Blood Trade, page 2
“You know they don’t allow you to play the tables,” she said, pulling Novelyne toward the door. “You know it, and if you keep it up, you’re going to wind up under Third and Carson.”
“It’s not fair,” Novelyne repeated.
“No, it’s not. It’s unfair to the casino. You have an unfair advantage, which is why they don’t allow it. You know the rules. You can play the slots. And that’s it.”
They stepped back out into Fremont Street and almost collided with a group of tourists crossing from the Bonanza, wearing foam cowboy hats.
“Did you bring the girl’s picture?” asked Xochitl.
“I made copies with the computer machine,” the secretary replied.
Novelyne reached into her bra and pulled out not one but two identical photographs and handed one to the detective. They were head shots, a little fuzzy, as if they were one of the four little images produced by a photo booth, separated and blown up. The girl was fair, with freckles and big teeth with braces. Her mouse brown hair was pulled back into a pony tail. She was the very epitome of a rural Idaho girl.
“I’ll take the south side and you take the north,” said Xochitl. “Don’t bother asking the tourists. They weren’t here three weeks ago. If you see someone you recognize as a regular, check with them. Otherwise, stick with the casino workers.”
“I could have figured that out.”
“Stay away from the Prayer Center behind the California Club, just in case they’ve called somebody in.”
“Like a hunter?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I go in the Girls of Glitter Gulch?”
“No.”
Xochitl crossed the street and went first to the Tangiers, then the Gem, Monte Carlo and finally the Klondike. She knew most of the casino workers who were ending the swing shift, and spotted a few graveyard shift workers that she knew who were just arriving. At each location, she showed the picture of the girl from Idaho, but no one seemed to recognize her.
She was just about to quit and find her secretary across the street when she saw him. He was watching her from the corner of the public high rise parking structure. A handsome guy with short brown hair, he wore a dark suit with a thin tie. She couldn’t tell much else at this distance.
“Excuse me,” said a fat woman, pushing past to get to the front of the Klondike. When Xochitl looked back, the guy was gone.
“No luck,” said Novelyne, joining her. “I didn’t expect we would have any.”
“Me neither. Follow procedure though. You never know.”
* * * * *
“So what did he look like again?” asked Novelyne from her bedroom as they lay in the shared apartment above Sin City Detective Agency.
The apartment consisted of two very small bedrooms next to each other with the shared bathroom. There was no kitchenette, though Xochitl had added a small refrigerator and a hot plate in the corner of her room. The rooms themselves, the furniture, all vintage 1930s, and especially the bathtub made Xochitl feel like a giant, though Novelyne who was quite tiny looked right at home.
“He just looked like a guy. He had short brown hair.”
“He sounds really, really handsome.”
“He was a little handsome, I guess,” admitted Xochitl. “I wish I knew why he was watching me?”
“He was watching you because you are a fetching young lady, or you would be if you would just lighten up your look a bit.”
“He’s probably a vampire.”
“Don’t assume,” said Novelyne.
They didn’t speak anymore and Xochitl drifted off into sleep. She was awakened though by almost silent, bare footfalls going down the stairs. Novelyne was very quiet, but Xochitl had ears trained in Afghanistan. She got up, slipped quickly into her skirt, boots, and a t-shirt, and pulled on her shoulder holster. The blonde was probably just going out to enjoy the night air; she was a creature of the night after all. Xochitl just wanted to make sure she wasn’t falling back into bad habits.
Once outside, the detective easily spotted her secretary sashaying down the street. Every so often, Novelyne would twirl around on her toe, her arms out wide. She was making no effort to hide. But after she crossed the street, she suddenly scrambled up the wall of the pawn shop in a way that no human ever could have—especially not a human wearing that little dress. She continued on her way much as she had before, now on the rooftops instead of the sidewalk. Xochitl followed at ground level, clinging to the shadows. Novelyne was leading her toward the bus station.
Across the street from the Greyhound depot, Novelyne dropped lightly from the roof to the ground. She actually skipped across the street. The parking lot was dimly lit and there were no cars on the streets nearby, but three large buses sat idling in a cloud of diesel smoke beside the station office. The door of one of them opened with a squeak and a hiss, and tired looking people began to debark. Following them off the still idling bus was a fat driver who went directly into the office. Novelyne waited beneath one of the few streetlamps until most of the passengers had shuffled away into the darkness. Xochitl watched from the shadows across the street, kicking a scurrying rat away from her feet. The other two busses revved up their engines and drove away, both heading north toward the I15 onramp. The only people now remaining were two sad looking kids—a boy with a knit cap pulled down to his eyes, and a girl in a baggy Green Day t-shirt.
Novelyne started across the parking lot toward the two kids.
“Please don’t eat them,” muttered Xochitl, jogging across the street.
Three men appeared out of the shadows on the south side of the parking lot. Xochitl knew instantly what they were here for, if not who they were. The pimps were always ready to take runaways, boys or girls, and add them to their stables. Vampires found runaways an easy source of food. And the bus station was where the new prey arrived for both trades. In either case, it was human trafficking—the blood trade. Novelyne reached the two kids first. She handed them each a business card.
“Get out of here,” she said. “Now.”
“Hey kids, hold up!” called one of the three men, a skinny black guy not much older than a kid himself. “We can help you out.”
“Bugger off, ya’ pissy wankers,” said Novelyne, her brogue suddenly much thicker.
“You don’t want to mess with us, girlie,” said another, a young white guy.
As he finished his sentence, his face suddenly shifted. It was no longer that of a man. It was the face of a monster. Eyes went yellow and long fangs jutted from his upper jaw. Xochitl whipped the pistol from her holster and ran. The two kids turned and fled into the darkness. The other two men also revealed their identities. Their vampire selves now exposed. The first leapt forward, closing the distance between himself and the blonde in a second.
The other two turned toward Xochitl who was now only a few yards away. When they saw her pistol, they smiled. One laughed fiercely. Bullets weren’t much of threat to vampires. She fired four times into the chest of her first target. Sparks illuminated the trail of each bullet as it shot through the night. All four of the tracer rounds with their phosphorus pyrotechnic charge, burning like the sun, blasted through the monster’s chest as easily as they would have a human’s. He screamed and clawed himself, trying to get at the flame that was even now burning up his insides. Then he shivered and fell to the ground on his face. The other vampire stared at his dying companion a second too long. Xochitl hit him twice in the chest and once in the head. She turned to her secretary.
Novelyne’s eyes glowed like rubies in the night. She bared her fangs and hissed as she ripped off her attacker’s head with her bare hands. Throwing aside the body, she crouched and growled, and looked around to see Xochitl standing twenty feet away. Then slowly, she stood up, her face shifting back to that human face that had greeted Brian Sachs in the office of Sin City Detective Agency. Her breathing slowed, and she wiped the gore from around her lips with a dainty hand.
Xochitl pulled out her phone and hit speed dial. “Sid, we need your truck at the bus station ASAP.”
Chapter Two: Looking for the Girl
Thanks to a very large sleeping pill and a slug of Jim Beam, Xochitl slept late into the next afternoon. When she finally did get up, she put her clothes from the night before into the black plastic trash bag with the rest of her laundry. She slipped into another t-shirt and a pair of jeans, and left out the back way to deliver the dirty clothes to the Chinese laundry on Gass Ave. When she got back, she took Novelyne’s clothes from the day before and burned them in the barrel in the alley behind the office. An hour later, she poured bleach over the ashes.
The night before had been grisly business: not only the killing, but the cleaning up afterwards. On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, creatures of the night neatly burst into dust. All one needed was a vacuum cleaner. In real life, many undead had the unpleasant habit of coming back to life unless they were separated from their heads and then buried at an ancient crossroads. In Las Vegas, the closest ancient crossroads was Third and Carson, and fortunately there was a manhole right there. Lift the cover, slide the bodies out of the back of Sid’s truck, and put the cover back on. She would have to double check that the tattoo artist had hosed out the truck bed. It was grisly business but it had to be done. Otherwise, some nice coroner would pick up the body and stick it in a nice cool freezer. That was just a recipe for trouble.
Novelyne slept in too, not surprising. Xochitl let her rest and instead took her position at reception. Kicking her combat boots up onto the desk, she pressed the button next to the flashing light on the answering machine.
“This is Marathon Customer Service. Your cell phone bill is sixteen days past due. We’re sure it’s just an oversight. You have two days in which to correct it or your service will be regrettably…”
Xochitl pressed the button and the next message began.
“My name is Howard Lank and um, I think my wife is cheating on me. I need to hire you. Call me back at…”
Xochitl typed in the number on her cell as Lank’s recorded voice spoke it.
“Hello,”
“Hello, Mr. Lank. This is Xochitl McKenna at the Sin City Detective Agency. We’re interested to hear your story.”
“Oh, good. I don’t really know what else to do.”
“Can you come by the office this evening, or would you like me to meet you somewhere? Your wife isn’t suspicious is she?”
“She doesn’t seem to care what I do anymore. I’ll come by your office. What time?”
“Six o’clock?”
“Alright. Six.”
Xochitl stuck the phone back in her pocket, as Novelyne entered from the back room. The secretary was wearing a bright yellow sun dress; somewhat ironic. She sat on the corner of the desk and looked down at her feet. Xochitl waited for her to speak, but she remained silent. She tucked her hands under her bottom.
“So, what?” asked Xochitl at last.
“I didn’t want you to see me like I was last night.”
“I know what you are. I was bound to see it sooner or later. I’m just glad you didn’t eat those kids.”
Novelyne jumped back to her feet.
“Did you really think I would?”
“For a moment.” Xochitl folded her arms over her chest. “Don’t pretend like you’ve never eaten kids before.”
“Not for a long time,” said Novelyne, sticking out her lip. “Months and months.”
“What were you doing at the bus station anyway?” asked Xochitl.
“I was going to talk to Larry. I thought he might remember seeing Daphna Sachs get off the bus. You know he’s always there.”
“Yes, I know. I was going to talk to him today, but I’ve been too busy getting rid of evidence.”
“Sorry.”
“No problem,” replied Xochitl, grudgingly. “At least nobody’s going to see those bodies and assume they’re humans. All we need is a police investigation, especially with you having no identity papers.”
“I’m working on that.”
Xochitl raised an eyebrow.
“Sid,” said Novelyne. “He’s got all kinds of connections.”
“Yeah. I’m going to go out and do my job. There’s a customer coming in—Howard Lank. Get his file in order, but don’t go out before I get back, please. We’ll get you some more blood then.”
“I’ve still got two blood bags in the ice box.”
“I don’t like you drinking those,” said Xochitl. “They’re human.”
“It’s not like I’m killing the people. They donated it.” Novelyne put a hand on her hip and scrunched up her nose. “You should trust me by now. I’m your aunt, after all.”
Xochitl had only scant evidence that Novelyne was who she said she was. She had shown up two months before, claiming to be a long lost aunt. And when Xochitl found out what she was, she claimed that she had given up being a murdering monster. They had broken into the LDS Family History Library late one night and had dug up a family tree that showed a Novelyne Cavendish related to a line of McKenna’s more than a hundred years ago. Xochitl had no other family to question. She had been orphaned at age four and had only vague memories of a half black, half Mexican mother and a blond-haired, blue eyed, freckle-faced father.
She grunted noncommittally and pushed her way out the front door, leaving Novelyne alone in the office.
The Food Factory, a Vegas-only chain owned by alleged mobster Antonio (Tony the Pipe) Bruno, had dollar burgers every Thursday, so Xochitl stopped by on the way to the bus station. The downtown location, one of four in the valley, had originally been a fifties drive-in. Now the speakers had all been torn out, and only the remnants of the original ordering menus hung between the parked cars. Most people ate inside or ordered through the recently added drive-through window, but there was still a walk-up window too.
“Cheeseburger. Throw on bacon and an egg, and give me a large Code Red,” Xochitl ordered.
She leaned against the counter beneath the window and looked around. An old couple, the man wearing a crumpled grey suit and the woman a flower print dress, both with pasty pale faces, walked past and entered the restaurant. A rusty green Buick pulled into the parking lot and steered toward the drive-through, the teen-aged driver staring at her lap as she navigated while texting. From an open storm drain, a raggedy grey cat walked shakily out onto the street, where it fell over on its side, dead.
“That’ll be $4.75. Do you have a Frequent Eater Card?”
“Yup.”
Xochitl handed the clerk a ten, along with the promotional card, and stuck both the card and the change in her pocket. Then she grabbed the plastic cup and paper bag, pulling out the styrofoam burger container and then removing the hamburger, tossing all the trash in a stained 50-gallon drum nearby. She ate as she walked. By the time she reached the bus station, the food was gone and she was wiping her face on the back of her hand. With a loud slurp, she reached the bottom of her drink, and tossed the cup in the bus station trash as she entered the lobby.
Most of the diesel fumes from the six or seven busses left running remained outside the office building. Two dozen people sat on stained steel and plastic bleachers, their skin radiating sickly greenish yellow from the flickering florescent lights overhead. A burned-out tube hung halfway out of one of the fixtures. The steel and glass partition between them and the office staff was covered in graffiti and stickers for the local death metal radio station. At one end of the counter, a large rat sat on its haunches and chewed part of a discarded cookie. When Xochitl approached, it stopped eating but refused to move.
“Come over here, Larry.”
Lawrence Rothwell was middle-aged man of average height, with a slight paunch. His Elvis inspired hair and sideburns were jet black despite the flecks of grey in his two day old whiskers. He got up from his seat behind a desk in the office, tugged down the hem of his black and white bowling shirt, and shuffled to the window. His skin looked dead and sallow, though no more than anyone else’s in the bus station. He smiled without showing any teeth and without looking Xochitl in the eyes.
“You seen this girl?” She slid the girl’s photograph across the yellowing linoleum countertop. “About three weeks ago?”
Larry looked at the picture for a moment. Picking it up, he put it to his nose and sniffed it, then looked at it again. He flipped it over and looked at the back as though expecting to see the back of the girl’s head there. His eyes slowly made their way up to look into Xochitl’s for the first time.
“Yeah.”
Xochitl waited for him to say something else. When he didn’t, she reached through the window and grabbed him by the collar, jerking him forward. His forehead made a loud smack on the edge of the glass.
“Ouch!” he snarled. “Careful. Don’t make me angry. You won’t like me when I’m angry.”
“You’re not the Hulk, Larry.” She fished the five from her pocket and threw it down. Larry looked at it, but made no move to pick it up.
“Five dollars?”
She grabbed his collar and smacked his head against the glass again.
“Damn it! Yes. I saw her. She arrived in the daytime. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”
“Was that so hard?”
“You better hope you’re somewhere safe tomorrow night.”
“No, Larry. You better hope you’re somewhere safe tomorrow night.”
“Oh that’s very clever,” he growled. “I say something and you say it right back to me.”
Once again, Xochitl grabbed his collar and smacked his face against the glass.
“Shit! Damn it!”
“Bye, Larry.” Xochitl grabbed the five dollars off the counter and weaved her way through the grey bus passengers and out the door. She could still hear Larry barking profanity behind her.
