The Tale of the Body Thief (49 page)

I heard David say something to me, but I didn’t really catch the words. I looked up slowly, pulling myself out of my thoughts, and I saw that he had turned to face me, and I realized that his hand was
resting gently on my neck. I wanted to say something angry—Take your hand away, don’t torment me—but I didn’t speak.

“No, you’re not evil, that’s not it,” he whispered. “It’s me, don’t you understand. It’s my fear! You don’t know what this adventure has meant to me! To be here again in this part of the great world—and with you! I
love
you. I love you desperately and insanely, I love the soul inside you, and don’t you see, it’s not evil. It’s not greedy. But it’s immense. It overpowers even this youthful body because it is your soul, fierce and indomitable and outside time—the soul of the true Lestat. I can’t give in to it. I can’t … do it. I’ll lose myself forever if I do it, as surely as if … as if … ”

He broke off, too shaken obviously to go on. I’d hated the pain in his voice, the faint tremour undermining its deep firmness. How could I ever forgive myself? I stood still, staring past him into the darkness. The lovely pounding of the surf and the faint clacking of the coconut palms were the only sounds. How vast were the heavens; how lovely and deep and calm these hours just before dawn.

I saw Gretchen’s face. I heard her voice.

There was a moment this morning when I thought I could throw up everything—just to be with you … I could feel it sweeping me away, the way the music once did. And if you were to say “Come with me,” even now, I might go … The meaning of chastity is not to fall in love … I could fall in love with you. I know I could
.

And then beyond this burning image, faint yet undeniable, I saw the face of Louis, and I heard words spoken in his voice that I wanted to forget.

Where was David? Let me wake from these memories. I don’t want them. I looked up and I saw him again, and in him the old familiar dignity, the restraint, the imperturbable strength. But I saw the pain too.

“Forgive me,” he whispered. His voice was still unsteady, as he struggled to preserve the beautiful and elegant facade. “You drank from the fountain of youth when you drank the blood of Magnus. Really you did. You’ll never know what it means to be the old man that I am now. God help me, I loathe the word, but it’s true. I’m old.”

“I understand,” I said. “Don’t worry.” I leant forward and kissed him again. “I’ll leave you alone. Come on, we should sleep. I promise. I’ll leave you alone.”

G
OOD Lord, look at it, David.” I had just stepped out of the taxi onto the crowded quai. The great blue and white
Queen Elizabeth
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was far too big to come into the little harbour. She rested at anchor a mile or two out—I could not gauge—so monstrously large that she seemed the ship out of a nightmare, frozen upon the motionless bay. Only her row upon row of myriad tiny windows prevented her from seeming the ship of a giant.

The quaint little island with its green hills and curved shore reached out towards her, as if trying to shrink her and draw her nearer, all in vain.

I felt a spasm of excitement as I looked at her. I had never been aboard a modern vessel. This part was going to be fun.

A small wooden launch, bearing her name in bold painted letters, and obviously laden with but one load of her many passengers, made its way to the concrete dock as we watched.

“There’s Jake in the prow of the launch,” said David. “Come on, let’s go into the café.”

We walked slowly under the hot sun, comfortable in our short-sleeve shirts and dungarees—a couple of tourists—past the dark-skinned vendors with their seashells for sale, and rag dolls, and tiny steel drums, and other souvenirs. How pretty the island appeared. Its forested hills were dotted with tiny dwellings, and the more solid buildings of the town of St. George’s were massed together on the steep cliff to the far left beyond the turn of the quai. The whole prospect had almost an Italian hue to it, what with so many dark and stained reddish walls and the rusted roofs of corrugated tin which in the burning sun looked deceptively like roofs of baked tile. It seemed a lovely place to go exploring—at some other time.

The dark café was cool inside with only a few brightly painted tables and straight-back chairs. David ordered bottles of cold beer, and within minutes Jake came sauntering in—wearing the very same khaki shorts and white polo shirt—and carefully chose a chair from which he might watch the open door. The world out there seemed made of glittering water. The beer tasted malty and rather good.

“Well, the deed is done,” Jake said in a low voice, his face rather rigid and abstracted as though he were not with us at all, but deep in thought. He took a gulp from the brown beer bottle, and then slipped a couple of keys across the table to David. “She’s carrying over one thousand passengers. Nobody will notice that Mr. Eric Sampson doesn’t reboard. The cabin’s tiny, inside as you requested, right off the corridor, midship, Five Deck, as you know.”

“Excellent. And you obtained two sets of keys. Very good.”

“The trunk’s open, with half the contents scattered on the bed. Your guns are inside the two books inside the trunk. Hollowed them out myself. The locks are there. You ought to be able to fit the big one to the door easily enough but I don’t know if the staff will care much for it when they see it. Again, I wish you the best of luck. Oh, and you heard the news about the robbery this morning on the hill? Seems we have a vampire in Grenada. Maybe you should plan to stay here, David. Sounds like just your sort of thing.”

“This morning?”

“Three o’clock. Right up there on the cliff. Big house of a rich Austrian woman. Everyone murdered. Quite a mess. The whole island’s talking about it. Well, I’m off.”

It was only after Jake had left us that David spoke again.

“This is bad, Lestat. We were standing out on the beach at three this morning. If he sensed even a glimmer of our presence, he may not be on the ship. Or he may be ready for us when the sun sets.”

“He was far too busy this morning, David. Besides, if he’d sensed our presence, he would have made a bonfire of our little room. Unless he doesn’t know how to do it, but that we simply cannot know. Let’s board the bloody ship now. I’m tired of waiting. Look, it’s starting to rain.”

We gathered up our luggage, including the monstrous leather suitcase David had brought from New Orleans, and hurried to the launch. A crowd of frail elderly mortals seemed to appear from everywhere—out of taxis and nearby sheds and little shops—now that the rain was really coming down, and it took us some minutes to get inside the unsteady little wooden boat, and take a seat on the wet plastic bench.

As soon as she turned her prow towards the
Queen Elizabeth
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, I felt a giddy excitement—fun to be riding this warm sea in such a small craft. I loved the movement as we gained speed.

David was quite tense. He opened his passport, read the information for the twenty-seventh time, and then put it away. We had gone over our identities this morning after breakfast, but hoped that we would never need to use the various details.

For what it was worth, Dr. Stoker was retired and on vacation in the Caribbean but very concerned about his dear friend Jason Hamilton, who was traveling in the Queen Victoria Suite. He was eager to see Mr. Hamilton, and so he would tell the cabin stewards of the Signal Deck, though cautioning them not to let Mr. Hamilton know of this concern.

I was merely a friend he’d met at the guesthouse the night before, and with whom he’d struck up an acquaintance on account of our sailing together on the
Queen Elizabeth
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. There was to be no other connection between us, for James would be in this body once the switch was done, and David might have to vilify him in some fashion if he could not be controlled.

There was more to it, in the event we were questioned about any sort of row that might occur. But in general, we did not think our plan could possibly lead to such a thing.

Finally the launch reached the ship, docking at a broad opening in the very middle of the immense blue hull. How utterly preposterously enormous the vessel appeared from this angle! She really did take my breath away.

I scarce noticed as we gave over our tickets to the waiting crew members. Luggage would be handled for us. We received some vague directions as to how we were to reach the Signal Deck, and then we were wandering down an endless corridor with a very low ceiling and door after door on either side of us. Within minutes, we realized we were quite lost.

On we walked until suddenly we reached a great open place with a sunken floor and, of all things, a white grand piano, poised on its three legs as if ready for a concert, and this within the windowless womb of this ship!

“It’s the Midships Lobby,” said David, pointing to a great colored diagram of the vessel in a frame upon the wall. “I know where we are now. Follow me.”

“How absurd all this is,” I said, staring at the brightly colored carpet, and the chrome and plastic everywhere I looked. “How utterly synthetic and hideous.”

“Shhh, the British are very proud of this ship, you’re going to offend someone. They can’t use wood anymore—it has to do with fire regulations.” He stopped at an elevator and pushed the button. “This will take us up to the Boat Deck. Didn’t the man say we must find the Queens Grill Lounge there?”

“I have no idea,” I said. I was like a zombie wandering into the elevator. “This is unimaginable!”

“Lestat, there have been giant liners like this one since the turn of the century. You’ve been living in the past.”

The Boat Deck revealed an entire series of wonders. The ship housed a great theatre, and also an entire mezzanine of tiny elegant shops. Below the mezzanine was a dance floor, with a small bandstand, and a sprawling lounge area of small cocktail tables and squat comfortable leather chairs. The shops were shut up since the vessel was in port, but it was quite easy to see their various contents through the airy grilles which closed them off. Expensive clothing, fine jewelry, china, black dinner jackets and boiled shirts, sundries, and random gifts were all on display in the shallow little bays.

There were passengers wandering everywhere—mostly quite old men and women dressed in scant beach clothing, many of whom were gathered in the quiet daylighted lounge below.

“Come on, the rooms,” said David, pulling me along.

It seems the penthouse suites, to which we were headed, were somewhat cut off from the great body of the ship. We had to slip into the Queens Grill Lounge, a long narrow pleasantly appointed bar reserved entirely for the top-deck passengers, and then find a more or less secret elevator to take us to these rooms. This bar had very large windows, revealing the marvelous blue water and the clear sky above.

This was all the province of first class on the transatlantic crossing. But here in the Caribbean it lacked this designation, though the lounge and restaurant locked out the rest of the little floating world.

At last we emerged on the very top deck of the ship, and into a corridor more fancily decorated than those below. There was an art deco feel to its plastic lamps, and the handsome trim on the doors. There was also a more generous and cheerful illumination. A friendly cabin steward—a gentleman of about sixty—emerged from a small curtained galley and directed us to our suites near the far end of the hall.

“The Queen Victoria Suite, where is it?” asked David.

The steward answered at once in a very similar British accent, that indeed, the Victoria Suite was only two cabins away. He pointed to the very door.

I felt the hair rise on my neck as I looked at it. I knew, absolutely knew, that the fiend was inside. Why would he bother with a more difficult hiding place? No one had to tell me. We would find a large trunk sitting near the wall in that suite. I was vaguely conscious of David using all his poise and charm upon the steward, explaining that he was a physician and how he meant to have a look at his dear friend Jason Hamilton as soon as he could. But he didn’t want to alarm Mr. Hamilton.

Of course not, said the cheerful steward, who volunteered that Mr. Hamilton slept throughout the day. Indeed, he was asleep in there now. Behold the “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging on the doorknob. But come, didn’t we want to settle into our rooms? Here was our luggage coming right along.

Our cabins surprised me. I saw both as the doors were opened, and before I retired into my own.

Once again, I spied only synthetic materials, looking very plastic and lacking altogether the warmth of wood. But the rooms were quite large, and obviously luxurious, and opened to each other with a connecting door to make one grand suite. This door was now closed.

Each room was furnished identically except for small differences of color, and rather like streamlined hotel rooms, with low king-sized beds, draped in soft pastel bedspreads, and narrow dressing tables built into the mirrored walls. There was the de rigueur giant television set, and the cleverly concealed refrigerator, and even a small sitting area with pale tastefully shaped little couch, coffee table, and upholstered chair.

The real surprise, however, was the verandas. A great glass wall with sliding doors opened upon these small private porches, which were wide enough to contain a table and chairs of their own. What a luxury it was to walk outside, and stand at the railing and look out upon the lovely island and its sparkling bay. And of course this meant the Queen Victoria Suite would have a veranda, through which the morning sun would very brightly shine!

I had to laugh to myself remembering our old vessels of the nineteenth century, with their tiny portholes. And though I much
disliked the pale, spiritless colors of the decor, and the total absence of any vintage surface materials, I was beginning to understand why James had remained fascinated with this very special little realm.

Meantime I could plainly hear David talking away to the cabin steward, their lilting British accents seeming to sharpen in response to one another, their speech becoming so rapid that I couldn’t entirely follow what was being said.