Blue World by Robert R. McCammon Read Free Book Online

rosewood piano once owned by Rudolph Valentino, a brass bed from the Pickford estate, a lamp with bulbs shaped like roses that had once belonged to Vivien Leigh. Objects of silver, brass, and gold were spotlit by track lights at the ceiling. Calvin could hear Mr. Marco’s voice from the rear of the shop, through a door that led back into a short hallway and Marco’s office. “… that’s all well and good, Mr. Frazier,” he was saying. “I hear what you’re telling me, but I’m not listening. I have a buyer for that item, and if I want to sell it I must make delivery tomorrow afternoon at the latest.” There was a few seconds’ pause. “Correct, Mr. Frazier. It’s not my concern how your people get the Flynn diary. But I’ll expect it to be on my desk at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon, is that understood?…”
    Calvin began to smile. He moved across the room as silently as smoke, entered the hallway, and approached the closed door to Marco’s office.
    He was about to turn the doorknob when he heard Marco put down his telephone. “Now, Mr. Crawley,” Marco said, “Where were we? Ah, yes; the matter of Calvin Doss. I very much fear that we cannot trust the man to remain silent in the face of adversity. You know where he lives, Mr. Crawley? I’ll have your payment ready for you when you return…”
    Calvin reached forward, gripped the doorknob, and wrenched at it. He was amazed and quite pleased when the entire door was ripped from its hinges.
    Marco, his three hundred pounds wedged into the chair with the lion faces on the armrests behind a massive mahogany desk, gave out a startled squawk, his black eyes almost popping from his head. Crawley had been sitting in a corner holding a
    Hustler magazine, and now the towering height of him came up like a released spring, his eyes glittering like cold diamonds beneath thick black brows.
    Crawley’s hand went up under his checked sport coat, but Calvin froze him with a single glance.
    Marco’s face was the color of spoiled cheese. “Who… who are you?” he said, his voice trembling. “What do you want?”
    “Don’t you recognize me?” Calvin asked, his voice as smooth and dark as black velvet. “I’m Calvin Doss, Mr. Marco.”
    “Cal… vin… ?” A thread of saliva broke over Marco’s double chins and fell onto the lapel of his charcoal-gray Brooks Brothers suit. “No! It can’t be!”
    “But it is.” Calvin grinned and felt his fangs protrude. “I’ve come for my restitution, Mr. Marco.”
    “Kill him!” Marco shrieked to Crawley. “Kill him!”
    Crawley was still dazed, but he instinctively pulled the automatic from the holster beneath his coat and stuck it into Calvin’s ribs. Calvin had no time to leap aside; Crawley’s finger was already twitching on the trigger. In the next instant the gun barked twice, and Calvin felt a distant sensation of heat that just as quickly faded. Behind him, through the haze of blue smoke, there were two bullet holes in the wall. Calvin couldn’t exactly understand why his stomach wasn’t torn open right now, but this was indeed a night of miracles; he grasped the man’s collar and with one hand flung him like a scarecrow across the room. Crawley screamed and slammed into the opposite wall, collapsing to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. He skittered past Calvin like a frantic crab and ran away along the corridor.
    “Crawley!” Marco shouted, trying to get out of his chair. “Don’t leave me!”
    Calvin shoved the desk forward as effortlessly as if it were the matter of dreams, pinning the bulbous Marco in his chair. Marco began to whimper, his eyes floating in wet sockets. Calvin was grinning like a death’s-head. “And now,” he whispered, “it is time for you to pay.” He reached out and grasped the man’s tie, slowly tightening it until Marco’s face looked like a bloated red balloon. Then Calvin leaned forward, very gracefully, and plunged his fangs into the throbbing jugular vein.