Fever Dream (25 page)

D
’AGOSTA STOOD OUTSIDE THE VISITOR’S CENTER
in brilliant afternoon sunlight, looking down Court Street toward the river. Besides the center itself—a fine old brick
building, spotlessly renovated and updated—everything seemed brand new: the shops, the civic buildings, the scattering of
homes along the riverbank. It was hard to believe that, somewhere in the immediate vicinity, John James Audubon’s doctor had
lived and died nearly 150 years before.

“Originally, this was known as St. Michel,” Pendergast said at his side. “Port Allen was first laid out in 1809, but within
fifty years more than half of it had been eaten away by the Mississippi. Shall we walk down to the riverfront promenade?”

He set off at a brisk pace, and D’Agosta followed in his wake, trying to keep up. He was exhausted and wondered how Pendergast
maintained his energy after a week of nonstop traveling by car and plane, charging from one place to the next, rolling into
bed at midnight and waking at dawn. Port Allen felt like one place too many.

First they had gone to see Dr. Torgensson’s penultimate dwelling: an attractive old brick residence west of town, now a funeral
home. They had rushed to the town hall where Pendergast had charmed a secretary, who allowed him to paw through some old
plans
and books. And now they were here, on the banks of the Mississippi itself, where Blast claimed Dr. Torgensson had spent his
final unpleasant months in a shotgun shack, ruined, in a syphilitic and alcoholic stupor.

The riverfront promenade was broad and grand, and the view from the levee was spectacular: Baton Rouge spread out across the
far bank, barges and tugs working their way up the wide flow of chocolate-colored water.

“That’s the Port Allen Lock,” Pendergast said, waving his hand toward a large break in the levee, ending in two huge yellow
gates. “Largest free-floating structure of its kind. It connects the river to the Intracoastal Waterway.”

They walked a few blocks along the promenade. D’Agosta felt himself reviving under the influence of the fresh breeze coming
off the river. They stopped at an information booth, where Pendergast scanned the advertisements and notice boards. “How tragic—we’ve
missed the Lagniappe Dulcimer Fête,” he said.

D’Agosta shot a private glance toward Pendergast. Given how hard he’d taken the shock of his wife’s murder, the agent had
taken the news about Constance Greene—which Hayward had given them yesterday—with remarkably little emotion. No matter how
long D’Agosta knew Pendergast, it seemed he never really
knew
him. The man obviously cared for Constance—and yet he seemed almost indifferent to the fact that she was now in custody,
charged with infanticide.

Pendergast strolled back out of the booth and walked across the greensward toward the river itself, pausing at the remains
of a ruined sluice gate, now half underwater. “In the early nineteenth century, the business district would have been two
or three blocks out
there
,” he said, pointing into the roiling mass of water. “Now it belongs to the river.”

He led the way back across the promenade and Commerce Avenue, made a left on Court Street and a right on Atchafalaya. “By
the time Dr. Torgensson was forced to move into his final dwelling,” he said, “St. Michel had become West Baton Rouge. At
the time, this neighborhood was a seedy, working-class community between the railroad depot and the ferry landing.”

He turned down another street; consulted the map again; walked a little farther and halted. “I do believe,” he drawled, “that
we have arrived.”

They had arrived at a small commercial mini-mall. Three buildings sat side by side: a McDonald’s; a mobile phone store; and
a squat, garishly colored structure named Pappy’s Donette Hole—a crusty local chain D’Agosta had seen elsewhere. Two cars
were parked in front of Pappy’s, and the McDonald’s drive-through was doing a brisk business.

“This is
it
?” he exclaimed.

Pendergast nodded, pointing at the cell phone store. “
That
is the precise location of Torgensson’s shotgun shack.”

D’Agosta looked at each of the buildings in turn. His spirits, which had begun to rise during the brief walk, fell again.
“It’s like Blast said,” he muttered. “Totally hopeless.”

Pendergast put his hands in his pockets and strolled up to the mini-mall. He ducked into each of the buildings in turn. D’Agosta,
who could not summon the energy to follow, merely stood in the adjoining parking lot and watched. Within five minutes the
agent had returned. Saying nothing, he did a slow scan of the horizon, turning almost imperceptibly, until he had carefully
scrutinized everything within a three-hundred-sixty-degree radius. Then he did it again, this time stopping about halfway
through his scan.

“Take a look at that building, Vincent,” he said.

D’Agosta followed the gesture with his eyes toward the visitor’s center they had passed at the beginning of their loop.

“What about it?” D’Agosta asked.

“That was clearly once a water-pumping station. The Gothic Revival style indicates it probably dates back to the original
town of St. Michel.” He paused. “Yes,” he murmured after a moment. “I’m sure it does.”

D’Agosta waited.

Pendergast turned and pointed in the opposite direction. From this vantage point they had an unobstructed view down to the
promenade, the ruined sluice gate, and the wide Mississippi beyond.

“How curious,” Pendergast said. “This little mini-mall falls
on a direct line
between that old pumping station and the sluice gate at the river.”

Pendergast broke into a swift walk toward the river again. D’Agosta swung in behind.

Stopping almost at the water’s edge, Pendergast bent forward to
examine the sluice gate. D’Agosta could see it led to a large
stone pipe that was sealed with cement and partially backfilled.

Pendergast straightened up. “Just as I thought. There was an old aqueduct here.”

“Yeah? So what’s it mean?”

“That aqueduct was no doubt abandoned and sealed up when the eastern half of St. Michel crumbled into the river. Remarkable!”

D’Agosta did not share his friend’s enthusiasm for historical detail.

“Surely you see it now, Vincent? Torgensson’s shack must have been built
after this aqueduct was sealed up
.”

D’Agosta shrugged. For the life of him, he didn’t see where Pendergast was going.

“In this part of the world it was common—for buildings constructed over the line of an old water pipe or aqueduct, anyway—to
cut into an old aqueduct and use it as a basement. It saved a great deal of labor when basements were dug by hand.”

“You think the pipe is still down there—?”

“Exactly. When the shack was built in 1855, they probably used a section of the capped and abandoned tunnel—now quite dry,
of course—as the basement. Those old aqueducts were square, not round, and made of mortared stone. The builders merely had
to shore up the foundations, construct two brick walls on the sides perpendicular to the existing aqueduct walls, and—voilà!
Instant basement.”

“And you think that’s where we’ll find the Black Frame?” D’Agosta asked a little breathlessly. “In Torgensson’s basement?”

“No. Not
in
the basement. Remember the creditor’s note Blast showed us?
‘We’ve searched the shack from basement to eaves. It has proven empty, nothing left of value, certainly no painting.’ ”

“If it’s not in the basement, then what’s all the excitement about?” Pendergast’s coyness could be so maddening sometimes.

“Think: a series of row houses, situated in a line above a preexisting tunnel, each with a basement fashioned from a segment
of that tunnel. But, Vincent—think also of the spaces
between
the houses. Remember, the basements would be roughly the size of the houses
above
them.”

“So… so you’re saying there would be old spaces between the basements.”

“Precisely. Sections of the old aqueduct
between
each basement, bricked off and unused. And that’s where Torgensson might have hidden the Black Frame.”

“Why hide it so well?”

“We can assume that if the painting was so precious to the doctor that he could not part with it even in the greatest penury,
then it would be precious enough
that he would not want to ever be far from it
. And yet he had to hide it well from his creditors.”

“But the house was struck by lightning. It burned to the ground.”

“True. But if our logic is correct, the painting would likely have been safe in its niche, secure in the aqueduct tunnel between
his basement and the next.”

“So all we have to do is get into the basement of the wireless store.”

Pendergast put a restraining hand on his arm. “Alas, that wireless store has no basement. I checked when I went inside. The
basement of the structure that predated it must have been filled in after the fire.”

Once again, D’Agosta felt a huge deflation. “Then what the hell are we going to do? We can’t just get a bulldozer, raze the
store, and dig a new basement.”

“No. But we just might be able to make our way into the tunnel space from one of the
adjacent
basements, which I confirmed still exist. The question is: which one to try first?” Once again, that gleam that had been
so often absent in recent days returned to Pendergast’s eyes: the gleam of the hunt. “I’m in the mood for doughnuts,” he said.
“How about you?”

St. Francisville, Louisiana

P
AINSTAKINGLY, MORRIS BLACKLETTER, PHD, FITTED
the servo mechanism to the rear wheel assembly. He checked it, checked it again, then plugged the USB cable from the guidance
control unit into his laptop and ran a diagnostic. It checked out. He wrote a simple four-line program, downloaded it into
the control unit, and gave the execute command. The little robot—a rather ugly confabulation of processors, motors, and sensory
inputs, set atop fat rubber wheels—engaged its forward motor, rolled across the floor for exactly five seconds, then stopped
abruptly.

Blackletter felt a flush of triumph all out of proportion with the achievement. Throughout his vacation—staring at English
cathedrals, sitting in dimly lit pubs—he’d been anticipating this moment.

Years ago, Blackletter had read a study explaining how retired people frequently acquired interests diametrically different
from the work that had occupied their professional lives. That, he thought ruefully, was certainly the case with him. All
those years in the health profession—first at Doctors With Wings, later at a succession of pharmaceutical and medical research
labs—he had been obsessed with the human body: how it worked, what made it fail, how to keep it healthy or cure its ills.
And now here he was, toying with robots—
the antithesis of flesh and blood. When they burned out, you just threw them away
and ordered another. No grief, no death.

How different it was from those years he’d spent in Third World countries, parched and mosquito-bitten, threatened by guerrilla
fighters and harassed by corruption, sometimes sick himself—working to contain epidemics. He had saved hundreds, maybe thousands
of lives, but so many, many others had died. It hadn’t been his fault, of course. But then there was the other thing, the
thing he tried never to think about. That, more than anything, was what caused him to flee flesh and blood for the contentment
of plastic and silicon…

Here he was, thinking about it again. He shook his head as if to rid himself of the terrible guilt of it and glanced back
at the robot. Slowly, the guilt drained away—what was done was done, and his motives had always been pure. A smile settled
over his features. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

The robot’s audio sensor took note, and it swiveled toward the sound. “Robo want a cracker,” it croaked in a metallic disembodied
voice.

Feeling absurdly pleased, Blackletter rose to his feet and walked from his den to the kitchen for one last cup of tea before
calling it a night. He suddenly paused, hand on the teapot, listening.

There it came again: the creak of a board.

Slowly, Blackletter set the pot back on the counter. Was it the wind? But no: it was a quiet, windless night.

Somebody in the street, perhaps? The sound was too close, too clear for that.

Perhaps it was all in his mind. Minds had a tendency to do that, he knew: the absence of real auditory stimuli frequently
encouraged the brain to supply its own. He’d been puttering about in his den for hours, and…

Another creak. This time Blackletter knew for certain: the sound had come from inside the house.

“Who’s that?” he called out. The creaking stopped.

Was it a burglar? Unlikely. There were far larger, grander houses on the street than his.

Who, then?

The creaking resumed, regular, deliberate. And now he could
tell where it was coming from: the living room at the front of
the house.