Who is The Count from The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman: A Novel and what is their importance?

The Count is a man from Lithuania. Desiderio meets the Count on the road after the landslide destroys the carnival he was traveling with. The Count is a self centered man who focuses on nothing but himself. The Count seems to live in a different world. Many of the things he claims having seen and done are things that existed hundreds of years previous to the setting of the novel. For example, the Count claims to have seen Vesuvius erupt and to cause slave riots in the United States. The Count claims to be on the run from a pimp because he killed the man's prostitute during a sexual act.