Once, when he was a kid, Paul had won a job umpiring Little League. He'd spent weeks studying the rulebook so he'd know what to do, and in his very first game, first at-bat, the chattering from the team in the field had ended as soon as the first pitch crossed the plate. It slowly dawned on young Paul that both teams and all of the parents in the rickety stands were awaiting his ball or strike decision-and he couldn't open his mouth.

Like now.

"Can we sit down?" he said, then saw the lunacy of the request. The tiny cell contained one double-stacked bed, a wall-mounted sink and a lidless toilet. "Okay," he said, but nothing else came out.

"You a lawyer or a vampire?" It was the shorter of the two, asking the odd question in an Appalachian twang.

Paul's shoulder blades pressed the cell bars. He regretted not having first discussed with the town police chief when he'd be released. Now he wished he hadn't been such a pain in the ass up there.

"I'm definitely not a vampire." He said it straight. They might see sarcasm in his response if they were playing with him, or take him seriously if they were seriously insane.

"Then you're a lawyer."

Despite his lack of size, this one had a dark-eyed aggressiveness about him that made Paul keep his distance. His cellmate was as tall as Paul, but wider in the shoulders. His complexion was light, his eyes looked painfully rimmed in pink and he had an absence of eyelashes. The hair on his head had the fine texture of a baby's and his gentle face held a hint of a smile despite the circumstances.

"Well?" the short one prodded. "Who the hell are you?"

Paul said, "I'm a witness to what went on last night."

The short one's eyes took on a distant stare as he seemed to consider that. "Yeah," he finally said, as if Paul had answered correctly. "I remember now."

"Sir, do you know where Judd is? What happened to him?" the taller one wanted to know.

"Judd. That's your friend, right? The one who screamed. I'm afraid I don't know."

This drew a snort and a sharp head shake from the short one. "Then what good are you?"

"I was on the sidewalk in front of the municipal building when the screaming and growling started. The two of you were just thirty, forty feet from me, so I know you didn't do anything if that's any help."

"The perfect witness: you saw nothing. So why're you here?" asked the shorter one.

Paul formed his lips around various explanations, none of which seemed adequate. "I was curious," he finally said.

If possible, the shorter man's expression soured even more. "Curious."

Paul tried again. "I've seen you two and the others at the motel on the edge of town. My family and I are outsiders just like you. There's something going on here that involves you...and us. I'd like to compare notes."

"Yes, we shall compare notes," the shorter one said in archly formal voice.

Paul didn't really blame him. It all sounded so academic, so civilized when played against the screams he'd heard in the dark and the blood still caked on the faces of these two. "And I want to help you find out what happened to your friend," he added, drawing the first flicker of interest from the two.

"How can you do that?" the taller one asked.

"It's bullshit," said his friend.

He turned his back on Paul and his cellmate. For a ludicrous moment, Paul thought he was walking out on the conversation, but then he remembered where they were. He heard a zipper unzip and a steady stream splash into the open toilet bowl.

While taking care of business, the short one called over his shoulder, "Yeah, I know who you are. I saw you last night, all decked out in your country club duds. Your khaki shorts. You drive the Lexus, right? I can just recall bits and pieces of what happened, but I remember you sounding so goddamn sure all you had to do was clear your throat and those pissant cops would all snap to attention."

He zipped up and turned, smiling for the first time. "But here we are, Country Club Dude. We spent the night in jail, but I see you had a chance to go home, sleep in your own bed and change into a nice pair of Dockers so you can save us poor boys in style. Maybe write an editorial or take up a petition."

Paul took two quick steps, all the distance it took to be in the shorter man's face. "Yes, here I am. I talked my way into your cell not much past daybreak, which is more than your family and friends have been able to accomplish so far. But if the way I dress and talk repulses you so much, just tell me to get out of here and I'm gone. On the other hand, if you think I just might be able to help you, then ignore whatever you find offensive about me and prepare to cut me some goddamn slack."

The short one tried staring him down, but that would be a contest Paul wouldn't lose.

"Hey, no, man, it's cool," said the taller of the two. "He didn't mean nothing. Right, Todd? Todd?"

If the little creep's name was Todd, then the other was Donald Brandon, the copper thief. The Todd creature dropped his gaze and mumbled something that might have passed for an apology, but Paul wouldn't have bet on it.

Letting it go, he said, "Fine. I'm Paul Highsmith, and the two of you are Todd Dunbar and Donald Brandon." He pointed a finger at each in turn.

"D.B.," said the taller one, nodding amiably. "What people call me."

"D.B.," Paul repeated. He stepped down from his confrontational pose in front of Dunbar and took his place back by the bars. "Right. Now can we talk about what happened?"

"There were vampires watching us all night," Dunbar said.

The vampires again. Paul wondered if Dunbar still had a buzz going from the night before.

"It's true," said D.B. "It wasn't as bad once the blood on our faces dried up, but at first I thought we were goners. Like Judd."

Great. A shared delusion.

Paul sighed. "Okay, let's talk about that." He wanted to hear about police brutality, withheld phone calls and trumped-up charges, something Freddie Brace could sink his teeth into. He most definitely didn't want to discuss vampires.

"I can understand your skepticism," D.B. said chattily. "Hell, I'd be the same way if I didn't see the way the one cop's shiny eyes went all hungry at the sight of our blood. Like a dog drooling at a juicy steak. He stayed down here with us all night, just staring at us. Sometimes he'd be joined by one or more of the others and we'd hear them whispering in the dark but we couldn't see much 'cept the gleam in their eyes. I'd say at least half the local force is vampires."

Paul needed to sit. He even considered bracing himself on the lidless toilet until he saw the fresh urine splotches on the porcelain rim. He maintained his position. "Chief Sandy tells me they found a warrant for your arrest," he told D.B.

"Found it four months ago when Marty pulled me over for a missing taillight," D.B. said.

"They didn't take you in then?"

The tall prisoner smiled a touch sadly. "I got the distinct impression the charges would go away if I took their cushy warehouse job and kept my nose clean."

Paul nodded. "They're not in such a forgiving mood anymore, but I'll get you a lawyer and work on getting you out. But it might not be until Monday."

"Why?" Dunbar's face hardened once more. "Why you doing this for us?"

Paul stared until the shorter man's face softened a fraction. "Your wife knows where you are," he said quietly. "She'll be here soon and I'll make sure they let her visit. What's her name?"

It looked for a long time like Dunbar wouldn't answer. Then his black eyes dropped and he said, "Joy. Her name's Joy. If you see her, tell her I'm sorry. Will ya? She'll know what I mean."

Paul nodded. He was on the verge of saying more, but the door at the top of the stairs opened and heavy footsteps clumped carefully down.

"Well, I see you're okay," Bill Sandy told Paul when he came into view. "No one made you bend over for a bar of soap, did they?"

He didn't know how much he appreciated freedom until he got back upstairs and noticed how spacious and airy and light and dry the lobby was. He found Chief Sandy at his desk, fiddling with a pack of cigarettes. He'd tap one out, twirl it around his thick fingers and jam it back in the pack while Paul stared at the framed portrait of the town's leading citizen.

Lawyer or vampire? he'd been asked by the cellmates downstairs.

"Miles Drake," Paul said, not meaning anything specific.

The chief studied him. "I can't figure out why you're here," he said, ignoring the name mention. "You some kind of community activist sent by the big city lawyers to check up on us local yokels and make sure our prisoners don't end up hanging by their shoelaces?"

Paul leaned back in his chair. "I'm a...retired...investment banker."

"You mean like those guys headed to jail in New York?" the chief asked, with no idea how close he'd come.

Paul met his gaze and said nothing.

Chief Sandy decided on that cigarette after all, despite the building's probable no-smoking status. He flicked some fire at it and turned a half-inch of the tip to ash in one hearty inhalation. "I've done some talking with our prosecutor," he said. "It's looking like we'll be able to get the Dunbar character sprung earlier than I'd thought. I guess everyone figures he didn't do anything worth a weekend in jail."

"What about the other one?"

The chief shook his head. "Told you, he's got a warrant out. Grand theft."

"I understand," Paul said, rising. "Just give me the name of the prosecuting attorney and I'll pass it along."

The chief stared blankly at him. "Pass it along?"

"To my attorney, of course. He doesn't handle as much criminal defense work as he used to, but he should be able to get up to speed fairly quickly."

Bill Sandy hadn't risen with Paul. He remained slouched low in his air-cushioned seat, staring up at his visitor with an unreadable expression. Then he chuckled, but the humor didn't make it to his eyes.

"How about this?" he said. "When Dunbar's wife gets here, we'll release both of them to her custody. As long as they stay clean and sober, we'll forget everything. How does that sound?"

Bill Sandy was coming across like some Old West lawman. He'd caught the bad guys, pressed charges, locked 'em away and issued the reprieve. Paul wasn't up on the intricacies of the American judicial system, but he was pretty sure things were done differently these days.

"What about Pittsburgh?" he asked.

The chief shrugged expansively. "What about it? You think someone wants to extradite Brandon for a few rolls of copper? Think they wanna send a couple cops to Michigan to drive or fly him back for that?"

Paul awkwardly took and shook the hand extended to him and mumbled his thanks. On the way out, he held the door for a jittery-looking blond woman who looked like she could lose a few pounds. Mrs. Dunbar, he told himself as she rushed into the lobby.

There was a whole mess of unanswered questions staring him down, but he couldn't help feeling good as he found the early morning sunlight.

"Why are you doing this for us?" Todd Dunbar had asked him, and now he knew.

Because I still can. Maybe not the answer he'd give if the question got put to him again, but that was the heart of it.

There were questions to answer, obstacles to evade, goals waiting to be met. It felt like there was still a place for him out here.

He was back in the saddle again.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

Early that Saturday evening, the sun was too bright and the sky too blue for conversation to have turned to vampires, but that was what Paul overheard as he left the Lexus gloating over the parking lot heaps and joined the mass of sweaty humanity on the cracked pavement surrounding the Sundown Motel pool.

A bare-chested man in his twenties with a near skinhead haircut and a fire-breathing something-or-other decorating one muscular bicep was saying, "Vampires, my ass. If you two are trying to tell me-"

That was as far as he got before catching sight of Paul as he came toward them. The kid's small eyes narrowed, both of his hands inexplicably occupied with lit cigarettes. "Hey," he said. "Who're you?"

While the others craned or twisted or scraped their lawn chairs for position, the better to see the stranger in their midst, the kid with the crew cut and tats stuffed one butt in his face and handed off the other to a scrawny woman sitting in a ragged chaise lounge next to him. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, limp chestnut hair and nipples that announced themselves against her thin shirt fabric. She wasn't unattractive, but seemed to exist on cigarettes and the Pepsi next to her.

"I'm Paul Highsmith."

As far as announcements went, it felt a little underwhelming. One man smiled and nodded slightly. D.B., from that morning. Everyone else just stared at him, some with curiosity. Others with challenge.

"I wonder if I can join you all."

Paul stood outside an irregular circle of hard, used-up men and a few weary women. A handful of kids chased each other dangerously close to the empty swimming pool.

He suddenly saw himself as they would: tall and leisurely tan, his smooth hands innocent of physical labor. Crisp linen shorts and cotton shirt in light, neutral colors. Deck shoes that still smelled of new leather. Heavy gold watch nestled in sun-bleached arm hair.

Most of the unshaven men had too much or not enough hair. They had man boobs and bellies that overran their belts. The women had faces drawn taut by bills, bad men and cigarettes.

Paul cleared his mind of distracting thoughts and said, "I already know what you're talking about, so you don't have to stop on my account. I've spoken with D.B and Todd and I'd like to be a part of seeing what needs to be done."

The kid in the crew cut flapped an arm to get the scrawny older woman to move her feet so he could perch his butt on the end of her chair. From here, he glared up at Paul as though he hadn't liked what he'd heard so far.

"Hey, it's our rescuer." This came from dark-haired, dark-eyed Todd Dunbar. He was seated next to and sharing a cigarette and a beer with the plump blond woman Paul had last seen entering the police station as he left it. Dunbar's voice was bent with insolent irony, but by now Paul was considering the possibility that it always sounded that way.

"That's right. This is the guy got us sprung," D.B. said amicably. As if unable to detect his buddy's sarcasm. "Thanks, man, but I hope you didn't come here for a reward. I kinda blew my budget at the bar last night."

One or two Sundowners chuckled while the others waited to see how the scene would play out.

A chair wasn't offered, so Paul flipped off his shoes and sat at the edge of the pool. He'd been wrong about it being empty. There were several feet of black rainwater smelling of mold and decay. He scooted back and said, "It would be in all our best interests to figure out what's going on here. Maybe we can figure it out together."

"What makes you think your best interest is ours?"

This came like the crack of a rifle from a middle-aged black man with a heavily creased forehead. Paul could imagine his pulse throbbing like a heartbeat in that furrow.

"I came to Babylon with my family," he said, trying to address everyone at once. "Bought a house and moved in a month or so ago. We've been approached a number of times since then about selling and leaving. I want to know why, and I want to know if our experience is in any way connected to what happened to you folks last night."

To his own ear, he sounded like someone too intent on making a speech and swaying a crowd. The sort of thing that might go over at a board meeting, but not at the Sundown Motel. "However wild your stories," he said, "I want to hear them."

A cooler lid slammed. Lawn chairs scraped over the weedy pavement.

"How's this for wild?" Todd Dunbar said. "Judd Maxwell got killed by fucking vampires last night and me and D.B. got snatched by the cops so we couldn't report what we seen."