Charlaine Harris - Crimes by Moonlight

It was the lips, in particular, that merited attention. Unusually thin, as if he’d deliberately sucked them in, covering up his teeth.

He kissed her good night at the door. Then, in a flash, he ducked down a side alley next to the dorm.

Damn! There I was, waiting for him to go back out the main gate of the quad the way he came, and the son of a bitch takes a shortcut to the side street. I fell all over myself trying to follow, but by the time I got there, he was gone.

You ever ask anyone which way the vampire went?

DEBBIE was pissed. “You lost him?”

“I never had him.”

“What?”

“ ‘You lost him’ implies I was following him, and he got away. That didn’t happen. He was gone before I even started.”

She made a face at me. Trust me, it’s no fun to have a goth make a face at you. “Oh, isn’t that clever? What are you, a moron? Didn’t you see us come back to the dorm?”

“Yes.”

“Then you saw Morris. If you saw him, you had him. You had him, and you lost him, end of story.”

“I take it I’m fired.”

“Fired? Fired from what? You haven’t done anything yet.”

“I staked out a dorm.”

“You expect me to pay you for that?”

I hadn’t expected her to pay me at all. But she was pissing me off. “In this business there are no guarantees.”

Her eyes blazed. “What the hell are you talking about, guarantees? It’s not like you tried and failed. It’s like you didn’t do anything.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“How much do you think I owe you?”

“You don’t owe me a thing. Good luck with your vampire. I hope the next private eye you hire does better.”

She immediately began to backtrack. “Don’t be an old grouse,” she said. I wasn’t thrilled by the adjective. “It didn’t work last night. Now you know better. Now you’ll do better. I’m seeing Morris again tonight. Be there when he brings me home.”

Having graciously relented and allowed me another shot at vampire surveillance, the goth proceeded to launch into a lecture on how this time I shouldn’t fail.

There were a lot of things I could have said right then, but I’d have had to interrupt her. And nothing was going to help. I shut up and let her rant.

THE vampire was wearing a sports jacket. The fact that it threw me was rather unsettling. It meant I’d accepted the premise. That I was thinking it funny for a vampire to wear a sports jacket.

I was dressed differently, too, in a polo shirt and khaki pants. I had my hair parted on the other side and felt sheepish about it. It was as if I were wearing a disguise so the vampire wouldn’t recognize me. Leaving out the word vampire, it still seemed strange. In my line of detective work, a disguise is about the last thing I’d ever use. I tried to tell myself it’s not a wig or a mustache, just running a comb though my hair in the wrong direction, but I wasn’t buying it. Nothing was going to keep me from feeling like a fool.

I was positioned at the mouth of the alley, as opposed to the night before, when I’d been on the other side of the quad. If he went down the alley, he was mine. If he went anywhere else, I’d have time to follow.

After a lingering kiss, (no, his mouth did not venture anywhere near her neck), he turned and walked off as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

I followed him out of the quad at 116th Street, where he ignored the bus stop and subway station on the corner, instead crossing Broadway and looking uptown as if to hail a cab.

That was a problem. If I wanted to follow him, I’d have to hail a cab, too. If I crossed Broadway to get one, he’d see me. Which is why I didn’t do that. I stayed right where I was. I’d grab a cab going uptown, make him make a U-turn at 116th. I walked a few car lengths downtown, so when I hailed a cab he’d have room to get left and make the turn. There was nothing coming uptown at the moment, which concerned me. I looked to see how the vampire was doing.

That’s when I saw the other guy. He was crossing Broadway, just the way I said I shouldn’t, jaywalking to reach the north side of 116th, right in position to hail a cab.

Only he wasn’t looking for a cab. He was spying on the vampire, while pretending he wasn’t, looking to all intents and purposes exactly like I was afraid I’d look, and probably would have. He was an older man, older than the vampire, anyway, though probably not older than me. Nobody’s older than me these days. He had heavy beard stubble, like he hadn’t shaved that morning. If he had shaved that morning, he had very heavy beard stubble. He wore a gray suit and white shirt, open at the neck.

Cabs were coming, which was good news for them, bad news for me, as none were coming uptown. Which put me in the position of having to sprint across Broadway, hoping to finish a poor third.

The vampire hailed a cab. Now there’s a phrase I never expected to say. But he did, and as it pulled away from the curb, the heavy-bearded, fearless vampire tailer stepped out and hailed another.

I was about to make the mad dash across Broadway when a cab pulled out of a side street, and I hopped in. I was tempted to say, “Follow that vampire.” It was bad enough saying, “Follow that cab.”

“Make a U-turn right here, follow that guy getting into the cab across the street.”

The cabby was a stocky Hispanic in no mood for trouble. “Hey, buddy, what is this?”

I flashed my license. I felt foolish, as usual, which is why I seldom do it. “I’m a PI, it’s a boy-girl thing, no one’s getting hurt.”

The cabby wasn’t sold. “What’s your interest in this guy?”

“None. I’m interested in the guy he’s following.”

The cabby nearly twisted his head off turning to look at me. “What the hell?!”

“You want the fare or not?”

That settled it. The cabby started the meter, pulled out from the curb. He hung a U-turn at 116th Street, and away we went.

It didn’t take long to catch up. The vampire was tooling down Broadway, and his shadow was right on his tail. The guy was following way too close. If I’d been in the cab, I’d have made the cabby drop back. I made my cabby drop back and was a good half a block behind when the vampire’s cab signaled for a left turn.

“He’s turning, don’t lose him!” I told the cabby.

His grunt was eloquent. I tell him to drop back, then I’m afraid he won’t make the light.

It’s important to make the light on Broadway. It’s a two-way, divided street. If you’re in the intersection when the light changes, you can turn left. If you’re not in the intersection, you have to wait for the light to change twice. Once to green on Broadway to let you go, then to green on the cross street to let you complete the turn. Miss a turn like that on a tailing job, and you’re dead.

We made it, but just. My cab broke the plain of the crosswalk somewhere between the last split second of the yellow and the first split second of the red.

The vampire didn’t turn left onto 108th Street. Instead, his cab made a U-turn heading back up Broadway. That was okay, because the light at 109th and Broadway was red, so he couldn’t get away, and there was time to catch up.

But the maneuver meant he’d probably spotted his tail.

He had.

The vampire hopped out of his cab, darted across Broadway, and hailed another cab that had just turned downtown off 109th. When the light changed, he was gone, leaving his two tails caught at the light, snarled in uptown traffic, without a prayer of ever catching up.

DEBBIE couldn’t believe it. “You lost him again!”

“Yes, I did. But it wasn’t my fault.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I’m serious. I don’t think he ever spotted me. I think he spotted the other guy.”