Never Cross a Vampire Read Free Page B

of 29 and highs of 40. I had a coat from Hy O’Brien’s Clothes for Him on Hollywood. The coat had been a bargain. I got it for only three bucks more than I had sold it to Hy for a month earlier.
    There was no sky and almost no light. Blackout conditions had cut off the street lights and most businesses didn’t keep a night light. They didn’t want the first Japanese bombs to land on their taco stands. We stood there for a few seconds, trying to adjust to the darkness, and then I started toward my car, but there were no footsteps behind me. I turned and made out Lugosi’s shape a dozen feet away.
    â€œMy hat,” he whispered.
    At first I thought he had said, “My bat,” and considered the possibility that he had gone stark raving cuckoo, but he repeated it and I got it straight.
    â€œIt’s in your hand,” I said.
    â€œAnd there is something in it,” he answered. My eyes were beginning to pick out little details now, like the trembling of his hands. I moved fast to his side and took the hat. I reached inside it and touched what felt like a sticky piece of cloth. I led Lugosi quickly to my car, got him in, and went around to get in on the other side. I started the engine and flipped on the overhead light. A lone car went down the deserted street, and we waited for it to pass before we looked down at the piece of black cloth I had pulled from the hat. The writing was in blood or a good imitation.
    â€œIt says, ‘You were warned,’” I told Lugosi, who was recovering a bit from the shock. I flipped off the light. His face was hidden but I heard a sound like a laugh and then his familiar voice.
    â€œWorthy of a Monogram serial,” he said.
    â€œWell,” I said putting the car in gear. “We’ve got our list of suspects down to five. We’re making progress.”
    As I drove Lugosi back home, I kept him talking, about his life, his work, anything to get the world back to normal.
    â€œOnce,” he said, “I had ambition.” I glanced over at him to see the light from passing cars cast dark shadows on his face. “I was in the National Theater of Hungary. I played Shakespeare. Can you imagine? I played Romeo. I was distinguished, yes. I was an officer in the Forty-third Royal Hungarian Infantry in the war. Wounded. I saw real death. And here a foolish trick makes me tremble.”
    â€œI’ve had better days myself,” I tried.
    â€œNo, Mr. Peters, I live on hope. I have made less money than people think, have spent more than I should have on vanity and foolishness.”
    I was about to try to console him further when he laughed and elbowed me gently.
    â€œNo,” he said, “I try, but I can’t see myself as a tragic character. I’ve had good times. Let’s stop for a drink. I have to be at the studio at eight in the morning, but tonight, my new friend, we share a bottle and tell our life stories and fill them with lies and truth and romance.”
    We went to a little bar I know on Sprina. Lugosi mixed beer and scotch and I nursed two beers for an hour. He stood drinks for everyone and listened to the bartender tell us that he heard MacArthur had been wounded and Manila had fallen. Another guy with a black wig that tilted to the side added that he heard the Army was going to start taking cars away from civilians because there was a shortage of vehicles.
    Lugosi listened with a patient smile to the war gossip and the background jukebox playing Tommy Dorsey’s version of “This Love of Mine.”
    I thought my client was far away from thoughts of bloody messages, but he looked into the last drops of amber scotch at the bottom of his beer mug and said softly,
    â€œBut first on earth, as Vampyre sent,
    Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent;
    Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
    And such the blood of all thy race …”
    His words trailed off and then came back as the record stopped.