The Teratologist (6 page)

Bryant couldn’t help but notice. “You’re not old enough to have the shakes. Think it might be a good idea to quit drinking?”

Westmore felt strange, as he had at the airport bar. He felt as though some aspect of his spirit had abandoned him, but why? What was it fleeing? “I just got that bad feeling again. Bad vibes.”

“
Well, get a hold of yourself.” Next, Bryant rolled his eyes at the cigarette smoldering in the tray. “That’s not an ashtray, Westmore. It’s a Hummel pit dish, probably cost a thousand dollars.”

“
Fuck,” Westmore said. Next, an inexplicable impulse caused him to turn. The furthest corner of the room stood dark. He thought he’d seen someone standing there, but when he squinted, it was just grainy dark.

Bryant smiled. “You’re really a screw-loose.”

“
And you know something else?” Westmore scratched his beard. “This Brit, this Micheals guy,
he
could be Farrington for all we know.”

“
I assure you I’m not, Mr. Westmore.”

The tall British manservant was right behind Westmore when he turned back toward the foyer. The photographer jumped back with a start at the sudden proximity of the man.

“
Jesus, man!”

Michaels sighed when he noticed the cigarette butt in the pit dish. “Please, gentlemen. Sit. I’ll have someone bring you some tea, or, if you’d prefer—”

Westmore perked up.

“—
The armoire is actually a liquor cabinet.”

Westmore walked immediately to the high, polished armoire near the arched doorway.

“
Mr. Farrington will be with you soon,” Michaels continued in the clipped accent. He seemed distant, or distracted. “I have to go see to another guest who has just arrived.”

“
That wasn’t Mr. Farrington blubbering on your shoulder just now in his birthday suit was it?” Westmore asked.

“
Please, have a seat. I will be back momentarily.” Michaels disappeared into another room leaving the two journalists alone again.

“
You have a way with words,” Bryant said. “A bad way.”

Westmore shrugged. When he opened the armoire, he found racks of top shelf liquor. He picked up a bottle, impressed. “To hell with Bud Light. This guy’s got Macallen and Johnny Walker Blue!”

“
I think the naked guy
was
Farrington,” Bryant said. “Michaels really seemed out of it, didn’t he? Like he was bothered, or embarrassed.”

“
Yeah, or maybe he’s just a flake. Who cares? At least I’m not missing the Yankees for nothing.” He poured himself a drink and pointed to the liquor rack. “What do you want?”

“
Proper liver function.” Then Bryant noticed that the coffee table in front of the couch was now laid out with hors d’oeuvres. Someone must have brought them in while they were busy watching the man on the stairs have a nervous breakdown.

“
This is some spread,” Westmore observed. He snapped a picture, then they both sat back down and began to eat: toast points with smoked salmon and capers, Beluga caviar with sour cream, green onions, and boiled egg, crab-filled mushroom caps, and garlic butter dipped escargot. They had no idea what half the stuff they were eating was but it all tasted wonderful. Westmore downed two more scotches in the process.

They had just finished off the last of the caviar when a handsome, well-groomed young man in an Armani suit sat down across from them in a huge stainless steel chair they had both thought was a modern art sculpture.

“
Welcome gentleman. I trust you enjoyed your snack? My name is John Farrington.”

It was the same man who’d been crying in Michaels’s arms. Only now, in his $10,000 power suit, he looked anything but vulnerable. In fact, he looked invincible. His eyes shone with a feral predatory intelligence as if he were preparing to attack and was just trying to decide which of them was the fittest and which one the gene pool could do without. They seemed to be scouring the two reporters for weaknesses.

Both Bryant and Westmore were caught in a moment of silence, looking up. Then they both rose.

“
My name is James Bryant and this is Richard Westmore. We’re here to interview you for
Blue Chip
magazine. Do you mind if my partner here gets a few photos of you for the cover?”

They shook hands and then settled back down onto the plush sofa. Westmore remained standing and began loading film into his Nikon 35mm.

“
Very pleased to meet you gentlemen and I’m sorry but I will have to insist that you do not photograph me.”

The two journalists were shocked.

“
What? No photos?”

“
You may take photographs of my home and property but I’m afraid no pictures of me.”

“
But why? I thought it was all arranged?” Westmore practically shrieked as he saw his assignment slipping out of his control.

“
I am a very private man. I don’t wish to become the type of person who cannot go anywhere without a battalion of bodyguards to protect me from beggars, kidnappers and paparazzi. I’m sure you understand.”

“
No, I don’t fucking understand!” Westmore was buzzed, irritation mixing with the scotch. It was not a positive combination. Bryant seized his partner’s wrist and pulled him back down onto the couch.

“
Excuse my friend here. He’s enjoyed your hospitality a little too much I’m afraid. The alcohol is affecting his manners. We’re happy to respect your wishes, Mr. Farrington.”

Farrington smiled; clearly amused at the reaction he was having on his guests.

“
No excuses necessary. I understand that it is highly unusual to not be able to photograph the subject of your story.”

“
Damn right it’s highly unusual,” Westmore muttered. “What do you want on your lead-page? A picture of the pool, or the foyer?”

Bryant once more clamped a hand on his partner’s shoulder in an attempt to calm him but Westmore shrugged it off. Farrington leaned forward with a leering grin scarring his movie star face. His eyes bored into Westmore’s as if he were trying to see through to his soul.

“
May I ask you a question?”

“
Well, I guess that’s fair.” Bryant replied, anything to change the subject.

“
Do you believe in God?”

The question startled the two reporters and immediately they recalled the bizarre words the billionaire had shouted as Michaels had attempted to drag him up the stairs to his bedroom. It was something like: “Why don’t the angels love me?” Bryant began to wonder if the billionaire was some type of religious fanatic.

“
Now what the hell does that have to do with us taking pictures or how you managed to become the world’s youngest self-made billionaire? That
is
our assignment, you know. Financial strategies, business plans, a little background info for filler.”

“
Actually it has everything to do with it, Mr. Westmore. Now please, humor me.”
“Well… Okay… No. I don’t believe in God,” Bryant said. “I don’t believe in anything. I either know or I do not know.”

“
A very admirable yet difficult stance. I wonder how that’s working out for you?”

“
Well as a matter of fact I do just—“

Farrington cut him off before he could finish his sentence.

“
And what about you, Mr. Westmore? Do you believe?”

Westmore diddled with an unlit cigarette. “I’m a Christian, if that’s what you mean. Not a very good one, mind you.” He paused. “Correction, I’m an
existential
Christian, a Kierkegaardist.”

“
Fine, but you do believe in the all-mighty, the all-perfect, the all-knowing, and omni-benevolent?”

“
Sure.”

Farrington chuckled under his breath and rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling.

“
Do you even know what that means? Do you even have the slightest concept of what perfection is?”

“
I’m sorry but I don’t know what you’re getting at exactly,” Bryant poised.

“
I believe in God as well, Mr. Bryant. I believe that he is real and alive and that man was created in his image. All that I do so shall ye also do and more than that shall ye also do. Christ said those words and I believe they are prophetic. I believe that he was saying that we all have the power of a God within us. And I mean to claim that power.”

“
And how the hell do you mean to do that?” Westmore was starting to sober rapidly as he began to realize that the man they were sent to interview, the man who had made hundreds of millions in less than half a decade of trading, just might be out of his mind.

“
I thought you were the journalist, Mr. Bryant? Your photographer seems to be asking all the questions.”

“
Like I said, he is a tad drunk.”

“
No matter. You asked a very good question Mr. Westmore and it deserves a very good answer. I intend to capture God.”

That sobered him up even more. Westmore and Bryant stared at the billionaire with their jaws hanging open.

“
Very intriguing.” Bryant replied.

“
Intriguing? It’s ridiculous! How the hell do you intend to capture God?”

The billionaire rose from his seat and turned his back to the two reporters.

“
You see, gentlemen, all my life everything I’ve ever put my mind to I’ve accomplished and generally with relative ease. I have run ultra-marathon’s, won hundred mile bike races and triathlons, climbed mountains, trekked across deserts, and made billions of dollars. I am the ultimate perfectionist yet if God exists than he would be the ultimate archetype of perfection. The only way to be truly perfect would be to be exactly like God. But it’s a perfection so absolute as to be unimaginable. You see, man cannot truly fathom perfection. We have no reference point with which to form even the most fundamental concept of it.”

He picked a bible up off an end table on the opposite end of the sofa and threw it into the fireplace where it was immediately consumed.

“
It’s not in here,” he said.

He picked up a copy of the Torah and threw that in as well, then the Bhagavad-Gita, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching. All of them he tossed into the fire.

“
It’s not in here. Not in here or here. Everything in life is flawed and corrupted and so God remains an enigma. All our attempts to capture him in literature, philosophy, and religion have amounted to little more than childish fantasies and superstitions based on our fears and desires. Garbage. All of it.”

The two reporters stared at the young billionaire as he paced the polished marble floor, gesticulating madly.

“
It’s like trying to imagine a shape or color you’ve never seen and then to recreate it on canvas. It can’t be done.”

Bryant suddenly understood what the man was getting at. “But once you’ve seen that color. I mean, once you’ve seen God…”

“
Well, once I have a true and accurate image of perfection, of something utterly without flaw, then as with everything else in my life, if I can conceive it then I can achieve it.”

“
Okay, then how do you plan to get God to reveal himself to you?”

“
That I shall explain later, but right now it’s getting late. I’ll have Michaels show you to your rooms. We can discuss it further at dinner.”

“
But we’ve got a flight out tonight,” Westmore interjected, “and a deadline tomorrow!”

“
Your deadline’s been extended,” Farringworth informed, “and your plans altered slightly. You’ll be staying at my home for several days. It’s already been cleared by your editor.” Farringworth was walking away, heels snapping on the tile floor. “Feel free to call him and verify.” Then he was gone.

“
This is fucked up,” Westmore nearly yelled. “Call the office on your cell.”