A Taste Of The Nightlife Part 9

My vampire sidekick settled back against the wall, his expression under the sloping hat brim both appraising and skeptical. "I take it you were not aware of Mr. Watts's current place of employment."

"No." This was bad. This was taking me to all the wrong places via all the wrong streets. I could dig up and screw up way too much doing this.

"And perhaps Detective O'Grady neglected to mention it?" Sevarin c.o.c.ked his head. "Or was it your brother who neglected to mention it?"

Chet might not have known. Watts couldn't have been working there that long. Chet doesn't go to the bite-easy often. Probably he's never been there while Watts was on shift.

"I have a suggestion," Sevarin went on.

"I'll bet." It was more reflex than anything else at that point and Sevarin sighed impatiently.

"It has been a long time since I've had to seduce a woman in such unpleasant surroundings. I promise if you are still interested later, I'd be happy to attend to the business properly."

"No, thanks."

"Why not? I believe we would both very much enjoy it." His voice dropped to a whisper, and the s.p.a.ce between us got both smaller and warmer without either one of us moving a muscle. "Or are you afraid, Charlotte Caine?"

I did not ease away from Sevarin. That would have been more of an admission than I was ready to make. "I'm not sleeping with a dining critic. It would look bad when Nightlife reopens."

"How disappointingly businesslike of you. Well, we shall continue this discussion later." He straightened up, eyeing the street as he tugged thoughtfully on his hat brim. "Now, it is also clear that stealth is not your mtier. I propose that you go to Post Mortem and interview the proprietor about his staffing strategies. I will wait here and follow Mr. Watts when he leaves. It is probable he will be going from here to work his shift. If that's the case, I will meet you there. If not, I will call and let you know where he has gone."

"You are not going anywhere near Chet," I told him.

"Not until I know more about what's going on."

It wasn't the a.s.surance I wanted, but it had the virtue of being honest.

"You have my number?"

"I am ancient among my kind." Sevarin's voice dropped into that dangerous vampire rumble. "So ancient, indeed, that I remember how to use a phone book."

Against all the odds, I had to hd back a laugh. "You are ever so slightly insane. Do you know that?"

He smiled and my heart tried to retreat against my spine. "Ever so slightly. Do we have an agreement?"

I wanted to say something about just for this and just for the moment, but considering the directions my little comments had ended up taking us, I decided to shut my mouth. Besides, he had his eyebrows quirked in a way that in the living and the dead indicates a quip in the chamber, ready to fire.

"We have an agreement," I said.

"Then I suggest you leave before you are seen. Until later, Chef Caine."

"Yeah."

It had been years since I'd been this uncertain about what I was doing, much less what I was feeling. But I walked out of that stairwell and down Bleecker without looking back. Not even once.

Really.

PM was already swinging when I pushed open the dungeonesque door. A hyped-up hip-hop tango instantly overwhelmed the traffic noises. Out-of-towners in heavy goth rig-out shook whatever they had on a dance floor lit primarily by the jumbo video screens flashing video clips from Midnight Moon. I averted my eyes to scan the rest of the room.

Licensed vamp bars-sorry, nightblood clubs-come in two flavors: modern goth and traditional goth. Both go heavy on the crimson velvet. There's plenty of lace, leather and mascara on the staff and cheap red wine in the gla.s.ses. The difference is that one plays thrash metal and has a lighted dance floor and the other goes in for Carmina Burana and chaise longues. Here, however, is the dirty little secret: most New York vamp bars are not run by vampires. They are run by humans, and mostly for the tourist trade. Some of them even pay nightbloods to put in an appearance. As far as I knew, the owners of Post Mortem didn't stoop that low, but they did lean very heavily on the atmosphere.

A waifish, hollow-cheeked young woman behind the polished black bar deftly handled both c.o.c.ktail shakers and cow-eyed boys in black who lined up for legal absinthe and dirty martinis. Either I'd beaten Taylor here, or he was on his way somewhere else. I thought about getting a seat at the bar, but decided against it. If at all possible, I wanted to see Taylor before he saw me. I don't know for sure what good I thought this would do me, but the maneuver seemed to fit the mess I found myself in.

I took a deep breath and a.s.sumed my "I know what I'm doing" walk as I approached the coffin-shaped podium that served as the hostess station. The wall behind was covered with black and red T-shirts proclaiming I DID IT IN THE PM and priced at $45.

Jesus, Chet, I thought you had better taste.

"Hi!" The hostess's perky level was very much at odds with her predictably funereal color scheme of dyed-black hair, black eyeliner on full blast and black lace dress revealing a lot of very white cleavage. "Welcome to Post Mortem. How many in your party?"

"Just one. And could you please tell Mr. Shelby that Charlotte Caine would like to see him when he's got a minute?" I handed over my card.

"Sure thing, Miss Caine. If you just wanna follow me?"

Hostess Perky Goth led me to a table near the kitchen. Normally this is not a good seat, but as you might expect, it's one I prefer, because it's perfect for spying on what comes out of the kitchen.

I wasn't expecting much in that department. This was a place for drinks, dancing and hookups. The food would be an afterthought. This did not stop me from opening the menu Perky Goth left behind.

When I did, my jaw dropped.

There was a pumpkin soup with a foam of veal "raw sauce." There was a beef carpaccio with scallions and orange zest. The recommended drink to go with it was a pitcher of the house special sangria.

It was the menu for Nightlife-my menu all laid out in near-illegible faux-medieval lettering surrounded by a black lace frame.

At that moment I actually saw red.

Chefs steal from one another. You can't trademark your blue cheese dressing, so if it's caught fire you can be sure your "friendly" compet.i.tion is going to try to figure out how to imitate it, or better it if they can.

But the whole of a menu-that's a chef's signature. A good one takes months to a.s.semble, test and perfect. I put everything I had into designing the dishes for Nightlife. And here they were, reduced to second-rate noshes made with ingredients that probably came frozen from some warehouse, if they hadn't just fallen off the back of the truck.

But what stabbed deep and twisted was that any one of the posers on the dance floor might be planning on going to Nightlife (when it reopened). They'd take one look at our menu and say, "Hey, this is just like that Post Mortem place." Then they'd spread the word about it, and it'd be out there for the world to see. Nightlife, my life, my haven and hard work was just like this made-over tourist dive.

This had to be Taylor Watts's revenge for being fired. If I hadn't been ready to murder him before, I was ready now.

"Charlotte Caine. Great to finally meet you."

I folded the menu shut, placed it carefully down on the table and looked up at Bert Shelby.

Like most of his customers, Shelby was trying way too hard to look the part. He had streaked his hair black and white in a style that didn't look good on the twentysomethings, let alone the headed-for-fortysomething in front of me. He had a long face, and a sharply sloped, pointy nose. The Adam's apple protruding from his long neck bobbed up and down behind the brick red turtleneck like it was trying to come up for air. The hand he held out was long and delicate, with carefully manicured, black-painted fingernails.

"Thanks for agreeing to see me." I got the kind of flabby handshake that makes you think the worst of the person, even if you didn't before. Shelby was checking me out. Whether this was because he was mistakenly interested in me or because he wanted to see if I was going to stuff that tacky stolen menu down his throat, I wasn't sure.

"Sure thing." Shelby sat down. "I heard about your . . ." He waved vaguely toward the door, presumably to indicate the crime scene. "How's that going?"

I shrugged. "Slow. Cops and bureaucracy."

"Sucks." He shook his head. "Have they told you when they'll let you open again?"

"Soon, hopefully. Speaking of Nightlife . . ."

"Yes?" The Adam's apple bobbed a couple extra times.

"I understand you're employing our old bartender."

"Taylor Watts? Yeh. Big favorite with the girls."

"I'll bet."

"We keep him on special for Ladies' Night. Pretty much doubled our take on Thursdays. I was really surprised when Chet said he was out of work-"

The music from the dance floor throbbed painfully hard against my skull for a moment. "Chet said?"

"Yeah."

"Chet asked you to hire him?"

"No." Shelby's brow furrowed, like he was just beginning to suspect I did not feel friendly. "He just said he was on the lookout for a job for a friend."

"Was this before or after he caught you stealing our menu?"

"St-" The Adam's apple went still and Bert's eyes narrowed. "You think I stole your menu?"

"All our house dishes laid out in black and red." I pushed the menu across the table toward him. "Are you going to say it's just a coincidence?"

"I didn't steal anything."

"You want me to believe you bought your info off my ex-employee in good faith?"

Bert drummed his fingers on the table, a little flurry of clicking sounds under the endless pulse of the music. "Well, one of us has definitely got the wrong idea." He pushed his chair back and stood up, menu clutched in his long hand. "You're going to have to excuse me. I've got to get back to work."

"I need to talk to Watts."

"You talk to him all you want. He'll be in for his shift at eleven." Bert shook his head. "I'd heard you were smart." And he walked away.

I sat there at my little empty table near the kitchen. The odors of sweat, blood and cinnamon wafted past on harsh blasts from the air conditioner. The music beat against my ears and squeezed my head.

I'd heard you were smart, Bert had said. I was smart, but I didn't feel that way now. I felt stupid and cheated. Because it was clear Bert hadn't bought my menu from Taylor Watts.

Chet had gotten Watts a job here. Chet was using this place as his alibi for the night of Dylan Maddox's murder. Chet had sold this thrift-store goth-man my menu. Yes, theoretically, anybody could have walked into Nightlife and copied the list of dishes. But if that's what happened, Chet would have said something when he saw it here. He would have raised the roof, or told me so I could do it. He didn't. He kept quiet and gave me no reason to come in here.

All around me, people talked and laughed and swilled bad sangria and watched the dancers. Movement caught my eye. A slim, pale female vampire with a wealth of red hair trolled the edges of the floor under extreme close-ups of Joshua Blake's dark eyes, and I froze.

It can't be. . . .

But the vampire turned and her cold, dry gaze brushed across me. She was a stranger. All the air whooshed out of my lungs. I had to get away from here. Now. I needed air. I lurched toward the side exit and stumbled out into the alley.

Chet was lying. My little brother was lying and covering up and giving away my work, our work. I staggered ahead for about a yard before I fell against the wall and caught myself on my hands. What the h.e.l.l? After everything we'd done together and everything I'd tried to for him, what the h.e.l.l? I stood there, bent over, fingers trying to dig into brick, stomach heaving.

It occurred to me this was pretty much the position I'd found Brendan Maddox in this afternoon. What had driven him into the shadows trying to control his sick anger? Who had let him down this far?

"Well, well. What's all this, then?"

I whirled around. A vampire boy, still in his teens but with eyes that were way too old for his gangling frame, grinned at me, letting both fangs shine in the fluorescent light. His skin sagged loose against his delicate bones, meaning he hadn't fed yet tonight.

He wasn't alone. A girl who looked about the same age glided in from the mouth of the alley. I recognized her as the vamp I'd seen near the dance floor. Her red hair hung in ringlets around the shoulders of a white Regency dress. A black velvet band circled her throat, and tattoos circled that. The effect was impressive, and would have been even if I hadn't been able to tell she was hungry too.

"No," I said. "I'm not asking."

"Just relax, honey," said the girl, also giving me the full-fang-effect grin. "I can make it good. You'll like it, I promise."

The boy leaned against the club door and folded his arms.

"No," I said again. I'm an idiot. A total effing idiot. My hands were empty. I didn't even have a crucifix, let alone any silver or sharpened wood.

The boy vamp snapped his fangs at me and the girl sauntered forward. They were trying to drive me down the alleyway, away from the street, to someplace nice, private and very dark. Maybe there was even a convenient dead end to back me up against.

So I did the only thing I could think of.

I screamed and charged straight at the girl. My shoulder hit her dead center. Even if she'd been alive, I would have outweighed her by twenty pounds. She went down, and I kept running.

Arms grabbed me and threw me onto the pavement. Concrete pummeled my head and arms as I rolled. My breath was gone, and I saw stars and streaks of light. Before the world stopped spinning, hands had hold of both my arms and had hauled me upright-and I was staring into Vamp Boy's grinning face.

"You should not have done that." He slurred the words around his gleaming fangs. "You've made Angeletta mad." He spun me around to face the girl. Her white dress was streaked with grime now. Her pretty blue eyes glared from deep in their sockets, and all the skin was drawn tight against her bones. She looked like starvation itself, and she was coming toward me.

It was a lousy time to discover I had no survival instinct. "Angeletta? You've got to be kidding me. 'Fess up. You're a Suzy. Or a Jane."

Her bony hand gripped my jaw, forcing my mouth closed. She leaned in close so I couldn't see anything except her hungry eyes. "I am your doom, Charlotte Caine."

My heart banged against my ribs and I squirmed, trying to get free of even one of the vampires. Their flesh was too soft, their eyes too dry, and they were too strong. They laughed at me, and they stank like meat left to rot.

Vamp Boy forced my head back until I was looking up at the dark streak of sky between the buildings. I was going to die, die stupid in an alley. . . .

"Let her go."

Vamp Boy jerked around, taking me with him. A man emerged from the back of the alley. I opened my mouth, expecting to shout for help from Sevarin.

Except it wasn't Sevarin. It was Brendan Maddox.

10.

Let her go, nightblood."