Carole Douglas - Vampire Sunrise

I studied Hector’s face and beard under the purple velvet beret he affected today.

All visible hair was totally black; could be dyed. Plastic surgeons had been injecting fat into faces for decades. Given the oddly immortal cast of characters in post-Millennium Revelation Las Vegas and medical advances verging on the miraculous, Hector could well be an Extreme Senior Citizen.

“Anyway,” I said, shaking my head to refuse the wooden bowl he nudged toward me, “my point is that the cottage offers me no domestic outlet whatsoever. I’m complaining that you’re not making good use of me.”

Of course I’d meant to appeal to all his worst instincts, which were ninety-nine and forty-four hundredths percent im pure. Ivory Snow detergent he was not.

“I have failed to make good use of you, Miss Street? Tut-tut. Shameless! How may I atone?”

I fluffed my hair and crossed my legs in the reverse order. I conjured a classic starlet pout by thinking of the Misses Lamarr and Lamour. Hedy Lamarr, I recalled, had made a luscious Delilah in a Technicolor epic named after both her and her leading mane, Samson. He still got top billing.

“I’m only asking for a bit part,” I said. “Nothing costly. Just that Lilith cameo you promised me.”

Hector Nightwine’s eyes grew so dark they made the clichéd “beady” obsolete. They seemed the utter absence of color, rather than any shade. But black is the result of all color, so that made sense. I guess a black hole was the other side of everything.

Anyway, both of Hector’s BB eyes glittered like lumps of coal that had just found Christmas stockings for the duration.

“Of course,” he whispered. “We film an autopsy each and every day for some CSI program somewhere on the globe. For your appearance, I suggest we simply reverse the direction in which the corpse faces. We can leave in the single maggot although it need not decorate a nostril. The little curve below your lower lip, perhaps.”

“And of course leave the clothes off? I don’t think so, Hector. I hate typecasting. I don’t want to play the usual naked lady on a stainless-steel autopsy table. I want to play an onlooker, a witness.”

“But Lilith was-”

“A one-of-a-kind corpse, Hector. Hard to achieve in these days of media overkill. You don’t want to dilute the ‘Maggie’ brand, do you? I recall you saying when you first broached this idea to me that my resemblance to your most famous corpse should be hinted at, should be taunting, haunting, an echo, a face in the misty night, a familiar refrain…”

“Like in that great classic novel and song and 1944 film Laura ! Yes, of course. Director Otto Preminger’s eternally enchanting tale of a beautiful dead girl with whom the investigating detective falls in love. Wonderful resonance! Brilliant. Lilith is ‘my’ Laura. How could I have not seen it?”

He had gone where I’d led. Waft a whiff of necrophilia over the media barons in these decadent post-Millennium Revelation times and you were a genius. I was ashamed to recall that Snow had suggested this very scenario of getting myself onto Nightwine’s CSI V autopsy set. Now it was working like a charm.

“Do I need to do anything but show up?” I asked.

“What? Ah, no. Yes. I-I-I’ll send fresh ‘sides’ to the cottage for you to study tonight. You can’t think I’d use you as a mere underpaid extra? Of course I’ll give you a few trifling lines. That way you’ll earn my CSI minimum of six hundred fifty-eight dollars and sixty-three cents a day for a speaking bit role, my dear girl.”

He beamed over his fistful of munchies. “Even a teensy bit part will help make you eligible for an AFTRA card, if you so desire, Delilah.” He chuckled until his velvet gut shook like a bowlful of earthworms. “Then you’ll be able to hold old Hector up for real dough when I want you for a spare shot.”

Not my ambition. I was taking a risk even by letting Hector play on the notion that the “Maggie” corpse was possibly alive and well and on the CSI set. I could end up a kidnap target of Dead Celebrity profiteers again, but the film bit might also flush out Lilith in more than my mirror, from which she’d been absent recently.

AFTER LEAVING HECTOR’S office, I engineered a secret flying visit to the Inferno and Ric in the bridal suite.

He was still sleeping like a baby, except for a totally hot smudge of five o’clock shadow the nurses couldn’t-or wouldn’t-tame. I stroked the back of my fingers over his soft/rough cheek.

The color was returning to his Latino complexion. He was still so dead to the world after Helena ’s visit… I couldn’t help remembering that well-fed vampires in their caskets always had a sinister healthy glow in the lushly colorful Hammer films.

HECTOR’S “SIDES,” OR dialogue pages, caught up with me about six that evening at the Enchanted Cottage after I got back from sitting with Ric.

Godfrey brought the pink-colored papers to the cottage on a silver salver, alongside a tiny crystal glass of Madeira. They included two pages of wordless action and two freaking pages of monologue.

“It’s a good thing a former TV reporter is a fast study,” I grumbled to Godfrey, “or I’d never memorize this in one night.”

“The master quite adores the idea of a teasing reappearance of a Lilith look-alike on CSI V, ” Godfrey said. “The Las Vegas version is his foundation show. I took the liberty of scanning the monologue before I came here and modifying a few rough edges. It’s a good bit. I grew up speaking lines by masters like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Anita Loos.”

“ You wrote it, Godfrey?”

“I ‘massaged’ it. Master Nightwine has the big ideas. I finesse the execution.”

I hoped he didn’t mean “execution” literally, not with modern CSI shows sometimes using authentic corpses nowadays.

WHEN I SHOWED up at the designated address on Pinto Lane the next morning at 6:00. I realized that the soundstage was right next to the Vegas coroner’s facility.

Wow. There must be a sweetheart deal between the city, L.V. coroner Grady “Grisly” Bahr, and Nightwine’s production company. I suppose there were cases when Hector needed additional corpses in a pinch and the morgue had plenty of unclaimed ones. It would also give the unknowns an unprecedented chance at recognition.

Visiting the morgue earlier with Ric, I’d taken the windowless beige brick building next door for some warehouse, never guessing its equally gruesome purpose.

Once inside, the building was as echoing and barren as I expected. A clerk gave me a long form to fill out. I used mostly made-up answers. I didn’t want specifics of my life in Wichita or here on record. For address, I put down the street number of Sunset Park, not Nightwine’s estate address, on the odd-numbered side of the road. Hector’d get my pay to me.

I’d worn my gray contact lenses and a big head scarf with a fake fringe of blond bangs. I would unveil only when and where Lilith’s famous raven locks, white skin, and vivid blue eyes would blossom for the camera.

After reading my part, I knew just where I could shock and awe to greatest effect. Before I delivered my lines and my own little surprise, I planned to find out all I could about the setup.

I returned the forms and clipboard to the attractive strawberry blonde on desk duty.

“I hope this is all right,” I said, sounding flustered. “This is my first real job in film.” She eyed me with the disdainful pity you get only from people who really want to be in your shoes but are too proud to admit it.

“This is not ‘fillum’ work. It’s a weekly TV show and you’re being paid just one level up from an extra. The only reason you got the job is you’re packing a thirty-eight.”