The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  “Not since last August. You ever hang out at a place called Rosie’s? Across from the Dispatch?”

  He shook his head solemnly.

  “Thought I might have seen you there.”

  “You probably saw me here, is what I’m thinking.” He tossed a peanut high and caught it in his mouth with the easy skill of long practice. “Want some?” He shook the bag, open end toward me.

  “No, but thanks anyway.” Maybe I’d seen him here before and just hadn’t noticed him among the hundreds of other movie watchers. “Been away from New York long?”

  “Long enough. California’s home now, least when we’re not on the road.”

  “Salesman?” But that didn’t seem quite right for him. Another peanut shot high and dropped in. He chewed it slowly while his eyes, his whole expression, turned steady and serious. “Yeah. I’m a salesman, all right. I sell money.”

  “You what?”

  “I sell money. You never heard of the business?”

  “No . . .” I’d either stumbled across a counterfeiter or a lunatic. Now might be a good time to find another seat.

  The guy put away his bag of peanuts. “I know what you must be thinking, but it’s perfectly legal. I really do sell money.”

  Okay. He’d hooked me. I had to hear the punch line. “What is it? Like coin collecting or something?”

  “Nah, this stuff.” He pulled out his wallet and fished for a five dollar bill, holding it up. “Take a look. It’s real, right?”

  As far as I could tell it looked just like any other used bill. “Right. . .”

  “Okay, I’ll sell you this five for four dollars and fifty cents.”

  I shook my head, chuckling. “Ah. No, thanks.”

  “It’s not a fiddle,” he earnestly assured me. “Think of the profit.”

  “What do you get out of it?”

  “A sale.”

  “Maybe not this time, but thanks all the same.”

  “You sure? It’s a great bargain you’re passing up.” At this point he looked too innocent to be believed. He read that I wasn’t going to fall for whatever gag he had in mind, gave a good-natured shrug, and put away the bill and wallet. He brought out the peanuts again.

  The nagging set in again with a vengeance. “I know you from somewhere.”

  “Go to the movies a lot?” he asked.

  “All the time.”

  “You really don’t know?”

  “You’re gonna have to tell me.”

  He grinned, his whole face going into it.

  “Wait a second. . .”

  He dropped his chin a bit and letting his mobile mouth hang slack in an exaggerated anticipation.

  “Oh, jeez, you’re—”

  A hand clamped down on his shoulder from behind and made him jump. He looked around in irritation to the source of the interruption. The man looming over us was big even by Chicago standards, and he had company: two large friends waiting in the aisle. The three of them looked as though they could take on the Wrigley Building and win. Their hundred-dollar suits were not well-tailored enough to hide ominous bulges under their left arms.

  The man’s hand flexed and lifted, and my seat mate rose like a puppet.

  “Oh, hell,” he said, irritation suddenly changing to fear. The smell of it fairly leaped off him.

  “You don’t know the half of it yet,” the man told him.

  “Wait a minute . . ” I began, not thinking. “You’re Guns Thompson, aren’t you?” I’d heard he was working as muscle for a West Side mob these days.

  One of his goons sidled into the row behind me and dropped a meaty hand on my shoulder. “Or maybe not. I could be mistaken.”

  “Shhh!” someone down the row advised us severely.

  “Out of here,” said Thompson, and abruptly the five of us were marching toward the lobby just as the next show began. The noisy barrage of a newsreel theme was enough to drown any protests we might have. I could have made an issue at this point, but I’d heard that Thompson was a rough customer and wouldn’t put it past him to open up with his heater right then and there. Better I go along and put a few walls between the other theater patrons and whatever caliber of bullets he and his cronies were packing.

  We threaded past ushers with flashlights guiding latecomers in; no one noticed us. If they did, they were going to mind their own business and watch the movie. We were urged through doors into the lush lobby. The popcorn smell hit me again with a brief wave of nausea as they hustled us past the front exit. I’d been expecting a car ride or at least a short walk to the nearest dark alley; Thompson headed for the men’s room.

  We trooped in. A couple of guys were washing up, and some instinct told them to hurry the job and leave. The last one bolted before drying his hands.

  Couldn’t blame him, the brightly lighted background of patterned tile did nothing to improve Thompson’s looks. Despite their flashy clothes, he and his friends were as out of place as a trio of gorillas at a Sunday School picnic. It showed in their hard, impassive faces and the way they moved like intelligent bulldozers.

  “You’ve got the wrong man,” protested my seat mate. “You’re after Chico, aren’t you?”

  “Not anymore,” said one of the goons. He went to stand by the door, jamming his foot against the base to keep out interruptions.

  “I’m his brother—Harpo. You’ve got the wrong man!”

  Thompson stared, eyes so narrow you couldn’t read them.

  “It’s true,” I put in. “This is Harpo Marx.”

  “Oh, yeah, then how come he’s talking?” demanded Thompson.

  “Yeah,” said the goon at the door, suddenly giggling. “An’ if you’re Harpo, where’s your harp?”

  “Back in my hotel room,” came Harpo’s logical answer, but his voice was thin and nervous. He still clutched his forgotten bag of peanuts in one fist. They rattled against the paper because he was trembling.

  “Everyone knows Harpo is a dummy. Dummies don’t talk.”

  “That’s just a character I play!”

  “Stop wasting time,” Thompson growled and pulled out a forty-five that looked like it could drop King Kong in one shot.

  He wasn’t pointing it at anyone just yet, so I thought I’d try once more. “C’mon, Guns, give the man a real look. He’s not the one you want.”

  Thompson did but couldn’t see any difference. Then he focused on me for the first time and started pointing the gun. I must have the kind of face that sets off alarms for crazy debt collectors. “Where the hell do you know me? I never seen you before.”

  “Hey, everyone in town knows Guns Thompson.” I tried to make it sound like he was a respected celebrity. “You’re like Big Al—”

  “Shut up.”

  I shut up. Maybe he had a grudge against the long gone Capone. I didn’t know squat about Chicago mob politics, though I could recognize a few faces. All you had to do was study the Post Office portraits. There were plenty of local bad guys the FBI hadn’t gotten around to collecting yet. This one had gotten his nickname during the Prohibition gang wars with his talent for handling a Thompson machine gun. It was about his only asset, since he and his friends apparently didn’t have enough brains between them to fill a whiskey jigger.

  “Who the hell are you, anyway?”

  “My name’s Fleming and I’m nobody special, honest.”

  “Fleming?” Thompson’s face screwed up in an effort to think. “Where do I know him from, Higgs?” he asked the guy by the door.

  Higgs shook his head.

  “Rinky?” This was directed to the thug guarding Harpo. Rinky shrugged.

  Since my arrival in this town I’d been reluctantly bumping heads with its criminal element, so it wasn’t too surprising that Thompson had heard of me from somewhere. Most of the time I do whatever’s needed to cover my tracks and kept my head down. Apparently not well enough.

  “Where do I know you from?”

  I didn’t meet his eye and acted scared, only it wasn’t an
act.

  He growled and dismissed me as annoying but not worth the effort, turning his attention and gun on Harpo.

  “Okay, Marx, you ran up a bill with Big Joey, and it’s past due. I can take it out of your pocket or your hide.”

  “This is a pretty public place for that kind of business,” I said. I wasn’t crazy about putting myself forward but had a better chance of surviving than Harpo. “We should take this elsewhere.”

  Higgs giggled again. “Big Joey owns this joint, bo’. Make noise if you want. Ain’t no one gonna come in to see why.”

  Which made for a pretty disgusting situation, I thought, as the three of them enjoyed my reaction. I checked to see how Harpo was doing, but he’d frozen in place, staring at something behind me, his mouth sagging. In no wise was that comical mugging. My nape prickled as I realized what he saw. Hells bells, why couldn’t these jerks have taken us into a dark alley?

  “Marx?” Thompson said, moving a step closer and raising his gun an inch.

  Harpo continued to stare until Rinky gave him a shake, then he looked vaguely at Thompson.

  “Stop playing the dope. Pay up, and we’ll let you go back to the movie.”

  “H-how much?”

  “Five grand.”

  The mention of such an enormous sum got Harpo’s attention as nothing else could, given his circumstances. He gulped. “My God, how long was he playing?”

  “Who?”

  “Chico.”

  “You’re Chico, you dope!”

  “Sorry, I forgot.”

  Thompson tapped him lightly on the side of the head with the barrel of his gun, just enough to jar him. “Pay up, or get busted up. I don’t want no more shit from you, sheenie.”

  Harpo had been drained of color up to this point; now he flushed a deep red. There was a lot playing over his face; anger, resentment, and outrage were mixed in with his fear. I’d seen hilarious exaggerations on the screen, but he’d been acting then, working hard to make people laugh. I’d been one of them. This took only a second, maybe less than a second, and then he exploded.

  It was foolish and almost too fast to follow. Harpo’s fist came up, connected, and Thompson staggered away, clutching a suddenly broken and bloody nose.

  Rinky surged forward, slamming Harpo back into one of the stall doors. They were designed to open out; this one’s hinges gave and it crashed inward, stopping abruptly when it struck the toilet inside. His bag of peanuts scattering, Harpo fell against it and dropped, but he was still mad and scrapping. From the floor he kicked at Rinky’s ankles. Rinky danced out of the way, reaching for his gun.

  Before he could haul it out, I was on him. I grabbed handfuls of Rinky’s coat and some skin under it; he yelped loud enough. One solid pull, turn, and shove and he was flying across the length of the room, crashing into the tiled wall. He dropped and stayed dropped.

  Then something roared, a horrendous explosion, stunning in the confined space. The sound was as solid as a bowling ball, and struck me high in the back. I saw a burst of blood leap from the middle of my chest, then the floor flew up too fast to dodge.

  I couldn’t tell if the silence that followed was a result of their shock at what had happened or my inability to hear. My ears felt stuffed and when the stuffiness wore off, it was replaced by a hot, unpleasant ringing.

  Couldn’t move. The pain crashing in was searingly familiar, which did not make it easier to bear. My initial, involuntary reaction to getting shot is to vanish. Once incorporeal I would be free of the pain, floating in a unique pocket of existence that’s always given me healing and comfort.

  Great stuff, but the drawback is that it always scares the hell out of anyone who sees me doing it. I wasn’t about to give away my real nature to these creeps, so I grimly hung on, gritting my teeth as flesh, bone, muscle, and finally outraged nerves began to painfully knit back together again.

  “Oh, my God.” whispered Harpo somewhere behind me. I wasn’t moving and, if necessary, I can lie very, very still indeed. It was a necessity now, if only to allow myself time to get over the worst of the shock. That moment came and thankfully went, but I stayed where I was, straining to listen, trying to figure out some way of helping Harpo that wouldn’t get him killed.

  Someone shifted, his shoe soles crushing and crunching the peanuts on the floor. It was Higgs, walking over to check out Rinky.

  “He’s out cold, Guns,” he reported.

  “Throw water on him.” Thompson snarled nasally. I hoped his nose hurt worse than my bullet wound. It would last him longer.

  Higgs complied, running water in one of the sinks. He cupped his hands together to carry it over to his friend. I could see only that much from the corner of one open eye, having fallen at an inconvenient angle. Higgs never bothered to glance at me. I was just another mess, like the peanuts.

  Someone was having a hard time breathing, probably Harpo. I heard a series of little gasps, then a sudden scrabble of movement. The next thing I heard was him throwing up in one of the stalls.

  Thompson thought it was funny, “The little sheenie shit can’t take it, Higgs.”

  Higgs grunted agreement and made a second trip for water.

  “Jeez, that puke stinks. Flush it, Marx.”

  After a moment, the toilet was flushed.

  Rinky began to revive. He groaned, swatted at the latest delivery of water, and was hauled to his feet by Higgs.

  “Go wait in the car,” Thompson ordered. “I’ll finish here.”

  Rinky made an unsteady exit. Just as he got to the door, someone must have poked his head in.

  “Hey! What’s going on h—”

  “Never you mind, bo’,” said Higgs. He followed Rinky, keeping up a patter of tough talk to convince the newcomer to butt out. It left Thompson alone with Harpo. . .and me.

  “Come outta there, sheenie.”

  Footsteps dragged reluctantly over the floor as Harpo emerged from the stall.

  “You see what happens when I get pissed? You come up with the money, or you end up just like him.”

  “Okay.” Harpo’s voice had dropped lower than a whisper, as though he had no air left.

  “So fork over.”

  “But I—” Harpo broke off.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t have it. You movie people always carry a wad with you.”

  He’d be concentrating on Harpo now, as good a time as any to make a move, the odds were better with Higgs and Rinky out of the way. I stopped being me for an instant, slipping into that non-place where I had no body, no weight, no sight, only mind and will. I sensed the hardness of the floor and, as I drifted over it toward them, could determine just how close they were to each other.

  Close. Thompson had Harpo backed up against the stall doors and I could guess he had his gun square in the poor guy’s face.

  “C’mon, fork over.”

  If Harpo came up short Thompson was crazy enough to scrag him as casually as he’d scragged me. I had to break things up now and figure out how to cover my tracks later.

  Thompson never knew what hit him. I materialized with my hands already reaching, one to push his gun out of the way and the other flowing smoothly into a solid sock to his jaw. He reeled back, eyes rolling up, and careened off a urinal before making friends with the peanuts on the floor.

  I turned to check on Harpo. He was a pale, pale green. If he hadn’t been braced against the stall dividers, his legs might have given out. His eyes were wider than they’d ever been in the movies as his gaze traveled from me to Thompson and back to me again, finally resting on the hole in my shirt and its surrounding bloodstain. It was a mess and it was real. No movie fakery here.

  A hundred questions raced over Harpo’s face, not one of them getting out. He was too damned scared.

  I’d seen the reaction before on others, but like getting shot, the familiarity never made it less painful. Backing away, I said something stupid about taking it easy and that everything was all right. I could hear his heart pounding fit to
bust and felt a stab of worry about giving him a heart attack. His green tint turned ashy in a matter of seconds.

  “You okay?” I asked, hoping he’d respond.

  He stared.

  I repeated my question.

  He gulped, grimacing perhaps, on the vomit taste left in his mouth. “I’m . . . fine,” he squeaked.

  “You sure? You don’t look so hot.”

  His mouth twitched. “Dead. I saw. You.”

  I gently put a little more distance between us. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”

  Now he seemed to twitch all over. “Sorry?”

  “I don’t mean to scare you. I really don’t.” I’d backed as far as I could. He could run out the door if he wanted. I wouldn’t stop him or try hypnotizing him into forgetting his fear or into accepting me or anything like that. It’s a dangerous thing to mess around inside people’s minds in that way. I never did it unless at the time it seemed more dangerous not to; this wasn’t one of those times. Besides, who’d believe him?

  “Is it some kind of a trick?” He looked so damned hollow and lost.

  “No trick. Houdini I ain’t. Nothing up my sleeve but arm.”

  “Then how?”

  I considered how to answer. Even a short lecture on Romanian folklore and how it differs from actuality would take time to get through, and I couldn’t deliver it in a men’s room with peanuts and Guns Thompson all over the floor.

  I said, “You ever see that Bela Lugosi movie couple of years back? The one where he was a vampire?”

  Maybe Harpo had seen it or not, but he suddenly understood.

  “It’s like that. . .only I’m a. . .a much nicer person.” I gave a little shrug.

  “No kiddin’?”

  “No kiddin’. Except for a couple quirks” —I touched where the wound had been— “I’m just like you. I like movies and hate bullies.”

  Harpo stared, then his gaze flicked to the bank of mirrors on the wall over the sinks. They’d given him his first clue the world was a much stranger place than he’d thought. From where I stood, I could see his reflection. It peered hard at the spot where I should have been, but nothing was there, of course. After a time, it looked down to where Thompson lay.