Hellenic Immortal (2 page)

I’m something of a voyeur, in case you didn’t get that.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that my friend with the nice legs was watching me, too. This was puzzling because I frankly didn’t look like much at that particular time. I had more or less rolled out of bed and directly onto the casino floor, pausing only long enough to put on shoes. And I don’t think of myself as one of those guys who looks great at 2:00 a.m. No, whatever it was that had her lingering wasn’t sex appeal, and it wasn’t money, because despite being extremely wealthy at the moment, I was keeping that information to myself.

Possibly, she simply knew I was looking and decided to look back. I dismissed it as such.

But then she turned up the next night. She’d gone from a skirt to black slacks and a halter, and had pulled her hair back, but it was definitely the same woman. She situated herself at a different slot machine and acted as before, playing as long as I was playing and keeping me in her side view.

It didn’t make a whole lot of sense. If she was following me for subversive reasons, keeping herself in my range of vision was just not the smart thing to do; she could see the back of my head just fine from behind me and I don’t have eyes there.

So she wanted me to see her seeing me, but why? I considered prostitution, but a call girl would have approached me eventually; they don’t usually get paid—or not well—just to be looked at from across the room, and if someone was paying her for that, it wasn’t me.

I cashed out after the next hand and walked over to introduce myself, but she got up the minute I did and left out of a side door. I considered following, but that seemed a little too stalker-ish. Maybe, I told myself, she just liked playing slots before bedtime and I was misconstruing what was going on.

Except she continued to turn up: evening gowns, pants suits, bikini (by the pool), hair down, hair pulled back, glasses, no glasses. Same girl. And every time I got close to her, she made a hasty exit. Either she really was following me, or I’d developed some sort of psychosis. I suspected the former, but the latter wasn’t entirely out of the question.

*
 
*
 
*

It was because of another woman that I was in Vegas in the first place. Her name is Clara, and she’s currently somewhere in Europe spending money—her own, although she could have asked and I would have given her some—and probably having a fantastic time doing whatever it is twenty-five year olds do with ample funds in Europe these days. And since this particular twenty-five year old is always going to look twenty-five, she may be away for some time.

Clara, thanks to a medical procedure that is unlikely to be repeated any time soon, is going to live forever, provided she avoids sharp objects and volcanoes and the like.

I am too. I already have lived something like forever, provided one collapses one’s definition down to the past sixty thousand years or so. Also like me, Clara will never age, get sick, or just die of natural causes. We can both be hurt—I mean physically, although I guess emotional pain is on the table as well—and otherwise die of exceptional or intentional causes, or so I assume.

It would have been a fantastic coincidence if the one woman on earth who could grow no older with me was also my soul mate (or true love or whatever romantic metaphor you prefer) and we could live happily ever after in a way no fairy-tale writer could have imagined. But this was not true love, and it wasn’t anyone’s fault except maybe whoever thought of the idea of true love in the first place, because I’m nearly positive it doesn’t actually exist. Or rather, it’s easily mistaken for something else, as I believe I have met my true love at least a dozen different times. And Clara isn’t one of those dozen.

She also isn’t the only woman on earth who doesn’t get any older. She just happens to be the least complicated of the two.

Anyway, I bought an island in the Queen Charlottes a little less than two years ago in an estate sale. The last owner was one Robert Grindel, recently deceased, (deservedly so) and I decided to live in the modest private home that came with the island. Clara decided to come with me. This was fantastic for about eighteen months, but things started to go downhill after that.

So yeah; she left. And I don’t really want to talk about it.

*
 
*
 
*

Having an attractive woman playing amateur espionage with me was something that I would have quite enjoyed in a different time or place, but as I’d recently had a bounty on my head, I was much more wary than titillated. So I checked out of the Bellagio and into the MGM Grand, and went from poker to blackjack.

I switched to blackjack because you really don’t have to pay much attention when playing it, unlike poker, which I’m quite good at when fully engaged, but which I find difficult when concentrating more on the people watching than the people playing. Both are preferable to slots, which I simply don’t understand. I mean, it’s a machine. You can’t read a machine for tendencies; you just have to hope it’s not cheating. There’s luck involved in cards too, but there’s also a little skill. It’s like the difference between praying for a fatted calf to walk into your camp versus going out and hunting one. You might not get dinner either way, but at least in one case you’re not relying on the beneficence of fate or some random god to help you out. And yes, I know I just equated the gods to a slot machine. That was my point.

Also, and this is possibly related, one of the kicks I get out of cards and dice is that both were once used for telling the future, so the idea of employing them in games of chance just cracks me up. Every time I crap out at the table, I’m thinking not only did I lose my money, I also just foretold a drought for my village. You can’t get that kind of entertainment from a slot machine.

Anyway, I was at one of the blackjack tables riding an improbable streak of heinously bad luck when I saw her again, sitting at the bar. She had followed me to the MGM.

For this evening’s game of tag, she went with a black sweater and skirt combo, with a cute little beret and a pair of those tiny oval glasses women nowadays wear because they look retro.
 

Wasting no time, I cashed out and headed for the bar, fully expecting her to turn around and walk off like she had every other time—and also planning to chase her for a change, as I was now convinced this wasn’t simply the consequence of my overactive imagination. But she didn’t run. She held her ground, which was modestly exciting.

I slid into the seat next to her and caught the bartender’s attention. His name was Chester, and he didn’t have a lot to do because it was nearly 3:00 a.m.

Gambling at night was how I coped with the crowds.

I tapped on the bar to get his attention. “Do you have any scotch that’s of the legal age?”

 
“I got a twelve year old,” he said.

“That’s close enough. Neat, please.”

“You got it.”
 
Chester served me my drink and then scooted to the other end of the bar to fill a cocktail waitress’s order.

After a moment’s pause I cleared my throat and asked, “Don’t you want to run off again?”

My erstwhile stalker turned in her swivel chair and looked at me. “Excuse me?” She smelled like primrose. I probably smelled like the cigarettes my tablemate had been chain-smoking all evening.

“Or you could just move to the far end of the room,” I suggested, pointing to the tables by the door. “To keep a safe distance.”

She grinned toothlessly and sipped her drink, which appeared to be a rum and coke. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“Apparently yes, you do. Someone paying you to keep an eye on me?”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
 

It was the first time I had heard her voice, which was deep and melodic, with the cadence of someone who might have started life in a language other than English. I decided I could listen to it all night. “Of course you don’t. Well then, let me introduce myself. I’m Jason.”

I’d changed my name before leaving the island, going with Jason Stargill.
 
This required repeating it a few dozen times so it rolled out naturally, which is something you learn how to do when you switch appellations like other people do shoes. I felt fairly comfortable with it.

We shook hands. Finally close enough to get a good look, I noted her deep black eyes and round face that bespoke a Hellenic ancestry. She was also far more attractive than I’d realized from a distance. Sometimes this causes a bout of stammering on my part.

“Jason?” she repeated. “Funny. You don’t look like a Jason.”

“And you are?”
 

“Ariadne.”

“Greek.”

“Mm-hmm,” she nodded. “My parents always loved the classics.”

“That’s nice,” I said, downing my scotch. “Listen, Ariadne—and let’s just pretend that’s your real name for now—I’m the kind of guy who likes his privacy. I’ve been known to go through a whole lot of trouble to preserve that privacy. So as much as I’ve enjoyed the eye-fucking I’ve been getting for the past week, I’d appreciate it if you stopped following me. I’m sure you understand.”

“Oh, I do,” she assured me, genuinely smiling this time. She did sort of remind me of an Athenian I knew once; maybe the name was legit. “Everyone has their secrets. Your problem is that your secrets aren’t really so secret anymore.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning if you think I’m a threat, you should look around more carefully.”

Before I could come up with something useful to say to that, she stood and leaned in closely, tilted her lips up to my ear and whispered, “Good night, Adam.”

Her hand brushed my knee as she walked off. And I was entirely too dumb-founded to do anything other than watch her go.

Adam was the name I’d been using before I switched to Jason, and there were very few humans still alive that knew this. Or so I thought.

Something was very, very wrong.

“Nice, huh?” Chester commented from a few feet away.

“I think I’m in love.” I was there to get over another woman and I was drunk, but I also may not have been kidding.

“Me too,” Chester agreed. “You want another?” He meant the scotch.
 

I pushed forward the glass, because I almost never turn down a refill, and surveyed the room again. It occurred to me I had spent much of the last several days looking for Ariadne to the extent that I probably ignored anyone else who might have also been tailing me. It was a classic trick, and if it was being played on me, I was an idiot for not recognizing it sooner.

But the trick doesn’t really work that well if the misdirect—the girl—tells you she’s a misdirect. So she was either an unwilling participant or something else was going on, and I was too drunk to figure out what that was. I was not, however, too drunk to be paranoid about the idea.

I have been known to suffer from occasional bouts of what might be considered—in someone else—mild paranoia. It’s sort of an offshoot of the I-have-a-feeling-I’m-being-watched sensation that everybody gets where usually it’s nothing, but the one time it isn’t, is the one we all remember. I’ve been right about that sensation hundreds of times, and not because I’m endowed with some special sort of psychic power; it’s just that when you have millions of chances to choose from, you’re bound to be right often enough to think there’s something to it. It’s one of those quirky human things that aren’t much of a big deal if you’re planning on a normal lifespan, but which become enormous after several thousand life spans. I have the same problem with
déjà vu
.

So while it was very likely that nobody on the vast, but largely empty casino floor, was someone I’d seen before that evening, since I have sixty millennia of memories to pan through there was really no way to be sure. And once Ariadne had put the idea of it in my head, it wouldn’t leave.

I needed to get off the casino floor, and I needed to find Ariadne again. Ironically, inasmuch as I’d just insisted she go away. “Hey,” I said to Chester, “have you ever seen her before?”

“Not before tonight, no sir,” he said.

I put a one hundred dollar chip on the bar. “How about now?”

Chester smiled. “She was cute, wasn’t she?”
 

He thought I was looking for a date. A fine assumption.

 
“Honestly, if I’d seen her before I would have remembered it.” Chester swept up the chip anyway, and then took down Ariadne’s glass.
 

“How about the drink?” I asked.

“Rum and Coke,” he answered.

“But how’d she pay for it? Room charge?”

“Sorry. Cash.”

I nodded. “Thanks. Guess I’ll just have to hope I run into her again.” I got up to leave, but Chester stopped me.

“There is this,” he said, holding up a coin. “She gave it to me as a tip. Says it’s worth twenty bucks. I think she was yanking my chain.”

I took the coin from him. Larger than a quarter, but not much heavier, it was a dull gray and had the face of Athena on one side. “It’s a drachma,” I informed him. “And it’s not worth twenty bucks. Here’s thirty for it. That’s a better exchange than you’ll get in a bank.”

“Yeah, okay.” Chester looked confused, but was happy to take my money.

I covered my tab and slipped the drachma into my pocket, wondering if the mysterious Ms. Ariadne had expected me to question Chester, or if she always tipped in outdated coinage.

*
 
*
 
*

It took me a few minutes longer than it should have to get back into the room, thanks to the electronic key card, which I’m adding to the long list of modern improvements I don’t care for. I just can’t get the hang of them. And by the time I do, the world will probably have moved on to something even more annoying. On the positive side, we seem to be getting closer to
open sesame
actually working, so I have that to look forward to.

The room was extremely unspectacular: a single bed, a small TV, a couple of bureaus, a tiny bathroom with a shower that was definitely for one, and a window that didn’t overlook the strip. It was just the kind of room you got if you didn’t want anyone to know you had access to a large amount of money.