Never Cross a Vampire by Stuart M. Kaminsky Read Free Book Online

Faulkner went on. “I told him I would check with my agent and get back to him. We parted amicably outside the restaurant, and he promised to call me. He never did, and I never saw him again.”
    â€œAnd you never met Mrs. Shatzkin?”
    â€œI never had that pleasure,” he said sarcastically.
    â€œHow did Shatzkin seem?” I went on.
    â€œSeem,” Faulkner repeated, making it clear I had chosen the wrong word. “A bit too earnest, too fawning, too false, exactly what I expected in and of Hollywood.”
    â€œYou own a gun?”
    â€œYes, several; they are all in Oxford, Mississippi, in my study at Rowan Oak. They are locked securely away; I have an eight-year-old daughter. I brought none with me. I did not expect to be attacked, nor to commit murder or robbery.”
    That did it. I put down the envelope I was writing on and looked up at him. I noticed that my legs had made their way up to the desk when I wasn’t looking. The hell with it.
    â€œLook, Mr. Faulkner, I’ve got a job to do and you want to stay alive and out of jail and the newspapers—at least I think you do. We’re in the same boat. I need the money for this case. I’m reasonably good at what I do, but I’m also somewhat human. If you tickle me and don’t hit scar tissue, I laugh. If you torture me and hit an old wound, I cry.”
    â€œI recognize the allusion,” Faulkner said, “and appreciate the point. I will try to be more civil, but the circumstances do affect my behavior. It is not just my life, but the world that is bitched proper this time, isn’t it? I’d like to be dictator now. I’d take all Congressmen who refused to make military appropriations and I’d send them to the Philippines. On this day a year from now I don’t think there’ll be one present second lieutenant alive. And here we are playing games with a meaningless murder, and I sit a helpless … forgive me, Mr. Peters, but perhaps you can better understand my emotions.”
    â€œApology accepted,” I said. I didn’t exactly like him now, but at least he seemed like a human being instead of a Southern imitation of George Sanders. “The shooting took place at nine or so last night. Where were you?”
    â€œAs I told the officer who brought me in here,” he said, drawing on his pipe to regain his calm exterior, “I was working with a writer named Jerry Vernoff. We were in my hotel room. My agent, Bill Herndon, and I had agreed to try to work up a story treatment for Warners as a preliminary step to possible employment. Mr. Vernoff has worked extensively on story treatments for various studios and has a reputation for working quickly and commercially. I believe someone at Warners suggested the possible collaboration. We ate dinner at the hotel.”
    â€œWhich makes it unlikely that you would have had a dinner appointment with Shatzkin,” I concluded. He nodded in agreement. I didn’t have a pinhead of an idea what was going on, but I had some names to work with. I put the notebook and envelope in my pocket and was about to order my feet off the desk when the door came open. If I had been listening to the waves of voices and sounds in the outer squad room instead of getting absorbed in my job, I might have heard Phil’s Frankenstein tread, but such was not to be.
    Phil looked at Faulkner and then at me, and he turned as red as the ketchup stain on his shirt. Behind him, Cawelti stood in anticipation of something he could see expanding in my brother like a berserk balloon, something that had to come out or explode. My right foot had fallen asleep or I would have forced it down, but I couldn’t move it. Phil took the one step from the door to the desk, his double-ham of a hand descending in slow motion. I watched in fascination as it hit my right knee, spinning me out of the chair and against the wall. I sank to the floor with Phil taking another