Another nod from Corrie. She wondered when he was going to want some information from her in return. “So?” she said.
“So I believe this Pendergast, whom you seem to know so much about, is the key to the whole thing.”
“No doubt. This is the big case he’s been working on.”
An awkward pause. “That doesn’t seem likely to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“An FBI agent working a case doesn’t blow up a bar and sink a bunch of boats, not to mention burn down a drug lab in the swamp. No — this is extracurricular.”
“That’s possible. He often investigates on a… freelance basis.”
“This was not an investigation. This was… retribution. Reckoning. This man Pendergast, I believe he’s the mastermind behind the whole operation.”
She stared at him. “Mastermind of what?”
“The Brodie killings. The drug smuggling operation — if that’s what it is. Something big and highly illegal is going on here — that much is obvious.”
“Now, hold on. You’re calling Pendergast a drug lord, or maybe even a murderer?”
“Let us say I strongly suspect his involvement. Everything that’s happened looks to me like drugs, and this FBI agent is up to his neck in it—”
Corrie stood up abruptly, her chair clattering to the floor. “Are you some kind of nutcase?” she said in a loud voice.
“Sit down, please—”
“I will notsit down! Pendergast, selling drugs?” Her tone of disgust and disbelief was turning heads in the crowded restaurant. She didn’t care.
Betterton cringed under this outburst. “Will you be quiet—”
“Pendergast is one of the most honest men you’ll ever meet. You aren’t even fit to lick his shoes!”
She saw Betterton flushing with mortification. Now she had the riveted attention of the entire restaurant. Several waiters and waitresses were hurrying over. There was something almost gratifying about it.
Her long frustration at Pendergast’s disappearance, her anger at being led to believe he was dead, seemed to coalesce and find a target in Betterton. “You call yourself a reporter?” she cried. “You couldn’t report your way out of a douche bag! Pendergast saved my life! He’s been putting me through college, for your information — and don’t think there’s anything between us, either, because he’s the most decent man alive, you asswipe.”
“Excuse me, miss!” A waiter was flapping his hands in a panic as if to wave her away by magic.
“Don’t ‘miss’ me, I’m on my way out.” She turned and looked at the horrified crowd in the restaurant. “What, you don’t like foul language? Go back to Dubuque.”
She flounced out of the restaurant, exited onto Seventh Avenue, and there, amid the lunchtime crowds, managed to regain her breath and her equilibrium.
This was serious. It seemed Pendergast was in some kind of trouble — maybe deep trouble. But he’d always handled trouble before, she knew. She had made him a promise — a promise to leave this alone — and she intended to keep it.
CHAPTER 55
CONSTANCE SAT IN THE REAR OF THE PRIVATE CAR speeding up Madison Avenue. She had been mildly surprised by an exchange in German between Dr. Poole and the driver of the vehicle, but Poole had given her no explanation of the plans he and Pendergast had put together for their reunion. She felt an almost overwhelming eagerness to see Pendergast and the inside of the Riverside Drive mansion again.
Judson Esterhazy, aka Dr. Poole, sat beside her, his tall, aristocratic frame and finely chiseled features set into sharp relief by the noontime sun. The escape had gone without a hitch, exactly as planned. She felt badly for Dr. Felder, of course, and realized this would be a blot on his career, but Pendergast’s safety overshadowed all else.
She glanced at Esterhazy. Despite the family connection, there was something she didn’t like about him. It was his body language, the arrogant look of triumph on his face. If the truth be told, she hadn’t liked him from the start — there was some quality in his manner, his way of speaking, that aroused her instinctual suspicion.
No matter. She folded her hands, determined to help Pendergast in any way she could.
The car slowed. Through the smoked windows, she noticed them turning east on Ninety-Second Street.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Just a temporary stop while preparations for your, ah, final destination are completed.”
Constance did not at all like his turn of phrase. “My final destination?”
“Yes.” Esterhazy’s arrogant smile widened. “Vengeance, you see, is where it will end.”
“Excuse me?”
“I quite like the sound of that,” Esterhazy said. “Yes: vengeanceis where it will end.”
She stiffened. “And Pendergast?”
“Never mind about Pendergast.”
His brusqueness, the way he almost spat out the name, sent a prickle of alarm through Constance. “What are you talking about?”
Esterhazy laughed harshly. “Don’t you realize it yet? You haven’t been rescued — you’ve been kidnapped.”
He turned to her in one smooth motion and, before she could react, she felt a hand clamp around her mouth and smelled the sudden, sweetish stench of chloroform.
Slowly, consciousness returned out of a drowsy fog. Constance waited while she recovered her wits. She was tied to a chair, blindfolded and gagged. Her ankles were bound, as well. Gradually, she became aware of her surroundings: the musty smell of the room, the faint sounds in the house. It was a small room, bare except for an empty bookshelf, a dusty table, a bed frame, and the chair she was tied to. Someone was moving around below — Esterhazy, no doubt — and she could hear traffic noises from outside.
The first thing she felt was a flood of self-recrimination. Foolishly, stupidly, and unforgivably, she’d allowed herself to be duped. She had cooperated in her own abduction.
Careful to keep her breathing under control, she began to take stock. She was tied — no, taped — to a chair. But when she wiggled her hands, she realized the tape wasn’t particularly tight or secure. It was a hasty job, temporary. Esterhazy had even indicated as much. Just a temporary stop while preparations for your final destination are completed.
Your final destination…
She began to flex her arms and wrists, stretching and pulling at the tape. Slowly but steadily it began to loosen. She could hear Esterhazy moving around downstairs; at any moment he might come back up to retrieve her.
With a final burst of effort she managed to rip the tape free. Next, she pulled away the blindfold and gag and freed her ankles. She stood up and, as quietly as she could, went over to the door, tried to open it. Locked, of course — and very stout.
She went to the lone window in the room, which looked out onto a desolate garden. The window was locked and barred. She glanced out through the grimy glass. It was a typical Upper East Side backyard, the common rear gardens of the surrounding brownstones separated from one another by tall brick walls. The yard of her own prison-house was overgrown and empty, but in the next garden over she could see a red-haired woman in a yellow sweater, reading a book.
Constance tried waving, then knocked quietly on the window — but the woman was absorbed in her book.
She made a quick search of the room, pulling open drawers in the empty desk and cupboards — and found a carpenter’s pencil in the back of one drawer.
An old book lay on the top bookshelf. She grabbed it, ripped out the flyleaf, and hurriedly scribbled a note on it. Then she folded it up and wrote a second note on the outside:
Please take this note immediately to
Dr. Felder, care of Mount Mercy Hospital,