Debbie Dwyer made it.

She knocked rather faintly, like the scratching of a cat, so I wasn’t sure there was someone there. I opened the door, expecting to see the corridor empty. Instead, I found a young woman with coal black, spiky hair and white makeup accentuated by black shadow around the eyes and black liner around the mouth.

“Yes?” I said. It was the wittiest private eye remark I was able to come up with on the occasion.

“Mr. Hastings?” she said.

I hate that. Granted, she was college-age, and I am not. Still, it is the sort of thing I dislike having flung in my face, being addressed as sir or mister, knowing the worst is yet to come in the form of a devastating young fella.

“What can I do for you?”

“I may want to hire you.”

The word may was disappointing. I liked the word hire, however. I needed money.

“Come in.”

I sat her in the client’s chair, then went and sat behind my desk, as if interviewing prospective clients were a daily routine.

“What’s your problem?” I asked.

“It’s my boyfriend.”

“Yes?”

“Promise you won’t laugh.”

“Why?”

“He’s a vampire.”

“I didn’t promise.”

She made a face. “Don’t be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Closed-minded. Think of the movies.”

“Movies?”

“You know, in all the movies when someone is trying to warn everyone or looking for help or whatever, and the police won’t believe her because her story is a little out of the normal. Say she has premonitions.” She scrunched up her nose. I could tell she was getting close to dangerous ground. “Sometimes it’s supernatural. Ghosts, the undead, or something, and everyone in the movie theater knows what she’s saying is absolutely true, and they’re really pissed off at the cops for not paying attention to her. You ever watch a movie like that, and you’re thinking, ‘How can the cops be so stupid?’ You know what I’m saying?”

I knew exactly what she was saying. I also knew the difference between a movie and real life.

Still, there was that possibility of money in the offing.

“Go on,” I said.

“So. Morris is a vampire.”

“Okay.”

“Yes, I know,” she said. “I don’t expect you to believe me. I don’t expect anyone to believe me.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to know if he’s for real.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to know if he’s a vampire.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding you? I want to hire you. Do you want the job?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I have a date tonight. When he drops me off at my dorm, I want you to follow him and see where he goes.”

“Why can’t you do it yourself?”

She made a face.

“Oh, I see. You tried.”

“He’s on guard against me following him. It’s gotta be someone else.”

“You mean you don’t know where he lives?”

“No.”

“You got his name. Haven’t you Googled him? Or some sort of Internet search?”

“I came up empty.”

“Isn’t that interesting in itself?”

“Fascinating,” she said dryly. “Look, you want the job or not?”

I wanted the job.

There was only one problem.

ALICE was amused. I expected her to be amused. I just wasn’t sure what form her amusement might take. On the one hand my wife has a good sense of humor. On the other, she is perfectly capable of ridiculing me within an inch of my life. “You’re involved with a vampire?”

“In a way.”

“And what way might that be?”

“I’m involved with his girlfriend.”

“What a surprise.”

“I’m not involved with her. I’ve been hired.”

“How old is this girlfriend?”

“Oh.”

Alice smiled. “Okay, we’ve established young. Are we talking thirty-something?”

“I don’t see how the exact age makes any difference.”

“Good God, is she a teenager?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

“She’s a college student. At Columbia University. Pre-law.”

“Ah. And what does she look like, this college student?”

“Oh.”

I tiptoed Alice through the whole goth bit. Needless to say, her commentary was withering.

When I was done, as usual, she put the whole thing in perspective. “Well,” she said. “We need the money.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Alice cocked her head. “She pay in advance?”

“Oh.”

THAT night I was at Columbia University outside Miss Pre-law, goth-dressing, vampire-dating’s dorm. I had changed from a suit and tie, my standard PI gear, to a leather jacket and jeans, my standard vampire-tailing gear. I was trying to look inconspicuous, which wasn’t all that easy. The problem with Columbia University is it’s full of college students, and they tend to be young. I get older every year. Coeds were looking at me strangely. After a while, it dawned on me in my current outfit I must have looked like a pervert trying to pick up young girls. I should have worn a tweed jacket, passed for a professor. The problem is, I don’t see myself as old enough to be a professor. Whereas, in truth, I’m probably old enough to be the father of a professor.

They were back at eleven thirty. I spotted him first. Remarkable, since I knew her. But then he was a vampire. Not that he wore a cloak or a cape or a hood. Or had fangs. Or any of your standard cliché vampire gear. He was actually wearing a leather jacket, not unlike mine, though mine was brown, and his, of course, was black. Granted, his collar was up, but that didn’t have to be vampire, it could easily have been motorcycle tough. He also wore a black T-shirt and black jeans. All in all, his vampire was no wilder than Debbie’s goth. No, what caught your eye was the lean face, light blue eyes, and thin lips.

It was the lips, in particular, that merited attention. Unusually thin, as if he’d deliberately sucked them in, covering up his teeth.

He kissed her good night at the door. Then, in a flash, he ducked down a side alley next to the dorm.

Damn! There I was, waiting for him to go back out the main gate of the quad the way he came, and the son of a bitch takes a shortcut to the side street. I fell all over myself trying to follow, but by the time I got there, he was gone.

You ever ask anyone which way the vampire went?

DEBBIE was pissed. “You lost him?”

“I never had him.”

“What?”

“ ‘You lost him’ implies I was following him, and he got away. That didn’t happen. He was gone before I even started.”

She made a face at me. Trust me, it’s no fun to have a goth make a face at you. “Oh, isn’t that clever? What are you, a moron? Didn’t you see us come back to the dorm?”

“Yes.”

“Then you saw Morris. If you saw him, you had him. You had him, and you lost him, end of story.”

“I take it I’m fired.”

“Fired? Fired from what? You haven’t done anything yet.”

“I staked out a dorm.”

“You expect me to pay you for that?”

I hadn’t expected her to pay me at all. But she was pissing me off. “In this business there are no guarantees.”

Her eyes blazed. “What the hell are you talking about, guarantees? It’s not like you tried and failed. It’s like you didn’t do anything.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“How much do you think I owe you?”

“You don’t owe me a thing. Good luck with your vampire. I hope the next private eye you hire does better.”

She immediately began to backtrack. “Don’t be an old grouse,” she said. I wasn’t thrilled by the adjective. “It didn’t work last night. Now you know better. Now you’ll do better. I’m seeing Morris again tonight. Be there when he brings me home.”

Having graciously relented and allowed me another shot at vampire surveillance, the goth proceeded to launch into a lecture on how this time I shouldn’t fail.

There were a lot of things I could have said right then, but I’d have had to interrupt her. And nothing was going to help. I shut up and let her rant.