Surely a classy, upscale babe like this would have some Cary Grant-type investment banker waiting to pick her up. She looked a little dazed coming off the plane. She blinked rapidly in the bright, evil light and searched the crowd for a familiar face. Then she turned his way. Her eyes brightened with recognition. She waved. She wasn’t a she after all.

Oh shit.

“Jules! Sorry I ran so late! There was a hang-up at the Denver airport. I tried phoning from the plane, but no one answered at Maureen’s.”

Yeah, it was Doodlebug, all right. Despite the pricey dress, the high heels, and the perfectly applied makeup, Jules recognized the tiny cleft in the middle of his delicate chin. And his voice hadn’t changed-it was still the same high-pitched, prepubescent voice the kid’d had the night Jules interfered with nature and permanently halted his growth and physical maturation.

“Hey, partner! It’s so good tosee you!” Doodlebug said as he enthusiastically embraced the much bigger man. Doodlebug’s strength, ten times that of a normal man, belied his slight frame. Jules’s ravaged skin didn’t take the hug kindly.

“Gahh! Jeezus! Leggo, will ya?”

Doodlebug immediately backed off, his face marked with concern. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

Jules unsuccessfully tried stifling a grimace of pain. “Nothin‘. Let’s go.”

“Are you hurt? Maureen told me about the trouble you’ve been in-”

“It’snothin‘, okay? Let’s go pick up your luggage.”

“I express-shipped it all ahead. Everything’s waiting for me at the bed-and-breakfast. Clothes, coffin, everything.”

“Then let’s get the hell outta here. These fuckin‘ lights are makin’ me sick to my stomach already.”

Jules muttered hardly a word on their walk to the Lincoln. He didn’t speak on their drive out of the parking garage either, aside from demanding that his passenger pay the five-dollar parking fee. Seeming to sense Jules’s volatile mood, Doodlebug wisely kept his end of the conversation to a bare minimum. He commented briefly on the humidity and on the improvements to the airport since his last visit.

Only after they turned onto Airline Highway did Jules begin to talk. His voice was flat. Harsh. “Let’s get one thing straight before I drive another block. You’re only here because Maureen insisted. I don’t want you. I don’t need you. No matter what Maureen says,I’m the one in charge. You help me, or if you can’t do that, you stay outta my way. Got it?”

Doodlebug folded his perfectly manicured hands on his lap and responded in a calm, agreeable voice. “Perfectly.”

“Yousure? There ain’t no room for negotiation on this.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’syour life that’s at stake… yourun life, actually. Ofcourse you’re the one in charge. You’re the responsible party here, partner.”

Jules had steeled himself for an argument. Now he felt like a man who’d gotten a running start to knock down a door, only to have it flung open in his face at the last second. “Well, okay, then. Just so long as we got that straight.”

They continued driving east along Airline Highway, a cratered four- lane road surrounded by rent-by-the-hour motels and bars barely hanging on to their liquor licenses. Jules was in no big hurry to get back to the Quarter, but Maureen had insisted that he bring Doodlebug to see her at the strip club as soon as he got in. He turned the air conditioner up a notch and unbuttoned the top four buttons of his shirt, hoping the cool air would soothe his burning chest. Doodlebug immediately noticed the inflamed color of Jules’s skin. He reached up and switched on the overhead dome light to get a better look.

“Those look like pretty bad burns,” Doodlebug said quietly. “How did you get them?”

“None of your damn business,” Jules grumbled.

His passenger pointed to a brightly lit storefront across the street. “There’s an open drugstore. Swing around and pull in there. I’ve seen burns like yours before. I think I can help.”

Jules glanced over at the red-and-blue neon sign across the street. “No way. That’s a Rite Aid. There ain’t no fuckin‘ way I’m settin’ foot in a Rite Aid.”

“Why not?”

“I know you ain’t been around in a while, but you remember KB?”

“The local drugstore chain? Sure. KB purple, who could forget? Everything they sold was purple.”

“Well, there ain’t no more KB. Fuckin‘ Rite Aid bought ’em out. Those corporate bloodsuckers put a big hunka New Orleans history six feet under.”

Doodlebug thought for a few seconds. “I reallycan help you, Jules. If you’ll let me. Are there anylocally owned drugstores or supermarkets near here open this late?”

“Yeah. There’s a Schwegmann’s up the road a mile or two.”

“Um, not to pop your bubble or anything, but didn’t I read somewhere that Schwegmann’s was bought out by a New York grocery conglomerate?”

Jules growled.

Thirty seconds later, after a reluctant but resigned U-turn, he pulled into the Rite Aid’s parking lot. He trailed behind his visitor as Doodlebug headed purposefully toward the Liniments and Ointments aisle.

“I don’t expect I’ll find anyluhk daht quan here,” Doodlebug said as he scanned the rows of plastic bottles. “It’s a shame there aren’t any late-night Asian markets around here like there are in San Francisco… oh, well, we’ll just make do with what’s at hand. Something with a good dollop of aloe in it should work reasonably well.Here we go.” He selected the largest available bottle of Vaseline Intensive Care lotion and walked quickly to the only open checkout line.

Jules exited the store with a disgusted sneer on his face. “Well, ain’tyou the president of the genius-of-the-month club. Don’t you think Itried smearin‘ myself with every damn ointment in Maureen’s medicine cabinet last night? I even used half her jar of Oil of Olay. None of this shit does me any good. You just wasted six-fifty, pally.”

Doodlebug sighed. “Oh ye of little faith…” He took firm hold of Jules’s hand and squirted several ounces of lotion into his open palm.

“Hey!”

“Indulge me a second, please. Just hold your hand like that, and I’ll show you a little trick I picked up from my teachers in Tibet.”

“I ain’t in no mood for this-”

“Hush! Be alittle patient? I promise you, there is absolutely no way this will make you feel worse, and there is a verygood chance it will make you feel better.” Wielding the sharp, turquoise-painted fingernail of his right pinkie like a scalpel, Doodlebug cut an inch-long incision across his own left palm. He then squeezed the wound so that a thin trickle of blood fell into the lotion in Jules’s hand. Doodlebug mixed the two fluids together for a few seconds with his forefinger, until Jules’s palm was filled with a thick, pinkish paste.

“There. Now try spreading that over your burns.”

Jules stared dubiously at the paste covering his palm. “I ain’t never heard of nothin‘ like this-”

“Justdo it, Jules. It can’t hurt.” Doodlebug squeezed his left hand into a fist to stanch the flow of blood and, at the same time, undid the rest of Jules’s shirt buttons with his other hand. The big man’s chest was rippled with oozing blisters.

Gingerly, Jules dabbed one of the biggest and ugliest with a few drops of the mixture. “Huh.” He gave another blister the same treatment. “Not bad. Not bad.” A little more daringly, he dipped two fingers into the paste and lightly rubbed it into his belly, where some of the worst blistering had taken place. “Y’know, I think you might have somethin‘ here…” Throwing caution to the winds, he slathered his entire upper body with his handful of paste. “Hey, this stuff is fuckin’great! I feel like a new man! Doodlebug, pal, how the hell did ya ever figure this out?”

His auburn-haired companion smiled. “Well, maybe Iam president of the genius-of-the-month club, after all.” He graciously opened the driver’s door for Jules. “Shall we?”