I nodded. “I’d like that very much as well.”
“I will pay you in advance for your services on the chance that whoever is coming after me is successful.”
“Alright,” I replied. “Here’s my card.” I handed him a business card that I’d kept in my back pocket – thankfully I had just placed it there that morning, so it wasn’t especially creased – and he took it with a nod.
We organized payment, and then Rudoldir stood up to leave. He paused for a moment.
“What is it?” I asked. “Is there anything else?”
“No, sorry,” Rudoldir replied after a moment, shaking his head. “There’s nothing else.”
And with that, he walked back into the coffee shop, and I sipped on my now lukewarm coffee, thinking about what he’d just told me.
Chapter 3
I stopped off at the grocery store on the way home to buy the pears I had promised Vinnie and ran into Ilona, the mother of the vampire whose murder I had solved about six weeks earlier.
“Hello, Ali,” she greeted me warmly. “How are you?”
Ilona was starting to look a little bit more like herself these days. The loss of her son had been a horrendous blow, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what she must have gone through, but the face that was once so pale it was practically translucent was now the same regular pale tone of all vampires.
“I’m good, thanks, Ilona. How about yourself?”
“You know, taking it day by day. But things are starting to get better.”
“You’re looking better,” I replied honestly. “Hey, I was wondering if you could tell me about someone, though. Do you know Andrei Rostaleascu?”
“I do,” Ilona replied. “He’s a relative newcomer to town.”
“Oh?”
“He comes from England. He lived there for the last three hundred years or so, but he moved to Mt. Rheanier last year. He’s opening an Italian restaurant down by the waterfront.”
I nodded. “Right. The Trattoria.”
“That’s the one.”
“Do you know him well? What’s your impression of him?”
“He is a strange vampire. He’s very direct. More so than any other vampires that I know. He’s also a very tough negotiator. Most vampires, we tend to favor our own kind. We will make deals with other vampires that we would not make with witches or wizards. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“But Andrei, he is very difficult to work with. He came to us looking to make a deal on supplies for the restaurant, but he wanted everything at a cost lower than what we were paying from our suppliers. He refused to accept that, and accused me of lying to him about our costs. I was forced to tell him to leave, and I was quite taken aback, to be honest. For a vampire to accuse another of such dishonesty is really quite shocking.”
“I can understand that,” I replied. “Especially a vampire like yourself with such a good reputation in the community.”
Ilona nodded. “So it was a surprise, to say the least. Then, to make matters even worse, I found him in the back room one day when the others were all out. He was going through our things, trying to find the name of our food supplier.”
“No,” I said, gasping in surprise. “Really?”
Ilona nodded solemnly. “Oh yes. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t caught him red-handed. Can you believe that? A fellow vampire here in Mt. Rheanier attempting to steal information like that? It’s ridiculous.”
“That is ridiculous,” I replied.
“So I can’t say that Andrei has a good reputation in town among the vampires anymore,” Ilona said. “After all, these sorts of things become known. You cannot go around stealing information from those already established here in town.”
“No, of course not. Why didn’t you go to the Enforcers?”
Ilona shrugged. “We are vampires. Most things, we settle among ourselves. Especially when they are small occurrences. What would the Enforcers have done? He could have simply claimed he’d gone through the wrong door by accident. It would have been my word against his. No, that’s not the way we do things as vampires.”
“Ok,” I replied. “How did Andrei react when you caught him?”
“He started yelling at me, telling me that it was my fault for not giving him a good price on food that he needed and that he wanted to support local businesses but that it was untenable.”
“Wow.”
“Yes, wow indeed. I’ve also since learned that he’s alienated quite a few of the shifters who work in the trades as well. He’s called a few too many of them ‘animals’ for their liking, and a number of them have simply refused to come to work. Most of his employees now are from out of town.”
“Yikes.” Calling a shifter an animal was considered a derogatory slur, and I wasn’t the least bit surprised that a number of them had quit over it.
“Precisely. So I cannot tell you in all honesty that Andrei has a good reputation here in town.”
“No, I can understand that. Do you think he would get violent?”
Ilona’s eyebrows rose. “Why? What do you think he has done?”
“Nothing yet,” I answered hurriedly. “It’s just a suspicion.”
“I don’t know,” she replied slowly. “He certainly has a temper; I’ve seen that in action. I would say he probably could get violent.”
“Ok, thanks.”
“Is there anything the vampire community needs to know about him?”
I shook my head. “Not yet, but I’ll keep you informed. Thanks, Ilona.”
“Of course. You take care of yourself, Ali.”
“You too.”
I left the grocery store with my bag of pears, my mind whirring away. Andrei certainly sounded like a good choice for a main suspect.
When I got home, I gave Vinnie the pears he was holding out for then sent my best friend Willow a text inviting her to come over for pizza. She was going to love this story. Well, apart from the bit where my client thought his life was in danger.
I couldn’t help but wonder if he was overreacting. But elves had a tendency to be very practical, very realistic. They weren’t
