"Paul had to go back to your house for some re- pairs while I was there on my visit. I came along and snuck up to your study to make some shots."

"What do you want?" I asked. I felt sick. "Money?"

He shook his head furiously. "No," he said. "That's not it at all. I want what you have. I want to be immortal."

"And what makes you think I can make you so?"

"Because that's how it works," he said. "Like vampires, only I don't think you're a vampire. At least not the blood-sucking kind. You've got some- thing and I want it. Why shouldn't I be like you? I figured out that you were immortal. I mean, shouldn't there be some kind of reward for that?"

I closed my eyes. Mortals. Humans. There were times when I thought Alachia's attitude toward them was dead on.

"And you think your reward should be that I make you into what I am?"

He smiled. "Yes, that's it exactly."

"Very well," I said. "Since you've asked so nicely."

I forced myself to choke down the rest of dinner. The lovely salmon, the delicate potato souffle, the oysters, the escargot, even the marvelous Baked Alaska were all like ashes in my mouth.

John Mortimer was having no such problem with his meal. He attacked the food like a hungry dog. When he didn't recognize a dish, he would look to- ward me inquiringly and I would oblige with the in- formation. Except with the escargot. I told him it was a rare kind of seafood, like oysters. Luckily, he knew what oysters were. The one culinary achievement of his previous life.

That's how he referred to it: His Previous Life. As though he'd already moved out of it and into a greater place. He rambled on about the places he would go, the things he would do, never once telling me how he might acquire the means to achieve all these tremendous feats. It had taken me centuries to establish my own fortune. And still more time to at- tend to it. Money is like any other profession. You had to look in on it, make sure no one else had de- cided they liked it better than you did and run off with it. I found such things boring and loathsome in the extreme. But I still had to do it. I just don't like to talk about it.

"… and then I thought you and I could…"

This jerked me back to my companion and his ramblings.

"You and I could what?" I asked.

"Well, I mean, I thought that… I just assumed that because you were going to make me like you that we would be together. I mean until, you know, whenever."

"Whenever what?"

"Whenever we got, you know, tired of each other. Or until I was ready to be out on my own."

"I see, so not only am I to… convert you to your immortality, but then I'm to be your nursemaid as well?"

He blushed. "Not nursemaid, exactly, but, well you know." He gave me quite a look then, and, had I not been furious, I would have found it a bit interesting. But that was neither here nor there.

"So, I'm to become your um, paramour, shall we say, and make you immortal. And what exactly is it that I'm supposed to achieve from this equation?"

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is, what's in it for me? Why should I make you, of all people, like me? Is it your charm- ing personality? Or perhaps it's your wit? Maybe your sexual prowess? Come now, why should I bother with you?"

He was red again, but not from embarrassment. I think I might have offended him. What a pity.

"You'll do it because I'll expose you if you don't."

"Expose me to whom? The Agency in Charge of Finding and Keeping Immortals? Or maybe you'll go to the police. 'I beg your pardon, but there's a woman I know who's immortal.' They'll laugh you out of the office. Your whole story is preposterous. There won't be a dry seat in the house."

"All I have to do is make one phone call to the nght sort of newspaper. They love this sort of thing. Only when they start digging, they'll find out it's true."

"They'll wet themselves laughing." "Do you really want to risk it?" The little maggot. I hadn't thought he had the brass for it.

"I thought not," he said. And smirked. He really shouldn't have smirked.

I paid for dinner and we began walking through the Quarter. I didn't want to lead him straight toward the hotel, though I suspected he already knew where I was staying. What to do with him? I wondered. The crowd was thicker now that it was getting on to- ward nine o'clock. Mostly there were badly dressed tourists in too tight T-shirts with cute sayings on them. Some carried plastic cups with drinks in them. The smell of beer and sticky-sweet Hurricanes was overpowering.

I led us toward Chartres Street, then on toward the riverwalk. The smell of the Mississippi was heavy and thick like new-cut earth. It blended with the sweet aroma of the olive trees. For some reason it gave me a stab of hope, this strange combination of odors. It reminded me of another time and place. But such pleasant memories would get in my way now. I needed to attend to the matter at hand.

We walked past the homeless people who were sleeping in the park and stepped over the ones who had simply lain down where they were. Every few paces or so, we were approached by someone asking for money. Most of the panhandlers had a ready patter, some hard-luck story about why they needed just another dollar. I gave to them willingly. Life presented us with enough indignities in just the living of it, so why make it worse if you could help?

"Why are you giving them money?" hissed John. He glanced around as though he expected someone to jump up at him and demand money.

"Because I have it. They need it. And I don't mind giving to them," I said. "Why do you care any- way? It isn't your money."

"You're just encouraging them," he said. "If no one gave them any money they'd have to get

job."

"Let me see if I understand you," I said. "You think these people prefer to live meaner than any an- imal. That they are so unwilling to work that they would rather sleep on the ground in the cold, go without food, beg coin from strangers in the most humiliating way possible, and live in filthy rags? That is, of course, assuming that they are mentally stable enough to hold work or even have such rudi- mentary skills as reading, writing, or arithmetic. How silly of me to be so completely fooled by their clever charade.

"Of course, I'm in the company of someone who wouldn't sully his hands with something as vulgar as say, extortion."

"You know, you can be a real bitch," he said.

I touched my hand to my heart. "I'm mortally wounded," I said.

We walked down by the river for a while, until the sidewalk petered out and there was a sudden lack of street lights. John looked nervous, but I knew there was nothing to worry about, yet.

"So you want to become immortal," I said. "What if I told you I can't do it? That this is some- thing you're born with or not. That I can no more make you immortal than any stranger off the street could."

He frowned. "You're just trying to confuse me," he said. "You told me at the restaurant…"

"I told you that so you wouldn't make a scene. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't change you from what you are. I don't have that power. Why would I lie to you?"

"Is this a test?" he asked. I groaned. "No, it is not. It's the truth." "You just don't like me. That's why you're doing this. Well, it won't work. And it doesn't matter any- way. I figured out what you are, and that's worth something. Don't think you'll fool me the way you've fooled everyone else."

"Oh, no," I said. "I wouldn't dream of that." / think you're a special kind of fool, I thought. "You know, becoming immortal doesn't just hap- pen overnight. It takes a while for the process to work."

"But you can start it soon, can't you?" "Oh, yes," I said. "But first, I must make some preparations." I tossed him the key to my hotel room. "I'm in room 1650 at the Fairmont. I'll be back before midnight." "I'll be waiting," he said.