Living Dead in Dallas (22 page)

Mr. Last Word.

S
INCE OUR REUNION
had been secret, it was I who got invited to the club first. It had never occurred to me that that might happen; but after it did, I realized that if
Portia had figured she might be invited after going with a vampire, I was even primer meat.

To my surprise and disgust, the one to broach the subject was Mike Spencer. Mike was the funeral home director and the coroner in Bon Temps, and we had not always had a completely cordial relationship. However, I’d known him all my life and was used to offering him respect, a hard habit to break. Mike was wearing his funeral home duds when he came in to Merlotte’s that evening, because he’d come from Mrs. Cassidy’s visitation. A dark suit, white shirt, subdued striped tie, and polished wing tips changed Mike Spencer from the guy who really preferred bolo ties and pointy-toed cowboy boots.

Since Mike was at least twenty years older than me, I’d always related to him as an elder, and it shocked me silly when he approached me. He was sitting by himself, which was unusual enough to be noteworthy. I brought him a hamburger and a beer. As he paid me, he said casually, “Sookie, some of us are getting together at Jan Fowler’s lake house tomorrow night and we wondered if we could get you to come.”

I am fortunate I have a well-schooled face. I felt as if a pit had opened beneath my feet, and I was actually a little nauseated. I understood immediately, but I couldn’t quite believe it. I opened my mind to him, while my mouth was saying, “You said ‘some of us’? Who would that be, Mr. Spencer?”

“Why don’t you call me Mike, Sookie?” I nodded, looking inside his head all the while. Oh, geez Louise. Ick. “Well, some of your friends will be there. Eggs, and Portia, and Tara. The Hardaways.”

Tara and Eggs . . . that really shocked me.

“So, what goes on at these parties? Is this just a drinking and dancing type thing?” This was not an unreasonable question. No matter how many people knew I was
supposed to be able to read minds, they almost never believed it, no matter how much evidence to the contrary they’d witnessed. Mike simply could not believe that I could receive the images and concepts floating in his mind.

“Well, we get a little wild. We thought since you’d broken up with your boyfriend, that you might want to come let your hair down a little.”

“Maybe I’ll come,” I said, without enthusiasm. It wouldn’t do to look eager. “When?”

“Oh, ten o’clock tomorrow night.”

“Thanks for the invite,” I said, as if remembering my manners, and then sauntered off with my tip. I thought furiously, in the odd moments I had to myself during the rest of my shift.

What good could my going serve? Could I really learn anything that would solve the mystery of Lafayette’s death? I didn’t like Andy Bellefleur much, and now I liked Portia even less, but it wasn’t fair that Andy might be prosecuted, his reputation ruined, for something that wasn’t his fault. On the other hand, it stood to reason that no one present at a party at the lake house would trust me with any deep dark secrets until I’d become a regular, and I just couldn’t stomach that. I wasn’t even sure I could get through one gathering. The last thing in the world I wanted to see was my friends and my neighbors “letting their hair down.” I didn’t want to see them let down their hair, or anything else.

“What’s the matter, Sookie?” Sam asked, so close to me that I jumped.

I looked at him, wishing that I could ask what he thought. Sam was strong and wiry, and he was clever, too. The bookkeeping, the ordering, the maintenance and planning, he never seemed to be taxed with any of it. Sam was a self-sufficient man, and I liked and trusted him.

“I’m just in a little quandary,” I said. “What’s up with you, Sam?”

“I got an interesting phone call last night, Sookie.”

“Who from?”

“A squeaky woman in Dallas.”

“Really?” I found myself smiling, really, not the grin I used to cover my nerves. “Would that be a lady of Mexican descent?”

“I believe so. She spoke of you.”

“She’s feisty,” I said.

“She’s got a lot of friends.”

“Kind of friends you’d want to have?”

“I already have some good friends,” Sam said, squeezing my hand briefly. “But it’s always nice to know people who share your interests.”

“So, are you driving over to Dallas?”

“I just might. In the meantime, she’s put me in touch with some people in Ruston who also . . .”

Change their appearance when the moon is full,
I finished mentally.

“How did she trace you? I didn’t give her your name, on purpose, because I didn’t know if you’d want me to.”

“She traced you,” Sam said. “And she found out who your boss was through local . . . people.”

“How come you had never hooked up with them on your own?”

“Until you told me about the maenad,” Sam said, “I never realized that there were so many more things I had to learn.”

“Sam, you haven’t been hanging around with her?”

“I’ve spent a few evenings in the woods with her, yes. As Sam, and in my other skin.”

“But she’s so evil,” I blurted.

Sam’s back stiffened. “She’s a supernatural creature like me,” he said evenly. “She’s neither evil nor good, she just is.”

“Oh, bullshit.” I couldn’t believe I was hearing this from Sam. “If she’s feeding you this line, then she wants something from you.” I remembered how beautiful the maenad had been, if you didn’t mind bloodstains. And Sam, as a shapeshifter, wouldn’t. “Oh,” I said, comprehension sweeping me. Not that I could read Sam’s mind clearly, since he was a supernatural creature, but I could get a lock on his emotional state, which was—embarrassed, horny, resentful, and horny.

“Oh,” I said again, somewhat stiffly. “Excuse me, Sam. I didn’t mean to speak ill of someone you . . . you, ah . . .” I could hardly say, “are screwing,” however apropos it might be. “You’re spending time with,” I finished lamely. “I’m sure she’s lovely once you get to know her. Of course, the fact that she cut my back to bloody ribbons may have something to do with my prejudice against her. I’ll try to be more open-minded.” And I stalked off to take an order, leaving Sam openmouthed behind me.

I left a message on Bill’s answering machine. I didn’t know what Bill intended to do about Portia, and I guessed there was a possibility someone else would be there when he played his messages, so I said, “Bill, I got invited to that party tomorrow night. Let me know if you think I should go.” I didn’t identify myself, since he’d know my voice. Possibly, Portia had left an identical message, an idea that just made me furious.

When I drove home that night, I half-hoped Bill would be waiting to ambush me again in an erotic way, but the house and yard were silent. I perked up when I noticed the light on my answering machine was blinking.

“Sookie,” said Bill’s smooth voice, “stay out of the woods. The maenad was dissatisfied with our tribute. Eric will be in Bon Temps tomorrow night to negotiate with her, and he may call you. The—other people—of
Dallas, the ones who helped you, are asking for outrageous recompense from the vampires of Dallas, so I am going over there on Anubis to meet with them, with Stan. You know where I’ll be staying.”

Yikes. Bill wouldn’t be in Bon Temps to help me, and he was out of my reach. Or was he? It was one in the morning. I called the number I’d put in my address book, for the Silent Shore. Bill had not yet checked in, though his coffin (which the concierge referred to as his “baggage”) had been put in his room. I left a message, which I had to phrase so guardedly that it might be incomprehensible.

I was really tired, since I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, but I had no intention of going to the next night’s party alone. I sighed deeply, and called Fangtasia, the vampire bar in Shreveport.

“You’ve reached Fantasia, where the undead live again every night,” said a recording of Pam’s voice. Pam was a co-owner. “For bar hours, press one. To make a party reservation, press two. To talk to a live person or a dead vampire, press three. Or, if you were intending to leave a humorous prank message on our answering machine, know this: we will find you.”

I pressed three.

“Fangtasia,” Pam said, as if she were bored more completely than anyone had ever been bored.

“Hi,” I said, weighing in on the perky side to counteract the ennui. “This is Sookie, Pam. Is Eric around?”

“He is enthralling the vermin,” Pam said. I took that to mean Eric was sprawling in a chair on the main floor of the bar, looking gorgeous and dangerous. Bill had told me that some vampires were under contract to Fangtasia, to put in one or two appearances a week of a stated duration, so the tourists would keep coming. Eric, as an owner, was there almost every night. There was another bar where vampires went of their own accord, a bar a
tourist would never enter. I’d never been in it, because frankly, I see enough of bars while I’m at work.

“Could you take him the phone, please, ma’am?”

“Oh, all right,” she said grudgingly. “I hear you had quite a time in Dallas,” she said as she walked. Not that I could hear her steps, but the noise in the background ebbed and flowed.

“Unforgettable.”

“What did you think of Stan Davis?”

Hmmm. “He’s one of a kind.”

“I like that nerdy, geeky look myself.”

I was glad she wasn’t there to see the astonished look I gave the telephone. I’d never realized Pam liked guys, too. “He certainly didn’t seem to be dating anyone,” I said, I hoped casually.

“Ah. Maybe I’ll take a vacation to Dallas soon.”

It was also news to me that vampires were interested in each other. I’d never actually seen two vampires together.

“I am here,” Eric said.

“And I am here.” I was a little amused at Eric’s phone answering technique.

“Sookie, my little bullet-sucker,” he said, sounding fond and warm.

“Eric, my big bullshitter.”

“You want something, my darling?”

“I’m not your darling, and you know it, for one thing. For another—Bill said you were coming over here tomorrow night?”

“Yes, to tromp up in the woods looking for the maenad. She finds our offerings of vintage wine and a young bull inadequate.”

“You took her live bull?” I was momentarily sidetracked by the vision of Eric herding a cow into a trailer and driving it to the shoulder of the interstate and shooing it into the trees.

“Yes, indeed we did. Pam and Indira and I.”

“Was it fun?”

“Yes,” he said, sounding faintly surprised. “It had been several centuries since I dealt with livestock. Pam is a city girl. Indira had too much awe of the bull to be a lot of help. But if you like, the next time I have to transport animals I will give you a call, and you can go along.”

“Thanks, that would be lovely,” I said, feeling pretty confident that was a call I’d never get. “The reason I called you is that I need you to go to a party with me tomorrow night.”

A long silence.

“Bill is no longer your bedmate? The differences you developed in Dallas are permanent?”

“What I should have said is, ‘I need a bodyguard for tomorrow night.’ Bill’s in Dallas.” I was smacking myself on the forehead with the heel of my hand. “See, there’s a long explanation, but the situation is that I need to go to a party tomorrow night that’s really just a . . . well, it’s a . . . kind of orgy thing? And I need someone with me in case . . . just in case.”

“That’s fascinating,” Eric said, sounding fascinated. “And since I’m going to be in the neighborhood, you thought I might do as an escort? To an orgy?”

“You can look almost human,” I said.

“This is a human orgy? One that excludes vampires?”

“It’s a human orgy that doesn’t know a vampire is coming.”

“So, the more human I look the less frightening I’ll be?”

“Yes, I need to read their thoughts. Pick their brains. And if I get them thinking about a certain thing, and pick their brains, then we can get out of there.” I’d just had a great idea about how to get them to think about Lafayette. Telling Eric was going to be the problem.

“So you want me to go to a human orgy, where I will not be welcome, and you want us to leave before I get to enjoy myself?”

“Yes,” I said, almost squeaking in my anxiety. In for a penny, in for a pound. “And. . . do you think you could pretend to be gay?”

There was a long silence. “What time do I need to be there?” Eric asked softly.

“Um. Nine-thirty? So I can brief you?”

“Nine-thirty at your house.”

“I am carrying the phone back,” Pam informed me. “What did you say to Eric? He is shaking his head back and forth with his eyes shut.”

“Is he laughing, even a little bit?”

“Not that I can tell,” Pam said.

B
ILL DIDN
’
T CALL
back that night, and I left for work before sunset the next day. He’d left a message on the answering machine when I came home to dress for the “party.”

“Sookie, I had a hard time making out what the situation was, from your very guarded message,” he said. His usually calm voice was definitely on the unhappy side. Miffed. “If you are going to this party, don’t go alone, whatever you do. It isn’t worth it. Get your brother or Sam to go with you.”

Well, I’d gotten someone even stronger to go with me, so I should be feeling pretty virtuous. Somehow, I didn’t think that my having Eric with me would reassure Bill.

“Stan Davis and Joseph Velasquez send their regards, and Barry the bellhop.”

I smiled. I was sitting cross-legged on my bed wearing only an old chenille bathrobe, giving my hair a brushing while I listened to my messages.

“I haven’t forgotten Friday night,” Bill said, in the voice that always made me shiver. “I will never forget.”

“So what happened Friday night?” Eric asked.

I shrieked. Once I could feel my heart was going to stay in my chest cavity, I scrambled off the bed and strode over to him with my fists balled.

“You are old enough to know you don’t come in someone’s house without knocking on the door and having it answered. Besides, when did I ever invite you inside?” I had to have extended the invitation, or else Eric couldn’t have crossed the threshold.

“When I stopped by last month to see Bill. I did knock,” Eric said, trying his best to look wounded. “You didn’t answer, and I thought I heard voices, so I came in. I even called your name.”

“You may have whispered my name.” I was still furious. “But you acted bad, and you know it!”

“What are you wearing to the party?” Eric asked, effectively changing the subject. “If this is to be an orgy, what does a good girl like you wear?”

“I just don’t know,” I said, deflated by the reminder. “I’m sure I’m supposed to look like the kind of girl who goes to orgies, but I’ve never been to one and I have no idea how to start out, though I have a pretty clear idea of how I’m supposed to end up.”

“I have been to orgies,” he offered.

“Why does that not surprise me? What do you wear?”

“The last time I wore an animal hide; but this time I settled for this.” Eric had been wearing a long trench coat. Now he threw it off dramatically, and I could only stand and stare. Normally, Eric was a blue-jeans-and-T-shirt kind of guy. Tonight, he wore a pink tank top and Lycra leggings. I don’t know where he got them; I didn’t know any company made Lycra leggings in Men’s X-tra Large Tall. They were pink and aqua, like the swirls down the sides of Jason’s truck.

“Wow,” I said, since it was all I could think of to say. “Wow. That’s some outfit.” When you’ve got a big guy
wearing Lycra it doesn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination. I resisted the temptation to ask Eric to turn around.

“I don’t believe I could be convincing as a queen,” Eric said, “but I decided this sent such a mixed signal, almost anything was possible.” He fluttered his eyelashes at me. Eric was definitely enjoying this.

“Oh, yes,” I said, trying to find somewhere else to look.

“Shall I go through your drawers and find something for you to wear?” Eric suggested. He had actually opened the top drawer of my bureau before I said, “No, no! I’ll find something!” But I couldn’t find anything more informally sexy than shorts and a tee shirt. However, the shorts were some I had left over from my junior high days, and they encased me “like a caterpillar embraces a butterfly,” Eric said poetically.

“More like Daisy Dukes,” I muttered, wondering if the lace pattern of my bikini underwear would be imprinted on my butt for the rest of my life. I wore a matching steel blue bra with a dipping white tank top that exposed a lot of the decoration on the bra. This was one of my replacement bras, and Bill hadn’t even gotten to see it yet, so I sure hoped nothing happened to it. My tan was still holding up, and I wore my hair loose.

“Hey, our hair’s the same color,” I said, eyeing us side by side in the mirror.

“Sure is, girlfriend.” Eric grinned at me. “But are you blond all the way down?”

“Don’t you wish you knew?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

“Well, you’ll just have to wonder.”

“I am,” he said. “Blond everywhere.”

“I could tell as much from your chest hair.”

He raised my arm to check my armpit. “You silly
women, shaving your body hair,” he said, dropping my arm.

I opened my mouth to say something else on the topic, suddenly realized that would lead to disaster, and said instead, “We need to go.”

“Aren’t you going to wear perfume?” He was sniffing all the bottles on top of my dressing table. “Oh, wear this!” He tossed me a bottle and I caught it without thinking. His eyebrows flew up. “You have had more vampire blood than I thought, Miss Sookie.”

“Obsession,” I said, looking at the bottle. “Oh, okay.” Carefully not responding to his observation, I dabbed a little bit of Obsession between my breasts and behind my knees. I figured that way I was covered from head to toe.

“What is our agenda, Sookie?” Eric asked, eyeing this procedure with interest.

“What we’re going to do is go to this stupid so-called sex party and do as little as possible in that line while I gather information from the minds of the people there.”

“Pertaining to?”

“Pertaining to the murder of Lafayette Reynold, the cook at Merlotte’s Bar.”

“And why are we doing this?”

“Because I liked Lafayette. And to clear Andy Bellefleur of the suspicion that he murdered Lafayette.”

“Bill knows you are trying to save a Bellefleur?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“You know Bill hates the Bellefleurs,” Eric said, as if that were the best-known fact in Louisiana.

“No,” I said. “No, I didn’t know that at all.” I sat down on the chair by my bed, my eyes fixed on Eric’s face. “Why?”

“You’ll have to ask Bill that, Sookie. And this is the only reason we’re going? You’re not cleverly using this as an excuse to make out with me?”

“I’m not that clever, Eric.”

“I think you deceive yourself, Sookie,” Eric said with a brilliant smile.

I remembered he could now sense my moods, according to Bill. I wondered what Eric knew about me that I didn’t know.

“Listen, Eric,” I began, as we went out the door and across the porch. Then I had to stop and cast around in my mind for how to say what I wanted to say.

He waited. The evening had been cloudy, and the woods felt closer around the house. I knew the night just seemed oppressive because I was going to go to an event personally distasteful to me. I was going to learn things about people that I didn’t know and didn’t want to know. It seemed stupid to be seeking the kind of information that I’d spent my life learning how to block out. But I felt a sort of public service obligation to Andy Bellefleur to discover the truth; and I respected Portia, in an odd way, for her willingness to subject herself to something unpleasant in order to save her brother. How Portia could feel a genuine distaste for Bill was simply incomprehensible to me, but if Bill said she was frightened of him, it was true. This coming evening, the idea of seeing the true secret face of people I’d known forever was just as frightening to me.

“Don’t let anything happen to me, okay?” I said to Eric directly. “I have no intention of getting intimate with any of those people. I guess I’m scared that something will happen, someone will go too far. Even for the sake of Lafayette’s murder being avenged, I won’t willingly have sex with any of those people.” That was my real fear, one I hadn’t admitted to myself until this moment: that some cog would slip, some safeguard fail, and I would be a victim. When I’d been a child, something had happened to me, something that I could neither prevent nor control, something incredibly vile. I would
almost rather die than be subjected to abuse like that again. That was why I’d fought so hard against Gabe and been so relieved when Godfrey had killed him.

“You trust me?” Eric sounded surprised.

“Yes.”

“That’s . . . crazy, Sookie.”

“I don’t think so.” Where that surety had come from, I didn’t know, but it was there. I pulled on a thigh-length heavy sweater I had brought out with me.

Shaking his blond head, his trench coat drawn close around him, Eric opened the door to his red Corvette. I would be arriving at the orgy in style.

I gave Eric directions to Mimosa Lake, and I filled him in as much as I could on the background of this series of events as we drove (flew) down the narrow two-lane. Eric drove with great zest and élan—and the recklessness of someone extremely hard to kill.

“Remember, I’m mortal,” I said, after going around a curve at a speed that made me wish my fingernails were long enough to bite.

“I think about that often,” Eric said, his eyes fixed on the road ahead of him.

I didn’t know what to make of that, so I let my mind drift to relaxing things. Bill’s hot tub. The nice check I would get from Eric when the check from the Dallas vampires cleared. The fact that Jason had dated the same woman several months in a row, which might mean he was serious about her, or might mean he’d run through all the available women (and a few who shouldn’t have been) in Renard Parish. That it was a beautiful, cool night and I was riding in a wonderful car.

“You are happy,” Eric said.

“Yes. I am.”

“You will be safe.”

“Thanks. I know I will.”

I pointed to the little sign marked
FOWLER
that
indicated a driveway almost hidden by a stand of myrtle and hawthorn. We turned down a short, rutted gravel driveway lined with trees. It canted sharply downhill. Eric frowned as the Corvette lurched along the deep ruts. By the time the drive leveled out into the clearing where the cabin stood, the slope was enough to render the roof a little below the height of the road around the lake. There were four cars parked on the beaten dirt in front of the cabin. The windows were open to admit the sharp cool of the evening, but the shades were drawn. I could hear voices drifting out, though I couldn’t make out words. I was suddenly, deeply reluctant to enter Jan Fowler’s cabin.

“I could be bisexual?” Eric asked. It didn’t seem to bother him; he seemed, if anything, amused. We stood by Eric’s car, facing each other, my hands stuffed in the sweater pockets.

“Okay.” I shrugged. Who cared? This was make believe. I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. Someone was watching us through a partially raised shade. “We’re being watched.”

“Then I’ll act friendly.”

We were out of the car by that time. Eric bent, and without yanking me to him, set his mouth on mine. He didn’t grab me, so I felt fairly relaxed. I’d known that at the very minimum I’d have to kiss other people. So I set my mind to it.

Maybe I had natural talent, which had been nurtured by a great teacher. Bill had pronounced me an excellent kisser, and I wanted to do him proud.

Judging from the state of Eric’s Lycra, I succeeded.

“Ready to go in?” I asked, doing my best to keep my eyes above his chest.

“Not really,” Eric said. “But I suppose we have to. At least I look in the mood.”

Though it was dismaying to think that this was the second time I had kissed Eric and that I had enjoyed it
more than I should, I could feel a smile twitch the corners of my mouth as we crossed the bumpy ground of the clearing. We went up the steps to a large wooden deck, strewn with the usual aluminum folding chairs and a large gas grill. The screen door screeched as Eric pulled it open, and I knocked lightly on the inner door. “Who is it?” Jan’s voice said.

“It’s Sookie and a friend,” I answered.

“Oh, goodie! Come on in!” she called.

When I pushed open the door, all the faces in the room were turned toward us. The welcoming smiles turned to startled looks as Eric came in behind me.

Eric stepped to my side, his coat over his arm, and I almost hooted at the variety of expressions. After the shock of realizing Eric was vampire, which everyone in the room did after a minute or so, eyes flickered up and down the length of Eric’s body, taking in the panorama.

“Hey, Sookie, who’s your friend?” Jan Fowler, a multiple divorcée in her thirties, was wearing what looked like a lace slip. Jan’s hair was streaked and professionally tousled, and her makeup would have seemed in place on stage, though for a cabin by Mimosa Lake the effect was a bit much. But as hostess, I guess she felt she could wear what she wanted to her own orgy. I slid out of my sweater and endured the embarrassment of receiving the same scrutiny Eric had been given.

“This is Eric,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind me bringing a friend?”

“Oh, the more the merrier,” she said with undoubted sincerity. Her eyes never rose to Eric’s face. “Eric, what can I get you to drink?”

“Blood?” Eric asked hopefully.

“Yeah, I think I’ve got some O here,” she said, unable to tear her gaze away from the Lycra. “Sometimes we . . . pretend.” She raised her eyebrows significantly, and kind of leered at Eric.

“No need to pretend anymore,” he said, giving her back look for look. On his way to join her at the refrigerator, he managed to stroke Eggs’s shoulder, and Eggs’s face lit up.

Oh. Well, I’d known I’d learn some things. Tara, beside him, was sulking, her dark brows drawn down over dark eyes. Tara was wearing a bra and panties of shrieking red, and she looked pretty good. Her toenails and fingernails were painted so they matched, and so did her lipstick. She’d come prepared. I met her eyes, and she looked away. It didn’t take a mind reader to recognize shame.

Mike Spencer and Cleo Hardaway were on a dilapidated couch against the left-hand wall. The whole cottage, basically one large room with a sink and stove against the right-hand wall and a walled-in bathroom in the far corner, was furnished in cast-offs, because in Bon Temps that was what you did with your old furniture. However, most lake cabins would not have featured such a thick soft rug and such a lot of pillows tossed around at random, and there would not have been such thick shades drawn at all the windows. Plus, the knickknacks strewn around on that soft rug were simply nasty. I didn’t even know what some of them were.