City of Endless Night (Pendergast #17)(2)

“What the hell!” came a roar and Bascombe burst out of the side door, wielding a baseball bat, coming at them fast.

Jacob’s heart turned over in his chest. “Run!” he yelled.

Dropping the carton, Ryan turned and immediately slipped and fell on some ice.

“Shit!” Jacob turned, grabbed Ryan’s coat, and hauled him to his feet, but by now Bascombe was almost on top of them, the bat cocked.

They ran like hell down the driveway and into the street. Bascombe pursued, and to Jacob’s surprise he didn’t drop dead of a heart attack. He was unexpectedly fast, and he might even be gaining on them. Ryan began to whimper.

“You goddamn kids, I’ll bust your heads open!” Bascombe yelled behind them.

Jacob flew around the corner onto Hillside, past a couple of shuttered stores and a baseball diamond, Ryan following. Still the old bastard chased, screeching, with that baseball bat held high. But it seemed he was finally getting winded, dropping back a little. They turned onto another street. Up ahead Jacob could see the old shuttered automart, surrounded by a chain-link fence, where they were going to build apartments next spring. A while back, some kids had cut an opening in the fence. He dove for the opening, then crawled through, Ryan still following. Now Bascombe was really falling behind, still screeching threats.

Behind the automart was an industrial area with some dilapidated buildings. Jacob spied a nearby garage, with a peeling wooden door, and a broken window beside it. Bascombe was now out of sight. Maybe he gave up at the fence, but Jacob had a feeling the old fart was still following. They had to find a place to hide.

He tried the garage door; locked. Gingerly, he stuck his arm through the broken window, felt for the knob, turned it from the inside—and the door creaked open.

He went in, Ryan following, and carefully and quietly he shut the door and turned the bolt.

They stood there in the blackness, breathing hard, Jacob feeling like his lungs might burst, trying to stay silent.

“Dumb kids!” they heard shrilly, in the distance. “I’ll bust your balls!”

It was dark in the garage, which seemed empty except for some glass on the floor. Jacob crept forward, taking Ryan’s hand. They needed a place to hide, just in case old man Bascombe somehow thought of looking for them in here. It seemed the crazy old coot really would clobber them with that bat. As Jacob’s eyes adjusted to the dimness, he saw a pile of leaves in the back—a large pile.

He pulled Ryan in that direction and he dug into the leaves, lying down on the soft surface and sweeping his hands around, piling the leaves over himself and his brother.

A minute passed. Another. No more shouting from Bascombe—all was silent. Gradually Jacob recovered both his breath and his confidence. After another few minutes he began to giggle. “The drooling old bastard, we got him good.”

Ryan said nothing.

“You see him? He was, like, chasing us in his pajamas. Maybe his dick froze and broke off.”

“You think he saw our faces?” Ryan asked in a quavering voice.

“With the hats, scarves, hoods? No way.” He sniggered again. “I’ll bet those eggs are frozen hard as a rock already.”

Finally Ryan allowed himself a little laugh. “Dumb kids, I’ll bust your balls!” he said, imitating the old man’s high, whistling voice and heavy Queens accent.

They both laughed as they began rising from the leaves, brushing them away. Then Jacob sniffed loudly. “You farted!”

“Did not!”

“Did so!”

“Did not! He who smelt it, dealt it!”

Jacob paused, still sniffing. “What is that?”

“That’s no fart. That’s…that’s gross.”

“You’re right. It’s like…I don’t know, rotten garbage or something.”

Jacob, disgusted, took a step back in the leaves and stumbled over something. He put out his hand and leaned against it to steady himself, only to find the leafy surface he’d been hidden against now yielded with a soft sigh, and the stench suddenly billowed over them, a hundred times worse than before. He jerked away and staggered back even as he heard Ryan say, “Look, there’s a hand…”





2

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER DETECTIVE Squad Vincent D’Agosta stood in the floodlights outside the garage in Kew Gardens, Queens, watching the Crime Scene Unit work. He was annoyed at being called out so late on the night before his day off. The body was reported at 11:38—just twenty-two more minutes and the call would’ve gone to Lieutenant Parkhurst.

He sighed. It was going to be messy, this one: a young woman, decapitated. He played around in his mind with possible tabloid headlines, something along the lines of HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR, the most famous headline in New York Post history.

Johnny Caruso, the head of the CSU, emerged from the glare, slipping his iPad into his bag.

“What you got?” D’Agosta asked.

“These damn leaves. I mean, try searching for hair, fiber, fingerprints, whatever in that mess. Like a needle in a haystack.”

“You think the perp knew that?”

“Nah. Unless he actually worked on an evidence collection team once. Just a coincidence.”

“No head?”

“None. The beheading didn’t take place here, either—no blood.”