Relic (Pendergast, Book 1)

by Preston, Douglas

  An empty backpack slapped damply against his shoulders with each step. As he walked, Ven reached into a pocket, withdrew a key, and clenched it tightly. That key was his lifeline. Before he’d spent two days on the docks, he’d had an impression made of it.

  Ven passed a small freighter berthed along the wharf, its heavy hawsers dripping black water onto rusted bitts. The ship seemed deserted, not even a harbor watch on deck. He slowed. The warehouse door lay directly ahead, near the end of the main pier. Ven glanced quickly over his shoulder. Then, with a quick turn of his hand, he unlocked the metal door and slipped inside.

  Pulling the door closed, he let his eyes grow accustomed to the darkness. Halfway home. He just had to finish up in here and get the hell out.

  As soon as possible. Because Ricon was growing greedy, cruzeiros running through his hands like water. Last time, he’d made a crack about the size of his cut. Just that morning, Ricon and the foreman had been talking fast and low, the foreman looking over at Ven. Now, Ven’s instincts told him to get away.

  Inside, he saw the darkened warehouse resolve itself into a vague landscape of cargo containers and packing crates. He couldn’t chance a flashlight, but it didn’t matter: he knew the layout well enough to walk it in his dreams. He moved forward carefully, threading a path through the vast mountains of cargo.

  At last, he saw the landmark he’d been waiting for: a battered-looking stack of crates, six large and one small, stacked in a forlorn corner. Two of the larger crates were stenciled MNH, NEW YORK.

  Months before, Ven had asked about these crates. The quartermaster’s boy had told him the story. Seemed the crates had come downriver from Pôrto de Mós the previous fall. They’d been scheduled for air shipment to a New York museum, but something had happened to the people who’d made the arrangements—the apprentice couldn’t say exactly what. But payment hadn’t come through in time, and now the crates were snarled in a mass of red tape, seemingly forgotten.

  Except by Ven. There was just enough room behind the forgotten crates for him to stash his shipments until the outgoing freighters were loading.

  The warm night breeze came in from a broken window high in the wall, stirring the sweat on Ven’s forehead. He smiled in the darkness. Just the other week, he’d learned that soon the crates would finally be shipped back to the States. But he’d be long gone by then.

  Now, he checked his own cache. Just a single box this time, whose contents would fit nicely into the corners of his backpack. He knew where the markets were and what to do. And he’d be doing it—somewhere far away—very soon.

  As he was about to squeeze behind the large crates, Ven stopped abruptly. There was a strange odor here: something earthy, goatish, decaying. A lot of odd cargoes had come through the port, but none smelling quite like this.

  His instincts were going off five-alarm, yet he couldn’t detect anything wrong or out of place. He slid forward, between the Museum cargo and the wall.

  He stopped again. Something wasn’t right back here. Something wasn’t right at all.

  He heard, rather than saw, something moving in the cramped space. The pungent odor welled forward, blanketing him with its rotten stench. Suddenly, he was slammed against the wall with terrific force. Pain exploded in his chest and gut. He opened his mouth to scream, but something was boiling in his throat, and then a stab like lightning tore through his skull, leaving only darkness behind.

  MUSEUM OF UNNATURAL MYSTERY

  PART ONE

  3

  New York, Present Day

  The red-haired kid was clambering onto the platform, calling his younger brother a chicken, reaching toward the elephant’s foot. Juan eyed him silently, easing himself forward just as the kid’s hand touched the exhibit.

  “Yo!” Juan yelled, breaking into a trot. “Hey, no touching the elephants.” The boy looked scared and snatched back his hand; he was still at an age where a uniform impressed him. Older ones—fifteen, sixteen—would give Juan the finger sometimes. They knew he was only a museum guard. Lousy fucking job. One of these days he was going to finish that equivalency shit and take the police exam.

  He watched suspiciously as red-hair and little brother walked around the cases in the darkened hall, looking at the stuffed lions. At the case full of chimps, the boy started hooting and scratching under his arms, showing off for junior’s benefit. Where the hell were the parents?

  Now Billy, the redhead, tugged his little brother into a chamber filled with African artifacts. A row of masks with flat wooden teeth leered at them from a showcase. “Wow!” exclaimed Billy’s kid brother.

  “That’s dumb,” said Billy. “We’re going to see the dinosaurs.”

  “Where’s Mommy?” said the kid, screwing his head around.

  “Aw, she got lost,” said Billy. “Come on.”

  They began to move through a vast, echoing hall filled with totem poles. At the far end, a woman holding a red flag was leading the final tour group of the day, her voice shrill. To Billy’s younger brother, the hall smelled faintly spooky, like smoke and old tree roots. When the group disappeared around a corner, the hall fell silent.

  The last time they had been there, Billy remembered, they had seen the biggest brontosaurus in the world, and a tyrannosaurus and a trachydent. At least, that’s what he thought it was called, a trachydent. The teeth on the tyrannosaurus must have been ten feet long. That was just about the greatest thing Billy had ever seen. But he didn’t remember seeing these totem poles. Maybe the dinosaurs were through the next door. But that led only to the boring Hall of Pacific Peoples, full of jades and ivories and silks and bronze statues.

  “Now look what you did,” said Billy.

  “What?”

  “You made me get lost, that’s what,” said Billy.

  “Mommy’s gonna be real mad,” the kid said.

  Billy snorted. They weren’t supposed to meet his parents until closing time, on the big front steps. He’d find his way out, no problem.

  They wound through several more dusty rooms, down a narrow flight of stairs, and into a long dim hall. Thousands of little stuffed birds lined the walls from floor to ceiling, white cotton poking out of sightless eyes. The hall was empty and smelled of mothballs.

  “I know where we are,” said Billy, hopefully, peering into the dimness.

  The kid started to snuffle.

  “Shut up,” said Billy. The snuffling stopped.

  The hall took a sharp dogleg, ending in a darkened cul-de-sac full of dust and empty display cases. There were no visible exits except back through the hall of dead birds. The footfalls of the children echoed hollowly, far from the other Sunday tourists. Against the far side of the chamber stood a rolling barricade of canvas and wood, pretending unsuccessfully to be a wall. Letting go of his brother’s hand, Billy walked up and peered behind the barricade.

  “I been here before,” he said confidently. “They’ve closed this place off, but it was open last time. I bet we’re right below the dinosaurs. Lemme just see if there’s a way up.”

  “You’re not supposed to go back there,” the kid brother warned.

  “Listen, stupid, I’m going. And you’d better wait.” Billy ducked behind the barricade, and a few moments later the kid heard the squeal of metal as a door was pulled open.

  “Hey!” came Billy’s voice. “There’s a spiral staircase here. It only goes down, but it’s cool. I’m gonna try it out.”

  “Don’t! Billy!” the kid cried, but the only answer was retreating footsteps.

  The kid started to bawl, his thin voice rising in the gloom of the hall. After a few minutes he fell to hiccupping, sniffed loudly, and sat down on the floor. He started pulling on a little flap of rubber that was coming off the toe of his sneaker, working it loose.

  Suddenly, he looked up. The hall was silent and airless. The lights in the cases threw black shadows on the floor. A forced-air duct thumped and began to rumble somewhere. Billy was gone for real now. The kid started to cry agai
n, louder this time.

  Maybe it would be okay if he followed Billy. Maybe it wasn’t such a scary thing after all. Maybe Billy had gone ahead and found his parents, and they were waiting for him, there on the other side. But he had to hurry. The Museum was probably closed by now.

  He stood up and slipped behind the partition. The hall continued on, the cases filled with the dust and mold of long-neglected exhibits. An ancient metal door on one side of the hall was slightly ajar.

  The kid walked up to it and peered in. Behind the door was the top landing of a narrow spiral staircase that circled downward out of sight. It was even dustier here, and there was a strange smell in the air that made his nose wrinkle. He didn’t want to stand on those steps, at all. But Billy was down there.

  “Billy!” he called. “Billy, come up! Please!”

  In the cavernous gloom, his echoes were the only answer. The child sniffled, then gripped the railing and began walking slowly down into darkness.

  4

  Monday

  As Margo Green rounded the corner of West Seventy-second Street, the early morning sun struck her square in the face. She looked down a minute, blinking; then, tossing her brown hair back, she crossed the street. The New York Museum of Natural History loomed before her like an ancient fortress, its vast Beaux Arts facade climbing ponderously above a row of copper beeches.

  Margo turned down the cobbled driveway that led to the staff entrance. She walked past a loading dock and headed for the granite tunnel leading to the interior courtyards of the Museum. Then she slowed, wary. Flickering stripes of red light were painting the mouth of the tunnel in front of her. At the far end, she could see ambulances, police cars, and an Emergency Services vehicle, all parked at random.

  Margo entered the tunnel and walked toward a glass pillbox. Normally, old Curly the guard would be dozing in his chair at this time of the morning, propped up against the pillbox corner, a blackened calabash pipe resting on his ample front. But today he was awake and standing. He slid the door open. “Morning, Doctor,” he said. He called everyone ‘doctor,’ from graduate students to the Museum Director, whether they owned that title or not.

  “What’s up?” Margo asked.

  “Don’t know,” Curly said. “They just got here two minutes ago. But I guess I’d better see your ID this time.”

  Margo rummaged in her carryall, wondering if she even had her ID. It had been months since someone had asked to see it. “I’m not sure I’ve got it with me,” she said, annoyed that she hadn’t cleaned her bag of last winter’s detritus. Her carryall had recently won ‘messiest bag in the Museum’ status from her friends in the Anthro Department.

  The pillbox telephone rang, and Curly reached for it. Margo found her ID and held it up to the window, but Curly ignored her, his eyes wide as he listened to the receiver.

  He put it down without saying a word, his whole body rigidly at attention.

  “Well?” Margo asked. “What’s happened?”

  Curly removed his pipe. “You don’t want to know,” he said.

  The phone rang again and Curly grabbed it.

  Margo had never seen the guard move so quickly. She shrugged, dropped the ID back in her bag, and walked on. The next chapter of her dissertation was coming due, and she couldn’t afford to lose a single day. The week before had been a write-off—the service for her father, the formalities, the phone calls. Now, she couldn’t lose any more time.

  Crossing the courtyard, she entered the Museum through the staff door, turned right, and hurried down a long basement corridor toward the Anthropology Department. The various staff offices were dark, as they always were until nine-thirty or ten o’clock.

  The corridor took an abrupt right angle, and she stopped. A band of yellow plastic tape was stretched across the corridor. Margo could make out the printing: NYPD CRIME SCENE—DO NOT CROSS. Jimmy, a guard usually assigned to the Peruvian Gold Hall, was standing in front of the tape with Gregory Kawakita, a young Assistant Curator in the Evolutionary Biology Department.

  “What’s going on here?” Margo asked.

  “Typical Museum efficiency,” Kawakita said with a wry smile. “We’ve been locked out.”

  “Nobody’s told me nothing, except to keep everyone out,” the guard said nervously.

  “Look,” Kawakita said, “I’m giving a presentation to the NSF next week, and this day’s going to be a long one. Now, if you’ll let me—”

  Jimmy looked uncomfortable. “I’m just doing my job, okay?”

  “Come on,” Margo said to Kawakita. “Let’s get some coffee up in the lounge. Maybe someone there will know what’s going on.”

  “First I want to hunt down a men’s room, if I can find one that isn’t sealed off,” Kawakita responded irritably. “I’ll meet you there.”

  * * *

  The door to the staff lounge, which was never closed, was closed today. Margo put her hand on the knob, wondering if she should wait for Kawakita. Then she opened the door. It would be a cold day in hell when she needed him as backup.

  Inside, two policemen were talking, their backs turned to her. One sniggered. “What was that, number six?” he said.

  “Lost count,” the other replied. “But he can’t have any more breakfast to bring up.” As the officers moved apart, Margo got a look at the lounge behind them.

  The large room was deserted. In the kitchen area at the far end, someone was leaning over the sink. He spat, wiped his mouth, and turned around. Margo recognized Charlie Prine, the new conservation expert in the Anthro Department, hired on a temporary grant six months before to restore objects for the new exhibition. His face was ashen and expressionless.

  Moving to Prine’s side, the officers propelled him gently forward.

  Margo stood aside to let the group pass. Prine walked stiffly, like a robot. Instinctively, Margo’s eyes traveled downward.

  Prine’s shoes were soaked in blood.

  Watching her vacantly, Prine registered the change of expression. His eyes followed hers; then he stopped so suddenly that the cop behind plowed into his back.

  Prine’s eyes grew large and white. The policemen grabbed his arms and he resisted, neighing in panic. Quickly, they moved him out of the room.

  Margo leaned against the wall, willing her heart to slow down as Kawakita came in, followed by several others. “Half this Museum must be sealed off,” he said, shaking his head and pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Nobody can get into their offices.”

  As if on cue, the Museum’s ancient PA system wheezed into operation. “Attention please. All nonsupport personnel currently on the premises please report to the staff lounge.”

  As they sat down, more staffers entered in twos and threes. Lab technicians, for the most part, and assistant curators without tenure; too early for the really important people. Margo watched them detachedly. Kawakita was talking but she couldn’t hear him.

  Within ten minutes, the room was packed. Everyone was talking at once: expressing outrage that their offices were off-limits, complaining about how no one was telling them anything, discussing each new rumor in shocked tones. Clearly, in a museum where nothing exciting ever seemed to happen, they were having the time of their lives.

  Kawakita gulped his coffee, made a face. “Will you look at that sediment?” He turned toward her. “Been struck dumb, Margo? You haven’t said a word since we sat down.”

  Haltingly, she told him about Prine. Kawakita’s handsome features narrowed. “My God,” he finally said. “What do you suppose happened?”

  As his baritone voice boomed, Margo realized that the conversation in the lounge had died away. A heavyset, balding man in a brown suit was standing in the doorway, a police radio shoved into one pocket of his ill-fitting jacket, an unlit cigar protruding from his mouth. Now he strode through, followed by two uniformed policemen.

  He centered himself at the front of the room, hiked up his pants, removed his cigar, picked a piece of tobacco off his tongue, and cleared his throat.
“May I have your attention, please,” he said. “A situation has arisen that’s going to require you to bear with us for a while.”

  Suddenly, a voice rang out accusingly from the back of the room. “Ex-cuse me, Mister?…”

  Margo craned her neck over the crowd. “Freed,” Kawakita whispered. Margo had heard of Frank Freed, a testy Ichthyology curator.

  The man in brown turned to look at Freed. “Lieutenant D’Agosta,” he rapped out. “New York City Police Department.”

  It was a reply that would have shut most people up. Freed, an emaciated man with long gray hair, was undaunted. “Perhaps,” he said sarcastically, “we may be informed of what exactly is going on around here? I think we have a right…”

  “I’d like to brief you on what happened,” D’Agosta resumed. “But at this point, all we can say is that a body has been found on the premises, under circumstances we are currently investigating. If—”

  At the explosion of talk, D’Agosta wearily held up his hand.

  “I can only tell you that a homicide squad is on the scene and that an investigation is in progress,” he continued. “Effective immediately, the Museum is closed. For the time being, no one may enter, and no one may leave. We expect this to be a very temporary condition.”

  He paused. “If a homicide has occurred, there is a possibility, a possibility, that the killer is still inside the Museum. We would merely ask you to remain here an hour or two while a sweep is conducted. A police officer will be around to take your names and titles.”

  In the stunned silence that followed, he left the room, closing the door behind him. One of the remaining policemen dragged a chair over to the door and sat down heavily in it. Slowly, the conversations began to resume. “We’re being locked in here?” Freed cried out. “This is outrageous.”