But as long as she lived, he would never be safe.
Constance Greene had to die.
Mr. Gerald Boscomb picked up the novel he’d purchased, cracked it, and began reading.
Killing her would require a finely tuned plan. His thoughts turned to the Cape buffalo-the most dangerous animal hunted by man. The Cape buffalo employed a peculiar strategy when hunted: alone among animals, it knew how to turn the hunter into the hunted.
As he read, a plan formed in his mind. He thought it over, considered various locations for its execution, and discarded each in turn, before arriving-at chapter 6-at the perfect setting. The plan would work. He would turn Constance’s very hatred for him against her.
He placed a bookmark in the novel, shut it, and tucked it under his arm. The first part of the plan was to show himself to her, to be intentionally seen-if she had managed to follow him here. But he could take no more chances, make no more assumptions.
He rose, slung his coat over his arm, and strolled down the terminal, glancing casually left and right, observing the masses of humanity as they ebbed and flowed on their futile business, a tidal flow of grays and more grays: layers of gray, an infinitude of gray. As he passed the Borders once again, his eye paused fleetingly on a dowdy woman buying a copy of Vogue; she was dressed in a brown woolen skirt of African design with a white shirt, a cheap scarf wrapped around her neck. Her brown, unwashed hair fell limply to her shoulders. She carried a small black leather backpack.
Diogenes passed slowly by the bookstore and went into the Starbucks next door, shocked that Constance had made such a poor effort to disguise herself. Shocked, also, that she had managed to follow him.
Or had she?
She must have. To find him any other way would take a mind reader.
He purchased a small organic green tea and croissant and made his way back to his seat, taking care not to look at the woman again. He could kill her here-it would be easy-but he would not be able to escape the layers of airport security. Would she make an attempt on his life in this exposed place? Did she care enough about her own life to take greater care-or was her sole aim to end his?
He had no answer.
Mr. Gerald Boscomb finished his tea and croissant, brushed the crumbs off the tips of his fingers, dusted his coat, and resumed reading his newly acquired thriller. A moment later, the first-class cabin of his flight was called to board. As he proffered his boarding pass to the gate attendant, his eye swept the terminal aisle again, but the woman had disappeared.
“G’day,” he said cheerily, as he took the ticket stub and entered the jetway.
Chapter 69
Vincent D’Agosta entered the library of 891 Riverside Drive, pausing in the doorway. A fire blazed on the hearth, the lights were up, and the room was a hive of concentrated activity. The chairs had been pushed back against the bookcases, and a large table covered with papers dominated the center of the room. Proctor was at one side, murmuring into a cordless phone, while Wren, his hair even wilder than usual, pored over a stack of books at a desk in the corner. The little man looked pinched and ancient.
“Vincent. Please come in.” Pendergast called D’Agosta over with a curt gesture.
D’Agosta complied, shocked at the agent’s uncharacteristically haggard appearance. It was the only time he remembered ever seeing Pendergast unshaven. And, for once, the man’s suit jacket was unbuttoned.
“I got the details you wanted,” D’Agosta said, holding up a manila folder. “Thanks to Captain Hayward.” He dropped it on the table, flipped it open.
“Proceed.”
“Witnesses say the shooter was an old woman. She got on the train with a first-class ticket to Yonkers, paid in cash. Gave the name Jane Smith.” He snorted. “Just as the train was pulling out of Penn Station, while it was still underground, she entered the first-class berth of a passenger named… Eugene Hofstader. Pulled a gun and fired four shots. Forensics recovered two.44-40 rounds embedded in the walls and another on the tracks outside. Get this: they were antique rounds-probably shot from a nineteenth-century revolver, a Colt perhaps.”
Pendergast turned to Wren. “Check to see if we’re missing a Colt Peacemaker or similar revolver from the collection, along with any.44-40 rounds, please.”
Wordlessly, Wren stood up and left the room. Pendergast glanced back at D’Agosta. “Go on.”
“The old woman vanished, although no one saw her get off the train, which was sealed almost immediately following the shooting. If she was wearing a disguise and discarded it, it was never found.”
“Did the man leave anything behind?”
“You bet: a valise and a garment bag full of clothes. No papers or documents, or even a clue to his true identity. All labels had been carefully razored off the clothing. But the valise…”
“Yes?”
“They brought it into the evidence room, and when the warrant came down, they opened it up. Apparently, the evidence officer took one look and, well, whatever happened next he had to be sedated. A hazmat team was called in, and the stuff is now under lock and key-nobody seems to know where.”
“I see.”
“I guess we’re talking about Diogenes here,” said D’Agosta, slightly annoyed that he’d been sent out on the assignment with less-than-complete information.
“That is correct.”
“So who’s this old lady who shot at him?”
The agent gestured toward the table at the center of the room. “When Proctor returned here last night, he found Constance missing, along with a few articles of clothing. In her room, he found her pet mouse, its neck broken. Along with that note and the rosewood box.”
D’Agosta walked over, picked up the indicated note, read it quickly. “Jesus. Oh, Jesus, what a sick fuck…”
“Open the box.”
He opened the small antique box a little gingerly. It was empty, a long dimple left in the purple velvet interior by some object, now gone. A faded label on the inside cover read Sweitzer Surgical Instrument Company.
“A scalpel?” he asked.
“Yes. For Constance to cut her wrists with. She seems to have taken it for another purpose.”
D’Agosta nodded. “I think I’m getting the picture. The old woman was Constance.”
“Yes.”
“I hope she succeeds.”
“The thought of their meeting again is too terrible to contemplate,” Pendergast replied, his face grim. “I must catch up with her-and stop her. Diogenes has been preparing for this escape for years, and we have no hope of tracing him… unless, of course, he wishes to be traced. Constance, on the other hand, will not be trying to conceal her tracks. I must follow her… and there is always a chance that, in finding her, I will find him as well.”
He turned to an iBook sitting open on the table, began typing. A few minutes later, he looked over. “Constance boarded a flight to Florence, Italy, at five o’clock this afternoon, out of Logan Airport in Boston.” He turned. “Proctor? Pack my things and book a ticket to Florence, if you please.”
“I’m coming with you,” said D’Agosta.
Pendergast looked back at him, his face gray. “You may accompany me to the airport. But as for going with me-no, Vincent, you will not. You have a disciplinary hearing to prepare for. Besides, this is a… family matter.”
“I can help you,” said D’Agosta. “You need me.”
“Everything you say is true. And yet I must, and I will, do this alone.”
His tone was so cold and final that D’Agosta realized any reply was useless.
Chapter 70
Diogenes Pendergast, a.k.a. Mr. Gerald Boscomb, passed the Palazzo Antinori and turned into the Via Tornabuoni, breathing in the damp winter air of Florence with a certain bitter nostalgia. So much had happened since he was last here, mere months ago, when he had been filled with plans. Now he had nothing-not even his clothes, which he had abandoned on the train.
Not even his treasured valise.
He st
rolled pass Max Mara, remembering with regret when it was once the fine old Libreria Seeber. He stopped in at Pineider, bought some stationery, purchased luggage at Beltrami, and picked up a raincoat and umbrella at Allegri-all of which he had sent over to his hotel, keeping only the raincoat and umbrella, for which he had paid cash. He stopped at Procacci, settled himself at a tiny table in the crowded shop, and ordered a truffle sandwich with a glass of vernaccia. He sipped his drink thoughtfully, watching passersby through the window.
Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves
Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant
The sky was threatening rain, the city dark and narrow. Perhaps that was why he had always liked Florence in winter-it was monochromatic, the buildings pale, the surrounding hills gray humps spiked with cypress trees, the river a sluggish ripple of dull iron, its bridges almost black.
He dropped a bill on the table and left the café, continuing his stroll down the street. He paused to examine the display window at Valentino, using the reflection of the glass to observe the other side of the street. He went inside and purchased two suits, one in silk and the other a black double-breasted completo with a broad pinstripe, which he favored because of its faint thirties gangsterish flavor-and had them, as well, sent to his hotel.
Back on the street, he turned his footsteps toward the grim medieval facade of the Palazzo Ferroni, an imposing castle of dressed stone with towers and crenellated battlements, now the world headquarters of Ferragamo. He crossed the small piazza in front of the castle, past the Roman column of gray marble. Just before he entered the castle proper, a swift, sidelong glance identified the dowdy woman with brown hair-her-just at that moment entering the church of Santa Trinità.
Satisfied, he entered Ferragamo and spent a good deal of time looking over shoes, buying two pairs, and then completing his wardrobe with purchases of underwear, socks, nightshirt, undershirts, and bathing suit. As before, he sent his purchases over to his hotel and exited the store, encumbered with nothing more than the furled umbrella and the raincoat.
He walked toward the river and paused along the lungarno, contemplating the perfect curve of the arches of the Ponte Santa Trinità, designed by Ammanati: curves that had confounded the mathematicians. His yellowed eye examined the statues of the four seasons that crowned both ends.
None of it gave him pleasure anymore. It was all useless, futile.
The Arno below, swollen by winter rains, shuddered along like the back of a snake, and he could hear the roar of water going over the pescaia a few hundred yards downriver. He felt a faint raindrop on his cheek, then another. Black umbrellas immediately began appearing among the bustling crowds, and they bobbed over the bridge like so many black lanterns…
e dietro le venìa'sì lunga tratta
di gente, ch’i’ non averei creduto
che morte tanta n’avesse disfatta.
He put on his own raincoat, belted it tightly, unfurled the umbrella, and experienced a certain nihilistic frisson as he joined the crowds crossing the bridge. On the far side, he paused at the embankment, looking back over the river. He could hear the tick-tick of raindrops on the fabric of the umbrella. He could not see her, but he knew she was there, somewhere under that moving sea of umbrellas, following him.
He turned and strolled across the small piazza at the far end of the bridge, then took a right on Via Santo Spirito and an immediate left onto Borgo Tegolaio. There he paused to look in the rear display window of one of the fine antique shops that fronted on Via Maggio, stuffed with gilt candlesticks, old silver saltcellars, and dark still lifes.
He waited until he was sure that she had observed him-he caught just a glimpse of her through a double reflection in the shop window. She was carrying a Max Mara bag, and for all the world looked like one of the swinish American tourists who visited Florence in mindless shopping herds.
Constance Greene, just where he wanted her.
The rain slackened. He furled his umbrella but remained at the shop window, examining the objects with apparent interest. He watched her distant, almost unreadable reflection, waiting for her to move forward into the sea of umbrellas and thus lose sight of him for a moment.
As soon as she did so, he burst into a run, sprinting silently up Borgo Tegolaio, his raincoat flying behind him. He ducked across the street and darted into a narrow alley, Sdrucciolo de’ Pitti; tore along its length; then took another left, racing down Via Toscanella. Then he ran across a small piazza and continued down Via dello Sprone until he had made a complete circuit and come back around to Via Santo Spirito, some fifty yards below the antique shop where he had dallied moments earlier.
He paused just short of the intersection with Via Santo Spirito, catching his breath.
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
He forced his mind back to business, angry at the whispered voice that never gave him peace. When she saw he was no longer on the street, she would assume-she would have to assume-that he had taken a right turn down the tiny alley just beyond the antique shop: Via dei Coverelli. She would think him ahead of her, walking in the opposite direction toward her. But, like the Cape buffalo, he was now behind her, their positions reversed.
Diogenes knew Via dei Coverelli well. It was one of the darkest, narrowest streets in Florence. The medieval buildings on both sides had been built out over the street on arches of stone, which blocked the sky and made the alley, even on a sunny day, as dim as a cave. The alley made a peculiar dogleg as it wormed past the back of the Santo Spirito church, two ninety-degree turns, before joining Via Santo Spirito.
Diogenes trusted in Constance’s intelligence and her uncanny research abilities. He knew she would have studied a map of Florence and considered deeply the momento giusto in which to launch her attack on him. He felt sure that she would see the Coverelli alleyway as an ideal point of ambush. If he had turned down Coverelli, as she must believe, then this would be her chance. All she had to do was backtrack, enter Coverelli from the other end, and then wait in the crook of the dogleg for Diogenes to arrive. A person lurking in that dark angle could not be seen from either opening of the alleyway.
All this Diogenes had already thought out, the day before, on the plane ride to Italy.
She did not know that he had already anticipated her every action. She did not know that his flanking dash in the other direction would turn the tables. He would now be approaching her from behind, instead of from the front.
The hunter is now the hunted.
Chapter 71
The Rolls tore across the upper deck of the Triborough Bridge, the skyline of Manhattan rising to the south, slumbering in the predawn. Proctor drove effortlessly through the traffic-heavy even at 4:00 A.M.-leaving drivers in his wake, their angry horns Doppler-shifting downward as he passed.
Pendergast sat in the back, in disguise as an investment banker on a business trip to Florence, equipped with the appropriate documents supplied by Glinn. Next to him sat D’Agosta, silent and grim.
“I don’t get it,” D’Agosta said at last. “I just don’t understand how Diogenes could call this a perfect crime.”
“I do understand-and rather too late,” Pendergast replied bitterly. “It’s as I explained on the ride to the museum last night. Diogenes wanted to inflict on the world the pain that had been inflicted on him. He wanted to re-create the… the terrible Event that ruined his life. You recall I mentioned he had been victimized by a sadistic device, a ‘house of pain’? The Tomb of Senef was nothing less than a re-creation of that house of pain. On a grand and terrible scale.”
The Rolls slowed for the tollbooth, then accelerated again.
“So what was going on in the tomb, then? What happened to all those people?”
“I’m not yet sure precisely. But did you notice that some of the victims were walking with a peculiar, shuffling gait? It put me in mind of the neurological effect known as drop foot, which sometimes afflicts people suffering
from brain inflammation. Their ability to walk is impaired in a very specific manner, making it difficult to lower their feet smoothly to the ground. And if you ask Captain Hayward to inspect the tomb, I feel certain she will find powerful lasers hidden among the strobe lights. Not to mention a superfluity of fog machines and subwoofers far beyond anything the original design called for. It seems Diogenes engineered a combination of strobe light, laser, and sound to induce lesions in a very particular part of the brain. The flashing lasers and sound overwhelmed the ventromedial cortex of the brain, which inhibits violent and atavistic behavior. Victims would lose all inhibition, all sense of restraint, prey to every passing impulse. The id unleashed.”
“It’s hard to believe that light and sound could actually cause brain damage.”
“Any neurologist will tell you that extreme fear, pain, stress, or anger can damage the human brain, kill brain cells. Post-traumatic stress disorder in its extreme form does, in fact, cause brain damage. Diogenes simply brought that to its ultimate conclusion.”
“It was a setup from the very beginning.”
“Yes. There was no Count of Cahors. Diogenes fronted the money for the restoration of the tomb. And the ancient curse itself provided just the kind of flourish that Diogenes delights in. Clearly, he secretly installed his own version of the show, a hidden version unknown to the technicians and programmers. He tested it first on Jay Lipper, then on the Egyptologist, Wicherly. And recall, Vincent, his ultimate aim was not just the people in the tomb: a live feed was going out over public television. Millions could have been affected.”
“Unbelievable.”
Pendergast bowed his head. “No. Utterly logical. His aim was to re-create the terrible, unforgivable Event… for which I was responsible.”
The Book of the Dead Page 39