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.Cold and solemn it stood beforeme.And then I realized that all these relics might be lost if I didn't dosomething with them.As soon as his death was known, all this wouldbe confiscated, that was his whole point with Dora, that this, his truewealth, would pass into indifferent hands.And Dora had turned her narrow little back to him and wept, awaif consumed with grief and horror and the worst frustration, theinability to comfort the one she most loved.I looked down.I was standing over his mangled body.He stilllooked fresh, wrecked, murdered by a slob.Black hair very soft andmussed, eyes half open.His white shirtsleeves were stained an evilpinkish color from the little blood that oozed out of the wounds I'daccidentally inflicted, crushing him.His torso was at a hideous anglein relation to his legs.I'd snapped his neck, and snapped his spine.Well, I'd get him out of here.I'd get rid of him, and then for along time no one would know.No one would know he was dead; andthe investigators couldn't pester Dora, or make her miserable.ThenI'd think about the relics, perhaps spiriting them away for her.From his pockets I took his identification.All bogus, nothing withhis real name.His real name had been Roger.I knew that from the beginning, but only Dora had called himRoger.In all his dealings with others, he'd had exotic aliases, withodd medieval sounds.This passport said Frederick Wynken.Nowthat amused me.Frederick Wynken.I gathered all identifying materials and put them in my pockets tobe totally destroyed later.I went to work with the knife.I cut off both his hands, ratheramazed at their delicacy and how well-manicured were his nails.Hehad loved himself so much, and with reason.And his head, I hackedthat off, more through brute strength forcing the knife through ten-don and bone than any sort of real skill.I didn't bother to close hiseyes.The stare of the dead holds so little fascination, really.It mimicsnothing living.His mouth was soft without emotion, and cheekssmooth in death.The usual thing.These the head, and thehands I put into two separate green sacks, and then I folded up thebody, more or less, and crammed it into the third sack.There was blood all over the carpet, which I realized was only oneof many, many carpets layering this floor, junk-shop style, and thatwas too bad.But the point was, the body was on its way out.Its decaywouldn'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 Ihad 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 lipsand huge polished eyes.Then, hefting the three sacks like SantaClaus, 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 alongthrough the snowy, empty black streets, uptown, searching for bleakchaotic construction sights, and heaps of garbage, and places whererot and filth had accumulated and were not likely to be examinedanytime soon, let alone cleared away.Beneath a freeway overpass, I left his hands buried in a huge pileof trash.The few mortals hovering there, with blankets and a littlefire going in a tin can, took no notice of what I did at all.I shoved theplastic-wrapped hands so deep in the rubble no one could conceiv-ably 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, ofcourse, the hand of one of these bums, flashed out in the firelight andcaught 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.Backdoor dumpster.Wet garbage of a restaurant.Stench.I took no lastlook at the head.It embarrassed me.It was no trophy.I would neversave a man's head as a trophy.The idea seemed deplorable.I didn'tlike 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 theirshare of the tomatoes and lettuce and spaghetti and crusts of Frenchbread.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 overmy shoulder, his miserable chest and arms and legs.I walked downFifth, past the hotel of the sleeping Dora, past St.Patrick's, on andon, past the fancy stores.Mortals rushed through doorways beneathawnings; cabbies blew their horns in fury at hulking, slow limousines.On and on I walked.I kicked at the sludge and I hated myself.Icould smell him and hated this too.But in a way, the feast had been sodivine 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 wascleaning up after himself.I was almost to the Village when I found another perfect place, ahuge warehouse, seemingly abandoned, its upper floors filled withthe pretty sparkle of broken windows.And inside it, refuse of everydescription, in a massive heap.I could smell decayed flesh.Someonehad died in there weeks ago.Only the cold kept the smell from reaching 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 pyramidin the middle of the room.A truck was there, parked perilously closeto it, the engine still warm.But no living beings were here.And there was decayed flesh aplenty in the largest pile.I reckonedby scent at least three dead bodies, scattered through the rubble.Perhaps 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 shovedthe sack deep, deep among the broken bottles, smashed cans, bits ofstinking fruit, heaps and stacks of cardboard and wood and trash.Ialmost caused an avalanche.Indeed there was a small trash quake ortwo and then the clumsy pyramid re-formed itself quietly.The onlysounds were the sounds of rats.A single beer bottle rolled on thefloor, 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 whatthey did here? The fact is they came and went through the big metaldoors, ignoring or occasionally feeding this charnel heap.Most likelyignoring it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]