Fever Dream (28 page)

And then, quite suddenly, they were out of the grass. The car went over a rise of earth and they sailed, quite literally,
into an open area on some high ground cut out of the deep swamp, a few gray outbuildings and fenced areas surrounded by pools.
Only now, with the increased visibility and landmarks for orientation, did D’Agosta realize just how fast they’d been going.
A large weather-beaten billboard to one side read:

GATORVILLE U.S.A.

100% farm-raised organic gators

Gator wrasslin, guided tours

Tannery on site—skins 8 feet & up, low low prices!

Gator meat by the pound

* CLOSED FOR THE SEASON *

The Rolls impacted the ground, bottoming out with a jarring force and hurtling forward; Pendergast suddenly braked, the car
skidding across the dirt yard. D’Agosta’s eyes swiveled from the sign to a rickety wooden building directly ahead, roofed
in corrugated tin, its barn-like doors open. A sign in one window read
PROCESSING PLANT
. He realized there was no way they could stop in time.

The Rolls slewed into the barn; a violent deceleration and semi-crash followed that smacked D’Agosta back against the leather
seats; and then they were at rest. A huge cloud of dust rolled over them. As his vision slowly cleared, he saw the Rolls had
ploughed into a stack of oversize plastic meat containers, tearing a dozen of them wide open. Three brined, skinned alligator
corpses were splayed across the hood and windshield, pale pink with long streaks of whitish fat.

There was a moment of peculiar stasis. Pendergast gazed out of the windshield—covered with rain, bits of swamp grass, Spanish
moss, and reptile ordure—and then looked over at D’Agosta. “That reminds me,” he said as the engine hissed and ticked. “One
of these evenings we really must ask Maurice to make his alligator étouffée. His people come from the Atchafalaya Basin, you
understand, and he has a wonderful recipe handed down in the family.”

Sarasota, Florida

T
HE SKY BEGAN TO CLEAR WITH THE COMING
of evening, and soon glimmers of moonlight lay coquettishly upon the Gulf of Mexico, hiding between the restless rolls of
incoming waves. Clouds, still swollen with rain, passed by quickly overhead. Combers of surf fell ceaselessly upon the beach,
falling back in long, withdrawing roars.

John Woodhouse Blast heeded none of it. He paced back and forth, restlessly, stopping now and then to check his watch.

Ten thirty already. What was the holdup? It should have been a simple job: get in, take care of business, get out. The earlier
call had implied things were on track, even ahead of schedule—more, in fact, than he’d dared to expect. But that had been
six hours ago. And now, with his hopes raised, the wait seemed even more excruciating.

He walked over to the wet bar, pawed down a crystal tumbler from its shelf, threw in a handful of ice cubes, and poured several
fingers of scotch over them. He took a big gulp; exhaled; took a smaller, more measured sip. Then he walked over to his white
leather sofa, put the glass onto an abalone coaster, prepared to sit down.

The sudden ringing of the phone broke the listening silence, and he started violently. He wheeled toward the sound, almost
knocking over the drink in his eagerness, and grabbed the handset.

“Well?” he said, his voice high and breathless in his own ears. “Is it done?”

There was nothing but silence on the other end.

“Hello? You got shit in your ears, pal? I said,
is it done?
”

More silence. And then the line went dead.

Blast stared at the phone. Just what the hell was this? A hardball play for more money? Well, he knew how to play that game.
Any wise guy trying to bend his ass over a barrel was going to wish he’d never been born.

He sat down on the sofa and took another drink. The greedy son of a bitch was waiting at the other end of the line, of course
he was, just waiting for him to call back and offer more. Hell would freeze over first. Blast knew what jobs like these cost—and
what’s more, he knew how to hire
other
muscle, more experienced muscle, if certain sticky wheels needed regreasing…

The doorbell rang.

Blast allowed a smile to form on his face. He glanced at his watch again: two minutes. Only two minutes had passed since the
phone call. So the son of a bitch wanted to talk. Thought he was a real wise guy. He took another sip of his drink, settled
back into the couch.

The doorbell rang again.

Blast put the drink slowly back on the coaster. It was the son of a bitch’s turn to sweat now. Maybe he could even get the
price down a little. It had happened before.

The doorbell rang a third time. And now Blast pulled himself up, drew a finger across his narrow mustache, strode to the door,
threw it open.

He stepped back quickly in surprise. Standing in the doorway was not the slimy son of a bitch he’d expected, but a tall man
with dark eyes and movie-star looks. He wore a long black trench coat, its belt tied loosely around his waist. Blast realized
he had made a serious mistake in opening the door. But before he could slam it shut, the man had stepped in and shut it himself.

“Mr. Blast?” he said.

“Who the hell are you?” Blast replied.

Instead of answering, the man stepped forward again. The movement was so sudden, so decisive, that Blast found himself forced
to
take another step backward. Whimpering, the Pomeranians ran for the safety of the bedroom.

The tall man looked him up and down, his eyes glittering with some strong emotion—anxiety? Rage?

Blast swallowed. He hadn’t the faintest idea what this man wanted, but some inner sense of self-preservation, some sixth sense
he’d gained operating for years on the narrowest edge of lawfulness, told him he was in danger.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“My name is Esterhazy,” the man replied. “Does the name ring a bell?”

The name did ring a bell. A loud bell. That man Pendergast had mentioned it. Helen
Esterhazy
Pendergast.

“Never heard of it.”

With a sudden movement, the man named Esterhazy jerked the belt of his trench coat free. The coat fell aside, revealing a
sawed-off shotgun.

Blast fell back. Time slowed as adrenaline kicked in. He noticed, with a kind of horrifying clarity, that the butt-stock was
black wood, ornately carved.

“Now, wait,” he said. “Look, whatever it is, we can work it out. I’m a reasonable man. Tell me what you want.”

“My sister. What did you do to her?”

“Nothing. Nothing. We just talked.”

“Talked.” The man smiled. “What did you talk about?”

“Nothing. Nothing important. Did that fellow Pendergast send you? I already told him all I know.”

“And what
do
you know?”

“All she wanted to do was look at the painting. The Black Frame, I mean. She had a theory, she said.”

“A theory?”

“I can’t remember. Really, I can’t. It was so long ago. Please believe me.”

“No, I want to hear about the theory.”

“I’d tell you if I could remember.”

“Are you sure you don’t recall anything more?”

“That’s all I can remember. I
swear
, that’s all.”

“Thank you.” With an ear-shattering roar, one of the barrels vomited smoke and flame. Blast felt himself physically lifted
from the ground and thrown back, hitting the floor with a violent crash. A numbness crept across his chest, remarkable in
the lack of pain, and for a moment he had a crazy hope the charge had missed… And then he looked down at his ruined chest.

As if from far away, he saw the man—now a little shadowy and indistinct—approach and stand over him. The snout-like shape
of the shotgun barrels detached themselves from the form and hovered over his head. Blast tried to protest, but there was
now another warmth, oddly comforting, filling his throat and he couldn’t vocalize…

And then came another terrible confusion of flame and noise that this time brought oblivion.

New York City

I
T WAS SEVEN FIFTEEN IN THE MORNING, BUT
already the Fifteenth homicide division was hard at work, logging in the several potential murders and manslaughters of the
night before and assembling in breakout areas to discuss the progress of open cases. Captain Laura Hayward sat behind her
desk, finishing an unusually comprehensive monthly report for the commissioner. The poor fellow was new on the job—having
been hired up from Texas—and Hayward knew he would appreciate a bit of bureaucratic hand-holding.

She finished the report, saved it, then took a sip of her coffee. It was barely tepid: she had already been in the office
more than an hour. As she put down the cup, her cell phone rang. It was her personal phone, not her official one, and only
four people knew the number: her mother, her sister, her family lawyer—and Vincent D’Agosta.

She pulled the phone from her jacket pocket and looked at it. A stickler for protocol, she normally wouldn’t answer it during
working hours. This time, however, she closed the door to her office and flipped the phone open.

“Hello?” she spoke into it.

“Laura,” came D’Agosta’s voice. “It’s me.”

“Vinnie. Is everything okay? I was a little concerned when you didn’t call last night.”

“Everything’s okay, and I’m sorry about that. It’s just that things got a little… hectic.”

She sat back down behind her desk. “Tell me about it.”

There was a pause. “Well, we found the Black Frame.”

“The painting you’ve been looking for?”

“Yes. At least, I think we did.”

He didn’t sound very excited about it. If anything, he sounded irritated. “How’d you find it?”

“It was hidden behind the basement wall of a doughnut shop, if you can believe it.”

“So how did you get it?”

Another pause. “We, ah, broke in.”

“Broke in?”

“Yeah.”

Warning bells began to ring. “What’d you do, sneak in after hours?”

“No. We did it yesterday afternoon.”

“Go on.”

“Pendergast planned it. We went in pretending to be building code inspectors, and Pendergast—”

“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to hear anything more about that. Skip to
after
you got the painting.”

“Well, that’s why I couldn’t call like I normally do. As we left Baton Rouge, we noticed we were being followed. We had quite
a chase through the swamps and bayous of—”

“Whoa, Vinnie! Stop a moment. Please.” This was exactly what she’d been afraid of. “I thought you promised me you’d take care
of yourself, not get sucked into Pendergast’s extracurricular crap.”

“I know that, Laura. I haven’t forgotten it.” Another pause. “Once I knew we were close to the painting,
really
close, I felt like I’d do almost anything—if it helped solve the mystery, to get back to you.”

She sighed, shook her head. “What happened next?”

“We shook the tail. It was midnight before we finally returned to Penumbra. We carried the wooden box we’d retrieved into
the library and set it on a table. Pendergast was unbelievably fussy about it. Instead of opening the damn crate with a crowbar,
we had to use
these tiny tools that would have made a jeweler cross-eyed. It took hours. The painting must have been exposed
to damp at some point, because its back was stuck to the wood, and that took even longer to tease loose.”

“But it was the Black Frame?”

“It was
in
a black frame, all right. But the canvas was covered with mold and so dirty you couldn’t make anything out. Pendergast got
some swabs and brushes and a bunch of solvents and cleaning agents and began to remove the dirt—wouldn’t let me touch it.
After maybe fifteen minutes he got a small section of the painting clean, and then…”

“What?”

“The guy just suddenly went rigid. Before I knew it, he bundled me out of the library and locked the door.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. I was standing there in the hallway. Never even got a glimpse of the painting.”