Midnight Crossroad

  “I don’t,” she confessed. “How did you know?”

  “Just a lucky guess.”

  “You think he’d like my phone number?”

  “Feej, that guy is tough as nails, and he’s not only been around the block, he’s run a marathon. He could eat you for breakfast,” Olivia said, half smiling.

  “And wouldn’t that be a great way to wake up?” Fiji said, with a broad wink. Manfred laughed; he couldn’t help it.

  “Wilma” caught Manfred’s eye. She tilted her head toward the bar. A newcomer stood there waiting for his drink, and he wasn’t looking around at the walls like a first-time visitor. He was looking at the people. He had a receding chin with a sort of billygoat beard, a nose that had been broken more than once, and prominent blue eyes.

  Manfred nudged Olivia. “Sic him,” he said. “There’s your blind date.”

  Olivia narrowed her eyes. “Well, damn, no wonder the waitress was surprised.” She got to her feet with a smooth economy of movement.

  As she made her way to the bar, Manfred turned to Fiji. To his surprise, she was watching him with sharp eyes. “You’re not as drunk as you sounded,” he said.

  “I do think the bouncer’s cute,” she said. “And I’m a little tipsy. But I’m not likely to get drunk. It’s too dangerous.”

  “For you?”

  “For other people.”

  Manfred remembered the frozen woman in Fiji’s yard. He had to agree with her policy. He glanced over to see what progress Olivia was making with Deck. Deck was clearly startled but delighted. He didn’t seem to be questioning his good luck.

  “Such fools,” Fiji muttered, and Manfred said, “Hey, I’m a man, remember?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “You’re a better man than most.”

  “Thanks,” he said, though he didn’t feel truly mollified. Olivia worked her way through the crowd to arrive back at their table. Along the way, she commandeered another chair for her new acquaintance.

  Olivia introduced them all, first names only, and then began a convoluted conversational path designed to discover more about Zane Green, the Man of Liberty who’d punched Deck out at this very bar. If Manfred hadn’t known her strategy, he never would have guessed her goal. He helped as much as he could by telling an utterly fictitious story of a bar fight he’d been in. Fiji, who’d been mostly silent, said, “Manfred here got knocked clean out, and he pressed charges against that asshole.” That proved to be the clincher.

  “Wow, you did? My hat’s off to you, man,” Deck said. “When I got knocked out here at the saloon, the guy who beat me up was such a badass I thought I’d be worse off taking him to court. As a matter of fact, the next night his posse, along with the head honcho, showed up at my house and told me I better not, or they’d burn me out. And I believed them.”

  “That’s awful,” Olivia said. “Who was this . . . head honcho?”

  Deck leaned in to indicate this was very confidential news he was telling his friends of ten minutes. “Price,” he said, and waited for them to react with shock and horror. When they didn’t react at all, he said, “Price Eggleston. The rich guy. He belongs to one of them militia-type groups, and he’s one mean sumbitch, ’scuse me, ladies.”

  “You mean, this group isn’t just all e-mails and threats . . . ?”

  “No, they are the real deal,” Deck said solemnly. “You do not cross them.”

  Fiji said, “Sounds pretty hard-core. And they’re based here?”

  Deck nodded, after a swig of beer. “Two miles out of town. But enough about those bastards,” he said, “let’s have some fun! Livvy, you want to dance?”

  “Sure,” Olivia said, and off they went, two-stepping around the floor.

  “It’s not fair that she can dance, too,” Fiji said. “But I’ll forgive her, since that was a masterly interrogation.”

  “I can’t dance at all,” Manfred confessed.

  “I can dance a little,” Fiji said. “I can cook. I can cast spells. Dancing? Not so much.”

  “You’re a good friend,” Manfred said. “You can do friendship well.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “That’s a fine compliment. And you know what, I’m going to give that bouncer my phone number on my way out.”

  “Bold move.” Manfred was confused, because he was sure Fiji was nuts about Bobo, but he wasn’t about to bring it up, not with her mood being so peculiar.

  “Do you think he’ll call me?”

  That was a trick question if Manfred had ever heard one. “He’d be a fool not to,” he said, and Fiji laughed.

  It took Olivia an hour to extricate herself from Deck, an hour in which Manfred and Fiji had a third drink apiece, though they sipped them as slowly as they could.

  On their way out, Fiji handed a piece of paper to the bouncer and introduced herself. He did not seem startled by this, but he nodded at her politely and introduced himself right back. “Travis McNamara,” he said. “You have a good night, you hear?”

  “You, too,” Fiji said, with a sideways smile full of fun.

  Manfred had never seen her look so—flirty.

  “Could have gone worse,” Fiji told them, as she walked carefully across the gravel to Olivia’s car. She was talking about the bouncer, but Olivia answered about Deck.

  “Yes,” Olivia agreed. “He looked like a guppy with a beard, but he could really dance. Plus, eventually he gave me all the information I needed to know.”

  “Which was?” Manfred said, buckling his seat belt.

  “That Price Eggleston and his buddies have a house about two miles east of Marthasville. Which you heard. But he narrowed down the location. It’s on the way home. It’s the MOL Big Secret Clubhouse. I bet they only let girls in if they put out for the membership.” Olivia looked calm, but it was an angry, tight-jawed sort of calm.

  Sure enough, a couple of minutes’ drive out of the Marthasville city limits, there was a driveway on the right. As a ranch had to be, it was fenced, and the driveway was crossed by a gate that had to be opened and closed every time a car drove through. Also, like many ranches, the name of the place was on an iron sign arching over the gateway. MOL, it read.

  “Nothing like being up front about it.” Manfred was leaning down in the front seat to look up at the sign. “And I see the gate is locked.”

  “So what do we do with that information?” Fiji asked. “It’s good to know where the evil hatemongers hang out, I see that. But how are we going to stop them from coming after Bobo again?”

  There was a moment of silence. Manfred couldn’t think of any procedure on earth that could be done openly and legally. And it was out of the question to kill the MOL members. At least, it was to Manfred. Maybe Fiji was thinking of freezing them all permanently.

  “We’ll think of a way,” Olivia said. She was smiling, and it wasn’t a pleasant smile. Maybe Olivia had something else in mind.

  To Manfred’s bemusement, Fiji looked at Olivia with a sort of exasperation, and said, “You can’t do that to all of them.”

  Manfred, sleepy and puzzled, waited to hear some explanation.

  But Olivia didn’t say a word.

  19

  Since he’d played his part in the “help Bobo” movement, Manfred felt free to think about himself and his own concerns the next day. He worked late, not turning off his computer until after dark. When he finally got up, he realized he’d been sitting in the same position for far too long. Walking off the stiffness, he strolled over to the window. The light over the storefront of Midnight Pawn was humming with bugs, and the two cars parked there looked forlorn in the bleak glare. Manfred had known that Lemuel kept the shop open at night, but he’d never particularly noticed any customer traffic. Now he saw a strange, hunched shape come down the six steps to the street level. It paused to stuff something in its left coat pocket (it was just cool enough this night to mak
e a sweater feasible but not a coat). Then, left foot dragging, the creature made its way to the driver’s side of a Ford Fusion. Manfred found it impossible to tell if he was looking at a male or female; whatever this individual was, he was fairly sure it wasn’t human.

  He wondered what it had pawned. But he thought it would be indiscreet to actually go in the shop to ask Lemuel.

  Plus, Lemuel might want to hold his hand again.

  Manfred had tried not to brood about that little incident in the diner, but it had shaken him . . . Lemuel’s intensely cold hand, the hard grip, the creeping weariness that had gradually sapped Manfred’s strength. There had been something eerily pleasant about it, but the incident had also been really, really terrifying. And why had Lemuel picked him, Manfred, to feed from? Manfred had never doubted his own sexual identity was hetero, but the connection had not been completely without intimacy.

  Okay, he asked himself, trying to face and conquer this inconvenient uneasiness, how do you feel about the idea of kissing Lemuel?

  He felt an instantaneous Yuck. Somewhat relieved by this response, he was not as tentative about exploring the question further. Do I seriously believe Lemuel thinks of me as a potential sex partner? was the next question. Probably not, he thought. After all, though he didn’t have any direct evidence, he’d gotten the definite impression that Olivia and Lemuel were a couple, or at least were having sex. Since this internal conversation was relieving an anxiety he hadn’t realized he harbored, he thought he’d carry it one step further. He’d face Lemuel; he’d erase this lingering uneasiness.

  Manfred slipped out his front door and went up the steps into the pawnshop. The chilly night was silent, except for the tiny noises of the bugs overhead and the hum of the light. If there were this many insects in October, he hated to think of what it would be like in July. As the car outside had indicated, there was still a customer in the pawnshop, a woman. She was talking to Lemuel, who was sitting on the stool behind the counter. Manfred began browsing the shelves; there were so many to browse. The inside of the pawnshop was far larger than the outside might indicate.

  The shelves and display cases were full of interesting things, dusty things, ancient things, deadly things—and many things that were out-and-out weird. There were freestanding shelving units and built-in cabinets, and there were antique pieces of cabinetry that were stuffed with other pawned items. There were wooden shelves and metal ones, and the wooden ones ranged from weathered and silvery to smelling of pine.

  There was a section for old electric appliances; there was a section for weapons; there was a section for jewelry, for old clothes, for pots and pans, for “collectibles”; and there was one section for items so strange Manfred could not imagine how they’d be used. Manfred was instantly intrigued by that area. There was a very old book bound in wooden plates; there was a sort of sculpture—structure?—made of twigs bound together at odd angles with purple ribbon; there was a cloudy crystal ball; there was a Ouija board with an endlessly gliding planchette. Manfred felt the hair stand up on his arms. These objects were magic and eerie and subtly dangerous, and yet he felt he could examine them forever. The cases of guns were much less interesting in Manfred’s view, though Bobo had told him what a draw they were to other shoppers.

  He was vaguely aware that the customer was concluding her transaction with Lemuel. Then, suddenly, she was by Manfred’s side. It was no woman, but it was a female creature. She was thin and angular, with eyes black as pitch. Her short hair was just as ebon, and it looked as though it had been cut in the dark with a dull knife. She leaned over to smell Manfred, her tongue flicking out in a most disconcerting manner, and she hissed at him.

  Manfred held as still as a mouse hoping a cat will not sense its presence. But she seized his arm.

  “Tassssty,” she said.

  “Glinda,” said Lemuel quietly. “No. He’s a friend.”

  The black eyes blinked more than once. Did she have two eyelids? Manfred did not twitch, much less speak.

  “Ssssssshit,” she said, and released his arm. The next instant, she was gone.

  “Buddy of yours?” Manfred asked, when he was sure his voice would be even.

  “I don’t think snake shifters have buddies,” Lemuel said. “They just know people they haven’t tried to eat yet.”

  “She doesn’t try to eat you?”

  “They only eat living things,” Lemuel said, turning to walk back to the counter. “Did you want to pawn something, buy something, or were you just stretching your legs?”

  “A little of taking a work break, a little of wondering about your energy drainage thing,” Manfred said, thinking if he didn’t say it out loud now he might chicken out.

  To his relief, Lemuel smiled. “I should have explained,” the cold man said. “As I’m sure you’ve puzzled out, I’m a sort of vampire. I’m not what has become known in popular literature as a traditional vampire. I can feed on energy or blood or both simultaneously. That’s the best meal, but I don’t get it often.”

  “Because the feed-ee dies if you do that?”

  “Yes, the one I’m feeding on dies.” Lemuel smiled.

  “And that night at the diner?”

  “The strangers caused me concern. I estimated I might need to be as strong as possible in the near future. I tapped you.”

  “Why me?” To Manfred, this was the most important question. Not that he wouldn’t have to think hard, later, about Lemuel’s diet and the fact that Lemuel hadn’t given him a choice, but this was the question that had worried him.

  “I could tell you were an open-minded person,” Lemuel said, pale eyes on some small repair he was making to a piece of jewelry under a magnifying lamp. “Not likely to jump up and scream, ‘Oh sweet Jesus, another man is holding my hand!’”

  Manfred laughed weakly.

  “And I also believed that you would stay here, that you were not passing through, and that it was, therefore, the quickest way to let you know what I was.”

  Manfred wanted to ask Lemuel if Olivia was his girlfriend, but in Lemuel’s presence he could see how silly that would sound. How intrusive.

  “You are interested in Creek,” Lemuel said unexpectedly.

  “She’s very attractive,” Manfred said cautiously. “I realize she’s younger than me, and I’m not going to, ah, initiate anything improper. But I would like to get to know her better.”

  Lemuel’s eyes were almost white, now, when he glanced up. “She is a lovely child,” Lemuel said. “But I realize she is on the cusp of becoming a woman. If she decides to become a woman with you, you had better be damned sure she is fully aware and agreeable to every step of the process.”

  Manfred replied with complete honesty, “I would never do otherwise.”

  “Then we are not enemies,” Lemuel said. “And we may become friends, as I told the snake woman we were.”

  “When were you born, Lemuel, if I can ask?”

  “I was born in 1837,” Lemuel said. “My name was not Lemuel then.”

  “A big adjustment, from then to now,” Manfred said, since it was all he could think of to say that wasn’t fatuous. But that was fatuous enough.

  Lemuel discarded one tool and selected another. “That is true,” he agreed. “Good night, psychic.”

  “Good night, vampire,” Manfred said. Since he’d clearly been dismissed, he went home.

  20

  Bobo was by himself the next morning when Sheriff Smith came in. Normally, he’d have taken Monday off and let Teacher work in his place, but he’d missed enough work, he figured. And he didn’t have anything better to do. He’d perched on the stool behind the high counter with a large mug of coffee. He was looking at a piece of jewelry that had been mended, apparently the night before, by Lemuel. The clasp had not worked on the brooch since it had been pawned twenty years before (Bobo had looked it up once in the ancient ledger), but
now it did, and the brooch was in the display case that formed the counter, with a new tag on it in Lemuel’s curious handwriting. It read, “Twenty dollars. Will be called for.”

  Bobo held it out, and the sheriff bent over the counter to look at it.

  “If you have a lady in your life, she might enjoy something like this, Sheriff,” Bobo said. “If she’s old-fashioned.” The brooch was hand-painted with a picture of yellow flowers in a pale green vase, set against a gray-blue background. The frame was gold, set with tiny pearls.

  Bobo wondered if he was about to be arrested. His heart pounded furiously, but he did his best to sound calm.

  “I have a wife, my third,” Smith answered. “But she doesn’t like anything but modern stuff.”

  “Not a traditional woman, then,” Bobo said.

  “Not in the best sense of traditional,” Smith said. “But traditional in the way that means she expects me to provide everything for her while she sits at home on her butt.”

  “Children?”

  “No, she doesn’t even have children to look after,” Smith said. “I have a child by another marriage, but she lives in Georgia with her mom.”

  “I guess you don’t get to see her often,” Bobo said. “That’s sad. What can I do for you today?”

  Bobo found himself on the receiving end of one of Arthur Smith’s concentrated looks. Sheriff Smith didn’t blink much, so the stare was pretty effective.

  “You can tell me more about your history with Aubrey Hamilton,” the sheriff said. The sheriff turned Bobo’s favorite chair to face the counter and settled himself in it. He looked quite at ease. “And by the way, she wasn’t shot. Someone wanted us to think she was, or someone was trying to put the blame on you. But we hired a specialist to look at the remains. The hole in her chest was not from a bullet.”

  Bobo let out a long, unsteady breath.

  “You don’t seem to be regarding me as a prime suspect in her death any longer,” Bobo said, manfully accepting the fact that the sheriff was sitting in his favorite chair. After all, the guy wasn’t arresting him for murder. He could have the damn chair. “And since I’ve already been into the police station once, you’ve searched my place, you’ve told me she wasn’t shot so I’m in the clear on the gun, and I have a lawyer on speed dial, I’m wondering what my status is now.”