“I wasn’t talking about Katz and Besthoff.”

“Who else is there?”

Doodlebug paused before answering. “Maureen.”

Jules winced involuntarily. “Huh? What’re you saying?”

“Think about it. Maureen sustains herself on victims she lures from her club. Considering that place’s clientele, surely not every one of those victims has been a white man. But she hasn’t been singled out for any warnings or attacks by this gang of black vampires. Why is that?“

Jules chewed his lower lip. “Ehh… I don’t think I like what you’re implyin‘ here. Mo can’t be tangled up in this. Nother. I mean, she gave me a place to stay after Baton Rouge, no questions asked. With all our history an’ all.”

“I don’t like to think it, either, Jules. But these questions won’t go away. I think that, very soon, you and I need to sit down with Maureen and ask them to her face.”

Early the next evening, barely forty minutes after sundown, Jules and Doodlebug zoomed onto the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, heading north for Covington. Jules pushed his reluctant auto to sixty-eight, thirteen miles per hour over the posted speed limit. With its jellied suspension, the Lincoln hit the long bridge’s expansion joints like a palsied old woman.

Doodlebug, dressed in a scarlet cocktail dress, gripped his armrest tightly and winced as they flounced over each joint. “May I speak plainly?”

Commanding a steering rack as responsive as an asphyxiated flounder, Jules didn’t dare take his eyes off the road or even one hand off the wheel. “I wish you would. I never won no prizes for my big-time vocabulary.”

“I think this trip is a bad idea.”

“I don’t remember askin‘ for your vote.” Jules swerved to avoid a low-flying seagull, causing the Lincoln’s bald tires to wail. “Say, weren’t you the one who just last night was sayin’ stuff like, ‘Jules, you’re the responsible party here,’ and ‘Jules, I want to help you get whatever it isyou want’? Was that bullshit, or what?”

Doodlebug sighed. “I wasn’t ‘bullshitting’ you, Jules. But my definition ofhelp includes unbiased feedback regarding your decisions. If I held back, then Iwould be bullshitting you.”

Now it was Jules’s turn to sigh. “Okay. Shoot. I can see I’m gonna get an earful whether I like it or not.”

“I think our time this evening would be spent much more productively if we had a heart-to-heart with Maureen.”

Jules scowled. “Jeez,again with that! We’ll get around to it, okay? First things first. We’re on a real tight deadline with this recruitin‘ trip, remember? I’ve got a digital timer tickin’ the seconds away that’s hooked up to three gas canisters, all waitin‘ for me on the other side of this damn bridge.”

Doodlebug smoothed the wrinkles from his dress. “You know, it wouldn’t be such a tragedy if that gas goes off and you aren’t there. The authorities would pass it off as a politically motivated prank. We can still turn around.”

“Why are you so damn set against this mission? Is it just because it wasn’tyour bright idea?”

The smaller vampire frowned. “Jules, I have enough bright ideas of myown — I never feel jealous of someone else’s. Why is this a bad idea? Two reasons. One: You don’t need any followers. Two: Even if you did, these definitelyaren’t the sort of followers you want.”

Jules squinted as the high beams from an eighteen-wheeler hit him dead in the face. “So I don’t need any followers, huh? Have you bothered tellin‘ that to the dozens of goons Malice X has sicced on my tail?”

“You don’t need to beat dozens of goons, Jules. You just need to beat one man.”

Jules snorted. “Ixnayon the philosophy, okay? This mission ain’t up for no debate. My mind’s set in concrete.” He glanced at his watch, dimly illuminated by the sickly green dashboard lights. “Shit! Look what time it is already! If we don’t pick up the pace, that crowd’ll fall asleep and wake back up before we even get there.” He mashed the creaky accelerator pedal a bit closer to the rusted-out floorboards, brutalizing the already breathless Lincoln.

Doodlebug reached into his purse and applied some fresh powder to his forehead. “Oh yes, we mustn’t keep your neo-Nazis waiting.”

“Look, they ain’t neo-Nazis, okay? They’re white supremacists.”

“Oh! Of course. Howcould I have overlooked such an important distinction?”

The dirt parking lot outside the American Veterans Union Hall was about half full when Jules pulled up. He checked the lot for television trucks. If reporters were there when the gas went off, he’d just have to recruit them, too, and hope for the best. To his relief, no marked media trucks or vans were evident.

He checked his watch again by the Lincoln’s dome light. “We’re in luck,” he said. “The gas is timed to go off at nine-fifty. It’s only nine-forty. We still got ten minutes.”

“Oh joy,” Doodlebug said, straightening the straps of his dress.

“Let’s go inside. I wanna see what’s goin‘ on.”

The hall wasn’t especially crowded. Jules pushed aside a sinking sense of disappointment as he estimated the gathering at between twenty and twenty-five persons. It would have to do. At least they were nearly all men. Only two women were in attendance. One of them was wearing aTimes-Picayune badge and typing notes on a laptop. Jules was pleasantly surprised to find a coffee urn and Styrofoam cups on a table near the back. He stationed himself next to the urn and listened to the proceedings.

“Point of order! Point of order!” a man not far from Jules shouted as he leapt from his chair. The speaker was a short man shaped like a papaya, wearing a faded T-shirt emblazoned with the logoBUCHANAN FOR PRES ‘ 96/’00/‘04/’08.His face was flushed; he beat the air as he spoke. “The reason we’re here tonight is to officially draft Mr. Knight as our candidate for parish councilman! This is not the time or the place to be discussing the creation of ethnic homelands!”

“Now, George, I couldn’t disagree with you more!” The tall, thin man at the podium also beat the air as he spoke; the two of them looked like they were playing a game of invisible paddle tennis across the room. “If we’re to have any hope of drawing Mr. Knight into this race and then winning it, we’ve got to havevision! The old standbys-our ‘Three W’s’ of Welfare reform, Wasteful government, and Waco-they’re not gonna cut the mustard this time. Folks are tired of the same-old, same-old. They wantinnovative thinking! They want leadership that isn’t afraid to stand up to the real problems facing America!”

A man wearing a Mighty Ducks cap raised his hand to speak. “What I want to know is, do we hafta give thewhole island of Manhattan to the Jews?”

“Bill, you have a problem with that? Itis crowded, disease-ridden, and filthy, after all.”

A number of audience members mumbled their agreement with the moderator. Bill shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Well, see, I’ve got this elderly aunt who lives in Battery Park. Can’t we just shove the Jews over into the Bronx with the Puerto Ricans and keep Manhattan for us whites?”

The thin man at the podium wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Look, you need to keep in mind that Mr. Knight has already put a tremendous amount ofcareful thought into the exact geographic division of North America. Now, is there any more discussion on this issue before we move on to the next item on the agenda?”

The lone female participant, a worn-looking woman in the advanced stages of pregnancy, raised her hand. “Yeah. I’ve got something to say. Not to stir the pot more than it’s already been stirred, but I’ve got a real big problem with handing Mississippi over to the niggers. Them gambling casinos in Gulfport and Biloxi are the best thing to happen to this part of the country inyears. I’ll bedamned if I’ll vote for any man who plans on handing those beautiful casinos over to the niggers!”