for her to get bored or lonely and come out of hiding. But she didn't. I once spent an entire day in Bergdorf's wail ing lor her to come out, and she never did. She stayed hidden inside a rack of dresses until we found her just after the store had closed. But she never ran far, Joseph, just somewhere hidden so she could watch us look for her. Then last summer she ran away for real. Not all that far as it turned out, but farther than before. When we first noticed her missing we were a bit surprised, my husband and I. It had been some time since she had last played her little game. But then we realized she was truly missing. We searched the town house, we had our Hamptons house searched, as well as the Hudson River estate. After two days there was no sign. We thought she might have been kidnapped. We called the police, but no one got in touch with us about a ransom and, frankly, the police were little help. Eventually, after some days, we hired a private investigator my husband has had occasion to employ. He found her almost two weeks later. She was living in the East Village,
I nodded. It was true, there were more than a few well-off kids slumming on Avenue A in the summer. When the real squatters found them out they usually kicked the shit out of them and sent them home to mommy and daddy.
Marilee takes a sip and plays with her ice some more.
I make a little grunting noise and she looks up.
– Yes?
– No offense, but you seem pretty calm about your daughter being missing and all.
She nods.
– Well as I say, it's not exactly new to us, and it's only been a few days. But more to the point, we know she's OK.
– How's that?
– She's been withdrawing money from her account.
– That could be anyone with her card and code.
– Yes, she used her card at first, but her last two withdrawals were in person from a teller. It was her. They require photo ID.
– When and where was the last withdrawal?
– The Chase at Broadway and Eighth, two days ago.
– How much?
– Two hundred.
– How much does she have access to?
– She can withdraw up to a thousand a week, but never more than two hundred a day. If she wants more she needs her father or me to cosign.
– And she's taken two hundred every day she's been gone?
– Yes. First with her card, and the last two, as I said, from a teller. Perhaps she lost the card.
– OK. Did you bring a picture?
– Yes.
She lifts a pocketbook that matches her suit from the floor, finds the picture and passes it to me.
Her mother's eyes and neck, but the resemblance stops there. The girl in the photo is decked out in head-to- toe black with white pancake makeup on her face, hair dyed black, black lipstick, black eye shadow and black nail polish. Jesus fuck, she's a goth. Marilee sees something in my face.
– Yes, Amanda does have something of a fascination with the undead. So really, Joseph, you can see why it is I called you.
I look up from the photo, and Marilee smiles ever so sweetly.
I've been outed. Dexter Predo has outed me.
It's a given that a woman like Marilee has some sense of how things work, the exchanges that take place behind, beneath and above the scenes in Manhattan, the give and take of power. It is for that kind of favor brokering that the Coalition is known to a select few outside the Clans. But the fact that I have been outed by Predo indicates that she is operating at a much higher level of awareness, a level of knowledge at which most people are murdered to keep them silent.
There are people that know about us. But they are few and most play a specific role. There are the Van Helsings, the righteous who stumble upon us and make it their mission to hunt us down. The Renfields like Philip, who glom on to us, half servile and half envious. The Lucys, both male and female, who have romanticized the whole vampire myth and dote over us like groupies. And the Minas, the ones who know the truth and don't care, the ones who fall in love. Van Helsings are killed, we use the Renfields and the Lucys to serve us and insulate us from the world. Minas are rare and precious beyond value. There is only one way to know if you have a true Mina: tell her or him what you are and what you do to stay alive. Not many make that final cut.
Then there are the few men and women with true power and influence who know us. These are the ones to be feared. These are the ones the Coalition deals with and the Society hopes to sway. But the Society's goals will never be realized. We will never live in the open unless it is as freaks or prey. The people who might guide us out of obscure myth will never risk their positions and reputations to say to the world,
And Marilee is one of them, a person who knows, and knows I know she knows. And so on. And here she is in the Cole having a drink with me in public. And if I had any doubts before, I now know for certain that if I ever have the opportunity to drag Dexter Predo into the sun, I will do so gleefully.
She fishes an ice cube out of her drink, pops it in her mouth and crunches it.
– You see, Joseph, I know what you are, but I'm still not certain what it is you do. Are you a detective of some kind?
I'm still the deer in the headlights, just staring at her as she chews on ice.
– Joseph?
I blink once, slowly.
– I'm a man, does things, gets things done. I'm a handyman. Someone has a problem they maybe call me and I maybe help to take care of the problem. Sometimes that means I'm a detective, I guess, but I don't have a license or an office or anything.
She nods.
– What about a gun, do you carry a gun?
– Sometimes.
– Now?
– No.
– And what about the other things you do? I know about them in theory, but details are hard to come by. Mr. Predo and the few other Coalition members we have met are so circumspect. I stare at her.
– What about those other things, Joseph?
– We can't talk about that here.
She inhales deeply, exhales.
– It's just that one hears the most fascinating stories. Is it true for instance about your sense of smell? Is it as acute as a dog's? Can you, for instance, tell what scent I used this morning?
– I can smell it.
– Do you know the brand?
– No. But it's lavender oil.
– You'd recognize it if you smelled it again?
– Yeah.
– Hmm.
– If you don't mind, Ms. Horde, I'm not very good at parlor tricks.
– We should talk about these things sometime, we really should.
– Ms. Horde.
– Yes?
– Your daughter?
