Cold Vengeance - Lincoln Child [138]
“I’ll raise holy hell, believe me.”
“Excellent, my dear Vincent.”
“But… damn it, don’t you think I should go with you to the boathouse? Just in case there’s trouble?”
Pendergast shook his head. “Under any other circumstances, Vincent, I would accept your help. But Constance’s safety is too important. You’re armed, of course?”
“Of course.”
The elevator arrived at the ground floor, the doors whispering open. They exited the southwest lobby and walked across the interior courtyard.
D’Agosta frowned. “Esterhazy might be organizing a trap.”
“I doubt it, but I’ve taken precautions. In case anyone tries to interrupt us.”
They passed beneath a portcullis-like structure and through the entrance tunnel to Seventy-Second Street. An unmarked car idled by the doorman’s pillbox, a uniformed police officer behind the wheel. D’Agosta glanced around for a moment, then opened the rear door, holding it for Constance.
Constance turned to Pendergast, kissed him lingeringly on the cheek. “Take care, Aloysius,” she whispered.
“I’ll be with you as soon as I can,” he told her.
She gave his hand a final press and slipped into the rear of the car.
D’Agosta closed the door after her, walked around to the other side. He gave Pendergast a last, intent look. “Watch your ass, partner.”
“I will endeavor to follow your advice—metaphorically, of course.”
D’Agosta got in and the car pulled out into traffic.
Pendergast watched the car disappear into the gathering dusk. Then he reached into his jacket, pulled out a tiny Bluetooth headset, and fitted it to his ear. Slipping his hands into the pockets of his coat, he crossed the broad avenue, entered Central Park, and vanished down a winding path, heading for Conservatory Water.
CHAPTER 82
AT FIVE MINUTES BEFORE SIX IN THE EVENING, Central Park lay under the drowsy enchantment of a Magritte painting: the sky above in vivid light, the trees and pathways below swathed in heavy dusk. The pulse of the city had slowed with the coming of evening; the cabs hushed by on Fifth Avenue, too lazy even to honk their horns.
The Kerbs Memorial Boathouse rose like a confection of brick and verdigrised copper beside the mirrored surface of Conservatory Water. Beyond it, past a fringe of trees dressed in autumn colors, rose the monolithic expanse of Fifth Avenue, the ramparts of stone blushing pink in the reflected glow of the dying sun.
Special Agent Pendergast made his way through the cherry trees of Pilgrim Hill and paused in the long shadows to scan the boathouse and its surroundings. It was an unusually warm fall evening. The oval pond was utterly calm, its mirror-like surface ablaze with the carmine and vermilion of the sky. The café adjoining the boathouse was closed for the day, and there were only a handful of would-be yachtsmen at the water’s edge plying their model yachts. A few children sat or lay beside them, hands idly stirring the water, staring out at the little vessels.
Slowly, Pendergast circled the pond, passing the Alice in Wonderland statue as he approached the boathouse. A violinist stood on the stone parapet that rose before the lake, case open at his feet, playing “Tales from the Vienna Woods” with almost more rubato than the music could stand. A young couple sat on one of the benches before the boathouse, holding hands, whispering and nuzzling, identical backpacks beside them. On the next bench over sat Proctor, dressed in a suit of dark serge, apparently intent on reading The Wall Street Journal. A vendor of chestnuts and hot pretzels was closing up his cart for the day, and in the deep shadow behind the boathouse, in a cluster of rhododendrons, a homeless man was preparing his cardboard-box bed for the evening. A sprinkling of pedestrian commuters strode past on the various walkways leading to Fifth Avenue.
Pendergast touched his earpiece. “Proctor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anything amiss?”
“No, sir. Everything