Willie afforded himself an additional luxury—each morning he would go to the coffee shop, get the newspaper for his boss and order the $1.99 breakfast. Every time he left a $5 bill for the pretty waitress. They never spoke until one day, when he tucked only three dollars under his plate.
"What's the matter, did I do something wrong?" Maggie joked. "Thanks to you I've been making regular payments on a snazzy red convertible."
Willie focused his gaze on the congealing ketchup which streaked his plate. "Sorry, I kinda ran through my cash."
She cleared the dirty dishes. "It's okay, I was just kidding. I hope this doesn't mean I won't see you anymore."
To Willie, that sounded like a bullshit line. Why would the girl care if she ever saw him again when he was broke?
He looked into her cheerful face and made eye contact for the first time. She had to remember that he was the obnoxious drunk who insulted her at the Blue Whale and picked a fight with her boyfriend. Maggie was too nice and classy to ever mention it, though. Inexperienced at polite conversation, the young man looked away again.
"I guess I'll still get the paper for my boss," he muttered.
"Good." She winked at him. "You know, I think my picture's in there today," the waitress chirped happily as she wiped the counter. "It's funny; when I worked the late shift, Mr. Collins would come in every night for the newspaper. Now I'm on the early shift, and you're here each day." She laughed. "I think you guys are following me."
Willie smiled awkwardly and fumbled for his copy of the Collinsport Star. "Next time I hit the jackpot, I'll come back for breakfast." He strode briskly toward the door.
"It's a date," Maggie called after him. "Meanwhile, I'll see you up at the Old House."
She probably flirts like that with everyone. Willie imagined old guys would eat that up that crap and she enjoyed the attention, like girls do, but he froze on the sunlit sidewalk when the full impact of her words hit him. Why in hell would Maggie Evans go to the Old House? The young man raced home, convinced that his bloodsucking boss was up to no good while Willie had been busy playing chauffeur to Goth girls.
There was a worn, wooden easel nestled in a corner of the parlor. How long had that been there? How did Willie not notice a big ass thing like that? On display was a preliminary sketch on stretched canvas—what would become a portrait of Barnabas. The pose was similar to the one which hung in the foyer at Collinwood, except for the modern clothing.
I hope you're not gonna talk to me too.
The box of paints on the table read Evans on the lid, and the rest wasn't hard to figure out. Maggie's father was Sam Evans, a local artist. Barnabas had hired him to paint the portrait, obviously in order to see Maggie, who would have to drive the old sot because he had probably lost his license. That's why she would be at the Old House but why should the vampire bring her here with her dad around the whole time? That part didn't make sense.
The young man spread the newspaper out on the floor to look for Maggie's photo. Usually he only read the funny pages and the headlines, looking for reports of attack victims. Her photograph, however, was on the Society page—a romantic pose with pretty boy Joe Haskell followed by the caption announcing their engagement. He looked at the picture for a long time with a pensive mixture of emotions. Then he clipped it out, up the middle to exclude Haskell, and stored it in his desk drawer along with the German love letters.
The following morning Willie went to buy the daily newspaper, but the coffee shop was closed. So were the grocery store and the bank. Must be Sunday, he figured, or some holiday; it was difficult to keep track anymore. The servant returned home empty-handed, opened the last can of beans and began his work, which that day was scraping the wallpaper in the parlor. He covered the portrait with a sheet so it wouldn't get hit with flying plaster, and he didn't like the vampire watching him.
Barnabas rose at his usual time and went to the great house at Collinwood to dine with his extended family. His servant was to head over to Bangor and meet him later with the real meal, but it took more than two hours to get there. Willie was trapped in bumper-to-bumper traffic and forced to listen to Christmas carols. Great, for how many weeks would the airwaves be clogged with Frosty the fucking Snowman? It would help if there were more than two radio stations in the area.
It was well after 9:30 when Willie reached his destination, by which time the parking lot was deserted. The donor probably got cold waiting outside and headed for the relative warmth of the Vampire Club, but the bar was closed. The shivering young man waited in the truck for another half hour before giving up and heading back to Collinsport. Shit! Willie hit the steering wheel. He had scored zero the entire day. If the vampire didn't have a willing victim on which to sup, he would take an unwilling one. And guess who that's gonna be.
Barnabas was reading by the fire when his servant stomped in, looking pissed.
"Do you know the hour?"
"Your dinner didn't show up, traffic sucked and everything's closed," Willie snapped.
"I see," the master replied with his customary composure. "That is why I returned to find no fire, no candles lit, no newspaper, and now you tell me, no guest for the evening. Let us not mention this ladder in view, tools lying about and debris covering the floor."
Willie took a deep breath and struggled to keep his comments in check. "Barnabas, when you lived here way back when, how many people did you have workin' for ya?"
He considered the question. "Perhaps five and twenty."
"Well, now you got one and zero to do all those jobs and this restorating stuff—which is gonna suck, 'cause I don't know what the hell I'm doin'—and then you want me to be your part-time blood donor and full-time pimp. So, here." He plopped on the floor next to Barnabas and thrust his arm in the vampire's direction. "You're gonna take it anyway, so just do it now, but don't come in my room anymore."
"That will not be necessary. I overtook a deer while traveling home." Willie's arm came slowly back down as he looked up in surprise. "Well, how long was I supposed to wait?"
"How was it? Okay?"
"A bit gamey, I thought." Barnabas returned to his book. "You should retire, Willie, you obviously had a trying day."
"No shit." The vampire looked up, eyebrows raised. "I mean, yessir." Willie rose and plodded upstairs, slightly confused that there was no retaliation for his mouthing off like that. Especially when at other times he'd get hit for no reason at all. The servant was having a cold wash up at the sink when he had a vision of Barnabas downstairs. He was in the library looking up the word pimp.
The larder was bare, and by the following afternoon, Willie was hungry enough to raid Collinwood's trash bin again. Of course, a proper servant couldn't do that, but maybe he wouldn't have to. With a handful of change (which was the last of his cash) and the old turn crank tool, he knocked at the big house's delivery door. Again Mrs. Johnson answered.
"Now what?"
"Sorry to bother you, ma'am; I wanted to return the can opener, and here's the two dollars I borrowed."
"What are you talking about?"
"A few weeks ago, remember? I told you I had a library fine, but that wasn't the truth." He looked at his feet, ashamed. "I went to the Blue Whale."
"I know you did. Do I look like a fool?"
"I'm sorry." He held out the borrowed items and sniffed the air, his eyes big and round. Mrs. Johnson stole a look down the hall before yanking him inside to the kitchen.
Willie sat at the table as Mrs. Johnson poured him a glass of milk. "You didn't have to bring back that old can opener; I never use it anymore. I have a fancy electric one."
"I bet that's nice."
He was getting old to pull the scrappy orphan bit, but figured it would still work on an old lady. She watched the boy greedily gulp his milk.
"I made turkey noodle casserole. Would you like some?"
Willie smiled shyly. "Oh, yes, ma'am. It sure does smell good."
The housekeeper dished up a generous helping. "How was your Thanksgiving? Did you go home?"
"Huh?" He looked up. That's why everything was closed. "Oh—uh, no—I don't really have what you'd call—"
"Now I asked Mr. Collins yesterday if I should send a plate over for you, and he said not to bother; so I figured you were visiting with family." Willie shrugged. Barnabas could be such a dick.
Mrs. Johnson and her visitor both had agendas that were fulfilled. Willie got a hearty hot meal, and Mrs. Johnson got what she thought was the lowdown on the eccentric Mr. Collins and that drafty old house with no electricity, phone or heat. The handyman beamed with pride when reporting that he was reading up on how to do plumbing and was getting pretty good at it. Mrs. Johnson looked at him, her brow furrowed.
"And you've been there how long? When was the last time you had a bath?"
Willie scratched his head. "Dunno. When I was stayin' here, I guess. It's okay, though, I got soap and water at the Old House; it's just hard to get my head under the sink. It'll be better when I get the pump to work."
The housekeeper did some figuring in her head before she spoke. "You come back here Tuesdays and Fridays in the afternoon. The men's section of the servants' quarters is closed off so no one will know. You can take a shower and get a decent shave—but you will not leave me a mess, you hear?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Bring your dirty clothes on Tuesdays, that's when I do the laundry."
Willie pushed the bowl away with a sudden bad feeling that he had carried this too far. "I can't. Mr. Collins said I'm not allowed to accept charity."
Mrs. Johnson snorted her disapproval. "Then Mr. Collins should provide decent living conditions for his employees."
Willie shook his head. "I don't wanna get in trouble."
"Alright then, you can work for it. There's a whole woodshed of logs that need to be cut. I was going to hire a local man but this will work out just fine."
It was an offer that Willie could not refuse. "Sure, I'll try, but I'm not much good with an axe."
"What axe? We have an electric chainsaw."
Willie was feeling pretty confident as he headed for the coffee shop. All cleaned up and shaved with fresh clothes, he planned to talk to the pretty waitress today and, for once, not be embarrassed by his appearance. But it was Maggie who didn't look so hot. She wore a scarf around her neck and had dark circles under her eyes, like from a hangover or something. Willie sat on the last stool at the counter and watched as she spilled coffee on a customer.
"Shit."
The customer looked up in surprise at hearing the uncharacteristic expletive. It was Joe, her fiancé.
"It's alright, honey, I'll get it." Pretty Boy took the dishrag and wiped up the counter as she paced to the other end, mopping the cold sweat from her brow, when she spotted that little creep staring at her.
"Are you going to buy something or just sit there?" Maggie snapped.
"Sorry." Willie tossed a quarter on the counter and grabbed a newspaper on his way out the door.
The rest of his day was pretty typical—a couple of rounds wrestling with the kitchen pump followed by SpaghettiOs for dinner. When his thoughts returned to Maggie, he concentrated instead on closing that door in his mind. Damn, the punk was falling in love, for the first time in his messed up life, and he certainly didn't want the vampire to know about it. Well, maybe not love, but he thought about her a lot, which was weird, because they hardly knew each other. Willie shoved the door another inch towards its goal.
