Club Dead

about it, he would. The relationship was very strong, I knew, between the older vampire and the one he’d “brought over.”
    “I guess he really isn’t my boyfriend anymore,” I admitted. Though “boyfriend” seemed a pretty pale term for what Bill had been to me.
    “Oh, yeah?”
    I flushed. I shouldn’t have said anything. “But I still have to find him.”
    We were silent for a while after that. The last city I’d visited had been Dallas, and it was easy to see that Jackson was nowhere close to that size. (That was a big plus, as far as I was concerned.) Alcide pointed out the golden figure on the dome of the new capitol, and I admired it appropriately. I thought it was an eagle, but I wasn’t sure, and I was a little embarrassed to ask. Did I need glasses? The building we were going to was close to the corner of High and State streets. It was not a new building; the brick had started out a golden tan, and now it was a grimy light brown.
    “The apartments here are larger than they are in new buildings,” Alcide said. “There’s a small guest bedroom. Everything should be all ready for us. We use the apartment cleaning service.”
    I nodded silently. I could not remember if I’d ever been in an apartment building before. Then I realized I had, of course. There was a two-story U-shaped apartment building in Bon Temps. I had surely visited someone there; in the past seven years, almost every single person in Bon Temps had rented a place in Kingfisher Apartments at some point in his or her dating career.
    Alcide’s apartment, he told me, was on the top floor, the fifth. You drove in from the street down a ramp to park. There was a guard at the garage entrance, standing in a little booth. Alcide showed him a plastic pass. The heavyset guard, who had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, barely glanced at the card Alcide held out before he pressed a button to raise the barrier. I wasn’t too impressed with the security. I felt like I could whip that guy, myself. My brother, Jason, could pound him into the pavement.
    We scrambled out of the truck and retrieved our bags from the rudimentary backseat. My hanging bag had fared pretty well. Without asking me, Alcide took my small suitcase. He led the way to a central block in the parking area, and I saw a gleaming elevator door. He punched the button, and it opened immediately. The elevator creaked its way up after Alcide punched the button marked with a 5 . At least the elevator was very clean, and when the door swished open, so were the carpet and the hall beyond.
    “They went condo, so we bought the place,” Alcide said, as if it was no big deal. Yes, he and his dad had made some money. There were four apartments per floor, Alcide told me.
    “Who are your neighbors?”
    “Two state senators own 501, and I’m sure they’ve gone home for the holiday season,” he said. “Mrs. Charles Osburgh the Third lives in 502, with her nurse. Mrs. Osburgh was a grand old lady until the past year. I don’t think she can walk anymore. Five-oh-three is empty right now, unless the realtor sold it this past two weeks.” He unlocked the door to number 504, pushed it open, and gestured for me to enter ahead of him. I entered the silent warmth of the hall, which opened on my left into a kitchen enclosed by counters, not walls, so the eye was unobstructed in sweeping the living room/ dining area. There was a door immediately on my right, which probably opened onto a coat closet, and another a little farther down, which led into a small bedroom with a neatly made-up double bed. A door past that revealed a small bathroom with white-and-blue tiles and towels hung just so on the racks.
    Across the living room, to my left, was a door that led into a larger bedroom. I peered inside briefly, not wanting to seem overly interested in Alcide’s personal space. The bed in that room was a king. I wondered if Alcide and his dad did a lot of entertaining when they visited Jackson.
    “The master bedroom has its own bath,” Alcide explained. “I’d be glad to let you have the bigger room, but the phone’s in there, and I’m expecting some business calls.”
    “The smaller bedroom is just fine,” I said. I peeked around a little more after my bags were stowed in my room.
    The apartment was a symphony in beige. Beige carpet, beige furniture. Sort of oriental bamboo-y patterned wallpaper with a beige background. It was very quiet and very clean.
    As I hung my dresses in the