Fright Night: Hellbound, page 25
Jerry’s jaw tightened as a siren wailed in the distance. Not unusual for Manhattan, but Lilly noticed Jerry’s eyes flick toward the window anyway. It was instinct. Predator’s caution. The sound twisted through the streets, echoing up the side of the building until it bled into the crackle of the fire.
Lilly walked over to comfort him before delivering an additional piece of news that she knew Jerry wouldn’t like. His arm was raised on the window for support as he looked down into the streets below, watching cars zoom by.
“I’m tired of this,” Jerry whispered, his voice cracking.
“Listen, when I tell you I understand, you know it’s the truth. But right now, I need to tell you something.”
“Lilly, please, not now. I’m trying to figure out how to get my Billy back.”
“This has to do with Billy. There’s something you need to know. There’s a reason Lucia needs Billy,” she said quietly. “And it’s not just for the book.”
Jerry’s eyes shifted as they found hers over his shoulder. “Why would she need him?”
“She can’t do it alone.” Lilly let her fingers trail along the heavy velvet curtain. “Spells like this don’t come from one set of hands. They need alignment.”
Jerry turned slightly, the city lights glinting in his yellowing eyes. “Alignment?”
She stepped closer to the glass. “Surgat needs three things to open the gates of Hell.” She held up a finger. “A grimoire strong enough. Like yours.”
“A second thing,” she went on, raising another finger, “the blood of a half-breed.”
“And the third…” Lilly let the pause linger, her eyes steady on his. “A human with even the faintest trace of magic.”
She was now standing next to Jerry, looking out the window with him at the blurred city lights. “It’s like a key that only works when it’s in the right lock. The grimoire provides the lock, the half-breed’s blood turns it, and the human…the human makes sure the door blows wide enough to swallow everything on the other side.”
Instead of replying, Jerry walked away from the window and sat down in the buster chair by the fire.
The worn red leather that now looked almost black creaked under his weight as it adjusted to his figure. The fire was heavy, the flames dancing up into the chimney above in an effort to communicate with him. He gripped the arms of the seat, sinking his claws into the leather as it crushed and crinkled the seams, ripping them slightly.
“You’ve never encountered this before, huh?” Lilly asked, crossing the rug and lowering herself into the opposite buster chair. The firelight caught her cheekbones, painting them in flickers of gold and shadow.
“It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“I don’t think it’s meant to. At least not yet,” she said, swirling the bourbon that had appeared in her hand as if it had always been there. “It makes more sense to me, I guess.”
Jerry’s eyes flicked toward her. “What do you mean?”
She took her time answering, letting the fire crackle in the space between them. “I’ve spent my life in this arena. Spells, witches, the Devil. The strange and the terrible are my bread and butter. This,” she gestured with her glass, “is my normal. You, though, you were touched by that demon once, long ago, and then left to drift. You’ve been existing. Not living in the mystique, not embracing it. You’ve grown used to the idea that you are what you are, and in that comfort, you’ve forgotten the deeper truth.”
Jerry leaned back, the leather of his chair groaning. “And what truth is that?”
“That you’re part of something bigger. Something that doesn’t give a damn about your comfortable penthouse or the centuries you’ve survived. You feed because you have to, and you brood into that fire knowing damn well that the Devil is looking back. But you’ve let yourself think you’re beyond it. You’re not.”
Her tone was sympathetic, but it cut like glass.
“Clever witch, aren’t you?” Jerry said, but there was no real bite in it.
The call buzzer shattered the quiet like a gunshot. The harsh, metallic ring ricocheted off the high ceilings, bounced across the marble foyer, and hummed through the floor under their feet. Lilly’s head snapped toward the wall-mounted intercom as if it had just spoken her name.
Jerry’s eyes followed, slow but sharp, his jaw tightening again.
Neither of them moved at first.
The buzzer droned again, longer this time. Whoever was downstairs wasn’t leaving. Lilly rose from her chair and Jerry mirrored her. They padded across the living room, bare feet whispering over the rug.
At the intercom they paused, trading a look that said, You first. Then Jerry pressed the black button.
“This is PH1,” he said, voice frosty.
“NYPD. Sir, we need a word.”
Chapter 13
Bewitched, Bewildered & Bothered
Leonard stayed on his feet the way he always did, moving his eyes across the opulent space, undoubtedly impressed by the penthouse, but not expressing it. People like Jerry needed no fluffing, and the less impressed Leonard acted, the easier it was to coax out information. He thumbed his notepad open, pen scratching a line or two of nothing, just for show.
The two uniforms stood either side of him. Doyle was young, broad through the chest, his hands shifting in and out of his pockets. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the room and the many treasures that lay in open sight. Vasquez turned her cap in one hand, thumb working the strap. She’d been watching the fire since they came in.
“Tea, coffee, water, Officers? Or perhaps something stronger?” Jerry said, the corner of his mouth smirking.
“I’m on the clock.” Leonard smirked back. “So look, Mr. Gellert, I believe?” he said. His voice carried that Bronx gravel that never washed off. “We’re investigating a couple of incidents that seem to link back to this building, so I just wanted to ask a few questions, if I may? Last Friday of last month, around ten p.m. Where were you?”
“He was with me,” Lilly said, her tone carrying the droll of boredom. She stood up and walked to Jerry’s side. “All night, at that.”
Leonard let the seconds stretch out a little longer. “And you are?”
“Lilly Thurman.” She gave him a smile. “Though he makes it a point to call me his disco queen.”
Doyle coughed something like a laugh and then remembered where he was. Vasquez’s eyes flicked, once, toward a series of framed abstracts on the wall, then back to Leonard’s notepad. She smirked knowing there was nothing on the notepad but a scribble.
“Ah, the alibi, huh?”
“Detective,” Jerry said, gentle as a teacher about to correct a child’s arithmetic, “you arrived in my home at night, unannounced, asking if I’m a murderer. Surely there’s more to it?”
“There is,” Leonard said, and finally reached into his coat. The paper he pulled out was already creased in quarters, soft from being folded and unfolded a dozen times.
He flattened it on the glass entry table between them. “An eyewitness put someone on a platform at Chambers Street that night. Two men. This ring any bells?”
A grainy photo showed two men walking arm-in-arm toward the exit. The taller one stood upright, broad and confident; he seemed to be holding up the smaller of the two.
Jerry warily watched Leonard watching him instead, a small game, then dipped his eyes to the image as if indulging him. “Those could be any two fellows in this city,” he said. “Aren’t we all just lovers in the dark from a certain angle?”
“Cute,” Leonard said. He slid a second paper from his pocket. Paul’s hand had been steady that afternoon and the sketch looked like an accusation. Wavy hair. Carved cheekbones. The mouth, a little cruel, a little charming. Eyes that didn’t mirror light. He turned it so the face stared up at the man it pretended to be.
Lilly’s wrist tightened around her glass. Vasquez shifted herself, biting her lip as she removed her hands from her pockets. In the hearth, the flames climbed a fraction higher, a nod to the Devil that could be in the room any given moment.
“Do you know how many men in this city have this hair style, Detective?” Jerry asked, his tone both curt and soft. “God bless American vanity.”
“I’m not in the blessing business,” Leonard said. He didn’t blink. “Apparently you were seen in a store on Canal with an I NY shirt. Another customer saw you changing, slipping the tee over a naked torso. Now, why would you change in a store?”
Lilly cut in, saying, “I told you, he was with me all night. What’s so hard to understand?”
Leonard allowed the briefest smirk. “What about your doorman, Mr. Leon Singer?”
“What about him?”
“Your doorman, Mr. Gellert, hasn’t been seen since two nights ago. Wife called him in missing. You notice anything unusual?”
Jerry drew a fingertip along the glass table, a small idle stroke. “Leon…is a creature of habit. I assumed vacation, or illness? Hardly a murder. The man is always about doing some kind of business in the building. This place has more than one doorman. And besides, I’m usually a man of the night. I work European hours, shall we say.”
“Vacation,” Leonard repeated, tasting the word. “And how would you know that, given you keep European hours?”
“Because I’m fond of people who hold doors,” Jerry said. “It’s an ancient art in decline.”
Vasquez’s radio crackled, prompting her to jump a little, startled almost, as she fumbled to turn the volume down.
Leonard finally wrote something down. A single word the others couldn’t see. It wasn’t vacation.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said, folding the sketch and the photograph back into his coat. “We’re going to talk to a few other people. We’re going to ask the other doormen what they’ve seen. We’re going to pull every scrap of film this building owns, if any, and every shopfront on the block. And if I find that it was you who stepped off that train, I’ll bring cuffs next time instead of questions.”
“You misunderstand me,” Jerry said, the smile returning, thinner now. “I have no fear of questions.”
“That right?” Leonard asked. He stepped closer, into the warmth of the room. Close enough to smell something expensive under Jerry’s cologne. Close enough to see that the man’s pupils didn’t quite behave like other men’s pupils in low light. “Then riddle me one. How’d you know Leon Singer’s case is a murder?”
“Detective,” Jerry murmured, “everything in this city is a murder. Look around. Blaming an immigrant is hardly welcoming, now, is it?” he finished as he shot him a smile.
“Time to go,” Leonard said to his officers without looking away. Doyle moved first, grateful to be told what to do. Vasquez lingered, her eyes doing the same lap they’d done since they arrived, the fire, the sketch’s ghost on the table, the man who wasn’t sweating under their heat.
Lilly stepped forward. “Detective,” she said brightly, “if you decide to return with handcuffs, do bring the courtesy of a warrant. I’d hate to see you thrown out of this building.”
Doyle again barked a laugh he regretted immediately, but Leonard didn’t. The two officers walked out of the penthouse and into the hallway, calling for the elevator.
Back in the room, Leonard reached into his coat and produced a card. Plain white, black letters.
“If you remember anything,” he said, “or decide to grow a conscience, you call. I might need to have you down the station tomorrow for a line up.”
“I wouldn’t expect my call,” Jerry said.
“Very well. I guess the same as not expecting a reflection in that window then,” Leonard answered as he nodded to the glass plates behind Jerry and Lilly. Then he turned on his heel, half-petrified and half-patting himself on the back for the bravado he’d just shown himself.
As the elevator doors slid shut on the penthouse, Leonard watched the seam of them narrow and pretended he didn’t feel his stomach in his throat.
He told himself it was just the light. He didn’t believe himself.
The elevator whined as it sank. Leonard hated elevators in towers like this. The building was new, but the elevator was too clean and fast. Doyle adjusted his belt for the fifth time, the clink of his radio spritzing in murmurs that weren’t meant for him. Vasquez stood stiff, staring into her reflection, wondering how she would be able to one day afford a penthouse like the one she’d just witnessed.
Leonard didn’t speak right away. He let the hum of the machinery fill the silence.
Sure enough, Doyle shifted himself and said, “Guy’s a creep. There’s something really off about him. Talks like one of those snooty-ass college professors. Dresses like he’s full of himself.”
Leonard’s jaw flexed, but his eyes stayed on the floor numbers. They glowed red as the car descended, like a countdown to Hell.
“I don’t like it,” Vasquez muttered. Her voice was softer, meant for herself, but in the mirror Leonard saw her eyes dart. “I’m tellin’ ya, the Devil lives in that apartment. That fire was nothing if not evil.”
Doyle snorted, eager to dismiss. “It’s a fire. All fires are evil. It’s incumbent on something that burns to be so.”
“Incumbent, Doyle? Where’d you go and learn five-dollar words?” Vasquez smirked.
“Crossword today,” Doyle said, his face darkening.
The car jolted as it hit the thirteenth floor, then continued. Leonard leaned back against the wall, his hands loose at his sides. “Men like him don’t sweat, Doyle. They don’t flinch. You know why?”
“Because they’re guilty?” Doyle asked.
“Because they’ve had centuries to practice.”
Doyle laughed, short and awkward, as if trying to shake the words off. He wasn’t quite sure what Leonard meant. Vasquez didn’t. She put two and two together and came up with four. She knew what the detective meant.
The detective pulled the folded sketch from his pocket. He let his thumb trace the pencil lines as if trying to assure himself he was right. He breathed a heavy sigh. The resemblance had been too sharp to ignore. And Jerry had smiled at it, like the damn thing was an inside joke.
“You know what smug bastards hate most?” Leonard asked, still staring at the sketch.
“What?” Vasquez said.
“Evidence.” He slid it back into his coat. “They think they’re untouchable. Then you find one nail sticking out the coffin lid, and you pry until the whole box comes open.”
The elevator slowed again. They were almost at the lobby.
“Tomorrow,” Leonard said, his tone clipped now, businesslike. “We start with Stein. Walk him through every angle of that lineup. If Jerry so much as breathes sideways, Stein’s memory will put him on the hook.”
Doyle nodded, eager. “And surveillance?”
“It’s all so new. Street cams. Building cams. Anything with a lens in a two-block radius.” Leonard snapped his fingers. “I want film that shows what our witness saw. You get me that, we walk into court with a hammer.”
The night air rushed them when the lobby doors opened. It bit Leonard’s face like a slap and cleared the last of Jerry’s cologne from his lungs. He welcomed it. The city outside was alive in its usual diseased way, sirens in the distance, a cab horn bleeding down the avenue, two drunks shouting at each other in a language Leonard didn’t recognize. All of it felt normal, and it comforted him. It was the silence that scared him.
Vasquez caught up with him, her voice low. “Boss… If Stein locks up tomorrow, if he can’t do it—”
Leonard cut her off with a glance. “He’ll do it.”
As the doors closed behind them, Doyle asked, “So what’s the next move after Stein?”
Leonard didn’t stop walking. He pulled his coat tighter against the wind. “After Stein, we put in for a warrant. And then we go back up to that palace in the sky and walk that bastard straight through Stein’s memory. Step for step. Word for word. He won’t grin then.”
That bastard’s smile was still in his head. Like a song you loved and couldn’t erase from your memory. Leonard had seen mob bosses grin like that before the knives came out. But this one wasn’t the mob. This one was worse.
The penthouse was quieter once the elevator doors sealed.
“I just want to be perfectly clear,” Lilly said, her voice low but hard, “I don’t condone any of this.”
Jerry turned his head slowly in an almost reptilian motion. His brow creased faintly, more amusement than surprise. “Any of what?”
She gave a humorless laugh and ran a hand through her hair, shaking her head. “Don’t play coy. I saw the sketch. I saw the photo. And I just helped you lie your way out of a murder investigation.”
The firelight caught his royally high cheekbones. He didn’t reply. Which was worse than if he had denied it.
“I have made a lot of deals,” she said, walking the room, arms folded. Her nails tapped the fabric of her sleeve like a metronome. “This is the first time I have covered a cold-blooded killing because I did not want someone I like to end up in cuffs.”
She let the sentence sit, then pushed it further with a laugh that had no humor. “Okay, the second. Vampires make more trouble than they are worth.” She said it as if trouble was an old friend, as if she knew the shape of it up close.
Jerry rose and closed the short distance between them.
“Not now,” Lilly said. Her voice broke once and then found its edge. “You lost control, Jerry. Do not give me that feeding or survival sermon. Leon was someone you knew. If you expect me to smile and be your alibi every time you snap, you are wrong.”
“I did not ask you to. You know what I am.”
“No, you did not. But you let me do it anyway.” She shook her head. “And the man on the subway, his partner. Do not pretend that was not you.”
Lilly exhaled, hands smoothing her blouse until the fabric lay flat. She turned to the windows. Moonlight poured across the buildings.
“Just tell me you will not make it worse,” she murmured.
