Janet Evanovich - Smokin Seventeen

I drove down Hamilton, past Mooner’s bus. I didn’t see Mooner, and there were no cars or trucks parked curbside. Traffic was light. Trenton was off-pace. Sunday morning was a time for church and doughnuts and lounging around, watching cartoons.

Lula was waiting for me in front of the coffee shop. She was on the sidewalk with a giant coffee in one hand and a Super Soaker water gun in the other. She was dressed down in pink yoga pants, a matching pink tank top, and matching pink sneakers. Everything was detailed with silver glitter, and the spider hairdo was splashed with pink highlights.

I waited for her to settle into the Shelby, and I asked the obvious question. “What’s with the Super Soaker?”

“I had a stroke of genius when you called me this morning. I said what do I have to do to protect myself from the vampire? And the answer that came to me was holy water! I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner.”

“You have the Super Soaker filled with holy water?”

“Yeah. I sucked it out of the church. You know that bird-bath thing they got right up front?”

“The baptismal font?”

“That’s it. They got it filled with holy water, free for the taking.”

“Brilliant,” I said to Lula.

She tapped her head with her finger. “No grass growin’ here.”

I wound my way through the Burg to Leonard’s house on Meecham Street. The house screamed neglect, from the unkempt front yard to the rotted window frames and disintegrating asbestos shingle roof. Shades were drawn on all the windows. The houses on either side were more respectable with fresh paint and tidy lawns. Clearly their owners hadn’t been downsized. There were no garages or driveways on this street, so houses had cars parked in front … with the exception of Leonard’s house. Leonard’s car had been repossessed. Bad for Leonard. Good for me. Lots of room for the Shelby.

“So how do you want to do this?” Lula asked.

“Connie said there’s no phone or electric going into the house. Doesn’t look like Leonard has a cell phone either. That means we can’t call him to see if he’s in there. We could try talking to the neighbors, but I don’t want to turn this into a production.”

“Least we don’t have to worry about Ziggy sneaking away. It’s real sunny today. Ziggy’s not gonna want to go outside. And if he does go outside we’ll hear him screaming and see him smokin’.”

Lula and I got out of the car and walked up to the front door. I knocked once. No one answered. I put my ear to the door. Silence.

“I bet Leonard isn’t here, and Ziggy’s asleep in his forever box,” Lula whispered.

I should be so lucky.

I put my hand to the knob and turned. Not locked. I opened the door and stepped inside. I had cuffs tucked into the back of my jeans, my stun gun in my sweatshirt pocket, and pepper spray in my other pocket. I took a moment to let my eyes adjust to the dark interior. The house felt abandoned. The front room had been stripped of furniture.

Lula took a big sniff and raised the Super Soaker. “I smell vampire.”

I cut my eyes to Lula. “You’re a nut.”

“Well I smell something. ”

“Mold.”

“Yeah. I smell moldy vampire.”

We crept into the dining room and found the casket. The rest of the room was bare. The casket lid was up, and Ziggy was asleep inside, arms crossed over his chest like the living dead.

“Lord protect me,” Lula said. And before I realized what she was about to do, she gave Ziggy a blast with the Super Soaker.

Ziggy sat up and shook his head, spraying water. “What the Sam Hill?”

Lula gave him another shot, and Ziggy sprang out of the casket and latched on to her.

“He’s going for my neck,” she yelled. “Get him off. Get him off.”

Lula was slapping at Ziggy, and Ziggy was making sucking sounds in the vicinity of her neck. I grabbed Ziggy by the back of his shirt and yanked him off Lula.

“Stop sucking,” I said to Ziggy. “You’re not a vampire. Get over it.”

“It’s a curse,” Ziggy said. “I can’t help it.”

I clapped a cuff on one wrist and after some wrestling managed to get the second one secured.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I said to Ziggy. “We are going to walk out the front door like normal people, and we are going to get into my car. None of us are going to turn into screaming maniacs.”

“Is it sunny?” Ziggy asked. “It looks like it might be sunny.”

“Lordy, lordy,” Lula said. “I’m closin’ my eyes and I’m stoppin’ up my ears. Look how pale he is. You ever see anybody that white? He’s gonna fry up to nothing.”

“He didn’t get fried when he ran down the street two days ago,” I said.

“I was running fast,” Ziggy said. “I think I was running between the sunbeams.”

Lula bobbed her head. “I heard vampires were speedy like that.”

“Is Leonard living here, too?” I asked Ziggy.

“No. They made him get out. He’s living in a cardboard box in the Pine Barrens. I just figured it was a shame to let the house sit empty like this. And I didn’t count on you finding me again.”

I had Ziggy by the elbow, and I was herding him through the living room. I opened the front door and Ziggy gasped.

“I can’t go out there,” he said. “It’s certain death.”

“It’s death if you don’t,” I told him. “If you don’t get in the car, I’m going to bludgeon you with the Super Soaker.”

“God might not like that … being it’s filled with holy water,” Lula said.

I muscled Ziggy out the door, into the sunshine, and he started shrieking.

“Eeeeeeeee!”

“I knew it,” Lula said. “He’s smoking. He’s melting. I can’t look no more.”

Ziggy was running around in circles, hands cuffed behind his back, not knowing where to go. He lost his balance, toppled over, and lay there in the mangy front yard, unable to right himself.

“Eeeeeee! Eeeeee!.” He stopped to catch his breath, and he looked down at himself. “Hunh,” he said. “I’m still alive.”

“Maybe it was the holy water I squirted on him,” Lula said. “Maybe it gave him divine protection.”

I hoisted Ziggy to his feet. “News flash. He’s not a vampire. Never was. Never will be. End of story.”

I marched Ziggy to the Shelby and stuffed him into the backseat.

“I still feel a little like a vampire,” Ziggy said.

Lula buckled her seat belt. “Maybe you’re one of them hybrids. Like you’re a vampire only not so much.”

“Yeah, that could be it,” Ziggy said.

I drove to the police station and checked Ziggy in with the docket lieutenant.

“Now that we know you’re not a hundred percent vampire you should stop trying to suck necks,” I said to Ziggy.

“I’ll try,” Ziggy said, “but it’s a hard habit to break.”

LULA WAS WAITINGfor me in the car when I left the police station. I got behind the wheel and looked over at her. “Are you sweating? Your arms and your chest are all wet.”

“It’s holy water from the Super Soaker. I thought it would help with my vampire issue.”

“What issue is that?”

“My teeth. I can feel the one growing. I’m surprised you didn’t notice it’s longer than the others.”

Lula pulled her lips back and showed me her teeth. The incisors might have been a tiny bit long, but I couldn’t say if it was recent. I never paid much attention to her teeth.

“It looks like a normal tooth,” I said to Lula.

“It don’t feel normal. And I’m all out of holy water. I need to refill the Super Soaker. You gotta take me back to the church. Saint Joachim is just a couple blocks away.”