Never Cross A Vampire

CHAPTER SEVEN

My suit was dry by morning, or at least dry enough to put on after I ate a large blue bowl of Wheaties and listened to the 8:30 news. I wasn’t sure whether we were winning the war, but the Chicago Bears had beaten the Pro All-Stars 35 to 24. An announcer told me Forest Lawn was celebrating its silver anniversary as a memorial park. Founded on 55 acres in 1917, he said, it had grown to 303 acres in twenty-five years. I didn’t see what they were so proud of. Mortality and westward migration were responsible. Then I found out that John S. Bugosi, head of the FBI in Detroit, had arrested a thirty-one-year-old stenographer in a local railroad ticket office for “engaging in spreading vicious propaganda.”

The sun was out, and the temperature was up to almost 50. The bruise on my head had turned tender and purple. My knee was stiff. It didn’t hurt if I left it alone, but I couldn’t bend it. I decided to visit an orthopedic surgeon I played handball with at the Y in the hope of instant, magical treatment before I went to Culver City for a look-see at the mysterious apartment visited by Camile Shatzkin. The ride to Doc Hodgdon’s office on DeLongpre was uneventful: no dark Ford; no vampirelike creatures leaping on my hood. I kept my leg straight and respected its refusal to function. The radio crackled, but I listened to Our Gal Sunday tell someone named Peter about Lord Henry’s escape from a fire.

Doc Hodgdon’s office was in his two-story frame house in a residential area. Until a week ago I had thought he was a proctologist. Now I was glad he wasn’t. I had no trouble parking. Walking, however, was another issue. I tried dragging my leg, hopping, and ignoring it. Hopping worked best, but looked silliest.

There were only three stone steps up, which I managed with circuslike dexterity, a grab at Doc Hodgdon’s shingle with his name on it, and the help of two women who caught me as I was about to tumble backward down the steps. They looked like a mother-daughter set, with the daughter around fifty and both built like Broderick Crawford. They caught me under the arms and carried me through the door and alcove to the desk of Hodgdon’s white-uniformed nurse receptionist, a twig of a creature with a mouth that a medium-sieve pea could barely enter whole.

The Brod Crawford ladies deposited me firmly and lumbered out like professional movers, leaving me to grab the desk to keep from falling.

“You have an appointment with doctor?”

“No,” I said. “I’m an emergency.”

“You need an appointment,” the nurse whistled.

“If I let go of this desk, I’ll topple over like King Kong,” I explained reasonably.

She frowned and looked at the two patients who were waiting in what had once been a living room but was now an amber, many-chaired repository for Los Angeles’s walking wounded. One patient was a chunky woman who had her face plunged into Life magazine. There was a heavy brace on her leg. The other patient was a fifteen-year-old boy with a burr of wild, uncombed brown hair on his head and his left arm in a heavy cast.

“You really have to have an appointment, sir,” the nurse repeated stubbornly.

“Would tears move you? Just tell the doctor it’s Toby Peters, foretopman, and it’s an emergency,” I said.

She got up reluctantly with both hands on the desk. Her plan may have been to demonstrate some massive hidden reserve of power gleaned from the Rosicrucians and whip the desk out from under me. She seemed to be considering this for a few seconds, then headed toward a door across the amber room. The fifteen-year-old looked at me with hostility.

“I got hit in the knee,” I explained.

He nodded.

“It really hurts,” I said.

He showed no sympathy.

“My shoulder’s broke. Three places,” he upped me. “Pop truck hit me.”

“My brother hit me,” I said.

“My brother hit me,” the kid said, “I’d crush his face and walk on it.”

“We have different brothers.”

“My brother hit me,” the kid went on, enjoying the taste of fantasy, “I’d rip both his ears off and shove them.”

Doc Hodgdon came through the door in time to save me from further inventions of the youthful would-be Vlad the Impaler. Hodgdon was over sixty and had a head of white hair and a tan face to go with his lean body. I had only seen him in a YMCA sweat shirt and shorts before. At the Y, where he beat me regularly at handball, he looked athletic. Here he looked distinguished, like the guy in the Bayer aspirin ads. He strode over to me and took my shoulder firmly, helping me to his office while the twig nurse stood back as if my sore leg were contagious or I were taboo.

“What happened?” Hodgdon said quietly and with professional concern.

“His brother hit him,” the kid said with contempt, probably considering a new retaliation on his own brother for some future affront.

Hodgdon closed the door to his office behind us and helped me to the examining table. The office-examining room had once been a dining room: Now it held a desk, a table, a cabinet, and framed certificates on the wall. The curtained windows looked out on a well-mown lawn with a pair of lemon trees. “Kid was right,” I said, squirming to get comfortable on the table.

Hodgdon rolled up my pants leg, probed, and fiddled with my knee. I gritted my teeth.

“Well,” he sighed, standing erect, “you’ll never play the cello again.”

I held my tongue.

“It’s not so bad,” he said. “It’s sore and slightly out of joint. You slept on that sore knee when it was in a semilocked position.” He demonstrated semilocked with his fingers intertwined. It looked like firmly locked to me.

“Should have X rays,” he said, “and rest.”

“I haven’t got the time,” I said. “Isn’t there something you can do to keep me going for a few days? It’s an emergency situation. Life and death.”

Hodgdon turned and looked at me levelly.

“I can try to straighten it while it’s sore,” he said, “but it would be painful and require a bit of guesswork on my part without X rays. If it worked, I could give you a shot to kill the pain and a knee brace. I suggest…”

“Do it,” I said.

“Okay,” he said and came to the table. Over his shoulder on the wall was a photograph of Thomas Dewey, the governor of New York. I met Dewey’s little eyes and tried not to watch Hodgdon, who touched my knee again and took a grip over and under it. I knew his hands and arms were strong. They had sent little black handballs zipping past my head for three years. “Here we go.”

I yelled in surprise. Tom Dewey took it better. Pain I had expected, but not torture. My eyes filled with tears. When they cleared, I could see Doc Hodgdon bending my knee.

“I think you’re in luck,” he said. He went to his cabinet, opened it, pulled out a huge hypodermic, and filled it with a clear liquid.

“Maybe I should give the knee a rest,” I said as he advanced, checking the liquid with a little spray into the air.

“It’s all over,” he said, grabbing my thigh firmly. I met Dewey’s eyes again. Hodgdon’s fingers probed my kneecap, found a space and plunged the needle in. This time I bit my teeth.

“You should be feeling no pain and be able to walk in two or three minutes,” he said, placing the spent hypo gently in the sink. He opened the lower section of his cabinet and came out with an elastic hinged brace. It took him about ten seconds to get it on my knee. “Come back and see me in a few days. As soon as you can, give that leg some rest. That’s all it needs now. And you can forget about handball for a month or so. I’ll send you a bill.”

In three minutes I was walking through the office, past the chunky lady with the Life, the twig nurse, and the kid with the cast. I didn’t look at them, but I was sure they were all shaking their heads in disapproval. I went out the door, down the steps, and to my car, amazed at how little my leg bothered me. I didn’t think about it long. I was back on my way to Culver City and the secret rendezvous of Camile Shatzkin. That sounded like a good soap opera title, but I had no one to suggest it to.

The place I was looking for was just off Jefferson Boulevard, and the apartment I wanted was clearly marked by the lack of name. There was some mail in the box, but I couldn’t see whom it was addressed to, probably “Occupant.” I rang the bell and got no answer. Then I tried the bell marked “Leo Rouse, Superintendent.” A nearby ring told me Leo Rouse’s apartment was on the ground floor, and an opening door confirmed my brilliant observation. Rouse was around sixty, with an enormous belly and an equal number of teeth and strands of hair, about six. He wore overalls and a flannel shirt and was gumming something ferociously.

“Mr. Rouse?” I asked through the closed inner glass door.

“Yeah?” he said.

“I’d like to speak to you.” I opened my wallet and showed him a card. He opened the door but didn’t stand back to let me in.

“Mr. Rouse, my name is Booth, Lorne Booth, California National Bank.”

“Your card said you was Jennings from Blast-a-Bug Exterminators,” he said suspiciously.

I laughed.

“Got that card this morning from Jennings. They’re doing an estimate on an apartment complex I have an interest in out in Van Nuys.”

Rouse cocked his head and kept chewing. I estimated six to twelve hours before he could get down, let alone digest, whatever carnivorous thing he was worrying into masticated submission.

“What I’m doing,” I said quickly, “is checking the credit rating of two depositors who are taking out, or at least asking for, a small business loan. Both coincidentally reside right in this building.”

“Who?” he said.

“Long on the first floor and whoever is in apartment 2G. My notes have the address and apartment, but Mrs. Ontiveros failed to type in the name. She’s had a lot on her mind with her brother Sid going into the Army and…”

“What you want?” said Rouse.

“How long has Long lived in this building?”

“Three, four years. They got no money to invest. Can’t even keep up with the rent.”

“Good to know,” I said. “Just the kind of information I need. Now about 2G. That’s…?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Offen,” he supplied. “Don’t know anything about them.”

“How long they live here?” I asked with benign solemnity.

“Three months, but they don’t live here. They rent the place. Hardly ever sleep here. Hardly ever show up.”

“Doesn’t sound like the Offens who applied for the loan,” I said, puzzled. “Could you describe them?”

“She’s little younger than you. Some might say pretty. I’d say hoity-toity. Never saw him. She pays the rent. They’re right above me. Every once in a while I hear his voice and another guy.”

“This worries me,” I said, leaning against the wall and pushing my hat back. “I’ll tell you the truth, Mr. Rouse. I can see you’re a man who can be trusted with a confidence. I’ve tentatively approved this loan, and my career could be in serious trouble if I make a mistake. Bartkowski in mortgages is near retirement, and I have a shot at his desk. I’d really like to take a look at the Offens’ assets, very quietly, discreetly… it would mean a lot to me.” I pulled a five from my wallet, and then another. Rouse stopped chewing, went back in his apartment, and exchanged words with a shrill woman before returning. He had a ring of keys in his left hand and his right hand out, palm up. I crossed it with the two bills, and he led the way up the stairs. The hallway was dark and slightly musty, though the building seemed to be only about ten years old.

“Your apartments all come furnished?” I asked.

“Right,” he said, inserting the right key into 2G. The door popped open, and he stepped in and stood in the center of the room. It was clear he had no intention of letting me go in there alone. “All I need,” I said, touching my chin, “is some evidence of financial stability. A checking account, paid bills.”

Rouse didn’t answer. The room was small and furnished in unmatching bits and ends. The carpet was dark green, and the room smelled of dust. I tried drawers, tables, and behind the pillows on the sofa. Nothing. I tried closets and found no clothes. I even tried the garbage. There wasn’t any. The refrigerator held three beers and a bottle of wine. There was no telephone. The only thing that indicated anyone had been in the two small rooms was the fact that the bedding was put on haphazardly. Someone had slept in or used the bed.

I put on a very sad face, a face of utter dejection that signaled the end of nations and careers.

“Nothing,” I sighed. Rouse did not respond. “This is very distressing. Mr. Rouse, I wonder if I could impose on you further? If you hear Mr. and Mrs. Offen come back at any hour of the day or night, please call the number I’m going to write on the back of this card. My gratitude will be five more dollars.”

“Right,” said Rouse.

Someone was coming up the dark stairs when we closed the door, but I paid no attention until the footsteps stopped somewhere below us, maybe five or six steps. I looked down into the dusty darkness at a thin figure. Rouse looked down too. The figure stared in our direction for a beat and then leaped noisily down the stairs three or four at a time. I considered running down to take a look, but the slamming of the door and my knee told me not to. The figure had a distinct resemblance to the guy who had attacked me in Wilson Wong’s parking lot.

“Who was that?” I asked Rouse.

Rouse shrugged. “Didn’t get a good look. Someone with a key, though, else he couldn’t get in downstairs. I didn’t hear any buzzers.”

I couldn’t find my banker’s card so I left Rouse the exterminator’s card with my office and home numbers written on the back. I told him to ask for my assistant, Mr. Peters, and give him the message.

I didn’t know whether Rouse believed any of my story, and I don’t think he cared. He did believe in five-dollar bills.

There are times in every man’s life when he has to decide whether he is going to face the Green Knight, Grendel, or Trampas. Most of us decide we can do without the encounter. But when one is getting paid and… Hell, there are some things a man just can’t walk around. I think Gary Cooper said that once. The thing I couldn’t walk around was named Haliburton and I knew where I could find him, at the Shatzkin house in Bel Air. Now I would have been pleased as Aunt Minnie’s cat with a ball of yarn never to see Haliburton, but I had to talk to Camile Shatzkin again.

A car kept up with me for a few blocks but stayed far back. I was imagining dark Fords everywhere. I didn’t see it when I got to Bel Air, where the same guy was on the gate as before.

“Are you coming to Mr. Shatzkin’s funeral?” I said before he could come up with a reasonable question about my reappearance.

“’Fraid not,” he said.

“Too bad,” I sighed. “It will be beautiful.” He looked like he was about to say something so I started slowly forward. “We plan something special in conjunction with the Forest Lawn Anniversary,” I said with a wave.

His eyes stayed on my car as I drove slowly up the road toward Chalon. It was the car that blew my cover every time. It was hard enough to play a role without a decaying mess of a car with a third-rate paint job giving me away. I knew where I could get a 1937 Studebaker for about $300, if I could get $300. It would make my life easier, but as my ex-wife would say, if I really wanted an easy life I wouldn’t be doing what I was doing.

I checked my gun and opened my jacket to be able to flash it or even reach it if necessary. From the point of view of a nearly middle-aged mess of a detective, it was necessary. I felt noble and stupid as hell at the same time.

The chauffeur wasn’t in the garage. Before I parked the car, Haliburton was outside, hurrying toward me, his white shirt billowing in the breeze, a look of vengeful joy in his red eyes. He was the five o’clock commuter train ignoring the closed gate. I got out quickly, acutely aware of the crunch of gravel under his flying feet. When he was ten feet away, I opened my jacket so he could see the.38. That slowed him, but he didn’t stop. I lifted the gun out and cocked it. He stopped almost within touching distance. The run had been short, but he was panting with excitement.

“You’re not going to shoot anyone,” he said.

“Is that a question?”

He took a step forward and I fired a bullet between his legs. Since my intent had been to shoot a safe five feet to his left side, he didn’t know how lucky he was to survive. He backed away a few feet, shaken badly enough not to notice that I was shaking too.

“Assault and attempted murder,” he said.

“Hell,” I said putting the gun away. “I’ve been lying with a straight face all my life. I didn’t shoot at you. I don’t even have a gun with me. I’m an ex-cop with a brother on the force. I’ll lay three to one you’ve got some reason why the police won’t take your word.”

“I’ll get you alone, without the gun, little man,” he said, pointing at me with his right hand and using his left to push the long hair from his face.

“That won’t be necessary,” Mrs. Shatzkin said from the door. I turned toward her. Her widow’s black was still with her, but the outfit was more clinging and less somber. By the fourth day after her husband’s death, she would probably be wearing white with flowers. “I’ve called the police.”

“I suggest you call them back and tell them it was a mistake,” I said.

She had already started to close the door, but I blurted out quickly, “They might want to know about a little apartment Mrs. Offen rents in Culver City.” The door stopped closing and opened. Mrs. Shatzkin turned to me, the sun in her face. For the first time, she looked as if grief had touched her.

“Haliburton,” she said, her voice almost cracking. “Call the police. Tell them it was a mistake, that I thought I heard a prowler but was wrong. Tell them anything.”

Haliburton looked from her to me in stupid puzzlement.

“I can…” Haliburton began, facing at me with clenched teeth and fists.

“Mr.-” she started.

“Peters,” I said.

“Mr. Peters is coming in briefly. And I think it would be best if you forgot your quarrel with him. I was angry Saturday and very upset.”

“You want us to shake hands?” I asked her.

“There’s no need for sarcasm, Mr. Peters,” she said.

“Sorry about your teddy bear,” I said to Haliburton, walking right past him toward the door. My back went tight, knowing he was behind me, but I kept walking. It was one of those times. The adrenalin was running, and a Dybbuk was driving me. I entered the house and followed Mrs. Shatzkin into a comfortable deep-brown living room with thick, soft carpeting that looked as if no human feet had touched it.

She sat in a single seat, indicated the couch across from her, and then folded her hands in her lap. The red of her fingernails caught a flash of sun from outside. She was composed again.

“Are you a blackmailer, Mr. Peters?” she asked, her chin going up to show her contempt for such things.

“No,” I said, taking off my hat and putting it on my lap. “I’m what I claim to be, a private detective doing my best to find out who killed your husband and hoping it won’t turn out to be my client.”

“Mr. Faulkner killed Jacques,” she said emphatically. “I was…”

My head had been nodding a steady no from the instant she began, and she stopped abruptly.

“Who do you share that apartment with over in Culver City?” I asked softly.

Her face flushed. Camile Shatzkin looked like a human being instead of a mannequin for an instant, but she went back into her act.

“That has nothing to do with Jacques’s murder,” she said. “He is an actor, Thayer Newcomb. He would have absolutely nothing to gain by Jacques’s death. He knows I would never marry him and that I would despise him if he hurt Jacques. As it is, I never intend to see him again. All of this has made it clear to me how much I really loved Jacques.”

Her head was down again, and a handkerchief had appeared from nowhere. She pulled herself together and came up for another try.

“Mr. Peters, in spite of these surroundings and Jacques’ business…”

“And his insurance?” I continued.

“… and his insurance,” she agreed, “I am not really a wealthy woman. I doubt if there is even a total of $800,000 after taxes.”

“You had that figure on the tip of your grief,” I said.

She stood up in anger, looked at my calm, mashed face, and sat down again.

“Just for the sake of Jacques’s reputation and-I must admit-my own, I would like to offer you a fee for your services to keep the information you have discovered private.”

“How much of a fee?” I asked.

“Well, let’s say $20,000,” she said.

“Let’s say $50,000,” I said.

“Very well,” she said. “I would need a written statement from you guaranteeing that you would seek no further fee on this matter.”

My head was shaking again.

“No money,” I said.

She went flush again and bit her red lower lip. “I could offer…”

“And no offers of flesh, either,” I added. “I have no ambition,” I explained. “Absolutely none. I don’t want or need a lot of money. I have no dreams money can buy. What I always need is just a little more than I’ve got, not a lot more, and I’m not about to be bought for a few hundred dollars. It’s a bind, but it keeps my reputation clean and my suits old.”

“And when you go to that great Pinkerton agency in the sky, they may reward you by making you a night watchman on the gate of heaven,” she spat.

“Or the gate of hell,” I added. “I’d like that. As for you and me having a social life together, I can’t see you warm and friendly and sitting next to me tonight at the Wild Red Berry and Yukon Jake wrestling matches at the Hollywood Legion. No, Mrs. Shatzkin, I’ll just have to amble out of here with my curiosity about your friend and a little more faith in the innocence of William Faulkner.” “I’m sorry you feel that way, Mr. Peters,” she said, rising. I joined her. “If you should change your mind, please feel free to call me. Am I to assume, however, that you plan to take your information about my private life to the police?”

“No,” I said, heading for the door. “I think I’ll just find Mr. Thayer Newcomb and have a chat. You wouldn’t want to make my job easier and give me an address, would you?”

Her lips tightened and her breasts rose. She was Joan of Arc defending her voices, a noble figure.

I went outside without an escort, closing the door behind me. Haliburton was at the car. He had obviously stopped the cops, but he hadn’t stopped his mind, what there was of it, from working.

“No trouble,” I said, holding my jacket open.

“No trouble,” he said meekly. “I… what did you mean about Culver City and… what did you mean?”

Haliburton was a hurt and jealous lap dog, waiting to be whipped or given an order. I wasn’t going to do either.

“I can’t talk much about it,” I said, easing into my car. He held the door firmly so I couldn’t close it. “It has something to do with a private transaction Mr. Shatzkin made.” He let go of the door and I closed it, but I opened the window to add, “Haliburton, I’d suggest you pack up your suitcase and head out someplace clean if I thought you’d listen, but you won’t listen. You can’t. The Medusa has made you stone deaf.”

“Medusa?”

“Skip it,” I said, and drove away. Like the last time, I watched Haliburton dwindle in my rearview mirror, but this time he was a slumped and defeated monster. There was no vengeance in those shoulders, only confusion.

I found a phone and reached Martin Leib, who told me to keep after the Thayer Newcomb lead though he had no great faith in it. He also asked me to stop by and brief Faulkner, who would be having bail set late in the afternoon, which meant that keeping his arrest for murder quiet would become more difficult.

“Even with county cooperation,” Leib said, “I doubt if we can keep this from the press for more than a day, possibly two at most. If so, William Faulkner will simply have to live with the publicity.”

“And Warner Brothers?” I asked.

“They will have to consider their options,” he said like a good lawyer. “Meaning, old Billy Faulkner will be dumped.”

“He is not a charity commitment for the studio,” Leib reminded me and hung up.

Faulkner was looking out his cell window when I got to the lock-up. The turnkey said I couldn’t go in. I reminded him I represented the accused’s lawyer. The turnkey said he didn’t care if I represented a rat’s ass.

“A Snopes,” Faulkner said with a dismissive glance at the turnkey.

“I’ve got a fair lead,” I told Faulkner. “You know a guy named Thayer Newcomb?”

Faulkner touched his mustache with his thumb and thought for a few seconds before saying, “I’m afraid the name has no meaning to me.”

“There’s a chance,” I said, “that he set you up or helped set you up.”

“Why on earth would a stranger go through all this trouble to try to make it look as if I had murdered Shatzkin?” Faulkner asked.

“Beats me,” I said.

“Let’s hope it does not,” he added. “I’ve been passing my time here working out my own mystery tale, which will be as orderly and logical as life is not, as orderly as a game of chess.” “Full of knights gambiting around,” I said, remembering the days of dodging my brother more than half my lifetime ago.

“Yes,” said Faulkner, “a knight’s gambit. Do you see yourself as a knight, Mr. Peters?” he said with a look that might be sadness or sarcasm, a protected look.

“No,” I said, “I see myself in the mirror as little as I can. What about you?”

“Ah,” sighed Faulkner, “I see myself in a hotel room alone with several bottles of Old Crow, and then I see myself with a small group of friends sitting up all night on a small island back home in Sardis Reservoir, turning spits, basting beef and pork, and singing ‘Water Boy.’ ”

From looking in mirrors, he had turned to looking into the wishful future.

“I’ll work on it,” I said, but Faulkner had already turned to head back to the window.

The turnkey led me out, complaining of his sore feet. I could have told him some tales of sore feet and knees, but he wouldn’t have listened. He was a talker. I was a listener.

With a stack of nickels in hand, I found a pay phone in a bar and called Shatzkin’s office. I got Mrs. Summerland and found that Thayer Newcomb was not a client. She had never heard the name. The information operator didn’t help either. I tried the large talent agencies and got nowhere. I was down to the last of my once-large stack of nickels and looking over my shoulder to see whether someone was pressuring me for the phone, when I got lucky. The Panorama Talent Agency did handle Newcomb. I said I was his brother James, a priest, in for a few hours from Dallas. The woman gave me an address, the Augusta Hotel. I blessed her and hung up. There was no answer in his room at the Augusta.

My Faulkner leads were running low. I could try Newcomb later or camp in the hotel lobby till he got there. Meanwhile, I could do a little work for Lugosi. I drank a Ballantine beer at the bar and listened to Vic ‘n’ Sade with the bartender. It was a little before one, and business was slow at that hour. I asked whether he had anything to eat, and he said he could slice up some cheese and slap it on a few pieces of bread with some mustard. I told him it sounded great. When he brought it back, it looked awful and carried a clear thumb indentation, but tasted fine, and I let myself sink into the amber afternoon darkness of the bar and beer, sharing a moment of repose with Sade, Uncle Fletcher, and Rush.

My next stop was Clinton Hill, the contractor who doubled as a Dark Knight, he of the falling wig and voyeuristic inclination, as Wilson Wong had said. I found the contracting firm in Inglewood just where it belonged, but I didn’t find Clinton Hill. His brother was the Hill in the firm title. My boy, according to the angelic-looking girl at the desk, was an assistant librarian at St. Bartholomew’s College a few miles away. He picked up his mail at the contracting office and, according to the girl, often let people believe it was his business.

The library was a few blocks down in a surprisingly large old stone building. It was surprising because the college itself consisted of a total of five decaying stone buildings enclosed by a rusting spiked fence and a couple of dozen acres of grass that could use mowing.

I found a space and spotted a dark Ford slowing down a block ahead of me. I watched for a few seconds while he hesitated and drove on. I decided to start taking down the license number of every dark Ford I saw and then checking to see whether there were any match-ups to prove I was either observant, scared, or both.

The library was impressive, like a chapel from another country. The lobby was marble and dark wood and the huge cathedral-size room with stained glass windows beyond was heavy, somber, and solid. The stained glass windows showed saints in various stages of torture or anguish. Saint Bart was the star of the show, and arrows abounded. I turned my head downward to more worldly things in the almost empty mausoleum. A few students were seated at the massive tables with books in front of them. Behind the wooden counter, which formed a protective circle, stood a librarian, a dry, tall man in a lint-catching dark suit. He actually wore pince-nez glasses.

“Yes,” he said as I advanced. He made it clear that I was a foreign presence.

“Chadwick,” I said “Professor Irwin Chadwick, UCLA, anthropology. I was talking to one of your librarians, a Mr. Hill, recently about your collection of works on the occult. I was wondering if he might be here to give me some assistance.”

The dry man let gastric reaction take place, which faintly resembled human response. “Mr. Hill,” he said, “is not actually a librarian. He does work in the library, restacking primarily. He does, however, have a genuine knowledge of and interest in the occult. If you wish to go into the stacks, I think you will find him reshelving on the second basement level, in the four hundreds.”

“Thank you,” I said, heading in the direction he had pointed.

“You are welcome, Dr. Chadwick,” he responded.

Behind us both the main door opened, but I didn’t turn to see who was coming in. I made my way down a narrow row of books on metal racks piled about seven feet high and found a spiral metal staircase going both up and down. I went down slowly, trying to clank as little as possible, At the first level down, light was provided by some naked overhead bulbs and a few dusty windows that were probably even with the ground. I looked down the rows of books in both directions and saw nothing. There was a remembered smell of crumbling paper about the place. I went down another level. The spiral staircase rattled a little at its bolts but held as it probably had for a generation.

At the second level down were a few more naked bulbs of low wattage but no windows. I went to the left and realized that the floor was made of metal grillwork. I looked up and saw the ceiling was the same grillwork. There was a hollow emptiness to the place I didn’t like. A level below held more books, but it was even darker and there may have been a level below that. I thought I heard a sound above and turned to look up. My turn caused an echo of my footsteps. I touched my gun. I was getting addicted to it. A few more encounters and I’d surely whip it out and accidentally shoot myself.

“Mr. Hill,” I whispered, hoarsely, moving deeper into the aisle between the stacks. I passed rows of books on each side, going back fifteen or twenty feet each. A few rows had lights on, but most had them off. Strings hung from each light, and to turn a light on, one had to grope in semidarkness halfway down the aisle.

I moved slowly, peering down each aisle of books, right and left, trying to penetrate the corners, keeping a look of confidence on my face in case someone was hidden in one of the recesses. Maybe he or it would think I could see him.

“Mr. Hill?” I repeated. I was almost at the solid wall at the end of the narrow corridor. I found another set of spiral stairs up and down. I was considering whether to go up or down or back when a rumbling sound came out of the darkness behind me. It was moving quickly and noisly out of a black aisle of oversized books. I reached for my gun and pulled it out, backing against the stairway.

“Stop,” I shouted, and my voice echoed below and above in shadows.

The sound stopped and I could make out a shape in the murk.

“You were calling me?” it said.

“Hill?”

“Yes,” he said, emerging into the light, pushing a book cart ahead of him that rattled noisily on the metal grill floor. He was the same man I had seen at the Dark Knights meeting, without the black hair. He had some hair, but it wasn’t enough to try to save. He looked at my gun in clear terror. I put it away.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve had a few scares in the past several days. You know who I am?”

A wave of bitterness crossed Hill’s face.

“You were at the Dark Knights meeting Friday. You are not a member. How did you find me?”

There was a sob in his voice.

“I…” “I’ll quit,” he said, near hysteria. “Billings promised, promised in blood not to disclose anyone’s identity.”

“Blood?” I said.

“Simulated human blood,” he explained. I looked incredulous, I guess. “Chicken blood,” he clarified.

“I’m a private detective,” I said. “My name’s Toby Peters. I’ll make it fast and easy, and I don’t care if you quit the Dark Knights or the Morning Tulips, but I want answers.”

Hill tried to push his cart past me, but I kicked it back with my good leg, trapping him in the narrow aisle he had come out of.

“Someone is trying to scare Bela Lugosi, maybe do more than scare him, and I’m damned sure it’s one of the Dark Knights, and I think I’ve got the suspects narrowed down to two. And you, old bat, are one of them.”

“No,” cried Hill. “I’m not one of those people. I just go to watch. I could never do any… I couldn’t do things. I just stand around and keep my mouth shut. I couldn’t even touch the chicken blood for the ceremony. You can ask the Count.”

“Billings.”

“Yes,” he cried. “I live here, in the library. I don’t even go out except to get some food, pick up my mail, and go to the meetings. I wouldn’t hurt anybody or anything. I’m a vegetarian.”

“You’re a vegetarian?”

“Yes,” he said.

“What has that… Forget it.” If he couldn’t stand the sight of blood he sure as hell hadn’t sent an impaled bat to Lugosi. I would check his story, but I had the feeling it would hold up, which left me with damn few members of the Dark Knights.

“I practically live on ice cream alone,” he went on.

“Okay,” I said. “Forget it. Forget I bothered you.”

I started down the aisle, leaving him behind.

“Are you going to tell them?” he pleaded. “Tell them what I really do, who I am?”

“No,” I shouted. “Forget it.”

He went silent with a small shell of a sob, and I hurried toward the stairway I had come down, but something stopped me. I stood still. Some of the side aisles had lights on when I had come down earlier. Now all the lights were off. It could have been a mass fatigue of ancient bulbs or my imagination. I considered going back to the far stairwell, but that meant dealing with Hill again. I couldn’t face his complete breakdown. I pulled out my gun and inched forward very slowly and very quietly, but I still made some noise. I could see no one moving above or below and could hear nothing behind.

I made it almost to the stairway, convincing myself that fear does strange things. Then fear appeared. It was almost noiseless and caught me in a near-dreamlike instant. It was a sound behind me, a movement of air. I turned in time to see the outline of a black-caped figure swooping down in a crouch from one of the stacks. I tripped backward, landing on my rear, and raised my gun. The black figure kicked, catching me on the wrist, and the gun spun upward out of my hand, hitting a bookshelf and going off. The bullet parted the distance between the black figure’s face and mine and made him pause before he could deliver another kick. I could hear the gun drop to the steel floor below and into something beyond that. I told my body to roll fast. It listened and the next kick missed my head. I threw a kick of my own and caught the figure in the general area of the stomach. He let out a pained groan and something clanged near my head. He had a heavy object and was trying to spread what was left of my brains over the 400 section of the St. Bartholomew Library.

Enough is usually enough, though I’ve found it amazing how much more than enough the human body can take. I scrambled to my knees, ignoring the pain in the injured one, and threw my arms around the guy who was trying to kill me. He took another swing with his piece of metal, but I was too close and he caught me on the fleshy part of my buttocks. In desperation, I sank my teeth into his stomach. He shrieked and shouted. “You crazy bastard!”

“I’m a crazy bastard?” I panted. “Who’s trying to kill who?”

I got to my feet and brought my head up hard in the general direction of his chin. I made contact with about the same spot on my cranium he had softened in the parking lot of the New Moon Restaurant. He groaned and I let go of him. We both backed away. I was seeing flashes of color. I didn’t think either one of us wanted to go at it again, but something was at stake for both of us. I could see him take a shadowy step toward me, and I got ready to meet him, knowing that I’d never be able to run away and that to turn my back would be my end. The only thing I could hear was our heavy breathing in the darkness. Then above us a voice.

“What is going on down there, Hill?” shouted the dry librarian from the upper world.

My enemy’s head turned upward toward the sound and caught a shaft of light. I saw the face clearly and knew I wouldn’t forget it. I also knew I had never seen it before. He turned and ran into the darkness, the faint light of the grillwork making a rippling pattern on his retreating back.

I made my way upward toward the complaining voice of the librarian and met him on the first level.

“What on earth was going on down there?” he demanded.

“Something was going on,” I panted, “but I don’t think it’s reasonable to say it was on earth.”

“And where,” he demanded further, “is Mr. Hill?”

“I have no idea. He was no part of it. I was attacked by the devil and saved by Saint Bartholomew.”

“Dr. Chadwick, have you been drinking?”

“No,” I said, leaning against a nearby heavy oak table, “but I did lose a gun down there. I heard it drop down.”

“Professors at UCLA carry guns?” he asked, but this time it wasn’t a question for me but for himself. “I think I had best call the police.”

“What about my gun?”

“It would take some time to search the lower level,” he replied, heading back for his desk. “We plan a cleaning tomorrow. If there is a gun there, you can retrieve it.”

There was no changing his mind, so gunless I returned to the afternoon. The face of the man who attacked me on level two was about forty, thin, and frenzied. The body that went with it was agile and able. I wouldn’t forget either one.

I tried to put the pieces together on the way to Lugosi’s house, but they wouldn’t fit, not yet. My two cases kept getting in each other’s way. When it came to figuring out my expenses, assuming I lived long enough to do that, there would be a lot of items I wasn’t sure of. For example, I didn’t know whom my friend in St. Bart’s library belonged to, though he seemed more out of a Lugosi film than a Faulkner novel.

When I got to Lugosi’s house, I found Jeremy Butler on the lawn showing the kid next door how to get a stranglehold.

“The boy spotted me,” Butler said. “I told him and his mom I was working for Lugosi, special protection from the Japanese.”

“He’s a good wrestler,” the boy told me, looking at Butler.

“I know,” I said.

I asked Jeremy to stick it out for a few more hours and go home if everything looked quiet. He said he would, and I left, wondering how Lugosi would explain the bodyguard to his neighbors. I figured the truth would be best, but since I seldom used it, I didn’t see how I could wish it on others.

It was almost six when I got to my office. Shelly was just closing up.

“One message,” he said. “I left it on your phone. I’ll clean up tomorrow.”

For Shelly, there was always tomorrow. The office got cleaned up every three or four months by Jeremy Butler, who couldn’t tolerate the mess and potential breeding ground for vermin. Each time Jeremy cleaned the place, Shelly complained and threatened to move out because his “system” had been disrupted.

“That guy with the fang problem,” he said, heading for the door and pushing his glasses up on his nose, “is nuts. Good teeth, but they’ll be gone in a year, maybe two. I’ll probably have to pull them. Man was not meant to wear fangs. If God had wanted man to wear fangs, he would have given us fangs. You wouldn’t have to buy them at a costume shop, for God’s sake. Is it raining out there?”

“No,” I said, shaking the coffee pot on the counter. There was only a rancid remnant in the pot, but the heat was still on. I turned it off.

“What was I saying?” Shelly asked.

“Fangs,” I reminded him.

“Yes, fangs,” he said, shaking his head. “If… but what’s the sense in talking? I’ll do what I can. How was your day?”

“All right,” I said as he opened the door and looked around as if he had forgotten something. “I almost shot a guy. I was attacked by a lunatic in the library, and I lost my gun.”

“Right,” said Shelly. “See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow, Shel.”

He closed the door and I went into my office. The phone message was from Bedelia Sue Frye. She wanted me to call her back. I looked out the window. It was almost dark. I had no intention of talking to her at night. Then I called Levy’s on Spina and asked for Carmen. I had almost sixty dollars of my clients’ money left and a nightclub to go to as part of my expenses. I invited Carmen, but she had to work.

“Can I pick you up after work?” I said.

“I’m on till two in the morning,” she said. “And after nine hours on my feet, I don’t feel like playing games with you. I’m off Wednesday.”

“Great,” I said. “How about a movie?”

“What happened to the nightclub?” she asked.

“We’ll see,” I said. “I gotta go now, important client just came in.”

I hung up, looked around the office, folded Bedelia Sue Frye’s message. I tried the Alexandra Hotel again. This time they told me that Camile Shatzkin’s playmate Thayer Newcomb had checked out.

With the sun going down and my.38 gone, I went home carefully, got rid of my empty holster, showered, shaved, and shared a thirty-nine-cent can of Spam with Gunther. I asked Gunther whether he wanted to go to a nightclub, but he said he had too much work. I almost considered asking Mrs. Plaut.

I caught “A Man Called X” on the radio. Herbert Marshall was telling Leon Belasco where to find some hidden papers. Herbert Marshall always sounded sure of himself. Herbert Marshall had a lot of writers.

Just before nine I made myself as presentable as possible, even changed to my emergency tie, and drove off to Glendale. I knew Glendale. I had grown up there, worked in my old man’s grocery store there, been a cop there. It had some pockets of near-poverty along its commercial strip, but Glendale was mainly rising middle class and easy hills. On the borders where it touched other towns, like Burbank, it had a potential blight it couldn’t ignore.

The Red Herring was a nightclub on the border. The proprietor called the place a nightclub, but it was really a medium-sized saloon that had gone through a lot of hands and a lot of names. I remembered picking up a kid thief with a broken bottle hiding under the bar there when I was a cop. Two owners ago was a guy named Steele, whom I knew and who disappeared one night and never came back.

The Red Herring was the mailing address of the only member of the Dark Knights of Transylvania I hadn’t talked to, Simon Derrida. The place wasn’t exactly in a delirium of gaiety when I walked in. There was a barkeeper, two guys at the bar, a couple at one of the six tables, and four guys at another table. The guys wore suits and looked like salesmen. The couple looked like a guy and a pro hustler. Behind them was a small curtained platform and a piano standing empty.

I walked up to the bar and asked for Simon Derrida.

“He’s on in about two minutes,” the bartender said, consulting his watch. “What’ll you have?”

I ordered a Rainier, took it past the fish-eyed drunk at the bar, who eyed me like he wanted to talk, and went to one of the empty tables.

The woman at the next table looked over at me to see whether I was a better possibility than the guy she had and I shook my head no. She had lots of red hair that wouldn’t stay in place and a smile painted on her large mouth that promised more sadness than fun.

I was almost through with my beer when a guy with a ratty tux came out from behind the curtain and sat at the piano. He was about seventy. He smiled at the four businessmen, the woman, and me and began playing and singing.

He played “Jealous,” doing a kind of Tony Martin imitation, and followed it with “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” and a finger flourish. I clapped. The businessmen clapped, and the guy at the piano beamed. “Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Now let’s all sing ‘We’ll Throw the Japs Back in the Laps of the Nazis.’”

He began to play and sing, but no one joined him. Undiscouraged, he tried to feed us the lines quickly before he played them. I mouthed a little, and the drunk at the bar followed us both by four muddled lines. If the old duck at the piano played another song, I was going to go to the bathroom, but he didn’t. Instead, he thanked us all again and said, “And now, the man you’ve all been waiting for, the man who can scare you and tickle you to death at the same time, our own Doctor Vampire, Simon Derrida.”

He played “Hall of the Mountain King” to applause from the drunk, and the last Dark Knight walked out on the platform, complete with the costume he had worn at the meeting. He couldn’t cover his New York accent, though he tried and came up with an awful combination of Bela Lugosi and the Bronx.

“Good evening,” he said. “It’s good to see some fresh blood in the club. I’m going to give you some stories in a new vein. My friends, do you know what is worse than a werewolf who had to get rabies shots? A vampire who has to get braces.” The drunk burped.

“And,” Derrida went on with a flourishing of his cape (he looked more like a dry pear than a vampire), “do you know why the vampire walked around in his pajamas? He didn’t have a batrobe. Quick, what has one wheel and gets twenty miles to the gallon of plasma? A vampire on a unicycle. Or tell me what the first building is that Dracula visits when he goes to New York? The Vampire State Building.”

No one was laughing. Nobody but the drunk and me were really listening. I had a fixed smile, and Derrida started to play to me, which forced me to pay attention and fake a laugh. He didn’t seem to recognize me from the Dark Knights meeting. My hope was that his act was short or that he would be discouraged by the lack of response, but he just plowed on even when he asked, “What do vampires hate to have for dinner?” and the drunk answered, “T-bone stakes.” Derrida simply ignored him and delivered the line again.

“Why don’t you like Count Dracula?” Derrida asked an imaginary character at his side. Then he moved over, raised his voice and answered, “Because he’s a pain in the neck.”

I squirmed through, “Why did the man think Dracula had a cold? Because the vampire told him he kept a coffin,” and “What do you get if you cross a vampire with a brontosaurus? A monster that sleeps in the biggest coffin you ever saw.” Then I had a simulated coughing fit that sent me to the men’s room, which was small, dirty, and without toilet paper, but at least I didn’t have to bear the pain of being Simon Derrida’s sole emotional support. The burden was too much.

I stayed in the toilet till I heard about three people clapping, which could mean only that Derrida was done. I hurried out and ducked behind the curtain. “Just a second,” he said and stepped out for more applause. The drunk and the hustler applauded and Derrida came “backstage,” which was just big enough to hold us.

“Great show,” I said. “Can I buy you a drink?”

Derrida smiled, “It did go pretty well, didn’t it? Not a bad audience for a weekday.”

We went back to my table, completely ignored, while the old guy at the piano played “Always.”

“I’ll have a double scotch,” Derrida shouted to the bartender.

“Another beer for me,” I added. “I know you from somewhere,” Derrida said, looking at me.

“Dark Knights,” I said. “I was there with Lugosi.”

“Inspiring man,” Derrida said solemnly. “Gave me lots of ideas for new material just looking at him. I’m getting my imitation down perfect. What do you think?”

“Uncanny,” I said.

“So,” he said, sitting back and throwing his cape over the chair, “you found me out. It was bound to happen. Hell, you expect that kind of thing in show business. Heartaches, disaster. You gotta learn to live with it. I got enough material out of them, anyway.”

“You mean,” I said as the bartender plopped the drinks on the table and stood waiting for his pay, “that you don’t believe in the Dark Knights?”

“Use ‘em for material, that’s all. Too bad you happened to come in tonight. I could have gotten a little more out of them.”

That made everyone in the Dark Knights except Sam Billings a fraud. A fang overbite and no true friends.

“I didn’t just happen in here,” I said. “I was looking for you.” I told him my tale.

“You think I was putting the bite on Lugosi?” he said. “Get that joke?”

“I got it,” I said, gulping my beer. “I considered it, but I think you’re off my list.”

“Why?” he said. “Say, I can be scary too, not just funny if I want to be, buddy.”

“I can see that,” I said, “but you’re a trooper. A professional. You wouldn’t stiff another professional.”

That worked.

“Right,” he said seriously, finishing his drink. “Say, I wish I could help you but I’ve got nothing going. Why don’t you stay around for the second show? I have new material for part of it.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve got a big day tomorrow. By the way, I don’t plan to turn you in to Billings. I think he needs you more than you need him.”

“I don’t get you, pal,” Derrida said.

“Skip it,” I said and headed for the door.

The drunk waved. The bartender read a book. The red-head talked, and the old guy at the piano tinkled. I walked out the door and headed for my car.

The sound of screeching rubber came from the parking lot of the rival tavern across the street. I paid no attention and kept on walking till I realized that the car had crossed the street and was coming down the sidewalk right behind me. I faked a move to the wall and took a dive toward the street, feeling the pull in my knee. The car swerved and passed me, and a bullet chunked a piece of street near my face. There were two figures in the Ford. I couldn’t see the driver, but the guy in the passenger seat was my attacker from the library.

I waited to see whether they were going to make another try, and sure enough I heard the car turning down the street and saw its lights. Fear was gone. I was hit with anger. Someone was trying to kill me, and they were going to keep at it till it worked unless I did something about it. Now seemed a good time to do something. I rolled into the shadow next to the car I had dived over and wormed my way to my Buick while the Ford eased forward, looking for me. I crawled to the sidewalk side, opened the door as little as I could, slid in, and started the engine as soon as the Ford pulled past. I got into the street with a tear of rubber and put on my bright lights. I could see the two figures ahead of me and they realized now I was behind them. It was a time for madness, and I sped forward, ramming into the rear of the Ford, sending it jerking ahead and snapping the heads of the two guys in the front seat.

The hell with my Buick. It was a discardable weapon now, and I meant to use it. The driver of the Ford decided to wait for a better day and stepped on the gas, but I had no intention of giving him a better day. The night was mine and I meant to have it.

I chased them through Burbank and into the hills. Not a cop showed up to stop us, and that was fine with me. We went through Griffith Park and far beyond. We ran red lights and missed pedestrians. The only thing that was going to stop me was a bullet or an empty gas tank.

Then I lost them. I cursed the car, my brother, my stupidity, and fate. I didn’t even know where we were. I knew it was a poorly lighted street with small apartments. I drove slowly down the street, watching and listening. Nothing. Then I heard a car backfire or a shot and went around the block, where I spotted the Ford under a street lamp. Its doors were open. No one was in sight.

I drove next to the car and got out. Instead of going to the Ford, I went to the trunk and got out my tire iron. The Ford was empty, but in the light from the lamp I could see blood, a lot of blood on the seat, particularly the passenger side. There was a dark trail leading from the Ford. I began to follow it, tire iron in hand. The moon was full above, and I began to regain my sense of self-preservation and fear, but I followed the trail of blood to an apartment house door. Then it hit me. I thought I was having one of those feelings where you think you’ve been someplace you’ve never been, but I’d been here. I’d been here in the daytime and talked to a janitor named Rouse.

I went in and rang Rouse’s bell. He came into the hall with his shirt and mouth open and unlatched the hall door.

“I just called you two minutes ago,” he said. “How did you…?”

“Upstairs?” I said.

“Yeah, someone’s up there.”

Then he noticed the trail of blood leading up the stairs into the darkness and the tire iron in my hand.

“I’ll give you the five when I come down,” I said, moving to the stairs slowly.

“Mister,” said Rouse, “you keep your five. I’m calling the cops.” He disappeared into his apartment, locking the door behind him. The blood trail led right to the door of the apartment Camile Shatzkin had rented as Mrs. Offen. The door was open and the lights were out. I moved in slowly, kicking the door closed, and standing back with tire iron ready in case anyone was behind it. No one was. There was enough light from the street to follow the blood, but I reached over and turned on the wall light, tire iron ready.

The trail led toward the single bedroom. I followed it, kicking that door open. He was there. The guy who had jumped me in the library and tried to kill me in the Ford. He was on the bed staring at me, but he wasn’t seeing anything. A wooden stake was imbedded in his chest, and his dead hands were clutching it in a final useless effort to wrench it out.