Reliquary

by Douglas Preston

  Smithback struggled to keep from betraying his excitement. This is too good to be true, he thought.

  “I imagine you’d like to publish another book,” Mrs. Wisher went on. “Once the Take Back Our City campaign reaches a successful conclusion, you’d have my blessing on such a project. I’ll make myself available for interviews. And Hiram Bennett, editor-in-chief of Cygnus House, is one of my closest friends. I think he’d be very interested in seeing such a manuscript.”

  Jesus, Smithback thought. Hiram Bennett, Mister Publishing himself. He could imagine the bidding war between Cygnus House and Stockbridge, the publishers of his Museum book. He’d get his agent to set up an auction, specify a floor of two hundred grand, no, make that two fifty, with ten percent topping privileges and—

  “I ask one thing in return,” Mrs. Wisher coolly interrupted his thoughts. “That from now on, you devote yourself to covering Take Back Our City. I want your newspaper articles, when they appear, to focus exclusively on our cause.”

  “What?” Smithback said abruptly. “Mrs. Wisher, I’m a crime reporter. I’m hired to turn in product on a regular basis.” His visions of publishing fame quickly faded, replaced with the angry face of his editor, Arnold Murray, demanding copy.

  Mrs. Wisher nodded. “I understand. And I think I can deliver you all the ‘product’ you could wish for within a few days. I’ll give you details as soon as we’ve finalized our plans. Trust me, I think that you will find this relationship to be beneficial to us both.”

  Smithback thought quickly. In a couple of hours, he was due to file his story covering what he’d learned eavesdropping on the Museum conference. He’d delayed it already, hoping in vain to gain additional information. This was to be the story that got him his raise, the story to set that prick Bryce Harriman back on his heels.

  But would it? The reward was getting a little stale, and no leads had panned out. His report on Mephisto hadn’t excited the interest he’d thought it would. There was no clear proof that the death of the Medical Examiner, though suspiciously coincidental, was connected. And then, there were always the unpleasant consequences of Museum trespass to be considered.

  But this Wisher story, on the other hand, could be just the dynamite he was looking for. His journalist’s instincts told him it had the feel of a winner. He could call in sick, stall Murray for a day or two. When he got the final results, all would be forgiven.

  He looked up. “Mrs. Wisher, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  “Call me Anette,” she said, her gaze drifting over his face for a moment before falling toward the menu at her elbow. “And now let’s order, shall we? I’d suggest the coldwater scallops wrapped in lemon phyllo and caviar. The chef here does them excellently.”

  = 26 =

  HAYWARD ROUNDED THE corner onto 72nd Street, then stopped, frowning in disbelief at the sand-colored building that loomed up in front of her. She checked her pocket for the scribbled address, then stared up again. There was no mistake. But the place looked more like a mansion out of a Charles Addams cartoon—magnified perhaps twenty times—than a Manhattan apartment building. The structure rose, stone upon layer of stone, nine generous stories into the air. Near its top, huge two-story gables hung like eyebrows over the facade. The copper-trimmed slate roof above was encrusted with chimneys, spires, turrets, finials—everything but a widow’s walk. Or maybe arrow slits would be more appropriate, Hayward thought. The Dakota, it was called. Strange name for a strange-looking place. She’d heard of the place, but had never seen it. Then again, she didn’t get many excuses to visit the Upper West Side.

  She walked toward the arched carriageway that bored into the southern flank of the building. The guard inside the adjoining sentry box took her name, then made a brief call.

  “Southwest lobby,” he said, hanging up and directing her through. She stepped past him toward the dark tunnel.

  On the far side, the archway opened into a large interior courtyard. Hayward stopped for a moment, staring at the bronze fountains, thinking that the genteel, almost secretive hush seemed absurdly out of place on the west side of Manhattan. Then she turned right and headed for the nearest corner of the courtyard. She stepped through the narrow lobby and into the elevator, stabbing the button with a slender finger.

  The elevator rose slowly, opening at last into a small rectangular space. Stepping out, she saw that on the far side a single door had been set into the dark polished wood. The elevator whispered shut and began to descend, leaving Hayward in blackness. For a moment, she wondered if she was on the wrong floor. There was a slight rustle, and her right hand moved instinctively toward her service piece.

  “Sergeant Hayward. Excellent. Please come in.” Even in the dark, Hayward would have recognized the accent, the bourbon-and-buttermilk voice. But the far door had opened and Agent Pendergast was standing just within, his slim, unmistakable figure silhouetted by the soft light of the room beyond.

  Hayward stepped inside and Pendergast shut the door behind her. Though the room was not especially large, its high ceiling gave it a sense of formal grandeur. Hayward looked around curiously. Three of the walls were painted a deep rose, edged above and below in black molding. Light came from behind what appeared to be wafer-thin pieces of agate, framed in scallop-shaped bronze fixtures set well above eye level. The fourth wall was covered in black marble. Across the entire face of the marble, a thin sheet of water fell like a stream of glass from ceiling to floor, gurgling silently into the grill that ran along its base. A few small leather sofas were placed about the room, their bases hidden by the thick nap of the carpet. The only decoration consisted of a few paintings and several twisted plants, scattered here and there on lacquer tables. The room was fastidiously clean, without a smudge or a particle of dust. Though she knew there must be other doors leading into the interior of the apartment, their outlines were too well concealed for her to make them out.

  “Sit anywhere, Sergeant Hayward,” Pendergast said. “May I offer you refreshment of some kind?”

  “No thanks,” Hayward replied, selecting the seat closest to the door and letting the soft black leather creep luxuriously up around her. She stared at the painting on the nearest wall, an impressionist landscape of haystacks and pink-tinged sunlight that seemed somehow familiar. “Nice place. Though the building’s kind of weird.”

  “We tenants would prefer to call it eccentric,” Pendergast said. “But many would have agreed with you over the years, I suppose. The Dakota, so named because when it was built in 1884, this part of town seemed as remote as Indian Territory. Still, it has a solidity, a kind of permanence, that I like. Built on bedrock, walls almost thirty inches thick at ground level. But you didn’t come here to listen to a lecture on architecture. Actually, I’m grateful you came at all.”

  “You kidding?” Hayward asked. “And pass up a chance to tour Agent Pendergast’s crib? You’re kind of a legend among the rank and file these days. As if you didn’t know.”

  “How reassuring,” Pendergast replied, slipping into a chair. “But this is the extent of the tour, I’m afraid. I rarely entertain visitors. Still, it seemed the best place for our chat.”

  “And why’s that?” Hayward asked as she looked around. Then her eyes lighted on the closest of the lacquered tables. “Hey!” she pointed. “That’s a bonsai plant. A miniature tree. My sensei at the karate dojo has a couple of them.”

  “Ginkgo biloba,”Pendergast said. “The Maidenhair. It’s the only remaining member of a tree family common in prehistory. And to your right is a group planting of dwarf trident maples. I’m especially proud of their natural look. The trees in that planting all change color at different times in the fall. From the first tree to the last, that construction took me nine years. Your sensei could no doubt tell you that the secret to group plantings is to add bonsai in odd numbers at a time, up to a point where counting the trunks demands concentration Then you’re done.”

  “Nine years?” Hayward repeated. “Guess you got a lot
of free time on your hands.”

  “Not really. Bonsai is one of my passions. It is an art that is never finished. And I find its blend of natural and artificial aesthetics intoxicating.” He crossed one leg over the other, his black-suited form almost invisible against the dark leather, and waved one hand dismissively. “But stop encouraging me. A moment ago, you asked why I thought this the best place to talk. It’s because I wish to learn more about the underground homeless.”

  Hayward was silent.

  “You’ve worked with them,” Pendergast continued. “You’ve studied them. You are an expert on the subject.”

  “Nobody else thinks so.”

  “If they gave the matter any thought, they would. In any case, I can understand why you’re sensitive about your thesis. And it seemed to me you might be more comfortable discussing it off duty, someplace far away from headquarters or the station house.”

  The man had a point, Hayward thought. This strange, soothing room, with its quiet waterfall and stark beauty, seemed about as far from headquarters as the moon. Sitting back in the intoxicating softness of the chair, she felt her natural wariness draining away. She thought about taking off her bulky gun belt but decided she was too comfortable to move.

  “I’ve been down twice,” Pendergast said. “The first time merely to test my disguise and do some simple reconnaissance, and the second time to find Mephisto, the homeless leader. But when I found him, I discovered I’d underestimated a couple of things. The depth of his convictions. And the size of his following.”

  “Nobody knows, exactly, how many live below ground,” Hayward said. “The only thing you can be sure of is the number’s bigger than you expect. As for Mephisto, he’s probably the most famous mayor down there. His community’s the biggest. Actually, I heard it’s several communities: a core community of troubled Vietnam vets and sixties relics, with others joining after the headless murders started. The deeper tunnels below Central Park are crawling with him and his pals.”

  “What surprised me was the variety I encountered,” Pendergast went on. “I expected to find one flawed personality type predominating, perhaps two. But instead I found an entire cross section of humanity.”

  “Not all homeless go below,” Hayward said. “But the ones afraid of the shelters, the ones that hate the soup kitchens and subway gratings, the loners, the cult freaks—they tend to go down. First to the subway tunnels. Then farther. Believe me, there’re lots of places to hide.”

  Pendergast nodded. “Even on my first trip, I was astonished at the vastness. I felt like Lewis and Clark, setting out to explore unmapped territory.”

  “You don’t know the half of it. There’s two thousand miles of abandoned or half-dug tunnels, and another five thousand miles still in use. Underground chambers, sealed up and forgotten.” Hayward shrugged. “And you hear stories. Like about bomb shelters, secretly built by the Pentagon in the fifties to protect Wall Street types. Some of them are still stocked with running water, electricity, canned food. Engine rooms filled with abandoned machinery, ancient sewers made from wooden pipes. An entire freakin’ lost world.”

  Pendergast sat forward in his chair. “Sergeant Hayward,” he said quietly. “Have you heard of the Devil’s Attic?”

  Hayward nodded. “Yeah. I’ve heard of it.”

  “Can you tell me where it is, or how I can locate it?”

  There was a long silence while she thought. “No. One or two of the homeless mentioned it during rousts. But you hear so much crap down there, you tune most of it out. I always thought it was bullshit.”

  “Is there anybody I can talk to who might know more?”

  Hayward shifted slightly. “You might talk to Al Diamond,” she said, her eyes drifting again toward the picture of the haystacks. Amazing, she thought, how a couple of thick dabs of paint could capture an image so clearly. “He’s an engineer for the PA, a real authority on underground structures. They always call him in when a deep main breaks, or when a new gas tunnel has to be bored.” She paused. “Haven’t seen him around for a while, though. Maybe he bought the farm.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Died, I mean.”

  There was a silence, broken only by the soft hush of the waterfall. “If the killers have colonized some secret space underground, the sheer number of homeless will make our own job extremely difficult,” Pendergast said at last.

  Hayward took her eyes from the picture of the haystack and fastened them on the FBI agent. “It gets worse,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Autumn’s only a few weeks away. That’s when the homeless really start streaming underground, anticipating winter. If you’re right about these killers, you know what that means.”

  “No, I don’t,” Pendergast said. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Hunting season,” Hayward said, and shifted her gaze back to the painting.

  = 27 =

  THE LENGTH OF grimy industrial avenue ended in an embarkment of riprap, half tumbling into the murky depths of the East River. Beyond lay a panoramic view of Roosevelt Island and the 59th Street Bridge. Across the river, the thin gray strip of the FDR Drive wound its way up past the United Nations and the luxurious Sutton Place co-ops. Nice view, thought D’Agosta as he stepped out of the unmarked cruiser. Nice view, lousy neighborhood.

  The August sun slanted into the avenue, softening the puddles of tar and coaxing waves of shimmering heat from the pavement. Loosening his collar, D’Agosta once again checked the address the Museum personnel office had given him: 11-46 94th Avenue, Long Island City. He glanced at the nearby buildings, wondering if there was some mistake. This sure as hell didn’t look like a residential neighborhood. The street was lined with old warehouses and abandoned factories. Even though it was noon, the place was almost deserted, the only sign of life a shabby panel truck pulling out of a loading bay at the far end of the block. D’Agosta shook his head. Another frigging dead end. Leave it to Waxie to saddle him with what, in Waxie’s opinion, was the assignment of lowest priority.

  The door to 11-46 was of thick metal, dented and scarred, and covered in perhaps ten coats of black paint. Like everything else on the block, it looked like the entrance to an empty warehouse. D’Agosta rang the ancient buzzer and then, hearing nothing, pounded heavily on the door. Silence.

  He waited a few minutes, then ducked into a narrow alley along one side of the building. Making his way through crumbling rolls of tar paper, D’Agosta approached a window of wired glass, webbed with cracks and almost opaque with dust Climbing onto the tarpaper, he rubbed a hole clean with his tie and looked in.

  As his eyes adjusted to the dim interior, he made out a vast empty space. Faint bars of light striped across the stained cement floor. At the far end was a staircase leading up to what must once have been the office of the line boss. Otherwise, nothing.

  There was a sudden movement in the alley, and D’Agosta turned to see a man coming at him fast, a long kitchen knife shining wickedly in one hand. Reflexively, D’Agosta leapt for the ground, pulling his service piece as he did so. The man stared at the gun in surprise, stopping short. He gathered himself to flee.

  “Halt!” D’Agosta barked. “Police officer!”

  The man turned back again. Inexplicably, a look of amusement came over his features.

  “A cop!” he cried sarcastically. “Fancy that, a cop in these parts!”

  He continued to stand there, grinning. He was the strangest-looking person D’Agosta had ever seen: a shaved head, painted green; a wispy goatee; tiny, Trotskyesque glasses; a shirt made out of something like hairy burlap; ancient, red Keds sneakers.

  “Drop the knife,” said D’Agosta.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” the man said. “I thought you were a burglar.”

  “I said, drop the damn knife.”

  The grin disappeared from the man’s face. He tossed the knife onto the ground between them.

  D’Agosta kicked it aside. “Now turn around, slowly, and p
ut your hands on the wall. Spread your feet wide.”

  “What is this, Communist China?” the man objected.

  “Do it,” D’Agosta said.

  The man obeyed, grumbling, and D’Agosta patted him down, finding nothing more than a wallet. He flipped it open. The driver’s license showed an address next door.

  D’Agosta holstered his gun and handed the man his wallet. “You know, Mr. Kirtsema, I could’ve shot you back there.”

  “Hey, but I didn’t know you were a cop. I thought you were trying to break in.” The man stepped away from the wall, wiping his hands together. “You don’t know how many times I’ve been robbed. You guys don’t even bother to respond anymore. You’re the first cop I’ve seen around here in months, and—”

  D’Agosta waved him silent. “Just be more careful. Besides, you don’t know squat about handling a knife. If I was a real burglar, you’d probably be dead right now.”

  The man rubbed his nose, mumbling something incomprehensible.

  “You live next door?” D’Agosta asked. He could not get over the fact that this man had painted his entire scalp green. He tried not to stare at it.

  The man nodded.

  “How long?”

  “About three years. I used to have a loft in Soho, but I got evicted. This is the only place I found where I can do my work without being bothered.”

  “And what kind of work is that?”

  “It’s hard to explain.” The man grew suddenly guarded. “Why should I tell you?”

  D’Agosta dug into his pocket, flashed his badge and ID.

  The man looked at the badge. “Homicide, eh? Someone murdered around here?”