The Vampire Files, Volume Three by P. N. Elrod

Author:P. N. Elrod
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

THE DARK SLEEP

With thanks to Kevin, Teresa, and the Tuesday night gang for handling the usual hair-tearing with their usual aplomb.

Thanks to the real Mary Sommerfeld for the high bidding

(you too, Randy Paterno!).

And a very special thanks to

Nigel Bennett,

Jim Byrnes,

and John Kapelos,

three extreme and inspiring talents.

1

Chicago, April 1937

NORMALLY I wouldn’t be caught dead—or even undead—in this kind of eatery anymore, but my partner, Charles Escott, needed my help with a case. He had a skittish client who insisted on being along for the ride, and he wanted someone to hold her hand and keep her out of trouble—that is to say, out of his hair—while he worked.

I looked across the table at Mary Sommerfeld, and tried to give her a reassuring smile, but she wasn’t having any of it. She kept darting nervous glances to her left, my right, and several times I had to stop myself from doing the same. If I wanted to see what was going on there, I could use the pocket mirror cupped in my palm.

“Keep your eyes on me,” I muttered. “Try to eat something.” After all, I’d bought her the more expensive fifty-five-cent dinner (beverage extra), and I hated to see good food going to waste. I assumed it was good, anyway. My judgment on fine dining was no longer reliable. The only thing that didn’t smell nauseating to me in this joint was my untouched coffee.

“But he’s not doing anything,” she muttered back.

I took her to mean my partner. “Mr. Escott’s had lots of experience at this kind of thing. Give him time, he’ll come up aces for you.”

She grimaced and seized a fork, glared at it, and made a point of wiping it thoroughly with her napkin, which I thought unnecessary. Granted, the joint wasn’t the Ritz Hotel, like what she was used to, but then it was a few steps above a greasy spoon, like what I’d been used to before I stopped eating solid food. It was clean and well lighted, with no lip-rouge stains on the glasses, and the ashtrays were emptied regularly. Not my kind of place these nights, but still fairly respectable.

Escott had chosen it because you could seat yourself, hence my place in a booth with Miss Sommerfeld, and his at a table twenty feet away with Jason McCallen. From my vantage I could easily block the front and back exits in case McCallen decided to hoof it before our business with him was done.

Our client wasn’t too happy being so close to him, but with her short dark hair hidden by a gray cloche hat and the rest of her covered up with a matching coat and galoshes, she looked like a thousand other Chicago women for this time of year. Besides, McCallen was angled away from us, and would have to turn to spot her.

I’d tried to dress to blend in as well, leaving my pricey double-breasted suits and silk shirts in the closet in favor of a nondescript jacket and slacks, both in dark blue.

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