Samantha Moon: First Eight Novels, Plus One Novella (129 page)

“
What’s going on?” he said.

“
We’re going to talk,” I said.

He scanned the room, tilting his head a little, listening hard. He was someone who trusted his senses, his instincts. I could see that. That was probably why he was such a good fighter. Except now the information that was being returned to him had to be a tad confusing. A woman alone. A house broken into. His jiggly girlfriend was imprisoned in a closet, a closet which was now barred by his heavy dresser.

“Who’s here with you?” he asked.

“
Just little ole me.”

Without taking his eyes off me, he nodded toward the blocked closet. “Who moved that dresser?”

“That would be me.”

He stared at me for another two seconds. “I’m calling the police,” he decided.

“No, you’re not.”

“
Do you have a gun?”

“
No.”

This time he actually shook his head, no doubt trying to clear it. “How did you get in?”

I grinned and pointed at the balcony. I grinned because his robe had fallen open and I could see his wahoo. Not very impressive. Then again, I had been dating the hulking Kingsley.

“
Your weiner’s showing,” I said.

He ignored me. “Why are you here? What do you want?”

“We’re going to talk about Caesar Marquez. And you’re going to put your little wee-wee away.”

He did so, absently, tying off his robe.

“You’re here alone?” he said, clearly confused by this notion.

“
Yes.”

“
Do you have any idea who I am?”

“
Yes. You’re Andre Fine. Five-time karate  champion and, according to some, an expert at
dim mak
. Or the touch of death.”

He shook his head some more and walked out into the middle of his room. He turned and faced me. “And you broke into my house?”

“Technically, I didn’t break anything. Think of it more as
appeared
. I appeared in your house.”

“
You have a lot of balls.”

“
I have a lot of something.”

He stared some more and the energy around him crackled, picking up. His bright green aura turned brighter. Added to the mix were some hot pinks and reds.

“Who do you work for?” he asked.

I shook my head and walked toward him. “New rule. I ask the questions from now on.”

He watched me closely, eyes narrowing. He was also slowly getting into a fighter’s stance, perhaps unconsciously. Jill screamed again from inside the closet, banging against the sturdy door.

I stopped a few feet from him. “You’re confused as hell, aren’t you? Poor guy. A woman comes here. Rearranges the place. Makes your big-boobed girlfriend disappear. Stands here alone, unarmed and unafraid. Confusing as hell, I imagine.”

His eyes continued to narrow, even as he continued lowering into a fighting stance.

“
Makes you want to do what you do best, huh?” I said. “To fight?”

He’d had enough. He lashed out with a straight punch that was much faster than I had anticipated.

Chapter Forty-two

But he wasn’t fast enough.

I tilted my head to the right just as his punch
whooshed
past my ear. His hand snapped back immediately and he looked at me comically, blinking rapidly. He hadn’t expected to miss. He had expected, no doubt, to knock me out cold.

A woman. Nice guy.

He stepped back, cracked his neck a little and did a little dance to loosen up his limbs. His little pecker poked out again, curious.

I didn’t move. I didn’t answer. I didn’t get into a fighter’s stance. I said, “During an exhibition fight two weeks before Caesar Marquez’s death in the ring, you delivered what many thought was a cheap shot.”

Andre said nothing. With his aura crackling a neon green, he lashed out again. This time I didn’t bother moving my head; instead, I brushed off the punch with a swipe of my hand. My counter-block had been fast. Supernaturally fast, and it sent Andre’s forward momentum off to the side, where he stumbled a little, but quickly regained his balance.

“
It was supposed to be an exhibition,” I said, watching him. “I called the event organizers. No live punches. Just light stuff. Easy-to-block stuff. Entertain the crowd. Great photo ops. Three rounds of laughter and fun and good times.”

Andre was bouncing on his feet now, bouncing and kind of circling me, too. There was no confusion on his face. Just grim determination. I had seen the same look in many of his YouTube videos. He was treating me like an opponent. I felt honored.

“But in the last twenty seconds of the third round, you punched Caesar Marquez. Hard. For no apparent reason, and against protocol. Some called it a cheap shot. I call it something else.”

Andre Fine turned into a cornered wild cat, unleashing a ferocious onslaught of kicks and punches and spinning jumps, lashing out with elbows and knees and fists and feet. It was a pretty display. I had seen him unleash similar onslaughts against his opponents during his many filmed matches. During those matches, one or more of the punches or kicks would land home, sending his opponent to the mat, and making a winner out of Andre Fine. A five-time champion, in fact.

But here in the spacious area between the foot of his bed and his adjoining bathroom, the area where his big dresser had sat but was now conveniently moved across the room, I blocked punch after punch, kick after kick. Sometimes, I didn’t block, but simply moved my head a fraction of an inch. At one point he tried a helluva fancy kick, jack-knifing his body splendidly, swinging his foot around so fast that, had I been mortal, I was certain my jaw would have been broken. I wasn’t mortal though, so I saw the kick coming a mile away. Instead, I caught his ankle and spun him around like a ballerina.

We did this dance a few more minutes until I finally found the opening I was looking for, and delivered a straight punch. Nothing fancy. Just a straight shot delivered from shoulder height, and hard enough to send him stumbling backwards where he collided into his footboard, which he held onto briefly, before sinking down to the floor.

I walked over to him, knelt down, lifted his chin with my finger and said, “Now, we’re going to talk.”

Chapter Forty-three

We were sitting on his balcony.

Jiggly Jill was long gone. It turned out that Jill wasn’t much of a girlfriend. She had been someone he’d picked up tonight at a party. I doubted she would go to the police. Truth was, she hadn’t a clue what had happened to her or what was going on, and just before she left, just as she was pulling on her clothes, I gave her a very strong suggestion to
not
go to the police.

She merely nodded, grabbed her stuff, gave Andre one last, fearful look, and headed out front to wait for her taxi.

“Don’t look so sad,” I said. “There’s more where she came from.”

Andre was presently pressing a bag of frozen peas to his right eye and alternately smoking. It was multi-tasking at its best. I suspected the cigarette might be accelerating the rate at which the bag of peas was melting, but decided to keep my hypothesis to myself.

When we listened to a car door open and heard what we both assumed was the taxi speeding off, Andre ground out his cigarette and looked at me.

“
Who the fuck are you?”

“
A private investigator.”

He blinked. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“
Where did you learn to fight like that?”

I shook my head and motioned to the pack of cigarettes. He reached down and shook one out for me. I plucked it out deftly. He next offered me a light and I leaned into it and inhaled. I exhaled a churning plume of blue-gray smoke, and said, “If I told you, I would have to kill you.”
             

“
Fine,” he said. “I’ve never come across someone like you.”

“
And I doubt you ever will again.”

He studied with his free eye; the other being, of course, hidden behind a melting bag of Green Giant peas. “I believe it.”

I had a thought, and wondered just how far I could go with this mind-control business. I waited until he caught my eye with his one good eye, and said, “I will tell you what I am, but when I leave your house, you will forget it completely. Understood?”

He looked at me—and looked at me some more—and finally, his one good eye went blank. He nodded. My suggestion had sunk home. A moment later, the dazed look disappeared, and he looked at me again as he had a moment or two before: with confusion and maybe a little awe.

“I’m not human,” I said. “Not really. I’m something else. Some call me a vampire.”

He lowered the bag of peas. His other eye was nearly swollen shut. I saw it working behind all the puffy folds, trying to see through. “You’re serious?”

“Deadly.”

“
And that explains why you’re so fast?”

“
Yes.”

“
And strong?”

“
Yes.”

He had witnessed my skills firsthand, had seen me doing things he had never seen another human do. It wasn’t hard for him to accept that I was perhaps something different.

“But I thought vampires were, you know, only in books.”

“
A form of them are, yes.”

He was about to ask me another question and I shook my head. “We’re not here about me, Andre. Do you understand?”

He nodded again, resigned. He returned the peas to his swollen eye and sat back a little in his chair.

I said, “When did you learn the
dim mak
?”

“
Years ago. From a master in Japan.”

“
Have you used it before?”

He brought his cigarette to his lips. “Can’t vampires read minds or something?”

“Often.”

“
So it would do me little good to lie.”

“
Little good.”

“
And what will you do with this information?”

“
I haven’t decided yet.”

“
Will you go to the police?”

“
Maybe. But I doubt they’ll believe me.”

He chuckled lightly. “True.”

Andre Fine was thirty-six years old and well spoken, but I sensed an urban roll to his words. No surprise there, since he had grown up in New Jersey. I knew he had a long list of priors, some of them violent. He had spent six years of his life in various prisons. He was a street fighter—no doubt, a natural fighter—one who had honed his skill into something deadly.

As I sat there looking at him, I suddenly knew why he did what he did. And how he could afford such a lifestyle. Whether it was a psychic hit or not, I didn’t know. But I suddenly knew the truth.

“You’re a hired killer,” I said.

He glanced at me and shook his head and smiled. “You’re good, lady.”

I waited. He waited. I knew his every instinct was rebelling against talking to me, but I knew he would, even without my prodding.

“
Yes, I am. Of sorts.”

“
What does that mean?”

“
It means I can’t always guarantee death. Some survive the
dim mak
.” He shrugged. “Others don’t.”

“
Caesar Marquez was one of those who didn’t.”

He shrugged again. The sign of a true killer. Nonchalance about life and death. Would I ever be that way? God, I hoped not.

“So, people hire you to kill people?” I asked.

“
That’s how it works, lady.”

“
Only you can’t guarantee death.”

He nodded. “It’s impossible to guarantee death.”

“The victim dies two weeks later,” I said, “so no one expects foul play.”

He grinned at me, his cigarette dangling from his lower lip. “That’s the beauty of it, lady.”

“Your hands are registered as lethal weapons, are they not?”

“
They are. So, you’re really a vampire?”

“
I really am.”

“
Jesus.”

“
He’s not a vampire, as far as I’m aware. Give me your hands.”

He did, hesitantly, setting aside the peas. I wasn’t compelling him to do what I wanted, but I think he thought I was, and that was good enough. I took his hands and instantly had image after image of bar fights and street fights and back alley brawls. In all of them, Andre was wearing a hood and shades. In disguise.