When Sam looked back at me, I could tell he too knew our new customer was undead. Sam’s eyes are Paul Newman blue, as opposed to my own hazy blue gray. Sam is blond, too, but his hair is wiry and his blond is almost a sort of hot red gold. He is always a little sunburned, and though he looks slight in his clothes, I have seen him unload trucks with his shirt off, and he has plenty of upper body strength. I never listen to Sam’s thoughts. He’s my boss. I’ve had to quit jobs before because I found out things I didn’t want to know about my boss.
But Sam didn’t comment, he just gave me the wine. I checked the glass to make sure it was sparkly clean and made my way back to the vampire’s table.
“Your wine, sir,” I said ceremoniously and placed it carefully on the table exactly in front of him. He looked at me again, and I stared into his lovely eyes while I had the chance. “Enjoy,” I said proudly. Behind me, Mack Rattray yelled, “Hey, Sookie! We need another pitcher of beer here!” I sighed and turned to take the empty pitcher from the Rats’ table. Denise was in fine form tonight, I noticed, wearing a halter top and short shorts, her mess of brown hair floofing around her head in fashionable tangles. Denise wasn’t truly pretty, but she was so flashy and confident that it took awhile to figure that out.
A little while later, to my dismay, I saw the Rattrays had moved over to the vampire’s table. They were talking at him. I couldn’t see that he was responding a lot, but he wasn’t leaving either.
“Look at that!” I said disgustedly to Arlene, my fellow waitress. Arlene is redheaded and freckled and ten years older than me, and she’s been married four times. She has two kids, and from time to time, I think she considers me her third.
“New guy, huh?” she said with small interest. Arlene is currently dating Rene Lenier, and though I can’t see the attraction, she seems pretty satisfied. I think Rene was her second husband.
“Oh, he’s a vampire,” I said, just having to share my delight with someone.
“Really? Here? Well, just think,” she said, smiling a little to show she appreciated my pleasure. “He can’t be too bright, though, honey, if he’s with the Rats. On the other hand, Denise is giving him quite a show.”
I figured it out after Arlene made it plain to me; she’s much better at sizing up sexual situations than I am due to her experience and my lack.
The vampire was hungry. I’d always heard that the synthetic blood the Japanese had developed kept vampires up to par as far as nutrition, but didn’t really satisfy their hunger, which was why there were “Unfortunate Incidents” from time to time. （That was the vampire euphemism for the bloody slaying of a human.） And here was Denise Rattray, stroking her throat, turning her neck from side to side . . . what a bitch.
My brother, Jason, came into the bar, then, and sauntered over to give me a hug. He knows that women like a man who’s good to his family and also kind to the disabled, so hugging me is a double whammy of recommendation. Not that Jason needs many more points than he has just by being himself. He’s handsome. He can sure be mean, too, but most women seem quite willing to overlook that.
“Hey, sis, how’s Gran?”
“She’s okay, about the same. Come by to see.”
“I will. Who’s loose tonight?”
“Look for yourself.” I noticed that when Jason began to glance around there was a flutter of female hands to hair, blouses, lips.
“Hey. I see DeeAnne. She free?”
“She’s here with a trucker from Hammond. He’s in the bathroom. Watch it.”
Jason grinned at me, and I marvelled that other women could not see the selfishness of that smile. Even Arlene tucked in her T-shirt when Jason came in, and after four husbands she should have known a little about evaluating men. The other waitress I worked with, Dawn, tossed her hair and straightened her back to make her boobs stand out. Jason gave her an amiable wave. She pretended to sneer. She’s on the outs with Jason, but she still wants him to notice her.
I got really busy—everyone came to Merlotte’s on Saturday night for some portion of the evening—so I lost track of my vampire for a while. When I next had a moment to check on him, he was talking to Denise. Mack was looking at him with an expression so avid that I became worried.
I went closer to the table, staring at Mack. Finally, I let down my guard and listened.
Mack and Denise had been in jail for vampire draining.
Deeply upset, I nevertheless automatically carried a pitcher of beer and some glasses to a raucous table of four. Since vampire blood was supposed to temporarily relieve symptoms of illness and increase sexual potency, kind of like prednisone and Viagra rolled into one, there was a huge black market for genuine, undiluted vampire blood. Where there’s a market there are suppliers; in this case, I’d just learned, the scummy Rat Couple. They’d formerly trapped vampires and drained them, selling the little vials of blood for as much as $200 apiece. It had been the drug of choice for at least two years now. Some buyers went crazy after drinking pure vampire blood, but that didn’t slow the market any.