“Black and Blonde” Part 1

He saw her come in from his regular place at the end of the bar: petite, pretty, deceptively delicate to the naked eye. He would have disregarded her except that his eye caught something incongruent with her china doll appearance and, even at a distance, it chilled him.

She had a hunter’s eyes.

He ordered another shot. His throat clenched too late to block the whiskey, and the booze burst like a Molotov cocktail in his belly. By the time he was able to grab a full breath, she had seen him and was coming his way.

He made himself be interested in the muted boxing match on the TV above the bar, sipped his beer and ordered a third shot. When he felt her slip onto the stool next to his, he didn’t turn his head when he spoke.

“Sorry, sister; that spot’s reserved.”

She didn’t speak. She parked an elbow on the bar and stared so intently at his profile that his cheek started to burn. Irked, he let his gaze slide sideways. Pretty at a distance, pretty up close. He had never seen skin so pure. But her eyes disturbed him, deterred him from meeting them. He sent his gaze back to the TV and tried again.

“I said that spot’s reserved.”

She leaned in to whisper. “I know what you are.”

Time hiccoughed. He downed another shot. “You don’t know a damn thing.”

She leaned so close that her breath misted his ear. “I saw you kill that girl.”

The beer went sour in his mouth. He swallowed gingerly, taking care to stay cool on the surface while his mind scrambled to save him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Do you want to take the chance?”

He turned his head for a good look at her. God, she was pretty. Delicious, even. Creamy skin, honeyed hair with strawberry lights, lashes too long to be fake adorning Arctic blue eyes. Her bones were bold but fragile. It wouldn’t take much to pluck her from his paw.

“If you saw me do the girl, you’re the one taking the chance,” he said.

She smiled, pleased to have his full attention. “I don’t think so,” she replied, settling back on her barstool. “See, if anything happens to me, you’re busted.”

He frowned. “I don’t know you.”

“No,” she agreed, “but I know you. I’ve been watching you for weeks, making notes, taking pictures. I’ve got quite the dossier on you, Mr. Black.”

His frown deepened to a scowl. This was great; just what he needed. An amateur P.I. with an attitude culled from vintage cop shows on cable TV. “What do you want?”

“I need your help.”

He stared at her, waiting with thinning patience for more information. His own eyes could shock the socks off a ghoul, but he kept his sunglasses on, hoping that no eyes at all would be enough to shake her confidence.

She glanced at the bartender as if estimating her chances of being rescued, but Black was a regular and she wasn’t. She would get the heave for pestering patrons before anyone else was tossed. “Can we go somewhere to talk?”

“Nope,” he answered, gesturing for another shot. “You wanna talk, talk. I’m listening.”

Now that she had him, she seemed unsure of what to do with him. The bartender put his drink before him and looked inquiringly at the blonde. She shook her head. “You’ve got to order something, lady,” she was told.

“I do not. I’m talking with this gentleman, so if you’ll excuse us …”

The bartender looked at Black. “She bothering you?”

Black shook his head. “Bring her a beer.”

The bartender moved to comply. Black knocked back his whiskey and picked up his pint. The blonde watched him curiously, studying him up close at last. It was hard to ignore those witchy eyes. She was making him nervous. He didn’t like that. He had the awful feeling that she was telling the truth. She did know what he was.

So why wasn’t she screaming?

“Look, sister, I got nothing to say to you. You came to me, so get on with it or get lost. Your call.”

She turned to confront the foaming glass on the bar. He watched with grim amusement, waiting for her to confirm his suspicion. She picked up the glass, started to bring it to her lips, then set it down again. Black smirked. Definitely not a beer drinker. He showed her the way by draining his own glass in a series of deep swallows, then crashing the glass to the bartop with a chunky thunk.

“I didn’t take you for a lush,” she said.

“I’m not. I just like the taste.”

She restrained a disdainful twitch of her little nose. “I’m surprised. I thought you were restricted to liquid protein.”

“You’re starting to annoy me, lady. You’ve got two minutes before I get up and walk out that door. Make ’em count.”

Again, that tremulous uncertainty. She fingered the condensation on her beer glass, her eyes aimed at but not focused on the silvery beads. She wasted thirty of her hundred and twenty seconds preparing a speech she should have had ready when she came in off the street. Black used those seconds to observe the play of light in her streaky blonde hair. It was the closest thing to sunlight he had seen in ages.

“My man died six months ago,” she finally said, speaking to her glass. Her voice came so softly that even Black’s hyper-sensitive hearing barely heard it. “The police ruled it out as suicide, but it wasn’t. He was murdered. By a vampire.” She shot him a quick glance, looking for reaction.

He gave her none. He kept his face neutral as he watched a spiderweb of cracks threaten her composure. She tried to stay brave, but her eyes lost some of their ferocity to a flicker of grief neglected. He wanted to accuse her of being crazy, but she wasn’t crazy. She was bent on avenging her man’s murder. Others might think her certifiable, but Black didn’t.

He got up from his seat, digging into a pocket for cash to settle the tab. He pulled out a crumpled fifty and left it on the bar. “Let’s walk,” he said.

The rain had stopped, leaving the world slick and shiny under harsh streetlights. A few errant drops blew on the breeze that lifted his hair from his shoulders and stirred the blonde’s at her throat. She wore it short and fluffy, the perfect frame for those brazen cheekbones. He had no inclination to smooth it with his hands.

“Do you believe me?” she asked when they had walked a block in silence.

“I believe your man is dead.”

“And the rest?”

He said nothing. Small as she was, she walked with authority and he found it hard to keep pace with her. Her cheeks had come up pink in the rainwashed cold. She smelled of citrus and almonds. Sweet.

They walked ten city blocks, leaving the bar district for the park. It wasn’t late—not quite midnight—and people were about, in couples or clusters, strolling hand in hand or hanging out in bunches, stopping for gourmet coffee or harassing passersby for the fun of it. Black disliked crowds of any ilk, but she wasn’t letting him steer her into isolation. She knew what he was, all right, and she wasn’t taking any chances.

“I want you to find the one who did it,” she said at last.

“You mean the vampire?”

“Yes. You can do it. You know where to look.”

Black snorted. “Do I?”

“I think you do.”

“So tell me why I should.”

“I’ve got cash,” she said.

He eyed her sideways. “You don’t dress like it.”

“I had to dress down to fit in with your environment.”

“You mean the whores and the drunks and the druggies.”

The truth made her squirm, but she ploughed ahead with courage born of desperation. “I know you can use the money, you can name your price. Just say you’ll help me.”

He didn’t care what inspired it; her audacity angered him. “You’ve got some nerve, sweetheart, coming to me like this, accusing me of God knows what and adding the insult of assuming I need the money bad enough to play along. I’m sorry that your man offed himself and you can’t get past it, but I’m telling you that the help you need is not the help you think I can give you. Now, blow.”

She stood her ground. “I do know what you are, Mr. Black, and I know you can find the one I’m looking for. You have to help me.”

“I don’t have to do anything for you,” he tossed over his shoulder.

“You’re wrong, Mr. Black.” She hurried to catch up to him, grabbing at his sleeve to stop him in his tracks. He scowled at her but she refused to back off. “That dossier I mentioned? It’s in a safe deposit box, but I’ve kept a few items with me to help with my case.” She rummaged in her shoulder bag as she spoke. Black watched her with growing alarm, beginning to suspect that she might have what it took to extort him into helping her.

He was right. She did have what it took: a handful of photographs taken on high speed film through a zoom lens. A stop action, frame by frame account of him and a runaway teen dealing drugs and death. He remembered the incident well: a starving child mad for junk and him mad for the child, each taking one after the other; a closeup of his license plate and the final nail in the proverbial coffin—the girl unconscious with open wounds in her throat.

“I didn’t kill her,” he said quietly.

“You didn’t have to,” she replied. “The drugs finished her for you.”

He glared at her through tinted lenses. “You’ve got more like these?”

“Like I said, I’ve been tailing you for weeks.”

“And there’s no point in doing you because a letter has been left with someone you trust, someone you’ve instructed to open the letter if anything happens to you. Right?”

She smiled. A pretty smile, straight, white and dimpled. An angel’s smile capped by glacier eyes. “You could try and find that person, I suppose, but if you have to look for someone, why not look for the one who won’t get you killed?”

He looked at the pictures again, flipping through them to make the images dance. Cliché or not, she had done her homework. He handed the pictures back with a piece of advice.

“Don’t call me ‘mister’.”

to be continued ...