"Why?" I demanded.
"Don't be so nasty," he whispered, appearing truly hurt. "You murdered me."
"And you? The people you've killed, Dora's mother? She ever come back to demand an audience with you?"
"Ooh, I knew it. I knew it!" he said. He was visibly shaken. "You know about Dora! God in Heaven, take my soul to Hell, but don't let him hurt Dora."
"Stop being absurd. I wouldn't hurt Dora. It was you I was after.
I've followed you around the world. If it hadn't been for a passing respect for Dora, I would have killed you long before now."
The bartender had reappeared. This brought the most ecstatic smile to my companion's lips. He looked right at the kid.
"Yes, my dear boy, let me see, the very last drink unless I'm very badly mistaken, make it bourbon. I grew up in the South. What do you have? No, I'll tell you what, son, just make it Southern Comfort." His laugh was private and convivial and soft.
The bartender moved on, and Roger turned his furious eyes on me. "You have to listen to me, whatever the Hell you are, vampire, demon, devil, I don't care, you cannot hurt my daughter."
"I don't intend to hurt her. I would never hurt her. Go on to hell, you'll feel better. Good night."
"You smug son of a bitch. How many years do you think I had?" Droplets of sweat were breaking out on his face. His hair was moving a little in the natural draft through the room.
"I couldn't give less of a damn!" I said. "You were a meal worth waiting for."
"You've got quite a swagger, don't you?" he said acidly. "But you're nothing as shallow as you pretend to be."
"Oh, you don't think so? Try me. You may find me 'as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.' "
That gave him pause.
It gave me pause too. Where did those words come from? Why did they roll off my tongue like that? I was not likely to use that sort of imagery!
He was absorbing all this, my preoccupation, my obvious self-doubt. How did it manifest itself, I wonder? Did I sag or fade slightly as some mortals do, or did I merely look confused?
The bartender gave him the drink. Very tentatively now, he was trying to put his fingers around it and lift it. He managed and got it to his lips and took a taste. He was amazed, and thankful, and suddenly so full of fear that he almost disintegrated. The illusion was almost completely dispersed.
But he held firm. This was so obviously the person I had just killed, hacked to pieces and buried all over Manhattan, that I felt physically sick staring at him. I realized only one thing was saving me from panic. He was talking to me. What had David said once, when he was alive, about talking to me? That he wouldn't kill a vampire because the vampire could talk to him? And this damned ghost was talking to me.
"I have to talk to you about Dora," he said.
"I told you I will never hurt her, or anyone like her," I said.
"Look, what are you doing here with me! When you appeared, you didn't even know that I knew about Dora! You wanted to tell me about Dora?"
"Depth, I've been murdered by a being with depth, how fortunate, someone who actually keenly appreciated my death, no?" He drank more of the sweet-smelling Southern Comfort. "This was Janis Joplin's drink, you know," he said, referring to the dead singer whom I, too, had loved. "Look, listen to me out of curiosity, I don't give a damn. But listen. Let me talk to you about Dora and about me.
I want you to know. I want you to really know who I was, not what you might think. I want you to look out for Dora. And then there's something back at the flat, something I want you.. .,"
"Veronica's veil in the frame?"
"No! That's trash. I mean, it's four centuries old, of course, but it's a common version of Veronica's veil, if you have enough money. You did look around my place, didn't you?"
"Why did you want to give that veil to Dora?" I asked.
This sobered him appropriately. "You heard us talking?"
"Countless times."
He was conjecturing, weighing things. He looked entirely reasonable, his dark Asian face evincing nothing but sincerity and great care.
"Did you say 'look out for Dora'?" I asked. "Is that what you asked me to do? Look out for her? Now that's another proposition and why the hell do you want to tell me the story of your life! You're running through your personal afterdeath judgment with the wrong guy! I don't care how you got the way you were. The things at the flat, why would a ghost care about such things?"
This was not wholly honest on my part. I was being far too flippant and we both knew it. Of course he cared about his treasures. But it was Dora that had made him rise from the dead.
His hair was a deeper black now, and the coat had taken on more texture. I could see the weave of the silk and the cashmere in it. I could see his fingernails, professionally manicured, very neat and buffed. Same hands I threw in the garbage! I don't think all these details had been visible moments ago.
"Jesus Christ," I whispered.
He laughed. "You're more afraid than I am."
"Where are you?"
"What are you talking about?" he asked. "I'm sitting next to you.
We're in a Village bar. What do you mean, where am I? As for my body, you know where you dumped the pieces of it as well as I."
"That's why you're haunting me."
"Absolutely not. Couldn't give less of a damn about that body.
Felt that way the moment I left it. You know all this!"
"No, no, I mean, what realm are you in now, what is it, where are you, what did you see when you went. .. what.. .."
He shook his head with the saddest smile.
"You know the answer to all that. I don't know where I am.
Something's waiting for me, however. I'm fairly certain of that. Something's waiting. Perhaps it's merely dissolution. Darkness. But it seems personal. It's not going to wait forever. But I don't know how I know.
"And I don't know why I'm being allowed to get through to you, whether it's sheer will, my will, I mean, of which I have a great deal by the way, or whether it's some sort of grant of moments, I don't know! But I went after you-I followed you from the flat and back to it and then out with the body and I came here and I have to talk to you. I'm not going to go without a struggle, until I've spoken with you."
"Something's waiting for you," I whispered. This was awe. Plain and simple. "And then, after we've had our chat, if you don't dissolve, where exactly are you going to go?"
He shook his head and glared at the bottle on the center rack, flood of light, color, labels.
"Tiresome," he said crossly. "Shut up."
It had a sting to it. Shut up. Telling me to shut up.
"I can't go looking out for your daughter," I said.
"What do you mean?" He threw an angry glance at me, and took another sip of his drink, then gestured to the bartender for another.
"Are you going to get drunk?" I asked.
"I don't think I can. You have to look out for her. It's all going to go public, don't you see? I have enemies who'll kill her, for no other reason than that she was my child. You don't know how careful I've been, and you don't know how rash she is, how much she believes in Divine Providence. And then there's the government, the hounds of government, and my things, my relics, my books!"
I was fascinated. For about three seconds, I'd utterly forgotten that he was a ghost. Now my eyes gave me no evidence of it. None. But he was scentless, and the faint sound of life that emanated from him still had little to do with real lungs or a real heart.
"All right, let me be blunt," he said. "I'm afraid for her. She has to get through the notoriety; enough time has to pass that my enemies forget about her. Most of them don't know about her. But somebody might. Somebody's bound to know, if you knew."
"Not necessarily. I'm not a human being."
"You have to guard her."
"I can't do such a thing. I won't"
"Lestat, will you listen to me?"
"I don't want to listen. I want you to go."
"I know you do."
"Look, I never meant to kill you, I'm sorry, it was all a mistake, I should have picked someone. ..." My hands were shaking. Oh, how fascinating all this would sound later, and right now I begged God, of all people, please make this stop, all of it, stop.