Six Times Deadly: A Lawson Vampire Story Collection (The Lawson Vampire Series) (5 page)

“Never seen you here before.”

I opened my eyes, not having realized they were closed, and looked at the guy in front of me.
 
Sammy Hagar himself.
 
Well, not the real one, but probably the Sammy Hagar that wakes up from a tequila-fueled orgy of excess, pukes two dozen times until he’s heaving nothing but air and bile, and then rubs sandpaper on his face.
 
Hard.

He held a bottle of someone’s idea of lite beer and nodded at my glass.
 
“You like the strong stuff, huh?”

“No.”
 
I smiled.
 
“I like the good stuff.”

“I hear that.”
 
He tilted his glass back.
 
I watched him take a few slugs and then slap it back down on to the table with a thunk.
 
“You enjoying the music?”

I shrugged.
 
“Depends on whether you guys know how to play anything that didn’t debut on an 8-track.”

“Yeah, we get the old crowd here.
 
Gotta have their tunes they grew up with.
 
Back when they still thought that life was good.
 
And just.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Good?
 
Not for them.
 
You see ‘em staring into their bottles or glasses night after night, just trying to figure out in retrospect where it all went wrong.
 
Not that they did anything major bad, more like a gentle derailing of their dreams.”

“No wonder you sing.
 
That was almost poetic.”

“Almost?”

“Next you’re going to tell me that one day they just wake up and it’s who they are.
 
Old, desperate, alone.
 
Hanging out in the bars they swore they’d never spend time in.
 
Waiting for someone to come along and tell them it’s okay.
 
That maybe the best part of their life is right around the next corner when they know all too well that the best part of their life went out when they learned to use the toilet.”

Hagar looked at me.
 
“Damn, man.
 
That’s some depressing shit.”

“I mess it up for you?
 
You still living the fantasy?”

He topped his beer back.
 
“Nah, I just make money off their misery.”

“Misery pay well?”

He shrugged now.
 
“I take side jobs now and again.
 
You looking to hire someone?”

“Don’t know if I’ve got the right side job for a man of your…talents.”

“I sing, I play guitar.
 
I hang out on beaches and chase women.”
 
He smiled and I could see he’d had some work done recently.
 
“Is there anything else?”

I sipped my drink.
 
“You guys go back on anytime soon, maybe play some Bad Company.”

“Long as you hand out razor blades for the masses, man.
 
That’s on the no-play list.”

“Why’s that?”

“Too depressing.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Nah, the owner don’t like it.
 
Says it reminds him of a bad time in his life.”

“These are the good times?”

Hagar smirked and nodded.
 
“I still got to get paid for my work.
 
I can do some Billy Joel, you want that instead.”

“Your definition of compromise needs work.”

He didn’t answer and moved back to the improvised stage.
 
In a few seconds, he was singing about finding someone alone in their electric chair and telling them dirty jokes until they smiled.

I finished my first drink and nodded at my pal the barkeep to bring the second over.
 
I wasn’t feeling the buzz, but alcohol takes a while longer to affect my kind than humans.

When he brought the drink, I nodded at the stage.
 
“He in here a lot?”

“Why?
 
You got a Bar Mitzvah you want to hire him for?”

“Funny.
 
You manage to think that one up all the while you’re busy serving drinks?
 
I’m impressed.
 
Now try adding gum and you’ll have a genuine hat trick.”

He frowned.
 
“Yeah, he’s in here every weekend.
 
They’re not great or anything-”

“Blasphemy.”

“-but you know, we have to make do with what we can get on a limited budget.”

“You paying these guys with good will?”

“C note a night, plus whatever they can con off the regulars in tips.”

I took a sip of the new drink.
 
“How was the crowd last weekend?”

“Same as now.
 
But he wasn’t here.
 
Got sick or some shit like that.
 
Banged out the Friday afternoon.”

“So, no band.”

He shook his head.
 
“Nah, just no lead singer.”

I almost smiled.
 
“You mean this crap went instrumental?”

“Believe it or not, the bass player sings, too.”
 
He shrugged.
 
“You want another drink after that one?”

“Nah.
 
I’ll be done by then.”

“Change?”

“Yours.”

He walked away and I turned back to the band.
 
No one else in the bar looked even remotely like they could be a part of kidnapping posse.
 
Not that Hagar was a definite.
 
But he was a definite maybe.
 
And the fact that he’d been away last weekend when someone was trying to steal a kid, left me with some more questions for our lucky mystery panelist.

I spent another twenty minutes listening to a lot of music I hadn’t heard since I’d graduated the Fixer Academy back in the mid-60s, the kind of drivel I hated even back then.
 
Back when I went operational for the first time and apprenticed under my former mentor Zero.

I shrugged the bit of nostalgia off and waited for last call to creep around – a poking reminder in a joint like this that real life was just a doorjamb away.
 
Sleep was no solace.
 
Sooner or later, truth is what truth is.
 
And for some, they’d run right back here tomorrow night, desperate to forget the brilliance with the fog of booze.

Gambling man that I am, I was willing to bet one of them wouldn’t be back.

Hagar the Horrible finished the set and started breaking down the equipment with his band mates.
 
I got up and left.

Outside, the night air felt thick from the earlier rain and sticky heat.
 
I walked toward my car oblivious to the other patrons.
 
I switched the ignition on and the air conditioner pumped cool air from the vents.

It took twenty minutes for the bar to clear; a few last-minute negotiations worked themselves out with a wink and a promise of eventual horizontal satisfaction provided the players could reach the mattress without wrapping themselves around a light pole.

The band left last.

Hagar slid behind the wheel of a Chevy Caprice almost as old as the songs he sang.
 
One of the headlights shot its beam toward the sky reminding me of a person with a lazy eye you can’t stop staring at.
 
The car rolled out with Hagar not seeming to pay attention.

I waited and then slid out behind the bass player’s car and kept a comfortable distance between us.
 
We slid into the rotary by Mashpee Commons and Hagar drifted onto route 28 heading toward Hyannis.
 
The bass player headed some place else – probably the afterlife.
 
I tucked in behind the Caprice, memorizing the way the taillights looked and let the distance between us grow.

This time of night, traffic on 28 was slight.
 
We eased through the turnoff to Cotuit and further on at the fork that led right to Hyannis or left to Chatham, Hagar went left.
 
But Chatham didn’t make sense.
 
It was out of his league.
 
Just driving a Caprice in that town could have scored him a ticket for being dreadfully out of style.

A pair of lights in my rearview reminded me that not everyone on Cape Cod slept at night.
 
I had a fast-mover coming up on my six, probably a young kid out to impress her girlfriend.
 
But 28 was a single-lane highway.
 
He’d have to get used to slowing down.
 
I wasn’t about to get burned so he could get laid.

The Caprice slowed.
 
I eased off the gas and looked back in the rearview.

Saw something and frowned.

Was that a hand coming out of the driver’s window?

***

“Get him out of there.”

I heard the voices.
 
Two of them, but for some reason, I saw only darkness.
 
I blinked a few times but it didn’t clear my vision.
 
The scent of gasoline filled my nostrils.
 
The crash must have severed the gas line somehow.

“Why don’t we just leave him and let him burn?”

“Don’t be stupid.
 
We need him alive.
 
For now.”

I put a hand to my face.
 
“Smart plan.”

Someone punched me in the side of my head for my effort.
 
I winced and shook it off.
 
I felt rough hands claw at me, yanking me free of the steering column and my seat belt.
 
They weren’t gentle and bits of the broken window tore at my clothes and my skin.
 
I caught a whiff of blood.

Probably my own.

“Hurry up.”

Another set of hands grabbed me.
 
I still couldn’t see.
 
I tried to fend them off, but my head rang like the bells at Notre Dame.
 
I might have had a concussion.

I was lifted and thrown into a trunk.
 
It slammed shut behind me; I heard the roar of an engine then the felt the car slide into drive and speed down the road.

I took stock of the situation.
 
My head hurt like hell.
 
I couldn’t see.
 
I lifted my hands to my eyes now and they came away sticky wet like I’d had molasses poured over me.
 
I sniffed.
 
Blood.
 

Head wounds, like abdominals, are always bloody as hell, but the presence of blood doesn’t necessarily mean it’s too serious.
 
I wasn’t all that concerned.
 
Although I did want my head back on straight by the time we stopped.

I’d been right tagging Hagar.
 
But who had helped him?
 
I didn’t recognize the voice.

I tucked into my breathing, calming myself down and trying to regulate my adrenaline flow.
 
I felt my head slowly start to clear and the breathing helped stem the flow of blood as well.
 
Being around as long as I’ve been, you pick up a few tricks that come in handy.

We turned a few times and the bumps increased.
 
I guessed we were off the main drag now, probably heading into the back roads of the Cape.
 
There’s a fair amount of hidden places down here and if I wasn’t careful, I was going to end up as landfill in one of them.

And me with a hot date this week.

The car stopped; I managed to clear enough blood from around my eyes to see faint cracks of light by the edge of the trunk.
 
I steeled myself for what was coming.

The trunk opened and a bright flashlight blinded me.
 
“Don’t try anything.
 
We’ve got a gun on you.”

I held my hands out.
 
“All right.
 
But I can’t get out unless you switch that thing off.”

The light disappeared and I heard the surf now for the first time.
 
From the sound of it, the tide was coming in.
 
Waves crashed some distance away.
 
I crawled out of the trunk and the ambient light from the moon illuminated a deserted stretch of beach.
 
I couldn’t see any houses along the shore.
 
Just a lot of sand.

Hagar eyed me but he didn’t say anything.
 
The guy next to him, the bass player, eyed me.
 
“Who are you?”

I smiled.
 
“Didn’t I see you disappear around the rotary?”

“And then creep up on your tail.
 
Yeah.”
 
He held a Colt Python and in the moonlight, it gleamed silver.
 
“I’ll ask you one more time.
 
Who are you?”

Hagar frowned.
 
“Is he one of them?”

The bass player nodded.
 
“Probably.”

“One of what?” I asked.
 
The bass player was far enough away that going for the disarm was risky.
 
And I had to assume that if he knew what I might be, then the gun was probably loaded with all sorts of bullets that could ruin my day.

The bass player spat in the sand.
 
“Fixer.”

“What’s that?”

He backhanded me with the revolver so fast I didn’t even see it coming.
 
It cut into my cheek and scored a line through my gums.
 
I swallowed some of the blood and glared at him.
 

He thumbed the hammer back.
 
“How’d you find us?”

There didn’t seem much point in lying.
 
“A tip.
 
I was dispatched to follow it up.”

“From who?”

I shook my head.
 
“No idea.
 
That’d be a little beyond my pay grade.”