The morning light streaming into the window was hitting Xochitl right in the face, but that wasn’t what had awakened her.  It was an annoying buzz.  It took her almost a full minute to realize that it was her cell phone ringing.  It took her another minute to find it lying amid the bedclothes.  By then it had stopped ringing.  She pushed the call back button and put her head back on her pillow, rolling to the side to keep her eyes out of the sun.

“Zielinski.”

“You called?”

“I did.  I thought you might still be up,” he said.

“I’m getting ready to get up soon.  I’ve been asleep.”

“Really.”

“Did you call me to tell me how much you miss me?” she asked.  “Are you like a star-crossed lover now?”

“You mean starry-eyed lover, and no, I called to check in, and to make sure you’re alright.  A lot’s been happening there.  I guess the bureau picked the wrong time to call me in.”

“Or the exact right time,” she replied.  “Do you know what’s going on?”

“That’s what the meeting was all about.  It seems the vampires have been planning on supplanting the Chicago mob for some time.  The bureau has been following it.  They just didn’t know when it was going to happen.  Well, it happened.  Tony the Pipe is dead and it looks like just about everybody who was working for him is too.  Israel is running the show now.  He cut off the head and simply took over the organization.”

“That sounds awfully risky, even for a vampire,” said Xochitl.

“Maybe.  But he’s done it before.  He did it during prohibition, in the twenties, in Detroit.  He took over an entire organization smuggling booze into the U.S. from Canada.”

“That would be when those pictures you showed me were taken.”

“Right.  And one more thing… apparently Novelyne was right there with him.”

“She was Bonny to his Clyde?”

“Well, they had a relationship,” said Zielinski.  “My question is… Is she in on this with him now?”

“I don’t think so,” replied Xochitl.

“But you’re not sure.”

“No.  I’m not sure.”

I love my characters.  I guess that’s because they are my creations.  I like the heroes and villains both, but the characters I really like are broken in some way.  I had a lot of fun writing Dominic Zielinski, the former SEAL, FBI agent in my book Blood Trade.  He is one ass-kicking martial artist, but he’s also pretty wacky.  He’s got more than a touch of OCD.  He keeps his bills in order, first by denomination and then by serial number, and dutifully registers them on wheresgeorge.com.  When he takes the coins out of his pocket, he neatly stacks them on the dresser.  When he eats, he takes his bites in a particular order and has to have a drink of water after a certain number of bites.  He refuses to eat round food, though if he cuts up something cylindrical and the pieces are round, that’s okay.  Incidently, the name Zielinski came from someone I knew as a kid.  I don’t know where Dominic came from– just seemed to fit.

Even though she wasn’t hungry and had said that she wasn’t hungry, Xochitl did get a plate and like most buffet diners, piled it with far more food that she was actually capable of consuming.  She was already eating when Dominic returned to their table, balancing three plates.

“You know, you can make more than one trip,” she said.

“No need.”

He carefully set out the platters.  On the first, he had a Denver omelets and a piece of ham.  On the second was a waffle and two cheese blintzes, all covered in syrup.  The third plate had two pieces of buttered toast and a small pile of grits.  After sitting down, the FBI agent looked around expectantly.

“She’ll be around to get your drink order in a few minutes,” said Xochitl.  “We can go ahead and start eating.”

He frowned, but turned his attention to his food and began carefully cutting it into pieces.  The omelet, the ham, and the waffle were all transformed into small triangular bites.

“I got pancakes,” said Xochitl.  “I know I said I wasn’t hungry, but you can’t say no to pancakes.”

“I don’t really like pancakes,” he said.

“You’re kidding.  I’ve never actually met anyone who didn’t like pancakes before.  How about hotcakes?”

“That’s the same thing.”

“You have a waffle.  Don’t waffles taste pretty much just like a pancakes?”

“Waffles are airier,” he said.  “And pancakes are round.  I don’t really like round food.”

“Those blintzes are round.”

“They’re cylindrical, though granted, when I cut them up the pieces will be round—bite-sized though.  I don’t mind so much it they’re bite-sized.”  He looked around again for the server.  It was not a woman who waited on them but an older black man in a white apron.

“What can I get you to drink?” he asked as he approached.

“A glass of milk and an orange juice,” said Xochitl.

“Water,” Dominic said.

Xochitl was almost full before the waiter brought her drinks, though that didn’t cause her any discomfort, unlike Dominic.  He didn’t begin eating until he had his water, and by that time Xochitl thought that his food might well be cold, though he didn’t complain about it.  Just as she expected, he took a sip of his beverage after every three bites of his meal.  He ate his ham, then his omelet, then his waffle, blintzes, toast, and at last he started in on his grits.

“What is that?”

“Grits.”

“How can you eat that?  Nobody even knows what that is.”

“It’s grits.  It’s made of corn.”

“It doesn’t look like corn.”

“Of course it does,” he said.  “Look closely.  It’s very much like corn meal.  They shuck the corn, soak it in a weak lye solution, dry it, grind it, and reconstitute it with boiling water.  Some people eat it with sugar, but in the south we eat it with butter, salt, and pepper.”

“What are you talking about?  You’re not from the south.”

“I started eating grits when I was at Virginia Beach.”  He gave her a studied frown.  “If we’re done talking about my food, I’d like to know something about your case.”

When she had finished with her last article of clothing, her tie, she spotted the large manila envelope on the bed.  It was supposedly important enough for him to come back to the room for.  Opening it, she found half a dozen 8×10 reproductions of very old black and white photographs.  The first one featured a man standing next to an old time car.  Xochitl didn’t know anything about cars, but she recognized the man immediately.  It was Israel, the vampire.  He had shoulder length wavy hair and his trademark van dyke.

“When was this taken?”

“1926,” replied Dominic, standing up and walking over.  He pointed at the car.  “That’s a 1926 Pontiac Series 6.  And you see who that is?”

“Yes.  Israel, or Leopold Sansonne, as he was known then.”

“Wow,” said the FBI agent.  “How long have you known his name?  I just got that bit of information last night while you were asleep.”

Xochitl shrugged and flipped to the next picture.  It was a group shot.  It was three men she didn’t recognize along with the same vampire.  The next one was more of the same.  The fifth picture was Israel with an unknown dark-haired woman.  It was pointless looking at any more of the photos.  She didn’t know any of the people in them.  She started to shove them back in the envelope, but quickly scanned the last two anyway.  One of them stood out immediately and she grasped both edges, letting the rest of the 8x10s fall to the floor.  This picture was of Israel standing in front of a café of some sort with a short woman.  Wearing a knee length dress and a long string of pearls, she looked the part of a classic 1920s flapper.  Though her blond hair was cut into a cute little bob, she was easily recognizable—Novelyne.

“I knew she knew him,” said Xochitl.

“You might have given me either of those tidbits.”

“I don’t…”  She stopped and tugged on her lip ring with her tongue for a moment, trying to think of the right thing to say.  She had almost said, “I don’t know you well enough to hand over that kind of information to you.”  But that made her sound like a slut, because she apparently did know him well enough to jump into bed with him.  “I haven’t had a chance to tell you.”