The Vampire Files - Bloodlist Part 10

We went straight to the gla.s.s-paneled door and from the safety of the dark on our side, looked in. His eyes lit up at the sight of all that equipment. He stared at everything for nearly a minute, then grabbed my arm and backed us away.

"What's it about?" I whispered.

He shook his head with a small, impatient movement. "I've got to get in there.

Can you get rid of the guard?"

"How permanently?"

"Nothing fatal, if you don't mind-wait, he's moving."

We shrank deeper into the shadows, watching through the gla.s.s. The man left the magazine open on the table, ma.s.saged his back, stood, and stretched. He checked his watch, yawned, and unlocked the stairway door, then secured it again from the other side.

I darted forward, sieved through our door, and let Escott in. "You've only got a few minutes."

"How do you know?"

I pointed to the now-empty gla.s.s of milk. "He's headed for the can to get rid of that, so he won't take long."

"Excellent deduction," he approved, and went to work, prowling the length of the room, inspecting the variety of gla.s.s tubes and flasks, and poking nosily into cabinets. In one of them he found a handwritten notebook of some kind and in another was a small safe. He suppressed a bark of triumph, dropped on his haunches, and tried the handle. We were both surprised when it turned and the door swung open.

"What's inside?"

"Something odd," he said more to himself than to me. He opened the book, scanning page after page, visibly puzzled.

"Anything wrong?"

Too occupied to pay attention, he reexamined some sealed gla.s.s containers that seemed to be filled with liquid chrome. He tapped one and the convex surface vibrated like a molten mirror. Leaving them, he searched for and located a supply of chemicals in a walk-in closet. He read the labels but opened a container anyway to make sure of the contents. A smell like rotten eggs drifted into the air, and he looked like a kid who'd just gotten everything he ever wanted for Christmas."Come on, what is it?"

"No real heat source except those Bunsen burners," he muttered thoughtfully, "but that could be talked around. Well, well! We can leave now.''

"Glad to hear it."

He returned everything to its place except the book, and we got out about ten seconds before the guard returned. He got comfortable with his magazine again and began reading.

"Why isn't he at the party?" I whispered.

"Probably shy. Come on."

Back at the kitchen stairs, he sat on the second lowest step, pulled out a small flashlight, and studied the book. Five minutes later he was shaking so hard with silent laughter he had to close it up to get his breath back.

He held it out to me. "If nothing else, this would be proof enough of Frank Paco's criminal tendencies, for is it not well-known that you can't cheat an honest man?"

"What is it?"

He rolled the Latin out slowly and with evident pleasure. ' 'Magnum opus.''

"What great work?"

"Open the first page, read what is printed at the top."

" 'What is above is as that which is below, and what is below is as that which is above.' What's it about, burying people?"

"A kind of philosophy, a seeking for enlightenment which has since become corrupted and obscured by ign.o.ble charlatans. You saw the mercury and sulfur. All that was lacking was a purifying furnace. This, my dear fellow, is alchemy."

"Alchemy," I repeated blankly. "Paco is trying to make gold?'

"Pah! The man hasn't the education."

"He's got a tame chemist, then."

"More likely a chemist c.u.m physics." He shook his head. "Not a genuine one, but a fraud in every sense of the word."

"A con man?"

"Precisely."

"Somebody's convinced Paco he can turn lead into gold?""Not lead, but mercury. It's next up from gold on the periodic table. The notes in that book indicate they plan to use radium-"

"Radium?"

"-in some exotic process that will knock an atomic number or two from the mercury so they end up with either gold or platinum."

"That's impossible."

"In theory it seems quite possible, but that is just in theory."

"It is impossible?"

"Given the present state of science, yes, but the idea can be so beautifully profitable if presented in the right way to greedy and receptive ears. This is a confidence trickster of rare genius and no small audacity. It would be an honor to meet the fellow."

"But where can he get radium?"

"He doesn't have to get any-that's what I found in the safe."

"An unlocked safe? But radium is more expensive than gold."

"Astronomically more expensive and far more dangerous to have lying so casually around. Only four years ago there was a case of a Pittsburgh man who died horribly from ingesting a quack medicine containing radioactive salts. The radium they have tucked away in that unlocked safe is nothing more than a convincing subst.i.tute. No doubt it was purchased by the mark for a large sum of cash from the con artist's partner."

"So the phony radium and all this lab equipment are just so much window dressing?"

"A new twist to a very old game, don't you think?"

"Yeah, I also think that maybe Paco is wise to it and pulling the strings of the con man. He's got a lot of money swilling his booze upstairs and might take some of the greedier ones on a little tour down here."

"A good point," he admitted. "Again, I seem to have underestimated the opposition. All right, we discard the outside con man for the moment and put Paco in his place instead. He chooses a few gullible prospects from his guests, leads them to think he can make an unlimited quant.i.ty of gold by using radium as a modern- day Philosophers' Stone and offers them the opportunity to invest-"

"Or help buy the radium-"

"Then the experiments end in failure and Paco pockets the unspent cash.""You think he borrowed the cash from Morelli to start with, just to build this lab?"

"It makes quite a convincing backdrop, does it not? I talked with Shoe again today and he was able to confirm that Paco had borrowed a quant.i.ty of cash from Morelli about a month ago, before you came to town."

"You don't think this is connected with me?"

"I really don't know. For the moment the most I'll say is that it seems unlikely."

"It's a beautiful situation, though."

"In what way?"

"Pace's left himself wide open-I mean if anything should happen to that lab..."

"Are you suggesting we do something precipitant?"

"Any objections?"

"After what Paco nearly had done to me, I don't give a b.l.o.o.d.y d.a.m.n what happens to him so long as it's something terribly unpleasant."

"You got any ideas?"

"Yes, but I want Shoe's people well clear of this before we do anything. Is the car in place?"

"Just like you marked on the map."

"Good. I must ask you to go there and wait for me. The catering staff leaves at midnight."

"Sure, but what are you planning to do?"

We'd been too loud, or our voices had carried in some freak way, for the gla.s.s- windowed door to the lab opened and the bas.e.m.e.nt lights flared on. Escott's back was to them, and his body shielded mine with shadow. He slipped his thick gla.s.ses back on and whispered a one-word order for me to hide. The last I saw of him was his startled expression as I vanished.

"Hey! Who are you?" Heavy aggressive footsteps approached and braked. "Hey!

I'm talking to you! What are you doing here?"

"I wash up," Escott mumbled in the same voice he'd used to such good effect last night. I moved up behind the man; if there was going to be trouble, I wanted to be in a position to take care of it.

"Yeah? Well, what's to wash down here? You dunno, huh? Get back up to the kitchen. Gowan-move. It's more than your a.s.s is worth if you come down here again."

They both trooped up the stairs. He pushed Escott out, locked the door, and clomped down again. He moved around the bas.e.m.e.nt, checking to see if he missed anyone, but eventually returned to the lab with a weary sigh and shut off the lights.

He sounded bored, which wasn't good. A bored man is on the lookout for distraction.

Whatever Escott had in mind, we'd have to be careful.

I floated upstairs and outside, appearing at the window as before. Escott was busy scrubbing, trying to catch up on lost time.

"I'll be at the car," I whispered.

He nodded as though in time to some unheard inner musk, and splashed another of pile of dishes into the soapy gray water.

The guards patrolling the estate were visible a mile off. I had no trouble avoiding them, but the dogs were another matter. They'd been on the other side of the grounds when I'd first arrived and were now making an importune circuit of my escape route. One of the men had a big mongrel on a short lead that caught my scent. Its ears went flat and he came charging, dragging his master. I like dogs, but this time my vanishing trick was never more welcome.

I was near a pine tree and used it to orient myself, hanging close to the trunk to keep from drifting in the slight wind. The man and dog approached and he let the animal sniff around. However, it did not like blundering into the s.p.a.ce I was occupying, and at first contact the dog gave an unhappy yelp and decided to seek something else to threaten that was a little more within his experience. He broke away and ran off, his master in hot and annoyed pursuit.

It was way past time to quietly beat it out of there. The commotion was drawing the kind of attention that was only welcome in a three-ring circus. I formed up solid again and, moving fast, got away from the clown-and-dog act and found the fence I'd climbed coming in. It was a long five minutes of tearing through brush, brambles, and long gra.s.s to reach the car and something of an anticlimax once there, since I had nothing to do until Escott came. For the next couple of hours I plucked greenery from my clothes, kicked at stones, and ducked every time a set of headlights appeared on the nearby road.

Shortly after twelve a large truck rumbled up from Pace's and stopped for a few seconds. A single tall figure hopped from the back, waved to someone inside, and was left in the exhaust as the truck drove off. There was a spring in Escott's step, as though he were on vacation and hadn't spent the evening washing dishes for a man who'd tried to have him killed.

"Sorry about that interruption. I'm certainly glad the fellow missed seeing you."

"You didn't get into trouble?"

"Not at all. I think the man was reluctant to inform anyone that a person of my apparent intellectual capacity managed to get down there in the first place, as it would make him look bad."

"Good, I didn't want to have to do anything he'd regret. You going to get rid of that face?"

"Yes, I'm beginning to sweat it off, anyway." He opened the Nash's trunk and turned on a small flashlight with a piece of red gla.s.s over the bulb instead of the usual clear covering. He noticed that I noticed. "You may have excellent night vision, but I must preserve my own as best I can."

He fixed the light so he could work, and hauled up a large metal box; the layered, unfolding kind used by fishermen to hold their lures and other equipment. Instead of spare hooks and lines, it contained a wide a.s.sortment of greasepaints, powders, brushes, sponges, and a dozen other things I couldn't identify in all the clutter. It was the only thing of his that was not starkly clean and neat.

Working quickly in what for him was very dim light, he removed the gla.s.ses, false forehead, some protruding teeth from his lower jaw, a ragged gray wig, and odd tufts of hair. He smeared cold cream on and wiped the rest of the makeup off on a thin towel that had seen better days, then closed the kit up. He shrugged out of the white dishwasher's coat and b.u.t.toned a dark shirt on in its place.

"Now we can get to work."

"My question still stands: what have you got planned?"

He reached into the trunk again and pulled out my answer.

"You're kidding. You carry that stuff around with you?"

"I try to be prepared and I am not kidding. You can put this where it will do the most good."

"Where? Up Frank Paco's-"

"Don't be crude. He has unwisely indebted himself to Slick Morelli to construct facilities to 'produce' his dream gold. You have suggested that if those facilities were destroyed-"

"Well, not in so many words..."

"This could be a setback he can't afford."

"Couldn't he just start over?"

"I think not, since his credibility in the criminal community would be destroyed as well once the story got out, and I can make sure it does. It's cost him a lot to set things up, and he might not be able to clear the debt with his creditor."

"He might get rubbed out.""That is a possibility. If you have second thoughts let me know now, for this is a felony.''

"My murder was a felony. Paco owes us both one, so let's go collect."