Cold Vengeance - Lincoln Child [82]
He stared at the flame and—slowly, very slowly—let his gaze pierce its flickering heart. As he sat, motionless, he allowed his consciousness to enter into the flame, to be consumed by it, to join with it first as an organic whole, and then—as the minutes passed—at an even more fundamental level, until it was as if the very molecules of his sentient being mingled with those of the flame.
The flickering heat grew to fill his mind’s eye with endless, unquenchable fire. And then—quite suddenly—it winked out. Unrelieved blackness took its place.
Pendergast waited, in perfect equanimity, for his memory palace—the storehouse of knowledge and recollection to which he could retreat when in need of guidance—to appear. But the familiar marble walls did not rise up from the blackness. Instead, Pendergast found himself in a dim, closet-like area with a ceiling that sloped low over his head. Before him stood a latticed doorway looking out onto a service hallway; behind him was a wall covered with Rube Goldberg–like diagrams and treasure maps, scrawled by youthful hands.
This was the hideout known as Plato’s Cave, under the back stairs of the old house on Dauphine Street, where he and his brother, Diogenes, had gone to hatch childish schemes and plots… before the Event that sundered their comradeship forever.
This was the second time a memory crossing of Pendergast’s had taken an unexpected turn to this place. With a sudden apprehension, he peered into the dark space at the rear of Plato’s Cave. Sure enough: there was his brother, aged about nine or ten, wearing the navy blazer and shorts that were the uniform of Lusher, the school they attended. He was browsing through a book of Caravaggio’s paintings. He glanced up at Pendergast, gave a sardonic smile, and returned to the book.
“It’s you again,” Diogenes said, the boy strangely speaking in the adult’s voice. “Just in time. Maurice just saw a rabid dog running down the street near the Le Prêtres’ house. Let’s see if we can’t goad it into entering the Convent of St. Maria, shall we? It’s just noon, they’re probably all assembled at mass.”
When Pendergast did not reply, Diogenes turned over a page. “This is one of my favorites,” he said. “The Beheading of St. John the Baptist. Notice how the woman on the left is lowering the basket to receive the head. How accommodating! And the nobleman standing over John, directing the proceedings—such an air of calm command! That’s just how I want to look when I…” He abruptly fell silent and turned another page.
Still Pendergast did not speak.
“Let me guess,” said Diogenes. “This has to do with your dear departed wife.”
Pendergast nodded.
“I saw her once, you know,” Diogenes continued, not looking up from the book. “You two were in the gazebo in the back garden, playing backgammon. I was watching from behind the wisteria bushes. Priapus in the shrubbery, and all that sort of thing. It was an idyllic scene. She had such poise, such elegance of movement. She reminded me of the Madonna in Murillo’s Immaculate Conception.” He paused. “So you think she’s still alive, frater?”
Pendergast spoke for the first time. “Judson told me so, and he had no motive to lie.”
Diogenes did not look up from the book. “Motive? That’s easy. He wanted to inflict the maximum amount of pain at the moment of your death. You have that effect on people.” He turned another page. “I suppose you dug her up?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“The DNA matched.”
“And yet you still think she’s alive?” Another snicker.
“The dental records also matched.”
“Was the corpse also missing a hand?”
A long pause. “Yes. But the fingerprint evidence was inconclusive.”
“The body must’ve been in quite a state. How terrible for you to have that image lodged in your mind—your last image of her. Have you found the birth certificate yet?”
Pendergast paused, struck by the question. Now that the subject came up, he did not recall ever having seen her birth certificate. It hadn’t seemed important. He had always assumed she had been born in Maine, but that