Night and Day (22 page)

Behind me, a man said, “Sorry, we’re not hiring. Come back next month.”

I let go of Nedelmann’s arm and turned. A middle-aged man with a thick shock of silver-gray hair and a very nice white tuxedo stood there with a plastic smile on his face. Behind him
stood a younger, taller, bulkier guy, stuffed into a white tux as well. Bodyguard maybe. Muscle
definitely.

“Lou Carpenter?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yeah, like I said, we’re not hiring.” He looked at me and Nedelmann. “And
frankly, fella, you and your friend are a little long-in-the-tooth for our clientele. They like them a
bit younger and . . . fitter. Sorry.”

He turned and started to walk away.

“Good thing we’re not here for a job then,” I said.

Carpenter stopped and turned back to face me. I pulled out the ID holder and opened it.
“Charlie Welles, Area Governor’s Office.”

The Lou Carpenter who was giving the boot to a couple of bloodsacs looking for work
vanished and Lou Carpenter, owner of Carpenter’s, everybody’s friend, replaced him. The
transformation took no more than half a second.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Welles,” he said with a big, toothy grin. “No offense meant to you and your
associate. Sometimes you have to be firm with people when you run a place like this.”

“You must be in high demand as an employer.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” he said, sliding onto the stool next to me. “So what can I
do for the Area Governor’s Office?”

“You can have your bartender get me another drink,” Nedelmann said.

“Jack,” Carpenter said quickly. “The man’s dry.”

“We’re investigating the murder of Joshua Thomas,” I said.

“Wasn’t that just awful?” he said, shaking his head. “Most shocking thing I’ve ever seen,
and I can tell you, I’ve seen some real hair-raisers in my time.”

“I bet,” I said. “I understand Mr. Thomas was doing some work for you as a private
investigator.”

Carpenter frowned. “No, I never employed Joshua. We were friends, of course, but not
business associates. I’d known Joshua for . . .well, certainly two or three years. Maybe four.”
He smiled. “Wednesday was our regular poker night. Joshua, myself, a few others would get
together and play some cards upstairs. We’d usually start early, so we could break the game by
midnight and all of us could get to work. That’s why I went over to his apartment that terrible
night. He was supposed to meet me here at seven, and when he didn’t show up, I went there,
thinking he might have overslept.”

“Maybe you wouldn’t have looked at it as employing Joshua,” I said. “You were friends.
Maybe it was more like a favor.”

Carpenter frowned and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Welles, but I don’t know what
you’re talking about.”

“Your bartender. Jedron Marsch. The one who was skimming your register?”

“Marsch?” He shook his head again. “No, we’ve never had anyone named Marsch working
here.” He looked past Nedelmann to the bartender who was busy preparing his drink. “Jack, we
never had anyone named Marsch working here, did we?”

“Not in the two years I’ve been here, Mr. Carpenter,” the bartender said, putting the drink
down in front of Nedelmann.
 

“I’ve got two bartenders, Mr. Welles,” Carpenter said, turning back to me. “Jack here,
Wednesday through Sunday, and Herb on Monday and Tuesday nights.” He shook his head. “I’m
sorry, Mr. Welles, but nobody named Marsch has ever worked here, in any capacity.”

Chapter Nineteen

The discussion with Carpenter wasn’t going the way I’d planned, and was raising more
questions than it was answering. Was Carpenter lying? Or had Joshua lied when he told me that
he was doing Carpenter a favor by finding Jedron Marsch?

A week earlier, I would have bet everything I had that Joshua wouldn’t lie to me. But the
past few days had given me a new perspective on vampires. And Joshua had been a vampire.
He’d been a lot of other things too, including my closest friend, but he was still a vampire.

I’d never really concentrated on that. The war had been fast, maybe six weeks from
beginning to end. It was a confusing time. One day you find out that vampires are real, not
supernatural creatures from a book or movie. Then you find out that they’re bent on taking
control of the whole damn country, and are doing a bang-up job of accomplishing that goal.
Then they’re sweeping toward your city like some hellish plague, killing some, making others
their own. And one day you find yourself in an internment camp with half a million other
people, under the watchful eyes of vampire guards.

It was a lot of digest, and like most people, I dealt with it by not dealing with it, by dealing
only with the consequences. War, internment, fear that I was going to be snatched out of my
barrack one night and join the thousands of others who never came back. We started calling
them Vees, because that way we didn’t have to say out loud what they really were.

When I met Joshua, I didn’t think of him or deal with him as a vampire. He was just a guy
with a similar background, similar interests, a good sense of humor. I felt comfortable around
him.

That’s not saying that I totally ignored the fact that he lived on human blood. But it wasn’t
his defining characteristic as far as I was concerned. It was just one of many. There were times I
wished he wasn’t a vampire. But most of time, I didn’t think about it at all.

That might have been a mistake. Phillip Bain had called Joshua an Unbound, a vampire
who wasn’t a part of their society. Maybe that meant that other vampires couldn’t trust him. Or
maybe it meant that nobody could trust him.

Lou Carpenter was staring at me, wearing an embarrassed smile. “I wish I could be of more
help, Mr. Welles, but I just don’t know anyone named Jedron Marsch.”

“He was a human,” I said.

Carpenter laughed, then stopped suddenly when I didn’t smile. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s
just . . .” He waved his arm around the room. “Look around, Mr. Welles. Does this look like
the kind of establishment that would have a human bartender? My clientele wouldn’t stand for
it, and frankly, what human would want to work behind my bar. It’s not about mixing cocktails
and serving drinks, you know.”

“I’m aware of that,” I said, my voice cold. “But you do have human employees, and they
seem to enjoy their work.”

There was no smile on Carpenter’s face now. “They’re here because they want to be here,”
he said, straightening up on the stool. “I pay the refreshments very well, considerably more than
the competition. Carpenter’s is a first class establishment.”

“Refreshments?”

He looked away a moment, then back at me. “It’s a job description,” he said. “All perfectly
legal, I assure you. Waivers, medical histories, everything is available in my office if you need to
see them.”

I wasn’t really listening to him. I was thinking about Jedron Marsch.

“Excuse me for a minute, Mr. Carpenter,” I said, standing. “I’ll be right back.”

“While you’re gone, I think I’ll have another . . . refreshment,” Nedelmann muttered, raising
his glass.

I left him there, waiting for his drink, and worked my way through the darkened room, back to
the table where we’d left Takeda. As I got close to where I thought her table was, I saw a flash
of movement and a young, barely-dressed guy darted past me. Takeda was sitting at a table in
the general direction he’d come from, watching me.

As I slid into the chair opposite her, I saw the silver plate and the knife on the table. My
eyes met hers. She smiled. “Things are going well?”

“No, they’re not,” I said. “There’s some blood on the corner of your mouth. Wipe it off,
please, and get something to write on.”

Takeda slowly brushed the back of her hand across her mouth, then pulled a notepad from
her pocket, her eyes never leaving mine. She took a pen from inside her coat and sat there, still
staring at me, pen poised above the pad.

“We’re looking for a human female, black, early to mid-twenties. First name Chelsea. Last
name probably Marsch, M-a-r-s-c-h, but that’s not a hundred percent. Last known address was
in the four hundred block of Fourth St., 433 or 435 Fourth. She may be there now, though I
wouldn’t count on it. She’s the sister of Jedron Marsch, same spelling, so you might get some
leads from anything you have on him in your files. Got it so far?”

Takeda nodded.

“You need to find her tonight. Send your goon squad and have them break down every
goddamned door in the neighborhood if necessary. If she’s not there, somebody will know
where she is.”

“The Area Governor’s Security Force is hardly a goon squad,” she said, still writing.

“Right, whatever,” I replied. “We need to find her before somebody else does. I have a
feeling that she’s next on the chopping block. Assuming, of course, that she hasn’t already been
killed.”

“And when we locate her?”

I thought for a moment, then said, “Have her taken to the Downtown District station. Have
your guys put her in a holding cell and watch her themselves. Take over the whole station if you
have to and lock it down.”

Takeda smiled.

“Make sure the cops there understand that this goes no further than the station door,” I said.
“They report it to nobody. Somebody happens to show up and wants to see her, or take her, they
turn him away. I don’t care who it is.”

“And if we fail to locate her before sunrise?”

“You said you have people available who work during the day?”

She nodded. “Yes, I have personnel available at all times.”

“Then you keep looking,” I said. “As long as it takes, whatever it takes. Any questions?”

Takeda stood. “When the woman is located, you wish to be notified?”

“Yeah, have them call me on the cell.”

“If you need an update on the progress of the search, you can call the Area Operations
Center. They’ll be able to give you the latest information.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I have calls to make,” she said. “You and Officer Nedelmann will be all right here alone?”

“Yeah, we’re just finishing up. I don’t think there are any more surprises for us.”

She nodded and turned away. I stared down at the silver plate and the knife on the table for
a moment, then stood and headed back to the bar.

Nedelmann was banging his glass on the bar. “I said I want another one, you bloodsucking
piece of shit.”

“Make it a light one,” I said to the bartender as I put a hand on Nedelmann’s shoulder. “Last
call, Dick. Got to get you home for the sabbath.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice slurred. “I’ll have the wife light a couple of candles and I’ll say a
nice Kiddush. Then we’ll remember.”

I nodded and sat down. Carpenter was staring at Nedelmann, his eyes narrow. I didn’t
know if he’d owned a bar before the war, but even if he had, it had been more than four years since
he’d had to deal with a drunken customer.

“Sorry about the interruption,” I said. “Where were we?”

He looked back at me. “Oh, yes, we were talking about some person you thought worked
for me.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I must have confused you with somebody else Joshua was working with.”

“You knew Joshua?”

I nodded. “He was my partner. Night and Day Investigations.”

Carpenter broke into a wide grin. “So you’re the human detective Joshua worked with. He
spoke of you, many times, quite warmly I must say.”

“He was a good friend.”

“And now you’re working with the Area Governor’s Office?”

I nodded again. “That’s right. I’ve been hired to find whoever killed Joshua.” I paused.
“What do you think, Mr. Carpenter? Who killed him?”

“Please, call me Lou,” he said, smiling. “Even though we’ve just met, I feel like I know you
through Joshua.”

“Lou it is,” I said. “So who do you think killed Joshua?”

Carpenter leaned toward me and said, “Well, my personal opinion is that it was bandits.”

Bandits was the Vee codeword for the Resistance. They didn’t like the term ‘resistance’
because it implied that there was something to resist against. I didn’t like the term because it
implied something with real power, something a lot more dramatic and effective than the few
mostly-sorry specimens I’d run across since the end of the war, both inside the camp and outside.
There was no question that almost every human in the country was in favor of getting rid of the
Vees. From what I’ve seen of the self-professed members of the Resistance that I’d met, they
weren’t the ones who were going to do that.

“Bandits,” I said, nodding. “So you probably think bandits were also responsible for the
murders of those two vampires found outside the Uptown police station earlier this week. I
mean, the murders were very similar, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Carpenter said, his lip curling. “I knew those two men only
by reputation, and let me tell you, it wasn’t a very good reputation. Their establishments were
nothing like mine. I can’t even imagine what sort of clientele they attracted.”