He was quite still for a moment, and then said with slow measured words: "A very large bribe."
"Ah."
"Ten million dollars in a bank account waiting for me when I repossess this body." He reached into his coat pocket again and drew out a small plastic card with a thumbnail picture of his new face on it. There was also a clear fingerprint, and his name, Raglan James, and a Washington address.
"You can arrange it, surely. A fortune that can only be claimed by the man with this face and this fingerprint? You don't think I'd forfeit a fortune of that size, do you? Besides, I don't want your body forever. You don't even want it forever, do you? You've been far too eloquent on the subject of your agonies, your angst, your extended and noisy descent into hell, etcetera. No. I only want your body for a little while. There are many bodies out there, waiting for me to take possession of them, many kinds of adventure." I studied the little card. "Ten million," I said. "That's quite a price." "It's nothing to you and you know it. You have billions squirreled away in international banks under all your colorful aliases. A creature with your formidable powers can acquire all the riches of the world.
It's only the tawdry vampires of second-rate motion pictures who tramp through eternity living hand to mouth, as we both know."
He blotted his lips fastidiously with a linen handkerchief, then drank a gulp of his coffee.
"I was powerfully intrigued," he said, "by your descriptions of the vampire Armand in The Queen of the Damned-how he used his precious powers to acquire wealth, and built his great enterprise, the Night Island, such a lovely name. It rather took my breath away." He smiled, and then went on, the voice amiable and smooth as before. "It wasn't very difficult for me to document and annotate your assertions, you realize, though as we both know, your mysterious comrade has long ago abandoned the Night Island, and has vanished from the realm of computer records-at least as far as I can ascertain." I didn't say anything.
"Besides, for what I offer, ten million is a bargain. Who else has made you such an offer? There isn't anyone else-at the moment, that is-who can or will."
"And suppose / don't want to switch back at the end of the week?" I asked. "Suppose I want to be human forever." "That's perfectly fine with me," he said graciously. "I can get rid of your body anytime I want. There are lots of others who'll take it off my hands." He gave me a respectful and admiring smile.
"What are you going to do with my body?"
"Enjoy it. Enjoy the strength, the power! I've had everything the human body has to offer-youth, beauty, resilience. I've even been in the body of a woman, you know. And by the way, I don't recommend that at all. Now I want what you have to offer." He narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. "If there were any corporeal angels hanging about, well, I might approach one of them."
"The Talamasca has no record of angels?"
He hesitated, then gave a small contained laugh. "Angels are pure spirit, Monsieur de Lioncourt," he said. "We are talking bodies, no? I am addicted to the pleasures of the flesh. And vampires are fleshly monsters, are they not? They thrive on blood." Again, a light came into his eyes when he said the word "blood."
"What's your game?" I asked. "I mean really. What's your passion? It can't be the money. What's the money for? What will you buy with it? Experiences you haven't had?"
"Yes, I would say that's it. Experiences I haven't had. I'm obviously a sensualist, for want of a better word, but if you must know the truth-and I don't see why there should be any lies between us-I'm a thief in every respect. I don't enjoy something unless I bargain for it, trick someone out of it, or steal it. It's my way of making something out of nothing, you might say, which makes me like God!"
He stopped as if he were so impressed with what he had just said that he had to catch his breath. His eyes were dancing, and then he looked down at the half-empty coffee cup and gave a long secretive private smile.
"You do follow my drift, don't you?" he asked. "I stole these clothes," he said. "Everything in my house in Georgetown is stolen-every piece of furniture, every painting, every little object d'art. Even the house itself is stolen, or shall we say, it was signed over to me amid a morass of false impressions and false hopes. I believe they call it swindling? All the same thing." He smiled proudly again, and with such seeming depth of feeling that I was amazed. "All the money I possess is stolen. So is the car I drive in Georgetown. So are the airline tickets I used to chase you around the world."
I didn't respond. How strange he was, I thought, intrigued by him and yet still repelled by him, for all his graciousness and seeming honesty. It was an act, but what a nearly perfect act. And then the bewitching face, which seemed with every new revelation to be more mobile and expressive and pliant. I roused myself. There was more I had to know.
"How did you accomplish that, following me about? How did you know where I was?"
"Two ways, to be perfectly frank with you. The first is obvious. I can leave my body for short periods, and during those periods I can search for you over vast distances. But I don't like that sort of bodiless travel at all. And of course you are not easy to find. You cloak yourself for long periods; then you blaze away in careless visibility; and of course you move about with no discernible pattern. Often by the time I'd located you, and brought my body to the location, you were gone.
"Then there's another way, almost as magical-computer systems. You use many aliases. I've been able to discover four of them. I'm often not quick enough to catch up with you through the computer. But I can study your tracks. And when you double back again, I know where to close in."
I said nothing, merely marveling again at how much he was enjoying all of this.
"I like your taste in cities," he said. "I like your taste in hotels-the Hassler in Rome, the Ritz in Paris, the Stanhope in New York. And of course the Park Central in Miami, lovely little hotel. Oh, don't get so suspicious. There's nothing to chasing people through computer systems. There's nothing to bribing clerks to show you a credit card receipt, or bullying bank employees to reveal things they've been told not to reveal. Tricks usually handle it perfectly well. You don't have to be a preternatural killer to do it. No, not at all."
"You steal through the computer systems?"
"When I can," he said with a little twist to his mouth. "I steal in any fashion. Nothing's beneath my dignity. But I'm not capable of stealing ten million dollars through any means. If I were, I wouldn't be here, now, would I? I'm not that clever. I've been caught twice. I've been in prison. That's where I perfected the means of traveling out of body, since there wasn't any other way." He made a weary bitter sarcastic smile.
"Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because your friend David Talbot is going to tell you. And because I think we should understand each other. I'm weary of taking risks. This is the big score, your body-and ten million dollars when I give it up."
"What is it with you?" I asked. "This all sounds so petty, so mundane."
"Ten million is mundane?" "Yes. You've swapped an old body for a new one. You're young again! And the next step, if I consent, will be my body, my powers. But it's the money that matters to you. It's really just the money and nothing else."
"It's both!" he said sourly and defiantly. "They're very similar." With conscious effort he regained his composure. "You don't realize it because you acquired your wealth and your power simultaneously," he said. "Immortality and a great casket full of gold and jewels. Wasn't that the story? You walked out of Magnus's tower an immortal with a king's ransom. Or is the story a lie? You're real enough, that's plain. But I don't know about all those things you wrote. But you ought to understand what I'm saying. You're a thief yourself."