Andrew Fox - Fat White Vampire Blues

Jules grabbed the sack, yanked his pants off the clipboard, and stuffed pants-sans-sign into the bag. Tucking the bundle under his arm like a football, he hustled his way back to the desk, knocking a few car stereos to the floor and stubbing his toe on Jefferson Davis’s chin.

The door burst open just as Jules was wiggling past the desk. Two officers rushed in, a man and a woman, and drew their guns.

“Freeze!” the man ordered, pointing his revolver at Jules’s stomach, an irresistible target.

“What the hell’s going on here?” his partner said, her eyes flaring as she saw the catastrophe behind Jules. “Mancuso runs past like his ass is on fire, and now Tub-O-Lard thinks he can rip us off like we’re some Circle K?”

Jules’s intestines turned to squishy ice. There was only one thing to do. The new trick he’d pulled on Mancuso still vibrating in his synapses, Jules stared piercingly at the male cop and summoned the hideous memory of the last time he’d attempted to eat a po‘ boy. The man belched like a hippo, dropped his gun, doubled over, and rolled on the floor, groaning in agony. Then Jules turned his gaze on the woman, who still pointed her gun at him, although much less confidently than before. He forced himself to mentally relive the obscene torments that final taste of fried shrimp had cost him. The woman ran screaming from the room.

Jules waddled into the hallway as quickly as his bulk would allow. Back at the front desk, the clerk tried to block his exit through the gate. “Hey! Stop! You can’t leave here with that visitor’s badge! I’ve gotta sign you out!” A quick dose of his Diarrhea Stare shut her up fast. If only Maureen could see him in action now!

Outside, Jules sucked in a deep, proud breath. The damp night air smelled like victory. Actually, it smelled like horseshit and a Dumpster stuffed with rotting cardboard boxes, but that was all right. Jules felt good. Fuck that-he feltgreat! He hadn’t felt this alive and on top of the world since his war days, when he’d stalked the docks as the Hooded Terror.Damn! I wish I had my mask and cape on me! I’m a young buck again! Jules Duchon is back! Good as I ever was-ready to take on the whole fuckin‘ world!

The wind on his face as he ran along the bayou toward Esplanade felt like soft kisses from every woman who’d ever turned her nose up at him during the past thirty fat years. Jules didn’t feel sick at all. His legs were coiled springs. The weakness, the shortness of breath he’d suffered for decades, had fallen away like a pair of soiled underwear he’d kicked off and tossed in the garbage. Even his inconsolable stomach had settled down.

When he reached Esplanade, he tried flagging down a taxi. Two empty cabs passed him by, despite his energetic waving. The third didn’t get the chance-Jules ran into the road and blocked both narrow lanes, confident he could turn to mist in time if the driver couldn’t (or wouldn’t) stop short. After a dramatic, screeching skid on bald tires, the cab halted three feet short of Jules’s stomach. The driver, an Arab or maybe an Iranian, screamed a long litany of Arabic or Persian curses at Jules, undoubtedly involving various bodily parts of a camel. Jules flung a rear door open and pressed his way into the backseat.

“You stupid fatee-di-oot! You almost make me hit you!”

“Shut up and drive, Ayatollah. I’m a fellow cabby. Show me some respect. I’m not some asshole tourist.”

“Where you go, huh?”

“Gimme a second. Just drive toward the French Quarter, okay? I’ll tell ya in a minute.”

The driver screeched his tires as he accelerated down Esplanade, eager to get Jules to wherever it was Jules was going and get him out of the cab. Jules pondered his options. He was on a roll. Should he go straight to the auto impoundment lot and steal back his Cadillac? Only problem was, the lot was sure to be padlocked, and Jules couldn’t be certain of smart-talking his way inside. His newfound skill wouldn’t get the watchman to unlock the gate. He’d better spend a few days practicing the hypnosis. His Caddy wouldn’t be going anywhere.

“Head for Montegut Street,” Jules said.

They were turning off Esplanade onto North Rampart Street when a pair of speeding fire trucks ran the light, scattering a group of tourists and forcing the driver to pull halfway onto the sidewalk to avoid getting clipped. “Whoa! Son-of-bitch! Must be some mighty big fire they chasing after, you think?”

Jules watched the fire trucks disappear down North Rampart, turning onto St. Claude Avenue with sirens blaring. “Naww. It’s probably the mayor’s fuckin‘ cat stuck up a tree.”

The sense of triumph he’d felt so strongly only ten minutes ago was already beginning to fade. Sure, he’d gotten his pants and taxi certificate back from the cops. But now what? His weight-loss plans had crashed and burned like the bloated carcass of theHindenburg. Fanging white victims was as hard as it ever was. His damn laughing-gas setup was better at getting Jules caught than it was at catching him a meal. And there was still that fucking Malice X to consider.

Malice X.Just thinking the hated name was enough to make the last droplets of Jules’s good mood evaporate. Him and his army. Shit. Who’s to say the bastard evenhad an army? It could be all bluff. A pile of bullshit. He said he’d been having Jules followed, right? He’d bragged about knowing of Bessie, Jules’s “little hot chocolate snack” from last week. Well, learning about that certainly didn’t take a private army. Malice X could’ve hired some low-rent shamus to follow Jules around for a few days, just to make it seem like he had eyes everywhere.

This line of thinking began raising Jules’s spirits from the mire. New Orleans was a big city. No matter how many rent-a-snoops Malice X hired (and how much money could the shit-nosed little punk have, anyway?), there was no way in hell they could keep Jules under observation all the time. The city was full of tasty black potential victims, more than enough to go around. If Jules wanted to enjoy his share, all he needed to do was be careful and cover his tracks. That’s all.

Tasty black victims. The thought was enough to get his mouth watering. Last night’s mugger had been scrumptious, almost as delicious as Bessie had been. Blood so rich, so loaded with cholesterol and fatty lipids… draining that malevolent lardo, especially after so many days without a fresh kill, had shot Jules to the moon. He chuckled to himself; he’d been like a Bourbon Street drunk after his meal. He couldn’t remember walking home again and climbing into his coffin. He couldn’t even remember how he’d disposed of the body. The end of last night was a smudged blur, but a damn delicious one.

Jules spotted the entrance to the alleyway where he’d enjoyed last night’s meal. The sight made his fuzzy memories come more into focus. Whathad he done with that corpse? Plenty of victims to go around… all he needed to do was be careful… cover his tracks-Oh. No.

He started to sweat. Jules remembered now-he remembered draining his lured-in assailant of blood, then plunging the mugger’s own switchblade into the base of his skull (at least he’d been with it enough to dothat). But the memories got worse. He’d been too satiated, too inebriated to roll the body several blocks into the river. And dragging it to the railroad tracks, waiting for a train to pause, and loading the bloodless corpse into a freight car hadn’t even occurred to his foggy brain.

He’d been lazy. Sloppy and lazy. He’d left the body in a corner of the alleyway, covered it with a mildewed awning torn off an abandoned shotgun house, then covered the awning with trash he’d found lying in the gutters. He’d planned to return the next night and properly dispose of the corpse. But by the time he’d woken up earlier tonight, he’d completely forgotten the need to finish cleaning up after himself.