Worlds Without End (15 page)

“I must say, you look awfully good for someone who’s at least five hundred years old by my calculations.”

He had my attention.

I looked at him carefully. He was working far too hard at being nonchalant. There was a telltale shine to his upper lip, and I could hear the dry click of his throat as he swallowed. Whatever he knew, it wasn’t as much as he wanted to let on.

The waiter came with my soup. Vichyssoise. Thick and heavy with cream. He looked inquiringly at my new companion.

“Be so kind as to bring my friend here the same.” I said. The waiter nodded and went away.

“What’s that?” Black T-shirt asked.

“Vichyssoise.” I replied.

He looked blank.

“Cold potato soup.” I said.

He wrinkled his nose.

“Beggars can’t be choosers and neither can you.” I leaned back and studied him. This seemed to make him preening and nervous at the same time. “What’s your name?”

“John Mortimer.”

“And what precisely is it you want of me, Mr. Mortimer?”

He leaned forward, I resisted the urge to do so also. Habits die hard.

“I want to know the secret.” he said. “I want to know how to be immortal.”

“What on earth makes you think I’m immortal?” I asked.

He got a big grin. It was toothy and surprisingly sweet. I almost liked him for that smile.

“It started out by accident about four years ago.” he began. “I was doing some research after reading an article in the newspaper.” He pulled a small, yellowed newspaper clipping from his pocket. The headline read: Mystery Buyer Purchases Earldom for $700,000. I glanced over the article. It pretty much gave the dry facts of my acquisition of the Earldom of Arran. Everything except my identity, which I’d had them keep quiet.

“What has this to do with me?” I asked, handing the clipping back.

“You bought it.” he said.

“And what makes you think that?”

“I like computers.” he said. “I’m quite good with them. Every aspect. Programming, hardware—you name it. It’s just this knack I have. Well, for some reason this article caught my attention. So I got on the Web and started trying to find out what I could about this mystery buyer. But pretty much everything after you bought the place was under deep wraps. Oh, I know all about the history of the place. That earldom was created in 1503 by King James IV.

The title is linked to the land instead of by blood. All that stuff. History is easy enough to find out.

“But about the new buyer—bloody nothing. That got me curious. Who would want so much privacy and why? So I started contacting other Net surfers in Scotland and eventually I came up with a few who knew all about the island. They were day workers hired to refurbish the house the new owner would be occupying.

“That’s when I found out about you. It was quite a stir you being, well, not white. I even got along so well with my Scottish connection that they invited me for a visit. You were off on one of your mysterious trips. Everyone who worked for you always talked about your trips.

“So I went to visit my friends, and they showed me around the castle and the grounds. You’ve done a wonderful job keeping up the place. By the way.”

I snorted and went back to eating my soup. The waiter came and placed a bowl in front of him. He frowned slightly at it, then took up his spoon and gave the soup a small taste. Apparently it was to his liking, for I got no more of his tale until he had finished the whole bowl.

“I never would have thought cold potato soup could taste so good.” he said as he wiped his mouth.

“The things you learn every day.” I murmured. “So, as my hosts were showing me around, I began to notice a couple of things. There was all this old stuff around, but not all of it seemed to belong there, if you know what I mean. Not the usual rich collections of plates, clocks, and the like. No, your choices were so much more—peculiar.

“But the thing that got me most excited was this picture of you. A painting, I mean. Paul—that’s the friend who I was staying with—had gone off to the bathroom and he left me alone in your study. There was a photo of you and some guy on your desk. Then noticed a stack of paintings against one wall. I flipped through them and came across this portrait.

“It was you. But it wasn’t. I mean you looked just like you do now, only you were wearing some weird costume. Later, I learned it probably came from the Renaissance. I heard my friend in the hall and put the painting back. But, you know, that painting stayed with me.”

“People have portraits done everyday.” I said.

“But this one looked like hundreds of years old. The paint was dried and cracked. It
felt
old.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, I didn’t realize that among your many talents you are also an art historian. Let me see, you’re a crack computer wiz, a clever defrauder of people’s trust, and now you’re an expert in dating paintings. What other talents do you have up your sleeve?” I asked.

His face flushed red, but he didn’t answer me. The waiter came and took our dishes, then presented us with the
Pâté
. I broke off a bit of the French bread on the table and proceeded to smear a generous amount of my
Pâté
on it. I gestured to him to do likewise.

“Really.” I said. “You must try your
Pâté
. 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
Pâté
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 every 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. Except the one you have.

“But you obviously had all this money so I figured you could buy a Rembrandt if you wanted, but you couldn’t have a portrait of yourself by him unless you’d been there.”

“I hate to interrupt your psychotic ramblings.” I
said. “But haven’t you ever heard of copycat painters?”

“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 everything 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. Moving slowly seemed to be a very good idea at the moment. 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 certificates, 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 repairs 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 something 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
soufflé
, 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 toward me inquiringly and I would oblige with the information. 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 attend to it. Money is like any other profession. You had to look in on it, make sure no one else had decided 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 charming 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 right 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 toward 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?