"Really," I said. "You must try your pate. It's marvelous."
"What is it?" he asked.
"Goose liver, butter, cognac, pepper, and cream, most likely," I said. "Do go on with your tale. It's so unusual to have such a fascinating dinner story."
He poked at the pate as if it would leap off the plate and attack him. Then he put the knife down. No guts, no glory.
"But see, the painting reminded me of another one I'd seen, in some class I'd had in school. So after I went to the library and started looking through books of artists…"
"Was this while you were still in Scotland?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied. "I was staying for a couple of weeks. Paul was glad to get me out of the house ev- ery now and again so he could have his girlfriend over. They were wanting to… well, you know."
"How touching."
"Anyway, I found the book I was looking for. It was on Rembrandt. It had all his paintings in it with little descriptions of what they were about and who owned them. But most of them are in museums. Ex- cept the one you have.
"But you obviously had all this money so I fig- ured you could buy a Rembrandt if you wanted, but you couldn't have a portrait of yourself by him un- less you'd'been there."
"I hate to interrupt your psychotic ramblings," I said. "But haven't you ever heard of copycat paint- ers?"
"Yeah, I heard about them when I was doing my research on you, but from what I came up with, that wasn't your style. You go for top-notch stuff if you bother with it at all."
"How flattering."
"Look, just stop trying to play like you don't know what I'm talking about. I've done research on you for the last four years. I know you've taken the identities of a number of other people. Graves are full of. the babies whose names you've used. You've passed yourself off as your own granddaughter, as missing cousins. You're very good, I'll grant you that. But I have the documentation to back up every- thing I've found."
He pulled an envelope from his inside pocket and dropped it on the table. A sick feeling nestled in my stomach.
"Go ahead," he said. "Look inside."
Slowly, I wiped my fingers on my napkin. Mov- ing slowly seemed to be a very good idea at the mo- ment. I pulled the envelope to me and slid the contents out. There were letters from registry offices in several countries, copies of birth and death certif- icates, copies of land purchases in the names of some of the pseudonyms I've used. There was even a photo of the Rembrandt.
"How did you get this?" I asked holding up the photo. I was getting angry, but I didn't let him know. This was too terrible to let a foolish burst of temper out.
"Paul had to go back to your house for some re- pairs while I was there on my visit. I came along and snuck up to your study to make some shots."
"What do you want?" I asked. I felt sick. "Money?"
He shook his head furiously. "No," he said. "That's not it at all. I want what you have. I want to be immortal."
"And what makes you think I can make you so?"
"Because that's how it works," he said. "Like vampires, only I don't think you're a vampire. At least not the blood-sucking kind. You've got some- thing and I want it. Why shouldn't I be like you? I figured out that you were immortal. I mean, shouldn't there be some kind of reward for that?"
I closed my eyes. Mortals. Humans. There were times when I thought Alachia's attitude toward them was dead on.
"And you think your reward should be that I make you into what I am?"
He smiled. "Yes, that's it exactly."
"Very well," I said. "Since you've asked so nicely."
I forced myself to choke down the rest of dinner. The lovely salmon, the delicate potato souffle, the oysters, the escargot, even the marvelous Baked Alaska were all like ashes in my mouth.
John Mortimer was having no such problem with his meal. He attacked the food like a hungry dog. When he didn't recognize a dish, he would look to- ward me inquiringly and I would oblige with the in- formation. Except with the escargot. I told him it was a rare kind of seafood, like oysters. Luckily, he knew what oysters were. The one culinary achievement of his previous life.
That's how he referred to it: His Previous Life. As though he'd already moved out of it and into a greater place. He rambled on about the places he would go, the things he would do, never once telling me how he might acquire the means to achieve all these tremendous feats. It had taken me centuries to establish my own fortune. And still more time to at- tend to it. Money is like any other profession. You had to look in on it, make sure no one else had de- cided they liked it better than you did and run off with it. I found such things boring and loathsome in the extreme. But I still had to do it. I just don't like to talk about it.
"… and then I thought you and I could…"
This jerked me back to my companion and his ramblings.
"You and I could what?" I asked.
"Well, I mean, I thought that… I just assumed that because you were going to make me like you that we would be together. I mean until, you know, whenever."
"Whenever what?"
"Whenever we got, you know, tired of each other. Or until I was ready to be out on my own."
"I see, so not only am I to… convert you to your immortality, but then I'm to be your nursemaid as well?"
He blushed. "Not nursemaid, exactly, but, well you know." He gave me quite a look then, and, had I not been furious, I would have found it a bit interesting. But that was neither here nor there.
"So, I'm to become your um, paramour, shall we say, and make you immortal. And what exactly is it that I'm supposed to achieve from this equation?"
"What do you mean?"
"What I mean is, what's in it for me? Why should I make you, of all people, like me? Is it your charm- ing personality? Or perhaps it's your wit? Maybe your sexual prowess? Come now, why should I bother with you?"
He was red again, but not from embarrassment. I think I might have offended him. What a pity.
"You'll do it because I'll expose you if you don't."
"Expose me to whom? The Agency in Charge of Finding and Keeping Immortals? Or maybe you'll go to the police. 'I beg your pardon, but there's a woman I know who's immortal.' They'll laugh you out of the office. Your whole story is preposterous. There won't be a dry seat in the house."
"All I have to do is make one phone call to the nght sort of newspaper. They love this sort of thing. Only when they start digging, they'll find out it's true."
"They'll wet themselves laughing." "Do you really want to risk it?" The little maggot. I hadn't thought he had the brass for it.
"I thought not," he said. And smirked. He really shouldn't have smirked.
* * *
I paid for dinner and we began walking through the Quarter. I didn't want to lead him straight toward the hotel, though I suspected he already knew where I was staying. What to do with him? I wondered. The crowd was thicker now that it was getting on to- ward nine o'clock. Mostly there were badly dressed tourists in too tight T-shirts with cute sayings on them. Some carried plastic cups with drinks in them. The smell of beer and sticky-sweet Hurricanes was overpowering.
I led us toward Chartres Street, then on toward the riverwalk. The smell of the Mississippi was heavy and thick like new-cut earth. It blended with the sweet aroma of the olive trees. For some reason it gave me a stab of hope, this strange combination of odors. It reminded me of another time and place. But such pleasant memories would get in my way now. I needed to attend to the matter at hand.
We walked past the homeless people who were sleeping in the park and stepped over the ones who had simply lain down where they were. Every few paces or so, we were approached by someone asking for money. Most of the panhandlers had a ready patter, some hard-luck story about why they needed just another dollar. I gave to them willingly. Life presented us with enough indignities in just the living of it, so why make it worse if you could help?
"Why are you giving them money?" hissed John. He glanced aroun
d as though he expected someone to jump up at him and demand money.
"Because I have it. They need it. And I don't mind giving to them," I said. "Why do you care any- way? It isn't your money."
"You're just encouraging them," he said. "If no one gave them any money they'd have to get
job."
"Let me see if I understand you," I said. "You think these people prefer to live meaner than any an- imal. That they are so unwilling to work that they would rather sleep on the ground in the cold, go without food, beg coin from strangers in the most humiliating way possible, and live in filthy rags? That is, of course, assuming that they are mentally stable enough to hold work or even have such rudi- mentary skills as reading, writing, or arithmetic. How silly of me to be so completely fooled by their clever charade.
"Of course, I'm in the company of someone who wouldn't sully his hands with something as vulgar as say, extortion."
"You know, you can be a real bitch," he said.
I touched my hand to my heart. "I'm mortally wounded," I said.
We walked down by the river for a while, until the sidewalk petered out and there was a sudden lack of street lights. John looked nervous, but I knew there was nothing to worry about, yet.
"So you want to become immortal," I said. "What if I told you I can't do it? That this is some- thing you're born with or not. That I can no more make you immortal than any stranger off the street could."
He frowned. "You're just trying to confuse me," he said. "You told me at the restaurant…"
"I told you that so you wouldn't make a scene. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't change you from what you are. I don't have that power. Why would I lie to you?"
"Is this a test?" he asked. I groaned. "No, it is not. It's the truth." "You just don't like me. That's why you're doing this. Well, it won't work. And it doesn't matter any- way. I figured out what you are, and that's worth something. Don't think you'll fool me the way you've fooled everyone else."
"Oh, no," I said. "I wouldn't dream of that." / think you're a special kind of fool, I thought. "You know, becoming immortal doesn't just hap- pen overnight. It takes a while for the process to work."
"But you can start it soon, can't you?" "Oh, yes," I said. "But first, I must make some preparations." I tossed him the key to my hotel room. "I'm in room 1650 at the Fairmont. I'll be back before midnight." "I'll be waiting," he said.
I didn't say anything, just turned and went back toward the Quarter.
I knocked on the door of my room at 11:45. The vid inside was loud enough for me to hear it through the door. Then the door swung open. I had half- hoped Mortimer might realize how foolish this whole thing was, but no, there he was, sans jacket, and barefoot. "Glad to see you've made yourself comfortable,"
I said.
"Yeah, well, given the circumstances, I didn't think you'd mind."
"Push that bed up against the wall," I said. As he did so, I also pushed every other piece of furniture in the room against the walls, making a nice-sized space in the center of the room.
"We're going to do it here?" he asked.
"Why not?" I asked. "This place has always had a great deal of magical energy. Besides, this is just the start of the process, and I know how anxious you are to embark on your new life."
"Yeah, well, I guess I thought I'd have more time."
"Time for what?"
"I don't know," he replied. "To say goodbye."
"You can't say goodbye, but you can go back and make some preparations," I said. "I'll explain every- thing after the ceremony."
I crouched down and poured out the contents of the bag I'd brought back with me. Luckily, Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo had just the sort of things that would help in my little charade. Candles, skulls, charms, unidentifiable bones, incense, and assorted effluvia tumbled onto the carpet. Feathers I'd picked up in the park came from my jacket pocket.
I shoved everything to one side. "Stand here," I instructed, pointing to the center of the room. I placed the candles around him in a rough circle, then lit them. The incense I lit and stuck in-between the drawers of the bureau. Then I switched off the lights and went over to the window and drew the drapes.
The effect was getting pretty good. Lots of sandal- wood smoke wafting through flickering candle light. I made him hold out his hands and dropped a skull into one and the strange bones into the other. Then I made him open his mouth and popped one of the charms inside. I almost started laughing at the face he made, but I knew that would break the spell.
The rest of the charms I placed in his pockets and down his shirt. Then I began to chant softly and wave my arms in front of him. In Sanskrit I told him what a complete imbecile he was and how his mother was probably a goat-herder who slept in cow dung for fun while she mated with snakes at the bottom of a cesspool.
From the expression on John Mortimer's face‹a I knew he thought he was being transported to| the next level of existence. And how close hell was.
It took me a while to run through his entire familyS lineage back to his great-great-grandparents, but I| managed to think up appropriate comments for all ofi| them. Now it was time for the big finish. I distractedr| him as I tossed flash paper into one candle after an-1 other. He gave a little squeal and jumped.
"Ack," he said. "I've swallowed the charm."
"That's all right, you're supposed to," I said. "How do you feel?"
He looked down at himself as though he expected to see something different.
"The same. I'm getting a bit of a headache from all the incense," he said. "Are you sure it worked?"
"Oh, I almost forgot," I said. "The most important thing."
I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his fore- head. I held it there for a long time. I could see the weave of his life. Could feel the singsong of his blood as it raced through his veins. His delicate and vulnerable veins. Especially those in his brain. So thin. So easily stressed. It took a bit out of me, the subtlety of it, but I had no other choice.
He stepped back from me.
"What's this?" he asked, reaching out and touching my cheek.
There, suspended on the tip of his finger, was a single blood tear.
"The price of immortality," I said.
"I think I felt something," he said.
"I'm sure you did." I reached out and gently wiped the tear away.
The aneurysm killed him on his flight back to London. I had told him to go home and get his be- longings and meet me in Scotland. It being a slow news day, his death actually made the paper in a small item. Freak accident, the report said. A terrible tragedy for one so young.
November 21, 1998
Anna Sluage Earldom of Arran Arran Island, Scotland
Dear Countess,
It is my most embarrassing duty to tell you that my late client, one John Mortimer, had apparently become fixated on you during the last few years of his life. Upon his death, I was instructed to open a parcel he 'd left with me a few months ago. In this parcel were documents and writings of Mr. Mortimer claiming a tale as regards you, of the most fantastic sort. His instructions to me, as his solicitor, were that should he die under unusu- al circumstances I was to go to the media with this story.
Due to the nature of my client's death, I recognized these bizarre accusations as the demented ravings of a mentally ill man. It is a great sadness to his family that they did not realize how ill he was until his untimely de- mise.
Please rest assured that I have forwarded all these ma- terials to you for you to dispose of as you will. No copies have been made by me or my office. I can only hope that my client did not make himself a burden on you. Rest as- sured that this matter will go no further.
Sincerely yours, Mecham Bernard, Esq.
Several months later I received a note from John Mortimer's mother. She had gone to clean out his flat and had discovered his diary and a bulletin board covered with photos of me. In her letter, she said that she hoped her son had not bothered me. She explained that his obsess
ion with me was no doubt caused by the same weakness in his brain that killed him.
She also told me that she had destroyed all the pa- pers and pictures of me she had found.
I wrote her back, thanking her for her concern, and assured her that her son had never bothered me in the slightest. We actually developed a bit of a cor- respondence, which lasted until her death in 2021.
She's traveling in a car. Or maybe it's a bus. She isn't sure, because it continually shifts shape and form. Caimbeui is driving. He is wearing that hor- rible makeup. Garish and clownlike. A hideous red gash of a mouth. Black diamonds over his eyes. Hair streaked with blond and orange. His usual garb is replaced with faded blue jeans, cowboy boots run down at the heels, and a washed-out T-shirt that says: Ninety percent of everything is drek.
"I was wondering when you 'd get here," Caimbeui says.
"Where is here?" she asks.
"You know, " he replies. "It's wherever you want it to be."
She glances out the window, which shows an end- less display of black night. The headlights occasion- ally catch a scrubby tree, then slide back over the broken road. Looking back at Caimbeui, she sees that the saying on the shirt has changed: I prefer the wicked to the foolish. The wicked sometimes rest.
"Didn't? Wasn't?" she asks.
"Oh," Caimbeui says looking down at his shirt and shrugging. "It's your dream. Don't ask me. I'm just along for the ride."
"You always did steal your best lines," she says.
He drops the car into overdrive. It surges ahead, the G-force slamming both of them back in their seats.
"Hang on," he shouts over the roar of the engine. "It's going to be a bumpy night."
20
Runner's Revenge was blasting a cover of the old tune "Do You Believe in Magic?" over the trideo system at LAX. They'd done something strange to the song, pumping a reggae beat under the glass- shattering shriek of the cyberjacked vocals of the lead singer, whose species, much less gender, I had yet to determine.
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