I realized I’d just bossed around a cop about how to, essentially, be a cop. I was glad that it was dark enough to hide my blush. But Cruz only looked amused, not insulted, which was kind of nice. I seem to spend a lot of time around people who take politics and insults
very seriously
. Cruz was kind of refreshing.
We made our way to a table that held only one person, a very young woman in a tight black dress. She was a little overweight, but
expensively made up, and someone with enviable skills had pulled her dark-blonde hair into an elaborate fishtail braid. She looked around tentatively and played with an empty water bottle, which showed off the ugly chain of bite marks clustered on each of her wrists. A lot of vampires don’t bite at the neck anymore. It’s too clichéd, even for them.
I plopped down in the seat next to her, and Cruz sat down on her other side. Her eyes widened with what I thought might be recognition.
“Hi,” I said with a smile. “Do you know who I am?”
She was nodding her head before I had finished. Her eyes were huge now.
“What’s your name?”
“Stacia Carlson.”
“Well, Stacia, do you know any of these people?” I passed her the list of the dead vampires’ respective human servants. She started to shake her head no, but then stopped and stabbed at the second name on the list with a long purple nail that matched her dress. “Um, I met this guy at a party once. He has a tattoo here.” She gestured to the right side of her neck. “It’s weird. It’s like one of those dinosaurs from that movie. A T-rex.”
Okay, that was a new one.
“Seriously?”
She nodded.
“Okay. Is there anything else you remember about him?”
She shook her head.
“Anything about the other two?”
No again.
I looked at Cruz.
“How old are you, Stacia?” he said gently.
“Nineteen.”
Jesse gave me a look, but I just shrugged. There’s no law against being vampire food, and I wasn’t a save-the-poor-victim kind of gal.
“Stacia, this is my card,” he said to her, blatantly ignoring my instruction to not tell anyone he was a cop. “If you ever need any help, you just give me a call, okay?”
She nodded, her eyes fixed on him.
We repeated the process, sans the business card, at three more tables. Cruz and I were falling into a nice interview style, courtesy of his police training and Molly’s obsession with
Law & Order
. We learned that Victoria Grottum was African American and that she and Jason Myles had an on-again, off-again relationship. The two of them belonged to the dead vampire couple, Demetri and Joanna. I tried not to think about what double-dating would look like for that crew. The dinosaur guy, Freedner, belonged to Abraham.
“I don’t get it,” Cruz whispered after the fourth person had stammered and stared as we walked away. We were sitting at an empty table that had quickly been surrounded by more empty tables. “Why are they afraid of you? I mean, vampires I get, but these are humans.”
I shrugged. “Olivia thought the vampires tell ghost stories about us. I think maybe it’s a fear of the unknown. All I know is, the less powerful vampires and the human servants are scared of me.”
“You know, you could be helping these people,” Cruz said, a little peevishly.
“Huh?” I said, stopping to look at him.
“None of them seem all that aware of what they’re playing with. They’re like junkies. Or prostitutes.”
Now I felt like Molly. “So?”
“So, hookers are afraid of their pimps, but they still talk to us sometimes because pimps are afraid of the cops. You respect what your boss fears. And if the vampires are afraid of you...All I’m saying is, you could be trying to talk people out of doing this.”
I was flabbergasted.
Before I could work up a good response, though, a cultured tenor voice rang out over the music. “Scarlett Bernard!”
I stood up to see the crowd part and the DJ turn down the speakers, as if choreographed. A vampire stepped out of the throng of people, having taken another entrance to the rooftop.
Jeez, did he climb the friggin’ fire escape?
“Hello, Gregory,” I said evenly.
He made his way toward us, his large, regal nose seeming to lead his entire body through the crowd. That nose always makes Gregory look like a snob, which works out really well with his personality. As did the honest-to-goodness smoking jacket he was wearing over dark slacks and one of those blousy pirate-type shirts.
Cruz had stood up, too. I felt the vampire enter my space and saw his white face come back to life. Gregory is the kind of vampire who makes a fuss about proving he isn’t afraid of me, which probably means that he is. He didn’t stop strutting toward me, but there were a few gasps around us as he lost his glow and some of his grace. None of his manners, though.
“Darling,” he said, kissing my cheek, “you should have let me know you were coming. I would have warned the sheep.” He waved a hand toward the human servants milling about the rooftop.
They were whispering among themselves, looking at me jealously.
Talking to the master! Oooh!
Gregory looked closely at me, examining my bruises. “My dear, what happened to you?”
“I hit one of Dashiell’s guys with my face,” I said lightly.
Gregory’s voice had been calm, but now he looked annoyed to see me. Like being on a hot streak at the roulette table and then having the cooler walk up and bum you out.
“Excuse me, this is my friend, Officer Jesse Cruz. Jesse, this is Gregory. He owns this building.”
Cruz stepped forward and offered his hand, which Gregory stared at, probably trying to remember what to do. Vampires don’t really go in for friendly touching. He reached out and allowed Cruz to shake, looking as if he’d just seen a talking dog.
“Please, come and sit down for a moment,” Gregory said, in a voice that left no room for any other options. Without waiting for a response, he turned and took off toward a far table, away from the crowd. I allowed him to lead us along, shooting Cruz a look first that said,
Tread lightly
. He nodded back at me:
I’ll follow your lead
.
“Gregory,” I said once we were seated, “Officer Cruz is investigating those murders in La Brea Park.”
“Oh?” Gregory delicately raised his eyebrows. “And does Dashiell know about the policeman’s activities, or is that what happened to your eye?”
“He knows. I was hoping maybe we could ask you a couple of questions.”
“All right, then,” he replied, leaning back in his chair and gesturing at me to begin. “Fire away.”
“Did you know that the three victims were vampires?”
Despite his current humanity, Gregory gave me a look that had sex and evil and amusement all tied up in it. “I had heard that, Miss Scarlett. Bad news travels fast in our circles, as you well know by now. I had assumed that perhaps you were connected to the murders.” He looked pleasantly from me to Cruz. “You didn’t come here to kill me, too, did you?”
“No. And I wasn’t involved in the La Brea Park thing, either.”
“If you say so.”
I didn’t like that everyone seemed to think I was capable of what had happened in that clearing, but I would worry about that later. I glanced at Cruz, who picked up his cue.
“Did you know the victims?” he asked.
Gregory frowned. “Abraham I knew, of course. Most of the vampires in LA know of Abraham. I’d seen the other two around occasionally, but I don’t think we’d ever spoken.” He looked disdainful. “Those two were very reckless. Joanna, especially. She liked to drink from children.”
Cruz’s eyes bugged out, and I saw him struggling not to comment on that. Almost all vampires refrain from feeding off kids. There’s no sport or sex to it, unless you’re extremely sick in the head, and
those
vampires don’t last long in a shadowy society that depends on discretion. But it does happen.
“Can you think of anyone who might want to harm any of them?” I jumped in before Cruz’s head exploded.
“I have no idea why someone would want to kill the couple, other than just general annoyance. They fancied themselves a modern-day Sid and Nancy, so perhaps they just irritated the wrong people. I heard that the scene of the crime was quite grisly”—I thought I saw Gregory lick his lips a little—“so perhaps it was witches. Some of their spells require quite the sacrifice.”
Hmm. I hadn’t even thought of that. I’d never heard of witch magic involving that kind of darkness, but maybe it was worth asking Kirsten.
“And Abraham?” Cruz asked.
Gregory tapped his fingers to his lower lip, looking thoughtful. “Abraham is a different matter. Taking him out of the picture hurts Dashiell, so it could be any one of Dashiell’s enemies. Another vampire, wanting to take over some territory. The wolves, if Dashiell’s diplomacy has been less than ideal.”
I remembered Hugo putting the silver handcuffs on Eli, and thought that Dashiell’s diplomacy with the wolves was pretty goddamned far from ideal.
“Gregory, we’d like to talk to the three vampires’ human servants. Do you have any idea where we can find them?” I asked.
He looked disgusted for a moment, as if I’d asked him where his hamburger comes from, and then his face stilled as he remembered something. “There is a human servant who organizes things for their little community—he does these parties, and I think he runs some other events as well. His name is James Rucker.” Gregory pulled out a cell phone and scrolled through the contact list,
leaning over so Cruz could copy down a number. “I believe he also spends quite a bit of time at the Copper Room. Bald, with a beard.”
“Thank you, Gregory,” I said deferentially, and nodded to Cruz. We stood up. “If you’ll excuse us, we’ll be on our way.”
He stood up, too. “Of course. But, Scarlett?”
I looked back at him, and that same complicated look shadowed his face.
“Next time? Call first.”
The Copper Room is sort of the ugly, unwanted stepchild of the LA vamp hangouts. A lot of the pathetic vamparazzi show up there every night, telling stories and drinking cranberry-vodkas. (Get it?) The actual vampires consider it incredibly uncool—it’s in
Long Beach
, for crying out loud—but if they’re desperate for a pickup, they occasionally show, one or two a night. If a vamp does work up the courage to show his face at the Copper Room, he’ll have his pick of the vampire hangers-on, which isn’t saying much, but whatever. Blood is blood, I guess. Suddenly, I wondered if that was true—did different people taste different? It hadn’t occurred to me. I’d have to ask Beatrice sometime.
Meanwhile, for everyone else, the food is crappy and the failed actors/waitstaff have all crossed the line into bitter and hostile. On the bright side, I had no trouble finding street parking.
“Whoa,” Cruz said under his breath as I led him toward the door. A neon
Bar and Grill
sign flickered unsteadily in the window, and it was hard to avoid the carpet of cigarette butts in the entryway. “This is it? This is...wow.”
I shrugged, pulling open the door. “It can’t all be glamour and roses, cupcake, even with the fanged set.”
We walked into the dim entryway, and I told the bored-looking waitress we’d be in the bar area. It was big and dingy, with those extra-tall tables and stools surrounding a beaten-up pool table and
a filmy big-screen TV. There were six or seven people scattered about, and when we walked in, seven pairs of eyes glanced up, hoping for a vampire, before returning to their drinks. Apparently, something about Cruz and me screamed,
Still alive!
When I got a little farther into the room, I understood the desperation. There wasn’t a single vampire in the bar.
It was after midnight now, and they were all looking a little defensive and drunk, like the homely girl who’s sat on the bleachers for the entire school dance.
“
Díos
,” Cruz said under his breath. “You’re right. This is depressing.”
We sat at one of the too-tall tables, and Cruz gave the barmaid a big grin, which had her hustling right over. I tried very hard not to roll my eyes, but to her credit, when she got a good look at my face, she did a classic double take, then glared over at Cruz. I opened my mouth to correct her assumption, but what was I going to say? Car accident? Doorknob? Anything I came up with—short of “a vampire hit me in the face”—would sound like a lame cover-up. We ordered beer and Diet Coke, and I was pretty sure the barmaid spit in his bottle of Heineken. I chose not to comment.
While she was getting Cruz’s change, I scanned the people at the bar.
“There,” I said, nudging him and nodding discreetly toward a completely bald, bearded man wearing a ribbed tank top under a khaki button-down shirt. The guy had left the shirt open to display a not-so-small paunch. He was with three others, telling an animated story while they laughed. The ringleader.
“I got this one,” Cruz told me under his breath.
I shrugged.
Cruz walked right up to Rucker and pulled out his badge. “Mr. Rucker? Could I have a word with you?”
Rucker’s mouth dropped open in the middle of a sentence. When he recovered, his face smoothed back into alpha-geek mode.
“I guess,” he said casually, as if he consulted on police cases every day. He nodded to his friends, who retreated to a far corner of the barroom to gossip.
After they’d left, I went up and dropped onto a stool beside Rucker. Cruz took the other side again.
“What do the police want with me?” Rucker asked, a little pompously. “Am I behind on my gas and electric or something?”
“Actually,” Cruz replied, putting away his badge, “we’re looking into some murders that happened in La Brea Park the other night. Did you hear about that?”
Rucker sobered instantly. “Yes,” he said. “We heard. It’s terrible.”
“We’re looking for the three human servants of the vampires that died,” I added. I recited their names again. “Do you know any of them?”
But Rucker was peering at my face. “I know who you are,” he said, “but who is this guy? How much does he know?” His voice was sharp, suddenly edgy. Human servants are conditioned very hard not to talk about their extracurricular activities. It’s the first rule of Vampire Club.