He glanced at the card and back to me, and back to the card and back to me. “I hear a you before. Dat rogue-vampire killer woman what took to work with Leo Pellissier. You her for real?”
“Yeah. I’m her. How about you put down the shotgun? A girl gets nervous with one pointed at her.”
“How ’bout you open you jacket, reeeeal slow like. You dat Jane Yellowrock for real, you have lots a guns and tings, you do.” He gestured again with the gun, firmed it into his shoulder, and waited.
I lifted my hand slowly and pulled the zipper, the ratchets loud in the silent room, and me not knowing if he wanted me to be Jane so he could kill me for a bounty—there had been a few put on my head by unhappy vamps in the last weeks—or wanted me to be Jane so he could befriend me. And there was nowhere to go in the narrow shop, with walls to either side and glass at my back. I was fast, but not faster than shotgun pellets.
The zipper open, I eased aside the left jacket lapel to reveal the special-made holster and the grip of a nine mil H&K under my left arm. Still moving slowly, I pushed aside the other lapel to display the matching H&K at my waist on the right. The butcher grinned widely, revealing white teeth that would have looked good sitting in a glass, perfect in every way, though I was betting his were real, not dentures. “You is her, you is,” he said. He broke open the shotgun and set it out of sight, moving around the meat counters with an outstretched hand. “I’m Lucky Landry. I a big fan of you.”
I took his hand and we shook, and I felt all kinds of weird about it all and didn’t know what to say. Me? With fans? I opened my mouth, closed it, and figured I had to say something. I settled on, “Lucky Landry. What about Boudreaux?” I asked, indicating the sign saying “Boudreaux’ Meats” on the back wall.
“My father in law.” Lucky crossed his arms over his chest and I saw the full sleeve tat down his left arm. It was of weird creatures—combos of snake and human, with fangs and scales, mouths open in what looked like agony—as red and yellow flames climbed up from his wrist to burn them. It was like some bizarre version of hell. He was maybe late forties, early fifties, Caucasian, with black hair and dark eyes—what the locals call “Frenchy.” “I married the daughter, and when her daddy done died dead, I took over dey business, I did. It a right fine pleasure t’ meet you, it is, Miz Yellowrock.”
“Ummm. Yeah. Pleasure and all. Call me Jane.”
He moved behind the counter, beaming at me. “You hongry, Miz Jane? What I can get you for? I got some fried up gator, fried up catfish, fried up boudin balls bigger’n my fist.” He made one to show me. “I got me fried onion, fried squash, and fried mushroom. My own batter, secret recipe it is, and dat oil is fresh and hot for cooking.”
Beast perked up at the description of the food. Gator. Human killed gator? Human man is good hunter! Hungry for gator. And the picture she sent me was a whole gator, snout, teeth, feet, claws, tail, skin, and all, crusty with batter. I chuckled and sent her a more likely mental picture. Inside, she huffed with disappointment.
“Fried gator sounds good. Boudin balls too. Got beer?”
“I can’t sell you no beer, but I give you one. All my customers, I give one to, I do.” He nudged the tip jar at me and I understood. He had no license to sell beer, but he could give it away, and his customers could tip him to make it worth his while. I dropped a five into the tip jar and he grinned widely. “Beer in dat cooler. He’p you self.” I heard the hiss of gas being turned up, and smelled the gas scent and hot oil followed by the smell of raw meat.
There wasn’t a statewide mandate on selling alcohol, and the voters of each parish could decide the issue. Seemed the voters of this parish had decided to keep it dry. At least officially. I wondered about the saloon across the street, and figured that vamps didn’t have to follow the law around here—which might account for all the crosses everywhere.
I shoved a hand into the ice, grabbed a cold bottle from the bottom, pulled a Wynona’s Big Brown Ale out of the cooler, and made a soft cooing sound. I like the taste of beer, from time to time, and Voodoo Brewery made some of the best microbrews in the South. I popped the top and took an exploratory sip. Though the alcohol did nothing for one of my kind—the metabolism of skinwalkers is simply too fast and burns alcohol off in minutes—the taste exploded in my mouth and the icy beer traced a trail down my esophagus. “Oh, yeah,” I murmured and took another.
By the time the beer was half gone, I had a plate full of boudin balls and fried onion rings in front of me on a paper plate, grease spreading through the paper with a dull brown stain. My stomach growled and I popped a ring in my mouth while breaking open a boudin ball. I made an, “ohhh,” of sound and sucked air over my scalded tongue before I forked in a mouthful of fried boudin. Boudin is miscellaneous pork (though you can get it specially made with special cuts of pork) and white rice and spices, most of which are unique to each butcher or cook, and Lucky’s boudin was excellent. “Dish ish goo’” I said, and I groaned.
Lucky laughed and brought a second plate with the promised fried gator meat. It was flakey and fishy and just as wonderful as the boudin, so perfect I didn’t need the seasoning salt in a big carved stone bowl on the table. Inside, Beast let out a satisfied chuff. I tossed a ten on the table and it disappeared into Lucky’s pocket. Ten minutes later I put down the fork and said, “You are a genius with this stuff. Do you ship your boudin?”
“Everywhere dey a post office, for sure.”
“I’ll be placing an order. Now, about the Tassin Bros?”
“Dis gator huntin’ season. Dey close dat shop for thirty day. Open back on first day nex’ month.”
“Well, crap.” I had really hoped to make it back to New Orleans and my own bed tonight. “Guess I’ll be making do with the tools I have on hand. Any place I can work in the shade?”
“You bes be getting you self to Miz Onie’s bed and breakfast before dark, and work on dat motorbike in da morning. We gots trouble in dis town after dark.” He frowned. “Suckhead trouble wid dey witches, we always have, but dis time dey suckheads gone done too much.”
I flashed on the crosses everywhere in the middle of town, on every window and door, crosses that had been there, in the open, for many more decades than vamps had been out of the coffin and a part of American life. I had a feeling this town had known about vamps for a lot longer than the rest of the world, and I had a moment to imagine—to remember—all the horrible things vamps could do to a town if they decided not to follow the Vampira Carta, the legal document that reined in the predatory and murderous instincts of all vamps.
Before I could ask, Lucky set another plate in front of me, opened and passed me another beer, straddled the chair across the table from me, and said, “Dis one on me.” I had a feeling he didn’t give beer away, and little hairs lifted on the back of my neck, like a warning.
“We had dey suckheads here since eighteen-thirty,” he said, “when de banker’s son, dat Julius Chiasson and he wife, come back from Paris, him a doctor now. Dey all change, dey was, dem and dey son. Dey be gone to Paris for twenty year and dey not aged. Look like same age as dey son, and dey not go out in de sun no more. Tings not too bad for few year, until dey son, Marcel Chiasson, go crazy. Townfolk figger he change to suckhead den and was set free.
“We learn only later dem suckhead supposed to be chain up for ten years befo dey set free. Hard lesson dat was too, but dat another story.