Brimstone (Pendergast #5)(21)

With that, she vanished from the doorway. Cutforth could hear her banging the hall closet, getting on her tennis shoes. A moment later there was the hum of the elevator in the hall beyond, and she was gone.

He stared at the closed door, trying to remind himself that he’d wanted something fresher; that he’d gotten something fresher. Too f*cking fresh, in fact.

He sniffed again. If anything, the smell was worse. It would be a bitch getting maintenance up here a third time. Building management was useless; they did something only if you yelled loud enough. But there were only two apartments on this floor—the other had been purchased but not yet occupied—and nobody on the other floors had seemed to smell anything. So Cutforth was the only one yelling.

He stood up, feeling a prickle of disquiet. Grove had complained of a bad smell in that bizarre call of his—that, and about a hundred other strange things. He shook his head, trying to clear the clouds of apprehension that were slowly gathering. He was letting that old pillow-biter and his crazy worries get to him.

Was it coming from the vents? He moved around, testing the air. It was stronger in the living room, even stronger in the library. He followed it to the door of the control room, sniffing like a dog. Stronger, ever stronger. He unlocked the door, entered the room, flicked on the light, and looked around. There was his beautiful 64-channel Studer, his RAID-striped hard disk recording system, and his racks of audio processing gear. On the far wall were several glass cases containing his treasured collections. The guitar Mick Jagger had smashed at Altamont: Keith Richards’s prized 1950 Telecaster, dating from the first year of mass production, still sporting its original pickups. The scribbled music sheets to “Imagine,” with the coffee stains and obscene doodles in the margins. His wife said the control room looked like Planet Hollywood. That really pissed him off. This space was one of the greatest collections of rock memorabilia anywhere. The place where he’d discovered the Suburban Lawnmowers from an over-the-transom four-track demo mailed from Cincinnati. This is where he’d first heard the sounds of Rappah Jowly and felt that special creeping sensation go up his spine. Cutforth had an ear. He had a knack of recognizing a big-money sound. He didn’t know where the ear came from, and he didn’t care. It worked, and that’s all that mattered.

Planet Hollywood, my ass. Where the hell is that smell coming from?

Cutforth followed his nose toward the plate-glass window looking into the studio. It was definitely in there. Some piece of equipment frying, perhaps.

He opened the heavy soundproofed door. As he did so, the smell washed over him like an oily fog. He hadn’t noticed through the glass, but there was a light haze in the air here. And it wasn’t just that sulfurous smell; there was something a lot worse now. It reminded him of a pig wallow on a hot summer day.

He glanced around the studio quickly, at the B?sendorfer piano and his beloved Neumann microphones, at the isolation chambers, the acoustically tiled walls.

Had some motherf*cker been messing with his studio?

Cutforth searched the room with his eyes, anger vying with fear. It was impossible anyone had gotten into his apartment. It had state-of-the-art security. When you dealt with gangstas and others who settled business differences with lead instead of lawyers, you had to have good security.

He glanced around. Everything seemed to be in its place. The recording equipment was off. He laid his hand on the row of mic preamps: cool, the rows of LEDs all dark. But what was this? Over in the far corner there was something lying on the floor.

He stepped over, bent close to the blond wood, picked it up. It was a tooth. Or more like a tusk. Like a boar’s tusk. With blood on it, still wet. And a knot of bloody gristle at one end.

He dropped it in violent disgust.

Some f*cker has been in here.

Cutforth swallowed, backed away. It was impossible. No one could get in. Hadn’t he just unlocked the door himself? Maybe it had happened yesterday, when he’d shown that promoter around, a guy he really didn’t know. You dealt with a lot of weird people in this business. He quickly got a cloth, picked up the tooth with it, practically ran to the kitchen, dropped it down the garbage disposal, and turned it on, listening to the raw grinding noise. The thing exhaled a bad smell and he averted his face.

A shrill buzzer sounded, and he just about jumped through the wall. Taking deep breaths, he went to the intercom, pressed the buzzer.

“Mr. Cutforth? There’s a police officer to see you.”

Cutforth peered into the tiny video screen beside the intercom and saw a forty-something cop standing in the lobby, shifting from foot to foot.

“On a Saturday? What does he want?”

“He won’t say, sir.”

Cutforth finally got his breathing under control. The thought of a cop in his apartment right now was almost inviting. “Send him up.”




On closer inspection, the officer looked just like any Italian-American cop, with the working-class Queens accent to boot. Cutforth settled the cop on the living room sofa and took a chair opposite. The guy had Southampton on his patch, which confirmed what Cutforth already suspected. This was about Grove. He had caller ID; he should never have answered that crazy son of a bitch’s phone call.

The cop took out a notebook and pen, displayed a microcassette recorder.

“No taping,” said Cutforth.

The cop shrugged, returned it to his pocket. “Funny smell in here.”