Fever Dream (27 page)

The agent glided up, waving aside a pall of cement dust. Playing a flashlight over the wall, he rapped on the bricks again,
one after another. “They’re coming loose. Keep at it, Vincent.”

D’Agosta stepped forward again and gave the wall another series of solid blows. With the last came a crumbling sound, and
one of the bricks shattered. Pendergast darted forward again, cold chisel in one hand and hammer in the other. He felt briefly
along the sagging wall, then raised the hammer and applied several carefully placed strikes to the surrounding matrix of mortar
and ancient concrete. Several more bricks were jarred loose, and Pendergast pried away others with his hands. Dropping the
chisel and hammer, he played his flashlight over the wall. A hole was now visible, roughly the size of a beach ball. Pendergast
thrust his head through it, aiming his flashlight this way and that.

“What do you see?” asked D’Agosta.

In response, Pendergast stepped away. “A few more, if you please,” he said, indicating the sledgehammer.

This time, D’Agosta aimed his blows all around the edges of the ragged hole, concentrating on its upper edge. Bricks, chips,
and old plaster rained down. At last, Pendergast once again gave the signal to stop. D’Agosta did so gladly, heaving with
the effort.

From beyond the closed door at the top of the stairwell came a noise. The manager was coming back into the building.

Pendergast again approached the yawning hole in the wall, and D’Agosta crowded up behind. Through the billows of dust, the
beams of their flashlights revealed a shallow space beyond the broken stones. It was a chamber perhaps twelve feet wide and
four feet deep. Abruptly D’Agosta stopped breathing. His yellow beam had fallen on a flat wooden crate leaning against the
far wall, reinforced on both sides by wooden struts. It was just about the size, D’Agosta thought, you’d expect a painting
to be. There was nothing else visible through the pall of dust.

The doorknob above them rattled. “Hey!” came the voice of the manager. It had regained much of its original aggressive character.
“What the heck are you doing down there?”

Pendergast glanced around rapidly. “Vincent,” he said, turning and directing his beam to the pile of tarps and plastic sheets
in the far corner. “Hurry.”

Nothing more needed to be said. D’Agosta rushed over to the pile, rummaging through it for a tarp of sufficient size, while
Pendergast ducked through the newly made hole in the wall.

“I’m coming down,” the manager said, rattling the door. “Open this door!”

Pendergast dragged the crate from its hiding place. D’Agosta helped him maneuver it through the hole, and together they wrapped
it in the plastic tarp.

“I’ve called the franchise office in New Orleans,” came the manager’s voice. “You can’t just come in here and shut down the
shop! This is the first time anyone’s heard of these so-called inspections you’re doing—”

D’Agosta grabbed one end of the crate, Pendergast the other, and they began ascending the stairs. D’Agosta could hear a key
going into the lock. “Make way!” Pendergast bellowed, emerging from the cloud of dust into the dim basement light. The wooden
box was in their arms, shrouded by the tarp. “Make way, now!”

The door flung open and the red-faced manager stood blocking the door. “Just what the hell have you got there?” he demanded.

“Evidence in a possible criminal case.” They gained the landing. “Things are looking even worse for you than before, Mr….”
Pendergast peered at the manager’s name tag. “Mr. Bona.”

“Me? I’ve only been manager here for six months, I was transferred from—”

“You are the party of record. If there has been criminal activity here—and I am increasingly confident there has been—your
name will be on the affidavit. Now, are you going to step aside or do I have to add impeding an active investigation to the
list of potential charges?”

There was a brief moment of stasis. Then Bona stepped unwillingly to one side. Pendergast brushed past, cradling the tarp-covered
crate, and D’Agosta followed quickly behind.

“We must hurry,” Pendergast said under his breath as they charged out the door. Already, the manager was making his way down
into the basement, punching a number into a cell phone as he went.

They ran down the street to the Rolls. Pendergast opened the trunk, and they put the crate inside, wrapped in its protective
tarp. The hard hats followed, along with D’Agosta’s workbag. They slammed the trunk and climbed hurriedly into the front seat,
Pendergast not even bothering to remove his tool belt.

As Pendergast started the car, D’Agosta saw the manager
emerging from the doughnut shop. The cell phone was still clamped
in one hand. “Hey!” they heard him yelling from a block away. “Hey, you! Stop!”

Pendergast put the car in gear and jammed on the accelerator. The Rolls shrieked through a U-turn and tore down the road in
the direction of Court Street and the freeway.

He glanced over at D’Agosta. “Well done, my dear Vincent.” And this time, his smile wasn’t ghostly—it was genuine.

T
HEY TURNED ONTO ALEXANDER DRIVE, THEN
took the on-ramp to I-10 and the Horace Wilkinson Bridge. D’Agosta sank back gratefully in his seat. The broad Mississippi
rolled by beneath them, sullen-looking below the leaden sky.

“You think that’s it?” D’Agosta asked. “The Black Frame?”

“Absolutely.”

From the bridge, they crossed into Baton Rouge proper. It was midafternoon, and the traffic was moderate. Curtains of rain
beat against the windshield and drummed on the vehicle roof. One after another the southbound cars fell smoothly behind them.
They passed the I-12 interchange as D’Agosta stirred restlessly. He didn’t want to get his hopes up. But maybe—just maybe—this
meant he’d be seeing Laura Hayward sooner rather than later. He hadn’t realized just how difficult this forced separation
would be. Speaking to her every night helped, of course, but it was no substitute for…

“Vincent,” Pendergast said. “Take a look in the rearview mirror, if you please.”

D’Agosta complied. At first, he saw nothing unusual in the procession of cars behind them. But then, when Pendergast changed
lanes, he saw another car—four, maybe five back—do the same. It was a late-model sedan, dark blue or black; it was hard to
tell in the rain.

Pendergast accelerated slightly, passed a few cars, then returned to his original lane. A minute or two later, the dark sedan
did the same.

“I see him,” D’Agosta muttered.

They continued for several minutes. The car stayed with them, hanging back, careful not to be too obvious.

“You think that’s the manager?” D’Agosta asked. “Bona?”

Pendergast shook his head. “That fellow behind us has been tailing us since this morning.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I’m going to wait until we reach the outskirts of the city. Then, we shall see. Local roads might prove useful.”

They passed the Mall of Louisiana, several parks and country clubs. The cityscape gave way to suburban sprawl, and then ultimately
to patches of rural lowlands. D’Agosta drew out his Glock, racked a round into the chamber.

“Save that for a last resort,” Pendergast said. “We can’t risk damage to the painting.”

What about damage to us?
D’Agosta thought. He glanced in the rearview mirror, but it was impossible to see into the dark sedan. They were passing
the Sorrento exit, the traffic thinning still further.

“Are we going to box him in?” D’Agosta said. “Force his hand?”

“My preference is to lose him,” Pendergast said. “You’d be surprised what a vintage Rolls is capable of.”

“Yeah, right—”

Pendergast floored the accelerator and turned the wheel sharply right. The Rolls shot forward, remarkably responsive for such
a large vehicle, then sliced across two lanes of traffic and careered down the exit ramp without reducing speed.

D’Agosta lurched heavily into the passenger door. Glancing into the mirror again, he saw that their tail had followed suit
and, cutting before a box truck, was now shooting down the ramp after them.

Reaching the bottom of the ramp, Pendergast blew past the stop sign and onto Route 22, tires squealing as the rear of the
vehicle fish-tailed through a one-hundred-twenty-degree arc. Expertly turning into the spin, Pendergast maneuvered into the
proper lane and then stamped on the gas again. They tore down the state road, blowing
past a painter’s van, a Buick, and a
crawfish transport truck. Angry horns sounded behind them.

D’Agosta glanced over his shoulder. The sedan was pacing them, abandoning any effort at concealment.

“He’s still coming,” he said.

Pendergast nodded.

Accelerating further, they sped through a small commercial area—three blocks of farm implement stores and hardware shops,
moving past in a blur. Up ahead, a set of lights marked the intersection of Route 22 with the Airline Highway. Several vehicles
were moving across it now, brake lights rippling in a serried stream. They shot over a railroad track, the Rolls briefly airborne
at the rise, and neared the crossing. As they did so, the light turned yellow, then red.

“Christ,” murmured D’Agosta, taking a tight grip on the handle of the passenger door.

Flashing his lights and leaning on the horn, Pendergast found a lane between the cars ahead and the oncoming traffic. A fresh
volley of honks sounded as they hurtled through the rain-slick crossing, barely missing an eighteen-wheeler that was nosing
into the intersection. Pendergast had not taken his foot from the accelerator, and the needle was now trembling past one hundred.

“Maybe we should just stop and confront the guy,” said D’Agosta. “Ask him who he’s working for.”

“How dull. And we know who he’s working for.”

They whipped past one car, then another and another, the vehicles merely blurs of stationary color on the road. Now the traffic
was all behind them and the road ahead was empty. Houses, commercial buildings, and the occasional sad-looking feed or supply
store fell away as they entered the swamplands. A stand of crape trees, bleak sentinels under the gunmetal sky, whisked past
in an instant. The windshield wipers beat their regular cadence against the glass. D’Agosta allowed his grip on the door handle
to relax somewhat.

He glanced over his shoulder again. All clear.

No
—no, it wasn’t. From among the vague outlines of vehicles behind them, a single shape resolved itself. It was the dark sedan,
far behind but coming up fast.

“Shit,” D’Agosta said. “He got through that intersection. Tenacious bastard.”

“We have what he wants,” Pendergast said. “Another reason we mustn’t let him catch up to us.”

The road narrowed as they plunged deeper into the marshy lowlands. D’Agosta kept his gaze rearward while they negotiated a
long, screaming turn. As the sedan dropped out of sight behind the curve and tall marsh grass, he felt the car decelerate.

“Now’s our chance to—” he began.

All of a sudden the Rolls swerved violently to one side. Tumbled almost into the back of the car, D’Agosta fought to reseat
himself. They had veered off the road onto a narrow dirt track that snaked into thick swamp. A dirty, dented sign read
DESMIRAIL WILDLIFE AREA—SERVICE VEHICLES ONLY
.

The car bucked fiercely from side to side as they tore down the muddy track. One moment D’Agosta felt himself thrown against
the door; the next he was lifted bodily out of his seat, prevented from concussing himself against the roof only by the shoulder
strap.
Another minute of this
, he thought grimly,
and we’ll break both axles
. He ventured another look in the rearview mirror, but the path was too sinuous to see more than a hundred yards behind them.

Ahead, the service path narrowed and forked. A much narrower and rougher footpath diverged from it and ran straight ahead
alongside a bayou, a chain of steel links stretched across it, marked by the sign
WARNING: NO VEHICLES PAST THIS POINT
.

Instead of slowing for the turn, Pendergast goosed the accelerator.

“Hey, whoa!” D’Agosta cried as they headed straight for the footpath. “Jesus—!”

They broke through the chain with a sound like a rifle shot. A profusion of egrets, vultures, and wood ducks rose from the
surrounding yellowtop fields and bald cypresses, honking and shrieking in protest. The big car lurched left, then right, again
and again, blurring D’Agosta’s vision and making his teeth rattle in his skull. They plunged into a stand of umbrella grass,
the big stems parting before them with a strange
whack, whack
.

D’Agosta had been in some hair-raising car chases in his day, but nothing like this. The swamp grass had grown so thick and
tall they could see only a few car lengths ahead of them. Yet instead of reducing speed, Pendergast reached over and—still
without decelerating—switched on the headlights.

D’Agosta hung on for dear life, afraid to tear his eyes from the view ahead even for a second. “Pendergast, slow down!” he
yelled. “We’ve lost him! For chrissakes,
slow
—”