He gave a start and caught himself with a sigh. "d.a.m.n, but that's-"

"I know-unnerving. Sorry."

"Quite all right. Let's go inside, I'm in need of something liquid and soothing."

"Like a bath?"

"Yes, that, too."

He cursed sedately as he struggled with the rusty lock on the back door. It finally gave way and we walked into his large high-ceilinged kitchen. His house was a big, roomy place; a three-storied pre-fire relic that in its better days (or worse) had been a bordello. As his time, money, and health allowed, he was gradually cleaning, painting, and restoring it into a livable home. But the kitchen was not high on his priority list and still retained an air of cobwebby disuse in the corners. Except for replacing the old icebox with a streamlined new refrigerator that crouched and hummed between sagging cabinets, he'd pretty much ignored the room.

In silent and common consent we peeled off our coats and dropped them on the battered oak table that had come with the house. An invisible cloud of booze and dead lilies filled the room and grabbed my throat.Escott suppressed a cough. "Horrible stuff, that. Should I ever a.s.sume that persona again, I shall subst.i.tute something less lethal."

"Why use anything at all?"

"Attention to detail is the key to a good disguise."

"I think you poured on too much detail this time. You must have gotten perfume mixed up with cologne."

His brows went up. "There's a difference?"

"A lot, I think."

"What is it, then?"

"Now I was stuck. "Uh... maybe you'd better ask Bobbi. She knows more about that kind of thing. All I know is there's a difference; one's stronger and you need less, or something like that."

"Hem," he said neutrally. "I know better than to offer you liquid refreshment. Do you mind if I indulge?"

"Go ahead. Just hold a gla.s.s under my shin and I'll squeeze some out for you."

He declined with a polite but decisive head shake and smile, and went into the dining room. There was no dining table yet, just a stack of cardboard boxes that hadn't been unpacked and a large gla.s.s-fronted cabinet on one wall holding a modest collection of bottles.

"Think I'll go and change. It's getting late," I said.

"You're welcome to use the bathtub if you like. The water heater is almost reliable now."

"Thanks." I left him pouring out a gin and tonic and trotted upstairs. I'd scrub my face and hands off, but total immersion in a tub of possibly cold water was an experience I could do without.

My clothes were in a narrow bedroom next to the bath. The bed was long gone, leaving some holes in the floor where it had been bolted down and some rub marks from the headboard on the once florid wallpaper. There was no closet; my stuff was draped over a spindly wooden chair and more unpacked boxes.

Now that I was alone and changing back into familiar things, I felt a delayed reaction from the shooting tonight. I could avoid death in that manner, he couldn't.

It didn't seem to disturb him, but I'd been thoroughly frightened, and I was far less vulnerable. If Escott hadn't been wearing that vest... Maybe he could treat the whole business casually, but not me. He hadn't seen the gun swinging up in his face and the muzzle flash searing his eyes. I touched the spot where the lead slug had pa.s.sed through; all trace of pain was gone, the flesh and bone were smooth and unmarked.My hand was trembling as it came away: half in wonder of what I'd survived and half in fear of what I'd become. A small mirror still clung to one wall, reflecting only the empty room, and nothing more. I shivered the length of my spine, turned away from it, and finished dressing.

Respectable again, I joined Escott in his downstairs parlor, where he'd stretched out on the sofa. He looked tired.

"This should cheer you up." I put the money on a low table next to his gla.s.s.

"What?" He turned his head just enough to see. "Oh, I'd forgotten."

I dropped into a leather armchair. "How can you forget twenty-five hundred bucks?"

"Twelve hundred fifty. Half of it's yours."

"Come on, Charles, I didn't do anything except get in the way."

A faint smile twitched in one corner of his mouth. "As you insist. But whatever tonight's outcome would or would not have been, you are still ent.i.tled to something for your services to the Escott Agency. I'd give you all of it, but thought you wouldn't accept it."

"Don't be so certain."

"I'll fill out some kind of receipt later."

"For tax purposes?"

"Of course. I have always been impressed by the manner in which the government finally managed to take care of Ca-pone."

"What's that have to do with me?"

"With both of us, my dear fellow. Undeclared income and income without employment are things that are certain to be noticed sooner or later. A person with your particular condition need not call attention to himself."

"Okay, I see what you mean. What about that bundle we picked up from the Paco gang in August?"

"I said then we should consider it the spoils of war, but I plan to declare my half. I wonder if there is some sort of penalty in padding one's records in favor of the government?"

"In a bureaucracy do you think they'd notice? And it's gotten a lot bigger and more complicated since Roosevelt got in."

"I see, yes, what a ridiculous question. Still, I suppose the best thing is to store the lot in a mattress and declare it a little at a time over the years. Ah, well, here's to crime." He drained off his gla.s.s and grimaced.

"You all right?"

"Probably. I shall be stiff for a few days. Bad coincidence getting hit in the same spot."

"Let's have a look."

He'd already taken off his suit vest. Now he shucked the shirt and I helped him ease out of the bulletproof vest underneath. On his left side just below the line of his ribs was a thin red scar about four inches long where a thug's knife had cut him up not so long ago. He probed the area gently with his long fingers and winced a little.

"There, it caught me a bit lower than I thought. Nothing more than a bad bruise and some shock. Quite lucky, considering how close the gun was."

"Charles, about all you had going for you tonight was luck. If her aim had been a little better or worse she could have taken your head off."

"So you mentioned earlier."

"I'm gonna mention it again. You scared the s.h.i.t out of me tonight."

"I truly appreciate your concern, but after all, nothing really happened, and I do intend to be more careful in the future."

"You mean that?"

"Certainly. This was an isolated incident. Before I met you the most violent encounter I'd ever experienced was a director with a vile temper who tried to kill me with his blocking of a stage fight."

I was verging on exasperation, but too curious to pa.s.s up the opening. He rarely spoke about his past. "What happened?"

"It was the difference between his opinion and my facts. The man had concocted some ridiculous fencing movement and I tried to point out something safer and more natural for the circ.u.mstance. Since I was only a very junior member of the company at the time, he got his way. On dress-rehearsal night I slipped in my felt costume shoes, fell into the orchestra pit, and broke the poor violinist's collarbone and nearly my own neck when I landed on him. I was never able to convince that director I hadn't done it on purpose just for spite."

I pulled my mouth shut to control the laugh. "Now you're changing the subject-"

"But I have not. My point was that tonight was an unfortunate set of circ.u.mstances, nothing more. In all fairness, how could the director or I have known that the stage floor had just been waxed? How could you have known the young lady was so murderously and athletically inclined? Believe me, if any future jobs like this should come my way, there is no one else I would rather have to back me up. I know you have doubts now, but you've a quick, observant eye and with a little training..."

I shot him a suspicious look. "What have you got planned? A little extra paint on the office door saying Escott and Fleming, Private Agents?"

"That would be interesting, but not possible. It takes several years of training to qualify for a license, and then you have to show up for the exam-in daylight. No, in practical terms that's quite out of the question for you."

"Then what is in the question?"

"I'm only proposing the odd job now and then, like tonight. I know you really consider this as just doing me a favor, but there's no reason why you can't make something for yourself out of it." He looked at the money and then at me.

"You trying to bribe me? Because it's working."

The faint smile appeared again in the same corner. "I had hoped you would consider it seriously. Of course one never knows what the future may bring; not all of my clients are as well off as Mr. Swafford, nor as easily bullied, but there should be enough coming in to keep gas in your car and so forth."

I put my half of the cash in my wallet. "This should buy a lot of so forth."

He smiled again at this obvious acceptance of his offer, briefly, this time in both comers.

Chapter 2.

IT WAS NEARLY three when I left Escott's, but Bobbi would be awake. She may have left her job and her room at the Nightcrawler Club, but she still kept club hours.

Her new home was a suite in a respectable hotel that provided maid service, meals, and a bribable house detective-everything a girl could want.

I crossed the marble-floored lobby, waving at the night clerk, who knew me by sight. The kid in the elevator was sound asleep on his stool, so I charitably took the stairs up to the fourth floor. Her rooms were to the left of the stairs, taking up a corner block of windows that fronted the building. Light was showing under her door. I knocked softly, heard her bare feet patter close, and a single hazel eye peered through the peephole. I winked back and the door opened.

"h.e.l.lo, stranger, I was beginning to think you'd never show up." She pulled me inside and locked out the rest of the world.

"So you're taking me for granted, huh?"

"Uh-huh, just like the laundry."

"You dress up like that for the laundry?"

"This is dressing down; something informal, yet intimate." She was wearing some baby blue satin lounging pajamas that made it difficult for me to think straight.

When she walked, her legs made a pleasant susurrous sound. Slightly hypnotized by the rhythm, I followed her into the living room as we curled up on the sofa. At least she curled- I stretched my legs out and hooked an arm around her shoulder.

"What kept you so long?" she asked.

"Charles needed some help tonight."

"What did he do, drag you backward through a distillery?" She sniffed my hair critically.

"Just about. Thought I'd lost the atmosphere of the place when I'd changed."

"Into what?"

"What do you mean 'into what'?"

"A bat or a wolf-"

"What are you talking about?"

She pulled a thick book from under a pillow and tapped the lurid red letters of the t.i.tle with one nail. "It says in here..."

Then I had to laugh and shake my head. "Bobbi, you nut, you can't be taking that seriously."

"Well, it's the only book I knew of about vampires."

"There are lots of others, but they're not necessarily right, either. Why are you looking at that stuff? You've already got the real article."

"I wanted to know more. According to this, you'll be turning me into one any time now." She said it like a joke, but I could see a real concern underneath. She waited for my reaction.

I took the book and flipped through until I found the right page. "There, read that part and try to ignore the scary language. Until we do this there is no chance of you ever turning into a vampire." I waited, listening to her soft breathing as she read, my arm close around her shoulders. She finally let the book droop.

"That scene wasn't in the movie."

"Too erotic."

"Erotic?" She sounded doubtful.

"Don't let the description put you off until you've tried it."She looked speculative. "You want to do that?"

"Not unless you want to. It's your decision."

"What would happen?"

"One h.e.l.l of a climax for both of us."

"And that's all? Not that there's anything wrong with a great climax," she quickly added.

"I'm glad you think so."

"Come on, Jack. What else is it?"