P. N. Elrod - Vampire Files 09 - Lady Crymsyn

The Vampire Files

LADY CRYMSYN

By

P. N. Elrod

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

The

Vampire Files

LADY CRYMSYN

P. N. ELROD

ACE BOOKS, NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's

imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business

establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

LADY CRYMSYN

An Ace Book Published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375

Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

http://www.penguinputnam.com

First edition: November 2000

ISBN 0-441-00724-4

Printed in the United States of America

Thanks to:

Teresa Patterson

Keven Topham

and

Jean Marie Ward

And a special thanks to:

Joe James

Sherry LaBelle

Gardner Pourcio

Ruth Woodring

and

Roddy McDowall

1

Chicago, June 1937

I woke up in my basement sanctuary to the sound of a man's shoe heel cracking hollow against linoleum

three yards over my head. It was exactly sunset so I'd be awake anyway without the alarm call; this was

just my partner's way of telling me something was up and to get moving.

Having fallen into my daylight stupor still wearing a bathrobe and slippers, there was no need to don

them as I rose from the army cot that was my humble bed. Being completely unconscious while the sun

was high meant that comfort wasn't the big concern so much as having a layer of my home earth

sandwiched in between two sheets of oilcloth on the thin mattress. No coffins for me; the damned

confining things give me the creeps.

Escott thumped the floor again like a flamenco dancer with no rhythm and called down at me. "Jack?

Are you there? Jack?"

It was a perfectly reasonable question. Sometimes I slept the day over at my girlfriend's place. Escott

hadn't bothered to lift the hidden trapdoor under the kitchen table to see if I was in.

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered. My bricked-up alcove with its cot, desk, chair, and lamp vanished into a gray

nothingness, and I shot upward until encountering the resistance of the ceiling. Like invisible vapor

through a grille, I sieved swiftly through the minute spaces and cracks in the barrier until fully clear. How

the process worked, I couldn't really explain, it just did, and though tiring, I often took advantage of the

gift.

I materialized, annoyed and puzzled, in the bright light of the kitchen. "What is it, a fire?" I asked,

squinting.

"A call," Escott said, pointing to the phone on the wall by the pantry.

"Something wrong with Bobbi?" Past events made me more than a little anxious about the welfare of my

girlfriend.

"Miss Smythe is perfectly fine, so far as I'm aware. This has to do with that club of yours."

"Oh." A whole different kind of worry for me. I hurried to snag up the earpiece. "Yeah? Fleming here,

what is it?"

"Mr. Fleming, we gotta problem." The voice belonged to Leon Kell, the foreman I'd hired to take care

of the renovations of the property I'd leased. He sounded tense. "I donno how you wanna handle it, so I

told the boys to back off until you got here."

"What's the problem?"

"I don't wanna say over the phone."

I kept my cursing to myself. He'd apparently seen one too many gangster films. "C'mon, Leon, the

G-men don't wire phones of honest citizens," I lied. "What's wrong?"

"The boys found something when they started knocking through that last cellar wall you wanted cleared.

It happened just before quittin', an' I told them to hang around until you got here to tell us what to do."

Which meant a crew of half a dozen able-bodied men were all standing about with their picks and

shovels in hand getting paid extra by me to smoke cigarettes. "Okay, then let them go for the night

and—"

"That might not be such a good idea, considerin'."

"Considering what?"

"I don't wanna say, Mr. Fleming, an' if you come down here you'll knowwhy I don't wanna say it."

Shit and Shinola. This was a whole new side to Leon's otherwise sensible character that I could have

done without. "Okay, I'll be right there." I slammed the earpiece back on its hook with more force than

was really required.

"He strikes me as being a cautious soul," Charles Escott commented from his seat at the kitchen table,

where he'd heard my end of the conversation. Before him was his modest evening meal, purchased on

the way back from his office. A sandwich and spuds tonight, making a change from his usual white

cartons packed full of Chinese food. "He gave you no clue to the problem?"

"Leon's crew found something in the cellar. He wouldn't say what."

Escott looked up, his gray eyes and lean face suddenly bright with interest and grim concern. "It must be

a body, then."

"Now where the hell do you get that?"

"If they'd ruptured a gas or water main, Mr. Kell would have been much more forthcoming with

information. If it had been buried treasure, he'd not have called, period."

It was too early in the evening for me to deal with this kind of thing, I thought.

"I'll accompany you, if you don't mind."

"You need to eat." It wasn't just his face that was lean. When he got busy on a case Escott sometimes

forgot about food unless someone bothered to remind him. He didn't have a lot of friends, so that job

usually fell to me. Besides, something was going wrong with the most important new thing in my life, and I

didn't want to sit around waiting for him to finish his feed bag.

And damned if he didn't seem to read my mind. "I'll have ingested sufficient nourishment by the time

you've finished changing, unless you plan to establish a truly informal atmosphere to the site by appearing

in such attire."

I gave him a brief sour smile, then vanished between one eyeblink and the next to go upstairs for clothes.

He must have expected the move, for I didn't get his usual comment of "damn" in reaction. Show-off

antics like that nearly always got some kind of rise from him. I only did it now to divert myself from the

gut-sinking idea that he was probably right.

This was post-Prohibition Chicago and still reeling from the aftermath of Big Al's near-uncontested reign.

The old building I'd picked to house what would become Lady Crymsyn had a violent history; it'd be

strange if there wasn't a nasty surprise in the cellar.

The creation of my own swank nightclub represented a lot more to me than just an interesting way to

provide steady earnings for decades to come. It meant that for once I'd deliberately chosen a path for

myself, not simply stumbled along on those created for me by the needs of others.

You see, unaware of committing my worst crime against myself, I'd wasted my first life.

I'd drifted, one year to the next, assuming I was in charge of my destiny until a murderous beating and a

gangster's bullet put an abrupt stop to such foolish thinking. There it should have ended, my

disappearance an open mystery to my distant family, but of no concern to anyone else, least of all to the

men who'd killed me.

But much to their appalled surprise my weighted carcass didn't stay where they'd dropped it in the cold

depths of Lake Michigan. The one good thing that had happened to me during that wasted life wouldn't

leave me in such grim peace. I returned to the world of the living, confused and fired by rage, a dark

rebirth attended by blood, madness, and, finally, no small amount of revenge. My killers were dead or

the next thing to it; I was alive—or the next thing to it—and it was time for me to cease drifting and move

forward.

And for once it would be on my own terms.

Not that God or Fate or whatever you believe in is stingy with second chances. Those are all around us,

only we're too distracted to notice them. Most of the time they're a lot more mundane than the special

one I'd been handed.

Mine had to do with being a card-carrying, dusk-to-dawn, stake-in-the-heart,

you're-damn-right-I-drink-blood vampire.

It was a hell of a resurrection, but not so bad once I got used to things.

And since then I'd done rather well for myself.

A few months back, while flattening out a few wrinkles with a local mob, I discovered a hoard of their

cash that they didn't know about. Though someone else walked off with the lion's share, the sixty-eight

grand I'd stuffed into my coat pockets like a greedy kid in a candy store seemed more than enough to get

me set up for good if I went about it the right way. I'd wasted one life; I wasn't going to repeat the

mistake.

First I had to clean the money. Flashing around undeclared fistfuls of dough is a fast way to get the

attention of the tax man. Capone himself got tossed in the clink on that little detail, but I could avoid

landing in the next cell over by playing smart. The government doesn't seem to carehow you make your

money, so long as it gets its cut. Not much different from the mob, only there's usually less gunplay and

more paperwork.

Presently, I was Charles Escott's nominal employee in his private detective business. (He preferred the

more genteel title of "private agent.") Whenever we shared a case we split the payment fifty-fifty, but the

huge amount I'd collected could not be declared as income from the Escott Agency without putting him in

a bad spot. Uncle Sam would want to know what sort of work Escott did to justify such a generous

payout to his staff, and, oh, by the way, we'd like to checkyour earnings as well…

Sure, I could sit on the dough and declare it a little at a time as cash earnings over the years. Escott was

doing just that with his half of a ten-grand windfall we'd once gotten hold of by accident, but I was in too

much of a hurry to wait. So with the help of a mobster who owed me a few favors I took advantage of a

means to make my good fortune safely innocent. All I needed was a racing form and directions to the

nearest line of bookies. Hell, all I needed to do was stand still, and they'd come to me. This town had

them thicker than grass.

For a month I hung out in such company, going to various joints as soon as the sun was down in

Chicago to put bets on horses about to run in California, where it still shone. Not big bets, but lots of

them, to show or place, never to win, since that was more of a risk and could drive down the odds.

My mob advisor told me which horses I should play and which bookies to bet with. Not every race was

rigged, but there were enough to slowly turn about half my fortune into legitimate-seeming wins. Only I

wasn't really winning money so much as breaking even. For every ten dollars I bet, I'd get back

twenty—but the bookie would get a twenty from me, not a ten. It was all numbers in a book.

Count the actual cash and you'd tumble to the game, but no cop or treasury agent ever interfered.

The bookies were all in on the scam and took their cut for cleaning services when I purposely lost every

fourth or fifth bet to make things look legit. In this way they took between five and ten percent. I could

spare it, figuring it to be a fair commission and much better than me trying to explain the real source of the

cash to a nosy government accountant.

Duly entering every last dollar in a ledger, I kept careful records of my wins and losses. Declared cash

all squeaky clean and financial records square enough for Euclid, I was free to get down to the real

business of making my dream of a swank nightclub into a reality.

Location is everything. I soon found a former speakeasy on the North Side once run by a mug named

Welsh Lennet. It closed years ago when thugs tossed a couple of grenades through the front doors as

part of an ongoing territorial dispute. Lennet and a few others in his group were killed, with no one to

take over for him. When Repeal went into effect, there didn't seem much point in trying to rebuild, so the

gutted remains of his speak were left to gently rot.

The present owner was mob, of course, and unwilling to sell, but he could be persuaded into making a

two-year lease. I knew the catch on that one: I get the club up and running, then discover I can't renew

the contract or that the leasing price has suddenly tripled. Just in case I was unaware of the ploy, my mob

mentor, Gordy Weems, mentioned it to me, which was damned decent of him. I decided to sign, though.

If, at the end of two years the place was a bust, then I could slip out of it easily enough, and if it was a

wild success, I had my own way of getting around the owner. Along with vanishing into thin air, I also

possessed an innate talent for hypnosis. When the time came he'd think it was his own idea to cut me a

break. If Gordy had figured out what I was planning, he kept it to himself.

Instead, he put the word out I was a friend of his to keep away the inevitable parade of shakedown

artists wanting pieces of the club. Like it or not, to open so much as a hot dog stand in this town you had

to give certain people their cut. Usually it was added in with the price of the permits or liquor or labor or

deliveries. Gordy told me not to worry about it, so I didn't and just got on with the work.

There was a hell of a lot of it. No one had been near the joint for nearly five years. With its violent

history, boarded-up windows, and the beginnings of serious dilapidation I couldn't blame people for

staying away. It looked like it should be haunted, but I figured fresh paint and some neon lights would fix

that, maybe even a fancy canvas awning going out to the curb…

As Escott and I pulled up to its redbrick front, he noticed the big sign above the door declaring: "Coming

Soon: Lady Crymsyn."

"I thought it was going to be 'Jack Fleming's Club Crymsyn,' " he said.

"It was, until I figured that more than enough people in this town already know me." For fame, I had

fond hopes of becoming a writer—hopes thus far not shared by those editors to whom I'd sent stories.

Since it looked like I wasn't going to make any bucks in that direction in the near future, I needed the

income from the club to keep my wallet filled. "I don't want the notice, just the money," I told him.

"Most wise. It is rather improved from when I was last here." The boards were off, and the broken

windows replaced by diamond-shaped panes of red surrounding squares of clear glass in the center. The

inside lights shone through them, bright and warm. Not a necessity in the summer, but come winter I

hoped it would be an inviting sight to customers.

"You ain't seen nothing yet," I promised. He'd only been to the place once before, and then just after I'd

closed the deal. At that time, my future top-of-the-tops club looked like an outhouse pit. Escott had kept

diplomatically quiet.

We walked through the wide front doors to the lush lobby area. It was all finished, with pale marble

floors, a substantial bar made of the same material, and a few discreet touches of chrome. Empty shelves

made of inch-thick glass awaited their future stock of booze bottles and glassware. The lights underneath

cast interesting shadow patterns on the walls and ceiling. It looked great, but they shouldn't have been on.

I went behind the bar and found the off switch.

"What? No mirror?" Escott questioned, indicating the padded wall behind the glass shelves.

"Patent leather's got more class," I told him with a straight face.

"And safer for you. Are there any mirrors here at all?"

"Only in the public johns and dressing rooms." I'd just avoid them.

A double doorway sporting red velvet curtains led into the main club area. We went through, and Escott

stopped cold.

"My God," he said. He was rarely awestruck. I enjoyed the moment.

On the wall opposite the entry was a larger-than-life-size painting of Lady Crymsyn herself, meant to be

the symbolic personification of the club. I'd commissioned it from Alex Adrian—yeah,that Alex Adrian,

the world-famous artist who could pick and choose his work. The Lady had only existed in my head, but

his vision of her in oils made me believe her to be real.

A full-length portrait of a woman in a sweeping red gown, she looked down upon all lesser mortals with

a sultry, striking face that expressed both mystery and seductive glamour. Yet her eyes sparkled with a

kind of not-so-secret humor, making her approachable. The idea was for every man to want her and for

every woman to want to be like her. Alex Adrian had outdone himself so far as I was concerned, and I

judged the painting to be well worth the bundle I'd spent for it.

"You wouldn't happen to have gotten the model's phone number?" Escott asked after a moment of

slack-jawed shock.

"I think Alex made her up, but on opening night I'll have a look-alike dressed exactly the same acting as

hostess, you can try your luck with her."

"I shall do so," he solemnly promised.

We pushed on to the main area. What had been a one-story room was now two stories high since I'd

had the crew demolish a large section of ceiling. Three broad tiers of deep, half-circle booths rose to fill

the space with chrome divider rails between each level. The main color was dark red, of course.

I'd borrowed the idea of a multilevel horseshoe seating arrangement from Gordy's club. But instead of

entering at the top tier and walking down to the dance floor, I'd reversed it. When you came in you could

look up and see nearly the whole place. Anyone seated at the dozens of booths above also had the

advantage of being able to check out new arrivals. I figured this might appeal to a certain type of

customer who preferred not to sit with his back to a door. This place could easily seat about three

hundred of them, four with the spare tables. A bar on each side of the room would serve them all.

The big dance floor had a fancy pattern of different kinds and colors of wood, and the stage two feet

above it sported the same motif. It was thirty feet wide and almost as deep, which would allow space

enough for nearly any act I cared to book, from a full band to a solo singer. In the center stood a white

baby grand piano, protected for the time being by a canvas dust sheet. I'd already had in a special stage

crew to set up the lights and microphone system. Because of it, there wasn't a bad seat in the house.

"My God," Escott repeated. He'd noticed the liberal use of red velvet upholstery, polished

white-and-black marble tabletops, crystal chandeliers, and wall sconces. Gordy had also recommended

a decorator.

"Class all the way," I said with a grin.

"I had no idea you were taking things this far. Most impressive."

"And this is with the dust still in the air. Wait'll opening night, when everything's all polished."

"I'll mark my calendar. What is Miss Smythe's opinion of it?"

"She's been helping. I let her have her way with the backstage dressing rooms. The performers are

gonna think they died and went to heaven. She can't wait to sing here."

"There can't be that much space, though." Escott had been onstage himself once, and had an

appreciation for the hardships of show business.

"I've got four good rooms with showers for the head-liners up on this level and cellar dressing areas for

anyone else. We're still working on getting that cleared out so the plumbing can go in."

"You have thought it through quite nicely."

"Not me. Bobbi. The talent has its own entrance up top, and I've had a door cut in the backstage wall so

we can haul in big things like scenery or that piano—"

"Mr. Fleming!" Leon Kell emerged from the service door behind the bar on the far side of the room.

Since it was impossible for me to supervise anything during the day, I had to hire people to do it in my

stead. Leon seemed the brightest and had the right kind of experience, so he was put in charge of hiring

others and making sure things went smoothly. Every night I'd stop by to check the progress as his crew

started from the top and worked their way down, giving Lady Crymsyn the works and then some. "You

sure got here fast."

He was right on that. I hadn't stopped to shave. I shifted from being the proud entrepreneur to serious

problem-solver. "What's going on?"

"This way." He motioned for us to come over.

I'd asked what, not where, but followed him downstairs.

The harsh glare of the unshaded bulbs strung along the cellar's exposed ceiling rafters showed up the

labor yet to be done. Rubble was scattered over the floor, along with shovels and wheelbarrows to carry

it away. Dust hung lazily in the close air, and behind me Escott gave in to an enormous sneeze.

The original cellar had been divided up—unnecessarily, I thought—by several thick brick walls, creating

a number of tiny rooms and alcoves. At one point in the building's forty-year history those dismal holes

were servant quarters. And I thought times were tough now. I replaced the walls with metal columns and

cross beams to hold up the building. The basement gained floor space and lost rats' nests and other

undesirable leftovers from previous occupants. Once the cleanup work was done, in would go a layer of

cement to even out the floor and walls. It would still be a basement, but it wouldn't look like a medieval

torture chamber.

Along with the lesser dressing rooms, the area would be used for storage and take deliveries via an alley

doorway and ramp at the back. That door was wide-open, and clustered near it were the idle workmen,

smoking on my time as I'd expected. They watched us come down the stairs, but didn't bother to move.

It must have been a long day— most looked tired—but there was also a wariness to them as they

frowned in my direction.

"It's over here," said Leon, guiding us across the room. He was short and wide and moved with a

stumping kind of gait, but covered ground fast. His attitude seemed to be halfway between relief and

agitation at my arrival, indicating he wasn't sure how I'd take his news.

The rubble got worse at the other end of the room. Leon picked a path to a corner where the last alcove

still stood. Part of the divider was torn down, but there was something odd about the back wall it butted

up against.

"You see it, Mr. Fleming?" he asked, pointing. "This here outer part goes right to the building's wall

about twelve feet, but the room inside only goes back about nine."

"I see it," I said, doing my best to ignore the cold-pit feeling trying to situate itself in my gut.

There was a dank smell in the air I noticed while speaking. I don't breathe regularly and took an

experimental sniff. It wasn't unbearable, only a musty mix of decay and dust. I'd known it once before

about twenty years ago when I was serving in France. Me and a few of the boys in my unit got a furlough

in Paris, and on one of our too-short days instead of getting drunk and enjoying female company as usual

we took a tour of some old catacombs. We didn't stay long. The depressing sight of those endless dark

tunnels and piles of ancient bones reminded us too much of what we'd seen on the battlefields. We got

out fast and spent the rest of the day and night in a roaring alcoholic fog. The memory came back to me

all over again here, razor-sharp.

"Jesus Christ," I muttered, not knowing if it was a prayer or a curse. Escort's face was serious, and he

shot me an uneasy look. He'd have picked up on the smell, too.

Leon continued. "With all the crap down here and it being so dark and crowded with the other walls up,

you wouldn't notice it so much. But after we got the lights in a couple of us wondered why this one wasn't

as deep as the others. The bricks are a little different in color, too. Not as old as the rest. When we

started this part of the job we found out." He pointed to a black opening in the newer brickwork about a

yard above the floor. It was the right height for someone to swing a pick. A couple of courses had been

pried loose and now lay with the rest of the rubble. The hole wasn't more than two feet across and half a

foot high, and was the source of the musty smell.

Leon unhooked a flashlight from his tool belt and handed it to me, then stood back. From his manner

and Escott's morbid suggestion I already knew what would be there, but I'd have to take a look. I was

the boss; it was expected of me.

The flashlight beam was faded from use. Leon must have let the other guys have a good view, too. I

angled it around, reluctant to get too close. The uncertain light at first revealed only that there was a

space beyond the hole that stopped abruptly about an arm's length in. The opposite wall. The real one.

Now I aimed the beam downward and caught a glimpse of naked bones. I was half-prepared to see a

P. N. Elrod - Vampire Files 09 - Lady Crymsyn

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