“Damn punk kids. Wanna-bes! The whole goddamn Quarter’s crawling with them!” he muttered darkly to himself as he steered slowly around an obstacle course of deep, jagged potholes, the ever-present legacy of the city’s having been built on swampland. Jules scowled at the black-clothed teenagers crowding the narrow, neon-lit sidewalks. Their sun-starved pallor was heightened by layers of pressed powder and liberal applications of dark eyeliner and tar-black hair dye. When local horror author Agatha Longrain had gotten hot and the vampire books and movies had begun pouring out of New Orleans, drawing hordes of vampire-crazed adolescents to the city, Jules had been able to laugh it all off. Not anymore. False vampires were everywhere-on the streets, on the television. There was even a New Orleans-based Goth-punk-Cajun band-led by popular singer Courane L’Enfant-whose vampire shtick revolved around such dubious spectacles as hovering above the concert stage suspended from a bat-wing harness and drinking the blood of a live rat.
He slowed to a crawl and watched a bone-thin boy, maybe all of seventeen, disappear into Kaldi’s, a coffee bar popular with the Goth-bohemian crowd. Jules had been able to affect that wraithlike look back in his prime.Yeah, Goth-boy, enjoy the look while you can. Spend a couple more years in the Big Easy and you ain’t gonna be wearing those size twenty-eight black jeans no more.
A loud banging noise from the front of his car startled Jules out of his musings. He immediately mashed his brakes, filling the air with asbestos dust and a loud screech even though he hadn’t been going any faster than eight miles an hour. A young, chalk-white couple were standing by the hood of his Caddy. The boy was bashing the hood with his fist.
“Hey lard-ass! Watch where you’re fuckin‘ driving! You almost fuckin’ hit us!”
Jules felt his face fill with purloined blood. He rolled down his window as fast as it would go. “The street’s for cars, asshole! Move over to the goddamn sidewalk!”
The boy kicked at the Caddy’s grille. Jules heard the sickening crunch of boot against plastic. “Fuck you!” the boy shouted. “What are you gonna do, huh? Get out of your boat and sit on me, lard-ass?”
Jules stabbed his horn with a fleshy fist. “Damn gutter punks! Goth puke-heads!” he screamed out his window. “Go home to your mamas in Baton Rouge!”
He gunned his engine and jammed his brakes simultaneously, making the Caddy jerk forward like a mechanical tyrannosaurus. The boy must’ve decided that discretion was the better part of valor, because he dragged his chalky girlfriend over to the far sidewalk, where they vanished into Kaldi’s, but not before shooting Jules a parting bird.
The car behind Jules honked annoyingly. Jules found himself without even enough strength to lean out the window and tell the offending driver to screw himself. He felt awful. His stomach had gone all acidy and his hands were shaking again. He felt as crummy as he had early in the evening, before he’d eaten anything at all. And his lousy knees were back to their throbbing.
Lard-ass.That was it. The final straw. He was going on a diet, no question about it.
Ahh… home at last.
Jules felt his stomach quiet as he turned onto good old Montegut Street. Even his knees stopped throbbing, or throbbed a little less. In his more than one hundred years on earth, this was the only neighborhood he’d ever lived in. He’d been born here, not more than half a block from the Mississippi River. The river was in his blood. Midwestern mud, fertilizer runoff, toxic discharges from chemical plants-yeah, he supposed they were in his blood, too.
Sure, the neighborhood had seen some changes. In the old days this stretch of Montegut Street between St. Claude Avenue and the river had been crowded with closely bunched houses, bustling family homes separated by alleys the width of a garbage can. Now Jules’s house was the only occupied structure left on his block. All the other homes had been abandoned, one by one, as the neighborhood had gone down over the last thirty years. Some had decayed into crack dens. Others, like the rambling three-story Victorian that once fronted the levee, had burned to the ground, victims of fires lit by vagrants on chill winter nights. None of this disturbed Jules overly much, especially since his mother hadn’t lived to see it. He liked his privacy. The old Victorian had blocked his view of the ships on the river. And besides, sometimes the crack houses furnished him with a passable meal.
Montegut Street seemed unusually quiet tonight. The stoops of the boarded-up houses he passed were empty; none of the usual winos or junkies were sitting out, talking about their next score. No badass kids stood on his corner, playing Master P or the Ninth Ward Devil Dawgs on boom boxes bigger than a Yugo. It was almost eerie. Had the cops pulled a raid while he was out?
A stretch Cadillac limousine was parked on the bare dirt lot across from his house. Jules had never seen it before. In fact, he’d never seen one like it before anywhere, and he considered himself an expert on Cadillacs. He pulled into his narrow driveway, then walked over to take a closer look. It was a brand-new Seville with gold wheels and trim, windows tinted midnight black, a custom stretch job that probably cost close to seventy grand. Jules eyed the stripped cars that lined his block, rusting, doorless heaps that sat forlornly on their bare axles.Whoever owns that limo, Jules thought,must not worry much about money if he parks his ride on this street.
He turned to walk back to his house. He paused in the middle of the street to admire the sagging two-and-a-half-story camelback, silhouetted by the moon, leaning steeply toward the river with a lusty death wish. His castle. Each hurricane that had butted heads with New Orleans had made his house lean a little farther south, until now Jules estimated its riverward tilt to be at least ten degrees. But the house had persevered. It was a survivor, just like he was.
Something was different about it tonight. Hadn’t he left his porch light on? The front of his house was just as dark as the surrounding blocks, which hadn’t known working street lamps in nearly a decade.
Maybe the bulb had burned out.
Jules climbed the cinder block steps carefully; at his weight, a tumble could do him real damage. Despite his elaborate caution, he nearly tripped over something at the edge of the porch. Something hard and metallic that screeched against the worn wooden floor when he kicked it.
It was his iron-barred security door. It had been torn off its hinges. And its thick bars were twisted like pipe cleaners.
TWO
“What the hell-?” Jules muttered. His sense of comfort at being back home evaporated like spit from an August sidewalk.
The inner door to his house was partially open, swaying slightly with the river breeze. Its knob was crushed.
No ordinary burglar had done this. Run-of-the-mill thieves would’ve pried the bars off one of his back windows.
Jules knelt down to examine the twisted wreckage of his security door. The dried mud and dead leaves that had caked his porch for months were undisturbed, except for footprints. No signs heavy equipment had been used. But no one, not even a champion weight lifter, was strong enough to mangle that security door with his bare hands. Maybe back in his vampiric prime, Jules could’ve given those bars the kind of pretzel-job they’d suffered tonight. Maybe. Or maybe not.
Jules placed the twisted metal back on his porch and shook his head. Another vampire? It was unthinkable. Vampires didn’t screw with each other. Ever since Europe’s vampire population had nearly annihilated itself through internecine warfare during the years of the Black Plague, the notion of sovereign and separate territories had remained a sacred creed among vampires. One vampire might invite another to share his or her territory. But unwelcome incursions simply didn’t happen.
Whatever.He pushed what remained of his front door open and strode into his living room. Whoever or whatever the burglar was, and however he’d managed to bend inch-thick iron, he’d picked the wrong homeowner to fuck with.
Jules headed straight for his music listening room, steeling himself for the worst. Outside Tulane University’s music archives, he owned what was probably the most extensive collection of early New Orlea
ns jazz on original pressings in the entire city. If sold to a knowledgeable dealer or collector, his vintage sounds could fetch close to ten thousand dollars. Yet not a single album was out of place.
His battered old Philips television set sat undisturbed on its stand, the half-watched Alan Ladd video from last week still loaded in the VCR. His Depression-era pulp collection? Untouched. His mother’s antique flatware? In the drawer where she’d left it. Even the computer his buddy Erato had talked him into buying was still on Jules’s kitchen table, half buried in dusty floppy diskettes.
So what had the thief stolen? Upstairs was nothing but a set of bedroom furniture and Jules’s clothes, which he couldn’t imagine anybody wanting. His mother’s things were so moth-eaten that even the lowliest of Magazine Street antiques hustlers wouldn’t touch them. The basement held nothing but Jules’s coffin and seven decades’ worth of accumulated junk. Surely, someone hadn’t torn open his most securely locked door just to tour his home.
A clatter of falling cans made Jules jump. The sound had come from downstairs. Could the thief still be here? What would he want down in the basement? Jules’s spirits perked up again. If the burglarwas down in the basement, that meant he was trapped; the only exit was the narrow stairway Jules began to descend. And if the burglar was trapped, that meant an easy meal. Home-delivered and piping hot, more convenient than Domino’s!
Jules pulled a cord that switched on a dim twenty-five-watt bulb. “Anybody down there?” He couldn’t see anyone, and no one answered. From the top of the stairs, it looked like nothing had been touched at all.
Wait. That wasn’t true. Somethingwas different. His coffin.
He descended the stairs as quickly as his knees would allow. Someone had spray-painted his coffin in big red letters.
NO POACHING WHITE BOY
The words made no sense. Jules read them three times, figuring either he must be reading them wrong, or else the vandal was a product of New Orleans’s dreadful public schools. He read them aloud, hoping maybe the sound of them would help him solve this puzzle.
“No. Poaching. White. Boy.”Maybe white boy’s a kind of fish, like redfish?
The shadows that draped the spare lumber in the corner of the basement sprang to life. A man stepped from the darkness to the center of the room. He was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a sharply tailored black suit, starched white shirt, and crimson bow tie. He couldn’t be older than twenty-four or twenty-five. His skin was ash gray, a color Jules remembered from nights in the morgue. When he stepped into the light, a slight reddish brown tone underlay the gray of his face. He stared unflinchingly into Jules’s eyes. The intruder looked confident enough to lead the Saints to a Super Bowl win.
“So you’re Jules Duchon. Big-time New Orleans vampire. Huh. Pretty much what I expected. ‘Specially after I seen this dump you live in.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
The intruder smiled. His voice was velvety smooth, but higher and reedier than Jules would’ve expected. “Me? I’m your new landlord, Jules. I’m the man. I come to set down thelaw. You an‘ me hafta have a serious talk. You been steppin’ outside the linesway too long.”
Questions buzzed through Jules’s mind like angry gnats. How did this interloper know he was a vampire? Why the strange skin?
“Buddy, I am gonna make youseriously sorry that you busted in here and messed with my property.”
This infuriating young punk was undoubtedly faster than Jules was. He’d have to immobilize him somehow. Jules hadn’t tried out his vampiric hypnotism in years. He had a nagging fear that he couldn’t get it working again. But he was so pissed off, he figured his righteous fury was hot enough to boil away any rust.
Jules concentrated hard. He arched his eyebrows and opened his eye sockets as wide as they would go. Boy, would this prowler be sorry! He’d freeze him with terror. He’d turn his blood to freon. He’d make him shit icicles.
Nothing happened.
The intruder smiled expectantly. Then he laughed. It was one of the most unpleasant sounds Jules had ever heard.
“What was that supposed to do, huh? Scare the crap outta me? Make me think I was a worm or somethin‘?” He laughed again, so hard this time that he leaned on Jules’s coffin for balance. “Man, that vampire shit don’t work on anothervampire!”
Jules couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His worst, most inconceivable fears were coming true. But he still struggled desperately to push them away. “You’re bullshittin‘ me.”
“Oh Iam, huh? Take a look at these.” He smiled an exaggerated smile. His canine teeth were sharp and elongated.
“Big deal. Half the young punks in the Quarter got their teeth filed and sharpened. That don’t prove a thing.”
“Man, you are one stubborn sonofabitch, ain’tchu? You seen what I did to your security door? Now who could do that ‘cept somebody with the strength of ten men, huh?”
Jules was silent. The intruder shrugged his broad shoulders. “Oh well,” he said. “They say seein‘ is believin’.” He reached into the lumber pile and pulled out three of the thickest planks. Then he put his left foot on top of Jules’s coffin and effortlessly snapped the three planks all at once over his knee.
He tossed the broken lumber onto the coffin. “Believe me now? Or do I have to reach up and pull your plumbing outta the ceilin‘?”
“Skip it. I believe you,” Jules admitted glumly. “So where are you down from? Chicago? Cleveland?
Detroit? Couldn’t take the cold anymore, huh? Well, there’re rules against musclin‘ in on another vampire’s territory. You can’t just waltz into New Orleans and start puttin’ the bite on people. I’ve got a good mind to report you to the National Council.“
The intruder scowled. “Fuckthe National Council. Them old-men vampires ain’t got no jurisdiction over this. Ain’t you been listenin‘ to the way I been talkin’ to you? I ain’t from outta town. I’m ahomeboy vampire, Jules. I’m a Grade-A, crawfish-head-suckin‘, second-linin’, Mardi-Gras-bead-catchin‘,New Orleans bloodsuckah!”
Could it be true? Jules certainly hadn’t made him. He’d never seen this guy before. And Maureen wouldn’t have made him, either. Jules had had to sit through lecture after lecture from her about the absolute necessity of keeping strict limits on the vampire population of a given territory. More to the point, Maureen had always been adamant about never,ever creating a colored vampire. The only vampire Jules had ever made was Doodlebug, his onetime kid sidekick, and Doodlebug had been living out in California for nearly twenty-five years. There were other, older vampires in New Orleans who kept to themselves in a walled compound near the parish line. But those old-timers were supposed to be even more prejudiced against blacks, Jews, and Italians than Maureen was.
“I don’t believe you,” Jules said. “You ain’t from around here.”
The other vampire straightened his bright red bow tie. “You don’t hafta believe me if you don’t want. All you gotta do islisten.” He lifted the lid of the coffin so that Jules could read the spray-painted message again. “NO POACHINGmeans your nights as Great White Hunter isfinished. As of tonight, Jules, you isout ofAfrica. No more big fat black mamas for you. Capeesh?”
“What the hell are you talkin‘ about?”
“Thick as a brick, huh? Okay. Lemme say this in words you’ll understand. Ready? If niggas gonna get fanged, thenniggas is gonna do thefangin‘. You stick to your kind-that’s white folks, now, not black folks-and me an’ my brothers stick to our kind.That, my friend, is the way it’s gonnabe.”
Jules was stunned. Who was this Johnny-come-lately to tellhim whom he could and couldn’t victimize? “Pal, I been a vampire since before your daddy was knee-high to a nutria. I know tricks you ain’t heard of or even thought of. Nobody butnobody tells me whose blood I can suck on my own home turf.”
The other vampire nonchalantly scratched his pointed chin. “I guess you can call me ‘Nobody’ then. ‘Cause I be the one tellin’ you.”
Jules waddled forward, trying his best to look menacing. “You and what goddamn army, punk?”
The intruder grinned. “Heh. You don’t wanna knownothin‘ ’bout my army, Jules. I got eyes all over this town. Eyes inevery neighborhood. I know ev’rythin‘ there is to know about Jules Duchon. Like that little hot chocolate snack you picked up from New Orleans Mission earlier tonight. Hope she was good and tasty for you, ’cause that there tamale stand is off-limits as of, oh, ‘bout ten minutes ago.”
Jules felt a small bayou of sweat begin to trickle down his back. This was awful. Never in his worst nightmares had he ever imagined anything like this. All he could muster was a feeble stab at humor. “I thought that affirmative action jazz was out of style.”
Again the smile. Jules was coming to hate that smile. “Me, I’m a self-made man. Only kinda affirmative action I believe in is this-I tell you what to do, you reply in the affirmative, or I take action. Do we have an understanding here?”
Jules tried to figure an out, but his brain seemed stuck in neutral. “But-but more than three-quarters of the people who live here are blacks. Almost every poor person, every down-and-outer in town is, y’know, black. White people don’t leave their homes after dark. They’re afraid of crime. And the tourist trade is too hard to live on steady. You’re cuttin‘ me out of my livelihood.”
The black vampire clapped him on the shoulder. It hurt. “Well now, that’syour problem, Mr. Jules. Not mine. You white folks are supposed to be smart. You’ll figure somethin‘ out, I’m sure.”
Quicksand pulled at Jules’s ankles. He felt dizzy. His stomach called off its tenuous truce with the rest of him. If he wanted to avoid sinking above his nose, he had to grasp at any branch in reach. He needed time to think. He needed information. “I’ll ask you one more time. Who the hell are you?”
“Still got a little fight left in you, huh? Good. I like that. You wanna know who I am? I’ll tell you, ‘cause I think we done come to an understanding. I had a lotta names in my years.Jules Duchon — that’s the name you was born with, huh? How long you been around, Jules? A hundred years? No imagination-you white folks ain’t got no imagination at all. Seventy years a big badass vampire, and you ain’t got no more sense than to live in the shithole you was born in and keep the name your mama hung on you?”
Fat White Vampire Blues Page 3
