Fever Dream

nevertheless I'd love to take a turn through. For old times' sake.'

Tipton hastily rose. 'Of course. Please excuse the Audubon diorama, I was just cleaning it.' He was mortified to see that he had laid the DustBuster in Audubon's lap, with the feather duster propped up against his arm, as if some jokester had tried to turn the great man into a charwoman.

'Do you recall,' Pendergast said, 'the special exhibition you mounted, fifteen years ago, for which we loaned you our double elephant folio?'

'Of course.'

'That was quite a festive opening.'

'It was.' Tipton remembered it all too well: the stress and horror of watching crowds of people wandering about his exhibits with brimming glasses of wine. It had been a beautiful summer evening, with a full moon, but he'd been too harassed to notice it much. That was the first and last special exhibit he had ever mounted.

Pendergast began strolling through the back rooms, peering into the glass cases with their prints and drawings and birds, the Audubon memorabilia, the letters and sketches. Tipton followed in his wake.

'Did you know this is where my wife and I first met? At that very opening.'

'No, Mr. Pendergast, I didn't.' Tipton felt uneasy. Pendergast seemed strangely excited.

'My wife--Helen--I believe she had an interest in Audubon?'

'Yes, she certainly did.'

'Did she... ever visit the museum afterward?'

'Oh, yes. Before and afterward.'

'Before?'

The sharpness of the question brought Tipton up short. 'Why, yes. She was here off and on, doing her research.'

'Her research,' Pendergast repeated. 'And this was how long before we met?'

'For at least six months before that opening. Maybe longer. She was a lovely woman. I was so shocked to hear--'

'Quite,' came the reply, cutting him off. Then the man seemed to soften, or at least get control of himself. This Pendergast is a strange one, thought Tipton, just like the others. Eccentricity was all well and good in New Orleans, the city was known for it--but this was something else altogether.

'I never knew much about Audubon,' Pendergast continued. 'And I never really quite understood this research of hers. Do you remember much about it?'

'A little,' said Tipton. 'She was interested in the time Audubon spent here in 1821, with Lucy.'

Pendergast paused at a darkened glass case. 'Was there anything about Audubon in particular she was curious about? Was she perhaps planning to write an article, or a book?'

'You would know that better than I, but I do recall she asked more than once about the Black Frame.'

'The Black Frame?'

'The famous lost painting. The one Audubon did at the sanatorium.'

'Forgive me, my knowledge of Audubon is so limited. Which lost painting is that?'

'When Audubon was a young man, he became seriously ill. While convalescing, he made a painting. An extraordinary painting, apparently--his first really great work. It later disappeared. The curious thing is that nobody who saw it mentioned what it depicted--just that it was brilliantly life-like and set in an unusual black-painted frame. What he actually painted seems to have been lost to history.' On familiar ground now, Tipton found his nervousness receding slightly.

'And Helen was interested in it?'

'Every Audubon scholar is interested in it. It was the beginning of that period of his life that culminated in The Birds of America, by far the greatest work of natural history ever published. The Black Frame was--so people who saw it said--his first work of true genius.'

'I see.' Pendergast fell silent, his face sinking into thoughtfulness. Then he suddenly started and examined his watch. 'Well! How good it was to see you, Mr. Tipton.' He grasped the man's hand in his own, and Tipton was disconcerted to find it even colder than when he had entered, as if the man were a cooling corpse.

Tipton followed Pendergast to the door. As Pendergast opened it, he finally screwed up the courage to ask a question of his own. 'By any chance, Mr. Pendergast, do you still have the family's double elephant folio?'

Pendergast turned. 'I do.'

'Ah! If I may be so bold to suggest, and I hope you will forgive my directness, that if for any reason you wish to find a good home for it, one where it would be well taken care of and enjoyed by the public, naturally we would be most honored...' He let his voice trail off hopefully.

'I shall keep it in mind. A good evening to you, Mr. Tipton.'

Tipton was relieved he did not extend his hand a second time.

The door closed and Tipton turned the lock and barred it, then stood for a long time at the door, thinking. Wife eaten by a lion, parents burned to death by a mob... What a strange family. And clearly the passage of years had not made this one any more normal.

17

THE DOWNTOWN CAMPUS OF TULANE UNIVERSITY Health Sciences Center, on Tulane Street, was housed in a nondescript gray skyscraper that would not have looked out of place in New York's financial district. Pendergast exited the elevator at the thirty-