Andrew Fox - Fat White Vampire Blues

Marvin Oday owed Jules a big favor. As the first black employee above the level of janitor hired by the coroner’s office, and then only at Doc Landrieu’s insistence, Oday hadn’t had any friends among the otherwise all-white technical staff. With the exception of Jules, that is. Jules knew what it felt like to be the odd man out, so he’d befriended Oday and shown him the ropes.

Since Jules’s retirement, Oday had gone on for several advanced degrees, and he was now the office’s highest-level civil servant, second only to the publicly elected coroner. During the few years they’d worked together, Oday had always shown a marked preference for working the graveyard shift. Jules hoped this trait had remained constant.

For once, Jules was in luck. He found Oday in the gunmetal-gray office behind the examination rooms.

Jules knocked on the large window that separated the office from the closest examination room. The short, gray-haired chemist-physician looked up from his paperwork, and his eyes immediately widened with surprise when he saw his old coworker.

“Jules Duchon! Is that you?”

Jules walked through the door into the office. Despite renewing a friendly acquaintance, a circumstance he’d normally have treasured, his voice was leaden. “Hey, Marvin. Yeah, it’s me. How ya been?”

Oday stared at him with disbelief in his eyes. “Jules, you must be blessed with some of the mostyouthful genes on earth! I swear, you haven’t aged aday since the night you retired. You’ve, uh, well, you’ve put on a little weight since I saw you last, but then haven’t we all?” He shook Jules’s hand vigorously. “What brings you back here? You aren’t looking for your old job back, are you? Heh. I’m only a few years away from retirement myself, you know. Amazing as it seems. I was just getting started when you were still here, and now I’m gray-headed and ready to be put out to pasture.”

Jules removed the pill bottle from his pocket. “Yeah, it’s good to see you again, Marvin. But this isn’t a social call. I need to ask you a favor.”

“Sure. If it’s within my power, and it’s not unreasonable, I’ll do whatever I can for you. You have a dead body you need to get autopsied?” He smiled.

Jules didn’t return the smile. He placed the pill bottle on Oday’s desk. “You’re a chemist. I need you to analyze these pills. They’re a special kind of medication, and they’re real important to me. I can’t get any more from where I got them the first time. I need you to find out what they’re made of. If it’s possible, I want you to make more for me, or at least tell me where I could get it done.”

Oday raised an eyebrow. He frowned. “We aren’t talking about anillegal medication, are we? If not, I don’t see why you can’t take these to a pharmacist and get your prescription refilled-”

Jules cut him off. “They’re an experimental medication. Doc Landrieu came up with them for me. But he can’t make any more.”

“DocLandrieu came up with these for you?” Oday’s face relaxed into a grin. “How’s that old rascal doing? I’d heard that he was still fooling around with a chemistry set between rounds of golf. So now he’s in the medicine business? Let’s see… the last time I saw him was a couple of years back, at a charity fund-raiser. You’ve seen him recently, I take it?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen him.”

“So how come he can’t give you more of these pills he invented?”

Jules involuntarily grimaced. He felt lost in a poisonous fog. “It’s a long story. I can’t go into it. Look, Marvin, just analyze these for me, okay? I won’t ask you to make more for me. Just tell me what’s in them.”

Oday picked up the pill bottle and eyed it thoughtfully. “Well… I suppose there’s no harm in that. I can set aside some time later tonight, in fact. You’ll leave these with me?”

Jules took the bottle back from Oday. He popped the top off, shook out two of the white tablets marked with anA, and placed them on Oday’s desk. That left only one pill for him to take. One pill for tomorrow night. After that, he’d be at the mercy of some chemist somewhere. Or at the mercy of Malice X.

“Thanks, Marvin. You’re a good friend.”

“Yes. Well,you were a good friend, back when I needed one.” Oday sighed. “How can I reach you once I have your results?”

“You got a White Pages I can use?”

“Of course.” Oday opened up a desk drawer and handed him a phone book.

Jules looked up the number of the Twelve Oaks Guest House. “Try me at this number. I’m in cabin number four.” Then he thought to give him Maureen’s number, as well. There was always a chance he might have to seek refuge in her house. “If you can’t reach me at this bed-and-breakfast, try me at this friend’s number, okay?”

While he was writing Maureen’s phone number on a pad, Jules’s thoughts were tugged to Malice X’s final, mocking words of advice.Get some pussy while you still can. He’d taken the taunt as just another installment in a long series of threats. But after the obscenity that had been committed against Doc Landrieu, those words took on a different and awful significance.

The pen burst in Jules’s fist, splattering ink across the desk. A surge of terror-propelled adrenaline nearly exploded his heart from his chest.

“Maureen!”

Maureen hadn’t answered her phone.That doesn’t mean anything, Jules told himself over and over. He pushed the Lincoln hard, overextending its flaccid suspension and denting its axles in the pits of unseen chuckholes on Canal Street.That doesn’t mean anything, ‘cause she’s probably workin’ at Jezebel’s. No one had picked up the phone at the club, either. Butthat didn’t mean anything, because no one ever picked up the phone at that damn dive. So he’d had no choice but to drive like a bat out of hell to the French Quarter.

Even this late, parking was tight in the upper Quarter. Jules had to park three blocks west of the club, just a block from Maureen’s house. He walked as fast as he could, brushing past bunches of wild-eyed frat boys and sport-jacketed conventioneers crowding the sidewalk. He nearly tripped over the legs of an unconscious drunk, half hidden in the shadows at the intersection of Iberville and Bourbon, but he recovered his balance and hurried onward.

The caricature of Maureen posted in the glass display case in front of Jezebel’s was even more faded than Jules remembered. He propelled himself up the foyer’s steep steps two at a time, vaguely recalling the nights when he’d had to rest after every third step. Tonight his muscles answered his desperate commands without complaint, but he wondered how long it would be before his drug-fueled vitality evaporated.

The club was surprisingly empty. The greeter, a balding retiree in a plaid jacket, looked half asleep. He perked up slightly when Jules approached. “No cover charge tonight, buddy. Buy three drinks, get the second one free-”

“Is Maureen here?”

“Who?”

“Maureen.One of the dancers. I’ve gotta see her right away.”

The greeter’s tall forehead wrinkled with thought. “Maureen? One ofour dancers? Can’t say I know of any ‘Maureen’ around here, mister. ‘Course, I’m kinda new, just doin’ this to supplement my Social Security-”

Jules grabbed the old man’s shoulders. “You’vegotta know her! She’s only the biggest fuckin‘ star this dump’s got! She’s blond, got hips out to here-she’s as big asme, practically-”

The greeter’s eyes sparkled with sudden understanding. “Oh! Thatone! You mean Round Robin, mister. Ain’t got no ‘Maureen’ around here-”

Jules nearly screamed with frustration, but he managed to control himself. “Yeah.That’s who I mean. She here tonight?”