Known Devil (6 page)

After getting off those two shots, I didn’t stick around to evaluate my marksmanship. The flea had taken a small chunk out of the dog – or so I hoped – and he’d better change position before he got scratched but good.

I grabbed the binoculars and scuttled back about twenty feet, dropping down behind somebody’s silver Nissan. I raised up just enough to see over the top of the trunk, trying to expose as little of myself as possible, and saw one of the remaining bad guys do something stupid. I guess not everybody in the new vampire gang was a battle-hardened veteran of the streets.

The sky was brightening a little with false dawn. That and my darkness-adjusted eyes gave me a pretty good view of what this idiot was doing.
He actually stood up
, gun in both hands, searching the area where my two shots had come from. I wasn’t there anymore – I’m sure his vampire night vision told him that. But he must’ve known that I wasn’t far away. The barrel of his pistol kept moving back and forth as he sought somebody to shoot at.

He might’ve found me, too – if Calabrese hadn’t fired from across the street and put a bullet through the dumb bastard’s head.

Two down
. What was the third vampire going to do now? If he was smart, he’d jump into his car and get the hell out of here.

Turned out he wasn’t quite that bright. But he
was
smart enough to get behind me.

The guy must’ve hit the vampire afterburners and sprinted clear around the block in order to go from a few hundred feet in front of me to about twenty feet behind me. Probably took him all of six, maybe seven seconds – after all, it was a pretty big block. But I figured all that out later.

It was when I heard that crisp, metallic noise coming from behind me – the distinctive double click of the hammer going back on a pistol – that I knew I was about to die. There’s nothing else in the world that sounds quite like that, and I guess for a lot of guys it’s the second-last sound they ever hear.

It had to be the third vampire behind me. Another cop would have announced himself, if only so that I wouldn’t do a Wild Bill Hickok and blow him away before I was sure of my target.

I decided that I was going to try to stand up and turn. The odds against my accomplishing either of those things made the Tri-State Powerball seem like a good investment. But I wanted to die standing upright if I could, instead of squatting there like some Cub Scout trying to take a dump in the woods.

I was barely halfway out of the crouch when I heard the sound of the shot that killed me.

It didn’t, of course – but I was pretty confused for a moment. I even had the crazy thought this was some kind of “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” moment. In that final instant, everything slows down so much that you can fantasize a whole different chain of events – before reality catches up with you and breaks your neck.

Then I figured out that it just wasn’t my night to die, and I decided to just stand up, turn around, and work out what the hell had happened.

I’d had most of it figured right. There
was
a body on the ground a couple of car lengths behind me. I recognized him as one of the vampires I’d seen through the binoculars earlier, and the only way he could’ve gotten behind me like that was by sprinting around the block with vampire speed. The one thing I’d had wrong was which one of us was about to die.

Life can feel pretty damn good, especially when you were sure you were about to lose it. But once I got my mind working again, I wanted to know who had just killed the vampire gangster. Because there was nobody else around. Nobody.

He could’ve been nailed by a sniper from one of the windows, but who would do that? And why? It couldn’t have been Calabrese, that much was certain. He was too far–

Calabrese. Shit
.

I scuttled down the length of parked cars ahead of me, being careful to keep below the line of sight from across the street. It would be pretty ironic to get myself killed by the Vampfather after everything I’d just gone through to keep the bastard alive.

When I was directly across from the Lincoln, I stopped, took in a big breath, and yelled, “
Calabrese!
”

Nothing. Not a sound. I hoped they hadn’t managed to nail him after all.

“
Calabrese!
” I yelled again. “
It’s Markowski. Detective Sergeant Stanley Markowski. Do you recognize my voice?
”

Far too many seconds passed – maybe three – before somebody from across the street came back with, “
Maybe I do. What do you want?
”

“
The three vampires who were shooting at you are dead. You got one, and I nailed the other two.”
I hadn’t killed the third vampire, but this was no time for complicated explanations.

“
Say that’s true,
” the voice from behind the Connie yelled. “
What do you want – flowers?
”

Snide bastard. “
Conversation. The face-to-face kind.”

No response.

“
Calabrese, I’m gonna stand up now. Then I’m gonna cross the street toward you, my hands empty and in the air. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t shoot me, especially since I just saved your life!
”

Another few seconds of silence gave way to, “
OK, but be quick about it! I don’t got a lot of time!
”

That was for damn sure. Not only was the sky getting brighter by the second, but I could finally hear sirens in the distance. Sounded like SWAT was on the way, but too fucking late to do any good.

I stood up, sidled between two parked cars, and walked slowly across the street, hands in the air. I won’t say that my gut didn’t tighten some as I walked slowly toward an armed criminal who had probably killed more people in his time than I’ve had meals. It was in Calabrese’s best interest not to shoot me, and I was pretty sure he knew it, too. But still, my gut was tight as I crossed that street, and it stayed that way until I saw Calabrese stand up slowly and put his gun away.

He’d been fifty-two when the cancer had driven him to choose the world of the bloodsucking undead, and now he’d look that age forever – or until somebody put a silver bullet in his brain or a wooden stake through his heart. He had salt-and-pepper hair, wide-set brown eyes, and a thin mustache in the middle of a face that was no harder than your average concrete wall.

When I was within twenty feet or so, he said, “What?”

That was the Mafia version of a cordial greeting.

“I wanna talk. Not now – tonight. Tell me where and when, and I’ll be there.”

“Talk about what?” He wasn’t stupid – dumb guys didn’t get to be where he was – but I guess suspicion was second nature to him.

“You know what,” I said. “Everything that’s been going on, and what you’re planning to do about it.”

“And I should tell you all that shit, because…”

“Because I just saved your ass, that’s why.”

“Yeah? And you’d have been in such a big hurry to save my ass, like you put it, if I didn’t have information you wanted?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “You’re alive, aren’t you? Or, at least, still among the undead. And if I hadn’t come along, you probably wouldn’t be.”

He stared at me with eyes that had probably looked dead even before he became a vampire. After a second or two he said, “Yeah, OK. Maybe.”

He glanced toward the horizon and immediately turned away, since the first rays of sunlight were just becoming visible.

“Look,” he said, “I gotta get the fuck outta here –
now
.”

“I know,” I said. Like a lot of vampires with money, Calabrese had a car with ultra-dark tinted windows, including the windshield. He could probably drive the Connie even in broad daylight – for a while, anyway.

“Tonight,” I said. “Name a place and a time. If you’re not gonna be there, have somebody waiting who’ll take me to where you are.”

He seemed to like that idea. “Alright – Ricardo’s, around 10.”

“Fine with me,” I said. Ricardo’s was one of the best Italian restaurants in town. I hadn’t known that the Vampfather owned it, but I can’t say I was surprised. And he
must
have owned it – no way was he going to meet me someplace he didn’t control.

Calabrese hurried over to the other side of the Connie, stepping over the body of his driver in the process. He yanked open the door and said, over his shoulder, “See ya.” Then he surprised me a little by adding, “And thanks.”

Then he slid behind the wheel, slammed the door, and started the engine. I stepped back a few paces to give him room, but even so he only missed me by a few feet as the Connie pulled away from the curb, tires screeching, and took off down the street.

The sirens were very close now. I looked around, counting the corpses. The vampire gang had gunned down Calabrese’s driver, who lay at my feet. Calabrese himself could take credit, if that’s the word, for another of the stiffs. A third guy was mine, and the last one came courtesy of – who? My guardian angel? In grade school, the nuns used to tell us that everybody had a guardian angel, but none of them ever mentioned that mine might be packing heat.

The black SWAT van was up the street and heading my way fast, siren screaming and lights flashing like a meth junkie’s nightmare. I stepped into the middle of the street and started waving my arm back and forth to flag them down. It was almost time to start the long process of explaining what had happened here. Some of it would even be the truth.

I had the feeling that I wasn’t going to get home for quite a while. I was right, too.

 

The story that I concocted was pretty good, if I say so, myself. At least, it was good enough to convince Dooley, the SWAT team commander, along with Captain Fisk, my boss Lieutenant McGuire, and a couple of clowns from Internal Affairs.

In my version of events, I’d followed Captain Fisk’s orders to the letter – or tried to. I’d gone back to the gun battle with the intention of observing and reporting, nothing more. But then one of the vampires had spotted me, despite my best efforts to be discreet. He’d loosed off some shots in my direction, and I’d had no choice but to defend myself by returning fire.

One of the other attackers had been dispatched by whoever had taken cover behind the big car across the street – a Cadillac, I thought it was, or maybe an Oldsmobile. No, I hadn’t been able to get a look at the license number or the shooter, who had taken off while I was trying to avoid being shot by the third vampire. That individual had been shot by person or persons unknown. Then the sun came up, SWAT arrived, and order was restored to the universe.

I got pretty good at answering the questions that always followed my little tale – maybe because I got so much practice in the six hours that followed.

 

Hard to say, for sure. But in order to see what was going on – as I’d been ordered to do – I had to expose myself, at least a little. And don’t forget that vampires have damn good night vision. They also hear pretty well, too – maybe he caught the sound from the night-vision binoculars when I turned the device on.

He was using the car for cover, don’t forget. And I wasn’t at a good angle to see him when he popped for a second or two in order to get a shot off at his attackers. And by the time he left the shelter of the car’s body to get behind the wheel, I was too busy trying to get a fix on the third attacker before he got a fix on me.

One of them was down before I got there. He was laying on the street, near the big car. My guess is he was killed in the ambush set up by the three other shooters – an ambush that was also supposed to get the guy who was firing from behind the car when I got there.

I have no idea. I know who
didn’t
kill him – me or the shooter behind the car. Beyond that, I’ve got no clue.

Take my weapon. Fire a test bullet from it, and compare that to the slug you dug out of the vampire. I’m pretty sure they won’t match. I also resent the implication that I’m a back shooter.

Beats me – they whistled past my head and headed off down the street. They could be anywhere up to two blocks away, I guess – unless they lodged in some car that the owner already drove away.

And that’s how it went, over and over, for six goddamn hours.

 

“So, why’d you lie?” Christine asked me.

“The answer to that depends on which particular lie you’re talking about.”

We sat at the kitchen table, each of us having our own version of breakfast. I’d had all of three hours of restless sleep, and had to go to work soon. Fuck it – that’s why God gave us coffee.

“I mean, I get the story about you shooting that fangster because he opened up on you first,” she said. “If you told them that you’d just up and shot the guy, you’d get fired.”

“At least,” I said.

“But how come you didn’t tell them that what’s-his-name, the Mafia guy–”

“Calabrese.”

“Yeah, him. Why didn’t you just explain that there was an ambush set up, and Calabrese was the target? They killed his driver, he shot back, and then you came along and intervened – in self-defense, of course. Then, once the gunfight was over, he drove off before you could stop him.”