The Book of the Dead

by Douglas Preston

  He fell silent for a moment, as if in contemplation. Then he leaned forward and smiled. “And do you know what?”

  “What?” she managed to say.

  “You would love that library.”

  Constance swallowed, unable to formulate a response.

  He glanced at her. “The presents I brought you last time. The books, the other items… have you opened them?”

  Constance nodded.

  “Good. They will show you there are other universes out there-perfumed universes, full of wonder and delight, ready to be enjoyed. Monte Carlo. Venice. Paris. Vienna. Or, if you prefer: Katmandu, Cairo, Machu Picchu.” Diogenes waved his hand around the walls of leather-bound books. “Look at the volumes you’re surrounded by. Bunyan. Milton. Bacon. Virgil. Sobersided moralists all. Can an orchid flower if you water it with quinine?” He stroked the copy of Akhmatova. “That is why I’ve been reading you poetry this evening: to help you see that these shadows you surround yourself with need not be merely monochrome.”

  He picked up another slender volume from the pile beside him. “Have you ever read Theodore Roethke?”

  Constance shook her head.

  “Ah! Then you are about to experience a most delicious, undiscovered pleasure.” He opened the book, selected a page, and began.

  I think the dead are tender. Shall we kiss?-

  Listening, Constance suddenly felt a strange feeling blossom deep within her: something faintly grasped at in fleeting dreams and yet still unknown, something rich and forbidden.

  We sing together; we sing mouth to mouth…

  She rose abruptly from the chair. The mouse in her frock pocket righted itself in surprise.

  “It’s later than I realized,” she said in a trembling voice. “I think you had better leave.”

  Diogenes glanced at her mildly. Then he closed the book with perfect ease and rose.

  “Yes, that would be best,” he said. “The scolding Wren will be in shortly. It would not do for him to find me here-or your other jailers, D’Agosta and Proctor.”

  Constance felt herself flush, and immediately hated herself for it.

  Diogenes nodded toward the couch. “I’ll leave these other volumes for you, as well,” he said. “Good night, dear Constance.”

  Then he stepped forward and-before she could react-inclined his head, took her hand, and raised it to his lips.

  The gesture was executed with perfect formality and the best of breeding. Yet there was something in the way his lips lingered just out of contact with her fingers-something in the warm breath on her skin-that made Constance curl inwardly with unease…

  And then he was gone, suddenly, wordlessly, leaving the library empty and silent, save for the low crackle of the fire.

  For a moment, she remained motionless, aware of her own quickened breathing. He had left nothing of himself behind, no trace of his scent, nothing-save for the small stack of books on the couch.

  She came forward and picked up the top volume. It was exquisitely bound in silk, with gilt edging and hand-marbled endpapers. She turned it over in her hands, feeling the delicious suppleness of the material.

  Then, quite suddenly, she placed it back on the pile, picked up the half-finished glass of pastis, and exited the library. Making her way into the back parts of the house, she entered the service kitchen, where she rinsed and dried the glass. Then she returned to the central stairway.

  The old mansion was silent: Proctor was out, as he had been so frequently on recent nights, assisting Eli Glinn in his plans; D’Agosta had looked in earlier, but only to make sure the house was secure, and had left again almost immediately. And “scolding Wren” was, as always at this hour, at the New York Public Library. His tiresome self-imposed babysitting duties were, thankfully, confined to the daylight hours. There was no point in checking to see whether the front door was still locked-she knew it would be.

  Now, slowly, she ascended the stairs to her suite of rooms on the third floor. Gently removing the white mouse from her pocket, she placed him in his cage. She slipped out of her frock and undergarments and folded them neatly. Normally, she would have gone through her evening ablutions next, donned a nightgown, and read in the chair beside her bed for an hour or so before retiring-at present, she was working her way through Johnson’s Rambler essays.

  But not tonight. Tonight, she drifted into her bathroom and filled the oversize marble bath with hot water. Then she turned to a beautifully papered gift box, resting on a brass server nearby. Inside the box were a dozen small glass bottles from a Parisian manufacturer of bath oils: a gift from Diogenes on his last visit. Selecting one, she poured the contents into the water. The heady scent of lavender and patchouli perfumed the air.

  Constance walked over to the full-length mirror and regarded her nude form for a long moment, sliding her hands over her sides, along her smooth belly. Then, turning away, she slipped into the bath.

  This had been Diogenes’s fourth visit. Before, he had often spoken of his brother and made several allusions to a particular Event-Diogenes seemed to speak the word with a special emphasis-an Event of such horror that he could not bring himself to talk of it, except to say it had left him blind in one eye. He had also described how his brother had gone out of his way to poison others against him-herself in particular-by telling lies and insinuations, making him out to be evil incarnate. At first she had objected vehemently to that kind of talk. It was a perversion of the truth, she’d protested-teased out now for some twisted end of his own. But he had been so calm in the face of her anger, so reasonable and persuasive in his rebuttals, that despite herself, she had grown confused. It was true that Pendergast was remote and aloof at times, but that was just his way… wasn’t it? And wasn’t it true the reason he’d never contacted her from prison was to simply spare her additional anxiety? She loved him, silently, from afar-a love he never seemed to return or acknowledge.

  It would have meant so much to have heard from him.

  Could there be some truth to Diogenes’s stories? Her head told her he was untrustworthy, a thief, perhaps a sadistic killer… but her heart told her differently. He seemed so understanding, so vulnerable. So kind. He had even shown her evidence-documents, old photographs-that seemed to undercut many of the things Aloysius had told her about him. But he hadn’t denied everything; he had also accepted a share of blame, admitted to being a less-than-perfect brother-a deeply flawed human being.

  Everything was so confused.

  Constance had always trusted her head, her intellect-even though, in many ways, she knew her mind was fragile and capable of betraying her. And yet now it was her heart that spoke the loudest. She wondered if Diogenes was telling the truth when he said he understood her-because, at some deep level she had yet to plumb, she believed him: she felt a connection. Most important, she was beginning to understand him as well.

  At last she rose from the bath, dried herself, and completed her preparations for bed. She chose to wear not one of her cotton nightgowns, but rather one of finely milled silk that lay, unworn and half forgotten, at the bottom of a drawer. Then she slipped into bed, propped up her down pillows, and opened the collection of Rambler essays.

  The words all ran together without meaning, and she grew restless. She flipped ahead to the next essay, scanned its stentorian opening, then closed the book. Getting out of bed again, she walked over to a heavy Duncan Phyfe armoire and opened it. Inside was a velvet-lined box containing a small collection of octavo books Diogenes had brought on his last visit. She carried the box back to bed and sorted through its contents. They were books she had heard about but never read, books that had never been a part of Enoch Leng’s extensive library. The Satyricon of Petronius; Huysmans’s Àu rebours; Oscar Wilde’s letters to Lord Alfred Douglas; the love poetry of Sappho; Boccaccio’s Decameron. Decadence, opulence, and passionate love clung to these pages like musk. Constance dipped into one and then another-at first gingerly, then curiously, then with something like hunger, reading
late into the restless night.

  Chapter 30

  Gerry Fecteau found a sunny spot on the walkway overlooking yard 4 and snugged up the zipper of his guard’s jacket. A late-winter light filtered down from a whiskey sky, not strong enough to melt the patches of dirty snow that still edged the yards and building corners. From where he stood, he had a good view of the yard. He glanced over at his partner, Doyle, placed strategically at the other corner.

  The nature of their assignment had not been explained to them, not even hinted at. In fact, they had been given only one order: watch the yard from above. But Fecteau had been around long enough to read between the lines. The mystery prisoner, still in solitary, had been given yard privileges for good behavior-in yard 4. Obligatory yard privileges. With Pocho and his gang. Fecteau knew very well what was going to happen to the prisoner-who was about as white as a white man could get-when he was turned out in yard 4 with Lacarra and his thugs. And watching the yard from the walkway above, like he was doing, it would take a couple of minutes at least to get down to the yard if any trouble erupted.

  There was only one reason for an order like that. The drummer hadn’t worked-for some inexplicable reason, he’d actually grown quiet-and now they were on to something new.

  He licked his lips and scanned the empty yard: the basketball hoop with no net, the parallel bars, the quarter acre of asphalt. Five minutes until the exercise hour. Fecteau wasn’t exactly thrilled with the assignment. If anybody got killed, it would be his ass. And he sure didn’t relish the thought of pulling Lacarra off someone. On the other hand, another part of him relished the thought of violence. His heart rate accelerated with anticipation and apprehension.

  At the appointed time, to the second, he heard the bolts shoot back, and the double doors to the yard opened. Two guards stepped into the weak sunlight, hooked the doors open, and stood on either side while Pocho ambled out-always first-his eyes squinting around the cement yard, stroking the tuft of hair under his lip. He was wearing the standard prison jumpsuit, no coat despite the winter temperature. He turned as he walked, twisting the tuft of hair, muscles rippling under his sleeves. His shaved head gleamed dully in the weak light and across his face, making his old acne scars look like lunar craters.

  Lacarra sauntered into the center of the yard as the six other inmates filed out after him, heading off in different directions, striking casual poses as they looked around, chewing gum, walking aimlessly across the tarmac. One guard tossed out a basketball, which bounced toward one of the men; he flipped it up with his foot, caught it, then began bouncing it idly.

  A moment later, the new prisoner stepped out, tall and straight. He paused just beyond the threshold, looking around, with a degree of casualness that made Fecteau tingle. The poor guy hadn’t a clue.

  Pocho and his boys didn’t even seem to notice the newcomer-except that they all stopped chewing. But only for an instant. The ball continued its steady bounce, like the slow beating of a drum, bom… bom… bom. It was as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  The mystery prisoner began to walk along the cinder-block wall of the yard. As he walked, he looked about, face neutral, his moves easy and smooth. The others followed him with their eyes.

  The yard was enclosed on three sides by the cement walls of Herkmoor, with chain link topped by concertina wire forming the fourth barrier at the far end. The prisoner walked alongside the wall until he came to the chain link, then turned to follow the line of the fence, staring out through it as he walked. Prisoners, Fecteau had noticed, always looked out or up-never back in toward the grim building. A guard tower dominated the middle distance; and beyond that, the tops of the trees rose above the prison’s outer wall.

  One of the delivery guards looked up, caught Fecteau’s eye, and shrugged as if to say, “What’s going on?” Fecteau shrugged back and signaled them to leave, that the transfer of prisoners to the yard was good. The two disappeared back into the building, shutting the doors behind them.

  Fecteau raised the radio to his lips and spoke in a low tone. “You reading me, Doyle?”

  “I read you.”

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Yup.”

  “We better be ready to run down there and break things up.”

  “Ten-four.”

  They waited. The sound of the bouncing ball continued steadily. Nobody moved except the mystery prisoner, who continued his slow perambulation along the fence.

  Bom… bom… bom, went the ball.

  Doyle’s voice crackled over the radio again. “Hey, Gerry, this remind you of anything?”

  “Like what?”

  “You remember the opening scene of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This is it.”

  “Maybe. Except one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The outcome.”

  Doyle snickered over the radio. “Don’t worry. Pocho wants his meat alive, only tenderized.”

  Now Lacarra removed his hands from his pockets, straightened up, and pimp-rolled over to a point on the fence thirty feet ahead of the prisoner. He hooked a hand on the chain link and watched the prisoner come toward him. Instead of varying his route to avoid Lacarra, the prisoner continued his leisurely stroll, not pausing for an instant, until he had come right up to Lacarra. And then he spoke to him. Fecteau strained to hear.

  “Good afternoon,” said the prisoner.

  Lacarra looked away. “Got a cigarette?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t smoke.”

  Lacarra nodded, still looking off into the distance, his eyes half closed, like two black slits. He began stroking the tuft of hair, pulling his lip down with each stroke, exposing a row of yellow, broken teeth.

  “You don’t smoke,” Lacarra said quietly. “Isn’t that healthy.”

  “I used to enjoy the occasional cigar, but I quit when a friend of mine developed cancer. They had to cut off most of his lower jaw, poor fellow.”

  At this, Lacarra’s head swiveled toward him, as if in slow motion. “He must’ve been one ugly motherfucker after that.”

  “It’s amazing what they can do with plastic surgery these days.”

  Lacarra turned. “Hey, you hear that, Rafe? This boy’s got a friend with no mouth.”

  As if on cue, Lacarra’s gang started to move again-all except the one with the ball. They began drifting in, like wolves.

  “I think I’ll continue my walk now,” said the prisoner, moving to one side.

  With a casual step, Lacarra moved to block the prisoner’s path.

  The prisoner paused, and fixed a pair of silvery eyes on Lacarra. He said something in a low voice that Fecteau didn’t catch.

  Lacarra didn’t move, didn’t look at the prisoner. After a moment he replied, “And what’s that?”

  The prisoner spoke more clearly now. “I hope you’re not going to make the second worst mistake of your life.”

  “What the fuck you talking about, second mistake? What’s the first mistake?”

  “Murdering those three innocent children.”

  There was an electric silence. Fecteau shifted, stunned by what he had heard. The prisoner had broken one of the most sacred rules of prison life-and what was more, had done it with Pocho Lacarra. And how in hell did he even know Lacarra? The man had been in solitary since he arrived. Fecteau tensed all over. Something terrible was going to happen-and it was going to happen soon.

  Lacarra smiled, looking at him for the first time, showing more yellow teeth with a gap in the top, and then, through that gap, he ejected a gobbet of phlegm which hit the toe of the prisoner’s shoe with an audible smack. “Where’d you hear that?” he asked mildly.

  “You tied them up first, though-big brave macho hombre that you are. Wouldn’t want a seven-year-old girl to leave a scratch on that pretty face of yours. Eh, Pocho?”

  Fecteau could hardly believe his ears. This guy had a death wish for sure. Lacarra’s gang s
eemed equally stupefied, unsure how to respond, waiting for some kind of signal.

  Pocho began to laugh: a slow, ugly laugh, full of menace. “Hey, Rafe,” he called over his shoulder. “I don’t think this motherfucker likes me, know what I mean?”

  Rafe sauntered over. “Oh, yeah?”

  The prisoner said nothing. Now the others were still drifting in, like a pack of wolves. Fecteau felt his heart pounding in his chest.

  “You hurt my feelings, man,” Pocho said to the prisoner.

  “Indeed,” came the reply. “And what feelings are those?”

  Pocho stepped back and Rafe came in, all slow and nonchalant, and then-fast as a spring-loaded trap-he swung on the prisoner’s gut.

  The prisoner moved like a blur, one leg flashing out, and suddenly Rafe was doubled up, on the ground. Then, with a horrible sucking sound, he vomited.

  “Knock it off!” Fecteau screamed down at them, raising his radio to call Doyle.

  The others moved in fast while Pocho took another step away, letting the others do the dirty work. Watching, Fecteau was amazed, confounded, to see the prisoner move in a way he never thought possible, faster than he thought possible, some kind of martial art he wasn’t familiar with-but of course, he was up against six gang members who had spent their entire lives street-fighting and nobody could hold up to that. As for the gang itself, they were so surprised by the prisoner’s moves they had retreated, temporarily at bay. Another had fallen beside Rafe, stunned by a blow to the chin.