A Touch of Dead

The apple.

Claude, looking impatient, began to speak. I held up my hand. He stopped.

"I'm going to ask Claudine to take your gags off," I said to Rita and Barry. "But I don't want you to talk unless I ask you a question, okay?" They both nodded.

Claudine took the gags off, while Claude glared at me.

Thoughts were pounding through my head like a mental stampede.

"What did Rita do with the money pouch?"

"After the first show?" Jeff seemed puzzled. "Uh, I told you. She took it with her."

Alarm bells were going off mentally. Now I knew I was on the right track.

"You said that when you saw Claudette waiting to take the money for the second show, she had everything ready."

"Yeah. So? She had the hand stamp, she had the money drawer, and she had the pouch," Jeff said.

"Right. She had to have a second pouch for the second show. Rita had taken the first pouch. So when Rita came to get the first show's take, she had the second pouch in her hand, right?"

Jeff tried to remember. "Uh, I guess so."

"What about it, Rita?" I asked. "Did you bring the second pouch?"

"No," she said. "There were two in the booth at the beginning of the evening. I just took the one she'd used, then she had an empty one there for the take from the second show."

"Barry, did you see Rita walking to the booth?"

The blond stripper thought frantically. I could feel every idea beating at the inside of my head.

"She had something in her hand," he said finally. "I'm sure of it."

"No," Rita shrieked. "It was there already!"

"What's so important about the pouch, anyway?" Jeff asked. "It's just a vinyl pouch with a zipper like banks give you. How could that hurt Claudette?"

"What if the inside were rubbed with lemon juice?"

Both the fairies flinched, horror on their faces.

"Would that kill Claudette?" I asked them.

Claude said, "Oh, yes. She was especially susceptible. Even lemon scent made her vomit. She had a terrible time on washday until we found out the fabric sheets were lemon scented. Claudine has to go to the store since so many things are scented with the foul smell."

Rita began screaming, a high-pitched car alarm shriek that just seemed to go on and on. "I swear I didn't do it!" she said. "I didn't! I didn't!" But her mind was saying, "Caught, caught, caught, caught."

"Yeah, you did it," I said.

The surviving brother and sister stood in front of the rolling chair. "Sign over the bar to us," Claude said.

"What?"

"Sign over the club to us. We'll even pay you a dollar for it."

"Why would I do that? You got no body! You can't go to the cops! What are you gonna say? 'I'm a fairy. I'm allergic to lemons.'" She laughed. "Who's gonna believe that?"

Barry said weakly, "Fairies?"

Jeff didn't say anything. He hadn't known the triplets were allergic to lemons. He didn't realize his lover was a fairy. I worry about the human race.

"Barry should go," I suggested.

Claude seemed to rouse himself. He'd been looking at Rita the way a cat eyes a canary. "Good-bye, Barry," he said politely, as he untied the stripper. "I'll see you at the club tomorrow night. Our turn to take up the money."

"Uh, right," Barry said, getting to his feet.

Claudine's mouth had been moving all the while, and Barry's face went blank and relaxed. "See you later, nice party," he said genially.

"Good to meet you, Barry," I said.

"Come see the show sometime." He waved at me and walked out of the house, Claudine shepherding him to the front door. She was back in a flash.

Claude had been freeing Jeff. He kissed him, said, "I'll call you soon," and gently pushed him toward the back door. Claudine did the same spell, and Jeff's face, too, relaxed utterly from its tense expression. "'Bye," the bouncer called as he shut the door behind him.

"Are you gonna mojo me, too?" I asked, in a kind of squeaky voice.

"Here's your money," Claudine said. She took my hand. "Thank you, Sookie. I think you can remember this, huh, Claude? She's been so good!" I felt like a puppy that'd remembered its potty-training lesson.

Claude considered me for a minute, then nodded. He turned his attention back to Rita, who'd been taking the time to climb out of her panic.

Claude produced a contract out of thin air. "Sign," he told Rita, and I handed him a pen that had been on the counter beneath the phone.

"You're taking the bar in return for your sister's life," she said, expressing her incredulity at what I considered a very bad moment.

"Sure."

She gave the two fairies a look of contempt. With a flash of her rings, she took up the pen and signed the contract. She pushed up to her feet, smoothed the skirt of her dress across her round hips, and tossed her head. "I'll be going now," she said. "I own another place in Baton Rouge. I'll just live there."

"You'll start running," Claude said.

"What?"

"You better run. You owe us money and a hunt for the death of our sister. We have the money, or at least the means to make it." He pointed at the contract. "Now we need the hunt."

"That's not fair."

Okay, that disgusted even me.

"Fair is only part of fairy as letters of the alphabet." Claudine looked formidable: not sweet, not dotty. "If you can dodge us for a year, you can live."

"A year!" Rita's situation seemed to be feeling more and more real to her by then. She was beginning to look desperate.

"Starting ... now." Claude looked up from his watch. "Better go. We'll give ourselves a four-hour handicap."

"Just for fun," Claudine said.

"And, Rita?" Claude said, as Rita made for the door. She paused, looked back at him.

Claude smiled at her. "We won't use lemons."

DRACULA NIGHT

I found the invitation in the mailbox at the end of my driveway. I had to lean out of my car window to open it, because I'd paused on my way to work after remembering I hadn't checked my mail in a couple of days. My mail was never interesting. I might get a flyer for Dollar General or Wal-Mart, or one of those ominous mass mailings about pre-need burial plots.

Today, after I'd sighed at my Entergy bill and my cable bill, I had a little treat: a handsome, heavy, buff-colored envelope that clearly contained some kind of invitation. It had been addressed by someone who'd not only taken a calligraphy class but passed the final with flying colors.