but I couldn't find him. I searched the gardens, and then the woodlands in one direction and another, but with no luck.
At last I found a small cave high on the mountain, and dug down deep into it and slept.
What is the use of describing my misery Of describing the dull dark pain I felt What is the use of saying I knew the full measure of my injustice, my dishonor, and my cruelty I knew the magnitude of what I'd done to him.
I knew myself and all my evil to the fullest and I expected nothing back from the world now except the very same evil in kind.
I woke as soon as the sun had gone into the sea. On a high bluff I watched the twilight and then went down into the streets of the town to hunt. It wasn't too long before the usual thief tried to lay hands on me and rob me, and I carried him with me into a little alleyway and there drained him slowly and very enjoyably, only steps from the tourists passing by. I concealed his body in the very depths of the alley and went on my way.
And what was my way
I went back to the hotel. His possessions were still there but he was not. Once again, I searched, fighting an awful fear that he had already done away with himself, and then realizing that he was far too strong for that to be a simple thing. Even if he had lain out in the fury of the sun, which I strongly doubted, he could not have been wholly destroyed.
Yet I was plagued by every conceivable fear: Perhaps, he had been so burnt and crippled that he could not help himself. He had been discovered by mortals. Or perhaps the others had come, and stolen him completely away. Or he would reappear and curse me again. I feared that too.
Finally I made my way back down to Bridgetown, unable to leave the island until I knew what had become of him.
I was still there an hour before dawn.
And the next night I did not find him. Nor the night after that.
At last, bruised in mind and soul, and telling myself I deserved nothing but misery, I went home.
The warmth of spring had come to New Orleans, finally, and I found her swarming with the usual tourists beneath a clear and purple evening sky. I went first to my old house to take Mojo from the care of the old woman, who was not at all glad to give him up, save that he had obviously missed me very much.
Then he and I together proceeded to the Rue Royale.
I knew the flat wasn't empty even before I reached the top of the back stairs. I paused for a moment, looking down on the restored courtyard with its scrubbed flagstones and romantic little fountain, complete with cherubs and their great cornucopia-style shells pouring forth a splash of clean water into the basin below.
A bed of dark sweet flowers had been planted against the old brick wall, and a stand of bananas was already thriving in the corner, long graceful knifelike leaves nodding in the breeze.
This gladdened my vicious selfish little heart beyond words.
I went inside. The back parlour had finally been finished, and beautifully laid out with the fine antique chairs I'd selected for it, and the thick pale Persian carpet of faded red.
I looked up and down the length of the hallway, past the fresh wallpaper of gold and white stripes, and over the yards of dark carpet, and I saw Louis standing in the front parlour door.
Don't ask me where I've been or what I've done, I said. I walked towards him, brushed him aside, and went into the room. Ah, it surpassed all my expectations. There were a very replica of his old desk between the windows, and the camelback sofa of silver damask, and the oval table inlaid with mahogany. And the spinet against the far wall.
I know where you've been, he said, and I know what you've done.
Oh And what's to follow Some stultifying and endless lecture Tell me now. So I can go to sleep.
I turned around to face him, to see what effect this stiff rebuff had had, if any, and there stood David beside him, dressed very well in black fine-combed velvet, and with his arms folded across his chest, and leaning against the frame of the door.