credit cards and withdrawing cash from ATMs. He went by the name on the false passport and bought a new cell phone under that assumed name. His lodgings were a cheap SRO on Second Street that preferred dealing in cash. Whenever possible he was subsisting on handouts such as this. He had a goodly supply of cash left over from his trip to Scotland, so for the time being money wasn’t a concern, but he would need to make it last. Pendergast’s resources were frighteningly exhaustive — he wasn’t about to take any chances. Besides, he knew
“Goddamn green Jell-O,” the man in front of him continued to complain. He was perhaps forty years old, sported a wispy goatee, and wore a faded lumberjack shirt. His grimy, pale face was seamed with every manner of vice, self-gratification, and corruption. “Why can’t we ever get red Jell-O?”
Carrying the tray, he walked over to a nearby table and sat down at the only empty place, next to the goateed man. He lifted his fork, picked absently at the food, put the fork down again.
Now that he thought about it, Esterhazy realized how little he really knew about Pendergast. The man had been married to his sister. And yet, though they’d been on friendly terms, he’d always remained distant, cool, a cipher. He had failed to kill Pendergast partly because he hadn’t really understood him. He needed to learn more about the man: his movements, his likes, his dislikes, his attachments. What made him tick, what he cared about.
Esterhazy could hardly swallow his food with that phrase echoing in his mind. He put down his fork and turned to the goateed vagrant sitting next to him. He stared at the man until he stopped eating and looked up.
“Got a problem?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” Esterhazy bestowed a friendly smile on the man. “May I ask you a question?”
“What about?” The man was instantly suspicious.
“Someone’s pursuing me,” said Esterhazy. “Threatening my life. I can’t shake him.”
“Kill the mother,” said the man, resuming slurping up his Jell-O.
“That’s just it. I can’t get near enough to kill him. What would you do?”
The man’s deep-set eyes glittered with malice, and he put down his spoon. This was a problem he understood. “You get to someone close to him. Someone weak. Helpless. A bitch.”
“A bitch,” Esterhazy repeated.
“Not just any bitch,
“That makes sense.”
“No shit it makes sense. I had a beef with this dealer, man, wanted to bust a cap in his ass, but he always had his crew around him. Well, he had this little sister, real juicy…”
The story went on for a long time. But Esterhazy wasn’t listening. He had fallen into pensive thought.
CHAPTER 34
THE ELEGANT TOWN HOUSE DOZED IN THE FRAGRANT cool of a fall evening. Outside, in Habersham Street, and beyond in Whitfield Square, passersby chatted animatedly and tourists snapped pictures of the park’s gingerbread cupola and the historic brick structures surrounding it. But within the town house, all was still.
Until, with a faint rustle of metal against metal, the lock turned and the back door was teased open.
Special Agent Pendergast slipped into the kitchen, barely a shadow in the fading light. He closed and locked the door behind him, then turned and leaned against it, listening. The house was vacant, but he paused in the silence anyway. The air smelled stale and the blinds were all drawn. This was a building that had not been entered in some time.
He recalled the last time he had been in this house, several months before, under very different circumstances. Esterhazy had since gone to ground, and done it very well. But there would be traces. Clues. And of any place, this house was the most likely to contain that information — because nobody could disappear without a trace.
Except perhaps Helen.
Pendergast raked the kitchen with his pale eyes. It was almost obsessively neat and, like the rest of the house, decidedly masculine in its choice of furnishings: the heavy oak breakfast table, the oversize slab of butcher block studded with massive knives, the dark cherry cabinets and black granite countertops.
He made his way out of the kitchen, through the hall, and up the stairs to the second floor. The doors off the landing were closed, and he opened each one in turn. One led to an attic staircase, which he climbed to an unfinished, peaked-ceilinged space smelling of mothballs and dust. He pulled a string hanging beside a bare bulb, bathing the room in harsh light. There were a number of boxes and trunks here, neatly arranged against the walls, all locked. In one corner stood a full-length mirror, dull and cobwebbed.
Pendergast withdrew a pearl-handled switchblade from his jacket pocket and flicked it open. Methodically, without hurry, he slit open the boxes and sorted through them, resealing them with fresh packing tape when he was done. The steamer trunks came next: locks picked, searched, and relocked, everything left as before.
As he moved toward the stairs, he paused before the mirror, and then, with the sleeve of his black suit, polished the mirror clean in one area and gazed into it. The face that looked back at him seemed almost alien; he turned away.
Turning off the light, he descended to the second floor, which consisted of two bathrooms, Esterhazy’s bedroom, a study, and a guest bedroom. Pendergast went to the bathrooms first, opening the medicine cabinets and examining the contents. He squirted tubes of toothpaste, cans of shaving cream, and containers of talcum into the toilets to make sure they were genuine and not containers for hiding valuables, returning the flattened and emptied containers to their proper places. The guest bedroom came next. Nothing of interest.
Pendergast’s breathing quickened slightly.
He then passed into Esterhazy’s own bedroom. It was as meticulously neat as the rest of the house: hardcover novels and biographies were carefully stacked on their shelves, antique Wedgwood and Quimper ceramics arranged in small niches.
Pendergast pulled the covers from the bed and examined the mattress, sliding it off the bed and palpating it, pulling the fabric aside and examining the springs. He felt the pillows and examined the bed frame, and then remade the bed. Opening the clothes closet, he systematically felt through every item of clothing, looking for anything concealed within. He pulled every drawer from the old Duncan Phyfe armoire and examined the contents, no longer being overly careful to replace them in order. He plucked the books off the shelves one at a time, flipped through them, and shoved them back out of order. His movements became more rapid, verging on the brusque.
Next came the study. Pendergast walked over to the lone filing cabinet, jimmied the lock with a savage twist of the switchblade, and opened each drawer, removing the folders inside, examining them closely, and then dropping them back in place. It took almost an hour to go through all the bills, tax forms, correspondence, financial ledgers, and other documents — interesting in the light they threw on Esterhazy but of no obvious significance. Next came the heavy shelves of reference books and medical texts. The contents of the desk followed. A laptop sat atop the desk; taking a screwdriver from his pocket, Pendergast opened its base, plucked out the hard disk, and slipped it into his pocket. The walls were covered with framed commendations and awards; these were removed, their backs inspected, then rehung indifferently.
He paused in the doorway before proceeding downstairs. The contents of the study — and indeed the house — remained more or less neat and regular; no one would know that every millimeter had been invaded, scrutinized, violated… except Judson. He would know.
