Two Graves (18 page)

That finally got through. After a long moment, the locks began turning, one after the other. The door opened slowly, and D’Agosta entered the foyer. Pendergast, dressed in a black dressing gown, had already turned his back and uttered no greeting. D’Agosta followed him into the reception room, the one with the bonsai trees and the wall of water.

Moving listlessly, Pendergast turned and seated himself, folding his hands in front, and raised his head to look at D’Agosta.

D’Agosta froze. He couldn’t believe what he saw. The man’s face was collapsed, gray, his normally silver eyes as dull and heavy as old lead. His clasped hands were shaking, ever so slightly.

He launched in gamely. “Pendergast, I just wanted you to know how sorry I am about Helen’s death. I don’t know what your plans are, but I’m one hundred percent behind you—however you want to go about nailing the bastards.”

There seemed to be no reaction whatsoever to this.

“We need to get a… ah, death certificate, determination of homicide. We’ll need to exhume the body, go through the legal crap with
Mexico. I’m not sure what’s involved, but you can bet we’ll expedite the hell out of it. We will get her a decent burial in the States. And then we’ll launch an investigation hammer and tongs—FBI, of course, they’ll back up one of their own. There’s NYPD involvement, too, and I’ll make damn sure our resources are deployed, big-time. We will get those scumbags, I guarantee it.”

He stopped, breathing heavily. Pendergast’s eyes were lidded; he seemed to have gone to sleep. D’Agosta stared. This was even worse than he thought. As he looked at his old friend and partner, a terrible realization dawned on him, hitting him like a shock of high voltage.

“Jesus Christ. You’re using.”

“Using?” Pendergast murmured.

“On drugs.”

A drawn-out silence.

D’Agosta felt a sudden welling of anger. “I’ve seen it a thousand times. You’re on drugs.”

Pendergast made a small gesture with his hand. “And?”

“And?
And?
” D’Agosta rose from his chair. He flushed. He had seen so much bullshit, so much death and murder and ridiculously pointless suffering caused by drugs. He hated drugs.

He faced Pendergast. “I can’t believe it. I thought you were smarter than this. Where are they?”

No answer. Just a grimace.

D’Agosta couldn’t stand it. “Where are the drugs?” he asked, his voice louder. When Pendergast didn’t respond, he felt rage take over. He was standing by the bookshelves and pulled a book off a shelf, another. “Where are the drugs?” He knocked one of the bonsais with the back of his hand, sweeping it off its table. “
Where are the drugs?
I’m not leaving here until I have them. You fucking
idiot
!”

“Your working-class expletives have lost their charm.”

At least this was a flash of the old Pendergast. D’Agosta stood there, shaking, and realized he had better get a handle on his anger.

“This apartment is very large, and most of the doors are securely locked.”

D’Agosta felt crazy. He struggled to maintain control. “Listen, about Helen. I know what a horrible tragedy—”

At this Pendergast interrupted him, his voice cold. “Do not mention Helen’s name or what happened. Ever again.”

“Right. Okay. I won’t, but you can’t just… I mean…” He shook his head, truly at a loss for words.

“You mentioned you needed help with a murder case. I have told you I’m not interested. Now, if there’s nothing else, may I ask you to leave?”

Instead, D’Agosta sat down heavily, put his head in his hands. Maybe the murder investigation would be the thing Pendergast needed to snap him out of this, although he doubted it. He rubbed his face, raised his head. “Let me just tell you about the case—okay?”

“If you must.”

D’Agosta smoothed his hands down over his legs, took a couple of breaths. “Have you been following the papers?”

“No.”

“I have a summary of the case here.” D’Agosta removed the three-page brief he had printed out earlier and handed it to Pendergast. The agent took it and scanned it perfunctorily, his eyes dull, unresponsive. But he didn’t hand it back right away; he continued looking at it, flipping the pages. Then, after a moment, he started from the beginning and began reading again, this time more closely.

When he looked up, D’Agosta thought he caught a gleam of something in the agent’s eyes. But, no—it was his imagination.

“Um, I thought the case was sort of up your alley. We’ve got this special agent from the BSU assigned. A fellow named Gibbs. Conrad Gibbs. You know him?”

Pendergast slowly shook his head.

“He’s got a lot of theories. All very pat. But this case… well, it seemed custom-made for you. I’ve got a binder here with the preliminary crime-scene analysis, lab reports, autopsy, forensics, DNA—the works.” He slipped it out of his briefcase and held it up, questioningly. When there was no response, he laid it down on a table.

“Can I count on your help? Even if it’s just an informal opinion?”

“I regret I won’t have time to look through this material before I leave.”

“Leave? Where are you going?”

Pendergast rose, ponderously, his black dressing gown cloaking him like a figure of the grim reaper himself. That gleam D’Agosta imagined he saw had certainly been a figment of his hopes: the eyes were duller than ever.

Pendergast offered D’Agosta his hand. It was as cold as a dead mackerel. But then it unexpectedly tightened and, in a much warmer voice, if strained, Pendergast said: “Good-bye, my dear Vincent.”

Pendergast closed the door to his apartment. He walked toward the door leading out of the reception room, but paused, then turned, hesitating. His face betrayed an extreme inner turmoil. Finally, he seemed to make a decision. He walked over to the table, picked up the thick binder, and flipped it open, beginning to read.

For two hours he stood there, stock-still. And then he laid it down. His lips moved and he spoke a single word.

“Diogenes.”

T
HE 1959 ROLLS-ROYCE SILVER WRAITH PURRED UP THE
northern reaches of Riverside Drive, the glow of the streetlamps and traffic lights reflecting off its polished surfaces. Passing 137th Street, it slowed, then turned in to a driveway bordered by a tall wrought-iron fence, its gate standing open. Moving past barren ailanthus and sumac bushes, the vehicle came to a stop beneath the porte cochere of a large Beaux-Arts mansion, its marble-and-brick façade rising four stories into the gloom, mansard roof topped by a crenellated widow’s walk. There was a flicker of lightning overhead, followed by a growl of thunder. A cold wind swept off the Hudson. It was only six
PM
, but early December in New York City was already under cover of night.

Agent Pendergast got out of the car. In the dim light, his face was pale, and even in the chill air it was beaded with sweat. As he stepped toward an oaken door set into the pillared entrance, there was a rustle in the shrubbery at the rear of the carriage drive. He turned toward the noise to see Corrie Swanson emerge from the gloom. She looked inexpressibly dirty, her clothes creased and muddy, her hair matted, her face smudged. A torn, frayed knapsack hung from one shoulder. She glanced both ways, like a skittish colt, then darted up to him.

“Agent Pendergast!” she said in a hoarse whisper. “Where have you been? I’ve been freezing my ass here for days waiting for you! I’m in trouble.”

Without waiting to hear more, he unlocked the door and ushered her inside.

He closed the heavy door, then snapped on a light, revealing an
entryway with a polished marble floor and walls of dark velvet. He led the way into a long, refectory-like space of carved gothic fixtures, and then beyond to a large reception hall, lined by glass-fronted cabinets. Proctor, Pendergast’s chauffeur, stood stiffly in a bathrobe, leaning on a crutch, apparently roused by the sound of their entrance.

“Proctor, please have Mrs. Trask run a bath for Miss Swanson,” Pendergast said. “And have her clothes washed and pressed, please.”

Corrie turned toward him. “But—”

“I’ll await you in the library.”

Ninety minutes later, feeling renewed, Corrie walked into the library. The room was dark, and no fire had been laid on. Pendergast was seated in a wing chair in a far corner, motionless and almost invisible. There was something about his presence—a restless stillness, if such a thing were possible—that gave her an odd feeling.

She took a seat opposite him. Pendergast sat, his fingers tented, his eyes half closed. Feeling unaccountably nervous, she hurried into her story. She told him about Betterton, his accusations and theories about Pendergast, the yacht, and her crazy decision to break into the house on East End he had mentioned to her.

While she spoke, Pendergast had seemed distant, almost as if he wasn’t listening. But the mention of the house seemed to catch his attention.

“You engaged in breaking and entering,” he said.

“I know, I know.” Corrie colored. “I’m stupid, but you already know that…” She tried to laugh and found no corresponding amusement—or even reaction—in him. Pendergast was weirder than usual. She took a deep breath and went on. “The place looked like it’d been deserted for years. So I broke in. And you won’t believe what I found. It’s some kind of Nazi safe house. Stacks of
Mein Kampf
in the basement, old radio equipment, and even a torture room. Upstairs it looked like they were packing up to leave. I found a room full of documents in the process of being shredded.”

She paused, waited. Still no reaction.

“I rifled through the documents, thinking they might be important. A lot of them were covered with swastikas and dated back to the war. Some were stamped S
TRENG
G
EHEIM
, which I later found out means ‘top secret’ in German. And then I saw the name Esterhazy.”

At this, Pendergast woke up. “Esterhazy?”

“Your late wife’s maiden name, right? I learned that researching the website.”

An incline of the head. God, he looked awful.

“Anyway,” she went on, “I stuffed as many documents as I could into my knapsack. But then—” She paused. The memory was still so fresh. “A Nazi caught me. He tried to kill me. I sprayed the mother with capsicum and managed to get away. I’ve been scared shitless and on the run ever since, living in shelters and hanging out in Bryant Park. I haven’t been in my apartment, I haven’t been at school. All this time I’ve been just trying to
reach
you!” Quite suddenly, she felt herself on the verge of tears. She forced them back roughly. “You wouldn’t answer the phone. I couldn’t stake out the Dakota, those doormen are like the KGB.”

When he did not respond, she reached into her knapsack, pulled out the sheaf of papers, and put them on an end table. “Here they are.”

Pendergast did not look at the papers. He seemed to have gone far away again. Now, with her spike of anxiety ebbing, Corrie looked at him more closely. He was shockingly thin, even gaunt, and in the dim light she could see the bags under his eyes, the paleness of his skin. But most surprising of all was his demeanor. While his movements were usually languid, you nevertheless had a sense that it was the languor of a cat: a coiled spring, ready to strike out at any moment. But Corrie did not have that sense now. Pendergast seemed unfocused, detached, barely interested in her story. He seemed little concerned by what had happened to her, the danger she had put herself in for his sake.

“Pendergast,” she said. “Are you all right? You look… sort of funny. I’m sorry, but you do.”

He waved this away as he might a fly. “These so-called Nazis. Did they get your name?”

“No.”

“Did you leave anything behind that might lead them to your identity?”

“I don’t think so. Everything I had was in this.” And she nudged the knapsack with her foot.

“Any indication that they’ve been tracking you?”

“I don’t think so. But I stayed underground. Those guys were freaking
scary
.”

“And the address of this safe house?”

“Four Twenty-Eight East End Avenue.”

He fell silent for a minute before rousing himself to speech once again. “They don’t know who you are. They have no way of finding you, short of happening upon you by accident. That is of course unlikely, but we shall reduce the likelihood even further.” He glanced at her. “Is there someplace you can stay? With friends, perhaps? Somewhere out of town?”

Corrie was shocked. She’d just assumed that Pendergast would take her in, protect her, help her deal with the situation. “What’s wrong with here?”

There was a protracted silence. Then Pendergast let out a deep, shuddering breath. “Without going into detail, the fact is that, at present, I am simply incapable of looking after your well-being. In fact, I am so preoccupied that I could actually pose a threat to your safety. If you rely on me, you place yourself in grave danger. Besides, New York City is the one place you stand a chance, however small, of coming in contact with these people. Now: is there anyplace else you can go? I can guarantee that you’ll get there safely, and have sufficient funds—beyond that, you will be on your own.”