A Janet flight? What was that? And three days later, why did this Janet flight return him to the Jefferson County Airport when his usual home destination was Denver International? Could the reason be that the county airport was only a few miles from Rocky Flats?

I sat at my laptop and searched the Internet for Janet flights. The first hit took me to a Web page for UFO conspiracies. I scrolled down to a photo of a Boeing 737 sitting on the ramp of McCarran Airport. According to the text, “Janet flights” took federal employees and contractors of DOE and the U.S. Air Force on a short hop to an airfield north of Nellis Air Force Base, a site known as Area 51.

I gulped the rest of my wine. Area 51? The notorious, notso-secret base at the center of every modern American conspiracy. Either I was on a snipe hunt, or suddenly I had caught the tail of something huge.

WENDY TEAGARDEN AND I climbed the steps to the wooden door under a tattered green-and-white-striped awning. Above the awning, a neon sign, El Pingüino, in white script, cast a cold, inert light into the dark street. An outline of a penguin, complete with top hat, spats, and holding a martini, glowed beside the letters. Taped to the door was a hand-lettered sign scrawled with a broad tip marker: CLOSED TONITE AT 8.

I held the door open for Wendy and we entered a short, dingy hallway. A petite yet well-toned Latina wearing mirrored wrap-around sunglasses, a black leather halter-top dress, and matching open-toed pumps stood before the next door. Her brunette hair, pulled into a bun, contributed to her sleek appearance. She peeked over the tops of her sunglasses and revealed briefly her tapetum lucidum. She smiled and nodded, indicating that we could proceed.

Wendy pushed open a battered metal door, heavily scratched and mangy with hand-sized blotches where the latest coat of paint had flaked loose.

We walked into the lounge. A karaoke singer was mangling “I Got a Line on You.” A row of dim amber lights above the bar illuminated the room. Most of the frayed vinyl stools around the heavy wooden bar were empty. Cigarette smoke curled from ashtrays and mingled with the luminescent ribbon of silvery haze that snaked above the patrons’ heads. A conglomeration of smells-hair spray, drugstore cologne, perspiration, spilled drinks, and cigarette ash-told me that I’d probably have to soak in bleach to get the funk out of my skin.

Wendy waved to the bushy-haired man behind the bar. “Hi, Mel.”

He lifted his head and nodded. The mass of his gray hair wove into bushy sideburns that sprouted from his jaw. Thick muscles and a substantial belly filled out his shirt. Mel’s eyes, like most of those that flashed toward us from the clientele, glowed from the reflection of his tapetum lucidum.

A small microwave on the bar counter pinged.

Mel grabbed a potholder and pulled a 450-milliliter bag of blood from the microwave. He snipped a corner of the bag and poured steaming red liquid over a bowl of nachos already drenched in melted cheese.

A waitress in a pink tube top and black stretch pants squashed her cigarette into an ashtray on the bar and placed the nachos and two bottles of Fat Tire ale on her tray. She took the tray and circled past us. The incandescence of her vampire eyes matched the luster of the fake rhinestone in her belly ring.

Wendy led me to a booth between the bar and the stage. I sat next to her, careful not to peel the duct tape from the vinyl seat.

I was glad that Wendy had asked me out for an evening of entertainment. My investigation was at an impasse. I’d learned that such interludes can allow my subconscious to work on the next step, or at least keep me pleasantly distracted until the next break happens. For now, my worries hovered in the distance.

I took out my contacts. Around me, everybody shimmered from their auras, the vampires in orange, the few humans in red, and Wendy in green.

Against the wall to our right, two men with orange auras stood on a stage, or rather on a slightly raised platform covered with worn and stained carpet. The large mirror behind them was chipped and cracked along the edges. The mirror showed a room with a few humans, though vampires were also present.

One of the vampires operated the karaoke machine, which occupied the top of one table, while the other vampire, bald, with a white turtleneck and black suit, held a cordless microphone and sang. He glanced at the words scrolling across the television screen hanging above him. Long fangs protruded past his upper lip and into the gape of his smiling mouth.

Mercifully the song ended. The vampire hummed the last bars of the tune, became silent, and bowed. A group at the far end of the room clapped and hooted. The vampire acted as if he had treated us to a musical masterpiece, though the best part of his performance was when he shut up at the end.

“The acoustics back there must be better,” I whispered to Wendy. “Because from up here, I’ve heard better notes from a wood chipper.”

The waitress stopped by our booth. “The drinks include rabbit blood. For an extra three bucks, we can make it human. Type o-positive is the special.”

“I’ll take a Dos Equis,” Wendy said. “Hold the blood.”

“Carta Blanca for me,” I added. “With a rabbit blood chaser.”

The waitress nodded and left.

The karaoke crew dismantled their machine before anyone else could wreck our Western musical heritage. Faces in the lounge turned toward a commotion in the back. Six vampires in black mariachi outfits appeared from the rear of the lounge. They carried guitars, cornets, and violins at the ready as if the instruments were rifles. Lights glittered off the spangles sewn to their jackets and trouser seams and the sequins stitched along the brim of their sombreros.

The mariachis got onstage and did a sound check. The leader of the group adjusted the microphone stand and introduced himself and his colleagues as Nahualli. The name of sadistic Aztec clerics who had presided over human sacrifice was now the moniker of this cantina festivity.

The group started with the song “Mariachi Loco,” which got the crowd moving with laughter and shouts of ahu-a.

The song ended and the lights went dark. A single spotlight beamed toward the back of the lounge and illuminated a lone voluptuous figure surrounded by an orange aura. This vampire was so covered with emerald sequins that she looked wrapped in green foil. The spotlight followed her progress through the lounge. The shank of a leg flashed in and out of the slit in her tight dress. Her bosom jiggled like firm pudding. An aromatic banner of perfume trailed her.

The lead mariachi introduced her as “our own chupacabra”-the demon who drank goat’s blood. Smiling seductively, as if her lacquered lips alone could make us all swoon into orgasm, she grasped the microphone. The group started to play Selena’s “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom.” The chupacabra singer bounced her hips in tempo to the music and began to wail.

Couples-combinations of human and undead-took to the floor and danced. The rest of us had to crowd close to converse over the musical din. All the auras modulated into a fuzz of glowing static, a measure of our collective good mood.

The waitress brought our drinks, the beer in tall glasses and the blood in a tall porcelain cup. Wendy and I clinked our glasses and sipped.

We sat contentedly and absorbed the homey ambiance. Vampires shared cigarettes, joked, and slapped each other on the shoulder. At the tables before us, chalices rolled their sleeves and cut their forearms with razors or penknives. They let blood drip into the martini and highball glasses of their vampire masters. The chalices’ eyes fluttered and their red auras spread out from them as they swam in the pleasure of their sacrifice.