Claude was, of course, the best criminal I had ever met.
Most of the people I knew with criminal inclinations tended to be a more casual kind, dabbling in dealing drugs like a little bit of weed, cocaine or pills. None of them were hardcore unless they got sent away to jail and came back broken and turned into actual criminals. I don't think I ever once saw a weapon when I was dealing with them. So my perception of criminals and hardened felons came from whatever I saw on television. Even Julio (the dealer who shot me in the head that one time, oh the hilarity) who was the most hardcore dealer I knew, it wasn't like he was a criminal mastermind, so my exposure to the seedier side was still most like everyone's else's.
The guys we were meeting were nothing like the criminals I've known. They were a hell of a lot more dangerous and had been in state prisons, not just county lock-up. Claude and I had met them before for that other job I can't talk about, and it had been complicated enough that seeing them again just made me go over all nervous.
"I just want to remind you that I suck at being a vampire."
"Cool it Bob. Why is this even relevant?"
"Because if something goes wrong, I'm not going to be any good at getting us out of it."
"Don't worry: these guys are sweethearts."
"They're 'sweethearts' who happen not to like me very much."
Once you get out of your comfort zone, it's hard to go back, especially when you're used to more casual crime. Most of the deals I've even been involved with had been conducted in the living room of the dealer's house and there more often than not tended to be a couple of people hanging around smoking or drinking. More times than not, you'd buy your pot, smoke a bowl and head home or you'd be going home pot-less, but well-fed on pizza and beer. It was casual, and it was kind of cool especially when you had some nice weed to ease the evening into a blissful relaxation. I missed those days a little come to think of it because there was a different kind of social behavior among potheads, a type of unquestioning acceptance unless you happened to be a complete asshole, and it made the drugs not a lonely experience at all. Toking up by yourself in your empty apartment is depressing you know, but toking up among your temporary revolving door of pot-friends was much better. It said that you belonged somewhere even if for a short while, because reality check: they tended not to smoke with assholes, so yeah buddy, you're okay, I'm okay, everybody's cool, now pass the bowl.
We were in the back room of a shitty bar in the shitty part of town, the kind of shitty bar that makes you realize that as shitty as your life had seemed, it was really sheltered and not as shitty as it could have been. When you had sunk as low as I had and been as broke as I had been at times, it's kind of shocking to learn that there were still several layers still left to sink. The bar didn't have a sign out front, so you had to know that it was there, and they liked it just that way. It was a place where bad people went to drink among other bad people, and outsiders were easy to spot. Somehow, my brand new suit made me a shining beacon, a definite outsider, someone who didn't belong and what's theta word I'm looking for again? Oh yeah: target. It made me a target.
"What's he doing here?" the big guy (I forgot his name) wanted to know, and he somehow managed not ever to look at me, yet gave off this strong vibe of about-to-fuck-you-up, the "you" meaning "me".
Such blatant and naked hostility. Ugh. Maybe it was the suit.
"Horace. Dave." Claude was unperturbed. "You guys know Bob."
Dave turned to look at me now, and I think he'd decided to stop being nice and just beat me up, to hell with Claude.
"He's the one that fucked up the deal last time. We had to end up dealing with the Persians, and they fucked us good."
I glanced at Claude, worried. "I told you this wasn't a good idea," I said, and I was keeping an eye on Dave all the while. I wasn't in the mood for getting fucked up. All I wanted was to get rid of a car, and Claude said these guys could help. No wonder he hadn't bothered telling me who we were going to see.
"Guys, we're here to do some business. We're trying to spread the wealth around."
Dave and Horace exchanged a look that gave me hope for a second. They were hard criminals, the kind I had always somehow managed to avoid and the ones that Claude dealt with casually. The mention of wealth had also reached the ears of a couple of the other people in the bar, and now they were paying attention to us. Way too much attention.
Claude never bothered with drugs in the slightest. The profit to incarceration ratio was way too low. He went straight for the hard crime, the kind of crime where there was a low risk of capture and where we could use his brains to outwit the system. When we were kids, he was always showing up at school, first with Walkman players and then later MP3 players. He would never be the one selling them, real or knockoff, but it was a sign to anyone that he knew where to get certain items. These activities eventually led him into shadier waters than the ones I tended to take a dip in, but with Claude, you could never tell how deep he was swimming. I suspect that he had been involved in some high-profile bank robberies, but since he was never caught or implicated by anyone (and this is a rarity among criminals), it was always a guessing game. It certainly made him valuable for a while, almost untouchable, and that was something you couldn't buy. But it also meant that he was the one that was valuable, not his sidekick, i.e.: me.
And then you have the occasional psychopath who doesn't give a shit.
Sometimes that psychopath is named Horace.
"Fuck your money."
I somehow caught Horace's oversized fist as it sailed through the air towards my head. There was a dull, meaty thwapp as his fist slammed into the palm of my hand, just like in an action movie. I hadn't caught up with what my brain and body were in the middle of, still just a spectator in my own body, but even so, one thought was running through my head, and it wasn't about me:
They're only human. They're only human. They're only HUMAN!
Don't try this at home; you'll just end up in pain.
I managed to yank Horace forward by the arm and slammed my head down onto his forehead, then in one smooth action, turned to Dave on my right as he brought up his switchblade. I didn't think, I just reacted and was using Horace as a lever, pushing myself up into the air even as he was collapsing. My legs kicked, knee, crotch, wrist and one more to the head as I twisted up into the air and came down to my feet, ready to fight some more.
Horace and Dave collapsed into a bloody mess at my feet.
Claude just looked at me, astounded. His eyes told me everything I needed to know: I had moved fast, and it was impressive as fuck.
"I thought you said you didn't know any of that vampire stuff!"
"I don't! I didn't. I— oh fuck me. I did that huh?"
"I didn't know you had it in you, dude. You and I are gonna have to talk some more about what you think you can't do."
Five other criminal types had seen exactly what had just happened, the rest of the bar beginning to clue in that something had just gone down, and it had been spectacularly violent. Those who had been watching were staring at me with distrust, but a couple had some knowing looks about them like they had seen this kind of display before.
Claude followed my gaze to the punk rocker couple at the edge of the bar. He looked back to me, questioningly and I nodded.
"Find out if they can drive. I'll meet you outside."
I escaped before anyone else could make the connection to the two unconscious men and me.
I'm not an action hero by any means.
I'm more the sidekick kind of guy, just hanging back in the shadows, offering snarky commentary while the real hero gets his hands good and dirty. For all the years of our friendship, Claude has always fit the mold of hero and truthfully it's something he does very well. He's what people describe when they talk about the classic hero, tall, noble, good-looking and charmingly likable. Claude is the kind of guy girls will only take home to their mothers after fucking his brains out, out of fear that said mothers might find him a little too attractive. He's the one you'd expect to be the vampire.
I'm the also-ran, the guy who's helping Claude; the one people don't notice until its too late. Claude could always trust me to observe everything and tell him anything he missed because we were that kind of a team. I'm invisible, and I don't stand out. That's what I'm good at doing.
Or at least, I used to be.
I stumbled out of the bar and headed back to the car, convinced that at any minute now, a crowd would pour out of the bar waving pitchforks and torches, hungry for some vampire blood. When this didn't, of course, happen I was a little disappointed then realized that pitchforks and torches were probably hard to come by in this day and age. The ability to care for two criminals who'd managed to get themselves knocked out by a skinny dude in an expensive suit also had something to do with it. By the time Horace and Dave woke up, I would be long gone, and their friends would buy them a few rounds while they talked about what they would do to me if I ever showed my face in there again. Like that was ever going to happen.
"You got a cigarette?"
The voice came out of the alley behind me, and I turned, half-expecting to be attacked by someone wielding a stake and thirsting for vampire death, but instead all I got was a tired-looking prostitute in her late forties who still managed to wear her fishnet stockings and miniskirt very well. She even had the fur coat on top of her ensemble that showed off her generous cleavage and the lacy black bra underneath. Everything about her screamed prostitute, and it was because she knew how to advertise.
I patted my pockets in the way we do to show that we're not lying, even as I shook my head in apology.
"Sorry. I quit smoking a couple of years ago, so not tonight.."
She saw my eyes then and grinned.
"Well nothing stopping you anymore," she leaned in close to get a better look. "You one of them vamps?"
"Jesus. Is there anyone who doesn't know about vampires anymore?"
She shrugged. "We get a couple down here on occasion. Nobody likes to call them by name, though. Makes it easier to deny and then to sleep at night and we got enough problems of our own."
"I was here thinking we were such a well-kept secret too," I said, but I supposed it made sense; this is how legends are born after all. A few people see things, and they keep it to themselves, mostly, but they have to tell someone eventually. Word spreads in the darkness of the truth and absence of proof, and before you know it, you're part of the dark secret that everyone who is anyone knows.
"You're secret enough, don't you worry about it. Buy me a pack of Newports and I'll keep your secret. I may even let you be my pimp."
I laughed and gave her a twenty and we were instantly best friends. We hung out in that alley, Pam smoking her new pack of Newports as if she were using them to stay warm, me just glad to have a different perspective on the universe for a while.
I was apparently the first vampire that she had personally met, but she had seen a couple of the girls go off in expensive cars with men who had "prettier eyes than they should" like mine, and there were always stories, but that is all they ever were. The girls with vampires as customers either always moved on to something better or they just didn't come back eventually. While their "dates" were around, though, the girls were treated better, paid more and seemed to pick up a better class of clientele, so having a vampire date was likely to be quite a good luck charm. Pam wanted to get right past that and get herself a vampire pimp.
"You could always bite me you know. Turn me into one of you; then I'd clean right up. Ain't nobody giving me shit after that!"
I laughed and so did she, but I could tell she was only half-kidding.
"That's not how it works, though. I can't just bite you and turn you. It's a lot more involved."
"Still gotta be better than being human, right? I mean look at you: fancy suit and fancy car and we both know you weren't born with no silver spoon in that mouth."
"I still wish I were human. You sometimes forget how easy it is just to belong. When you're part of humanity, you don't appreciate it enough."
"Lot of fancy talk to tell me I ain't good enough to be no vampire."
"You'd make an excellent vampire Pam," I said.
"My date's here," she said, waving at a car that had pulled up next to mine. "You stay pretty and better come back and see me, ya hear?"
"If I make it back from Texas, I definitely will."
"You're such a fucking liar!" She said, and she was gone, running up to the parked car. I watched her go, the smile fading from my face as reality returned and I realized it had been over twenty minutes that I had been waiting outside for Claude. I considered going in for him, staging a one-man rescue since it didn't look like I was going to be hunted and lynched by a hostile mob.
I watched the door, willing it open, praying that I wouldn't have to go back inside. The damnable lack of vampire mental powers betrayed me as usual, but luck was on my side tonight. The doors popped open, and Claude exited, flanked by the couple from inside.
"Bob! Meet Nick and Nora! They're going to be driving down to Texas with us if we actually end up going."
"What do you mean if? That's the plan—"
"Remember when you said that Harry hasn't been able to find Beatrice anywhere? It turns out he was looking in all of the wrong places."
"We know where you can find her," Nora said, and she didn't look too happy about it. In fact, she looked like she wanted revenge of the worst kind. Nick was the calmer one, but that may have been because he just expressed himself a lot more directly.
"We want to help you kill her."