Stuart Kaminsky - Never Cross A Vampire

“I have informed Mr. Leib that I will repay him for the advance he gave you,” Faulkner said, still not looking at me. “I would appreciate it if you would submit to me in Oxford the remainder of your bill. I do not wish to have any obligation to Warner Brothers or Mr. Leib.”

“Fine,” I said.

“It may be several weeks or longer till I can forward the amount,” Faulkner continued in what was obviously a difficult statement, “but it will be forthcoming.” He laughed without humor. “I have been writing for years about honor, truth, pity, consideration, and the capacity to endure grief and misfortune and injustice and then endure again, in terms of individuals who observed and adhered to such principles not for reward but for virtue’s own sake in order to live with oneself and die peacefully with oneself, but there’s no denying the needs of the body. Romantic virtue is constantly preyed upon by our animalism.”

“Makes sense to me,” I lied. “You’re not sticking around Los Angeles, then?” I hurriedly changed the subject.

“No,” he sighed. “I will leave my agent to try to negotiate something here. I’m needed in Oxford. I’m the area chief for the local aircraft warning system, though I can see little chance or reason for an air attack on the hinterlands of Mississippi. I’ve actually got an office over a drug store where I can recruit observers. My daughter Jill likes it. She’s always complaining that she doesn’t know what to indicate on school forms that ask what her daddy does. She thinks I don’t work, but now she can list me as an air-raid warden.” “It’s something,” I said, turning down the block in front of the Hollywood Hotel.

Faulkner reached over to shake my hand when we stopped in front of the hotel. I hadn’t been to the Hollywood for years and didn’t realize how fast it had fallen to just this side of Gothic decay.

“If something ever brings you to Mississippi, Mr. Peters, I would be pleased if you would visit my family and me in Oxford. You could join a few friends in a hunt for raccoon or squirrels, and we could spend a night in the woods by a lake eating Brunswick stew and washing it down with lots of bourbon while we play nickel poker.”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” I grinned.

Faulkner got out quickly and hurried into the hotel without looking back. His gray jacket was badly wrinkled, and he looked a little frail as he moved, but his back was straight with a dignity I knew I could never pull off.

Time didn’t mean much anymore. I turned on the radio and was told again that a Japanese general said an invasion of California would be simple and that Pat Kelly had fought to a draw with heavyweight wrestling champ Jim Londos. While Jean Sablon sang “I Was Only Passing By,” I spotted an all-night eatery I had stumbled on before. It was small, just on the fringe that turned Sunset from class to working-class, and it always had a group of guys who looked like truck drivers sitting at the counter and tables chewing coffee and settling the world’s problems. I never saw any trucks on the street, so I didn’t know what these guys really were or did. Maybe they were movie producers traveling incognito looking for talent. I didn’t want to be discovered, so I didn’t bother to flash my glowing smile when I came in and found an open red-leather stool at the counter.

“What’ll it be?” said the guy behind the counter as he cleaned off a pile of crumbs in front of me. He was covered with hair, on his arms and neck, and looked as if he could hold Londos to a draw. I wondered whether Jeremy Butler had ever wrestled against Londos or Pat Kelly.

I ordered a cheese omelette, not well done, a bowl of cereal, and coffee. Three tons of fun in a corner table argued, but I couldn’t get interested. The omelette was good, the cereal was crisp, and the coffee strong. I was regaining the idea that I was a functioning human being. I could have stopped at County Hospital before I went home for an X ray of my back, just in case something was cracked or broken, but without young Doc Parry there, the place held no challenge.

I got home before dawn and found a parking space right in front of the boarding house on Heliotrope. No one bothered me when I went in and up. No one was in my room when I flipped the lights on and locked the door with the little hook and latch provided by Mrs. Plaut. My one-year-old niece Lucy could have pushed through the locked door without pausing.

My suit went on a chair, and I noticed the big pile of handwritten paper on my table. It looked like a few thousand pages. Maybe it was papers I had to fill out to get an apology from the Internal Revenue Service for being harassed by them when I had no income. It turned out to be Mrs. Plaut’s manuscript.

I looked at the first page of chapter fourteen on top, “What could Seymour do?” it began. “The Indian had destroyed the pianoforte and had turned on him and Sister. He dispatched the heathen with his weapon.” She didn’t mention what the weapon was. Maybe instead of billing Faulkner, I could send him Mrs. Plaut’s manuscript and ask him for comments I could feed her, but I decided against it. A simple bill would be less cruel.

My sleep was the sleep of the self-satisfied and unemployed. In a few hours I would get up, go to my office, make out my bills, and hope there was a job lead. There were no dreams of vampire women, haunted houses, the Old South, or Cincinnati. There was just sleep.

When I woke up my watch told me it was two o’clock, but I didn’t know which two o’clock it was. The Beech-Nut clock said it was three, and the sun said it was day. Considering my line of work, it would have been reasonable to invest in a new watch. Slavick Jewelry Company on Seventh had an Elgin eighteen-jewel for $33.75. I could get twelve months to pay it off, but I knew I’d consider that a betrayal of my old man’s gift.

Gunther wasn’t in so I left him a note on his desk explaining that the world had been put right again with thanks to his efforts in tracking down the Culver City hideaway. Then I grabbed a coffee, stopped at a stand for a pair of chili dogs, and headed for my office.

Jeremy Butler was escorting a drunk out the front door of the Farraday Building when I arrived. The place was a mecca for the unwashed and pickled of the neighborhood. It was as if drunks could breed. Jeremy held the man gently under one arm, and the thin guy took it philosophically and quietly.

“It’s over,” I told Butler. “Lugosi’s all right.”

“Good. I’ve been preparing a series of poems related to vampirism,” Butler said. The drunk looked interested.

“I’d like to read them when they’re ready,” I lied.

Jeremy nodded and took his bundle out the door.

Shelly was sitting in his single dental chair when I came in. Customerless, he was reading a dental journal.

“You know, Toby,” he said, pushing his glasses back on his nose, “I can’t make up my mind about who to submit the thing about vampire teeth to, a journal or Collier’s.”

“I don’t think Collier’s would be interested,” I said, moving toward my office.

“But they pay,” he said reasonably. “Dental journals don’t pay anything.”

“I thought you were interested in prestige?” I reminded him.

Shelly shrugged, wiped his moist forehead with his soiled white jacket, and said, “Maybe I can have both.” “Maybe,” I said, opening my door, “but you’ll have to go with what you have on it. I don’t think Sam Billings will be showing up here again. There’s a good chance he’ll be giving up fangs, too.”

“I thought I convinced him,” Shelly said, lighting a fresh cigar.

“You’re very persuasive, Shel,” I said, about to close myself into the windowed tomb that served as my office.