Andrew Fox - Fat White Vampire Blues

“I don’t want you worryin‘ about me settin’ an ambush for you. I want you to feel nice and comfortable.”

The black vampire laughed again. “Why, that’s downrightballsy of you, Jules! Stupid, but ballsy. I like that. Fine. My boys’ll watch, but they won’t interfere; I promise. ‘No ambushes’…heh. Youkill me, man!”

He gave Jules directions. The instructions were nothing Jules needed to write down. Malice X lived in the heart of the city, barely a mile from Maureen’s house. At the center of everything-but hidden, invisible-deep down. Jules was surprised when he learned the location of his enemy’s home, but after a few seconds of thought, it made perfect sense.

So in nineteen hours and twenty-three minutes, Jules would battle his nemesis deep beneath Canal Street. That suited Jules just fine. It meant he’d have less distance to travel when he dragged Malice X down to hell.

Jules stared at the insurance check in his hand. Twenty-one thousand dollars. More money than he’d ever held in his hands in his whole, long, often impoverished existence.

A bus rumbled past, spewing a cloud of diesel smoke over the Hibernia Bank automated teller kiosk at the corner of Royal and Bienville Streets. Jules signed the back of the check, then sealed it in a deposit envelope. The envelope glue tasted like peppermint motor oil. He stuck his rarely used banking card into the machine’s slot, then realized with a sinking feeling that he couldn’t remember his numeric password. After a second of gastric upset, he smiled ruefully when he recalled that he hadn’t picked a numeric password at all. He punched inM-A-U-R-E-E-N. The machine flashed its electronic version of “A-OK.”

Twenty-one thousand dollars. He could do a lot of good with that kind of money. Maybe he couldn’t make amends for all the rotten things he’d done over the past eighty years. But he could make life better for the few friends he had left.

Half an hour after the Palm Court Jazz Cafй had closed, the stretch of Decatur Street in front of the club was deserted. Deserted except for a tired musician loading equipment into his creaky Coupe DeVille.

“Hey, Chop. How’re they hangin‘?”

The elderly bandleader finished placing his trumpet case in his trunk and turned around. “Jules? Seems like I’m seein‘ you all the time nowadays. How’s that new lady friend of yours? The big curvy blonde I seen you with?”

Porkchop Chambonne made an exaggerated hourglass shape with his hands that described Veronika pretty accurately. Jules grimaced. “Don’t ask. That one’s poison.”

“Oh. Sorry to hear that. She looked… interesting, that one did.” He shrugged his stooped shoulders. “ ‘Fraid you got here too late to catch the band. You’ll have one more chance, though. Me and the big band play one more gig, night after next. Then I’ve got to let most of the boys go. Cuttin’ back to a trio.”

“That’s what I came to see you about. Here. I got something for you.”

Jules handed a check to his friend. The bandleader’s eyes popped big as soup bowls when he read the amount. “Five thousand dollars? Where’d you get this kind of money? And why are you givin‘ it tome?”

“My ticket hit big on the Pick-Four Lotto,” Jules said. “I already got most of everything I need. So I wanna help you keep the band together. Five thou won’t keep you goin‘ forever, but maybe it’ll help you hang in there until better gigs come calling.”

Porkchop Chambonne leaned against the trunk of his car, still staring at the check. “I, well, I don’t rightly know what to say, Jules. Nobody’s ever given me this kinda dough for nuthin‘ before. I’m not sure I can accept this kinda gift from you.”

“Don’t think of it as a gift. There’s somethin‘ I want you and the band to do for me.”

“Oh?” The bandleader raised an eyebrow and glanced slyly at his benefactor. “Now the other shoe drops. What’s the pitch?”

“It’s nothin‘ bad, Chop,” Jules said quickly. “You and the band have done jazz funerals before, haven’t you?”

“Well, sure. Practically every traditional jazz group in the city has, at one time or another. Sure.”

“I’ve got this friend, see… Ihad this friend. A real special friend. She, uh, she died last night.”

“Oh. I’m real sorry, Jules,” Porkchop Chambonne said quietly.

Jules waited a second before continuing, waiting for his friend to ask how it had happened. But the bandleader maintained a respectful silence, and Jules was profoundly grateful that he didn’t have to make up any stories about how Maureen had died.

“Maureen, my, uh, my friend, she lived her whole life in the Quarter. Worked here, too. All her pals are French Quarter people. I think she’d really appreciate a New Orleans jazz send-off. She always liked music. She was a dancer.”

“When’s the funeral? Will the holy service be at St. Louis Cathedral or up at St. Patrick’s?”

“She, umm, she wanted to be cremated. There won’t be a funeral; not really. And she wasn’t much of a churchgoer, so she didn’t want no holy service. To tell the truth, she worked at Jezebel’s Joy Room most of the last twenty years. And that’s where most of her buddies work. So what I’d like-what I think she’d like-is if you and the band could parade past the club, and then go past her house on Bienville, between Dauphine and Rampart. Tomorrow night, around midnight or so, after any gigs you guys might have. It’s kinda weird, I know. But she was always a night person. Like me. Do it in the daytime, I’m not sure she’d hear it.”

“She have any favorite songs or spirituals we oughtta play?”

“She liked show tunes. The old ones, from forty or fifty years back.”

“I’m sure we can whip somethin‘ up. And if it’s all right, there’s an original number I’d like to play, too. Somethin’ I been foolin‘ around with for a little whiles now. Actually, you were kinda my inspiration for it.”

“Sure. I trust your judgment, Chop. Whatever you think’s appropriate. You think we should be worrying about permits for that late at night?”

The bandleader made a dismissive gesture. “Naww. Maybe if we was paradin‘ in front of the Pontalba Apartments. But those blocks you want us to circle, them’s mostly music clubs, bars, strip joints, or warehouses. Nobody’s gonna mind us none.”

“So you’ll take the check?”

Porkchop Chambonne glanced at the check again, shaking his head with disbelief as he read the amount one more time. “Sure, Jules. I’ll take this check. If that’s how you wanna spread your money around, who amI to argue?”

“Great. Hey, just one more favor. I’ve gotta make a call, and I don’t have any change on me. Can I maybe borrow thirty-five cents?”

The old man made a mock-stern face. “I don’t know! Are you good for it?” He dug into his pocket and retrieved two quarters and a pair of dimes. “Here. Make yourselftwo phone calls.”

Jules shook his friend’s hand and took the change. “Thanks. That jazz funeral tomorrow night, I know it’ll be somethin‘ to hear. Chop… you may have a hard time believing this, but ever since you started playin’ music, well… I’ve been your biggest fan.”

Porkchop Chambonne rubbed his mocha-colored chin, speckled with white stubble. Then he smiled slyly and gave Jules a deeply knowing look. “Yeah. I believe you. You and your ‘daddy,’ youboth been my biggest fans. I’m mighty sorry for your loss, man. I surely am. But me and my students, we’ll make a heavenly noise to guide your friend to her final reward.”

Jules hadn’t thought seeing the little diner again would affect him this much. The place had only been in business for the past four years, a tiny blip in his life. And Jules had groused heartily when his nightly coffee crew of cabbies and cops had decided to pull up stakes and move from the St. Charles Tavern to its new rival up the street. But the Trolley Stop Cafй really had become a home away from home for him. Anyway, it wasn’t the physical particulars of a place that made it a home. It was the people inside that did.