White Fire p-13

by Douglas Preston

  Swinton shifted in his chair. The expression on his face went through several rapid changes. He exposed his ferrety teeth several times, his lips twitching. This went on for a while, then at last he cleared his throat. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Private curiosity.”

  “Who are you gonna tell?”

  “Nobody.”

  Swinton stared hungrily at the thousand dollars sitting on the table. “You swear to that? It’s been a secret in my family for a long, long time.”

  Pendergast nodded.

  Another pause. “It started with the Committee of Seven,” Swinton said at last. “My great-great-granddaddy, August Swinton, was one of them. At least, that’s what was passed down.” A tinge of pride edged into his voice. “As you said, those were no grizzly killings. They was done by four crazy bastards, former smelter workers, who were living wild in the mountains and had turned cannibal. A man named Shadrach Cropsey went up to track the bear and discovered it wasn’t a bear at all, but these fellers living in an abandoned mine. He figured out where they were holed up and then pulled together this Committee of Seven.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “That’s a second question.”

  “So it is.” Pendergast smiled. “Time for another round?” He picked up the revolver, spun the cylinder, and laid it down.

  Swinton shook his head. “I can still see the round, and it ain’t in the firing chamber. Another thousand bucks?”

  Pendergast nodded.

  Swinton picked up the gun and pulled the trigger again, put it down, held out his hand. “This is the dumbest damn game I ever saw.”

  Pendergast handed him a thousand dollars. Then he picked up the gun, spun the barrel, and without looking at it put it to his head and pulled the trigger. Click.

  “You really are one crazy motherfucker.”

  “There appear to be a great many like me in this area,” Pendergast replied. “And now for my question: What did Shadrach Cropsey and this Committee of Seven do then?”

  “Back in those days, they handled problems the right way — they did it themselves. Fuck the law and all its bullshit. They went up there and smoked those cannibals. The way I heard it, old Shadrach got his ass killed in the fight. After that, there weren’t no more ‘grizzly’ killings.”

  “And the place where they killed the miners?”

  “Another question, friend.”

  Pendergast spun the barrel, placed it on the table. Swinton eyed it nervously. “I can’t see the round.”

  “Then it is either in the firing chamber or in the opposite chamber, hidden by the frame. Which means there is a fifty — fifty chance you will live.”

  “I ain’t playing.”

  “You just said you would. I didn’t imagine you were a coward, Mr. Swinton.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out the brick of hundreds. This time he peeled off twenty. “We’ll double the stakes. You will receive two thousand — if you pull the trigger.”

  Swinton was sweating heavily. “I ain’t gonna play.”

  “You mean, you pass on your turn? I won’t insist.”

  “That’s what I mean. I pass.”

  “But I do not pass on my turn.”

  “Go ahead. Be my fucking guest.”

  Pendergast spun the barrel, held the revolver up, pulled the trigger. Click. He put it down.

  “My final question: Where did they kill the miners?”

  “I don’t know. But I do have the letter.”

  “What letter?”

  “The one that got passed down to me. It sort of explains things.” He rose from his creaking chair and shuffled off into the dim recesses of the cabin. He returned a moment later with a dusty old piece of yellow paper sandwiched in Mylar. He eased himself back down and handed the letter to Pendergast.

  It was a handwritten note, undated, with no salutation or signature. It read:

  mete at the Ideal 11 oclock Sharp to Night they are Holt Up in the closed Christmas Mine up on smugglers wall there are 4 of them bring your best Guns and lantern burn this Letter afore you set out

  Pendergast lowered the letter. Swinton held out his hand, and Pendergast returned it. Swinton’s brow was still beaded with sweat, but the look on his face was pure relief. “I can’t believe you played that game without ever looking at the cylinder. That’s just crazy-ass dangerous.”

  Pendergast dressed again in his coat, scarves, and hat, and then took up the revolver. He opened the cylinder and let the .44 magnum round drop into his hand. “There was never any danger. I brought this round with me and substituted it for one of yours after I unloaded the gun.” He held it up. “It’s been doctored.”

  Swinton rose. “Motherfucker!” He came at Pendergast, drawing his carry, but in a flash Pendergast had shoved the round back in and rotated it into firing position, pointing the Blackhawk at Swinton.

  “Or maybe I didn’t doctor it.”

  Swinton froze.

  “You’ll never know.” Pendergast picked up his own Les Baer, and — while covering Swinton with it — removed the round from the Blackhawk and put it in his coat pocket. “And now I will answer your earlier question: I’m not a magazine writer. I’m a federal agent. And there’s one thing I promise you: if you lied to me, I’ll know it, sooner rather than later — and in that case, none of your weapons will save you.”

  51

  That same day, at three o’clock in the afternoon, Corrie lounged in the room she had acquired at the Hotel Sebastian, wearing a terry-cloth bathrobe supplied by the hotel, first admiring the view, and then checking out the mini-bar (which she couldn’t afford, but enjoyed rummaging through anyway) before moving into the marble bathroom. She turned on the shower, adjusted the water, and slipped out of the bathrobe, stepping in.

  As she luxuriated in the hot shower, she considered that things were looking up. She felt badly about what happened at breakfast the day before, but even that paled in comparison with Pendergast’s revelations. The Doyle story, the mercury-crazed miners — and the Stafford family connection — it was truly remarkable. And truly frightening. Pendergast was right: she had placed herself in grave danger.

  Roaring Fork had now pretty much resumed the ghost-town status it once held, except it was all dressed up for Christmas with nowhere to go. Totally surreal. Even the press seemed to have packed up their cameras and microphones. The Hotel Sebastian had lost most of its guests and staff, but the restaurant was still going strong — stronger than ever, as those remaining in town, it seemed, all wanted to eat out. Corrie had managed to drive a hard bargain with the hotel manager, snagging room and breakfast free of charge in return for six hours of kitchen work every day. And although her arrangement with the hotel came with only one meal a day, Corrie had plenty of experience with all-you-can-eat deals and was confident she could scarf down enough food in one sitting to last twenty-four hours.

  She got out of the shower, toweled off, and combed her hair. As she was drying it, she heard a knock at the door. Quickly donning the bathrobe again, she went to the door and peeked through the eyehole.

  Pendergast.

  She opened the door, but the agent hesitated. “I’d be glad to return later—”

  “Don’t be silly. Sit down, I’ll only be a moment.” She went back into the bathroom, finished blowing out her hair, wrapped the bathrobe a little tighter, and came back out, seating herself on the sofa.

  Pendergast did not look well. His usual alabaster face was mottled with red and his hair looked like it had been in a wind tunnel.

  “How did it go?” Corrie asked. She knew he had gone to Leadville to see if he could trace a Swinton descendant.

  Instead of answering the question, he said, “I am delighted to find you safely ensconced in the hotel. As for the cost, I’d be happy to help—”

  “Not necessary, thank you,” Corrie said quickly. “I managed to finagle free room and board in return for a few hours of kitchen work.”

  “How enterprising of
you.” He paused, his face growing more serious. “I regret that you felt it necessary to deceive me. I understand from the chief that your car was shot at and your dog killed.”

  Corrie colored deeply. “I didn’t want you to worry. I’m sorry. I was going to tell you eventually.”

  “You didn’t want me to take you away from Roaring Fork.”

  “That, too. And I wanted to find the bastard who killed my dog.”

  “You must not attempt to find out who killed your dog. I hope you now understand you’re dealing with dangerous and highly motivated people. This is far bigger than a dead dog — and you’re intelligent enough to realize that.”

  “Of course. I understand that clearly.”

  “There’s a development worth two hundred million dollars at stake — but this isn’t just about money. It will lead to heavy criminal indictments against those involved, some of whom happen to belong to one of the wealthiest and most powerful clans in this country, beginning with your Mrs. Kermode and quite likely ending with members of the Stafford family as well. Perhaps now you can understand why they will not hesitate to kill you.”

  “But I want them brought to justice—”

  “And they will be. But not by you, and not while you’re here. When you’re safely back in New York, I will bring in the Bureau and all will be exposed. So you see, there’s nothing left for you to do here except pack your bags and return to New York — as soon as the weather permits.”

  Corrie thought about the coming storm. It would close the road again. She supposed she could start writing things up, get an outline of her thesis nailed down, before she had to leave.

  “All right,” she said.

  “In the meantime, I want you to stay within the confines of the hotel. I’ve spoken to the chief of security here, an excellent woman, and you’ll be safe. You may be stuck here for a few days, however. The weather forecast is dire.”

  “Fine with me. So…are you going to tell me about your trip to Leadville?”

  “I am not.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the knowledge would only put you in more unnecessary danger. Please allow me to handle this from now on.”

  Despite his kindly tone, Corrie felt irritated. She’d agreed to what he asked. She was going back to New York as soon as the weather cleared. Why couldn’t he take her into his confidence? “If you insist,” she said.

  Pendergast rose. “I would invite you to dine with me, but I have to confer with the chief. They have made little progress on the arsonist case.”

  He left. Corrie thought for a moment, and then went over to the mini-bar. She was starving and had no money for food. Her breakfast deal didn’t begin until the next morning. The can of Pringles was eight dollars.

  Screw it, she thought as she tore off the lid.

  52

  Three o’clock in the morning, December twenty-fourth. After flitting like a specter past the worn shopfronts and dark windows of Old Town, Pendergast took just seconds to break into the Ideal Saloon, picking the picturesque but ineffectual nineteenth-century lock.

  He stepped into the dim space of the bar-cum-museum, its interior illuminated only by several strips of emergency fluorescent lighting, which cast garish shadows about the room. The saloon consisted of a large, central room, with circular tables, chairs, and a plank floor. A long bar ran the entire length of the far end. The walls consisted of wainscoting of vertical beadboard, gleaming with varnish and darkened by time, below flocked velvet wallpaper in a flowery Victorian pattern. The wall was decorated with sconces of copper and cut glass. Behind the bar and to the right, a staircase led up to what had been a small whorehouse. And farther off to the right, in an alcove partly under the staircase, stood some gaming tables. Velvet ropes just inside two swinging doors created a viewing area, preventing visitors from proceeding into the restored saloon.

  Moving without noise, Pendergast ducked under the ropes and took a long, thoughtful turn about the room. A whisky bottle and some shot glasses stood on the bar, and several tables were also arrayed with bottles and glasses. Behind the bar stood a large mirrored case of antique liquor bottles filled with colored water.

  He moved through the bar and into the gaming area. A poker table stood in one corner, covered with green felt, with hands of five-card stud laid out: four aces against a straight flush. A blackjack table, also artfully arranged with cards, stood beside a splendid antique roulette wheel with ivory, red jasper, and ebony inlay.

  Pendergast glided past the gaming area to a door under the stairs. He tried to open it, found it locked, and swiftly picked the lock.

  It opened into a small, dusty room, which remained unrestored, with cracked plaster walls and peeling wallpaper, some old chairs, and a broken table. Graffiti, some bearing dates from the 1930s, when Roaring Fork was still a ghost town, were scratched into the wall. A pile of broken whisky bottles lay in one corner. At the back of this room stood a door that led, Pendergast knew, to a rear exit.

  He took off his coat and scarf and carefully draped them over one of the chairs, and looked around, slowly and carefully, as if committing everything to memory. He stood, quite still, for a long time, and then finally he stirred. Choosing a vacant spot on the floor, he lay down on the dirty boards and folded his hands over his chest, like a corpse in a coffin. Slowly, very slowly, he closed his eyes. In the silence, he focused on the sounds of the snowstorm: the muffled wind shaking and moaning about the exterior walls, the creaking of the wood, the rattling of the tin roof. The air smelled of dust, dry rot, and mildew. He allowed his respiration and pulse to slow and his mind to relax.

  It was in this back room, he felt certain, that the Committee of Seven would have met up. But before he went down that avenue, there was another place he wished to visit first — a visit that would take place entirely within his mind.

  Pendergast had once spent time in a remote Tibetan monastery, studying an esoteric meditative discipline known as Chongg Ran. It was one of the least known of the Tibetan mind techniques. The teachings were never put down in writing, and they could only be transmitted directly teacher-to-pupil.

  Pendergast had taken the heart of Chongg Ran and combined it with several other mental disciplines, including the concept of a memory palace as described in a sixteenth-century Italian manuscript by Giordano Bruno titled Ars Memoria, Art of Memory. The result was a unique and highly complex form of mental visualization. With training, careful preparation, and a fanatical degree of intellectual discipline, the exercise allowed him to take a complex problem with many thousands of facts and surmises, and mentally stitch them together into a coherent narrative, which could then be processed, analyzed — and, especially, experienced. Pendergast used the technique to help solve elusive problems; to visualize places, via the force of his intellect, that could not be reached physically — far distant places, or even places in the past. The technique was extremely draining, however, and he employed it sparingly.

  He lay for many minutes, as still as a corpse, first arranging a hugely complex set of facts into careful order, then tuning his senses to the surrounding environment while simultaneously shutting down the voice in his mind, turning off that incessant running commentary all people carry in their heads. The voice had been especially voluble of late, and it took a great deal of effort to silence it; Pendergast was forced to move his meditative stance from the Third Level to the Fourth Level, doing complex equations in his head, playing four hands of bridge simultaneously. At last, the voice was silenced, and he then began the ancient steps of Chongg Ran itself. First, he blocked every sound, every sensation, one after another: the creaking of the building, the rustling of the wind, the scent of dust, the hard floor beneath him, the seeming infinitude of his own corporal awareness — until at length he arrived at the state of stong pa nyid: the condition of Pure Emptiness. For a moment, there was only nonexistence; even time itself seemed to fall away.

  But then — slowly, very slowly — something began to materi
alize out of the nothingness. At first it was as miniaturized, as delicate, as beautiful as a Fabergé egg. With that same lack of hurry, it grew larger and clearer. Eyes still shut, Pendergast allowed it to take on form and definition around him. And then, at last, he opened his eyes to find himself within a brightly lit space: a splendid and elegant dining room, refulgent with light and crystal, the clinking of glasses, and the murmur of genteel conversation.

  To the smell of cigar smoke and the learned discourse of a string quartet, Pendergast took in the opulent room. His eyes traveled over the tables, finally stopping at one in a far corner. Seated at it were four gentlemen. Two of the men were laughing together over some witticism or other — one wearing a broadcloth frock coat, the other in evening dress. Pendergast, however, was more interested in the other two diners. One was dressed flamboyantly: white kid gloves, a vest and cutaway coat of black velvet, a large frilled necktie, silk knee breeches and stockings, slippers adorned with grosgrain bows. An orchid drooped in his buttonhole. He was in deep descant, speaking animatedly, one hand pressed against his breast, the other pointing heavenward, index finger extended in a travesty of John the Baptist. The man beside him, who seemed to be hanging on his companion’s every word, presented an entirely different appearance, a contrast so strong as to almost be comical. He was a stocky fellow in a somber, sensible English suit, with big mustaches and an awkward bearing.

  They were Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle.

  Slowly, in his mind, Pendergast approached the table, listening intently, as the conversation — or, more frequently, monologue — became audible.

  “Indeed?” Wilde was saying, in a remarkably deep and sonorous voice. “Did you think that — as one who would happily sacrifice himself on the pyre of aestheticism — I do not recognize the face of horror when I stare into it?”

  There was no empty seat. Pendergast turned, motioned to a waiter, indicated the table. Immediately, the man brought up a fifth chair, placing it between Conan Doyle and the man Pendergast realized must be Joseph Stoddart.