CHAPTER 49

      TWO HUNDRED YEARS of life can leave a man jaded.

      If he is a genius, like Victor, his intellectual pursuits lead him always on new adventures. The mind can be kept fresh and forever engaged as it confronts and resolves increasingly complex problems.

      On the other hand, repetition of physical pleasures eventually makes former delights seem dull. Boredom sets in. During the second century, a man’s appetites turn increasingly toward the exotic, the extreme.

      This is why Victor requires violence with sex, and the cruel humiliation of his partner. He has long ago transcended the guilt that committing acts of cruelty might spawn in others. Brutality is an aphrodisiac; the exercise of raw power thrills him.

      The world offers so many cuisines that conventional sex grows boring long before favorite dishes grow bland to the tongue. Only in the past decade has Victor developed a periodic craving for foods so exotic that they must be eaten with discretion.

      At certain restaurants in the city, where the owners value his business, where the waiters value his generous gratuities, and where the chefs admire his uniquely sophisticated palate, Victor from time to time arranges special dinners in advance. He is always served in a private room, where a man of his refinement can enjoy dishes so rare that they might seem repulsive to the ignorant multitudes. He has no wish to explain these acquired tastes to the boorish diners—and they are virtually always boorish—at an adjoining table.

      Quan Yin, a Chinese restaurant named for the Queen of Heaven, had two private dining rooms. One was suitable for a group of eight. Victor had reserved it for himself.

      He frequently ate alone. With two hundred years of experience that no one of an ordinary life span could match, he found that he was virtually always his own best company

      Teasing his appetite, allowing time to anticipate the exotic entrée, he began with a simple dish: egg drop soup.

      Before he had half finished this first course, his cell phone rang. He was surprised to hear the voice of the renegade.

      “Murder doesn’t scare me anymore, Father.”

      With a note of authority that always secured obedience, Victor said, “You must talk to me about this in person.”

      “I’m not as troubled about murder as when I called you before.”

      “How did you get this number?”

      The emergency contact number at Hands of Mercy, given to members of the New Race, did not transfer calls to Victor’s cell phone.

      Instead of answering, the renegade said, “Murder just makes me more human. They excel at murder.”

      “But you’re better than their kind.” The need to discuss this, to debate it, annoyed Victor. He was master and commander. His word was law, his desire obeyed, at least among his people. “You’re more rational, more—”

      “We’re not better. There’s something missing in us…something they have.”

      This was an intolerable lie. This was heresy.

      “The help you need,” Victor insisted impatiently, “only I am able to give.”

      “If I just cut open enough of them and look inside, sooner or later I’ll discover what makes them…happier.”

      “That isn’t rational. Come to me at the Hands of Mercy—”

      “There’s this girl I see sometimes, she’s particularly happy. I’ll find the truth in her, the secret, the thing I’m missing.”

      The renegade hung up.

      As before, Victor pressed *69. Also as before, the call had come from a number that blocked automatic call-backs.

      His special dinner had not been ruined by this development, but his bright mood had dimmed. He decided to switch from tea to wine.

      Beer often went with Chinese food better than wine did. Victor was not, however, a beer man.

      Unlike many Chinese restaurants, Quan Yin had an extensive cellar full of the finest vintages. The waiter—in a ruffled white tuxedo shirt, bow tie, and black tuxedo pants—brought a wine list.

      As he finished his soup and waited for a salad of hearts of palms and peppers, Victor studied the list. He wavered between a wine suitable for pork and one better matched with seafood.

      He would be eating neither pork nor seafood. The entrée, which he’d had before, was such a rare delicacy that any connoisseur of wine must be of several minds about the most compatible selection.

      Finally he chose a superb Pinot Grigio and enjoyed the first glass with his salad.

      Much ceremony accompanied the presentation of the main course, beginning with the chef himself, a Buddha-plump man named Lee Ling. He sprinkled red rose petals across the white tablecloth.

      Two waiters appeared with an ornately engraved red-bronze tray on which stood a legged, one-quart copper pot filled with boiling oil. A Sterno burner under the pot kept the oil bubbling.

      They put the tray on the table, and Victor breathed deeply of the aroma rising from the pot. This peanut oil, twice clarified, had been infused with a blend of pepper oils. The fragrance was divine.

      A third waiter put a plain white plate before him. Beside the plate, red chopsticks. So gently as to avoid the slightest clink, the waiter placed a pair of stainless-steel tongs on the plate.

      The handles of the tongs were rubberized to insulate against the heat that the steel would draw from the boiling oil. The pincer ends were shaped like the petals of lotus blossoms.

      The pot of oil stood to Victor’s right. Now a bowl of saffron rice was placed at the head of his plate.

      Lee Ling, having retreated to the kitchen, returned with the entrée, which he put to the left of Victor’s plate. The delicacy waited in a silver serving dish with a lid.

      The waiters bowed and retreated. Lee Ling waited, smiling.

      Victor removed the lid from the silver server. The dish had been lined with cabbage leaves briefly steamed to wilt them and make them pliable.

      This rare delicacy did not appear on the menu. It was not available at all times or on short notice.

      In any event, Lee Ling would prepare it only for that one-in-a-thousand customer whom he’d known for years, whom he trusted, whom he knew to be a true gourmet. The customer must also be one so familiar with regional Chinese cuisine that he knew to request this very item.

      Restaurant-licensing officials would not have approved of this offering, not even here in libertine New Orleans. No health risk was involved, but some things are too exotic even for the most tolerant of people.

      In the dish, nestled in the cabbage, squirmed a double litter of live baby rats, so recently born that they were still pink, hairless, and blind.

      In Chinese, Victor expressed his approval and gratitude to Lee Ling. Smiling, bowing, the chef retreated, leaving his guest alone.

      Perhaps the excellent wine had restored Victor’s good mood or perhaps his own extraordinary sophistication so pleased him that he could not for long remain glum. One of the secrets to leading a life full of great accomplishment was to like oneself, and Victor Helios, alias Frankenstein, liked himself more than he could express.

      He dined.