Dead as a Doornail

he’d drain me if I lit up inside, when this man walked up outta nowhere.”
    “What’s he look like?” I asked.
    “Oh, he’s old, got black hair,” the boy said, shrugging. Not long on the gift of description.
    “Okay,” I said. I was glad to take a break. I suspected who the visitor might be, and if he’d come into the bar, he’d have caused a riot. Sam found an excuse to follow me out by saying that he needed a pit stop, and he picked up his cane and used it to hobble down the hall after me. He had his own tiny bathroom off his office, and he limped into it as I continued past the men’s and women’s to the back door. I opened it cautiously and peered outside. But then I began smiling. The man waiting for me had one of the most famous faces in the world—except, apparently, to adolescent busboys.
    “Bubba,” I said, pleased to see the vampire. You couldn’t call him by his former name, or he got real confused and agitated. Bubba was formerly known as . . . Well, let me just put it this way. You wondered about all those sightings after his death? This was the explanation.
    The conversion hadn’t been a complete success because his system had been so fuddled with drugs; but aside from his predilection for cat blood, Bubba managed pretty well. The vampire community took good care of him. Eric kept Bubba on staff as an errand boy. Bubba’s glossy black hair was always combed and styled, his long sideburns sharply trimmed. Tonight he was wearing a black leather jacket, new blue jeans, and a black-and-silver plaid shirt.
    “Looking good, Bubba,” I said admiringly.
    “You too, Miss Sookie.” He beamed at me.
    “Did you want to tell me something?”
    “Yessum. Mr. Eric sent me over here to tell you that he’s not what he seems.”
    I blinked.
    “Who, Bubba?” I asked, trying to keep my voice gentle.
    “He’s a hit man.”
    I stared at Bubba’s face not because I thought staring would get me anywhere, but because I was trying to figure out the message. This was a mistake; Bubba’s eyes began darting from side to side, and his face lost its smile. I should have turned to stare at the wall—it would’ve given me as much information, and Bubba wouldn’t have become as anxious.
    “Thanks, Bubba,” I said, patting him on his beefy shoulder. “You did good.”
    “Can I go now? Back to Shreveport?”
    “Sure,” I said. I would just call Eric. Why hadn’t he used the phone for a message as urgent and important as this one seemed to be?
    “I found me a back way into the animal shelter,” Bubba confided proudly.
    I gulped. “Oh, well, great,” I said, trying not to feel queasy.
    “See ya later, alligator,” he called from the edge of the parking lot. Just when you thought Bubba was the worstvampire in the world, he did something amazing like moving at a speed you simply could not track.
    “After a while, crocodile,” I said dutifully.
    “Was that who I think it was?” The voice was right behind me.
    I jumped. I spun around to find that Charles had deserted his post at the bar.
    “You scared me,” I said, as though he hadn’t been able to tell.
    “Sorry.”
    “Yes, that was him.”
    “Thought so. I’ve never heard him sing in person. It must be amazing.” Charles stared out at the parking lot as though he were thinking hard about something else. I had the definite impression he wasn’t listening to his own words.
    I opened my mouth to ask a question, but before my words reached my lips I really thought about what the English pirate had just said, and the words froze in my throat. After a long hesitation, I knew I had to speak, or he would know something was wrong.
    “Well, I guess I’d better get back to work,” I said, smiling the bright smile that pops onto my face when I’m nervous. And, boy, was I nervous now. The one blinding revelation I’d had made everything begin to click into place in my head. Every little hair on my arms and neck stood straight up. My fight-or-flight reflex was fixed firmly on “flight.” Charles was between the outside door and me. I began to back down the hall toward the bar.
    The door from the bar into the hall was usually left open, because people had to pass into the hall all the time to use the bathrooms. But now it was closed. It had been open when I’d come down the hall to talk to Bubba.
    This was bad.
    “Sookie,” Charles said, behind me. “I truly regret this.”
    “It was you who shot Sam, wasn’t it?” I reached