Sunglasses After Dark Read online

  It was late April, and it's bloody cold in London that time of year. I was wet to the skin and shivering. I ached horribly and was badly bruised from my fall. My bare feet bled, but I didn't care. I sat in a shallow doorway that faced the alley, shoulders hunched and knees drawn to my chest. I felt unconsciousness boiling up inside me, but I was afraid to close my eyes. I remembered the beds full of unborn sleepers, their eye sockets filled with shadow. I started trembling and could not stop.

  Suddenly, there were hands on me, lifting me from my deathwatch.

  "See Joe? There she is, just as I said…" The voice of a woman, shrill and sharp.

  "Yeah, yer a reg'lar blood'ound, Daphne. 'Ere now, 'elp me with 'er…"A man's voice, barely more than a bass ramble.

  Faces swam into view: a thick-featured man with a broken nose and a pinch-faced woman wearing too much makeup bent over me. The pinch-faced woman clucked her tongue solicitously, sounding like a cockney hen. The big man wrapped his jacket around me and lifted me in his arms.

  "Cor, look at th' state she's in! Looks more like a drowned rat," grumbled the man.

  "But she's young, Joe," whined the woman. "You'll be makin' more than a bleedin' fiver off 'er, ducks."

  "Awright! Awright! 'Ere's yer bloody finder's fee! Now, sod off. I got business t' attend to."

  I relaxed in the stranger's arms. I was warm and, for the moment, safe. I listened to his heart thump in his chest and the rasp of his breathing. I felt secure. My world had a focal point.

  My savior's name was Joseph Lent. Joe was a pimp.

  He was a big man in his early thirties. He resembled a Mick Jagger who'd gained fifty pounds and decided to play goalie for the Hammers. He wore his dirty blond hair long enough to touch his collar. He dressed flash—nicely tailored suits that could pass for Saville Row jobs. He used to laugh at how the "poncey bastards" who ran the shops sniffed while they waited on him.

  "Like they was afraid of smellin' somethin' bad. Har! Har! Har!" He'd laugh and show his tooth—the gold bicuspid. That was always a bad sign. He'd laugh with his mouth but his eyes would never join in. Later on, he'd get drunk and use his fists.

  Joe didn't know what to make of me, but he had his guesses. Shortly after I was strong enough to sit up and keep down a little soup, he laid down the law. He sat on the bed and stared at me with his dark eyes.

  "I dunno what yer game is, but it don't take much to figure yer runnin' from somethin'. Or someone. Izzat it? You some kind of runaway?"

  I blinked. I really didn't know what to say. His guesses concerning my origins were as valid as anything I could volunteer.

  "You escape from a government scheme? Mebbe th' methadone clinic, eh? I seen th' scars on yer arms. Y'into smack? Coke? Morphine? Don't make me no never-mind, love. Whatever turns y'on, like they say. I've put a lot o' time in on you, girl. If y'works f' me, you can 'ave anything yer 'eart desires. I'll protect ya. I'll see that th' bobbies never get a hold of y'again. Is it a deal, now? Yer Joe Lent's girl now, ain'tcha?"

  Joe became my man. Not just any man. He was the Man. He was my father, brother, lover, boss, and personal terror. He schooled me for my role in life. He taught me how to walk, talk, dress, and tell vice plants from the regular tricks. I was a good student. I was desperate for an identity. Any identity. And Joe Lent was more than happy to define my world. He's the one who named me Sonja Blue: "Sounds exotic. Like one o' them long-legged Danish birds."

  It was perfectly natural that I should walk the streets and proposition strange men and give my money to Joe. Didn't every woman? I was barely a year old. How was I to know any different?

  My life revolved around Joe. I fixed his meals. I cleaned his flat. I turned tricks for him. I gave him my money. I had a name, a function in life, and I belonged to someone. I was happy. The only time I wasn't happy was when Joe beat me.

  Pimps are an insecure lot. They live in fear of their meal tickets walking out on them for someone bigger and better. Joe was real insecure. He'd lost his last girl to the competition, and that hurt. That's why he carried the cane. The one with the bronze knob on the end shaped like an eagle's claw. The bobbies might not approve of him walking down the street with a cricket bat, but a cane… Well, that was gentlemanly. Style made all the difference.

  Whenever Joe got bad drunk, he'd use his fists. He was good at slapping girls around. He knew how to beat the bloody daylights out of a woman without messing up her face or putting her out of business. And he knew how to do it so I'd lie on the floor, my nose gushing like a fire hydrant, and beg him to forgive me. And mean it, too.

  Joe was my life, my love, my universe. If I lost him, where would I be? Who would I be?

  Things went on like that for a year. We'd go through periods where Joe would alternately shower me with gifts, then beat me until it hurt to breathe. I always recovered quickly and rarely needed to see a doctor. The only time I had any problems with my health was when I developed anemia. I grew very pale and my eyes couldn't handle direct sunlight, so I took to wearing sunglasses.

  When my appetite began to seriously dwindle, Joe dragged me to the aged quack who "fixed up" all the working girls in the district. Joe was terrified of losing me to disease or pregnancy. I was quite successful on the street; I attracted the odd fish out looking for a bit of kink. You could charge extra for that.

  The old charlatan prescribed ox blood and milk to "strengthen my constitution." It actually worked. For a while.

  Occasionally, Joe tried to get me to talk about my past. He entertained the notion that I was the daughter of a rich man and doubted the extent of my amnesia. His attempts at making me remember never worked. As far as I was concerned, Joe was my real family. For some reason, I never told him about the hospital and the roomful of empty sleepers. Perhaps I was afraid he'd try to take me back there.

  I was eighteen when it happened. Joe was drunk again. He'd gotten it into his head that I was trying to cheat him on his take and planning to walk out on him. He was out of his mind. I'd never seen him so angry. He didn't use his fists that night. He went after me with the cane, instead.

  The first time the cane struck me, all the air went out of my lungs in one big whoosh! The second blow caught me in the pit of my stomach. I fell onto the floor. I couldn't draw in a second breath. It felt like I was drowning. The third stroke caught me on the right shoulder. I heard, rather than felt, the bronze eagle's claw break my collarbone. Then he started kicking, all the while calling me foul names and raving at the top of his lungs.

  I tried crawling away, but he followed me. He wouldn't let me be. And, for the first time since he found me, I began to hate Joe. The hate surprised me with its strength. There was so much of it! It seemed to grow in direct proportion with the pain. I was so full of hate it threatened to pour out my mouth and nose. I was so astonished by my capacity for it I nearly forgot my beating.

  Joe brought his cane across my back and I felt ribs snap. Suddenly, my hate changed. I felt it curdling and churning inside of me, transforming itself into a force I couldn't contain. I opened my mouth to scream, but all I could do was laugh. And laugh. And laugh.

  I do not remember what happened after that.

  I woke up on what was left of the bed.

  Every muscle in my body ached. I had at least two broken ribs, a broken collarbone, and my left eye refused to open. There was blood in my mouth. I squinted through my rapidly swelling right eye, expecting to see Joe sitting in his favorite chair, the cane propped across the armrests. Joe was always serene and composed after a beating.

  Joe wasn't in his chair.

  In fact, the chair was a jumble of kindling.

  Then I noticed the blood on the walls, and how high some of it was splattered. I felt dizzy and looked down at my hands. My fingers were digging into the mattress and I could see the mattress ticking through the huge rents in the bedclothes. My ears were ringing. I looked up again, afraid of what I might see.

  I saw Joe.

  He was sprawled in the
corner like a big rag doll. He didn't move when I called his name.

  I got to my feet, although I almost swooned when I stood up. My stomach was the color of a ripe eggplant and hurt with every step I took. I staggered over to where Joe lay.

  There wasn't much left of him.

  His arms and legs were bent funny, like a scare-crow's; then I noticed all the long bones had been snapped in two. The jagged edges stuck out through his clothes.

  His head was a mass of hairy pudding attached to his neck. His eyes were pulp and his teeth lay scattered like mah-jongg tiles. Maybe it wasn't really Joe. The corpse could be anybody… Then I saw the gold bicuspid. I shivered and looked away.

  There was a ragged hole just above his breastbone, as if someone had attempted a tracheotomy with a can opener. Then I noticed the rest of him.

  His killer had torn off his trousers and shoved the cane up his ass. An inch or two of wood and the bronze eagle's claw protruded from between his buttocks. The eagle's claw was clotted with blood, hair, and brains. That meant Joe was probably already dead when his killer rammed three and a half feet of mahogany up his rectum. At least, I hoped so.

  I stumbled backward, clamping a hand over my mouth. My guts heaved, angering the bruises purpling my abdomen as I hobbled to the loo. My brain was starting to wake up; what if whoever killed Joe was still in the flat? Maybe it was the gang from the next district. Joe had a lot of enemies. That was his way. But no one hated him enough to do that kind of job on him. No one.

  The bathroom was empty. I tried to make it to the toilet but got as far as the sink before throwing up. God, how it hurt. I forgot about Joe and clung to the washbasin. My knees tried to buckle but I forced myself to stand. I didn't like the idea of fainting with a dead man in the other room. I opened my eyes and found myself staring into the sink, at what I'd sicked up.

  The sink was full of blood. But it wasn't my blood.

  I began to shake. Sweat trickled down my back. It felt like a spider crawling down my spine. I was startled at how easy it was for me to identify the blood I'd puked as belonging to Joe. Blood has its own identity, just like fingerprints, voiceprints or semen. It tasted of Joe.

  I was right. Nobody hated Joe Lent enough to do such horrible things to him.

  Except me.

  I looked in the mirror and saw the blood smeared across my lips. I opened my mouth in dumb protest and saw, for the first time, my own fangs. They emerged from my gums hard and wet, stained with stolen blood. I cried out and pressed my hands over my mouth in an attempt to hide my shame.

  I remembered.

  I remembered who I was and where I'd come from and how I got there. I remembered what I was. I heard Morgan's dry farewell laugh as he tossed me from the car. I recalled the weird writhing in my fingertips just before I went into hibernation. I stared at my hands, fearful that they might turn into the claws of a monster. Suddenly, the room flexed and I watched as the sworls and lines on my fingers and palms melted. New ridges and patterns emerged, only to be swallowed by yet another set. I forced myself to look away and caught sight of my face in the mirror. No wonder they never found me. Even my face… I tried to scream but all that came out was a dry choking sound. My flesh halted its dance.

  I think I went insane then, at least temporarily. The part of me that fancied itself human went on vacation. My memories are fuzzy, as if I was drunk the whole time. I came back to find myself on a small boat owned by an Irish fisherman sympathetic to the IRA. I told him I was in trouble because I'd killed an English soldier. That was good enough for him. Money was no problem. Joe Lent taught me well, and now I no longer had to share the wealth.

  I entered France through Marseilles, one of Europe's most glamorous hellholes. I spent a few weeks trawling the narrow streets and open-air cafes of the Pigalle, earning my keep and learning the language. I also discovered what Joe had referred to as "the Etonian vice" was not limited to England. I was pursued more than once by prospective "protectors," but always managed to escape. I lived in mortal terror of losing control again and killing someone. The beatings my clients paid for… Well, that was different. I also feared remembering. I did my best to live in the present and limit the future to my next meal. However, my condition, once awakened, could not be ignored.

  My eyes, already sensitive to strong light, now required protection in the dimmest surroundings. I could deal with that. The hunger was my biggest problem.

  The hunger was a balloon in my belly; when the balloon was full, I functioned normally; I even felt good enough to fool myself into thinking I was human. But when the balloon was empty, the hunger was released, threatening to destroy me from the inside out. It felt like a massive meth overdose: my heart and pulse nearly shook me apart; my lungs were filled with cold lead and my guts full of bamboo splinters. Compared to the pain I've endured since then, the early stage of my addiction was a cakewalk.

  I bought live rabbits and geese from the markets—a benefit of being stricken with vampirism on the Continent—and drained them as humanely as I knew how. The salty hotness of blood as it filled my mouth was appallingly delicious. A warm, pleasant feeling replaced the pain as I drank. But it was never really enough. Deep down, I knew I wanted something more than the blood of animals.

  I left France within two months of my arrival. I was afraid of being picked up by Interpol. I did not fear being punished for Joe's death. I was terrified that Denise's parents would discover the truth. Better they should believe their daughter dead.

  I drifted from city to city, using stolen passports to cross the borders. Finally, I got tired of fighting off pimps and signed up with a Norwegian brothel catering to the North Sea oil trade.

  Bordellos servicing wildcatter rigs aren't posh joints; they resemble frontier cathouses from the turn of the century. They're loud, cheap, vulgar, and rowdy. Gangs of drunken, horny men constantly squabble over a handful of available women.

  The launches came in with the men from the rigs on a regular basis. The usual crowd consisted of Swedes, Norwegians, Brits, and the occasional American, but they were all the same by the time they made it to our place—roaring drunk and ready to fuck. There were always twice as many tricks as girls and at least one John who didn't want to wait his turn. Brawls over girls were pretty common.

  The madam was an old whore named Foucault. She liked to brag about how she'd "seen service on all fronts" during the Second World War. Maybe the First one, too. She knew the business and kept a bouncer on hand for when the brawls got out of control. Which proved to be almost every night.

  The Amphitryon was a rig so isolated its crew managed shore leave only once a year. The men came in loud and rowdy, bragging about their dicks and their staying power. It looked like a typical workshift.

  Madame Foucault greeted the "gentlemen" at the door and ordered a round of drinks on the house. She explained that since there were over twenty men and only twelve girls, there would be a slight delay in attending to their needs, but she promised that everyone would be "taken care of."

  She ordered us to come out and model for the customers. The girls were decked out in their work lingerie, which was starting to show signs of wear and tear; the feather boas needed dry cleaning, the fishnet stockings sported badly patched ladders, and some of the Fredricks of Hollywood-style costumes fit a bit too snugly.

  The men of the Amphitryon didn't give a damn. They argued among themselves as to who'd go first and who'd get which girl. One of them swaggered over to me and began to feel my tits. He reeked of peppermint schnapps.

  "That one's mine," one of them slurred in Swedish.

  "Hell she is," retorted the bigger man, fumbling with my bra straps.

  I looked past the man attempting to undress me and stared at the Swede. He was smaller than his fellow and stood clenching his fists. There was anger in his face. The other man was built like a linebacker and it was clear he was used to being deferred to. The Swede wanted to kill the big man, but was afraid of being humiliated in front of
the others.

  Waves of hate emanated from the Swede. It felt as if I was standing in front of a heat lamp. I started to get excited, and the big drunk thought I was responding to his pawing.

  "See? She likes a real man," he jeered.

  The Swede's rage was exquisite. He stared directly at me and I felt a brief connection between us. Like the spark that detonates a keg of dynamite. He wanted to see the big man's blood. So did I.

  The smaller man's face reddened and seemed to swell, as if trying to contain an internal explosion. His eyes glazed and he began to tremble. One of his companions touched his arm and the Swede bellowed like a bull and lunged at the big man.

  The drunken giant was taken by surprise, stunned by the ferocity of the attack. The Swede slammed a fist into his tormentor's kidney. The big man's jaw dropped in mute pain. I stood, motionless, and watched the two of them writhe on the floor at my feet. The hatred radiating from the Swede was of tsunami proportions.

  The Swede was astride the other man's back, delivering vicious punches to his head. Some of the victim's friends grabbed the Swede and pulled him off the prone figure. The Swede swore and struggled violently. They tried to calm him down, but the little Swede kept kicking and clawing, his curses degenerating into a wordless shrieking.

  The bouncer, a muscular German, emerged from the backroom and immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion; he thought the men restraining the smaller man were responsible for the fight, so he grabbed one of the men holding the Swede. The big man was on his hands and knees, staring uncomprehendingly at the blood from his nose puddling on the sawdust-strewn floor. The Swede landed on his spine feetfirst, forcing the big man back into the floorboards. Then he began to throttle him from behind. The big man's back was broken and he was helpless to shake off his attacker.

  The big man's face purpled. His tongue stuck out and his eyes looked like deviled eyes. Four men grappled with the crazed Swede in an attempt to dislodge him, but he refused to be budged.