Page 35 of The Cabinet of Dr. Leng

He set aside the spoon, took the glass, and held it up. “Thank you for indulging my little rituals. Here’s to you, my old friend.” And he took a sip of the drink, placing it back on the side table and dabbing his lips with a silk napkin.

Little rituals, my ass.D’Agosta wasn’t so concerned about the absinthe, though he’d read about the alarming effects of wormwood, its most controversial ingredient. It was the little brown bottle that worried him. Tincture of opium, probably: laudanum. But there were no needles this time, thank God.

“Let me make this easy for you,” Pendergast said. “I’m exceedingly pleased you decided to ‘drop in,’ though I doubt it was a spontaneous act. I imagine Mrs. Trask is worried about me?”

D’Agosta hesitated just a moment. “Yes, if you must know. But now that I see you, I’m worried, too.” He leaned forward. “You don’t look good.”

“And I amnotgood,” said Pendergast. “But we shan’t discuss that. I’d prefer to hear about you. For example, how is Captain Hayward?”

“She’s fine,” D’Agosta said. “Doing well, actually. She recently moved to the Film and Television Unit as assistant commander.”

“Film and television?”

“She’s in charge of assisting film productions with traffic control, shutting down streets, shooting on bridges and highways—making sure everything’s done safely and nothing gets screwed up. Her unit also handles the permits, use of prop firearms, all that kind of stuff.”

“I’d never heard of such a unit before.”

“She loves it, gets to meet the stars and directors. They love her, too, it seems, and ask her advice on technical cop details. I’m happy for her—she’s seen more than her share of violent crime.”

“And your own career?”

“I don’t know.” D’Agosta shrugged. “I’m almost ready to quit. It’s one shitty case after another. I’ve begun to think most human beings are just brainless, evil sons of bitches.”

“Ah, you’ve got that wrong, my dear Vincent. We’re accomplished at evil preciselybecausewe have brains. I can assure you that if chimpanzees or lions or even lizards had our brains, they’d be just as creatively cruel as we are.”

D’Agosta grunted, not wanting to get into a philosophical debate with Pendergast, which nobody in history would ever win.

“But surely yournewcase presents a level of interest above the commonplace?”

“You mean—the one at the museum?” How did Pendergast know about that? Just as quickly, D’Agosta answered his own question: as an FBI agent, Pendergast had access to police channels as well as more private ones. Besides, he should know better than to be surprised at anything Pendergast learned, did, or said.

“A frozen curator,” Pendergast went on. “How intriguing!”

“Someone monkeyed with the freezer door to disable the emergency latch, and the victim was locked inside to freeze to death. But look, Pendergast, I really don’t want to talk about the case. I want to know what’s going on withyou.”

A vague, almost blank look briefly crossed Pendergast’s face. “My ward, Constance, has departed.”

“Constance? Where?”

Instead of answering, Pendergast took another sip of his drink.

“What’re you doing about it?”

Pendergast put down his glass. “Another beer?”

D’Agosta drained what was left of the first. “Sure.”

“Mrs. Trask?”

The housekeeper appeared almost too quickly with another beer and frosted glass, then bustled out again with a sidelong glance.

D’Agosta waited until her footsteps had receded into silence. “Okay, look,” he said, turning back to Pendergast. “You and me, we’ve been friends and partners for a long time. We’ve fought Amazonian monsters, zombies, and mindless creatures living a mile beneath this city. We’ve been arrested, shot, stabbed, locked up in an Italian castle; we’ve stalked a madman through a burning asylum—and cheated death every time. All of that has remained just between us. Goddamn it, I hope you know you can tell me anything. I’d move heaven and earth to help you. So don’t patronize me. Tell me what’s really going on…and how I can help.”

Pendergast slowly turned his gaze toward D’Agosta. “I apologize, Vincent, for appearing flippant. I deeply appreciate those sentiments. If there wereany wayyou could help, I would ask. The simple truth is that I find myself, for want of a better description, at a crossroads of no return. I alone must choose my path forward—and yet I seem to be paralyzed and unable to act.” He paused. “I truly welcome your companionship here in the library,as long aswe speak of other things—reminiscences either good or bad.” He reached for the bottle of absinthe. “Strange as it seems, even the zombies you refer to seem almost a nostalgic interlude to me now. But first: please tell me more about the frozen curator.”

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May 25

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