Andrew Fox - Fat White Vampire Blues

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.