Reliquary (25 page)

“Tell me about the Devil’s Attic.”

The bulge froze in position. After a few moments, Diamond shifted on the stool, but said nothing.

Pendergast continued. “I’m told there’s a level of tunnels underneath Central Park. Unusually deep tunnels. I’ve heard the region referred to as the Devil’s Attic. But there are no records of such a place in existence, at least by that name.”

After a long moment, Diamond looked down. “Devil’s Attic?” he repeated, as if with great reluctance.

“Do you know of such a place?”

Diamond reached into his coveralls and drew out a small flask of something that was not water. He took a long pull, then returned the flask without offering it to Pendergast. He said something that was inaudible over the shriek of the exhaust stack.

“What?” Pendergast cried, moving still closer.

“I said, yeah, I know of it.”

“Tell me about it, please.”

Diamond looked away from Pendergast, his eyes gazing over the river toward the New Jersey shore.

“Those rich bastards,” he said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Those rich bastards. Didn’t want to rub shoulders with the working class.”

“Rich bastards?” Pendergast asked.

“You know. Astor. Rockefeller. Morgan. And the rest. Built those tunnels over a century ago.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Railroad tunnels,” Diamond burst out irritably. “They were building a private railcar line. Came down from Pelham, under the Park, beneath the Knickerbocker Hotel, the Fifth Avenue parkfront mansions. Fancy private stations and waiting rooms. The whole nine yards.”

“But why so deep?”

For the first time, Diamond grinned. “Geology. Had to go deeper than the existing train lines and early subway tunnels, of course. But right below was a layer of shitstone.”

“I beg your pardon?” Pendergast yelled.

“Rotten Precambrian siltstone. We call it shitstone. You can run water and sewer Unes through shitstone, but not a railroad tunnel. So they had to go deeper. Your Devil’s Attic is thirty stories underground.”

“But why?”

Diamond looked at the FBI agent in disbelief. “Why? Why do you think? Those fancy pants didn’t want to share any sidings or signals with regular train lines. With those deep tunnels, they could go straight out of the city, come up around Croton, and be on their way. No delays, no mixing with the common folk.”

“That doesn’t explain why there is no record of their existence.”

“Cost a fortune to build. And not all of it came from the pockets of the oil barons. They called in favors from City Hall.” Diamond tapped the side of his nose. “That kind of construction you don’t document.”

“Why were they abandoned?”

“Impossible to maintain. Beneath most of the sewer and storm drains like they were, you could never keep them dry. Then there was methane buildup, carbon monoxide buildup, you name it.”

Pendergast nodded. “Heavy gases, seeking the lowest level.”

“They spent millions on those damn tunnels. Never finished the line. They were only open for two years before the flood of ninety-eight overwhelmed the pumps and half-filled everything with sewage. So they bricked everything up. Didn’t even pull out the machinery or nothing.”

Diamond fell silent, and the chamber filled once again with the roar of the vent stack.

“Are there any maps of these tunnels?” Pendergast asked after a moment.

Diamond rolled his eyes. “Maps? I looked for maps for twenty years. Those maps don’t exist. I learned what I learned by talking to a few old-timers.”

“Have you been down there?” Pendergast asked.

Diamond twitched noticeably. Then, after a long moment, he nodded silently.

“Could you diagram them for me?”

Diamond was silent.

Pendergast moved closer. “Any little thing you could do would be appreciated.” His hand seemed merely to smooth the lapel of his jacket, but suddenly a hundred-dollar bill flared between two of the slender fingers, arching in the engineer’s direction.

Diamond stared at the bill, as if deliberating. Finally, he took it, rolled it into a ball, and crammed it into a pocket. Then, turning to the drafting table, he began sketching deftly on a piece of yellow graph paper. An intricate system of tunnels began to take shape.

“Best I can do,” he said, straightening up after a few minutes. “That’s the approach I used to get inside. A lot of the stuff south of the Park has been filled with concrete, and the tunnels to the north collapsed years ago. You’ll have to find your way down to the Bottleneck first. Take Feeder Tunnel 18 down from where it intersects the old ’Twenty-four water main.”

“The Bottleneck?” Pendergast asked.

Diamond nodded, scratching his nose with a dirty finger. “There’s a vein of granite running through the bedrock deep beneath the Park. Super hard stuff. To save time and dynamite, the old pipe jockeys just blasted one massive hole in it and funneled everything through. The Astor Tunnels are directly below. As far as I know, that’s the only way to get inside them from the south--unless you got a wet suit, of course.”

Pendergast accepted the paper, looking it over carefully. “Thank you, Mr. Diamond. Is there any chance you’d be willing to return and make a more careful survey of the Devil’s Attic? For adequate remuneration, of course.”

Diamond took a long drink from the flask. “All the money in the world wouldn’t get me down there again.”

Pendergast inclined his head.

“Another thing,” Diamond said. “Don’t call it the Devil’s Attic, all right? That’s mole talk. They’re the Astor Tunnels.”

“Astor Tunnels?”

“Yeah. They were Mrs. Astor’s idea. The story goes that she got her husband to build the first private station beneath her Fifth Avenue mansion. That’s how it all got started.”

“Where did the name ‘Devil’s Attic’ come from?” Pendergast asked.

Diamond grinned mirthlessly. “I don’t know. But think about it. Imagine tunnels thirty stories underground. Walls tiled in big murals. Imagine waiting rooms, stuffed to the gills with mirrors, sofas, fancy stained glass. Imagine hydraulic elevators with parquet flooring and velvet curtains. Now think of what all that would look like after being doused in raw sewage, then sealed up for a century.” He sat back and stared at Pendergast. “I don’t know about you. But to me, it would look like the attic of Hell itself.”

= 29 =

The West Side railyard lay in a wide depression on the westernmost reaches of Manhattan, out of sight and practically invisible to the millions of New Yorkers who lived and worked nearby, its seventy-four acres the largest piece of undeveloped land on the island outside Central Park. Once a bustling hub of turn-of-the-century commerce, the railyard now lay fallow: rusted tracks sunken among burdock and ailanthus trees, ancient sidings rotting and forgotten, abandoned warehouses sagging and covered with graffiti.

For twenty years the piece of ground had been the subject of development plans, lawsuits, political manipulations, and bankruptcies. The tenants of the warehouses had gradually abandoned their leases and left, to be replaced by vandals, arsonists, and the homeless. In one corner of the railyard lay a small, bedraggled shantytown of plywood, cardboard, and tin. Alongside were a few pathetic kitchen gardens of straggly peas and squash run riot.

Margo stood amidst a plot of fire-scorched piles of rubble, sandwiched between two abandoned railyard buildings. The warehouse occupying the plot had burned four months earlier, and it had burned hotly and thoroughly. The structure had been reduced to a blackened I-beam framework and some low cinder-block stem walls. Beneath her feet, the cement pad was hip deep in rubble and burned shingles. The remains of several long metal tables stood in one corner of the lot, covered with smashed equipment and melted glass. She looked around, peering through the late afternoon shadows that knitted themselves across the sunken ground. There were several hulks that had once been large machines, housed in metal cabinets; the cabinets had melted and the inner workings lay exposed, masses of twisted wire and ruined circuit boards. The acrid stench of burned plastic and tar clung stubbornly to everything.

D’Agosta appeared at her side. “Whaddaya think?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Are you sure this was Greg’s last known address?”

“Confirmed it with the moving company. The warehouse burned about the time of his death, so it’s doubtful he moved anywhere else. But he used an alias with Con Ed and New York Telephone, so we can’t be certain.”

“An alias?” Margo continued to look around. “I wonder if he died before or after this place burned.”

“Not as much as I wonder,” D’Agosta replied.

“It looks like this was some kind of laboratory.”

D’Agosta nodded. “Even I could have guessed that. This guy Kawakita was a scientist. Just like you.”

“Not quite. Greg was more involved with genetics and evolutionary biology. My specialty is anthropological pharmacology.”

“Whatever.” D’Agosta hiked up his pants. “Question is, what kind of lab is it?”

“Hard to say. I’d need to learn more about those machines in the corner. And I’d have to map out the melted glass on these tables, try to re-create what the setups might have been.”

D’Agosta looked at her. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“You wanna take it on?”

Margo returned the Lieutenant’s gaze. “Why me? You must have specialists in the department that--”

“They’re not interested,” D’Agosta interrupted. “It ranks right below jaywalking on their list of priorities.”

Margo frowned in surprise.

“The powers that be don’t give a damn about Kawakita or what he was doing before he was killed. They think he was just a random victim. Just like they think Brambell was a random victim.”

“But you don’t? You think he was involved in these murders somehow?”

D’Agosta pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow. “Hell, I don’t know. I just feel this guy Kawakita was up to something, and I’d like to know what it was. You knew him, right?”

“Yes,” Margo said.

“I only met him once, when Frock had that good-bye party for Pendergast. What was he like?”

Margo thought a moment. “He was brilliant. An excellent scientist.”

“What about his personality?”

“He wasn’t the nicest person in the Museum,” Margo said carefully. “He was--well, a little ruthless, I guess you could say. I felt he was the kind of person who would perhaps step over the line to advance his career. He didn’t associate much with the rest of us, and didn’t seem to trust anybody who might ...” She stopped.

“Yeah?”

“Is this necessary? I hate to talk about someone who isn’t around to defend himself.”

“That’s usually the best time. Was he the kind of guy to get involved in any criminal activity?”

“Absolutely not. I didn’t always agree with his ethics--he was one of those scientists who held science above human values--but he was no criminal.” She hesitated. “He tried to reach me awhile back. Maybe a month or so before he died.”

D’Agosta looked at her curiously. “Any idea why? It doesn’t seem like you two were exactly friends.”

“Not close friends. But we were colleagues. If he was in some kind of trouble--” A shadow crossed her face. “Maybe I could have done something about it. Instead of just ignoring the call.”

“Guess you’ll never know. But anyway, if you’d take the time to poke around, try to get some ideas of what he was doing here, I’d appreciate it.”

Margo hesitated, and D’Agosta gave her a closer look. “Who knows?” he said in a quieter tone. “Maybe it’ll help lay some of those inner demons to rest.”

Nice choice of words
, Margo thought. Still, she knew he meant well.
Lieutenant D’Agosta, pop psychologist. Next thing you know, he’ll be telling me that looking over this site will help give me
closure.

She glanced over the ruined site for a long minute. “Okay, Lieutenant,” she said at last.

“Want me to get a photographer down here, take some pictures?”

“Maybe later. For now, I’d rather just make a few sketches.”

“Sure thing.” D’Agosta seemed restless.

“You go on,” Margo said. “You don’t need to hang around.”

“No way,” D’Agosta said. “Not after Brambell.”

“Lieutenant--”

“I’ve got to collect some of the ashes anyway, to test for trace accelerants. I’ll stay out of your way.” He stood truculently, unmoving.

Margo sighed, pulled a sketchbook out of her carryall, and once again turned her attention to the ruined lab. It was a dreary place, surrounding her in silent accusation.
You could have done something. Greg tried to reach you. Perhaps it didn’t have to end like this.

She shook her head, scattering the guilty thoughts. They wouldn’t be of any help. Besides, if any place held the clues to explain what happened to Greg, this place would. And maybe the only way to get out of this nightmare was for her just to lower her head and go straight through. Anyway, it got her out of the Forensic Anthropology lab, which had started to look like a charnel house. The Bitterman corpse had arrived from NYME Wednesday afternoon, bringing a fresh set of questions along with it. The scoring on the neck bones of the still-fleshed corpse pointed to decapitation by some kind of rough, primitive knife. The killer--or killers--had been rushed in their grisly task.

She quickly mapped out the rough outlines of the lab, sketching in the dimensions of the walls, the location of the tables, and the placement of the slaglike heaps of ruined equipment. Every laboratory had a flow to it, depending on what kind of work was being done. While the equipment might indicate the general kind of research, the flow itself would give clues to the specific application.

The rough outlines completed, Margo moved to the tables themselves. Being metal, they had withstood the heat of the fire relatively well. She sketched out a rectangle to indicate each tabletop, then began noting the melted beakers, titration tubes, volumetric flasks, and other items still unidentifiable. It was a complex, multilayered setup: clearly, some kind of high-level biochemistry had been going on. But what?