Stuart Kaminsky - Never Cross A Vampire

Lugosi stood erect, convinced his face into an evil smile, and stepped into the lights.

“I’ll be in touch as soon as I have anything,” I said. He nodded in acknowledgment. “And I’ll have someone watching your home just in case.”

With this he turned, dropped the film smile, and gave me a real one, which I returned. Then a voice shouted, “Quiet on the set,” and I went out the door.

I found a taco place, sat in a corner near a window where I could watch the dark Ford that had picked me up again, and thought about things. I thought that I was eating too much and always did when I was on a job. With two jobs I was eating even more. I thought that the guy in the dark car might not be from the Faulkner case. There was a good chance that he was Lugosi’s pen pal. I thought that Los Angeles was a strange place to work and that people here found the strangest way to die. I thought of Billie Ritchie, the Charlie Chaplin imitator, who had died of internal injuries after being attacked by ostriches while making a movie. I thought until the thinking hurt as much as my knee, and I knew I was ready. I was ready for one more Pepsi and a final taco before I played another round of tag with the Ford.

It was just about dark when I lost him. He was easy to lose because he didn’t want to get too close. I made some plans for getting a good look at him the next day if he kept up the game. It might be the best lead I had in one of my cases.

Back home I avoided Mrs. Plaut and borrowed a handful of nickels from Gunther. The next day was Sunday. Gunther volunteered to drive up to Bel Air and keep an eye on Camile Shatzkin, follow her if she left. I didn’t expect much to happen, but at least I’d be on the job through Gunther. Gunther’s car was a ’38 Oldsmobile with a built-up seat and special elongated pedals put on by Arnie the garageman for a reasonable price. The car was inconspicuous enough, but a midget was not the ideal person for a tailing job. I had no choice. I called my poetic office landlord, Jeremy Butler, and asked him to spend Sunday keeping an eye on the Lugosi house just in case the threat was real. Butler heard my story and said he would park discreetly with a book and keep an eye on the house. A near giant is no less conspicuous than a midget, but as I said, my options were limited, and as a bodyguard Jeremy Butler had no peers. I couldn’t say the same for his poetry. My last set of nickels went for a phone call to North Hollywood, where my sister-in-law Ruth answered the phone.

“Ruth, Toby. Hey, I thought I’d take the boys to a show to see Dumbo tomorrow if they’re not doing anything.”

“I’m sure they’d love it, Toby. What time will you pick them up?”

“About noon. I’ll take them for lunch first.”

“I’ll have them ready,” she said and hung up.

Below me the weekly Saturday night roomers’ poker game was starting, presided over by Mrs. Plaut with a retired postman as the perennial big winner. I had sat in once and likened the experience to Alice’s at the tea party. My knee was feeling a little better. I turned off the lights, got into bed, and listened to the reborn rain on the roof and my radio. I caught the guy on the news saying. “General Douglas MacArthur’s Philippine defenders are carrying on a grim and gallant battle against tremendous odds on the island fortress of Corregidor at the entrance of Manila Bay. They have successfully driven off the third bombing attack on the island.”

The Chinese high command reported that 52,000 Japanese had fallen, but the Japanese had taken Changsha. The Russians were still giving the Nazis hell, but the British were taking losses 280 miles from Singapore.

I turned off the radio and went to sleep, wondering whether there were some place on the earth not at war. I had a trio of dreams. One took place in Cincinnati. A vampire was flying through the streets dropping little pellets. Anyone who touched one or was touched by one turned to stone. The second dream had something to do with airplanes in a small room, and the third dream struck me as brilliant, something I’d have to remember in the morning so I could tell Jerry Vernoff the next time I saw him, if ever. It would make a perfect plot card. It involved a murder in a locked room. The victim was bludgeoned to death but there was no weapon. Just the victim and the murderer. In the dream I figured out that the killer, who looked something like my brother Phil, had frozen a huge banana, used it as a weapon, and then eaten it peel and all. The victim looked something like me.

When I woke up, I reached for my pants and notebook to write down the dream and then thought better of it. It didn’t seem so clever on a Sunday morning with the light through the windows and a layer of fuzz on my tongue.

My knee was stiff but not terribly painful as long as I didn’t bend it. I dressed and ate a big bowl of Kix while I read the Sunday funnies in the Times. I skipped the news. Red Ryder and Little Beaver had returned to Painted Valley. A “Sinister Sheik” was about to slash Tarzan. Dixie Dugan was trying to get her father out of his easy chair, and Fritzie Ritz and Phil were taking a walk. Joe Palooka was in the Army, and Tiny Tim was getting thrown into a Mason jar by Hoppy. The comic book insert-Brenda Starr, Kit Cabot, Spooky, and Texas Slim-inside the funnies kept me busy through another bowl of Kix.

By the time I got to my brother’s small house on Bluebelle in North Hollywood it was almost noon. The baby was toddling around the living room with a padlock in her hand and a four-toothed grin for me. Nate and Dave came out ready to go. Nate was twelve and Dave nine. I tried not to compare them to me and Phil. Dave had just recovered from a car accident, which had added to the Pevsner financial burden.

“Did you kill anybody yesterday, Uncle Toby?” Dave asked brightly.

“You’re a zertz,” Nate broke in. “He doesn’t kill people every day. He hardly ever kills people.”

“I hardly ever kill people,” I agreed.

I picked up the baby, who hit me with the small but heavy padlock and grinned. I was grinning back when Ruth came in the room, looking like Ruth: skinny, tired, with tinted blonde hair that wouldn’t stay up and a gentle smile. I took a step forward and saw Phil at the kitchen table with his head in the funnies trying to avoid me.

“What happened to your leg, Toby?” Ruth said, with some concern.

“Shot,” said Dave. “Probably Nazis.”

“Nazis,” I agreed, loud enough to be sure Phil heard. “They attacked me when I wasn’t looking for putting my feet on their secret spy desk.”

Ruth shook her head, thinking I was making a fool joke and being willing to tolerate me. I handed Ruth the baby, who gave me a final blow with the padlock, and I promised to have the boys back by five.

“Give my best to Phil,” I said as we went out the door.

“Your car is nifty-looking,” Dave said.

“Thanks,” I said, letting them in. When we were on our way, I cleared my throat and said, “You want to see Dumbo or some scary movies?”

“Scary movies,” the boys said in unison.

“Right,” I agreed, “but you have to tell your mother and father you saw Dumbo. It’s part of a case I’m on. Okay?”

They agreed, and I headed for Sam Billings’s adobe theater. We ate at the taco place across the street, and Nate complained about a sore stomach while we waited in line. The line consisted mainly of kids of all sizes with a few adults and a hell of a lot of noise. When we got to the box office, I asked the girl where I could find Billings, and she said he had an emergency dental appointment.

“Boys,” I said. “Here’s a quarter for candy. Watch two of the movies and meet me out on the sidewalk in front of the theater when they’re over. What movies are you going to see?”