Blood Trade, page 13
“Use soap and shampoo,” she called through the door.
When the door finally opened and the child came out, wrapped in the green robe, Xochitl could see it. This was a girl. Her mouse brown hair had been hacked short, maybe with a pair of old scissors. Her fair skin, hidden by several layers of dirt, was now on display. When she talked, one could just make out the big teeth and braces, but it looked like she hadn’t been smiling much lately.
“I didn’t use to believe in werewolves,” she said. Her voice was small and timid.
“What’s your name?”
“Daphna. What are you going to do to me?”
“I’m going to send you home to your brother.”
“I can’t go back.” Her eyes began to tear up.
“Why not? What did he do to you?”
“He didn’t do anything. It was me. I said… I said some really mean things to him. He’s never going to want to see me again, and I could never face him if he did.”
“Kid, he’s been looking for you for weeks now, has spent what is probably to him a pretty big wad of money trying to find you. I’ll bet you he’d forgive you for just about anything if you would just come home.”
Whatever dam was holding back the water pooling in the girl’s eyes, burst and tears flooded down across her cheeks.
“Go back in there and brush your teeth,” Xochitl said. “You’ll have to use my toothbrush. I don’t have a spare.”
Twenty minutes made a world of difference. Daphna Sachs was cleaned up, with hair brushed. And it turned out, that while Xochitl didn’t have any clothing appropriate for a twelve year old boy, she did for a girl of that age. She rifled through Novelyne’s clothing and found a knee-length pink dress. The blonde vampire was only a little taller than the girl, so the dress was an acceptable, if not perfect fit. Underwear was another thing altogether. Most of Novelyne’s undergarments were high-waist lace creations that seemed forty years out of style and would never have stayed on the girl’s relatively shapeless figure. Xochitl was lucky enough to find one pair of plain white panties with an elastic waist. Daphna’s budding breasts needed nothing more than a training bra, and she hadn’t been wearing one anyway, so they just skipped it. On the other hand, Daphna’s feet were far too big to fit in Novelyne’s tiny size two shoes. Xochitl found a pair of her own sandals that didn’t have too high of a heel for her.
Wanting to keep the girl close, she took her to the Tangiers, where they had a food court. The Arabian Nights themed casino sat at the top end of the Fremont Street Experience. Stepping up to the Fatburger counter, Xochitl ordered burgers, fries, and Cokes for both of them. They then sat down in a relatively quiet corner to eat.
“So why did you leave home?” Xochitl asked the girl.
“Stupid stuff. I was mad at Brian because my parents died—like it was his fault or something. He was trying to step in and take their place—be a mom and dad to me, and all I did was lash out at him. I got in trouble in school and then I got in trouble in town. Every time he tried to talk to me, I treated him like a…”
“I’m sure he understands,” said Xochitl. “It was grief. You lost your parents.”
“I shouldn’t have taken it out on him. He lost his parents too.”
“That may be, but I know he still loves you. He hired me to find you. And if I hadn’t gone into attack mode first and asked questions later, we would be having this talk a week ago.”
“I’ve seen you, you know,” said Daphna. “I mean not just that day at the motel. I’ve seen you hunting them. And I’ve seen your friend too. I talked to her.”
“Novelyne? The blond girl, um… woman?”
“The blond vampire,” she said. “She saved me the first day I got here. I was at the bus station and I was just hanging around, not really sure what to do next. These three… How can there be vampires? How can there be werewolves. They’re not even real!”
The detective waited for her to continue.
“Well, they came for me. But your friend… Noveleen?”
“Novelyne.”
“Novelyne. She attacked them and killed at least one of them. I didn’t stay to see how it ended. That was like a month ago. I didn’t know Vegas was like this. I didn’t know the world was like this. Since then, I’ve been hiding. Steeling food when I could. That day when you found me at the motel, I thought you were one of them at first. Only later did I remember it was the daytime. I’ve been watching you since.”
“You’ve been watching me, and I’ve been looking for you.”
They finished eating and went back to the office. Novelyne still wasn’t there, but Sid was. He was waiting in his truck, and he didn’t look happy.
“What the fuck was that, Xochitl?” he demanded. “That wasn’t a vampire! That was a man… a human man… a naked human man.”
“He was a werewolf, and he almost killed three people including me. He sent a woman to the hospital the other night. I don’t know how many people he killed before today, but he had to be put down.”
The tattoo artist stared at her for almost a full minute.
“You know, I think our arrangement has just about come to an end. You’ve been my model and I’ve been your cleanup guy, but I think we’ve both reached the point when we don’t need each other.”
“I still need you,” she said.
“Too bad. I’m not like you. I don’t like killing people and dumping their bodies into the sewer at all hours of the night. You can find somebody else to clean up after you.”
“That’s it, Sid?” she asked. “We’re through?”
“You still have the office at the same rent. I don’t think you’ll find any place cheaper. But yeah. Other than that, we’re done.”
“Fine.”
Leaving him standing at the curbside, Xochitl pulled the girl along with her and entered through the office. She stopped at the file cabinet to grab Daphna’s file, and then took it and her upstairs. Whipping out her cell phone, she called Brian Sachs in Pocatello, Idaho.
“Mr. Sachs? Xochitl McKenna here from Sin City Detective Agency. I’ve got somebody that wants to talk with you.”
She handed Daphna the phone. At first the girl just held it to her ear, but didn’t speak. Xochitl gave her shoulder a shove.
“Brian? Brian I’m so sorry… I don’t know…”
Xochitl went into the bathroom and filled the tub with all four inches of water that it would hold. Peeling off her clothes, she sat down in the water and began to splash it up onto her shoulders. Even though she could hear every word of the conversation, she pretended, even to herself, that she couldn’t. When she finally got out and got dressed, it seemed that both Daphna and her brother had run out of things to say to each other, but since they were unable to fall into hugging one another, they settled for simply listening to each other breathe. The detective pulled the phone from the girl’s hand and pressed it to her own ear.
“I suppose the best thing is to put her on a bus for home tomorrow.”
“I don’t think I want her to make the trip all alone,” said Sachs. “Do you have somebody you could send with her?”
“I don’t know,” answered Xochitl, trying in vain to think of somebody. “Maybe you could come out and get her.”
“I can’t or I’ll get fired. I used up all my personal leave trying to find her. My boss isn’t giving me any more slack and I can’t afford to get fired, or I’ll lose our house. I can barely afford it anyway.”
“Listen,” she instructed. “I’ll see what I can do. If I can’t find somebody to go with her tomorrow, I’ll send her on Thursday. But if I have to wait till Thursday, I’m sending her one way or the other, even if she’s by herself. She needs out of this town.”
“Alright. Let me know when she leaves, and I’ll meet her at the bus station here.”
After hanging up the phone, Xochitl had Daphna undress and put on one of her t-shirts. Then they climbed into bed. She didn’t want to risk letting the girl out of her sight, so even though Novelyne’s bed seemed likely to stay empty, she had Daphna lie down with her in her room. The girl fell asleep quickly, and made a little wheezing snore as she slept. For the first time in a long time, Xochitl fell asleep without touching the booze or the pills.
Chapter Eleven: Misdirection
The morning light streaming into the window was hitting Xochitl right in the face, but that wasn’t what had awakened her. It was an annoying buzz. It took her almost a full minute to realize that it was her cell phone ringing. It took her another minute to find it lying amid the bedclothes. By then it had stopped ringing. She pushed the call back button and put her head back on her pillow, rolling to the side to keep her eyes out of the sun.
“Zielinski.”
“You called?”
“I did. I thought you might still be up,” he said.
“I’m getting ready to get up soon. I’ve been asleep.”
“Really.”
“Did you call me to tell me how much you miss me?” she asked. “Are you like a star-crossed lover now?”
“You mean starry-eyed lover, and no, I called to check in, and to make sure you’re alright. A lot’s been happening there. I guess the bureau picked the wrong time to call me in.”
“Or the exact right time,” she replied. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“That’s what the meeting was all about. It seems the vampires have been planning on supplanting the Chicago mob for some time. The bureau has been following it. They just didn’t know when it was going to happen. Well, it happened. Tony the Pipe is dead and it looks like just about everybody who was working for him is too. Israel is running the show now. He cut off the head and simply took over the organization.”
“That sounds awfully risky, even for a vampire,” said Xochitl.
“Maybe. But he’s done it before. He did it during prohibition, in the twenties, in Detroit. He took over an entire organization smuggling booze into the U.S. from Canada.”
“That would be when those pictures you showed me were taken.”
“Right. And one more thing… apparently Novelyne was right there with him.”
“She was Bonny to his Clyde?”
“Well, they had a relationship,” said Zielinski. “My question is… Is she in on this with him now?”
“I don’t think so,” replied Xochitl.
“But you’re not sure.”
“No. I’m not sure.”
“Well, I’ll be back tomorrow at nine. I’ll call you when I’m back at my hotel.”
Xochitl sat the phone down and got dressed in her jeans and t-shirt. As she was looking for her boots, she caught Daphna’s eye.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning,” said the girl.
“Are you hungry?” asked Xochitl. “I don’t usually eat in the morning, but I’ve heard people have this meal they call breakfast.”
“Yes,” replied Daphna, in a barely audible voice.
Xochitl laughed.
“Alright, let’s go get something. Do you like eggs, waffles, pancakes, what?”
“I’ll eat whatever you want.”
Daphna dressed in the same clothes that she had worn the previous day and they walked back to Glitter Gulch to the Gem, visiting the same buffet that Xochitl had taken Dominic to the day before. They both loaded their plates, but the girl easily outdid her elder, packing in enough eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, and fruit for any three people. They were just finishing up when Xochitl’s cell phone rang once again.
“Hello?”
“Is this the Sin City detective?”
“Yes, this is Xochitl McKenna.”
“Oh Xochitl. It’s me, Evan Clark.”
“Thank you for calling me back,” said Xochitl. “I take it you got my message. I have the information you requested and…”
“Yes, I got your message. But that’s not why I called.” Xochitl caught the first signs of stress in the woman’s voice. “I need your help. They’re after me. They were waiting for me at work. I turned around and I ran.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m at home.”
“Get out of there. Where do you live?”
“At 401 North Circle. It’s just off Twain and Palo Verde.”
“Do you have a car?”
“Of course.”
“Okay. Get out of your house now and drive over to the Fashion Show Mall. Buy yourself a lemonade and sit down in the food court. Wait for me. You should be okay in a public place like that. Don’t go anywhere alone.”
“Alright.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
The Goth detective took Daphna Sachs back to the office. Back in her bedroom, she handed the girl her extra .45.
“Do you know how to shoot a pistol?”
The girl nodded solemnly.
“My dad took us out to shoot all the time. He had a 9mm.”
“It’s exactly the same,” said Xochitl. “I don’t expect you to need it. As far as I know, nobody’s looking for you, but I promised your brother I’d get you home safe. Stay here in the office and I’ll be back before too long. There’s a bookcase down in the back room with some good old books, and there’s a computer. Kids like computers, right?”
“Does it have Angry Birds?”
“I don’t even know what that means. Alright, I’ll be back soon.”
Jogging over to Sid’s, Xochitl found the tattooist sitting in an unusually quiet shop. When she came through the door, he jumped up from his couch.
“Xochitl, we need to talk…”
“Later. I need to borrow your truck.”
“Um, alright.” He tossed her the keys.
The Fashion Show Mall was only a little farther away from downtown than was the Stratosphere, but it had two things that made it a less than desirable destination. First of all, it was located smack in the most congested part of the Strip, so it took Xochitl over an hour to get there. Second, the majority of the parking area was located beneath the mall in an underground parking area.
Once there, it took Xochitl another half hour to park and get up to the food court, which was not particularly large as mall food courts went. Evan Clark was nowhere to be seen. There were two possibilities. Either Evan never made it here, or she had been here and left. Where the hell was she?
As she walked through the underground parking area and back to the truck, Xochitl mused that it might have been a better choice to park out in the sun behind one of the large department stores, but she had chosen the underground because it offered the ability to get in and out of the food court quickly. But before she reached Sid’s truck, she already saw two of them approaching. As always, it was impossible to tell for sure if they were vampires; the creatures of the night blended so well with humanity. But vampire or human, there was no doubt they were coming for her. One was following her from the mall exit. The other was approaching from ahead.
She ducked in between Sid’s truck and the red Dodge parked next to it, only to be knocked back out, by the third one waiting there. She slid across the cement and into a car parked across the alleyway from the truck. There was no doubt that this one was a vampire. He had sent her twenty feet and had knocked the wind out of her as well. She pulled out her .45 even as she tried to suck in a breath. Suddenly a car came skidding to a stop between her and her attacker. The passenger door opened, revealing Lance Rizzello.
“Get in!” he ordered.
Xochitl jumped to her feet and climbed into the car, slamming the door behind her. Lance burned rubber as he pulled away. The vampire that was in front of them was slightly too slow leaping out of the way, and was hit by the front bumper of the police cruiser. Lance was already doing forty five when he hit the ramp that took them into the sunshine and out onto the city streets. Turning left on Sands, he slid across three lanes of traffic, leaving honking cars and screaming drivers in his wake.
“Well, if it isn’t Morticia Adams.”
“I kind of thought you were dead,” said Xochitl. “Or at least that you got out of town.”
“What? And not say goodbye?” He laughed. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
“What were you doing, following me?”
“You have a pretty high opinion of yourself,” he said. “The problem is that you’re getting to be too big of a distraction for some very powerful individuals.”
Xochitl looked over at the cop, but he was turning onto Paradise and didn’t look back. After a moment of silence, he continued.
“I get it. You get attached to these people that hire you. I understand completely. I’m a sentimental guy. The same thing happens to me. But you’ve pissed in somebody’s oatmeal one too many times. First you’ve got to go rescue this Lank chick that the big daddy has picked as his juice box. Now he’s got his eye on this dancer and you do the same thing all over again.”
“You know about Israel?”
“Baby, I know about everything.” He turned into the Convention Center parking lot, drove around behind the massive building, and parked beneath a tree. “You’d be dead three times over already if I wasn’t looking out for you. I’ve got a lot of juice in this town and I’m going to have more. You could too.”
“You’re working for him? For Israel?”
“See, you’re sharp. That’s why you could go far.”
“But you were working for Tony the Pipe?”
“You’ve got to know when to make your move, baby. I made mine and it’s going to pay off. I’m going to be the next sheriff. And you… you could take over for me. But… you’ve got to stop shitting where you eat.”
“What?”
“Get with the program. You’d be in charge of collections. You’d have plenty of your own juice then. Nobody would fuck with you… well, nobody but me.”
He grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her face to his. Pressing both hands into his chest, Xochitl held him back.
“They’re fucking vampires,” she said. “They’re going to turn this city into another Detroit.”
