Brimstone

"Treat him like a rational human being?" Grable repeated. "The man's a convicted murderer."

The psychologist chuckled. Hayward glanced at him, and he returned the look. His expression had become even more condescending. She wondered if he knew something she didn't. This was all begi

"And if your plan doesn't work?" Commissioner Rocker asked her.

"Then I would defer to, ah, Mr. Wentworth."

"That's Doc-," began Wentworth, but he was interrupted by Grable.

"Commissioner, we don't have the time to try first one plan and then another. We need to get Buck out now. Either he comes nicely or in cuffs-his choice. We do it quick, at dawn. He'll be sweating in the back of a squad car even before his followers know he's missing."

Silence. Rocker was looking around the room. There were a couple of men who hadn't spoken. "Gentlemen?"

Nods, murmurs. Everyone, it seemed, agreed with the psychologist and Grable.

"Well," said Rocker, rising. "I have to go along with the consensus. After all, we don't have a psychologist on staff only to ignore his advice." He glanced at Hayward. She couldn't quite read his expression, but she sensed something not unsympathetic in the look.

"We'll go in with a small group, as Wentworth suggests," Rocker continued. "Just two officers. Captain Grable, you'll be the first."

Grable looked at him in surprise.

"It's your precinct, as you took pains to point out. And you're the one advocating quick action."

Grable quickly mastered his surprise. "Of course, sir. Quite right."

"And also as Wentworth suggests, we'll send in a woman." Rocker nodded to Hayward. "That would be you."

The room fell silent. Hayward saw Grable and Wentworth exchanging glances.

But Rocker was still looking directly at her. Keep things rational for me, Hayward , the look seemed to say.

"Buck will appreciate two ranking officers. That should appeal to his sense of importance." Rocker turned. "Grable, you've got seniority and it's your operation. I leave it to you to organize the details and timing. This meeting is adjourned."

{ 64 }

The morning after the trip to Cremona was bright and crisp, and D'Agosta squinted against the noonday sun as he accompanied Pendergast back to Piazza Santo Spirito, across the river from their hotel.

"You checked in with Captain Hayward?" Pendergast asked as they walked.

"Just before going to bed."

"Anything of interest?"

"Not really. What few leads they'd been following up on Cutforth all turned into dead ends. The security video cams at his building told them nothing. It's the same with Grove, apparently. And now, all the top New York brass are preoccupied with this preacher who's taken up residence in Central Park."

This time, D'Agosta found the piazza not nearly as quiet as before: its tranquillity was spoiled by a large group of backpackers sitting on the steps of the fountain, smoking pot and passing around a bottle of Brunello wine, talking loudly in half a dozen languages. They were accompanied by at least ten loose dogs.

"Careful where you step, Vincent," murmured Pendergast with a wry smile. "Florence: such a marvelous mixture of high and low." He raised his hand above the piles of dogshit and gestured at the magnificent building which occupied the southeast corner. "For example, the Palazzo Guadagni. One of the finest examples of a Renaissance palace in the entire city. It was constructed in the 1400s, but the Guadagni family goes back several more centuries."

D'Agosta examined the building. The first story was built in rough blocks of dun-colored limestone, while the upper floors were covered in yellow stucco. Most of the top floor was a loggia: a roofed portico supported by stone columns. The structure was restrained but elegant.

"There are various offices and apartments on the second floor, a language school on the third. And the top floor is a pensione , run by a Signora Donatelli. That, without doubt, is where Beckma

"Does this woman own the palazzo?"

"She does. The last descendant of the Guadagni."

"You really think she'll remember a couple of college students who visited three decades ago?"

"One can only try, Vincent."

They picked their way gingerly across the piazza and through an enormous pair of iron-studded wooden doors. A once-grand but now grimy vaulted passageway led to a stairway and a second-floor landing. Here, a shabby piece of cardboard had been hung on the cornice of a faded Baroque fresco. A hand-drawn arrow and the word Reception had been scrawled on the cardboard with a firm hand.

The reception room was incongruously small for such a giant palace: cluttered yet neat as a pin, bisected by a wooden transom, a battered set of wooden mail slots on one side and a rack of keys on the other. The room had only one occupant: a tiny old lady sitting behind an ancient desk. She was dressed with extraordinary elegance, her hair perfectly dyed and coiffed, red lipstick impeccably applied, with what looked like real diamonds draped around her neck and dangling from withered ears.

She rose and Pendergast bowed.

"Molto lieto di conoscer La, signora."

The woman responded crisply, "Il piacere è mio." Then she continued in accented English. "Obviously, you are not here to take a room."

"No," said Pendergast. He removed his ID, offered it to her.

"You are policemen."

"Yes."

"What is it that you want? My time is limited." The voice was sharp and intimidating.

"In the fall of 1974, I believe, several American students stayed here. Here is a picture of them." Pendergast took out Beckma

She did not look at it. "Do you have the names?"

"Yes."

"Then come with me." And she turned and walked around the transom, through a back door, and into a much larger room. D'Agosta saw it was an old library of sorts, with bound books, manuscripts, and vellum documents filling shelves from floor to ceiling. It smelled of parchment and dry rot, old leather and wax. The ceiling was coffered and had once been elaborately gilded. Now it was crumbling with age, the wood riddled with holes.

"The archives of the family," she said. "They go back eight centuries."

"You keep good records."

"I keep excellent records, thank you." She made a beeline to a low shelf at the far end of the room, selected a massive register, carried it to a center table. She opened the register, revealing page after page of accounts, payments, names, and dates, written in a fanatical, tiny hand.

"Names?"

"Bullard, Cutforth, Beckma

She began flipping pages, sca

"There. Grove." A bony finger, burdened with a huge diamond ring, pointed to the name. Then it slid down the rest of the page.

"Beckma

Pendergast peered at the register, but even he was clearly having trouble deciphering the minuscule hand.

"Did their visits overlap?"

"Yes." A pause. "According to this, one night only, that of October 31."