gangsters and bookies.
I tried the door handle. Locked.
Normally, this would be a situation where I’d pick the lock and be in the room in just under ten seconds, but with the cameras and the sensitive nature of whatever might be behind the door, I figured acting like a normal person might serve me better.
I peered down the hall and saw that there was another open door on the other side of Brent’s room. There wasn’t any music coming from the door and I hadn’t seen anyone going in or out, so I decided to press my luck and look in. There was a young man sitting on a blue sofa tinkering around on the computer. He wore all black, including a black turtleneck, which seemed excessive in the heat of the Miami spring, but not as excessive as the white pancake makeup, black eyeliner and black nail polish he wore. Above the front door was a sign that said, WARNING: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE VAMPIRE LAIR, KING THOMAS PRESIDING.
If there was one person on the floor who might have an extra key, it would be the self-proclaimed vampire. Goth kids are always more responsible than the hard-drinking frat boy types, since they’re usually content to stay home listening to sad music and reading Camus. Brent seemed like a reasonable enough person, or at least smart enough to give his extra key to a person who never left his room.
“Excuse me,” I said.
“What?” the young man said without looking up.
“King Thomas, I presume?”
“You presume correct,” he said, eyes still fixed on the computer screen.
“I’m here to see my nephew Brent,” I said. “But his door is locked. You wouldn’t happen to have an extra key, would you? I’m supposed to leave him some money.”
King Thomas’ eyes flickered in my direction and then back to the computer. “You could leave the money with me,” he said.
“I could,” I said. “But I’m not going to.”
King Thomas sighed, as if the conversation we were having was such an existential weight on him that it hurt his soul, and then stood up and disappeared into another room. He reappeared moments later with a ring holding at least twenty-five keys. “Everyone always asks me to keep their extra keys,” he said.
“You seem very responsible,” I said.
“I’m not,” he said. He fumbled through the keys silently and then landed the one he wanted. “I slept through three classes this week. That’s not very responsible, is it?”
“Were you in prison?”
“No, I just couldn’t get up. You ever have days like that?”
“Yes,” I said.
“What do you do?”
“I get up.”
“I guess there’s no lecture notes in real life,” he said.
“Not that I’ve found,” I said.
King Thomas removed the key from the key ring and then seemed to ponder what his next move was going to be. “I haven’t seen Brent leave, so he might just be asleep.”
“I tried knocking on the door.”
“He takes that Ambien stuff,” King Thomas said. “Every Saturday. And I’m the vampire?” King Thomas stepped into the hall and looked down at Sugar. “Hey, Sugar.”
“What up, T-Dawg?” Sugar said. “How you been?”
“Chilling,” King Thomas said.
“You know each other?” I said to King Thomas.
“Yeah,” King Thomas said. “Are you with him?”
“Kind of,” I said.
“So you’re not really Brent’s uncle?”
“No, not really,” I said. “But I’m not here to hurt him. I’m here to help him. And, just to be clear, I don’t work with Sugar. He happens to be someone I know.”
“Don’t worry,” King Thomas said. “No one would make you for a drug dealer.”
“What do I look like?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe a hit man?”
“Close enough,” I said.
King Thomas put his key in the lock and the door opened with a whoosh. I put a hand on King Thomas’ chest and held him back while I looked in. The living space was empty-just the same sofa, chair and nondescript coffee table as all the other rooms had-save for a few books and papers left on the floor and kitchen table. There was no blood anywhere, which is always a good thing.
I stepped into the room and listened. Nothing but the electrical undertones you’d expect. “Wait here,” I said to King Thomas.
“Whatever,” he said.
The door to the bedroom was open. On the floor were stacks of clothes and newspapers and Big Gulp cups and socks and dirty dishes and, finally, at least two dozen baseball caps. But the surprising thing was the number of computers in the room-five laptops and one desktop-all of which were on and linked together. It was enough computer power to run SETI, or maybe a portable NORAD installation, but certainly more than your average college student might need, even one who was a computer science major.
In the bed was a body.
Or, well, the body of a sleeping college student, which can (and often does) resemble the dead. It wasn’t until a stifled snore came out of the body that I realized with certainty that it was a sleeping human and not a dead one. The smell in the room didn’t help.
I stepped over the heaps of clothes, made my way around the dirty dishes and sidestepped the innumerable computer cables until I was standing above Brent Grayson’s sleeping form. I tapped him on the shoulder.
Nothing.
I tapped him on the side of the face.
Nothing.
“Brent,” I said. “Wake up.”
Nothing again.
I looked at his bedside table and saw that he had a prescription bottle for Ambien, just as King Thomas had suggested, but the label said it was for someone named Irene Rosenblatt.
I walked back out into the hallway and saw that Sugar was deep in conversation with the vampire king and another boy, this one with dreadlocks that looked like they were matted with pet fur. “Sugar,” I said, “what did I tell you?”
“Sorry, boss. I know these cats,” he said.
I held up the bottle. “You know Irene Rosenblatt, too?”
“Oh, man, you know,” he said.
I just shook my head and went back inside the dorm room. I sat down on the sofa and called Sam. “We’ve got a body here,” I told him.
“Is it messy?” he asked.
“No,” I said, “it’s asleep. On Ambien.”
“You can have crazy sex on that stuff,” he said.
“So I hear,” I said. “Listen, I’m going to bring this kid home with me and I’m going to leave Sugar somewhere where he can’t hurt himself or anyone else. Like Guantanamo Bay, maybe.”
“Yeah, about that,” Sam said. “His car is gone.”
“Towed away?”
“No, I mean gone. Like blown up. Along with the entire notary office. Looks like a pro job, Mikey. These guys are legit that came out there today. This isn’t someone looking to collect on a gambling debt, just like you thought.”
“Well, this kid has about $20K worth of computer equipment in his dorm room, the kind of computers no college freshman would ever need. Something is going on here beyond Sugar’s comprehension, that’s for sure. So
