Brimstone

"You look like you just escaped from the devil," Pendergast said.

"I did."

"Sherry?"

"You wouldn't happen to have a cold Bud?"

Pendergast looked pained. "Would a Pilsner Urquell do?"

"If it's beer, it'll do."

The other occupant of the library-a young woman in a long salmon-colored dress-rose and left the room. Within a few minutes, she was back, bearing a glass of beer on a salver. D'Agosta took it and drank gratefully. "Thanks, uh .    "

"Constance," came the soft reply.

"Constance Greene," said Pendergast. "My ward. This is Sergeant Vincent D'Agosta, a trusted associate of mine. He's assisting in this case."

D'Agosta glanced at Pendergast. His ward? What the hell did that mean? He looked back more curiously at the girl. She was beautiful, in a pale, delicate kind of way. Her dress was very proper and demure, but the breasts that swelled the lace-front brought a most undemure stirring to D'Agosta's loins. Despite the old-fashioned clothes, she looked no older than twenty. But those violet eyes of hers, so alert and intelligent, somehow didn't look like the eyes of a young girl at all. Not at all.

"Glad to meet you," said D'Agosta, straightening up in his chair and wincing.

"Are you hurt?" Pendergast asked.

"Just about everywhere." D'Agosta took another long pull.

"Tell us what happened."

D'Agosta set down the glass. "I'll start at the begi

"Interesting."

"Yeah, a real piece of work. Big, ugly, arrogant motherf-" D'Agosta glanced at the girl. "Man. Basically, he blew me off. I left, ate di

"Heading north or south?"

D'Agosta wondered why that was important. "North."

Pendergast nodded.

"I saw something was about to come down, so I ran into Riverside Park. Two guys jumped out and chased me, shooting laser-sighted handguns: accurate, large-caliber. Chased me through the park. I ran down toward the West Side Highway and came up against a chain-link fence. I really thought it was over. Then I noticed a recent car wreck fifty yards on. Some shitbox had gone through the fence, making a gap. Just left the car rotting there. I dove through the gap, lost them on the highway, flagged down a car. It let me off at the next exit, but I couldn't get a cab and had to walk the thirty blocks back down. Sticking to the shadows the whole way, watching out for that Impala-it took quite some time."

Pendergast nodded again. "So one of the men followed you onto the subway, the other drove the car. They reco

"That's how I figured it. An old trick."

"Did you return fire?"

"Lot of good it did me."

"Ah! And your vaunted shooting ability?"

D'Agosta looked down. "Little rusty."

"The question is, who sent them?"

"It seemed to happen awful damn fast after I got Bullard stirred up."

"Perhaps too fast."

"Bullard didn't look like the kind of guy who would wait. He's the decisive type."

Pendergast nodded.

Throughout this recitation, the young woman had listened politely. Now she rose from the couch. "With your permission, I'll leave you to discuss this matter amongst yourselves." She had a precise, ma

A moment later the door to the library closed, and silence fell.

"Ward, huh?" said D'Agosta.

Pendergast nodded.

"Where'd she come from?"

"I inherited her with the house."

"How the heck do you 'inherit' someone? She a relative?"

"Not a relative. It's rather complicated. This house and its collections were passed down to me from my great-uncle Antoine. She was discovered in the house by an acquaintance of mine who cataloged the mansion's collections during the summer. She'd been hiding here."

"For how long?"

There was a pause. "A good while."

"What is she, a runaway? Doesn't she have family?"

"She's an orphan. My great-uncle had taken her in, looked after her welfare, educated her."

"Yeah? He sounds like a saint."

"Hardly. As it happens, Constance was the only person he ever cared for. In fact, he continued caring for her long after he'd stopped caring even about himself. He was a misanthrope, but she was the exception that proved his rule. In any case, it seems I'm her only family now. But I must ask you not to mention any of this in her presence. The last six months have been exceptionally .     trying for her."

"How so?"

"That is something better left in the past. Suffice it to say, Vincent, that Constance is the i

"At least she's not hard to look at." When he felt Pendergast's un-amused gaze on him D'Agosta cleared his throat and added hastily, "How did your own interviews go?"

"Montcalm could add little to what we already know. He was away until yesterday, traveling. It seems that Grove left a frantic message with his assistant: How does one break a contract with the devil? The assistant threw the note away-apparently Montcalm is a magnet for cranks and gets many such messages. He could add nothing else. Fosco, on the other hand, proved to be most interesting."

"I hope you really sweated him."

"I'm not sure who sweated who."

D'Agosta could not imagine anyone sweating Pendergast. "Is he involved?"

"That depends on what you mean by involved. He is a remarkable man, and his recollections proved to be invaluable."

"Well, the jury's still out on both Cutforth and Bullard."

"You said Cutforth was a liar, as well as Bullard. How do you know?"

"He told me Grove had called him in the middle of the night, wishing to buy some piece of rock memorabilia. I bluffed him by saying Grove hated rock music. His look gave him away immediately."

"A crude lie."

"He's a crude man, and pretty stupid to boot. I imagine he's good at what he does, though, given all the dough he's made."

"Intelligence, culture, and education are not qualities generally associated with the popular music business."