Never Cross a Vampire (12 page)

There was a lot of traffic, women sitting in chairs waiting, some of them with children. I walked to the counter, behind which stood a youngish man wearing barber white. Behind him in a room with a lot of talk sat various women with white gook in their hair or wet red nails held out in front of them to dry.

“Can I help you?” said the young dark man.

I has expected a little mincing or a fey wrist, but he gave none and was all business.

“Are you always busy like this on Sunday night?” I said.

“Many of our customers work in defense plants,” he explained. “We keep special war hours. Sunday is one of our busiest days. We're open till ten. Can I help you?”

“Bedelia Sue Frye,” I said. “I'd like to see her. It's important. Is she a student here?”

“Miss Frye is the director of the school,” he said, looking beyond me to see how the customers were taking me. I looked as if I were in search of an emergency room instead of a beauty operator. On second thought, maybe I could use a little cosmetic help to put me in presentable condition.

“Terrific,” I said. “Now can I see her? Tell her it's in connection with the Dark Knights. She'll see me.”

“The dark nights?” he said incredulously.

“You've got it,” I said. He left me to face the gathered waiting women and children. A few looked at me. Most kept their noses in their magazines.

The young dark man came back and asked me to follow him. I went around the counter and down a hallway, where we met a trio of white-clad young women, each carrying a human head in her hands. The young man didn't stop, and the women passed close enough for me to see that the heads were mannequins with hair done up in curlers. The deeper we went into the place, the stronger the smell, a sickly, almost sweet smell something like vinegar, but not quite.

“Through here,” said my guide, pointing to a room. “Miss Frye will be with you in a minute.”

I went through there and found myself in a white, bright office with a window showing out into a long room lined with chairs in which women were sitting having their scalps, hair, faces, and anatomies worked on, plastered, baked, and threatened by an ant colony of instructors and teachers. Even in the relatively thick-walled office I could make out the rumble of sound from the big room beyond. While I watched, a blonde woman in white strode down the aisle that separated the two rows of chairs. She was stopped every few feet by a student or customer with a question, a problem, or a crisis. Gradually, she made her way toward the room I was in. As she came closer, looking directly at me, I could see that she was somewhere in her thirties, built like Veronica Lake, and possessed of a white, gleaming smile that would have looked great in a Teal commercial. She opened the door, letting in the vibration of voices, and closed it again behind her.

“Yes, Mr. Peters?” she said.

“How did you know my name?” I said, leaning back against the small desk. “I didn't give it to Wilhelm.”

“His name is Walter,” she said, “and we met Friday. You wanted to talk to me?” She moved over to the desk, reached for a cigarette in a silver box, changed her mind, and looked at me with a smile and folded arms.

“I'm trying to stop,” she said, crinkling her nose.

“You're Bedelia Sue Frye?” I said.

“I'm Bedelia Sue Frye,” she said mockingly.

I looked at her for an incredible few seconds while her amusement grew. The height was right, but that was about it. This woman was a natural blonde with a healthy complexion and very little makeup. Her smile was as good as the sun, and she stood straight and was full of bouncing energy.

“The same one who's a member of the Dark Knights of Transylvania?” I said.

“The same,” she said, holding up her right hand. “Honest. It's like a release for me. I dress up for the meetings, put on a wig, change my face, do a little acting. I'm under a lot of pressure here,” she said with a shrug, “and at one time I had thoughts of going into movies. Actually got a few small roles and then I got into this.” Her hand swept the room broadly and took in the outside. “None of my staff knows about the Dark Knights, and I was under the impression that no one would find out.”

“I'm a private detective,” I explained. “I was with Bela Lugosi Friday because he's had some threatening letters, phone calls, other things, and we have some good reasons to believe that one of the Dark Knights is responsible for the threats and that things may get worse.”

“That accounts for the way you look?” she said, finally unable to resist the cigarette, which she took quickly.

“I think so,” I said, reaching up to try my scalp.

“So,” she said, “what can I do for you?” Her will power returned and she put down the cigarette.

“Putting it straight,” I said, looking into her blue eyes, “I'm here to find out if you're the one who might be responsible for the threats on my client.”

“Me?” she said, returning my look. “Why would I want to … that's ridiculous. I didn't even believe in any of that stuff. And I don't care one way or the other about his movies. He looked to me like a tired old man. Anyone who would give him a hard time has to be an all-out looney, which I am not. Say, listen, I'd like to keep talking. I really would, but things are going crazy out there.”

“Maybe we could get together some time,” I said. “I mean get together and talk about the Dark Knights and Lugosi.”

Her smile was broad and direct.

“That might be nice,” she said. I reached into my pocket, got my wallet, and found my card. I grabbed a pencil from the desk and wrote my home address and the number of the phone in the hall of the boarding house. “I'll give you a call.”

She took the card, looked at it, tapped it with her long fingers, and tucked it in the clean pocket of her blouse over her heart. Things were never what they seemed, I thought, as she went back through the door and into the colony.

I made my way out, wondering what Wilson Wong would make of his prime suspect if he had been with me. I also realized that of the five members of the Dark Knights at least two claimed to have
no
commitment at all to vampirism. Back outside in the darkness, I made up my mind to wrap up both the Lugosi and the Faulkner cases as quickly as possible and investigate possibilities with Bedelia Sue Frye. I was not so twitter-patted, however, that I didn't watch my back and front as I went back to my car with my hand near my jacket and gun. I unlocked the car, checked the back seat, locked the door behind me, and headed home.

“Home is where you go, and they have to take you in if you pay your rent and cause as little trouble as possible.

Back on Heliotrope, I found a message from Jeremy Butler saying the day had been uneventful, and I found an excited Gunther Wherthman, whose excitement waned when he saw me.

“I was attacked by a vampire,” I said.

“Yes,” said Gunther, following me into my room where I checked the corners and closet and locked the door behind us. “I too have something of singular import perhaps to report.”

“Shoot,” I said, moving to turn on my hot plate and searching for a can of pork and beans on my shelf. “Join me?” I said, holding up the can.

“No, thank you,” said Gunther politely, brushing back a wisp of hair. “I have already eaten. May I …”

“Sorry, Gunther,” I said, opening the can. “It's been a long hard lifetime.”

“Mrs. Shatzkin went out twice today,” he said. “Once she was driven by her chauffeur and went to the office of her husband. They remained in the office for no more than ten minutes. When they came out, the chauffeur was carrying a small cardboard box which seemed to contain odds and ends brimming over.”

“Right,” I said, finding a pot and filling it with pork and beans on the hot plate.

“It appeared to me to be of no singular import,” said Gunther, “but I leave that to you. The second outing by Mrs. Shatzkin proved to be of greater potential interest, I think. Late in the afternoon she drove herself in a second car down various streets. I had the impression she was trying to see if someone was following her, but she was not very good at it. Her patterns of driving were most predictable and I let her drive around in recurring rectangles, picking her up at key points. It required some guessing, but my calculations proved to be correct.”

“Good work, Gunther,” I said, dropping a glob of butter into the boiling pot of beans.

“Toby,” he said, “I was not giving my investigative mode to solicit approval, but to make clear that she did not know I followed.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, turning to him.

“Yes,” said Gunther. “Well, she came finally to an apartment building in Culver City and entered. I followed after I was sure she was in and took down the names on all the boxes. There were six. By watching the windows from outside, I did manage to see her pass once or twice from the street side. The apartment was thus determined, and, I am sorry to say, it was the one with no name on the mailbox or bell. However, it was evident that she was not alone in the room. There was assuredly the figure of a man, and though I could not be certain, perhaps because my imagination was at this point engaged, I thought I saw what could at one point be interpreted as an amorous embrace. She remained inside for almost one hour and fifty minutes, emerged, looked around, and drove directly back to her home in Bel Air.”

“The plot sickens,” I said, moving to the table and eating directly from the pot with a large spoon and three slices of bread.

“And?” he said.

“I'll investigate in the morning. Gunther, thanks.”

“I found it stimulating,” he said. “Please call upon me if you need further help.”

I told him I would and he left. After finishing my dinner, I checked my wet suit. It was drying reasonably well and might be ready by morning.

It was a little after eight on my Beech-Nut clock. While I got out of my clothes, I listened to the end of “Inner Sanctum.” In bed, I heard Jack Benny and flexed my knee. It was working with some reluctance. I forced myself to exercise—push-ups, sit-ups, and panting. The knee would keep me out of the YMCA for a while, and I needed exercise as much to convince myself that I had an able body as to use that body.

I mixed myself a glass of milk with Horlicks, gulped it down, brushed my teeth, and got into bed with the lights out. I thought I'd rest for an hour or two, plan out the next day, Monday, and then get up and read a mystery. The rest turned to sleep, and I went out firmly except for one roll to my left that sent an icicle into my head wound.

The sound at the door was a scratch, and I couldn't tell whether the door was in my dream and the scratch outside or the reverse or neither. I struggled toward wakefulness, but it was one of those times when the weary flesh didn't want to respond to the need. I came out of it and sat up groggily. The scratch was still at my door.

“Just a second,” I said, turning on the light and checking the clock. It was just after midnight. Gunther was probably suffering from his chronic insomnia and checking to see whether I was up for some talk or coffee, but I didn't take any chances. I got my gun and said, “Who is it?”

“Me, Bedelia,” came the whispered answer. The voice was different from the one I had heard hours earlier in the Personality Plus Beauty School. I turned off the light, thought about putting on something besides my shorts, and decided there was no time. I stood to the side of the door with my gun ready and pushed it open into the room. From the light in the hall I could see the female figure silhouetted clearly. She was unarmed.

She stepped into the room, and I flicked on the light and closed the door. This wasn't the Bedelia Sue Frye I had met in Tarzana. This was the woman of the Dark Knights of Transylvania, the dark-haired, pale-faced creature slouching slightly, her voice a whisper, her smile a secret, a weary secret. She looked at my gun and let her eyes scan my body with a combination of amusement and approval. She was wearing something made of a red silklike material that hung straight down over her shoulders.

“You wanted to see me?” she said.

“Game time?” I said, looking closely at her. I couldn't be sure that this was the same woman, but it had to be.

“This is no game,” she said seriously, moving to my one semicomfortable chair and looking at the room.

I put my .38 on a corner of the table opposite her, where I could get to it first if I had to, and scratched my head, being careful to avoid my bump.

“Look,” I said, “things are going from bad to strange with me, and it'd make my life easier if you'd come out of character and tell me what's up.”

“Up,” she said with a smile, looking at my underpants. “You are.”

I was. I sat down at my kitchen table and crossed my legs.

“Okay,” I sighed, trapped in my own castle. “What's going on?”

“You wanted to see me,” she said.

“I saw you this evening,” I said.

“That was not the real me you saw,” she said, looking at my mattress. “This is.”

“Terrific,” I said. “You really mean this, don't you? Or are you going to suddenly come out of it and start laughing when my pants come down.”

“You can be amusing,” she said, rising and taking a step toward me.

“Like a fly amuses a spider,” I said.

“Perhaps,” she said, with a pout.

My eyes went to the gun and back to her as she advanced on me. I didn't want to stand up, but I didn't know what was on her mind.

“Lady,” I said, “I think you are a little screwy.”

She sat on the table, a cat smile on her lips, and touched my face. I looked at her and wondered whether I was having a nightmare or a fantasy. She inched forward off the table like a cat and sat in my lap. My body told me she wasn't a fantasy.

“It is after midnight,” she whispered, “when the blood runs free, and passion rises with the full moon.”