13

HOTEL CORRIDORS. Muffled voices. On and on. Dark blue carpet. Candle flame electric lights. Door after door. That's a pretty table. Oh, you rank materialist, be done with tables, and be gone on your filthy errand. What if some ruthless enterprising individual did a catalog of all the furniture you have personally described in your Vampire Chronicles, then what, I'll tell you what, that would put you to shame, you avaricious, shameless, hoarding, ever-hungry Seven Deadly Sin Committing fiend, what did Louis once say to you, that you made a junk shop of eternity? Move it!

Bedroom interior. Mirrors and mahogany. Wreckage of room service. (Look Ma, no tables!) Olive- skinned woman, dark of hair, half conscious on the pillows. Smell of gin. Drapes open on the crowded sparkling high-rise night. Tumbler full of ice cubes and gin and tonic, catching light in frozen bubbles.

She turned on her back, rose up on her elbows. Beige satin nightgown, lank, nipples brown.

"So they sent you, did they?" she asked, lids half closed, eyes scornful, painted mouth hard. "So how will you do it? Hmmm. Get a load of that blond hair."

I lay down on the bed beside her, on my left elbow. Bed thick with her sweet human perfume. Luxurious hotel sheets and pillows.

"You're some hit man," she said, sneering. She picked up the beautiful tumbler. "You don't mind if I have a drink before I die, do you?" She drained the gin and tonic out of it. It smelled like poison to me.

Ahhhhh, gambling debts, millions, how does one do that, but it was only the tip of it, she'd been in much deeper, flying back and forth to Europe, stashing the wealth for the wrong man. When she fired a gun she emptied it. Making a living. Her partner had vanished. She knew she was next. Didn't care anymore. All that money gone to waste. Drunk all the time now. Sick of waiting. Black hair oily and fine. One of those faces completely transformed by maturity. Lots of there there but who cares?

She fell back on the pillow.

"So kill me, you bastard," she purred. I mean slurred.

"You got it, sweetheart," I said. I covered her, and kissed her throat. Hmmm. Fragrance of nobody.

"What is this, Rape?" Snickering laughter. "Can't you find a two hundred dollar ho in this hellhole city? You know how old I am? You have to put a spin on the job, a guy with your looks?"

I covered her mouth. She gave just a little to the press of my lips.

"And kissy face on top of it," she drawled. "Stick to the pelvic moves, fancy man."

"I have something better, honey, you underestimate me."

I nuzzled against her neck, kissed the artery, heard the blood surging, opened my mouth slowly, tasting skin again, sank my teeth and drew fast so that she swooned before the pinprick pain could catch up. Oh, Lord God, this is from Somebody's Heaven.

Easy.

Weightless, timeless, apocalyptic. Oh, baby, you're no liar, don't expect me to give a hoot about the things I've done, never, how could I, I'm not God, honey bunch, well, then, who, the Devil, oh, sweet, I told you, didn't I, I don't believe in you, I hate you, keep it going, I am, I am, as much as I can bother to despise anyone, I love this! hmmm, yeah, tell me about it, and then what was it? I almost, if you want to give it up, do it, but if you don't, I don't need it, it's what you need, sidewalk hopscotch, colored chalk, I hate them, lemme go, jump rope, screen door bang shut, never could, kids crying, I just need the blood, oh, but wait, I see it, I never knew it could be so-back down that hallway, no, well, guess what? it isn't. Laughter, light and laughter, I should have-.

Her heart couldn't pump it any longer. I lifted her, drew harder, the heart stopped, arteries burst, blood blind, body slowly filling with weight, slipslide of satin, shock of downtown lights, the sparkle in the ice cubes, the Miracle of the Ice Cubes.

Blood to the brain, My Lord and My God, I'm out of here. Thou shalt not lie beside the corpse of thy victim, for the Deadly Sin of Pride I shattered the huge window, arms out, glass flying in all directions, Take me, Oh Twinkling Downtown Lights, Take me!-glass falling on the airwell gravel roof and the mighty modern unromantic ever-churning air machines.

Won't the hit man be surprised?