The Vampire Files - Song in the Dark Part 27

From the bathroom came a long exhalation of breath. She emerged, wobbly, clutching a wad of tissue in one hand like a soggy bouquet. "No." Her voice was too high. She stared at the blood on my shirt. "Are you hurt? I heard a shot, but Charles made me stay."

"It's nothing, I'm all better, everything's fine. I took care of the guy. He's gone. He won't be back."

"You know who he is?"

"His name's Mitch.e.l.l, and he's with a guy named Kroun outta New York. I heard he'd been with Morelli before that and didn't want him bothering you... I'm sorry."

She sat at her dressing table, back to the mirror. "You knew about Mitch?"

Mitch. She called him Mitch. Why was that? "Only that he left when Gordy took over. Strome told me."

Bobbi didn't exactly cry like Adelle, but expressed similar symptoms, subdued, but intense, right on the edge. "Did Strome tell you why Mitch left?"

"What is it? He hurt you?" She shook her head. "No." She turned toward the mirror and dabbed her eyes. The damage wasn't too bad. I realized she could no longer look at me straight, though I could see her fine, front and back. Why wasn't she looking at me?

That c.r.a.p Mitch.e.l.l said... "He told me Mitch.e.l.l wouldn't play second fiddle under Gordy."

"Nothing more?"

"Listen, if you don't want to talk about it..." I wanted to hold her, but something told me not to try. I had the sudden feeling of treading on eggs.

"Oh, it's nothing horrible. He's-I'm acting stupidly about the whole thing. He just surprised me showing up so suddenly like that, and then you..." She dumped the wadded tissues in a basket and clawed more from a box on her vanity table. Blew her nose a lot. That seemed the end of it, but tears were leaking out now. She stood and made the limited rounds of the room, fiddling with stuff, trying very, very hard not to lose control. "Anyway, he's long gone, right? You made him leave, so everything's fine. You don't need to be worrying about... oh, don't LOOK at me like that!"

I backed off. I didn't know how I was looking at her. "What?"

Bobbi made a strange wailing noise and fled into the bathroom, slamming the door.

I called to her. All I got in return were the big, racking, moaning sobs of a full-blown breakdown. "Honey? What is it? Bobbi? Come on." I'd never seen her like this before, and it was scaring me. Somehow dealing with Adelle had been so simple, and this... wasn't.

Well, I'd been a.s.sured by Adelle that just holding her had been the right thing to do. This might get worse if I waited.

I vanished, sieved through, and re-formed. Bobbi was on the toilet lid with another bouquet of paper to sop up the outpour. My appearance startled her.

"Not fair!" she yelled. "No! Not fair! You leave! I don't wanna-"

I did what I did with Adelle, arms holding close and tight. Bobbi hiccupped and sobbed, stuttering, and finally broke into a steady shower and, oh, G.o.d, didn't I hate every minute of it.

After forever went by, she wound down to a slow finish, and was a dandy mess from the effort. Women never look good crying unless they're on a movie screen. That's how you can tell it's acting.

She blew her nose for the umpteenth time, but still sounded stuffy, and her voice was thick. "I'm sorry."

"Honey... whatever it is... it's okay." And I meant that. I didn't want her going off the deep end again, or I'd wind up in a b.o.o.by hatch.

"It's about Mitch."

"I kinda figured that. Bobbi, whatever it is, it won't make me hate him any less."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know, but please don't cry anymore. Say the word, and I'll make him disappear, but please..."

Sniff. "Okay, Jack."

"You want him gone?"

"Not the way you're thinking. I just don't ever want to see him again. That's all I want. He j-just brought all the bad stuff back, and I don't want to go through-"

"Okay! It's done. He won't get within a mile of you, I promise."

"Oooh, now my head hurts."

"Don't move, I'll get you something."

I backed from the room, watching her as though she might vanish like me. Halfway down the hall was Faustine, still in her kimono. Roland and Escott watched from the far end, hopefully out of earshot. They had worried faces and were smoking. They both knew better than to do that backstage, but it wasn't the time to play theater cop.

"Jek?" said Faustine, halting me.

"Yeah, not now, I gotta..." She held a gla.s.s of water and a bottle of aspirin. "Heerrre. Take eet. Gif her thrree, make her drink whole glessfool."

"Uh..."

She arched both eyebrows. "Men! Zo 'fraid ov leetle tears. They are de rain ov lof. Now go beck, feex et. Don't come out until she lofs you again! Go!"

I went.

Bobbi settled down after the dosing. She apologized some more, and I told her it was all right and unnecessarily held my breath, but she didn't bust out afresh, so that was good.

"Can you tell me what's wrong?" I belatedly thought that I should have sent Faustine in to do this. Women were better at it.

"This was a couple years ago," Bobbi began.

I nodded.

"Back then it was like I knew everything, yet nothing at all. You know how that is?"

"Several times a night."

"Remember how it was with me and Slick? When we first started it was great, and then it got so he decided he owned me, and I couldn't get out of it. If I did, he'd mess things up for me in every club in Chicago. In order to sing I had to keep myself available and do what I was told."

I nodded some more. I also felt rotten to have to hear all this, knowing how much it tore her up.

"M-mitch was one of the boys there, and he liked me. A lot. For a while I thought he could help me. He said he could get me clear of Slick, and we'd go to Hollywood. We were so careful and it seemed safe and he was much nicer than Slick."

That side of Mitch.e.l.l I couldn't begin to imagine.

"We planned out everything. I figured what to pack into two suitcases, and it was hard, because I was leaving so much behind, but it was worth it for being with him. Starting over. No mistakes this time... then Gordy showed up at my hotel flat.

"He knew Mitch and I were going to run away, when we planned to do it, the works; it was like having your mind turned inside out and read like a book. I denied it all, but he went real patient like he does and told me not to be a sap.

Slick was beginning to suspect, and if he told Gordy to find out for sure, Gordy would have to tell him."

"Did Gordy talk to Mitch.e.l.l?"

"No, not then he didn't. Only me. Gordy was nice about it, but he scared the h.e.l.l out of me. He didn't threaten or anything like that, he just told the truth, very quietly. If I didn't cool things off with Mitch, I'd disappear. There was another guy there, Sanderson, and he did whatever Slick told him, even killing a woman if that's what Slick wanted."

"I remember him." It would probably be decades before the memory of how Sanderson died faded from my mind.

Knowing that suddenly made carrying it a little easier.

"So Gordy broke me, not with threats, but with kindness. He said 'You're a good kid in a bad place, an' I don't wanna see you hurt.' He made me hungry for something I didn't have, and I thought maybe he wanted the same, that that's why he'd come, because he wanted me, too, but Gordy said no. I was cute, but it wouldn't work. Then I begged him to help me get out, and he said that wouldn't work, either. The only way I'd leave was when Slick got bored with me. It would take time, but would happen sooner or later. I'd have to accept that I was Slick Morelli's girl until he decided different."

I'd known some of the story. Didn't make it easier to take, though.

"So I got real busy with my work and rehearsals and couldn't sneak off with Mitch, and Gordy looked out for me and would come up with ways to keep him busy, sending him out of town to do stuff. That's how I finally figured out Mitch was only in it to have the boss's twist and a laugh on him. If he'd really loved me, he'd have found a way around all that and..." She drew and puffed out a deep breath. "And then... then one night you showed up."

"Well, we know what happened after that."

"Glory-hallelujah. When the dust settled and Gordy took over he sent Mitch to New York. He might have left anyway, but Gordy said Mitch had been bragging to the guys that with Morelli gone he'd be 'inheriting' me. That was the word he used."

"Nice guy."

"That's why I was thrown so hard when I saw him. The look on his face was so... so d.a.m.ned smug, and I knew what was going through his head. He thinks he can-"

"Not going to happen, lady. You tell me what you want, and it's there on a silver platter or heading east on the next train. Unless you want to tell him yourself." It was a genuine question, not a joke. Bobbi was sometimes touchy about her battles and tended to fight them herself.

She shook her head. "No! I don't want him anywhere near me. I wouldn't know what to say and he'd go all nasty and then I'd want to belt him and he'd hit back and..."

"Okay! It's solved. He's gone."

Bobbi gave me a look of pure and powerful love and launched up to hug me. It felt good. "Thank you. For this time, anyway. I got to handle stuff like this better. Something else is bound to crop up-"

"No, it's not. Nothing's left in that barrel of woe. It's empty and dry, and we'll bust it up for kindling and roast hot dogs over the fire."

A strange light came to her face as she pulled back to look at me. "Oh, Jack, I do love you."

I almost froze up at that, but miracle of miracles, did not. No shakes, no chill, only warmth. From her and for her.

The other night I'd been terrified about getting close. Tonight... not so much. I welcomed the familiar heat of her touch, and soon felt the pressure above my corner teeth that would cause them to descend...

And decisively extricated myself before anything bad happened. I didn't have the warning symptoms of an approaching seizure, but did recognize the roiling within that proceeded a bout of gluttony in the Stockyards. No matter how tender my feelings toward her, she was... was food.

G.o.d help me.

"Jack? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. There's stuff going on in the club because of that goon, and-and I gotta go... it's business."

I might as well have slapped her. She blinked, startled, then recovered, squared herself. "Okay," she whispered. I left before she started to cry again.

Faustine was still in the hall. "Veil?"

"She's better."

That got me a scowl. "Men!" She stalked toward the number three room, knocked, and went in. "Bob-bee, poor dar- link. Me you tell all about eet." The door shut with a m.u.f.fled whump, the closest she could get to a slam.

Recognizing defeat, I fled to the end, where Roland now waited alone. "Where's Charles?"

"Something came up to call him away. How did it go?"

Shrugged. "Women."

"Ah. Yes. Wonderful, aren't they? Still, I wouldn't have them any other way or they'd be like us, and that wouldn't work at all. And we certainly can't be like them."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Absolutely, sport. We'd look ridiculous in their little jimjams, now wouldn't we? And I got the story of just how Faustine helped you with that crazed drunk with the gun. Now if I'd been there instead and done what she'd done, he'd have probably shot me on purpose. That's why we can't be like them."

Sounded right to me.

"I do need to talk with you about that..."

"I'm sorry, but I can't just now. Business." Like four groggy bouncers on the men's room floor.

He swallowed back whatever annoyance was brewing. "Later, then, sport," he promised.

There was no way of going invisible with him watching, so I had to use the door in the ordinary way and walk through the main room. Poor Teddy was still winging it, filling in for Bobbi's interrupted set. Jewel Caine should have been up there instead, reclaiming her career and going on to better things, sober and free of dragging anvils like her ex- husband. By G.o.d, if Hoyle was the one behind her death...

"Hey, Jack!"

Regulars hailed me from their tables. I dredged up a smile, waved, and kept going. No one remarked about my miraculous appearance on the dance floor, but I got stares.

That's when I realized I was less than perfectly turned out. My clothes were messed around, suit scuffed and dirty from rolling on the floor, shirttails hanging, a b.l.o.o.d.y streak where I'd been grazed (now healed), tie crooked, b.u.t.tons torn off. I continued on like the display was in their imagination.

The bouncers were gathered around the lobby bar, pale and holding ice-filled towels against their heads. Three had drinks, the fourth a Bromo-Seltzer, Wilton's brand of Red Cross aid. Escott was also looking after them, and had a special glare ready for me as I came in. Like any of this was my fault.

"They insist they will be all right," he said.

"But we're gonna kill Ruzzo," said Bromo-Seltzer. The others growled collective agreement.

"After you've seen a doctor," Escott added.

Less growling, more grumbling.

I got the story, and it was pretty much as I'd guessed. Ruzzo, both of them, had invaded, getting the drop on them all. Two men guarding the outside were marched in at gunpoint to join their pals, then the party was quietly moved to the men's room, where they were bashed from behind. It had been accomplished very slick and quiet since neither Wilton or the check girl had noticed anything. h.e.l.l, not even Myrna had flickered so much as a single bulb. Was everyone on sleeping pills?

"I'm not sure just when Mitch.e.l.l made his entry," Escott concluded.

"And I donno if he's working with Hoyle and Ruzzo," I said. "It sure looked like it." I gave him details about the fight and the outcome, but nothing on the reason behind it.