Brimstone (Pendergast #5)(25)

“Much of the same. My work, my company.”

“What was the reason for the phone call?”

“You’ll have to ask him. We were just catching up.”

“He called you after midnight just to catch up?”

“That’s right.”

“How did he happen to know your number? It’s unlisted.”

“I suppose I must’ve given it to him once.”

“I thought he wasn’t your friend.”

Bullard shrugged. “Maybe he got it from someone else.”

D’Agosta paused to look at Bullard. He was standing off to one side, half in shadow, half in light. He still couldn’t see the man’s eyes.

“Did Grove seem frightened or apprehensive to you?”

“Not that I could tell. I really can’t remember.”

“Do you know a Nigel Cutforth?”

There was a slight beat before Bullard’s response. “No.”

“What about a Ranier Beckmann?”

“No.” No pause this time.

“A Count Isidor Fosco?”

“The name’s familiar. I think I’ve seen it in the society pages once or twice.”

“Lady Milbanke? Jonathan Frederick?”

“No and no.”

This was hopeless. D’Agosta knew when he was beaten. He slapped the notebook shut. “We’re not done with you, Mr. Bullard.”

Bullard had already turned back to his pool table. “But I am most certainly done with you, Sergeant.”

D’Agosta turned on his heel, and then paused. He turned back. “I hope you’re not planning any trips out of the country, Mr. Bullard.”

Silence. Encouraged, D’Agosta pursued the line. “I could get you declared a material witness, restrict your movements.” D’Agosta knew he could do no such thing, but his sixth sense told him he had finally struck a vein. “How’d you like that?”

It seemed as if Bullard hadn’t heard, but D’Agosta knew he had. He turned and walked toward the exit, past the huge green tables with their tiny little pockets. At the door he paused, glaring at the attendant. The smirk vanished, and his face became suddenly and completely neutral.

“What’s this game here? Billiards?”

“Snooker, sir.”

“Snooker?” D’Agosta stared at the man. Was he making fun of him? It sounded like something a prostitute might charge extra for. But the man’s face betrayed nothing.

D’Agosta left the room, located the front elevator, and took it down. To hell with the porter and his rules.




The last of the evening light was slowly dying in the great billiard room of the New York Athletic Club. Locke Bullard stood over the table, cue in hand, no longer seeing the table or the balls. Sixty seconds passed. And then he placed the cue on the table, walked toward the bar, and picked up the phone. Something had to be done, and right now. He had important business to attend to in Italy, and nobody—especially this upstart sergeant—was going to cause him to miss it.





{ 12 }


D’Agosta paused on the steps of the New York Athletic Club and checked his watch. Only 6:30. Pendergast had asked him to come to what he called his “uptown residence” at nine so they could compare notes on the day’s interviews. He checked his pocket, found the key Pendergast had given him. Nine. He had time to kill. If memory served, there was a dim little Irish pub called Mullin’s on Broadway and 61st that served a decent burger. He could catch dinner and a cold one.

He glanced back into the lobby, caught the eye of the snooty doorman who’d made him walk around back earlier, and made a point of lingering a little longer on the steps. The man was at his kiosk, hanging up the house phone and looking back at him, a pinched expression on his mummified face. Damn, sometimes it seemed that being a fossilized old turd was the main job qualification of a Manhattan doorman.

Now, as he sauntered down the steps and turned left on Central Park South, his thoughts returned to Pendergast. Why the hell did he need a house uptown? From what he’d heard, Pendergast’s apartment in the Dakota was bigger than most houses, anyway. He pulled the card from his pocket: 891 Riverside Drive. What cross street was that? Probably one of those elegant old buildings along Riverside Park up around 96th. He’d been out of New York too long. In years past, he could take any avenue address and calculate the cross street in his head.

Mullin’s Pub was still where he remembered it, little more than a dim storefront with a long bar and old wooden tables along the opposite wall. D’Agosta entered, his heart warmed by the thought of a real New York cheeseburger, cooked rare, not one of those fussy avocado-arugula-Camembert-and-pancetta things they sold in Southampton for fifteen dollars.

An hour later, well fed, D’Agosta emerged, then headed north to the subway station at 66th. Even at 7:30, there were a million cars rushing, vying, and honking, a fuming chaos of steel and chrome, including one shitbox eighties-era gold Impala with smoked windows that nearly clipped off his toes. Laying a suitable string of curses in the car’s wake, D’Agosta ducked down into the subway. He fumbled with the magnetic card, swiped it through the machine, then headed down the stairs for the platform of the uptown IRT local. Even having killed an hour, he was going to be early. Maybe he should have stayed in Mullin’s for another brew.