“So the conquering heroes have returned.”
Maureen didn’t even bother looking up from her copy ofLadies’ Home Journal as Jules and Doodlebug stepped into her dressing room. “Where’s your glorious army, Jules? Out in the club watching the floor show? Or did you recruit so many soldiers that you had to leave them outside?”
“Don’t ask,” Jules said, staring sourly at his companion.
Maureen swiveled around on her stool. “Oh, but Iwant to ask! I want to heareverything! Jules, how did your brilliant plan work out? I assume from your happy expression that it was asmashing success. And, Doodlebug dear, I justknow you’re feeling a warm glow of satisfaction from backing your friend to the hilt.”
“Maybe if hehad backed me to the hilt,” Jules said, “we woulda accomplished somethin‘ tonight. But thanks to Penelope Pukehead here, all I got to show fer the evening is eight gallons of wasted gas and a sick feelin’ in the pit of my stomach.”
“Jules is a little peeved at me.” Doodlebug reached into his purse and applied a fresh coat of imported French lipstick. “I’m afraid I had to pull the plug on him before things got out of hand.”
“Pull theplug? Isthat what you call what you did? That was the mostdisgustin‘ horror show I ever saw! Those werevampires you killed! Prejudiced idiot vampires, sure, but stillvampires!”
Doodlebug gave Jules an honestly sympathetic look. “It was very unfortunate, yes. But I’m sure once you’ve had a chance to cool off and think the whole thing through, you’ll agree with me that itwas necessary. The only one I feel sorry about, really, is that rabbi’s wife.”
“You didn’t give me achance! I coulda turned ‘em around! Sure, maybe they weren’t as gung-ho as I expected. But if I just coulda talked to them some more, I’mpositive I coulda got maybe half of them to sign on-two-thirds, even! Butnoooooo — you hadda go jump the gun and turn ’em all into piles of goo!”
“My, my! The Grand Alliance is fraying already, is it?” Maureen got off her stool and sashayed toward Jules, aggressively thrusting her stomach before her. “Jules, as uncharacteristically dumb as Doodle has been so far on this visit, you can’t blame him for this latest fiasco. If anything, I’m sure it would’ve turned outworse if he hadn’t have been there with you. You know who you need to be shoveling the blame onto? I’d saylook in the mirror, but unfortunately, that isn’t possible, is it?”
Something in Maureen’s tone of voice got under Jules’s skin. “Yeah? It’s all my fault, huh? I justasked for Malice X and his goons to trash me, that’s what you’re sayin‘?”
Maureen leaned across their twin stomachs, putting her nose an inch from his. “Damn you, Jules Duchon!” Her eyes were afire with anguish and self-loathing, and her voice dripped with bitter resentment. “Itis all your fault! Every second of misery you’ve endured these past three weeks you’ve brought on yourself! Yourself! And you’ve forced me to suffer every miserable second right along with you!”
Jules frowned with befuddlement, not anger. “What’re you talkin‘ about, Mo?”
“Youmade me make him, damn you! You left me alone! I hadno one! Do you have anyidea what that’s like for a woman like me? Do you?Do you? ”
She collapsed onto the couch and buried her face in her hands. As the room filled with the sound of her ragged sobbing, Jules stood still as a gray, weather-beaten statue. Only a twitching in the corner of his mouth betrayed that he still possessed the power of movement.
Doodlebug knelt by Maureen’s side. He gently stroked her hair. “It’s all right, dear. It’s all right… try to get hold of yourself. I suspected it might be something like this. You have to tell us the rest. We need to know everything.”
“Oh God… oh God, please forgive me.” She choked back her sobs and raised her head from her hands. Tears and fingers had smeared her mascara into a mask of spiderwebs. Only her stained forehead and her eyes, turned toward the heavens, showed above the arm of the couch. “Lord, I know I haven’t any right to call on Your name. No right. But if You have any shred of pity for a damned creature like me, please send Your forgiveness.”
“Start at the beginning, Maureen.”
“Ten years ago, we… I just couldn’t live with Jules anymore. He was driving me out of my mind. He wouldn’t listen to anything I’d tell him. He’dsay he was going on a diet, that he’d watch what he was eating. But every month I watched him pile on the pounds, get grosser and grosser. He was destroying himself, destroying the beautiful man I’d wanted to preserve forever… Finally, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I told him to get out. If he refused to take care of himself, he had to get out. I never meant for him to leave, notreally — but he took me at my word. He was too bullheaded, too goddamndense to realize that, yes, I’d reached the end of my rope, but actually I was onlywarning him… I wanted him to shape up, toreform, notleave…”
“So the man who became Malice X… you took him as your lover? He was Jules’s replacement?”
“Oh God… you have tounderstand. The house was soempty. After a few months, the silence was driving me out of my mind. I tried making friends at the club. But there was no one there who could understand me. I even thought about going back to the compound, back to Bamboo Road. But it had been too many years. I couldn’t bear going back there as an utter failure, a fat girl who couldn’t hack it on the outside. I was so lonely… and the men I brought home with me from the club only made it worse. Some of them, they’d try making conversation before we’d have sex… but it never mattered, because I knew that before sunrise, they’d be stiff as day-old doughnuts, and I’d be stuffing them down the furnace chute. White, colored, Spanish, Chinese… after a while, I hardly paid attention anymore. Going down the chute, they all had the same face. Exactly the same dumb, surprised, frozen face.
“One night, I noticed this young man staring at me. Oh, sure, they allstared, but this one was looking at me different-like he was appreciating me as a woman, not just as a slab of dancing meat. For weeks he came back, five, six nights a week. A colored kid, but he was young, good looking. And he had beautiful eyes. A beautiful smile. I waited for him to approach me like the older men did, the ones I’d end up taking back to the house. But he was shy. Finally one nightI approachedhim. I took him home with me. The night went like it usually did. But after I drank him dry, I stared at him lying there in my bed, and his face wasdifferent… Never in a million years did I think I’d do it, but I didn’t stuff him down the chute. I let him lie there in peace, lie there until he woke up-”
“I can’t listen to no more of this,” Jules said.
Maureen, eyes wide with terror, turned toward the dead, listless sound of her ex-lover’s voice. “Jules? Jules, you have tounderstand, I had noidea what would happen later-”
He slowly shook his head, a rusted automaton who could barely heed the commands of distant, weak radio waves. “I ain’t listenin‘ to one more word. C’mon, Doodlebug. Let’s get out of here.”
The cross-dressing vampire’s face was torn, conflicted. His words, usually so confidently spoken, were hesitant, almost mumbled. “Jules-I think-I really think she needs us, right now, to be here with her. Let’s hear her out-”
Jules turned and walked to the door. He opened it. In a low tone, speaking into the hallway, he said, “Either you’re with her. Or you’re with me. Your choice. I’m going now.”
“My whole life is a piece a shit.”
“No, it’s not.”
Jules and Doodlebug were sitting at a small, dirty, back corner table at the St. Charles Tavern. Jules hadn’t wanted to go anywhere he might see people he knew. Aside from a few listless neighborhood types sitting at the bar, the dim, sour-smelling tavern was deserted; most of its ex-clientele was just up the street a few blocks, at the Trolley Stop Cafй.
“Sure it is. Sure it is. One big piece a shit. When I was tellin‘ you about that time two weeks ago I ran away to Baton Rouge, I didn’t tell you the whole story. I did stuff I’m ashamed of. Stuff I’ll never forget as long as I’m still walkin’ this earth.”
Doodlebug slowly stirred his cup of coffee. “I’m sure it doesn’t really matter, Jules. We’ve all done things we’re, eh, less than happy with. Even me.” He smiled, briefly, perhaps hoping to spark a smile in return. It didn’t work.
Jules’s face, usually so animated as to appear rubbery, was a mask of petrified wood. “You ever fucked a stray dog?” And then it was all pouring out of him-his befriending the dog on the streets of Baton Rouge, how he stole dog food for her and then, violating all the rules of civilized vampirism, turned to a wolf so he could share her meal. Finally, he came to the worst part.
Jules’s face was the color of slate. “I got no idea what came over me. One minute I was lying on the ground, feelin‘ like my stomach would burst from all the food I wolfed down. Next thing I know is, all I canthink about is sniffin’ that dog’s ass. I never experienced anything like it in my life. It was like every part of me got shut off except my dick and my nose. Before I could begin to get a handle on what I was feelin‘, I’m leanin’ on her and doin‘ the business. One part of me was totally disgusted-I mean, I was rapin’ this poor, helpless animal, and besides, I had my dick inside adog. Even if it was a wolf dick at the time. But this other part of me… Doodlebug, I ain’t admitted this to nobody. Before now, I ain’t even admitted it to myself. But part of me was enjoyin‘ it. Part of me was happy I wasn’t alone no more, even if my mattress partner was a flea-ridden mutt. And part of me was totally into it, all the sensations, the smells… the feelin’ of bein‘ totally outta control.”
Doodlebug was speechless for a minute. Another customer came in, and the whir and clatter of a passing streetcar blew through the open door, along with a paper Burger King cup from up the street. Doodlebug took a sip of his coffee. “I don’t really know what to say, Jules.” He tried forcing another smile. “Uh… if your friend has puppies, will you name one after me?”
Jules seemed not to hear. “And nowthis. How could she’ve done it? Ruin my life, then lie to me and lie to me and lie even more. Y’know, Mo waseverything to me. She made me into a vampire, so she was almost my second mother. She taught me practically everything I know about bein‘ a vampire; just like what I taught you. And when I first laid eyes on her, I knew right then, she was the most gorgeous woman I ever saw, and the most gorgeous woman I ever would see. I could hardly believe it when she picked me-me! — to be her number one guy. Her paramour, she called me. More years than not, she was my best friend, too; apart from maybe Erato. I mean, for chrissakes, we was practicallymarried. She was as close to a wife as I’ll ever have.
“And you wanna know the worst thing of all? I worshiped that woman. I always figured she was better than me. Why else you think I took her shit all those years? Every time she’d get all sarcastic on me, I’d tell myself, ‘Jules, just shut up and take it. You must deserve it, so hear her out and maybe you’ll learn somethin’. She’s a smart woman, and she’s a better vampire than you, and she knows what she’s doin‘.’ Even when I couldn’t do what she told me, couldn’t get it right, I alwaystried. What do ya think kept me goin‘ this past month, when everythin’ I touched was turnin‘ to shit? The thought that, no matter what happens to me, no matter how bad I screw up, Mo’ll still take me back. And if Mo would take me back, then I must be worth somethin’.
“But you know what? She ain’t better than me. She’s not. Since before you was born, she been tellin‘ me, over and over, beatin’ it into my head like a nail: Don’t make no colored vampires. Like this was the biggest goddamn sin in the world. And I was tempted, too; lots of times. Both before you came on the scene and after you left, I had a few good pals who was black. Guys who weren’t married and didn’t have no kids, who woulda enjoyed the undead life. Plenty of times I thought to myself how great it would be to have a good buddy who was a vampire like me. But always, like a big glowin‘ neon sign, her words were in my head: Don’t be makin’ no colored vampires. And I figured she knew better than me. ‘Cause I figured shewas better than me. But she ain’t no better than me. She’s nothing more than a liar and a goddamn hypocrite. And I got this lousy feelin’ that things ain’t gettin‘ any better for me. I thought maybe they would. I thought maybe I could somehow get back the life I had before all this. But everything’s goin’ downhill, Doodlebug. Shit rolls downhill. And that’s where I’m headin‘. Downhill.”
The door opened again, and a breeze blew the dirty Burger King cup against Jules’s shoe. He didn’t bother kicking it away. Doodlebug didn’t try cracking a joke this time. He looked at Jules’s still-full cup of coffee, gone cold. “Can I go to the bar and get you a fresh cup?”
“No thanks. I don’t want none.”
“Whatdo you want? What can I do for you?”
Jules tried thinking. It was a slow process. He felt like his thoughts were drowning in a pan of congealed brown gravy. “Can I stay with you for a while? All I feel like doin‘ is sleeping. I can’t… there ain’t no way I’m goin’ back where I was stayin‘ before.”
Doodlebug spoke to the concierge at the bed-and-breakfast. The concierge, happy recipient of a generous tip, woke the owner and explained the situation. The owner, very well connected and quite sympathetic to the unique needs of California’s creative community, made a series of calls. Following a flurry of negotiations, which resulted in a five-hundred-dollar charge on Doodlebug’s American Express corporate card and a sworn promise that he would make a thousand-dollar donation to Associated Catholic Charities the following day, the owner of Werlein’s Music Stores had an empty grand-piano case delivered to Doodlebug’s cottage that night. The huge wooden box, complete with hinged top, filled all but a few square feet of floor space in the suite’s sitting room.
Doodlebug was obviously pleased with what he’d been able to accomplish on such short notice. But Jules barely acknowledged the help. He took a pitcher from the kitchen and slowly walked outside. He returned a few minutes later, the pitcher filled with clumpy dirt dug from the perimeter of the goldfish pond, and tossed the dirt into the open piano case.
“Jules, maybe we should drive back to your old house and collect some earth there? What do you think?”
“Don’t wanna bother.”
“But are you sure dirt from the yard here will, you know, work for you?”
“Guess I’ll find out come morning time, won’t I?”
“That’s not a very reassuring answer.”
“It’s good enough for me.”
Jules stepped onto the couch, which the delivery men had pushed against the wall, then climbed down into the piano case. With Doodlebug’s help, he lowered the top above his head. Then he lay down in the thin sprinkling of dirt. Thanks to the assortment of overstuffed pillows Doodlebug had thoughtfully provided, Jules found the box surprisingly comfortable. The darkness was soothing. He closed his eyes. The blackness and quiet beckoned to him like old, dear friends.
Jules very quickly lost track of time. His periods of dreaming and wakefulness blurred together into an undifferentiated mush of memories, regrets, and dark fantasies. Maureen frequently joined him and his mother in his dreams. Their alliances were constantly shifting. Sometimes Jules and his mother would be heaping abuse on Maureen. Sometimes his mother would be savagely berating Maureen and him together. And other times, the worst times of all, his mother and Maureen would act as a tag team of women wrestlers, leaping off the ropes and pounding him with wooden folding chairs or strangling him in choke holds.
An indefinite time later, Jules was startled by a sharp series of knocks on his box. “Jules? It’s Doodlebug. Are you awake in there?”
“I am now.”
“Look, I’m going out for a while. Can I get you anything?”
“Where are you goin‘?”
“Just out for some air. If you want something, just tell me, and I’ll take your car and go get it.”
“Can you get me a time machine, maybe? So I can go back to ten years ago?”
“No can do, Jules. Sorry.”
Jules thought for a while. “Y’know what I’d really like? Some comics to read. Captain America or The
Sub-Mariner-“
“Hang on a second. I’m writing this down.” A little while later he said, “Okay, got it. Where are your keys?”
“In the top drawer of the dresser, next to my wallet.”
“Before I go, can I get you a pint of blood from the ‘fridge?”
“Naww. I ain’t hungry.”
That was a lie. Jules’s stomach was rumbling like an empty garbage truck bouncing over the potholes of Tchoupitoulas Street. But he refused to eat anything. Some time later, Doodlebug returned with a bag full of comics, a stand-up flashlight, and a big package of batteries. Jules loaded the batteries into the flashlight, read a few comics, then drifted back into sleep. He dreamed of better, prouder, happier nights, nights when he’d helped win the Second World War as the mighty Hooded Terror.
He was jarred awake by more knocking. “Jules, I need to discuss something with you.”
Jules stretched (as best he could in the confined space) and yawned. “Yeah, what you need?”
“I have a friend over at theTimes-Picayune. Actually, he’s not so much a friend as a cyber-acquaintance; I got to know him through a cross-dressers’ chat room on America Online. Anyway, he works nights, so I took what we know about Malice X to him, and he agreed to search the newspaper’s computer archives of old articles to see if he could dig up any information for us. But I couldn’t tell him enough to get him started. You told me that Malice X was once a teenage felon who called himself Eldo Rado. My friend couldn’t find any mention of an ‘Eldo Rado’ in any crime reports from the last fifteen years. He’s probably in there somewhere. Maybe the newspaper lists his legal name, or possibly another alias. We need to ask Maureen some more questions. She might be able to help us get more of a lead on him.”
“You want more information?You go ask her. I’m stayin‘ put right where I am.”
“I really think weboth need to go question her.”
“Ferget it. Ain’t gonna happen.”
“Jules, I think it’s time you come out of your box for a while.”
“It’s time whenI say it’s time.”
That put an end tothat. By now, Jules’s stomach felt like a rabid iguana was inside, scratching furiously to get out. He did his best to ignore it. He put fresh batteries in the flashlight and reread the last two stories in his Justice Society of America comic. The final page ended on a cliff-hanger: The entire Justice Society was chained to a huge rock, prisoners of the evil Ultra-Humanite in his underground cavern fortress. The leering villain was preparing to turn a death ray on the helpless heroes when the comic came to a sudden end. A final caption teased readers with the excitement… to come in another thirty days. Jules could hardly believe the effrontery-when he’d been a young vampire, comic books had been a full sixty-four pages, and stories werealways complete. What a cheap, underhanded marketing scheme! He might bedead in another thirty days, not just undead!
The next knocks were different.Shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits! Not Doodlebug’s style. Doodlebug wasn’t musical or rhythmic in the least. “Who’s out there?”
“You gonna stay in that box fo’ever, or what?”
Despite his irritation at being disturbed again, Jules smiled. He knew the voice well. It was Erato. “Maybe. I kinda like it in here.”
“You know who this is?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that all you got to say-Yeah? Man, you had me worriedsick these past few weeks. Last time I seen you, I drop you off, then the next mornin‘ my wife tells me she saw yo’ house burnin‘ down on the news. I figures you’s gonna call, let me know what’s happenin’, so I leaves my cell phone on. For the next three days straight, I leaves it on, constantly poppin‘ in fresh batt’ries. I drops by the Trolley Stop every chance I gets, hopin’ I’d bump into you or at least hear some word.Nothin‘. It’s like you fallen off the earth. Finally, I go see yo’ friend Maureen at her club, and she say she ain’t seen you, neither. What the hell been up with you, Jules?”
Great.More guilt. Just what he needed to be feeling right now. “Look, I’m really sorry, Erato. I really am. It’s a helluva long story, pal. And most of it I can’t tell you-”
“Oh, Iknow. If you tells me, you hafta kill me.”
“Right.”
“Yo‘ friend Miss Doodlebug-cuteli’l thing, by the way-she tells me you’s in a big-ass funk because of lady troubles.”
“That’s one way of tellin‘ it, yeah.”
“Well, you listen here. Ain’t no woman on this earth worth crawlin‘ in a box for. Now me, Ilove women. I’m married to one. Got another one for a daughter. But women… they’scrazy, man. Got somethin’ to do with their hormones or somethin‘. And another thing-women can’t help it if they got this giant power to hurt us in the heart. It ain’t their fault, see. That’s just the way things is. If you’s honest, you hafta admit thatwe got the same power overthem. Maybe not in yourparticular case, but in the big scheme a things, anyhow.”
Jules mulled over what his friend was telling him. It made sense, or it seemed to. Unfortunately, nothing Erato had said was motivating Jules to leave his box one bit. “Yeah… So how’s your family doin‘, Erato. Everybody okay?”
“Oh, fine, fine. My little girl’s none too happy about her score on those SATs. She wants to go to LSU in Baton Rouge, see. I told her she got plenty of time to retake that test. Worse come to worse, she can go to that junior college, Delgado, for a couple of years and get her grades up. Then she can go to Baton Rouge if she still want to.”
Jules knew his friend was acting more nonchalant than he really felt. Erato’s big dream for years had been that his daughter Lacrecia would go to a top-notch college and start a prestigious career. That was a good part of the reason Erato worked himself the way he did, pulling both day and night shifts with the cab company. His friend the family man had aspirations and worries Jules could only vaguely imagine. “I hope she can pull those test scores up,” Jules said. “So both of you can get what you really want. I know you got a buncha stuff weighin‘ on your mind, Erato. I’m sorry I been addin’ to it. I never meant to.”
“Yeah. I know. You got a good heart. So are you comin‘ outta that piano box or not? All the guys over at the Trolley Stop been askin’ ‘bout you. Even them guys that grumble ’bout you takin‘ up too much space at the bar. So what I should tell ’em all, huh?”
Jules felt trapped. By the box, by people’s expectations of him, by luck that seemed to get worse and worse with each rising of the moon. Staying right where he was seemed to be the least of all possible evils. But eventhat was causing pain to people he cared for. “Aww, shit if I know, Erato… just tell ‘em all to be patient. I still got a lot to think out. I don’t know when I’m comin’ out. If ever. Just lemme think, lemme think… there’s so fuckin‘ much to think about, y’know?”
“Well, don’t be thinkin‘too much-too much thinkin’s what done Elvis in. He stopped singin’ and started thinkin‘ too much, and then he sat down on that toilet and youknow what happened then.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, pal.”
“You do. And I ain’t gonna ferget aboutchu, y’hear? I be back soon. By the way, whose Looney Tune idea was it to put apiano box in this itty-bitty room, anyway? You lie in there much longer, I’s gonna think you’s some kindavampire or somethin‘. Ain’t neverheard of such nonsense over a woman before. Shee-yit! ”
“So long, pal. Take care.” Jules felt a tiny but growing urge to jump out of the box and chase after Erato, then follow his friend over to the Trolley Stop. But he wasn’t quite ready to leave the comfort of the buffering darkness.
He heard the door open again. “Jules, it’s Doodlebug. Since you’re still boxed, I take it that Erato’s visit was less than fruitful?”
Jules felt tears welling up behind his eyes. A sob caught in his throat. He felt like he was six years old again, nursing a stinging bloody lip from a schoolyard brawl, and for the first time ever, his mother wasn’t there to protect him. He was abandoned. Betrayed. Alone.
“Aww, Doodlebug, why’d she hafta go and do what she did?”
His friend sighed. “Oh, Jules… I wish I had a good answer for you. I wish people were more perfect than they are, that they’d always be consistent and make wise decisions. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make your hurt go away, and give you back your house and your car, and make all your enemies take up gardening instead of running you ragged. But I can’t do any of those things.”
“So what are you tellin‘ me? That life sucks and I just gotta get used to it?”
“No, not exactly… Maybe the best thing I can say is this. Sometimes people find themselves in a situation that makes them do things they never imagined they’d ever do. Sometimes a man is starving and desperate and alone, and he becomes a wolf who pushes aside a hungry mutt for a few mouthfuls of dry dog food. And maybe that wolf-man then finds himself caught in the power of his animal senses, and he climbs on that mutt and mounts her, despite the revulsion his human brain is feeling. If you’d told me a year ago that you would never,never eat dog food and have sex with a mutt, and then everything happened the way it did, would that make you a hypocrite?”
“Uh, I dunno…”
“Maureen was alone, Jules. Whether your leaving was her fault or not, she was still alone, for the first time in many years. And Maureen’s never been the kind of woman who tolerates aloneness well. She was terribly lonely. And so she did something she’d thought she’d never do. Something she told youyou should never do, even. She never thought she’d be hurting you, or putting you in danger. All she was thinking of was companionship. If you’d just let yourself, I’ll bet you could feel some empathy for her. Some sense of understanding.”
Jules didn’twant to understand. He wanted to stay bitter and hurt and mad as hell at Maureen. He wanted to nurse it for all it was worth. But what Erato and Doodlebug had said made sense, loath as he was to admit it. He thought back to where his head had been during his miserable week in Baton Rouge. If Maureen had experienced even a tenth of that pain and desperation after she’d ordered him to leave, he couldn’t rightfully damn her for grasping another companion to her ample bosom. Even if that companion ended up being a nasty shit like Malice X.
From the next room, low music infiltrated his makeshift coffin. Jules strained to hear the notes. He could just make out the tune. Jules smiled a small, hesitant smile. It was Bix Beiderbecke playing “Tin Roof Blues.”
“Hey, turn that up, would ya?”
No answer. The bits of melody were followed by a powerful, mouthwatering aroma. Coffee. Freshly ground chicory coffee, strong as armor plate, being brewed tantalizingly close. If he listened hard, he could hear the heavenly liquid slowly coming into existence, transmuted from the ordinary elements of water and grounds…drip, drip, drip.
Jules grinned. So the little mascara maniac was trying to lure him out of the box. Jules had to give him an A+ for effort. Wouldn’t be right to let all that energy go to waste.What the fuck… guess it’s time for this ol‘ caterpillar to leave the cocoon.
He slowly lifted the lid of the piano box. The lights in the room were off. Doodlebug had lit some candles instead. Good kid; he hadn’t wanted Jules to be smacked in the retinas by a hundred-watt bulb.
He tried climbing out of the box. Not having been on his feet in nearly three days, his legs buckled at the same instant he lost his balance. He hit the couch like a falling oak, breaking one of the antique’s legs.
Doodlebug ran from the next room. “Jules! You should’ve asked for help!”
Sprawled over the slanting couch, Jules grimaced and rubbed his knee. “When have youever known me to ask fer help?You shoulda been standin‘ by, waitin’ to give it to me!”
Doodlebug helped his friend sit relatively straight on the couch. “Of course. You’re absolutely right. How utterly thoughtless and selfish of me.” He smiled warmly. “What can I get for you?”
“Your coffee smells like the best thing ever to grace the planet. But I’m hungry as all fuck. And bring me my bottle of Doc Landrieu’s pills. I left ‘em in that dresser, next to my keys.”
“Your wish is my command,sahib.”
Doodlebug brought him his pills and two pints of chichi California blood. Jules almost swallowed the mug the blood was served in, he was so hungry. He quickly realized the bullshit behind the old saw that said hunger could make any food taste great. This blood tastedawful. It reminded him of the first time he’d ever drunk skim milk. No richness, no tang, hardly any zing to it at all. But blood was blood, and ravenous as he was, he was in no position to be fussy. He took a second long swig, then hastily opened the pill bottle and counted out six tablets in his palm. He had no idea whether taking that many at once might be bad for him. But the thought of reexperiencing his former state of decrepitude scared him even more. And after all, Doc Landrieu hadn’t told himnot to catch up on his dosage when he missed a pill or three. He gulped the pills down his dry throat two at a time.
“Feeling any better?”
Jules felt life seep back into his extremities. “Yeah. I’m startin‘ to.” He pulled his feet out of the piano box. “One thing I been wonderin’ about for the past three nights now. That evil shit you pulled with them Knight supporters-how’d you know gettin‘ them to drink their own blood would make ’em dissolve like that?”
Doodlebug smiled slyly. “Oh,that little trick. That was a useful bit of vampiric lore I picked up from my spiritual guides in Tibet. They were all vampires themselves, you know. The cornerstone of their wisdom and spiritual practice is the freeing of oneself from vampiric desires. Particularly the desire for blood. All of them were many centuries old. And not a one of them had ever imbibed a single drop.”
“You’re shittin‘ me. Either that, orthey were shittin’you.”
“Not at all. They provided me with proof. And the best proof of all was that, during my entire stay of more than three years, I never witnessed any of them drink the blood of men or animals. None of them ever suffered for the lack.”
“So what’d you eat for three years? Yak gruel? Don’t tell meyou went three years with no blood.”
Doodlebug stared out the window, his delicate features wistful and sad. “Would that it were so. No, they provided me with ample blood to drink during my stay. I’d been a blood-drinking vampire for far too many years by the time I first heard of their teachings. I could never hope to approach the blissful equilibrium enjoyed by those quiet, serene monks. But that was actually part of the reason they welcomed me to study with them-the fact that I was a confirmed blood drinker. In order to add to the ranks of their order, they need a ‘fallen’ vampire like me on hand. While I was with them, I was the one who turned their human initiates from ordinary seekers to fledgling vampires. When the newborns awoke, they found two objects sitting in front of them… a meditation staff of humble, weathered wood, and a silver bowl filled with blood. The monks directed them to choose only one, the object they most desired. Those who chose the meditation staff were admitted as novices into the lowest ranks of the monks. Those who chose the bowl of blood, well… let’s just say the monks didn’t tolerate failure of will gladly.”
Jules whistled with grim appreciation. “Wow. That’s really hard-ass. If it wasme being given that choice, I’d end up a puddle of red goo, fer sure. So, like, how many passed the test?”
“During my thirty-nine months in the monastery, sixty-three initiates came to our mountaintop. Two became novices. After a few months, the sight and odors of bubbling puddles of flesh no longer turned my stomach.”
“Huh.” Jules stared at his diminutive friend with new eyes. The kid had done some major growing up since Jules had broken off relations three decades ago. Maybe he could be a help in the fight against Malice X after all. “Speaking of turned stomachs, mine’s doin‘ a helluva lot better. Howzabout you and me split that pot of coffee you brewed. Then howzabout we go pay a visit to Miss Maureen.”
“Jules! You’ve come back! Thank every angel who ever lived!”
Jules let her embrace him. But he didn’t move a muscle to hug her back. Despite understanding her a little more, he was a long way from forgiving her.
If Maureen noticed that Jules didn’t return her embrace, she didn’t show it. “Baby, I was worriedsick about you! I thought I might never see you again! I haven’t gone into work the past three nights. I’ve just stayed home, waiting here by the phone, praying that you’d call or come by. Neither of you bothered to tell me where Doodlebug was staying! I was going out of my mind. Simply going out of my mind!”
Jules said nothing. For a few long seconds an electrically charged silence hung like a thunderhead in Maureen’s living room. Doodlebug was the one who finally broke it. “I’m staying at the Twelve Oaks Guest House. It’s a lovely spot, tucked away on Bayou Road. I have my own goldfish pond…”
Maureen wasn’t paying attention. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Jules’s face. Her own face wavered between fear and cautious hope. She took his hands and pulled him over to the couch. “Come sit next to me. Come. You have no idea howgood it is to see you.” Their two large forms took up every inch of the spacious couch. She kept one of his hands pressed between hers, nervously kneading and caressing it as though it were a pet dove that might suddenly fly away. “What can I do, Jules? Tell me what I need to do to make things right with you.”
“Only one thing you can do for me. And that’s rat out Number Two Lover-Boy. Tell me everythin‘ you know about Malice X.”
Maureen quickly looked away, but Jules caught the frightened look on her face. “What’s-what’s there to tell? It’s beenyears since I spent any real time with him. And they weren’t exactly good times, either. I put as much about him out of my mind as I could.”
“That ain’t gonna hack it, Maureen. I ain’t takin‘ no excuses. You wanna get back in my good graces? Then you give with the information. You give us somethin’ to go on, somethin‘ to track him back to his burrow with. Spill-I want his name, rank, and serial number, who tailors his zoot suits, where his grandma makes groceries, his fuckin’shoe size, okay?”
Jules’s litany had reduced Maureen to the verge of tears. “Don’t make me get involved! I’mafraid! He’s capable of anything! Don’t make me tell you things he’ll know came from me…please.”
Jules’s voice reeked of bitterness. “Baby, you’realready involved. You was involved in this stinkin‘ situation way before I ever was. There’s no backin’ away from it now.”
“I have to agree with Jules, Maureen.” Doodlebug knelt by Maureen’s side and took her hand in his. “It’s impossible for you to go backward. Your only hope of regaining your balance is to go forward. The more you’re able to help us, the quicker we can find him. And deal with him. The quicker you’ll be out of any possible danger.”
Maureen’s lower lip quivered. She looked at Jules, then Doodlebug, then back to Jules. “He… he called himself Eldo Rado. Like the car.”
“Iknow that already,” Jules said with more irritation than was helpful. “I already got that nugget of info from the goddamn horse’s mouth hisself.”
Doodlebug waved him off. “Calm down, Jules. She’s made a start. Honey, did he ever tell you his real name? His birth name?”
“Nuh-no. No, I don’t think he ever did. In fact, I’m sure of it.Eldo Rado was his gang name. He was proud of it. Everyone had to call him that. He never toldanyone his real name. Not that I ever knew of. I think he’d done things… things maybe he didn’t want his family connected with.”
“Did he tell you the street he grew up on? Which schools he attended?”
“How about the name of his best friend?” Jules asked. “Or his favorite uncle?”
“Wait-wait, don’trush me! Give me time tothink. To try to remember. His street… no, no, he never told me that. He grew up in Uptown, I think; I can’t say which part. Central City? Irish Channel? It could’ve been either. Or even Broadmoor. Schools… oh God, Iwish I could remember!”
“How about a buddy? A relative? He ever introduce you to anyone?”
“Jules, we weren’t exactlyintimate. He was a very private man. Secretive. I don’t think he wanted his friends to meet me. Nearly all the time we spent together was either at Jezebel’s or at my house. I never saw where he was living. A few times he took me with him to some other clubs, to hear music-”
“You remember which clubs?”
“Ofcourse not! They were all in colored neighborhoods. Little dirty holes in the wall. I didn’t pay them any attention.”
Jules snorted with disgust. “So basically what you’re tellin‘ me here is that this guy you turned into a vampire and regularly shared your coffin with, you pretty much knewsquat about.Real good, Maureen. My hat’s off to ya. Fangs fer the memories, babe.”
“I’mtrying! Can’t you see that I’mtrying?”
“Well, how about answerin‘ me this, then? How come this guy hatesmy guts so much? How’dI get mixed up in this little romance of yours? What’d I ever do to this guy to make me number one on his hit parade?”
“I don’tknow! I used to talk about you, I guess.”
“Talk about me? Like what? What’d you say to that guy about me? You weren’t comparin‘, y’know, oursizes or nothin’?”
Maureen shot Jules a withering look. “What kind of a tramp do you take me for?”
“Well, what, then?”
“Oh, I don’t know… He never talked abouthis family and friends, and we had to talk about something while we were together, when we weren’t-you-know-what-ing-so I talked aboutyou. When he’d turn on the radio to some music that he liked, I’d tell him what kind of stuff you liked listening to. Whenever a cabby that I recognized would come into Jezebel’s, it’d remind me of you, and I’d tell some funny little story about you. Sometimes he’d try bringing me a present, some flowers or something. So I’d tell him about all the really darling, funny gifts you used to give me, like that teddy bear with the third eyeball sticking out of its forehead. You remember that? I still have it. Another thing-for years I tried drumming into his head all the rules about living as a vampire, the rulesyou’d never had any problems following, but he never wanted to listen, not even to commonsense stuff like ‘the more vampires you make, the fewer victims left foryou.’ Ifyou, with your thick head, could follow the rules like a little angel, why couldn’the?”
Jules’s heart sank lower and lower as he listened to Maureen rattle on. All this time, he’d thought maybe there was some chance Malice X could be forced to listen to reason. Some chance that, if Jules could just show up with a big enough gang of his own, he and his enemy could sit down like rational men at the bargaining table and work some mutually acceptable deal. Fat chance ofthat. Thanks to who-knows-how-many years of Maureen’s nagging and invidious comparisons, the only way this war could go down was dirty and personal.
“Holy Christmas, Mo… if I were Eldo Rado,I’d hate me, too.”
“What? What are you saying? That this is somehow allmy fault? Is that it? Well, a girl’s gotta talk about something, doesn’t she? It can’t just bewham-bam-thank-you-ma’am every night-he didn’ttalk, Jules! Do you understand? I had to do the talking forboth of us!”
“Yeah, I understand, baby. Perfectly.” He turned to Doodlebug. “Let’s get outta here. She ain’t gonna tell us anything more useful. Maybe I should just hang out at my usual spots and let him come to us.”
Maureen grabbed his hand as he tried extricating himself from the couch. “Jules! Don’t go yet. I want to be helpful, Jules. I’m trying so hard. I have papers for you to sign! Insurance papers so you can get some money for your house! I went to the safe deposit box at the Whitney Bank. I still had the key from years and years ago. From when we were like a married couple, and you trusted me with everything. Ever since your mother was still alive, the bank’s been sending a check from your account every month to the insurance company-”
Jules headed for the door, or tried to. “What good’s money gonna do me if I end up with a stake jabbed through my ticker?”
Maureen dragged him over to the dining room table, where she had the insurance papers laid out. “Just sign them!” She forced a pen into his paw. “What can it hurt? Maybe you can get yourself another Cadillac. Maybe you can replace some of those old jazz records you lost. As coexecutor, I’ve already filled out everything I could. I made X’s everyplace you need to sign. See? Right there-”
Jules reluctantly signed everywhere Maureen had made a big purple X. Doodlebug joined them at the table. “Maureen, anything else you remember could be of vital importance to us. Do you recall any distinctive clothing he wore? Maybe a shirt with the logo of a favorite bar? A jacket with a school mascot on it?”
Maureen sat despondently at the table and leaned her head on her fists. “I’ve tried, I’ve tried sohard, but I just can’t remember… Wait. Wait just a minute! Therewas a jacket. A jacket he used to wear lots of times. It was from some school. It had a bird on it!”
Jules scowled as he continued to sign. “Oh, that’s real helpful, Mo. A bird. There are only-what? Ten thousand different kinds a birds? Was it a parrot? A chicken hawk? A hummingbird, maybe?”
“I’m not an expert onbirds!”
“Do you remember what color the bird was?” Doodlebug gently asked.
“Umm… blue, I think. No, I’msure. It was blue and white.”
“A bluebird? A blue jay?”
“A blue jay, I guess. That sounds right.”
“Jesuit,” Jules mumbled. “What was that fucker doin‘ with a jacket from Jesuit High School?”
“That’sit!” Maureen cried. “I remember now! He told me he went to Jesuit! The priests gave him a special scholarship! He played on one of the sports teams… not football or basketball. Maybe the bowling team?“
Doodlebug’s face brightened. “If we could get our hands on the right yearbook-”
Jules completed the thought. “We could learn his real name.”
“Just one problem. It’s summer. All the schools are out of session.”
“But they open up on Monday nights,” Maureen interjected. “All the Catholic schools. During the summer they do open houses on Monday nights, so parents who are looking for a school for their kids can check them out.”
“How do you know?” Jules asked suspiciously. “When was the last timeyou sent a kid to Catholic school?“
“It just so happens that one of my regulars at Jezebel’s has a thing for Catholic schoolgirls. Summer is his favorite time of year. He pretends to have a daughter and he goes to all the girls’ schools’ open houses on Mondays and ogles the students. I can’t tell you how many times he’s begged me to use a school uniform in my act. It’s simply impossible to find those plaid skirts in my size.”
“Monday nights, huh? That’s tomorrow.” A broad grin spread slowly across Jules’s face. “Doodlebug, ol‘ pal, I think it’s high time we look into gettin’ you that high school education I made ya miss fifty years ago.”
“But Jesuit’s a boys’ school, isn’t it?”
“Heh. That’s right, slugger.”