Good King Sauerkraut by Barbara Paul

business, go to prison? Try to convince the police that it was too just an accident?
    The thought of that unsettled him enough to start him walking—anywhere, just so long as he was on the move. He couldn’t go back to the apartment, not with what he’d left there. He couldn’t take a plane to Pittsburgh; that’s the first place they’d look for him. Should he run and hide? Should he stay and try to bluff it out? He couldn’t just wander the streets forever.
    He stopped and looked around to get his bearings, and found he was standing in front of a restaurant—Le Biarritz. King realized the pastrami had merely taken the edge off his appetite; he was still hungry. He went inside and had Escalopes de veau Casimir with lots of interesting veggies. Dennis would have been proud of him.
    Outside again, King felt a lightening of the spirits which he didn’t think was attributable solely to the bottle of white wine he’d consumed with the veal. Never contemplate suicide on an empty stomach , he moralized. He had a hankering to top off that marvelous French meal with an old-fashioned Amurrican dessert. A few doors down was the Café 57; he went inside and ordered apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
    Satisfied at last, King continued his aimless stroll east on Fifty-seventh, relishing being alive in a way that was new to him. How could he have considered giving everything up—including the right to wander wherever he pleased, a free man? (Temporarily, at any rate.) He crossed Broadway, glanced over to the other side of Fifty-seventh, and saw the rear end of a black Cadillac sticking out of the side of a building about ten feet above the sidewalk. That bore investigating.
    The Caddy was an old model, fins and whitewalls, and it served as a kind of canopy over the door to the Hard Rock Cafe. People were gathered outside more or less in a line, waiting to get in. One woman stood out from the crowd; she was over six feet tall, with heavily made-up eyes and a magnificent head of frizzy black hair. And prominently displayed on her neck was … a vampire bite?
    She was talking to some friends when she spotted King. “I don’t believe it—somebody taller’n me? Come here, man.”
    King went there.
    She looked him up and down with approval. “Well, well. Where have I been all your life?”
    â€œA meeting of the giants,” one of her friends laughed.
    â€œWatch your mouth, you,” she scolded. To King she said, “I’m Shawna. What’s your name?”
    â€œKing.”
    â€œI meant your first name.”
    â€œKing.”
    â€œKing King?”
    â€œKing Sarcowicz.”
    â€œUm, we’ll stick to King.” She noticed him staring at the two bite-sized black dots on her neck and tilted her head to give him a better view. “You like my tattoo?”
    â€œIt’s … different.”
    â€œNaw, lotsa people gottum. Beats a butterfly on the ass any day.”
    â€œYou’re advertising yourself as a victim,” one of her friends grumbled, a woman.
    â€œShawna?” another friend scoffed, a man. “No sensible vampire would dare .”
    â€œHere we go,” Shawna growled. “Do I threaten you? I hope?”
    King stood listening to their banter and realized he was enjoying himself. He’d taken an instant liking to Shawna; he liked her height and her theatrical looks and her tough way of talking. He decided he even liked her Dracula-was-here tattoo.
    Somebody’s stomach growled. “Doesn’t that line ever move? What time is it?”
    Watches were consulted. “Two-thirty,” said three voices, one of them King’s.
    â€œTwo-thirty!” he repeated, aghast. Warren Osterman had called a meeting at MechoTech for two o’clock. That meant that by now …
    â€œYou’re supposed to be someplace,” Shawna said accusingly.
    â€œUh, yes, I am.” The thought of