The Vampire Files, Volume Five, page 62
part #11 of The Vampire Files Series
That explained the congratulations, though his delivery had been lukewarm. “Sounds good. A pippin like her should be out there. Better weather.”
“Yes, well, Jack won’t think so. They’ve had some considerable discussion on that topic. He wouldn’t stop her, but neither is he willing to go with her. His job is here.”
“He’s choosing a nightclub over his girl?”
“Perhaps.”
“He’s nuts. You can open a club anywhere and make good, but a dame like her is once in a lifetime.”
Escott shot him an appraising look. “Mr. Kroun, I think you should repeat that within Jack’s hearing. It might sort him out. Miss Smythe imparted the news to him last night, and he did not take it with any great enthusiasm. It could explain his dropping out of sight.”
“His girlfriend’s leaving town so he goes off to sulk? Does that sound like something he’d do?”
“The more I think about it…yes, it does. He can get himself fairly deep into the dumps, though his club kept him happy until…” Escott didn’t finish.
“Hog Bristow. Yeah. My fault. I know. None of that was supposed to happen.”
“Yet it did.”
Gabe felt himself get warm in the face. Shame was an unfamiliar feeling. He didn’t like it much. “Where does he go to sulk?”
“No place special. His club, but I’ve been all through it, been to my office and—oh, hell.” He grabbed the phone and dialed again, giving his name to someone on the other end. He scribbled on a pad, then stopped, his eyes going sharp as he listened. He gave a terse thank you, slammed the receiver down, got up and paced, looking exasperated.
“Yes?” Gabe asked after a suitable pause.
“Bloody idiot,” Escott snapped.
“Him or me?”
“Neither. This is my doing—bloody hell!”
“What?”
“I never once thought to check my own answering service. He left a message earlier tonight.”
Gabe put down the paper and sat up, the better to enjoy things. “A message?”
“To quote: ‘I need to do some thinking, don’t worry, be back soon.’ Bloody hell, I’ll flatten his skull for this.”
“For what—leaving a message you didn’t check?”
Escott responded with a few ripe and expressive words. For all that, he looked hugely relieved. He dropped into his chair, rubbing the back of his neck. “Once again I apologize, Mr. Kroun.”
“Remind me—is that still for nearly blowing a hole in me after I saved your life? Think nothing of it. Could happen to anyone.”
“You’re too kind.” Escott met the sarcasm with a dry tone, but evidently got the point. His ears had turned red.
Oh, yeah, it’ll be a while before he lives that one down.
“This is being unconscionably inconsiderate to Miss Smythe. He could have phoned her. He could have phoned me. Why leave a message?”
“Probably just didn’t want to talk.” Gabe started to pick up the crossword again, but the office door banged open, startling Derner. Escott twitched, going alert.
Michael was early.
He wore his best poker face. The glasses helped. They reflected the lights, concealing half his expression.
Gabe remained seated and smiled just enough to annoy Mike. Strangely, he didn’t react, just stood there.
Waiting.
Mike glanced at Derner, then Escott, and apparently dismissed him as one of the club’s many hangers-on. “We’ll talk in the car. Private.”
“And cold.”
“You can take it. Come on.”
This was a new side. Maybe he’d learned something about Broder that had gotten him thinking. Reaching for his coat and hat, Gabe shot a surreptitious look at Escott, who seemed incurious and inclined to stay put. Smart of him.
The club’s last show was in full swing out front, but the kitchen staff was gone, and most of the lights were off. The alley was also dark and empty except for Mike’s Studebaker. Gabe emerged cautiously. Broder could be just around the corner at either end or even on one of the surrounding roofs, biding his time to take a shot.
Keeping his back to the club’s wall, Gabe went down the stairs and did not cross to the car. Mike seemed to expect that and turned to face him midway between, hands in his pockets.
“It’s safe,” he said.
The wind was still up, masking sound. Gabe didn’t like it; but if there was a bushwhacking in his near future, his reactions were a lot faster than before.
He looked at the man standing solid before him and once more tried to see something in his face that would spark a memory.
Mike was a familiar stranger, hostile, wary, more so tonight than before. Had he always been that grim? Had they ever been friends? Gabe had not seen a hint of that so far, but it must have been there once.
Of course there was the eight-year age difference. Growing up, Gabe might have been too busy to bother with a little brother, especially a half brother. He knew that some could end up hating each other, but at some point in their childhood, he and Michael must have played together, looked out for each other.
Gabriel had no memory of any of it, and no one he’d spoken to from the old neighborhood could tell him what had gone on behind the closed doors of the Kroun family flat.
Michael knew though.
Gabe had been tempted many times to pull the facts out of him hypnotically but never acted upon it.
For one thing, you just don’t do that to family.
For another, he was afraid of what he might learn. The little that he had already gleaned was ugly.
Even without the slug in his brain, Gabe would not have remembered his own mother; she’d died a few months after his birth. He’d looked it up in the court records. Sonny had come home drunk one night. He claimed that beating his wife to death had been an accident. Since he worked for a neighborhood boss, a big shot who had influence with a judge, Sonny got sent up for manslaughter instead of murder.
Gabe went to a state orphanage, but no one adopted him. Eight years later his supposedly reformed father came to claim him, a second wife and a baby named Michael in tow.
What had that been like? An orphan all his life and suddenly young Gabriel gets a family. Had a brutal father like Sonny been better than no father at all?
Whatever had happened during his upbringing had turned Gabe into a killer. Chances were good that lightning had struck twice, doing the same for Mike, twisting him a little differently.
Until now there hadn’t been a good enough reason to make him talk. The evidence up at the cabin changed that.
“So…how’s Cicero these days?”
“Shut up, Whitey.” Mike looked ready to burst, there was so much inside him wanting to get out. Give him time…
But the minutes went by. Nothing. Michael’s hands worked inside his coat pockets, making fists, forcing his hands open. It was a mannerism he only ever fell into when they were alone.
He thinks he’s still dealing with the son of a bitch he’s always known. Not me. Who do I need to be to get answers?
“Where’s Broder?” Gabe asked, checking both ends of the alley again.
“Maybe he’s pounding the bullet dents out of that car he took the other night.”
That was unexpected. “He told you.”
“Yeah. He told me.”
“After he drove us off the road things got a little hazy. What’d he say?”
But Mike clammed up.
“Oh, come on. What kind of arrangement have you got that someone like Momma Cabot can call Broder whenever she wants?”
“You stay away from her.”
“Why?”
Mike shook his head.
“Is that why you gave Fleming the green light to keep me in line and no reprisals?”
“He told you that?” He stopped making fists and took his hands from his pockets.
“Your voice carries. Why do you want to kill me, Mike?”
No reflections on the glasses now, Michael’s blue eyes were wide open and for an instant showed a mix of anguish and guilt. He shut it down. “I don’t want to.”
“But you wouldn’t much mind if someone else did the dirty work. What problem gets solved if I’m gone?”
Michael shook his head again.
“I know it has to do with that damned cabin. You were there.”
“I was never there,” he stated, voice like a razor.
Gabe had hit the nerve he’d wanted. “I went up. I saw the blood, and I found Ramsey’s body.” He searched for further reaction, but Mike had turned to stone. “I’d like to hear your side.”
He was taking a different kind of risk now. The man Gabe had been before his death would never have said anything like that.
“My side?”
“What happened there.” Gabe pulled out the .22, holding it flat on his palm so it wouldn’t be mistaken for a threat. “Is this yours? Or Ramsey’s?”
“What is it?”
He can’t see in the dark. Gabe crossed now, opened the driver’s door, and put the headlamps on. Mike followed him to the front of the car, staring down at the rusted weapon in the harsh glare. They made fine targets, the pair of them.
“Not mine,” he said. “That’s your kind of gun.”
He was probably right. There was every chance that Gabe had been in the habit of carrying a small-caliber shooter with the numbers filed off. He could throw it away after a kill. Okay, that just meant someone had taken it from him.
“And this?” He drew the amber vial out next, holding it between thumb and index finger.
Mike looked and dismissed it. “What do you want from me?”
This wasn’t going the way it should. What had been conclusive up in the woods seemed ridiculous here. Michael should be angry and defensive for being caught out, not like this. Unless…
“Then it was Broder. He’d planted stuff. What was his angle? Kill me and Ramsey, then move up the ladder? Is that where that bastard Mitchell got the idea? Or did you order it from the start?”
Mike showed his lower teeth, eyes blazing. He raised one hand, fingers skyward as though to grab something. His fist finally closed on air.
“Well?”
“I’m sorry, Whitey. I promised Ma I’d look after you, but it’s too much now. I can’t do it anymore.”
In the last two months, Mike had never spoken of his mother. All Gabe knew about his stepmother was her name and the official records concerning her death. Sonny had made such a vicious job of his second wife’s murder that they’d thrown him into an insane asylum instead of hanging him.
Mike had been fifteen at the time; Gabe had become his legal guardian. Why was it that—
“No more,” Mike whispered. Hands in pockets again, briefly. He pulled a gun out, the one Gabe had reloaded himself the previous night.
“Hey, wait!” Gabe backed clear of the lamp glare. He didn’t know his brother that well, but this was completely wrong for him.
Mike fired. His aim was off, and Gabe dodged. The bullet noisily took a chunk from the wall behind him.
Instinct said to run, but insanity took over. Gabe dove forward and tackled him before he could get in a second shot. They hit the pavement and rolled in wet filth. Mike fought to win, was quick as a snake, not pulling a single dirty punch.
But the fight was finished in seconds. He just didn’t have the same speed and strength. Gabe made his one hit count, and that was all she wrote.
He pushed himself off the dazed Mike, cursing a blue streak for the situation. He’d had enough. It was time to haul the kid into the club, put a light in his face, and bust his brain open.
He heard someone grunt, and after a moment realized he was on the ground again, facedown. What the hell—?
Gabe tried to get up and the movement set off a fireball in his head. Hideous blinding agony struck him flat.
Dimly he heard heavy footsteps, Broder’s deep voice asking a question, and Michael’s faint and groggy reply. Scraping sounds, a groan, the slam of a car door.
More steps. This time Gabe heeded instinct and went perfectly still. Not difficult; the pain had paralyzed everything but the urge to scream. He choked it off.
Pressure on his throat. Broder was feeling for a pulse. Getting none, he pushed up the back of Gabe’s overcoat and suit coat, grabbing his belt. One-handed, he lifted and pulled Gabe’s limp body along like a heavy suitcase, the man was that strong.
A gun went off. It made quite a roar within the confines of the alley. Three shots at least, so close together that they could have been from a machine gun.
Broder dropped his burden. Gabe forced his eyes open. Filling his view was one wheel of the Studebaker, inches from his face.
Another shot.
Broder was in the car, gunning it to life. The wheel slipped, grabbed, and spun away. The Studie departed, its open trunk lid bouncing, then slamming into place as the car screeched out of the alley.
Gabe dragged himself upright. He hurt too much to be doing anything so stupid, but anger was running the show by then. He staggered, using a wall for support, working his way toward the street. If they knew he was alive, they’d come back. He wanted a shot at Broder.
Behind him a car horn honked an irritable warning.
Now what?
He pressed out of the way as the Hudson tore past in pursuit. Escott was at the wheel. Eyes wide and blazing, he glanced once at Gabe, showing the mirthless grin of a crazy man, and kept going.
15
FLEMING
DUGAN held the shiny-clean scalpel rock steady between his fingers, looking down with that damned permanent smile that had never before reached his eyes. They glinted now. He was a truly happy man.
“You know what comes next,” he stated.
I had no way to brace against it. I’d been to the brink and over. I couldn’t go there again.
Eyes shut, I gave up.
My mind slipped away and hid in that perfect summer hour, adding more detail. The cool water contrasting with the hot breeze, shade tree overhead, sunbeams streaming through the leaves, birdsong…good, good, but I needed company.
Leaning against the tree was Escott, coatless, shirtsleeves rolled up, waistcoat unbuttoned, no tie. He sipped lemonade from a tall glass, his attention on the green fields around us. He looked surprisingly at peace.
Bobbi was in the stock tank. She held me, kept me from sinking. She wore a skin-hugging swimsuit…I couldn’t fix on the color. It kept shifting from red to blue to yellow, sometimes black. None of them seemed right on her, but this was the first time I’d ever seen her in sunlight. It made her blond hair glow and set off the green sparks in her eyes.
She smiled like it was the world’s first day and bent to kiss me. I felt her lips and knew if she stayed with me I would be all right.
Something stung my left wrist, kept on stinging, harsh as a wasp.
I held fast to my illusion for a few more precious seconds, then had to see what hurt.
It was and was not what I’d expected.
My wrist hung out past the edge of the table, and Dugan had sliced into it, but not to strip away flesh. He was hunched over holding a glass under the wound, collecting the blood.
My initial shock and disgust were overwhelmed by elation. He wasn’t going to skin me, just drain me dry. That wasn’t as painful. In the end I’d just fall asleep.
As deaths went, it was the best I could expect.
I smothered my relief, but while one part of me celebrated an easier passing, another part seethed with blind fury for what he was doing. I tried to pull away, but of course the metal held. The hot shock was more remote this time. My body was slowing down in reaction to the blood loss. I could feel my strength literally rushing out.
Dugan’s smile was genuinely warm. “Things got so very interesting the other night, didn’t they? The hospital. Your friend was so sick. I was there.”
How…? One of the reporters? But they’d left. The only other one…
“You are quite the catalyst for calamity, aren’t you, Fleming? First that actor shot, then your partner hurt. What a terrible beating he had. I troubled to get close to your little group, and it was just too easy. You’re all so tidily wrapped up in your concerns. You looked right at me once, but didn’t really see. No one notices a humble janitor with his bucket and mop.”
He had that right. Too late now to feel stupid over it. The wig, thick glasses, and a big mustache to hide his distinctive mouth had done the trick.
“Such a remarkable event transpired that night. The whole hospital was gossiping about the dying patient who was made to drink blood, then had a miraculous recovery.”
The cut inside my wrist healed shut, leaving a welt that would fade if I lived long enough. The glass he held was a laboratory beaker with measurement lines up the sides. He’d drawn off at least a cup of my blood. Much more than that had dripped to the floor when I fought to get free. I was dizzy from the loss.
He straightened, sniffing the contents of the beaker.
“How generous you were to save his life—and letting me know for certain how to change mine for the better.”
I wanted to smash his smile to the other side of his head. Underestimating him…not smart…damned stupid in fact.
His self-absorbed ramblings…I’d not paid them the proper attention. Now they made sense; he hadn’t been lecturing just to hear his own voice. I understood now.
He wanted to turn himself into a vampire.
Dugan correctly interpreted my revulsion. He leaned in close. “Remember when we first spoke in your office? I told you then I wanted you for a very simple experiment—nothing that would offend your sense of morality. You should have listened.” He thumped a finger sharply against the rod. It made my arm twitch, tearing the skin again, and more of my life leaked away. “All I wanted then was for you to get into one of the larger banks for a modest withdrawal. They wouldn’t have missed it, and it would have been of considerable help to me. But you had to be difficult.”
God, I was so hungry. Bloodsmell was everywhere, and I couldn’t touch it. I had to fight to stay focused.
“I realized there would be no effective way to control you; therefore, my best course of action was to acquire your abilities myself. I did a bit of research, but there is appallingly little information available, and much of it is suspect. However, your friend’s misfortune gave me all I really needed.” He lifted the beaker. “I’m estimating that it will take three nights to effect the full transformation. The folklore is in general agreement on that point, though it’s mixed up with religious nonsense. Now you know how long you’ll be here. Once I’m like you, I will let you go—I know you don’t believe that. You dealt me some very shabby treatment, but really, I was never your enemy.”
