"I'm so very sorry for you," Susannah said.
"Thank you, my dear," he said. "I wonder if you know how much that means? How wonderful it is to have condolence from one's own world? It's like being a castaway and getting news from home. Or fresh water from a spring after years of stale bottled stuff." He reached out, took her hand in both of his, and smiled. To Eddie, something in that smile looked forced, or even false, and he had a sudden ghastly idea. What if Pere Callahan was smelling a mixture of bitter onions and hot metal right now? What if he was seeing a blue glow, not around Susannah's neck like a collar, but around her stomach like a belt?
Eddie looked at Roland, but there was no help there. The gunslinger's face was expressionless.
"He had AIDS, didn't he?" Eddie asked. "Some gay Type Three vampire bit your friend and passed it on to him."
"Gay," Callahan said. "Do you mean to tell me that stupid word actually . . . " He trailed off, shaking his head.
"Yep," Eddie said. "The Red Sox still haven't won the Series and homos are gays."
"Eddie!" Susannah said.
"Hey," Eddie said, "do you think it's easy being the one who left New York last and forgot to turn off the lights? Cause it's not. And let me tell you, I'm feeling increasingly out of date myself." He turned back to Callahan. "Anyway, that is what happened, isn't it?"
"I think so. You have to remember that I didn't know a great deal myself at that time, and was denying and repressing what I did know. With great vigor, as President Kennedy used to say. I saw the first one--the first 'little one'--in that movie theater in the week between Christmas and New Year's of 1975." He gave a brief, barking laugh. "And now that I think back, that theater was called the Gaiety. Isn't that surprising?" He paused, looking into their faces with some puzzlement. "It's not. You're not surprised at all."
"Coincidence has been cancelled, honey," Susannah said. "What we're living in these days is more like the Charles Dickens version of reality."
"I don't understand you."
"You don't need to, sug. Go on. Tell your tale."
The Old Fella took a moment to find the dropped thread, then went on.
"I saw my first Type Three in late December of 1975. By that night about three months later when I saw the blue glow around Lupe's neck, I'd come across half a dozen more. Only one of them at prey. He was down in an East Village alley with another guy. He--the vampire--was standing like this." Callahan rose and demonstrated, arms out, palms propped against an invisible wall. "The other one--the victim--was between his propped arms, facing him. They could have been talking. They could have been kissing. But I knew--I knew--that it wasn't either one.
"The others . . . I saw a couple in restaurants, both of them eating alone. That glow was all over their hands and their faces--smeared across their lips like . . . like electric blueberry juice--and the burned-onion smell hung around them like some kind of perfume." Callahan smiled briefly. "It strikes me how every description I try to make has some kind of simile buried in it. Because I'm not just trying to describe them, you know, I'm trying to understand them. Still trying to understand them. To figure out how there could have been this other world, this secret world, there all the time, right beside the one I'd always known."
Roland's right, Eddie thought. It's todash. Got to be. He doesn't know it, but it is. Does that make him one of us? Part of our ka-tet?
"I saw one in line at Marine Midland Bank, where Home did its business," Callahan said. "Middle of the day. I was in the Deposit line, this woman was in Withdrawals. That light was all around her. She saw me looking at her and smiled. Fearless eye contact. Flirty." He paused. "Sexy."
"You knew them, because of the vampire-demon's blood in you," Roland said. "Did they know you?"
"No," Callahan said promptly. "If they'd been able to see me--to isolate me--my life wouldn't have been worth a dime. Although they came to know about me. That was later, though.
"My point is, I saw them. I knew they were there. And when I saw what had happened to Lupe, I knew what had been at him. They see it, too. Smell it. Probably hear the chimes, as well. Their victims are marked, and after that more are apt to come, like bugs to a light. Or dogs, all determined to piss on the same telephone pole.
"I'm sure that night in March was the first time Lupe was bitten, because I never saw that glow around him before . . . or the marks on the side of his throat, which looked like no more than a couple of shaving nicks. But he was bitten repeatedly after that. It had something to do with the nature of the business we were in, working with transients. Maybe drinking alcohol-laced blood is a cheap high for them. Who knows?
"In any case, it was because of Lupe that I made my first kill. The first of many. This was in April . . . "
TEN
This is April and the air has finally begun to feel and smell like spring. Callahan has been at Home since five, first writing checks to cover end-of-the-month bills, then working on his culinary specialty, which he calls Toads n Dumplins Stew. The meat is actually stewing beef, but the colorful name amuses him.
He has been washing the big steel pots as he goes along, not because he needs to (one of the few things there's no shortage of at Home is cooking gear) but because that's the way his mother taught him to operate in the kitchen: clean as you go.
He takes a pot to the back door, holds it against his hip with one hand, turns the knob with his other hand. He goes out into the alley, meaning to toss the soapy water into the sewer grating out there, and then he stops. Here is something he has seen before, down in the Village, but then the two men--the one standing against the wall, the one in front of him, leaning forward with his hands propped against the bricks--were only shadows. These two he can see clearly in the light from the kitchen, and the one leaning back against the wall, seemingly asleep with his head turned to the side, exposing his neck, is someone Callahan knows.
It is Lupe.
Although the open door has lit up this part of the alley, and Callahan has made no effort to be quiet--has, in fact, been singing Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side"--neither of them notices him. They are entranced. The man in front of Lupe looks to be about fifty, well dressed in a suit and a tie. Beside him, an expensive Mark Cross briefcase rests on the cobbles. This man's head is thrust forward and tilted. His open lips are sealed against the right side of Lupe's neck. What's under there? Jugular? Carotid? Callahan doesn't remember, nor does it matter. The chimes don't play this time, but the smell is overwhelming, so rank that tears burst from his eyes and clear mucus immediately begins to drip from his nostrils. The two men opposite him blaze with that dark blue light, and Callahan can see it swirling in rhythmic pulses. That's their breathing, he thinks. It's their breathing, stirring that shit around. Which means it's real.
Callahan can hear, very faintly, a liquid smooching sound. It's the sound you hear in a movie when a couple is kissing passionately, really pouring it on.
He doesn't think about what he does next. He puts down the potful of sudsy, greasy water. It clanks loudly on the concrete stoop, but the couple leaning against the alley wall opposite don't stir; they remain lost in their dream. Callahan takes two steps backward into the kitchen. On the counter is the cleaver he's been using to cube the stew-beef. Its blade gleams brightly. He can see his face in it and thinks, Well at least I'm not one; my reflection's still there. Then he closes his hand around the rubber grip. He walks back out into the alley. He steps over the pot of soapy water. The air is mild and damp. Somewhere water is dripping. Somewhere a radio is blaring "Someone Saved My Life Tonight." Moisture in the air makes a halo around the light on the far side of the alley. It's April in New York, and ten feet from where Callahan--not long ago an ordained priest of the Catholic Church--stands, a vampire is taking blood from his prey. From the man with whom Donald Callahan has fallen in love.
"Almost had your hooks in me, din'tcha, dear?" Elton John sings, and Callahan steps forward, raising the cleaver. He brings it down and it sinks deep into the vampire
's skull. The sides of the vampire's face push out like wings. He raises his head suddenly, like a predator that has just heard the approach of something bigger and more dangerous than he is. A moment later he dips slightly at the knees, as if meaning to pick up the briefcase, then seems to decide he can do without it. He turns and walks slowly toward the mouth of the alley. Toward the sound of Elton John, who is now singing "Someone saved, someone saved, someone saved my lii-iife tonight." The cleaver is still sticking out of the thing's skull. The handle waggles back and forth with each step like a stiff little tail. Callahan sees some blood, but not the ocean he would have expected. At that moment he is too deep in shock to wonder about this, but later he will come to believe that there is precious little liquid blood in these beings; whatever keeps them moving, it's more magical than the miracle of blood. Most of what was their blood has coagulated as firmly as the yolk of a hard-cooked egg.
It takes another step, then stops. Its shoulders slump. Callahan loses sight of its head when it sags forward. And then, suddenly, the clothes are collapsing, crumpling in on themselves, drifting down to the wet surface of the alley.
Feeling like a man in a dream, Callahan goes forward to examine them. Lupe Delgado stands against the wall, head back, eyes shut, still lost in whatever dream the vampire has cast over him. Blood trickles down his neck in small and unimportant streams.
Callahan looks at the clothes. The tie is still knotted. The shirt is still inside the suit-coat, and still tucked into the suit-pants. He knows that if he unzipped the fly of those suit-pants, he would see the underwear inside. He picks up one arm of the coat, mostly to confirm its emptiness by touch as well as sight, and the vampire's watch tumbles out of the sleeve and lands with a clink beside what looks like a class ring.
There is hair. There are teeth, some with fillings. Of the rest of Mr. Mark Cross Briefcase, there is no sign.
Callahan gathers up the clothes. Elton John is still singing "Someone Saved My Life Tonight," but maybe that's not surprising. It's a pretty long song, one of those four-minute jobs, must be. He puts the watch on his own wrist and the ring on one of his own fingers, just for temporary safekeeping. He takes the clothes inside, walking past Lupe. Lupe's still lost in his dream. And the holes in his neck, little bigger than pinpricks to start with, are disappearing.
The kitchen is miraculously empty. Off it, to the left, is a door marked STORAGE. Beyond it is a short hall with compartments on both sides. These are behind locked gates made of heavy chickenwire, to discourage pilferage. Canned goods on one side, dry goods on the other. Then clothes. Shirts in one compartment. Pants in another. Dresses and skirts in another. Coats in yet another. At the very end of the hall is a beat-up wardrobe marked MISCELLANY. Callahan finds the vampire's wallet and sticks it in his pocket, on top of his own. The two of them together make quite a lump. Then he unlocks the wardrobe and tosses in the vampire's unsorted clothes. It's easier than trying to take his ensemble apart, although he guesses that when the underwear is found inside the pants, there will be grumbling. At Home, used underwear is not accepted.
"We may cater to the low-bottom crowd," Rowan Magruder has told Callahan once, "but we do have our standards."
Never mind their standards now. There's the vampire's hair and teeth to think about. His watch, his ring, his wallet . . . and God, his briefcase and his shoes! They must still be out there!
Don't you dare complain, he tells himself. Not when ninety-five per cent of him is gone, just conveniently disappeared like the monster in the last reel of a horror movie. God's been with you so far--I think it's God--so don't you dare complain.
Nor does he. He gathers up the hair, the teeth, the briefcase, and takes them to the end of the alley, splashing through puddles, and tosses them over the fence. After a moment's consideration he throws the watch, wallet, and ring over, too. The ring sticks on his finger for a moment and he almost panics, but at last it comes off and over it goes--plink. Someone will take care of this stuff for him. This is New York, after all. He goes back to Lupe and sees the shoes. They are too good to throw away, he thinks; there are years of wear left in those babies. He picks them up and walks back into the kitchen with them dangling from the first two fingers of his right hand. He's standing there with them by the stove when Lupe comes walking into the kitchen from the alley.
"Don?" he asks. His voice is a little furry, the voice of someone who has just awakened from a sound sleep. It also sounds amused. He points at the shoes hooked over the tips of Callahan's fingers. "Were you going to put those in the stew?"
"It might improve the flavor, but no, just in storage," Callahan says. He is astounded by the calmness of his own voice. And his heart! Beating along at a nice regular sixty or seventy beats a minute. "Someone left them out back. What have you been up to?"
Lupe gives him a smile, and when he smiles, he is more beautiful than ever. "Just out there, having a smoke," he says. "It was too nice to come in. Didn't you see me?"
"As a matter of fact, I did," Callahan said. "You looked lost in your own little world, and I didn't want to interrupt you. Open the storage-room door for me, would you?"
Lupe opens the door. "That looks like a really nice pair," he says. "Bally. What's someone doing, leaving Bally shoes for the drunks?"
"Someone must have changed his mind about them," Callahan says. He hears the bells, that poison sweetness, and grits his teeth against the sound. The world seems to shimmer for a moment. Not now, he thinks. Ah, not now, please.
It's not a prayer, he prays little these days, but maybe something hears, because the sound of the chimes fades. The world steadies. From the other room someone is bawling for supper. Someone else is cursing. Same old same old. And he wants a drink. That's the same, too, only the craving is fiercer than it's ever been. He keeps thinking about how the rubber grip felt in his hand. The weight of the cleaver. The sound it made. And the taste is back in his mouth. The dead taste of Barlow's blood. That, too. What did the vampire say in the Petries' kitchen, after it had broken the crucifix his mother had given him? That it was sad to see a man's faith fail.
I'll sit in on the AA meeting tonight, he thinks, putting a rubber band around the Bally loafers and tossing them in with the rest of the footwear. Sometimes the meetings help. He never says, "I'm Don and I'm an alcoholic," but sometimes they help.
Lupe is so close behind him when he turns around that he gasps a little.
"Easy, boy," Lupe says, laughing. He scratches his throat casually. The marks are still there, but they'll be gone in the morning. Still, Callahan knows the vampires see something. Or smell it. Or some damn thing.
"Listen," he says to Lupe, "I've been thinking about getting out of the city for a week or two. A little R and R. Why don't we go together? We could go upstate. Do some fishing."
"Can't," Lupe says. "I don't have any vacation time coming at the hotel until June, and besides, we're shorthanded here. But if you want to go, I'll square it with Rowan. No problem." Lupe looks at him closely. "You could use some time off, looks like. You look tired. And you're jumpy."
"Nah, it was just an idea," Callahan says. He's not going anywhere. If he stays, maybe he can watch out for Lupe. And he knows something now. Killing them is no harder than swatting bugs on a wall. And they don't leave much behind. E-Z Kleen-Up, as they say in the TV ads. Lupe will be all right. The Type Threes like Mr. Mark Cross Briefcase don't seem to kill their prey, or even change them. At least not that he can see, not over the short term. But he will watch, he can do that much. He will mount a guard. It will be one small act of atonement for Jerusalem's Lot. And Lupe will be all right.
ELEVEN
"Except he wasn't," Roland said. He was carefully rolling a cigarette from the crumbs at the bottom of his poke. The paper was brittle, the tobacco really not much more than dust.
"No," Callahan agreed. "He wasn't. Roland, I have no cigarette papers, but I can do you better for a smoke than that. There's good tobacco in the house, from down south. I don
't use it, but Rosalita sometimes likes a pipe in the evening."
"I'll take you up on that later and say thankya," the gunslinger said. "I don't miss it as much as coffee, but almost. Finish your tale. Leave nothing out, I think it's important we hear it all, but--"
"I know. Time is short."
"Yes," Roland said. "Time is short."
"Then briefly put, my friend contracted this disease--AIDS became the name of choice?"
He was looking at Eddie, who nodded.
"All right," Callahan said. "It's as good a name as any, I guess, although the first thing I think of when I hear that word is a kind of diet candy. You may know it doesn't always spread fast, but in my friend's case, it moved like a fire in straw. By mid-May of 1976, Lupe Delgado was very ill. He lost his color. He was feverish a lot of the time. He'd sometimes spend the whole night in the bathroom, vomiting. Rowan would have banned him from the kitchen, but he didn't need to--Lupe banned himself. And then the blemishes began to show up."
"They called those Kaposi's sarcoma, I think," Eddie said. "A skin disease. Disfiguring."
Callahan nodded. "Three weeks after the blemishes started showing up, Lupe was in New York General. Rowan Magruder and I went to see him one night in late June. Up until then we'd been telling each other he'd turn it around, come out of it better than ever, hell, he was young and strong. But that night we knew the minute we were in the door that he was all through. He was in an oxygen tent. There were IV lines running into his arms. He was in terrible pain. He didn't want us to get close to him. It might be catching, he said. In truth, no one seemed to know much about it."
"Which made it scarier than ever," Susannah said.
"Yes. He said the doctors believed it was a blood disease spread by homosexual activity, or maybe by sharing needles. And what he wanted us to know, what he kept saying over and over again, was that he was clean, all the drug tests came back negative. 'Not since nineteen-seventy,' he kept saying. 'Not one toke off one joint. I swear to God.' We said we knew he was clean. We sat on either side of his bed and he took our hands."