It gave him immense pleasure to be caught doing something manipulative or wrong. It always had, right from the beginning with the village girls he'd take to bed and to the stables. It was such a simple thing, breaking the established little rules. And he'd always, always, deemed himself above any law anyone could think of. Only his encounter with Memnoch had dulled that, and not enough to stop him from deliberately annoying people.
So this vampire's motivation was money. Lestat tried to fathom this and could not. He'd never wanted for money, only briefly, when in a body that did not belong to him.
"Huh," he said, with genuine befuddlement, both eyebrows raising and lowering, arms crossing over his chest.
He smiled slightly again. "I care about a great many things I shouldn't give a good goddamn about," Lestat said. "The motivations of other vampires interest me a great deal. Historically speaking, I usually end up paying in some way, through the nose for the behavior of others of my kind. I honestly did not mean to be rude, although it's true I find what I did entertaining." He grinned. "But while I know you are older than me, you've been here less time. I've seen other vampires do some really stupid things. And I've seen at least one young man walking around with puncture wounds on his neck."
His gaze turned serious, then. "I'm sure you can understand I'd like to be certain no citizens of this fine City will begin hunting me down for actions I've got nothing to do with."
And it was more than that, too. There was an order of things. This vampire should know it.