Dance Of Death

the screen. The figure strolled down the aisle, its eyes-differing shades of gray-seeking out and fixing on the security camera.

It was Diogenes. A smile spread over his face as he casually reached into his pocket and withdrew a piece of paper. He unfolded it and nonchalantly held it up to the camera.

BRAVO, FRATER!

TOMORROW, CALL AT 466 AND

ASK FOR VIOLA.

THIS WILL BE OUR

LAST COMMUNICATION.

MAY OUR NEW LIVES BEGIN!

VALEAS.

'Four six six?' said D'Agosta. 'That's not a legit emergency number…'

Then he stopped. It was not a telephone number, he realized, but an address. Four sixty-six First Avenue was the underground entrance at Bellevue that led to the New York City Morgue.

Pendergast rose, ejected the tape, and put it in his pocket.

'You can keep that,' said the attendant helpfully as they left.

Pendergast slipped behind the wheel, started the Camry, but did not move. His face was gray, his eyes half lidded.

There was a terrible silence. D'Agosta could think of nothing to say. He felt almost physically ill. This was even worse than at the Dakota-worse because, for the last twelve hours, they'd had hope. Slender, but hope nevertheless.

'I'll check the police band,' he said stiffly. It was a pointless gesture, just something to keep himself busy. And even police chatter about the APB was preferable to the dreadful silence.

Pendergast didn't respond as D'Agosta turned on the radio.

A burst of frantic, overlapping voices poured from the speaker.

Instinctively, D'Agosta glanced out the window. Had they been spotted? But the roads around the service area were deserted.

He leaned forward and changed the frequency. More frantic voices.

'What the hell?' D'Agosta punched the button, changed the frequency again and again. Almost half the available channels were taken up, and the talk wasn't about them. Something big, it seemed, was going down in the city. As he listened, trying to figure out what it was, he became aware that Pendergast was listening, too, suddenly totally alert.

The talk on the current channel was about the Museum of Natural History, a theft of some kind. It seemed the Astor Hall of Diamonds had been hit.

'Go to the command-and-control channel,' Pendergast said.

D'Agosta dialed it in.

'Rocker wants you to sweat the techies,' a voice was saying. 'This was an inside job, that much is clear.'

D'Agosta listened in disbelief. Rocker at four in the morning? This must be gigantic.

'They got 'em all? Including Lucifer's Heart?'

'Yup. And see who knew the specs on the security system, get a list, move through it fast. Museum security, too.'

'Got that. Who's the insurer?'

'Affiliated Transglobal.'

'Jeez, they're going to shit bricks when they learn about this.'

D'Agosta, glancing at Pendergast, was shocked at the rapt expression on his face. Strange how, at this moment of ultimate crisis, he could become so fixated on something that had no bearing or the problem at hand.

'The museum's president is on his way. And they've gotten the mayor out of bed. You know how he'll crucify anybody who lets him get behind the curve on a major-'

'Someone knocked off the diamond hall,' said D'Agosta. 'I guess that's why we've been temporarily upstaged.'

Pendergast said nothing. D'Agosta was taken aback by the look on his face.

'Hey, Pendergast,' he said. 'You okay?'

Pendergast turned his pale eyes toward him. 'No,' he whispered.

'I don't get it. What's this got to do with anything? It's a diamond heist-'

'Everything.' And then the FBI agent looked away, out into the winter darkness. 'All these brutal killings, all these mocking notes and messages… nothing more than a smoke screen. A cruel, coldblooded, sadistic smoke screen.'

He tore away from the curb and headed back into the neighborhood they had just passed through.

'Where are we going?'

Instead of answering, Pendergast jammed on the brakes, pulling up in front of a split-level house. He pointed to an F150 pickup parked in the driveway. For Sale was written on the windshield in soap.

'We need a new vehicle,' he said. 'Get ready to move the radio and laptop into that truck.'

'Buy a car at four a.m.?'

'A stolen car is reported too quickly. We need more time.'

Pendergast got out of the car and strode up the short concrete walk. He rang the bell, rang it again. After a minute, the lights on the second floor came on. A window scraped open, and a voice shouted down: 'What do you want?'

'The pickup-it's operational?'

'Hell, pal, it's four in the morning!'

'Will hard cash help get you out of bed?'

With a muttered curse, the window shut. A moment later, the porch light came on and a corpulent man in a bathrobe appeared at the door. 'It's three thousand. And it works good. Got a full tank of gas, too.'

Pendergast reached into his suit, removed a book of cash, peeled off thirty hundreds.

'What's going on?' the man asked a little blearily.

Pendergast pulled out his badge. 'I'm with the FBI.' He nodded at D'Agosta. 'He's NYPD.'

Balancing the radio and laptop under one arm, D'Agosta removed his shield.

'We're working an undercover narcotics job. Be a good citizen and keep this to yourself, all right?'

'Sure thing.' The man accepted the cash.

'The keys?'

The man disappeared, came back a moment later with an envelope. 'The title's in there, too.'

Pendergast took the envelope. 'An officer will be by shortly to take care of our previous vehicle. But don't say anything about the car or about us, not even to another police officer. You know how it is with undercover cases.'

The man nodded vigorously. 'Sure do. Hell, the only books I read are true crime.'

Pendergast thanked the man and turned away. A minute later, they were inside the truck, accelerating from the curb.

'That should buy us a few hours,' Pendergast said as he raced back in the direction of the Montauk Highway.

FIFTY-FIVE

Diogenes Pendergast drove slowly, without hurry, through the bleak winter townscapes along the Old Stone