Page 89 of The Cabinet of Dr. Leng

Miss Crean’s face did not change when she replied: “I did once see Mary Greene in furtive conversation with an urchin girl.”

“Ah,” said Dr. Leng.

“The bookkeeper here has a rather unhealthy interest in the comings and goings of people in the Points,” the woman said. “Perhaps he knows more of this.” Turning, she called out: “Mr. Royds!”

There was an odd rustling sound, like a nest of disturbed rats, and then a filthy-looking man with sleeve garters emerged from a dark corner of the entrance room. He approached them from the far side of the divider, then halted, touching his cap in the direction of Leng. He approached Miss Crean, who exchanged a few low words with him. He nodded once; listened some more; nodded again; then came around the divider and—with another touch of his cap—he exited the heavy front door into the night.

“He may know of the person in question,” the woman told Leng. “At least, he’s seen a waif that fits the description. He’s off now, to ask around.”

Fifteen minutes later, the vile fellow returned. And not long after that, Dr. Leng exited the House of Industry, after having given Royds several coins for his trouble. On the front steps he stopped and took a moment to look around at the nocturnal scene. The squalor and noisome air bothered him not in the least.

Royds’s investigations had borne fruit. Almost two weeks ago to the day, a young girl bearing a similarity to Mary Greene had been abducted from Mission Place sometime during the early hours of the evening. Althoughabductedmight not be the right word—the girl had been chased and seized by a lady, some witnesses said, but after struggling had allowed herself to be led off of her own accord. The woman was quite young, and her eyes, according to a witness to this bizarre abduction, were a most unusual shade of violet.

Dr. Leng pulled off a glove, put two fingers to his lips, and emitted a piercing whistle. A few moments later, his carriage—glossy black and elegantly appointed, one of very few that could travel through the Five Points unmolested—came around the nearby corner.

As he stepped in and closed the door, and the carriage moved away, Leng considered the developments. Joe Greene, a young pickpocket, had escaped Blackwell’s Island in the general riot that had taken place there on the night of December 1, and was now presumed drowned. And roughly a week later, his younger sister, Constance, had been spirited away from this place…by a young woman with violet eyes.

Interesting, Leng mused as his carriage moved toward cleaner, grander streets to the north and west.Most interesting indeed.

57

IT WAS PAST TENPMwhen Laura got back to their condo. D’Agosta was sitting on the living room couch, where he’d flung himself down three hours before and hadn’t moved from since, his mind working nonstop.

“Hi, baby!” Laura said as she hung up her coat.

“Long day?” D’Agosta replied. He was aware she’d stopped asking him how his own work was going—a subject likely to lead in a depressing direction. But this day was different: how could he explain to her, or anyone, what had happened?

“Oh my God,” Laura said. She’d walked into the bathroom to freshen up, leaving the door ajar. “I thought I’d seen everything,” she continued, over the sound of running water. “But the things this second unit is asking for just keep getting more outrageous. They can do so much with digital effects and green screen now, you know, that they want to make sure everyreallocation shot counts. And I meancounts.”

D’Agosta half-listened.

“…So for this remake ofSide Street, they wanted to head north and set up this long establishing boom shot, where the camera pans down from the skyline all the way to the pavement. The kind you just can’t duplicate on a soundstage or with a workstation. The AD wants the camera to linger over the Fifth Avenue intersection, looking straight down, so there’s no question it’s the real thing. Theintersection, right? Outside the main branch of the library. Atrushhour.”

Hearing this, D’Agosta felt a curious sensation of unreality. That meant Fifth Avenue in the lower Forties. He’d been there himself a few hours earlier—but it sure as hell hadn’t been any Fifth Avenue he’d ever seen before. He wondered if the whole thing was some kind of trick, or if he’d had some sort of mental breakdown or maybe just dreamed it. But he knew that couldn’t be right. It had been all too real: the cries; the gaslit dimness that settled over the city as evening drew near; the smell of horseshit and soot; the old buildings and carriages and plumes of coal smoke rising into the sky. If he hadn’t left the heavy cloak, hobnail boots, and top hat back in Pendergast’s basement, he knew their apartment would now be full of that very same stink.

“…Just that setup alone would have taken hours and at least two dozen uniforms. But that was only the beginning, because next they planned to show the outer wall of a bank vaporize, with gold bars spilling out into the street.” Laura’s voice had taken on an artificially bright edge. “While most of it would be CG, it still meant closing the block for hours, a bitch of a setup, and no less than four cameras. It was a day with bad going to worse.”

Bad going to worse.That’s what Pendergast had said, too. “If I don’t interfere, it will end in a way so awful I fear to imagine it. But I can’t do this myself. I need you, old partner.”

He came out of his brooding with another jolt, only to see Laura standing before him. Her hair was damp, her arms crossed in front of her. “Okay, Vinnie. What’s up?”

“Sorry.” Laura was too sharp to be put off with an evasive answer. “It’s not work,” he said, certain that’s what she was thinking. “That’s mostly in the hands of the feds now. I’ve decided to hand it over to Wybrand anyway. The investigation’s going overseas, and there isn’t much for us to do until they get their man back to the States.”

Her brows knitted. “Wybrand? You’ve done all the footwork so far—what’s the point of letting him take the credit?”

“I wouldn’t get much credit for mopping up. Just the opposite: we’ve got to pretend we’re making no headway on the case, or the target in Ecuador might get spooked. So there’s nothing to do, essentially, except take heat for not making progress.”

“I see.” Laura seemed dissatisfied. She could tell there was more. D’Agosta took a deep breath. He wasn’t ready to talk about anything that had happened to him today—it was too strange, too sudden, too new. And Laura wouldn’t believe it. Nobody would. It would scare the shit out of her, make her think he was having a breakdown. But he had to tell her something…unless, that is, he decided to turn down his friend’s request.

“I went by Pendergast’s place again,” he said.

“Really?” she asked, taking a seat beside him. Her question was carefully neutral. Laura hadn’t mentioned Pendergast since his name came up at the restaurant.

“Yes. He wanted to see me.”

“And did you finally find out what’s been troubling him?”

“Yeah. I did.”

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