John Steakley - Vampire$

“The point is: he’s strong. Strong and powerful and he knows people, and the people he doesn’t know socially, he owns.

“That fucking house of his. That fort. No way to get to him there. Daytime, high noon — it doesn’t matter. Think you can get through that wall? Through that Fort Knox front gate? And, even if you did, are you prepared to kill half a dozen security guards who almost certainly haven’t got a clue as to what’s what? Then the staff, of course. They’ll try to stop you. Some of them know, too. And they’ll really put up a fight.

“And by then, just how many SWAT teams and police choppers and Texas Rangers do you think will be surrounding you — shooting at you on sight — for trying to pull some terrorist act on the home of so prominent a man?

“A pillar of the fucking community?

“Patron of the fucking arts.”

Gunman Felix sat down, abruptly, and turned to his watery drink and drank it dry and held out the glass for another. Cat took it from him and went to refill.

“Ha!” laughed Felix again… and that awful laugh made them jump…

“Ha! I still get solicitations from him. Or some charity board he’s on. You know?”

Davette jumped again at his look, nodded. “I remember him now.”

Gunman Felix nodded and smiled. “Yeah.”

Davette didn’t like his smile.

“He had some favorite charity goodie, didn’t he? Got something at the office in the mail along with a bunch of clippings.”

“Opera,” said Davette.

And he looked at her and his eyes went wide and his smile was too bright and tortured.

“Yes! Of course! Opera. Isn’t it all just so wonderful?”

Davette didn’t know what to say. Cat, standing there pale and staring, remembered the drink in his hand and handed it to the Gunman. Felix drank it dry in a single gulp.

“Yeah. Opera. Some big project about…”

And he stopped and looked at Davette and it hit her, too, and she looked back at him.

“The Opera House!” she whispered.

“Yes,” he replied. “The Opera House.”

And he looked over at the newspaper Cat had left crumpled on the floor, open to the Entertainment Section because they had been thinking about going to an afternoon movie.

Gunman Felix stood up and strode over to it and picked it up and rifled quickly through it.

“Ha!” he cackled when he found what he wanted.

And he came back and he leaned down to where Davette was sitting on the floor and planted the open newspaper on the rug beside her and punched his index finger into it so hard it went through the newsprint.

They looked. It was an ad. For the much delayed, greatly heralded, grand opening of the Dallas Opera House. One week from today.

“He’ll be there,” whispered Gunman Felix and his voice was old dead wood. “He’ll be there. And they will rush up to him and shake his hand and congratulate him and love him.

“And in return, he’ll slash their throats and swell fat and thick on their blood.”

No one spoke for a few moments after that. Cat and Davette couldn’t speak, could only stare at the maniacal grin sitting before them, relishing and cherishing and worming the pain deeper into his own soul. He seemed to take such dreadful delight in the crushing irony of it all.

“Yes,” he said after a while and he was much much calmer.

Impossibly so.

“Yes,” he repeated. “He could just walk up to people and talk to them. But they could just walk up to him, too. Even somebody who knew what he was. He would not suspect. He would simply smile at them, like a big… fat… tick.

“He would be completely off his guard, wouldn’t he?”

“Felix!” gasped Cat. “You can’t mean…”

“Rock and roll, Cherry Cat. Isn’t that what you always say?”

“You can’t be serious!”

Gunman Felix just smiled and stared at the newspaper ad.

“Got to, Cat. Got to.”

Oh! What a gala night! Oh, what an event! Everyone, simply Everyone, was there. What a pity it had to be in the summer, in this dreadful hot weather. But those workers had, just taken their time and those awful unions — everyone knew how they could be.

Yet it was done now. Finished and complete and shining and wasn’t it simply marvelous! All those slopes and weird shapes? What was that architect’s name? Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. The important thing is it’s all done now and what an event we are having tonight. Everyone was there.

Even the streets were dressed for the event. With banners and streamers and a band playing both before and after the show, as all those people would be strolling out. And, oh, the cameras and the street all blocked off and the chairperson of the Opera Committee arriving in that two-horse carriage with the mayor and his wife and…

Oh, the street entertainers! Look at them! Aren’t they cute? All those mimes and those jesters dressed in those cute, tight stripes with those hats with the bells on them. And even more fun were the period people, with those costumes like the opera itself, selling — what was that? Mead? Or some such thing? And meat pies. And turkey on a stick. And those two artisans, wearing that cute chain mail and selling those old weapons that were positively guaranteed to be authentic but shouldn’t they have at least painted over the plastic parts, ha ha?

Pity about the opera part of it all. It was pretty, of course — beautiful, some of those costumes. But it was rather dreadfully long, wasn’t it? Of course, operas are supposed to be long and one knows it’s Great Art and all the rest, but still one wonders — perhaps if it was just a teensy bit shorter? And if we could understand what they were singing? Perhaps they should just speak some of it? But then it wouldn’t be opera, would it?

Of course, it wouldn’t have to be subsidized then, either, but not to think of that now, because it was over and everyone, Everyone, had woken up from their little naps and… Oh! The afterparties! All those delicious afterparties! Because this was such an Important Occasion, such a Cultural Milestone! Like New Year’s Eve, wasn’t it? With all the limousines and there goes the mayor in his little buggy and wasn’t it so much nicer now that it was cooler and that hot sun had gone down? People didn’t look quite so… wilted, somehow. One should never look wilted in a formal gown — how tacky! And the men, how handsome in their tuxedos. Oh, they always complain and gripe, but secretly, everyone knows, they love to dress up. And they really are so handsome. Nothing like black tie to make a man look distinguished, even those men who have — how shall we say it? — aged both in years and size? Both up and out? Ha ha!

Like that handsome silver-haired fellow just now coming down the steps, the one alone going between the new brass pillars that hold up the awning, going toward that limousine with that tall chauffeur holding the door.

What was his name?

“Kennedy!” barked Gunman Felix, coming around from behind his “authentic crossbow” stand.

The vampire turned and smiled and the crossbow bolt as big as a baseball bat shot right through the gleaming expanse of his starched white tuxedo shirt and splattered clear drops out the back and the umbrella barbs popped open and held it fast

And for just a moment, only Felix, binding the cable to the thick brass pillar, was moving. Everyone else was frozen, too startled to gasp. Unbelieving. This wasn’t possible was it? Or part of the show? A trick? An assassination? Too surreal…

Even the monster stood as he had, staggered back a step, his arms flung wide by the impact, his redding eyes focused on the wooden stake piercing his blackened soul.