Why do so many crystal-ball readers work out of places that look like somebody ought to tear them down? For the same reason some of ’em troll for suckers on the Red Car lines, I figure: they’re lousy at what they try to do. If they were any good, they could see the future well enough to take care of themselves. I’m not talking about their clients.

  Don’t get me wrong. There are good crystal-ball readers, damn good ones. They don’t advertise on the trolley, though, and they don’t work out of filthy shacks with dried-out weeds for a front yard. They take care of themselves real nice. Or the fat cats in places like Detroit and Wall Street and Washington—oh, yes, and Moscow, too—do it for them.

  Things only got scruffier as we came closer to downtown. ​What had been Little Tokio before the war, they were calling Bronzeville these days. Soon as the government cleared the Japs out, Negroes started moving in. Sometimes they did it legal, sometimes they just squatted. Nobody fussed much. There was a war on. Lotta jobs to do. You had to squeeze people in somewhere.

  Old colored part of town, along Central and through there, they knew their place. It wasn’t a great place, not even a good one, but it was a place where you could get along if you didn’t make waves. Bronzeville …. When Bronzeville opened up, everybody who was new and everybody who was uppity jumped in.

  In Bronzeville, the numbers runners and the boys who sold reefers don’t bother to hide. They stand on the corner like respectable folks. In Bronzeville, they are. What makes you respectable faster than money in your pocket?

  Girls paraded in dresses down to here and up to there. They left no doubt about their assets, so to speak. The guys who ran them paraded, too, in rolled-brim fedoras, sharp-cut suits, and spit-shined shoes. They say a good pimp doesn’t need to keep an eye on his girls. This was Bronzeville. Good pimps didn’t come here.

  At least the trolley car was quiet. ​We didn’t have anybody from the Pushers and Shovers Society riding with us. They’re punks, is what they are. They see somebody who looks weak or meek, they push him around, they shake him down, they rough him up, they lift his billfold and they run like hell. Punks. Colored punks. Oh, there’s white punks, too—you betcha—but not in the Pushers and Shovers.

  When we got to Second and San Pedro, the trolley took a diagonal on Weller to go to First at Los Angeles Street. I rode it one more block west, then hopped off. The trolley would make a right and keep on heading north up Main past City Hall. The main police station was on First, three blocks west.

  I hoofed it. The building looks like it’ll fall over the first time the earth elementals get mad at us again, or maybe just if the Santa Anas blow harder than usual. It goes back before the turn of the century. Here, that makes it ancient. So they’re gonna tear it down and build a new one. They’ve got the land. They’ve got the money. Pretty soon, the flatfoots’ll have a fancy new place to drink coffee and beat on prisoners in.

  Pretty soon, but not yet. They overflow the old station like a twelve-year-old in a nine-year-old’s clothes. They’ve split off some of their operations (not the ones I wanted—I hoped) and moved ’em to City Hall. I don’t know of any twelve-year-old who can do that when he gets too big for his britches.

  The sergeant at the front desk was eating a jelly doughnut and smoking a cheroot that smelled like burning dragon turds. Made me sick to my stomach when I saw him. Do one, fine. Do the other, fine. Both at once? I started to understand how much Old Man Mose loved my cigarettes.

  The sergeant looked as thrilled to see me as I was to watch him. “I thought they hauled the trash away today,” he said. “Instead, it comes walking in.”

  A private eye who expects a cop to be his pal is in the wrong line of work. When they get under your skin, you can’t show it. Might as well pour gasoline on a fire. I gave him my best you-dumb-prick smile and said, “Funny, Charlie. Fun-ny. Har-de-har-har. See? I’m laughing. You’ll slay ’em at Eddie Carroll’s on the Sunset Strip.”

  He blew smoke at me—literally, for once. I lit an Old Gold in self-defense. Then he said, “What are you doing here? They didn’t haul you in with the paddy wagon this time.”

  “That got straightened out,” I answered, which was more or less true. “I’m trying to track a missing person—um, individual.”

  Charlie raised one tufted eyebrow, all I needed to see to remember he didn’t like vampires … or zombies or ghosts or goblins or merfolk … or, for that matter, Negroes or Jews or Japanese or Chinese … or anybody else who didn’t wear the blue uniform. Chances are he didn’t like himself. Well, I didn’t like him, either. But I had to deal with him.

  “Gimme the gory details,” he said.

  “Vampire name of Rudolf Sebestyen,” I spelled the last name, same as Dora Urban had. “Last seen Sunday night—said he was on the way to Deacon’s.”

  Up went that eyebrow again. “He was heading for Deacon’s, anything that happened to him he musta deserved.”

  Can’t say the same thing hadn’t crossed my beady little mind. Even so, I kinda shrugged and said, “If it was anything bad, it’s still police business. Got anything on him?”

  “Lemme see. Spell me the name again, willya?” Not like he’d bothered to write it down or anything. I spelled it. He flipped through the logbooks. “Nah, nothin’ about nobody by that name Sunday or afterwards.” He stuffed the rest of the jelly doughnut into his face. It filled his cheeks so full, he looked like a hamster—an ugly hamster, but he did. After one hell of a gulp, he went on, “No reports of any bloodsuckers catchin’ fire when the sun came up, neither, case you was wondering.”

  I was, but not very much. That would have made the news. I might have heard about it. Dora Urban probably would have.

  “No missing-individual report?” I asked.

  “Not about one of them things, not in here.” He smacked the logbooks with a scarred-knuckled fist.

  “Mind if I go up and talk to the Missing Individuals folks?”

  “It’s a free country, ’cept for sales tax. You wanna waste your time, be my guest.”

  He waved me toward the stairs, so I took the elevator. Stairs would have been quicker; I had to wait for the damn thing to come down. The cage creaked open. “Third floor,” I told the operator.

  “Third floor. You got it.” He started to whistle. Like anybody with half an ounce of sense, I left him alone while he was on the job. Modern elevators have safety catches. This cage was as old as the rest of the station. If he fubar’d the Indian Rope Trick, down would come baby, elevator and all.

  When we got to the third floor, the cage’s front door opened again. I hopped out, glad to have solid floor under my feet again. The cage groaned closed. The operator stood there whistling, holding the damn thing up while he waited for his next call.

  I knew the way to Missing Individuals. Not like I’d never been there before. When I opened the door, three clerks—one a frump, one cute, one chubby but dressed nice—were typing away. For a second, I thought they were the only ones in there. I do that every single time. Sure, soon as the second’s passed I feel like a jerk, but Missing Individuals always seems to be run by, well, missing individuals.

  It isn’t, of course. Bit by bit, you notice that. A manila folder moving from here to there under what looks like its own power. Something that reminds you of curdled air going down the aisle between two rows of steel shelves. A voice you think you hear. And then, when you concentrate, you realize you do, even if it’s more inside your head than with your ears.

  Ectoplasm is like that. What can I tell you? Who better to investigate individuals who disappear than ghosts? They’ve almost disappeared themselves, you might say. And they can get into and out of places that give even vampires trouble, and without getting noticed unless their luck’s out.

  More curdled air across the counter from me. When I looked at it out of the corner of my eye, the way you look for Titan when you’re looking at Saturn, it curdled in a familiar way. “What do you know, Eb?”

  ​Ebenezer had been a Pinkerton man during the Civil War till a Confederate Minié ball ended that. But he’d hung around in the same general line of work, you might say. “I’m here,” he answered in an echo of a whisper.

  So he was. Don’t ask me why some people who die turn into ghosts. I’m no archbishop or rabbi or forensic sorcerer. It does happen, though. “What can you tell me about a vampire named Rudolf Sebestyen?” I asked him.

  “That one? He’s trouble. Always has been.” Charlie might not have known anything, or let on that he knew anything, but Eb did. He went on, “How come? What’s he done?”

  “He’s gone missing. Waddaya think he’s done? Think I came in here to get a concealed-carry permit?”

  “A joker.” He sounded like a disgusted breeze sighing through the branches of a forest a thousand miles away. “But I think that’s news. Let me check with my colleagues.”

  I guess he did. A bunch of air got muddled up, not just one spook’s worth. Faces I couldn’t quite make out wore expressions I wasn’t sure I wanted to see. After a while, Eb—I guess it was Eb—came back to me. “And?” I said.

  “Nobody’s heard anything. Nobody’s seen anything.”

  “Awright. My lucky day.” I started to turn around and leave, then stopped. If they’d already heard of Rudolf the dead-nosed vampire …. “You tell me anything about a gal—hey, you know what I mean—name of Dora Urban, connected to Sebestyen?”

  Eb didn’t need to talk to his pals. “Her?” he said. “Worse than him, by plenty. You mess with her, you’ll end up twice as dead as she is.”

  I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t think I wanted to find out, either. But twelve troy ounces of gold argued even louder the other way. You do what you gotta do, that’s all. “Thanks a heap,” I said, and this time I did go.

  I walked down the stairs. Charlie’d lit a fresh trash-fire cigar. He was telling another sergeant with hairy ears an old, old dirty joke. He paused to give me the finger to send me on the way. I smiled and nodded back, sweet as pumpkin pie. Like I say, if they know they’ve got to you, they win.

  Downtown is City Hall and the Federal building and the Hall of Records and the Biltmore and the Central Library and Pershing Square and Bullock’s and all that fancy stuff. And it’s a bunch of brick and stucco piles run up too fast and jammed too close together. Some are full of people. Others hold the crap people want to buy.

  I know a guy who runs a shop up there. Al Harris is a fat old sweaty Jew, as pretty as an unmade bed, but he hears things. All kinds of characters wander into his place. He keeps his mouth shut and his ears open.

  The shop’s at 131-3/4 Hill St., half a block down and a little bit over from the police station. It’s just as big as the address would make you guess, too. Blink when you’re walking by and you’ll miss it. The faded sign in the dusty window says BOOKS. In smaller letters underneath, MAGAZINES.

  I was two steps from the door when a cop came out. I almost kept going. If they were giving Al a hard time again, I was the last guy he wanted to see. But the cop had a fixed, kind of embarrassed look on his Irish mug and a flat paper bag under his arm. He wasn’t shaking Al down. He was a customer. All kinds, like I told you.

  He didn’t look at me. I didn’t look at him, either, not so he could see. These joints have their rules, same as any others. I went in. The bell over the door let out a soft ring, almost more of a cough. It sounded embarrassed, too.

  Al Harris stood behind the counter. He has more chins than the Hong Kong phone book and a Samsonite bag under each eye. A cigar almost as smelly as Charlie’s back at the station and the loud—hell, the noisy—sports shirt he always wears only add to the effect. If you want sleaze, Al’s book and magazine shop is the place to come.

  His stock in trade also lives up to, or down to, that. Cheaply printed classics with titles like Super Young Lust and Beat Me, Baby, Eight to the Bar crowded the shelves (which I’d guess he’d made himself, to hold as much as they could). A magazine was called Vampires in Furs. The photo on the cover showed a lot more vampire than fur. She wasn’t half bad, but she didn’t come close to Dora Urban. Zombies … goblins … people, even. Al runs a dirty-book place for folks with, um, varied tastes.

  He was going to pretend not to notice me, too. Somebody who steps into a joint like that craves as much privacy as he can get. But then he recognized me. A smile didn’t make him any less ugly, but it made him ugly in a different way. “How are ya, Jack?” You could take the boy outa Brooklyn, but you couldn’t take Brooklyn outa the boy.

  “I’ve been worse. I’ve been better,” I said. “How about you? And Margie?” Margie’s his wife. She’s on the porky side, too. She’s nice. Nutty as a Christmas fruitcake, but nice. “And Skeeter?” Skeeter’s the dog. They have him instead of kids. He’s as round as both of them put together.

  “We’re awright.” His gaze sharpened. He isn’t pretty, but he’s nobody’s dummy. “So what can I do for ya?” He figured I wasn’t there to ogle. I don’t come in for that. And he owed me one or two more than I owed him right then.

  “You know anything about a couple of vampires who go by Dora Urban and Rudolf Sebestyen?” I was getting used to spelling the funny last name.

  “Heard of the gal. Never ran into her, though. The guy … I know who he is. I heard stuff about him, and none of it good. I wouldn’t want nothin’ to do with him if I was you. Strictly bad news.”

  “I’m getting paid to want something to do with him,” I said.

  He nodded. Everything jiggled when he did. He didn’t need me to draw him a picture. He already had plenty in the shop. “He’s in some kinda trouble again,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  I nodded. “Would I be sniffing around after him if he wasn’t?”

  But Al wasn’t listening to me. He was trying to remember what kind of trouble had found Rudolf Sebestyen now. “Something to do with … blood banks, I think maybe.”

  “Aii!” I said. Transfusions save lives, people’s lives. And when people donate blood, they keep vampires going without the need to sink fangs into somebody’s throat. They do unless some greedy chucklehead starts making his own withdrawals, anyhow. Was Sebestyen one of those? If he was, didn’t he deserve whatever happened to him?

  ​II

  Old Man Mose looked up from polishing his balls with his tongue. Cats are limber enough to have fun people can only dream about. You do, don’t you? Then again, it works both ways. He has to use that tongue for toilet paper.

  “You really going to call that dead-smelling bitch again?” he asked. For him, bitch was nastier than dead-smelling. He didn’t like Dora Urban, not even a little bit.

  “I’ve got to,” I said. I wasn’t even slightly sure I liked her myself. I thought she was stunning. I wanted to jump on her elegant bones. Like her? That was harder. She looked at me at least partly the way a farmer looked at a pig, imagining ribs and chops and ham sandwiches.

  “People!” Mose flipped his nictitating membranes across his eyes. I’d roll mine to get that message across.

  “Yeah, well, just remember who keeps you in cat food, buddy,” I said. He did that membrane-flip thing one more time. Now it meant he could go out and kill things whenever he felt like it. Which I guess he could, once he worked off some of the lard he’d picked up hanging around with the likes of me.

  No noise from Wrigley Field tonight. The Angels had gone on the road. Just me in the office with the spinning fan, with my cigarettes and the Wild Turkey, with my smart-aleck tomcat.

  I dialed MUtual 8273. That phone number’d been around for a while. It was two letters and four digits. All the newer ones have five digits. Of course, I couldn’t begin to guess how long she’d been around. She looked maybe twenty-eight, yeah, but that proved nothing. She might have hired a gumsandal in Nero’s day who had to dial his phone with Roman numerals.

  Ring … Ring … A clunk as someone picked it up, not too gracefully. “Halló?” A man’s voice, saying something that didn’t sound quite like your usual Hello?

  “Dora Urban, please,” I said, wondering if I was talking to Rudolf Sebestyen. I figured not. She would’ve let me know if he showed up. She would’ve tried to get her double eagles back, too.

  “Who calls?” This guy spoke English, but not real well.

  “I’m Jack Mitchell.”

  “Oh, yes. Your name I hear. One moment, please.” That last came out closer to Vahn moment, plizz.

  It wasn’t what you’d call a short moment. But eventually I heard Dora Urban’s precise contralto: “Good evening, Mister Mitchell. What can I do for you?”

  “For starters, you can let me know how come you didn’t tell me Sebestyen wanted to knock over a blood bank,” I said.

  This silence lasted longer than the one while she was coming to the phone. “Where did you hear that?” she asked at last.

  “Never you mind.” If I answered that one, Al Harris would show just how immortal he wasn’t, and in jig time, too. “Is it true or isn’t it?”

  Another pause. She had time to burn. I didn’t. In overdue course, she said, “I am not completely certain.”

  “Awright, it’s true,” I said. She didn’t try and call me a liar. I almost wished she would have. After a Wild Turkey-punctuated pause of my own, I went on, “Listen, if I’m gonna work for you, you gotta tell me the stuff I need to know. If your, uh, half brother sets his sights on a blood bank, that bumps up the number of people—folks—who wanna see him dead … undead—undeader … whatever the devil the right word is, doesn’t it?”

  “We use the term finished, Mister Mitchell,” Dora Urban said quietly.

  “Finished. Terrific. I’ve learned something. But you didn’t answer my question. If Rudolf Sebestyen was after a blood bank, line to finish him forms on the left, right?” Christ! I reminded myself of my old drill sergeant. “So why’d you keep me in the dark?”