Thirst

by Pyotyr Kurtinski

Van Diemen was getting nowhere. What he had to do, finally, was to make a plan and carry it out coldly and decisively. He had to get his enemies all together, if he could, and put an end to their nefarious plot once and for all. If he went out to kill Polo Simonelli, or his son, he might discover that the old man or the young one was in Florida or Sicily or New Jersey. And if he did manage to kill one of them, the other might go into hiding, not knowing what was going on. He couldn’t kill Landau because he didn’t even know where the lawyer was. So he would do nothing until he was sure of a quick success.

  Van Diemen thought about Benitez. To disregard the Colombian, as he was inclined to do, might be a grave mistake. Vincent Mara had said Benitez was a savage, and no doubt he was right. But what kind of savage was he? The Italians were regarded with contempt or found quaintly amusing when they had first come to America in large numbers. But, as somebody said, look at them now. Sons of gangsters were graduates of the Harvard Business School. Graduates of the HBS were themselves gangsters.

  Here, again, Van Diemen had to think the matter through. Would the trouble stop if he killed Landau and the Simonellis? There was no guarantee of that. If the kitchen got too hot, the Simonellis, being more American, would probably get out and fry their fish somewhere else. Why take such a great risk when the country was so fat and so willing to be looted. The men of honor had become men of business. Not so the Colombians. Van Diemen had no fear of a war with the Colombians, or any other group, for that matter, but he didn’t want the problem to drag on. Even if he could win in the end, think of all the time he’d have to spend away from his beloved library, his paintings and books, and especially his writing. With an effort of will, Van Diemen pushed the problem from his mind and pulled what he had previously written toward him, which was not very much. How could it be with all these alarms and interruptions? Where was he? Oh, yes, he had been describing the completion of his castle, the death of the architect, the ladies with unmarried daughters who had insisted on inviting him to social events he hadn’t wanted to attend.

  He smiled at the memory. Perhaps he should have gone to one or two of those gatherings. Not all the young ladies could have been as plain as he’d seen them in his mind’s eyes. But the boredom he would have had to endure. Parlor games were years ahead, but there would have singing accompanied by all sorts of musical instruments, of which the harp was the worst.

  Van Diemen took his pen from the inkwell and wrote:

  The completion of my castle conferred such freedom upon me. In shutting myself off from the world, I became a self-made prisoner, yet I was completely free of all the things I wanted to avoid: free from the unwanted society of others, which is boredom in its purest and most agonizing form; free from financial care, for my castle was tangible proof that to me money was no object. However, as I look back now, nearly two centuries later, it seems that the intellectual freedom excited me more than all the other freedoms. It is one of my conceits that I am no older of mind now than I was then, but this cannot be true, for how can my mind not be different after nearly two centuries of study, contemplation, and experiment. There is little I haven’t read in languages that I acquired as an autodidact; and compared to my present state of knowledge, my three years at Oxford were a little more than a pleasant diversion. Yet contrary to the opinion of the knowledgeable, knowledge in itself is not wisdom, for if it were, the village schoolmaster would be the mental superior of the ill-educated genius. Here the question arises, one that must be asked and answered with ruthless honesty: Am I truly wise as well as stupendously learned? And the answer must be a ringing, unequivocal yes, with no false modesty or spurious humility attached to it. To take the question one step further, I must ask: Am I a genius? Again the answer must be a simple yes. Yes, I am a genius.

  Well, you may ask: But were you a genius at twenty-three? I think I must have been, though perhaps I was not aware of it or, at best, only dimly aware. Still, aware of it or not, the seed of genius was within me, and now, in the last decade of the twentieth century, it has reached full flower.

  My genius, my wisdom, my greatness (why not call it that) is forever linked to this castle: it my past, present; and future; it is the rock on which I build my eternal life. And when this country has long passed into oblivion, my castle will stand, timeless and indestructible. The force of my will is its protection; it cannot be destroyed any more than I can be destroyed.

  An Englishman’s home is his castle, so said the poet; to me, a Dutch vampire, my castle is my home. How fondly I recall the glorious day when the English architect fell to his death and I stood alone on the battlements, master of all I surveyed. The pride I felt cannot adequately be described. There I was, at twenty-three, a scant year before a penniless immigrant youth, lord of the finest, and the only, castle along the entire length of the Hudson River. This, you must keep in mind, was 1800, forty or fifty years before the Era of Great Wealth had its beginning, and so Van Diemens Castle, as it was known and remains in the guidebooks, was all the more magnificent. I was proud and arrogant and why not? If it had not been for that fortuitous tour of Eastern Europe I might have ended my days as a moderately successful man and nothing more.

  I fed, as before, on the casual laborers who wandered the length of the great river, but there were others, some of them young lads running away from home, from the farms where they labored from before dawn until after dusk. Whenever I came upon one of them, I gave him a far better kind of home, a six-by-six bed where he could lie in peace for all eternity. And there were the strolling players, vagabonds really, and their women. Like the laborers, they wandered the countryside, striking one small town or village after another, always on the move. Of less value than the itinerant laboring class, they were missed by no one when they disappeared. No missing-person posters were tacked to crossroads signs; no sheriff sought them out.

  But I had to be careful. To the semi rustics of the northern Bronx I was an immensely rich young man, but not lord of the manor as I would have been in Europe. In the new republic, the high fever of aggressive democracy had not broken yet and the prevailing spirit was that every man was as good as his neighbor. If my castle had acquired a sinister reputation, as castles have a way of doing, I might well have found myself besieged by a cider-drunk mob armed with shotguns and pitchforks. Always mindful of this, I fed on very few members of the local population. Now and then, I made an exception: some footloose hussy known for her forays into the city, some drunkard who might have fallen into the river. But, in general, I was discreet, ever aware that just one mistake could have serious consequences.

  I went out into the world then far more often than I do now. Vampire or not, I was excited by the raw newness of the country. In my way, I wanted to become part of it, or at least to know its ways. My interest in American speech dates from this period, and how could it not? After my three years at Oxford, I was fluent as few Englishmen are in the English language. But how different was this Englishman’s English from the raciness and pungency of an American s English, with all its new coinages and unexpected turns of phrase.

  So I set out to learn this new language. I read the newspapers, not the New York Times, still fifty years in the future, but all those of that period, enjoying the vituperation of politicians, the pleading of lawyers, reports of executions, advertisements for horse auctions. Many an evening, after feeding, occasionally in search of food, I would venture to the closest tavern, a place operated by an ex-river sailor named Bateman, to drink a mug of cider and listen to the local speech. If the locals thought me a queer fish, they gave no sign, and since I appeared to be a good chap in my somewhat standoffish way, we got along splendidly.

  Ah, the things I remember: the murder of Hamilton by Burr, the first steamboats on the river, the War of 1812, Mr. Dickens’s first American tour. And all the while, I was learning the American language.

  The most serious threat to my contented life, my sense of having settled down forever, came shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War
, when it was proposed, by some military leader, that all buildings that might be used for fortification be seized and held for the duration of the conflict. The possibility of being dispossessed distressed me more than I can say. For even I would be no match for the might of the federal government. I had lived in my castle for sixty-one years, and if I were human, my age would have been eighty-five. What shocked me almost beyond endurance was the appalling idea that I would find myself without a home. If you find my fears ludicrous, then you can’t possibly understand my deep emotional attachment to the only real home I have ever known. I would have given my entire fortune to keep it, and indeed it cost me a pretty penny before the unsettling business was finally laid to rest.

  In the beginning, though, I could see no alternative to moving away. My letters to the military governor of the New York area were of no avail. Finally, after much disputation, I was ordered to appear at Gen. Hazens office on Governors Island in New York harbor. Failure to appear, or to have an attorney act on my behalf, would result in the immediate occupation of my castle and lands by federal soldiers. In my first letter to Gen. Hazen, written without legal assistance, I pleaded extreme old age as a mitigating factor; then I was curtly informed that I would suffer no distress if I had to remove myself from my property. I had sufficient means to find other comfortable lodgings.

  The lawyer I engaged was the first of the old-line Wilcox family to enter the legal profession. Prominent in New York since early Colonial times, they had been landowners and soldiers and importers of West Indian rum. My Wilcox (Theodore Everett), thirty-five years of age when I became his client, had a rather unsavory reputation in the profession, but as it turned out, a slippery advocate was exactly what I needed. His fee, which included a large bribe to Gen. Hazen, was enormous, but I paid it without question, and it is not too farfetched to say that the fortunes of the Wilcox family were founded on that underhanded transaction.

  The red telephone light pulsed, and Van Diemen picked up the receiver. “Yes,” he said.

  “This is Vincent. I found her for you. No names, right?”

  “Right.” There was no need for this secrecy, but he went along with it. Let Vincent have his fun. “Where is she?”

  “Still at the Bronx Zoo. Staying at the Friends-of-the-Zoo house. Kind of a guest house they maintain for celebrities or big contributors. It’s close to the director’s own house. Fenced off, white stucco, a red tile roof. Now listen to this. My information is she’s been drinking up a storm, but keeping to the house while she’s doing it. Talking sixty miles a minute or not talking at all. When she does talk, it’s all about vampires. I guess that’s you, Mr. Van Diemen.”

  “I guess it is. They’re not going to remove her to a hospital, are they?”

  “They may have to if she keeps it up. But my information is Ms. Connors and the director, Edward C. Mahaffey, are friends from way back, so she’ll be there for a while. How long a while is, my informant can’t say and neither can I.” Mara cleared his throat. “You want to know how I got all that?”

  “Not right now,” Van Diemen said, then added, “but I’d like to hear all about it next time you’re here.”

  “But you have to admit I did good.”

  “You couldn’t have done better, Vincent. Any word of Landau?”

  “Not so far, Mr. Van Diemen. But I’m working on him. Oh, by the way, I moved into that hotel, like you suggested. Pretty good. Rent’s a bit steep, but it’s all right. I’ll give you my number.” I’ve got her now. Van Diemen thought after he had hung up. Maggie Connors may rave on about vampires, but her friends will put it down to the DTs. It looked as if the indestructible Maggie Connors wasn’t such an iron woman after all. The only thing that bothered Van Diemen was her camera. It had to be in the house; where else would it be? Or was she such a thorough professional that she would have sent the film out to be developed before she embarked on her binge? Or had she locked the camera away before she started to drink?

  It was impossible to tell what sort of mental state Maggie Connors was in. What was the use of guessing? If she had gone over the edge, she might stay there, which would be fine, but what about the camera? Van Diemen had to get the camera or, more precisely, the film with the pictures of him. Once the film was destroyed, Maggie Connors could rave on till kingdom come. Getting to her wouldn’t be easy. Her friend Mahaffey would be having her watched. He wouldn’t be guarding her from vampires, but from herself.

  Van Diemen felt tired. He had fed well, yet he was tired. So much had been going on lately. The evening, which had started so well, now jangled with anxiety, and since that the Connors business had taken a new turn, he wondered if he should do anything at all. If she hadn’t cracked up, it would be an entirely different matter. He would have to fly right over there and kill her if he could. But since she was apparently in a deranged state, how much of a threat was she?

  Van Diemen put down his pen and rose from his writing table. He’d made his decision. It was time to return to the zoo.

  Thirteen

  Climbing the stairs to the tower, Van Diemen wondered why he hadn’t acted immediately on Vincent’s information. Why had he tried to convince himself that there was no great urgency in dealing with the Maggie Connors problem? Was it because he sensed danger? He didn’t know, and that moment was no time to be going over it again.

  He threw himself from the tower in a rage and flew straight to the zoo. No showing off tonight, no banking or soaring. He cut through the night sky like a rocket. He was angry at himself for his earlier indecision, he wanted to get this done.

  Van Diemen flew over the Southern Boulevard entrance to the zoo, which had been closed since five o’clock. He slowed his speed as he passed high above Astor Court, a group of elaborate buildings with a sea-lion pool in the center. He knew the director’s house was somewhere on the far side of the court, and beyond that was the Friends-of-the-Zoo house, where the Connors woman was.

  He spotted the house without any trouble. The building had the white stucco walls and the red tiled roof Vincent had described. It was surrounded by a fence of tall, pointed stakes set close together, something like the palisades around African villages. The house was close to the security building, and the area was bright with sodium lights. But there was no one in sight, nor were there any no guard vehicles.

  Hovering high above the security area, Van Diemen watched for signs of activity and saw none. Usually something would be happening down there, such as a jeep or a Land Rover coming in or going out to make its rounds. He’d flown over the zoo often enough to know the routine. That night, there was nothing. It was as if the security force had disappeared. But where had they gone?

  Van Diemen suspected they were in hiding, waiting for him. It couldn’t be anything else. No watch for trespassers was responsible for this.

  He continued to hover, but nothing moved. He came down lower, knowing he risked being seen at that altitude and moving at that speed. Nothing happened as he moved in until he was directly over the house. Then he saw a dozen uniformed men standing behind the tall fence, on both sides of the gate; some had shotguns and some had nets.

  Van Diemen flew away quickly. He had to draw some of the men away from there. He couldn’t take on that many guards and hope to kill the Connors’s woman no matter how fiercely he fought. Satan knew what other equipment the security forces had besides the guns and the nets. They could have chemical sprays used to subdue fierce animals. They could have flamethrowers, which was the worst thought of all because Van Diemen could be destroyed by fire. He wanted desperately to fly away from there, to kill the Connors woman some other time. She couldn’t stay cooped up there forever.

  But he wasn’t going to do it. He might not get another chance, and he’d be damned if he’d let a drunken woman get away with threatening him. He flew away from the security area and came to earth in a grove of trees close to the building where they kept the big cats in winter. The big brick building had some dim lights showing, and he
knew there would be a night guard stationed inside the door the daytime visitors came in through. The guard had a canvas chair and a reading light. His job was to protect the big cats from the sadists who might try to break in.

  Van Diemen walked to the door without making a sound. He had to be careful; the guard could lock himself in if he thought there was a dangerous trespasser outside. Van Diemen listened and heard nothing. The guard had a two-way radio and could summon help if he thought he needed it. But he’d know about the setup at the guest house and he probably wouldn’t call for assistance unless he thought he couldn’t handle the problem by himself.

  Van Diemen climbed up to the barred window above the door. It had a broad sill, and he could stand there without being seen if the guard came out. Van Diemen couldn’t see the guard, but he was there all right, reading or dozing. Van Diemen howled like a wolf. He did it again, louder and more prolonged. There were wolves at the zoo, and Van Diemen hoped he sounded like one of them. He was about to give out with another howl when the guard came out with a revolver in his hand. The guard was moving out to the edge of the steps when Van Diemen dropped down and knocked him unconscious; then he kicked the man hard in the side of the head to make sure he’d stay unconscious. Van Diemen picked up the gun, went inside, and found the master key to the cages hanging on a hook behind the guard’s chair.

  The big cats, disturbed by the howling, were pacing their cages, growling ferociously. Starting at the far end, Van Diemen unlocked a lion’s cage. The great beast jumped down from it and bounded out through the open door. Van Diemen had no fear of the big killers. Since they knew he was no mortal man, they ran away from him. The only way they could run was out the door. In less than a minute, all the animals were loose, running in the darkness, roaring with anger and fear.

  Van Diemen threw away the gun and transformed himself into a bat, and as a bat, he swooped down over the big cats, most of which were running together in a terrified mass, trying to get away from the fearsome beast flying low over their heads. A whooping siren sounded over by the security building. When Van Diemen got there, men were running out from behind the African fence. Some were shouting, some just running. This breakout was the biggest emergency they’d ever had. There was a scream as the first tiger ran into the light and sprang at one of the guards. Afterwards there was more screaming, and then the shooting started.