Cold Vengeance

by Douglas Preston

  “That is correct. So as you can see, there will be no need for transportation. Cemetery management will be in charge of transferring the body.”

  “Is there something wrong with the current burial spot of the deceased?”

  “The current spot is fine. I chose it myself.”

  “Is it a question of new construction? Must the body be moved because of changes being done at the cemetery?”

  “I selected Saint-Savin Cemetery specifically because nothing will ever change there—and no new families are being accepted for burial.”

  Jennings leaned forward slightly. “Then may I ask why are you moving the body?”

  “Because, Mr. Jennings, moving the body is the only way I can get temporary access to it.”

  Jennings licked his lips. “Access?”

  “A medical examiner will be standing by, fully licensed and accredited by the State of Louisiana, during the exhumation. An examination of the remains will be performed in a mobile forensic lab, parked on cemetery grounds. Then the body will be reburied—in a grave directly adjoining the one in which it had previously lain, within the Pendergast family plot. It is all spelled out in the application.”

  “Examination?” Jennings said. “Is this related to some sort of… question of inheritance?”

  “No. It’s strictly a private matter.”

  “This is irregular, Mr. Pendergast—most irregular. I can’t say I’ve ever had such a request before. I’m sorry, but this is not something I can approve. You’ll have to go through the courts.”

  Pendergast regarded him for a moment. “Is that your final word on the subject?”

  “The guidelines on exhumations are quite clear. I can do nothing.” Jennings spread his hands.

  “I see.” Pendergast picked up the shield and replaced it in his suit jacket. He left the paperwork where it was. “Would you mind coming with me for a moment?”

  “But where—?”

  “It will only take a minute.”

  Reluctantly, Jennings rose out of his seat.

  “I wish to show you,” Pendergast said, “why I chose you in particular for this request.”

  They walked through the outer office, down the main corridor of the public building, and out the main entrance. Pendergast stopped on the wide front steps.

  Jennings looked around at the bustling thoroughfare. “Like I said, pleasant day,” he observed with excessive cheer, trying to make small talk.

  “Pleasant day indeed,” came the reply.

  “That’s what I love about this part of Louisiana. The sun just seems to shine more brightly than anywhere else.”

  “Yes. It lends a curious gilding effect to everything it touches. Take that plaque, for instance.” And Pendergast gestured toward an old brass plaque that had been set into the brick façade of the building.

  Jennings peered at the plaque. He passed it every morning, of course, on the way to his office, but it had been many years since he had bothered to examine it.

  THIS CITY HALL OF PLANKWOOD, LOUISIANA,

  WAS ERECTED WITH FUNDS GENEROUSLY

  DONATED BY

  COMSTOCK ERASMUS PENDERGAST IN THE

  YEAR OF OUR LORD 1892

  “Comstock Pendergast,” Jennings murmured under his breath. No wonder the name seemed vaguely familiar.

  “My great-grand-uncle. The Pendergast family, you see, has long had a tradition of supporting certain towns in the parishes of both New Orleans and St. Charles, places where various branches of our family lived these past centuries. While we may no longer be around in many of these towns, our legacy lives on.”

  “Of course,” Jennings said, still staring at the plaque. He began to conceive a rather unpleasant notion as to why Pendergast had been so particular in selecting his office for the request.

  “We don’t advertise it. But the fact is, the various Pendergast trusts and charities continue to make benefactions to several towns—including Plankwood.”

  Jennings looked from the plaque to Pendergast. “Plankwood?”

  Pendergast nodded. “Our trusts provide scholarships to graduating seniors, help maintain the police auxiliary fund, buy books for the library—and support the good work of your very own public health office. It would be a shame to see this support falter… or, perhaps, cease entirely.”

  “Cease?” Jennings repeated.

  “Programs might be cut.” Pendergast’s gaunt features assumed a sorrowful cast. “Salaries reduced. Jobs lost.” He placed a certain emphasis on this last phrase as his gray eyes affixed Jennings.

  Jennings raised a hand to his chin, rubbed it thoughtfully. “On second thought, Mr. Pendergast, I feel certain your request might be reviewed favorably—if you can assure me that it is of great importance.”

  “I can, Mr. Jennings.”

  “In that case, I’ll get the application process started.” He glanced back at the plaque. “I could even go so far as to promise you that the paperwork will be put through in a rush. In ten days, perhaps as little as a week, we can have this order approved—”

  “I’ll stop by for it tomorrow afternoon, thank you,” Pendergast said.

  “What?” Jennings removed his glasses, blinked in the sunlight. “Oh, of course. Tomorrow afternoon.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Boston, Massachusetts

  THE MAN WITH THE SUNKEN EYES AND FIVE O’CLOCK shadow shuffled across Copley Square, in the shadow of the John Hancock Tower. Except for brief glances at the passing traffic, his head hung dejectedly; his hands were deep in the pockets of his grimy raincoat.

  He walked down Dartmouth Street and entered the Copley subway station. Passing the line of people buying CharlieCards, he slouched down the cement staircase and stopped, looking around. A row of benches was set against the tiled wall to his right, and he made his way toward them, sitting down at the far end. There he lounged, unmoving, hands still buried in the pockets of his raincoat, staring at nothing.

  A few minutes later, another man strolled up. He could not have looked more different. He was thin and tall, dressed in a well-tailored suit and a Burberry trench coat. In one hand he held a copy of The Boston Globe, neatly folded; in the other was a crisply rolled black umbrella. A large gray fedora kept his face in shadow. The only distinguishing mark was an odd-looking mole underneath his right eye. Sitting down beside the derelict, he opened the paper wide and began perusing the inside stories.

  When a Green Line train squealed its way into the station, the man in the fedora began to speak. He spoke quietly, under the noise of the train, and he kept his gaze on the newspaper.

  “State the nature of the problem,” he said in accented English.

  The derelict let his head hang as he replied. “It’s this fellow Pendergast. My brother-in-law. He’s found out the truth.”

  “The truth? All of it?”

  “Not yet. But he will. He’s an extremely competent and dangerous man.”

  “What does he know, exactly?”

  “He knows that what happened in Africa, the lion killing, was murder. He knows all about Project Aves. And he knows…” Esterhazy hesitated. “He knows about Slade, and Longitude Pharmaceuticals, the Doane family—and Spanish Island.”

  “Ah yes, Spanish Island,” said the man. “This is something we have just learned. We now are aware Charles Slade’s death twelve years ago was an elaborate hoax and that he was still alive until some seven months ago. This is most unfortunate news. Why didn’t you tell us these things?”

  “I had no idea, either,” Esterhazy lied as forcefully as he could. “I swear to you, I didn’t know anything about it.” He just had to put the genie back in the bottle, once and for all, or he was as good as dead. He found his voice moving up a notch and brought it back down. “It was Pendergast who figured it all out. And what he doesn’t know yet—he will.”

  “Pendergast.” The man in the fedora’s tone became tinged with skepticism. “Why haven’t you killed him? You promised us you would.”

&nb
sp; “I’ve tried—on several occasions.”

  The man in the fedora did not reply. Instead he turned the page of the newspaper and continued reading.

  After several minutes, he spoke again. “We’re disappointed in you, Judson.”

  “I’m sorry.” Esterhazy felt the blood infuse his face.

  “Don’t ever forget your origins. You owe us everything.”

  He nodded mutely, face burning in shame—shame at his fear, his submission, his dependence, his failure.

  “Does this Pendergast know of the existence of our organization?”

  “Not yet. But he’s like a pit bull. He doesn’t give up. You’ve got to take him out. We can’t afford to leave him on the loose. I’m telling you, we’ve got to kill him.”

  “You can’t afford to leave him on the loose,” the man replied. “You must deal with him—decisively.”

  “God knows, I’ve tried!”

  “Not hard enough. How tiresome of you to think you can drop the problem in our lap. Everyone has a weak spot. Find his and attack it.”

  Esterhazy felt himself shaking with frustration. “You’re asking the impossible. Please, I need your help.”

  “Naturally, you can rely on us for whatever assistance you need. We helped you with that passport—we’ll help you again. Money, weapons, safe houses. And we’ve got the Vergeltung. But you have to deal with this man yourself. In fact, taking care of this—quickly and completely—would go a long way toward restoring yourself to our good graces.”

  Esterhazy was silent a moment, letting this sink in. “Where’s the Vergeltung docked?”

  “Manhattan. The Seventy-Ninth Street Boat Basin.” The man paused. “New York… That’s where Agent Pendergast lives, is it not?”

  This was enough of a surprise that Esterhazy could not help lifting his eyes to the man for a moment.

  The man returned to his newspaper with an air of finality. After a minute, Esterhazy rose to go. As he did so, the man spoke once more. “Did you hear what happened to the Brodies?”

  “Yes,” Esterhazy replied in a low voice. He wondered if the question was an implied threat.

  “Don’t worry, Judson,” the man went on. “We’ll take good care of you. Just as we always have.”

  And as another train came shrieking into the station, he turned back to his paper and did not speak again.

  CHAPTER 31

  Malfourche

  NED BETTERTON DROVE HIS DENTED NISSAN DOWN the main street—the only street, really—of Malfourche. Although it was technically part of his beat, for the most part Betterton avoided the town: too much of that deep-bayou mentality. But the Brodies had lived here. Had… Grudgingly, Kranston was letting him follow up, only because the horrific double murder was so big it would have seemed strange if the Bee pretended it hadn’t happened. “Let’s get it over with,” Kranston had grumbled. “Quickly. Then we move on.”

  Though Betterton had nodded agreeably, he’d no intention of getting it over with. Instead, he’d done something he should have done earlier—double-check the story the Brodies told him. Right away it fell apart. A few phone calls revealed that, while there was a B&B in San Miguel named Casa Magnolia, the Brodies had never run it, never owned it. They had only stayed there once, years ago.

  It had been a bald-faced lie.

  And now they’d been murdered—the biggest killing in the area in a generation—and Betterton was sure it was somehow connected to their strange disappearance and even stranger reappearance. Drugs, industrial espionage, gun-running—it might be anything.

  Betterton was convinced that Malfourche was the nexus of this mystery. Malfourche was where the Brodies reappeared—and where they had been brutally killed. Furthermore, he’d heard rumors of strange business in town, some months before the Brodies resurfaced. There’d been an explosion at Tiny’s, the local and somewhat notorious bait-and-bar emporium. A leaking propane tank—that was the official story—but there were whispered hints of something else a lot more interesting.

  He passed the Brodies’ little house, where not so long ago he’d interviewed them. Now crime-scene tape covered the front door and a sheriff’s vehicle sat by the curb.

  Main Street made a gentle bend to the west and the edge of the Black Brake swamp hove into view, its thick fringe of green and brown like a low dark cloud in an otherwise sunny afternoon. He drove on into the sad business district, sullen-looking shopfronts and peeling signboards. He pulled up beside the docks, killed the engine. Where Tiny’s had been, the skeleton of a new building was beginning to rise from the wreckage of the old. A pile of half-burned two-by-fours and creosote pilings were stacked near the docks. Out in front, adjoining the street, the new front steps of the building had been completed and half a dozen scruffy-looking men were seated on them, loafing around and drinking beer out of paper bags.

  Betterton got out of the car and approached them. “Afternoon, all of y’all,” he said.

  The men fell silent and watched him approach with suspicion.

  “Afternoon,” one finally replied grudgingly.

  “Ned Betterton. Ezerville Bee,” he said. “Hot day. Anybody care for a cold one?”

  An uneasy shifting. “In return for what?”

  “What else? I’m a reporter. I want information.”

  This was greeted by silence.

  “Got some frosties in the trunk.” Betterton moseyed back to his car—you didn’t want to move too fast around people like this—popped the trunk, hauled out a large Styrofoam cooler, lugged it over, and set it down on the stairs. He reached in, pulled one out, popped it open, and took a long pull. Soon a number of hands were reaching in, sliding cans out of the melting ice.

  Betterton leaned back with a sigh. “I’m doing a story on the Brodie murders. Any idea who killed them?”

  “Might be gators,” someone offered, drawing hoots of derisive laughter.

  “The police done asked us about them already,” said a skinny man in a tank top, his cheeks sporting about five days’ worth of stubble. “We don’t know nothing.”

  “I think that FBI feller killed ’em,” one old, almost toothless man slurred, already drunk. “That sumbitch was crazy.”

  “FBI?” Betterton asked immediately. This was new.

  “The one come down here with that New York City policewoman.”

  “What did they want?” Betterton realized he sounded way too interested. He covered it up by taking another slug of beer.

  “Wanted directions to Spanish Island,” the toothless man answered.

  “Spanish Island?” Betterton had never heard of the place.

  “Yeah. Kinda coincidental that…” The voice trailed off.

  “Coincidental? What’s coincidental?”

  A round of uneasy glances. No one said anything. Holy mackerel, thought Betterton: his digging had almost reached the mother lode.

  “You shut up,” the skinny one snapped, glaring at the old drunk.

  “Why, hell, Larry, I ain’t said nothing.”

  This was so easy. He could tell right away they were hiding something big. The whole damn brainless group. And he was going to know it in a moment.

  At that moment, a large shadow fell over him. A huge man had emerged from the gloom of the unfinished building. His pink head was shaven, and a ring of fat the size of a small life preserver bulged around the rear of his neck, bristling with little blond hairs. One cheek bulged with what appeared to be a cud of chewing tobacco. He folded one hamhock arm over the other and stared, first at the seated group, then at Betterton.

  Betterton realized this could only be Tiny himself. The man was a local legend, a bayou warlord. And suddenly he wondered if that mother lode was a little farther off than he’d anticipated.

  “Fuck you want?” Tiny asked in a pleasant tone.

  Instinctively, Betterton took a stab. “I’m here about the FBI agent.”

  The look that came over Tiny’s face wasn’t so pleasant. “Pendergast?”

 
Pendergast. So that was his name. And it was familiar—wasn’t it?—the name of one of those wealthy, decaying antebellum families down New Orleans way.

  Tiny’s little pig eyes grew smaller still. “You a friend of that peckerwood?”

  “I’m with the Bee. Looking into the Brodie killings.”

  “A reporter.” Tiny’s face grew dark. For the first time, Betterton noticed an inflamed scar on one side of the man’s neck. It bulged in time to the pulsing of a vein beneath.

  Tiny looked around the group. “What you talking to a reporter for?” He spat out a ropy brown stream of tobacco. The audience stood up, one by one, and several started to shuffle off—but not before scooping out additional beers.

  “A reporter,” Tiny repeated.

  Betterton saw the explosion coming but wasn’t quick enough to get away. Tiny lashed out and grabbed Betterton’s collar, twisting it roughly. “You can tell that mother for me,” he said, “that if I ever catch his skinny, black-suited, albino ass around these parts again, I’m gonna bust him up so bad he’ll be shitting teeth for a week.”

  As he spoke, he twisted Betterton’s collar tighter and tighter until the reporter could no longer breathe. Then, with a rough jerk of his arm, he threw Betterton to the ground.

  Betterton sprawled in the dust. Waited a moment. Stood up.

  Tiny stood there, his hands balled, waiting for a fight.

  Betterton was small. When he was young, bigger kids had often felt free to knock him around, figuring the risk was nil. It started in kindergarten and didn’t end until his first year of high school.

  “Hey,” said Betterton, his voice high and whiny. “I’m leaving, I’m leaving! For chrissakes, you don’t have to hurt me!”

  Tiny relaxed.

  Betterton put on his best cowering, cringing face and, scrambling a little closer to Tiny, ducked his head as if to grovel. “I’m not looking for a fight. Really.”

  “That’s what I like to hear—”