She's drinking ridiculously expensive designer vodka on the rocks. I accept a glass of the same.
– You come highly recommended, Joseph.
– I get the job done. But I'm surprised Mr. Predo would recommend me to you.
She smiles just a bit.
– And yet.
– Uh-huh. Look, Ms. Horde.
– Marilee.
– This isn't really my kind of job.
– What kind of job is that?
– The kind that takes place in your neck of the woods.
– And what is my neck of the woods, Joseph?
I look at her sitting there. Coy and quiet, a stylish thirty-three-year-old beauty. She's wearing a tailored summer suit in a subtle rose shade and a crisp linen blouse, her only jewelry the engagement ring and wedding band on her left hand. The stone in the engagement ring not the usual Upper East Side two-carat-plus rock, but a tastefully sized blue-while in a deco platinum setting. Her hair appears to be naturally golden, and she has its length twirled up and pinned neatly to the back of her head, just three perfect strands dangling to frame her face and accent her ivory neck. Her ivory neck. I take a large swallow from my drink and lean back in my chair.
– Have you taken a look in the mirror lately, Ms. Horde?
– I said you should call me Marilee.
– Yes you did. Have you taken a look in the mirror lately, Ms. Horde?
– Yes.
– What would you say is your neck of the woods?
I look down at myself, the old suit, rumpled shirt and scuffed shoes that I dug up for the occasion.
– And what would you say was mine? And would you say, based on this, that I am the man for your kind of job?
She puts her drink down on the table.
– Actually, I would say this is exactly why you are the man for my job, Joseph. You see, my daughter has run away again, and I believe she is to be found in your neck of the woods.
She leans in, close to me.
– As you put it.
The cocktail waitress comes by and Marilee orders us another round.
This is taking too long. I figured blackmail. I figured drugs. I figured this woman would have some nasty little problem that needed to be swept up. I never figured missing children. I never figured Marilee Ann Horde.
The Hordes are one of New York's original families, one of the few dozen that make up Manhattan's true society. Their money came from the usual sources, oil, timber, and rail, but these days they're better known for their biotechnology holdings and HCN, the Horde Cable Network. Marilee Ann Dempsey's family was more than a few steps down the food chain, quite a bit more I gather. But she apparently made up for it with style enough to draw the attention of Dr. Dale Edward Horde, the only son and heir to the house of Horde, as well as founder and CEO/Chairman of Horde Bio Tech Inc. They've been married for fourteen or fifteen years and are one of those Manhattan couples who get plenty of publicity, but all skillfully crafted and honed. No Page Six blurbs for the Hordes. What it all means for me is that I can't shine this on. I have to find the damn kid, which means I have to sit here and listen to the whole story instead of being out looking for the carrier. So our second round shows up and I try not to be too fidgety while I listen to her.
She's leaning back now, holding her drink in her lap with her right hand, occasionally stirring the ice with her index finger.
– Amanda has done this before. As a small child, she's only fourteen now, but as a very small child she frequently hid in closets or in the garden until someone found her. A way of getting attention. Not that she lacked, but she enjoyed scaring us. She would do it in public places as well, museums, stores; just disappear. At first we would panic and search high and low. When we realized it was a game to her, we resolved to wait her out, wait for her to get bored or lonely and come out of hiding. But she didn't. I once spent an entire day in Bergdorf's wail ing lor her to come out, and she never did. She stayed hidden inside a rack of dresses until we found her just after the store had closed. But she never ran far, Joseph, just somewhere hidden so she could watch us look for her. Then last summer she ran away for real. Not all that far as it turned out, but farther than before. When we first noticed her missing we were a bit surprised, my husband and I. It had been some time since she had last played her little game. But then we realized she was truly missing. We searched the town house, we had our Hamptons house searched, as well as the Hudson River estate. After two days there was no sign. We thought she might have been kidnapped. We called the police, but no one got in touch with us about a ransom and, frankly, the police were little help. Eventually, after some days, we hired a private investigator my husband has had occasion to employ. He found her almost two weeks later. She was living in the East Village, camping the kids call it. They go down there in their worst clothes and live on the street and panhandle and sleep in the park and pretend to be homeless. I guess.
I nodded. It was true, there were more than a few well-off kids slumming on Avenue A in the summer. When the real squatters found them out they usually kicked the shit out of them and sent them home to mommy and daddy.
Marilee takes a sip and plays with her ice some more.
I make a little grunting noise and she looks up.
– Yes?
– No offense, but you seem pretty calm about your daughter being missing and all.
She nods.
– Well as I say, it's not exactly new to us, and it's only been a few days. But more to the point, we know she's OK.
– How's that?
– She's been withdrawing money from her account.
– That could be anyone with her card and code.
– Yes, she used her card at first, but her last two withdrawals were in person from a teller. It was her. They require photo ID.
– When and where was the last withdrawal?
– The Chase at Broadway and Eighth, two days ago.
– How much?
– Two hundred.
– How much does she have access to?
– She can withdraw up to a thousand a week, but never more than two hundred a day. If she wants more she needs her father or me to cosign.
– And she's taken two hundred every day she's been gone?
– Yes. First with her card, and the last two, as I said, from a teller. Perhaps she lost the card.
– OK. Did you bring a picture?
– Yes.
She lifts a pocketbook that matches her suit from the floor, finds the picture and passes it to me.
Her mother's eyes and neck, but the resemblance stops there. The girl in the photo is decked out in head-to-toe black with white pancake makeup on her face, hair dyed black, black lipstick, black eye shadow and black nail polish. Jesus fuck, she's a goth. Marilee sees something in my face.
– Yes, Amanda does have something of a fascination with the undead. So really, Joseph, you can see why it is I called you.
I look up from the photo, and Marilee smiles ever so sweetly.
I've been outed. Dexter Predo has outed me.
It's a given that a woman like Marilee has some sense of how things work, the exchanges that take place behind, beneath and above the scenes in Manhattan, the give and take of power. It is for that kind of favor brokering that the Coalition is known to a select few outside the Clans. But the fact that I have been outed by Predo indicates that she is operating at a much higher level of awareness, a level of knowledge at which most people are murdered to keep them silent.
There are people that know about us. But they are few and most play a specific role. There are the Van Helsings, the righteous who stumble upon us and make it their mission to hunt us down. The Renfields like Philip, who glom on to us, half servile and half envious. The Lucys, both male and female, who have romanticized the whole vampire myth and dote over us like groupies. And the Minas, the ones who know the truth and don't care, the ones who fall in love. Van Helsings are killed, we use the Renfields and the Lucys to serve us and insulate us from the world. Minas are rare and precious beyond value. There is only one way to know if you have a true Mina: tell her or him what you are and what you do to stay alive. Not many make that final cut.