The Origin of Dracula by Irving Belateche Page B

me. He’d said over and over again, It’s not going to change what happened , and he’d also said, It’s just going to make you angry .
    He was right. It did make me angry. But I kept my anger in check and forged ahead with the mission at hand.
    “Rick Serway,” I said. Rick had been one of Lucy’s colleagues. He’d started at the firm the same month Lucy had, five years ago. He’d been so broken up at her funeral that I hadn’t been sure he’d ever recover. I hoped he had. I hoped he hadn’t ended up like me.
    “Rick Serway, huh?” Callen said. “Hang on to your horses.” He moseyed on back to the counter, leaving Lee and me to stare at our reflections in the glass. It took him forever to look through whatever he was scrutinizing behind the counter. It was probably a directory, but now that I knew who he was, I couldn’t help but think it was porn. And that it’d been porn he’d been engrossed in on his cell phone before we’d interrupted his night, and that it’d been porn he’d been watching the night of Lucy’s murder, so absorbed by it that he couldn’t pull himself away to escort Lucy to her car.
    Finally, he strolled back to us. “You got ID?”
    “I don’t. I left my wallet up there and it’s got my driver’s license and pass card in it. It’s got pretty much everything in it—credit cards, you name it. That’s why I had to come back.”
    He looked me up and down without bothering to hide his sneer. Then he shook his head again. “Can’t let you in without ID.”
    “If I had ID, I wouldn’t be here, because I’d have my wallet. You get that, right?”
    Lee flashed a grin, apparently pleased by my aggressiveness. But Callen wasn’t so pleased. His face reddened and his nostrils flared.
    “Listen, buddy,” he said. “Without ID, you’re not coming in.” He headed back to the counter.
    I pounded on the door.
    He whipped around, the fastest he’d moved since we arrived. “Keep your hands off the door!”
    “I have to get in there and get my wallet!”
    “I just told you: You’re not coming in!” He headed back toward the counter.
    I pounded on the door again—and he whipped around again, but he also made the effort to march up to me. “If you don’t get the hell out of here,” he barked, “I’m calling the police.”
    “The police? Are you kidding me? This is why you call the police?” I was shouting now. “My wife was executed right under your fucking nose and you just sat there on your butt and did nothing! Why the hell didn’t you call the police then? Why the hell didn’t you walk her to her car? Why the hell didn’t you do a goddamn thing? ”
    Callen’s mouth was agape and the color had drained from his face. He was no longer annoyed. He was frightened.
    Lee was staring at me, wide-eyed. “Didn’t think you had that in you,” he said.
    What I had in me was grief and pent-up anger. And I had spewed it all out at a convenient scapegoat. “Let me into the goddamn building,” I added as a coda.
    Callen didn’t react. He stood there like a frightened animal, unsure what to do next.
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lee reach into his jacket pocket—he was going for his gun. Did I want to go that far? If not, I had to stop Lee now.
    “What’s all the racket about?” The raspy voice came from behind Lee. We turned toward it. The homeless man was ambling toward us, a mobile heap of ragged clothes. As he approached, I heard a repetitive ripping sound that matched his footsteps. It came from one of his filthy high-top sneakers, which was fortified with duct tape. In the wake of every step he took came the crackling of tape peeling off concrete.
    “Can you help me out with a little change?” he said, bringing with him an odor so rancid I had to step back. “It’s been two days since I got some food.”
    “Go back where you came from,” Lee said.
    “I’m from here.” The man was staring at me instead of Lee, as if I’d been the one who’d told