From his position, Arm could see the brake lights in his rearview mirror. Cars only left the neighbourhood. No one came in. As he tried to focus on the street again, the afterimage of the red lights danced along over he pavement on the left side until it faded.
‘4316’. Dispatch.
Arm pushed the button. “4316”, he wondered what they wanted now.
His elbow rested in the open window. Most of the city traffic zoomed by down below on the highway. Here, uptown, on the corner of Stanley street and Crawford, houses stared at him in the dark with their squared eyes and rectangle open mouths. Windows covered with faded curtains, some dark. Most boarded up.
The dispatcher paused before she started to talk. “Harvey wants a tap.”
There was nothing to tap. Harvey was an idiot. Staking out takes hours. Days. In ‘91 his eye was glued to the visor mounted on this M745, knowing he would score at one point. Eleven hours a day in total silence, sometimes 12. On top of Hotel Baghdad, no eating, no pissing, no nothing. Just wait and stake it out. Harvey was a desk manager, not a cop, not a cop like they all were. Ex-marines.
It wasn’t exactly the woman walking up from the corner of Crawford but the dark shade about 30 yards behind her that made him slide into a different position. The woman walked slowly and close to the houses as if she was looking for someone, someone to pick her up, unaware of any movement behind her. The shadow moved slower. And in more suspicious ways, it was now on the corner of the building. Arm tilted his head to see if there was really someone there, or if he was imagining things.
“4316?”
He pushed the button again. “Erm 2502,” he said in a calm voice.
“Copy that,” she clicked away. He 2502-ed it. He’d get back to her. It was his favorite code.
The woman walked to where Arm stood parked.
“You haven’t seen a green Camry go by did you?” she asked. Her eyes were made up in precise mascara and light blue eyeshadow.
“No ma’am.” Arm said. “That a friend picking you up?”
She looked over Arm’s cruiser from the left to the right to make sure she didn’t miss anything, but Stanley Street was empty now. A green sedan, Arm thought, you don’t see green nowadays.
“Yeah, he texted me. Said he was waiting for me. I thought it was you.”
“This look like a green sedan to you? A Camry?”
She smiled at him, looked up and down Stanley street again, then back at him. His name was on the tag dangling from his shoulder. “That your name? ‘Armtil?’ You from some Russian country?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that is my name. My parents were immigrants,” Arm explained, then asked: “What is your name?”
Her curls danced with her body movements, she was biting the corner of her lower lip. “Lily.”
“You live here, Lily?”
Arm straightened up. His finger tapped the 9 mm Atom The uncomfortable gut feeling.
There was new movement from the corner. It came their way, Arm now stretched his back and neck.
“Beddington, at the end of…”
“Crawford,” he filled in. Where the old cemetery used to be. Or so the story went. Harvey had asked Armtil to sit on a stake out after rumors that some sort of ‘batman’ was wandering around the neighbourhood. Harvey knew Armtil’s file, his sharpshooter skill got Arm four honorary decorations. Staking out took patience and Armtil’s ability to sit like an owl observing neighbourhoods had cost him three marriages.
He wasn’t really interested in chit chat with the local beauty queen. He wanted her to move on.
“You here because of the vampire sighting?” Lily asked, “They have red eyes. They come from the cemetery. Over on Barmford! That’s what they say!”
Arm looked at Lily. He wasn’t sure if she was serious. It sounded like it. The cemetery had been cleared in the 1900’s to make way for a growing city. And red eyes? Yeah, he was familiar with those. But not from vampires. The black movement became clearer. He didn’t want to scare her, but he needed to pull out his night vision monocular.
“Maybe you can call your friend?” He wondered if he had been wrong about her.,
She pulled a cigarette from a purse and offered him one, a pink lighter in the same hand. It had the YMCA logo. You never know but a vampire going to the Y?
“Don’t smoke.” Her eyes focused on him as she lit the cigarette. “You have a last name, Lily?”
“Hubbard.” If you are concerned about what’s happening here, you should invite me in. I can sit shot gun.”
The dark figure had legs now, Arm could see it move up the street in their direction, in a slow and surely inconspicuous way. Lily Hubbard hadn’t noticed it and she had looked down the street twice for her friend’s green sedan as she was standing on the sidewalk. Arm tipped his finger on the clip of his holster, then looked at the yellow line of his taser. His finger pressed down the red seat belt lock.
“You’re getting out?” Lily asked, her eyes scanned the direction of the moving blackness. Had she not seen anything at all? Not even how it had now moved to walking on four legs? He instinctively rolled up the window up and unlocked the vehicle before he got out. He took her cigarette and flicked it away. She stepped back.
“What’s up?”
“Get in the back. Quick!”
“What?!”
The sleekness of the moving black being appeared to have become even smoother and faster. He’d never seen anything like this?
He pulled open the rear door and pushed her in.
“Hey! What is this all about?!” she yelled. He managed to close the door as the black entity had gained enormous speed. Arm’s gun would be futile, he realized, so he jumped back behind the wheel.
Lily Hubbard punched on the divider, “Let me out! What are you, some sort of freak?!”
The next moment, the cruiser was covered in fine, black particles, so minute and dense that it darkened the cruiser and blocked out the city lights. Arm could hear the slight twinkling against the windows. No sound came through from the highway.
“What the fuck is this?” he heard Lily ask in total surrender, the two of them looking at the sudden black shroud that was around them. She was breathing deep. “Why do you have your gun out?”