City of Endless Night

27

D’Agosta never liked hospitals. It was more than a dislike; as soon as he entered one, with all the bright surfaces and fluorescent lights and bustle and beeping and the air laden with the smell of rubbing alcohol and bad food — he started to feel physically sick himself.

It was especially annoying to have to come in on Christmas Day at 5 AM in order to question a crazy cop-shooting motherfucker. As much as Laura understood — she was an NYPD captain, after all — it didn’t stop her from getting resentful that he was out half the night again and again and could do nothing but crash when he got home, then get up and go off yet again — on Christmas morning, no less, not even lingering for coffee — and with only a few hastily purchased presents for her, to boot.

He had found Lasher in a room in a special lockdown wing of Bellevue, with four cops guarding him and a nurse hovering around. The wacko’s gunshot wounds had been severe, and the doctors had taken more than twenty-four hours to stabilize him sufficiently to be questioned. He’d be fine. On the other hand, D’Agosta’s own man Hammer was in the ICU, still struggling for his very life.

Lasher was weak, but the injuries hadn’t taken the bullshit out of him. For the past fifteen minutes, for every question D’Agosta had asked, no matter how mundane, the answer had quickly veered off into chemtrails, the JFK assassination, Project MKUltra. The guy was fucking nuts. On the other hand, he had no alibi for Cantucci’s murder. He’d contradicted himself several times as he tried to explain his whereabouts and activities on the night of the murder and the day preceding. D’Agosta was almost sure he was lying, but at the same time the man was so crazy that it was hard to imagine him pulling off a slick murder like Cantucci’s, techie or not.

On top of that, Pendergast had pulled another one of his disappearing acts, not answering texts, emails, or phone calls.

“Let’s go over this again,” said D’Agosta. “You say that on December eighteenth, you spent the day in the apartment, online, and that your Internet records will prove that.”

“I told you, man, I—”

Overriding him, D’Agosta said: “Well, we looked at your Internet records for that day and the computer was scrubbed clean. Now, why would you erase those records?”

Lasher coughed, grimaced. “I go to great lengths to keep my browsing history secret, because you government people—”

“But you said the Internet records would, quote, ‘prove I was online all day and night.’”

“And they would! They would, if I wasn’t forced by government drones, digital wiretaps, and brain-wave transmitters to take extreme measures for my own protection—”

“Lieutenant,” the nurse said, “I warned you about exciting this man. He’s still very weak. If you press him, I’ll be forced to end the interrogation.”

D’Agosta heard some murmuring behind him and turned to see Pendergast at the door, being logged in to enter. Finally. Ignoring the nurse, he turned back to Lasher. “So your proof is no proof at all. Now, is there anyone in the building who could confirm you were there all day?”

“Of course.”

Pendergast had now entered the room.

“Who?”

“You people.”

“How’s that?”

“You’ve been shadowing me for months, monitoring my every move. You know I didn’t kill Cantucci!”

D’Agosta shook his head and turned to Pendergast. “You got anything you want to ask this asshole?”

“Not directly. But allow me to ask you, Vincent: did you get the results of the blood work on Mr. Lasher?”

“Sure.”

“And did he test positive for methamphetamine hydrochloride?”

“Hell, yes. High as a kite.”

“I thought so. Shall we step out into the hall?”

D’Agosta followed him out of the room.

“I don’t need to ask any questions,” Pendergast said, “because I know this fellow is innocent in the matter of the Cantucci killing.”

“And how would you know that?”

“I found a sample of methamphetamine in his apartment. The large, yellowish salt-like grains I recognized immediately as a special ‘brand,’ if you will, of meth, known by its crystal shape, color, and consistency. A quick bit of research revealed the DEA had the meth cook of this particular variety under observation, in preparation for making an arrest, and that the product was sold out of a particular nightclub. So a certain colleague of mine arranged for me to view the surveillance videos the DEA had been taking of the nightclub’s entrances and exits. And sure enough: Lasher was seen entering the nightclub, and then exiting it forty-five minutes later, no doubt making a buy…precisely during the period when Cantucci was killed.”

D’Agosta stared at him, then finally laughed and shook his head. “Fucking A. It isn’t Baugh, it isn’t Ingmar, it isn’t Lasher — every single decent lead has gone to hell. I feel like I’m rolling a ball of shit up an endless mountain.”

“My dear Vincent, Sisyphus would be proud.”

As they left Bellevue, a big New York Post truck making an early morning delivery had parked in the crosswalk, and as they went around it, the driver dropped a fat bundle of papers on the sidewalk beside them. The headline screamed: