Jules leaned against a table and watched him work. The gadget man’s fingers danced a ballet of miniaturized construction.

Jules noticed that his host had paused to give him the fuzzy eyeball. “Hey, man. This gas project of yours-is it political or personal?”

“Personal. Politics is a dirty business. You see this?” Jules put his hands around his own neck.

“Yeah?”

“This is what I’m tryin‘ to save.”

“I got you, man. That’s good.” Tiny Idaho seemed to relax some. He grinned and picked up his soldering iron again. “These last few years, man, I’ve gotten so sick and tired of building antipersonnel bombs for every right-wing Fascist wacko who visits my site on the Web… I mean, business is business-I got bills to pay just like everybody else-but this gig of mine ain’t half the fun it used to be. Y’know, back in my salad days, I was doing stuff thatmattered. Shit, I even got a gig from the Weathermen once, back in ‘seventy-one-”

“Yeah, pal, the times, they are a-changin‘.”

“You can say that again. Hey, I’m runnin‘ a special this week on tree spikes. Can you use some?”

Jules raised an eyebrow. “If they’re wood, I could use some.”

“You can’t pound wooden spikes into a tree, man.”

“It’s not trees I’m wantin‘ to pound ’em into. Hey, you ever make up a batch of silver bullets before?”

“Silverbullets? That’s definitely a special-order item. What, you going hunting for werewolves?”

“Somethin‘ like that. Hey! How about a gun that shootswooden bullets? Can you do that?”

Tiny Idaho frowned. “Naww. The ballistics would be all off. Besides, the bullets’d probably shatter before they left the barrel. How about some kinda souped-up crossbow?”

Jules flinched slightly. “Eh, maybe. But don’t call it across bow-and it can’t be shaped like no cross, neither.”

Forty minutes later, Jules left Tiny Idaho’s shop with everything necessary for the remote and precise release of laughing gas. Jules gave him thirty dollars as a down payment. After a lengthy discussion, the gadget man said he’d have a prototype “handheld wooden-projectile launcher” ready for Jules’s inspection by the end of the week.

Jules carefully loaded the equipment in his trunk. He climbed into the Lincoln and started its rumbly engine. Before he yanked the transmission stalk into drive, the scream of a jetliner shook the night. For a brief second the plane was silhouetted against the yellow orb of the moon. Jules’s right hand drifted across to the old metal footlocker resting on the seat beside him.

He opened the footlocker’s lid. Tenderly, he smoothed a decades-old crease out of his cloak, rubbing the rough, dusty cloth between his forefinger and callused thumb. He smiled. In just another few nights jetliners wouldn’t be the only great winged things darkening the moon.

Three and a half hours later Jules piloted his Lincoln through the empty stall spaces outside the French Market and parked behind the Palm Court Jazz Cafй. It was relaxation time. And catching the second set of Theo “Porkchop” Chambonne’s midnight jam session of traditional jazz fit the bill to a T.

Some RR was definitely called for. The trip to Kenner had been unsettling, a frightening vision of the strip-mall horror that had sprung up outside New Orleans. Then there had been the trip across the Causeway… twenty-four nerve-racking miles with nothing but a slender guardrail between him and the black depths of Lake Pontchartrain. That old wives’ tale about vampires and moving water might just be a myth, but even so, the idea of being surrounded by so much water gave him a case of the jitters.

Setting up his equipment inside the American Veterans Union Hall had gone surprisingly easily (once he’d found the place). The building was set a good way back from Highway 190, half hidden in a patch of piney woods, perfect for Jules’s purposes. The thin plywood door had a puny lock, which busted easily in Jules’s huge paw. The meeting hall was nothing more than an oblong room with a low ceiling, a plain podium, and stacks of folding metal chairs leaning against the walls. Jules quickly located a broom closet, which held his canisters of laughing gas very nicely.

But now it was definitely time for some RR. A small group of black men, all dressed in sweat-rumpled suits, stood beneath the music club’s rear overhang, talking and laughing, their faces lit by the orange glows of stubby cigarettes. Musicians, not vampires, Jules told himself; they were all right. He recognized the slight, elderly man at the center of the group, even though it had been months-years, maybe? — since he’d last heard him play in person. That beak-shaped nose, combined with the tufts of fuzzy white hair that peeked from the edges of his brown fedora, was a dead giveaway.

“Chop!” Jules called, waving vigorously. “Hey, Chop! You on break?”

“Yeah. Who’s that?” Porkchop Chambonne turned to stare at the hulking figure approaching him from the street. He tipped back his fedora to get a better look, and his watery eyes widened. “Oh mah Gawd, boys, it’s Mr. Bingle, come to pay us a visit!”

Being mistaken for the Maison Blanche department store’s round-headed Christmas snowman wasn’t exactly flattering; still, Jules was overjoyed to see his old friend. “No, Chop! It’s Jules! Your old pal, Jules Duchon!”

The elderly trumpet player’s willowy forearm vanished between Jules’s huge hands as the vampire vigorously greeted his friend. The other musicians, all much younger than their bandleader, either backed away from the pair or were innocently elbowed into the gutter by Jules’s sidewalk-hogging enthusiasm.

“JulesDuchon? Why ain’t you out drivin‘ your cab?” Chop backed out of Jules’s smothering half embrace and looked him up and down. “What’s with the outfit? You got yo’self a new gig? Doin’ kiddie parties or somethin‘?”

“Naww. I’m just comin‘ back from a costume party. My cab’s in the shop, so I’m on temporary vacation. How the hell’ve you been?”

“Oh, all right, all right. Doin‘ as well as an eighty-year-old trumpet player with fake chompers can hope for, I guess. But me, I ain’t doin’half as well asyou.” He walked slowly around Jules, clucking appreciatively and shaking his head. “I swear, you neverchange, do you? Oh, maybe a little bigger here and there. But not a wrinkle. Not a gray hair on yo‘ head. And you’skept all yo’ hair! When did we first meet? Lessee… I was just a kid startin‘ out on Bourbon Street, no older than Leroy there”-he pointed at the taller of the two school-aged sidemen-“why, that was back during the early days of WW Two-”

Jules smiled and shook his head. “No, Chop, that was mydad, JulesSenior. I’m JulesJunior, remember? We been through this before.”

The jazzman scrunched his mouth into a frown. “Yousure?”

Jules laughed, along with a couple of the sidemen. “Sure I’m sure!” He felt a twinge of guilt, like a rusty nail in his heel, upon deceiving his old friend yet again. But some things just couldn’t be helped.

The old man sighed, then took a long, hard look at the blunt, hand-rolled cigarette held between his fingers. “Yeah, I guess youis sure. Maybe I’m gettin‘ too old to be messin’ round with this stuff anymore.” He held the joint out to Jules. “Want a puff?”

“No, thanks. I just stick to coffee.”

“Yeah, you right. Jus’ like yo‘ pop.” He took a final drag before pinching it out. Then he placed the roach in a silver cigarette box he took from his jacket pocket. “Funny you should mention yo’ pop. Just earlier this evenin‘, I was reminded of my own pop in the weirdest of ways.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” He turned to his sidemen. “You boys go on back inside. I want to talk with Jules here a bit. I’ll be along in a minute.”

The old jazzman waited until the younger musicians had ambled around the corner before continuing. “I didn’t mention this story to none of the youngsters. Didn’t want ‘em to think I was ’touched,‘ y’know? But somehow, I got the notionyou’ll believe me just fine.”