Andrew Fox - Fat White Vampire Blues

When he reached the gate, Jules pressed what he assumed was a doorbell on the stone gatepost. To his surprise, a small door at face height slid open, revealing a glowing picture tube. A second later, a man’s face filled the screen. He appeared to be in his late sixties and was dressed in a butler’s livery.

“Yes? What can we do for you?”

The face didn’t look entirely natural; it was too smooth and regular. Jules wondered whether it was a computer-generated image. In any case, the man’s (or image’s) patronizing tone made Jules’s ears burn. He looked for the camera that he assumed was pointing at him. He couldn’t see any lens, but he figured the butler could see as well as be seen, so he squared his shoulders before replying. “I need to talk with Krauss, Katz, and Besthoff.”

“Are the masters expecting your arrival?”

“No. But it’s important. I’ve got news they’ll want to know about.”

The butler’s expression didn’t change. “May I inquire as to the nature of your business?”

“Just tell them it’s important.” When the other man said nothing, Jules added, “I can’t talk specifics with the help.”

“Then I’m afraid I can’t let you in. The masters see no one without a prior invitation.”

Jules felt his face redden. “Look, Jeeves. I’m practically a member of the family. Iknow they’ll want to see me. You gotta know I’m a vampire, don’t you? I mean, take a good look through that camera of yours. Do you see my face? Or do I look like a bunch of empty clothes held up by wires?”

The face on the screen didn’t twitch a muscle. “Ofcourse I realize you are a member of the undead. But that makes no difference. Since you are incapable of enlightening me as to the nature of your business, I must return to my other duties and pray that you will have a pleasant evening.” He turned away from the screen. The concealed door began to slide back into place.

“Hey! Wait!” Jules grabbed Maureen’s poem from his coat pocket, hurriedly unfolded it, and started reciting as quickly as he could, before the screen was entirely closed.

“At end of day

In deepest night

We feel the thirst Spread wings, take flight

No power on earth

Deters our bite

Some think us cursed

But blessed we are With eternal life.“

Almost reluctantly, the metal panel covering the screen slid open again. For the first time, the butler’s too-smooth face betrayed an emotion: exasperation. “Oh, very well,” he spat. “I’ll let you in, and at least one of the masters will see you. Do try not to step on any of the roses in the garden as you come through.”

An electric motor whirred to life, and the thick doors of the front gate pivoted inward. The air that drifted out to greet him was scented with orchids, lilies, and exotic strains of roses. Jules stepped into the compound somewhat cautiously, half expecting a pack of guard dogs (guard wolves?) to descend on him. But the only movement within the front courtyard was the rising and falling of spurts of crimson-tinted water within a series of fountains leading to the main house’s marble front steps. Jules glanced at the colorful tile mosaic on the bottom of one fountain as he walked past. It was a medieval-looking portrait of a severe, wiry, bearded king on horseback, driving a long lance through a Turkish enemy’s chest. Jules recognized the portrait. It was Vlad Tepes of Transylvania.

He climbed the steps to the mansion’s grand front door. The butler opened it before Jules could lay a finger on the brightly polished wolf’s-head knocker.

“Please step inside,” the butler said, his face once more an expressionless mask. At least his kisser looked real in person, though. “Master Krauss is out of town, and Master Katz is otherwise engaged at the moment, but Master Besthoff will see you. Please follow me.” The butler shut the door, a massive fabrication of oak nearly ten feet high and a foot thick, with an effortless press of his fingers. The door shut with a resoundingboom. Jules followed behind him and stared at his guide’s stiffly erect back. So it had been a computer-generated image on the screen. Krauss, Katz, and Besthoff must be pretty high muckety-mucks in the undead community to have a butler who was a vampire, too.

The servant silently led Jules through gilded, marble-floored hallways lined with Italian Renaissance statuary and tapestries. Turning a corner, Jules half hoped to see twin rows of human arms jutting from each side of the hall, holding lit flambeaus in their ghastly white fingers. He was disappointed; there were only more tapestries of knights beheading swarthy Turks.

“Here we are,” the butler said, stopping in front of a gold-rimmed door. “The library. Master Besthoff is expecting you.”

Jules walked into the fanciest reading room he’d ever seen. No moldering paperbacks or pulp magazines here; the gleaming oak shelves were lined with thick leather-bound volumes, many of them in languages Jules didn’t even recognize. But even more impressive was the man who rose from a plush red leather reading chair in the center of the room. Well over six feet tall, with steel-gray eyes and carefully coiffed black hair tinged with flashes of silver, Besthoff didn’t look any older than his early forties, although Jules guessed he was probably centuries older than that. And he couldn’t help but notice that, in polar opposition to his own physique, beneath his host’s expensive Italian suit were the sleek shape and well-defined musculature of an Olympic swimming champion.

Besthoff flashed Jules a cold but correct smile and held out his hand. “Mr. Duchon? I am Georges Besthoff. I understand that you have news you wish to share with me?”

Jules shook the proffered hand. Besthoff’s grip was viselike. “Yeah. Uh, nice to meet you. Heard a lot about you. I’ve got me a problem, see, and I think it’s the kinda problem that maybe could affect both of us. So I was hopin‘ you and yours could give me some help. Especially since y’all are the senior vampires in the community.”

“I see.” He gestured to a Queen Anne-period couch facing the leather chair. Jules sat down as delicately as he could, afraid of damaging the fragile antique. Besthoff returned to his seat. “Shall I have Straussman make you a cup of coffee? Or would you prefer a brandy?”

So these vampires still had the stomach for alcohol? Jules wondered why his host didn’t offer a goblet of blood. Oh, well. “Uh, yeah, a cuppa coffee’d be great.”

Besthoff pressed a small stud set into the marble top of the end table next to his chair. “Straussman? Please bring a cup of coffee for our guest.” He turned his attention back to Jules. “I understand you recited part of ‘Night of Blood’ for Straussman. Only a small handful of persons have ever been exposed to that particular poem. My own composition, by the way. A product of my romantic younger days in Romania. Where did you find it? Not on the Internet, I hope?” He smiled briefly, his eyes never leaving Jules’s.

“Maureen Remoulade gave it to me. She’s a friend. She wanted to make sure I could get in to see you.”

Besthoff’s eyes ignited with sudden interest. “Ah, Maureen! The breakaway. I am surprised she still retains any memory of that poem, as I assumed she never intended to use it to return to us here. Tell me, is she still employed as a dancer at that so-called gentlemen’s club in the Vieux Carrй?”

“Yeah, she’s still packin‘ ’em in.”

Besthoff smiled. “What a spirited girl she was. I am almost sorry to see her reduced to her present state. But I could’ve predicted that she would fall to this. Indeed, I did, although she paid me no mind.” His host’s eyes drifted to a small portrait set between two towering bookshelves. Jules realized, with a start, that the willowy limbs and delicate cheekbones of the girl in the portrait belonged to a much younger Maureen; after so many decades of gradual expansion on both their parts, he’d forgotten she’d ever looked that way. Besthoff tapped his long fingernails on the end table. “But enough of nostalgia. What is this news you have to share with me, Mr. Duchon?”