Hard Day's Knight by John G Hartness Read Free Book Online Page B

the early nineties. I could probably recycle the picture, but putting the whammy on people is just easier. I took a seat at the bar and tried to order a beer, but a pair of six-inch Lucite platform heels kept getting in the way. I finally waved the girl down to me, slid a dollar in her garter and she jiggled on down the bar to more interested parties.

    No, this is not the part of the story where we talk about vampire sex. It’s none of your business and has nothing to do with anything. I don’t sparkle, I’m no more perpetually horny than anyone (or anything) else, and I don’t use my vampire powers to get laid. Much. I’m not even particularly angst-ridden, and don’t know any vamps that are. Moving right along.

    I ordered a Miller Lite and told the bartender I needed to see the boss. He waved a thirty-something woman over who bore all the signs of an ex-dancer who had moved up, or at least sideways, in the world. “I’m Lil, I’m the manager here. What can I do for you?” She said, sliding onto a stool next to me. She had dark hair down her back and was dressed in black leather from head to toe. Her eyes hinted at some undefined ethnicity, but I couldn’t place her heritage.

    “I didn’t ask for the manager, miss. I asked for the Boss.” I put a little emphasis on the last word, so she might pick up on the idea that I knew more than the average lap-dance customer.

    “As far as you need to know, kid, I
am
the Boss.” She returned my verbal capitalization with one of her own, and raised me an auditory italics. She looked me straight in the eyes, and I got a little hint that there was more to her than a fading stripper with aspirations towards a GED .

    “Is there somewhere we can talk?” I asked, looking around at the gyrating bodies. It was loud in there, but not so loud that I wanted to get into all the supernatural aspects of life.

    “Follow me.” She slid off the stool and walked towards a dark alcove with “VIP” in pink neon over the doorway. I now understood how the neon industry was staying alive. Apparently it’s all being used in strip clubs. I followed her and noticed that the view from back there was, in a word, incredible. Ex-dancer or not, she still had plenty to display, and the tight black mini-skirt she was wearing displayed it very well. Odd, I thought, I’m following the most covered woman in the place, and she’s the one I think is hot. Well, I’ve always had a taste for the unique.

    We walked down a black-carpeted hallway with doors on one side. Each door had a light over it. Some lights were illuminated red, some green, and one was blinking yellow. Before I could ask what the caution light was for, Lil said over her shoulder “Time’s almost up in that one.” I didn’t want to think too much about what was going on inside the rooms, and I didn’t have to, because just past the room with the blinking yellow light Lil opened a door with no lights over it. I hadn’t even seen the door from the hallway, but when we entered, I saw it led into a spacious office complete with desk, a sofa, a full bar and a bank of monitors that covered the club, the parking lot and all the VIP rooms. I sat facing the desk as Lil went over to the bar.

    “Can I get you anything?” She asked as she poured bourbon over ice for herself.

    “No thank you.”

    “Are you sure? We have beer, wine, holy water, B-positive.” I whirled to face her when she got to “holy water” and found her facing me calmly with a small pistol pointed at my heart. “Sit down. I’m not going to hurt you. If I wanted to do that, you’d be dead.” I didn’t take my eyes off the gun until she walked around the desk, sat down, and put it in a drawer. Her left hand was out of sight somewhere under the desk’s surface and I had a sneaking suspicion that the pistol was the least of my worries.

    “Okay,” I said, sitting, “you know what I am. Is that a problem?”

    “Not for me. But you wanted to see the