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.Take it.If I can't leavethese things to you, Dora."So this Christface had been his precious gift?"I won't take them anymore, Daddy, I told you.I won't."He had pressed her with the vague scheme that this new gift couldbe exhibited for the public.So could all his relics.They could raisemoney for the church.She had started to cry, and all this had been going on back at thehotel, whilst David and I had been in the bar only yards from them."And say these bastards do manage to pick me up, some warrant,something I haven't covered, you're telling me you won't take thesethings? You'll let strangers take them?""Stolen, Daddy," she had cried."They are not clean.They aretainted."He really could not understand his daughter.It seemed he'd beena thief ever since he was a child.New Orleans.The boardinghouse,the curious mixture of poverty and elegance and his mother drunkmost of the time.The old captain who ran the antique shop.All thiswas going through his mind.Old Captain had had the front rooms ofthe house, and he, my Victim, had brought the breakfast tray eachmorning to Old Captain, before going on to school.Boardinghouse,service, elegant oldsters, St.Charles Avenue.The time when the mensat on the galleries in the evening and the old ladies did, too, withtheir hats.Daylight times I'd never know again.Such reverie.No, Dora wouldn't like this.And he wasn't so surehe did either, suddenly.He had standards which were often difficultto explain to people.He began some defense as though talking to thedealer who'd brought this."It's beautiful, yes, but it's too Baroque! Itlacks that element of distortion that I treasure."I smiled.I loved this guy's mind.And the smell of the blood, well.I took a deliberate breath of it, and let it turn me into a total predator.Go slowly, Lestat.You've waited for months.Don't rush it.And he'ssuch a monster himself.He'd shot people in the head, killed themwith knives.Once in a small grocery he had shot both his enemy andthe proprietor's wife with utter indifference.Woman in the way.Andhe had coolly walked out.Those were early New York days, beforeMiami, before South America.But he remembered that murder, andthat's why I knew about it.He thought a lot about those various deaths.That's why I thoughtabout them.He was studying the hoofed feet of this thing, this angel, devil,demon.I realized its wings reached the ceiling.I could feel thatshiver again if I let myself.But again, I was on firm ground, and therewas nothing from any other realm in this place.He slipped off his coat now, and stood in shirtsleeves.That wastoo much.I could see the flesh of his neck, of course, as he opened hiscollar.I could see that particularly beautiful place right below his ear,that special measure between the back of the neck of a human and thelobe of his ear, which has so much to do with male beauty.Hell, I had not invented the significance of necks.Everyone knewwhat those proportions meant.He was all over pleasing to me, but itwas the mind, really.To hell with his Asian beauty and all that, evenhis vanity which made him glow for fifty feet in all directions.It wasthe mind, the mind that was locked onto the statue, and had for onemerciful moment let thoughts of Dora go.He reached for another one of the little halogen spots andclamped his hand over the hot metal and directed it hill on thedemon's wing, the wing I could best see, and I too saw the perfectionhe was thinking about, the Baroque love of detail; no.He did notcollect this sort of thing.His taste was for the grotesque, and thisthing was only grotesque by accident.God, it was hideous.It had aferocious mane of hair, and a scowl on its face that could have beendesigned by William Blake, and huge rounded eyes that fixed on himin seeming hatred."Blake, yes!" he said suddenly.He turned around."Blake.Thedamned thing looks like one of those drawings by Blake."I realized he was staring at me.I had projected the thought,carelessly, yes, obviously with purpose.I felt a shock of connection.Hesaw me.He saw the glasses perhaps, and the light, or maybe my hair.Very slowly I stepped out, with my arms at my sides.I wantednothing so vulgar as his reaching for his gun.But he hadn't reachedfor it.He merely looked at me, blinded perhaps by the bright littlelights so near to him.The halogen beam threw the shadow of theangel's wing on the ceiling.I came closer.He said absolutely nothing.He was afraid.Or rather, let me say,he was alarmed.He was more than alarmed.He felt this might verywell be his last confrontation.Someone had gotten by him totally!And it was too late to be reaching for guns, or doing anything soliteral, and yet he wasn't actually in fear of me.Damned if he didn't know I wasn't human.I came swiftly towards him, and took his face in both my hands.He went into a sweat and tremble, naturally, yet he reached up andpulled the glasses off my eyes and they fell on the floor."Oh, it's gorgeous, finally," I whispered, "to be so very close toyou!"He couldn't form words.No mortal in my grip like this couldhave been expected to utter anything but prayers, and he had noprayers! He stared right into my eyes, and then very slowly took mymeasure, not daring to move, his face still fixed in both my cold, coldhands, and he knew.Not human.It was the strangest reaction! Of course I'd confrontedrecognition before, in lands the world over; but prayer, madness, somedesperate atavistic response, something always accompanied it.Even inold Europe where they believed in the nosferatu, they'd scream out aprayer before I sank my teeth.But this, what was this, his staring at me, this comical criminalcourage!"Going to die like you lived?" I whispered.One thought galvanized him.Dora.He went into a violent struggle,grabbing at my hands, realizing they felt like stone, and thenconvulsing, as he tried to pull himself loose, held mercilessly by theface.He hissed at me.Some inexplicable mercy came over me.Don't torture him likethis.He knows too much.Understands too much.God, you've hadmonths of watching him, you don't have to stretch this out.On theother hand, when will you find another kill like this one!Well, hunger overcame judgment.I pressed my forehead againsthis neck first, shifting my hand to the back of his head, let him feelmy hair, heard him draw in his breath, and then I drank.I had him.I had the gush, and him and Old Captain in the frontroom, the streetcar crashing past outside, and him saying to OldCaptain, "You ever show it to me again or ask me to touch it and Iwon't ever come near you." And Old Captain swearing he neverwould.Old Captain taking him to the movies, and to dinner at theMonteleone, and on the plane to Atlanta, having vowed never to do itagain, "Just let me be around you, son, just let me be near you, I'llnever, I swear." His mother drunk in the doorway, brushing her hair."I know your game, you and that old man, I know just what you'redoing.He bought you those clothes? You think I don't know [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]