Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse #1)(48)

Jason came in at lunch and had a couple of beers with his hamburger, which wasn’t his normal regimen. He usually didn’t drink during the work day. I knew he’d get mad if I said anything directly, so I just asked him if everything was okay.

“The chief had me in again today,” he said in a low voice. He looked around to make sure no one else was listening, but the bar was sparsely filled that day since the Rotary Club was meeting at the Community Building.

“What is he asking you?” My voice was equally low.

“How often I’d seen Maudette, did I always get my gas at the place she worked. . . . Over and over and over, like I hadn’t answered those questions seventy-five times. My boss is at the end of his patience, Sookie, and I don’t blame him. I been gone from work at least two days, maybe three, with all the trips I been making down to the police station.”

“Maybe you better get a lawyer,” I said uneasily.

“That’s what Rene said.”

Then Rene Lenier and I saw eye to eye.

“What about Sid Matt Lancaster?” Sidney Matthew Lancaster, native son and a whiskey sour drinker, had the reputation of being the most aggressive trial lawyer in the parish. I liked him because he always treated me with respect when I served him in the bar.

“He might be my best bet.” Jason looked as petulant and grim as a lovely person can. We exchanged a glance. We both knew Gran’s lawyer was too old to handle the case if Jason was ever, God forbid, arrested.

Jason was far too self-absorbed to notice anything different about me, but I’d worn a white golf shirt (instead of my usual round-necked T-shirt) for the protection of its collar. Arlene was not as unaware as my brother. She’d been eyeing me all morning, and by the time the three o’clock lull hit, she was pretty sure she’d got me figured out.

“Girl,” she said, “you been having fun?”

I turned red as a beet. “Having fun” made my relationship with Bill lighter than it was, but it was accurate as far as it went. I didn’t know whether to take the high road and say, “No, making love,” or keep my mouth shut, or tell Arlene it was none of her business, or just shout, “Yes!”

“Oh, Sookie, who is the man?”

Uh-oh. “Um, well, he’s not . . .”

“Not local? You dating one of those servicemen from Bossier City?”

“No,” I said hesitantly.

“Sam? I’ve seen him looking at you.”

“No.”

“Who, then?”

I was acting like I was ashamed. Straighten your spine, Sookie Stackhouse, I told myself sternly. Pay the piper.

“Bill,” I said, hoping against hope that she’d just say, “Oh, yeah.”

“Bill,” Arlene said blankly. I noticed Sam had drifted up and was listening. So was Charlsie Tooten. Even Lafayette stuck his head through the hatch.

“Bill,” I said, trying to sound firm. “You know. Bill.”

“Bill Auberjunois?”

“No.”

“Bill . . . ?”

“Bill Compton,” Sam said flatly, just as I opened my mouth to say the same thing. “Vampire Bill.”

Arlene was flabbergasted, Charlsie Tooten immediately gave a little shriek, and Lafayette about dropped his bottom jaw.

“Honey, couldn’t you just date a regular human fella?” Arlene asked when she got her voice back.

“A regular human fella didn’t ask me out.” I could feel the color fix in my cheeks. I stood there with my back straight, feeling defiant and looking it, I’m sure.

“But, sweetie,” Charlsie Tooten fluted in her babyish voice, “honey . . . Bill’s, ah, got that virus.”

“I know that,” I said, hearing the distinct edge in my voice.

“I thought you were going to say you were dating a black, but you’ve gone one better, ain’t you, girl?” Lafayette said, picking at his fingernail polish.

Sam didn’t say anything. He just stood leaning against the bar, and there was a white line around his mouth as if he were biting his cheek inside.

I stared at them all in turn, forcing them to either swallow this or spit it out.

Arlene got through it first. “All right, then. He better treat you good, or we’ll get our stakes out!”

They were all able to laugh at that, albeit weakly.

“And you’ll save a lot on groceries!” Lafayette pointed out.

But then in one step Sam ruined it all, that tentative acceptance, by suddenly moving to stand beside me and pull the collar of my shirt down.

You could have cut the silence of my friends with a knife.

“Oh, shit,” Lafayette said, very softly.

I looked right into Sam’s eyes, thinking I’d never forgive him for doing this to me.

“Don’t you touch my clothes,” I told him, stepping away from him and pulling the collar back straight. “Don’t tend to my personal life.”

“I’m scared for you, I’m worried about you,” he said, as Arlene and Charlsie hastily found other things to do.

“No you’re not, or not entirely. You’re mad as hell. Well listen, buddy. You never got in line.”

And I stalked away to wipe down the formica on one of the tables. Then I collected all the salt shakers and refilled them. Then I checked the pepper shakers and the bottles of hot peppers on each table and booth, the Tabasco sauce, too. I just kept working and kept my eyes in front of me, and gradually, the atmosphere cooled down.