"Yeah, now that she's a widow, she's attracting quite a lot of interest," I said.
"He's an old-fashioned guy in a lot of ways," Todd Donati said. "Comes from an old family, doesn't like modern thinking."
"Um-hum," I said, trying to sound neutral but encouraging.
"He don't believe in women making up their own minds, being able to fend for themselves," the security chief said.
I couldn't look like I understood what Donati was talking about, because I sure didn't.
"Even vampire women," he said, and looked at me squarely and directly.
"Okay," I said.
"Think about it," Donati said. "Get your queen to ask him where the security tape is that shows that area in front of her room."
"I will," I said, having no idea why I was agreeing. Then the ailing man spun on his heel and walked away with an air of having discharged his duty.
Then the car came around, Barry hurried out of the elevator and came over to join me, and any thinking I might have done about the encounter faded in my fear of driving in the city. I don't think Eric ever considered how hard it would be for me to drive in Rhodes, because he just didn't think about stuff like that. If I hadn't had Barry with me, it would have been nearly impossible. I could cope with the driving, or I could look at the map the parking attendant loaned us, but not both.
I didn't do too bad, though the traffic was heavy and the weather was cold and raining. I hadn't been out of the hotel since we'd arrived, and it was kind of refreshing to see the outside world. Also, this was probably the only glimpse of the rest of the city I would get. I did as much looking as I could. Who knew if I'd ever come back? And this was so far north.
Barry plotted our course, and we began our archery tour of Rhodes.
We started with the farthest business, called Straight Arrow. It was a long, narrow place on a very busy avenue. It was gleaming, well-lit – and had qualified instructors behind the counter who were heavily armed. I knew this, because a big sign said so. The men there were not impressed by Barry's southern accent. They thought it made him sound stupid. Though when I talked, they thought I was cute. Okay, how insulting is that? The subtext, which I read very clearly from their minds, was: women sound stupid anyway, so a southern accent just enhances that adorable dimness. Men are supposed to sound crisp and direct, so southern men sound stupid and weak.
Anyway, aside from their built-in prejudices, these men were not helpful. They'd never seen Kyle Perkins at any of their night classes, and they didn't think he'd ever rented time to practice at their place.
Barry was fuming at the disrespect he'd endured, and he didn't even want to go in the second place. I trotted in by myself with the picture, and the one guy at work at the second archery supply store, which had no range, said, "No," immediately. He didn't discuss the picture, ask me why I wanted to know about Kyle Perkins, or wish me a nice day. He didn't have a sign to tell me how formidable he was. I figured he just ruded people to death.
The third place, housed in a building that I thought might at one time have been a bowling alley, had a few cars in the parking lot and a heavy opaque door. STOP AND BE IDENTIFIED a sign said. Barry and I could read it from the car. It seemed a little ominous.
"I'm tired of being in the car anyway," he said gallantly, and got out with me. We stood where we could be seen, and I alerted Barry when I spotted the camera above our heads. Barry and I both looked as pleasant as we could. (In Barry's case, that was pretty pleasant. He just had a way about him.) After a few seconds, we heard a loud click, and the door unlocked. I glanced at Barry, and he pulled open the heavy door while I stepped inside the room and to one side so he could enter, too.
We were faced with a long counter extending the length of the opposite wall. There was a woman about my age behind the counter, with coppery hair and skin, the product of an interesting racial blend. She'd dyed her eyebrows black, which added a touch of the bizarre to the whole uni-color effect.
She looked us over just as carefully in person as she had over the camera, and I could read the thought that she was much happier to see Barry than she was to see me. I told Barry, You better take this one.
Yeah, I'm getting the idea, he answered, and while I laid Kyle's picture on the counter, he said, "Could you tell us if this guy ever came in here to buy arrows or to practice?"
She didn't even ask why we wanted to know. She bent over to look at the picture, maybe a little farther than necessary to give Barry the benefit of her neckline. She scanned Kyle's picture and immediately made a face. "Yeah, he came in here right after dark yesterday," she said. "We'd never had a vampire customer, and I didn't really want to serve him, but what are you gonna do? He had the money, and the law says we can't discriminate." She was a woman who was ready and willing to discriminate, no doubt about it.
"Was anyone with him?" Barry asked.
"Oh, let me think." She posed, her head thrown back, for Barry's benefit. She didn't think his southern accent sounded stupid. She thought it was adorable and sexy. "I just can't remember. Listen, I'll tell ya what I'll do. I'll get the security tape for last night; we've still got it. And I'll let you have a look at it, okay?"
"Can we do that right now?" I asked, smiling sweetly.
"Well, I can't leave the counter right now. There's no one else here to watch the store if I have to go to the back. But if you'll come to look tonight after my replacement gets here" – she cast a very pointed glance at Barry, to make sure I realized I need not come – "I'll let you have a peek."
"What time?" Barry said, rather reluctantly.
"Shall we say seven? I get off right after that."
Barry didn't touch the hint, but he agreed to be back at seven.
"Thanks, Barry," I said as we buckled up again. "You're really helping me out." I called the hotel and left a message for the queen and Andre, explaining where I was and what I was doing, so they wouldn't get mad when I wasn't at their disposal the moment they woke, which should be very soon. After all, I was following Eric's orders.
"You gotta come in with me," Barry said. "I'm not seeing that woman by myself. She'll eat me alive. That was the War of Northern Aggression, for sure."
"Okay. I'll stay out in the car, and you can yell to me from your head if she climbs on top of you."
"It's a deal."
To fill the time, we had a cup of coffee and some cake at a bakery. It was great. My grandmother had always believed that northern women couldn't cook. It was delightful to find out exactly how untrue that conviction had been. My appetite was also delightful. It was a continuing relief to find that I was just as hungry as I normally was. Nothing vampy about me, no sir!
After we filled up the tank and checked our route back to the Pyramid, it was finally time to return to the archery range to talk to Copper. The sky was full dark, and the city glowed with light. I felt sort of urban and glamorous, driving around such a large and famous city. And I'd been given a task and performed it successfully. No country mouse, me.
My feeling of happiness and superiority didn't last long.
Our first clue that all was not well at the Monteagle Archery Company was the heavy metal door hanging askew.
"Shit," said Barry, which summed up my feelings in a nutshell.
We got out – very reluctantly – and, with many glances from side to side, we went up to the door to examine it.
"Blown or ripped?" I said.
Barry knelt on the gravel to have a closer look.
"I'm no 007," he said, "but I think this was ripped off."
I looked at the door doubtfully. But when I bent over to look more closely, I saw the twisted metal of the hinges. Chalk one up for Barry.