Dead As A Doornail

I backed off, speechless. He was both shocked and appalled by a smell I hadn't even known I carried. I was tired of supes pulling this on me.

"Where'd you meet up with a tiger?" he asked.

"A tiger," I repeated numbly.

So now I knew what my new acquaintance Qui

"Tell me," Sam demanded.

"No," I snapped, "I won't. What about Catfish?"

"He can write a check this once. If there's a problem, he'll never write another one here again."

I didn't relay this last sentence. I took Catfish's check and his alcohol-fueled gratitude, and deposited both where they belonged.

To make my bad mood worse, I snagged my silver chain on a corner of the bar when I bent over to pick up a napkin some slob had tossed to the floor. The chain broke, and I caught it up and dropped it in my pocket. Dammit. This had been a rotten day, followed by a rotten night.

I made sure to wave at Selah as she and Bill left. He'd left me a good tip, and I stuffed it in my other pocket with so much force I almost ripped the fabric. A couple of times during the evening, I had heard the bar phone ring, and when I was taking some dirty glasses to the kitchen hatch, Charles said, "Someone keeps calling and hanging up.Very irritating."

"They'll get tired and quit," I said soothingly.

About an hour later, as I put a Coke in front of Sam, the busboy came to tell me there was someone at the employees' entrance, asking for me.

"What were you doing outside?" Sam asked sharply.

The boy looked embarrassed. "I smoke, Mr. Merlotte," he said. "I was outside taking me a break, 'cause the vamp said he'd drain me if I lit up inside, when this man walked up outta nowhere."

"What's he looklike?" I asked.

"Oh, he's old, got black hair," the boy said, shrugging. Not long on the gift of description.

"Okay," I said. I was glad to take a break. I suspected who the visitor might be, and if he'd come into the bar, he'd have caused a riot. Sam found an excuse to follow me out by saying that he needed a pit stop, and he picked up his cane and used it to hobble down the hall after me. He had his own tiny bathroom off his office, and he limped into it as I continued past the men's and women's to the back door. I opened it cautiously and peered outside. But then I began smiling. The man waiting for me had one of the most famous faces in the world—except, apparently, to adolescent busboys.

"Bubba," I said, pleased to see the vampire. You couldn't call him by his former name, or he got real confused and agitated. Bubba was formerly knownas .  . . Well, let me just put it this way. You wondered about all those sightings after his death? This was the explanation.

The conversion hadn't been a complete success because his system had been so fuddled with drugs; but aside from his predilection for cat blood, Bubba managed pretty well. The vampire community took good care of him. Eric kept Bubba on staff as an errand boy. Bubba's glossy black hair was always combed and styled, his long sideburns sharply trimmed. Tonight he was wearing a black leather jacket, new blue jeans, and a black-and-silver plaid shirt.

"Looking good, Bubba," I said admiringly.

"You too, Miss Sookie." He beamed at me.

"Did you want to tell me something?"

"Yessum.Mr. Eric sent me over here to tell you that he's not what he seems."

I blinked.

"Who, Bubba?"I asked, trying to keep my voice gentle.

"He's a hit man."

I stared at Bubba's face not because I thought staring would get me anywhere, but because I was trying to figure out the message. This was a mistake; Bubba's eyes began darting from side to side, and his face lost its smile. I should have turned to stare at the wall—it would've given me as much information, and Bubba wouldn't have become as anxious.

"Thanks, Bubba," I said, patting him on his beefy shoulder. "You didgood ."

"Can I go now?Back to Shreveport?"

"Sure," I said. I would just call Eric. Why hadn't he used the phone for a message as urgent and important as this one seemed to be?

"I found me a back way into the animal shelter," Bubba confided proudly.

I gulped. "Oh, well, great," I said, trying not to feel queasy.

"See ya later, alligator," he called from the edge of the parking lot. Just when you thought Bubba was the worst vampire in the world, he did something amazing like moving at a speed you simply could not track.

"After a while, crocodile," I said dutifully.

"Was that who I think it was?" The voice was right behind me.

I jumped. I spun around to find that Charles had deserted his post at the bar.

"You scared me," I said, as though he hadn't been able to tell.

"Sorry."

"Yes, that was him."

"Thought so.I've never heard him sing in person. It must be amazing." Charles stared out at the parking lot as though he were thinking hard about something else. I had the definite impression he wasn't listening to his own words.

I opened my mouth to ask a question, but before my words reached my lips I really thought about what the English pirate had just said, and the words froze in my throat. After a long hesitation, I knew I had to speak, or he would know something was wrong.

"Well, I guess I'd better get back to work," I said, smiling the bright smile that pops onto my face when I'm nervous. And,boy, was I nervous now. The one blinding revelation I'd had made everything begin to click into place in my head. Every little hair on my arms and neck stood straight up. My fight-or-flight reflex was fixed firmly on "flight." Charles was between the outside door and me. I began to back down the hall toward the bar.

The door from the bar into the hall was usually left open, because people had to pass into the hall all the time to use the bathrooms. But now it was closed. It had been open when I'd come down the hall to talk to Bubba.

This was bad.

"Sookie," Charles said, behind me. "I truly regret this."

"It was you who shot Sam, wasn't it?" I reached behind me, fumbled for the handle that would open that door. He wouldn't kill me in front of all those people, would he? Then I remembered the night Eric and Bill had polished off a roomful of men in my house. I remembered it had taken them only three or four minutes. I remembered what the men had looked like afterward.

"Yes. It was a stroke of luck when you caught the cook, and she confessed. But she didn't confess to shooting Sam, did she?"

"No, she didn't," I said numbly. "All the others, but not Sam, and the bullet didn't match."

My fingers found the knob. If I turned it, I might live. But I might not. How much did Charles value his own life?

"You wanted the job here," I said.

"I thought there was a good chance I'd come in handy when Sam was out of the picture."

"How'd you know I'd go to Eric for help?"

"I didn't. But I knew someone would tell him the bar was in trouble. Since that would mean helping you, he would do it. I was the logical one to send."

"Why are you doing all this?"

"Eric owes a debt."

He was moving closer, though not very quickly. Maybe he was reluctant to do the deed. Maybe he was hoping for a more advantageous moment, when he could carry me off in silence.

"It looks like Eric's found out I'm not from the Jackson nest, as I'd said."

"Yeah.You picked the wrong one."

"Why? It seemed ideal to me. Many men there; you wouldn't have seen them all. No one can remember all the men who've passed through that mansion."

"But they've heard Bubba sing," I said softly. "He sang for them one night. You'd never have forgotten that. I don't know how Eric found out, but I knew as soon as you said you'd never—"

He sprang.

I was on my back on the floor in a split second, but my hand was already in my pocket, and he opened his mouth to bite. He was supporting himself on his arms, courteously trying not to actually lie on top of me. His fangs were fully out, and they glistened in the light.