I Robert sipped his coffee, preparing to speak, but before he could say anything Pee Wee cut him off. 'All right, what is it? What's up? You two've been pussyfootin' around something ever since you got here.
Spill it.'
'What would you say if I told you that there was a vampire in Rio Verde?'
'I'd say you were a fool-assed chump and two sandwiches shy of a picnic.'
Robert sipped his coffee. Rich nodded. 'A week ago I would've said that,' Pee Wee said. 'But that was before I saw the body of that wild filly out by the wash. Now I say tell me more.' bert glanced up. 'You believe it?' don't not believe it. That filly was nothing but a mummified corpse, and two days before she'd been eating my scrub.'
'We've found other animals too. And the mechanic and the groom and those two kids were all killed the same way. Drained of blood, emptied.'
'Exsanguinated,' Pee Wee said.
'Yes.'
'Seems to me this is where the feds or the staters'd be some help. What do they say about this?'
Robert shrugged. 'I haven't discussed it with them. The
FBI agent is in charge of the investigation, but if he has some sort of overall strategy in mind, he's not sharing it.
As far as I can tell, he's working on one body at a time.
And looking for a human suspect.'
'Have you talked to the coroner?'
'He's the one who sprung the vampire theory on me.
He's autopsied the bodies and said there's no known way that the blood, urine, and everything could've been sucked out those holes in the necks.'
'Necks.' Pee Wee nodded, impressed. 'Who's coroner these days?
Woods?'
'Yeah.'
'He knows his stuff.' Pee Wee walked over to a wooden rocking chair, sat down. 'This is getting interesting'
Robert sat on the overstuffed couch adjacent to the fireplace. 'I'm buying it too.
'What about you?' Pee Wee asked, looking over at Rich. 'You haven't said much through all this.'
'I don't know what to think. I haven't made up my mind yet. But it's definitely open.'
The ex-chief nodded. 'Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that we are dealing with a real vampire.' He looked from Rich to Robert. 'How often does he have to feed?'
Robert sighed. 'The killings seem to be about a week or two apart.'
'So he needs a body every two weeks.'
'Plus animals,' Rich reminded him
'Let's just deal with the humans for now. Okay, a body every two weeks. No correspondence with lunar cycles or any of that crap. That's good.'
'Why's that good?' Because! '
'The less mumbo jumbo we have to deal with, the better. If there are such things as vampires, and if we got one here, we have to figure out how to track him, catch him, and kill him. We have to treat him like an animal, observe his habits and use 'em to our advantage. And the first thing we have to do is separate the myts, from the true.
'The first have to do, Robert said, is find thing we out how we can protect people from him.' him 'Or her,' Rich said.
'True enough.' Robert nodded.
'Let's think about this logically.' Pee Wee set his coffee cup down on the floor next to the couch. 'If this guy's a vampire, he lives forever, right? He must be a hundred years old. Two hundred, maybe.
If that's so, why haven't we heard about him before? Why hasn't he wiped out whole towns? I'll tell you why--because he moves on. It's a big world, and a crowded one, and I bet a vampire could feed a little in one place and then keep moving and no one'd ever know.'
'Hell,' Robert said. 'Maybe he hibernates. Like a bear. Comes out every century, drinks some blood, goes back to sleep.'
'Maybe,' Rich said doubtfully, and there was silence in the room after he spoke.
Robert picked up his coffee from the floor, drank it, and the three of them stared out of the living room -- through the huge window into the endless desert beyond.
It was nearly noon when they arrived back in town. Robert radioed over to the station, learned that nothing had happened this morning, and said he would be in after lunch. He turned toward Rich. 'You in a big hurry? Let's cruise over to Buford's, grab some chow.'
'Okay.'
The cruiser slowed for two teenagers crossing the high way in front of the liquor store.
'You know what?' Rich said. 'All these years we've been going to Buford's, and I don't even know his last name.'
'I thought Buford was his last name.'
'I think it's his first.'
'We'll check.' Robert pulled into the parking lot of the hamburger stand, and they both got out. Robert ordered a half-pound Monstro Burger, large fries, and a large Dr. Pepper, and after only a second's deliberation, Rich ordered the same.
Robert grinned. 'No willpower.' He bent to peek through the order window as Buford pulled two huge hamburger patties from the refrigerator and slapped them on the grill. 'I know this is a stupid question,' he said to the cook, 'but is Buford your first name or your last name?'
'Both.'
'Both? Buford Buford?'
'That's what my daddy named me.'
Robert glanced over at his brother. 'Hear that? I guess we're both right.' His smile faded as Rich, frowning, to a hand-lettered sign on the in pointed surreptitiously side of the glass next to the pickup window: 'New Hours
11 A.M.-6 P.M.'
Robert turned back toward Buford. 'You're closing at six now?'
'Yeah.' The cook did not elaborate.
'You're going to miss the dinner crowd.'
'I changed the hours last week.' He paused. 'I don't want to work after dark anymore.'
Rich and his brother exchanged glances, saying nothing.
The sizzling of the burgers grew louder. 'Rumor has it,' Buford said,
'that you caught your vampire.' 'What?'
'Mike Vigil. He went crazy and thought he was a vampire. 'Mike's crazy all right, but he's no vampire. Besides, : he was in Florence under observation the other night when Clifford killed. '
'I didn't put no store by it.' He flipped over the burgers, pulled a handful of sliced onions from the refrigerator, and dumped them on the grill. He worked the onions with his spatula for a moment. 'I think I saw the vampire last week.'
Robert tried to peer through the window to judge whether or not Buford was pulling his leg, but all he could see through the dirty rusted screen was the cook's white i aproned chest and clean-shaven bottom jaw.
'I wasn't sure whether I should tell you, but I promised myself that if you came in, I'd bring it up.' He pointed his spatula toward Rich. 'I don't want none of this in the paper, understand?'
Off the record,' Rich agreed.
'I haven't even told my wife. Don't want to frighten her.'
'What happened?'
'I was here late, all alone, and all of a sudden I got... kind of a weird feeling. I can't describe it, but it was like I knew something was out there, watching me, waiting for me to leave. Scared the living shit out of me. When I finally did leave and go out to my car, I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye. A white shape.
Big. Kind of fluttering. But then it was gone. I didn't stop to look for it. I just hopped in my car and hauled
