The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast #3)(14)

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

There was another, louder sound: the rattling of a chain-link fence. Smithback climbing out? The guard turned toward it.

“What kind of date?” Nora asked.

He looked back at her, no longer trying to hide the roaming of his lascivious eyes. Nora felt naked beneath his gaze. There was another rattle. The guard turned again and this time saw Smithback. He was pretty hard to miss: clinging to the top of the fence, trying to unsnag his filthy raincoat.

“Hey!” the guard yelled.

“Forget him,” said Nora hastily. “He’s just some bum.”

Smithback struggled. Now he was trying to slip out of his raincoat, but had only succeeded in becoming more tangled.

“He’s not supposed to be in there!” the guard said.

This, unfortunately, was a guy who took his job seriously.

The man clapped his hand to his gun. “Hey you!” he yelled louder. “Hey!” He took a step toward the writer.

Smithback struggled frantically with the raincoat.

“Sometimes I do it for free,” Nora said.

The guard swiveled back to her, eyes wide, the bum on the fence instantly forgotten. “You do?”

“Sure. Why not? Cute guy like you…”

He grinned like an idiot. Now she noticed his ears stuck out. What a weenie, so eager to cheat on his wife. Cheap, too.

“Right now?” he asked.

“Too cold. Tomorrow.” She heard a ripping sound, a thud, a muffled curse.

“Tomorrow?” He looked devastated. “Why not now? At your place.”

She took off the coat and gave it back to him. “Never at my place.”

He took a step toward her. “There’s a hotel around the corner.” He reached over, trying to snake an arm around her waist.

She skipped back lightly with another smile as her cell phone rang. Flooded with relief, she flipped it open.

“Mission accomplished,” came Smithback’s voice. “You can get away from that creep.”

“Sure, Mr. McNally, I’d love to,” she said warmly. “That sounds nice. See you there.” She made a smacking kiss into the phone and snapped it shut.

She turned to the guard. “Sorry. Business.” She took another step back.

“Wait. Come on. You said—” There was a note of desperation in the guard’s voice.

She took a few more steps back and shut the chain-link gate in his face. “Tomorrow. I promise.”

“No, wait!”

She turned and began walking quickly down the sidewalk.

“Hey, come on! Wait! Lady, please!” His desperate pleas echoed among the tenements.

She ducked around the corner. Smithback was waiting, and he hugged her briefly. “Is that creep following?”

“Just keep going.”

They began running down the sidewalk, Nora wobbling on her high heels. They turned the far corner and crossed the street, then paused, panting and listening. The guard was not following.

“Christ,” said Smithback, sinking against a wall. “I think I broke my arm falling off that goddamn fence.” He held up his arm. His raincoat and shirt had been torn and his bleeding elbow stuck out of the hole.

Nora examined it. “You’re fine. Did you get the dress?”

Smithback patted his grimy bag.

“Great.”

Smithback looked around. “We’re never going to find a cab down here,” he said with a groan.

“A cab wouldn’t stop anyway. Remember? Give me your raincoat. I’m freezing.”

Smithback wrapped it around her. He paused, grinning. “You look kind of… sexy.”

“Stow it.” She began walking toward the subway.

Smithback skipped after her. At the entrance to the subway, he stopped. “How about a date, lady?” he leered. “Hey lady, please!” He imitated the guard’s last, despairing entreaties.

She looked at him. His hair was sticking out in all directions, his face had become even filthier, and he smelled of mold and dust. He couldn’t have looked more ridiculous.

She had to smile. “It’s going to cost you big-time. I’m high-class.”

He grinned. “Diamonds. Pearls. Greenbacks. Nights dancing in the desert under the coyote moon. Anything you want, baby.”

She took his hand. “Now, that’s my kind of john.”





SEVEN




NORA LOCKED THE DOOR TO HER OFFICE, PLACED THE PACKET ON A chair, and cleared her desk of papers and tottering stacks of publications. It was just past eight in the morning, and the Museum seemed to be still asleep. Nevertheless, she glanced at the window set into her office door, and then—with a guilty impulse she did not quite understand—walked over to it and pulled down the blind. Then she carefully covered the desktop with white acid-free paper, taped it to the corners, laid another sheet on top, and placed a series of sample bags, stoppered test tubes, tweezers, and picks along one edge. Unlocking a drawer of her desk, she laid out the articles she had taken from the site: coins, comb, hair, string, vertebra. Lastly, she laid the dress atop the paper. She handled it gently, almost gingerly, as if to make up for the abuse it had endured over the last twenty-four hours.

Smithback had been beside himself with frustration the night before, when she had refused to slit open the dress immediately and see what, if anything, was written on the paper hidden inside. She could see him in her mind’s eye: still in his hobo outfit, drawn up to a height of indignation only a journalist with a need to know could feel. But she’d been unmoved. With the site destroyed, she was determined to squeeze every bit of information out of the dress that she could. And she was going to do it right.