He was having a harder time rationalizing Fred's death than he thought. Balthazar considered returning to Tin Can, for a drink, but he reminded himself that he didn't solve his problems that way, but avoided them. He would live with it, and that's all he could hope for. It had been for the greater good. It wasn't his fault. Fred had actually been accepting of it. He must have realized. Being the one to do it, Balthazar had made things easier, had actually found some peace.
In all actuality, he knew he was only kidding himself. So he sat in his Impala for the second time that day, waiting a block away from Culver St. William Tekamthi awaited him there. He wondered if he need bother asking after Hopper, the subway rider, and instead request information on Colinaude himself. It would save him some trouble, would save time, would hasten his search for resolution.
No, he couldn't do that. If Tekamthi knew of Colinaude, Balthazar wasn't ready yet. He wanted to meet someone whom he knew had intimate knowledge of the man. Tekamthi had knowledge, but like any great men, he had wider knowledge, and depended on other men for the finer stuff. He could design, engineer, and oversee great projects, as the social architect of the city, but he couldn't build them himself. He was very much the man Balthazar hoped to become, and the man Boy Benjamin and so many others like him thought they were. But they didn't have loyalty.
He prided himself that even in his final circumstances, Fred had shown him loyalty. That was the kind of mark Balthazar strived for. All true greatness stemmed from it. There was no other way to identify greatness, which was as much imagined as it was substantial, grounded in the real world, which left better things to dust for lack of loyalty, of a following. Balthazar wanted to integrate himself into this religion, where any one or anything could, in such a fashion, be worshipped.
He had heard all the stories, read all the biographies, seen all the early tapes. There was much to know of Tekamthi, before he went into social exile, as Colinaude had. There was the association with the writer James Agee, who would write a famed Depression-era book partly based on Tekamthi's support. Others, Allison, Comer, Sibert, Smith, Underwood, and Washington, all depended on him in one form or another for their lasting contributions to the state of Alabama and the country itself. Some were concerned with natural resources, other economic, and a few social. He helped them all.
His biographies suggested he had passed away, or accorded him a legend. His televised interviews revealed a soft-spoken man and intelligent and succinct speech. Nothing placed him further than the midpoint of the twentieth century, and nothing suggested he had anything to do with violent ways.
Less tangible still were his specific footprints on Traverse itself, but Balthazar understood well enough. Traverse had been Tekamthi's birthplace. He would leave it behind easily. Balthazar wondered if 22 Culver St. had been his birthplace, in a previous lifetime. He sat in his Impala, windows rolled down, and wondered. Perhaps he would ask.
The current residents, he knew, were planning to leave soon for a family excursion to Birmingham, and would likely stay in a hotel overnight. More time than Balthazar foresaw needing, but he didn't mind the certainty that the privacy Tekamthi valued would be guaranteed over himself as well. And he would not expose Tekamthi, even accidently. That was the last thing he would have wanted to do.
The neighborhood was a quiet one. It was early afternoon, and Balthazar could not detect a single soul about. He would still be careful. Surveillance had already revealed Tekamthi's likely means of egress, located within a wooded area in the house's backyard. Balthazar wondered if he should use it. He surmised that the only time the family dog noticed the intruder when he was in fact leaving, which led him to wonder if the dog had been left behind for the trip.
So many questions surrounding Tekamthi, to mirror all the reasons he'd had to visit Fred. This was Balthazar's life, a series of motivations. Not everyone lived this way, at least consciously. Balthazar was conscious of everything. he wondered if he placed the priorities on the right things. There were so many to choose from, and at the center was his ambition, which he knew was what brought all men down, eventually. Fred had insisted on it, and Balthazar dismissed him, even though Fred no longer had a motive to cause him harm, with death imminent. Only self-torture, which came naturally enough.
He marveled at how lucent Fred had been, more self-aware than he had ever been. It must have been the clarity than came when he at last reckoned with his fate. There had been so many other opportunities, so many times he knew he was very close to death. Yet, Balthazar supposed, never such a recognition that there was no longer an escape. Fred had lived his life escaping things, death most especially. He became an informant because he thought it would help others do the same. In too many ways, he and Balthazar had been very similar indeed. But he had been selfish, offering aid because he needed to cancel out other debts he'd created. There was rumor that he offered his assistance to the Eidolon because he had helped create the Eidolon's archenemy, Viper, who'd been the one opponent the hero couldn't defeat. And in his own defeat, the hero had vanished.
Balthazar tried to think how he might have led himself into similar traps. He couldn't think of any, and that was what worried him. Until severing his ties with Balthazar, Fred had probably thought he could outrun his own fate. Was the plan to leave Boy Benjamin behind Balthazar's own omen?
Even if it were, however, he could no longer live this life, under the rules it currently operated. He could no longer distinguish between the man he thought he was and what he really was. Had he tried walking that line for too long? Could he escape?
This was why he needed Colinaude, and why he needed Tekamthi and Hopper, and everything else to fall into place. He had ensured himself a future, but he didn't know if he would make it.
He continued to sit in his car. A slight breeze came through the window, momentarily distracting him from the heat. There was so much to consider, how he would confront Tekamthi; it was paralyzing him, a sensation that he had not truly faced earlier with Fred. What he feared was disapproval from Tekamthi. Fear could be a motivating factor for good, or it could be a hindrance, as it usually was, and that hindrance could be the difference between life and death. It usually meant death.
Balthazar did not want to fear. Fear was weakness, and weakness was anathema for someone with his ambitions. Considering all there was to lose, fear should have crippled him long ago. He knew he had things to lose. He'd told himself he could afford to lose, but he couldn't, not if he wanted to appreciate what he hoped to gain. There was something about taking it all with you that was attractive. There was also the fear that he would leave it all behind, as Fred had.
So much to lose. So much to gain. Nothing in the balance at the moment, just William Tekamthi, a man like any man, to be used. Nothing to worry about. If Tekamthi did not prove as useful as he seemed to, Balthazar will not have lost or gained anything. That was the mindset he wanted to adopt. But there was so much baggage. He knew, sitting in that car, that he was headed toward more than he had bargained for.
He would take the chance. He would put the fear and the doubt aside. It was only a man, a man who could give him information. There were so many more before him, and there would be others after. Fred was just another ghost. Ghosts were nothing to fear, merely afterthoughts that couldn't find their proper place. Balthazar could help him find his, just not right now.
He got out of his car, neatly shut the door behind him, and started his walk toward 22 Culver St. He took a leisurely pace, put his hands in his pocket, even almost whistled. He got a song stuck in his heads and allowed it to take over. It wasn't a distraction, but rather just another thing to occupy the time. That's all anyone could really hope for, after all, finding a way to occupy the time. Perhaps Balthazar was one of those who created rather elaborate means of occupying his time, but he wasn't alone. No, he was not very unique, after all, was he? He was following in well-trodden footsteps, and whatever he accomplished in his lifetime, that would be duplicated, too.
Not so special. Just a man named Balthazar Romero. Off to have a little talk.
He actually did begin to whistle, not very well, but he didn't care to. The pace remained the same. He saw no one. The block might as well have been deserted, for all the secrets it preferred to keep. Culver St. came soon enough, within ten minutes' time. He already knew the house he was looking for. He'd been there already. He was half-disappointed now that the mystery had already been revealed.
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