Deaths Excellent Vacation

fishy?”
    “If Russell had any idea what Felipe was considering, he would have counterattacked by now.”
    Vampires pretty much wrote the book on chicanery, double dealing, and what you might call drastic politics. If Pam wasn’t worried, should I be?
    Sure. Pam could take a lot more damage than I could.
    Blonde was not an attractive edifice. No matter how much female beauty might be on the inside (and the billboards promised plenty), on the outside it was a metal building in the middle of nowhere. It had a huge parking lot, and there were at least forty vehicles there. The ground had risen as we approached Memphis and its bluffs, and the club stood on top of a hill with a deep ravine behind. The whole area outside the parking lot was covered with kudzu, like it had been carpeted in the plant. The trees were covered, too.
    “We go to the back,” Pam said, and she drove around the building.
    The back was even less appealing than the front. The parking lot was poorly lit. Michael was not too concerned for the safety of his workers. Of course, I told myself, maybe he walks each of the girls to her car every night . But I doubted it. “Pam, I have a bad feeling about this,” I said. “I want to be on record as letting you know that.”
    “Thanks for the pep talk,” Pam muttered, and I realized that she had more misgivings than she’d revealed. “But I have my orders and I have to do this.”
    “Who issued those orders—Felipe, Victor, or Eric?”
    “Victor called me into Eric’s office and told me what to do and to take you. Eric was present.”
    “How do you think he feels about this?”
    “He isn’t happy,” Pam said. “But he’s under new management, and he has to obey direct orders.”
    “So we have to do this.”
    “I have to. I am Eric’s to command.” Eric had made Pam a vampire. “You aren’t, though Eric pretends to Victor that you obey him in all things. You can leave. Or you can stay in the car and wait for me. There’s a pistol under the backseat.”
    “What?”
    “A pistol, a gun, you know? Eric thought you’d feel more comfortable with one, since we’re so much stronger than you.”
    I hate guns. Having said that, I also have to admit that a firearm has saved my life in the past. “You’re not going in by yourself, armed or unarmed,” I said. I hesitated, because I was afraid. “Give it to me,” I said. We were parked at the very back of the lot, right by the kudzu. I hoped it wouldn’t take Pam’s car while we were inside.
    Pam reached under the seat and drew out a revolver. “Point and shoot,” she said, shrugging. “Eric got it for you specially. He says it is called a Ruger LCP. It fires six shots, and there’s one in the chamber.”
    It was about as big as a cell phone. Good God Almighty. “What if I need to reload?”
    “If you have to shoot that much, we are dead.”
    I got that feeling that had become familiar since I’d started hanging with vampires; the feeling that says, How the hell did I get into this? If you examined the process step by step, you could see how it had happened; but when you looked at where you’d ended up, you just had to shake your head. I was walking into a very dubious situation, and Eric thought I needed a gun. “Hey, at least we’ll match the décor,” I said at last.
    Pam looked blank.
    “Blondes,” I said helpfully. “Us.”
    She almost smiled.
    We got out of the car. I tucked the gun in the small of my back, and Pam checked to make sure it was covered by my fitted black jacket. I never looked as put-together as Pam, but since we’d been going to a show and then out, I’d worn my good black pants and a blue and black knit top with long sleeves. The jacket didn’t look ridiculous, since the temperature had fallen into the forties. Pam pulled on her white trench coat and belted it tightly around her waist, and then off she went.
    I trotted along behind her, second-guessing myself every step of the way. Pam knocked once on the employee entrance. After a pause, the door opened, and I saw that the male holding it was a vampire. Not Michael, though, if I was any judge at all. This male had only been a vampire for a few years. He had a Mohawk, colored green and gelled to a high crest on his otherwise bald head. I tried to imagine going through the centuries like that, and I thought I might throw up.
    “We’re here to see Michael,” Pam said, her voice especially cool and regal. “We’re expected.”
    “You the