When a cleaning woman discovered the naked body of Gino DeAngelo, she didn’t faint. Sure, there was the dog collar around the dead guy’s throat, ten grand in poker chips shoved in his mouth, and a catheter protruding from the fat man’s thigh, but Maria Lupinta didn’t scream. Not at first. Not until she saw the paint containers beside the bed. Four metal quart-sized cans made of shiny new aluminum. They were uncapped, and filled with the victim’s blood.

The official cause of death was listed as asphyxiation.

“Controversial New Casino Scene of Real Life Horror” was among the many sensational headlines that ran throughout much of South Jersey. Even New York and Philly covered the story. Gino’s brother, Gianni – a suspected member of organized crime – could not be reached for comment, but outside her home in Absecon, the victim’s ex-wife told television cameras “Sammy really had a knack for pissing people off.”

“Son of a bitch got what was comin’ to him,” mumbled Agnes Stribling, hurriedly changing the channel as her daughter entered the kitchen.

“Something wrong?”

Jess was barely awake as she stumbled for coffee.

“Nothing, dear,” replied Agnes. “Eat your breakfast.”

“That guy they were just talkin’ about. Did you know him or something?”

“No, not very well,” her mother answered. “He knew your father.”

It took no prodding for Agnes to admit “the two of them played poker.”

“Really?” said Jess, less than enthusiastically.

She knew not to ask too many questions.

Ever since her ex-husband up and left them twenty-seven years earlier – when Jess was but a baby – Agnes had forbidden any mention of him. She had thrown out everything: every photo ever taken of the bastard, every scrap of paper bearing his history. To this day, the girl didn’t know her father’s first name, or if he was even still alive. Worse than dead, it was like he never existed.

Jess didn’t much care.

But still she wondered why her mother had been so forthcoming with this new information. It wasn’t like her at all.

“I just knew there was going to be trouble at that awful new hotel.”

“Oh mom.”

“Well did you see the picture?”

She referred to the photograph that accompanied an article in the morning paper. Sparsely furnished and dimly lit, the victim’s room was apparently meant to resemble some kind of medieval torture chamber. Like a Catherine Wheel, a large circular bed was suspended from the ceiling by chains.

“Says here he had the ‘dungeon’ suite.” Jess found it amusing.

“Disgusting,” said Agnes, wheeling her chair toward the fridge.

“I think it’s funny,” responded Jess. “Like someone has seen too many horror movies.”

The Haunted Hotel and Casino was the latest of the new Las Vegas influenced “theme” casinos to be built in Atlantic City. Part spook house for the kids, part costume party for their parents, it was more like Disneyland than a place of gambling. The grand opening the previous month was expected to revitalize the sagging boardwalk economy. “Sleep in a dungeon and dine with the dead.” The brochures were hilarious. Jess knew a little bit about the place. She proceeded to tell her Mom how Maggie once took her to a club there called The Morgue. Agnes was appalled.

“Like they say on the commercials,” she told her mother, “Everyday is Halloween.”

“No different for you than any other day of the week, I suppose.”

Agnes never approved of the dyed hair, heavy makeup and dark clothes always worn by Jess and her best friend, Maggie. She had once thought it just a phase. But here she was, twenty-eight, and still, what did they call it, a Goth?

An unmarried Goth still living with her mother.

“Oh, Mom, you just don’t have a clue, do you.”

Jess folded the paper and got up from the kitchen table.

“I’m just saying you’re such a pretty girl and if you want to... ”

“...attract a husband you’ve got to grow up and stop acting like a teenager,” said Jessica, finishing her mother’s sentence. “I know, Mom. I just haven’t met the right guy.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be so picky,” answered Agnes.

“Would you have been happy if I just got knocked up at eighteen?”

There was a pause.

“You better get to work,” said the mother, dreading a fight.

“You’re right,” replied Jess.

Her tone was like a ready white flag. She grabbed her backpack and was gone. Outside of the tiny beachfront apartment where the two had lived for years, her combat boots could be heard thumping down the wheelchair access ramp.

She was late for work at Harpy’s, three blocks away.

Harpy’s Music was known throughout South Jersey as one of the only places remaining for new and used vinyl. For collectors and tourists alike, LPs from decades past waited like buried treasure in enormous bins. Jess had worked there for almost seven years, after the whole art school think just didn’t work out. It didn’t pay much, but that didn’t matter. The accident that left Agnes in the chair may have ended her mother’s career as a dancer, but the settlement guaranteed that neither of them ever had to worry about money.

“We open at eleven, you know.” The voice of owner Billy Nardo was hoarse and lacking its usual melody.

“It’s ten after,” she said, wheezing.

Nardo, as everyone called him, leaned on the counter and squinted at her from behind tiny, blue sunglasses. “You should really stop smoking those nasty cloves,” he said, adjusting the waistband on an old pair of baggy sweatpants. He looked tired, thinner than usual, and older than his forty years.

“At least I don’t look like hell,” she told him, throwing her purse behind the counter. She smiled, then rifled through a bunch of albums to find her favorite morning music.

“Thanks for noticing, sunshine,” he replied, yawning. “I was out ’til three with some cute foreign guy I met on the beach.”

“Ooh, tell me all about him.”

“Not your type, honey. I’m sure he doesn’t go both ways. But oh, am I completely drained. My head hurts. My eyes hurt. I think even my skin hurts.”

“Well, I can handle the store if you want to go home,” she said, pulling an LP from its sleeve and positioning it on the turntable.

“I will if you insist on playing that song again.”

“Shut up,” she said. “It’s a great song.”

He didn’t deny that it was. Louis Armstrong doing “When You Wish Upon a Star.” He picked it up at a local flea market about a month ago. But if he had known that she would begin every blessed morning with it, Nardo would have left the record there to warp in the parking lot sun.

The song began with its now familiar pops and scratches. The orchestra swelled, and a chorus of voices chimed in with those recognizable first couple of lines. Every child knew them well. Jess began to sing along.

When she got to “fate is kind,” Nardo said, “You’re sick, you know.”

He was only joking, but as Jessica had spent some time in a hospital a few years back, he felt terrible and immediately apologized.

“It’s OK, you silly queen.” She smiled while turning down the volume.

“I know,” he answered. “I just worry about you sometimes.”

“That’s sweet,” she said, giving him a little peck on the cheek. Her lipstick, thick and dark as always, left a mark. “But really, I’m fine,” she told him. “Still taking my little helpers.”

By “little helpers,” she meant her medication. Her bipolar disorder was treatable, but it was the unpredictable rapid cycling that came when she was off the drugs that scared Nardo. The last time she went off her meds, three years ago, Nardo found her unconscious in the back room. Jack – the musician she dated since junior high, the one who introduced Jess to the whole Goth thing – had cheated on her then announced he was leaving to be a roadie for some metal band in Delaware. She just fell apart after that. Started drinking. Took a bunch of antihistamines. Wrote in her diary that she had to go to sleep so that her true love might come along one day and wake her with his kiss.

Strange thing for a woman to do, he thought.

So much like a child, still clinging to fairy tales.

“Bravo,” he said when the tune ended, clapping his hands, slowly, mockingly, as the tone arm clicked back into position.

She half curtsied, and then stuck her tongue out at him.

“You have no sense of romance, do you?”

“Never before noon,” replied Nardo, waving some money, “and certainly not before coffee.” It was his usual signal that she should go down to the Boardwalk Diner and get some takeout. As it meant a chance to talk to Maggie, her friend who worked as a waitress at the all-night eatery, Jess enthusiastically agreed to go.

Half skipping as she passed the counter, she took the money from his hand, spun around, and danced out of the store.

Though the restaurant wasn’t actually on the boards (the name sounded better than the “One Block from the Boardwalk” Diner) it was close enough that Jess could walk. Considering how beautiful it was, she was happy to go.

Most days at the shore were gorgeous in late September. The weather was warm, the tourists were gone, and the children were all back in school. The beach, still hot under the midday sun, was free of the debris that littered the sand during the height of the summer season. And the water, warmer than the air most days, was clear of the weekend warriors who brought their surfboards and cell phones. When Jess stopped to listen, she could hear the uninterrupted waves.

“Daydreaming again?” It was Maggie. Her shift had just ended, and she noticed Jessica standing by the railing.

“Hey girl. Thought you were on ’til noon.”

“I left early,” she answered, cupping her hand to light a cigarette. “Don’t think I’ll be doing these fifteen-hour shifts anymore. See the bags under my eyes?”

“They’re not so bad,” replied Jess, annoyed. She was always jealous of how good Maggie looked. Thin. High cheekbones. Perfect lips. Long hair that held its shine even in the salty air. Next to Maggie, Jess so often felt invisible.

“Listen,” said Jess, wanting desperately her friend’s attention. “I’ve got some amazing news. I talked to Evangeline again last night.”

Maggie tried not to lose her patience.

“You know, I can’t believe you. We’re lousy with psychics right here on the friggin’ boardwalk, but you continue to waste your money on calls to that phony?”

“Evangeline is not a phony,” insisted Jess.

“She is so a phony,” interrupted Maggie. “What about the time she predicted that Jack was coming back to you?”

“He did.”

“Yeah, to borrow money. You got your hopes up. All because Madame what’s-her-name saw something in her cards or tea-leaves or whatever.”

“Her name’s Evangeline,” said Jess, stressing the sound of the long i.

“Come on, Jess. I thought you stopped all that hocus pocus stuff.”

As condescension gave way to curiosity, Maggie caved.

“So what did Evangeline have to say this time?”

She was sure to pronounce the long i.

“She told me the man of my dreams would be revealed this week.”

Maggie exhaled and rolled her eyes.

“Jess, please. You’re kidding me, right?”

“Nope, dead serious. After all of this time, I’m finally going to meet him.”

“Him?”

Maggie said him like it was some kind of disease. As Jessica’s best friend, only Maggie was privy to some things. She knew all about him.

“Him.” Maggie repeated. This time, like an obstacle.

Seems Jess was so enamored by the romantic tales of blood and angst that every good Goth read while growing up that she was not only convinced that vampires were real, but that Mr. Right was someday going to be more Bela Lugosi than Prince Charming. Maggie had thought it little more than escapist Goth claptrap. Sure, it was cool when they were sixteen, but that was then.

“Yes, him!” said Jess, excitedly. “Evangeline said I’d recognize him instantly. And that I’ll just feel it!”

“And did you tell her that since you were fifteen this man of your dreams happened to be a dead guy?”

“Undead guy, you mean.”

“Yeah, whatever wise ass. You know what I meant.”

“No, I never told her that part. I thought she would laugh.”

“Oh honey.” Maggie dropped her cigarette and gave Jess a sudden hug.

“When’s your next session?” asked Maggie.

“Why?”

“Because it’s my job to look out for you, that’s why. You should probably tell Mike about this.” Mike was Jessica’s counselor, a social worker who led biweekly group meetings that Jess had attended ever since being released from the hospital.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Jessica’s reply was speaking quickly. “You don’t think it might be remotely possible that I could finally get what I want? Well, you could be wrong.”

“ Look, I’m just saying that you have a meeting tonight, right? Talk to Mike about it. What harm is there in that? Then later you and I can maybe go get something to eat.”

“Pizza?”

“Sure, anything you want. No garlic, right?”

“Funny.”

“Maybe we can even hit a few clubs. How about The Morgue?”

“Deal,” said Jess. “I just bought some new leather pants.”

“Fine. Whatever. Just as long as you’re not going out to pick up the freakin’ undead, OK?” Maggie was adamant. “One word and we’re going bowling. I’m not kidding.”

“OK, I get the point.”

Jess suddenly remembered Nardo’s coffee. “See ya later,” she said.

She would work the remainder of her day, anxious to see what that night would bring. But – as she had promised her friend – there would be no more talk of vampires.

That evening, she was anxious.

She fit right in.