June took a long ice-rattling drink from her glass. When she started talking again her tongue had grown a little thick.
“What happened was, one night they’re driving along in Godzilla’s car, four of them, Godzilla, Trip, Mini, and this other goober I can’t think of, and they come across this drunk frat-rat on a bicycle. Mini said they could see him pedaling along ahead of them. He was all over the road, like a sidewinder snake trying to drive a tricycle. So they pull over and get out, and this guy, he thinks he’s hit the jackpot. Four hotties giving his drunk ass attention. Well, three hotties and Godzilla.
“They get him to abandon his bicycle, which he tells them he stole off a front porch, and he climbs into the car. Mini said Trip showed him some tit and a bottle of whiskey, and now this sap thinks he’s died and gone to heaven.”
Something clicked while June was talking. I remembered this. I had seen stuff about it on the local news, a while back. The vampire angle had been mentioned, but I had forgotten all about it.
“They drove over to Camp Rapture, teasing him and giving him whiskey, and then Mini said Godzilla said something about her and Trip taking the boy out behind the warehouse district and doing him a favor. By this point, this guy was so drunk and worked up he’d have humped a crippled sheep wearing stockings, a garter belt, and a purple beret. To him, even Godzilla was probably starting to look like a runway model. Man, where’s my maid? I need another drink.”
“Finish your story,” I said, “and I’ll look her up for you.”
June held up her glass and shook the ice in it, hoping the maid might hear. She didn’t. June shook the glass harder. After a moment she gave up and placed it on the table and burped pleasantly with her hand almost making it over her mouth.
“There’s not much left to tell,” June said. “They took him out back of a shed, down in the warehouse district. Mini said she could see what was happening from the inside of the car. They were a ways back, but it was all in full view. While the guy is shucking his drawers, thinking he’s going to get to churn the log in the mill, out of her purse Godzilla pulls a big knife and sticks the guy in the neck.”
June made a stabbing motion in the air, gritting her teeth as she did.
“Then Godzilla pounced on him, started sticking him, lots of times. He screamed and fell down on his face. Godzilla kept after him. She wasn’t any slacker. She tried to hand Trip the knife, but she wouldn’t take it. Godzilla went back to it. Trip went back to the car and got in and sat there and all she could say was that there was a hole in the guy’s back big enough to shove a wiener dog through. Or so Mini said. They watched Godzilla bend over the body and start sucking at the blood.
“When it was over, Godzilla came back covered in gore. Mini said her eyes were wide and bright and she had that big wet knife in her hand and a loopy blood-smeared smile on her face like she’d just had a seven-course dinner and someone had been polite enough to burp her.
“Mini said right then she was through playing vampire. She got out of the car and made a run for it. And when she looked back, Trip was out of the car and chasing after her. But Trip, drunk, or just worn out by shock, fell down in a stretch of trees, and Mini just kept going. They were way out in the country, so she got lost. Wandered through some woods and over a little creek, finally saw lights. It was Camp Rapture. She could see the university tower all lit up.”
June paused and closed her eyes. The last words she had spoken had begun to have fuzz around them. I said, “So, she saw the tower lit up.”
“Real pretty, that tower at night,” June said.
“Yeah, it’s nice,” Leonard said. “What happened after Mini saw it?”
“She went into town and found the police and told them about it. They went out, and sure enough, they found the guy. He looked like bloody rags, he was so cut up. And when they found Godzilla and Trip and the other girl back at Godzilla’s pad, Godzilla was still covered in blood.
“They arrested all of ’em, includin’ Mini. But it was decided she didn’t do anything but hang out with the wrong crowd, so they let her out of jail and told her to hang up her gothic duds and turn state’s evidence. She did. Oh, God. I’m drunk. Do I sound drunk?”
“Amazingly,” I said, “not much.”
“Godzilla had somehow dropped her credit card, near the body, so when they found the body they found the card, and that established the likelihood of her being there. Later all the girls turned on her, even Trip. That put the nail in her coffin, which, for a vampire, seems appropriate. But there was one more thing. Godzilla threw up when she was arrested. All that blood. Samples were taken. Eventually, the results came back. It was the guy’s blood, of course. She actually had sucked down about a half quart of it, the greedy whore.”
“Do you remember the dead boy’s name?” I asked.
“Shit,” June said, “I’m two sips off startin’ to have a hard time rememberin’ my own name. All I know is the family was a good family out of Houston, and they were in court during Godzilla’s trial. I heard rumors Godzilla swore she’d get all the other girls, kill them, or have them killed. But I heard one of my cousins say he saw Bigfoot once, and I just got to take him at his word.”
“And how are the girls?” I asked.
“How the hell would I know?” she said, put her head on the table, closed her eyes, and in a moment she was snoring like a water buffalo.
“Well,” Leonard said. “Reckon that’s our cue.”
16
We went back into the hall and the maid met us there. She was friendlier now and her voice was less gruff. She said, “She drunk yet?”
“Yes, but she went down a pretty clear talker,” I said.
“Passed out?” the maid asked.
“Yep,” Leonard said.
“She’s like that. Talks almost like she hasn’t had a drink, then she’s snoozin’. You got to watch sometimes so she doesn’t bump her head, she’ll go down so fast.”
“We’ll take that under advisement,” Leonard said.
“You know, in spite of what she says, she loved her brother very much.”
“So, you been listening in?” I said.
“Absolutely. I knew she wanted another drink too, but I didn’t bring it. She didn’t need it.”
“We heard she was pretty upset about her mother leaving the money to the brother,” Leonard said.
“Not really,” the maid said. “She was worried that Mini would get her hands on it. She didn’t want that to happen, and that’s all there was to that. I’ve worked for her for five years, and she’s not as heartless as she can sound when she’s drunk. She and her brother didn’t get along, but she loved him. She just didn’t know how much until he was dead. I’ll walk you gentlemen out.”
Outside, Leonard said, “That’s some story.”
“Actually,” I said, “I remember hearing about the case on the news. I don’t remember the details, but I remember hearing about it.”
“Me too,” Leonard said. “But it happened before Mini bit the big one, and before she was dating Ted, so I’m not sure it means anything, even if those girls could actually change into bats.”
“No one said they could change into bats,” I said.
“I know, but that would be way cool, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, and we bumped fists. “Do you think Mini telling June about all that in such detail means anything other than they were both drunk?”
“Got me,” Leonard said.
Back in the car Leonard put on the deerstalker.
“You’re just jackin’ with me, aren’t you? You know you look like a moron, but you’re wearing that thing to get my goat and all its children, aren’t you?”
Leonard leaned over and adjusted the car mirror and looked at himself. “I think it fits my personality.”
“What personality?”
“That’s just mean, Hap.”
I put the mirror back the way I liked it. “We’ll take back streets,” I said.
>
“I want a Sonic burger.”
“You have money?”
“Not on me … You have money?”
“Yes.”
“Will you buy me a burger?”
“Will you take off the hat?”
“You can eat in the car at Sonic.”
“Yes, but the waitress who brings it out will see you and know I’m with you.”
“No one will know you.”
“It’s not a chance I’m willin’ to take.”
“I hate you,” Leonard said.
17
In Marvin’s office, Marvin looked up some things on the Internet and made a few calls to cops, a warden, some prison guards, and other people, including a sandwich shop that delivered.
He didn’t offer us a sandwich, nor did he offer to let us order our own.
Leonard, wearing the deerstalker, sat in a client chair reading one of Marvin’s fishing magazines. I sat with my hands on my knees feeling like a bored kid.
After a long while, Marvin put the phone down, scribbled some notes, said, “Okay, I remember this vampire case. I checked some of the details, and it appears June is pretty accurate in her story. I just didn’t put Mini together with it, didn’t remember her name and Mrs. Christopher didn’t mention it.”
“It seemed too coincidental to ignore,” I said.
“It damn sure looks like the vampire killings and Mini go together,” Marvin said. “It also appears that—”
Marvin paused and looked at Leonard. “You know, Leonard, if I’m going to talk seriously, and you’re going to listen seriously, you have to take off that goddamn shitty hat.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Et tu?” Leonard said.
“Now he’s trying to show some education,” I said.
Marvin just looked at him.
Leonard slowly removed the hat and placed it on his knee. “All my life people have been jealous of me.”
“Keep tellin’ yourself that,” Marvin said. “So, what June told you, it’s pretty much right. We’ll just have to take her word on her brother and the toy train.”
“Oh, man,” I said. “That was something I could have gone to my grave without knowing.”
Marvin nodded. “Yep. Me too. What June didn’t tell you, and probably doesn’t know, but what my phone calls just found out, is about two weeks ago, Evil Lynn, real name Ray Lynn Gonzello, Godzilla to June, had a prisoner start somethin’ with her over who knows what. Godzilla beat her down like she was tenderizin’ meat. Then she challenged a fellow ass-whipped prisoner to cut her. Let her get to the shiv she’d just taken away from her. Wanted to show her that it wouldn’t hurt. That any wound she got would heal. That she was in fact a vampire.”
“Uh-oh,” Leonard said. “This isn’t going to end well.”
“On the nosey,” Marvin said. “Fact was she didn’t heal up at all. Got stabbed under the armpit and bled out faster than you could say ‘Oh, shit. I’ve been stabbed under the arm and it hurts like a motherfucker.’ According to what I got here, Godzilla had some actual last words.”
“I’m guessin’,” said Leonard, “it’s not the stuff about ‘Oh shit, I’ve been stabbed under the arm.’ ”
“Kind of sad, really,” Marvin said. “She said, ‘I’m just a girl.’ ”
“Nothing like experience to put things into perspective,” I said.
“What I’m thinkin’,” Marvin says, “is every day she’s eating crappy food in the cafeteria, and she’s not suckin’ blood—I don’t think—and she’s behind bars like a zoo animal, no vampire powers at work, and she still didn’t get it. That’s the part amazes me.”
“The knife was the only kind of explanation she understood,” I said.
“Now here’s some more CliffsNotes. A year back, Trip, real name Tammy Trip, the vampire’s assistant, was found dead in her apartment, hanging from a doorway. Drove a big nail there, attached a short noose made of two woven nylon stockings, and hung herself. She was all dressed up in her best black duds. Course, according to my buddy over in Camp Rapture who works for the cops, cop who found her said she had shit herself and her tongue was hanging out so far and so thick, they thought she had a partially deflated balloon in her mouth.”
“Dressin’ up don’t help much,” Leonard said, “if you end up with shit down your legs.”
“Six months ago, one of the other girls, one who stayed in the car with Mini, name was Joan Carter, was found in her bedroom with a hypodermic needle no longer full of heroin in her arm. She had been dead a few days. Her dog ate most of one of her legs and a large chunk out of her naked ass, but was kind enough to do all his pissin’ and shittin’ in one corner of the room.”
“Leonard can’t even do that,” I said.
“Then we go back to Mini and her boyfriend,” Marvin said. “They were killed two years ago.”
“Seems like belonging to or being associated with the vampire clan brings a person bad luck,” I said.
“Yep,” Leonard said. “But I do have a suspect. Van Helsing.”
Marvin ignored that. He said, “Now, I hate to tell you this part, and I suppose when I do, Leonard, you can put the deerstalker back on. Cop over in Camp Rapture tells me that a bunch of them thought from the start the bodies of Mini and Christopher’s boy had been killed somewhere else and dumped. And it wasn’t the first time they’d seen the devil head symbol, but all of that was kept hush-hush.”
Leonard put the hat on, lounged loosely in his chair. “Yeah, baby,” he said.
“So the cops weren’t as stupid as we thought,” I said.
“No,” Marvin said. “They thought they’d keep some things back, something they could use to nail their guy later on. Not let it be known they were onto the right idea. Of course, it didn’t help. The cases still went cold.”
“Are you about to tell us the Devil Red symbol was at the scenes of their deaths?”
“It was found in the apartment where the girl hung herself. It was marked above the doorway where the noose was fastened. Other girl, one with the needle … It was drawn on the headboard of the bed. Small, but in sight if you were looking. And, lastly, as you noted, Leonard, it was drawn on one of the trees where Mini and Ted’s bodies were found. Since the murders took place in different towns, and some time apart, no one put it together right away. Maybe it should have been obvious, the girls being part of the vampire group. But, different towns, different departments. Mini was killed in Camp Rapture along with Ted. Godzilla in prison—and there wasn’t any symbol there, which means she may not have been part of the pattern at all, just stupid. Trip was in LaBorde at the time, having just moved there, and Joan, the dog’s lunch, died in Tyler. They figure the killer is spacing his victims out to keep from being connected, to avoid expectations, or is playing a kind of game. Wants to taunt the authorities, show how clever he is. Thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.”
“And so far,” I said, “that’s been true. But whoever is whacking them is leaving the devil head symbol, so they’re not hiding that hard.”
“Here’s something else. Mini was about to inherit enough money to not only buy some plastic vampire teeth, but on top of that there would be eight million dollars left over.”
“Holy shit,” Leonard said, “she invent a perpetual motion machine?”
“Nope. Her mother won the lottery.”
18
“That’s some lottery,” I said. “Eight million dollars.”
“Poor girl,” Marvin said. “She never got to spend her inheritance.” Marvin picked up the notes he had made, glanced at them, and continued. “Her father died when she was young. Her mother remarried, and the old gal wasn’t exactly tip-top in the high value department. A drunk. A bit of a whore. Picked up for shoplifting a couple of times. Even had Mini in on the job once, teaching her to stuff items down her pants. And the kid was five. Mother was fired from a lot of jobs, mostly for not showing up, or showing up drunk, and once for giving another employee head in th
e back room for fifty dollars. She also paid a fine for dumping a dog beside the road and wishing it good luck in the future.”
“Everything but wearing polyester jumpsuits,” Leonard said.
“The sources for all this reliable?” I said. “We didn’t have this info before.”
“I wouldn’t use them if they weren’t,” Marvin said. “They don’t know it all, but they know a lot. Mostly from cops and retired cops, a couple of lawyers who are only partly shark. But it’s just background stuff, nothing that solves anything. It just means all that money might somehow have been a motive. Figuring out if it was or wasn’t, that’s our job.”
“Shit,” Leonard said. “I was hoping someone else had done the work and we’d be through after today.”
“Actually, that vampire business opened the gate,” Marvin said. “Gave me an idea of who to contact on the force over there. Once I knew stuff they didn’t, they were more forthcoming with things I didn’t know. They figured they might as well tell me. The case was cold to them. So, I hate to give you guys a compliment, but you did good. It’s the way it works in the detective business: The more you know, the more others are willing to tell you.”
Marvin returned the notes to the table and leaned back in his chair. His chair was much better than ours. It was comfy and had wheels on it. “Mini didn’t have true friends because her personality was a little strange. That’s why she latched onto the vampire business, got in with that crowd.”
“She was pretty,” I said. “I could tell that in the photo. A little still, a little pale, and way too dead, but no discernible ants or maggots or signs of rot, still pretty until the bloating. Usually, pretty girls are popular. When they’re alive, anyway.”
“She was popular with some in a certain way,” Marvin said.