Cold Vengeance

“No,” she said in a high, querulous voice.

“No?” Felder repeated, surprised.

“I don’t know you from Adam. And tracking you down wasn’t exactly my idea of a pleasant afternoon. I don’t have a car, and do you know how difficult it is to get out here without one? It was hard enough even learning where Mount Mercy is. Little Governor’s Island — bah. I tell you, I nearly gave up twice.” She leaned forward, tapping her cane on the marble floor for emphasis. “But I was promised money.”

Felder looked at her in confusion. “Money? Who promised you money? What does this have to do with me?”

“The girl.”

“Which girl?”

“The girl that gave me the note. Told me to bring it to Dr. Felder at Mount Mercy. Said I’d be paid.” Another tap of the cane.

“Girl?” Felder echoed. My Lord, it has to be Constance. “Where did you see this girl?”

“From my back garden. But that’s not important. What I want to know is this: are you going to pay me or not?”

“Do you have the note?” Felder asked. He felt himself flushing in his eagerness to see it.

The woman nodded, but suspiciously, as if she might be subjected to a search for admitting this fact.

With shaking hands, Felder dug into his suit pocket, pulled out his wallet, peeled off a fifty, and held it out to her.

“I had to take two taxis,” the woman said, placing it inside her bag.

Felder plucked out a twenty, handed it over.

“And I’ll need to take a taxi back. It’s waiting outside.”

Another twenty was produced — the last bill in Felder’s wallet — and it vanished as quickly as the others. Then the woman reached into her bag and produced a single piece of paper, folded in half. One edge was ragged, as if it had been ripped from a book. She handed it to him. Written on it, in Constance’s precise copper-plate hand, was the following:

Please take this note immediately to Dr.

Felder, care of Mount Mercy Hospital,

Little Governor’s Island. Please — IT’S A

MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH.

Felder will give you a monetary reward.

His hands shaking even more, he unfolded the piece of paper. To his surprise, the message inside was written to somebody else — Pendergast:

Aloysius — I have been kidnapped by a

man who claims he is your brother-in-law,

Judson Esterhazy. He was going by

the name of Poole. I am being kept in a

house somewhere on the Upper East Side

but I’m to be moved shortly, I don’t

know where. I fear he means to harm me.

There is something he’s told me with

peculiar emphasis more than once:

Vengeance is where it will end.

Please forgive my foolishness and

gullibility. Whatever happens, remember

that I’m entrusting my child’s ultimate

well-being to your care.

Constance

Felder looked up, suddenly brimming with questions, but the woman was nowhere to be seen.

He ducked outside, but she had disappeared. He went back inside and returned to where Dr. Ostrom and the homicide detective were waiting.

“Well?” Dr. Ostrom asked. “What did she want?”

Wordlessly, Felder handed him the document. He watched Ostrom start visibly as he read first the outside, then the interior message.

“Where is the woman?” Ostrom asked sharply.

“She disappeared.”

“Good Lord.” Ostrom walked over to a wall telephone, picked it up. “This is Dr. Ostrom,” he said. “Get me the gatehouse.”

It took only a brief exchange to discover that the woman’s taxi had already left the grounds. Ostrom made a photocopy of the document, then gave the original to the detective. “We’ve got to stop that woman. Call your people. Catch up to her. Understand?”

The detective hustled off, unhitching his radio and speaking into it.

Felder turned to Ostrom as the director hung up the phone. “She’s claiming her child is alive. What could this mean?”

Ostrom merely shook his head.

CHAPTER 61

ESTERHAZY WATCHED THE SUDDEN FLURRY of activity on the deck of the Vergeltung as the motorized dinghy approached unexpectedly from the marina complex. Using a pair of binoculars, he peered intently at it through the smoked windows of the main salon. At first — unlikely as such a direct approach would be — he wondered if it could possibly be Pendergast. But no: it was somebody he’d never seen before, perched somewhat precariously in the bow of the little vessel.

Falkoner came up. “Is that him?”

Esterhazy shook his head. “No. I don’t know who this person is.”

“We shall find out.” Falkoner stepped out onto the rear deck.

“Ahoy, the yacht!” said the man perched in the bow. He was dressed, overdressed even, in nautical fashion: