The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel (94 page)

EVEN AS A CHILD, Beaufrey had realized he was different from the other children. He had always loved himself, only himself. He could remember lying in a crib sucking on his own hand, perfectly content, even blissful, when he was all alone. He disliked noise and disruptions in his perfect, drowsy pleasure and daydreams. He felt indifferent toward his mother and father, and the kindest nannies. Beaufrey understood their acts signified care and love from them, but he felt only indifference toward them. They did not matter, therefore their feelings, love, or concern did not matter either.

His selfishness gave him great satisfaction. He never altered his behavior for others; others did not fully exist—they were only ideas that flitted across his consciousness then disappeared. For as long as he could remember, Beaufrey had existed more completely than any other human being he had ever met. That was why the most bloody spectacles of torture did not upset him; because he could not be seriously touched by the contortions and screams of imperfectly drawn cartoon victims. Beaufrey knew only he could truly feel or truly suffer. The others had nervous systems like earthworms, and the torture that gave so much pleasure to audiences scarcely raised Beaufrey’s blood pressure. The cries and the cringing always seemed excessive and self-indulgent; sometimes even manipulative and false. The photograph or diagram of a tortured human body had more impact for Beaufrey than film or video of the victim moaning in handcuffs and leg irons.

Beaufrey had taught himself to read by the age of three. By the time he had turned eight his parents were taking him for psychiatry twice a week because his indifference had frightened them. Dr. VM had been a
stupid hack, a parasite associated with wealthy families stricken with depression, mania, or psychosis. Beaufrey had talked circles around the psychiatrist. Beaufrey at age eight had set up the shrink. Beaufrey had insisted he wanted to talk about the books he had read. Yes, Dr. VM could not disagree with this. The child was quite precocious. Which books were his favorites? Those about crimes, and those with pictures.

Crimes? Ah, the picture books. Picture storybooks?

“No,” Beaufrey said rudely, “not storybook pictures! Crime pictures! Ones that show dead faces. And blood.”

“And the books you read? Which one is your favorite? I don’t mean picture books now.”

Beaufrey had loathed the psychiatrist’s air of condescension. “Stories about crimes. Famous crimes,” Beaufrey had said in a bored tone of voice, watching Dr. VM scribble rapidly on a stenographer’s tablet. Beaufrey’s favorite book had been about the Long Island cannibal, Albert Fish.

Dr. VM had wanted to know what in particular he found interesting about the cannibal. The Fish family had been blue bloods directly off the
Mayflower.
The Fish family had been politically prominent. Dr. VM did not look up from his notes. “And?” the old quack tried to push him. “And nothing!” Beaufrey said, excited by the frown on the old doctor’s face. “Mother says there are no aristocrats in America.”

Albert Fish had been a cannibal and a child molester. He peeled carrots and potatoes to cook with roasts of leg or arm. Mr. Fish had been quite particular about the age and size because they affect flavor and tenderness. Mr. Fish had explained his recipes to police after they had arrested him. Dr. VM had scribbled notes furiously and leaned forward in his chair. Why did Mr. Fish kill the children? So he could eat them. Why did Mr. Fish eat the children? Because he was hungry for the taste of human flesh. Psychiatry’s questions were useless and stupid.

The English called it blue blood; on the endless plains of Colombia, they called it
sangre limpia
or
sangre pura.
Albert Fish had belonged to a wealthy family. His craving for the flavor of roasted human meat had got the best of Mr. Fish, and the police had captured him carrying a human arm roast in his shopping bag.

As a child, Beaufrey’s intuition and imagination had been strangely acute. He had felt Albert Fish and he were kindred spirits because they shared not only social rank, but complete indifference about the life or death of other human beings. As Beaufrey had read European history
in college, he had realized there had always been a connection between human cannibals and the aristocracy. Members of European aristocracy were simply more inclined to hunger and crave human flesh and blood because centuries of
le droit du seigneur
had corrupted them absolutely. Beaufrey was bored by anything less than the absolute; of course “blue bloods” such as himself were different. Bluebeard in his castle hung “his” wives from meat hooks in the tower; the “wives” had been the brides of serfs raped by the master on the evening of their wedding night.

In the beginning, European aristocracy had risen above the common soil; the royalty had been superior beings who had survived the test of combat’s fire and steel. But two world wars had consumed Europe’s best blood; after the First World War, true aristocracy had virtually been annihilated. Beaufrey’s mother had talked about nothing else while she had searched in vain for a young woman of a lineage as august as theirs.

So much for blue blood. Those with
sangre pura
were entirely different beings, on a far higher plane, inconceivable to commoners. They might crave roasted human flesh. What of it? There was nothing in the world that money could not buy. Beaufrey was especially interested in things, places, or beings that were not for sale; he got a thrill out of what was unavailable or forbidden.

The words
unavailable
and
forbidden
did not apply to aristocrats. Laws in England and the United States traced their origins to the “courts” of feudal lords who had listened to complaints and testimony and then passed judgment on the serfs.

THE
FINCA
BELONGS to Serlo; he is the only genuine blue blood. Beaufrey likes to make this point to David; that Serlo is a blue blood, but all David’s got is bloody hands. The change of locations is deliberate. There had been hundreds of telephone calls for David after the show had sold out; “Too much publicity, Davey,” Beaufrey had told him. But then there had been the mess with the bitch over the child. David still believed the bitch was hiding the baby somewhere with her
prostitute friends, maybe in Tucson, and had made up the kidnapping story. The grassy plains of Colombia were the ideal location to weather political and legal storms.

David had loved his baby son. Beaufrey enjoyed watching David’s dumb pain over the disappearance of the child. Fathers who gushed over sons made Beaufrey want to smash in their faces. He despised public sentimentality over infants and small children. In private, these same infants had their heads smashed or vaginas ripped; after all, they were the private property of their fathers. The poor might be excused for their sentimentality since their offspring were all that would ever be theirs, however briefly the infant survived. Breeding was for animals; Beaufrey himself had been a byproduct of his mother’s last menopausal fling in Paris. She had never wanted children because of the nuisance and the damage they did to the figure. But bless her, his mother had feared abortion more than she had feared a baby at forty-six.

Beaufrey had underestimated David’s need to see himself reproduced, to see his own flesh live on; it was a common hang-up Beaufrey had seen in gay men, especially the men who called themselves “straight” because they wanted to see their face reproduced on a tiny, shitting, screaming baby. Humans were like monkeys delighted with the little mirror images, until they realized any likeness was only illusion. Children, in fact, grew into total strangers. Beaufrey and his parents had loathed one another.

Beaufrey had taken David’s girlfriend, Seese, to the abortionist once before, but that had been when she and David had first been lovers, before Seese and Beaufrey had begun to hate one another.

At first David had not spent much time at the apartment Beaufrey had rented for Seese and the baby. They could not live in the penthouse with a baby screaming day and night. But later, David had begun to bring the baby up to the penthouse where he spent entire afternoons photographing the infant posed on white rabbit fur. Beaufrey had been strangely intrigued by David’s obsession with the infant’s supposed resemblance to himself. David had shot dozens of rolls of color film of the baby sleeping, close-up studies of the baby’s face.

The change in David’s attitude had been obvious. David wanted the child. He did not want that cunt to have that essence of himself, his child. Seese was nothing but an addict and a drunk; at her best, she was a whore. As David talked, he got more excited. He had a plan. David wanted to take the child and leave the United States. David had overheard
Beaufrey and Luis talk about the ranch or
finca
in Colombia. Colombia seemed far enough away from the U.S. courts.

David was almost delectable when he was serious and his nostrils had a slight flare. Beaufrey had to smile. Here was one of life’s little mysteries: aristocratic bloodlines seemed genetically incompatible with physical beauty. Beaufrey would be the first to admit the rich were ugly; only great fortunes had made it possible for ugly blue bloods to continue reproducing themselves. Beaufrey knew that David, Eric, and all the other “rough trade” only stayed as long as there was dope and money. Street punks looked blank if they heard the term
blue blood;
occasionally one might confuse the word with
blue ball
or scrotal congestion. Still, life’s mystery was that the loveliest, most tender pieces of beauty were “rough trade”—the boys of the street dripping their pearls in the soot.

The idea of the game was to permit gorgeous young men such as David to misunderstand their importance in the world. The objective was to fool the young men before they could fool Beaufrey. Artists were the most fascinating to Beaufrey because they were often shattered and easily manipulated emotionally. Artists were quite exciting to destroy. Because they participated so freely. Eric had made his suicide a sort of visual event or installation, which Eric had somehow known would be irresistible to a visual artist such as David.

Beaufrey loved the theater. Players such as Eric or David and the cunt were a dime a dozen; Beaufrey was the director and author; he was the producer. One act followed another; Eric had performed the last act of his life farce perfectly; uncanny how Eric’s blood and flesh had become a medium consumed by a single performance.

David had been triumphant after he had snatched Monte from his playpen. Beaufrey had made all the arrangements, including the purchase of passports and papers for the infant. They had left the same afternoon for Cartagena by chartered jet. They could count on Seese to stay drunk and coked up for hours before she got desperate enough to contact the police.

The first week in Cartagena it had seemed possible to endure David’s child’s remaining with them. The child seldom cried for its mother and slept long intervals in the afternoon when Beaufrey preferred sex. But at the beginning of the second week, the child had begun crying and rocking its crib against a wall while they were having sex. Beaufrey had been furious about the interruption, but pretended he did not mind
David’s fussing with the child. Beaufrey had cut more lines of cocaine on the mirror and filled both glasses with champagne. David must have no suspicion. Later Beaufrey discussed the schedule: they could not fly out to the
finca
until the end of the week.