Dance Of Death

Diogenes passed through the empty village of Gerard Park. Gar-diners Bay appeared ahead of him, a dull cold sheet of zinc broken by the dark outlines of distant islands. The car eased right onto Gerard Drive, Acabonack Harbor on one side, the bay on his left. Less than a mile more now. As he drove, he smiled faintly.

"Vale, frater," he murmured in Latin. "Vale."

Viola had pulled the chair up to the barred window, and she watched the first streak of light creep over the black Atlantic-a smudge of dirty chalk-with a sense of surreal detachment. It was like a nightmare she couldn't wake from, a dream as real and vivid as it was senseless. What scared her most of all was the realization of just how much trouble and expense Diogenes had gone to in creating this prison cell-riveted steel walls, floor, and ceiling, a steel door with a tumbler lock from a safe, not to mention the unbreakable windows, the special plumbing and wiring. It was as secure as a cell in the highest security prison-maybe more so.

Why? Was it really possible that, with dawn approaching, she had mere minutes to live?

Yet again, she forced this useless speculation from her mind.

She had long since concluded that escape was impossible. A great deal of thought had gone into constructing her prison, and her every effort to seek a way out had been anticipated and blocked. He had been gone all night-at least that's what the utter silence seemed to tell her. From time to time, she had banged and screamed on the door, at one point striking a chair against it again and again until the chair had come apart in her hands. No one had come.

The smear of chalk took on a faintly bloody tinge: a lurid glow over the heaving Atlantic. A ferocious wind dotted the dark ocean with dim flecks of whitecaps. Wisps of frozen snow-or was it sand?-whipped along the ground.

Suddenly, she sat up, abruptly alert. She had heard the faint muffled sound of a door opening. She rushed to her own door, pressed an ear against it. The very faintest of sounds came from below: a footfall, the closing of a door.

He was back.

She felt a sudden surge of fear and glanced across the room toward the window. The limb of the sun was just now climbing above the gray Atlantic, and just as quickly rising into a black bar of storm cloud. He had made it a point to arrive just at dawn. In time for the execution.

Viola curled her lip. If he thought he was going to kill her without a struggle, he was sorely mistaken. She would fight him to the death…

She swallowed, realizing how foolish her bravado was, aimed against a man who would surely have a gun and know exactly how to use it.

She fought against a sudden, panicky hyperventilation. A strange set of conflicting feelings rose within her: on the one hand, an urgent, instinctive desire for survival at whatever the cost; on the other, an ingrained need to die-if death, in fact, was near-with dignity, not with screaming and struggling.

There were more sounds and, without thinking, she immediately lay down on the floor to listen at the tiny space between the door and the threshold. The sounds were still faint and muffled.

She rose and ran into the bathroom, tore the toilet paper from its receptacle, unraveled it with a fierce shake of her hand, and pulled the cardboard tube free. Then she ran back to the door frame, pressing one end of the tube to her ear and squeezing the other end up against the long crack of the jamb.

Now she could hear much better: the rustle of clothing, the setting down of several things, the sound of a latch being undone.

There was a sudden, sharp intake of breath. Next, a long, long silence. Five minutes passed.

Then came a strange and terrible sound: a low, agonized keening, almost like the warning moan of a cat. It rose and fell in singsong fashion before suddenly ascending in volume to become a shriek of pure, undistilled, absolute anguish. It was inhuman, it was the shriek of the living dead, it was the most horrifying sound she had ever heard-and it came from him.

FIFTY-SIX

The cab pulled up in front of the Times Building. Smithback impatiently signed the credit card receipt-the fare was $425-paying with the card he'd picked up at his apartment. He handed the slip back to the cabbie, who took it with a frown.

"Where's the tip?" the driver said.

"Are you kidding? I could've flown to Aruba for what I just paid you."

"Look, pal, I got gas, insurance, expenses up the wazoo-"

Smithback slammed the door and ran into the building, sprinting for the elevator. He would just touch base with Davies, let his boss know he was back in town, make sure his job wasn't on the line- and then head straight to the museum and Nora. It was quarter after nine: she hadn't been at the apartment, and he assumed she'd already left for work.

He punched the button for the thirty-third floor and waited while the elevator rose with maddening slowness. At last, it arrived, and he exited the car and jogged down the hall, pausing outside Davies's door just long enough to catch his breath and smooth down the unruly cowlick that always seemed to pop up at the worst possible time.

He took a deep breath, gave the door a polite rap.

"It's open," came the voice.

Smithback stepped forward into the doorway. Thank God: Harriman wasn't anywhere in sight.

Davies glanced up from his desk. "Bill! They told me you were at St. Luke's, practically at death's door."

"I made a quick recovery."

Davies looked him over, his eyes veiled. "Glad to see you looking so fat and happy." He paused. "I take it you'll be providing us with a note from your doctor?"

"Of course, of course," Smithback stammered. He assumed Pendergast could fix that, as he seemed able to fix everything else.

"You picked a convenient time to disappear." Davies's voice was laced with irony.

"I didn't pick it. It picked me."

"Have a seat."

"Well, I was just on my way-"

"Oh, I beg your pardon-I didn't realize you had a pressing engagement."

On hearing the icy tone in the voice, Smithback decided to sit down. He was dying to see Nora, but it wouldn't pay to piss off Davies any more than he already had.

"Bryce Harriman was able to take up the slack during your recent indisposition, both on the Duchamp killing and that other one up at the museum, since the police are now saying they're linked-"

Smithback sat forward in the chair. "Excuse me. Did you say a murder up at the museum? What museum?"

"You really have been out of it. The New York Museum of Natural History. A curator was murdered there three days ago-"

"Who?"

"Nobody I'd heard of. Don't worry about it, you're long off that story-Harriman's taken it over." He snapped up a manila envelope. "Here's what I've got for you, instead. It's a big story, and I'll be frank with you, Bill: I feel a certain trepidation entrusting it to someone in shaky health. I'd have considered passing it on to Harriman, too, only he's got a lot on his plate as it is and he was already in the field when the news broke twenty minutes ago. There was a big robbery at the museum last night. Seems it's a busy place these days. You're the one with contacts there, you wrote that book on the place-so it's your story, despite my feelings of concern."

"But who-?"

He shoved the envelope at Smithback. "Somebody cleaned out the diamond hall last night while a big function was under way. There's going to be a press conference at ten. Your credentials are in there." He glanced at his watch. "That's half an hour, you better get moving."