Reliquary

by Douglas Preston

  The prisoner had stopped shouting when the door opened. Now he glared at the new arrivals through a greasy lock of hair. His eyes lighted on Hayward, lingered for a moment, then moved on.

  “What the hell you looking at?” he said at last to D’Agosta.

  “Don’t know,” D’Agosta replied. “You want to tell me about it?”

  “Piss off.”

  D’Agosta sighed. “You understand your rights?”

  The prisoner grinned, exposing small, filthy teeth. “That fat mother next to you read them to me. I don’t need no lawyer to hold my hand.”

  “You watch your mouth,” Waxie snapped, flushing an angry crimson.

  “No, fat boy, you watch yours. And your fat ass.” He cackled with laughter. Hayward didn’t bother to suppress a smirk.

  D’Agosta wondered if this was how they had been carrying on before he got there. “So what happened in the park?” he asked.

  “You want a list? For firstly, he was in my sleeping spot. For secondly, he hissed at me, like a snake out of Egypt. For thirdly, he lacked the blessings of God. For fourthly, he—”

  Waxie waved his hand. “We get the picture. Tell us about the others.”

  Jeffrey said nothing.

  “Come on,” Waxie pushed. “Who else?”

  “Plenty,” came the reply at last. “Nobody disses me and gets away with it.” He leaned forward. “Better watch out, fat boy, case I carve a piece of blubber off you.”

  D’Agosta placed a restraining hand on Waxie. “So who else you done?” he asked quickly.

  “Oh, they know me. They know Jeffrey, the cherub cat. I’m on my way.”

  “What about Pamela Wisher?” Waxie broke in. “Don’t deny it, Jeffrey.”

  The seams at the corners of the prisoner’s muddy eyes thickened. “I don’t deny it. The scumbags disrespected me, all of them. They deserved it.”

  “And what’d you do with the heads?” Waxie asked breathlessly.

  “Heads?” Jeffrey asked. To D’Agosta, he seemed to falter slightly.

  “You’re in too deep now; don’t start denying.”

  “Heads? I ate their heads is what I did.”

  Waxie cast a triumphant gaze toward D’Agosta. “What about the guy at Belvedere Castle, Nick Bitterman? Tell me about him.”

  “That was a good one. That mother had no respect. Hypocrite, miser. He was the adversary.” He rocked back and forth.

  “Adversary?” D’Agosta asked, frowning.

  “The prince of adversaries.”

  “Yes,” said Pendergast sympathetically. “You must counteract the powers of darkness.” They were the first words he’d spoken since entering.

  The prisoner rocked more vigorously. “Yes, yes.”

  “With your electrical skin.”

  Suddenly, the rocking stopped.

  “And your glaring eyes,” Pendergast continued. Then he pushed himself away from the door and came forward slowly, looking directly at the suspect.

  Jeffrey stared hard at Pendergast. “Who are you?” he breathed.

  Pendergast was silent for a moment. “Kit Smart,” he said at last, without removing his eyes from Jeffrey.

  To D’Agosta, the change that came over the prisoner was shocking. The color seemed to drain from his face in an instant. He looked at Pendergast, mouth working silently. Then, with a shriek, he forced himself backwards with such force that the chair tipped over and crashed to the floor. Hayward and the two police guards sprang to subdue the struggling figure.

  “Jesus, Pendergast, what the hell did you say to him?” Waxie said over the screams, hoisting himself to his feet.

  “The right thing, apparently.” Pendergast glanced at Hayward. “Please give this fellow every comfort. I think we can let Captain Waxie take over from here.”

  “So who is that guy?” D’Agosta asked as the elevator carried them back up toward the Homicide Division.

  “I’m not sure what his real name is,” Pendergast replied, smoothing his tie. “But it isn’t Jeoffry. And he’s not the person we’re looking for.”

  “Tell Waxie that.”

  Pendergast glanced mildly at D’Agosta. “What we saw, Lieutenant, was a classic case of paranoid schizophrenia, aggravated by multiple personality disorder. You noticed how the man seemed to weave in and out of two personas? There was the blustering tough guy, no doubt as unconvincing to you as to me. Then there was the killer visionary—infinitely more dangerous. Did you hear? ‘For secondly, he hissed at me, like a snake out of Egypt.’ Or ‘Jeoffry, the cherub cat.’ ”

  “Of course I heard it. The guy was talking like somebody just handed him the Ten Commandments or something.”

  “Or something. You’re right, his ravings had the structure and cadence of written speech. This occurred to me, also. At that point, I recognized he was quoting from the old poem Jublilate Agno, by Christopher Smart.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  Pendergast smile faintly. “It’s a fairly obscure work by a fairly obscure writer. It is undeniably powerful in its strange vision, however; you should read it. The author, Smart, wrote it while he himself was half-insane in a debtor’s prison. In any case, there’s a long passage in the poem in which Smart describes his cat, Jeoffry, whom Smart believed to be some kind of chrysalis creature undergoing a physical conversion.”

  “If you say so. But what does all this have to do with our vocal friend back there?”

  “Obviously, the poor fellow identifies himself with the cat in the poem.”

  “The cat?” D’Agosta asked incredulously.

  “Why not? Kit Smart—the real Kit Smart—certainly did. It’s an extremely powerful image of metamorphosis. I feel sure this poor fellow was once an academician, or a failed poet, before the creeping descent into madness began. He killed one man, true enough—but only when his path was crossed at the wrong time. As for the rest…” Pendergast waved his hand. “There are many indications this man is not our true target.”

  “Like the photographs,” D’Agosta said. All good interrogators knew that no killer could keep his eyes from photographs of his victims or artifacts from the crime scene. Yet, as far as D’Agosta could tell, Jeffrey had never moved his eyes to either picture.

  “Exactly.” The elevator doors whispered open, and the two made their way through the hubbub toward D’Agosta’s office. “Or the fact that this murder, as Waxie describes it, has none of the elements of the blitzkrieg attacks suffered by the other victims. In any case, once I recognized his neurotic identification with the poem, it was easy enough to goad his madness to the surface.”

  Pendergast closed the office door and waited until D’Agosta was seated before continuing. “But let’s put this irritating business behind us. Have you had any luck on that cross-correlation I requested?”

  “DP just delivered it this morning.” D’Agosta thumbed through a tall sheaf of miniprinter output. “Let’s see. Eighty-five percent of the victims were male. And ninety-two percent were residents of Manhattan, including transients.”

  “I’m primarily interested in things that all the victims had in common.”

  “Gotcha.” There was a pause. “All had last names beginning with letters other than I, S, U, V, X, and Z.”

  Pendergast’s mouth twitched in what might have been a faint smile.

  “All were older than twelve and younger than fifty-six. None of the victims were born in November.”

  “Go on.”

  “I think that’s it.” D’Agosta flipped some more pages. “Oh, here’s something else. We ran the data through SMUD, checking for various traits associated with serial murderers. The only common thread it found was that none of the murders were committed during a full moon.”

  Pendergast sat up. “Indeed? That’s worth remembering. Anything else?”

  “No, that’s it.”

  “Thank you.” He sank back in the chair. “Still, it’s precious little. Information is what we need, Vincent, hard facts. And that’s why I
can’t wait any longer.”

  D’Agosta looked at him, uncomprehending. Then he frowned. “You’re not going down again.”

  “Indeed I am. If Captain Waxie continues to insist this man is the killer, then the extra patrols will be called off. Vigilance will fade. Creating an atmosphere that can only make additional killings easier.”

  “Where will you go?” D’Agosta asked.

  “To the Devil’s Attic.”

  D’Agosta snorted. “Come on, Pendergast. You don’t even know if such a place exists, let alone how to get there. You’ve got nothing but the word of that hobo.”

  “I believe Mephisto’s word to be reliable,” Pendergast replied. “And in any case, I have considerably more than just his word. I’ve spoken with a city engineer named Al Diamond. He explained that the so-called Devil’s Attic is in reality a series of tunnels, constructed by New York’s wealthiest families before the turn of the century. They were intended as a private rail line, but abandoned after only a few years. And I’ve been able to reconstruct a rough approximation of the route of these tunnels.” Taking a marker from the desk, Pendergast moved the missing person’s map. He set the point of the marker down at the intersection of Park and 45th, drew a line over to Fifth, up to Grand Army Plaza, then diagonally across Central Park and north up Central Park West. Then he stepped back, looking at D’Agosta bemusedly.

  D’Agosta stared at the map. Except for a few locations in the Park, almost all the white and red pins were clustered along the lines Pendergast had drawn.

  “Holy shit,” he breathed.

  “You could say that,” Pendergast said. “Diamond also pointed out that the sections of tunnels to the south and north of the Park have been sealed off. So it’s beneath the Park that I go.”

  D’Agosta reached into his desk for a cigar. “I’m coming along.”

  “Sorry, Vincent. You’re essential up here, now that the rest of the force is about to let down its guard. And I need you to work with Margo Green to determine the precise nature of Kawakita’s movements. We haven’t yet heard the last of his involvement in all this. In any case, this time around my goal will be stealth. It’s an extremely dangerous trip. Two of us would double the chances of our being discovered.” He replaced the marker cap with a snap of his finger. “However, if you could spare Sergeant Hayward’s expertise for a few hours, I could use some help in my preparations.”

  Scowling, D’Agosta put the cigar down. “Christ, Pendergast—that’s a long trip down. You’ll be gone overnight.”

  “More than that, I’m afraid.” The FBI agent put the marker back on the desk. “If you don’t hear from me within seventy-two hours…” He paused. Then, suddenly, he smiled and grasped D’Agosta’s hand. “A rescue mission would be foolish.”

  “What about food?”

  Pendergast feigned surprise. “Have you forgotten the delicacy of track rabbit au vin, spit-roasted over an open fire?”

  D’Agosta grimaced, and Pendergast smiled reassuringly. “Fear not, Lieutenant. I’ll be well provisioned. Food, maps, all I need.”

  “It’s like the journey to the center of the earth,” D’Agosta said, shaking his head.

  “Indeed. I do feel a bit like an explorer setting out into parts unknown, peopled by unknown tribes. Odd to think it exists directly beneath our feet. Cui ci sono del mostri, my friend. Let us hope I avoid i mostri. Friend Hayward will see me off.”

  Pendergast stood motionless a moment, apparently lost in thought. Then, with a final nod at D’Agosta, he swept out of the office and into the corridor beyond, the silk nap of his black suit shining dully under the fluorescent lights, the last of the great explorers.

  = 31 =

  PENDERGAST WALKED swiftly up the broad steps toward the entrance of the New York Public Library, a large leather-and-canvas valise in one hand. Behind him, Hayward stopped to stare at the huge marble lions that flanked the stairway.

  “You needn’t look so worried, Sergeant,” Pendergast said. “They’ve already had their afternoon feeding.” Despite the warmth of the day, he was wearing a tightly buttoned olive duster that reached almost to his ankles.

  Inside, the marble entrance hall was dim and pleasantly cool. Pendergast spoke quietly to a guard, showed his ID, asked a few questions. Then he nodded for Hayward to follow him through a doorway underneath the sweeping double staircase.

  “Sergeant Hayward, you know underground Manhattan better than any of us,” Pendergast said as they stepped into a small, leather-lined elevator. “You’ve already given me invaluable advice. Any last words?”

  The elevator began lurching downward. “Yes,” Hayward replied. “Don’t go.”

  Pendergast smiled thinly. “I’m afraid that isn’t an option. Only firsthand reconnaissance will prove whether or not the Astor Tunnels are really the source of these killings.”

  “Then take me with you,” Hayward said immediately.

  Pendergast shook his head. “Believe me, I wish I could. But my aim this time is stealth. Two bodies would make an unacceptable noise signature.”

  The elevator stopped at the lowest level, 3-B, and they stepped out into a dark corridor. “Then watch your butt,” Hayward said. “Most of the moles go down there to escape from confrontation, not start it. But there are plenty of predators. Drugs and alcohol only make things worse. Remember that they can see better, they can hear better. And they know the tunnels. Any way you look at it, you’re at a disadvantage.”

  “True,” Pendergast said. “So I’ll do what I can to even the odds.” He stopped in front of an ancient door, opened it with a key, and ushered Hayward inside. The room beyond was stacked, floor to ceiling, with metal racks filled with ancient books. The passageways between the racks were barely twenty inches across. The smell of dust and mildew was almost overpowering.

  “What are we doing here, anyway?” Hayward asked as she followed Pendergast through the stacks.

  “Of all the structures I examined,” Pendergast said, “this building had the best plans and the clearest access to the Astor Tunnels. I still have a long descent ahead, and I’m going down somewhat south of my final destination, but it seemed prudent to minimize the risks.” He stopped a moment, looking around. “Ah,” he said, nodding down one of the narrow rows. “This must be it.”

  He unlocked another, much smaller door in the far wall and led Hayward down a staircase to a cramped little room with an unfinished floor. “Directly beneath us is an access tube,” he said. “It was begun in 1925 as part of a pneumatic system to deliver books to a storage outbuilding. The project was abandoned during the Depression and never resumed. However, it should allow me to access a main feeder tunnel.”

  Pendergast set down the valise, inspected the floor with a flashlight, then brushed the dust away from an ancient trapdoor. He lifted it with Hayward’s help, exposing a slender black tube lined with tiles. Poking the flashlight down into the darkness, he looked around for a few moments. Apparently satisfied, he straightened up, unbuttoning the long duster as he did so.

  Hayward’s eyes narrowed in surprise. Beneath the duster, the FBI agent was wearing a set of military fatigues in broken gray-and-black pattern. The zippers and buckles were plastic, with a matte black finish.

  Pendergast smiled. “Unusual cammos, aren’t they?” he said. “Note the gray tones instead of the usual sepia. Designed for use in blackout conditions.” He knelt in front of the valise, unfastening and opening it wide. From one compartment, he removed a tube of military-issue blackout, which he began applying to his face and hands. Next, he removed a rolled piece of felt. As Pendergast checked it, Hayward noticed several pockets had been sewed into its inside edge.

  “A pocket disguise kit,” Pendergast said. “Safety razor, towelettes, mirror, spirit gum. My intent this time is to avoid detection. I don’t wish to meet anybody or anything. But I’ll bring this along, just in case.” He stuffed the tube of grease paint into one of the pockets, then rolled up the kit and placed it inside his shirt. Re
aching into the valise, he removed a short-barreled pistol whose dull finish reminded Hayward more of plastic than metal.

  “What’s that?” she asked curiously.

  Pendergast turned it over in his hands. “It’s an experimental 9-millimeter, created by Anschluss GMBH. It fires a T-round composite bullet of ceramic and Teflon.”

  “Planning on going hunting?”

  “You may have heard about my encounter with the Mbwun beast,” Pendergast replied. “That experience taught me that one should always be prepared. This little handgun could send a bullet through an elephant. Lengthwise.”

  “An offensive weapon,” Hayward replied. “In more ways than one.”

  “I’ll take that as a sign of approval,” Pendergast said. “Of course, defense will be at least as important as offense. I have my own armor.” He pulled back the fatigues to expose a bulletproof vest. Reaching into the valise again, he removed a black skullcap made of Kevlar, which he snugged onto his head. As Hayward watched, Pendergast removed a water purifying kit and several other articles, placing them in various pockets. Finally, he pulled out two carefully sealed plastic bags. Inside were strips of something that looked like black shoe leather.

  “Pemmican,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Filet mignon, cut into strips and dried, then pounded with berries, fruits, and nuts. It has all the vitamins, minerals, and protein a man needs. And it is surprisingly edible. Nobody has yet invented a better expedition food than Native Americans. Lewis and Clark lived on it for months.”

  “Well, I guess you’re provisioned, anyway,” Hayward said, shaking her head. “Provided you don’t get lost.”

  Pendergast unzipped the top of his fatigues, displaying the inner lining. “Perhaps my most vital possession: maps. Like the fliers of World War Two, I’ve traced them on my flight jacket, so to speak.” He nodded at the complicated set of lines, tunnels, and levels that had been drawn on the cream-colored lining in a precise hand.