The Vampire Files, Volume Five, page 34
part #11 of The Vampire Files Series
“He shouldn’t have visitors.”
“We’re not gonna play cards. I just need to check on him. Please.”
She read my mood right: determinedly polite but not leaving until I got what I wanted. She slipped the money into her clipboard, hugged it to her front, and led the way down the empty corridors herself. Maybe I couldn’t hypnotize people anymore, but a goodwill gift in the right place can take you far in the world. It had worked well enough for Capone, up to a point.
The ward was clean, but still a ward: a high, dim room full of restive misery. Some of the bodies shrouded under their blankets were frozen in place by injury, others twitched, sleepless from pain or illness.
I had a brief flash of memory of a similar place in France back when I was a red-faced kid still awkward in my doughboy uniform. There, the ward had been full of nuns gliding back and forth between the wounded. Some of the guys played cards one-handed, getting used to the new amputations, some groaned despite their doses of morphine, some slept, some wept, and one poor bastard at the end was screaming too much and had to be taken to a different part of the building. After twenty years, the picture was still sharp, but I couldn’t recall why I’d been there. Probably visiting someone, same as now.
Escott was second in from the door, lying slightly propped up on the narrow metal bed. His face was puffy and turning black from bruising, his ribs were taped, his hands bandaged like an outclassed boxer who’d unwisely stayed for the full twelve rounds. He seemed to be breathing okay, and when I listened, his heart thumped along steady and slow as he slept. But he looked so damned frail and crushed.
That was my doing. My fault.
He shouldn’t be here. I’d been an incredible, unconscionable fool, and he was paying for my lapse with cracked, maybe broken bones, pulped flesh, and slow weeks of recovery. God help us both, I’d come within a thin hair of killing him. He still wasn’t out of the woods. If I’d broken him up inside, he could bleed to death internally.
Not recognizing my own voice, I asked the nurse about that.
She consulted the chart at the foot of the bed. X-rays had been taken, though how anyone could make sense of a mass of indefinite shadows was beyond me. She told me what was wrong and, more importantly, what wasn’t wrong. It was cold comfort. I’d only half killed my best friend.
I wanted to help him, to do more than what had already been done, but no action on my part could possibly make up for such stupidity. This was true helplessness, and I hated it. My hand went toward him on its own, but I made a sudden fist, shoving it into a pocket. The nurse read this mood as well.
“He’ll be all right,” she said. “It’ll just take some time.”
It could take years, and still wouldn’t be all right.
One of his eyelids flickered. The other was fused fast shut from swelling.
Guilty at disturbing him, I started to back out of view, but it was too late. He was awake, if groggy, and fixed me in place with his cloudy gaze, not speaking.
When I couldn’t take the silence anymore, I said, “Charles…y-you don’t worry. They’ll get you whatever you want. It’s taken care of. You just say.”
His eyelid slowly shut and opened again, and there was an audible thickening of the breath passing through his throat. I took that to mean he understood.
“I’m…I’m sorry as hell. I’m so sorry.”
He continued to look at me.
“I’m sorry as hell, I—I—” I would not ask for forgiveness. I didn’t deserve it and never would.
He shook his head and made a small sound of frustration.
I understood. He was afraid for me…afraid I’d try to hurt myself. That had been the cause of the fight. My face heated up from shame. “I’m sorry for that, too. It won’t happen again. I swear. On Bobbi’s life, I promise you. Never again.”
The corner of his mouth curled in a ghost’s smile. His lips moved in the softest of whispers. “Jack.”
I leaned in. “Yeah?”
“About damn time, you bloody fool.”
He lifted a bandaged hand toward my near arm, gave my shoulder a clumsy pat.
Sleep took him away.
Men aren’t supposed to cry, but I came damn close just then.
WHITEY Kroun, the corpse I’d left waiting in the backseat of the Nash, now slumped on the front passenger side with the door open, feet on the running board. His left trouser leg was rusty with dried blood, and he cautiously unwound a similarly stained handkerchief from his left hand. He flexed his fingers, checking them. Whatever damage he’d gotten seemed to be gone. He threw the grubby cloth away, hauled his long legs in, and yanked the door shut. The effort made him grunt, and he went back to favoring his chest.
He didn’t say if he wanted to be dropped anywhere, and I didn’t inquire, just started the motor and pulled away, mindful of the shortening time until dawn. We’d have to go to ground soon.
Shadows caught, lingered, and slithered quick over his craggy features as we sped under streetlamps, his eyelids at half-mast from pain. In good light Kroun’s eyes were dark brown with strangely dilated pupils; now all that showed were skull-deep voids, unreadable.
Life had gotten damned complicated lately. It happens sometimes; for me it started when I tried to be a nice guy and do a favor for a friend in need.
That favor, along with circumstances beyond my control, had put me in the short line for the gang version of the hot seat. Kroun’s arrival in Chicago was to sort things out and put me to bed with a shovel. Or an anchor. Lake Michigan makes for a very big graveyard when you know the wrong people.
But after looking me over, Kroun decided against carrying out the death sentence.
Mighty generous of him, except at the time I didn’t know the real reason behind his choice. Outwardly, I’m not special; I own a nightclub that does pretty well, have a wonderful girl, a few good friends—I’m worse than some, better than most. Average. Most of the time.
Not ten minutes after we met, Kroun figured out about my being a vampire—you heard it right—and in the nights to follow never once let slip that he was also a card-carrying member of the union. I’d been tied up too tight in my own problems to notice anything odd about him or even remotely suspect. It had been one pip of a surprise when the boom came.
I was still getting used to it, the topper of a very busy evening.
It began with one hell of a fistfight between me and Escott, which was what had landed him in the casualty ward. I’d done something really stupid and his attempt to knock some sense into me set me off. I hadn’t meant to hurt him, but I woke out of my rage a little too late. Before I could follow his ambulance to the hospital, I’d been sidetracked by a phone call from my girlfriend, Bobbi. In so many words she let me know there was a man in her flat holding a gun to her head.
That confrontation had ended badly.
Bobbi was fine, thank God, but there’d been quite an ugly fracas before the dust settled. Kroun had been present, caught a stray bullet, and died.
Apparently.
The shooter was also dead, and I was left with a nasty mess: two corpses, a shot-up flat, and me desperately trying not to go over the cliff into the screaming hell of full-blown shell shock.
By the grace of God, Escott’s right fist, and Bobbi holding on to me like there was no tomorrow, I did not fall in. It had been a near thing, though. I was still standing closer than was comfortable to the edge of that dark internal pit, but no longer wobbling. Given time I might even back away to safer ground.
As I’d sluggishly tried to work out the details of what to do next, Kroun picked that moment to stop playing possum. One minute he was flat on the floor with a thumb-sized hole in his chest, the next…
Well…it had been interesting.
It took hours to clear the chaos at Bobbi’s. I saw to it she was driven to a safe place to stay, then arranged to disappear the dead gunman. For this, I got some reliable if wholly illegal help involving the kind of mugs who are really good at guaranteeing that inconvenient bodies are never found.
Before the cleaning crew arrived, Kroun made himself missing. Temporarily. He hid out in the back of the Nash until the fuss was over.
That I was no longer the only vampire (that I knew about) in Chicago hadn’t really sunk in yet.
Since we each had secrets to keep, we’d formed an uneasy alliance out of mutual necessity, and there was no telling how long it might last. I had fish of my own to fry and didn’t particularly want to be looking after him—but he needed a favor, and, God help me, I turned sucker yet again.
I didn’t want to think just how badly this could end.
KROUN seemed to doze. He’d not asked about our destination. I took it for granted that he wanted a ride away from the trouble and a chance to get his second wind, figuratively speaking. He had some serious healing to do; it might as well be in the company of someone who understood what he was going through.
He took notice when I made a last turn and pulled into the alley behind the house. Escott and I hung our hats in an elderly three-story brick in a quiet, respectable neighborhood. Not the sort of place you’d expect a vampire to lurk, but I’m allergic to cemeteries.
“What’s this?” asked Kroun, blinking as I eased the car into the garage.
“Home. I’m all in. You’ll have to stay the day.” Maybe he had plans, but I wanted ask a few hundred questions, but later, when my brain was more clear. Right now it felt like street sludge.
“There’s no need. I found a bolt-hole for myself,” he said. “I got time to get there if you call a cab.”
“At this hour?” I set the brake, cut the motor, and yanked the key. The ring felt too light.
“Cabs run all the time now, Fleming. It’s a big burg, all grown-up.”
“That’s just a rumor…ah…damn it.” I searched my pockets.
“Something wrong?”
“The house key’s back at my nightclub. Left so fast I grabbed the wrong bunch.” The wrong coat, too. Along with the Nash—which was Escott’s car—I’d borrowed his overcoat. He wouldn’t thank me for the bloodstains.
I cracked the door, careful not to bang it against the wall of the narrow garage, and got out. Kroun did the same, moving more slowly. Something must have twinged inside, for he paused to catch his breath, which was an event to note. Like me, he wasn’t one for regular breathing. His reaction had to do with pain.
He’d left a dark patch on the center back of the seat, a transfer from a much larger stain on the back of his coat. It’d been hours; his wounds would have closed by now. The blood he’d leaked should be dried. Must have been the damp. The heavy air smelled of snow, but not the clean kind out of the north. This had a sour, rotting tang, as though the clouds were gathering up stink from the city and would soon dump it back again.
Going easy on his left leg, Kroun limped across the patches of frozen mud and dingy snow that made up the small yard, then stalled halfway to the porch. He began to cough, a big deep, wet whooping that grew in force and doubled him over. It sounded like his lungs were coming out the hard way. I started toward him, but there’s nothing you can do to help when a person’s in that state. The fit comes on and passes only when it’s good and ready to go. Spatters of blood suddenly bloomed on the untracked drift in front of him.
I couldn’t help but stare at the stuff. The smell had filled the car, but I’d successfully shoved it aside. This was fresh, dark red, almost black against the snow. He wasn’t the only one with a problem. Mine was less obvious. I waited, holding my breath, unable to look away.
Waited…
But—nothing.
Nothing for a good long minute.
Couldn’t trust that, though.
Waited…
And finally took in a sip of air tainted with bloodsmell…
Dreading what must happen next…
But no roiling reaction twisted my guts.
No cold sweats.
Not even the shakes.
It was just blood. A necessity for survival, but nothing to get crazy over. No uncontrolled hunger blazed through my gut, not even the false starvation kind that scared me.
So far, so good.
I relaxed, just a little.
Cold, though…I was cold to the bone…but that was okay. It wasn’t the unnerving chill that left me shivering in a warm room, but the ordinary sort that comes with winter. I’d thought I’d lost that feeling.
Kroun’s internal earthquake climaxed, and he gagged and spat out a black clot the size of a half-dollar. He hung over the mess a moment, sucking air, and managed to keep his balance. My instinct was to lend him an arm to lean on while he recovered, but he wouldn’t like it. I didn’t know him well, but I knew that much.
He’d made a lot of noise, perhaps enough to wake a neighbor. I glanced at the surrounding houses, but no one peered from any of the upper windows. The show was over, anyway. Kroun gradually straightened, his face mottled red and gray. He kicked snow to hide the gore.
“You okay?” I asked. I’d have to stop that. It could get irritating.
“Still peachy,” he wheezed. When he reached the back porch, he used the rail to pull himself along the steps. He looked like hell on a bad week. “No house key, huh?”
“Yeah, but—”
He fished a small, flat case from the inside pocket of his tattered, filthy overcoat. A couple of nights ago it had been new-looking, but an explosion and fire had turned it into something a skid-row bum would have tossed in the gutter. Kroun might well have been rolling in that gutter. His craggy features were gaunt now, his hair singed—except for a distinct silver-white streak on the side—and when I inhaled he still stank of smoke and burned rubber. He opened the case, revealing a collection of picklocks. “Lemme by.”
“No need,” I said—and vanished. Into thin air. I was good at it. Didn’t think twice.
“Shit!” Kroun hadn’t expected that.
His reaction was muffled to me. My senses in this state were limited, but it did have advantages, like getting me into otherwise inaccessible places. Damn, I felt smug.
“Fleming? You there?”
I’m busy. I pressed toward the door, sensing the long, thin crack at the threshold, and slipped in. Though I could have passed right through the wood, this path of least resistance was less unsettling. Going solid again on the other side, I unlocked and opened up, gesturing Kroun in.
He looked like he wanted to say a lot of things, but held back. I thought I understood his expression: an interesting combination of annoyance mixed with raw envy. It only flashed for a second, then he pocketed his case. “Nice trick.”
“Just a way out of the cold. C’mon.”
He stepped into the kitchen, and I locked the door again for all the good that would do. Even the dumbest of Chicago’s countless thugs knew how to break and enter in the more conventional sense, though none of them had any reason to do so here. Quite the contrary. I’d gotten into the habit of thinking that way, though. Blame it on the scurvy company I kept.
“Phone?” he asked.
“The wall by the icebox.” Actually, it was a streamlined electric refrigerator that looked out of place in the faded kitchen. I dropped my fedora on the table and shrugged from Escott’s coat, folding it over the back of a chair. “But you can stay here. It’s safe.”
“I don’t think so.” Kroun wasn’t being impolite, just preoccupied as he crossed the room, got the phone book from a shelf, and flipped through it looking for cab companies. He found a page, running a finger down the columns of fine print.
I flicked the light on. Habit. We could both see well enough in the dark.
He murmured an absent-sounding noise and stared at the listings. “How many of these companies have the mob on them?”
“They all pay dues. The hotels, too. Shocking, ain’t it?”
“Cripes.” He put the book back. “It’s as bad as New York.”
To his former associates in crime, along with everyone else, Whitey Kroun was supposed to be dead. Not Undead, which none would know about or believe in, but the regular kind of dead, and he wanted to keep it that way. He did not need a cabby remembering him and blabbing to the wrong ears. There were ways around that, but Kroun must have been considering the trouble and worth of it against the shrinking time before sunrise.
He was clearly exhausted. He’d barely survived getting blown up, gone into hiding God-knows-where for the day, and only hours before had taken a bullet square in the chest. The slug had passed right through, ripped up his dormant heart, maybe clipped one of his lungs before tearing out his back.
My last twenty-fours hours hadn’t been even that good. We both needed a rest.
“Spare bedroom’s up the stairs, third floor,” I said. “All ready. Just walk in.”
Kroun frowned. “Is it lightproof?”
“The window’s covered. You’ll be fine.”
“Where do you sleep?”
“I have a place. In the basement.”
He gave me a look. “What? A secret lair?”
That almost made me smile. “It’s better than it sounds.”
Not by much, but it sure as hell wasn’t a claustrophobia-inducing coffin on the floor of a ratty crypt like in that Lugosi movie. Just thinking about a body box gave me the heebies. My bricked-up chamber below was a close twin to any ordinary bedroom, being clean and dry with space enough for a good arm stretch. I kept things simple: an army cot with a layer of my home earth under oilcloth, a lamp, a radio, books to fill in the time before sunrise, no lurking allowed.
“Room enough for a guest?”
“I can only get into it by vanishing.” That was a lie. There was access by means of a trapdoor under the kitchen table, hidden by expert carpentry and a small rug. I just didn’t want Kroun in my private den. Since he was unable to slip through cracks I was pleased to take advantage of his limitation. Just because we had vampirism in common didn’t mean I should welcome him like a long-lost relative. He’d sure as hell not tipped his hand to me about his condition.
“You maybe got a broom closet?” he asked.
“Yeah, but you wouldn’t like it.”
