Rafe's Rules (2 page)

Every damn payday. Every time I swore I’d never do it again, and guess what? 

The problem was, it really was a shitload of money Mrs DeVane had delivered to me in a suitcase (Versace luggage, which she hadn’t let me keep), and with that kind of payout it’s only natural to go a little crazy. Lots of women would have gone on a shopping spree. Me, I like to have a good time. So I’d spent the afternoon depositing the cash carefully, here and there – the details aren’t important – and at the end I kept back a decent-sized wad to celebrate with.

And I went to MidTown, where the bars and clubs were. There’d been dancing, lots of it. Beer and tequila, lots of that, too. Some laughs. And somehow I’d made it back here, to my apartment in East Columbus.

A groan behind me made me whip my head round, a very ill-advised move since it added a roiling wave of nausea to the pain.

Gary. Of course. No,
Mike
.

He lay on his back, the sheet pulled down to his waist, his chest bared. Blond stubble covered his chin and his eyes peered lazily at me through long, tousled hair. Despite my condition I ran my gaze appreciatively over his torso, the pecs taut, the arms ropy with muscle.

‘Hey,’ he said. Croaked, actually. ‘What time is it?’

‘Eight thirty.’

‘Jeez. It’s Saturday. Isn’t it?’ He scratched at his jaw. Rob, that was his name. He put out his hand and traced a finger down the curve of my hip.

‘I’ve got to get moving,’ I said. ‘Things to do.’

I stood up, realizing for the first time that I was naked. I didn’t bother to cover myself as I moved around the room, picking up clothes, getting some fresh ones out the drawers. When you’ve slept with someone it’s silly to be all coy the next day. I could feel Rick’s – yes, that was it,
Rick
’s – eyes on my body.

‘Last night was awesome,’ he said, dragging the word out.

Was it?
I wanted to say, but I didn’t. It wouldn’t have been very kind of me to admit I’d forgotten. Even though I had.

‘Yeah,’ I said, flashing him a smile. ‘Awesome, Dan.’

‘Bruce,’ he said.

I disappeared into the bathroom to cover my embarrassment.

When I emerged he was still in bed. He sat up against the pillows, stretched.

‘I remember
your
name,’ he said. ‘Rafe.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Short for Rafaella.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Italian?’

‘Uh-huh,’ I said. ‘My mom.’

I went through to the kitchen and put the coffee machine on and ate a bunch of aspirin.

‘So what is it you do for a living?’ he called.

‘I’m an investigator.’ It was the answer I gave everybody. ‘Insurance claims.’ That usually ended all further inquiry, and so it was with Bruce.

At the front door I called, ‘Help yourself to coffee and breakfast. I’ll call you later, okay?’ I didn’t even know if I had his number.

‘I thought insurance people wore suits.’ I turned to find him leaning in the bedroom doorway, naked except for a towel wrapped round his waist. He nodded at my jeans, my leather jacket.

‘I’m more laid back than most,’ I said.

‘What’s in the bag?’ he asked. ‘You going fishing?’

I hefted it. ‘Just tools of the trade.’ I gave him a rueful smile. He was grinning easily, not pissed at me, it seemed. ‘Bruce, I’m really sorry to have to leave like this.’ I noticed something happening at the front of the towel he was wearing. It was bulging, starting to tent.

‘I’m sorry too,’ he said, and he stepped away from the door jamb, letting the towel drop.

I stared.

Jesus, I must have been wasted last night if I couldn’t remember
that
.

I dropped the bag and stepped toward him.

‘Fifteen minutes,’ I said.

His hands were already under my T-shirt, fumbling at the bra strap.

Two hours later I stumbled out the front door, still zipping up my jeans, barely able to walk. I got off lightly. Somehow I didn’t think Bruce would be able even to crawl, after what we’d just done.

I slung the bag in the back of my VW station wagon and set off for Green Island Hills across the river. The moneyed part of town.

Mrs DeVane had told me her husband never left the house before noon on a Saturday, spending the morning doing jobs around the home or taking care of his accounts. I found their street and cruised past the house. Nice, decent-sized without being flashy, unlike most of the other properties around here. The home of a comfortably well-off middle-class suburban couple. There were no kids, I assumed. Letitia DeVane hadn’t mentioned any.

I parked up across the street and waited. The warm spring day was just the right side of comfortable for a stakeout. In the gardens off the street, kids played ball or chased pooches, sprinklers anointed lawns, neighbors chatted over the fence. It was the unlikeliest setting in which to expect to encounter a vampire.

Or, at least, the popular notion of what a vampire was.

Here’s the thing. Some of the myths about vampires are true. Others aren’t. Who knows how the false ones arose? Through imperfectly relayed folk tales down the generations, maybe. Or else vampires have evolved, becoming different creatures than the ones they were a few centuries ago.

They can survive in sunlight. We’ve covered that one already. They possess reflections, and they cast shadows. They’re not afraid to cross running water. (Where did that one come from?) They bleed.

People don’t get turned into vampires by being bitten by one, even repeatedly. Vampirism seems to be transmitted by infected blood, which means the vampire’s blood has to enter the victim’s bloodstream. This can happen by mistake, for example if the vampire has gum disease. More often, the vampire infects the victim deliberately, by tapping his own vein and applying his blood to an open wound of hers. Often, a vampire will stick to a regular food source, draining a little blood at a time from a single victim, enough to steadily weaken but not immediately kill the person. That’s what seemed to be happening with Letitia DeVane.

There are three more or less reliable ways of confirming somebody’s a vampire, in my experience. Short of actually being chomped by one of the bastards. I call these three ways Rafe’s Rules. There’s a hierarchy to them, based on how easy they are to implement. I intended to test Rule One, the easiest of them all, on Mr Oscar DeVane.

At a quarter of one, just as the heat was starting to stick my T-shirt to my skin, I saw movement on the driveway of the DeVane house. A black Camaro swung out onto the road, rather carelessly, I thought. Asshole. There were kids on the street. As the car passed me I saw him behind the wheel: DeVane, his suntan and slicked-back hair and mirror shades making him look like a movie-star mobster.

I fired up the VW and followed discreetly. It wasn’t hard to be unobtrusive; silver station wagons are a dime a dozen in soccer mom land. Once or twice I struggled to keep up, but I knew Columbus and its streets well, and I managed to stay on the Camaro’s tail.

I followed him all afternoon. During this time he went to a sports shop and bought fishing equipment, spent an hour or so in what must have been his downtown office, then headed back north to a golf course where he presumably played a few holes. I didn’t watch him doing it; I wasn’t interested. I just kept an eye on his car until he came out.

At six that evening I got a lucky break.

He headed downtown again and pulled into the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant. Once more I watched his confident walk as he headed for the doors. Brilliant white shirt, chinos, loafers, a sports jacket. He looked preppy yet cool, a difficult combination to pull off.

He was a damn good-looking guy. It was going to be a pity to do what I had to do.

I parked across the street and wandered over to the dim sum restaurant, peered in through the glass. The windows were steamed up, the early suppertime crowd already filling the place to capacity. Angry waiters shouted and shoved their way between the tables. In a moment I spotted DeVane, newly seated at a corner table, alone, with a magazine open in front of him.

I was about to turn away and resume my wait when I saw another solitary figure on the other side of the restaurant. A priest, complete with dog collar, steadily working his way through a bowl of soup.

Perfect.

I stepped inside, the heat and noise washing over me. It smelled pretty damned good, but I wasn’t there to eat. Ignoring a waiter who sidled up to help me, I made my way over to the priest. He glanced up as I approached.

‘Hello, Father,’ I said. ‘May I have a word?’

He looked surprised, but indicated the chair opposite. I sat down. He was in his late thirties, his thinning hair combed over his scalp, his eyes magnified behind dense glasses.

‘Sorry to trouble you,’ I said, ‘but I wonder if I could ask a favor.’

‘How can I help you, miss?’

‘Over in the corner –’ I raised my eyes past his shoulder – ‘there’s a man sitting on his own. He’s a friend of mine. His wife died a month ago and he’s devastated.’

‘Oh,’ said the padre, looking nonplussed. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’

‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘he’s shutting everybody out. He won’t talk to me, he won’t talk to his parents or his late wife’s mom and dad. It’s like he’s keeping all this grief inside, you know? And it’s killing him, Father. I can just see it.’

‘Most unfortunate,’ said the priest, blinking.

‘Father,’ I said, placing my hand over his and leaning forward, urgency creeping into my voice, ‘do you think you could try talking to him? Maybe persuade him to open up? To, I don’t know, see a counsellor or something? He’s a churchgoing man, though I don’t believe he’s been in a while. He’ll listen to you, I’m sure of it.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said the priest, glancing up at the clock on the wall.’

‘Please, Father,’ I hissed, allowing hysteria to tinge my eyes. ‘You might be his last hope.’

He stared at me for a moment, then nodded. ‘All right,’ he said.

‘Thank you so much.’

‘What’s your friend’s name?’

‘Oscar,’ I said. I pointed him out. The priest began to pick his way between the tables toward where DeVane was sitting.

Rafe’s Rule Number One. Vampires will always react with fear and hatred to a religious symbol carried by somebody of devout faith.

Now, it’s widely believed that vampires fear crosses. This is one of those myths that’s partly true. There’s nothing inherently powerful in the crucifix itself, but it acquires its potency when it’s wielded by a Christian who believes in it and what it represents. And the same goes for other religions. A Muslim with a crescent symbol, a Jew carrying a Star of David – any of these will be highly offputting to a vampire.

I couldn’t very well march up to DeVane brandishing a crucifix and expect him to turn tail and run, because I have no religious faith. Too much cruelty and madness in the world for me to buy into any of that. But my new friend the priest was a holy man, and the silver crucifix round his neck would surely be like Kryptonite to Oscar.

I half-rose from my seat, craning over the heads of the diners. In the corner the priest had reached Oscar and was talking to him. DeVane looked surprised, mildly irritated at the disturbance, even.

But he didn’t look repelled, or enraged, or scared shitless.

Damn.

I got up and strode out, not looking back till I was out on the sidewalk and able to peer in through the fogged-up windows. The padre was looking back toward his table in bewilderment, as DeVane waved his hand, dismissing him and burying his head in his paper.

I decided to call it a day. I’d applied Rule One, and DeVane had come through with flying colors. He hadn’t been freaked out by the crucifix. Which meant either that he wasn’t a vampire, or that the priest wasn’t as holy as his garb suggested and therefore that the crucifix he wore had no power.

Which meant I needed to move on and test Rule Two.

(As it so happened, three months later, and long after this was all over, I read in the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer that a 38-year-old priest, Father William K. Finney, had been arrested and charged on multiple counts of indecent assault, drug trafficking and operating a Satanic cult in Muscogee County. The man in the picture accompanying the article had thinning hair and mole-like eyes behind Coke-bottle lenses. So no, I guess you could safely say my padre wasn’t after all the most devout of men.)

*

I parked the station wagon out on the street and sauntered up the driveway. It was next morning, Sunday. Letitia had gone visiting with some girlfriends – they’d stopped by for her an hour ago, as I’d seen from the vantage point of my car – and as far as I knew, Oscar was home alone.

My hair was pulled back into a ponytail and I had a University of Georgia cap down over my eyes, which were further hidden behind a pair of cheap shades. A college jersey, baggy jeans and sneakers complemented the ensemble. I looked about nineteen years old, I reckoned, and I’d even stuffed wads of tissue paper in my cheeks to resemble puppy fat. In my hands I carried a flat cardboard box.