Two Graves (32 page)

His son
. Pendergast was finding this fact to be a most disruptive influence on his deductive processes.

He paced quickly back and forth along the length of the table, glancing at first one document, then another. Finally, with an exasperated shake of his head, he strode over to an audio player, set flush into one wall, and pressed the
PLAY
button. Immediately the low, sonorous strains of the
Ricercar a 6
from Bach’s
Musical Offering
began to emerge from hidden speakers.

This was the only piece that was ever heard in this room. Pendergast did not play it for its beauty—but for the way the complex, intensely mathematical composition settled and sharpened his mind.

As the music continued, his pacing grew slower, his study of the documents strewn across the tabletop more ordered and nuanced.

His son, Alban, had committed these murders. Tristram said that Alban loved killing. But why journey all the way to New York from Brazil to commit them? Why leave the body parts of his own brother at the murder sites? Why scrawl bloody messages on the corpses—messages that could only be meant for Pendergast himself?

B
ETATEST
. Beta test. There was clearly a method, a governing purpose, behind these killings. And Pendergast himself was meant to discover it. Or, perhaps, to
try
to discover it. Nothing else made sense.

With Bach’s delicate, fantastically intricate counterpoint weaving softly in the background, Pendergast looked at the data afresh, forming a logical counterpoint of his own, mentally comparing times, dates, addresses, room numbers, external temperatures, ages of victims—anything that might point to a method, or a sequence, or a pattern. This process continued for ten, then twenty minutes. And then—abruptly—Pendergast stiffened.

Bending over the table, he rearranged several pieces of paper, examined them again. Then, plucking a pen from his pocket, he wrote a series of numbers across the bottom of one of the sheets, double-checking it against the documentation.

There was no mistake.

He glanced at his watch. Moving like lightning, he darted down the hall to his study, plucked a tablet computer from the desk, and typed in a query. He examined the response—cursed softly but eloquently in Latin under his breath—and then picked up a telephone and dialed.

“D’Agosta here,” came the response.

“Vincent? Where are you?”

“Pendergast?”

“I repeat: where are you?”

“Heading down Broadway, just passing Fifty-Seventh. I was going to—”

“Turn around and come to the Dakota as quickly as you can. I’ll be waiting at the corner. Hurry—there’s not a moment to lose.”

“What’s up?” D’Agosta asked.

“We’ll talk in the car. I just hope we’re not too late.”

D
’AGOSTA DROVE LIKE HELL DOWN PARK AVENUE
through the evening traffic, emergency lights flashing, once in a while goosing his siren at the sons of bitches who wouldn’t pull over. Pendergast’s phone call out of the blue, the almost manic urgency in the agent’s voice, had unnerved him. He wasn’t sure if Pendergast was cracking up or actually on to something, but he’d spent enough time around the man to realize he ignored Pendergast’s requests at his own peril.

Now, as they tore southward toward the Murray Hill Hotel, D’Agosta looked sideways to examine Pendergast. The transformation the special agent had undergone since his wife’s death covered the spectrum—from apathy, to a drug-induced stupor, and now this: a diamond-hard glitter in the man’s eyes, his entire being bursting with coiled-spring tension and fanatical energy.

“You say another murder’s about to be committed?” D’Agosta began. “Can you fill me in here? How do you know—?”

“Vincent, we have very little time, and what I have to say is going to seem strange to you, if not mad.”

“Try me.”

The briefest of pauses. “I have a son whom I never knew existed. His name is Alban. He’s the killer—not Diogenes, as I had previously suspected. Of this there is no doubt whatsoever.”

“Whoa, now, just wait a minute, Jesus—”

A short gesture from Pendergast silenced D’Agosta. “These killings are directed specifically at me. The precise motive is as yet unclear.”

“I find it hard to—”

“There is no time for detailed explanations. Suffice to say that the addresses of the hotels, and the times of the killings, follow a pattern, a sequence. The next term in this sequence is twenty-one. And there’s only one Manhattan hotel with twenty-one in its address—the Murray Hill, at Twenty-One Park Avenue. I’ve already checked.”

“This is—”

“And have you noticed the times of the killings? It’s another pattern, a simpler one. The first was at seven thirty in the morning. The next at nine
PM
. The third one, once again at seven thirty
AM
. He’s alternating times. And it’s almost nine now.”

They tore through the Helmsley Building tunnel and around the viaduct, wheels squealing. “I don’t buy it,” D’Agosta said as he struggled to straighten the car. “An unknown son, this pattern of yours… it’s frigging nuts.”

Pendergast made a visible effort to control himself. “I know how strange it must seem. But at least for the time being, I must insist on your full and complete suspension of disbelief.”

“Disbelief? That’s an understatement. It’s totally crazy.”

“You’ll find out soon enough. We are here.”

D’Agosta angled the unmarked car and came to a screeching halt in front of the hotel. Unlike the three previous luxury hotels, this one was old and faintly seedy, its brown-brick façade streaked with soot. Leaving the car parked in the loading zone, D’Agosta got out but Pendergast was already ahead of him, flying into the lobby, his FBI badge out. “Security office!” he cried.

The concierge came stumbling out all in a panic, and in response to Pendergast’s barked instructions led them past the lobby desk into a small inner office with a wall of CCTV screens. A security officer on duty leapt to his feet as they burst in.

“FBI,” said Pendergast, waving the shield. “How many lobby tapes do you have online?”

“Um, one,” the officer said, totally flummoxed.

“Back it up half an hour.
Now
.”

“Yes, um, yes, sir, of course.” The poor guard lumbered about as fast as he could. Fortunately, D’Agosta noticed, it was a recent and
modestly advanced system, and the man seemed competent. Within a minute the feed was playing in accelerated motion. D’Agosta watched the monitor, his skepticism growing. This was ridiculous: the Hotel Killer would never pick a dump like this to work in. It didn’t match the M.O. He shot a covert glance at Pendergast: the wife’s death had clearly touched him even more than was obvious.

“Speed it up,” Pendergast said.

The man complied. They watched as figures flitted across the lobby with rigid intensity.

“
Stop!
That’s him.”

The security video stopped, then proceeded in real time. It showed a nondescript man walking casually into the lobby, pausing, adjusting his tie, then moving toward the elevators. D’Agosta felt his gut contract. The way the man moved, looked—it
was
him.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“Switch to the elevator cam,” Pendergast said.

They followed the man’s progress to the fifth floor, where he got out, walked down the hall, and waited. Then, just as a woman came around the corner, he started up again, following her down the hall, until they passed out of view of the camera. The running time stamp indicated this had taken place just three minutes before.

“Oh, Christ,” D’Agosta said. “Christ. He’s got another one.”

“Back up the tape five seconds.” Pendergast pointed at the image of the woman, turning to the concierge. “Do you recognize her? What’s her room number? Quickly, man!”

“She checked in today.” The concierge stepped back to the front desk, tapped the keys of the registration computer. “Room Five Sixteen.”

Pendergast turned back to D’Agosta. “Stay here,” he murmured. “Monitor these feeds. When he comes back into view, follow his every movement. I’m going after him. And remember—tell no one of my son.”

“Whoa,” D’Agosta said. “Hold on just a minute. Tell no one? Pendergast, I hate to say this, but I think you’re way out of line—”

“
Tell no one
,” Pendergast repeated firmly. And then in a flash he was gone.

Pendergast bounded up the five flights of stairs and ran down the hall to Room 516. The door was shut, but a single shot from his .45 blasted off the lock and he kicked the door open.

He was too late. In the small room, the woman he’d seen in the video lay on the floor, obviously dead but not yet dismembered. Pendergast hesitated only a moment, his silvery eyes darting all around, taking everything in. Then, leaping over the still form, he threw open the bathroom door. The window at the end of the narrow bath was shattered, opening on a fire escape. Pendergast vaulted through the window onto the fire escape and looked down, in time to see a young man—
Alban
—clambering down the last flight of the escape, climbing through the bottom hatch, and dropping to the ground.

Pendergast raced down the fire escape, three steps at a time, following Alban with his eyes as the youth ran down Park Avenue and disappeared around the corner of Thirty-Fifth Street, heading east, toward the river.

Pendergast ran after him. When he rounded the corner of Thirty-Fifth, he could see Alban almost two blocks east, silhouetted in the streetlights, tearing along at a tremendous speed—a phenomenal runner. Pendergast continued, but by the time he reached Lexington the now-tiny figure of Alban had already crossed Second Avenue and was running alongside St. Vartan Park. Realizing he would never catch him, Pendergast nevertheless continued on, at the least hoping to see where his son would go. The fleeing, barely visible figure passed First Avenue and ran toward FDR Drive, leaping a chain-link fence and climbing over a cement barrier and out onto the drive, where he dropped out of sight into the darkness.

Pendergast sprinted past St. Vartan Park, crossing First Avenue against the light. He hit the chain-link fence, clambered over it, vaulted the cement barrier, and ran out onto FDR Drive, dodging cars amid a sudden chorus of horns and screeching brakes. He made it to the far side and stopped, looking both ways, but he could see nothing: Alban had vanished into the night. The East River stretched out in front of
him, the Hunter’s Point ferry terminal lay on his right, the Queensboro Bridge on his left, atwinkle with lights. Directly in front of him two vacant, ruined piers stood out in the East River, extending from a decaying, riprapped riverbank below a broken-up quay, much of it reclaimed by a riot of undergrowth, old cattails, cane, dry reeds, and brambles—everything withered and brown in the wintry moonlight.

There were many, many places to disappear into, and Alban was gone. He clearly knew the lay of the land and had worked out his escape ahead of time. It was hopeless.

Pendergast turned and walked along the shoulder of the FDR Drive toward a pedestrian walkway five blocks south to recross the highway. But as he walked, he saw a figure out of the corner of his eye—a man, a young man, standing on the first ruined pier, illuminated from behind by the dim light of the bridge.

It was Alban. His son was looking directly at him. And—as Pendergast stopped and stared—he raised his hand and gave a little wave.

Immediately Pendergast vaulted over the railing of the drive and landed on the embankment below, clawing his way through the overgrowth. He came out on the broken cement quay only to find that Alban had once again vanished.

Sensing he must have headed up the embankment, Pendergast sprinted northward. And in a moment he saw movement ahead—Alban, running out on the second ruined pier, where he stopped halfway, turned, and waited, arms crossed.

As he ran, Pendergast drew his .45. To reach the second pier, he was forced around a row of ruined bollards and through more undergrowth, during which he again temporarily lost sight of Alban. Just as he came to the foot of the pier and emerged from the vegetation, he felt a stunning blow to his leg and was pitched forward, and—even as he was falling—felt a second blow to his hand, which sent the .45 flying. He rolled and tried to rise, but Alban anticipated the maneuver and slammed Pendergast’s head down with his knee, pinning the agent to the cement.

And then, just as quickly as he’d been pinned, he was released. Pendergast leapt to his feet, ready to fight.

But Alban did not come after him. He merely stepped back, arms once again crossed.

Pendergast froze, and they stared at each other, like two animals, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

Then Alban suddenly relaxed. “
Endlich
,” he said. “Finally. We can have a heart-to-heart… father to son… something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time.” And he smiled rather pleasantly.