“How many cars does Becquer have?” I asked him instead.
Federico frowned. “Two that I know of. This limo is not his. He rented it for the party. But why do you care?”
“I don’t.”
“Yes. Becquer is quite wealthy.” Federico answered the question I had not asked. “When you can manipulate minds to do your bidding, it is not surprising the books you represent end up on the bestseller list. Money follows.”
“Manipulate minds? Is that what you are doing with me?”
“No. I have never manipulated anybody’s mind.” I glowered at him. “I’m afraid you’d have to take my word for it,” he insisted. “I cannot prove it to you.”
“But Becquer does — manipulate minds, I mean?”
Federico shrugged. “I don’t think he does it on purpose. Every time I have confronted him about it, he has denied it. Yet things seem always to go his way. In business and in love.”
“Is that what you wanted to warn me about?”
Federico stared ahead, crossing and uncrossing his fingers as if trying to clarify his thoughts.
“Becquer has a new love interest,” he said at last. “I thought she might be you.”
“Me? That’s absurd. I only met him twice.”
“But he has read your books, liked them enough to sign you as a client. And Becquer is quite impulsive when falling in love. Childish you may say. He falls not so much for the person but for his own idealized image of her. Seeing you twice would be more than enough for him to think himself fully in love, especially when he has glimpsed your soul in your stories. Yes, you could have been his new beloved. I’m glad to see that you’re not.”
“And you know that by reading my mind?”
“In a way. For if Becquer were in love with you, he’d have charmed you already and you’d be blindly in love with him.”
“But I wouldn’t be really in love with him. My feelings would be an illusion.”
“Exactly my point. You wouldn’t be yourself anymore, just a puppet to his will. Yet Becquer doesn’t seem to realize that distinction. He insists he does not change the feelings for a first attraction must be there. He just pushes the victim slightly in that direction.
“Victim being my chosen word, of course. The so-called victims would call themselves fortunate, because to be chosen, to be loved by Becquer, is an exhilarating experience. Nobody, not a single one of them has complained yet and, trust me, he has had many.”
“What happens when he tires of them?”
“They still love him for a while, I guess. But when he stops charming them, their love eventually wanes and they forget him, and thus forgive him for leaving them.
“In fact, most of them remain friends with him until he moves on. For, of course, like all immortals, he can’t stay more than twenty years in a place before his not aging becomes obvious. Then he has to go somewhere else and reinvent himself.”
Twenty years he had told me. He had lived in the States for twenty years. Did that mean he was ready to move? Now that I’d just found an agent, was he about to disappear and leave me agentless once more? He wouldn’t, now, would he? That would just be rude.
Federico laughed.
“Are you reading my mind again?”
“I wouldn’t if you were not shouting.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Anger sounds that way to me, to us immortals. Don’t worry. He’s not planning to leave. Not yet. He’s been an agent for ten years only.”
I sighed in relief. I guess an immortal, manipulative agent was, in my book, better than no agent at all. Which didn’t say much about my ethics. Maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh on Federico for reading my mind. It was not as if he could help it.
“Friends?” Federico asked.
“Friends.”
As I spoke, the car came to a stop. Through the window, I saw the facade of an imposing stone house covered in ghoulish spider webs glistening in the glow of blinking orange lights. Several jack-o’-lanterns flickered on the stairs that led to the porch.
“Oh well, here we are,” Federico said. “Let’s hope I’m wrong because if Becquer is in love, Beatriz is going to cause him trouble.”
“Beatriz?”
“Forget what I just said, and let’s go inside and enjoy ourselves. Becquer’s parties are always interesting. I have the impression this one will not disappoint.”
Chapter Five: The Portrait
Matt opened the limousine door for me. Although I didn’t delay, by the time I got out, Federico was already coming around the front of the car, the gravel crackling under his light steps.
“Thank you,” he said to the young man. “Please don’t forget to call the garage and ask them to tow the Mercedes.”
“I have already.”
Federico smiled. “Great. Now you better park this one in the back before your mother sees you.”
Matt glanced toward the house. “I better,” he agreed and, with a nod in my direction and a last longing stare at Federico, he disappeared inside the car.
Federico waved his hand toward the house and motioned me to go first.
Following his suggestion, I crossed the open space and climbed the stairs.
Up close the spider webs looked too perfect to be spooky and the artistic designs in the jack-o’-lanterns flanking the stairs to the porch inspired more awe than fear. An aged iron ring hung on the right side of the massive double doors that would have been perfectly in place at a Castilian noble house.
Just as Federico reached my side, the doors swung open and a woman appeared in the doorway. A woman dressed in a low cut dress with a tight bodice and a long skirt that fell to the floor.
“Here you are at last,” she said as a way of hello.
Her face was in shadow, but her voice, I recognized. It was Beatriz?s. Beatriz, wearing a dress that belonged to the mid-nineteenth century, to the time in which Becquer had been human. Madison had been right, I realized with regret: this was a costume party.
“What a perfect choice.” Federico’s voice broke through my thoughts. “Becquer must be delighted that you honor him so.”
I looked up, puzzled by Federico’s words. Tossing back her auburn hair that fell in waves over her shoulders, Beatriz revealed a silk blue scarf.
“
The blue scarf that Beatriz, the protagonist of one of Becquer’s most beloved short stories, loses in the mountains. The blue scarf she goads her cousin to go find later that evening. He agrees because he loves her but does so against his best judgment for it’s Halloween and, that night, the mountains are said to be haunted by the souls of dead warriors that roam the earth trapped in their skeletal bodies. The following morning, Beatriz finds the scarf torn and bloody in her room and dies of fright guessing right that her cousin never returned from his quest alive.
Beatriz smiled. “So you noticed.”
I saw a glint of victory in her eyes as they moved up and down my embarrassingly plain, black dress. “Please, come in,” she said and moved back. “Becquer is waiting for you.”
I breathed deeply to ease my discomfort, and was about to follow her when I felt the pull of Federico’s hand
