Microsoft Word - The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance.doc (46 page)

manner.

He wore ordinary clothes, too: dark jacket, with a T-shirt beneath, and dark pants. He looked . . . Irish, actually, in that thin-faced, sad way, like a sexy mask of tragedy. He looked . . . unhappy. A touch of weariness, a bit of  boredom and, most of all, loss of hope, of goals. A face that didn’t want to give up, on a person that had. Lettie knew herself an acute observer, asmimes must be. Because of all this, because of the night, and the place, and because he had a certain something about him, she

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thought of him as the real deal. The Count. Some nights his

image had fuelled her performance.

And now he’d turned up in her audience. Lettie had been disappointed, actually, to see the elegant, slim man on a vampire tour. Almost disappointed that he watched her. And when he turned up again, she thought he was just another guy ogling her boobs and not noticing her art. But again there was something.  Maybe it was just her imagination, but his interest felt personal.  More like a talent  scout than a masher. Interested in
 
her
. She should be so lucky.

Tonight though, the guy she thought of as the stalker was back. Lettie had talked with other female mimes about the attention you drew and how to deal with it. That’s why she’d insisted on Kip picking her up, which he was heartily sick of doing, but even he understood the reason. After a performance she was strung up but distracted at the same time. And this one guy, she could see in his face that he thought he owned her. He was around last week, and then she thought he’d quit, but tonight he was back. She put her anger into the poses and he didn’t even get it. He just came up in her face, trying to break her out of the pose and into just another money-hungry woman .

. .

. . . and the Count took hold of him, said something and  pulled him right away. Neither of them came back. Lettie made  one final pose and stepped down. She dumped the money in her  bag, slung it across her chest, threw the cloak around her and  walked in the direction the two men  had disappeared.

No one there. She looked down alleys and side streets. No sign of them. She was just about to speed-dial Kip when she saw to her left a body propped in a doorway. Lettie approached cautiously, but the figure didn’t stir. It was the jerk,  the one who’d been after her, he was out cold. And on his neck and shirt there was blood. She reached one finger out and touched it.

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Sticky blood. The feel of it ran through her veins like ice. She stood up and jogged away fast, back to the square, to the  lights.

There was her platform, her torches, as though nothing had occurred. She called Kip, who was already, he said, on the way.  She walked down the most brightly lit side of the square, through a fog of beer and saltwater catch, towards the river. Sheshivered in the car, too sunk in speculation to notice the taxi that followed her. In her apartment, she locked herself in, no thought of walking the district tonight. She did not see the man with well-cut clothing and the distinguished white at his temples alight from his taxi and take note of her name and address on the bell. But later, when he dialled the number he had obtained via the concierge, her message machine recorded his voice.

When Lettie played back the message, she couldn’t help being intrigued. It wasn’t the talent-scout break she’d been hoping for, but a freelance journalist who might get her a feature story  –  with pictures  –  was nothing to sneeze at. And besides, he had the most gorgeous voice, deep and resonant, that made every word he  said pack extra meaning. He wasn’t from here.  He sounded like New England, maybe, but not in awhile. When he said, “I believe it might benefit your career,” she believed it would, and so she called back.

After some phone tag late in the day, she agreed to meet him after her performance for a very late supper. In his favour, the restaurant he named was not a bar or a gumbo palace but a reputable bistro that people went to for the cuisine more than the ambiance. And he had said he would come to the performance; she felt better meeting him first, though it might be safer to meet him at the restaurant, entirely on her own. You couldn’t be too careful, no matter how terrific his voice sounded.

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The appointment gave some extra fire to her performance that night.  No let-down going home alone, no nervous wandering in the dark. She was making her move towards the professional future she wanted the way a vampire wanted blood.  Lettie ran the whole range of poses she’d developed, flowing from seductive lover to sinister embrace to bared fangs, the crouch over a body, cowering back as from a cross, turning at bay, and back to a come-on glance over one shoulder with just the hint of fang showing. Maybe because she was pumped or maybe because it was Friday night and the tour was full, she had her best crowd in awhile and the collection box filled up nicely.

And the Count was there. Standing as he had other nights at the back of the group, applauding when others did, smiling with pleasure at each pose, though he had seen them all before.  Maybe she ought to be afraid of him too, but she just wasn’t. He kept his distance, anyway. The man who’d crowded her last night wasn’t there and  she’d seen no mention of a murder in the
 
Times-Picayune
. The jerk had gotten into a fight, most  likely.  She hoped he wouldn’t be back.

By the time she finished and stepped down, her jaw ached from the fitted fangs and from holding the positions, but she knew she had done it flawlessly. She took out the teeth and pulled her hair back, part of the ritual. And when she turned, there was the man she called the Count. Lettie was tall herself, but he was taller, and he still moved like water. When he spoke, she realized immediately that he was her supper date.

And that put her in a quandary. Of course she knew he had seen her perform before. But the Count had been there three nights running and last seen in the company of the jerk who ended up bleeding in a doorway.

She said, “Aren’t you a little old for a journalist?” All her

doubt went into it.

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“I believe writers are all ages, but for me it’s a second  career.” He shifted so that the light shine on his face. A pale  face, which inspected her caution. “I can meet you at the  restaurant  –  or somewhere else if you prefer.”

“Junkanoo,” Lettie said. “On Toulouse. In half an hour  –  I

want to change first.”

He knew where it was and walked away to secure a table.  Lettie made her way to a nearby poor-boy place with spacious women’s facilities. There she changed into pants and took off her theatrical make-up in favour of natural lips and just a little powder and eye liner. She folded away her persona and looked at herself. Still a bit flushed from the performance and from her hopes for publicity too. And from the fact that it was the Count, be honest. It was exciting to find out about the mystery man.  She repacked her costume in her large shoulder bag, along with the folder of publicity stills she’d brought along, and walked to the restaurant.

‘JUNKANOO, ALWAYS CARNIVAL’ the sign read.  Spicy Caribbean food, anf the  walls hung with costumes,  photos, and masks. A lot of the masks had horns. The journalist

–  Nathan Court  –  had got one of the window tables. These were  visible, but quieter and more private in terms of sound, at least.  Old-fashioned manners  –  he got up to  pull out her chair  –  but he  asked her what was good here instead of taking command.  They  ordered glasses of red wine, a plate of calamari and a bowl of  stew for Lettie. She regarded him across the small table. If she  stretched out her arm, she could touch  his long fingered hand.

“So, you’re a freelance, you said  –  does that mean you don’t  know where a story about me might appear?” She asked it just  to show she was no innocent.

“It means I’m not working on assignment, yes. But there are

editors I’ve written for before and I queried the subject as soon

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as I knew you’d talk to me. I’ve written for the airline magazine
 
Great Southern
. They like the New Orleans angle, but the  appeal is broad enough too.”

The wine arrived and Lettie took a sip. “Well, OK. What  do

you want to know?”

How one became a mime, where she’d studied. Predictable background. Over the calamari and gumbo, though, he asked,  “Why a vampire? Is it just the Anne Rice influence?”

So she explained, even though the food cooled, about

personas and the difficulty of dignified ones for women mimes.

“Vampires are dignified?”

“Sure, think of Count Dracula. Never a hair or a gesture out  of place.” And she explained the power angle. “The vampire’s  not a really inviting role, when you come down to it.  Not the  way I do it, anyway.”

“Yes, the way you do it. I see the dignity. I see the danger.  And the isolation of mime feeds those, doesn’t it? When you’re  up there, I mean, you are apart.”

He stared at her eyes, not her chest, and stared so intently that he ate hardly anything, but then he was also taking notes.  They discussed the isolation of mimes, feeding the crowd’s response not into reaction but into the strength of the poses.

“And where did you get your poses? I’m just curious. They  aren’t the standard movie vampires  –  unless you go back to  Dracula. Not the camp ones, certainly.”

Lettie finished her wine and refused the waiter’s offer of

another glass while she though how to put it. “I saw certain  movies.
 
Daughter of Dracula
 
–  have you seen that one? She’s

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so deadly, but vulnerable too. And an early version of
 
Carmilla
.

But mostly I read.”

“
Dracula?
”

“Sure. And
 
Carmilla
, who’s the first female vampire. She  wanted her victims willing  –  at least some of them. Wanted  them to be a little in love with  her. And also Mina Harker in
 
The

League
 
”
–

“
Of Extraordinary Gentlemen
. Peta Wilson was excellent at  showing the power subtly. That moment when she turns, wiping  blood off her mouth  ”
–

“Yes, that’s one. I actually tried to work up a pose from it,  but it’ s not clear what’s going on out of context and I didn’t  want to fool with fake blood.”

“When I first saw you,” he said. “I almost thought you

could be vampire.”

Not
 
a
 
vampire, she noted. He must read too. “I’m a temporary vampire,” Lettie said and he laughed with her.  “When I first saw you,” she said, “I thought you were a ghost.”

He was all attention. “When did you first see me? Where?”

“One night by the Rice house,” she said. “At least I think it  was you. You sort of floated over to it, and watched awhile, then  left.”

“Ah,” he said. “I do go for walks. Like yourself, perhaps?

And then I write.”

“A night person,” Lettie said, studying him. “And you live

here, in the city?”

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“I live many places,” he said, and Lettie heard the bitter

undertone. “I’ve been here for a few weeks.”

The waiter had brought the bill, and the room was far more subdued. Nathan Court insisted on paying it and had just begun to make an appointment to go over the draft article with her.  Lettie was hoping he’d be here a few more weeks, at least. They both had grown accustomed to people passing near the bay window, and did not immediately react when a body appeared in peripheral vision, but this one stopped inches away.

Nathan looked up and froze, and then Letitia looked. The jerk from last night, dressed like a vampire or an undertaker in stark black, turned his glare from Nathan to her, and smiled gloatingly.

And then he was gone. “That’s the guy  –  what did you do to

him last night?”

Nathan looked disturbed, but kept his voice even. “I told

him to back off, to leave you alone.”

“And I saw him later, unconscious in a doorway, with blood

on him.”

“I’m not surprised. He’s a violent type.”

“And you  –  are you a violent type?”

“Letitia  ”
–

She got up, rummaging in her bag for the cell phone. “Do the article  –  do whatever you want, but leave me out of the rest.”

She was out on the street, leaving him to deal with the bill.  She punched speed-dial for a cab, and almost ran for the next main street. There was a large black car parked at  the corner

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and, as she hurried past, the driver’s door opened so fast it hit  her. She stumbled back against the balcony post, and he was on  her, hands around her neck, hot breath in her face. “You  monster’s whore  ”
–

Letitia kicked his shins and clawed at  his eyes, but his fingers closed steadily and her vision shrank into one little ball of light and consciousness. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t get enough breath. The way he leaned towards her against the door, they could be embracing, and no one was going  to . . .