Neither Karl or I exactly fell out of our chairs at that point. Like an inept comic, Vollman had telegraphed his punchline from some distance away. Still, his admission raised a lot of questions. With the time factor we were facing, I tried to decide which ones I needed answered right now.
"Why did you wait until now to share this interesting information with us?" I asked. "Didn't you care that vampires were being killed? Shit, and people accuse me of being callous."
Vollman studied me before speaking. "I do not think either one of us is callous, Sergeant. But I was forced to make a choice. If I helped you, and you found my son, you would probably kill him. He might well leave you no choice. And even now, after everything, I would have preserved his life, if I could."
"So you did nothing," I said.
"On the contrary. Ever since you gave me the name Sligo, I have been searching for him, day and night. Well, night, at least. I have used my considerable influence among the local community of supernaturals. But all my efforts have turned up nothing – he has learned how to hide himself well."
"Say you had found him on your own," Karl said. "What then?"
Vollman shifted a little in his chair. "I would have stopped him from completing this insane ritual – without killing him, if at all possible."
"But here you are," I said. "What's changed?"
"What has changed is the passage of time," Vollman said. "Like you, I believe that tonight is when he will attempt to consummate the ritual, and that cannot be permitted. Should he fail, he will almost certainly die. And if he succeeds, as you have pointed out, Sergeant, many others will die, in the near future."
"So now you wanna work with us," I said, "and about fucking time, too. But knowing that Sligo is your son doesn't help us catch him. I'm not clear about what you're bringing to the table."
Vollman studied his hands for a few moments. "In truth, not as much as I had hoped," he said. "I had planned to share with you the information contained in the Opus Mago about the ritual – its purpose, and its requirements. I was going to tell you that tonight is when he will probably make the attempt – at least, I can think of no reason why he would wait another month, given the ever-present risk of discovery."
He looked up then. "But it seems you already have the information that you need about that evil book. Courtesy, I assume, of the professor who was killed at the hospital today."
"You got that right," I said. "So, I'm asking you again – what have you got to offer?"
"As we speak, my agents are combing the city, and its environs – not only in search of my son, but of any information about the planned ritual. If any of them learns something useful, they will contact me at once."
Vollman reached into a pocket and produced a cell phone. "Even nosferatu," he said, "must change with the times."
"And anything these guys tell you, you're gonna share with us?" Karl sounded skeptical, and I can't say that I blamed him.
"Yes, I will," Vollman said. "Things have gone too far for gentle methods. He must be stopped, even if it means his life. And I am no longer sure I can do it alone."
"And what are you asking from us?" I said.
"Any information you may uncover in the interim – and of course, your vigorous efforts to prevent this tragedy from happening. Which you would have exercised, anyway."
"All right, Vollman, we'll work with you," I said. "But I want something more."
"What might that be?"
"My daughter, Christine, is one of… you."
"Yes, I was aware of this."
"Do you know where she is tonight?"
"I do not attempt to keep track of all the city's creatures of the night," Vollman said. "But I can find out, if it is important. I assume it is, or you would not be asking."
"A threat was made against her," I said, "by a guy named Jamieson Longworth, now deceased. We believe he was somehow mixed up with your son."
"Indeed?" Vollman's tone was frosty. "Had I possessed that information earlier, I might have been able to use it and locate my son, thus saving us all considerable time and trouble."
"We only got the information that allowed us to figure it out yesterday," I told him, trying not to sound defensive.
"And you didn't exactly make yourself easy to find, did you?" Karl said.
"Point taken." Vollman inclined his head forward a little. "Very well, Sergeant. I will have your daughter Christine located. What then? Do you wish her brought here?"
"No, I'm expecting to be pretty busy. Just get her someplace safe, at least for tonight."
"I can do that," he said, "and I will." He stood up. "I should lend my efforts to the hunt for my son. There are those in the city who will not share information with my minions, but who might nonetheless talk to me-" Vollman gave us a humorless, fang-filled smile, "-especially if I ask nicely."
"We should trade phone numbers before you go," I said. "We can't afford any communication delays tonight."
"I agree entirely," he said.
The three of us exchanged cell phone numbers. I wrote Vollman's down, then looked up to tell him "Stay in touch."
He was gone.
"I hate it when he does that," I muttered.
"I don't know," Karl said. "I think it's kind of cool."
Over the next few hours, I looked at that wall map so many times I'm surprised I didn't burn a hole through it. Karl downloaded and printed some aerial photos from Google Earth and had them spread out on a table. My eyes just about wore them through, too.
We'd piv› he word out to every snitch we knew, human and otherwise. Anybody who could come up with reliable information about where Sligo was going to perform the ritual tonight would earn so much goodwill with us that he could probably knock off a dozen liquor stores without fear of arrest – although we didn't put it quite that way.
The other detectives in the squad knew the situation now, and they'd promised to work their own sources hard and to call in if they picked up anything useful.
Everybody was out on the street, except Karl, me, and McGuire. All three of us were so far past overtime that we probably weren't even getting paid anymore.
The silence in the squad room was like a vice pressing against my skull, squeezing tighter every minute. I willed one of our phones to ring, no matter who was calling – Vollman, one of the squad, a snitch, or even Christine letting me know that she was shacked up with a cute A-positive in Dunmore and wouldn't be home until dawn.
McGuire was at his desk, doing paperwork or pretending to. Karl stood in front of the wall map, staring like a desert traveler hoping for an oasis to appear. I was pacing around the room like an expectant father – exactly what I had done when Christine was born. I looked at my watch, for the thousandth time: 10:03.
"I bet the motherfucker is going to pick a yard with a big old swimming pool," Karl said, without taking his eyes off the map. "Then, once the spell's done, he can jump in and take a dip. Cool off a little. Black magic is hot work, I hear."
"The arrogant prick probably doesn't even-" and that was as far as I got.
I stopped pacing and stood utterly still, while images and sounds flashed through my brain:
– Sligo, swimming, with a conical cap on his head, like the wizard in Fantasia…
– Prescott's voice saying, "Still water, it has to be still water"…
– The photo on Jamieson Longworth's computer of a square, stone building near-surrounded by water…
– My cousin Marty, when I was fourteen: "Come on, Stan. Nobody goes up there, and the lock on the gate is a joke. You, me, and those two chicks from down the street. Whatdaya say? We'll have a cool swim on a hot night, and maybe we'll even get to see 'em naked!
"Well, fuck my ass and call me Shirley," I said softly.
"Stan?" Karl's voice. "Stan? Can you hear me? What is it, man?" I think he might have been speaking for a while.