by Rice, Anne
We thanked the agent profusely for the maps and brochures, then headed for the taxis out front.
“Oh, it’s so bloody typical of him!” David said as the car carried us towards my apartment. “Everything is symbolic with this madman. And he himself was fired from the QE2 amid scandal and disgrace. I told you this, remember? Oh, you were so right. It’s all a matter of obsession, and the little demon gave you the clue himself.”
“Yes. Oh, definitely yes. And the Talamasca wouldn’t send him to America on the Queen Elizabeth 2. He never forgave you for that.”
“I hate him,” David whispered, with a heat that amazed me even given the circumstances in which we were involved.
“But it isn’t really so foolish, David,” I said. “It’s devilishly clever, don’t you see? Yes, he tipped his hand to me in Georgetown, chattering away about it, and we can lay that down to his self-destructiveness, but I don’t think he expected me to figure it out. And frankly, if you hadn’t laid out the news stories for me of the other murders, maybe I never would have thought of it on my own.”
“Possibly. I think he wants to be caught.”
“No, David. He’s hiding. From you, from me, and from the others. Oh, he’s very smart. Here we have this beastly sorcerer, capable of cloaking himself entirely, and where does he conceal himself—amid a whole teeming little world of mortals in the womb of a fast-moving ship. Look at this itinerary! Why, every night she’s sailing. Only by day does she remain in port.”
“Have it your way,” said David, “but I prefer to think of him as an idiot! And we’re going to catch him! Now you told me you gave him a passport, did you not?”
“Clarence Oddbody was the name. But surely he didn’t use it.”
“We’ll soon find out. My suspicion is that he boarded in New York in the usual way. It would have been crucial to him to be received with all due pomp and consideration—to book the finest suite and go parading up to the top deck, with stewards bowing to him. Those suites on the Signal Deck are enormous. No problem whatsoever for him to have a large trunk for his daylight hiding place. No cabin steward would trouble such a thing.”
We had come around again to my building. He pulled out some bills to pay the driver, and up the stairs we went.
As soon as we reached the apartment, we sat down with the printed itinerary and the news stories and worked out a schedule of how the killings had been done.
It was plain the beast had struck my agent in New York only hours before the ship sailed. He’d had plenty of time to board before eleven p.m. The murder near Bal Harbour had been committed only hours before the ship docked. Obviously he covered a small distance by the power of flight, returning to his cabin or other hiding place before the sun rose.
For the Santo Domingo murder, he had left the ship for perhaps an hour, and then caught up with her on her journey south. Again, these distances were nothing. He did not even need preternatural sight to spot the giant Queen Elizabeth 2 steaming across the open sea. The murders on Curaçao had taken place only a little while after the ship sailed. He’d probably caught up with the ship within less than an hour, laden with his loot.
The ship was now on her way north again. She had docked at La Guaira, on the coast of Venezuela, only two hours ago. If he struck tonight in Caracas or its environs, we knew we had him for certain. But we had no intention of waiting for further proof.
“All right, let’s think this out,” I said. “Dare we board this vessel ourselves?”
“Of course, we must.”
“Then we should have fake passports for this. We may leave behind a great deal of confusion. David Talbot mustn’t be implicated. And I can’t use the passport he gave me. Why, I don’t know where that passport is. Perhaps still in the town house in Georgetown. God knows why he used his own name on it, probably to get me in trouble first time I went through customs.”
“Absolutely right. I can take care of the documents before we leave New Orleans. Now, we can’t get to Caracas before the ship leaves at five o’clock. No. We’ll have to board her in Grenada tomorrow. We’ll have until five p.m. Very likely there are cabins available. There are always last-minute cancellations, sometimes even deaths. In fact, on a ship as expensive as the QE2 there are always deaths. Undoubtedly James knows this. He can feed anytime he wishes if he takes the proper care.”
“But why? Why deaths on the QE2?”
“Elderly passengers,” David said. “It’s a fact of cruise life. The QE2 has a large hospital for emergencies. This is a floating world, a ship of this size. But no matter. Our investigators will clarify everything. I’ll get them on it at once. We can easily make Grenada from New Orleans, and we have time to prepare for what we must do.
“Now, Lestat, let’s consider this in detail. Suppose we confront this fiend right before sunup. And suppose we send him right straight back into this mortal body, and cannot control him after that. We need a hiding place for you … a third cabin, booked under a name which is in no way connected with either one of us.”
“Yes, something deep in the center of the ship, on one of the lower decks. Not the very lowest. That would be too obvious. Something in the middle, I should think.”
“But how fast can you travel? Can you make it within seconds to a lower deck?”
“Without question. Don’t even worry about such a thing. An inside cabin, that’s important, and one large enough to include a trunk. Well, the trunk isn’t really essential, not if I’ve fitted a lock to the door beforehand, but the trunk would be a fine idea.”
“Ah, I see it. I see it all. I see now what we must do. You rest, drink your coffee, take a shower, do whatever you wish. I’m going in the next room and make the calls I must make. This is Talamasca, and you must leave me alone.”
“You’re not serious,” I said. “I want to hear what you’re—”
“You’ll do as I say. Oh, and find someone to care for that beautiful canine. We can’t take him with us! That’s patently absurd. And a dog of such character mustn’t be neglected.”
Off he hurried, closing me out of the bedroom, so that he might make all these exciting little calls alone.
“And just when I was beginning to enjoy this,” I said.
I sped off to find Mojo, who was sleeping in the cold wet roof garden as if it were the most normal thing in the world. I took him down with me to the old woman on the first floor. Of all my tenants she was the most agreeable, and could certainly use a couple of hundred dollars for boarding a gentle dog.
At the mere suggestion, she was beside herself with joy. Mojo could use the courtyard behind the building, and she needed the money and the company, and wasn’t I a nice young man? Just as nice as my cousin, Monsieur de Lioncourt, who was like a guardian angel to her, never bothering to cash the checks she gave him for her rent.
I went back up to the apartment, and discovered that David was still at work, and refusing to let me listen. I was told to make coffee, which of course I didn’t know how to make. I drank the old coffee and called Paris.
My agent answered the phone. He was just in the process of sending me the status report I’d requested. All was going well. There had been no further assaults from the mysterious thief. Indeed the last had occurred on Friday evening. Perhaps the fellow had given up. An enormous sum of money was waiting for me now at my New Orleans bank.
I repeated all my cautions to the man, and told him that I would call soon again.
Friday evening. That meant James had tried his last assault before the Queen Elizabeth 2 left the States. He had no means while at sea to consider his computer thievery. And surely he had no intention of hurting my Paris agent. That is, if James was still content with his little vacation on the Queen Elizabeth 2. There was nothing to stop him from jumping ship whenever he pleased.
I went into the computer again and tried to access the accounts of Lestan Gregor, the alias who had wired the twenty million to the Georgetown bank. Just as I suspected. Lestan Gregor still existed but
he was virtually penniless. Bank balance zero. The twenty million wired to Georgetown for the use of Raglan James had indeed reverted back to Mr. Gregor at Friday noon, and then been immediately withdrawn from his account. The transaction assuring this withdrawal had been set up the preceding night. By one p.m. on Friday, the money was gone on some untraceable path. The whole story was there, embedded in various numerical codes and general bank gibberish, which any fool could see.
And surely there was a fool staring at this computer screen right now.
The little beast had warned me that he could steal through computers. No doubt he’d wheedled information from the people at the Georgetown bank, or raped their unsuspecting minds with his telepathy, to gain the codes and numbers he required.
Whatever the case he had a fortune at his disposal which had once been my fortune. I hated him all the more. I hated him for killing my man in New York. I hated him for smashing all the furniture when he did it, and for stealing everything else in the office. I hated him for his pettiness and his intellect, his crudeness and his nerve.
I sat drinking the old coffee, and thinking about what lay ahead.
Of course I understood what James had done, stupid though it seemed. From the very first I’d known that his stealing had to do with some profound hunger in his soul. And this Queen Elizabeth 2 had been the world of his father, the world from which he, caught in an act of thievery, had been cast out.
Oh, yes, cast out, the way the others had cast me out. And how eager he must have been to return to it with his new power and his new wealth. He’d probably planned it down to the very hour, as soon as we’d agreed upon a date for the switch. No doubt if I had put him off, he would have picked up the ship at some later harbour. As it was, he was able to begin his journey only a short distance from Georgetown, and strike my mortal agent before the ship sailed.
Ah, the way he’d sat in that grimly lighted little Georgetown kitchen, staring again and again at his watch. I mean, this watch.
At last David emerged from the bedroom, notebook in hand. Everything had been arranged.
“There is no Clarence Oddbody on the Queen Elizabeth 2, but a mysterious young Englishman named Jason Hamilton booked the lavish Queen Victoria Suite only two days before the ship sailed from New York. For the moment we must assume that this is our man. We’ll have more information about him before we reach Grenada. Our investigators are already at work.
“We ourselves are booked out of Grenada in two penthouse suites on the same deck as our mysterious friend. We must board anytime tomorrow before the ship sails at five p.m.
“The first of our connecting flights leaves New Orleans in three hours. We will need at least one of those hours to obtain a pair of false passports from a gentleman who’s been highly recommended for this sort of transaction and is in fact waiting for us now. I have the address here.”
“Excellent. I’ve plenty of cash on hand.”
“Very good. Now, one of our investigators will meet us in Grenada. He’s a very cunning individual and I’ve worked with him for years. He’s already booked the third cabin—inside, deck five. And he will manage to smuggle a couple of small but sophisticated firearms into that cabin, as well as the trunk we will need later on.”
“Those weapons will mean nothing to a man walking around in my old body. But of course afterwards …”
“Precisely,” said David. “After the switch, I will need a gun to protect myself against this handsome young body here.” He gestured to me. “Now, to continue. My investigator will slip off the ship after he has officially boarded, leaving the cabin and the guns to us. We ourselves will go through the regular boarding process with our new identification. Oh, and I’ve selected our names already. Afraid I had to do it. I do hope you don’t mind. You’re an American named Sheridan Blackwood. And I’m a retired English surgeon named Alexander Stoker. It’s always best to pose as a doctor on these little missions. You’ll see what I mean.”
“I’m thankful you didn’t pick H. P. Lovecraft,” I said with an exaggerated sigh of relief. “Do we have to leave now?”
“Yes, we do. I’ve already called the taxi. We must get some tropical clothing before we go, or we’ll look perfectly ridiculous. There isn’t a moment to lose. Now, if you will use those strong young arms of yours to help me with this suitcase, I shall be forever obliged.”
“I’m disappointed.”
“In what?” He stopped, stared at me, and then almost blushed as he had earlier that day. “Lestat, there is no time for that sort of thing.”
“David, assuming we succeed, it may be our last chance.”
“All right,” he said, “there is plenty of time to discuss it at the beachside hotel in Grenada tonight. Depending of course on how quick you are with your lessons in astral projection. Now, do please show some youthful vim and vigor of a constructive sort, and help me with this suitcase. I’m a man of seventy-four.”
“Splendid. But I want to know something before we go.”
“What?”
“Why are you helping me?”
“Oh, for the love of heaven, you know why.”
“No, I don’t.”
He stared at me soberly for a long moment, then said, “I care for you! I don’t care what body you’re in. It’s true. But to be perfectly honest, this ghastly Body Thief, as you call him, frightens me. Yes, frightens me to the marrow of my bones.
“He’s a fool, and he always brings about his own ruin, that’s true. But this time I think you’re right. He’s not at all eager to be apprehended, if in fact he ever was. He’s planning on a long run of success, and he may tire of the QE2 very soon. That’s why we must act. Now pick up this suitcase. I nearly killed myself hauling it up those stairs.”
I obeyed.
But I was softened and saddened by his words of feeling, and plunged into a series of fragmentary images of all the little things we might have done in the large soft bed in the other room.
And what if the Body Thief had jumped ship already? Or been destroyed this very morning—after Marius had looked upon me with such disdain?
“Then we’ll go on to Rio,” said David, leading the way to the gate. “We’ll be in time for the carnival. Nice vacation for us both.”
“I’ll die if I have to live that long!” I said, taking the lead down the stairs. “Trouble with you is you’ve gotten used to being human because you’ve done it for so damned long.”
“I was used to it by the time I was two years old,” he said dryly.
“I don’t believe you. I’ve watched two-year-old humans with interest for centuries. They’re miserable. They rush about, fall down, and scream almost constantly. They hate being human! They know already that it’s some sort of dirty trick.”
He laughed to himself but didn’t answer me. He wouldn’t look at me either.
The cab was already waiting for us when we reached the front door.
TWENTY
The plane ride would have been another absolute nightmare, had I not been so tired that I slept. A full twenty-four hours had passed since my last dreamy rest in Gretchen’s arms, and indeed I fell so deep into sleep now that when David roused me for the change of planes in Puerto Rico, I scarce knew where we were or what we were doing, and for an odd moment, it felt entirely normal to be lugging about this huge heavy body in a state of confusion and thoughtless obedience to David’s commands.
We did not go outside the terminal for this transfer of planes. And when at last we did land in the small airport in Grenada, I was surprised by the close and delicious Caribbean warmth and the brilliant twilight sky.
All the world seemed changed by the soft balmy embracing breezes which greeted us. I was glad we had raided the Canal Street shop in New Orleans, for the heavy tweed clothes felt all wrong. As the cab bounced along the narrow uneven road, carrying us to our beachfront hotel, I was transfixed by the lush forest around us, the big red hibiscus blooming beyond little fences, the graceful coconut palms bending o
ver the tiny tumbledown hillside houses, and eager to see, not with this dim frustrating mortal night vision, but in the magical light of the morning sun.
There had been something absolutely penitential about my undergoing the transformation in the mean cold of Georgetown, no doubt of it at all. Yet when I thought of it—that lovely white snow, and the warmth of Gretchen’s little house, I couldn’t truly complain. It was only that this Caribbean island seemed the true world, the world for real living; and I marveled, as I always did when in these islands, that they could be so beautiful, so warm, and so very poor.
Here one saw the poverty everywhere—the haphazard wooden houses on stilts, the pedestrians on the borders of the road, the old rusted automobiles, and the total absence of any evidence of affluence, making of course for a quaintness in the eye of the outsider, but something of a hard existence perhaps for the natives, who had never gathered together enough dollars to leave this place, even perhaps for a single day.
The evening sky was a deep shining blue, as it is often in this part of the world, as incandescent as it can be over Miami, and the soft white clouds made the same clean and dramatic panorama on the far edge of the gleaming sea. Entrancing, and this is but one tiny part of the great Caribbean. Why do I ever wander in other climes at all?
The hotel was in fact a dusty neglected little guesthouse of white stucco under a myriad complex of rusted tin roofs. It was known only to a few Britishers, and very quiet, with a rambling wing of rather old-fashioned rooms looking out over the sands of Grand Anse Beach. With profuse apologies for the broken air-conditioning machines, and the crowded quartets—we must share a room with twin beds, I almost burst into laughter, as David looked to heaven as if to say silently that his persecution would never end!—the proprietor demonstrated that the creaky overhead fan created quite a breeze. Old white louvered shutters covered the windows. The furniture was made of white wicker, and the floor was old tile.