The neighborhood was on the dicey side. Several houses hadn’t been occupied in months, maybe years, and were well tattooed with the tags of various neighborhood gangs. Piles of dirty gravel filled the street’s larger potholes, poverty-row Band-Aids for a road in dire need of major surgery. Abandoned shopping carts lay on their sides in the high grass that fronted most of the lots.

In contrast, the house they’d come to visit was recently painted, with a tall, straight fence surrounding it, a neatly trimmed lawn, and a large tin-roofed utility shed out back. Jules tried opening the gate, then noticed it was locked with a neon-green Kryptonite U-lock. Luckily, the gate had a buzzer attached. He rang it.

A moment later a young black woman cautiously pushed aside the drapes from her front window. She looked to be about the right age-late twenties or early thirties, which would fit with the information Jules had gleaned from the yearbook. She opened her window a few inches, just enough to make a shouted conversation feasible.

“What do you want? It’s late.”

“You Elisha Raddeaux?” Jules asked.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Depends what you need to see Elisha Raddeaux about.”

“We’re here to talk about your brother Malik.”

Her expression remained coldly impenetrable. “I don’t got no brother Malik. You got the wrong address. Go bother somebody else.”

She started to close her window. The humidity made it stick. She cursed. Doodlebug took advantage of the brief opening. Dressed in a flattering silk blouse and high-slit skirt, he was the model of confidence again. “Ms. Raddeaux? We have a very important reason to speak with your brother. We know all about his special condition. We need to warn him about a new bloodborne disease that’s been ravaging the blood-drinking community. It’s vital that we reach him.”

She stopped struggling with the window. “You on the level with this? You sayin‘ he might be in some kinda health trouble?”

“My name is Debbie Richelieu, Ms. Raddeaux. I’m a physician and researcher from California. My staff and I have been tracking the transmission of this new disease across the country. I’ve made it my business to get word of a few simple precautions to every known blood drinker. My associates and I overlooked the initial outbreak of AIDS, and we’re determined not to repeat that mistake with this new syndrome. Will you talk with us?”

She stared suspiciously at Jules. “Who’s the fat dude?”

“That’s Julius. My assistant. Don’t worry, he’s quite harmless.”

The drapes fell shut. A few seconds later the front door opened and Elisha Raddeaux walked across her well-tended front lawn to the gate. Jules was surprised to see that she was wearing a black catsuit and a matching, rhinestone-trimmed jacket; given the late hour, he’d expected her to walk out in a rumpled bathrobe. Her tiny waist flared into an impressive set of hips, wide enough to carry a week’s worth of groceries and half a Little League team. The fullness of her hips wasn’t mirrored in the contours of her face, however. As she unlocked the gate, Jules could see some of the same angular harshness in her features that he’d noted in her brother’s.

She warily hefted the U-lock in her fist and swung open the gate. “C’mon in. I guess wedo have somethin‘ to talk about, after all.”

“You two go on ahead,” Doodlebug said. “I’ll be right in. I left something in the car.”

Jules followed her into the house. He’d been inside dozens of camelbacks just like this one, enough that he had a pretty complete mental picture of what the interior would probably look like. This one didn’t fit the bill at all. The furniture was surprisingly modern and high rent. The walls of the long, narrow living room were lined with European-looking leather sofas, German stereo components, and a flat-panel TV big as a casino billboard. A freestanding waterfall burbled in one corner. The dining room was decorated with real oil paintings, not prints. Several of them featured jazz combos, Jules noted with appreciation.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” he mumbled.

“Thanks,” she answered, barely looking at him. “So what’s the story with this disease? And how did you know Malik is a bloodsucker?”

Jules smiled weakly and shrugged his shoulders. “I’m just the assistant. We gotta wait for Dr. Richelieu. He, uh,she’s the expert.”

“Fine.” She looked at him with more interest. Did her eyes flare with a glimmer of recognition, or was this just his jumpy imagination acting up again?

Whatever the look was, it made him uncomfortable. He took a few steps toward one of the couches.

The leather-swathed cushions looked soft and inviting. “Mind if I sit down?”

She pulled one of the hard-backed oak chairs away from the dining table for him. “Not at all.”

Doodlebug came through the front door. “Sorry to keep everyone waiting. Did I miss anything?”

“I’m not sure I can be of much help, Doctor,” the woman said. “Me and Malik… we ain’t what you’d call close. I ain’t seen him in a long time. Maybe five, six years.“

“Do you have any idea where we might find him?”

“Oh, I hear he still be around town somewhere. Here and there. He never did stay in one place very long. Time comes to dust the apartment, he just moves on to a fresh one.“

“Do you have friends in common? Any relations who might know how we could get in touch?”

“Before I put you in touch with other folks to bug in the middle of the night, how about tellin‘ me some more about this disease?“

Doodlebug sat down at the table and folded his hands together thoughtfully. “It’s a degenerative bone disease. Very painful. It leads to weak, easily fractured bones and can’t be reversed once it passes a certain stage. During the early, reversible stages, no symptoms are apparent; the disease can only be detected through a special blood test of my own devising.“

Elisha Raddeaux looked less than fully convinced. “And how does one catch this nasty bone disease?”

“By ingesting the blood of an HIV-positive individual or a carrier of the hepatitis C virus.”

“I see.” She stared long and hard, first at Jules, then at Doodlebug. “Look, I’ll do my best to help you. There’s no love lost between me and my brother. I sure don’t approve of what he is and some of the things he done. But I figure nobody deserves to be sufferin‘ with no disease. Give me some time to think, and maybe I can come up with somethin’ for you two to go on. In the meantime, can I get you anything? I got some crumb cake, and I can make a pot of coffee.”

Jules’s face lit up. “Hey, thanks! Some coffee’d begreat. I’ll pass on that crumb cake, though.”

“Anything for you, Doctor?”

Doodlebug smiled and shook his head. “Oh, no, thank you. I ate just before we came over.”

She stood from the table and headed for the kitchen. “It’ll be a few minutes. I got one of them old-fashioned percolators that takes a while to get goin‘.” She closed the kitchen door behind her.

Jules gave Doodlebug the thumbs-up sign. “Hey, pal,” he whispered, “that’s some great bullshit story you came up with. Bone disease…yeeuuch! So, whadda ya think? She on the level? You think she’s gonna help us out?”

Doodlebug eyed the kitchen door pensively. “I’m not sure. Something seems off. Her body language didn’t match her conversation-”

From the far side of the door Jules heard the distinctive tones of a push-button phone’s keys being pressed. “Shit! She’s makin‘ a call! She’s rattin’ us out!”

He started to get up from the table, but Doodlebug caught his arm. “Don’t worry about that.” The slender vampire grinned. “While I was outside, I took a little precaution. She won’t be getting through to anyone until after South Central Bell makes a service call.”

Jules overheard a soft expletive in the kitchen, followed by more button pushing, followed by still more, and stronger, profanity.