"You know why I was talking with Gordy so much? To hear about you. He"s always a gold mine of news about all kinds of stuff, but this was the mother lode. He knew everything, including why you were hanging in the meat locker instead of kicking Bristow"s a.s.s. You had a piece of ice pick stuck in your back. The metal kept you solid."
"What? So you"ve got the same thing? Shrapnel or something?"
"Or something. Remember I told Adelle Taylor about a guy getting cute and grazing my skull?" Kroun brushed at the white streak on the side of his head. "It wasn"t a graze. That was how I died."
"Oh, G.o.d," Bobbi"s jaw dropped. She started to sway. Kroun shot a hand out and steadied her a moment.
"Sorry, cutie. You okay? Good girl. The bullet that killed me is still inside. I"m as crippled as you are, Fleming.
Between us we make a whole vampire-ya think?"
"But your looks," said Bobbi. "When the change happens... you-you get younger. Don"t you?"
He shrugged. "Far as I know I look the same as the day it happened. Maybe the bullet screws that up, too. I can"t exactly go to a doctor and find out, can I?"
It made for a h.e.l.l of a good cover. Now and then I"d look twice at some young mug in his twenties, thinking he might be a vampire. I hadn"t once considered Kroun to be a member of the club. "Guess not," I said. "But what now?"
He waved a b.l.o.o.d.y hand. "d.a.m.ned if I know. I can"t kill you-not the state I"m in, anyway-and I can"t make you forget, but I don"t want anyone else knowing about me."
"We can keep shut. You got my word. Both of us."
Bobbi nodded. Kroun gave us each a long look with those dark, remarkable eyes. I wondered if mine had that kind of power behind them. "I think I can believe you. There"s just one thing... I really don"t want to go back."
"Back to...?"
"Back to the business. It stinks. You know how it stinks. I"m tired of it. Mitch trying to blow me up... that could be my ticket out. A blessing in disguise. A real, real good disguise."
"But there"s no body in the car. The cops"ll know that by now. That"ll get public."
He pointed a finger toward his eyes. "There are ways around cop records. Maybe you can show me where to find them, then I do a little talking to the people who matter. Whitey Kroun can die in Chicago and stay here. Fake burial, the works. Shouldn"t be too hard to fix." He c.o.c.ked his head. "Do me a favor?"
"No problem. And then what?"
"And then... maybe... maybe I go fishing."
I called Derner, told him how things had fallen out with Mitch.e.l.l and what had to be done. I said I"d get Bobbi someplace else, and he was to send a cleaning crew over, not just to disappear the body but to scrub the place better than any hospital.
That took a while to arrange. He wasn"t a happy man.
I had spare clothes in her closet and put on fresh ones. Blood was on my overcoat, but the coat was dark, so nothing incriminating was visible. Bobbi also changed and packed some things together. There wasn"t much we could do to clean up Kroun. When he was able to stand, he washed in the kitchen, coughing over the sink to get his lungs cleared of blood. That done, he went down to wait in the Nash, out of sight.
When Derner"s crew arrived, Bobbi left with one of them, bound for Shoe Coldfield"s special hotel in the Bronze Belt. The way things were going, Escott could wind up recuperating there as well.
If he was going to be all right. He"d been sitting up and talking, but I knew how that could turn around in an instant. Before the night was gone, I"d have to see him, make sure he was all right, try again to apologize for what I"d put him through.
I"d tell Bobbi later why he was in the hospital; I hadn"t quite figured out just how much to say about what prompted two grown men to beat the h.e.l.l out of each other. She really didn"t need to know about me trying to kill myself.
As for Kroun... I got the impression that he"d been alone and on his own with this for a long time. It must have been a h.e.l.l of a novelty to meet people who could deal with his big secret, though I was still digesting what to think about him.
We"re a rare breed. Hard to make. He"d not said anything about his initiation and who was responsible, what had led up to his death, how he"d dealt with his first waking. We would have to talk. h.e.l.l, maybe I could go fishing with him.
Derner"s people came, and I handed over the key to Bobbi"s place and left.
Kroun was in the backseat of the Nash, still hurting from the gunshot.
"Is that bullet still in you?" I asked, getting behind the wheel.
"Nah. They tend to go right through."
"You"ve been shot other times?"
"Let"s talk about something else, okay?"
"Like why you didn"t just continue playing possum on the rug?"
"I couldn"t help the coughing. Even without it you"d have tumbled soon enough. Besides, you told me what I needed to know. You made a promise about burying me and were going to keep it."
"That"s it?"
"Hey, come on. It"s easy to make a promise to a dying man. Just as easy to break. You"re crazy, but you"re a stand-up guy."
I grunted. "Not an easy job."
"Yeah. But you do okay."
"And that"s it?" I repeated.
"There"s one other thing..."
"Yeah?"
"Well, any guy who"s that good of friends with Adelle Taylor can"t be all bad."