Fever Dream

"Hey, you--!" one of the cops shouted, grabbing Pendergast roughly by the shoulder. With a deft movement the agent freed himself, extracted his badge, and flashed it into the officer's face.

"What the--?" the cop said, backing off. "FBI. He's FBI."

"What's he doing here?" asked the other.

"Pendergast!" D'Agosta cried, stepping toward him quickly. "What the hell brings you here? This killing isn't exactly your kind of--"

Pendergast silenced him with a violent gesture, slashing his hand through the air between them. In the neon gloom, his face was so white he almost looked spectral, dressed as usual like a wealthy undertaker in his trademark tailored black suit. Except this time he somehow looked different--very different. "I must speak with you. Now."

"Sure, of course. As soon as I wrap things up--"

"I mean now, Vincent."

D'Agosta stared. This was not the cool, collected Pendergast he knew so well. This was a side of the man he had never seen before, angry, brusque, his movements rushed. Not only that, but--D'Agosta noticed on closer inspection--his normally immaculate suit was creased and rumpled.

Pendergast grasped him by the lapel. "I have a favor to ask you. More than a favor. Come with me."

D'Agosta was too surprised by his vehemence to do anything but obey. Leaving the scene under the stares of his fellow cops, he followed Pendergast past the crowd and down the street to where the agent's Rolls was idling. Proctor, the chauffeur, was behind the wheel, his expression studiously blank.

D'Agosta had to practically run to keep up. "You know I'll help you out any way I can--"

"Don't say anything, do not speak, until you've heard me out."

"Right, sure," D'Agosta added hastily.

"Get in."

Pendergast slipped into the rear passenger compartment, D'Agosta climbing in behind. The agent pulled open a panel in the door and swung out a tiny bar. Grasping a cut-glass decanter, he sloshed three fingers of brandy into a glass and drank half of it off with a single gulp. He replaced the decanter and turned to D'Agosta, his silvery eyes glittering with intensity. "This is no ordinary request. If you can't do it, or won't do it, I'll understand. But you must not burden me with questions, Vincent--I don't have time. I simply don't--have--time. Listen, and then give me your answer."

D'Agosta nodded.

"I need you to take a leave of absence from the force. Perhaps as long as a year."

"A year?"

Pendergast knocked back the rest of the drink. "It could be months, or weeks. There's no way to know how long this is going to take."

"What is 'this'?"

For a moment, the agent did not reply. "I've never spoken to you about my late wife, Helen?"

"No."

"She died twelve years ago, when we were on safari in Africa. She was attacked by a lion."

"Jesus. I'm sorry."

"At the time, I believed it to be a terrible accident. Now I know different."

D'Agosta waited.

"Now I know she was murdered."

"Oh, God."

"The trail is cold. I need you, Vincent. I need your skills, your street smarts, your knowledge of the working classes, your way of thinking. I need you to help me track down the person--or persons--who did this. I will of course pay all your expenses and see to it that your salary and health benefits are maintained."

A silence fell in the car. D'Agosta was stu

"Is this an official investigation?"

"No. It would be just you and me. The killer might be anywhere in the world. We will operate completely outside the system--any system."

"And when we find the killer? What then?"

"We will see to it that justice is served."

"Meaning?"

Pendergast sloshed more brandy into the glass with a fierce gesture, gulped it down, and fixed D'Agosta once again with those cold, platinum eyes.

"We kill him."

7

THE ROLLS-ROYCE TORE UP PARK AVENUE, LATE-CRUISING cabs flashing by in blurs of yellow. D'Agosta sat in the back with Pendergast, feeling awkward, trying not to turn a curious eye toward the FBI agent. This Pendergast was impatient, unkempt, and--most remarkable--openly emotional.

"When did you find out?" he ventured to ask.

"This afternoon."

"How'd you figure it out?"

Pendergast did not answer immediately, glancing out the window as the Rolls turned sharply onto 72nd Street, heading toward the park. He placed the empty brandy glass--which he had been holding, unheeded, the entire uptown journey--back into its position in the tiny bar. Then he took a deep breath. "Twelve years ago, Helen and I were asked to kill a man-eating lion in Zambia--a lion with an unusual red mane. Just such a lion had wreaked havoc in the area forty years before."

"Why did you get asked?"

"Part of having a professional hunting license. You're obligated to kill any beasts menacing the villages or camps, if the authorities request it." Pendergast was still looking out the window. "The lion had killed a German tourist at a safari camp. Helen and I drove over from our own camp to put it down."

He picked up the brandy bottle, looked at it, put it back into its holder. The big car was now moving through Central Park, the skeletal branches overhead framing a threatening night sky. "The lion charged us from deep cover, attacked me and the tracker. As he ran back into the bush, Helen shot at him and apparently missed. She went to attend to the tracker..." His voice wavered and he stopped, composing himself. "She went to attend to the tracker and the lion burst out of the brush a second time. It dragged her off. That was the last time I saw her. Alive, anyway."

"Oh, my God." D'Agosta felt a thrill of horror course through him.

"Just this afternoon, at our old family plantation, I happened to examine her gun. And I discovered that--on that morning, twelve years ago--somebody had taken the bullets from her gun and replaced them with blanks. She hadn't missed the shot--because there was no shot."

"Holy shit. You sure?"

Now Pendergast looked away from the window to fix him with a stare. "Vincent, would I be telling you this--would I be here now--if I wasn't absolutely sure?"

"Sorry."

There was a moment of silence.

"You just discovered it this afternoon in New Orleans?"

Pendergast nodded tersely. "I chartered a private jet back."

The Rolls pulled up before the 72nd Street entrance of the Dakota. Almost before the vehicle had come to a stop Pendergast was out. He strode past the guardhouse and through the vaulted stone archway of the carriage entrance, ignoring the fat drops of rain that were now splattering the sidewalk. D'Agosta followed at a jog as the agent strode across a wide interior courtyard, past manicured plants and muttering bronze fountains, to a narrow lobby in the southwest corner of the apartment building. He pressed the elevator button, the doors whispered open, and they ascended in silence. A minute later the doors opened again on a small space, a single door set into the far wall. It had no obvious locking mechanism, but when Pendergast moved his fingertips across the surface in an odd gesture D'Agosta heard the unmistakable click of a deadlock springing free. Pendergast pushed the door open, and the reception room came into view: dimly lit, with three rose-painted walls and a fourth wall of black marble, covered by a thin sheet of falling water.