Blood Crimes: Book One (26 page)

      “I could hear it in your voice. You don’t know how jealous I am right now. Or how hard.”

      “I can imagine. Please do be careful walking about. You don’t want to be poking any holes in walls.” Her laughter died down. “Have you found anything about these Blood Dragons?”

      “A little. Stefan and I have been going to nightclubs and spreading some money around. They’re a biker gang, and from what I’ve been told, very particular in what they ride. Only Harleys. They also sell drugs.
M
eth, heroin, acid. Stefan’s at one of the bars waiting to be hooked up with one of them for a drug buy. Right now I’m riding around looking for any bars with Harleys out front. Oh, and guess what? They all have the coolest tattoos to identify themselves. Skulls wrapped in barbed wire and flying dragons. We’ve got to get ourselves some. It would be the rage back home.”

      “That biker-type
Jim
was feeding on when I hit him with the limo…” Serena pondered out loud. “I was wondering why
Jim
would be doing something so brazen like that right out in the open.”

      “I was wondering about that too. So now we know. The guy he was feeding on had to’ve been a member of these Blood Dragons. If I remember right half his face was gone.
Jim
must’ve been trying to keep him alive so he could get information out of him.”

      “We had one right under our noses. What a shame. Do you remember seeing this Blood Dragon afterwards?”

      “Unfortunately, no. With all the commotion I didn’t bother looking for him.”

      “Neither did I. Oh well, so we’ll find another one of them.”

      “Probably Stefan before me.”

      “
M
y money’s on you, Wilfred. Keep doing what you’re doing. It all sounds very clever.”

      Serena blew him a kiss over the phone and hung up. Zach was staring stone-faced, watching. “How about me?” he said. Serena caressed Zach’s cheek as she thought about it. “I’d like you to drive around and see if you can sniff
Jim
out,” she said. “If you do find him, don’t go after him alone.
Jim
is too dangerous and resourceful for that. Call me, and we’ll handle him together.”

      Zach nodded, hurt showing in his eyes over Serena’s assessment of his abilities. “How about you?” he asked.

      “I’d better stay here,” she said, making a sour face. “I’m expecting company later tonight.”

      “From whom?”

      She sighed, her face for a moment ageing to something closer to death. “The same person who tried calling me earlier this evening,” she said.

      “I don’t think so. How would he find you here?”

      “Oh, he’ll find me. He’s very clever that way. And it would be best if I were alone when he does.
M
y guess is he’s going to be a grouchy bear. To say the least.”

      Zach nodded, still showing some hurt, and lifted Serena off of him so he could get dressed. He put on a pair of Hugo Boss jeans, a silk shirt, and a smart lightweight calfskin jacket that Serena had bought him at Bally’s.

      “I’m going to find
Jim
,” he promised her. “Count on it.”

      “If you say so, I believe you. And you’ll call me when you do?”

      “Of course.”

      He left the hotel room, and Serena gathered up her ruined clothing and took out a new skintight peach-colored leather outfit from her suitcase to peel over her body. She wanted to look her best for
M
etcalf. It had been a while, and nothing was better than angry sex—or as would be the case with
M
etcalf when he showed, psychotic rage-filled sex. 
 

Chapter 11
 

      Last call had passed leaving a small smattering of regulars and hanger-ons sitting around and nursing their drinks; some simply not wanting to go home, others looking for an excuse to mingle with the Bon Jovi cover band that had played earlier—although the band did mix in a few of their original songs. The four members of the band were all in their thirties, wore muscle shirts and torn jeans and styled their hair in the same sort of shaggy, teased manner of the members of Aerosmith. They were joking and talking loudly, trying to wind down with bourbons and draft beers after a lively three-hour set, and four young skinny girls who had come to see them—all of whom looked underage and were wearing tight tee shirts and either micro-miniskirts or shorts that were cut high up on the thigh, sat with them. There was no mistaking what these girls wanted, and their body language spoke loud and clear as they made sure to touch the band members knees and bare arms every chance they had.
Jim
observed all this blankly, his legs jiggling and his knees bouncing up and down. He turned his stare back at Pete.
Jim
had been there over five hours waiting for the bar owner, Charlie Drum, to show. During the course of the night he had Pete leave half a dozen messages for Drum, telling him it was urgent that he show up at the bar. The last message was left only a half ago, and at
Jim
’s suggestion, included something about there being a lot of money at stake.

      “I think you should call him again,”
Jim
said.

      Pete shrugged and tossed a couple of more aspirin in his mouth and chewed them slowly. Over the course of the night his skin color had grown waxy, his eyes pinkish. He looked feverish. He wasn’t doing too well with his broken hand, and had been dropping glasses throughout the night and struggling with the simplest bar activity.

      “I already called too many times as it is,” Pete said, his voice tired and hoarse. “It wouldn’t do any good to call again. Probably just warn him that something was up.”

      “You sure you don’t know where he lives?”

      Pete looked up in amazement. This was the fourth or fifth time the guy had asked him that. “If I knew don’t you think I’d tell you already? Christ,
Jim
, I need to get to a hospital’s emergency room.
M
y hand’s fucking killing me. I don’t know how much longer I can stay on my feet.”

      
Jim
nodded, wiped the back of his hand under his nose. He knew that the bartender would’ve told him whatever he had to to get rid of him, but also that Pete was smart enough to understand that if he lied to him it would cost him dearly. Pete claimed all he had was his boss’s cell phone number, and when
Jim
tried calling information for an address, the operator told him she didn’t have one. She suggested that he try calling Drum’s service provider, although, she added, she didn’t think they would give him a home address. Charlie Drum sounded like an uncommon name to
Jim
, but when he checked the Cleveland phone books he was surprised to find seven
Charles
or
C. Drums
listed in the city and the surrounding areas. As the night wore on he considered taking Pete to each address, but he didn’t want to risk Drum showing up at the bar while they were gone and, as Pete pointed out, Drum might not even be one of those seven listed. The bar owner could instead have an unlisted home number.

      “You know Drum. If you had to guess, what would you think—Cleveland proper, Westlake, Strongsville, Lyndhurst?”
Jim
asked, rattling off the towns where
Charles
or
C. Drum
had been listed.

      “I don’t have a clue,” Pete said. “If we went hunting for him it would probably just be a wild goose chase, which I’m really not up to right now.
M
y advice, we’re better off waiting here. Charlie a lot of times has late nights. I’m still hoping he shows. The fucker better.”

      “What about him?”

      
Jim
pointed a thumb at another bartender cleaning up the back tables. The other bartender’s name was Simon, and he had shown up before the Bon Jovi cover band took the stage to help with the larger crowd that was expected. Simon was young, probably early twenties, and had a bulldog look about him complete with a thick squat body and a squashed nose. Ever since he had come to work, he glowered openly at
Jim
. He didn’t bother saying a word to him, but it was obvious he was wondering who the fuck
Jim
was and why he was sticking so close to Pete the whole night, and probably also why Pete was doing such a lousy job bartending.

      Pete’s eyes focused slowly on who
Jim
was pointing at and he shook his head. Just like asking about whether he knew where Drum lived, this was the fourth or fifth time
Jim
had asked him about Simon. After the first time he appeased
Jim
by asking Simon if he knew how to get a hold of Drum or where Drum lived, even though he knew the other bartender wouldn’t have anything more than he did. Simon’s glower turned more suspicious at this point. “All I have is Charlie’s cell number,” he said. “Same as you.”

      After that Simon kept his distance from the two of them, probably suspecting something was wrong about Pete and even more wrong about the strange-looking dude hanging around him.
M
aybe he thought that
Jim
was another drug dealer looking to muscle in on the territory. Whatever it was he just didn’t want anything to do with it, and he didn’t say another word to Pete that night.

      “I already talked to Simon,” Pete said, trying to keep his voice as nonthreatening as possible, which was hard given how hoarse his throat had become. This wasn’t good—
Jim
asking the same questions over and over again. The guy was obviously losing it, which given that he had a big fucking gun on him and, among other things, was freakishly strong, was worse that just not being good—it was scary as hell. He still didn’t want to think about how this guy was able to shoot himself in the chest the way he did. Pete had been trying to tell himself all night that the guy had slipped a blank in, that it was part of an act to scare the shit out of Pete, but he couldn’t get himself to believe it.

      “He didn’t know anything then and he doesn’t know anything now,” Pete continued, struggling hard to keep his eyes focused and a soft smile showing. “And there’s no reason that he would. He’s a college boy doing this part time. He keeps his nose cleaner than I do.”

      The door to the bar opened and a large rotund man in his late forties with long greasy hair walked in. Pete nudged
Jim
, indicated that this was the Charlie Drum they were waiting for. Drum had a pasty look about him and his eyes the same glazed surliness that every drunk seems to have before throwing that first punch. He was pissed that he was there. His eyes caught Pete’s, then he spotted
Jim
and his expression shifted to something shrewd, as if he were reconsidering the last message that Pete had left him, and that maybe he was about to be introduced to a new business partner, one who could offer better terms than Raze. He winked at the two of them and wandered over to the band members where he shook their hands and flirted with the teenage girls sitting by them. While he talked to the girls he let his fingertips drop on their bare arms. He also touched their hair, rolling strands of it between his fingers and thumb. The girls didn’t seem to like it and their smiles turned plastic, but they didn’t say anything. He owned the place and could kick them out if he wanted to and then they’d have no shot at spending the night with the band.
Jim
tensed as he watched this. He started to get off his barstool, but Pete suggested he stay where he was. “Give it a minute,” he said.

      It turned out Pete was right. No more than a minute later Drum looked bored with his flirting, most likely realizing it wasn’t going to lead anywhere, and he excused himself from the group to walk over to
Jim
and Pete. He winked at his bartender, a glimmer shining in his eyes.

      “This the fella that’s so urgent for me to meet?” he asked, smiling broadly at
Jim
, his voice slurred. The smell of gin was heavy on his breath and his clothes were saturated with the pungent sweet smell of pot. He had obviously been smoking and drinking heavily all night.

      Pete nodded, didn’t say anything.

      “Business proposition?”

      “That’s right,”
Jim
said. “We should talk alone. Just the three of us.”

      Pete added, “I thought I’d just leave you two to talk—”

      
Jim
stopped the bartender with a hard look. “Better that all three of us talk it over.”

      Drum didn’t catch on to the look that
Jim
had given his bartender. Even if he had, he would’ve been too wasted to understand it. “How much we talking about?” he asked.

      “Over a hundred grand,”
Jim
said.

      Drum gave his bartender a questioning eye and Pete nodded, said that sounded right. Drum then turned to the rest of the room and announced that it was time for everyone to head home.