“No thanks. I don’t want none.”

“Whatdo you want? What can I do for you?”

Jules tried thinking. It was a slow process. He felt like his thoughts were drowning in a pan of congealed brown gravy. “Can I stay with you for a while? All I feel like doin‘ is sleeping. I can’t… there ain’t no way I’m goin’ back where I was stayin‘ before.”

Doodlebug spoke to the concierge at the bed-and-breakfast. The concierge, happy recipient of a generous tip, woke the owner and explained the situation. The owner, very well connected and quite sympathetic to the unique needs of California’s creative community, made a series of calls. Following a flurry of negotiations, which resulted in a five-hundred-dollar charge on Doodlebug’s American Express corporate card and a sworn promise that he would make a thousand-dollar donation to Associated Catholic Charities the following day, the owner of Werlein’s Music Stores had an empty grand-piano case delivered to Doodlebug’s cottage that night. The huge wooden box, complete with hinged top, filled all but a few square feet of floor space in the suite’s sitting room.

Doodlebug was obviously pleased with what he’d been able to accomplish on such short notice. But Jules barely acknowledged the help. He took a pitcher from the kitchen and slowly walked outside. He returned a few minutes later, the pitcher filled with clumpy dirt dug from the perimeter of the goldfish pond, and tossed the dirt into the open piano case.

“Jules, maybe we should drive back to your old house and collect some earth there? What do you think?”

“Don’t wanna bother.”

“But are you sure dirt from the yard here will, you know, work for you?”

“Guess I’ll find out come morning time, won’t I?”

“That’s not a very reassuring answer.”

“It’s good enough for me.”

Jules stepped onto the couch, which the delivery men had pushed against the wall, then climbed down into the piano case. With Doodlebug’s help, he lowered the top above his head. Then he lay down in the thin sprinkling of dirt. Thanks to the assortment of overstuffed pillows Doodlebug had thoughtfully provided, Jules found the box surprisingly comfortable. The darkness was soothing. He closed his eyes. The blackness and quiet beckoned to him like old, dear friends.

Jules very quickly lost track of time. His periods of dreaming and wakefulness blurred together into an undifferentiated mush of memories, regrets, and dark fantasies. Maureen frequently joined him and his mother in his dreams. Their alliances were constantly shifting. Sometimes Jules and his mother would be heaping abuse on Maureen. Sometimes his mother would be savagely berating Maureen and him together. And other times, the worst times of all, his mother and Maureen would act as a tag team of women wrestlers, leaping off the ropes and pounding him with wooden folding chairs or strangling him in choke holds.

An indefinite time later, Jules was startled by a sharp series of knocks on his box. “Jules? It’s Doodlebug. Are you awake in there?”

“I am now.”

“Look, I’m going out for a while. Can I get you anything?”

“Where are you goin‘?”

“Just out for some air. If you want something, just tell me, and I’ll take your car and go get it.”

“Can you get me a time machine, maybe? So I can go back to ten years ago?”

“No can do, Jules. Sorry.”

Jules thought for a while. “Y’know what I’d really like? Some comics to read. Captain America or The

Sub-Mariner-“

“Hang on a second. I’m writing this down.” A little while later he said, “Okay, got it. Where are your keys?”

“In the top drawer of the dresser, next to my wallet.”

“Before I go, can I get you a pint of blood from the ‘fridge?”

“Naww. I ain’t hungry.”

That was a lie. Jules’s stomach was rumbling like an empty garbage truck bouncing over the potholes of Tchoupitoulas Street. But he refused to eat anything. Some time later, Doodlebug returned with a bag full of comics, a stand-up flashlight, and a big package of batteries. Jules loaded the batteries into the flashlight, read a few comics, then drifted back into sleep. He dreamed of better, prouder, happier nights, nights when he’d helped win the Second World War as the mighty Hooded Terror.

He was jarred awake by more knocking. “Jules, I need to discuss something with you.”

Jules stretched (as best he could in the confined space) and yawned. “Yeah, what you need?”

“I have a friend over at theTimes-Picayune. Actually, he’s not so much a friend as a cyber-acquaintance; I got to know him through a cross-dressers’ chat room on America Online. Anyway, he works nights, so I took what we know about Malice X to him, and he agreed to search the newspaper’s computer archives of old articles to see if he could dig up any information for us. But I couldn’t tell him enough to get him started. You told me that Malice X was once a teenage felon who called himself Eldo Rado. My friend couldn’t find any mention of an ‘Eldo Rado’ in any crime reports from the last fifteen years. He’s probably in there somewhere. Maybe the newspaper lists his legal name, or possibly another alias. We need to ask Maureen some more questions. She might be able to help us get more of a lead on him.”

“You want more information?You go ask her. I’m stayin‘ put right where I am.”

“I really think weboth need to go question her.”

“Ferget it. Ain’t gonna happen.”

“Jules, I think it’s time you come out of your box for a while.”

“It’s time whenI say it’s time.”

That put an end tothat. By now, Jules’s stomach felt like a rabid iguana was inside, scratching furiously to get out. He did his best to ignore it. He put fresh batteries in the flashlight and reread the last two stories in his Justice Society of America comic. The final page ended on a cliff-hanger: The entire Justice Society was chained to a huge rock, prisoners of the evil Ultra-Humanite in his underground cavern fortress. The leering villain was preparing to turn a death ray on the helpless heroes when the comic came to a sudden end. A final caption teased readers with the excitement… to come in another thirty days. Jules could hardly believe the effrontery-when he’d been a young vampire, comic books had been a full sixty-four pages, and stories werealways complete. What a cheap, underhanded marketing scheme! He might bedead in another thirty days, not just undead!

The next knocks were different.Shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits! Not Doodlebug’s style. Doodlebug wasn’t musical or rhythmic in the least. “Who’s out there?”

“You gonna stay in that box fo’ever, or what?”

Despite his irritation at being disturbed again, Jules smiled. He knew the voice well. It was Erato. “Maybe. I kinda like it in here.”

“You know who this is?”

“Yeah.”

“Is that all you got to say-Yeah? Man, you had me worriedsick these past few weeks. Last time I seen you, I drop you off, then the next mornin‘ my wife tells me she saw yo’ house burnin‘ down on the news. I figures you’s gonna call, let me know what’s happenin’, so I leaves my cell phone on. For the next three days straight, I leaves it on, constantly poppin‘ in fresh batt’ries. I drops by the Trolley Stop every chance I gets, hopin’ I’d bump into you or at least hear some word.Nothin‘. It’s like you fallen off the earth. Finally, I go see yo’ friend Maureen at her club, and she say she ain’t seen you, neither. What the hell been up with you, Jules?”

Great.More guilt. Just what he needed to be feeling right now. “Look, I’m really sorry, Erato. I really am. It’s a helluva long story, pal. And most of it I can’t tell you-”

“Oh, Iknow. If you tells me, you hafta kill me.”

“Right.”

“Yo‘ friend Miss Doodlebug-cuteli’l thing, by the way-she tells me you’s in a big-ass funk because of lady troubles.”