Fever Dream

by Douglas Preston

  “Manager around?” he said in a demanding voice, his southern accent sinking about five notches in refinement.

  One of the girls wordlessly turned and went into the back. A minute later, she returned with a middle-aged man. His thick forearms were coated in blond hair, and he was sweating despite the cool of the day.

  “Yeah?” he said, wiping flour onto an apron already heavy with grease and doughnut batter.

  “You’re the manager?”

  “Yeah.”

  Pendergast reached into the back pocket of his denims, brought out an ID billfold. “We’re from the Buildings Department, Code Enforcement Division. My name’s Addison and my partner here is Steele.”

  The man scrutinized the ID Pendergast had doctored up the night before, then grunted. “So what do you want?”

  Pendergast put away the billfold and pulled out a few stapled sheets of official-looking paper. “Our office has been conducting an audit of the construction and permits records of buildings in the general vicinity, and we’ve found several of them—including yours—that have problems. Big problems.”

  The man looked at the outstretched sheets, frowning. “What kind of problems?”

  “Irregularities in the permitting process. Structural issues.”

  “That can’t be,” he said. “We get our inspections regular, just like the food and sanitation—”

  “We’re not food inspectors,” Pendergast interrupted sarcastically. “The records show this structure was built without the proper permits.”

  “Hold on, now. We been here a dozen years—”

  “Just why do you think the audit was ordered?” Pendergast said, still waving the sheets of paper in the man’s sweaty face. “There’ve been irregularities. Allegations of corruption.”

  “Hey, I’m not the guy you need to talk to about that. The franchise office handles—”

  “You’re the guy who’s here now.” Pendergast leaned forward. “We need to get down into that basement and see just how bad the situation is.” Pendergast stuffed the papers back into the pocket of his shirt. “And I mean now.”

  “You want to see the basement? Be my guest,” the manager said, sweating profusely. “It ain’t my fault if there’s a problem. I just work here.”

  “Very well. Let’s get going.”

  “Joanie here will take you down while Mary Kate attends to the customers—”

  “Oh, no,” Pendergast interrupted again. “Oh, no, no, no. No customers. Not until we’re done.”

  “No customers?” the man repeated. “I’m trying to run a doughnut shop here.”

  Pendergast bent closer now. “This is a dangerous, maybe life-threatening situation. Our analysis shows the building is unsound. You are required to close your doors to the public until we have completed our check of the foundation and the load-bearing members.”

  “I don’t know,” the manager said, his frown deepening. “I’m gonna have to call the main office. We’ve never closed during business hours before, and my franchise contract states—”

  “You don’t know? We aren’t going to waste time while you call up every Tom, Dick, and Harry you’ve a mind to.” Pendergast leaned in even closer. “Why, exactly, are you stalling? Do you know what would happen if the floor collapsed under a customer while he was eating a box of—” here Pendergast paused to glance at the menu posted above the counter, “—chocolate-banana double-cream glazed FatOnes?”

  Silently, the man shook his head.

  “You’d be charged. Personally. Criminal negligence. Manslaughter in the second degree. Maybe even… in the first degree.”

  The manager took a step backward. He gulped for air, fresh sweat popping on his brow.

  Pendergast let a strained silence build. “Tell you what I’ll do,” he said with sudden magnanimity. “While you put up the CLOSED sign, Mr. Steele and I will make a quick visual inspection downstairs. If the situation is less grave than we’ve been led to believe, business can resume while we complete our site report.”

  The man’s face broke out in unexpected relief. He turned to his employees. “Mary Kate, we’re closing up for a few minutes. Joanie, show these men to the basement.”

  Pendergast and D’Agosta followed Joanie through the kitchen, past a pantry and restroom, to an unmarked door. Beyond, a steep concrete stairway led down into darkness. The girl switched on the light, revealing a graveyard of old equipment—professional stand mixers and industrial-strength deep-fat fryers, apparently all awaiting repair. The basement itself was clearly very old, with facing walls of undressed stone, roughly mortared. The other two walls were made of brick. These, though apparently even older, were much more carefully fitted together. A number of plastic garbage bins lined the floor by the stairway, and untidy heaps of tarps and plastic sheeting lay, apparently forgotten, in a corner.

  Pendergast turned. “Thank you, Joanie. We’ll work alone. Please shut the door on your way out.”

  The girl nodded and retreated up the stairs.

  Pendergast walked over to one of the brick walls. “Vincent,” he said, resuming his usual voice, “unless I am much mistaken, about twelve feet beyond this lies another wall: that of Arne Torgensson’s basement. And in between we should find a section of the old aqueduct, in which, perhaps, the good doctor has hidden something.”

  D’Agosta dropped the tool sack on the ground with a thump. “I figure we got two minutes, tops, before that jackass upstairs calls his boss and the shit hits the fan.”

  “You employ such colorful expressions,” Pendergast murmured, examining the brick wall with his loupe and rapping on it with a ball-peen hammer. “However, I think I can buy us some more time.”

  “Oh, yeah? How?”

  “I’m afraid I must inform our managerial friend that the situation is even more dire than we first thought. Not only must the shop be closed to customers—the workers themselves must vacate the premises until we complete our inspection.”

  Pendergast’s light tread up the stairs receded quickly into silence. D’Agosta waited in the cool, dry darkness. After a moment an irruption of noise sounded from above: a protest, raised voices. Almost as quickly as it started, the noise ceased. Pendergast reappeared on the landing. Carefully closing and locking the door behind him, he descended the stairs and walked over to the bag of tools. Reaching into it, he pulled out a short-handled sledgehammer and handed it to D’Agosta.

  “Vincent,” he said with a ghost of a smile, “I yield the floor to you.”

  36

  AS D’AGOSTA HEFTED THE SLEDGEHAMMER, PENDERGAST bent close to the ancient wall, rapping first on one stone, then another, all the while listening intently. The light was dim, and D’Agosta had to squint to see. After a few moments, the FBI agent gave a low grunt of satisfaction and straightened up.

  “Here,” he said, pointing to a brick near the middle of the wall.

  D’Agosta came over, gave the sledgehammer a practice swing like a batter on deck.

  “I’ve bought us five minutes,” Pendergast said. “Ten at most. By then our managerial friend will undoubtedly be back. And this time he may bring company.”

  D’Agosta swung the sledgehammer at the wall. Though he missed the indicated spot by a few bricks, the iron impacted the wall with a blow that shivered its way through his hands and up his arms. A second blow struck truer, and a third. He set down the sledgehammer, wiped his hands on the back of his pants, got a better grip, and returned to work. Another dozen or so heavy blows and Pendergast gestured for him to stop. D’Agosta stepped back, panting.

  The agent glided up, waving aside a pall of cement dust. Playing a flashlight over the wall, he rapped on the bricks again, one after another. “They’re coming loose. Keep at it, Vincent.”

  D’Agosta stepped forward again and gave the wall another series of solid blows. With the last came a crumbling sound, and one of the bricks shattered. Pendergast darted forward again, cold chisel in one hand and hammer in the other. He felt briefly along the sag
ging wall, then raised the hammer and applied several carefully placed strikes to the surrounding matrix of mortar and ancient concrete. Several more bricks were jarred loose, and Pendergast pried away others with his hands. Dropping the chisel and hammer, he played his flashlight over the wall. A hole was now visible, roughly the size of a beach ball. Pendergast thrust his head through it, aiming his flashlight this way and that.

  “What do you see?” asked D’Agosta.

  In response, Pendergast stepped away. “A few more, if you please,” he said, indicating the sledgehammer.

  This time, D’Agosta aimed his blows all around the edges of the ragged hole, concentrating on its upper edge. Bricks, chips, and old plaster rained down. At last, Pendergast once again gave the signal to stop. D’Agosta did so gladly, heaving with the effort.

  From beyond the closed door at the top of the stairwell came a noise. The manager was coming back into the building.

  Pendergast again approached the yawning hole in the wall, and D’Agosta crowded up behind. Through the billows of dust, the beams of their flashlights revealed a shallow space beyond the broken stones. It was a chamber perhaps twelve feet wide and four feet deep. Abruptly D’Agosta stopped breathing. His yellow beam had fallen on a flat wooden crate leaning against the far wall, reinforced on both sides by wooden struts. It was just about the size, D’Agosta thought, you’d expect a painting to be. There was nothing else visible through the pall of dust.

  The doorknob above them rattled. “Hey!” came the voice of the manager. It had regained much of its original aggressive character. “What the heck are you doing down there?”

  Pendergast glanced around rapidly. “Vincent,” he said, turning and directing his beam to the pile of tarps and plastic sheets in the far corner. “Hurry.”

  Nothing more needed to be said. D’Agosta rushed over to the pile, rummaging through it for a tarp of sufficient size, while Pendergast ducked through the newly made hole in the wall.

  “I’m coming down,” the manager said, rattling the door. “Open this door!”

  Pendergast dragged the crate from its hiding place. D’Agosta helped him maneuver it through the hole, and together they wrapped it in the plastic tarp.

  “I’ve called the franchise office in New Orleans,” came the manager’s voice. “You can’t just come in here and shut down the shop! This is the first time anyone’s heard of these so-called inspections you’re doing—”

  D’Agosta grabbed one end of the crate, Pendergast the other, and they began ascending the stairs. D’Agosta could hear a key going into the lock. “Make way!” Pendergast bellowed, emerging from the cloud of dust into the dim basement light. The wooden box was in their arms, shrouded by the tarp. “Make way, now!”

  The door flung open and the red-faced manager stood blocking the door. “Just what the hell have you got there?” he demanded.

  “Evidence in a possible criminal case.” They gained the landing. “Things are looking even worse for you than before, Mr….” Pendergast peered at the manager’s name tag. “Mr. Bona.”

  “Me? I’ve only been manager here for six months, I was transferred from—”

  “You are the party of record. If there has been criminal activity here—and I am increasingly confident there has been—your name will be on the affidavit. Now, are you going to step aside or do I have to add impeding an active investigation to the list of potential charges?”

  There was a brief moment of stasis. Then Bona stepped unwillingly to one side. Pendergast brushed past, cradling the tarp-covered crate, and D’Agosta followed quickly behind.

  “We must hurry,” Pendergast said under his breath as they charged out the door. Already, the manager was making his way down into the basement, punching a number into a cell phone as he went.

  They ran down the street to the Rolls. Pendergast opened the trunk, and they put the crate inside, wrapped in its protective tarp. The hard hats followed, along with D’Agosta’s workbag. They slammed the trunk and climbed hurriedly into the front seat, Pendergast not even bothering to remove his tool belt.

  As Pendergast started the car, D’Agosta saw the manager emerging from the doughnut shop. The cell phone was still clamped in one hand. “Hey!” they heard him yelling from a block away. “Hey, you! Stop!”

  Pendergast put the car in gear and jammed on the accelerator. The Rolls shrieked through a U-turn and tore down the road in the direction of Court Street and the freeway.

  He glanced over at D’Agosta. “Well done, my dear Vincent.” And this time, his smile wasn’t ghostly—it was genuine.

  37

  THEY TURNED ONTO ALEXANDER DRIVE, THEN took the on-ramp to I-10 and the Horace Wilkinson Bridge. D’Agosta sank back gratefully in his seat. The broad Mississippi rolled by beneath them, sullen-looking below the leaden sky.

  “You think that’s it?” D’Agosta asked. “The Black Frame?”

  “Absolutely.”

  From the bridge, they crossed into Baton Rouge proper. It was midafternoon, and the traffic was moderate. Curtains of rain beat against the windshield and drummed on the vehicle roof. One after another the southbound cars fell smoothly behind them. They passed the I-12 interchange as D’Agosta stirred restlessly. He didn’t want to get his hopes up. But maybe—just maybe—this meant he’d be seeing Laura Hayward sooner rather than later. He hadn’t realized just how difficult this forced separation would be. Speaking to her every night helped, of course, but it was no substitute for…

  “Vincent,” Pendergast said. “Take a look in the rearview mirror, if you please.”

  D’Agosta complied. At first, he saw nothing unusual in the procession of cars behind them. But then, when Pendergast changed lanes, he saw another car—four, maybe five back—do the same. It was a late-model sedan, dark blue or black; it was hard to tell in the rain.

  Pendergast accelerated slightly, passed a few cars, then returned to his original lane. A minute or two later, the dark sedan did the same.

  “I see him,” D’Agosta muttered.

  They continued for several minutes. The car stayed with them, hanging back, careful not to be too obvious.

  “You think that’s the manager?” D’Agosta asked. “Bona?”

  Pendergast shook his head. “That fellow behind us has been tailing us since this morning.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I’m going to wait until we reach the outskirts of the city. Then, we shall see. Local roads might prove useful.”

  They passed the Mall of Louisiana, several parks and country clubs. The cityscape gave way to suburban sprawl, and then ultimately to patches of rural lowlands. D’Agosta drew out his Glock, racked a round into the chamber.

  “Save that for a last resort,” Pendergast said. “We can’t risk damage to the painting.”

  What about damage to us? D’Agosta thought. He glanced in the rearview mirror, but it was impossible to see into the dark sedan. They were passing the Sorrento exit, the traffic thinning still further.

  “Are we going to box him in?” D’Agosta said. “Force his hand?”

  “My preference is to lose him,” Pendergast said. “You’d be surprised what a vintage Rolls is capable of.”

  “Yeah, right—”

  Pendergast floored the accelerator and turned the wheel sharply right. The Rolls shot forward, remarkably responsive for such a large vehicle, then sliced across two lanes of traffic and careered down the exit ramp without reducing speed.

  D’Agosta lurched heavily into the passenger door. Glancing into the mirror again, he saw that their tail had followed suit and, cutting before a box truck, was now shooting down the ramp after them.

  Reaching the bottom of the ramp, Pendergast blew past the stop sign and onto Route 22, tires squealing as the rear of the vehicle fish-tailed through a one-hundred-twenty-degree arc. Expertly turning into the spin, Pendergast maneuvered into the proper lane and then stamped on the gas again. They tore down the state road, blowing past a painter’s van, a B
uick, and a crawfish transport truck. Angry horns sounded behind them.

  D’Agosta glanced over his shoulder. The sedan was pacing them, abandoning any effort at concealment.

  “He’s still coming,” he said.

  Pendergast nodded.

  Accelerating further, they sped through a small commercial area—three blocks of farm implement stores and hardware shops, moving past in a blur. Up ahead, a set of lights marked the intersection of Route 22 with the Airline Highway. Several vehicles were moving across it now, brake lights rippling in a serried stream. They shot over a railroad track, the Rolls briefly airborne at the rise, and neared the crossing. As they did so, the light turned yellow, then red.

  “Christ,” murmured D’Agosta, taking a tight grip on the handle of the passenger door.

  Flashing his lights and leaning on the horn, Pendergast found a lane between the cars ahead and the oncoming traffic. A fresh volley of honks sounded as they hurtled through the rain-slick crossing, barely missing an eighteen-wheeler that was nosing into the intersection. Pendergast had not taken his foot from the accelerator, and the needle was now trembling past one hundred.

  “Maybe we should just stop and confront the guy,” said D’Agosta. “Ask him who he’s working for.”

  “How dull. And we know who he’s working for.”

  They whipped past one car, then another and another, the vehicles merely blurs of stationary color on the road. Now the traffic was all behind them and the road ahead was empty. Houses, commercial buildings, and the occasional sad-looking feed or supply store fell away as they entered the swamplands. A stand of crape trees, bleak sentinels under the gunmetal sky, whisked past in an instant. The windshield wipers beat their regular cadence against the glass. D’Agosta allowed his grip on the door handle to relax somewhat.

  He glanced over his shoulder again. All clear.

  No—no, it wasn’t. From among the vague outlines of vehicles behind them, a single shape resolved itself. It was the dark sedan, far behind but coming up fast.