Vampire for Hire by J.R. Rain Page A

without a donut in his hand, but I just wasn’t up to it. Instead, I said, “My son’s sick.”
     
               Sherbet sat forward. He was a father who loved his own son. A son who was as effeminate as Sherbet was masculine. And Sherbet was as masculine as they come. Thick hair covered his forearms and the back of his hands. The hair was mostly gray. His belly pushed hard against his white dress shirt, putting a lot of pressure on the center buttons. In fact, the third button from the bottom was slightly frayed.
     
               It’s gonna blow, I thought.
     
               The arm hair and rotund belly looked oddly appealing on Sherbet. Really, he was a man who had no business being thin. His body frame was built to hold the extra weight, and he did so in a sexy way. I always figured that if I was twenty years older I would have a serious crush on the man. I must not be the only one, since his own wife had to be pretty young to have a child still in elementary school. A child who, according to Sherbet, was on the fast track to homosexuality. A child who was forcing my detective friend to open his heart and mind in ways he never had before.
     
               “So what do the doctors say?” he asked.
     
               I shrugged. “Apparently the flu’s going around. They told me not to worry.”
     
               “You’re not doing a very good job of it, kiddo.”
     
               I shrugged. “Mostly, I’m worried your button is gonna blow and take out my eye.”
     
               He looked down at his belly. And now that I looked again, I was certain I could see the faint outline of a jelly stain. A jelly donut stain.
     
               He nodded. “Okay, I get it. You don’t want to talk about it.”
     
               “Not really,” I said.
     
               “And to deflect talk about your son, you choose instead to talk about my belly.”
     
               “It’s quite a belly.”
     
               “I like my belly.”
     
               “I never said it was a bad belly.”
     
               He drummed his thick fingers on the wide desk. His fingernails were perfectly squared and seemed almost as thick as my own supernaturally thick nails.
     
               “Can we stop talking about my belly?” he asked. “Besides, I don’t think cops are supposed to say belly .”
     
               “And yet you’ve now said it four times.”
     
               He shook his head. “Don’t worry about your boy, Sam. He’ll be fine.”
     
               I nodded and wished I could believe him. Sherbet asked why I was here, and warned me from saying anything about his belly. I told him about Maddie and what my ex-partner had turned up. Sherbet listened quietly, and when I was finished he reached over and typed something on his keyboard. By typing, I mean he hunted and pecked slowly with his big sausage-like fingers.
     
               “ Hanner’s working the case,” he said.
     
               “May I speak with him?”
     
               “Her. Rachel Hanner . Hang on.”
     
               He got up from behind his desk, and as he did so, one of his knees popped so loudly that I nearly took cover. Sherbet looked slightly embarrassed. “Don’t say a word,” he cautioned.
     
               “Wouldn’t dream of it,” I smirked.
     
               He returned a moment later with a young woman with perfect milky skin. She was also damn pretty, and I fought an overwhelming desire to hate her. She nodded at me pleasantly but didn’t shake my hand.
     
               Bitch , although I was secretly relieved. Shaking hands always followed a small bit of stress for me.
     
               Sherbet asked her to sit and she did so next to me. Sherbet next asked me to retell my story and I did so, reciting it nearly word for word. These days, my