32
CONSTANCE—CONFRONTED BY THIS dark menace looming over her so abruptly—leapt back a step, instinctively drawing the antique stiletto she was never without, in the paranza corta stance of Italian knife fighting she’d studied. But then she realized that what confronted her was, instead of a giant, the silhouette of an old woman, her shadow magnified by the dim light thrown by a Tiffany lamp, a walking cane in one hand and a pistol in the other. The woman took a step back, the lamp throwing her shadow crazily across the pressed-tin ceiling.
For a moment, the two looked at each other. Then the old woman spoke.
“Well,” she said in a cross voice, “either stab me or put it away.”
“You would seem to have the upper hand of the situation,” Constance replied.
“This?” And the woman turned the weapon sideways, its salt-blued barrel winking at the movement. “It’s not loaded.”
When Constance remained motionless, the older woman sighed, raised the slide toggle, ejected the magazine, and—most unexpectedly—tossed it casually at Constance. She caught it with her left hand and saw that it, indeed, held no rounds. She straightened up, putting her knife away and placing the magazine on a nearby console table. Now she had a chance to see the woman more clearly. She was dressed in an elegant, silk-edged yukata dressing gown, and she was staring at Constance with a look somewhere between annoyance and amusement.
“Part of my collection,” the woman explained.
“Of deadly weapons?”
“Of industrial design. I find great beauty in the marriage of form and function. Others collect paintings; I collect fountain pens, percolators, antique cipher machines—and weapons. Too many, in fact, to display.” She came forward, retrieved the empty magazine, slipped it back into the handle, and snapped the slide back into position. “This model,” she said, holding it up for Constance to admire, “was known as the ‘Black Widow,’ and despite its cheap Bakelite grips I think it’s the most attractive of all the Parabellums.”
She moved over to a sideboard—picking up a battered paperback as she did so—and placed the pistol upon it. As she walked, Constance noted that she appeared to be moving with a degree of pain that could not be concealed. Beyond the woman, Constance could see a series of adjoining rooms, sumptuously furnished, with recessed bookshelves, old tapestries, elaborate rosewood wainscoting, and crown molding. Here and there, folding byōbu screens of latticed rice paper were spread open, their elaborate shoji patterns acting as partitions between sections of the apartment. Along one wall of all the rooms ran a gallery of windows, stretching nearly from floor to ceiling; beyond was a balcony, barely visible in the gloom.
The woman turned back. “You must be Constance Greene,” she said.
Constance, surprised, said nothing.
“You’re staying in the Juliette Gordon Low suite with that FBI agent who’s causing such a stir.” The woman looked quizzically at Constance. “What—did you think that just because I’m ancient and enfeebled, I wouldn’t know what’s going on in my hotel?”
After a moment, Constance replied: “At this point, I think the conventional response would be: ‘I believe you have me at a disadvantage, ma’am.’”
The woman laughed, coming forward again. Although there were sofas and wing chairs arranged around the room immediately behind her, she did not offer Constance a seat. “And I imagine he’s sent you up here to find out, with your feminine wiles, what I know about the recent unpleasantness.”
Constance shook her head. “I was merely curious. I’m not here because of Mr. Ellerby.”
She’d mentioned the name intentionally, and she noticed that, upon hearing it, the old woman could not conceal a wince of sorrow. “I’m here because the rumors I heard have intrigued me.”
“Which rumors are those? There are so many. That I ride out of here at midnight on a broomstick? That I drink the blood of firstborn children? That I’m a direct descendant of Gilles de Rais?”
“No. That, like me, you prefer the company of fine books to that of other people.”
The old woman raised her eyebrows. “Indeed! An interesting habit in one so young. I give you credit for your courage in tiptoeing up here. No doubt you heard all the fearful rumors about me as well.” She paused. “And ἀργαλέος γὰρ Ὀλύμπιος ἀντιφέρεσθαι.”
Constance smiled mirthlessly. “If I am courageous, it’s due in large part to something we both share. συμφερτὴ δ' ἀρετὴ πέλει ἀνδρῶν καὶ μάλα λυγρῶν.”
For the first time, Miss Frost’s eyes registered surprise. “Forgive me,” she said after a moment. “Regina, iubes renovare dolorem.”
“Quisque suos patimur Manes,” Constance quoted in reply.
This was followed by a long silence. “If you know as much about sorrow as you know about dead languages,” Miss Frost said, “then you know it is best kept private.”
“The sorrow, yes,” Constance said. “But not necessarily the sufferer.”
“An interesting coil on sorrow, that.” Miss Frost went silent for a long moment. Then her gaze, which had gone distant, fixed again on Constance. “I’m so sorry I can’t offer you my hospitality,” she said. “But I find myself rather busy this evening.”
“Of course.” Constance bowed slightly, then turned to leave.
“Miss Greene?” came the voice from behind her.
Constance turned back.
“Perhaps you would care to join me another evening. For tea.”
“I’d enjoy that. Thank you.”
And as Constance quietly closed the door to Miss Frost’s apartments and made her way down the narrow staircase, she heard the melody of the Chopin nocturne begin to sound once more.
33
COLDMOON SAW THE EARLY-MORNING glow of a café spilling onto the sidewalk and swerved toward it, not even bothering to ask his partner’s opinion. It was 6 AM and the café had apparently just opened.
“My dear Coldmoon—” began Pendergast.
“If I don’t get some coffee,” said Coldmoon loudly, “I’m going to die.”
“Very well,” said Pendergast. “I wouldn’t want another corpse on my hands.”
Inside, the little diner was air-conditioned, shiny and cheerful, smelling of coffee and bacon. It was a relief from the muggy night air. Coldmoon took a seat in one of the banquettes and Pendergast sat opposite him, gingerly, after inspecting the interior—and the banquette seat in particular—with a barely concealed expression of disdain. A waitress appeared immediately with plastic menus and a big pot of coffee.
“Fill ’er up, please,” said Coldmoon.
“I don’t suppose you have, ah, espresso…?” Pendergast asked.
“Sorry, sugar. Just this.” She held up the pot with a grin.
“Tea?”
“Black or green?”
“English breakfast, if you please. Milk and sugar.”
“Sure thing. Anything to eat, boys?”
“Bacon and eggs for me,” Coldmoon said, “over easy, toast, hash browns.”
“Hash browns?” the waitress said. “We’re known for our grits here. Buttered, salted, and sugared.”
“No,” Coldmoon said. “Hash browns. The greasier the better.”
“We don’t serve greasy food,” she said, offended.
“Okay, fine, whatever. But make it hash browns.”
She glared at him for a moment. Then she turned toward Pendergast—having picked up on his drawl—with a considerably softer expression. “And you, sugar?” she asked. “A nice plate of chicken and waffles?”
Pendergast closed his eyes and opened them. “Nothing for me, thank you very much.”
She went off and Coldmoon took a gulp of his coffee. It was, of course, not as richly burnt as he liked, but the bitter brew went down well and he quickly felt its revivifying effects.
“Sorry, Pendergast, but I can’t think straight if I haven’t had my coffee and breakfast.” He paused.
“Chicken and waffles?”
“Keep your voice down—you’ve made a bad enough impression as it is.” Pendergast paused. “It’s a southern thing. If you have to ask, you won’t understand the explanation.”
Coldmoon shook his head. “Sounds toxic.”
“Then perhaps I shouldn’t tell you the waffles are slathered in butter, the fried chicken is doused with hot sauce, and then the entire concoction is drowned in maple syrup.”
Coldmoon shuddered.
Pendergast paused while the waitress brought his tea. “In any case, this interregnum will give us a chance to review the forensic examination of Mr. Ellerby’s day-trading hobby.”
“Already?”
“I spoke to the gentleman who analyzed the computer hard drives. The results are curious, to say the least.”
Coldmoon’s plate of food arrived in record time, and he tucked into the hash browns.
“In the three weeks before his death,” Pendergast said in the same casual voice, “Mr. Ellerby made two hundred million dollars.”
Coldmoon had just forked a mess of hash browns into his mouth and now he nearly choked. He chewed and chewed, finally getting the bolus of food down. “You timed that bombshell, I know you did,” he said, wiping his mouth.
“What could you mean?” said Pendergast.
“Two hundred million?” Coldmoon asked. “How?”
“Simple day trading. Exclusively limited to the thirty companies on the Dow Jones Industrial Index. All of it quite straightforward, apparently, with no sign of insider trading, manipulation, fraud, or any other illegality.”
“How’s that possible?”
“The forensic accountant, in whose competence I have faith, says in all his years of analyzing cooked books and unscrupulous trading, he’s never seen anything like it. The hotel manager’s trades, every single one, appeared to be totally legitimate and aboveboard. He never made a killing, just steady gains, one after the other, across thousands of trades of stocks and options.”
“Crazy.”
“And,” Pendergast added, “he never, even once, lost money on a trade.”
“Impossible.”
“One would think so.”
“Do you believe this, um, impossibility is connected with his murder?”
It was the kind of question Pendergast often didn’t answer, and as Coldmoon expected, no answer was forthcoming. So Coldmoon went ahead. “Did the second victim trade in the market?”
“Never.”
“And the third victim—that college kid on the sidewalk—chances are he’s not an investor, either.”
“I should be most surprised to learn the contrary.”
Coldmoon continued eating his hash browns at a much slower pace than before. Why the hell did Pendergast need to make a ten-word statement in which nine of the words were superfluous? A simple Right would have sufficed.
He went on. “So the fact this hotel manager made two hundred million right before his death, and the others didn’t even play the market—well, if the trading is connected with his murder, what is the connection?”
Pendergast said nothing.
Coldmoon plucked a miniature tray of grape jelly from the little metal rack on the table, peeled off the top, and began spreading it on his buttered toast. “Who was Ellerby’s heir? Do we know who’s going to get the dough?”
“His eighty-year-old widowed mother. He was an only child.”
Coldmoon shook his head. “Kind of rules that out as a motive.”
“I would say so.”
“About this morning’s killing. What happened, exactly? Was that guy tossed off the roof? Was he sideswiped by a car and thrown onto the sidewalk? Or was he just beaten to a pulp? He sure looked like a mess.”
“He was lying too far from the house to have fallen,” Pendergast said. “Or to have been thrown. At least by a human being.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? “But he was sucked dry of blood. Like the other two.”
Pendergast simply nodded.
“You think it’s a vampire,” Coldmoon said after a moment, shoving a piece of bacon into his mouth. “You, along with everyone else.”
Pendergast took a long, contemplative sip of tea. He placed the cup down. “Do you?”
“What? No. I mean, are you kidding? Of course not. Vampires don’t exist.”
“Do the Lakota have any legends about vampires?”
Coldmoon was surprised by the question. Pendergast rarely seemed to acknowledge, let alone take an interest in, his Native American heritage.
“The Lakota do have a sort of legend about a vampire. He was white, of course.”
“Naturally.”
“A settler moved into the Black Hills to look for gold, and he built a cabin in a sacred valley, defiling it. A year later, some Lakotas found him dead in his cabin, stone cold, with a silver knife in his heart. When they pulled out the knife, the corpse began to warm up, and they grew frightened and ran away. He later began attacking people, killing them and drinking their blood. The only way he could be stopped was to put that same knife back into his heart. And then he would get cold and still again. But he wouldn’t die—not really. They say his body is up there, in that cabin, waiting for someone to pull the knife out—”
Just then, Coldmoon was interrupted by an unintelligible cry from outside. He looked out the café window to see a young man staggering up the street: filthy, covered in mud and dirt, his clothes torn almost into rags. He was jabbering in distress, evidently drunk or high.
In a flash, Pendergast was up.
“What are you doing?” Coldmoon asked as he readied his fork for a frontal attack on the fried eggs. “He’s just some drunken kid.”
But Pendergast ignored him and went outside. Reluctantly, Coldmoon followed a few moments later. The kid had paused just down the street and was clinging to a lamppost, steadying himself. The few pedestrians about at that early hour ignored him completely. Evidently inebriated people at dawn were not an uncommon sight in Savannah.
Pendergast approached the young man, speaking in a soothing voice, holding out his hand. The kid lurched, turned, and as he did so Pendergast grasped his muddy hand in support. “I’m here to help,” Coldmoon heard him say.
The kid let go of the lamppost, letting Pendergast bear his weight. “I’m here to help,” the agent repeated.
The kid turned his mud-smeared face toward Pendergast, his lips moving, the words indistinct but repeated over and over like a mantra, his eyes widening. And then, as his cracked voice grew louder, Coldmoon understood what he was trying to say:
No help, no help, no help, no help no help no help…
34
LET US CAFFEINATE THIS fellow at once,” said Pendergast, steering him back toward the café. “And find out what he has to say.”
“Why?” Coldmoon asked. “He’s just some random student.”
“Random? My dear Coldmoon,” Pendergast said, in a tone somewhere between pity and exasperation, “did you not see the Auburn University tiger paw emblazoned on his shirt? It’s identical to the one the recently deceased was wearing.” He cocked his head at his partner.
Coldmoon could fill in the rest himself. Surely a trained FBI agent would notice such an obvious connection. He found himself coloring. “Sorry. So you think—?”
“I think we may have found the victim’s friend and drinking partner. I believe he is more terrified than he is drunk.”
Coldmoon held open the door while Pendergast eased the youth over to their table.
“Now hold on, all y’all,” said the waitress, glaring at Coldmoon. “We don’t serve drunks or hooligans here.”
“Ma’am,” Pendergast said, slipping his FBI badge out of his suit and flipping it open, “this is official business.”
She didn’t bat an eye. “In that case, the boy needs some coffee.” She swiped a mug from an adjacent table, filled it to the brim from the pot, and placed it before the kid. “He’ll need something in his st
omach, too. How about some buttered toast?”
“Thank you.” Pendergast turned back to the new arrival. “You’re safe now. Have some coffee.”
The boy took the mug in both hands, trembling, and sipped, slopping it over the rim.
“Again.”
He took another sip, and another. The waitress brought over a plate of buttered toast.
“Excellent.”
The boy picked up a piece of toast and bit into it hungrily. The coffee and toast seemed to steady him: his eyes looked more focused now, Coldmoon thought; less glazed with shock and fear.
“And now, young man,” Pendergast said, “what is your name?”
He looked at Pendergast with frightened eyes. “Toby.”
“Toby…”
“Manning.”
“I am Special Agent Pendergast. And this is my partner, Special Agent Coldmoon. How do you do?”
Manning did not seem to be able to answer the question.
“He reminds me of Paul Revere’s ride,” the waitress said from behind the counter. “A little light in the belfry.”
Coldmoon gave her a none of your business glance. The waitress frowned and, curling her lip, offered him a moue in return.
“Toby,” Pendergast said, “do you know a fellow named Brock Custis?”
The eyes widened. “How—?”
“Mr. Custis, I regret to say, was found dead earlier this morning.”
“Oh my god…In the cemetery?”
Pendergast looked at him curiously. “No. Did something happen in the cemetery?”
“Um…” He seemed hesitant to talk.
Pendergast lowered his voice to a soothing, honeyed cadence. “You can tell me, Mr. Manning. What happened in the cemetery?”
“I don’t know.” He took another gulp of coffee and another, spilling some on the table. The waitress came over and wiped up the spill as she topped off the cup, then hovered in the background.
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