Darren Shan: Procession of the dead

"It all interconnects. Everything links, sometimes neatly, more often obscurely. A Jew makes fun of a child called Adolf and millions die in the death camps. An apple falls and gravity is understood. A filth-encrusted boy has a dream and The Cardinal is born."

He stopped, rose, walked to the window and stared down at his city. I didn't know what he was rambling on about. He was like a mad street prophet. What the hell had I walked into?

He stood at the window for close on twenty minutes. I remained perfectly still. I sensed danger in any untoward action. I was dealing with a fanatic, but he was the most powerful man in the city. Cautious didn't come close to what I had to be. Finally, after a silent eternity, he returned to his chair. Crouching forward, he said, "I'm going to tell you how I run my empire." He looked around, leaned closer, tapped my knee and whispered, "Very carefully."

He laughed and sat back. "Everything's connected," he repeated. "That is what my time on this planet has taught me. It all hooks up somewhere along the line. From the smallest man to the greatest, there are bonds. No man's an island, if I may borrow an obvious phrase. We're all tied to each other, the world we inhabit, maybe even the planets and stars-I'm no believer in astrology but I don't discount it either.

"I try to manipulate the rules of chance and coincidence. I make my choices based on whims. I choose my friends and foes according to instinct. I run this city as the roll of the dice dictates. I've made myself a slave of fortune, Mr. Raimi, and have reaped the rewards.

"Example. Some years ago I bought a derelict tenement building near the docks. I planned to renovate it and make a vast profit. A few months later, before construction was set to go, I met with an old ganglord. He drank a few too many vodkas and began talking about this building. He'd had plans and was on the point of buying out the old owner when I stepped in. He offered to buy me out for three million. 'I'll give you three big notes,' were his exact words. I declined. The building was worth much more than that.

"He went his way and I went mine. I gave it no further thought. A week or so later, I was out walking-as I did once upon a time-when a bum approached and asked for a handout. 'You got a three-note, mister?' he asked." The Cardinal crossed his eyes and squeaked as he imitated the hobo. He'd never make a career out of impressions. "Have you ever heard of a three-note, Mr. Raimi?"

"No."

"Neither had I. But they were almost the same words as those I'd heard a week before. Coincidence?" His face split into a smile. "I rang the old ganglord and asked if his offer still stood. He thought I was joking-like you did tonight. I assured him I was genuine. He agreed hastily, happily. He was getting a bargain. There was no catch, no hidden agenda. I was blowing millions.

"A few weeks later the building burned down. An electrical fault. The new owner wasn't worried. He'd planned to knock the old whore down anyway. It meant he'd have to pay a bit more to clean the place up but in light of the profits to come, that didn't matter.

"But when they were digging down to clear out the foundations, they discovered it had been built on-I shit you not-an ancient burial pit. There were thousands of corpses beneath that old wreck. As if that wasn't bad enough, it turned out to have been a burial ground for plague victims!" He burst out laughing at that point and pounded his fists against the sides of the chair. "The fucking plague!" he gasped when he got his breath back. "Once word got out, the project was dead. The council declared it both a historical site and hygienically suspect. The press dug up rumors and wild tales, the sort any old building has attached to it-mysterious deaths, murderers and rapists who lived there, et cetera. To cap it all, my old friend had to fork out for excavation costs.

"It set him back millions. Would have done the same to anyone. Even my pull couldn't have made a success of it. So, thanks to a street bum's mumblings, I was three million to the good instead of many more to the bad. I ignored logic, put my fate in the arms of chance and emerged the stronger.

"Do you start to see, Mr. Raimi?"

"You couldn't have known that was going to happen," I protested. "A crazy thing like that. You couldn't have predicted-"

"Of course not!" he interrupted. "Have you listened to anything I've said? I just got through boasting of my ignorance. I know next to nothing about the workings of the world and the forces which bind us together. I'm not a fortune-teller. I can't see into the future. That's not what my tale was meant to imply.

"I act on observed phenomena. I don't draw conclusions, think, hypothesize or question. When something happens"-he snapped his fingers-"I jump. When I become aware of a coincidence, I look immediately to incorporate it into my plans. Everything ties together, Mr. Raimi. That is the first and only law. If you accept that-if you believe it-you can start to use it."

He rubbed his forehead with his bony fingers. I could see the frustration behind his eyes. He was trying to impress upon me his secrets. He wanted to convert me. Why, I couldn't tell.

"The world has laws of its own," he resumed. "We don't have to understand them. We just need to obey them. Like with the three-note. There was nothing to say the two men were linked by the coincidence. But I took it as a sign that they were. At some unknown level they were connected by various strings of the universe. Sensing that connection, I acted. By acting, I profited."

He stopped again and took a drink. "That's how I do business," he said softly. "People see the killings I make on the markets and real estate. They look at the powerful friends I cultivate, then abandon shortly before their unexpected falls. They wonder how I know so much, how I'm so often one step ahead, anticipating success and failure prior to everybody else. They assume I'm a cunning speculator, with a team of wise advisers. They're wrong. All I do is follow my instinct and play along with my hunches.

"Would you care for a drink?" he smiled.

While The Cardinal fetched a beer from the fridge in the office outside I went over his words and tried to make sense of them. He might be playing with me, selling me a wild tale designed to test my gullibility. But he seemed genuine.

When he returned I said, "It wouldn't work. It couldn't. By the law of averages you'd have to lose more than you made. You'd have no control. It just wouldn't work."

"But it does." He gestured at the office. "You must remember, these are not the ravings of a gambler with his latest surefire can't-lose scheme. I'm living off the fat of decades of proven success. This isn't a possibility-it's fact.

"It's not as simple as the three-note example suggests. I used that because it was colorful and illustrative. In most cases the links are much more slender, far more subtle. Recognizing and interpreting them is a near-impossible task. It's easy to make a mistake, choose wrongly, miss an opportunity.

"You have to ignore the risks, put your brain on hold and follow your instincts, even when your head insists you do otherwise. Sometimes you get burned. I've been singed many times. Roasted once or twice. You have to live with the fire. Because if you start thinking too much or playing safe, you're lost to its wondrous charms forever. You become part of the real world again, the mundane, the ordinary, from where there's no escape.

"You're here tonight because I had a dream of a strange man, then found a man with a strange name. Will you serve me faithfully? Be an addition to the firm? Help make me another few million?" He shrugged. "Time will tell. Time tells all in the end. I feel you're right, that you're the man from my dreams, but-"

"That's plural."