her word on her brother and the toy train.”
“Oh, man,” I said. “That was something I could have gone to my grave without knowing.”
Marvin nodded. “Yep. Me too. What June didn’t tell you, and probably doesn’t know, but what my phone calls just found out, is about two weeks ago, Evil Lynn, real name Ray Lynn Gonzello, Godzilla to June, had a prisoner start somethin’ with her over who knows what. Godzilla beat her down like she was tenderizin’ meat. Then she challenged a fellow ass-whipped prisoner to cut her. Let her get to the shiv she’d just taken away from her. Wanted to show her that it wouldn’t hurt. That any wound she got would heal. That she was in fact a vampire.”
“Uh-oh,” Leonard said. “This isn’t going to end well.”
“On the nosey,” Marvin said. “Fact was she didn’t heal up at all. Got stabbed under the armpit and bled out faster than you could say ‘Oh, shit. I’ve been stabbed under the arm and it hurts like a motherfucker.’ According to what I got here, Godzilla had some actual last words.”
“I’m guessin’,” said Leonard, “it’s not the stuff about ‘Oh shit, I’ve been stabbed under the arm.’ ”
“Kind of sad, really,” Marvin said. “She said, ‘I’m just a girl.’ ”
“Nothing like experience to put things into perspective,” I said.
“What I’m thinkin’,” Marvin says, “is every day she’s eating crappy food in the cafeteria, and she’s not suckin’ blood-I don’t think-and she’s behind bars like a zoo animal, no vampire powers at work, and she still didn’t get it. That’s the part amazes me.”
“The knife was the only kind of explanation she understood,” I said.
“Now here’s some more CliffsNotes. A year back, Trip, real name Tammy Trip, the vampire’s assistant, was found dead in her apartment, hanging from a doorway. Drove a big nail there, attached a short noose made of two woven nylon stockings, and hung herself. She was all dressed up in her best black duds. Course, according to my buddy over in Camp Rapture who works for the cops, cop who found her said she had shit herself and her tongue was hanging out so far and so thick, they thought she had a partially deflated balloon in her mouth.”
“Dressin’ up don’t help much,” Leonard said, “if you end up with shit down your legs.”
“Six months ago, one of the other girls, one who stayed in the car with Mini, name was Joan Carter, was found in her bedroom with a hypodermic needle no longer full of heroin in her arm. She had been dead a few days. Her dog ate most of one of her legs and a large chunk out of her naked ass, but was kind enough to do all his pissin’ and shittin’ in one corner of the room.”
“Leonard can’t even do that,” I said.
“Then we go back to Mini and her boyfriend,” Marvin said. “They were killed two years ago.”
“Seems like belonging to or being associated with the vampire clan brings a person bad luck,” I said.
“Yep,” Leonard said. “But I do have a suspect. Van Helsing.”
Marvin ignored that. He said, “Now, I hate to tell you this part, and I suppose when I do, Leonard, you can put the deerstalker back on. Cop over in Camp Rapture tells me that a bunch of them thought from the start the bodies of Mini and Christopher’s boy had been killed somewhere else and dumped. And it wasn’t the first time they’d seen the devil head symbol, but all of that was kept hush-hush.”
Leonard put the hat on, lounged loosely in his chair. “Yeah, baby,” he said.
“So the cops weren’t as stupid as we thought,” I said.
“No,” Marvin said. “They thought they’d keep some things back, something they could use to nail their guy later on. Not let it be known they were onto the right idea. Of course, it didn’t help. The cases still went cold.”
“Are you about to tell us the Devil Red symbol was at the scenes of their deaths?”
“It was found in the apartment where the girl hung herself. It was marked above the doorway where the noose was fastened. Other girl, one with the needle… It was drawn on the headboard of the bed. Small, but in sight if you were looking. And, lastly, as you noted, Leonard, it was drawn on one of the trees where Mini and Ted’s bodies were found. Since the murders took place in different towns, and some time apart, no one put it together right away. Maybe it should have been obvious, the girls being part of the vampire group. But, different towns, different departments. Mini was killed in Camp Rapture along with Ted. Godzilla in prison-and there wasn’t any symbol there, which means she may not have been part of the pattern at all, just stupid. Trip was in LaBorde at the time, having just moved there, and Joan, the dog’s lunch, died in Tyler. They figure the killer is spacing his victims out to keep from being connected, to avoid expectations, or is playing a kind of game. Wants to taunt the authorities, show how clever he is. Thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.”
“And so far,” I said, “that’s been true. But whoever is whacking them is leaving the devil head symbol, so they’re not hiding that hard.”
“Here’s something else. Mini was about to inherit enough money to not only buy some plastic vampire teeth, but on top of that there would be eight million dollars left over.”
“Holy shit,” Leonard said, “she invent a perpetual motion machine?”
“Nope. Her mother won the lottery.”
18
“That’s some lottery,” I said. “Eight million dollars.”
“Poor girl,” Marvin said. “She never got to spend her inheritance.” Marvin picked up the notes he had made, glanced at them, and continued. “Her father died when she was young. Her mother remarried, and the old gal wasn’t exactly tip-top in the high value department. A drunk. A bit of a whore. Picked up for shoplifting a couple of times. Even had Mini in on the job once, teaching her to stuff items down her pants. And the kid was five. Mother was fired from a lot of jobs, mostly for not showing up, or showing up drunk, and once for giving another employee head in the back room for fifty dollars. She also paid a fine for dumping a dog beside the road and wishing it good luck in the future.”
“Everything but wearing polyester jumpsuits,” Leonard said.
“The sources for all this reliable?” I said. “We didn’t have this info before.”
“I wouldn’t use them if they weren’t,” Marvin said. “They don’t know it all, but they know a lot. Mostly from cops and retired cops, a couple of lawyers who are only partly shark. But it’s just background stuff, nothing that solves anything. It just means all that money might somehow have been a motive. Figuring out if it was or wasn’t, that’s our job.”
“Shit,” Leonard said. “I was hoping someone else had done the work and we’d be through after today.”
“Actually, that vampire business opened the gate,” Marvin said. “Gave me an idea of who to contact on the force over there. Once I knew stuff they didn’t, they were more forthcoming with things I didn’t know. They figured they might as well tell me. The case was cold to them. So, I hate to give you guys a compliment, but you did good. It’s the way it works in the detective business: The more you know, the more others are willing to tell you.”
Marvin returned the notes to the table and leaned back in his chair. His chair was much better than ours. It was comfy and had wheels on it. “Mini didn’t have true friends because her personality was a little strange. That’s why she latched onto the vampire business, got in with that crowd.”
“She was pretty,” I said. “I could tell that in the photo. A little still, a little pale, and way too dead, but no discernible ants or maggots or signs of rot, still pretty until the bloating. Usually, pretty girls are popular. When they’re alive, anyway.”
“She was popular with some in a certain way,” Marvin said.
“Local hole punch?” I said.
“Yep,” Marvin said. “According to Will Turner, a retired cop I talked to, guy who actually interviewed Mini first, after Godzilla did the chop and suck thing. He got the impression that Mini was trying to fit in. Boys liked her for the drawer shuckin’ part, but not for too much else.”
“If only she could have yodeled,” Leonard said.
“You are a heartless sonofabitch,” I said.
“I was thinkin’ she and her buddies killin’ that drunk frat rat was the heartless part,” Leonard said. “And as a reward, her mother wins eight million dollars for buying a two-dollar ticket. What’s up with that?”
“Bought the ticket at a filling station,” Marvin said. “When she got some of the money, she went out to get drunk in celebration, leaving her husband home with a glass of milk and a bologna sandwich. She got so drunk she fell asleep in her car on the railroad track.”
