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  Night Life

  Ray Garton

  Dedicated to

  Dawn

  my best friend, lover and wife.

  PROLOGUE

  When the man and woman arrived at their destination, she laughed with surprise at the red blanket already spread out on the ground at their feet. A champagne bottle with two deep-red lilies hand-painted on the side stood in an empty silver ice bucket. Two crystal champagne glasses awaited them. Standing in a simple white vase, a dozen blood-red roses trembled in the warm breeze.

  She turned to him and they pressed their naked bodies together. She gently placed her palms against his chest. Although she continued to smile, welling tears sparkled in her eyes. Her voice was soft as she said, "Aw, look at this. This is so sweet. You're more of a romantic now than when we first met."

  "I refuse to take the blame for that," he said. "It's your fault."

  Bodies pressed together as one, they were a pale flame under the glow of the full moon. She put a hand to the side of his goateed face as she kissed him. They finally separated and knelt, then sat close together on the blanket, facing each other. He took the champagne bottle from the ice bucket in his right hand. He kept his left hand—a twisted, gray, withered claw— out of sight in his lap or behind his back. It was usually concealed in a custom-made glove of black calfskin leather, but not tonight.

  With the bottle held between his knees, he removed the cork with his right hand. It did not pop out with the typical celebratory report, nor did foam hiss from the bottle's mouth. The sound was soft, a moist fup.

  "Wine?" he said as one eyebrow rose playfully high on his forehead.

  She feigned a heavy Hungarian accent. "I never drrrink—"

  They finished the quote together. “—vine."

  They smiled, as if about to laugh. Instead, their eyes briefly broke contact as the moment darkened. It was only a little joke, but it still held too much pain for both of them, conjured memories they had spent years putting behind them.

  He carefully tipped the bottle over her glass. The dark liquid that poured out was thick and slow as it slapped the bottom of the glass and slid up one inner side, then dipped back down and left behind a clinging, drooling film. After pouring some for himself, he lifted his glass.

  "To us," he said in a breath.

  "To us.

  They delicately touched their glasses together. Heavy with the thick liquid, the glasses made a flat clack on contact.

  Small creatures stirred in the brush around them. Crickets chirped some distance away. Cars and trucks and buses and trains gave slow and rhythmic breath to the city far below.

  Glasses drained, he poured again. When they finished their second drink, each bore a dark, glistening, pencil-thin mustache. Eyes closed, they took a moment to appreciate their drinks, then threw the glasses into the night. Crystal shattered far below them seconds later.

  Lying back on the blanket, they embraced, kissed. Legs intertwined, toes wiggled as their feet played together. The warm, gusty breeze carried her soft laughter away as he tickled her ribs, kissed her mouth, cheek, neck, moved down to cover an erect nipple with his mouth. Her laughter became a feather-soft sigh.

  She made a soft, high-pitched sound behind tightly pressed lips as he entered her. She lifted her legs high, knees bent, feet curled downward. He rose above her, hands flat on the blanket, elbows locked. He smiled down at her with a low, feral sound deep in his chest.

  Propping herself up on her elbows, she sharply arched her back, dropped her head backward, mouth open. Her long, strawberry-blond hair pooled on the blanket. Needle like fangs slowly curved downward from beneath her upper lip as she opened her mouth, until they reached their full length. Moist with saliva, they glimmered in the moonlight.

  His became visible as he growled with each exhalation. He clenched the blanket in his fist as he thrust harder. She dropped down on her back, raised her right hand and clutched at the pale skin of his muscular back while her left arm swung in a spastic arc and toppled the roses. The vase rolled off the blanket and clinked over the pebbled ground.

  Their piercing cries of release sent small animals scurrying in terror around them. Startled birds flew from their nighttime perches in all directions.

  Lying at the base of the forty-five-foot tall Y in the HOLLYWOOD sign atop Mt. Lee in Griffith Park, they remained motionless for several seconds as a deep stillness settled around them.

  They had married sixteen years ago in a small chapel in Carmel, then had gone south and settled in Los Angeles. Their marriage had been the first good thing to happen to them after the nightmare their lives had become in New York City.

  They lay on their backs together, staring up at the stars. She snuggled into the crook of his arm, passed her hand up over his flat stomach and rested it on his chest. They took turns gulping from the champagne bottle, whispered I-love-yous, and laughed secretly at things only they found funny.

  When the bottle was empty, they stood and kissed again, then he threw it off the mountain. It shattered below, long before it reached the diamonds that shimmered on a vast expanse of black velvet spread out far below them. The lights twinkled through the haze of pollutants that hovered over Los Angeles.

  "Happy anniversary, Davey," she whispered.

  He squeezed her tightly and said, "Happy anniversary, Casey."

  They were gone in a fraction of a heartbeat, abandoning the red blanket bunched and tangled around the empty ice bucket. There was no one around to hear the fading sound of rapidly flapping wings of flesh on the breeze.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Karen Moffett arrived at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Monday afternoon, just minutes before her appointment. She went to the elevator, her footsteps silent on the plush, smoky-colored carpet. She pressed the button and waited.

  A man came to the elevator and stood beside her. He was tall, in his early forties, with a chiseled face and a five o'clock shadow shortly before two in the afternoon. His black hair was streaked with silver. Although trim and fit, he looked tired. He carried a black briefcase in his left hand and wore a dark gray suit that looked expensive, but slept in. He smiled and nodded at her.

  Karen returned the gesture, then the elevator opened and they both stepped inside.

  "Floor?" the man said.

  "Three."

  The man smiled again as he pushed the button. "Me, too."

  Karen turned her gaze up to the floor lights above the door as the car rose to the third floor. It opened up and they both got out and turned right. Karen worried for a moment that the man was following her—she hoped not. She stopped outside room 308.

  So did he.

  "Are you following me?" Karen said.

  He cocked his head to the left curiously. "Are you here to see Martin Burgess?"

  "Yes, I am."

  "Well, so am I."

  "Oh. Well. Okay, then. I didn't realize there would be anyone else here for the two o'clock appointment."

  "Neither did I." He stepped forward and knocked on the door.

  "Come in," someone called on the other side.

 
The man opened the door and let Karen go in first.

  Martin Burgess was forty-seven, a man of medium height, his dark hair thinning on top, a paunch pressed against the black T-shirt he wore that read, I’M WEARING BLACK TILL THEY COME UP WITH SOMETHING DARKER! His T-shirt collection was well-known—he received so many from the millions of readers of his horror novels, he probably didn't need to buy any more. Karen had read up on Burgess as soon as she accepted the invitation to meet him at the hotel only a couple days ago. He'd become a rich man by writing best-selling horror novels, most of which were made into bad movies. But the quality of the movies had no effect on the amount of money he'd made from them. He lived in a sprawling mansion near Mt. Shasta in northern California, and had a house in Topanga Canyon, and another in Florida. Every Halloween, he threw a big party at his mountain home for underprivileged children, particularly kids who were terminally ill. He'd divorced Sheila, his wife of almost twenty years, to be with a much younger woman, Denise, whom he'd married ten months ago.

  Karen had read a couple of his novels. They were easy reading and the stories were quite good, as was the development of characters. She'd encountered moments when the books actually had given her chills. Burgess's writing was effective, but he wasn't going to win any major book awards anytime soon. It was apparent in interviews with Burgess that he did not labor under any such delusions. He'd once said that his books were the literary equivalent of an order of spicy nachos.

  "Please come in and sit down," Burgess said with a smile.

  The man closed the door, and they crossed the suite, and Karen sat on a couch with two chairs facing it over a coffee table. On the table was a fat black binder. The man sat down in one of the chairs.

  "So, I take it you two have met?" Burgess said as he planted himself in the other chair. Burgess wore khaki pants and black loafers, a pair of wire-framed glasses. His black T-shirt was untucked.

  "No, we haven't," Karen said.

  Burgess said, "Karen Moffett, meet Gavin Keoph." He turned to Keoph. "I hope your trip down from San Francisco was a pleasant one, Mr. Keoph."

  Keoph shrugged. "I don't travel well. Never have." He leaned forward, reached out a hand to Karen, and they shook. "Nice to meet you, Miss Moffett," he said with a smile.

  "Karen is fine."

  Burgess said, "Can I get you anything to drink? I'm only here for this meeting, but the room has a bar, or I can have room service bring something up, if you prefer."

  They both declined.

  "I'm very interested to know why you sent for me, Mr. Burgess," Keoph said.

  Burgess got up and went to the small refrigerator behind the bar and took out a beer, popped it open on his way back to the chair. "I called you here because you're both very good at what you do. I've done extensive research, and I've found you to be among the most respected people in your fields. Your agencies— Moffett and Brand, and yours, Mr. Keoph, Burning Lizard Security and Investigations—have great reputations. And to get to the point, I have work for you. But this won't be a typical job."

  Burgess put his left ankle up on his right knee and sipped his beer.

  "I want you both to work for me," he went on, "full-time. I want to be your only client for the duration of the investigation, so you'll need to clear your schedules for awhile. I know this is asking a lot, but I plan to pay a lot, because this will be unconventional work for both of you, to say the least."

  "What kind of work is it?" Karen said.

  Burgess put his left foot on the floor, moved his chair closer to the coffee table, and put down his beer. "I'd like to show you both something. I've been researching this ... event, this ... phenomenon for about eighteen years. I've scoured newspapers from major cities all over the world for every reference to this story." He laughed. "I've even paid off newsroom clerks to get my hands on the original negatives of the only couple of photographs that have been taken. Before anyone was even calling it 'the Internet, I bought a computer and got connected to it in hope of finding any scrap of information I could, of meeting any person who might know anything about it. I've made phone calls to six continents looking for the truth. I've traveled coast to coast following what little evidence I've uncovered. But I've taken it as far as I can on my own. From here on out, I need you two. For all the work I've done, I've gathered surprisingly little information, but that's the nature of these ... things. The highlights of my work are contained in this scrap-book. I've condensed it to this body of newspaper clippings and photographs and notes from my interviews with witnesses.''

  Burgess reached out and opened the scrapbook to the beginning, a news clipping under the plastic. He turned the book so they could both see it.

  The author of the article, published by the New York Post, was someone by the name of Woodrow Hill. The headline read VAMPIRES IN NEW YORK? EYEWITNESS SAYS YES!

  Burgess sat back in his chair and said, "It seems a little peep-show in Times Square—this was back before they cleaned it up and turned it into a family theme park—was owned and operated by vampires, a little place called Live Girls. The article claims the vampires bit the horny male patrons on the penis while performing. . . sexual favors through a hole in the wall. They would take just enough blood to satisfy themselves, not enough for the victim to lose consciousness or anything. The victim might've felt bad for awhile, but that was all. The writer of the article claimed that, because of Live Girls, a friend of his had been transformed into a vampire by one of the peep-show girls, and someone near and dear to him had been killed."

  A cat came out from behind the couch, hopped up onto the table, and stretched out beside the open binder. It was a sleek gray cat with long hair and a luxurious tail. It had some Persian in its blood—it didn't have the classic Persian face, but fur grew out of the bottoms of the big puffy paws. Karen recognized it because she had a couple Persians at home.

  "This is Angie," Burgess said as he stroked the cat. "That's short for Angelica, to which she also answers. I take her everywhere with me. My wife thinks I'm crazy. But, then, I've found that when you marry a woman who isn't even half your age, she will almost always think you're crazy." He smiled, then laughed a little. He seemed disappointed that they didn't find his remark funny. He picked up Angie and put her on the floor, and she wandered off.

  Burgess leaned forward in his seat, elbows on his thighs. He said, "The Post story begins with a brief editor's note, which claims that Woodrow Hill is a pseudonym for a prominent reporter who prefers to remain anonymous. I was very intrigued by this. The day after the article was published, I called a friend of mine at the Post and asked him who it was. This guy told me he wouldn't make any promises, but he'd try to find out. A few months later, he called me back and said the writer of the article was one Walter Benedek. He was a reporter for the New York Times. It's all in the scrapbook. I tried contacting him, but he returned none of my calls or letters. He eventually retired and disappeared."

  Karen frowned. "Wait a second," she said. "If he worked for the Times, why did he write something for the Post?"

  "Because he probably knew good and well that the Times would never publish such a piece," Burgess said. "In the article, he also named a New York night club called the Midnight Club, which he claimed was run by vampires who preyed on the clientele. Within twenty-four hours of the explosion at Live Girls, the Midnight Club folded up and cleared out, hardly leaving a trace. This information came from the Global Inquisitor, but I had it checked out. I hired a New York detective to look into the Midnight Club. It had never appeared in any phone book and had never advertised. It was almost as if it had never existed. Anyway, Benedek seemed to know the Times would never print his story. The Post is a tabloid, they had no trouble publishing a piece about vampires in Times Square.

  He stood and walked over to a small table against the wall. He opened the briefcase on the table and took out two thick manila folders.

  "I've had all the pertinent information in the scrap-book copied and compiled in a file for each
of you. Each file contains a check for your first payment."

  Burgess handed them each a folder, then sat down again. He took a drink of his beer, and put it back down on the table.

  "I still don't understand what you want us to do, Mr. Burgess," Karen said.

  "I've managed to track down Walter Benedek. I hired that New York detective I'd used to look into the Midnight Club. It took awhile. Mr. Benedek had done a good job of covering up his tracks. He didn't want to be found. But my guy managed to find him . . . sort of. He lives in upstate New York, up in the Finger Lakes District. Unfortunately, all he could find was a post office box, which he staked out for awhile. Mr. Benedek never showed up. He's in a town called Honeoye, but that's as specific as my information gets. Miss Moffett, I'd like you to track him down. Before you do anything else, I would like you to pay a visit to Mr. Benedek and get him to tell you all he knows about these vampires."

  "What do you want me to do?" Keoph said.

  "I'd like you to wait until Miss Moffett learns all she can. In the meantime, Mr. Keoph, you might want to bone up on vampire mythology. It might come in handy. Then I want you both to work together toward one common goal. I want you to find the vampires for me." His eyebrows rose and he grinned at them.

  Karen slowly turned her head to Keoph, who turned to her. They looked at each other for a moment, then turned back to Burgess. He seemed a perfectly reasonable man, pleasant and unassuming.

  "Are you serious, Mr. Burgess?" Karen said.

  "Serious as a heart attack." He continued to grin.

  "You know," Keoph said, "I have other clients who are depending on me."

  Burgess nodded. "You also have an excellent staff of investigators to take on those clients. I'm paying you a ridiculous amount of money to do this. If you choose not to, of course, there's nothing I can do about it. But before you make that decision, I suggest you open your folder and take a look at the first check."