|
The cold had begun to annoy me. To be almost humanly painful.
I wanted to go inside.
3I WALKED on only a few steps, saw revolving doors, pushedinto the lobby of someplace or other, a restaurant I think, andfound myself sitting at the bar. Just what I wanted, half empty,very dark, too warm, bottles glittering in the center of the circularcounter. Some comforting noise from the diners beyond the opendoors.
I put my elbows on the bar, my heels hooked on the brass rail. I satthere on die stool shivering, listening to mortals talk, listening tonothing, listening to the inevitable sloth and stupidity of a bar, headdown, sunglasses gone梔amn, I had lost my violet glasses!梱es,nice and dark here, very, very dark, a kind of late-night languor lyingover everything, a club of some sort? I didn't know, didn't care.
"Drink, sir?" Lazy, arrogant face.
I named a mineral water. And as soon as he set down the glass, Idipped my fingers into it and washed them. He was gone already.
Wouldn't have cared if I had started baptizing babies with the water.
Other customers were scattered at tables in the darkness ... a womancrying in some far-off corner and a man telling her harshly that shewas attracting attention. She wasn't. Nobody gave a damn.
I washed my mouth off with the napkin and water.
"More water," I said. I pushed the polluted glass away from me.
Sluggishly, he acknowledged my request, young blood, blandpersonality, ambitionless life, then drifted off.
I heard a little laugh nearby . . . the man to my right, two stoolsaway, perhaps, who'd been there when I came in, youngish, scentless.
Utterly scentless, which was most strange.
In annoyance I turned and looked at him.
"Going to run again?" he whispered. It was the Victim.
It was Roger, sitting there on the stool.
He wasn't broken or battered or dead. He was complete with hishead and his hands. He wasn't there. He only appeared to be there,very solid and very quiet, and he smiled at me, thrilled by my terror.
"What's the matter, Lestat?" he asked in that voice I so lovedafter six months of listening to it. "No one in all these centuries hasever come back to haunt you?"I said nothing. Not there. No, not there. Material, but not thesame material as anything else. David's word. Different fabric. Istiffened. That's a pathetic understatement. I was rigid with incredulityand rage.
He got up and moved over onto the stool close to me. He wasgetting more distinct and detailed by the second. Now I could catchsomething like a sound coming from him, a sound of something alive,or organized, but certainly no breathing human being.
"And in a few minutes more I'll be strong enough perhaps to askfor a cigarette or a glass of wine," he said.
He reached into his coat, a favorite coat, not the one in which I'dkilled him, another coat made for him in Paris, that he liked, and hedrew out his flashy little gold lighter and made the flame shoot up,very blue and dangerous, butane.
He looked at me. I could see that his black curly hair was combed,his eyes very clear. Handsome Roger. His voice sounded exactly theway it had when he was alive: international, originless, New Orleans-born and world-traveled. No British fastidiousness, and no Southernpatience. His precise, quick voice.
"I'm quite serious," he said. "You mean in all these years, not onesingle victim has ever come back to haunt you?""No," I said.
"You're amazing. You really won't tolerate being afraid for amoment, will you?""No."Now he appeared completely solid. I had no idea whether anyoneelse could see him. No idea, but I suspected they could. He lookedlike anyone might look. I could see the buttons on his white cuffs,and the soft white flash of his collar at the back of the neck, where thefine hair came down over it. I could see his eyelashes, which hadalways been extraordinarily long.
The bartender returned and set down the water glass for me,without looking at him. I still wasn't sure. The kid was too rude forthat to be proof of anything except that I was in New York.
"How are you doing this?" I asked.
"The same way any other ghost does it," he said. "I'm dead. I'vebeen dead for over an hour and a half now, and I have to talk to you!
I don't know how long I can stay here, I don't know when I'll startto ... God knows what, but you have to listen to me.""Why?" I demanded.
"Don't be so nasty," he whispered, appearing truly hurt. "Youmurdered me.""And you? The people you've killed, Dora's mother? She evercome back to demand an audience with you?""Ooh, I knew it. I knew it!" he said. He was visibly shaken. "Youknow about Dora! God in Heaven, take my soul to Hell, but don't lethim hurt Dora.""Stop being absurd. I wouldn't hurt Dora. It was you I was after.
22/163 首页 上一页 20 21 22 23 24 25 下一页 尾页
|
