There was blood all over the carpet, which I realized was only one of many, many carpets layering this floor, junk-shop style, and that was too bad. But the point was, the body was on its way out. Its decay wouldn't bring mortals from above or below. And without the body, no one might ever know what had become of him .. . best for Dora, surely, than to have seen great glossy photographs of a scene such as I had made here.
I took one last look at the scowling countenance of the angel, devil, or whatever he was with his ferocious mane and beautiful lips and huge polished eyes. Then, hefting the three sacks like Santa Claus, I went out to get rid of Roger piece by piece.
This was not much of a problem.
It gave me merely an hour to think as I dragged myself along through the snowy, empty black streets, uptown, searching for bleak chaotic construction sights, and heaps of garbage, and places where rot and filth had accumulated and were not likely to be examined anytime soon, let alone cleared away.
Beneath a freeway overpass, I left his hands buried in a huge pile of trash. The few mortals hovering there, with blankets and a little fire going in a tin can, took no notice of what I did at all. I shoved the plastic-wrapped hands so deep in the rubble no one could conceivably try to retrieve them. Then I went up to the mortals, who didn't so much as look up at me, and I dropped a few bills down by the fire. The wind almost caught the money. Then a hand, a living hand, of course, the hand of one of these bums, flashed out in the firelight and caught the bills and drew them back into the breathing darkness.
"Thanks, brother."
I said, "Amen."
The head I deposited in a similar manner much farther away. Back door dumpster. Wet garbage of a restaurant. Stench. I took no last look at the head. It embarrassed me. It was no trophy. I would never save a man's head as a trophy. The idea seemed deplorable. I didn't like the hard feel of it through the plastic. If the hungry found it, they'd never report it. Besides, the hungry had been here for their share of the tomatoes and lettuce and spaghetti and crusts of French bread. The restaurant had closed hours ago. The garbage was frozen; it rattled and clattered when I shoved his head deep into the mess.
I went back downtown, still walking, still with this last sack over my shoulder, his miserable chest and arms and legs. I walked down Fifth, past the hotel of the sleeping Dora, past St. Patrick's, on and on, past the fancy stores. Mortals rushed through doorways beneath awnings; cabbies blew their horns in fury at hulking, slow limousines.
On and on I walked. I kicked at the sludge and I hated myself. I could smell him and hated this too. But in a way, the feast had been so divine that it was just to require this aftermath, this cleaning up.
The others—Armand, Marius, all my immortal cohorts, lovers, friends, enemies—always cursed me for not "disposing of the remains."
All right, this time Lestat was being a good vampire. He was cleaning up after himself.
I was almost to the Village when I found another perfect place, a huge warehouse, seemingly abandoned, its upper floors filled with the pretty sparkle of broken windows. And inside it, refuse of every description, in a massive heap. I could smell decayed flesh. Someone had died in there weeks ago. Only the cold kept the smell from reach ing human nostrils. Or maybe no one cared.
I went farther into the cavernous room—smell of gasoline, metal, red brick. One mountain of trash stood as big as a mortuary pyramid in the middle of the room. A truck was there, parked perilously close to it, the engine still warm. But no living beings were here.
And there was decayed flesh aplenty in the largest pile. I reckoned by scent at least three dead bodies, scattered through the rubble. Per haps there were more. The smell was utterly loathsome to me, so I didn't spend a great deal of time anatomizing the situation.
"Okay, my friend, I give you over to a graveyard," I said. I shoved the sack deep, deep among the broken bottles, smashed cans, bits of stinking fruit, heaps and stacks of cardboard and wood and trash. I almost caused an avalanche. Indeed there was a small trash quake or two and then the clumsy pyramid re-formed itself quietly. The only sounds were the sounds of rats. A single beer bottle rolled on the floor, a few feet free of the monument, gleaming, silent, alone.
For a long moment, I studied the truck; battered, anonymous, warm engine, smell of recent human occupants. What did I care what they did here? The fact is they came and went through the big metal doors, ignoring or occasionally feeding this charnel heap. Most likely ignoring it. Who would park next to one's own murder victims?
But in all these big dense modern cities, I mean the big-time cities, the world-class dens of evil—New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong you can find the strangest configurations of mortal activity.
Criminality had begun to fascinate me in its many facets. That's what had brought me to him.
Roger. Good-bye, Roger.
I went out again. The snow had stopped falling. It was desolate here, and sad. A bare mattress lay on the corner of the block, the snow covering it. The streetlamps were broken. I wasn't certain precisely where I was.
I walked in the direction of the water, to the very end of the island, and then I saw one of those very ancient churches, churches that went back to the Dutch days of Manhattan, with a little fenced graveyard attached to it with stones that would read awesome statistics such as 1704, or even 1692.
It was a Gothic treasure of a building, a tiny bit of the glory of St. Patrick's, and possibly even more intricate and mysterious, a welcome sight for all its detail and organization and conviction amid the big-city blandness and wastes.
I sat on the church steps, rather liking the carved surfaces of the broken arches, rather liking to sink back in the darkness against sanctified stone.
I realized very carefully that the Stalker was nowhere about, that tonight's deeds had brought me no visits from another realm, or horifying footsteps, that the great granite statue had been inanimate, and that I still had Roger's identification in my pocket, and this would give Dora weeks, perhaps even months, before her peace of mind was disturbed by her father's disappearance, and she would now never know the details.
So much for that. The end of the adventure. I felt better, far better than when I'd spoken with David. Going back, looking at that monstrous granite thing, it had been the perfect thing to do.
Only problem was that Roger's stench clung to me. Roger. He'd been "the Victim" until when? Now I was calling him Roger. Was that emblematic of love? Dora called him Roger and Daddy and Roge and Dad. "Darling, this is Roge," he'd say to her from Istanbul. "Can you meet me in Florida, just for a few days. I have to talk to you...."
I pulled out the phony identification. The wind was harsh and cold, but no more snow, and the snow that was on the ground was hardening. No mortal would have sat here like this, in this shallow high broken arch of a church door, but I liked it.
I looked at this fake passport. Actually it was a complete set of false papers, some of which I didn't understand. There was a visa for Egypt. Smuggling from there, no doubt! And the name Wynken made me smile again because it is one of those names that makes even children laugh when they hear it. Wynken, Blinken, and Nod.
Wasn't that the poem?
It was a simple matter to tear all this into tiny fragments, and let it blow away into the night, over the tiny upright stones of the small graveyard. What a gust. It went like ashes, as if his identity had been cremated and the final tribute was being paid.