd have thought she'd seen one too many Cagney movies but for the fact she was her father's daughter. "Uh… well…"

  "You're not going sissy on me, are you?"

  Cooley stepped in to rescue me. "He can't, Dot."

  "Why not? I hired him."

  "He's friends with Northside Gordy. Your pop works for him, but in a sideways k
ind of direction. If you have Fleming beating up one of your pop's guys, that could make for trouble. Big Louie would have to retaliate on this guy, and then Gordy would have to retaliate on Louie."

  She steamed and stewed, but offered no counterargument, just a single contempt-laden comment. "Politics."

  "Yeah," I said. "Sorry."

  "All right. Will it start a gang war if you two just tied Becker up for me?"

  We consulted with a wordless exchange of looks. "We can do that," I said.

  "Yeah, we can do that," Cooley echoed.

  He was pretty gray in the gills. I was a little better recovered and did the honors after finding a coil of rope.

  Dorothy was specific about how she wanted Becker immobilized. Being in no condition to object, he was soon wrapped tight in a hemp cocoon. While I was busy Dorothy found a stack of folded tarps and dragged them down, filling the air with dust. She and Cooley sneezed, but I was immune so long as I didn't breathe.

  Becker revived enough from my gentle tap to sneeze too.

  Dorothy paused, throwing him a Medusa's stare, and he did go still. "Where's Jerome?"

  "He's not right for you, Dot."

  "And you are?"

  "I'm a better man than him."

  "I can almost see why you'd think that. But brass tacks—I get the final say, and that's what matters. I love him, not you. Now where is he?"

  "Cooley, you tell her that I—"

  "Leave me out of it!" Cooley snarled. "I told you to stay clear of her. You're an idiot, ask anyone." He sank to the floor, his back to some junk, and took a swig from his flask. He seemed content to watch but not interfere. That was a reasonable course to me. I remained standing, using my bat for a cane to keep me steady.

  Dorothy leaned in close. "Becker. Look at me. Tell me where Jerome is, and we'll keep this between ourselves. Even Daddy won't know."

  "I don't care if the boss finds out!"

  If that was her trump card, she didn't seem disappointed by his reaction. "You should."

  "He can do what he likes, I'm saving you from—"

  She picked up his baseball bat and gave it an experimental swing.

  Becker went white, but kept the stubborn face. "You wouldn't."

  "If Daddy was here, probably not. He'd do it himself, and probably kill you before you talked. But this is your lucky night. I'm here instead."

  "Aw, Dot," said Cooley, "you don't wanna do that."

  "Yes, I do."

  "You could really hurt him."

  "Exactly." Her gaze never left Becker.

  "I mean you could kill him. Accidental-like."

  "If I kill him it will be entirely on purpose. But that won't happen. He'll wish he was dead, though."

  She dropped the bat and began throwing folded tarps across Becker's tied-up body. He tried to roll around to get out from under, but their combined weight got to be too much. In a very short time he was nearly gone from view except for his head. Must have been hot, I thought, watching his face go red from either heat or rising fury.

  "Dot…" he said. "You need to—"

  "Where's Jerome?" she asked, picking up the bat and tapping the fat end against the cement floor.

  When he didn't reply, she raised it high and brought it down hard across his tarp-insulated midsection.

  Cooley yelled something, but it was drowned out by Becker's much louder, outraged bellow. Despite the thick layers of canvas he'd obviously felt the force of it. Never underestimate the determination of a woman being deprived of her honeymoon.

  Dorothy took a few more swings, full power, then paused to sneeze. Each time she connected, more dust got thrown up. I offered her my handkerchief. She gave me a sweet, heart-melting look of gratitude and noisily blew her nose. "You're so polite," she said.

  I didn't know what to say to that and stepped out of range as she wound up for another inning.

  "Dorothy!"

  We all froze—except for Becker, of course—as Mrs. Huffman stepped into the improvised arena. With her was Mrs. Schubert. Both ladies were wide of eye.

  "What are you doing?" demanded the mother of the bride.

  Dorothy lifted her chin, resting the bat on her shoulder. "He knows where Jerome is. I'm persuading him to cooperate." She gave a brief meant-to-be-reassuring nod at her shocked mother-in-law.

  "Oh, Sylvia," said Mrs. Schubert.

  "You're right, Gerty." Mrs. Huffman stepped forward. "This isn't the way to do it." She pulled a four-inch-thick layer of tarp from Becker and glanced at her daughter. "Too much padding, dear. He won't feel anything with that much in the way. Try it now."

  "Sylvia! We're in church!" Mrs. Schubert pointed out.

  "Just the basement. It doesn't count. If this was the sanctuary it would be completely different."

  "Well, if you're sure…"

  She put an arm around other woman's shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze. "Your Jerome is family now. We look after our own." Mrs. Huffman offered suggestions on where best to strike to get a faster result.

  Dorothy slammed the bat down, clearly in a take-no-prisoners mood.

  Cooley and I winced.

  Becker howled. I didn't think he could get louder at it, but he managed. At one point he tried to babble to Mrs. Huffman that he was in love with Dorothy, but it cut no ice with her.

  "Sweetheart," she addressed her daughter, who'd paused again. "Make him fall out of love with you."

  Dorothy made that ominous back-of-the-throat sound and obliged, having gained her second wind.

  Mrs. Huffman glanced at Cooley. "You will see to it that this fellow leaves town?"

  "Yes, ma'am," he humbly replied.

  "If there's anything left of him," I added.

  I got a hard, haughty look from the lady. "Young man, he won't even show a bruise."

  That set me wondering if she was the source of Big Louie Huffman's reputation for swift persuasion. Maybe behind every successful man stands a woman—holding a baseball bat.

  Wham, thump, wham. I winced again, sympathetic, but not about to get in the middle of the proceedings.

  It seemed to take longer, but a couple minutes later Becker cracked. His color had gone from white fear to red anger and finally bilious green as he blurted out where he'd hidden Jerome. Now I stepped in quick, threw off the tarps, and rolled him on his side. The pounding had a predictable effect on his digestive tract, and I didn't think it a good thing for him to choke to death in front of the ladies. They withdrew from the immediate area, hands over their noses, and went after Dorothy as she darted off to find her husband.

  Moving more slowly, I followed the women back to the old table where I'd been dragged. There was a door in the shadows I'd not noticed earlier, distracted as I was by the skull-busting. Dorothy was trying to pry it open with a crowbar.

  "Jack! I'm not strong enough—could you—?"

  No problem. I didn't need the crowbar, but used it anyway. No point in impressing them by ripping the doorknob from the thick panel; I might have to pay for it. A minimum amount of elbow grease popped the door wide. Dorothy rushed in, crying Jerome's name, kneeling and covering him with kisses.

  He was tied, gagged, and groggy, with blood down the front of his once-pristine white shirt—from a punch in the nose, it turned out.

  And dammit, he did look like Ralph Bellamy.

  Once free and able to catch his breath Schubert filled in the blanks while the women fussed over him.

  At the cake-cutting Becker had threatened to ventilate him unless he came along quietly at gunpoint. Schubert was too surprised even to think to fight until they were in the hall broom closet. Becker had been itching to punch him for weeks. One smack in the kisser did the trick. That satisfaction taken, he'd forced Schubert to write the good-bye note, which he'd done with one hand holding the pencil, the other pressing the blue cravat to his bloody nose. For all that, he'd tried to put in a few clues that would make the note read wrong. Smart guy.

  Then Becker coshed him solid and dragged
the unconscious groom down to the basement. With Schubert safely stowed, Becker was free to resume goon duties for his boss until such time as he could return and permanently remove his rival. The bride's violent reaction and bringing in outside help must have been a shock.

  Dorothy enthusiastically gave credit where it was due, and Schubert shook my hand. I don't think one word in ten was getting through to him, but he was willing to agree with his wife. If he continued doing that I figured they'd have a long and happy partnership.

  As it seemed only right, I asked and was allowed to kiss the bride. My chaste peck on the cheek made her blush. Then the mothers stepped in and insisted everyone go back upstairs. They'd already decided to tell their guests the whole thing was an elaborate wedding prank that had gotten out of hand.

  Soon as they were far enough away, I vanished, cutting myself off from the head and shin pain. That was almost as good as kissing Dorothy. As I floated in the gray nothingness I wished them a happy celebration in their Niagara-bound Pullman.

  Then I wondered what my girlfriend was up to; plenty of time to call on her, see if she might be in the mood for some amiable canoodling. How many other couples who had attended the wedding would have similar thoughts in line with the bride and groom's wedding night?

  When I went solid again the headache was gone along with the bruises. I was tired from the healing, but straight-from-the-vein refreshment at the Stockyards or even a pint of red from a butcher shop would take care of that.

  I still had some cleanup work to do, though, not unlike those ladies in the kitchen, but with more heavy lifting involved.

  Cooley was where I'd left him, taking it easy on the floor while scowling at the miserable rope-swathed bundle before him. When I returned, he tiredly levered himself upright, pulled out a knife, and cut Becker free. "We need to get him outta here before Big Louie steps in."

  He took it for granted that I'd help him. Well, why not?

  "The kid's okay," Cooley went on, "but an idiot for skirts."

  "Aren't we all?"

  "Yeah, but use a little judgment on which skirt you fall for."

  "Like Mrs. Huffman?"

  That shot got me a sharp look, and for an instant before covering it up he looked like a raw and vulnerable kid himself. Maybe some twenty years ago Mrs. Huffman had used similar means to make him fall out of love with her.