He leaned forward, placing more weight on those big hands. I think the gesture was meant to be intimidating. "You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into, bro. Would be safer for you to return that check."
There was a creaking sound from behind me. Maybe one of the caskets was opening. Eager to see a reallive vampire, I turned and looked. Nope, just two goth-looking, pale-faced girls stepping into the bar. They didn't look happy. They seldom did.
I looked back at Roy, and as I did so, I grabbed both of his wrists and pulled. He fell forward in a blink, hitting the counter hard, his forehead bouncing off the scarred wood casket lid. A chair scraped behind me.
I ignored whoever was behind me, but I didn't ignore Roy, whose face was now just inches from mine. I still held him by his wrists. "You know something about a missing girl, Roy. And that makes you a person of extreme interest to me. Tell me what you fucking know or I'm going to bring some unholy hell down upon you and your fucking weird bar. Bro."
"Okay, man. Okay. Take it easy."
"What the fuck is going on around here, Roy?"
"Just let me go and I'll tell you."
I released his wrists slowly and he stood. There was a shiner already forming on his forehead. I glanced around me. Two guys were standing behind me. Thin guys. Dark hair. Pale faces. Both wearing white, untucked, long-sleeved shirts. They looked like Dracula's minions. Or his house boys.
"Beat it," I said to them.
They didn't move. From behind the counter, Roy said, "It's okay, guys, we're cool."
The two dumbasses shuffled off.
I looked at Roy. His hair was disheveled. So were his bushy eyebrows, which had somehow gotten tweaked when his forehead had done its best impression of a basketball.
I said to him, "We're very much not cool until you tell me what the fuck is going on around here."
Roy nodded and motioned to one of the whip-thin punks. "Watch the bar, man. I'll be back in a few."
Roy nodded toward me.
"Follow me," he said.
Chapter Five
We were sitting in a backroom, in an unused part of the bar that might have been used to host parties or wedding receptions or even blood lettings. Roy and I were alone.
He asked if I wanted a drink and I held up my tonic water. I was fine, although I'd had booze on the mind throughout the day. Booze on my mind was not a good thing.
Let it go, I thought. And I did. It was, after all, easy to let it go. All I had to do was think of my dead son.
"Veronica is not like other girls," Roy began. His shiner was now more than a shiner. It looked like a science experiment gone bad.
"I'm getting that impression," I said.
Roy was sitting in a black leather sofa, one arm draped over the camel hump back. His legs were crossed. I noticed red marks around his wrists where I had pinned him down. I think he was making a concertive effort not to rub them in front of me. Probably didn't think it would look cool to rub them.
He asked, "How much did the old lady tell you about Veronica's parents?"
"That they had been killed in a car accident."
Roy nodded. He unconsciously reached for his wrists but stop himself. He said, "That's only partially true. They were found in a car, burned to death."
"Go on."
"Veronica would kill me for telling you this, but I have a feeling you're not going to go away unless you know the truth."
"Good thinking."
I might have a gut, I might be a royal mess, and I might be a recovering alcoholic with serious issues, but I could fight my way out of anywhere, and I was packing heat, too. There were very few things that made my blood run cold, and Slim Jim here with his crazy eyebrows wasn't one of them.
He said, "They were having a picnic in Echo Park, near Dodger Stadium. It had been late. Too late, obviously. The way Veronica describes it, a man suddenly appeared. A man with a long, winding dragon tattoo up and down his right arm. Veronica, who had been throwing away their garbage and was off on a side trail, had heard screaming and shouting. She ran toward her parents and watched just as the man was in the process of tearing out her father's throat, like a fucking lion. He did the same to Veronica's mother. Both attacks happened within seconds. Veronica didn't even have time to scream, which was probably a good thing. She would have been next."
Roy fished a cigarette out of his pocket. "You mind?"
"Kill yourself all you want," I said.
He grinned weakly and lit up. He exhaled a long, slightly erratic plume.
He went on. "Her parents were dead instantly. I have no clue what she must have felt watching this animal attacking her parents, but it must have been horrible. Worse, she watched from the woods as he huddled over both bodies, drinking deeply from them. Sometimes he would look up, glance around, sniff the air, and then bury his face back into their torn necks."
Roy shook his head some more, and I wondered idly what drugs the man was on. Probably one or two, although he didn't seem high. Still, he seemed skittish as hell. Paranoia? Good old-fashioned weed? Or was he just scared of me?
He went on, "And what the man did next is really no surprise. She watched from the woods as he proceeded to drag her parents across a grassy area to their nearby car. He then used their lighter fluid to set fire to the car and the immediate area.
"Veronica had scrambled away, higher into the hills, in shock and horror, no doubt. She told me the last thing she saw was her parents' bodies blackening in the burning car."
Roy finished the cigarette and seemed to debate having another. Apparently, he decided against it. He went on, "In twenty minutes, this girl went from having a normal life with happy, loving parents, to watching their corpses burn into charcoal."
He stopped talking and his words hung in the air. The room smelled now of cigarette smoke. It had smelled of something else, too. Something coppery. And if I had to guess, I would say the smell was blood. Old blood.
But that could have just been my imagination.
"Who else have you told this story to?" I asked.
"No one, you're the first. Well, the first outside our group of friends."
"I'm honored," I said. "So how long did it take you to make up that bullshit?"
Roy's eyebrows knitted together irritably, the unibrow making its grand re-reappearance. "It's the truth, man."
"Fine. When did this happen?"
"Three years ago," he said.
"I'm going to look this story up, Roy. Something like this would have made the news, and if I discover you've been lying to me, or have played any part in Veronica's disappearance, I'm coming back for you."