“How about a buddy? A relative? He ever introduce you to anyone?”

“Jules, we weren’t exactlyintimate. He was a very private man. Secretive. I don’t think he wanted his friends to meet me. Nearly all the time we spent together was either at Jezebel’s or at my house. I never saw where he was living. A few times he took me with him to some other clubs, to hear music-”

“You remember which clubs?”

“Ofcourse not! They were all in colored neighborhoods. Little dirty holes in the wall. I didn’t pay them any attention.”

Jules snorted with disgust. “So basically what you’re tellin‘ me here is that this guy you turned into a vampire and regularly shared your coffin with, you pretty much knewsquat about.Real good, Maureen. My hat’s off to ya. Fangs fer the memories, babe.”

“I’mtrying! Can’t you see that I’mtrying?”

“Well, how about answerin‘ me this, then? How come this guy hatesmy guts so much? How’dI get mixed up in this little romance of yours? What’d I ever do to this guy to make me number one on his hit parade?”

“I don’tknow! I used to talk about you, I guess.”

“Talk about me? Like what? What’d you say to that guy about me? You weren’t comparin‘, y’know, oursizes or nothin’?”

Maureen shot Jules a withering look. “What kind of a tramp do you take me for?”

“Well, what, then?”

“Oh, I don’t know… He never talked abouthis family and friends, and we had to talk about something while we were together, when we weren’t-you-know-what-ing-so I talked aboutyou. When he’d turn on the radio to some music that he liked, I’d tell him what kind of stuff you liked listening to. Whenever a cabby that I recognized would come into Jezebel’s, it’d remind me of you, and I’d tell some funny little story about you. Sometimes he’d try bringing me a present, some flowers or something. So I’d tell him about all the really darling, funny gifts you used to give me, like that teddy bear with the third eyeball sticking out of its forehead. You remember that? I still have it. Another thing-for years I tried drumming into his head all the rules about living as a vampire, the rulesyou’d never had any problems following, but he never wanted to listen, not even to commonsense stuff like ‘the more vampires you make, the fewer victims left foryou.’ Ifyou, with your thick head, could follow the rules like a little angel, why couldn’the?”

Jules’s heart sank lower and lower as he listened to Maureen rattle on. All this time, he’d thought maybe there was some chance Malice X could be forced to listen to reason. Some chance that, if Jules could just show up with a big enough gang of his own, he and his enemy could sit down like rational men at the bargaining table and work some mutually acceptable deal. Fat chance ofthat. Thanks to who-knows-how-many years of Maureen’s nagging and invidious comparisons, the only way this war could go down was dirty and personal.

“Holy Christmas, Mo… if I were Eldo Rado,I’d hate me, too.”

“What? What are you saying? That this is somehow allmy fault? Is that it? Well, a girl’s gotta talk about something, doesn’t she? It can’t just bewham-bam-thank-you-ma’am every night-he didn’ttalk, Jules! Do you understand? I had to do the talking forboth of us!”

“Yeah, I understand, baby. Perfectly.” He turned to Doodlebug. “Let’s get outta here. She ain’t gonna tell us anything more useful. Maybe I should just hang out at my usual spots and let him come to us.”

Maureen grabbed his hand as he tried extricating himself from the couch. “Jules! Don’t go yet. I want to be helpful, Jules. I’m trying so hard. I have papers for you to sign! Insurance papers so you can get some money for your house! I went to the safe deposit box at the Whitney Bank. I still had the key from years and years ago. From when we were like a married couple, and you trusted me with everything. Ever since your mother was still alive, the bank’s been sending a check from your account every month to the insurance company-”

Jules headed for the door, or tried to. “What good’s money gonna do me if I end up with a stake jabbed through my ticker?”

Maureen dragged him over to the dining room table, where she had the insurance papers laid out. “Just sign them!” She forced a pen into his paw. “What can it hurt? Maybe you can get yourself another Cadillac. Maybe you can replace some of those old jazz records you lost. As coexecutor, I’ve already filled out everything I could. I made X’s everyplace you need to sign. See? Right there-”

Jules reluctantly signed everywhere Maureen had made a big purple X. Doodlebug joined them at the table. “Maureen, anything else you remember could be of vital importance to us. Do you recall any distinctive clothing he wore? Maybe a shirt with the logo of a favorite bar? A jacket with a school mascot on it?”

Maureen sat despondently at the table and leaned her head on her fists. “I’ve tried, I’ve tried sohard, but I just can’t remember… Wait. Wait just a minute! Therewas a jacket. A jacket he used to wear lots of times. It was from some school. It had a bird on it!”

Jules scowled as he continued to sign. “Oh, that’s real helpful, Mo. A bird. There are only-what? Ten thousand different kinds a birds? Was it a parrot? A chicken hawk? A hummingbird, maybe?”

“I’m not an expert onbirds!”

“Do you remember what color the bird was?” Doodlebug gently asked.

“Umm… blue, I think. No, I’msure. It was blue and white.”

“A bluebird? A blue jay?”

“A blue jay, I guess. That sounds right.”

“Jesuit,” Jules mumbled. “What was that fucker doin‘ with a jacket from Jesuit High School?”

“That’sit!” Maureen cried. “I remember now! He told me he went to Jesuit! The priests gave him a special scholarship! He played on one of the sports teams… not football or basketball. Maybe the bowling team?“

Doodlebug’s face brightened. “If we could get our hands on the right yearbook-”

Jules completed the thought. “We could learn his real name.”

“Just one problem. It’s summer. All the schools are out of session.”

“But they open up on Monday nights,” Maureen interjected. “All the Catholic schools. During the summer they do open houses on Monday nights, so parents who are looking for a school for their kids can check them out.”

“How do you know?” Jules asked suspiciously. “When was the last timeyou sent a kid to Catholic school?“

“It just so happens that one of my regulars at Jezebel’s has a thing for Catholic schoolgirls. Summer is his favorite time of year. He pretends to have a daughter and he goes to all the girls’ schools’ open houses on Mondays and ogles the students. I can’t tell you how many times he’s begged me to use a school uniform in my act. It’s simply impossible to find those plaid skirts in my size.”

“Monday nights, huh? That’s tomorrow.” A broad grin spread slowly across Jules’s face. “Doodlebug, ol‘ pal, I think it’s high time we look into gettin’ you that high school education I made ya miss fifty years ago.”

“But Jesuit’s a boys’ school, isn’t it?”

“Heh. That’s right, slugger.”