The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast #3)(66)

“Sergeant O’Shaughnessy.”

“Right. What are you doing here?”

“Same as you, probably,” said O’Shaughnessy. Then he stopped abruptly, remembering he was speaking to a reporter. It wouldn’t be good for this to get back to Custer.

Smithback mopped his brow with a soiled handkerchief. “You scared the piss out of me.”

“Sorry. You looked suspicious.”

Smithback shook his head. “I imagine I did.” He glanced around. “Find anything?”

“No.”

There was a brief silence.

“Who do you think did it? Think it was just some mugger?”

Although Smithback was echoing the same question he’d asked himself moments before, O’Shaughnessy merely shrugged. The best thing to do was to keep his mouth shut.

“Surely the police have some kind of theory.”

O’Shaughnessy shrugged again.

Smithback stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Look, I understand if it’s confidential. I can quote you ‘not for attribution.’”

O’Shaughnessy wasn’t going to fall into that trap.

Smithback sighed, looking up at the buildings with an air of finality. “Well, there’s nothing much else to be seen around here. And if you’re going to clam up, I might as well go get a drink. Try to recover from that fright you gave me.” He snugged the handkerchief back into his pocket. “Night, Officer.”

He began to walk away. Then he stopped, as if struck by an idea.

“Want to come along?”

“No, thanks.”

“Come on,” the reporter said. “You don’t look like you’re on duty.”

“I said no.”

Smithback took a step closer. “You know, now that I think about it, maybe we could help each other out here. Know what I mean? I need to keep in touch with this investigation into the Surgeon.”

“The Surgeon?”

“Haven’t you heard? That’s what the Post is calling this serial killer. Cheesy, huh? Anyway, I need information, and I’ll bet you need information. Am I right?”

O’Shaughnessy said nothing. He did need information. But he wondered if Smithback really had something, or was just bullshitting.

“I’ll level with you, Sergeant. I got scooped on that tourist killing in Central Park. And now, I have to scramble to get new developments, or my editor will have my ass for brunch. A little advance notice here and there, nothing too specific, just a nod from a friend—you, for instance. That’s all.”

“What kind of information do you have?” O’Shaughnessy asked guardedly. He thought back a minute to what Pendergast had said. “Do you have anything on, say, Fairhaven?”

Smithback rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding? I’ve got a sackful on him. Not that it’ll do you much good, but I’m willing to share. Let’s talk about it over a drink.”

O’Shaughnessy glanced up and down the street. Despite his better judgment, he found himself tempted. Smithback might be a hustler, but he seemed a decent sort of hustler. And he’d even worked with Pendergast in the past, though the reporter didn’t seem too eager to reminisce about it. And finally, Pendergast had asked him to put together a file on Fairhaven.

“Where?”

Smithback smiled. “Are you kidding? The best bars in New York City are just one block west, on Columbus. I know a great place, where all the Museum types go. It’s called the Bones. Come on, the first round’s on me.”





THIRTEEN




THE FOG GREW THICKER FOR A MOMENT. PENDERGAST WAITED, maintaining his concentration. Then through the fog came flickerings of orange and yellow. Pendergast felt heat upon his face. The fog began to clear.

He was standing outside J. C. Shottum’s Cabinet of Natural Productions and Curiosities. It was night. The cabinet was burning. Angry flames leapt from the first-and second-story windows, punching through billowing clouds of black, acrid smoke. Several firemen and a bevy of police were frantically roping off the street around the building and pushing curious onlookers back from the conflagration. Inside the rope, several knots of firefighters arced hopeless streams of water into the blaze, while others scurried to douse the gaslights along the sidewalk.

The heat was a physical force, a wall. Standing on the street corner, Pendergast’s gaze lingered appreciatively on the fire engine: a big black boiler on carriage wheels, belching steam, Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in gold letters on its sweating sides. Then he turned toward the onlookers. Would Leng be among them, admiring his handiwork? No, he would have been long gone. Leng was no pyromaniac. He would be safely ensconced in his uptown house, location unknown.

The location of the house was a great question. But another, perhaps more pressing, question remained: where had Leng moved his laboratory?

There was a tremendous, searing crack; roof timbers collapsed inward with a roiling shower of sparks; an appreciative murmur rose from the crowd. With a final look at the doomed structure, Pendergast began threading his way through the crowd.

A little girl rushed up, no older than six, threadbare and frighteningly gaunt. She had a battered straw broom in her hand, and she swept the street corner ahead of him industriously, clearing away the dung and pestilential garbage, hoping pathetically for a coin. “Thank you,” Pendergast said, tossing her several broad copper pennies. She looked at the coins, eyes wide at her good fortune, then curtsied awkwardly.