Sam and Bogie had gotten home a little over ten minutes earlier. Her baby brother had gone to shower and get dressed for his date while Sam headed for the den. As she passed, she noted the furnishings here had a distinct look of wear and tear, but it was the sort of look a house gets that has been well lived in.
As Sam stared at the flickers of flame in the den fireplace, her Uncle Myles wandered in. A cigarette was pinched between his fingers, smoke wisping into the air.
"So how'd it go, kid?" he asked.
"You know how those Russian brothers all think they're Ivan the Terrible? Well, our scam ran like clockwork. The music played, the trolls danced, and the Strakhovs got pelted. They got their noses a little dirty tonight, I'd guess. And everything else."
"I get the picture."
"I would have given a fiver to see their faces underneath those helmets" Sam remarked, laughing. "That'll teach them to play chicken with us."
"You said it, doll." Myles chortled and ground out his cigarette in an ashtray. "You didn't happen to see the black bird, did you?"
Sam shook her head. Over the years she had gotten various artists to design replicate Maltese falcons, but her uncle had never been fooled. Now the decorated birds sat on the mantle and bookshelves, while her uncle was still patiently looking for the original.
He sighed. "I didn't find the bird tonight, either, but let me tell you how it went down. Casing the Strakhov joint was tough. They put in more security. Even so, I beat their system. I got the info you wanted," Myles explained, his light blue eyes alive with excitement.
Sam's grin widened.
"The Strakhovs are in contact with Prince Petroff Varinski, the vampire prince."
Her grin faded a bit. Prince Varinski was the big-time. He was rich beyond all get-out, and was literally a royal vampire of the Tolstoy-Vlad lineage, the very top of the old royal line. At one time he had ruled a large part of Russia, but had abdicated to come and live in America. If blood was blue, his was a shrieking cerulean, the color of deep-frozen icebergs.
"You see, sweetheart, they're talking to that prince fellow about doing a Bustin' job, and it ain't gonna be a pretty one."
When her uncle called her sweetheart, things were going to move. And move fast, like a runaway locomotive. Anyone on the tracks better get out of the way double quick.
"Varinski, it seems, has got a real doozie of a problem with that castle of his he bought in upstate New York. He's got not one ghost, or two ghosts, but three of the little buggers, a real paranormal pest parade. And all of them are causing mayhem in that fine new place."
Sam took in her uncle's words. The competition had been contacted and she hadn't even been called in for a consult? This harsh reality not only made her angry, it made her stark-raving mad. Gritting her teeth, she thought about the client, wondering if all of Russia was intending to move to Vermont. First Prince Varinski and his entourage, then the Strakhov brothers themselves. She supposed it wasn't surprising they were sticking together. Russian bears of a feather, as it were…
Myles continued: "They've got a ghost called Andy whose been painting scenes all over the house."
"An artist ghost, huh? I've handled a few of those before." They were usually highly emotional and often messy, leaving turpentine and oil paints all about a place. Noticing her uncle's grimace she asked, "What? He's a bad artist?"
"Don't know about his talent, but I did hear that Andy only paints one scene, over and over."
Sam raised an eyebrow, encouraging her uncle to go on. Myles lit a cigarette, rolling it beneath his fingers.
"Well, sweetheart, that's the problem. Andy only paints cans of soup."
Sam laughed. "This wealthy aristocratic vampire prince has a castle full of soup can paintings?" Since the royal vampire's move to Dodge about eight months ago, she had been curious about him. Unfortunately he was rarely in town, and when he was in Dodge, the Prince ran in a different circle. Her circle was more square. Prince V. was an extremely attractive vampire with raven-dark hair, and he was considered to be a top-notch heartbreaker, painting the town red with his arm candy when in residence. Sam might be cute and even sexy at times—when she went all out—but she wasn't anybody's arm candy. She wasn't even a main course—especially not for a bloodsucker. Her IQ was too high, being in the triple digits, and she didn't have the kind of legs that stretched from here to eternity.
Rumors were that the Prince was descended from Peter the Great. His vampire heritage was less clear, although it had been suggested that Prince Petroff Varinski was descended from Vlad the Impaler. Prince V. was said to be over six hundred years old—old enough now to stand the early morning hours of daylight as well as the last few hours before twilight.
She chuckled. "Just think. Instead of Rubens or Toulouse-Lautrec's can-can dancers, this very royal Prince is stuck staring at Campbell's commercials. How fitting for his very expensive American castle."
Myles shrugged. "I hear he's a straight Joe." That lingo meant the Prince wasn't a people person—at least not one with a taste for people. He might snack a little on a human, but he wouldn't drain them dry.
"So, he's into synthetic blood then?" Sam remarked thoughtfully. "Good. Much safer that way." She could trust this playboy prince with her neck, just not her virtue. Though that particular problem probably wouldn't come up. "Okay, so Andy's ghost has got to go. Who's next in this lineup of silly squatters?"
Myles chuckled. "I thought you'd never ask, doll. We got ourselves a galloping gourmet. A ghostly one. His name's Jules, and he's a regular wine guzzler. He's fighting with Varinski's human chef, who's fit to be tied by her apron strings. Which by the way Jules has done to her, along with throwing crepes and Russian caviar all over the place and sucking down their oldest, boldest wines with a vengeance."
Sam pursed her lips, thinking. She bobbed her head as a realization lit her up like a bulb. "Of course! The famous Chef Jules. He died, what—ten years ago? He cooked for royalty and was a renowned winer."
"And apparently he still is. Hence, he's at the Prince's castle, and is creating a real stir. And no matter how many cans of it are painted, you know the saying: Too many cooks spoil the broth."
"Even if one of them is dead," Sam agreed. "Or maybe more so when one of them is dead." She shook her head, since everyone with any sophistication whatsoever knew that chefs' temperaments were more notorious than those of artists. "The Prince really does have a ghost of a problem. So give me the rest of the story. Who's behind door number three?"
Myles crushed out his cigarette, narrowing his eyes. "You ain't gonna like this one, angel. Rasputin."
She gasped. "The Mad Monk? The monk connected to Czar Nicholas and his wife Alexandria? That monk?"
"Yeah, doll. That's the one. The worst apple in Varinski's barrel."
Pursing her lips tightly, Sam shook her head. "Rasputin. That's not good. Not good at all." The Mad Monk had been almost impossible to kill when he was alive: poisoned, drowned, stabbed and strangled—all in one night. Which was amazing, since the mad, bad monk hadn't been a shapeshifter or a vampire. Now that Rasputin was dead, it would be even harder to get rid of him. But she didn't really have a choice; her family's business was on the line. If Prince Varinski had hired Monsters-R-Us to do this ghost removal, then he would continue to hire them for any other properties he had. And he had plenty. Sam could not afford to lose this kind of business or publicity. Not now. She couldn't wait for her ship to come in.
"I'll just hijack the damn boat." she muttered.
"Is the castle on a boat?"
"No, just thinking out loud. When will the Strakhovs do the removal?"
"They're tied up for a few weeks. They have a couple of scheduled jobs around here, and of course they have to track those trolls they missed tonight."
"Serves the supernatural-business-stealing bullies right," Sam declared emphatically. "Now, what about the Prince? When will he go to the castle?"
"He's out of town for a few weeks more. Traveling on business across the country."
Sam smiled like the cat that ate the cream. "Well, if those Strakhov brothers think I'm going to let them claim royal clients from right under our noses, they've got mush for brains."
Myles stared at her. "What do you have planned in that pretty little head of yours?"
"Capitalism at its finest." Her self-satisfied smile grew bigger. "Real competition. I intend to go up to the Prince's castle and clear out those ghosts before Prince Varinski comes back—and before the Strakhov brothers know what's hit them. Bogie will just have to work the rest of our jobs alone for the next week or two."
Myles raised an eyebrow. "For a bird, you're getting foxy. Still, I'm not so sure about this. You always think you know what you're doing, that you're too slick to get into trouble. But a lot of things could go wrong on this deal, Sam. Russians can be a crafty lot. They're smart apples, all in all. A determined people, able to endure a licking and keep on ticking."
Sam agreed—and disagreed to a degree. "I'm not worried. We beat them at the atomic race and the space race, no? I think some Yankee ingenuity can beat them at the race to see who gets whose ghost. Besides, I'm like the Canadian Mounties—I always get my ghost. Especially if it will get Nicolas Strakhov's goat. Er, and never mind that the Canadian Mounties are Canadian."
And again, she really didn't have much of a choice. Right now, necessity was the mother of both invention and outlandish strategies. "I'll clear out the ghosts. Once that's done, I'll explain to Prince Varinski that my ghost extraction and relocation were a courtesy service provided to show him how efficient we Triple-P'ers are. When I prove how good we are, he'll forget all about the Strakhov brothers, comrades from the Mother Country or not."
"You can't just show up on the doorstep, doll!"
"I can if I'm the prince's latest squeeze." Her uncle looked shocked. "No way, Sam. I am putting my foot down. You ain't ever gonna be some Russian vampire goon's floozy!"
Patting him on the shoulder, she replied humorously, "Of course not. The Prince isn't in residence. I'll just say he told me to go ahead of him until he can meet me. That way I have free rein of the castle. I'll clean the suckers out before the bloodsucker arrives. Then, when he does show up, I can give him a clean bill of health. See? All's well that ends well."
Myles shook his head. "I still don't like it. You got a dark passage and a deadline. If you miss, there is gonna be one dead reckoning—and I hope you ain't the one dead. You gotta remember, sweetheart, that these aren't angels with dirty faces, these are vampires with bloody fangs. And crazy ghosts! Don't let 'em tuck you in for the Big Sleep."
"I won't." She hugged Myles, loving him for being his usual goofy but caring self. He had been a fixture in her life for as long as she could remember, and in spite of his living out every 1940s Bogart movie, she wouldn't have it any other way. Family was family. And if they didn't love her, who would?