Bloodcircle - Chapter Six
Jun. 8th, 2022 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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i_read_whatSo last time, Jack and Escott did some investigating, only to return to their hotel room and find Jonathan Barrett waiting for them.
So Barrett's back in 1930s garb, though Jack helpfully tells us that a vestige of the past still clung to him with his ramrod posture and wind-combed hair. Thank you, Jack. And you wonder why I think you're bisexual.
Anyway, Barrett wants to know why they're still around. He's very protective of Emily Francher and he's not particularly happy that Jack and Escott are digging into the fire.
I really do enjoy the dynamic between Jack and Barrett here:
“Tell me what? There’s nothing to tell. The fire was over and done with long before Maureen ever came to see me.”
“And you figure there’s no connection?”
“How can there be?” He raised a hand. “No, don’t bother answering that with another damned question. I can see you haven’t the heart to care about the kind of damage you’re doing.”
“What damage?”
He started to shake his head in exasperation at my apparent stupidity, then caught on that I’d been trying to goad him.
“What damage, Barrett?” I pursued.
He said nothing and only glared.
“What are you afraid of?”
It's easy to underestimate Jack, intellectually speaking. He lacks Escott's sophistication or Jonathan Barrett's gentlemanly veneer, and he slides into the role of Escott's sidekick/bruiser so effectively that it's easy to forget that he's an investigative journalist in his own right.
He asks Barrett a piercing question:
“If you were in my place, what would you be doing to find her?”
That one struck a chord. He paced the length of the small room once with slow steps, subsiding into himself. He stopped next to me, trying to bore a hole through my brain with his eyes. “You said you were checking out. Are you going for good?”
It's possible that some of Barrett's hostility comes from guilt. If Jack and Escott are right, then five years ago, Barrett's close friend may have come to some trouble and he'd never noticed, because of their falling out. That's assuming he's telling the truth of course.
Barrett and Jack continue to clash:
“I can’t really say.”
“Because you lack knowledge or because you don’t trust me?”
“You’re sharp, Barrett.”
“Yes, and I’ve had as much of you as I can stomach. Do what you must to find Maureen, but leave the Franchers out of it. Leave them alone and stay out of my way.”
Or what? I asked him as much with my expression.
There was murder in his return look, and he took a step toward me to carry it out, or so I thought. The color abruptly faded from his dark clothes and his pale skin drained to the lifeless white of the truly dead. His outline wavered and swam in on itself, melting and merging into a shapeless, gray, man-sized thing.
Impossibly hanging in midair, it twisted like a slow cyclone and tore by me. The wake of its brushing passage pierced me to the bone with a rush of arctic cold. The gray mass slammed silently against the window panes, fell through them as though they weren’t really there, and whirled away into the night wind. I rushed forward just in time to see it hurtle across the yard below to vanish into the cover of some intervening trees. A few moments later I heard the innocuous, ordinary roar of a car gunning to life. Its tires spun and screamed against the pavement, an audible expression of Barrett’s anger.
It IS fun getting to see vampirism from an outside point of view. And Jack's reaction is very interesting:
Escott often complained that my disappearing act unnerved him. His limited human eyes missed most of the show, though. He didn’t know about this, about what it looked like to me. I’d witnessed it once before myself, but not in the close, calm normality of a well-lighted room.
I was still shaking when he came upstairs to help with the luggage.
It's probably worth remembering that the only other time Jack saw a vampire do a vanishing act it was a woman who'd terrorized him, tortured him and forced him to turn her, in an act described in a way very similar to a rape. I really do think Jack would benefit from a therapist.
So later, in the car, Jack and Escott discuss the visit. Escott is inclined to shrug it off. He notes Barrett has a point. Jack's not inclined to believe him though. He thinks Barrett is trying to hide something.
Escott points out that he could be hiding any number of things: his job, his feelings for Ms. Francher. Possibly his condition. And amusingly, that's something Jack hasn't considered. An investigation COULD put Barrett into a tricky spot.
He's been investigated before, of course, but Jack is a vampire as well. Which means Barrett can't resort to any usual hypnosis tricks. That makes Jack realize that while he's himself is safe, Barrett could snap Escott like a twig, mentally or physically.
Are you safe, Jack? I've got twelve books and a number of short stories that indicate maybe you're not. But I appreciate your concern for your partner.
Anyway, Escott's done more investigating. Basically the employees of the house (maid, cook, housekeeper, gardener) have been there a long time. The horses came about when Barrett arrived. And now, Barrett's the only employee who actually sleeps in the house. The servants have made, correct, assumptions as to why, but don't seem to mind. Emily Francher's been through a lot, and well, if she wants to keep a handsome young man around...
Aw. I kind of like that.
Barrett doesn't socialize outside the house much, which makes the neighbors happy. They don't dislike him, but they appreciate that he's keeping any scandalous behavior indoors. Emily's not a society person in general, so any ostracism there goes unnoticed.
This bit made me laugh:
“As for the inhabitants of Glenbriar, Emily Francher may do whatever she pleases in private, as long as it stays that way. If she were anyone else, she’d find life a bit more hostile.”
“The old Hester Prynne bit?”
Not having the benefit of an American education, he didn’t understand the reference. I gave him a brief summary of Hawthorne’s book until he did.
He agreed with the general idea, but added one of his own. “Perhaps it is closer to the point to say that her money makes the difference here. If a poor man does something out of the norm, he’s condemned for a lunatic. When a rich man indulges in kind, he is affectionately tolerated as an eccentric. Thus we have it that no one thinks anything strange about the very late hours kept by the principals of the household.”
There's an interesting class subtext to this book, I think. And I think it definitely is a factor in the way that Jack and Barrett relate to each other. Probably more than jealousy over Maureen even. We're in Jack's head after all, and Maureen possibly having loved Barrett does not actually seem to be a huge factor in his dislike of the man. It's everything else, instead.
They are silent for a while, and Escott breaks the silence in a very married couple way:
“Sixty miles is a long way to be quiet,” Escott quoted, breaking the silence by doing a perfect mimic of Banks. It jolted me, kicking a vagueness into a certainty.
Jack's issue is the tip. The cab driver said he got a five-dollar tip from Maureen, and that's too much. I just googled it and five dollars in 1931 is the equivalent of NINETY-FIVE dollars today. Holy shit.
Yeah, that's too much!
Escott suggests that maybe she thought it was "necessary compensation". But Jack disagrees. Maureen's older than he is, and from a time when people tipped in pennies. And he knows her: MAYBE, in an extravagant mood, she might have tipped one dollar. But not five.
Escott still seems a bit skeptical. Could have been a wrong bill. But Jack's mulling on it. He thinks maybe Barrett called Banks, hypnotized him, and gave him the tip. The motive could be about Emily...
“Well, figure it. Barrett’s got a soft spot for himself with her, and then Maureen shows up. She doesn’t like what he’s doing and could queer it for him but good if she drops the wrong word in Emily’s ear.”
“Would she have done so?”
“That doesn’t matter. What does is that Barrett thought she would.”
“And you think Barrett—”
“Might have done something. Yeah.”
“That he might have killed Maureen?”
After a long time I said, “Yeah,” and I hated saying it.
It's a reasonable motive. But "I hated saying it" is an interesting reaction. Jack isn't introspective enough to examine that further. It could just be that he hates contemplating Maureen's death, but we know he's at least mulled over the possibility before. So it almost seems like it's about Barrett himself. He doesn't like the man, but doesn't want to think he's a killer.
Maybe.
So they go to Port Jefferson, which was supposed to be Maureen's stop. But there's nothing. Jack has to look for a meal, but there are no stockyards or stables. Eventually, he catches the sent of cow manure, and finds his way to an open field. There are some amusing misadventures as, despite being a country boy in origin, Jack hasn't had to deal with farm animals for a long time. Especially not free roaming ones.
This leads to chaos, and a gun toting farmer coming out to see what's wrong. Fortunately mist form is very useful. Unfortunately, Jack shoots too high and ends up on the roof. He hates heights.
It's a pretty funny little interlude, and Jack doesn't particularly want to talk about it when he meets back up with an amusingly disgusted Escott. They plan to take the ferry to Bridgeport, but Jack has cold feet:
“I think I’d like to sit this one out,” I finally answered.
“Really?” he asked, in a tone that wanted to know why.
Maybe it had to do with my basic need to be in contact with the earth, or maybe it’s because I’d been murdered over water. I’d had some recent and very bad experiences occurring in or near water. Driving over it on a bridge was one thing, but crossing all of that bleak expanse in a tiny boat was quite another. I was hard put to suppress an involuntary shudder at the thought of only a thin shell of wood holding back such endless, smothering cold.
I tried to give him an explanation that made sense, but he waved me down after the first few stumbling words.
“That’s all right,” he said. “I understand.”
“I’m not running out on you, am I?”
“No.” He sounded fairly amused. “Of course you aren’t. I know it’s not easy for you at times—and I find that strangely reassuring.”
Aw, Escott's such a good boyfriend. And also, yeah, Jack. MAYBE being MURDERED in a BOAT has given you some fucking issues about boats. PLEASE TALK TO SOMEONE.
Jack takes the time then to call Bobbi. Aww. This makes me happy. I've missed her and her unexpected but constant badassery.
He fills her in. All of it. Including:
“What got you up there?”
“This and that. We… we turned up Maureen’s old boyfriend.”
There was a long pause on her end. “He’s like you?”
“Yeah.”
“How like you? I mean, what’s he like?”
“Well, he’s no Dracula, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I was, a little.”
“If anything, he’s sort of a cross between a lounge lizard and Captain Blood.”
That is an amazing description. (Jack has to explain the Captain Blood reference, as it does sound alarming in the context of vampirism.) Bobbi notes that Jack doesn't like him. And Jack articulates his perspective:
“It’s mutual, believe me. He’s all manners, but I’m watching my back.”
“Then why would Maureen have gotten involved with him?”
That question had been eating at me as well. “He’s just the type, I guess.”
“What type is that?”
“The type who always has women stampeding to get to him. Right now it looks like he’ll be stringing two of them along at once.”
“Sleeping with both of them?” she asked, always one for clarity.
“It’s heading that way—and try this on: they all live in the same house. One of them has money and the other’s all ready to seduce him.”
“Then he’s some kind of a twenty-four-carat idiot,” she sniffed. “The same house? That’s just asking for trouble. Sooner or later his meal ticket’ll figure things out. You can’t keep news like that from a woman—we’re naturally suspicious.”
“You suspicious about me?”
“Of course not, I know you’ll never meet anyone else who’s better in bed with you than I am.”
“You’ve got me spoiled rotten, sweetheart,” I agreed.
It's really hard not to quote the entire dialogue. This is probably too much. But I love so much about this.
1) I love that Jack disapproves of the idea of Barrett stringing two women along at once. He's a romantic at heart. And I love that Bobbi isn't remotely scandalized, she just thinks it's a stupid thing to do.
2) I love that neither Jack nor Bobbi seem to have any issue with Barrett's general lifestyle as a kept man. It's the two-timing that bothers them. They're perhaps more modern than Maureen in that sense.
3) The conversation about suspicion/jealousy is cute, but also interesting given the nature of their relationship. Jack and Bobbi are monogamous. (Even if Jack's relationship with Escott occasionally skirts the platonic edge.) But when they met, Bobbi had been in a relationship with Morelli. Jack had known and not judged. And of course, Jack is in New York searching for the love of his life. And Bobbi knows this, and is secure anyway.
4) And of course, there's the juxtaposition of their honest, frank conversation to the one we heard between Emily and Jonathan. Emily knows he's a vampire, but he's clearly not telling her everything about what happened under her own roof. Maybe she doesn't want to know, but the contrast is enlightening.
So they apparently exchange steamy sweet nothings a bit, which, hilariously, is interrupted by an operator saying that their time is up and offering more time. (Jack says he could almost see the smirk on her face.) Jack has something else to ask:
“I just wondered, would you ever tip a cab driver five bucks?”
She was shocked. “Five bucks? You think I’m one of the Carnegies or something?”
“Would you ever?”
“Only if I were delirious and lost on the South Side in a sleet storm on Christmas Eve.”
“So what kind of woman tips a cabbie five bucks?”
“One that doesn’t know what it’s worth. You’re talking about the idle rich, honey—someone who never had to work for it.”
I don't think that fits Barrett personally. There's a definite class difference between Barrett and Jack, one that both men are very aware of. But at the same time, Barrett's a gentleman lawyer and a secretary. Tradesmen jobs. He might have money in his own right, but he's not idle rich. He'd know what money is worth.
But then, he IS from the 1700s. Money valued differently back then. Maybe he just didn't realize.
So Jack ends up leaving Charles a note about Bobbi's point of view, and goes to sleep. When he wakes up, Escott is back, and they're back in Glenbriar (the town near Emily's mansion.). He'd struck out in Bridgeport. He's even checked police, hospital, and morgue records. He's checked various names, just in case of an alias: Barrett, Fleming, Francher, Doe, Dumont. Nothing.
Jack asks what he thinks about the note. Escott is inclined to agree with them. And it occurs to me that ESCOTT might well have missed the significance himself too. We don't know his background. We know he's been an actor, which is generally NOT an upper class profession. But we don't know if that's where he started. He has an upper class accent NOW. But was that trained? Or is it legitimate?
Jack thinks it's time to go have a talk with Emily. She's the right height and build to pretend to be Maureen. (Laura is too tall.) And given that Escott looks exhausted, Jack offers to let him stay behind and rest. He's happy to have Charles safe and away from Barrett.
But Jack doesn't make it to the Francher house. Instead, he very nearly backends a stopped car. And John Henry Banks, the cab driver and owner that had driven Maureen, is inside.
Banks was heeled over on his right side, one arm curled beneath him and the other trailing off under the dashboard. His eyes sagged open, looking at nothing. His pockets were turned out and a few stray coins littered the floor. Blood covered his head and face and flooded the seat where he lay. The red smell of it smothered my senses and jammed all thought.
Dead. Ooof.
Jack looks for a pulse. And Banks is, impossibly, still alive. Unfortunately, not for long. And Jack gets very little out of him:
I leaned in close. “Banks, who did it?”
“Change,” he said clearly.
Disturbed by me, a quarter dropped from the edge of the seat and hit the floor. The sound as it landed was lost, masked over by the storm.
“Who hit you, Banks? Who did it?”
“Not.”
“Who was it? Did you know him?”
“Lie.”
I didn’t dare move him. I needed help, but didn’t know where to go to find it. A house with a phone could be only yards away, but invisible in the rain. Maybe I could flag down another car if it passed by.
“Was it a man? A woman?”
“Tall.”
“Who, Banks?”
“F-fine.”
“Banks!”
Too late. Jack wants to be sick, but the vampirism won't let him. He notes that Banks's head had been smashed in hard. Jack closes Banks's eyes. And then there's a thud. Someone's attacking him from behind. He falls after getting bashed in the head at least six or seven times. The chapter ends with him losing consciousness. Oops.
Well, look, it's not a Vampire Files book if SOMETHING terrible doesn't happen to Jack at some point in the novel.
So Barrett's back in 1930s garb, though Jack helpfully tells us that a vestige of the past still clung to him with his ramrod posture and wind-combed hair. Thank you, Jack. And you wonder why I think you're bisexual.
Anyway, Barrett wants to know why they're still around. He's very protective of Emily Francher and he's not particularly happy that Jack and Escott are digging into the fire.
I really do enjoy the dynamic between Jack and Barrett here:
“Tell me what? There’s nothing to tell. The fire was over and done with long before Maureen ever came to see me.”
“And you figure there’s no connection?”
“How can there be?” He raised a hand. “No, don’t bother answering that with another damned question. I can see you haven’t the heart to care about the kind of damage you’re doing.”
“What damage?”
He started to shake his head in exasperation at my apparent stupidity, then caught on that I’d been trying to goad him.
“What damage, Barrett?” I pursued.
He said nothing and only glared.
“What are you afraid of?”
It's easy to underestimate Jack, intellectually speaking. He lacks Escott's sophistication or Jonathan Barrett's gentlemanly veneer, and he slides into the role of Escott's sidekick/bruiser so effectively that it's easy to forget that he's an investigative journalist in his own right.
He asks Barrett a piercing question:
“If you were in my place, what would you be doing to find her?”
That one struck a chord. He paced the length of the small room once with slow steps, subsiding into himself. He stopped next to me, trying to bore a hole through my brain with his eyes. “You said you were checking out. Are you going for good?”
It's possible that some of Barrett's hostility comes from guilt. If Jack and Escott are right, then five years ago, Barrett's close friend may have come to some trouble and he'd never noticed, because of their falling out. That's assuming he's telling the truth of course.
Barrett and Jack continue to clash:
“I can’t really say.”
“Because you lack knowledge or because you don’t trust me?”
“You’re sharp, Barrett.”
“Yes, and I’ve had as much of you as I can stomach. Do what you must to find Maureen, but leave the Franchers out of it. Leave them alone and stay out of my way.”
Or what? I asked him as much with my expression.
There was murder in his return look, and he took a step toward me to carry it out, or so I thought. The color abruptly faded from his dark clothes and his pale skin drained to the lifeless white of the truly dead. His outline wavered and swam in on itself, melting and merging into a shapeless, gray, man-sized thing.
Impossibly hanging in midair, it twisted like a slow cyclone and tore by me. The wake of its brushing passage pierced me to the bone with a rush of arctic cold. The gray mass slammed silently against the window panes, fell through them as though they weren’t really there, and whirled away into the night wind. I rushed forward just in time to see it hurtle across the yard below to vanish into the cover of some intervening trees. A few moments later I heard the innocuous, ordinary roar of a car gunning to life. Its tires spun and screamed against the pavement, an audible expression of Barrett’s anger.
It IS fun getting to see vampirism from an outside point of view. And Jack's reaction is very interesting:
Escott often complained that my disappearing act unnerved him. His limited human eyes missed most of the show, though. He didn’t know about this, about what it looked like to me. I’d witnessed it once before myself, but not in the close, calm normality of a well-lighted room.
I was still shaking when he came upstairs to help with the luggage.
It's probably worth remembering that the only other time Jack saw a vampire do a vanishing act it was a woman who'd terrorized him, tortured him and forced him to turn her, in an act described in a way very similar to a rape. I really do think Jack would benefit from a therapist.
So later, in the car, Jack and Escott discuss the visit. Escott is inclined to shrug it off. He notes Barrett has a point. Jack's not inclined to believe him though. He thinks Barrett is trying to hide something.
Escott points out that he could be hiding any number of things: his job, his feelings for Ms. Francher. Possibly his condition. And amusingly, that's something Jack hasn't considered. An investigation COULD put Barrett into a tricky spot.
He's been investigated before, of course, but Jack is a vampire as well. Which means Barrett can't resort to any usual hypnosis tricks. That makes Jack realize that while he's himself is safe, Barrett could snap Escott like a twig, mentally or physically.
Are you safe, Jack? I've got twelve books and a number of short stories that indicate maybe you're not. But I appreciate your concern for your partner.
Anyway, Escott's done more investigating. Basically the employees of the house (maid, cook, housekeeper, gardener) have been there a long time. The horses came about when Barrett arrived. And now, Barrett's the only employee who actually sleeps in the house. The servants have made, correct, assumptions as to why, but don't seem to mind. Emily Francher's been through a lot, and well, if she wants to keep a handsome young man around...
Aw. I kind of like that.
Barrett doesn't socialize outside the house much, which makes the neighbors happy. They don't dislike him, but they appreciate that he's keeping any scandalous behavior indoors. Emily's not a society person in general, so any ostracism there goes unnoticed.
This bit made me laugh:
“As for the inhabitants of Glenbriar, Emily Francher may do whatever she pleases in private, as long as it stays that way. If she were anyone else, she’d find life a bit more hostile.”
“The old Hester Prynne bit?”
Not having the benefit of an American education, he didn’t understand the reference. I gave him a brief summary of Hawthorne’s book until he did.
He agreed with the general idea, but added one of his own. “Perhaps it is closer to the point to say that her money makes the difference here. If a poor man does something out of the norm, he’s condemned for a lunatic. When a rich man indulges in kind, he is affectionately tolerated as an eccentric. Thus we have it that no one thinks anything strange about the very late hours kept by the principals of the household.”
There's an interesting class subtext to this book, I think. And I think it definitely is a factor in the way that Jack and Barrett relate to each other. Probably more than jealousy over Maureen even. We're in Jack's head after all, and Maureen possibly having loved Barrett does not actually seem to be a huge factor in his dislike of the man. It's everything else, instead.
They are silent for a while, and Escott breaks the silence in a very married couple way:
“Sixty miles is a long way to be quiet,” Escott quoted, breaking the silence by doing a perfect mimic of Banks. It jolted me, kicking a vagueness into a certainty.
Jack's issue is the tip. The cab driver said he got a five-dollar tip from Maureen, and that's too much. I just googled it and five dollars in 1931 is the equivalent of NINETY-FIVE dollars today. Holy shit.
Yeah, that's too much!
Escott suggests that maybe she thought it was "necessary compensation". But Jack disagrees. Maureen's older than he is, and from a time when people tipped in pennies. And he knows her: MAYBE, in an extravagant mood, she might have tipped one dollar. But not five.
Escott still seems a bit skeptical. Could have been a wrong bill. But Jack's mulling on it. He thinks maybe Barrett called Banks, hypnotized him, and gave him the tip. The motive could be about Emily...
“Well, figure it. Barrett’s got a soft spot for himself with her, and then Maureen shows up. She doesn’t like what he’s doing and could queer it for him but good if she drops the wrong word in Emily’s ear.”
“Would she have done so?”
“That doesn’t matter. What does is that Barrett thought she would.”
“And you think Barrett—”
“Might have done something. Yeah.”
“That he might have killed Maureen?”
After a long time I said, “Yeah,” and I hated saying it.
It's a reasonable motive. But "I hated saying it" is an interesting reaction. Jack isn't introspective enough to examine that further. It could just be that he hates contemplating Maureen's death, but we know he's at least mulled over the possibility before. So it almost seems like it's about Barrett himself. He doesn't like the man, but doesn't want to think he's a killer.
Maybe.
So they go to Port Jefferson, which was supposed to be Maureen's stop. But there's nothing. Jack has to look for a meal, but there are no stockyards or stables. Eventually, he catches the sent of cow manure, and finds his way to an open field. There are some amusing misadventures as, despite being a country boy in origin, Jack hasn't had to deal with farm animals for a long time. Especially not free roaming ones.
This leads to chaos, and a gun toting farmer coming out to see what's wrong. Fortunately mist form is very useful. Unfortunately, Jack shoots too high and ends up on the roof. He hates heights.
It's a pretty funny little interlude, and Jack doesn't particularly want to talk about it when he meets back up with an amusingly disgusted Escott. They plan to take the ferry to Bridgeport, but Jack has cold feet:
“I think I’d like to sit this one out,” I finally answered.
“Really?” he asked, in a tone that wanted to know why.
Maybe it had to do with my basic need to be in contact with the earth, or maybe it’s because I’d been murdered over water. I’d had some recent and very bad experiences occurring in or near water. Driving over it on a bridge was one thing, but crossing all of that bleak expanse in a tiny boat was quite another. I was hard put to suppress an involuntary shudder at the thought of only a thin shell of wood holding back such endless, smothering cold.
I tried to give him an explanation that made sense, but he waved me down after the first few stumbling words.
“That’s all right,” he said. “I understand.”
“I’m not running out on you, am I?”
“No.” He sounded fairly amused. “Of course you aren’t. I know it’s not easy for you at times—and I find that strangely reassuring.”
Aw, Escott's such a good boyfriend. And also, yeah, Jack. MAYBE being MURDERED in a BOAT has given you some fucking issues about boats. PLEASE TALK TO SOMEONE.
Jack takes the time then to call Bobbi. Aww. This makes me happy. I've missed her and her unexpected but constant badassery.
He fills her in. All of it. Including:
“What got you up there?”
“This and that. We… we turned up Maureen’s old boyfriend.”
There was a long pause on her end. “He’s like you?”
“Yeah.”
“How like you? I mean, what’s he like?”
“Well, he’s no Dracula, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I was, a little.”
“If anything, he’s sort of a cross between a lounge lizard and Captain Blood.”
That is an amazing description. (Jack has to explain the Captain Blood reference, as it does sound alarming in the context of vampirism.) Bobbi notes that Jack doesn't like him. And Jack articulates his perspective:
“It’s mutual, believe me. He’s all manners, but I’m watching my back.”
“Then why would Maureen have gotten involved with him?”
That question had been eating at me as well. “He’s just the type, I guess.”
“What type is that?”
“The type who always has women stampeding to get to him. Right now it looks like he’ll be stringing two of them along at once.”
“Sleeping with both of them?” she asked, always one for clarity.
“It’s heading that way—and try this on: they all live in the same house. One of them has money and the other’s all ready to seduce him.”
“Then he’s some kind of a twenty-four-carat idiot,” she sniffed. “The same house? That’s just asking for trouble. Sooner or later his meal ticket’ll figure things out. You can’t keep news like that from a woman—we’re naturally suspicious.”
“You suspicious about me?”
“Of course not, I know you’ll never meet anyone else who’s better in bed with you than I am.”
“You’ve got me spoiled rotten, sweetheart,” I agreed.
It's really hard not to quote the entire dialogue. This is probably too much. But I love so much about this.
1) I love that Jack disapproves of the idea of Barrett stringing two women along at once. He's a romantic at heart. And I love that Bobbi isn't remotely scandalized, she just thinks it's a stupid thing to do.
2) I love that neither Jack nor Bobbi seem to have any issue with Barrett's general lifestyle as a kept man. It's the two-timing that bothers them. They're perhaps more modern than Maureen in that sense.
3) The conversation about suspicion/jealousy is cute, but also interesting given the nature of their relationship. Jack and Bobbi are monogamous. (Even if Jack's relationship with Escott occasionally skirts the platonic edge.) But when they met, Bobbi had been in a relationship with Morelli. Jack had known and not judged. And of course, Jack is in New York searching for the love of his life. And Bobbi knows this, and is secure anyway.
4) And of course, there's the juxtaposition of their honest, frank conversation to the one we heard between Emily and Jonathan. Emily knows he's a vampire, but he's clearly not telling her everything about what happened under her own roof. Maybe she doesn't want to know, but the contrast is enlightening.
So they apparently exchange steamy sweet nothings a bit, which, hilariously, is interrupted by an operator saying that their time is up and offering more time. (Jack says he could almost see the smirk on her face.) Jack has something else to ask:
“I just wondered, would you ever tip a cab driver five bucks?”
She was shocked. “Five bucks? You think I’m one of the Carnegies or something?”
“Would you ever?”
“Only if I were delirious and lost on the South Side in a sleet storm on Christmas Eve.”
“So what kind of woman tips a cabbie five bucks?”
“One that doesn’t know what it’s worth. You’re talking about the idle rich, honey—someone who never had to work for it.”
I don't think that fits Barrett personally. There's a definite class difference between Barrett and Jack, one that both men are very aware of. But at the same time, Barrett's a gentleman lawyer and a secretary. Tradesmen jobs. He might have money in his own right, but he's not idle rich. He'd know what money is worth.
But then, he IS from the 1700s. Money valued differently back then. Maybe he just didn't realize.
So Jack ends up leaving Charles a note about Bobbi's point of view, and goes to sleep. When he wakes up, Escott is back, and they're back in Glenbriar (the town near Emily's mansion.). He'd struck out in Bridgeport. He's even checked police, hospital, and morgue records. He's checked various names, just in case of an alias: Barrett, Fleming, Francher, Doe, Dumont. Nothing.
Jack asks what he thinks about the note. Escott is inclined to agree with them. And it occurs to me that ESCOTT might well have missed the significance himself too. We don't know his background. We know he's been an actor, which is generally NOT an upper class profession. But we don't know if that's where he started. He has an upper class accent NOW. But was that trained? Or is it legitimate?
Jack thinks it's time to go have a talk with Emily. She's the right height and build to pretend to be Maureen. (Laura is too tall.) And given that Escott looks exhausted, Jack offers to let him stay behind and rest. He's happy to have Charles safe and away from Barrett.
But Jack doesn't make it to the Francher house. Instead, he very nearly backends a stopped car. And John Henry Banks, the cab driver and owner that had driven Maureen, is inside.
Banks was heeled over on his right side, one arm curled beneath him and the other trailing off under the dashboard. His eyes sagged open, looking at nothing. His pockets were turned out and a few stray coins littered the floor. Blood covered his head and face and flooded the seat where he lay. The red smell of it smothered my senses and jammed all thought.
Dead. Ooof.
Jack looks for a pulse. And Banks is, impossibly, still alive. Unfortunately, not for long. And Jack gets very little out of him:
I leaned in close. “Banks, who did it?”
“Change,” he said clearly.
Disturbed by me, a quarter dropped from the edge of the seat and hit the floor. The sound as it landed was lost, masked over by the storm.
“Who hit you, Banks? Who did it?”
“Not.”
“Who was it? Did you know him?”
“Lie.”
I didn’t dare move him. I needed help, but didn’t know where to go to find it. A house with a phone could be only yards away, but invisible in the rain. Maybe I could flag down another car if it passed by.
“Was it a man? A woman?”
“Tall.”
“Who, Banks?”
“F-fine.”
“Banks!”
Too late. Jack wants to be sick, but the vampirism won't let him. He notes that Banks's head had been smashed in hard. Jack closes Banks's eyes. And then there's a thud. Someone's attacking him from behind. He falls after getting bashed in the head at least six or seven times. The chapter ends with him losing consciousness. Oops.
Well, look, it's not a Vampire Files book if SOMETHING terrible doesn't happen to Jack at some point in the novel.