Darkest Heart (9 page)

"Yes."

"How was it?"

I avert my eyes, looking out the window into the parking lot. "Dangerous. Frightening. Violent.

Exhilarating."

He gives a tiny sigh and leans back in his seat. He looks like a man who has satisfied some urge better left secret.

"Look, Estes," I whisper sharply. "The world you think you know is a lot darker than even you can imagine. It's a nightmare country, where a little knowledge is as dangerous as complete ignorance. So far you've played the holy fool, strolling towards the precipice, happily unaware of your own blindness. The path you've chosen is dangerous beyond human comprehension.

"That is why the Holy See disbanded the witch finders elite. Once they learned mankind shared the planet with shadow races that had been preying upon humans since the first ape stood upright, they were unable to live with the knowledge. Many went mad, some committed suicide, and others surrendered themselves to the control of those they were once sworn to oppose. They learned the hard way that it's impossible for

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) humans to be hunters of monsters without becoming monsters themselves.

"As for me, I've slain hundreds of vampires. And I've murdered countless humans. Many were servants of those I battled. Others were - if not exactly innocent - certainly not guilty of any crime worthy of death.

Yet, I killed them all the same. That's why I'm asking you to stop. If you value your humanity, you'll surrender this madness and get on with your life."

The muscles in Estes' jaw work as if he's biting on a bullet. "Even if I wanted to do that, I can't. Not yet."

One of the diners in a nearby booth stops eating her scramble skillet and stares at us, fork frozen halfway to her mouth, a look of fearful disbelief in her eyes. We've been overheard, if not exactly understood.

"Let's take this discussion someplace a little bit more private," I say, tossing a crumpled ten onto the tabletop.

We stride out of the restaurant and into the darkness beyond its glass doors. I motion for Estes to follow me as I head down a side street, away from the lights of the main drag. He hesitates, and then falls into step alongside me. "Tell me about yourself, Mr. Estes."

"You don't want to hear my story."

"On the contrary. I want to know as much about you as I possibly can. There are so few vampire hunters; surely we must share some things in common."

Estes shoots me a look from the corner of his eye, trying to decide if I'm making fun of him. After a long moment, he reaches inside the pocket of his duster and withdraws a pack of unfiltered Raleighs.

"Mind if I smoke?"

I raise an eyebrow in mild surprise. "Isn't that an unusual brand for someone your age?"

Estes grunts something like a laugh as he lips his cigarette. "Old habits die hard. It's what they used to smoke in the bughouse. "

"You were in an asylum?"

"Yeah," he sighs, lighting his smoke with a chrome Zippo pulled from yet another pocket. "Sixteen years, total. Although I only remember six of them." He takes a long, hard pull on the cigarette, blowing the smoke out through his nostrils.

"So...where do you want me to start?"

"How about from the beginning? That's where most stories start."

"I was conceived at Woodstock. At least that's what I remember my mother telling me. My memories of my mother and father are kind of jumbled up with what I learned about them, so I'm never a hundred-percent sure if I'm remembering something that really happened to me or something I read about later on.

"Despite how it might sound, my parents weren't blissed-out hippies living in a commune in Upstate New York, making beeswax candles and throwing pots. My father was Frank Estes, a concert promoter and record producer who got his start booking acts for West Coast nightclubs. My mother, who was ten years younger than he was, met Dad while working as a dancer at the old Whiskey-A-Go-Go.

"Like I said, I don't remember a whole lot about my parents. When I try to picture their faces, the features are distorted and distant, as if I'm looking at them through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. I know my father was tall, had a mustache and a tan, and that my mother was young and pretty, with long blonde hair that hung down to her waist. Whether these are true memories or impressions I picked up from the photo albums the doctors showed me, I couldn't say for sure.

"Anyway, Dad was more of a hipster than a hippie. He might have smoked pot and hung out with musicians, but he was out to make a buck, not change the world. He had an eye for talent and trends, and he got his first big break by booking a series of tours for some of the British Invasion bands.

"In 1970, he simultaneously became a father, a husband and a record producer. I still have their wedding picture: my mother was wearing a white fringe go-go outfit with white vinyl knee-boots and carrying a bouquet, and Dad was in a white satin tuxedo with wide velvet lapels. I'm in the photo, too, as a month-old infant, held aloft for the photographer by a shit-faced Keith Moon.

"Dad named his new label Jack Music. I don't know if he called the company after me or vice versa. The first couple of bands he signed did okay, but they didn't set the charts on fire. Then in 1972 he sank a lot of money into developing and promoting an acid rock group called Crushed Velvet that ended up going

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) nowhere in a hurry. By the time 1973 rolled around, Dad was on the verge of bankruptcy.

"That's when my father acquired a business partner and the company's name was changed from Jack Music to Blackheart Records. I don't remember much about what was going on back then, since I was only three years old, but I do recall my father always seemed to be away on business of some kind. Dad didn't take my mother with him when he went on his trips, so I spent most of my time with her. I guess before I was born it was different between them; I don't know.

"Whatever it was my father was off doing, it provided the good life. We had a five-bedroom house up in the hills, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a private tennis court and an in-home movie theater. I guess you could say we were living large."

Estes paused to drop the cigarette onto the pavement, grinding it under a silver-tipped boot. Although he was looking at Sonja, his gaze was fixed on another time, another place.

"It's funny what we remember," he said dreamily. "The names and faces of friends blur and fade like chalk sketches on a sidewalk, while a commercial jingle for breakfast cereal remains etched in acid. I read in a psychiatric journal how all the kindness and love shown to a child can be cast in perpetual shadow by a solitary cruel act. The truly horrible thing is how that single, thoughtless act ends up defining who that child is and what he becomes more than any of the good and positive things that have ever happened to him, before or since. And, God help me, if I'm not the poster boy for whatever the hell they call that little syndrome.

"Like I said, my memories are indistinct... except for the night my family was killed. Every move they made, every sentence that was uttered in my presence, it's all branded onto my cerebral cortex. I can close my eyes and see it as clearly as a movie."

He shut his eyes and stood perfectly still for half a heartbeat, his features suddenly seeming much younger than they had a moment before. Then he remembered himself and his eyes snapped back open.

"I was excited my father was coming home. He'd been away on one of his business trips. I don't know where he went, but it was out of the country. I was especially eager because I knew he was bringing me back a present. It was getting late and Dad still wasn't back from the airport yet. My mother was anxious; she kept getting up and pacing the rumpus room. I was trying to watch TV but she kept walking in front of the set. She was chain-smoking, too, something Dad didn't approve of."

Estes smiled crookedly and his voice changed timbre and tone, becoming deeper and gruffer; a child's imitation of adult speech: "Ì spend enough time in smoke-filled bars, I don't want to come home to it, too, damn it!' Yeah, Dad was anti-tobacco before it was PC." The smile slid from Estes' face as suddenly as it had arrived. "I remember the doorbell ringing and Mom hurrying off to answer it. At first I thought it might be Dad, but why would he have to ring the doorbell? After a couple of minutes Mom came back into the rumpus room, turned off the TV, and told me it was time to go to bed.

"I said I wanted to sit up and wait for Dad, but she got mad and told me to get to bed right that instant. I knew better than to argue with her when she sounded like that, so I went upstairs to my room and put on my Scooby Doo pajamas. I lay in bed for a long time, waiting for Mom to kiss me goodnight and tuck me in, but she never came. So I snuck out of my room and crept out into the hall to see what was going on.

"The living room and dining room in our house had these open, cathedralstyle ceilings, kind of like an atrium, so I could see most of what went on downstairs by peeking through the upstairs banister. I lay there on my belly, the synthetic fibers of the shag tickling my face, and stared down at my mother as she paced back and forth, leaving a cloud of cigarette smoke in her wake. She kept looking at the front door, like she was expecting something horrible to walk through it.

"Just then I heard the jingle of keys and my father crossed the threshold, a garment bag draped over one shoulder and a suitcase in one hand. He was dressed in a denim leisure suit and he looked like he hadn't shaved in days. That was my cue. I jumped to my feet and hurried down the stairs, squealing with delight.

"I was half-way down the stairs when my mother moved to block the foot of the stairs, her arms spread wide. `Jack! What are you doing up? I told you to go to bed, young man!'

"I was baffled. I couldn't figure out what it was I had done wrong. Normally Mom let me stay up late to welcome Dad back from of his trips. I wasn't the only one confused by my mother's behavior. Dad put down his suitcase, staring at her quizzically."

"`What's up, Gloria? Is something wrong?'

"`You have a visitor, Frank.' She turned her back on him as she spoke, refusing to look him in the face.

`He wants to see you. Now.'

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"I looked in the direction my mother was walking and saw a strange man step out of the of the dining room. He was an African-American in his early thirties, dressed in a matching black turtleneck sweater, corduroy slacks with flaring bells, and a floor-length black leather coat. His hair was in a neatly groomed natural and his eyes were sealed behind sunglasses that shone like volcanic glass. His skin was purple-black, with an undertint of rose, like an aubergine. He seemed to radiate a halo of danger that hung about him like smog.

"Hello, partner," he said to Dad, smiling with the confidence of a man who has the exploitation of others down to a science.

"My father's face visibly blanched under his George Hamilton tan. 'Blackheart, he croaked. `What're you doing here?'

"`You don't seem very pleased to see me, Frank.' Although his voice was, on the surface, silky and soothing, it did not completely obscure the malice that lay underneath.

"My father tried to smile, but ended up looking like a man trying to strangle a scream. Òf course I'm glad to see you, man - I'm just, uh, a little surprised that's all.'

"`No doubt.'

"He motioned for my father to join him in the living room. `Come, Frank. We have much to discuss.'

"My father and the man he called Blackheart passed out of my field of vision. My mother picked up Dad's suitcase with one hand and, gripping my shoulder with the other, marched me back upstairs.

"`You get in bed and stay in bed, Jack! I don't want to see you up again tonight, do you understand me?'

"I couldn't figure out why Mom was being so strict. I hadn't done anything to make her that mad at me. It seemed that, for some reason, Mom didn't want me to see or talk to Dad. Normally, I would have done as my mother said and gone straight to sleep. But I was stinging from the injustice of being chastised for no reason and deprived of the present I knew was in my father's suitcase. "I waited until I heard my mother's footsteps head downstairs, then I got out of bed and, careful not to be seen, tiptoed down the hall to my parents' room.

"The master bedroom was large, with one wall devoted into His and Hers closet spaces. The accordion-fold door on my father's side was partially open, and I could see his suitcase resting inside. Even though I knew if I got caught going through my father's things, I would get the spanking of my life, my desire to discover what my father brought me was so keen I could not resist the temptation.

"I crawled inside the closet full of dry-cleaning and garment bags, doing my best to avoid tripping over the clutter of Italian shoes and hand-crafted cowboy boots that littered the floor. I crouched beside the suitcase and frowned at the elaborate series of snaps and locks that held it shut. This was going to be more difficult than I imagined. As I crouched there, my father's empty suits looming above me like phantom sentinels, my attention was diverted by the sound of someone entering the room. Panicked, I drew farther into the shadows. From my hiding place I could see the door to the master bath was standing ajar, angled in such a way that its full-length mirror reflected the interior.

"My view was momentarily obscured by my father, mother and the man called Blackheart as they passed by my hiding place. My father moved like he was sleepwalking, his face slack and eyes glazed. Blackheart followed immediately after him, his arms folded casually across his chest, the corners of his mouth twisted into the approximation of a smile. My mother hung back, chewing on her thumbnail.

"Without looking either left or right, my father stripped off his clothes. Save for his groin and buttocks, which were frog-belly white, his skin was the color and texture of a well-seasoned catcher's mitt.