Andrew Fox - Fat White Vampire Blues

The small, furry thing behind Veronika was a rat. A white rat. It climbed to the top of a pile of broken pavement, stood on its hind legs, and sniffed the air. Then, as if it smelled something distasteful, it dropped back down on all four legs and scurried back into a hole in the wall. Jules found himself wishing it’d been one of those see-through rats Chop had told him about, the kind whose skin was translucent because it never felt the touch of the sun. Then he could tell the old bandleader that he’d seen one, too.

Somewhere in the dim back corners of Jules’s mind, a door opened just a smidgen, allowing a tiny crack of light to break through.

“Jules, honey? Are you with me here? What are you staring at?”

“Huh?” Jules blinked his way back to the real world. “Uh, nothin‘. So what’s Step One of this big plan of yours? I turn you into a vampire?”

Veronika smiled. “That would be amarvelous way to start.”

Jules glanced around him. “So where d’ya wanna do it? Behind the restaurant here? In my car?”

She laughed. “Oh, I don’t think so… it’s not that I don’ttrust you, Jules my dear. But we really should do it back in the Quarter, where my associates will know to keep an eye on us while I’m between life and undeath. I wouldn’t want you to think you might be able to get away with, you know, draining me dry and then destroying mybrain stem or some such foolishness. And besides, the Quarter is so much moreromantic. Let’s do it back at my hotel. I’ve spent the last few nights at the Chateau Le Moyne Hotel on Dauphine Street.”

“That’s not far from Arnaud’s Restaurant, right?”

“That’s right. Arnaud’s is just a block or two away. Why?”

“Well, after I turn you, how about we start eternity together with a nightcap at Arnaud’s? I’ll have me a joe, and I’ll treat you to a mint julep. Sound good? I’ll meet you at your hotel room in forty-five minutes.”

Veronika raised an eyebrow. “How about we go back to my hotel roomnow. What do you need forty-five minutes for?”

Jules ruefully brushed black soot from his jacket. “Babe, if we’re gonna celebrate at Arnaud’s, I can’t walk in there lookin‘ likethis, can I? The maоtre d’ wouldn’t let me walk through the front door. Just lemme run and get myself a change of clothes.”

“You wouldn’t be thinking aboutbolting, would you?”

Jules put on his best poker face. “Bolting?Heck, the thought never even crossed my mind. Tell you what. I swear, on my honor as a vampire, that I won’t leave the French Quarter. If that’s not good enough for you-well, your backup can track me anywhere, right?”

“That’s right.” Veronika pursed her full lips. “I suppose it’ll be impossible to keep you under my thumb every second of every night for the rest of eternity. I’ll have to give you alittle rope… All right. You’ve got forty-five minutes. Onesecond longer than that and I’ll send the team out after you. And trust me-their methods are a lot less soft than mine.”

“I can believe that.” Jules took another look at her abundant curves, so reminiscent of Maureen’s. “See ya in forty-five, babe-to not show for what we got planned, I’d hafta be a real rat.”

Jules parked his Caddy in front of the motley collection of Spanish Colonial buildings that made up Arnaud’s Restaurant. Usually it was impossible to find a space there, but at this late hour most of the diners had finished their meals, and only a few patrons lingered in the bar.

He walked around to the back of the famous Creole institution, to where the kitchen’s rear door opened onto a narrow alleyway that held the restaurant’s Dumpster. Even Arnaud’sgarbage smelled sumptuous. Jules’s food-sensitive nose detected the odors of soft-shell crab saturated in butter sauce, crawfish Monica, chicken and andouille gumbo, and bread pudding in whiskey sauce. A traditional jazz combo of banjo, trumpet, clarinet, trombone, drums, and piano played a final chorus of “Tin Roof Blues” in a nearby Bourbon Street jazz club, granting the garbage alley the ambience of an outdoor supper club.

A busboy exited the kitchen with a huge plastic sack in his arms. With a well-practiced windup, he tossed the sack high into the air, landing it perfectly in the Dumpster’s waiting maw.

Jules caught his attention before he could disappear back into the kitchen. “Hey, kid? How much food would you say this place throws out every night?”

The busboy rubbed his shoulders, strained from tossing the heavy sack. “I dunno… enough to feed an army, it feels like. Why d’you ask? You want some?”

Something about his insolent tone was familiar. “Say,” Jules asked, “don’t I know you from someplace?”

The busboy took a step back and looked Jules over. His eyes widened with recognition. “Yeah… Ido know you! You’re that creep who almost ran me and my girlfriend over on Decatur a month back!”

The vampire wanna-be. So this is where he made his money. He looked different without his white body makeup, mascara, and skintight black jeans. A busboy.Not so high and haughty now, Jules thought.

“You remember my car?” Jules asked.

“Yeah,” the busboy replied suspiciously. “Lessee… it was a Cadillac, right? A big old white Cadillac?”

“That’s right. You like it?”

“What? Your car?”

“Yeah, my car.”

“I guess. I mean, it was kind of a phat ride, with those fins on the back.”

Jules took his car keys from his pocket and jiggled them in front of the young man. “Well, I’m givin‘ it to ya.“

The busboy was surprised for half a second. Then his face turned dismissive, and he waved Jules off. “You’re wacko, man. Get outta here. I’ve got work to do.”

Jules didn’t budge. “I’m serious. The car is yours. The title’s in the glove compartment. I’ll sign it over to ya. All you gotta do is one thing in return.”

The busboy crossed his arms, still looking dubious. “Yeah? And what would that be? If you’re lookin‘ for a suck-off, I don’t swing that way.”

Jules cocked his thumb at the Dumpster. “All you gotta do is, every night before you leave work, make sure the lid to that Dumpster stays open.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me.”

“That’s nuts.”

“Do we have a deal?”

“Why do you want the Dumpster to stay open?”

“My business. Don’t worry-you’ll never have a mess in the alleyway to clean up in the morning.”

The busboy eyed the keys warily. “Well… how do I know this deal is on the up-and-up? Maybe the car’s stolen, or maybe there’s a body in the trunk-“ Jules tossed him the keys. ”Here. It’s parked around front. Check it out. Read the title, the registration papers, my driver’s license. They’re all there.“

The busboy returned three minutes later. He had a cautious smile on his face.

“So?” Jules asked.

“Like I said, it’s a phat ride.”

“We got us a deal then?”

“Your driver’s license didn’t have no photo on it.”

“My business. Deal or no deal?”

The busboy looked at the Dumpster. Then he looked at the keys in his hand. “Deal,” he said.

He turned back to the kitchen, but Jules grabbed his elbow before he could escape. “One more thing. You wax the Caddy every month and change her oil every three thousand miles. I’ll be watching. You let her get run-down, I’llhaunt your skinny ass.”

Jules knocked on the door. Even up here, on the third floor of the Chateau Le Moyne Hotel, he could still hear that jazz combo playing on Bourbon Street.

“It’sopen,” Veronika’s singsong voice answered from inside. “But only if you’re a big strong hunk of all-American male vampire.”