The Girls With Games of Blood (15 page)

T
HE LUNCH CROWD
packed the Ringside when Byron Cocker entered, and he paused in the door to let his eyes adjust. As they did, he heard the usual wave of whispers spread through the room. Even people who hadn’t seen
Swinging Hard
recognized him.

“Byron!” Gerry Barrister called as he worked his way through the crowd. He was pale and haggard, but his good nature was undimmed. The two men shook hands. “Didn’t know you were in town. Come on over here and have a drink.”

“Think I can get a sandwich, too?”

“Sandwich, hell. Byron Cocker gets the best steak in the house!”

Barrister led Cocker to the bar and waved Fauvette over. “Fauvette, this is the world-famous Byron Cocker, inspiration for the movie
Swinging Hard
. We wrestled together back before he turned to law enforcement. I pinned him in less than a minute one time, too.”

Fauvette looked from Barrister to the much larger Cocker. “Really?”

“That’s ’cause the promoter decided he’d be a better heel
than I would be,” Cocker said. “I was more the handsome baby-face type. Well, back then, at least.”

“Listen to him,” Gerry said. “He used to have the women crawling all over him. Couldn’t keep a jock strap for girls stealing ’em for souvenirs.”

“Not my fault them tights showed off what God gave me,” Cocker said with a grin. Then he took his first real look at Fauvette and frowned. “Honey, are you old enough to be working in a bar?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” Fauvette assured him. “I just
look
young.”

“Now, Byron, you think I’d be hiring underage girls?” Barrister said. “This is a respectable business. Hell, starting this weekend we’ll even have live music.”

“What’s your poison today, Mr. Cocker?” Fauvette asked with her best disarming smile.

Barrister waved her close and said just loud enough for Cocker to hear, “Give him a silver bullet in a jacket.”

“Anything you say, boss.” Fauvette knelt and took a can of Coors beer, illegal east of the Mississippi, from a special cooler hidden on the bottom shelf. She wrapped a fake Budweiser label around it and presented it to Cocker. “Compliments of the house?” she asked Barrister.

“Of course. And have the kitchen whip up a steak for my friend, too.”

Cocker took a drink and sighed contentedly. “Man, that’s good stuff.”

“Good thing you don’t carry a badge anymore, isn’t it?” Barrister said, his laugh just a hair too forced.

Cocker sipped the beer and nodded his thanks to Fauvette. The instant their eyes met he felt an odd, vaguely familiar chill from her, and the cut on his hand tingled.

And then, as Barrister droned on about their shared wrestling past, Cocker felt
another
tingle, the one that unmistakably warned him of danger. He turned toward the door.

Rudy Zginski entered, paused, and looked around.

Cocker couldn’t believe it. After convincing himself he’d never find the stuck-up Russkie again, here he just walks into the same bar, big as life. What were the chances? Clearly the good Lord was on his side, as always.

Cocker hunched his shoulders and tried to duck down out of obvious sight. He was the tallest person in the room, which was usually a good thing except when he wanted to be discreet. He peered at Zginski through gaps in the crowd. Barrister obliviously continued his story.

Zginski stood rigid, hands formally clasped behind his back. Despite the heat he wore a black polyester suit over a white shirt with the top two buttons undone. A simple gold chain hung loose around his neck. A white handkerchief peeked from the coat’s pocket, almost hidden by the wide lapels, and matched his white belt. His shoes were white leather with stacked heels. His gaze traveled methodically around the room like a radar antenna.

Then he turned and looked directly at Cocker.

Cocker’s throat constricted with the sudden certainty that the smaller man
scared
him. Those eyes gave him the same shudder as the girl bartender’s.

Then he realized that Zginski wasn’t looking at him, but
past
him at Fauvette. The girl gazed back, as if some unspoken communication passed between them. Both stood perfectly still; for them the loud, crowded room seemed not to exist.

Cocker’s attention flicked from one to the other. There was definitely a resemblance: both were pale, seemed unnaturally calm and slightly removed from the world around them. And both had the same cold, slightly creepy eyes. True, the girl didn’t have his accent, but could they be
related
?

Then Zginksi turned away and disappeared into the crowd. This broke the moment, just as Barrister said, “. . . and that’s the truth. Ain’t that right, Byron?”

“Sure thing, Gerry. ’Scuse me for a minute, I need to visit your facilities.”

“Well, hurry back, that steak’ll be up in a minute.”

Cocker moved through the crowd, accepting handshakes and back pats with as much graciousness as he could. He saw no sign of Zginski, but was certain the man had not gone back out the front door. He looked in the men’s room, but only a fat man in a cowboy hat stood at the urinal and all the stalls were empty. Where had he gone?

He stood at the back of the dining room and looked over the crowd until he noticed a door marked
EMPLOYEES ONLY
. It opened onto a service hallway, and he quickly slipped inside. He heard voices ahead of him and moved quietly toward them.

He stopped when he saw Zginski standing in the doorway to a small room with a metal star tacked to the door. Inside was a young woman with long black hair who was restringing a guitar. Cocker stayed perfectly still and strained to catch their conversation over the restaurant’s muffled noise.

The dark-haired woman looked up at Zginski with a wry little smile. There was something recognizable about her, too, but in a different, more tangible way: she
looked
familiar. She was too old to be a friend of Bruce’s, and too young to be any of the women he’d once dallied with. She was a musician, so it was possible he’d seen her photo on a poster or record sleeve. Yes,
that
was it: he’d seen her picture. But where? He closed his eyes and tried to decipher their conversation.

It was no use; he could not make out the words. He quietly backed away and returned to the main room.

Patience smiled wryly at Zginski. “Why should I tell you what Fauvette and I talk about?”

“Because it would be in your best interest to establish me as an ally,” he said.

“Ooh, a threat, how sexy.” She plucked the guitar strings
and adjusted the tuning pegs. The room was now freshly wallpapered, with a vanity and mirror in one corner. Only the industrial sink with attached mop-wringer remained to hint of its former use. “Are you being all male-chauvinist-pig because you’re afraid of a liberated woman?”

“Hardly.”

She batted her eyes at him. “Well, then, it must be because you think I’m pretty.”

Zginski scowled. It was the closest a vampire could come to blushing. “I assure you, I—”

“So you
don’t
think I’m pretty?”

“That is entirely beside the point,” he snapped. She was making him sound foolish, and he hated that.

“Are you sure?” She lay the guitar aside, stood, and put a hand on his chest. “I’ve met a lot of men over the years, and I know when I make one’s heart beat faster. And in your case I mean that metaphorically.”

Zginski started to speak, but before he could Patience pressed even closer. She slid one hand around his waist, while the other tickled lightly at his goatee. She said, “We could reduce each other to quivering little puddles of desire, you know. That might be a lot of fun.”

He gently pushed the hand away from his chin, but did not break the embrace. “I am afraid not. Not until I know more about you.”

She took his wrist and flicked her tongue over the lifeless pulse point. “What is it you want to know?”

Something stirred within him. She was not using any vampiric influence, either; it was pure seduction, which he had never experienced as a vampire. He was both intrigued by her courage, and infuriated at the ease of his own response. “How,” he said, his voice steady despite her ministrations, “did you become what you are?”

She pulled away, looking anywhere but at him, and
smoothed her dress. “That might be a story for another time. I’m not saying I won’t tell you, just not here. Not like this, standing in a closet while people eat and drink twenty feet away.” She looked up at him seriously. “Can you accept that?”

He nodded.

“But it’s quid pro quo. I want to know about you, too. You’re clearly from Eastern Europe, and for some reason you talk like you’ve been shut up in a drawer for the last century. There must be a good story behind that.”

That isn’t far from the truth,
Zginski thought. It also meant Fauvette had been discreet, which pleased him. He said with a courtly nod, “I will also explain my background.”

“Good. Then maybe I’ll know why Fauvette’s in love with you when you act like she’s not even there.” At his scowl she added, “Oh, come on, I’m a girl, too. We can spot these things.”

“Fauvette and I have a mutually acceptable relationship.”

She giggled. “Wow, with an attitude like that you must have the girls lining up. Even without being able to seduce them with a glance.”

“Your own attitude is just as perplexing.”

“It is? Why?”

“You seem to take nothing seriously.”

“Oh, that’s not true. Not at all. It’s just that, as time passes, the list of serious things gets shorter and shorter. Haven’t you found that to be the case?”

He suddenly wanted to end this conversation. She treated him as an equal, and more, seemed to find his discomfort amusing; he needed to regroup. “We shall talk later. I
am
looking forward to your performance tomorrow night, however.”

“Groovy,” she said with a smile, then before he could move she stepped close and kissed him. At first he merely let
her, then with as much surprise as arousal he began to respond. She broke it off before it went too far.

“It’s even better,” she whispered, “when you help.”

“Indeed,” he said. She giggled.

He took her chin lightly, then tightened his grip. “I should warn you, though. I will tolerate no behavior that constitutes a danger to me. If you intend such, you would be well advised to find another location for it.”

He released her, and for a moment her eyes flared with anger. Then the amusement returned. “You certainly do take yourself seriously, Mr. Zginski. But I promise you, what I ‘intend’ is of no danger at all to you.”

“We shall see.”

She put her hand on his chest again. “Of course, what I ‘intend’ for
you
might be considered dangerous. By some.” She touched her upper lip with her tongue and said softly, “Care to close the door?”

“I do not feel that would be advisable,” he said seriously. Then he added, “At this time.”

She smiled, displaying the tips of her fangs. “And we have plenty of that, don’t we?”

“We do,” he agreed.

Gerry Barrister sat behind his desk, digging frantically through the scattered papers in search of his Polaroid camera. He wanted a shot of him with Byron to go on the “wall of fame” beside the front door.