“What’s happened?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you everything, just please help me hide.”
He came out from behind the bar, put his arm around her, and guided her into the back room. There was a storage closet filled with wooden crates, some empty and waiting to be carried out, some filled with bottles of beer and liquor. Only Rick and Murray came back here when the place was open. He found a sturdy, empty crate, tipped it upside down, dusted it off, and guided her to sit on it.
“I can close up in half an hour, then you can tell me what’s wrong. All right?”
Nodding, she rubbed at her nose with a handkerchief.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Bottle of soda? Shot of whiskey?”
“No, no. I’m fine, for now. Thank you.”
Back out front, he let his senses expand, touching on every little noise, every scent, every source of light and the way it played around every shadow. Every heartbeat, a dozen of them, rattled in his awareness, a cacophony, like rocks tumbling in a tin can. It woke a hunger in him—a lurking knowledge that he could destroy everyone here, feed on them, sate himself on their blood before they knew what had happened.
He’d already fed this evening—he always fed before coming to work, it was the only way he could get by. It made the heartbeats that composed the background static of the world irrelevant.
No one here was anxious, worried, searching, behaving in any other manner than he would expect from people sitting in a bar half an hour before closing. Most were smiling, some were drunk, all were calm.
That changed ten minutes later when a heavyset man wearing a nondescript suit and weathered fedora came through the door and searched every face. Rick ignored him and waited. Sure enough, the man came up to the bar. His heart beat fast, and sweat dampened his armpits and hairline.
“What can I get for you?” Rick asked.
“You see a girl come in here, about this tall, brown hair, wearing a blue dress?” the man said. He was carrying a pistol in a holster under his suit jacket.
Some of the patrons had turned to watch. Rick was sure they’d all seen Helen enter. They were waiting to see how he’d answer.
“No,” he said. “Haven’t seen her. She the kind of girl who’d come into a place like this by herself?”
“Yeah. I think she is.”
“We’re past last call. I doubt she’ll come in this late. But you’re welcome to wait.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Can I get you something?”
“Tonic water.”
Rick poured the drink and accepted his coins. The guy didn’t tip.
Patrons drifted out as closing time approached, and the heavyset man continued watching the door. He kept his right hand free and his jacket open, giving ready access to the holster. And if he did see Helen walk through the door, would he shoot her then and there? Was he that crazy?
Rick wondered what Helen had done.
When they were the only two left in the bar, Rick said, “I have to close up now, sir. I’m sorry your girl isn’t here.”
“She’s not my girl.”
“Well. Whoever she is, she isn’t here. You’ll have to go.”
The man looked at him. “What were you in the war, kid?”
“4-F,” Rick said.
He was used to the look the guy gave him. 4-F—medical deferment. Rick appeared to be a fit and able-bodied man in the prime of his life. People assumed he must have pulled a fast one on the draft board to get out of the service, and that made him a cheat as well as a coward. He let the assumptions pass by; he’d outlive them all.
“If you don’t mind me asking . . . ,” the guy prompted.
“I’m allergic to sunlight.” It was the excuse he’d given throughout the war.
“Huh. Whoever heard of such a thing?”
Rick shrugged in response.
“You know what I was? Infantry. In Italy. I got shot twice, kid. But I gave more than I got. I’m a hell of a lot tougher than I look.”
“I don’t doubt it, sir.”
The guy wasn’t drunk—he smelled of sweat, unlaundered clothes, and aftershave, not alcohol. But he might have been a little bit crazy. He looked like he was waiting for Rick to start a fight.
“If I see this girl, you want me to tell her you’re looking for her?” Rick said.
“No. I’m sure she hasn’t been anywhere near here.” He slid off the stool and tugged his hat more firmly on his head. “You take care, kid.”
“You too, sir.”
Finally, he left, and Rick locked the door.
He wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d returned to the storeroom and found Helen gone—fled, for whatever reason. But she was still there, sitting on the crate in the corner, her knees pulled up to her chest, hugging herself.
“Someone was here looking for you,” Rick said.
She jerked, startled—he’d entered too quietly. Even so, she looked like someone who had a man with a gun looking for her.
“Who was he? What’d he look like?” she asked, and Rick described him. Her gaze grew anguished, despairing. “It’s Blake. I don’t know what to do.” She sniffed, wiping her nose as she started crying again. “He’ll kill me if he finds me, he’ll kill me.”
“If you don’t mind your coffee bitter, we can finish off what’s in the pot and you can tell me all about it.” He put persuasion into his voice, to set her at her ease. “I can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“I don’t want to get you involved, Rick.”
“Then why did you come here?”
She didn’t have an answer for that.
He poured a cup of coffee for her, pressed it into her hands, and waited for her to start.
“I got this job, right? It’s a good job, good pay. But sometimes . . . well. I make deliveries. I’m not supposed to ask what’s in the packages, I just go where they tell me to go and I don’t ask any questions.”
“You told me you got a job in a typing pool.”
“What was I supposed to do, tell you the truth?”
“No, you’re right. It wasn’t any of my business. Go on.”
“There’s a garage out east on Champa—”
“Rough neighborhood.”
“I’ve never had any trouble. Usually, I just walk in, set the bag on the shelf, and walk right back out. Today I heard gunshots. I turned around and there’s Blake, he’d just shot Mikey—the guy from the garage who picks up the drops—and two other guys with him. He’s holding this gun, it’s still smoking. He shot them. I didn’t know what else to do; there’s a back door, so I ran for it, and he saw me, I know he saw me—”
He crouched beside her, took the coffee cup away, and pressed her hands together; they were icy. He didn’t have much of his own heat to help warm her with.
“Now he wants to tie off the loose ends,” Rick said.
“Of all the stupid timing; if I’d been five minutes earlier I’d have been fine, I wouldn’t have seen anything.”
Rick might argue that—she’d still be working as a runner for some kind of crime syndicate.