Beautiful Blood

5

Shortly after eight o’clock that evening, Rosacher arrived at Ludie’s apartments. He hesitated, debating whether or not to knock, ultimately deciding that since he was attempting to restore intimacy, he should behave as would an intimate—he opened the door. The room was dimly lit by a single ornamental floor lamp in a corner, its flame turned low, and the windows held rectangles of purplish dusk. Walls and ceiling were draped in swaths of billowy, diaphanous cloth—pastel shades of green, yellow and blue that shrank the enclosed space and was intended to make the room appear to be the interior of a tent. Beneath this canopy, pillows and rugs were arranged about a teak table on which a cold supper was laid. The decor represented an ideal of luxury in Ludie’s homeland, or rather what she presumed to be an ideal—she had been born into poverty and sold at the age of six to a brothel-keeper from Peppertree; he in turn had sold her to the Hotel Sin Salida.

Rosacher collapsed amidst the pillows, closed his eyes and was assailed by nagging concerns relating to business. Attempting to quiet his mind, he sank deeper into a morass of petty entanglements, expenditures, collections and whatnot. When he succeeded in pushing these matters into the background, the question of his three-year lapse arose, and that so disturbed him, he abandoned the idea of resting, opened his eyes and saw Ludie standing above him. She was dressed to match the décor, wearing a gauzy peignoir that revealed the voluptuous contours of her body; yet in opposition to the seductive image she presented, her expression was one of poorly concealed distaste.

“I apologize for being late,” he said. “I…”

“How did you fare with the council?” She reclined beside him on the opposite side of the table and popped a slice of orange into her mouth. “It must have gone well or else you would have been too preoccupied to come at all.”

He told her in brief what had been said within the council chamber and she said flatly, “Congratulations.”

“You don’t sound like you mean it.”

“Oh, but I do!” Iciness slipped into her voice. “I’ve never doubted you, Richard. You’re far more accomplished a criminal than ever you were a scientist.”

“This is good news for both of us,” he said, electing not to respond in kind, not wanting to alienate her further. “You’re certainly due your share of congratulations. The plan was our plan, not mine alone, and I would never have had the gumption to carry it through without your support.”

“You sound as if you’re speaking at a testimonial dinner. Do I get a gold watch, too?” Her laugh was brittle, a single disparaging note.

“This Cattanay,” she went on. “Do you think it wise to allow him to proceed with his plans? What if the poison works more swiftly than he anticipates?”

“I’ll stop him before he can do any real harm. With Arthur in position at the head of the militia, no one will be able to thwart us. Until then, Cattanay’s project is of such scope, it’ll deflect attention.”

He heard people talking in the street below and the crazed yapping of a dog, abruptly cut off and replaced by a whimper. Her flowery scent seemed to intensify; her eyes, large and dark and liquid, appeared lit from within.

“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked.

“I thought I was, but…no.”

Following another patch of silence, she said, “Well…” She sat up and undid the fastening of the peignoir, letting it slip from her shoulders to reveal a breast. When he displayed no reaction, she lifted a breast and made a lascivious show of licking her nipple, keeping her eyes on him all the while.

“Stop it!” he said angrily.

Dropping into the patois she had once used with her clientele at the brothel, she said teasingly, “You mus be a jumbie mon, you don wan to slip-slide wit this fine gyal.”

“Stop!”

She stared at him heatedly. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“What I wanted…” He gave his head a violent shake, frustrated by her misreading of him. “Yes, that’s part of it, but I wanted more, I wanted…”

“Would you like me to fetch another woman? Perhaps the two of us could please you.”

“That’s not what I meant by ‘more.’”

She watched dispassionately as he positioned himself cross-legged on the pillows.

“We were friends once, weren’t we, Ludie? More than friends. We used to talk for hours, we…” Rosacher made a fist, as if he intended to pound on something; then he relaxed his fingers and lowered his hand. “I hoped we could go back to how things were.”

“Then you’re a fool, Richard. It’s sweet in a way. It’s all that’s left of the boy I met in Morningshade. And you were a boy. You had a boy’s passion, a boy’s recklessness. But your passion has changed into a lust for wealth, and your recklessness has matured into ruthlessness. You don’t see that in yourself. You’ll pay it lip service, you’ll admit to it. But you don’t really see it and so you remain a fool.”

Full darkness had fallen—the windowpanes like black semaphore flags salted with a message of stars. She had spoken with such mildness that her characterization of him had the tenor of sage counsel.

“I love you,” Rosacher said.

“No, you had a feeling. Your brain sparked and you had a feeling. You said to yourself, I’ve got to get back with Ludie, back to how things used to be. Even though how you thought things were, that truly wasn’t how they were. You know that, but you want to deny it. You want to hold onto that feeling, because it’s the only one you’ve had lately that has nothing to do with business.”

Everything she said diminished him. He thought that if she kept talking, he would wind up the size of a homunculus, a tiny man sitting on a vast pillow, a plush island upon which he’d been marooned.

“I’m a fool, too,” she said. “There was a time I thought I loved you. I knew all the love in me had been dragged out and kicked into the street, but I hung onto that thought. Love was something I could dream about whenever some foul-smelling bastard was riding me. It was a story I’d been told. A fairytale. But I couldn’t hold on for long. It passed…and your feeling will pass as well. In a week you’ll be consumed with something else.”

“We’re friends, though, aren’t we?” Rosacher said. “We’re at least friends.”

“We have a bond, but…”

“Yes?”

“I owe you everything, Richard. My life. Money. Freedom.” She tapped the side of her head. “You taught me how to use this, and how to behave like a lady. I’m grateful for that. It’s why I stay. But for that very reason, because you did everything, because you lifted me up from Morningshade, I can’t help resenting you. I still feel owned, owing you so much, and that feeling trumps friendship.”

“That’s absurd. You don’t owe me a thing, and you don’t have to stay. I can get someone else to manage the books.”

A wounded look crossed her face. It pleased him to recognize that he could yet hurt her, that she was not without emotion where he was involved.

“I’ll stay until it’s right to leave. And when I go, it won’t be farther away than the other side of the hill, where I won’t have to look at that damned lizard every time I step out the door.”

She reached between two pillows, withdrew a lacquered box and put it on the table; she removed from it a pipe with a long, straight stem and a brass bowl, the image of a miniature dragon raised on its surface. “This is what you want. To touch that night again, the night Arthur came into our lives. I think it’s what we both want. Things have gotten crinkly between us and this is what we need to straighten it all out.”

“Thank you, no.”

Ludie packed the bowl with a bed of moist tobacco. “Have you forgotten how to play?” She embedded a grayish white pellet of mab in the tobacco. “I think you have. I think you forgot the instant the idea for the business came into your head. One minute you were the Richard I knew. A sweet, intemperate boy. The next, you were acting smooth as a bishop on Sunday morning. Can’t nothing catch on you now, you’re so smooth.”

She took a match from the box, ignited it with the nail of her thumb, and lit the pipe. Her cheeks hollowed as she drew in smoke. She leaned back amid the pillows, letting smoke trickle out between her parted lips. “Ohh…” she said breathily, and gave a delicate shudder. She closed her eyes for a second and drew in more smoke. After a third lungful, she looked as if she filled out her skin more thoroughly, as if she had ripened all in a moment. Her eyes were brighter, a’dance with gleams.

“Touch me,” she said, lightly slurring.

With reluctance, for part of him, the lesser part, wanted to resist this fake, this chemical fraud, he gloved the side of her breast, rubbing the nipple in a circular motion with the ball of his thumb. Her eyelids fluttered down and she bit her lower lip and made a musical noise, barely audible, a noise with which he was most familiar, though he had not heard it for many months. To hear it now affected him strangely. It raised the flag of his desire, yet he also felt a chill, as if her arousal endangered him. She caught his hand, brought it to her mouth and licked the tip of his forefinger. In her face he saw the refinements of love—her features had softened, her gaze was doting, her manner one of fervid devotion.

“Richard…” she said, leaving the remainder of the sentence unspoken, yet not unheeded.

A horse and rider went by on the street, the percussive sound of its hooves fading to muted pops. Shamed by his weakness, Rosacher picked up the pipe.