Read Online Vampyres of Hollywood by Adrienne & Scott Barbeau - Free Book Online

Anticipation was that it started out making low-budget horror films for the DVD market. It was owned by the horror queen, Ovsanna Moore, daughter of the equally famous Anna Moore. I knew what Ovsanna looked like—I think I may have even had a poster of her, or her mother, on my wall when I was a kid—but I’m damned if I could remember the name of her latest movie. Or any movie for that matter. But she’s had a long career in Hollywood and done dozens of movies, and in a city where careers are often measured in single features or spans of months that was quite an achievement.
    I stepped out of the blinding December sunshine into the dark of an empty soundstage. I stood and waited for my eyes to adjust before moving—a cop trick my father taught me—and then looked around. Directly ahead of me was a series of sets: the one on the left a young girl’s bedroom complete with a pink chintz–canopied bed and white wicker furniture, the one on the right a cozy living room with Christmas tree, presents, and twinkling decorations. An enormous bloodstain dappled the ceiling and dripped down the walls, and instead of a star on top of the tree there was a remarkably realistic severed head. I guessed this wasn’t your average Hallmark Channel Christmas movie.
    The set was practically deserted: a couple of carpenters fixing a door, an electrician checking meters, and someone from set dressing comparing Polaroids to the set, rearranging props. Somewhere in the distance, someone was whistling “Havah Nagila” off-key.
    I picked my way through the rats’ nest of cables and I’d almost reached the set dresser before she turned and caught sight of me. Her jaw was working overtime on a double wad of pink gum. I edged my coat back, revealing my badge and gun clipped to my belt, ready to get some fast cooperation.
    “Next door,” she snapped.
    I looked at her blankly.
    “You deaf as well as lost?” she asked, chew, chew, chew. “ A Mother’s Love is shooting in Studio Two.” She blew a huge pink bubble…
    …which I burst with the end of my pen.
    Snotty little twenty-year-old. Probably talks on her cell phone in restaurants, too. I hate to admit it, but my age is showing.
    “The gun is real. The badge is real. Which means I’m a real cop. And you are?” I demanded.
    She picked pink gum off the end of her nose and peeled it off her cheeks. “Tiny,” she mumbled. She was a short, pinched-face redhead with troweled-on makeup and those startling turquoise eyes that only come from colored contacts.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Tiny…well, Tina really, but everyone calls me Tiny because I’m—”
    “Tiny. I can see that.”
    “I’m looking for Eva Casale. She works in special effects.”
    Tiny rolled the burst bubble back into a ball and shoved it back in her mouth. I couldn’t believe it, the thing had her face makeup all over it. “Go through the door marked ‘No Exit,’ past the honey wagons, and you’ll see what looks like an old army Nissan hut. Actually, it is an old army Nissan hut. That’s the prop department. She’s probably there.” I nodded my thanks and was turning away when she asked, “Is she in trouble?” She was unable to keep the note of eagerness out of her voice.
    I turned back and put on my best smile. “Should she be?”
    “Well, gee, I don’t know,” Tiny began, then continued quickly when she saw I was about to walk away. “It’s about that man, isn’t it?”
    “You’re very good,” I said non-committedly.
    “Watched him sneaking around,” she said, glancing around in her best conspiratorial pose. “He gave me the creeps.” She shuddered dramatically.
    I nodded. It’s hard to miss Benny, though how he got past security is another question; maybe I’d have another chat with the guard, or with Benny. “When did you last see him? Was he with anyone?”
    “He was here a couple of days ago. It was early. We had a five A.M. call and I couldn’t figure out why anyone would be on the