The Tale of the Body Thief (59 page)

“I know, believe me.”

“Oh, but the strength, Lestat. That you cannot know. It was as if I’d drunk some overwhelming stimulant which had saturated every fiber! And these young eyes, ah, how far and how clearly they can see.”

I nodded.

“Well, to be perfectly frank,” he said, “I was scarcely reasoning at all. The customs building was very crowded. There were several cruise ships in port, as a matter of fact. The
Wind Song
was there, and so was the
Rotterdam
. And I think the
Royal Viking Sun
was also tied up, just across from the
Queen Elizabeth
2
. Whatever, the place was
swarming with tourists, and I soon realized that passports were being checked only for those returning to their ships.

“I went into one of the little shops—you know the sort, full of horrible merchandise—and I bought a big pair of mirrored sunglasses, the kind you used to wear when your skin was so pale, and a hideous shirt with a parrot on it.

“Then taking off my jacket and turtleneck, I put on that horrible shirt, and the glasses, and I took up a station from which I could see the length of the wharf through the open doors. I didn’t know what else to do. I was terrified that they would start searching the cabins! What would they do when they couldn’t open that little door on Five Deck, or if they did find your body in that trunk? Then on the other hand, how could they make such a search? And what would prompt them to do it? They had the man with the gun.”

He paused again to take another swallow of the Scotch. He looked truly innocent in his distress as he described all this, innocent in the way he never could have looked in the older flesh.

“I was mad, absolutely mad. I tried to use my old telepathic powers, and it took me some time to discover them, and the body was more involved with it than I would have thought.”

“No surprise to me,” I said.

“And then all I could pick up were various thoughts and pictures from passengers nearest me. It was no good at all. But fortunately my agony came abruptly to an end.

“They brought James ashore. He had the same enormous contingent of officers with him. They must have thought him the most dangerous criminal in the Western world. And he had my luggage with him. And again he was the very image of British propriety and dignity, chatting away with a gay smile, even though the officers were obviously deeply suspicious and profoundly uncomfortable as they ushered him to the customs people and laid his passport in their hands.

“I realized that he was being forced to permanently leave the ship. They even searched his luggage before the party was allowed to go through.

“All this time I was cleaving to the wall of the building, a young bum, if you will, with my jacket and shirt over my arm, staring at my old dignified self through those awful glasses. What is his game, I
thought. Why does he want that body! As I told you, it simply never occurred to me what a clever move it had been.

“I followed the little troop outside, where a police car was waiting, into which they put his luggage as he stood rattling on and shaking hands now with those officers who were to stay behind.

“I drew near enough to hear his profuse thanks and apologies, the dreadful euphemisms and meaningless language, and his enthusiastic statements as to how much he’d enjoyed his brief voyage. How he seemed to enjoy this masquerade.”

“Yes,” I said dismally. “That’s our man.”

“Then the strangest of all moments occurred. He stopped all this chatter as they held the door of the car open for him, and turned around. He looked directly at me, as if he’d known I was there all along. Only he disguised this gesture quite cleverly, letting his eyes drift over the crowds coming and going through the enormous entrances, and then he looked at me again, very quickly, and he smiled.

“Only when the car drove off did I realize what had occurred. He had willingly driven away in my old body, leaving me with this twenty-six-year-old hunk of flesh.”

He lifted the glass again, took a sip, and stared at me.

“Maybe the switch at such a moment would have been absolutely impossible. I really don’t know. But the fact was, he wanted that body. And I was left standing there, outside the customs building, and I was … a young man again!”

He stared fixedly at the glass, obviously not seeing it at all, and then again his eyes looked into mine.

“It was
Faust
, Lestat. I’d bought youth. But the strange part was … I hadn’t sold my soul!”

I waited as he sat there in confounded silence, and shook his head a little, and seemed on the verge of beginning again. Finally he spoke:

“Can you forgive me for leaving then? There was no way I could return to the ship. And of course James was on his way to jail, or so I believed.”

“Of course I forgive you. David, we knew this might happen. We expected you might be taken into custody just as he was! It’s absolutely unimportant. What
did
you do? Where did you go?”

“I went into Bridgetown. It wasn’t even really a decision. A young very personable black cabdriver came up to me, thinking I was a cruise passenger, which of course I was. He offered me a tour of the
city at a good price. He’d lived for years in England. Had a nice voice. I don’t even think I answered him. I simply nodded and climbed into the back seat of the little car. For hours he drove me around the island. He must have thought me a very strange individual, indeed.

“I remember we drove through the most beautiful sugarcane fields. He said the little road had been built for the horse and carriage. And I thought that these fields probably looked the way they did two hundred years ago. Lestat could tell me. Lestat would know. And then I’d look down at my hands again. I’d move my foot, or tense my arms, or any small gesture; and I’d feel the sheer health and vigor of this body! And I’d fall back into a state of wonder, utterly oblivious to the poor man’s voice or the sights we passed.

“Finally we came to a botanical garden. The gentlemanly black driver parked the little car and invited me to go in. What did it matter to me? I bought the admission with some of the money you’d so kindly left in your pockets for the Body Thief, and then I wandered into the garden and soon found myself in one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen in all the world.

“Lestat, all this was like a potent dream!

“I must take you to this place, you must see it—you who love the islands so very much. In fact, all I could think of … was you!

“And I must explain something to you. Never in all this time since you first came to me, never once have I ever looked into your eyes or heard your voice, or even thought of you, without feeling pain. It’s the pain connected to mortality, to realizing one’s age and one’s limits, and what one will never have again. Do you see my meaning?”

“Yes. And as you walked around the botanical garden, you thought of me. And you didn’t feel the pain.”

“Yes,” he whispered. “I didn’t feel the pain.”

I waited. He sat in quiet, drinking the Scotch again in a deep greedy gulp, and then he pushed the glass away. The tall muscular body was completely controlled by his elegance of spirit, moving with his polished gestures, and once again there came the measured, even tones of his voice.

“We must go there,” he said. “We must stand on that hill over the sea. You remember the sound of the coconut palms in Grenada, that clicking sound as they moved in the wind? You’ve never heard such music as you will hear in that garden in Barbados, and oh, those flowers, those mad savage flowers. It’s your Savage Garden, and yet
so tame and soft and safe! I saw the giant traveler’s palm with its branches seemingly braided as they came out of the stalk! And the lobster claw, a monstrous and waxen thing; and the ginger lilies, oh, you must see them. Even in the light of the moon it must all be beautiful, beautiful to your eyes.

“I think I would have stayed there forever. It was a busload of tourists which shook me out of my dreams. And do you know, they were from our ship? They were the folks from the
QE
2
.” He gave a bright laugh and the face became too exquisite to describe. The whole powerful body shook with soft laughter. “Oh, I got out of there then very fast indeed.

“I went back out, found my driver, and then let him take me down to the west coast of the island, past the fancy hotels. Lots of British people there on vacation. Luxury, solitude—golf courses. And then I saw this one particular place—a resort right on the water that was everything I dream of when I want to get away from London and jet across the world to some warm and lovely spot.

“I told him to take me up the drive so that I might have a look. It was a rambling place of pink stucco, with a charming dining room under a bungalow roof and open all along the white beach. I thought things over as I roamed about, or rather I tried to, and I decided I would stay for the time being in this hotel.

“I paid off the driver, and checked into a fine little beachfront room. They took me through the gardens to reach it, and then admitted me to a small building, and I found myself inside with the doors open to a small covered porch from which a little path went right down to the sand. Nothing between me and the blue Caribbean but the coconut palms and a few great hibiscus shrubs, covered with unearthly red blooms.

“Lestat, I began to wonder if I’d died and all this wasn’t the mirage before the curtain drops at last!” I nodded in understanding.

“I sank down on the bed, and you know what happened? I went to sleep. I lay there in this body and I went to sleep.”

“It’s no wonder,” I said, with a little smile.

“Well, it’s a wonder to me. It really is. But how you would love that little room! It was like a silent shell turned to the trade winds. When I woke in the middle of the afternoon the water was the very first thing I saw.

“Then came the shock of realizing I was still in this body! I realized I’d feared all along that James would find me and push me out of it, and that I’d end up roaming around, invisible and unable to find a physical home. I was sure something like that would happen. It even occurred to me that I would simply become unanchored on my own.

“But there I was, and it was past three o’clock by this ugly watch of yours. I called London at once. Of course they had believed James was David Talbot when he’d called earlier, and only by listening patiently did I piece together what had happened—that our lawyers had gone at once to Cunard headquarters and straightened out everything for him, and that he was indeed on the way to the United States. Indeed, the Motherhouse thought I was calling from the Park Central Hotel in Miami Beach, to say that I had arrived safely and received their wire of emergency funds.”

“We should have known he would think of that.”

“Oh, yes, and such a sum! And they’d sent it right on, because David Talbot is still Superior General. Well, I listened to all this, patiently, as I said, then asked to speak to my trusted assistant, and told him more or less what was actually going on. I was being impersonated by a man who looked exactly like me and could imitate my voice with great skill. Raglan James was the very monster, but if and when he called again they were not to let on that they were wise to him, but rather pretend to do whatever he asked.

“I don’t suppose there is another organization in the entire world where such a story, coming even from the Superior General, would be accepted as fact. Indeed, I had to do some heavy convincing myself. But really it was a lot simpler than one would suppose. There were so many little things known only to me and my assistant. Identification was no real problem. And then of course I didn’t tell him that I was firmly ensconced in the body of a twenty-six-year-old man.

“I did tell him I needed to obtain a new passport immediately. I had no intention of trying to leave Barbados with the name Sheridan Blackwood stamped on my picture. My assistant was instructed to call good old Jake in Mexico City, who would of course supply me with the name of a person in Bridgetown who could do the necessary work that very afternoon. And then I needed some money myself.

“I was about to ring off when my assistant told me the impostor had left a message for Lestat de Lioncourt—that he was to meet him at the Park Central in Miami as soon as possible. The impostor had said
that Lestat de Lioncourt would surely call for this message. That it must be given to him without fail.”

He broke off again, and this time with a sigh.

“I know I should have gone on to Miami. I should have warned you that the Body Thief was there. But something occurred in me when I received this information. I knew that I could reach the Park Central Hotel, and confront the Body Thief, probably before you could, if I were to move on it right away.”

“And you didn’t want to do it.”

“No. I didn’t.”

“David, it’s all entirely understandable.”

“Is it?” He looked at me.

“You’re asking a little devil like me?”

He gave a wan smile. And then shook his head again, before going on:

“I spent the night on Barbados, and half of this day. The passport was ready well in time yesterday for the last flight to Miami. But I didn’t go. I stayed in that beautiful seaside hotel. I dined there, and I wandered in the little city of Bridgetown. I didn’t leave until noon today.”

“I told you, I understand.”

“Do you? What if the fiend had assaulted you again?”

“Impossible! We both know that. If he could have done it successfully with force, he would have done it the first time around. Stop tormenting yourself, David. I didn’t come last night myself, though I thought you might need me. I was with Gretchen.” I made a little sad shrug. “Stop worrying about what does not matter. You know what matters. It’s what’s happening to your old body right now. It hasn’t penetrated to you, my friend. I’ve dealt a death blow to that body! No, I can see that you haven’t grasped it. You think you have, but you’re still in a daze.”

These words must have struck him hard.

It broke my heart to see the pain in his eyes, to see them clouded, and see the sharp lines of distress in this new and unmarred skin. But once again, the mix of a vintage soul and a youthful form was so wondrous and beguiling that I could only stare at him, thinking vaguely of the way he had stared at me in New Orleans and how impatient with it I had become.