"Where do you think we're headed?" D'Agosta asked.
"Bullard mentioned a park. For now, that's all we know."
Out of the corner of his eye, D'Agosta noticed that, despite the speed, Pendergast had unbuckled his seat belt and was crouching forward. Now the agent was scratching his nails on the floor mat, rubbing his palms rapidly against it. D'Agosta had seen the man do strange things before, but this beat all. He wondered if he should ask, decided against it.
"Target leaving freeway at exit 60," the radio squawked. "Following."
D'Agosta slowed. Another minute, and he peeled off at the same exit.
"Target proceeding north on McLean."
"They're heading into Paterson," D'Agosta said. He'd never actually set foot in the city, though he'd passed it on the freeway countless times: a red-brick working town whose best days were probably about a hundred years gone. It seemed like a strange destination.
"Paterson," Pendergast repeated speculatively, wiping his dirty hands on his face and neck. "Birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution."
"Birthplace? Looks more like death's door to me."
"It's a city with a vigorous history, Vincent. Some of the historical neighborhoods are still quite beautiful. However, I'm banking on the fact that those are not where we're headed."
"Target leaving McLean," the voice on the radio said. "Heading left onto Broadway."
D'Agosta tore up McLean Highway, using the siren to punch his way through two red lights. To their right lay the Passaic River, brown and sullen in the autumn light. As he turned onto Broadway, shabby-looking and decrepit, he killed the siren and snapped off the flasher. They were close now: very close.
"Sergeant," Pendergast said abruptly, "head into this strip mall on our right, please. We need to make a quick stop."
D'Agosta glanced at him in surprise. "We don't have time."
"Trust me, we do."
D'Agosta shrugged. The operation was nominally FBI and Pendergast was in charge: Hayward had made sure of that. The lead car was FBI and he himself was Southampton P.D., which would offend nobody. Interstate police rivalries would be kept at a minimum. At the appropriate moment-when it was too late for a bunch of unbriefed town cops to screw things up-Pendergast would call in the locals.
The mall was a collection of dingy, glass-fronted stores set back from a parking lot heaved and cracked by time. It was half abandoned, and D'Agosta wondered just what the hell Pendergast was up to. Here he'd made good time, and now the agent was squandering it.
"There," Pendergast said. "At the far end."
D'Agosta sped up to the last storefront. A yellow Dumpster stood out front, pitted and scarred with age. Even before the car had stopped, Pendergast was out, running into the store. D'Agosta swore, punched the steering wheel. They were going to lose five minutes at least. He was used to Pendergast's inexplicable behavior, but this was too much.
"Target heading into East Side Park," came the cool voice from the lead car. "There's some kind of event going on. Looks like model rockets or something."
D'Agosta heard shouting and saw Pendergast trotting out of the shop, a bundle of clothes slung over one arm and a couple of pairs of shoes clutched in the other. Moments later a fat woman came bursting out.
"Help!" she bellowed. "Police! I hope you're proud of yourself, robbing the Salvation Army. Shithead!"
"Obliged, ma'am," Pendergast said, crumpling a hundred-dollar bill and tossing it over his shoulder as he jumped into the backseat. D'Agosta laid on the gas, leaving a streak of rubber and a cloud of smoke.
"I daresay that was no more than a two-minute detour," Pendergast said from the rear of the car. Looking into the mirror, D'Agosta saw he was peeling off his jacket and tie.
"Two minutes is a long time in this business."
"I'll have to send the Salvation Army people a little something to make up for my lack of manners."
"They're heading into East Side Park."
"Very good. Drive around the park, if you please, and enter from the south. I need a few more moments."
D'Agosta drove past the park-a wall of greenery to his left, rising above a concrete retaining wall-and made a left onto Derrom Avenue. Despite their proximity to seedy, sorry-looking Broadway, the houses here were remarkably large and well tended, relics of the days when Paterson had been a model city of industry.
Pendergast intoned from the back:
"Eternally asleep,
his dreams walk about the city where he persists
incognito."
D'Agosta glanced again in the rearview mirror, almost jamming on the brakes in surprise when he saw a stranger staring back at him. But, of course, it was no stranger: it was Pendergast, transformed by some almost miraculous process of disguise.
"Have you ever read Paterson by William Carlos Williams?" the vagrant in the backseat asked.
"Never heard of it."
"Pity:
" Immortal he neither moves nor rouses and is seldom
seen, though he breathes and the subtleties of his
machinations
drawing their substance from the noise of the pouring
river
animate a thousand automatons."
D'Agosta shook his head and muttered to himself. He drove a few blocks, made another left, and entered the park beside a statue of Christopher Columbus.
East Side Park was an overgrown hillock of grass and the occasional shade tree, closely hemmed in on all four sides by houses. A lane wandered around its periphery, and D'Agosta eased the car onto it, passing a variety of pudding-stone outbuildings in various stages of disrepair. Concrete benches with green-painted wooden slats lined the roadway. Farther along, the lane veered in toward a height of land, which was crowned by a fountain surrounded by a black wrought-iron fence. Several cars were parked along the curb here, including their own lead vehicle, making the already narrow road almost impassable. Ahead, D'Agosta could see the TV van. It had pulled onto the grass between a brace of tennis courts and a baseball field. On the field itself, a small knot of kids was shooting off model rockets, supervised by half a dozen parents. A man with a television camera was standing by the van, filming the event.
"This is an exceptionally well planned meeting, Vincent," Pendergast said as they drove slowly past. "They're meeting in the middle of a park. No chance of being ambushed. And they're surrounded by noisy children and the roar of rockets, which will defeat any long-range electronic surveillance. That man with the camera is their lookout, with a perfect reason to be staring every which way through a telephoto lens. Bullard has clearly trained his men well. Ah, pull over a minute, please, Vincent: here come the Chinese."
In the rearview mirror, D'Agosta could make out a long black Mercedes, absurdly out of place, cruising slowly up the park drive behind them. It pulled onto the grass across the tennis courts from the van. Two big men with shaved heads and dark glasses got out, looking around carefully. Then a third, smaller man exited and began walking across the grass toward the van.
"What dreadful lack of subtlety," said Pendergast. "It appears these gentlemen have been watching too much television."
D'Agosta eased the car forward, coming to a stop near the exit back onto Broadway. The hill fell away here and the trees were more numerous, blocking their car from view.
"Too bad I'm in uniform," he said.
"On the contrary: being in uniform, you will be the last one they suspect. I'm going to get as close as I can, see if I can learn more particulars about the meeting. You buy a donut and coffee over there"-he nodded to a dingy coffee shop across Broadway-"then wander into the park. Take a seat on one of the benches by the baseball diamond, where you'll have a clear line of fire should anything untoward occur. Let us hope, with these children around, that nothing of the sort occurs-but be ready for action regardless."