An Old Friend Of The Family (Saberhagen's Dracula Book 3) by Fred Saberhagen (the two towers ebook txt) 📕

   “You are not wealthy, then.”

   “No, I’m just a Chicago cop.” Joe felt his lips quirk in a smile half a second in duration. “Some people in my line have gotten wealthy, but I doubt I ever will.”

   “I suppose you have not been assigned any official part in Kate’s case? Or her brother’s?”

   “The specialists will do a better job. I’m in the Pawnshop Detail: recovering stolen merchandise, things like that. Right now they’ve given me a few days off.”

   The road curved, and its new angle had been blown clean by some trick of the wind. Now the houses flanking it on both sides were less monumental, the driveways shorter.

   “See,” said Joe, “I don’t have much family.” He cleared his throat and tried again. “I belong to this kind of Catholic social club for single people. Kate got into it too. Sometimes the people in the club go to hospitals, children’s homes, and so on, do a little volunteer work. I met her on one of those deals…here we are, Shores Motel.”

   But when the car had stopped, in a splendor of light from the signs and windows of the ornate office, the old man made no immediate move to get out. He just sat there, looking at Joe so regally that Joe wondered for a moment if the chauffeur was expected to get out and walk around and open the door for the distinguished passenger.

   But it turned out that his passenger had only been mulling over another question. “Do you know where poor Kate’s body is at present?”

   “The Chicago morgue. Why?” Joe was suddenly a little angry at this pointless noises. He shifted in his seat to face the other more fully. The lights from the motel showed Corday’s chin smooth shaven, lean and firm despite the lines of age. The mouth was tough in a thin-lipped way, beneath a mildly beaky nose. The eyes above were still in shadow, though lights made motionless spots of bright reflection in them. Joe thought suddenly; I would not want this old man for my enemy.

   The thin-lipped mouth said: “Determination of the cause of death has long been something of a specialty of mine. Would you be kind enough to drive me to the Chicago morgue tonight? Or at least give me the address?”

   “Tonight?”

   The old man nodded, minimally.

   “Doctor, I don’t know what kind of hours they keep in Europe, but they’re not going to let any strangers into that place tonight.”

   Corday’s mouth smiled solidly. “But I should like to see the building, at least, that may know where it is. And I am eager to discover something of the great city near us; and eager to continue our so-interesting conversation. Would it be a great inconvenience, for you to drive me there?”

   “They’re not going to let you in,” Joe explained, with what he felt was beautiful patience.

   “Or would you prefer to go to your home, and brood alone upon life’s sadnesses?”

* * * * * * *

   The morgue was a little south of the Loop, only a couple of blocks from central police headquarters on State. After driving past both buildings, Joe found a vacant parking space about halfway between them, on a street of tall office buildings all locked up and darkened for the night. He needed a parking space because it seemed that he was going to do a little more patient explaining still.

   “Look, Dr. Corday, you’re a real good listener, for which I’m grateful. It’s been a help talking to you. But as far as trying to get into that place tonight, it’s silly. They won’t let us in just because I’m a cop or you’re a doctor.”

   “I ask only that you wait here in the car for a few minutes, Joe, if you would be so kind. I shall walk back to the building myself.”

   Joe shook his head. “Maybe you can just walk around London alone at night, I wouldn’t know. Here it isn’t always safe—ah!”

   The stubborn old man had started to get out. Joe, determined to use gentle force if necessary to make him behave sensibly, had taken him firmly by the coatsleeve. It wasn’t reasonable that the old man’s flesh could really have delivered a stinging electric shock to his hand through the thick cloth. But that was what it had felt like. Rubbing his thumb and finger together now, testing for injury, Joe could feel nothing wrong. He must have somehow twinged a nerve or twanged a tendon.

   By now the old man was standing at his ease outside the reclosed door. “I shall be quite safe,” he murmured with a smile, and touched his dark hatbrim. He turned away and in a moment long strides had taken him around a corner.

   All right, the chances were, of course, that nothing would happen. Winter nights were safer than summer ones on the streets of the core city, and the streetlighting here was excellent. But to a stranger, a perhaps innocent foreigner, there was a special responsibility.

   Joe got out of the car on his side, buttoned up his jacket, and walked to the corner, flexing the fingers of his right hand. They felt fine, now. He would catch up with the difficult old man and walk along. How did he get into these things? But at the same time he was relieved not to be home alone in his apartment.

   He stood at the corner, squinting thoughtfully down a long, broad sidewalk almost empty of pedestrians. The old man was nowhere in sight.

CHAPTER SEVEN

   The visitor stood alone in a dark room, halfway along a broad, terrazzo-floored aisle that was lined on both sides with double tiers of massive metal drawers. In the next room, the possessor of a pair of middle-aged male lungs was sitting in a slightly squeaky chair, sitting quite still and on the