chapter 4
"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 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: "`I 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.' "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. `Of 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.
Apparently oblivious of his audience, he leaned forward and turned on the taps of the bath.
"Blackheart flipped the lid shut on the toilet, making himself comfortable on the shag cozy. He removed his sunglasses and regarded my father's naked body with something too ambiguous and uninvolved to be considered contempt. His voice was deep and resonant, easily heard over the roar of the bath water.
"`I'm not doing this because of the money, Frank. What's a few hundred thousand to someone like me?
I've thrown more money away in one day than you've skimmed in two years. No, it's the principle of the thing. I can't let others think you've gotten away with screwing me over. It looks bad. And appearance is everything in my circle.
"`I'm sorry it had to end this way, Frank. Really I am. But you brought it on yourself. Those who cross me discover I don't do things by halves. He who raises his hand to me, loses his hand by me. He who would steal from me, I take everything from. Is that not so, my sweet?' "The last part Blackheart addressed to my mother, who was standing in front of the lavatory basin, her eyes as wide and blank as buttons. My father showed no sign of hearing anything Blackheart said as he silently climbed inside the tub. Displaced water sloshed over the rim of the old-fashioned clawfoot and splashed onto the tile floor. My mother jerked her feet away as if the water spreading towards her was a magma flow.
"`I'm actually doing you a favor, Frank. I could have resolved things in a far messier fashion, but I actually like you, in my own way. I'm letting you out easy. Far easier than you deserve. Don't you agree?' "For the first time my father seemed to respond to the other man's words. He turned his head in Blackheart's direction, revealing a face as rigid and expressionless as a mask, yet something flickered in the depths of his eyes that might have been comprehension.
"The thing that was supposed to be a smile disappeared from Blackheart's face and his eyes took on a red glow, as if reflecting the light from a lonely campfire. `Hurry up. I don't have all night, Frank,' he growled.
"My father turned slowly back around so that he was once more facing the faucets. He reached into the toiletry caddy anchored to the lip of the tub and with an exaggerated, deliberate movement retrieved the old-fashioned chrome handled straight razor my mother had given him for Father's Day the year before.
His fingers trembled slightly as he locked the blade into position.
"After such leisurely motions, the killing stroke, when it came, was surprisingly quick. My father opened his own throat from ear to ear in a single pass, without a second's hesitation, sending blood arcing nearly two feet before it splashed down into the warm bath water. His death spasm sent the razor flying across the tile floor, spinning in sharp circles until it came to rest against the doorjamb.
"During all this, I remained crouched silently in my hiding place, like a fawn in a thicket, too frightened to speak or move for fear of giving myself away. But the sight of my father's lifeblood jetting from his severed throat and the thump of the razor striking the door caused me to make a tiny little squeak of horror.
"Blackheart turned his head towards the mirror, not looking at me but letting me see him. The comers of his mouth once again lifted in that smile - that was not a smile, and a crack appeared in the middle of the mirror, as if it had been struck by a phantom hand.
"Whimpering in terror, I tried to burrow into my father's winter clothes for protection, but it was no good.
I had been found out. The louvered doors jerked open and a pair of hands as hard and strong as steel bands snatched me from my hiding place.
"`What have we here?' chuckled Blackheart. `Looks to me like a little boy who doesn't do as he's told.' "I saw my mother's pallid face peering over Blackheart's shoulder, staring at me with eyes as wide and unblinking as those of a doll's. I called out to her and she looked from me to Blackheart and back again, but did not say or do anything.
"`There's no use in crying for your mother, whelp,' Blackheart snarled. `Your father is dead and your mother lost to you. Your life is mine now.' "I kicked at him with my slippers and hammered at him with my little fists, but my efforts were worse than useless, and I knew it. I sobbed in angry frustration, desperate to transcend my helpless, child-flesh with some grand, heroic act. The sight of my impotent struggling seemed to amuse him greatly, and his wry smile widened and became a grin, exposing yellowed, dog-like fangs. I went rigid with terror and screamed as only a child who has seen the face of the bogeyman himself can shriek. My shrill cry seemed to wake my mother from her trance and she snatched me from Blackheart's grasp, trying her best to shield me with her body.
"`Don't hurt him! Please, don't hurt my baby!' She was sobbing so hard her words came out in strangled gasps.
"Blackheart fixed her with a stare as cold as snow. `Where you are going, no child can follow,' he said flatly. `Give me the boy.' "She took a step away from him, her voice acquiring a harder edge. `I'll go with you of my own free will, but only if you leave my son alone.' "Blackheart sneer was as sharp as broken glass. `Girl, you are mine no matter what.' "`You said yourself that it's better if I want to go.' "Blackheart's features lost their monstrosity, once more resuming the semblance of a human being. `You are right, my dear. I much prefer that you surrender of your own volition. It makes things so much easier for me.' "`Then give me your word that you won't hurt Jack.' "`Such concern,' Blackheart said, clucking his tongue in reproach. `Far more than you ever showed poor Frank.' "`Frank knew what he was getting into.' "`Did he?' Blackheart looked at me then my mother. `Very well, Gloria. You have my word that I will not harm the boy. Now put the brat aside and come to me, woman.' "I whimpered as my mother lowered me to the floor. I didn't want to let go of her, and she had to pry my fingers loose from her blouse. She wiped the tears from my cheek and smoothed my hair. The last thing I remember her saying to me was `Hush, sweetie. Don't cry."' Estes paused long enough to take a deep breath, struggling to keep control of the terrified five-year-old buried deep within him.
"The next thing I knew, a light was shining in my eyes and there were men and women in white suits peering down at me. Although I didn't know any of them, they all seemed familiar, somehow. Then I became aware that my body was... different. Somehow it had become taller, heavier, bigger... hairier.
"It was several days before Dr. Morrissey broke the news that I had spent the last ten years in a catatonic state. For the better part of a decade my pupils had responded to light, but I did not react to visual stimuli, and nor did I speak. If led by the hand, I walked. When food was placed in my mouth, I ate. When a straw was put to my lips, I drank. But, left to my own devices, all I did was sit and stare, oblivious to my surroundings and conditions, like a doll with a pulse.
"My return to the world of the living was due to an experimental drug therapy championed by Dr.
Morrissey, who oversaw my recovery. There was a lot to catch up on. After all, I closed my eyes as a kindergarten student and the next time I opened them I was fifteen years old.
"Dr. Morrissey kept me isolated from the other patients while I underwent a battery of tests to see whether or not I had sustained neurological damage during my `retreat from reality,' as he called it. To everyone's surprise, I was utterly sound, although, understandably backward in my social and academic skills. After all, I had yet to attend first grade.
"Although I emerged with my motor functions and mental abilities intact, there were still lapses in my memory. I knew my name was Jack Estes, and that my parents' names were Frank and Gloria, but I had no recollection of the events that led to my shut down."
"I know how it feels," Sonja interjected, her voice tinged with sympathetic understanding. "After I was attacked, I was found lying in the gutter. I died for a few minutes on the operating table, but they managed to kick-start my heart again and give me a complete transfusion. I was in a coma for nearly a year. When I woke up, it was as if I was hollow. I walked around looking for things that would fill me up. The whole time I was in constant fear someone would see through my ruse and expose me for the fraud I was."
Estes allowed himself a small, relieved smile. "That's exactly how I felt! Exactly! It was really disorienting to suddenly be able to look adults in the eye, instead of having to crane my head up to look at them. And everything was suddenly within arm's reach and scaled for my use. There's so much gradual adjustment that occurs while you grow up, nobody really notices it much. But in my case, it was as if I'd aged ten years overnight.
"I kept asking Dr. Morrissey where my parents were. He was afraid I might withdraw again if I was told the truth, so he told me that my parents were alive but in another country. After two weeks of constant inquiries from me as to when they would come to see me, Dr. Morrissey finally told me that my father was dead and my mother was listed as missing, but presumed dead.
"Upon hearing the news of my parents' deaths, I cried like the little kid I used to be, not the teenaged boy I had become. Then Dr. Morrissey asked me if I remembered what had happened to my mother. The next thing I knew order lies were pulling me off him. Every stick of furniture in his office except maybe the desk was smashed into kindling. I was sedated and stuffed into a straitjacket.
"After that, I was put back into the wards. It was weird. I didn't like being in gen-pop at all. Most of the patients reeked of spoiled milk, piss and worldclass body funk. What made it even weirder was how all the loonies and retards and nurses knew me by name, but I didn't know any of them.
"Using hypnosis therapy, Dr. Morrissey attempted to tap into my buried memories, hoping to discover what was triggering such violent responses in me. While I was strung out on sodium pentothal I related to Dr. Morrissey the exact same story I just told you. But Dr. Morrissey thought Blackheart was a means of projecting negative emotions onto someone besides my father, whom he was convinced had murdered my mother before committing suicide in front of me. It was all a defense mechanism generated by an immature mind unable to deal with the horror it had witnessed.
"As much as I wanted to believe Dr. Morrissey's explanation, deep down I knew that he was wrong and I was right. No matter how often Dr. Morrissey tried to talk me out of my story, I refused to accept his version of events. Finally he was reduced to prescribing electroshock, hoping it would break me of my `persistent delusions of vampires.' "I can't really blame him for giving me the juice. After all, Morrissey was a man of science. Vampires were not permitted to exist in his world, at least not the kind I claimed to have seen. After the third round of electroshock treatments, I realized my only hope of escaping the Institute with my mind intact was to go along with the doctors. Once I started to play ball with them, the electroshock was discontinued and I was removed from the wards and given my own room. But the laugh was on them: because I never once stopped believing that Blackheart was real. Not for one moment.
"After so many years spent in limbo, I became obsessed with physical activity. The Institute had a gym for the use of the staff, and I was allowed full use of it. What was at first therapy to strengthen my muscles from years of disuse became a regimen of calisthenics and bodybuilding. One of the orderlies even taught me how to box. But it was not just my body that cried out for exercise. After a decade in eclipse, my mind was hungry for information. Like a man left to wander in the desert, my thirst for knowledge was overwhelming. Once I mastered the alphabet, I was a voracious reader, leapfrogging from Go Dog Go to A Tale of Two Cities within months.
"On my twenty-first birthday I was released from the sanitarium. The doctors said I was sound of mind and body. I even had a piece of paper to prove it. I was `cured,' if indeed I had ever been ill. I had a sizeable inheritance at my disposal, thanks to my father's investments and the various offshore bank accounts he had opened in my name.
"Now that I was free to go wherever I wished and to do as I pleased, I decided to find out more about my father's business dealings with Blackheart. I was hoping it might shed some light on where I could find the man who had killed my parents. I was already aware of the fact that Blackheart had loaned my father money to bail out the label. When I went through the records that had been warehoused following the review of the estate, I discovered that my father's company was being used to launder money and distribute narcotics... mostly heroin and cocaine. Somewhere along the line my father began to skim the take.
"I don't know why Dad would do something so incredibly self-destructive. Maybe he wanted to be free of Blackheart's control, or perhaps it was simple greed, fueled by egomania and cocaine. I don't know. Even if Blackheart had been a garden-variety mobster, it still was an incredibly foolish thing for a man with a family to do.
"Still, I do not think my father would have attempted such a thing if he had any idea of Blackheart's true nature. I cannot believe my father, flawed as he might have been, would have knowingly visited such horror upon his loved ones.
"Now that I was free from Dr. Morrissey and the other arbiters of mental health, I set about learning as much as I could about the occult, reading every book on the subject of the undead I could get my hands on."
"I joined various cults and covens, in hope of enlightenment, but they proved to consist largely of bored suburbanites and deluded frauds. I traveled the globe in search of answers, and managed to find a partial manuscript that was once a training manual for the witch finders elite you spoke of, and I was able to translate enough of it to get a grasp of their techniques for identifying and tracking down those suspected of being undead.
"I even taught myself metallurgy, since silver bullets and silver-edged weaponry are not mass-produced. I turned myself into a weapon dedicated to eradicating the loathsome monsters that prey upon the human race. I shall not rest until I have brought down the monster who destroyed my family, this I swore on my father's grave."
Sonja sighed and shook her head. "That was real, um, dramatic of you. But at least I know where you're coming from. But what do you want from me?"
"I want you to help me find the vampire who killed my father."
"Uh-uh! No way!" She shook her head vigorously, holding her hands up as if fending off a crushing weight.
"You've been hunting these creatures far longer than I have, and it's clear you know them on a entirely different level than I do. Surely you must know something about him...."
"How can I help you when I've never heard of this `Blackheart' in the first place? And even if I did know anything as to his whereabouts, I still wouldn't tell you! Has nothing I've said gotten through to you?
You're on a suicide mission, buddy! You're young; you still have years ahead of you. Quit this madness, try to forget the monsters, and find yourself a nice young woman, or man, if that's your fancy, and settle down and live your life. God knows I would do it in an instant if I could, but that option was taken away from me a very long time ago."
Estes' eyes grew as dark as a storm cloud and he spoke with the curt, clipped tones of the indignant. "I thought, being a fellow vampire hunter, you would be willing to extend me professional courtesy. Now I see I was wrong to rely on anyone but myself in this matter. So long, Ms. Blue."
Sonja watched Estes turn sharply on his heel and stride off into the darkness, his duster billowing out behind him like a pair of bat wings. The man was clearly unstable - she could see it in his aura, which pulsed about his head like a magma pool. But there was no denying the attraction he held for her. She wondered if moths felt the same eager anticipation as they danced about the flame.