Janet fumbled open her notebook, frantically grabbing a pen from her pocket as Daniel watched with an amusing eye.
"Can you," Janet asked, "Can you elaborate on that?"
"Well, the answer was right there, as plain as the sun on a scorching summer day." Daniel shrugged with a wolfish tinge, "I mean, if you really think about it, I was just being generous. Why punish a man who only wished to share his gift with a diseased world."
Janet scribbled everything. Once she was finished, she asked a vital question.
"But, that was the idea." She said, "Your idea. How does the money come in play?"
"Ah." Daniel seemed to reminisce. He closed his eyes as though drowning in a warm memory, and opened them in fierce excitement. "Katherine!"
.....
Katherine Thatcher was a brat. A perfect, spoiled princess who was desperate for her own story, and who truly believed that a prince ought to do it. In a lot of ways, that prince was me. Poor thing, also. She was a walking bag of cash who had no idea how to spend it correct.
I met her in the morgue, one day, at Pentonville. This was before I got infected.
I was emulous in the way I carried my image. And so, when I found this blonde, young woman lost in that dim hallway with a kerchief to her eye, of course I became somewhat of a gentleman.
"Are you fine, my lady?" I could tell by her heavy laced dress clinging tight to her skin, and those beaded gems on her collarbone, that she was many ranks above me.
I must have startled her, because she turned in a fright, pout forming on her red lips. Flailing her gloved arms in the sky, she cried in a tantrum. "No!"
I sighed. I wasn't really in the mood for being kind but she was pretty, so I entertained her. Her voluptuous frame went well with that light hair bobbing just above her shoulder, and a half updo sitting like a crown on her head.
"Why don't we step outside, I'm sure the stench in here must be troubling." I said.
Closing the door, I walked with her to the lift as she explained to me how she lost a bunch of money to this guy she was seeing. Apparently, he asked for "a little help" and ran off with the coin. Weirdly though, that wasn't why she was crying.
"I mean why would he even do that?" The elevator echoed her dramatized screams as we ascended. "Did our love mean nothing to him?!"
I repressed the urge to say, 'Because he's a man,' and derailed the conversation elsewhere. Besides, you can't blame me for being curious. "So, what was a girl like you doing in a place like that all alone?"
"Hm?" She turned through her handkerchief, "Oh, I can't tell you. If I do, you'll be quick to judge me. A girl needs her own bag of secrets, after all."
This made me intrigued. Watching her giggle like a racoon with not a trace of her tears, as though nothing had happened prior, made me lose my mind. Did you know, later, when I asked around, I received a bundle of contradicting perceptions? Never did two people say the same thing. Suddenly, that woman seemed a lot more interesting.
"Humor me." I looked down at her.
The first floor arrived, and she stepped off with a leap. "Nothing of serious merit, Dr. Taine. I was simply in search for a rotting heart."
The hallway was bright, with a red carpet rolled over the polished wood. Gold light sang from the bulbs hanging in rows on the flowered wallpaper. A heavy scent of lilac fogged the atmosphere. Her hair bounced up and down as she trudged that passage with naked calves, and I watched. There was this intoxicating sense of perplexity that ran from one end to the other. And, in that moment, the only thing giving me sobriety were that woman's words hanging like a dreamcatcher.
I didn't understand the full extent of what she said. Just that, later, when I had holed myself in my room for too long, it was she that came knocking at my door. I opened it to find her erect. Not joyous, or concerned, or even scared.
Mad.
She was mad. And not the kind of mad you're thinking.
She threw herself inside. Regarding not the dishes piling in the sink or the shirts overflowing from the closet, she pushed my back to the wall. A hand came flat over my chest—my heart—and I stood there wondering what the hell was going on. I didn't even tell her I was sick. But, I didn't need to.
"I knew it." She gasped, "Your heart is rotten."
I said nothing.
"All this time, I've been searching in all the wrong places. The hearts in the morgue are decomposing, sure, but they're not rotten. They're not. They're not filled with parasites or cold or decay or mud or filth or all things horrid. But, yours,"
I didn't want to hear her say it. But, somehow I let her speak. Though, I possessed the full capacity to shut her up.
"You, Daniel Taine. You have a heart as rotten as mine."
You wanna know what's even more disturbing? She wasn't even talking about the Plague. But, whatever she diagnosed, she was onto something true.
"Careful." I wrapped my fingers around her wrist, removing it gently, "You're going to get infected."
"Infected?" She asked, but then her eyes widened in realisation. "Infected."
She said something after that I don't think I'll ever forget. Just because of how idiotic it was.
"What do you mean you don't care?!" I thundered.
It was infuriating to me. One would have to be a complete fool to discard their life so easily. But, that was Katherine for you. She told me once that her heart was incapable of feeling anything right. Everything was an exaggerated attempt at being human. That the only reason she stuck by me was because I was the only one who provided solace to her insanity. But, I disagree. It was her inability to feel that made her cling to the normal all the more. She cared more than anyone I knew.
"I mean that people like you and me are hard to find! And, if we found each other then we need to stick together. Because we're the only ones that can understand one another." She stared me down like a hawk, "So, no. I don't care if I live or die. Whatever you plan on doing, I'll be there with you."
I was dumbstruck, finding out too late that her theories were damn well right.
She was a wonderful asset, might I add. Such a cunning thing. And, smart in all the worst ways. A sweetheart to whoever entered her circle, but to the rest, she was a monster. Her mind worked flawlessly. Charm was her teeth, deception was bite and the trap; her stomach. Bones filled with lies, those who trusted her, trusted with deterrence to their ownselves.
I remember once I told her to begin advances on this senior official. You wouldn't know him, he's dead now. But, back then, he was the height of nobility. You'd be rather surprised to find how many people at the top did business with me.
Anyway, so Kathy attends this party, and opens talk with the man a little on the nose.
"How many people in this room do you reckon would swarm away from you if they learn of your condition?" She went straight for the throat. It's funny how fragile we are. A simple threat to the things we hold dear, and we cower like donkeys. "Or, better yet, how many of them would sever your precious connections if they learn that you are a dead man?"
The figure trembled by the woman's taunting voice whispering in his ear, standing behind him like a shadow.
"The symptoms are there, aren't they? The insomnia. The fervent sweats. The sudden fevers. The muscles going numb. But, none better to determine," She lifted the man's sleeve to reveal his skin going coal black. "Than, your rotting flesh."
"How did you know?"
Katherine watched him stare into the abyss, overlooking the crowd dancing under a glass chandelier.
"People talk when they're drunk and bored. You wouldn't believe the many confessions my father harbors in his bedridden body. Just because he keeps his eyes closed doesn't mean he's not listening. Of course, that's all he knows what to do. But, I have high hopes he will recover soon."
Mr. Thatcher was not infected. He was just old. But, our target didn't know that.
"How's that, young lady?"
"Why, it's a secret! But, if you're interested in a taste of immortality, I suggest you meet my informant at the rendezvous."
She handed him a folded piece of paper, and mixed with the crowd. Gliding through the bodies with confident indifference. Sure enough, the moron found me by the river that night. I made an extra buck by convincing him two at a time will do even wonderfully. Quite a sale, it was. The dunce died of an overdose, thwarting any remaining suspicion. All because of Katherine.
She could make a fool of whoever she wanted. Yes, she could. Damn it, I should have seen this coming.
I just wish I had a chance to tell her that she should have been fooling me instead. If I was gonna end up in this place anyway, I would have made sure I left her hating me, so she never thinks of me again.