Dance of Death (49 page)

Collopy stood pacing before a great row of curved windows, hands clasped behind his back. Beyond the windows lay the wintry fastness of Central Park. Smithback recognized the security director, Manetti, along with several other museum officials standing before Collopy's desk.

The museum director noticed him, stopped pacing. "Mr. Smithback?"

"That's me."

Collopy turned to Manetti and the other officials. "Five minutes."

He watched them leave, then turned to Smithback. He was gripping the card in one hand, his face slightly flushed. "Who's behind this
outrageous
rumor, Mr. Smithback?"

Smithback swallowed. He had to make this sound good. "It's not exactly a rumor, sir. It came from a confidential source which I can't reveal. But I made a few calls, checked it out. It seems there might be something to it."

"This is intolerable. I've got enough to worry about without this. It's just some crank speculation, best ignored."

"I'm not sure that would be wise."

"Why? You're not going to publish unsubstantiated calumnies like this in the
Times,
are you? My assertion that the diamond is safe at our insurance company ought to be enough."

"It's true the
Times
doesn't publish rumors. But as I said, I've got a reliable source that claims it's true. I can't ignore that."

"Bloody
hell."

"Let me pose a question to you," Smithback said, keeping his voice the soul of reasonableness. "When was the last time you personally saw Lucifer's Heart?"

Collopy shot him a glance. "It would have been four years ago, when we renewed the policy."

"Did a certified gemologist examine it at the time?"

"No. Why, it's an unmistakable gemstone..." Collopy's voice trailed off as he realized the weakness of his remark.

"How do
you
know it was the genuine article, Dr. Collopy?"

"I made a perfectly reasonable assumption."

"That's the crux of it, isn't it, Dr. Collopy? The truth is," Smithback continued gently, "you don't know for a fact that Lucifer's Heart is still in the insurance company vault. Or, if a gemstone is there, whether it's the real one."

"This is an absurd spinning of a conspiracy theory!" The director set off pacing again, hands balled up behind his back. "I don't have time for this!"

"You wouldn't want to let a story like this get out of control. You know how these things tend to assume a life of their own. And I do have to file my article by this evening."

"Your article? What article?"

"About the allegations."

"You publish that and my lawyers will eat you for breakfast!"

"Take on the
Times?
I don't think so." Smithback spoke mildly and waited, giving Collopy plenty of time to think things out to the inevitable, preordained conclusion.

"Damn
it!" Collopy said, spinning on his heel. "I suppose we'll just have to bring it out and have it certified."

"An interesting suggestion," said Smithback.

Collopy paced. "It'll need to be done publicly, but under tight security, of course. We can't just invite every Tom, Dick, and Harry in to watch."

"May I suggest that all you really need is the
Times'?
The others will follow our lead. They always do. We're the paper of record."

Another turn. "Perhaps you're right."

Another pace across the room, another turn. "Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to get a gemologist to certify that the stone held by our insurance company is, in fact, Lucifer's Heart. We'll do it right there, at Affiliated Transglobal Insurance headquarters, under the tightest security. You'll be the only journalist there and, damn it, you'd better write an article that will scotch those rumors once and for all."

"If
it's genuine."

"It'll be genuine or the museum will end up owning Affiliated Transglobal Insurance, so help me God."

"What about the gemologist? He'd have to be independent, for credibility."

Collopy paused. "It's true we can't use one of our own curators."

"And his reputation will obviously need to be unimpeachable."

"I'll contact the American Council of Gemologists. They could send one of their experts." Collopy walked to the desk, picked up the phone, and made several calls in rapid succession. Then he turned back to Smithback.

"It's all arranged. We'll meet at the Affiliated Transglobal headquarters, 1271 Avenue of the Americas, forty-second floor, at one o'clock precisely."

"And the gemologist?"

"A fellow named George Kaplan. Said to be one of the best." He glanced at Smithback. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a lot to do. See you at one." He hesitated. "And thank you for your discretion."

"Thank you, Dr. Collopy."

SIXTY

D'Agosta listened to the sirens coming across the dunes. They grew louder, receded, then grew louder again. From his days with the Southampton P.D., he recognized the tinny sound as coming from the cheap units mounted on the dune patrol buggies.

They'd sat here in the shadow of a sand dune, hiding, assessing the situation, at least five minutes. If he remained on the beach, there was no way their truck was going to escape dune buggies. And yet if he went back on the street, he'd be nabbed immediately, now that they knew his approximate location, vehicle, and license plate.

They were now near Southampton, D'Agosta's old stomping ground, and he knew the lay of the land, at least in general terms. There had to be a way out. He would just have to find it.

He started the truck, popped the emergency brake.

"Hold on to your seat," he said.

Pendergast, who had apparently finished making a string of cell phone calls, glanced over. "I am in your hands."

D'Agosta took a deep breath. Then he gunned the engine, the pickup digging out of the hollow and climbing the side of a dune, shooting huge jets of sand behind them. They plunged into another depression, wound around several dunes, then climbed diagonally up the flank of an especially large one that separated them from the mainland. As they topped it, D'Agosta got a backward glimpse of several patrol buggies scooting along the hard sand a quarter mile back, with at least two others in the dunes themselves, no doubt following their tracks.

Shit.
They were closer than he'd expected.

D'Agosta jammed the pedal to the floor as the pickup topped the dune. For a moment, they were airborne. Then they landed on the far side, bottoming out in the loose sand, churning and grinding their way through a patch of dense brush. The preserve ended, and the path ahead was blocked by several grand Hampton estates. As he fought with the wheel, D'Agosta quickly arranged the local topography in his head. If they could just get past the estates, he knew, Scuttlehole marsh lay beyond.

The dunes leveled out and he bashed the truck through a slat fence, emerging onto a narrow road. On the far side was a high boxwood hedge, surrounding one of the great estates. He tore alongside the hedge, and where the road curved up ahead, he saw what he was looking for-a sclerotic patch in the foliage-and he veered off, aiming directly for it. The pickup truck hit it at forty, bashed through the hedge, tearing off both mirrors in the process, and then they were accelerating across a ten-acre lawn, a huge Georgian mansion on the left, a gazebo and covered pool on the right, the way beyond blocked by an Italian rose garden.

He flashed past the pool at speed, ripped through the rose garden, nicked the arm off a sculpture of some naked woman, and crashed through a raised vegetable bed that lay beyond. Up ahead, like a green wall, stood another unbroken line of hedge.

Pendergast looked back through the rear window of the pickup truck, a pained expression on his face. "Vincent, you're cutting quite a swath," he said.

"They can add nude statue molestation to my growing list of crimes. For now, though, you'd better brace yourself." And he accelerated toward the hedge.

They hit it with a shuddering crash that nearly stopped the vehicle dead. The engine coughed and sputtered, and for a moment D'Agosta feared it would die. But they fought their way out the far side of the hedge, still running. Across another narrow road, he could see a split-rail fence and, beyond that, the marshes surrounding Scuttlehole Pond.

For the past couple of weeks it had been cold-very cold. Now D'Agosta was going to find out if it had been cold enough.

He tore along the road until he found a break in the fence, then pointed the truck through it and went off-road again. He was forced to slow down as he wound through the sparse jack-pine forest that surrounded the marsh. He could still hear the sirens coming faintly from behind. If he had gained ground cutting through the estate, it was precious little.

The stunted pines gradually gave way to marsh grass and sandy flats. Ahead, he could see the dead stalks of cattail and yellow marsh grass. The pond itself seemed lost in the gray light.

"Vincent?" Pendergast said calmly. "You're aware there's a body of water ahead?"

"I know."

The pickup accelerated over the frozen verge of the marsh, the wheels sending shards of crackling ice skittering away on either side like a wake. The speedometer edged back up to thirty, then thirty-five, then forty. For what he was about to do, he was going to need all the speed he could get.

With a final slapping sound, the cattails scattering in their wake, the pickup truck was on the ice.

Pendergast gripped the door handle, the lattes forgotten. "Vincent-?"

The truck was moving fast across the ice, breaking it as they went with a machine-gun chatter. D'Agosta could see in his rearview mirror that the ice was cracking and shattering behind them, some pieces even flung up and skittering away, black water slopping up. The sound of fracturing ice boomed across the lake like the reports of cannon.

"The idea is they won't be able to follow us," said D'Agosta through clenched teeth.

Pendergast didn't answer.

The far shore, lined with stately homes, steadily approached. The truck felt almost like it was floating now, rising up and down like a powerboat on the continuously breaking crust of ice.

D'Agosta could feel he was losing momentum. He applied just a little more gas, being careful to ease down slowly on the accelerator. The truck roared, wheels spinning, the crackle and snap of ice growing louder.

Two hundred yards.
He gave it more gas, but it just spun the wheels faster.

The amount of power being transferred from the wheels to the slick surface was steadily decreasing. The truck jerked, bounced, slowed, and began to slew sideways as the craquelure of failing ice spread out from them in all directions.

This is no time for half measures.
D'Agosta jammed the pedal to the floor once again as he spun the wheel. The engine screamed, the truck accelerating, but not quite enough to stay ahead of the horrible disintegration of ice.

One hundred yards.

The engine was now screaming like a turbine, the truck still yawing sideways, moving now on inertia alone.

The far shore was close, but the truck was slowing with every passing second. Pendergast had scooped up the laptop and police radio under his arm, and seemed to be preparing to open his door.

"Not yet!" D'Agosta gave the wheel a sharp check, just enough to straighten out the truck. The nose, the heavier part, was still up, and as long as it stayed that way...

With a horrible sinking sensation, the front of the truck began to settle. There was a moment of breathless suspension. And then it nosed down sharply and slammed into the forward edge of ice, stopping the truck cold.

D'Agosta flung open the door and launched himself into the freezing water, clutching at the breaking edge of ice, gripping it, hauling himself up onto a jagged floe. He scrambled away crablike onto solid ice as the bed of the pickup truck swung upward vertically, the back wheels still spinning off watery slush-and then as he watched, the truck plunged straight down with a rush of forced air, slopping him with a wave of icy water, cakes of broken ice dancing and churning in its wake.

After the truck had vanished, there, on the far side of the gaping hole, stood Pendergast, standing on the ice as if he'd merely stepped out of the truck, computer and radio tucked under one arm, black coat dry and unruffled.

D'Agosta rose unsteadily to his feet on the groaning ice. They were a mere dozen yards from shore. He glanced back but the dune buggies had not yet appeared on the shore of the pond.

"Let's go."

In a moment, they reached the shore and hid themselves behind a raised dock. The buggies were just arriving, their yellow headlights piercing the bitter gray air. The story that met their eyes was evident enough: a long, broken path of heaving ice that led most of the way across the lake to a gaping hole, littered with broken chunks of ice. A slick of gasoline was slowly rising and spreading in rainbow patterns.

Pendergast peered across the lake from between the slats of the dock. "That, Vincent, was a most ingenious maneuver."