Лорел Гамильтон - Circus of the Damned

"I'm afraid so, Mr. Vaughn."

"That could have been very serious, Larry. You understand that?"

"Serious?" I said. "It would have been a bloody disaster. The zombie could have eaten one of our clients!"

"Now, Anita, no reason to frighten the boy."

I stood up. "Yes, there is."

Bert frowned at me. "If you hadn't been late, he wouldn't have tried to raise the last zombie."

"No, Bert. You are not making this all my fault. You sent him out on his first night alone. Alone, Bert."

"And he handled himself well," Bert said.

I fought the urge to scream, because it wouldn't help. "Bert, he's a twenty-year-old college student. This is a freaking seminar for him. If you get him killed, it's gonna look sorta bad."

"May I say something?" Larry asked.

I said, "No."

Bert said, "Certainly."

"I'm a big boy. I can take care of myself."

I wanted to argue that, but looking into his true-blue eyes I couldn't say it. He was twenty. I remembered twenty. I'd known everything at twenty. It took me another year to realize I knew nothing. I was still hoping to learn something before I hit thirty, but I wasn't holding my breath.

"How old were you when you started working for me?" Bert said.

"What?"

"How old were you?"

"Twenty-one; I'd just graduated college."

"When will you turn twenty-one, Larry?" Bert asked.

"March."

"See, Anita, he's just a few months younger. He's the same age you were."

"That was different."

"Why?" Bert said.

I couldn't put it into words. Larry still had all his grandparents. He'd never seen death and violence up close and personal. I had. He was an innocent, and I hadn't been innocent for years. But how to explain that to Bert without hurting Larry's feelings? No twenty-year-old man likes to hear that a woman knows more about the world than he does. Some cultural fables die hard.

"You sent me out with Manny, not alone."

"He was supposed to go out with you, but you had police business to handle."

"That's not fair, Bert, and you know it."

He shrugged. "If you'd been doing your job, he wouldn't have been alone."

"There've been two murders. What am I supposed to do? Say sorry, folks, I've got to babysit a new animator. Sorry about the murders."

"Nobody has to babysit me," Larry said.

We both ignored him.

"You have a full time job here with Animators, Inc."

"We've had this argument before, Bert."

"Too many times," he said.

"You're my boss, Bert. Do what you think best."

"Don't tempt me."

"Hey, guys," Larry said, "I'm getting the feeling that you're using me for an excuse to fight. Don't get carried away, okay?"

We both glared at him. He didn't back down, just stared at us. Point for him.

"If you don't like the way I do my job, Bert, fire me, but stop yanking my chain."

Bert stood up, slowly, like a leviathan rising from the waves. "Anita. ."

The phone rang. We all stared at it for a minute. Bert finally picked it up and growled, "Yeah, what is it?"

He listened for a minute, then glared at me. "It's for you." His voice was incredibly mild as he said it. "Detective Sergeant Storr, police business."

Bert's face was smiling, butter wouldn't have melted in his mouth.

I held out my hand for the phone without another word. He handed me the receiver. He was still smiling, his tiny grey eyes warm and sparkling. It was a bad sign.

"Hi, Dolph, what's up?"

"We're at the lawyer's office that your friend Veronica Sims gave us. Nice that she called you first and not us."

"She called you second, didn't she?"

"Yeah."

"What have you found out?" I didn't bother to keep my voice down. If you're careful, one side of a conversation isn't very enlightening.

"Reba Baker is the dead woman. They identified her from morgue photos."

"Pleasant way to end the work week," I said.

Dolph ignored that. "Both victims were clients with dying wills. If they died by vampire bite, they wanted to be staked, then cremated."

"Sounds like a pattern to me," I said.

"But how did the vampires find out that they had dying wills?"

"Is this a trick question, Dolph? Someone told them."

"I know that," he said. He sounded disgusted.

I was missing something. "What do you want from me, Dolph?"

"I've questioned everyone, and I'd swear they were all telling the truth. Could someone have been giving the information and not remember?"

"You mean could the vampire have played mind games, so that the traitor wouldn't know afterwards?"

"Yeah," he said.

"Sure," I said.

"Could you tell which one the vampire got to if you were here?"

I glanced at my boss's face. If I missed another night during our busiest season, he might fire me. There were days when I didn't think I'd care. This wasn't one of them. "Look for memory losses; hours, or even entire nights."

"Anything else?"

"If someone has been feeding info to the vampires, they may not remember it, but a good hypnotist will be able to raise the memory."

"The lawyer is screaming about rights and warrants. We've only got a warrant for the files, not for their minds."

"Ask him if he wants to be responsible for tonight's murder victim, one of his own clients?"

"She; the lawyer's a woman," he said.

How embarrassing and how sexist of me. "Ask her if she's willing to explain to her client's family why she obstructed your investigation."

"The clients won't know unless we let it out," he said.

"That's true," I said.

"Why, that would be blackmail, Ms. Blake."

"Isn't it, though?" I said.

"You had to be a cop in a past life," he said. "You're too devious not to be."

"Thanks for the compliment."

"Any hypnotists you'd recommend?"

"Alvin Thormund. Wait a sec and I'll get his number for you." I got out my thin business card holder. I tried to only keep cards I wanted to refer to from time to time. We'd used Alvin for several cases of vampire victims with amnesia. I gave Dolph the number.

"Thanks, Anita."

"Let me know what you find out. I might be able to identify the vampire involved."

"You want to be there when we put them under?"

I glanced at Bert. His face was still relaxed, pleasant. Bert at his most dangerous.

"I don't think so. Just make a recording of the session. If I need to, I'll listen to it later."

"Later may mean another body," he said. "Your boss giving you trouble again?"

"Yeah," I said.

"You want me to talk to him?" Dolph asked.

"I don't think so."

"He being a real bastard about it?"

"The usual."

"Okay, I'll call this Thormund and record the sessions. I'll let you know if we find out anything."

"Beep me."

"You got it." He hung up. I didn't bother to say good-bye. Dolph never did.

I handed the phone back to Bert. He hung it up still staring at me with his pleasant, threatening eyes. "You have to go out for the police tonight?"

"No."

"How did we merit this honor?"

"Cut the sarcasm, Bert." I turned to Larry. "You ready to go, kid?"

"How old are you?" he asked.

Bert grinned.

"What difference does it make?" I asked.

"Just answer the question, okay?"

I shrugged. "Twenty-four."

"You're only four years older than me. Don't call me kid."

I had to smile. "Deal, but we better be going. We have dead to raise, money to make." I glanced at Bert.

He was leaning back in his chair, blunt-fingered hands clasped over his belly. He was grinning.

I wanted to wipe the grin off his face with a fist. I resisted the urge. Who says I have no self-control?

It was an hour before dawn. When all the Whos down in Whoville were asnooze in their beds without care. Sorry, wrong book. If I get to stay awake until dawn, I get just a tad slaphappy. I'd been up all night teaching Larry how to be a good, law-abiding animator. I wasn't sure Bert would appreciate the last, but I knew I would.