of all choice in what he said.
Carol was gentle and understanding. “If you don’t know where he is now, Joe, tell us where you saw him last.”
“That house . . . out in the country . . . the night we. . . .”
“The night Gruner was killed. Yes. And where before that?”
His mouth worked by itself. All he had to do was lie there on the table and observe the process. He mentioned the Southerland house, the parking lot of the Shores Motel, the Loop, the mausoleum in Lockwood Cemetery. . . .
“Enough,” said Carol when he started to repeat himself, and his mouth shut up at once. She turned to Poach. “That mausoleum ought to be worth a try. First, do you know where Lockwood Cemetery is? And, second, can you check it out before sunset? Do not try to meet him alone at night.”
“You tell me that about twice a day.”
“Because I don’t think you believe me, Poach. Look up the cemetery on the city map.”
“Okay, okay. Then what about the house? We got to try to get in there sometime.”
“Yes, the house too, today. If—”
“Before sunset. I know. I’m on my way.”
SIXTEEN
Sitting up in bed, Craig Walworth could feel on one side of his throat the paired coolnesses of two fresh drops of painless blood. No mirror at hand to see them in, but he knew from past experience they were so small that touching them would mark his finger with red specks barely visible.
“A couple of months ago,” he remarked, “you couldn’t have convinced me it was possible for people to really get their kicks doing this. I mean relatively normal people.”
Carol had just rolled away from him and now her naked body lay curved in a far quadrant of the huge circular bed, her flame of hair almost covering an outsize pillow. Beyond her the unshaded window, twenty stories above observation, looked out upon great clouds above the lake, clouds painted now with the reflection of a sunset developing in the opposite direction.
Carol gave one of her little laughs. She had them in several styles, and this particular style, Walworth was slowly coming to realize, was derisive. She said: “You consider yourself relatively normal, darling?”
“I guess I do, though I’m not proud of it.”
“Anyway, two months ago is just about when we first met. And it didn’t take me long at all to convince you that vampirism really works.”
“I mean, no one could have convinced me by argument. Demonstration was what did the trick.” The sensations accompanying her sipping from his veins were more diffuse than those of any other sex act he had ever performed, but nonetheless orgasmic. “And one of the points I like best is that we can alternate this vampire act with going at it in the more traditional ways. You never seem to take enough blood to leave me weak, or anything. One of these days, my love, we’re going to try both at once, and what a hit that’ll be.”
“I think it’s time we got up,” said Carol, ignoring everything he had said.
“I still don’t get just how you do it. I mean, make tiny punctures like this with just your teeth. I can see you’d have to have teeth like needles. It never hurts a bit and the holes are so small. But your teeth don’t look the least bit odd. I’ve had my tongue in there between ‘em too, not to mention—”
“Don’t be gross.” Her voice cutting him off was cold, but then she winked. “I really do think it’s time we jumped up and got dressed.”
“What’s the hurry?”
“There are things to do tonight. Things are going to be happening.”
“What things? Goddam it, you can answer me. How do you do the biting?”
“Just like in the movies,” she said, and rolled out of bed on her side and started to pull on her dress. Nothing under it, of course; cold never seemed to bother Carol.
“Movies?”
“Vampire movies. Craig dear, don’t be dense. Now
“If it’s that easy I ought to be able to do it to you too.”
From the top of the green dress emerged green eyes, looking at him coldly. “I do not enjoy having my throat bitten,” Carol stated. “Anyway, tasting my blood would change you too fast. You are perfect just the way you are. I wish to enjoy you and use you just a little longer yet.”
He stretched out with hands behind his head, thinking to himself how nicely his big biceps showed in this position. “You’re using me, huh? When are you going to get over your hangups about my mirrors?” The large glass on the nearest wall had been sprayed opaque, like a store window at Halloween; there were only a few scars in the ceiling to show where his overhead mirror had been taken down completely, at Carol’s insistence, before she would mount the round bed with him.
“Sometime soon, I think,” she answered, seriously enough to surprise him a little. She was sitting in a chair now, gracefully putting on a shoe. “I think you’re ready.”
“You do a good act about the mirrors,” he said. “Never explicitly explaining why. Just putting these out of action, and covering up the one in the lobby with that raincoat. Leaving it to me to make the connection with the fairy-tale vampires who won’t show up in a mirror.”
Shoes on, Carol had stood and turned away to watch the sunset-reflecting clouds. “Big storm’s coming,” she remarked, as if to herself. Then she turned back. “Tell me more about the fairy-tale vampires.”
“Well, you know. You do it well.”
“I think I’d better be blunt,” Carol said. “When have you ever actually seen my reflection in a mirror? I really do want to have you around a while longer, and you’re not going to last unless you start to understand some things. In fact, you may not last out the night.”
“What’s all this,” Walworth demanded, starting to get angry, “about how I’m going to be used?” She had never talked like this to him before; he realized now that some kind of crisis in their relationship was at hand. “If you’ve got any ideas about turning me over to that dumb Irishman as a kidnapper, forget them. You and King Kong are in this just as deep as I am, remember. If that kid ever identifies me as driving the car, your ass has had it too.”
“Craig, don’t ever let Winter hear you call him that.” Carol issued the warning calmly but seriously, a stewardess telling you to put on the belt. “As for the dumb Irishman, as you call him, he won’t be coming around again. That was well played, darling. You do have talents outside of bed.”
Walworth was still lying in the same position. “So, what’d you do? Pay him off? Kill him? I’d like to know about it. I mean, I’d really like to know, dearie, if you’re killing people and it might someday involve me. An hour later you were back here. Did you take him home and bite his neck?”
Carol seemed to be considering her answer seriously. Meanwhile she was straightening her dress around her, fluffing out her hair. She did, now that he thought about it, have the habit of doing such things without mirrors. At last she said: “No, I haven’t bitten his neck. Not yet. Anyway, it’s not really the police you have to worry about.”
“It’s not? That’s a pretty good one.”
“No it isn’t, dear. It wasn’t the police who pulled off Gruner’s fingers.”
“Obviously. I know who that was. Your psychopathic playmate Winter or whatever the hell you think I ought to call him. Who else does things like that? But if he ever comes after me, baby, he’s not going to get within arm’s length of me alive.”
“It was not M’sieu Winter who did it, either.
“Why should I?” But there was a certain psychological disadvantage in nakedness when she stood there like a nurse, so before it could become a real issue Walworth got out of bed and started rooting for some clothes. He said: “You’re too smart to stick with a crazy like him. So why try to cover up for him with me, of all people?”
“I am not covering up. It is just that I still need Winter for a while, or at least I would like to be able to use him.”
“Just like me,” he mocked.
“Exactly. So please, Craig, can you take seriously the warning I am about to give you? Whether or not you are
