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First the ticket lady, now the ticket man? “The manager said I could come through to see Jean-Claude,” I said.

“Willie,” the ticket man said, “you send her through?”

I turned around, and there was Willie McCoy. I smiled when I saw him. I was glad to see him. That surprised me. I’m not usually happy to see dead men.

Willie is short, thin, with black hair slicked back from his forehead. I couldn’t tell the exact color of his suit in the dimness, but it looked like a dull tomato-red. White button-up shirt, large shiny green tie. I had to look twice before I was sure, but yes, there was a glow-in-the-dark hula girl on his tie. It was the most tasteful outfit I’d ever seen Willie wear.

He grinned, flashing a lot of fang. “Anita, good to see ya.”

I nodded. “You, too, Willie.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

He grinned even wider. His canines glistened in the dim light. He hadn’t been dead a year yet.

“How long have you been manager here?” I asked.

“ ’Bout two weeks.”

“Congratulations.”

He stepped closer to me. I stepped back. Instinctive. Nothing personal, but a vampire is a vampire. Don’t get too close. Willie was new dead, but he was still capable of hypnotizing with his eyes. Okay, maybe no vampire as new as Willie could actually catch me with his eyes, but old habits die hard.

Willie’s face fell. A flicker of something in his eyes—hurt? He dropped his voice but didn’t try to step next to me. He was a faster study dead than he ever had been alive. “Thanks to me helping you last time, I’m in real good with the boss.”

He sounded like an old gangster movie, but that was Willie. “I’m glad Jean-Claude’s doing right by you.”

“Oh, yeah,” Willie said, “this is the best job I ever had. And the boss isn’t . . .” He waggled his hands back and forth. “Ya know, mean.”

I nodded. I did know. I could bitch and complain about Jean-Claude all I wanted, but compared to most Masters of the City, he was a pussycat. A big, dangerous, carnivorous pussycat, but still, it was an improvement.

“The boss’s busy right this minute,” Willie said. “He said if you was to come early, to give ya a table near the stage.”

Great. Aloud I said, “How long will Jean-Claude be?”

Willie shrugged. “Don’t know for sure.”

I nodded. “Okay, I’ll wait, for a little while.”

Willie grinned, fangs flashing. “Ya want me to tell Jean-Claude to hurry it up?”

“Would you?”

He grimaced like he’d swallowed a bug. “Hell no.”

“Don’t sweat it. If I get tired of waiting, I’ll tell him myself.”

Willie looked at me sorta sideways. “You’d do it, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

He just shook his head and started leading me between the small round tables. Every table was thick with people. Laughing, gasping, drinking, holding hands. The sensation of being surrounded by thick, sweaty life was nearly overwhelming.

I glanced at Willie. Did he feel it? Did the warm press of humanity make his stomach knot with hunger? Did he go home at night and dream of ripping into the loud, roaring crowd? I almost asked him, but I liked Willie as much as I could like a vampire. I did not want to know if the answer was yes.

A table just one row back from the stage was empty. There was a big white cardboard foldy thing that said “Reserved.” Willie tried to hold my chair for me, I waved him back. It wasn’t women’s liberation. I simply never understood what I was supposed to do while the guy shoved my chair in under me. Did I sit there and watch him strain to scoot the chair with me in it? Embarrassing. I usually hovered just above the chair and got it shoved into the backs of my knees. Hell with it.

“Would you like a drink while ya wait?” Willie asked.

“Could I have a Coke?”

“Nuthin’ stronger?”

I shook my head.

Willie walked away through the tables and the people. On the stage was a slender man with short, dark hair. He was thin all over, his face almost cadaverous, but he was definitely human. His appearance was more comical than anything, like a long-limbed clown. Beside him, staring blank-faced out at the crowd, was a zombie.

Its pale eyes were still clear, human-looking, but he didn’t blink. That