the fire.
For a moment, she remained motionless, aware of her own quickened breathing. He had left nothing of himself behind, no trace of his scent, nothing-save for the small stack of books on the couch.
She came forward and picked up the top volume. It was exquisitely bound in silk, with gilt edging and hand- marbled endpapers. She turned it over in her hands, feeling the delicious suppleness of the material.
Then, quite suddenly, she placed it back on the pile, picked up the half-finished glass of pastis, and exited the library. Making her way into the back parts of the house, she entered the service kitchen, where she rinsed and dried the glass. Then she returned to the central stairway.
The old mansion was silent: Proctor was out, as he had been so frequently on recent nights, assisting Eli Glinn in his plans; D’Agosta had looked in earlier, but only to make sure the house was secure, and had left again almost immediately. And “scolding Wren” was, as always at this hour, at the New York Public Library. His tiresome self- imposed babysitting duties were, thankfully, confined to the daylight hours. There was no point in checking to see whether the front door was still locked-she knew it would be.
Now, slowly, she ascended the stairs to her suite of rooms on the third floor. Gently removing the white mouse from her pocket, she placed him in his cage. She slipped out of her frock and undergarments and folded them neatly. Normally, she would have gone through her evening ablutions next, donned a nightgown, and read in the chair beside her bed for an hour or so before retiring-at present, she was working her way through Johnson’s Rambler essays.
But not tonight. Tonight, she drifted into her bathroom and filled the oversize marble bath with hot water. Then she turned to a beautifully papered gift box, resting on a brass server nearby. Inside the box were a dozen small glass bottles from a Parisian manufacturer of bath oils: a gift from Diogenes on his last visit. Selecting one, she poured the contents into the water. The heady scent of lavender and patchouli perfumed the air.
Constance walked over to the full-length mirror and regarded her nude form for a long moment, sliding her hands over her sides, along her smooth belly. Then, turning away, she slipped into the bath.
This had been Diogenes’s fourth visit. Before, he had often spoken of his brother and made several allusions to a particular Event-Diogenes seemed to speak the word with a special emphasis-an Event of such horror that he could not bring himself to talk of it, except to say it had left him blind in one eye. He had also described how his brother had gone out of his way to poison others against him-herself in particular-by telling lies and insinuations, making him out to be evil incarnate. At first she had objected vehemently to that kind of talk. It was a perversion of the truth, she’d protested-teased out now for some twisted end of his own. But he had been so calm in the face of her anger, so reasonable and persuasive in his rebuttals, that despite herself, she had grown confused. It was true that Pendergast was remote and aloof at times, but that was just his way… wasn’t it? And wasn’t it true the reason he’d never contacted her from prison was to simply spare her additional anxiety? She loved him, silently, from afar-a love he never seemed to return or acknowledge.
It would have meant so much to have heard from him.
Could there be some truth to Diogenes’s stories? Her head told her he was untrustworthy, a thief, perhaps a sadistic killer… but her heart told her differently. He seemed so understanding, so vulnerable. So kind. He had even shown her evidence-documents, old photographs-that seemed to undercut many of the things Aloysius had told her about him. But he hadn’t denied everything; he had also accepted a share of blame, admitted to being a less-than- perfect brother-a deeply flawed human being.
Everything was so confused.
Constance had always trusted her head, her intellect-even though, in many ways, she knew her mind was fragile and capable of betraying her. And yet now it was her heart that spoke the loudest. She wondered if Diogenes was telling the truth when he said he understood her-because, at some deep level she had yet to plumb, she believed him: she felt a connection. Most important, she was beginning to understand him as well.
At last she rose from the bath, dried herself, and completed her preparations for bed. She chose to wear not one of her cotton nightgowns, but rather one of finely milled silk that lay, unworn and half forgotten, at the bottom of a drawer. Then she slipped into bed, propped up her down pillows, and opened the collection of Rambler essays.
The words all ran together without meaning, and she grew restless. She flipped ahead to the next essay, scanned its stentorian opening, then closed the book. Getting out of bed again, she walked over to a heavy Duncan Phyfe armoire and opened it. Inside was a velvet-lined box containing a small collection of octavo books Diogenes had brought on his last visit. She carried the box back to bed and sorted through its contents. They were books she had heard about but never read, books that had never been a part of Enoch Leng’s extensive library. The Satyricon of Petronius; Huysmans’s Au rebours; Oscar Wilde’s letters to Lord Alfred Douglas; the love poetry of Sappho; Boccaccio’s Decameron. Decadence, opulence, and passionate love clung to these pages like musk. Constance dipped into one and then another-at first gingerly, then curiously, then with something like hunger, reading late into the restless night.
Chapter 30
Gerry Fecteau found a sunny spot on the walkway overlooking yard 4 and snugged up the zipper of his guard’s jacket. A late-winter light filtered down from a whiskey sky, not strong enough to melt the patches of dirty snow that still edged the yards and building corners. From where he stood, he had a good view of the yard. He glanced over at his partner, Doyle, placed strategically at the other corner.
The nature of their assignment had not been explained to them, not even hinted at. In fact, they had been given only one order: watch the yard from above. But Fecteau had been around long enough to read between the lines. The mystery prisoner, still in solitary, had been given yard privileges for good behavior-in yard 4. Obligatory yard privileges. With Pocho and his gang. Fecteau knew very well what was going to happen to the prisoner-who was about as white as a white man could get-when he was turned out in yard 4 with Lacarra and his thugs. And watching the yard from the walkway above, like he was doing, it would take a couple of minutes at least to get down to the yard if any trouble erupted.
There was only one reason for an order like that. The drummer hadn’t worked-for some inexplicable reason, he’d actually grown quiet-and now they were on to something new.
He licked his lips and scanned the empty yard: the basketball hoop with no net, the parallel bars, the quarter acre of asphalt. Five minutes until the exercise hour. Fecteau wasn’t exactly thrilled with the assignment. If anybody got killed, it would be his ass. And he sure didn’t relish the thought of pulling Lacarra off someone. On the other hand, another part of him relished the thought of violence. His heart rate accelerated with anticipation and apprehension.
At the appointed time, to the second, he heard the bolts shoot back, and the double doors to the yard opened. Two guards stepped into the weak sunlight, hooked the doors open, and stood on either side while Pocho ambled out-always first-his eyes squinting around the cement yard, stroking the tuft of hair under his lip. He was wearing the standard prison jumpsuit, no coat despite the winter temperature. He turned as he walked, twisting the tuft of hair, muscles rippling under his sleeves. His shaved head gleamed dully in the weak light and across his face, making his old acne scars look like lunar craters.
Lacarra sauntered into the center of the yard as the six other inmates filed out after him, heading off in different directions, striking casual poses as they looked around, chewing gum, walking aimlessly across the tarmac. One guard tossed out a basketball, which bounced toward one of the men; he flipped it up with his foot, caught it, then began bouncing it idly.
A moment later, the new prisoner stepped out, tall and straight. He paused just beyond the threshold, looking around, with a degree of casualness that made Fecteau tingle. The poor guy hadn’t a clue.
Pocho and his boys didn’t even seem to notice the newcomer-except that they all stopped chewing. But only for
