The Nighttime is the Right Time Page 18

  The vampire looked as if he didn't believe it, but he went on. "Very well. In a thousand years one sees many things. Does many things. But after so long a time, these things begin to pall. Life grows drab and monotonous."

  Elvis nodded. He knew exactly what the vampire was talking about.

  "And so one needs something to keep him going, something to add a bit of . . . piquancy, shall we say, to his life. Do you understand me?"

  "Yeah. Prob'ly a lot better'n you think."

  "So I became intrigued with you, the man they called The King. Because, you see, I believe that I am The King. The King of the Night. I rule the darkness in ways that you do not, cannot, understand."

  "I read the papers," Elvis said.

  "That part is not like you think. It gives me no pleasure. It is simply that I must have their blood to live. They sustain me. And they feel no pain."

  "I bet they don't."

  "But that is beside the point. The point is that I wanted to see what it meant to have the kind of power that you have. You can command awe; so can I, but it is an awe based in fear. But you command love, adoration. I wanted to feel that kind of power."

  "If you feel it, it's just because you're an imitation of me, and a damn poor one at that."

  The vampire's lips pulled back from his teeth. Elvis saw the sharp incisors, hollow so they could drain the blood.

  "That may be true," the vampire said. "But there is another way for me to become you, at least for a short time. Why do you think I let you find me tonight, tonight after all these years?"

  "You're tired of runnin' around the country makin' a fool of yourself and soundin' like Robert Goulet?"

  "You are not funny," the vampire said. "But that does not matter. Soon you will be a part of me, and I will become a part of you."

  "I thought you might have somethin' like that in mind," Elvis said. He pulled his .357 from inside the denim jacket and let the light from one of the lamps fall on the chrome-plated barrel.

  The vampire sneered. Elvis wasn't impressed. He could do better.

  "Now I will show you my power," the vampire said, taking a step toward Elvis.

  "That's a nice medallion you've got," Elvis said, gesturing with the pistol barrel.

  The vampire's hand went to his throat. A thick gold medallion about the size of saucer hung there from a heavy gold chain.

  Elvis pulled the trigger.

  The bullet went right through the vampire's hand, and the medallion exploded, almost like a TV screen, and dirt flew everywhere. The bullet kept veered off and went through the vampire's shoulder and out the back. The vampire wasn't bothered.

  "You better gather all that dirt up," Elvis said. "Else you won't have any place to sleep tomorrow."

  "You fool," the vampire said. "I have other soil that I can reach before sunrise. Your bullets will not stop me."

  "I wouldn't count on that if I was you," Elvis said, and he pulled the trigger again.

  This time the bullet slammed into the vampire's chest and stayed there. The vampire jerked erect and shrieked with pain and fear. His face twisted as he sank to his knees; his hands clutched at his heart.

  "Wooden bullets," Elvis said. "I thought of 'em myself. Looks like they're workin'." The vampire moaned and toppled over on his side. "I don't guess I'll have to cut off your head after all."

  The vampire was rotting away right there in the parking lot. He opened his moldering mouth and said, "I am . . . The King."

  "You're not much of anything," Elvis said. "Just a pile of dust."

  And before long, that's all he was.

  Elvis didn't watch the whole transformation, however. He didn't want to stick around the parking lot too long. Even in Houston, someone was bound to call the cops about those gunshots. He walked over and picked up the Acoustic Wave Machine and went back to the hotel.

  ~ * ~

  The last impersonator, a pimply fifteen-year-old, had just finished butchering "Teddy Bear" when Elvis sat back down at his table. There was scattered applause, but not much. Elvis felt seriously depressed and a whole lot older than the vampire had been.

  Hell, he never should've killed him. The vampire was what had kept him going for fifteen years. What the hell was he going to do with the rest of his life? It wasn't like he could call up the Colonel and say, "Hey, I'm back."

  The announcer came out onto the stage. "All right, folks, that's it for the night, unless there's some hunka hunka burnin' love right here in the audience who thinks they can do better. What about it? Anybody here who wants to get up on the stage and show us what they've got? Remember, the prize is two hundred and fifty dollars." He paused for a minute, looking out at the audience. "No takers? Well, we'll have to vote on the winner then."

  Elvis heard people at the other tables talking among themselves. It was no contest. The vampire was a sure winner. They liked the way he looked, even if he couldn't sing very well. Too bad he wasn't going to be there to collect.

  Then Elvis had a thought. He opened the CD compartment on the Bose and looked at the selections on the disc.

  "Hold on a minute," he called to the announcer. "I think I'd like to give it a try."

  "All right," the announcer said. "Let's give this man a hand." Elvis walked to the stage. "And what's your name, sir?"

  Elvis hesitated, but not for long. "King," he said. "Aaron King. That's Aaron with two A's."

  The announcer laughed. "Let's hear it then, for the King, for Aaron with two A's!"

  There was almost no applause at all, but Elvis didn't care. He turned on the Bose and began belting out "One Night," not the sanitized version that he'd released on RCA but the real one, the one he'd learned from the old Smiley Lewis 78, all about the one night of sin he was now payin' for.

  It was as if the years dropped away as soon as the first note of music came out of the machine, as if he'd never stopped performing. He'd never sung better. His hips had never moved more smoothly. He'd never meant anything more than he meant the words to the song.

  The applause started before he even finished. There were women bouncing in their chairs and screaming so loud that their dates and husbands looked disgusted, but even they were clapping.

  He could hear one woman yelling to her companion, "He don't look a thing like Elvis, but lordy he can sing!"

  It's just as good as it ever was, Elvis thought. "They sustain me." Wasn't that what the vampire had said? Elvis looked around at the small but madly clapping crowd. Suddenly he knew exactly how he would be spending the rest of his life, and he grinned. He was going to be pretty damn good at impersonating himself.

  "Thank yew," he drawled, bowing to the crowd. "Thank yew ver' much. Thank yew."

  ~ * ~

  He had his two hundred and fifty dollars in his billfold and he was standing in the parking lot where the vampire had been.

  There was nothing left there now except maybe a little of the dirt that had come from the medallion, but the breeze was strong from the south and most of the dirt and dust had blown away. Even the jumpsuit was gone, and Elvis wondered if someone had picked it up for a souvenir. Probably had. He wasn't interested in it himself. He was going to be the Young Elvis.

  He tossed the Bose into the back seat of the Caddy and drove out of the parking lot. He'd heard there was a contest scheduled in L. A. in a couple of weeks. Might as well head that way right now.

  When he was gliding along the interstate, he looked to his left and saw the hotel outlined against the night sky. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, flooring the accelerator and looking back through the windshield toward the west, toward California, "Elvis has left the building."

  How I Found a Cat, Lost True Love, and Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo

  This story was nominated for an Anthony Award for “best short story.” Naturally, I’m very fond of it, and I especially like the title.

  1.

  Actually, the cat found me.

  I was in the market section of Monaco, between the hills that suppor
t the royal palace on the one hand and the casino section of Monte Carlo on the other. It was a lovely day in early fall, the kind you read about in tourist manuals. The sun was bright, and the sky was a hard, brilliant blue.

  The market was so crowded that I could hardly move. Flower vendors offered red and yellow and white blossoms that overflowed their paper cones, while food vendors hawked fish and vegetables, fruit and pastries. Shoppers swirled around me, and the street was packed with cars and vans.

  The smells of roses and freshly-caught seafood mingled with the odor of coffee from the sidewalk cafes, and I was thinking about having a cup of mocha when the cat ran up my leg, digging its claws into my jeans and hoisting itself right up to my waist.

  For some reason I've never understood, cats find me attractive.

  I settled my glasses on my nose, gently pried the cat loose and, held her in my arms. She was mostly black, with a white streak on her nose, a white badge on her chest, and white socks on her legs. Her eyes were emerald green, and her heart was pounding as if she were frightened, but in that mob it was hard to tell what might be scaring her.

  "What's the matter, cat?" I asked. Maybe that's why cats like me. I treat them as if their brains were larger than walnuts, though they aren't.

  The cat of course didn't answer, but she did seem to relax a bit. Then a dog barked somewhere nearby and the cat tensed up, sliding her claws out and through my shirt, into the skin of my chest.

  "It's all right," I said, squirming a little. "I won't let the dog get you."

  The cat looked wide-eyed out over the heads of the crowd for the source of the barking. There was no dog in evidence, and though the cat didn't appear entirely convinced of my ability to protect her, she withdrew her claws from my shirt.

  I hadn't come to Monaco to adopt a cat, as attractive as that idea might seem, so I looked around for someone to take her off my hands.

  That's when I saw the woman.

  She wasn't just any woman. She was the woman. Even in that crowd of the rich and beautiful she stood out. She was tall and lithe. Her hair was midnight black under a pink sun hat, and her eyes were as deeply green as those of the cat I held in my arms. And she was walking straight toward me.

  I was in love.

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Truly beautiful women affect my nervous system. They might not often be attracted to me, but I was certainly attracted to them.

  "Hello," she said in English. She had that unidentifiable continental accent that I'd heard a lot in the last few days, but somehow it seemed much more charming from her than it had from anyone else. "Are you American?"

  I managed to get my mouth to work. "How did you know?"

  She laughed, though it was more like music to me than laughter. "You Americans are all alike. There is such innocence about you."

  She reached for the cat and rubbed a white hand along its dark coat. The cat began purring.

  "That is why animals trust you," she said. "They can sense the innocence."

  "I wondered about that," I told her.

  "I'm sure that you did. True innocence never knows itself."

  She took the cat from me. It went quite willingly and settled into her arms as if it belonged there.

  "I thank you very much for rescuing Michelle. My uncle and I came to the market for fish, and she escaped my car when I opened the door to leave. There was a dog nearby, and I suspect that his barking may have frightened her."

  "We heard him," I said.

  She started to turn away, which is usually the case with women I meet. But then something unusual happened. She turned back.

  "Would you like a cup of coffee, perhaps? Michelle would like to repay you for the rescue."

  "What about your uncle?" I asked. Somehow I managed it without stuttering. "Won't he be worried about the cat?"

  "He won't mind. He'll find us, I'm sure."

  "I'd love some coffee," I said.

  ~ * ~

  It was just as noisy at the small table where we sat under a striped umbrella as it had been in the market, but somehow we seemed isolated in an island of quiet where the only sounds were our two voices, along with the occasional mew from Michelle, who sat on a chair beside her owner, whose name was Antoinette Sagan. Tony, to her friends, of which I was now officially one.

  I had already told her to call me Mike.

  "And what are you doing here in Monaco?" Tony asked me as she sipped her coffee.

  "I came to break the bank at the casino," I said, pushing up my glasses.

  Tony set her cup down and laughed. "As so many have. And how do you plan to do so?"

  "Roulette," I said. "I have a system."

  Tony winked at the cat. "Do you hear that, Michelle? The American has a system."

  Michelle wasn't interested. She was watching some kind of bug that was crawling along the walk just beneath her chair.

  Tony looked back at me and smiled. The green of her eyes was amazing. I think my heart fibrillated.

  "Everyone has a system," she said. "For cards, for dice, for roulette. They come to Monaco daily. But no one has ever broken the bank."

  "You'd never know if someone did," I said. "They'd never tell, and the banks here know how to keep a secret. Anyway, I don't have to break the bank, not really. I'd settle for a few million dollars."

  Michelle had lost interest in the bug. She stepped up on the table and walked across it to me. She climbed into my lap, turned in a circle and lay down, purring loudly.

  "I believe you've made a conquest," Tony said. "And what is your system, if I may ask? Or is it a secret?"

  I told her it wasn't a secret. I took one of my pens out of my pocket protector and pulled a napkin across the table.

  "Do you know the game?" I asked.

  Tony shrugged. The white shirt moved in interesting places, but I tried to ignore that.

  "Of course," she said.

  "Then you know the odds favoring the house." I jotted them on the napkin. "In American roulette, the house edge is 5.26%; in the European version it's 2.70% because there's no double zero on the wheel."

  "So of course you'll be playing the European version."

  "Of course. Now. Have you ever heard of the Martingale system?"

  Tony made a comic frown. "Who has not? Many millions of francs have been lost with it. You make your bet. If you win, you take your winnings and begin again. If you lose, you double the bet. Lose again, double again." She took the pen from my hand and began scribbling on the napkin. "Say that your bet is 100 francs on red. Seven times in a row the wheel comes up black. That means that your next bet will be 12,800 francs, but you will have already lost 12,700 francs. Should you win, you win 100 francs, should you lose . . . ." She shrugged again. "The croupier will be overjoyed to have you at his table."

  Her figures were correct, and of course the house odds defeat everyone in the long run. I was going to beat the odds.

  I told Tony that I was a math teacher at a community college in the States. That I'd always been fascinated with odds and statistics. And that I'd recently won fifty thousand dollars in the state lottery.

  "Winning such a large amount was very lucky," she said. "And you have come to Monaco to lose it all at the roulette table? That does not seem practical."

  "I'm not practical, and I don't think I'm going to lose."

  I tried to elaborate on my system, which I explained was an elegant variation on the Martingale, involving shifting the bet to different locations, avoiding the low pay-offs like red or black while never trying for the larger pay-offs like the single number bet, and even dropping out of the betting occasionally.

  "And if all else fails," I said, "maybe I'll get lucky."

  "It has happened," she said.

  "Right. About eighty years ago, black came up seventeen times in a row on one table. Anyone starting out with a dollar and leaving it on black would have won over, let's see . . . ." I worked it out on the napkin. "One hundred thirty-one thousand, seventy-two dolla
rs. It could happen to me."

  She looked at the cat, which was still lying comfortably in my lap. "You seem like a nice man, Mike. I hope it does happen to you, and that you pick up your money before the eighteenth spin of the wheel."

  Her smile made my knees weak.

  "I could share it with you if it happens that way," I said, hardly caring that her answer could pose a real problem for me if it was the one I wanted to hear.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but I never found out what it was. She saw someone behind me, and her eyes darkened. She closed her mouth.

  I looked around. A very large man stood there. He wore a white shirt and dark slacks, and he had a dark face that was pitted like volcanic rock. I suppose you could call him ruggedly handsome if you liked the type.

  Tony said, "Hello, Andre. This is Mike. He has found Michelle."

  I picked up the cat in my left arm and began to turn. Michelle growled low in her throat, and the hair ridged along her back.

  "Stupid cat," Andre said. His voice was like Michelle's growl.

  "Andre is my uncle," Tony explained. "He and Michelle are not mutual admirers."

  I could see that much. I could also see that Andre was not at all interested in meeting me, much less in shaking hands. I dropped the hand that I had been about to extend.

  Tony came around the table and took Michelle, who had stopped growling, though she didn't look very happy.

  "Thank you so much, Mike," Tony said. "Andre and I are both grateful."

  Sure they were. Andre had already turned his back and was walking away. He was wide as a billboard.

  "I hope you win at the casino," Tony said over her shoulder as she turned to follow Andre.

  I watched them move through the crowd. Andre didn't look like anyone's uncle to me, and I wondered if Tony had lied. I suppose that it didn't make any difference.

  Besides, if she had lied, we were even. After all, I hadn't won the lottery. I wasn't even a math teacher.

  2.

  Cammie was waiting for me in a little cafe not far from the market. She was drinking black coffee and smoking a Players. She knew I didn't like cigarettes, but she didn't bother to snuff it out when I sat down. No one else minded. It wasn't like an American cafe. There were lots of smokers.