Had he seen that same look in the eyes of Constance?
Hell with this. He was just delaying the inevitable.
He picked up a checked shirt, tossed it into the bag, then followed it with a worn pair of chinos and his FBI day pack. He needed a game plan for Guatemala. There were ways in which he could turn what seemed like disadvantages—his obvious foreignness, his tallness, his unfamiliarity with indigenous languages and customs—to his advantage. If he told people he was from South America—Chile, perhaps—his odd Spanish and his looks would not be questioned. He didn’t need a disguise—his off-duty clothes and bag were cheap and shabby already. He’d have to wing some of it, but improvisation was his strong suit. And if Pendergast didn’t like it, then he could lick his kokoyahala, because Coldmoon planned to own this operation. This would be his, and his alone—
Suddenly, he heard something. He paused a moment, shrugged, then resumed his packing. As he did so, the sound came again. It was an unusual noise, like the knock of a bird’s beak, only slow and deliberate—and oddly hollow. Where had it come from? Nobody was in the house. There was no storm outside, no wind or waving branches, and the beach was still off-limits to people.
Another faint knock. His eye fell on the hot air register in the floor. It had come from there: that explained the hollow echo. The duct, he knew, ran to the boiler in the basement.
With a sigh, he went back to his packing. Rats, probably, in the ductwork. Not a bad place to hang out, given how infrequently the heat was turned on around here.
But then the sound came again. It had a measured nature that seemed to bespeak intelligence. He thought of Tungmanito, the night woodpecker, who visited the houses of the dying, trying to get inside and steal their spirits before they could complete their journey to the lush prairies of the afterworld.
His mind was certainly running in odd circles tonight. He’d better recall he was an FBI special agent on assignment and push aside all this superstitious nonsense. There could be someone in the house, and that was something real and present—and worth investigating.
He pulled his gun from the holster hanging on the back of a chair, stuck it into the pocket of his jeans, and stepped out into the hall as silently as possible. He glanced around, then took the back stairs that led down from the servants’ rooms into the kitchen.
Walking over to the door leading to the basement, he opened it, felt along the wall beyond, found the light switch, then reconsidered. If he was going to follow through on this fool’s errand, he might as well do it right. He pulled out the small tactical LED flashlight he always carried, snapped it on low power—if you could call three hundred lumens “low”—and started down the stairs.
The “basement” of the Mortlach House was, in reality, less than a full basement but more than a crawlspace. The ceiling was just high enough that he could move around with only the slightest stoop. As Coldmoon played his light around, he saw that the space was a forest of supporting beams, all covered in a moisture-resistant material of more recent vintage than the house itself, with a maze of brick alcoves built into the foundations. The air smelled of salt water, mold, and earth.
He paused once again. The tapping sound had stopped. Nevertheless, he made a thorough search of the labyrinthine space, walking among the columns and peering into various nooks and cellar rooms and vaults. His last stop was the boiler itself, which was newer than expected but, as he’d guessed, cold. Nevertheless, he gave its flank two good whacks with the flat of his hand, the sound booming out in the hollow darkness. If there were squirrels or rats—or woodpeckers, damn it—that would give them something to think about.
He made a final sweep with his light, then turned and ascended the stairs, bent on completing his packing.
The echoes of Coldmoon’s footsteps faded away in the cellar, and silence returned along with the dark. The figure in the basement remained unmoving, hidden in a small alcove. After a minute it moved out of the tiny space. Constance Greene, clad all in black as if in mourning, peered around, noting that the basement was once again empty. When she was satisfied that all was as it had been before Coldmoon’s disturbance, she retreated into the shadows, invisible once again, to wait…and wait.
32
ROGER SMITHBACK ROLLED over on the dirty mattress that served as his bed and—with a groan—gingerly held one hand up to the side of his face. Even now, two days later, the pain hadn’t abated much. His eye was puffy and half-closed, his ear swollen, and his temple almost too tender to touch. He could only guess what a wreck he must look—there was no mirror in the grimy little storage room that made up his cell.
Two days—he’d been here two whole days. He knew this only because of a tiny barred window high up in the wall that permitted sunlight to enter. When he’d first come to after that awful sucker punch, it had still been dark. Then hours later, the sun rose, then after an interminable wait it had gone and he faced a second endless night. It had risen again, and set—for the second time.
Two days. His only food had been bags of plantain chips, his only drink cans of tamarind soda from a pallet stored in one corner. The chips had been served to him daily, each time accompanied by a shouted warning, and a door cracked open just wide enough to toss a few bags in at the point of a shotgun. His toilet was an old galvanized pail. It had yet to be emptied.
It had taken him a long time to clear his head of the effects of the blow. Once he had, he felt overwhelmed with terror: What was going to happen to him? Was that blow to the side of the head a mere taste of things to come?
Was anyone looking for him? Since the death of his brother, Smithback had no family to speak of, and no girlfriend. He traveled so often and unpredictably, with no notice to his friends, that they wouldn’t be alarmed at his disappearance. Which left Kraski as the only one who would note his absence—and he’d probably just assume his reporter was slacking off.
At least it seemed they weren’t going to kill him…not right away. And he wondered: what did they want with him?
With this realization, his thoughts—as much as the blinding headache allowed—turned to the events that had led up to this. He’d been set up by that old bastard landscaper. Maybe Smithback should have seen it coming. As usual, he’d been too eager for the story.
He now had a story, all right, if he could only get out of there alive.
Given his limited Spanish, he’d been able to comprehend only a portion of the loud talk that went on beyond the locked door. As far as he could tell, he was being held prisoner in some unused back room of the tienda guatemalteca they’d passed just before turning into the alley. There were two male voices only, it seemed. Sometimes the two laughed coarsely, telling crude jokes and bragging about their exploits. They had speculated about some big reward being offered by someone for something. There was much talk of drugs, shootings, and smuggling. Once or twice, he thought they’d mentioned him, and the dismissive way they’d done so was chilling. Mainly, though, it seemed they were waiting for their boss to come back. Somebody they called “El Engreído.”
Engreído. He’d puzzled over that one. Figuratively, Smithback thought it meant “stuck-up.” Literally, he knew, it meant “Bighead” and must be a nickname. He wondered what was going to happen to him when this Bighead dude came back.