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  Karen and Keoph opened their folders. The check was paper-clipped to the first page of the file. Karen's eyebrows rose. It was, indeed, a ridiculous amount of money for a first payment. She and Keoph exchanged another look.

  She closed the file and said, "Let me get this straight, Mr. Burgess. You think these vampires really exist?"

  "That's what I want you to find out," Burgess said. He smiled again. "Of course, my mind is pretty much made up. My investigation turned up enough evidence for me to think I was onto something. Yes, I'm inclined to believe they really exist. But like I said, even over eighteen years, I've been able to gather surprisingly little information. These things don't want to be found. So, I guess, while I'm already convinced they're out there, I'm curious to see if you can find them. I've provided you with all the information I have. The tabloid papers all followed up on that Post article with lurid stories of vampires in the New York sex trade, particularly the Global Inquisitor. The Inquisitor has done a story on these vampires two or three times a year ever since, milking it for all it's worth."

  "You believe the Inquisitor?" Keoph said.

  "Ah, welcome to my world, Mr. Keoph," Burgess said with a chuckle. "Many people think that tabloids print only lies. But you'd be surprised. During the O.J. Simpson media explosion back in the nineties, the most accurate reporting came from, of all places, the National Enquirer. Yes, it's true, tabloids publish a lot of utter bullshit. I mean, we all know the story about Batboy meeting the Pope is bullshit, right? But sometimes, they're the only place to find the truth, because unlike the legitimate press, the tabloids will go to whatever lengths necessary to get it. And they're a ruthless bunch. All the articles are in the file. You may find some helpful information in them, you may not. But don't dismiss them just because they're from tabloids."

  "Why aren't we both going to see Walter Benedek?" Karen said.

  "I'm sending you because I suspect that Mr. Benedek will be more forthcoming with a woman than a man."

  "Have you talked to him?" Karen said.

  "No, I haven't, but I've talked to someone who knows him, a man named Ethan Collier. They knew each other professionally and personally for many years, but Collier hasn't heard from him in a long time. It's all in the file. Anyway, Ethan Collier tells me Mr. Benedek is an incurable flirt, and that women love him."

  Karen said, "Am I supposed to interview him, or flirt with him?"

  "A little of both couldn't hurt," Burgess said. "Look, I'm not asking you to have a relationship with the guy, just don't be afraid to be charming if you think—"

  "Mr. Burgess, with all due respect, I've been doing this for fourteen years," Karen said.

  "You're right, I'm sorry. Forget I said that. I don't mean to tell you how to do your job. Forgive me. I just think he'll be more receptive to a woman than a man. By all accounts, the man's a perfect gentleman, so it's not like I'm sending you into a situation where you'll be—"

  "I understand, Mr. Burgess," Karen said.

  "When would you like us to start?" Keoph said.

  "Immediately," Burgess said. "I realize you'll need some time to farm your clients out to other investigators at your agencies, but I’d like you to get started as soon as that's done. I recommend doing that today."

  Karen paged through the file, thinking. It sounded like a wild goose chase to her, but Burgess was paying a lot. Vampires. It was probably going to end up being some group of goth misfits who wore a lot of black clothes and phony fangs and wrote bad poetry. But she was intrigued by the fact that a reporter for the Times would write a pseudonymous piece for the Post—why would he do such a thing? Obviously, he truly believed he had encountered vampires. Mental illness? Possible, but how likely? Karen's curiosity was stirred by Walter Benedek.

  "All right," she said. "I'll do it."

  Keoph thought about it a moment longer, then nodded. "Yeah."

  Burgess grinned again and clapped his hands once, then rubbed them together vigorously. "Wonderful, wonderful. You'll want to go over all the information in the files. Miss Moffett, I've taken the liberty of booking a flight to Rochester, New York for you. It leaves at six forty-five in the morning."

  Karen said, "Sounds like you were pretty confident we'd take this job."

  "Like I said, Miss Moffett," Burgess said, "I'm paying you a ridiculous amount of money to do this, and I know how loudly money speaks to us all. I had every confidence you would come on board, if not just for the money, then certainly out of curiosity. I would imagine people in your line of work to be very curious in general, am I right? Just a little?"

  Karen smiled. "Yes, you are. Just a little."

  Angie hopped into Burgess's lap, and he stroked her back as she settled down across his thighs.

  "My cell phone number is in the file," Burgess said. "I'll be staying at my Topanga Canyon house for another week or ten days, so I'll be in town if you need me for anything. If you have any questions or important information to share with me, feel free to call me at anytime, day or night. Don't worry about waking me. I'm a night owl, anyway. I do most of my writing at night. If you wake me, it'll be in the morning, when I sleep." He turned to Keoph. "You've been awfully quiet, Mr. Keoph. What do you have to say about all this?"

  One heavy brow rose over Keoph's right eye. "The truth?"

  Burgess smiled. "Always, Mr. Keoph, always."

  "The truth is," Keoph said, "I think you're a taco short of a combo plate."

  Burgess released a single abrupt, "Ha! That's exactly what I expected. I'm sure you both think I'm insane. But I'm not. I'm just curious, very curious. I've made my living by making up stories about vampires and ghosts and demons and werewolves for the last twenty-two years—things that are so ingrained in our culture that, even if only for the length of a book, people are able to believe in them. Then there are those who do believe in them, with great sincerity."

  "Like you?" Keoph said.

  "Those old legends and superstitions have to come from someplace. I find it difficult to believe they're all completely false. They started somewhere, somehow. I believe there may be more behind them than we think. I want to find out. And now I can afford to do it. Based on your reputations, I've hired you to do it for me. I want to start with these vampires."

  "You want to start with the vampires?" Keoph said.

  "Yes. This isn't the only scrapbook I have, and this isn't the only story I've been following. But I think this is a good starting point."

  "I usually work alone,” Keoph said. "Why two of us?"

  Burgess said, "To save time. You can do twice the work. I'm not saying you have to work together every minute. Spread out, follow separate leads, just... do whatever it is you do," he said with a big boyish smile.

  Karen turned to Keoph and said, "If it's okay with you, we can use my Century City office as a base of operations."

  He nodded. "Sounds good." He put his briefcase on the coffee table, opened it, and put the file in, then closed it again.

  "Well, then, that's that," Burgess said. He put the cat back on the floor and stood. "I'm sure you want to get to those files, and you have preparations to make now that you've signed on."

  Karen stood as Burgess headed for the door. As Keoph stood, she said, "Do you have a car yet?"

  Keoph said, "No, I took a cab straight here from the airport."

  "Where's your luggage?"

  "I didn't bring anything but this briefcase. I hadn't planned to spend the night." He took the case from the coffee table. "I'll send for some things now that I know I'm staying. Or I might just buy some new clothes."

  Burgess stood at the door and shook their hands with enthusiasm, that same boyish smile on his face. "It's been a pleasure meeting you both, and I look forward to working with you. I don't know about you two, but I think this is going to be fun."

  CHAPTER TWO

  Shortly after three in Karen's fourteenth-floor office in Century City, she poured scotch into a couple glasses on the sideboard. "You take ice?" she
said.

  "Nope."

  "Me, I like ice." She'd brought a bucket of ice from the refrigerator in the break room. She dipped two fingers into it and scooped out a couple cubes, dropped them into her glass. The ice tinkled as she swirled the whiskey around in her glass. She took Keoph's drink to him.

  He was seated in the swiveling black leather-upholstered chair in front of her desk. Karen went to the matching couch, kicked off her shoes, and sat on the end of the couch with her feet tucked under her.

  "I don't usually drink this early," Keoph said.

  "Oh, neither do I." She lifted her glass. "And the check’s in the mail."

  Keoph raised his drink. "To vampires."

  "To vampires."

  They drank.

  "No offense, Keoph," Karen said, "but you look like you really needed a drink."

  "No offense taken. I'm exhausted. There was a lot going on at my office yesterday, my ex-wife has been on my ass for more money, and I only got a couple hours of sleep last night. Then I had to fly here. It used to be such a simple, quick trip, but now, with all the security, it takes forever, and it's exhausting."

  It was a comfortable chair, and for a moment, Keoph thought about how good it would feel to fall asleep there. He looked around at the office, done in a lot of black, white, and chrome, with a big, black, angular glass-topped desk. The windows behind the desk looked out on a small rose garden on the roof of the building.

  "Nice place you've got here," he said.

  "Thank you."

  Karen stood and took her drink to her desk. She sat down and reached over to a small console of buttons on her desktop. She pushed a button and closed all the white blinds on the windows that looked out into the hallway and beyond to a group of desks in the next room. She opened a drawer and removed an ashtray, a pack of Winstons, and a Bic lighter. "I'm afraid my employees and colleagues don't approve of my smoking. And technically, it is against the law, but... do you mind?"

  "Only if I can join you," Keoph said as he reached a hand under his coat and removed a cigarette and a brass Zippo lighter.

  "You smoke, too?" she said.

  "Now and then."

  "Smoke 'em if you got 'em."

  He lit up, and his lighter made a solid chuck sound when he closed it, then put it back under his coat.

  "We smokers have to stick together," Karen said with a smile. "They're trying to snuff us out."

  "If we don't snuff ourselves out first," he said, with smoke coming from his mouth and clouding before him.

  "Look, Keoph," she said, "I'm not used to working with anyone, either. If you want to know the truth, I took the job for the money, and maybe to find out why that Times reporter would write such a thing for the Post. I mean, he must have believed it to be true. Also, I have .. . personal reasons for taking it. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I've never done this before."

  "That makes two of us," Keoph said. He looked at her a long moment, took her in. She had short auburn hair and a very attractive, heart-shaped face, with large brown eyes. She was dressed in a simple black-and-grey business suit. Keoph guessed her age to be between thirty-seven and forty, but she looked youthful and obviously took good care of herself. She stood about five feet, seven inches tall with a shapely figure. To a certain extent, Keoph was sorry they would be working together—he had wanted to ask her out when he first saw her on the elevator. "What's your personal reason for taking the job?" he asked.

  She smiled and took a swallow of whiskey. "When I was a little girl, my uncle Arty used to babysit us. He was my mom's brother, and he was a cool guy, always fun to be with. He collected comic books and loved horror films. So whenever he took care of us, which was often, my brother, sister, and I had to watch whatever he wanted to watch on TV, and it was usually a horror film. I remember the first one I ever saw—it was some Technicolor Dracula movie with Christopher Lee. When I saw that man with blood all over his mouth and realized that he'd been drinking that woman's blood, I was so disgusted, I almost threw up. I had nightmares for weeks after that, and Uncle Arty was instructed by my mother not to make us watch horror movies anymore. But that single image of Christopher Lee standing there with his fangs bared and blood all around his mouth—it's always stayed with me. To this day, I can't watch vampire movies because I just find the whole idea so repulsive."

  "So now you're going to investigate vampires?" Keoph said.

  "I'm doing it because I know Uncle Arty would want me to. That's all. Sounds silly, but I like Uncle Arty, and I'd like to be able to tell him the story, you know?"

  "What does Uncle Arty do these days?"

  She smiled. "He's a comic book artist. He's with Marvel at the moment."

  Keoph nodded his approval. He drew on his cigarette, let the smoke out slowly. "Maybe it would help if you knew a little about me," he said.

  She nodded. "Yes, we should at least trade resumes, or something."

  "I'm not talking about my work, I'm talking about me. There are things you should know if we're going to work together. I always tell the truth. That means I sometimes offend people. I'm not what you'd call 'politically correct.' I'm just not wired that way. So if I say something that offends you, feel free to say so, and you won't hurt my feelings. Personally, I don't offend. It just doesn't happen. So, say what's on your mind, I can take it. But most of all, I need to know that you'll always tell me the truth. Should we find ourselves in a dangerous predicament, I need to be able to trust you, and believe everything you say. Not only that, but I expect full disclosure of all the information you gather on this case. The only way this will work is if we work as a team, not as if this is some kind of competition. Is that understood?"

  Karen smiled. "I think we're going to get along, Keoph. We already have a lot in common." She took a drag on the cigarette and blew smoke. "I like people who speak their mind, because I don't hesitate to speak mine. I think we're going to get along just fine."

  "What do you think of our client?" Keoph said.

  "I tend to believe him," Karen said. "I think he's genuinely curious to know where things like vampires and werewolves come from. What about you?"

  "I think he should probably be medicated, if he isn't already."

  Karen laughed. "That's possible, but I don't think so. If I really thought the guy wasn't right in the head, I wouldn't take his money. I've read enough of his work to think Mr. Burgess has an honest interest in this."

  "I suspect his problem is that he has too much money, and too much time on his hands."

  "We're getting a nice chunk of that money," she said. "And that's only the first payment." Karen picked up the black phone on her desk and pushed a button. "Hello, Libby. I need you to do something for me. Farm out all my clients to other investigators for the next, oh, let's say the next month, for starters. And don't make—what? Yes, you heard me right. All of them. And don't make any new appointments for me until I say otherwise. Got that? Great. Thank you." She replaced the phone on its base. "That's taken care of."

  "I need to do the same thing," Keoph said, taking a cell phone from his right suit coat pocket. He called his office in San Francisco and gave his secretary the same instructions Karen had given hers. When he was done, he put the phone back in his pocket.

  Karen said, "What do you say we get to those files?" She opened hers on the desk.

  Keoph put his briefcase on his lap, opened it, and took out the file.

  They spent the next hour silently reading and occasionally commenting.

  Keoph read everything in the folder, starting with the piece by Walter Benedek, writing as Woodrow Hill.

  Like Karen, Keoph was puzzled why a reporter for the Times would write an anonymous piece for a rival tabloid. Keoph had known a few reporters in his time, and they weren't the type to do anything so risky to their careers. There had to be a good reason behind it—unless he was just a nut.

  The scrapbook was filled mostly with news clippings. There were several pages of notes by Burgess, most of
which were written about interviews with so-called witnesses. As far as Keoph could tell, all of Burgess's witnesses were homeless people who had hung around outside Live Girls, some of whom were injured when the peepshow blew up.

  There were a couple photographs, too. Both were of the same subject, and both were very blurry. The background was dark, and something dark and blurry was in the foreground—it looked like part of a fence. In the first photograph, a face was in the upper part of the picture caught in what appeared to be the beam of a flashlight—a pale, oval face with dark spots where there should be eyes, hollow cheeks, and an open mouth. From the direction of the blur, the face was moving downward. Part of that blur were two slender streaks that came down from the upper lip— long, curved fangs. In the second photograph, the face was lower and not quite as blurred, but still ghostlike, still with those fangs in the yawning mouth. The pictures were creepy as hell, but they did not prove a thing. They easily could have been faked. There was no source for the pictures to be found on the page, which made them anonymous, and useless.

  He read all the way to the final article, a piece from the Inquisitor a few months ago.

  When he was done reading, he paged backward and scanned a few articles a second time.

  As he read the material from Burgess's scrapbook, he felt like he was getting to know the writer a little better. Keoph was certain that Burgess wanted the vampire story to be true. There was a good chance, Keoph was sure, that Burgess would not believe them if they told him there was nothing to it.

  "I think our client is going to be very disappointed," Keoph said.

  "You think so?" Karen said.

  "I don't think this is going to lead anywhere."

  "We'll know more after I talk to Benedek."

  "If you can get him to talk. What if he refuses?"

  "Well, if necessary," Karen said, "I'll pay him for his story." She stood. "I skipped lunch, so I'm hungry. Want to get a bite to eat?"

  "Sure."

  They went across the street to a small diner.