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 “Take a 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 thepotful 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-ife 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?”