Vampire$

The leader looked a bit like Cat, thin and blond, and he licked his lips and nodded to the others and they all stood up. The leader reached for his gun. Two of the others did the same.

Felix appeared without warning in the doorway behind them.

“Knock, knock,” he said quietly.

They jumped like they’d been zapped by a laser beam. They spun around, cocking their pistols, or trying to get them out with jerking slippery hands — And I thought they were going to shoot him. Or at least shoot at him. But they didn’t. They recognized him at the last split second, and didn’t shoot. The air was filled with the sound of their roaring breath.

Felix, feigning concern, took a step back and raised his hands. He smiled. “Don’t shoot, Yankee!”

There was about a three-beat pause while everyone’s heart was restarted. Felix, still smiling, lowered his hands and strolled casually into the room. He stopped in front of my table and lit a cigarette. He regarded the blond.

“Cliff, you look like shit,” He looked around at the rest of them. “The rest of you look worse.” He paused when be came to the Hispanic. His smile remained but his eyes looked hard. “I see the company rep is here.”

Then he did a scary thing. He took one of the chairs abandoned by the others, the one next to me, and plopped down in it. He looked at me, said, “Hi, Jack,” and tapped his cigarette in the ashtray.

Cliff’s eyes went wide. He stared, took a step toward us without thinking. “You know this guy?”

Felix remained calm. “Sure. Got drunk with him a month ago.”

One of the others, a dark-haired scruffy one with tattoos, all but lunged forward.

“Did you know he was a narc?” be demanded.

“Not at the time.” Felix took a puff. “I found out later.”

“Then why didn’t you tell us?” the guy wanted to know.

“What for, Randy?” Felix replied calmly, looking him dead in the eye. “You told me you were getting out of the business.”

Randy looked like he was about to explode — embarrassed, ashamed, and worse, angered by it.

“You knew we were lying!” he spat.

Felix continued to eye him coldly. “Did I?” he replied with a faint touch of hurt in his voice.

It got quiet for a second, then Felix said, “Sit down, Cliff. Or shoot me.”

Cliff looked down at the gun still in his hands — a big monster .357 — glanced at the others, then stuck it into his holster and sat down. Randy sat down, too. But he put his Colt automatic on the table in front of him. The third and fourth Americans — one was fat and one had a beard — put guns away and drew up chairs on the edge of the circle.

They all kept glancing over at the Hispanic, who hadn’t moved but clearly didn’t like what was going on.

“What the hell are you doing here, Felix?” asked Cliff abruptly.

“I came,” he replied with a jerk of his head at me, “to rescue Jack, here.”

Then he smiled again.

There was a pause… and then everyone, save the Hispanic and me, started to laugh.

But it didn’t last very long. It couldn’t. The scene was just too hot.

“C’mon, Felix,” continued Cliff. “Be serious. What are you doing here?”

Felix smiled. “I am serious.”

And it all got very tense again. Cliff lit a cigarette with shaky fingers, leaned toward Felix, and spoke the way he probably thought real men do.

“Felix, look. I know you want to get out and I know you never liked this part of it, the smack. And we all understood that, didn’t we?”

And the other three nodded soberly.

“But,” he continued, “we’re moving up. We understand how you feel — really — but we’re going ahead. There’s just too much at stake here.”

Felix leaned back. “Let’s see if I can get this straight, here. You’re about to murder an American policeman for the privilege of going on the Cuban payroll to smuggle raw heroin onto the streets of the United States?” He dropped his cigarette on the floor and stomped on it. “And you call it moving up?”

Randy exploded. More rage and shame and hatred for Felix for making him see it. “Goddamn you, Felix! You always put things like that! You love putting things in the worst possible way!”

And Felix just stared at him like he was from another planet.

It was getting hotter in a hurry.

“However you wanna put it, Felix. Fine. That’s what we’re going to do,” said Cliff, trying to stay calm. “Now the best thing for you to do is just leave and… just leave us alone.”

Felix’s voice was ice-crystal clear. “You know I can’t do that, Cliff.”

And then he did a spooky thing. The whole time we’d been drinking that night I’d never noticed his shoulder holster and I’m used to looking for them. But he turned in his chair a certain way and suddenly it was exposed to the room.

“Let me put this so you can understand it,” he said in a gentle, dead voice. “I’m not going to let this happen. I love you all. Even when I don’t like you. But I won’t let you kill him. Look, I disagree with those bullshit drug laws as much as anyone alive but I will not let you murder an American cop just for doing his fucking job. Do you understand that? Am I being very clear?”

He sat back in his chair and looked right at Cliff. “Let him go,” said Felix.

Cliff exchanged half-glances with the others. Then decided to sit tough. “No,” he said simply.

Felix sighed. “Then we fight.”

Long pause. Cliff spoke: “Felix, you can’t really mean this. You’re not gonna do it — track us down to avenge some pig narc? C’mon!”

“I’m not going to do that. I’m going to stop you from killing him.”

Randy, wired up and all but hopping in his chair, said, “How?”

Felix eyed him. “I’m going to shoot you if you don’t let him go.”

Randy tried a sneer. “When?”

And Felix said, “Now,” and I thought he was the craziest sonuvabitch I’d ever seen in my life. There were five of them and he just sat there for a second and so did everyone else except Cliff, who stared hard at him and saw he meant it, saw he was serious, saw he was going to start it right there and then against all of them, all of them and more — it didn’t mean a shit to Felix. It was really going to happen. Felix was really gonna — And Cliff reached for Randy’s automatic on the table in front of him.

Felix shot him through the cheek, rose, shot Randy through his open gaping mouth already covered in his friend’s blood, shot the fat one square in the chest and blew him back, shot the one with the beard, who had managed to get his gun out and cock it, through the throat. And the Hispanic, the Cuban, who had risen frozen at the far side of the room, he shot right between the eyes.

It took three seconds.

Felix’s face was beet red. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He took his nine-millimeter in his left hand and turned to me, roaring, “I told you to leave, you dirty stupid motherfucker!”

Then with his free right hand he slapped me so hard my chair flew over backward and shattered beneath me. I lay there stunned and gasping for breath. When I looked over, Felix was vomiting onto the floor, still bawling like a baby, sobbing so hard it looked like it hurt.

After a while he stopped. He stood up, gun still in his hand. He gave me this kinda vacant look, then walked out the door and out of sight. He didn’t even bother to untie me.

I didn’t see him again for years. Until…

PART TWO Gunman