Doodlebug’s flight, the red-eye from San Francisco, was already two and a half hours late. The Delta terminal’s coffee stands had all closed long ago. Glum, sleepy, and surly would-be greeters were sprinkled throughout the waiting area, which had been fitted with plastic seats that were reasonably comfortable if judged against the standard of medieval torture devices. Worst of all, Jules’s body felt like a throbbing wad of gristle.
For the hundredth time in the last five minutes, Jules shifted position in a futile effort to achieve a modicum of comfort. Successfully concealing the rashlike physical evidence of his latest misadventure from Maureen had been a minor miracle. He wondered if that miracle would last another night.
At last, the lights of an approaching jetliner flashed through the terminal’s windows. Like zombies crawling from their graves, the greeters bestirred themselves, rose from their seats, and shuffled toward the gate. Jules joined the bedraggled procession. He tried hard to convince himself that Doodlebug’s visit would have its positive aspects, but the only one his flailing mind could grasp was that Maureenmight harangue him slightly less while his ex-sidekick was in town.
The first passengers to exit the tunnel were three teenagers, all struggling under the weight of overstuffed duffel bags. One was a brown-haired boy about the same age as Doodlebug had been when Jules turned him. It’d been years since Jules had seen his onetime sidekick; could this be-? No; the boy was immediately scooped into the arms of a gaggle of relatives and dragged toward the luggage retrieval.
The jetliner continued vomiting out passengers-tourists in lewd T-shirts, ready for Bourbon Street; businessmen with their copies of theWall Street Journal; purple-haired grandmas toting giant stuffed bears. Jules began to wonder if maybe Doodlebug had missed his flight. Wouldn’tthat be the kicker! But then one of the deplaning passengers hooked Jules’s interest. This one was a real stunner. Skintight red mini dress; long auburn hair that looked good even under the ghastly fluorescent lights; big gorgeous blue-gray eyes; slender hips; and legs that would flatter a Parisian runway model. Way too skinny to be Jules’s type, but he still could appreciate her from a purely aesthetic point of view.
Surely a classy, upscale babe like this would have some Cary Grant-type investment banker waiting to pick her up. She looked a little dazed coming off the plane. She blinked rapidly in the bright, evil light and searched the crowd for a familiar face. Then she turned his way. Her eyes brightened with recognition. She waved. She wasn’t a she after all.
Oh shit.
“Jules! Sorry I ran so late! There was a hang-up at the Denver airport. I tried phoning from the plane, but no one answered at Maureen’s.”
Yeah, it was Doodlebug, all right. Despite the pricey dress, the high heels, and the perfectly applied makeup, Jules recognized the tiny cleft in the middle of his delicate chin. And his voice hadn’t changed-it was still the same high-pitched, prepubescent voice the kid’d had the night Jules interfered with nature and permanently halted his growth and physical maturation.
“Hey, partner! It’s so good tosee you!” Doodlebug said as he enthusiastically embraced the much bigger man. Doodlebug’s strength, ten times that of a normal man, belied his slight frame. Jules’s ravaged skin didn’t take the hug kindly.
“Gahh! Jeezus! Leggo, will ya?”
Doodlebug immediately backed off, his face marked with concern. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
Jules unsuccessfully tried stifling a grimace of pain. “Nothin‘. Let’s go.”
“Are you hurt? Maureen told me about the trouble you’ve been in-”
“It’snothin‘, okay? Let’s go pick up your luggage.”
“I express-shipped it all ahead. Everything’s waiting for me at the bed-and-breakfast. Clothes, coffin, everything.”
“Then let’s get the hell outta here. These fuckin‘ lights are makin’ me sick to my stomach already.”
Jules muttered hardly a word on their walk to the Lincoln. He didn’t speak on their drive out of the parking garage either, aside from demanding that his passenger pay the five-dollar parking fee. Seeming to sense Jules’s volatile mood, Doodlebug wisely kept his end of the conversation to a bare minimum. He commented briefly on the humidity and on the improvements to the airport since his last visit.
Only after they turned onto Airline Highway did Jules begin to talk. His voice was flat. Harsh. “Let’s get one thing straight before I drive another block. You’re only here because Maureen insisted. I don’t want you. I don’t need you. No matter what Maureen says,I’m the one in charge. You help me, or if you can’t do that, you stay outta my way. Got it?”
Doodlebug folded his perfectly manicured hands on his lap and responded in a calm, agreeable voice. “Perfectly.”
“Yousure? There ain’t no room for negotiation on this.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’syour life that’s at stake… yourun life, actually. Ofcourse you’re the one in charge. You’re the responsible party here, partner.”
Jules had steeled himself for an argument. Now he felt like a man who’d gotten a running start to knock down a door, only to have it flung open in his face at the last second. “Well, okay, then. Just so long as we got that straight.”
They continued driving east along Airline Highway, a cratered four- lane road surrounded by rent-by-the-hour motels and bars barely hanging on to their liquor licenses. Jules was in no big hurry to get back to the Quarter, but Maureen had insisted that he bring Doodlebug to see her at the strip club as soon as he got in. He turned the air conditioner up a notch and unbuttoned the top four buttons of his shirt, hoping the cool air would soothe his burning chest. Doodlebug immediately noticed the inflamed color of Jules’s skin. He reached up and switched on the overhead dome light to get a better look.
“Those look like pretty bad burns,” Doodlebug said quietly. “How did you get them?”
“None of your damn business,” Jules grumbled.
His passenger pointed to a brightly lit storefront across the street. “There’s an open drugstore. Swing around and pull in there. I’ve seen burns like yours before. I think I can help.”
Jules glanced over at the red-and-blue neon sign across the street. “No way. That’s a Rite Aid. There ain’t no fuckin‘ way I’m settin’ foot in a Rite Aid.”
“Why not?”
“I know you ain’t been around in a while, but you remember KB?”
“The local drugstore chain? Sure. KB purple, who could forget? Everything they sold was purple.”
“Well, there ain’t no more KB. Fuckin‘ Rite Aid bought ’em out. Those corporate bloodsuckers put a big hunka New Orleans history six feet under.”
Doodlebug thought for a few seconds. “I reallycan help you, Jules. If you’ll let me. Are there anylocally owned drugstores or supermarkets near here open this late?”
“Yeah. There’s a Schwegmann’s up the road a mile or two.”
“Um, not to pop your bubble or anything, but didn’t I read somewhere that Schwegmann’s was bought out by a New York grocery conglomerate?”
Jules growled.
Thirty seconds later, after a reluctant but resigned U-turn, he pulled into the Rite Aid’s parking lot. He trailed behind his visitor as Doodlebug headed purposefully toward the Liniments and Ointments aisle.
“I don’t expect I’ll find anyluhk daht quan here,” Doodlebug said as he scanned the rows of plastic bottles. “It’s a shame there aren’t any late-night Asian markets around here like there are in San Francisco… oh, well, we’ll just make do with what’s at hand. Something with a good dollop of aloe in it should work reasonably well.Here we go.” He selected the largest available bottle of Vaseline Intensive Care lotion and walked quickly to the only open checkout line.
Jules exited the store with a disgusted sneer on his face. “Well, ain’tyou the president of the genius-of-the-month club. Don’t you think Itried smearin‘ myself with every damn ointment in Maureen’s medicine cabinet last night? I even used half her jar of Oil of Olay. None of this shit does me any good. You just wasted six-fifty, pally.”
Doodlebug sighed. “Oh ye of little faith…” He took firm hold of Jules’s hand and squirted several ounces of lotion into his open palm.
“Hey!”
“Indulge me a second, please. Just hold your hand like that, and I’ll show you a little trick I picked up from my teachers in Tibet.”
“I ain’t in no mood for this-”
“Hush! Be alittle patient? I promise you, there is absolutely no way this will make you feel worse, and there is a verygood chance it will make you feel better.” Wielding the sharp, turquoise-painted fingernail of his right pinkie like a scalpel, Doodlebug cut an inch-long incision across his own left palm. He then squeezed the wound so that a thin trickle of blood fell into the lotion in Jules’s hand. Doodlebug mixed the two fluids together for a few seconds with his forefinger, until Jules’s palm was filled with a thick, pinkish paste.
“There. Now try spreading that over your burns.”
Jules stared dubiously at the paste covering his palm. “I ain’t never heard of nothin‘ like this-”
“Justdo it, Jules. It can’t hurt.” Doodlebug squeezed his left hand into a fist to stanch the flow of blood and, at the same time, undid the rest of Jules’s shirt buttons with his other hand. The big man’s chest was rippled with oozing blisters.
Gingerly, Jules dabbed one of the biggest and ugliest with a few drops of the mixture. “Huh.” He gave another blister the same treatment. “Not bad. Not bad.” A little more daringly, he dipped two fingers into the paste and lightly rubbed it into his belly, where some of the worst blistering had taken place. “Y’know, I think you might have somethin‘ here…” Throwing caution to the winds, he slathered his entire upper body with his handful of paste. “Hey, this stuff is fuckin’great! I feel like a new man! Doodlebug, pal, how the hell did ya ever figure this out?”
His auburn-haired companion smiled. “Well, maybe Iam president of the genius-of-the-month club, after all.” He graciously opened the driver’s door for Jules. “Shall we?”
Maureen was applying the finishing touches to her makeup when Jules and Doodlebug entered her dressing room. Maureen swiveled on her padded stool as the two men walked through the door.
“Doodlebug! Darling! I’m sothrilled you’ve come!”
The slight vampire was completely enveloped in the huge woman’s hug. “Hello, Maureen! Oh, it’s been too long, dear!”
Maureen released her visitor and ushered him over to a leather couch, leaving Jules standing in the doorway. “Ithas been too long. What-twenty, twenty-five years?” She directed a scathing glare at Jules. “Really, Doodle darling, you shouldn’t have letthis old grouch keep you away so long. But look at you! You’re absolutelylovely! And sothin! I swear, honey, you haven’t gained anounce in the last forty years! Oh, that California lifestyle… I should’ve followed you out there, honey. Instead of staying put in this moldy,unhealthy dump of a town with ol‘ stuck-in-the-mud Jules here.”
“Hi, Mo,” Jules said from the doorway. “Nice to see you, too, darlin‘.”
Dinah, one of the club’s other strippers, pushed her way past Jules into the dressing room. “Hey, Maureen, any chance I can borrow some baby powder?” She eyed Doodlebug with interest. “Who’s this snazzy little guest of yours? This one looks like a better class of people than you usually hang with.”
Maureen looked irritated at the interruption, but she opted to be gracious. “Dinah, this is Doodlebug; Doodlebug, Dinah. Doodle here is one of my very oldest friends on earth. Actually, her name’s Debbie, which we shortened to D.B.-that’s whereDoodlebug comes from.”
“Real pleased to meet you, Doodlebug.” Dinah shook the visitor’s hand. “Hey! That’s a strong grip you’ve got there. Especially for a little gal.”
“Thanks. I spend a lot of time in the gym. Sometimes I think my nickname should beNautilus.”
“Say…” Dinah ran a fish-eyed glance up and down the newcomer’s svelte form. “This is awful rude of me to ask, but… you’re aguy, ain’tchu? Or you used to be a guy?”
Jules chuckled. Maureen gasped in horror. But Doodlebug merely smiled Mona Lisa-like. “Actually, I follow a strict ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.”
Dinah snorted. “Uh-huh. I hear ya. Not that it’sobvious or anything-only reason I picked up on it is that I’m a professional. Adam’s apple’s just abit too big. And honestly, those legs of yours are justtoo good for any real woman to be walkin‘ around with.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Doodlebug said, smiling.
“Please do. And that’s someincredible boob job you’ve had done. Real natural, honey. So how about that baby powder, Maureen?”
Maureen grabbed hold of Dinah’s shoulders and pushed her toward the door. “I’m all out, okay? Go pester one of the other girls.”
“But you got two great big containers right there-”
Maureen slammed the door shut as soon as she’d pushed Dinah into the hallway. “Oh, Doodlebug, I am sosorry! I simply can’t believe how rude and obnoxious some people can be! I’m going to seriously reconsider the value of my friendship with that brazen hussy!”
Doodlebug took her hand. “Oh, never you mind. No harm was done. Actually, I like being ‘made’ now and then. Reminds me when I need to sharpen up my act.” He closed his eyes a few seconds, and his brow furrowed with concentration. The petite vampire’s throat wiggled as if he were gargling with Jell-O cubes, and the slight prominence of his Adam’s apple shrank from sight. At the same time the contours of his thighs changed, becoming softer and less muscular.
“Whoa!” Jules said. “How’d you pull that off?”
Doodlebug opened his eyes and smiled. “Oh, it’s no big accomplishment. It just takes a little practice, that’s all. Give me an evening or two, and I’m sure I could teach you to do the same.”
“No thanks! Seein‘ you do it is creepy enough!”
Maureen moved to shush him. “Jules, cut the crap. Doodlebug just flew in all the way from California. I’m sure his time is way too valuable to be taken up with your foolishness. Now, Doodle, I explained to you on the phone a couple of nights ago this whole big mess that Jules has gotten himself into. You’ve probably already figured out some brilliant plans for how we can keep this big doofus from getting his head handed to him. I’dlove to hear them. I’ve got forty-five minutes before I have to go on.”
Doodlebug walked to Jules’s side. “Actually, I can’t say that I have much of anything figured out yet. My first thought is simply to sit with Jules for a while over a hot pot of coffee and get his version of what’s been happening.”
Maureen clucked dismissively. “Oh,he can’t tell you anything worthwhile! The only thing he’s an expert on is how to get himself killed. Surely on your flight over here you contemplatedsome ways to keep him out of trouble? Maybe chaining him to the brick wall down in my basement would be a good start?”
Jules bristled. Doodlebug quickly stepped between them. “Maureen, Jules is a responsible adult. He’s perfectly capable of shouldering most of the load of protecting himself. Just on the way here from the airport, he was telling me about a planhe has-”
Maureen laughed uproariously. She shook so hard that she had to steady herself against a makeup table. “Ah-ha, ah-ha…what a great little kidder you are! Hisplan! Recruiting a bunch of rednecks from the North Shore and turning them into vampires…Ha ha ha ha! ”
Doodlebug didn’t laugh or smile. “It may sound a little far-fetched. But Jules is the responsible party here. And if he has a plan, then it’s my duty as his friend to help him make it work.”
“Really?” Jules said, edging closer to the smaller vampire.
Maureen’s good humor evaporated. She stared at her visitor as if he were an artichoke from outer space. “You-you’reserious, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Perfectly serious. I didn’t fly here to take charge, Maureen. I came to offer my dear andrespected friend any help within my power in meetinghis goals.”
Maureen’s face seemed to crumble. “But-but you’re thesmart one, Doodlebug! Howcould you-? Oh, this is a nightmare! I can’t believe what I’m hearing…”
“Aww, get over it,” Jules said. “This ain’t no tragedy. I’m the boss of this dynamic duo, just like I always been. Everything’s gonna work out great-”
“Men!”Maureen spat the word like the foulest curse she could muster. She whirled savagely on Doodlebug. “I thought you were different! I thoughtyou at least had a woman’s common sense! But no-you’re just a jackass like all the rest! Stick together if you want to! Get each other killed! I don’t care!”
“C’mon, Mo, calm down-”
She yanked her arm from Jules’s grasp as though she were recoiling from poison ivy. “Out!Get out! I’m disgusted with both of you!Both of you!”
Jules tried mollifying her with words and caresses, but all he accomplished was to ignite a fusillade of furious slaps. Doodlebug grabbed Jules’s arm and pulled him into the hallway, closing the door quickly behind him.
Jules dabbed his face with a handkerchief, then checked to see if the cloth had any blood on it. “Whew! She sure knows how to put a mad on.”
“Definitely. I’ve always treasured Maureen as a role model of femininity.”
Jules placed both his huge hands on his friend’s slender shoulders. “Hey. Thanks for backin‘ me up in there. I really appreciate it, pal.”
“What are friends for?” Doodlebug said as they passed the stage, heading for the exit. “Let’s go have a meal, and you can tell me everything.”
“Swanky joint you picked out for yourself, D.B.,” Jules said with genuine admiration. He steered his Lincoln off Bayou Road onto the gravel driveway leading to the columned portico of the Twelve Oaks Guest House. “I never woulda expected a place likethis on a dumpy, run-down street like Bayou Road.”
“I like the fact that it’s off the beaten track, but not too far from the center of town,” Doodlebug said. “And the owners are very discreet.”
They parked in front of the main entrance, a wide, deeply shadowed porch lined with hissing gas lamps. The two-story main house was bracketed by enormous overhanging oaks. Jules got out of the car and stared up at the shimmering beveled-glass windows. “Hey-wouldn’t this make a perfect setting for a movie of one of Agatha Longrain’s vampire potboilers?”
Doodlebug retrieved his purse from the backseat. “Actually, it already has been. Three or four years ago, this block was crawling with Hollywood types. That’s how I first heard of the guest house. After the shoot, it quickly became a favorite of film industry muckety-mucks. The owners specialize in that sort of exclusive California visitor now. Which is wonderful for me, because they’ve learned to not bat an eyelash at the most bizarre eccentricities under the sun. Or moon, in my case.”
Doodlebug checked in, and then the two of them walked through the manicured grounds to the Governor Claiborne Cottage, the largest of the outbuildings, which sat a good hundred feet from any of the other cabins. It even had its own goldfish pond. Jules knelt down and stuck his fingers in the water. Half a dozen plump orange fish darted to their hiding places beneath bright green lily fronds.
“Hey, if you get hungry in the middle of the night, you could always have yourself a fish fry.”
Doodlebug smiled and unlocked the door. “Oh, I can domuch better thanthat. Come inside and see.”
Jules followed his visitor into the cottage. In the middle of the bedroom sat a stunning four-poster bed, and in the middle of the bed sat Doodlebug’s gleaming mahogany coffin. The smaller vampire gestured for Jules to follow him into the kitchen. He opened the full-sized refrigerator. The bottom two shelves were lined with bottles of rich red blood.
“All the comforts of home, my friend.”
Jules’s eyes widened. “Whoa-ho! And I thoughtMaureen’s fridge was well stocked! Where’d all this come from?”
Doodlebug shut the refrigerator door and sat at the breakfast nook’s table. “One of the nicest fringe benefits of being the spiritual director of my Institute for Heightened Alpha-Consciousness is that my disciples pay in blood. Literally! That’s not all they give to the center, of course; I couldn’t afford to keep it running on blood alone. But each member voluntarily contributes a pint every six weeks, which meets my needs quite admirably. It’s part of the center’s recommended physical cleansing cycle, you see. And during their stays, all my disciples eat a strictly vegetarian, macrobiotic diet, which goes a long way toward helping me maintain my ‘girlish figure.’ While I’m here, I’ll have fresh pints shipped to me every other day. Feel free to imbibe-it’s quite good for you.”
Jules shook his head, stunned. “Jeezus H. Christ!Everybody’s got a racket! You, those rich dickheads on Bamboo Road-you’ve all figured out a perfect scam! Rivers of blood comin‘ out your peckers like cheap beer, and you don’t hafta work for it one bit!” He slumped into the chair across from his friend. “Nothin’ in this world is fair anymore. Hard work don’t count fernothin‘. Tradition don’t count fershit. Maybe that jerk Besthoff was onto somethin’… maybe the days of us ‘free-range vampires’are numbered, after all.”
There was a knock at the door. A porter identified himself and said he’d brought the pot of coffee Doodlebug had requested. After accepting the platter, Doodlebug selected the biggest mug from the kitchen’s charming selection and poured Jules a cup of steaming java. “Now, Jules, you aren’t being entirely fair, are you? Don’t I remember a certain someone who worked in a coroner’s office and happily drank the blood of the recently deceased for years?”
“Don’t remind me,” Jules grumbled. “That was the best gig I ever had.”
“You know, you’re more than welcome to join me at my institute in California. I’ve told you that before.”
Jules scowled. “Ohyeah — couldn’t you just picture me dancin‘ around with them pajama-wearin’ weirdos you got out there? Hah! I’d go so fuckin‘ crazy, before you know it,I’d be dressin’ up like a girl.” He slurped a swig of coffee. “You and that Doc Landrieu-you both want to get me the hell outta here. How do I know you’re not both in cahoots with that goddamn Malice X? Well, let me tell you somethin‘, and let me tell you somethin’right now — ain’tnobody gonna shove me outta New Orleans! Notyou, not Maureen, not my ex-boss, and forsure not some wet-behind-the-ears Negro vampire asshole!” He pounded the table, spilling hot coffee onto the floor.
Doodlebug rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Look, Jules, I want to help you achieve whatyou want. Okay? Obviously, moving you somewhere else isnot what you want. So let’s spend tonight trying to figure out how to get you what youdo want, which is living here in New Orleans in some semblance of peace. How about we begin with your telling me everything that’s happened to you in the past four weeks.”
Jules grunted his assent. Doodlebug threw some paper towels on the spilled coffee, then poured his friend another cup and sat down to listen. Jules told him almost everything, starting with the night he’d picked up Bessie and ended up playing reluctant host to Malice X. Being particularly proud of his infiltration of the Moss Avenue police station, Jules blew that part of the story way out of proportion. He was also very liberal in describing his heroic attempts to rescue his irreplaceable collectibles from the fire. Conversely, he said exceedingly little about his five-day exile in Baton Rouge. About his encounter with the gorgeous (but possibly deadly) plus-sized model, Veronika, Jules said nothing at all.
Doodlebug rubbed his powdered chin for several long moments. “There are some things about your story that don’t make any sense to me,” he said at last.
“Such as-?”
“If Malice X really wants to kill you, he’s failed to take advantage of some ideal opportunities.”
“Maybe he’s just sloppy. Or maybe I been lucky so far.”
“Maybe. But aside from your altercation with the three would-be assassins, he’s been content at each encounter to either warn you or try to push you out of what he sees as his territory. And he’s certainly known for the last three nights that you’re back in New Orleans, but with the exception of that one attack, you’ve remained unmolested. Wouldn’t you think he’d have the entire Quarter crawling with his spies and killers by now, if he truly wanted to do you in?”
Jules fished a few stray coffee grounds out of the bottom of his cup with a sterling-silver spoon. “Well, yeah, I guess. But I been real careful these last few nights. You shoulda seen the outfit I put together last night, fer instance-I mean, I wasreally incognito-“
“I’m sure it was a good disguise, Jules, but I still get the feeling you’re being let off lightly. It’s almost as if your opponent wants to drag this out. As if he’s taking pleasure in humiliating and harassing you.“
“Huh.” Jules raised an eyebrow. “Well, I sure wouldn’t put it past the bum.”
Doodlebug sat back down and leaned across the table, staring intently into his friend’s face. “And here’s another question for you. Why do you suppose this Malice X hatesyou so much?“
Jules grunted. “Ain’t no big mystery aboutthat. Black guys have been gettin‘ the short end of the stick for a long time, since way before I was around. You and me both remember the Jim Crow days here in
New Orleans, so those days weren’t so far back. I’m a white guy. He’s a black guy. He resents me for it. That’s the Song of the South, pal-oldest story around these parts. Case closed.“
“Is it?”
“Why the hell not?”
“You aren’t theonly white vampire in New Orleans. Why hasn’t Malice X gone after the others?”
Jules rolled his eyes. “That’s easy. Besthoff and Katz and them are holed up in their compound on
Bamboo Road, where Malice X can’t get at ‘em. That place of theirs is like a damn fortress.“
“I wasn’t talking about Katz and Besthoff.”
“Who else is there?”
Doodlebug paused before answering. “Maureen.”
Jules winced involuntarily. “Huh? What’re you saying?”
“Think about it. Maureen sustains herself on victims she lures from her club. Considering that place’s clientele, surely not every one of those victims has been a white man. But she hasn’t been singled out for any warnings or attacks by this gang of black vampires. Why is that?“
Jules chewed his lower lip. “Ehh… I don’t think I like what you’re implyin‘ here. Mo can’t be tangled up in this. Nother. I mean, she gave me a place to stay after Baton Rouge, no questions asked. With all our history an’ all.”
“I don’t like to think it, either, Jules. But these questions won’t go away. I think that, very soon, you and I need to sit down with Maureen and ask them to her face.”
Early the next evening, barely forty minutes after sundown, Jules and Doodlebug zoomed onto the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, heading north for Covington. Jules pushed his reluctant auto to sixty-eight, thirteen miles per hour over the posted speed limit. With its jellied suspension, the Lincoln hit the long bridge’s expansion joints like a palsied old woman.
Doodlebug, dressed in a scarlet cocktail dress, gripped his armrest tightly and winced as they flounced over each joint. “May I speak plainly?”
Commanding a steering rack as responsive as an asphyxiated flounder, Jules didn’t dare take his eyes off the road or even one hand off the wheel. “I wish you would. I never won no prizes for my big-time vocabulary.”
“I think this trip is a bad idea.”
“I don’t remember askin‘ for your vote.” Jules swerved to avoid a low-flying seagull, causing the Lincoln’s bald tires to wail. “Say, weren’t you the one who just last night was sayin’ stuff like, ‘Jules, you’re the responsible party here,’ and ‘Jules, I want to help you get whatever it isyou want’? Was that bullshit, or what?”
Doodlebug sighed. “I wasn’t ‘bullshitting’ you, Jules. But my definition ofhelp includes unbiased feedback regarding your decisions. If I held back, then Iwould be bullshitting you.”
Now it was Jules’s turn to sigh. “Okay. Shoot. I can see I’m gonna get an earful whether I like it or not.”
“I think our time this evening would be spent much more productively if we had a heart-to-heart with Maureen.”
Jules scowled. “Jeez,again with that! We’ll get around to it, okay? First things first. We’re on a real tight deadline with this recruitin‘ trip, remember? I’ve got a digital timer tickin’ the seconds away that’s hooked up to three gas canisters, all waitin‘ for me on the other side of this damn bridge.”
Doodlebug smoothed the wrinkles from his dress. “You know, it wouldn’t be such a tragedy if that gas goes off and you aren’t there. The authorities would pass it off as a politically motivated prank. We can still turn around.”
“Why are you so damn set against this mission? Is it just because it wasn’tyour bright idea?”
The smaller vampire frowned. “Jules, I have enough bright ideas of myown — I never feel jealous of someone else’s. Why is this a bad idea? Two reasons. One: You don’t need any followers. Two: Even if you did, these definitelyaren’t the sort of followers you want.”
Jules squinted as the high beams from an eighteen-wheeler hit him dead in the face. “So I don’t need any followers, huh? Have you bothered tellin‘ that to the dozens of goons Malice X has sicced on my tail?”
“You don’t need to beat dozens of goons, Jules. You just need to beat one man.”
Jules snorted. “Ixnayon the philosophy, okay? This mission ain’t up for no debate. My mind’s set in concrete.” He glanced at his watch, dimly illuminated by the sickly green dashboard lights. “Shit! Look what time it is already! If we don’t pick up the pace, that crowd’ll fall asleep and wake back up before we even get there.” He mashed the creaky accelerator pedal a bit closer to the rusted-out floorboards, brutalizing the already breathless Lincoln.
Doodlebug reached into his purse and applied some fresh powder to his forehead. “Oh yes, we mustn’t keep your neo-Nazis waiting.”
“Look, they ain’t neo-Nazis, okay? They’re white supremacists.”
“Oh! Of course. Howcould I have overlooked such an important distinction?”
The dirt parking lot outside the American Veterans Union Hall was about half full when Jules pulled up. He checked the lot for television trucks. If reporters were there when the gas went off, he’d just have to recruit them, too, and hope for the best. To his relief, no marked media trucks or vans were evident.
He checked his watch again by the Lincoln’s dome light. “We’re in luck,” he said. “The gas is timed to go off at nine-fifty. It’s only nine-forty. We still got ten minutes.”
“Oh joy,” Doodlebug said, straightening the straps of his dress.
“Let’s go inside. I wanna see what’s goin‘ on.”
The hall wasn’t especially crowded. Jules pushed aside a sinking sense of disappointment as he estimated the gathering at between twenty and twenty-five persons. It would have to do. At least they were nearly all men. Only two women were in attendance. One of them was wearing aTimes-Picayune badge and typing notes on a laptop. Jules was pleasantly surprised to find a coffee urn and Styrofoam cups on a table near the back. He stationed himself next to the urn and listened to the proceedings.
“Point of order! Point of order!” a man not far from Jules shouted as he leapt from his chair. The speaker was a short man shaped like a papaya, wearing a faded T-shirt emblazoned with the logoBUCHANAN FOR PRES ‘ 96/’00/‘04/’08.His face was flushed; he beat the air as he spoke. “The reason we’re here tonight is to officially draft Mr. Knight as our candidate for parish councilman! This is not the time or the place to be discussing the creation of ethnic homelands!”
“Now, George, I couldn’t disagree with you more!” The tall, thin man at the podium also beat the air as he spoke; the two of them looked like they were playing a game of invisible paddle tennis across the room. “If we’re to have any hope of drawing Mr. Knight into this race and then winning it, we’ve got to havevision! The old standbys-our ‘Three W’s’ of Welfare reform, Wasteful government, and Waco-they’re not gonna cut the mustard this time. Folks are tired of the same-old, same-old. They wantinnovative thinking! They want leadership that isn’t afraid to stand up to the real problems facing America!”
A man wearing a Mighty Ducks cap raised his hand to speak. “What I want to know is, do we hafta give thewhole island of Manhattan to the Jews?”
“Bill, you have a problem with that? Itis crowded, disease-ridden, and filthy, after all.”
A number of audience members mumbled their agreement with the moderator. Bill shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Well, see, I’ve got this elderly aunt who lives in Battery Park. Can’t we just shove the Jews over into the Bronx with the Puerto Ricans and keep Manhattan for us whites?”
The thin man at the podium wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Look, you need to keep in mind that Mr. Knight has already put a tremendous amount ofcareful thought into the exact geographic division of North America. Now, is there any more discussion on this issue before we move on to the next item on the agenda?”
The lone female participant, a worn-looking woman in the advanced stages of pregnancy, raised her hand. “Yeah. I’ve got something to say. Not to stir the pot more than it’s already been stirred, but I’ve got a real big problem with handing Mississippi over to the niggers. Them gambling casinos in Gulfport and Biloxi are the best thing to happen to this part of the country inyears. I’ll bedamned if I’ll vote for any man who plans on handing those beautiful casinos over to the niggers!”
The hall erupted into a cacophony of angry shouts and competing calls to order. Jules checked his watch, then nudged Doodlebug. “Time for us to take our ‘cigarette break,’ pal.”
“Thank Varney! Any longer in here and I’d have to scrub myself down with lye.”
They waited outside beneath the gloomy shadows of the pine trees. Jules sweated with nervous anticipation; would his setup work as planned? Three minutes later Tiny Idaho proved his worth as a gadget man. The shouting from inside suddenly changed to raucous and deranged laughter. Thirty seconds later the only sounds to be heard were crickets chirping and the rumble of traffic from the highway.
Jules rubbed his hands together with glee. “It worked! Am I a hotshot planner or what?”
They went back inside. Unconscious bodies were grotesquely sprawled across chairs, tables, and the floor, their faces still twisted with the muscle spasms of laughter. To Jules, it looked like the aftermath of one of the Joker’s rampages from a 1940s Batman comic. He felt tremendously proud of himself. He quickly counted the bodies: twenty-three. Then he headed for the door.
“What are you up to now?” Doodlebug asked.
“Wait and see, pal. I got this all planned out to a T.”
He returned a minute later, his arms full of stacks of disposable aluminum baking pans. He set these aside, then began arranging the slumbering bodies on shoved-together chairs, laying out each victim so that the head and neck dangled below the rest of the body.
Jules glanced archly at his companion. “Are you gonna help me, or are you just gonna stand there and watch?”
“Neither, actually,” Doodlebug said as he sat himself down by the door and pulled a folded copy ofThe New Yorker from his purse. “This isyour show. I’m just along for the ride, remember?”
Jules grumbled darkly, but he continued with his work. After twenty minutes he had all the bodies in proper position, aluminum baking pans on the floor beneath their necks. Now came the tricky part. He had to actually drink enough of their blood to ensure that they’d become vampires, but not so much that he’d succumb to the gas’s effects and fall unconscious himself.
One of the women began to stir. It was the reporter from theTimes-Picayune. He’d hoped she would’ve left before the gas went off, but now he had no choice but to do her. He knelt by her side and unceremoniously chomped down on her neck. She moaned quietly. Her blood had the same metallic, off-taste he remembered from his kayaker victim in the cab. He allowed himself to swallow two mouthfuls-any more than two would be pushing his luck-and then he sucked hard but spat the blood into the pan below. He sucked and spat and sucked and spat until he got a good, steady flow going. Then he let gravity do the rest of the work.
The job rapidly turned into a race against time. He hustled from one side of the room to the other, biting, sucking, and spitting as grunts or twitches of wakefulness called to him. Several times he had no choice but to stop and sit for a minute. Even in small individual doses, the cumulative effect of it all caught up with him, and he giggled as the room shifted around his spinning head.
Finally, Jules was done. He slumped against the rear wall, a few feet away from where Doodlebug was still sitting with his magazine. He felt dizzy and more than a little nauseated. But he was very satisfied with himself. He’d planned his work and worked his plan. Now there was nothing more to do but wait a couple of hours, the time it would take for his recruits to reawaken as fledgling vampires. The nucleus of his army of vengeance.
TheTimes-Picayune reporter was the first to stir. Outside, a trucker blasted his air horn. The woman slowly rubbed her face and mumbled. “Honeeee… honey… turn off the alarm, will you? It’sirritating…”
Roughly in the order in which Jules had serviced them, the newly born vampires mumbled and stretched and worked the kinks out of their necks and backs. The ex-moderator was the first to attempt to stand. He clung to the podium and swayed like a drunk on a three-day bender. “What… what the hell happened?” He stared across the room at the other slowly unclouding faces, who in turn glanced about them and looked at each other with wide, surprised eyes.
“We… were we all asleep?”
“I remember laughin‘ like the dickens about somethin’ or other…”
“What’s with theseholes in everybody’s neck?”
“Red gravy in pans all over the floor-?”
“Hey, Waldo, you’re white as a brand-new bedsheet!”
“Boy, am Ithirsty — ”
Jules stepped smartly to the podium and shoved the ex-moderator aside. He beamed with triumph. “Welcome, everyone! Welcome to the happy and growing ranks of the undead!”
The ex-moderator slumped into a chair and rubbed his sore neck. “And who the fat fuck are you?”
“Me? I’m your new leader. My name is Jules Duchon. And I”-he struck his puffed-out chest like a Roman centurion-“am avampire! Now, thanks to me, all ofyou are vampires, too! I can see from your faces that some of you are havin‘ a hard time believing me. Well, just look at the fang marks on each other’s necks. The mark ofmy fangs! You feel thirsty? It’sblood that you thirst for! In just a few minutes, you can exchange pans and have your first drink. Feel each other. Go ahead; don’t be shy. Your skin is the temperature of this room. Since the air conditioner’s been running all night, your hides must be pretty darn cool by now.”
“He’sright!” the pregnant woman shrieked. “I’mcold! I ain’tnever been cold in July in south Louisiana before!”
“You’ll get used to it,” Jules reassured her. “Just drink plenty of hot coffee.”
“But-but wait a minute!” TheTimes-Picayune reporter stared at her white arms with horror. “Ican’t be a vampire! I’m a rabbi’s wife, for God’s sake!”
“Holy mackerel! My skin reallyis white!” The man wearing the Buchanan T-shirt lifted it up and insisted that his neighbors take a look at his alabaster belly. “Look at this! Is this incrediblyexcellent or what? I’m the whitest man on the North Shore!”
Immediately, all members of the audience began comparing each other’s skin tones and arguing over who, in fact, was the whitest of them all. This contest went on for a few minutes, rising in volume and vociferousness, until the ex-moderator grabbed the gavel from the podium and banged it against the seat of his chair.
“Now simmer down, people! Just simmer down!” He waited until the last arguments died away, then turned toward Jules. “I think it’s high time we asked this man why he came here tonight and did this to all of us.”
Jules took a deep breath and expanded his chest to its maximum diameter. “I have recruited all of you to fight in a great crusade! A crusade that all of you will have big-time enthusiasm for. The great city of New Orleans has become infected with the foul, nasty, horrible,foul plague of-Negro vampirism!That fair city, so historic, so important to good white folks everywhere, is practicallyoverrun by colored, bloodsucking hordes! They pollute the air with their so-called rap music and destroy all that is good and pure about white culture! We MUST put an END to this ABOMINATION! Are you allwith me?”
The rousing cheers Jules fully expected to hear never came. Instead, the man wearing the Buchanan T-shirt said, “So you want us to go back over the Causeway with you to New Orleans and clean that place out?”
“Well…sure! ” Jules smiled as brightly as he could.
The self-proclaimed Whitest Man on the North Shore laughed so hard that his dentures, already displaced by his new fangs, flew out of his mouth. “You… wantus… to go back to that cesspool of miscegenation and niggraism? After we spent half our lives making enough money to get the hellaway from there?”
“But-”
Others in the audience vigorously nodded their assent. “Let New Orleansrot!”
“They can all kill each other off for all I care!”
“Damn rich white folks over theredeserve it for lettin‘ those niggers breed out of control!”
“FuckNew Orleans!”
Jules waved his arms wildly. “Wait! Just wait a minute! Look over there!” He pointed dramatically at the window on the eastern side of the building. “In just four or five hours from now, thesun’s gonna rise over the horizon and come through that window, andnone of you know what to do about it! You know what that sun’ll do to you? It ain’t nice!I’m the only one here with the know-how to teach you how to escape the sun-how to live asvampires! And if y’all don’t do exactly as I say-I ain’t teachin‘ none of you doodly-squat!”
The new vampires stared at each other, their pale faces twitching with uncertainty. But then the ex-moderator stood and strode to the podium. “Listen, folks! We don’t need this man! I’ve read every book Agatha Longrain has ever written, cover to cover, three times! I know everything there is to know about vampires!”
The man in the Buchanan shirt shot to his feet. “More good, Christian white folks are moving to St. Tammany every day! Who’s to say we can’t form our own colony of white vampires overhere, where there’s an endless and ever-growing supply of pure, unpolluted white blood?”
A man in a black suit, who hadn’t said a word previously, was the next to rise. “I own a funeral home in Mandeville, folks! I have, in stock, a full line of magnificent coffins that I will be happy to sell for one penny over invoice to every person in this room!”
It was all slipping away. Jules looked beseechingly at Doodlebug, still sitting in the back of the hall with hisNew Yorker on his lap. Doodlebug slowly shook his head and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. Then he put his magazine aside and stood on his chair.
“Whatgreat ideas everyone has! I can justfeel all the positive energy flowing in this room. But I’m sure you’re all terribly,terribly thirsty. I remember how it was whenI first became a vampire. Well, I know just the thing! Nothing, butnothing, beats the zing of drinking yourown blood. It’s incredibly reviving and refreshing! Everybody, check the floor next to your chairs. There’s a baking pan there that’s filled with your own blood. Trust me, it’s a treat like no other!”
Like a pack of ravenous hyenas, the newborn vampires grabbed the pans of blood off the floor and lifted them to their thirsting lips. The red gore ran freely down their faces and necks, staining blouses and T-shirts and polyester neckties alike. The room was filled with the sounds of slurping, gulping, and sweetly satisfied sighs.
Those satisfied sighs didn’t last long, however. They were quickly displaced by surprised yelps of pain, then agonized screams, then the wails of dissolving banshees. Before Jules’s horrified eyes, twenty-three newborn vampires were reduced to twenty-three puddles of smoking, bubbling goo.