The Laughing Corpse - Laurell K. Hamilton [89]
Bert was going to love this one.
25
WE TOOK WANDA back to my apartment. There are no elevators in my building. Two flights of stairs are not exactly wheelchair accessible. Jean-Claude carried her. His stride was even and fluid as he walked ahead of me. Wanda didn’t even slow him down. I followed with the wheelchair. It did slow me down.
The only consolation I had was I got to watch Jean-Claude climb the stairs. So sue me. He had a very nice backside for a vampire.
He was waiting for me in the upper hallway, standing with Wanda cuddled in his arms. They both looked at me with a pleasant sort of blankness.
I wheeled the collapsed wheelchair over the carpeting. Jean-Claude followed me. The crinoline in Wanda’s skirts crinkled and whispered as he moved.
I leaned the wheelchair against my leg and unlocked the door. I pushed the door all the way back to the wall to give Jean-Claude room. The wheelchair folded inwards like a cloth baby stroller. I struggled to make the metal bars catch, so the chair would be solid again. As I suspected, it was easier to break it than to fix it.
I glanced up from my struggles and found Jean-Claude still standing outside my door. Wanda was staring at him, frowning.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I have never been to your apartment.”
“So?”
“The great vampire expert . . . come, Anita.”
Oh. “You have my permission to enter my home.”
He gave a sort of bow from the neck. “I am honored,” he said.
The wheelchair snapped into shape again. Jean-Claude set Wanda in her chair. I closed the door. Wanda smoothed her long skirts over her legs.
Jean-Claude stood in the middle of my living room and gazed about. He gazed at the penguin calendar on the wall by the kitchenette. He rifled the pages to see future months, gazing at pictures of chunky flightless birds until he’d seen every picture.
I wanted to tell him to stop, but it was harmless. I didn’t write appointments on the calendar. Why did it bother me that he was so damned interested in it?
I turned back to the prostitute in my living room. The night was entirely too weird. “Would you like something to drink?” I asked. When in doubt, be polite.
“Red wine if you have it,” Wanda said.
“Sorry, nothing alcoholic in the house. Coffee, soft drinks with real sugar in them, and water, that’s about it.”
“Soft drink,” she said.
I got her a can of Coke out of the fridge. “You want a glass?”
She shook her head.
Jean-Claude was leaning against the wall, staring at me as I moved about the kitchen. “I don’t need a glass either,” he said softly.
“Don’t get cute,” I said.
“Too late,” he said.
I had to smile.
The smile seemed to please him. Which made me frown. Life was hard around Jean-Claude. He sort of wandered off towards the fish tank. He was giving himself a tour of my apartment. Of course, he would. But at least it would give Wanda and I some privacy.
“Shit, he’s a vampire,” Wanda said. She sounded surprised. Which surprised me. I could always tell. Dead was dead to me, no matter how pretty the corpse.
“You didn’t know?” I asked.
“No, I’m not coffin-bait,” she said. There was a tightness to her face. The flick of her eyes as she followed Jean-Claude’s casual movements around the room was new. She was scared.
“What’s coffin-bait?” I handed her the soft drink.
“A whore that does vampires.”
Coffin-bait, how quaint. “He won’t touch you.”
She turned brown eyes to me then. Her gaze was very thorough, as if she were trying to read the inside of my head. Was I telling the truth?
How terrifying to go away with strangers to rooms and not know if they will hurt you or not. Desperation, or a death wish.
“So you and I are going to do it?” she asked. Her gaze never left my face.
I blinked at her. It took me a moment to realize what she meant. “No.” I shook my head. “No, I said I just wanted to talk. I meant it.” I think I was blushing.
Maybe the blush did it. She popped the top on the soda can and took a drink. “You want me to talk about doing it with other people, while you do it with him?” She motioned her head towards