The Traveling Vampire Show (12 page)

“If we explain why ...”

“And what were we doing in her mother’s bedroom?”

“I just went in to look for you.”

“Oh, so you wanta tell Slim what I was doing in her mom’s room?”

I shook my head. I sure couldn’t tell Slim the truth about that.

“You’d better not.”

“Why’d you have to do that?”

“Felt like it,” he muttered. “Anyway, you would’ve done the same thing if you had the guts.”

“Would not.”

“Only you would’ve gone through Slim’s drawers.” Grinning, he raised his eyebrows. “What were you doing by yourself in Slim’s room, huh?”

“Looking at her books.”

“Oh, sure.”

“I didn’t even know you were gone.”

“Uh-huh. Sure.”

“Go to hell.”

Laughing, he patted me on the back.

“Hands off,” I said.

He took his hand away. His smile sliding sideways, he said, “Seriously, you’re not gonna tell Slim about any of this, right?”

“I guess not,” I said.

“You guess not? C’mon, man! I’ve never told on you.”

“I know,” I said, and went a little sick inside at the reminder of all the things Rusty knew about me. “I won’t tell. I promise.”

“Okay. Good deal. It’s just between you and me.”

“Right.”

“Shake on it.”

I looked around. There were houses on both sides of the street and a few people nearby, but nobody seemed to be watching us. So I shook hands with Rusty. His hand was bigger than mine, and very sweaty. He didn’t pull any funny stuff, so I guess he was being sincere.

“If anything comes up,” he said, “we didn’t even go in Slim’s house today.”

“What if somebody saw us?”

“We’ll claim it wasn’t us.”

“Sure thing.”

“We just stick to our story, no matter what.”

“But if somebody saw us ... somebody who knows us...”

“Simple. We just say he’s confused about which day it was. You know? We’ll say we did go into Slim’s house yesterday, but not today. Get it?”

“I guess so.”

“But don’t worry. It’ll never come up. It’s not like anybody got murdered in there.”

“That’s true,” I admitted.

But I got a sick feeling again, because the truth was a lot worse than a broken vase and perfume bottle. Sure, it wasn’t murder. If it ever got out what really happened in Slim’s house, however, people would be giving me and Rusty (especially Rusty) funny looks from now till Doomsday.

“Never happened?” Rusty asked.

“Never happened.”

“Great.” He smiled as if vastly relieved. “That’s that.”

“All we’ve gotta do now,” I said, “is find Slim.”

“She’ll turn up.”

“I wonder if we should check with her mom.”

“At Steerman’s?” Rusty asked. “Oh, great idea! And tell her what? ‘Gosh, Mrs. Drake, have you happened to see your daughter lately? She seems to be missing. We’ve already checked at your house, but she isn’t there.’ ”

“We don’t have to tell her that.”

“We go anywhere near her, she’s gonna know it was us in her bedroom.”

I supposed he was right about that.

“Anyway,” he said, “you think they’ll let us into that restaurant without our shirts on?”

“We could pick up a couple of shirts at your house,” I suggested.

“We can’t go to Steerman’s.”

“But we’ve gotta find Slim! I mean, where the hell is she? How can she just disappear? Maybe somebody jumped her or something. You never saw her make it into her house and she isn’t in her house and she didn’t show up at my house and we haven’t spotted her on the streets—so where is she?”

“She might’ve gone to the hospital.”

At this point, we were only two blocks away from the police station. “I think I wanta talk to Dad about it.”

“Your father? Are you nuts?”

“Maybe he knows something.”

“He’s a cop!”

“That’s the point. If somebody grabbed Slim, the quicker we get the police on it, the better.”

“What’ll we tell him about going to Slim’s house?”

“Never happened.”

Leading the way, I turned the comer toward the police station.

Rusty reached out, clapped a hand on my shoulder and stopped me. “Hang on a minute.”

“What for?”

“You’ll get us all in trouble.”

I turned around and faced him. “If that’s what it takes to find Slim....”

He bared his teeth as if in pain, then said, “I know where she is.”

“What?”

“I know where Slim is.”

“That’s what I thought you said. What’re you talking about?”

“I didn’t exactly tell you everything before.”

“Like what?”

“We didn’t exactly walk home together.”

“Right. You split up at her corner.”

“Well, that’s not exactly the way it happened.”

“Exactly how did it happen?”

“We actually split up ... back at Janks Field.”

“What?”

He shrugged his bare, freckled shoulders and held out his hands, palms upward as if feeling for raindrops. But there was no rain. “Thing is, Slim wouldn’t leave.”

“What?”

“Well, we were up on the roof of the snack stand, you know.”

“Where you were supposed to stay,” I reminded him.

“Well, that’s the thing. Slim did stay. But I didn’t. When we heard these engine noises, we looked over the top of the sign and pretty soon here comes this hearse outa the woods. I go something like, ‘Oh, shit, it’s them.’ But Slim goes, ‘Hey, all right!’ like she’s excited about it. The dog goes running over to bark at the hearse, so I tell Slim we’d better head for the hills while the gettin’s good. Only she won’t do it. She says there’s no reason to run away, and besides, you’ll get all bent outa shape if you come back looking for us and we aren’t there.”

“So you ran away without her?”

“She refused to leave. What was I supposed to do?”

“Stay with her!”

“Hey, man, it was her choice to stay.”

“It was your choice to run.”

“She told me to go on without her. ‘Don’t let me stop you,’ That’s what she said. She also said, ‘Maybe I can get a look at Valeria and see who wins the bet.’ So I jumped down and that’s the last I saw of her.”

“Jesus,” I muttered.

“She planned to wait for you, man. I figured that’s exactly what she did do. When you came driving up to your place with Lee, I figured Slim was gonna be with you.”

“She wasn’t on the roof.”

“Yeah, I know, I know.”

“So why’d you lie?”

“I don’t know.” His voice was whiny. “I figured ... if you found out I’d left her there, you’d give me all sorts of shit about it....”

I almost slugged him in the face, but the sight of my raised fist put such fear in his eyes that I couldn’t go through with it. I lowered my arm. I shook my head. I muttered, “You left her there.”

“You left both of us.”

“That was to get help, you idiot. Don’t you know the difference ?”

“Nobody made her stay behind.”

“So where the hell is she?” I blurted.

“How should I know?”

“Damn it!”

“I thought she’d be at her house by the time we got there.”

“Well, she wasn’t,” I snapped. I gave Rusty a scowl, then started walking away. He stuck with me, walking by my side, his head down.

After a while, he said, “Look, she’s gotta be somewhere. She wasn’t on the roof of the shack when you and Lee got there, so she must’ve jumped down sometime after I did. She probably ran into the woods....”

“Then why isn’t she home yet?”

“Maybe she hung around to keep an eye on things. And to wait for you to show up.”

“But I did show up.”

“Maybe she’d quit by then and started for home.”

“Then where is she?”

“On her way?” he suggested.

“It’s not that far. Lee and I left Janks Field—must’ve been a couple of hours ago.”

“Hour and a half?”

“Whatever, Slim had more than enough time to get home.”

“Maybe we just haven’t looked in the right place yet.”

“She’d be looking for us! And she would’ve found us a long time ago if she’d made it back to town. Which means she didn’t.”

“So what do you think happened?” Rusty asked.

Shaking my head, I told him, “Somehow, she’s out of commission.”

“Huh?”

“Too weak to travel. Passed out. Trapped somehow. Maybe even a prisoner. Or worse.”

“Worse like what?”

“Do I have to spell it out?”

“You mean like raped and murdered?”

Hearing him speak the words, I cringed. “Yeah. Like that.”

We walked in silence for a while. Then Rusty said, “I bet it’ll turn out that she’s fine.”

“She’d better be.”

We’re going to the cops,” I said, and turned a corner toward the police station.

“Do we have to?” Rusty asked.

“Yeah.”

“Your dad’ll find out we went to Janks Field.”

“I don’t care,” I said. I did care, but getting in trouble with my parents didn’t seem like much of a big deal just then.

“He’ll ground you,” Rusty warned.

“Maybe.”

“What about the show?”

“I’m not gonna be allowed to go to that no matter what. And at this point, I don’t give a hot crap about that stupid Vampire Show. I just want to find Slim. The best way to do that is to tell Dad everything that happened.”

Rusty looked shocked. “Not about Slim’s house.”

“We can say we rang the doorbell, but didn’t go in.”

“No! That’ll be admitting we were there!”

“We were there.”

It went on like that for a couple more minutes, but we both shut up as we approached the front doors of the police station.

I went in first. Right away, I regretted it.

With everything else going on, I hadn’t given any thought to Dolly.

The Grandville Police Department was comprised of six cops, my dad included. Two cops per shift, all of whom could be brought into action in case of an emergency.

Since there were no actual police to spare for desk duty, civilians had been hired to act as receptionist/clerk/dispatchers. Dolly worked the day watch.

She was a skinny, bloodless prude. Pushing forty, she lived with her older sister. She disapproved of men in general, and me in particular. The only times she ever seemed happy were when she got to gloat over someone else’s misery.

When I walked through the door, she looked at me from behind the front desk. The comers of her lips curled upward. “Dwight,” she said.

“Hello, Dolly.”

One of her thin, black eyebrows climbed her forehead to show how much she didn’t appreciate any hint of a reference to the Broadway musical.

“Russell,” she said and gave him a curt nod.

“Good afternoon, Miss Desmond.”

She eyed both of us as we approached her. Mostly, she eyed our bare chests. Even though the office was air-conditioned, heat was suddenly rushing to my skin. “Let me guess,” she said. “You’ve come to report the theft of your shirts.”

Rusty laughed politely. It sounded very fake. On purpose, I’m sure.

“We’ve been mowing lawns,” I explained. Not quite a lie. I had been mowing the lawn, Rusty participating as an observer. “Is Dad here?”

“I’m afraid not,” she said, obviously pleased by her announcement. “What seems to be the trouble?”

“I just need to talk with Dad about something.”

“Would it be police business?”

“Sort of,” I said.

She tipped her head to one side and fluttered her eyelashes at me in some sort of mockery of flirtation. “Perhaps you would like to share it with me?”

“It’s sort of personal,” I said.

“In trouble again, are we?” She glanced from me to Rusty, then back to me. “What is it this time?”

“Nothing,” I said. “We didn’t do anything. I just need to talk to Dad for a minute.”

“No can do,” she said, oh so chipper.

“Do you know where he is?”

“Out on a call.” Grinning, she batted her eyelashes some more. “I’m not at liberty to divulge his exact whereabouts. Police business. You understand.”

Rusty nudged my arm and whispered, “Let’s just go.”

“You can radio him, can’t you?” I said.

“No can do.”

“Come on, Dolly. Please. This is important.”

Her eyes narrowed. “This does have to do with your shirts. doesn’t it.” She spoke it as a fact, not a question.

“No,” I said. Though, in a way, our shirts were involved.

She leaned forward, folded her arms on the desktop and slid her tongue across her lips. “Tell me.”

“No can do,” I said.

Off to my side, Rusty snorted.

Dolly stiffened and her eyes flared. “Are you smart-mouthing me, young man?”

“No,” I said.

“I don’t like a smart-mouth.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to....”

“Your father will hear about this.”

I blushed. Again.

She noticed and seemed pleased. “He’ll hear alllll about how you and your pal Russell came barging in here half-naked and got smart with me.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Rusty said.

“Speaking of pals,” Dolly said, “where’s Frances? Why isn’t she here? She’s always with you two.” Dolly leaned further over the desk top and stretched her long neck forward like a curious turtle. “Has something happened to her?”

Mouth hanging open, I shook my head.

“She hasn’t lost her shirt, has she?”

“No.”

“Why isn’t she with you?”

While I tried to think of a good lie, Rusty kept silent.

“What’ve you two done to her?” Dolly demanded.

“Nothing! She’s fine. Are you out of your mind?”

“Out of my mind?” she screeched.

Oh shit, I thought. Now I’ve done it. “Frances is fine!” I blurted.

“OUT OF MY MIND???”

“I didn’t mean it!”

“He didn’t mean it!” Rusty echoed.

“WHERE’S MY GUN???”

I yelled, “FUCK!!!”

Dolly cried out, “WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

By then, we were racing for the door, Rusty in the lead.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY, DWIGHT THOMPSON? WAS THAT THE F WORD YOU SAID? YOUR FATHER IS GOING TO...”

The door shut behind me, cutting off the rest of her words.

We ran around the comer before we slowed down. Rusty was out of breath and laughing at the same time.

“It’s not funny,” I said.

“The hell...”