“Let’s talk about the girls,” Gregory Neustadter said. "I’d like to start at the very beginning.”  

It wasn’t an office with a chair and a couch and warm mahogany furnishings, but it would do. There was no bowl of courtesy mints on the table, and certainly no steaming cup of Earl Grey, but that could be easily justified. There was a fluorescent light and two chairs to be occupied; there was a steel door and no windows, to maintain privacy. The room had enough square footage on it so as not to induce claustrophobia, but was compact enough that the door was within a couple meters’ reach, if escape was necessary. There was a client seated at the other end of the table, a client bound in chains, and for what was withheld within those chains – that was what truly mattered.

“You doctors and your chronology,” the client said, and this was not the first smirk Neustadter had seen snake across the man’s face. He enjoyed not the chase, but what followed -- the taunt. The dangling of the mouse by its tail, if only to watch it squirm. Neustadter, however, was reassured by his own intellect that he could not be intimidated into joining the growing line of losers, and became one with the game.

With his notebook at hand, Gregory Neustadter wanted to say that his client was one that was thoroughly unremarkable – he wanted to say that, but just as well, that was not the case. He was not like the others, the client, and thus could not be compared. It was for that reason, not for the attention, that he had taken the case, and it was for that reason that he was determined to succeed.

“Well, it’s easier to read a book front to back than to pick out segments in between,” Neustadter said. “Why shouldn’t you want to speak to me about what happened at the very start?”

The client said, “Because things are rarely in order, Doc. I couldn’t pick out one single beginning for you if I wanted to. Besides,” he said, “why ruin the fun?”   

“So this is fun for you,” the psychiatrist stated.

“Well, it’s not quite a bottle of Russia’s Finest and a couple of Swedish hookers in G-strings, but it’ll have to do.”

Neustadter did not shift his gaze for one second as his eyes lingered over the man’s grin, perhaps out of fear of losing his attention. He in turn smiled. “It’s always good to maintain a sense of humour in times of trauma.”

“Humour in trauma?” the client said. “No, that’s just delirium.” He said, “Don’t worry. There’s no trauma here.”

“I suppose you don’t need to be in the company of women to be a charmer.”

The client cracked his lips faintly. He said, “I suppose you don’t need to be stoned to be philosophical.”

Neustadter was composed. He propped his elbows up on the table and interwove his fingers, but otherwise hardly moved.

“Why won’t you cooperate?” he asked the client.

There was a moment of silence. Neustadter pictured a clock ticking somewhere, in some other room, a digital number making a sudden shift.

The client spoke.

“Vodka, straight – no rocks, no water added.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Just a glass. You don’t have to give me the bottle if you don’t want to.”

“I’m afraid I’m not reading you.”

“Give me that much,” the client said firmly, eyes hard, he said, “then we’ll talk.”

Neustadter rubbed a hand over his face though he could feel no stubble and turned an eye towards the door. Then he looked back. “Tell me, why do you feel you must to be intoxicated to speak to me like a normal human being?” he asked.

The client did not nod, did not shrug. He simply sat immobile before saying, “But I’m not a normal human being.” And quietly, he laughed. “Ask anybody,” he said, “I’m a monster.”

There was a branch of silence in which Neustadter hoped the man would change his mind, but through it, his expression did not change, nor did the look in his eyes. The psychiatrist would draw out the stretch for as long as he could, knowing that if he submitted, he would have officially forfeited his stance as neutral in his client’s game. It was a contest of who would make the first move.

Finally, when at least two hundred steamboats had gone by, the client eased a grin. He said, “It’s a good thing I’m not being charged by the hour, huh?”

Neustadter dragged on the game for a few moments longer before sighing heavily, standing. He’d lost the point, but the game was far from being over.

Out of sight, Neustadter heard his client laugh. “Don’t forget,” the man said. “Straight, no rocks. Then we’ll talk.” And as he walked away slowly from the table, leaving the man in binds, he could picture him very clearly in his mind’s eye: the scar across one cheek, the single glazed, unfocused eye – but mostly the smirk, silent and powerful, the one that made spines shiver, and carved a wrinkle into one cheek, a slingshot being pulled back. He saw this picture in his mind, and for one unwary second, he saw tiny tips of ivory delving cracks into chose chapped lips. For one unwary second, there were fangs.  

He refused to turn around, to reassure himself of what he was imagining was truly fiction. There were things that could go unsaid. Instead, in his mind, he withdrew the file from the cabinet, the one belonging to a Caucasian man, thirty-eight years old, the one whose life he would either save or condemn. His name was Allegron Gage Colburn, but to the press, to the public, to the world -- he was the Harlem Vampire.   

Gregory Neustadter wanted to say that his client was thoroughly unremarkable – he wanted to say that, but just as well, that was not the case.