Vampires (6 page)

“And if she doesn't?” Adam wanted to know.

Cat grinned. “Our father's met the press before, sounds like.”

“Oh, I think she will,” said Annabelle.

“But what if she doesn't?” insisted Adam.

“Then,” snarled Carl, “we'll knit her tits together.” He drained his glass. “Behind her back. Somebody wanna answer the door?”

Somebody did. Cat fetched her to the bar and offered her a drink. She declined, looking nervous and flustered and...

And incredibly beautiful, Adam realized. Incredibly beautiful and incredibly vulnerable and something else, too, as Cat had said. Imperial. Regal. As though touching her was possible but a horrible Sm.

It was very strange. Adam saw her no more sexually than any other priest but her aura was still unmistakable.

My Lord, he thought to himself, what a reporter she's going to make! People would tell her anything.

He rose from his stool to be introduced. Annabelle called him simply Adam Larrance. Her hand was cool and her eyes warm and friendly but also penetrating and assertive. Adam wondered how she learned so much so young.

There was an awkward pause after they met until Annabelle patted the stool next to her and she took it. Adam, feeling unreasonably at sea, nudged Carl Joplin beside him.

Carl glanced at him, read his unease, felt it necessary to provide a little in-character show of tedium, and then proceeded to explain to the girl what Adam was and what it meant and what she could write about it-which was zero.

He did not mention her tits.

He didn't need to. One glance around her and Davette saw they meant it. They were polite and friendly and they liked her (she felt sure of that) but they were also quite finn. Don't write about the priest. She tried comforting herself with the thought that she had never meant to. But there was no way around the fact that it changed things that these people had their very own priest with them.

These people! she thought and sighed. She had never seen any group like them. They had a glow of health about them that seemed to radiate for ten yards in every direction. Not physical health particularly, though all save round Carl seemed fit enough. And not really mental health or so much emotional...

Soulful health. Is there such a term? she wondered idly. For that's what they seem to have. Soulful health.

She rather supposed thinking yourself a crusader for Right versus Wrong would do that to you.

“Is Mr. Crow in?” she asked Cat. Cat was caught napping.

“Huh?”

“Is Mr. Crow in?” she repeated, smiling.

“He'll be down soon.”

They talked about Dallas. They were moving there, and Davette lived there. She had come all this way across the country just to see them.

“It's not, ”she reminded them, “the kind of story you run into every day.”

They talked about restaurants in Dallas and people they knew there and famous Texans in general. It turned out Davette was Davette Shands of the once-notorious Oilfield Shands family.

“But that's all gone now,” she assured them with a self-deprecating smile.

I doubt it, thought Annabelle. This child has been rich all her life and always will be.

And then she thought, I can be a little bitchy, can't I?

Adam smiled in reply to the banter but offered not one word himself.

“Offhand,” offered Carl, mixing himself another drink, “I'd say the kid's met a reporter before.”

“Do you believe all reporters are dishonest, Mr. Joplin?” she asked.

Carl grinned, sipped. “That depends on whether it's a reporter or a journalist.”

She sort of smiled back. “What's the difference?”

"Well, a reporter lies to get himself a better story and a raise.

“And a journalist doesn't lie?”

“Well, yes. But only out of a deep sense of compassion and concern.”

She laughed gamely enough along with the rest of them.

Not bad, thought Cat.

Annabelle checked her watch. Jack was due in a few minutes. So they all chatted some more before he showed and heard an odd story from Davette. Seems she had been the editor-in-chief of her college newspaper but had quit last spring, in the final semester of her senior year. Quit school entirely, as a matter of fact, and gone home to get to work.

“I needed to get off my. . . rear,” she offered with a patronizing smile. “I needed to get out in the real world.”

God! groaned Cat to himself. I hate to be conned.

The great oaken door burst open and Jack Crow strode in, looking fresh and invigorated and thirsty. While Carl played bartender he met Davette, shaking her hand firmly and telling her outright what a beauty she was. She seemed a little taken aback after all the beating around the bush she was apparently used to.

“You wanna talk to me, do you, young lady?”

“Why, yes. If it's convenient.”

“It is for the next coupla hours. Then we hit the road. C'mon.”

And just like that they left the room.

“What do you think?” Cat asked after they had gone.

“I'd like to know what she was kicked out of school for,”

offered Carl.

“So would I,” said Annabelle.

“Please, God,” sighed Cat, “let it be prostitution.”

“It's not the kind of job you can turn down,” replied Jack

Crow with more than a little exasperation.

They were in the Zoo's main corridor, leaning against opposite walls facing each other. Jack sipped from his drink.

“Why not?” Davette asked.

He thought about a reply, said, “To understand that, you'd first have to buy it.”

The young girl glanced briefly away then back to him. “Well, you have to admit it's pretty hard to believe.” By God, I think she does believe! Jack thought suddenly.

Or at least she's trying.

“What put you onto us, anyway?” he asked.

She smiled. "An old friend of my family owns the weekly

newspaper that covered your last... uh, mission. I got into

that little town, what's it called?"

“Bradshaw, Indiana.”

"Yes, Bradshaw. Anyway, I got there two days after

you'd left.“ She frowned. ”Nobody would talk about it by

then. But I got your address.“ ”Lucky you weren't on time.“ ”I heard you'd had some trouble.“ He took a sip. ”Some.“ ”Anyone hurt?"

“Seven.”

“Was it serious?”

“Dead. Seven dead.”

She went pale. “You're joking! You can't be serious!”

He just looked at her. “Okay,” he said.

They were quiet for several seconds. She could tell he meant it. And he could tell it had gotten to her.

Finally, he said, “Let me give you a little advice.”

“What's that?”

“This is real.”

And they were quiet again for a while."

At last she said, “I don't know what to say. Or do.”

He stepped away from the wall, shrugging off the somber mood.

“I'll tell you what you can do. If you ever get this story printed anywhere-which I frankly doubt-you can put this in it.” He drained his glass and set it down on the carpet. “Got your pad with you?”

“Tape recorder,” she answered. She dug quickly in her purse, produced it, and held it up.

“Okey doke.” He stuck a cigarette in his grinning teeth, lit it. “I'll give you the grand tour.”

She smiled back, gestured about her. “It's-certainly a big house. How many bedrooms?”

“Seven too many.”

“Oh,” she said quietly, gazing down the row of empty rooms. Four on one side. Three on the other.

“Don't despair,” he said. “It's just eulogy time.”

And then he did something she knew she would never, for all the rest of her life, forget. Grinning all the while, chain-smoking like mad, he strode from room to room and in each one told one outrageous, impossible, hopelessly funny and (invariably) obscene story about each of its martyred occupants. Smiling, but unable to really laugh along with him, she padded along behind gazing, transfixed, by his every word and gesture.

Jack Crow cried easily, readily, as he spoke. But without choking or moaning or even allowing it to interfere with his own laughter. His tone went up and down, was pretend-serious or pretend-drunk or pretend-little boy.

She was utterly hypnotized throughout by his blazing pride in his lost team. No. She would never ever forget this. Jack seemed to enjoy it as well. And he seemed to understand her reaction for the compliment it was. He spent an hour and a half being animated and dramatic and hilarious and when he had finished they were both exhausted.

Cat appeared in the hallway and reminded him their plane was ready to fly and then was gone.

He turned to her and told her where they were going.

She said she knew. She said she was from there. From Dallas.

He said he missed Texas.

So did she, she said.

There was a long pause. Downstairs, rock and roll began thumping from somewhere.

Then why don't you come along? was his next question.

She looked up at him, her head tilted to hear the muffled sounds.

“I will,” she replied.

And she did.

They were having a drink or three in the bar at LAX waiting for their connecting flight to Dallas when two young coed types waltzed in wearing aquamarine shorts and deep equatorial tans followed by two boys just as dark wearing sombreros on which was stitched “Acapulco.”

Jack Crow, about to climb aboard his fifth jet in less than twenty-four hours, zonked by in-flight sleep and in-flight food and three or four drinks ahead of the Planet Earth, found this an inspiration.

“That's what we oughta do,” he announced. “Go to Acapulco! Or better, Cancun or Isla de Mujeres! It'll take a coupla weeks to get settled into the new shack anyway.”

“We've already checked our bags on through to Dallas,” Cat pointed out.

Jack frowned at Cat's lack of enthusiasm. “So we leave from Dallas.”

“Naw,” said Carl, burping softly. “I gotta get all our bullet stuff ready.”

Jack looked at him. “Yeah. Well.. . But the rest of us can go. Annabelle?”

Annabelle barely smiled. "Who's going to do all that 'settling in'?

“But the rest of you can go ahead,” offered Annabelle in her very best martyred tone.

Jack stared at his drink. “Naw.”

Annabelle smiled. “You may as well, Jack. You never do any unpacking anyway.”

Jack grinned back at her. “Doesn't mean I don't want to be near you while you do it.”

“How near?”

“I thought I'd stay at the Adolphus Hotel downtown.” He looked at the others. “I thought we all would the first couple of days.”

Annabelle sipped and smiled. “If you like.”

Carl had his hands clasped across his great belly and was mumbling to himself. Adam, seated beside him, leaned closer.

“What's the matter?” he asked, concerned.

Carl looked at him. “I don't unnerstand it, padre!”

“What, Mr. Joplin?”

“Call me Carl.”

“Okay, Carl. What is it?”

“My drink.” He pointed to the glass before him.

“It's empty,” Adam noticed.

“That's what I don't unnerstand! It was full only minutes ago.”

Adam stared, comprehended, grinned.

“Oh my God!” Cat all but shrieked, shoving his empty glass away from him across the table in mock tenor. “It's happened to mine, too!”

And then Carl and Cat looked at one another and began humming the theme from The Twilight Zone.

While the others laughed, Jack held his face in his hands and shook it mournfully. “My Team,” he muttered. “Nurse!” he called to the young waitress scurrying by. “An Emergency Round.”

On the plane they gathered together in the first-class lounge to hide from the food. One more airline meal, Jack felt certain, would make him left-handed. So they sat and drank and played cards and chatted. Jack brought up the subject of Mexico again but in an odd way and with an odd look on his face.

“I used to work in Mexico,” he dropped briefly and then blatantly waited for someone else to urge him to continue. Davette complied and Team Crow wondered if she could possibly have known him well enough this soon to feel the oddness his eyes could shed.

Cat curled up in his seat like his namesake and prepared not to miss a single word.

What's going on? he wondered, but said nothing out loud.

He didn't have to, for all who knew Jack Crow were thinking the same.

And as for Jack himself.

They are going to have to know this. They won't understand him otherwise. They might not understand him even then. Or me, for bringing him along.

But they're going to have to know.

And maybe if I tell them the good part first.

He smiled and turned to the others. "It was during the initial phase of my government career.~~

Cat frowned, said nothing. Annabelle spoke up. “You mean before you joined the army.”

“Nope. Afterward.”

"But you said the first part of. .

“No,” he corrected with a smile. “I said during the initial part of my government career.”

“Which means?” asked Carl sounding as bored as he knew how.

“Which means I was under deep cover for the NSA on assignment to the CIA working as an agent for the DEA.”

“What the hell is all this supposed to mean?” Carl wanted to know.

“Well, my job was to check out the Cuban connection into raw brown Mexican heroin, so I was along the Texas border trying to find out if all the rumors about a big-time purging of the hippie smugglers was true.”

“Was it?” somebody asked.

“It was. They were wiping out all the amateurs to get ready for the big money they were monopolizing.”

“So what did you do?” somebody else asked.

Jack shrugged, grinned. "Got in the way mostly. It was a dumb assignment and a dumb idea to send me along. I liked the NSA but they didn't trust me. I liked the CIA but they didn't even trust each other. I was scared of the DEA and they hated me but had to take me because of orders from upstairs.

“It was a mess.”

He paused, looked around, and grinned easily. “But I did have an interesting couple of weeks.”

And Cat thought, Here it comes. He glanced around at the others in the lounge and wondered how they were gonna take whatever it was that Jack was trying to sneak up on them.

And then he thought, He's trying to sneak it up on me, too. First time ever. Of course, there's a first time for everything, so...

So why am I so scared?

And once more Jack Crow began to speak.

Second Interlude: Felix

Raw brown heroin changed everything. Those little doper camps used to be so cute, like a piece of the Wild Frontier. They'd camp out in the weeds somewhere in their motor-homes and the Mexicans would spring up a village out of tarpaper shacks to be close to the loose change spilling off. And there was quite a bit of that to be had. Life was pretty good.

I remember they used to string Coleman lanterns on poles for streetlights.

Playing undercover G-man, I left my weapons in the motel and parked my truck off the road before walking into a camp that night. It was one of the last really big ones and I could hear lots of shouting as I got close. But when I stepped through into the clearing there were only two guys there, both Mexicans, both drunk. I walked up beside one of them and said: “Qué pasa, hombre?”

He hit me.

Smacked me good right across the chops, my lip bleeding, then swings at me again and misses and the guy beside him starts yelling out, “Another one! Here's another one!” And then he jumps at me, too.

They were both too drunk to do any more damage but that yelling brought reinforcements amazingly fast. More Mexicans started spilling out of the darkness from all directions, all drunk and all angry and all coming at me.

I ran like hell.

The wrong way, of course, that being the kind of night it was. Toward the river, away from my truck. I was lost in about two seconds, stumbling through the brush with Spanish obscenities echoing from behind. I had no idea what was going on except the basics: I was in deep shit.

But I was old enough. Old enough means I was too smart to try to stop and moralize with a meat-eating mob. There really are people out there who, while you're trying to explain it's not your fault, will pound you into putty.

- I found the river when I fell into it. Well, stepped into it. The Rio Grande isn't much but thirty feet across around those parts. So anyway, I step back and start shaking my boots dry and I hear this smartass voice pop through the night with “Hey, gringo! Where're ya goin'?”

I probably didn't jump over a mile or two. And I had already started to run when I realized the voice had sounded out in English, not Spanish. I spun around and first laid eyes on William Charles Felix, lounging in the door of an abandoned boxcar with a cigarette in his mouth, a bottle of tequila in his hand, and the biggest shit-eating grin you ever saw in your whole life. Had a World War II leather flying jacket, a faded blue navy work shirt, jeans, cowboy boots, and a Humphrey Bogart hat.

I found myself grinning back. Couldn't help it.

I walked over and took the bottle from his hand and had a swig and asked him who the hell he was and he told me and invited me inside. So I propped a squishing boot on a strut and climbed up into the boxcar. It was even darker in there than outside.

“What are you doing in this thing?”

I could barely see his grin. “Same as you, Yankee pig. Hiding.”

“How'd it get down here by the river?” I asked him. I hadn't seen any tracks.

“Got me,” he said, taking back his bottle. “Ask her.”

He struck a match and held the flame high. The boxcar had everything it needed to go from being a moving crate to a first-rate hovel, from rug scraps and cardboard furniture to a bleeding Jesus on the wall. Sitting in the midst of it all was a woman.

Just about the most aggressively ugly woman I'd ever seen.

Felix had lit a candle with the match after carefully pulling a battered blanket-something across the opening to shield the outside from the glow.

“Who is this?” I asked him.

He grinned again. “I'm not sure.” He sat down on another box, sent the grin at her, and patted a spot on the floor beside him. “I think this is her place.”

He made a gesture for me to sit down on another box across from him. I did. He offered me another sip. I took it. The woman came over and sat down on the spot Felix had indicated.

“What's your name?” I asked her, unthinking, in English.

She said: “Twenty-five dollars American,” and wiggled her chest.

Lord.

Felix took the bottle back and sipped through his grin. “Interesting name, don't you think?”

And we both laughed. So did the woman.

I lit a cigarette and leaned forward with my elbows on my knees.

“What the hell is going on?”

Felix was enjoying this. “What do you mean?” he asked innocently.

“Why are we hiding?”

He lit a cigarette of his own. “Well, I'm hiding to keep from having the living shit beat outta me by the locals.” He took a puff. “And you?”

“C'mon, dammit! What's going on? Why are they so pissed?”

He eyed me strangely. “You mean you haven't beard about the Garcia sisters?”

I sighed. “Who the hick are the Garcia sisters?”

He laughed. “Well, let's have another little drink and I'll tell you.”

He gave me another sip, took one himself. As an afterthought, he offered one to the woman.

She damn near took his arm off grabbing for it. Then she started chugging.

“Don't worry,” said Felix, watching along with me. “I've got two more bottles.” He stopped, looked uncertain. The woman was still chugging. “It's probably enough.”

At last be took the bottle after about a fourth of it was gone and told me all about the Garcia sisters.

Sixteen and seventeen, respectively, beautiful, sweet-tempered, and, most important, virgins, which means a hell of a lot more in Mexico than it does in Texas. They were the pride of the area. A ray of hope in a place where the future looked too much like the past. Everyone loved and bragged on them.

And then they ran off to Houston with two gringo drug dealers.

“But don't worry too much,” Felix assured me. “Tomorrow morning nobody will be after us or even remember why they were mad tonight.”

I wasn't convinced. “What makes you so sure?”

He shrugged. “It's happened before.”

There was a sound from outside. Felix had the candle blown out, his cigarette coal hidden, and the blanket-thing shoved out of the way in one motion. He peered out into the darkness, listening intently.

They were out there. You could hear their unmistakable mob clamor. They sounded pretty close. I began to feel a little claustrophobic in that boxcar. I got down next to Felix by the door.

“I've got an idea,” I whispered.

“Love to hear it,” he whispered back over his shoulder.

“Let's run away.”

He leaned back in, smiling. “Normally, I would consider that a brilliant move. My first reaction, come to think of it. But where do we run?”

“How about across the river? We could bide out in Big Bend until morning.”

He sat back on his heels, picked up the bottle. “I can think of at least six reasons why that's a bad plan,” he replied taking a sip. He wiped his mouth. “And all of them are snakes.”

I laughed. “Then what do you suggest.”

“Well,” he replied, closing the blanket-thing back across the gap, “if we stay here I figure we got a fifty-fifty chance.”

I frowned. “You mean they'll either find us or they won't.”

We had another drink. The woman had two more. We talked. The woman said nothing at all until, some five or twelve drinks later, she decided to change her name to “Fifteen dollar American.”

We drank and talked some more, about another half hour, before she decided to change it to “Five dollar American.”

Fickle.

Somewhere into the second bottle, after the third and closest wave of mob rustling occurred just outside, we, Felix and me, decided to make ourselves a pact.

We were clearly doomed, we decided. So the thing to do was to tell each other, in these the last moments of existence, the Major Truths About Our Lives, like passengers on a falling airliner.

Which is how I found out he was a drug smuggler and he found out I was a narc.

It's funny now but at the time I was pissed as hell. Well, grumpy, anyway. Felix laughed, knowing, as per the pact, that I couldn't do anything about what he told me. Until I pointed out to him that neither could he tell anyone else about me and then we were both quiet. And then we both had another drink.

And then we both said, “Fuck it!” in unison, and laughed.

It was fun.

What was strange about it was me being so surprised in the first place. I mean, what the hell else did I expect Felix to be, way out there like that? It's just that he Wasn't at all the type or something.

Something.

Anyway, about then two bad things happened in a hurry. The first was that horrible woman deciding to change her name to “Free” and leaning back and pulling up her dress and spreading her legs so wide you could see her liver.

I swear to God it gave me vertigo.

The second bad thing was her husband showing up through the other door.