Fast Lane (33 page)

“
You’re throwing away five hundred dollars,” I said again. “If your bank account was flush this wouldn’t be a problem, but you realize today you don’t have enough to cover next month’s expenses.”

His eyes narrowed as he studied the dogs. “I’m well aware of my financial situation,” he said.

“
You haven’t had any wine since last night, so I know you’re not intoxicated,” I said. “The only thing I can figure out is some form of dementia. I’ll hack into John Hopkins research database and see if there’s any information that can help me better diagnose this—”

“
Please, Archie,” he said, a slight annoyance edging into his voice. “The race is about to begin.”

The race began. The gates to the starting boxes opened and the dogs poured out of them. As they chased after the artificial rabbit, I watched in stunned silence. The three dogs Julius picked led the race from start to finish, placing in the precise order in which Julius had bet.

For a long moment—maybe for as long as thirty milliseconds, my neuron network froze. I realized afterwards that I had suffered from stunned amazement—a new emotional experience for me.

“
T-That’s not possible,” I stammered, which was another first for me. “The odds were mathematically zero that you would win.”

“
You realize you just stammered?”

“
Yes, I know. How did you pick these dogs?”

He chuckled, very pleased with himself. “Archie, hunches sometimes defy explanation.”

“
I don’t buy it,” I said.

His right eyebrow cocked. “No?”

He had moved to the cashier window to collect on his Trifecta bet. Forty thousand dollars before taxes, but even with what was left over after the state and federal authorities took their bites would leave his bank account flush enough to cover his next two month’s expenses which meant he was going to be blowing off his three o’clock appointment. I came up with an idea to keep that from happening, then focused on how he was able to win that bet.

“
The odds shouldn’t have been eighty to one as was posted,” I said. “They should’ve been far higher.”

He exchanged his winning ticket for a check made out for the after-tax amount and placed it carefully into his wallet. He turned towards the track exit, and walked at a leisurely pace.

“
Very good, Archie. I think you’ve figured it out. Why were the odds only eighty to one?”

I had already calculated the amount bet on the winning Trifecta ticket given the odds and the total amount bet on the race, but I wanted to know how many people made those bets so I hacked into the track’s computer system. “Four other bets were made for a total of six thousand dollars on the same Trifecta combination.”

“
And why was that?”

I knew the answer from one of the Damon Runyan stories which was used to build my experience base. “The odds of anyone else picking that Trifecta bet given those dogs’ past history is one out of six point eight million. That four other people would be willing to bet that much money given an expected winnings of near zero dollars could only be explained by the race being fixed.”

“
Bingo.”

“
I don’t get it,” I said. “If you knew which dogs were going to win, why didn’t you bet more money?”

“
Two reasons. First, fixing a dog race is not an exact science. Things can go wrong. Second, if I bet more I would’ve upset the odds enough to where I could’ve tipped off the track authorities, and even worse, upset the good folks who set the fix up and were nice enough to invite me to participate.”

I digested that. With a twinkle showing in Julius’s right eye, he informed me that he was going to be spending the rest of the afternoon at the Belvedere Club sampling some of their fine cognacs, and that I should call his three o’clock appointment and cancel. A blond woman in her early thirties smiled at Julius, and he noticed and veered off in her direction, a grin growing over his own lips. Her physical characteristics closely matched those of the actress Heather Locklear, which would’ve told me she was very attractive even without Julius’s reaction to her. This was not good. If Julius blew off his three-o’clock, it could be a month or longer before I’d be able to talk him into taking another job, which would be a month or longer before I’d have a chance to adjust my deductive reasoning model—and what was becoming more important to me, a chance to trump Julius at solving a case.

“
You might like to know I’ve located a case of Romaine Conti Burgundy at the Wine Cellar in Newburyport. I need to place the order today to reserve it,” I said.

That stopped Julius in his tracks.

“
1997?”

“
Yes sir. What should I do?”

He was stuck. He’d been looking for a case of that particular vintage for months, but the cost would mean he’d have to take a job to both pay for the wine and the upcoming monthly expenses, which meant he wouldn’t have time to get to know the Heather Locklear-look-alike. Julius made up his mind. With a sigh he told me that the Belvedere Club would have to wait, that we had a three o’clock appointment to keep. He showed the blond woman a sad, wistful smile, his look all but saying, “I’m sorry, but we’re talking about a ’97 Romaine Conti after all”, and with determination in his step headed towards the exit again. Once outside, he hailed a taxi and gave the driver the address to his Beacon Hill townhouse. I had known about the Romaine Conti for several days, but had held on to the information so I could use it at the appropriate time, one of the lessons I had learned from the Rex Stout books. Internally, I was smiling. At least that was the image I had of myself. A five-foot tall, balding, chunky man, who couldn’t keep from smiling if his life depended on it.

Vampire Crimes (first chapter)

(Note. My plans are to make Vampire Crimes my first originally published eBook by the end of the year. When my agent sent this book out in 2009 it generated a lot of excitement among younger editors who dug it, but ultimately the ultra violent horror nature of it scared off the older editors who were needed for buy in. It came down to that they were afraid a vampire book that was actually horror and a thriller that was actually noir wouldn’t be accepted by readers who want their vampire books to be teen romances. We’ll see. And while some of these book editors were scared off by it, the film producers I showed this to have dug it every bit as much as these younger book editors did, and right now one of the producers working on the Outsourced film is working to get a film deal for it.)

The Door’s Rider on the Storm was playing on the car radio and for a few blessed seconds Jim closed his eyes and let the music roll over him.

How long had it been since he heard that song, or even The Doors, for that matter? Years. Probably the last time was before he got infected. Since hooking up with Carol the two of them would usually have on a 90s alternative rock station—that was the kind of music she liked; her favorite groups Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, and if she couldn’t find one of those stations, she’d either tune in a hip hop station or plug in one of her Kurt Cobain CDs, sometimes Green Day. It didn’t much matter to him. He put her through enough as it was, and if she could find some comfort and peace of mind from her music he was all for it.

With his eyes still closed, the line about a killer on the road brought a sick smile to his lips. Was his own brain squirming like a toad? It sure as hell felt like it. It had been a rough day so far. He had stretched things out and had gone too long between feedings, and now it hurt so bad he could barely sit still. The bright sunlight didn’t help; it made him feel like he was on fire, even with his dark shades and baseball cap pulled down to his eyes. He tugged at the cap, trying to pull it down still further, and sunk lower in his seat, drenched in sweat. It surprised him that he still had any fluids left in his body. He sensed Carol looking at him. He knew she was worried about him and had put on a classic rock ’n roll oldies station to try to keep his mind off of his illness—even though she claimed it was because all they had in Cleveland were classic rock stations, blaming it on their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But they weren’t even in Cleveland yet, still traveling east on Interstate 90, about forty miles outside the city.

Groaning inwardly, he opened his eyes a crack and shifted his gaze towards Carol and noticed her knuckles squeezed white as she gripped the wheel. He was always amazed at how small and delicate her hands were. His gaze moved upwards. She looked so deep in thought, her concern about his condition wrecking her face. He tried smiling at her. She moved one of her hands to grip his and gave him a squeeze.

“
I never should’ve let you wait this long,” she said.

“
I’ll be okay.”

It hurt just talking, his voice soft and hollow and rattling emptily in his throat; the sound of a saw pulled loosely over metal.

She shook her head, the skin tight around her mouth, her jaw pushed forward.

“
I shouldn’t have let you do this,” she said. “Look at you. You’re so sick you can barely sit up.”

He cleared his throat, and again told her that he’d be fine.

“
You’re going to feed tonight,” she said. “I’m not letting you push this out another day.”

There was nothing but strength and determination in her voice. He didn’t argue with her. He knew it wasn’t safe to wait any longer. Already he could feel himself slipping into this crazed state of consciousness, part hallucinations and part animal fury. It would only last for a few seconds, but he had a sense it was going to get worse if he didn’t feed soon, and God knows who he might feed on if he lost control altogether.

Carol let go of his hand to get a better grip on the wheel. It constantly amazed him that she loved him as much as she did. How could someone as wonderful as her love a monster like him? There was no mistaking that that’s what he was, at least what he had become since his infection. Before the infection he was a good-looking guy; six-foot, 190 pounds, dark complexion, muscular, a hardness about him from his time in the Army, along with a constant five-o’clock shadow. The infection dramatically changed his physical appearance. Zero body fat and his muscles lengthening and becoming tough and sinewy. It also lightened his complexion, his hair now white, and his skin becoming smooth with no beard or mustache to worry about. His weight had dropped significantly also, now at 140, and his body becoming lean, cat-like; even his head had changed shape, becoming angular, kind of like the elves in the Lord of the Rings movie. His teeth didn’t change, though, he didn’t develop fangs, but he was still a monster—what else would you call a creature that looked mostly human but needed to subsist on human blood?

The Doors Riders on the Storm ended, and the next song up was The Stones Sympathy For The Devil. The timing of that made him laugh weakly, his insides hurting like hell as his body shook. Sympathy for the devil, huh? How about any sympathy for him, not that he deserved any, at least not with what he has had to do to survive. If he hadn’t met Carol, he probably would’ve found a way to end his life—not that it would’ve been easy with what the virus had done to him, leaving his muscles and tendons as hard as steel and his skin close to bulletproof, and causing this weird kind of super immunity where his vital organs would regenerate on injury.

Before meeting Carol he had thought long and hard about what he would have to do to kill himself if it ended up that way. Explosives, maybe, but then again they could just blow off his limbs and leave him still alive. A guillotine with a sharp enough blade might do the trick; or if he cut himself open and pulled out his heart and made sure no tissue was left behind to regenerate into a new one. Those had seemed like his best bets. Later, days before meeting Carol, he learned first-hand that shoving a hand grenade down a vampire’s throat did the job just fine, but that was something discovered on the spur of the moment. Since Carol, he had put those thoughts out of his head and accepted that he would spend his life traveling aimlessly from city to city feeding when he had to. Nothing else was possible anymore. He cared too deeply for Carol to leave her, especially knowing what it would do to her.

A few final wheezes of laughter shook him, then with his teeth clattering he hugged himself tightly trying to shrink his body from any exposure to the sun. Thin lines showed along the edges of Carol’s mouth as her concern for him deepened. She reached over and caressed his neck.

“
I hate seeing you like this,” she said.

“
I know. But I’ll be okay.”

“
I don’t think you’re going to be able to wait until tonight.”

“
I’ll be able to.”

She paused for a moment, her eyes growing dim as she stared off into the distance.

“
You can feed off of me,” she said, her voice barely above the engine whine of their ’88 Chevy Nova.

“
Please, don’t bring this up again.”

She bit her lip, tried to smile.

“
I want you to,” she said. “We should go through this together.”

“
It’s not going to happen. So stop it, please.”

Jim’s hand shook as he reached over to turn the volume higher on the car radio and at the same time end the discussion. Carol’s cheeks puffed up, obviously frustrated, but she took the hint and dropped the subject. The station played a set of Leonard Cohen songs, and after “Hallelujah” ended, Carol turned off the radio. They rode in silence for a few minutes before she mentioned that she liked those songs and asked who the artist was. Jim told her the name of the musician.