"Is something wrong?" I asked innocently.
"I"ll say there is." He gave me a slightly garbled account of what had happened earlier and wanted to know if I knew there were some gangsters after me.
"Wait a minute." I tried to sound skeptical. It wasn"t hard. "How do you know these guys were G-men?"
"He had an identification card, it said he was with the FBI."
"Those can be printed up by the hundreds in any joke shop. What did they look like? Was it a little guy and a chubby kid with bad skin?"
"That"s them."
"Dad, I hate to say it, but you"ve been had."
"What d"ya mean?"
"I did a story on those fish last year. They"re a couple of con men. Because of me, the cops went after them, a lot of their victims turned up in court, and these guys got sent up. Did they try talking you into buying anything?"
"No, they wanted to know where you were, and then someone broke the window- ".
"That was the third man in their team. They"ll be coming back and trying to sell you some kind of phony U.S. government insurance..." I gave Dad an imaginative account of their criminal career, stating that Braxton was a dangerous crazy and that he and Webber indulged in some bizarre s.e.xual practices. Then I held my breath to see if he believed it, because I"d always been a lousy liar.
Dad said a few well-chosen obscenities, but they were directed at his recent guests, not me.
"Watch out for them," I suggested enthusiastically. "The little one"s a real weasel when he"s cornered. If they bother you again, just call the cops. Don"t let them back in the house."
"I won"t, I just wish you"d called earlier. Why are you calling now?"
"I"ve been moving, I wanted to give you my new number."
"They said you"d moved. Where are you?"
"I found a nice boardinghouse. If there"s an emergency they"ll get a message to me." I gave him Escott"s phone number and told him to keep it to himself.
"What about the address?"
"I"ll be getting a box at the post office, the landlord likes to steam things open."
"That"s illegal."
"Yeah, but the rent"s cheap and the food"s good. How"s Mom?"
He put her on the line and we exchanged rea.s.surances and other bits of information. She thought I had a job at an ad agency and asked how it was going. I let her keep thinking it. Except for the Swafford case, my modest living expenses and the money I sent home to help them out had come from an inadvertent theft from a mobster and some engineered luck at a blackjack table. Neither of them would have won her approval.
I promised to call again in a day or two for further news and hung up, grinning ear to ear.
A few years ago I walked into a small bookstore in Manhattan. The window on the street was just large enough to display the painted legend: BRAXTON"S BOOKS, NEW & USED, and the inside sill held a few sun-faded samples of literature. In the last few weeks I"d seen a hundred hole-in-the-wall places like this; I liked them.
A bell over the door jingled as I entered. Dust motes hanging in the sunlight were stirred by the draft and I sneezed. By the time I straightened and wiped my nose he had appeared out of one of the alcoves formed by bookshelves.
"Good afternoon, sir, may I help you?"
He was shorter than me, with dark wrinkled skin like a dried apple. There was a suggestion of black shoe polish in his hair, but the world was full of people who didn"t want to look their age.
"Got anything on folklore or the occult?"
"Yes, sir, in this first section." He indicated the area and watched with a pleasant smile as I went to look it over.
It was a fairly complete selection. There were copies of Summer"s works on witchcraft and vampires, even Baring-Gould"s book on werewolves, but nothing I hadn"t already seen and read before. I checked the fiction section, drew a blank, and finished off with the occult shelves. They were also very complete, but only with the usual junk. I said thank you to the general air and started for the door.
"Perhaps," he said, stopping me, "if you"re looking for something special I could be of help. I have other books in the back."
It was my day off, I was in no hurry. "Well, sure, if you don"t mind."
"What are you looking for?"
Speaking the t.i.tle always made me feel vaguely foolish. "A copy of Varney, the Vampire by Prest."
He knew what I was talking about, not surprising considering the contents of his well-stocked shelves. His brown eyes got brighter with interest. "Or the Feast of Blood," he said, completing the t.i.tle. "Yes, that is a rare one. I have a copy, but it"s part of my own collection and not for sale."
"Oh," I said, for want of something better.
"May I ask why you are interested in it?"
The real reason I couldn"t talk about, so I had a fake one practiced and ready.
"I"m working on a book, a survey of folklore, fact and fiction."
"That is a very wide field."
"Not when you"re tracking down certain books."
He looked sympathetic. "I"d like to help, but it could only be in a limited way."
Strings of some kind? He"d find out real soon I wasn"t rich.
"You"d have to read it here in the shop, that is if you want to. I value it too much to loan it out."
"I can understand that," I said gratefully. "Are you sure it wouldn"t be too much trouble?"
"Not at all, but it would have to be during working hours.""That would be fine, thank you."
He offered his hand. "I"m James Braxton."
"Jack Fleming."
"Come in the back, I"ll show you where you may read."
"You have it right here?"
"Oh, yes. Yes." He threaded past ceiling-high shelves, leading me deep into the narrow shop. He switched on the light over a desk and chair and swept some account books to one side. The light revealed shelves crammed with a faded patchwork of book spines of every shape and age. It looked like a duplicate of the folklore section out front, but more so. Some of the volumes were very old, with odd t.i.tles, others were recent and by skeptical writers. One shelf held only copies of Occult Review. He was more than casually interested in the subject himself, and I wondered if he sincerely believed in it. If so, I"d have to watch my lip.
He knew exactly where his copy was located and pulled it out, placing it on the desk. "I hope you enjoy it," he said.
"Thank you, you"re very generous to do this."
"I"m just in favor of expanding knowledge in a neglected area," he smiled.
"You have quite a collection."
The bell on the door out front rang, interrupting his reply. He excused himself with a rueful smile, and for the next few hours was too busy to return.
I"d already read the first chapter in another book, so I skipped it and went through the second and third in short order. I was a fast reader, but did not plan to spend the rest of my life poring word by word through the book"s more than two hundred chapters. In its original state, it had been published a chapter at a time for weekly consumption by the newly literate ma.s.ses. A fast writer could keep himself employed for years with a popular series. In the previous century, the penny dreadfuls were just as popular as the current radio and movie serials were now.
I skimmed the pages, reading the brief descriptions given under the chapter t.i.tles, and touching on the dialogue whenever it popped up. The gist of it centered on the tribulations of the Bannerworth family as they n.o.bly bore the attacks of Varney upon their daughter, Flora. A good family, but not too bright: if they"d simply moved away at the start they would have saved themselves a lot of trouble, but the plot dragged on regardless of such logic.
It was really better than I expected-at least at first, then the quality of the writing began to deteriorate along with the continuity. A cliff-hanger ending was never resolved and one of the Bannerworth brothers seemed to disappear completely from the story. When he did return, the author had forgotten his name. Whole sections written for no other purpose than to fill a word quota tried my patience and I skipped them altogether. I focused on the few scenes where the vampire appeared and had dialogue.
His blood requirements were only occasional, usually after he"d been killed and his body was carelessly left out in the moonlight, which revived him. The moonlight device had been lifted wholesale from Polidori"s story and used shamelessly each time Varney was shot dead, or in one case, drowned. He had no trouble with running water, crosses, or garlic, not that anyone thought of using the latter two against him.
Eventually all the Bannerworths disappeared, to be replaced with a steady parade of beautiful young girls that he kept trying to marry, either in the hope their love would end his curse or because he was thirsty. Sometimes, the reason was a bit vague. He was usually kept from the nuptial feasts by an interfering old enemy, the man the bride truly loved, or the bride"s suicide. He soon ran out of nubile prospects as well as European countries to ravage.
Tough, he was able to recover from mortal wounds with some lunar help, but he certainly lacked a talent for hypnotism. His victims always ended up screaming for help and interrupting his dinner. The one point I did find very interesting was that each time he was resurrected, he had to soon feed or die.
I shut the book with a slight headache and a sigh of relief just as Braxton was coming back.
"I was closing up for the day... Surely you haven"t finished it?" - "Not exactly." I explained my skimming method to him.
"Are you sure you got sufficient detail for your research? I thought you"d be here for several days, taking notes."
"I can hold it in my head long enough to jot the high points down later."
He registered mock disappointment. "And I"d been looking forward to some company. It is so rare for me to meet someone with a similar interest in the unusual."
"I couldn"t help noticing your collection..."
He was proud of it and this time able to talk. "Fortunately my business gives me an advantage over others. I often get advance notice of private collections going up for sale and can get first pick." He pulled out a volume, but didn"t open it. "That"s how I found this one. A friend of mine who arranges estate sales told me about it, and I made an early purchase ahead of the auction."
With a slight shock I deciphered the t.i.tle; the script lettering was hard to read.
"But I thought this was a fake, it has to be."
"As did I when I saw it, but here it is. It came from the library of a university professor. His relatives sealed up his house when he suddenly disappeared. The police thought he"d been kidnapped and perhaps murdered, but never found the body-the case is still open. His family waited seven years, had him declared dead, and settled his estate."
The story stunk like a barrel of very old fish. Braxton"s friend must have taken him for plenty over that book. He had believed it, though, and expected me to as well. "What was his name?"
"I don"t remember, this was years ago."
"Maybe he wrote it on the inside of the book."
"No, not this book."
"Mind if I flipped through it?"
He was uneasy. "I"d rather you didn"t. The Necronomicon isn"t just any book, you know. That does sound ridiculous in the broad light of day, I realize I must appear to be superst.i.tious."
"Why did you buy it if it makes you uncomfortable?"
"I don"t really know, perhaps it"s the collector in me. I suppose I also wanted it kept somewhere safe, where it would not be used." He sucked in his lips and looked embarra.s.sed.
He wanted to impress someone, anyone, and I was his latest effort. Projecting an air of mystery and implied danger concerning his possessions was his method, and it put my hackles up. I"d met people like him before; he was more subtle than most and probably had a small, handpicked circle of acolytes. I wondered where they held their weekly seance.
"Yes, I guess it could be misused," I commented neutrally.
He was relieved that I hadn"t laughed, and re-placed the book. "Some of these others might help you in your research. I wouldn"t mind you looking them over."
"Thank you very much, but I"m afraid most of them are outside my immediate study range."
"Are you researching vampires exclusively?"
"For this book, yes. They"re popular now."
"They always have been. Hardly a week goes by that I don"t have a customer asking for a copy of Dracula. Business was especially good last month, when the movie began showing. It would seem to be the last word on the subject."
I knew better but said nothing. "Yes, I"m trying to locate Stoker"s sources. I don"t have the British Museum available so I"ve been hitting every bookstore and library in the city."
"Why are you interested in his sources?"
"To see if there were any true accounts of vampirism in them."
"Do you believe in vampires?"
I didn"t like the way he focused on me. "In a way... I"ve read about people like Elizabeth Bathory and others. There"s always going to be a few oddb.a.l.l.s running loose, but as for the Dracula kind of vampire, no, I don"t believe in them." And I said it with perfect sincerity, but his intense, inquiring look made me uncomfortable.
"You don"t believe in supernatural vampires?" he pursued.
"No."
"But what if they exist despite your disbelief?"
"They don"t."
He smiled tightly.
"You believe in them?" I asked.
"I"m not sure." He gestured at all the books. "I"ve read them, all of them, and there is a lot of evidence. Most of it is quite absurd, of course, but once sifted through, some of it refuses to be dismissed. I like to keep an open mind."
"To each his own," I said meaninglessly, trying to think of a polite way to end the conversation. Someday I might want to come back, though that possibility was not looking very attractive at the moment.