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chin. Lucky, she whispered, Lucky s in his office. The door
behind me.
Good girl. Now close your eyes. I placed the reception-
ist s arms across the keyboard and leaned her forehead against
the computer screen. Have a nice nap.
Her jaw fell open, and she began to snore. I approached the
door, turned the knob, and entered.
A portly man in a white shirt and stylish tie sat behind an im-
mense wooden desk, his back to the panorama of Los Angeles
filling a picture window. A red aura surrounded him. Good, a
human.
I locked the door behind me. This interrogation wouldn t
take long.
His shirt creased into the folds of his fat torso. Fleshy jowls
widened the bottom half of his face and tapered to an angular
forehead topped by a short haircut.
The cuffs of his shirt were folded back, exposing thick, hairy
wrists. His hands held the grip of a disassembled pistol. The
rest of the gun and bullets lay across a rag on the desktop. Why
the gun?
Narrow-set eyes flicked toward me from either side of a
bladelike nose. The web of broken capillaries on each flabby
cheek flushed into red splotches. Who the hell . . .
We locked gazes. His face matched the photo. Smiling, I
pointed a finger and gave Rosario my best vampire hypno-stare.
Bang. Bang.
X- RATED BLOODSUCKERS 45
C HAPT ER 7
- -- --
Rosario s aura flared, then settled into a turbulent neon
mass swirling around his bulk. His gaze clung to mine. His
eyes dilated into wide, black dots surrounded by the thin rims
of his brown irises. The pistol grip assembly fell from his hands
and clunked against the desktop.
I circled the desk, swiveled his chair toward me, and grasped
his beefy hands. Massaging the flesh between his thumbs and
forefingers, I deepened the trance. His aura settled into a soft
glowing texture like phosphorescent chenille.
Dark concentric wrinkles filled his eye sockets, appearing as
if they had once been bruised and never completely healed. I
focused into the black wells of his eyes that led into his subcon-
scious mind.
Lucky, I said, did you kill Roxy Bronze?
Streaks indicating worry snaked through his aura.
Lucky, answer me.
He drew a breath and kept quiet.
I stared deeper into his eyes. Did you kill Roxy Bronze?
He inhaled and his reply came out as a sigh. No.
Strike one. Okay, he hadn t murdered her.
Relax and listen to me. I kept massaging his hands. Do
you know who killed Roxy Bronze?
More streaks pulsed through his aura.
Under hypnosis, some humans gushed like faucets. They
yakked so much I wanted to send them a bill for therapy. And
for some, like Rosario, questioning them was like dredging
through mud.
I kept repeating my question and Rosario got around to giv-
ing me another No.
Strike two. Still nothing on the killer. Lucky, have you met
a vampire?
Again, the answer took a long minute to arrive. No.
Strike three. Rosario knew nothing of vampire human col-
lusion. I dropped my head and exhaled in frustration.
Vampire hypnosis wasn t getting me any traction. In this sit-
uation, fanging him wasn t worth the trouble, especially if I had
to put my mouth against the wattles of that fat neck. Better that
I quit wasting time and try my luck gleaning information from
the office surroundings and then his conscious mind.
I released his hands. They plopped into his lap.
Close your eyes.
I turned Rosario s chair against the desk and set his forearms
on the desktop. He wore a fancy gold wedding ring. Around
his left wrist he had a gold watch with diamonds on the crown, a
band of thick links, and the U.S. Marine Corps insignia enam-
eled on the watch face. On his right hand he had a pinkie ring
with a ruby, no doubt a poseur memento of imagined goombah
roots.
One wall was decorated with permits and certificates as well
X- RATED BLOODSUCKERS 47
as his undergraduate degree in accounting from UCLA. The
southern wall had business plaques and photos of Rosario with
celebrities and politicians. There were none of him with Roxy
or Cragnow. A cabinet of cherrywood spanned the northern
wall. The shelves held awards and various photos of Rosario
with a nice-looking, young brunette and two children, both
preadolescent girls. Above a middle shelf hung a portrait of a
stern-faced and much slimmer version of Rosario in a Marine
Corps uniform before a U.S. flag.
Lucius Lucky Rosario: accomplished business leader;
family man; military veteran; amigo to the famous. A real civic
peach. Nothing in the room alluded to graft or cavorting with
porn stars.
I pulled out my contacts case and put the contacts on. I
opened the office door a crack and stood, as if I d just crossed
the threshold.
Okay, Lucky, wake up.
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