Two Graves (65 page)

Sheepishly, he reached over and took her hand. “Thanks.”

Still smiling, she cocked her head. “Let’s go someplace else. Some
new
place, really nice. As nostalgic as this place is, let’s make a new memory of tonight. We need to celebrate—and not just because it’s Christmas Eve. We’ve got a lot of planning to do.”

She signaled the waiter for the check.

T
HE LARGE, ORNATELY PANELED LIBRARY OF 891 RIVERSIDE
Drive was lit only by fire and candlelight. It was a late-February evening, and a light freezing rain was falling on the cars passing by on Riverside and the West Side Highway, but no sound of traffic, no
tick, tick
of ice upon glass panes, penetrated the barred and curtained windows. The only sound was the crackling of the fire, the scratch of Agent Pendergast’s fountain pen on cream laid writing paper, and a low, infrequent conversation that was being carried out between Constance Greene and Tristram.

The two were sitting at a gaming table placed before the fire, and Constance was teaching Tristram how to play ombre, a card game that had gone out of fashion decades, if not centuries, before. Tristram stared at his cards, his young face screwed up in thought. Constance had begun introducing him to games slowly—with whist—and already Tristram’s memory, concentration, and logical abilities showed remarkable improvement. Now he was immersed in the subtleties of spadilles, entradas, and estuches.

Pendergast was sitting at a writing table in the far corner of the library, his back to a wall of leather-bound books. From time to time he glanced up from his writing, his silvery eyes moving around the room, always coming to rest at last on the two persons playing cards.

Now the quiet of the room was broken by the ringing of Pendergast’s cell phone. He slipped it from his pocket, glanced at the number. “Yes?” he spoke into it.

“Pendergast? It’s me. Corrie.”

“Miss Swanson. How are you faring?”

“Fine. I’ve been swamped catching up with my coursework, that’s why I’m calling only now. I’ve got one hell of a story to tell you… and…” Here there was a hesitation.

“Is everything all right?”

“Well, if you mean by that I’m not hearing any goose-stepping coming at me from behind, yeah. But listen: I solved a case, a real, honest-to-God case.”

“Excellent. I want to apologize for having been unable to give you greater assistance when you came to me back in December—but I had great faith in your ability to look after yourself. Faith that, it would seem, was justified. And as it happens, I have a rather interesting story to tell you, as well.”

A pause.

“So,” Corrie went on. “Any chance of renewing that offer for lunch at Le Bernardin?”

“How remiss of me for not suggesting it immediately. We should do it soon, however—because I’m thinking of taking an extended vacation.”

“Name the date.”

Pendergast considered a small appointment book he plucked from his jacket pocket. “Next Thursday, one o’clock.”

“That’ll be great, I don’t have any classes on Thursday afternoons.” Another hesitation. “Hey, Pendergast?”

“Yes?”

“Would it be all right if… if I brought my father along? He’s part of the story.”

“Naturally. I’ll look forward to seeing the two of you next Thursday.”

He put pen and paper aside and stood up. Tristram had left, and Constance was sitting at the table alone, shuffling the cards. Pendergast looked over to her.

“How is his playing coming along?”

“Quite well. Better than I expected, actually. If he continues to learn at such a rapid pace, I may move on to rubicon bezique or skat.”

Pendergast remained silent a moment before speaking again.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said. Back when I visited you in Mount Mercy, looking for advice. And you were right, of course. I
had
to go to Nova Godói. There was no choice. And I had to act—alas, with extreme violence. I’ve rescued Tristram, true. But the other half of the equation—the more complex and difficult part of the equation—remains unsolved.”

For a moment, Constance did not reply. When she did, it was in a low voice. “So there’s been no word.”

“None. I’ve got certain, ah, assets in place, and he’s been put on the watch lists of both the DEA and the local consulate officials—discreetly, of course. But he seems to have vanished into the forest.”

“Do you think he might be dead?” she asked.

“Perhaps,” Pendergast replied. “His injuries were grievous.”

Constance put down the cards. “I’ve been wondering. I don’t mean to offend with the question but… Do you think he could have gone through with it? Killing you, I mean.”

For a moment, Pendergast did not answer, looking into the fire. Then he glanced back at her. “I’ve asked myself that question many times. There were times—when he was shooting at me in the lake, for example—that I felt sure he meant to do so. But then, there were so many other times when he seems to have missed his opportunity.”

Constance picked up the cards again and began dealing fresh hands. “Not knowing his future intentions, not knowing whether he’s dead or alive… rather disquieting.”

“Indeed.”

“What about the rest of the Covenant?” Constance asked. “Do they still pose a threat?”

Pendergast shook his head. “No. Their leaders are dead; their fortress destroyed; all their decades of research findings burned and gone. Their raison d’être—the twins themselves—are almost all alienated from the project. From the reports I’ve received, many have already begun integrating themselves into Brazilian society. Of course, the very latest ‘iterations’ of twins—those leading up to Alban and the beta test—were the Covenant’s greatest successes, and I understand the Brazilian authorities are finding some of them too
incorrigible to be rehabilitated. But their number is small, and there is simply no way for
Der Bund
to achieve a second critical mass, even…” And here his voice sank lower: “Even were Alban to resurface.”

There was a brief silence. Then Constance nodded at Tristram’s empty chair. “Have you decided what to do about him?”

“I was considering one idea.”

“And what might that be?”

“That, in addition to being my amanuensis—and my oracle, it would seem—you might be his…”

Constance glanced up at him, one eyebrow raised ever so slightly. “His what?
Baby
sitter?”

“More than babysitter. Less than guardian. More like—older sister.”

“
Older
is the operative word. A hundred and thirty years older. Aloysius, don’t you think I’m a little advanced in age to start acting like a sibling again?”

“It is admittedly a novel idea. Will you at least consider it?”

Constance looked at him for a long moment. Then her gaze returned to Tristram’s empty chair. “There
is
something affecting about him,” she said. “So much the opposite of his brother, at least as you’ve described him to me. He’s so young and impatient—and remarkably naive about the world. So
innocent
.”

“As was someone else we both knew, once.”

“The thing is, I sense in him an incredible, almost boundless empathy, a depth of compassion I haven’t seen since the monastery.”

At this point Tristram stepped back into the library, glass of milk in hand.

“Herr Proctor is coming,” he told them. “He is bringing you—what was the word he used?—
refreshments
.” He repeated the word as he sat down at the card table, as if to taste it.

Pendergast turned toward the youth. For a moment, he simply looked at him, drinking his milk with evident enjoyment. His wants were so simple, his gratitude for even the slightest kindness so boundless. He rose from his chair and walked over to his son. Tristram put down the milk and looked up at him.

He knelt, bringing himself to the boy’s level, reached into a pocket of his jacket, and pulled out a ring: gold, set with a large, perfect star sapphire. Taking Tristram’s hand, he pressed the ring into it. The youth stared at it, turned it over in his hands, then brought it closer to his eyes, watching the star move on the surface of the sapphire.

“This was your mother’s, Tristram,” he said gently. “I gave it to her on our engagement. When I feel you are ready—not yet, but perhaps in the not-too-distant future—I will tell you all about her. She was a most remarkable woman. Like all of us, she had her faults. And she… had more than her share of secrets. But I cared for her very much. Like you, she was a victim of
Der Bund
. Like you, she had a twin. It was… very difficult for her. But the years we spent together were some of the most wonderful of my life. It’s those memories in particular I would like to share with you. Perhaps they will help make up, in a small way, for the memories you’ve been deprived of—all these years.”

Tristram looked up from the ring into Pendergast’s face. “I would like very much to learn about her, Father.”

There was a discreet cough. Pendergast looked up to see Proctor standing in the doorway, a silver salver in one upraised hand, two glasses of sherry balanced upon it. As Pendergast rose, the chauffeur stepped forward, offering one of the glasses to the FBI agent and the other to Constance.

“Thank you, Proctor,” Pendergast said. “Most kind.”

“Not at all, sir,” came the measured response. “Mrs. Trask has asked me to tell you that dinner will be laid on at eight o’clock.”

Pendergast inclined his head.

As Proctor began to pass from the library into the great rotunda that served as the mansion’s reception area, the chauffeur paused to look back over his shoulder. Pendergast had returned to his writing table in the far corner, staring rather moodily into the fire. Constance was
shuffling a deck of cards and was speaking in low tones to Tristram, who was sitting across from her, listening attentively.

When Constance had been released from Mount Mercy about three weeks earlier, she’d been reserved and distant with the young man, Pendergast’s son. Now, Proctor noticed, she was warming to him—at least somewhat. The fire, the candlelight, threw a mellow light over the rows of old books, the exquisite furnishings, and the three inhabitants. There was a sense of—if not peace exactly—something like equanimity in the room. Calmness and composure. Proctor was not generally given to such reflections, but the sight did, indeed, strike him almost like a family tableau.

An Addams Family tableau
, he corrected himself as he exited the library, a faint smile on his lips.

Pendergast watched as the chauffeur vanished. He turned back to the letter and picked up the fountain pen. It scratched over the paper for perhaps another two minutes. Pendergast rested it on the green baize of the writing table and picked up the piece of paper to read from the beginning.

Pendergast put the letter down, signed it, folded it, and slipped it into an envelope. Then he stared at the card players, Constance and Tristram, engrossed in their game. His gaze drifted to the blazing fire. He gazed into it, motionless, sherry untasted, for a long time—so long, in fact, that he was only roused by Proctor’s returning to inform them that dinner was served. Tristram immediately jumped to his feet and skipped on behind the retreating butler, evidently hungry—a youth for whom each new meal was a novelty. Constance followed at a more dignified pace. Last of all, Special Agent Pendergast rose—let his fingertips drift across the envelope that lay upon the writing desk—and then glided silently out of the room, a dim shape that grew increasingly faint as it made its way through the secret and shadow-haunted spaces of the mansion on Riverside Drive.