City of Endless Night

40

Les Tuileries, the three-star Michelin restaurant located on a quiet residential block in the East Sixties just off Madison Avenue, was doing a brisk if discreet business on this, the evening before New Year’s Eve. Les Tuileries was that rarest of things in modern New York, a French restaurant of the old style, all dark wood and patinaed leather, comprising half a dozen rooms like elegant cubbyholes, full of banquettes tucked away in nooks beneath oil paintings in heavy gilt frames. Waiters and under-waiters, as numerous as doctors in an ICU surgical bay, were fawning over the patrons. Here, half a dozen men in starched white, at a cue from the maître d’, simultaneously whisked away silver domes from plates arranged around a large table with the precision of well-drilled soldiers on a parade ground, revealing the delectables hidden beneath. There, a senior waiter was expertly deboning tableside a fillet of Dover sole — flown in from England that morning, naturally. Elsewhere, another waiter was folding anchovies, capers, and a raw egg into a bowl of Salade Niçoise à la Cap Ferrat under the discerning eye of his patrons.

In a far corner of one of the rear rooms of Les Tuileries, almost hidden within a rich crimson banquette, Executive Associate Director Longstreet and Special Agent Pendergast had just finished their appetizers—Escargots à la Bourguignonne for Longstreet, and a terrine of morels and foie gras for Pendergast. The sommelier returned with a second six-hundred-dollar bottle of Mouton Rothschild, vintage 1996—Longstreet had tasted the first and sent it away, pronouncing it corked — and as the man opened it, Longstreet gave Pendergast a sidelong glance. He had always fancied himself a gastronome, and had dined in as many of the finest Parisian restaurants as his time and independent means allowed. He was as much at home here as in his own kitchen. He saw that Pendergast was equally comfortable, perusing the menu and asking probing questions of the waiter. A love of French cuisine and wine was something they had long shared, but Longstreet had to admit that outside of gastronomy, and despite all the time they had spent together in close quarters during their tour in the special forces, the man was, and would always remain, a cipher.

He accepted the small pour of the rather young first-growth wine the sommelier offered him, swirling it around, examining its color and viscosity, then finally sipping it, aerating it over his tongue as he did so. He took a second, more critical sip. Finally, he put down the glass and nodded to the sommelier, who went off to decant the bottle. After the sommelier had returned to fill their glasses, their waiter crept forward. Longstreet ordered calves’ brains sautéed in a Calvados sauce; Pendergast in turn requested the Pigeon et Légumes Grillés Rabasse au Provençal. The waiter thanked them, then disappeared into the dim, cozy space beyond the table.

Longstreet nodded his approval. “Excellent choice.”

“I can never resist truffles. An expensive habit, but one I find impossible to break.”

Longstreet now took a deeper, more contemplative sip of Bordeaux. “These murders are generating a tremendous furor — on all sides of society. The rich, because they see themselves being targeted, and the rest because of the vicarious thrill of seeing the ultra-wealthy get theirs.”

“Indeed.”

“I wouldn’t want to be your pal D’Agosta these days. The NYPD is catching holy hell. And we’ve not escaped embarrassment, either.”

“You’re referring to the behavioral profile.”

“Yes. Or, more precisely, the lack of one.” At the request of the NYPD, Longstreet had submitted the Decapitator case to the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit in Quantico and asked for a psychological profile. Serial killers, no matter how bizarre, fell into types, and the BSU had developed a database of every known type in the world. When a new killer appeared on the scene, the BSU was able to slot him into one of the existing patterns in order to create a psychological profile — his motivations, methods, patterns, work habits, even such things as his socioeconomic background and whether or not he had a car. This time, however, the BSU had been unable to profile the Decapitator; the killer fit no previously known pattern. Instead of a profile, Longstreet had gotten back a long, defensive report that boiled down to one fact: for this killer, the Quantico databases were useless.

Longstreet sighed. “You’re our serial-killer expert,” he said. “What do you make of this one? Is he as unique as the BSU claims?”

Pendergast inclined his head. “I’m still struggling to understand. To be honest, I’m not sure we’re dealing with a serial killer at all.”

“How can that be? He’s killed fourteen people! Or thirteen, if you don’t count the first.”

Pendergast shook his head. “All serial killers have at base a pathological or psychotic motivation. In this case, maybe the motivation is…relatively normal.”

“Normal? Killing and decapitating half a dozen people? Have you lost your mind?” Longstreet almost laughed out loud. This was classic Pendergast, never failing to astonish, taking delight in confounding everyone around him with some outrageous statement.

“Take Adeyemi. I’m quite sure she has no skeletons in her closet, no sordid history. Nor was she exceptionally rich.”

“Then the current theory about the Decapitator’s motivation is worthless.”

“Or perhaps…” Pendergast paused as their dinners were served.

“Perhaps what?” Longstreet asked as he tucked into his calves’ brains.

Pendergast waved a hand. “Many theories come to mind. Perhaps Adeyemi, or one of the other victims, was the real target all along, and the other murders are nothing more than a smokescreen.”

Longstreet tasted his dish and was disappointed: the pale pink calves’ brains were overdone. Laying his silverware on the plate with a clatter, he summoned the waiter and sent the dish back for another. He turned to Pendergast again. “Do you really think that’s likely?”

“Not likely. In fact, barely possible.” Pendergast paused a moment before continuing. “I’ve never encountered a case so resistant to analysis. Obviously, the heads are missing and the primary victims were surrounded by heavy security. Those are the only commonalities we have so far. That’s not nearly enough to build a case on. It leaves open a wide variety of possible motivations.”

“So what now?” Although he’d never admit it to the man, Longstreet enjoyed watching Pendergast’s mind at work.

“We must go back to the beginning, to the first murder, and work our way forward from there. It’s the key to everything that’s happened since, for the very reason that it enjoys the debut position. It is also the most curious of the killings — and we must understand the anomalies before we can understand the patterns in what followed. Why, for example, did somebody take the head twenty-four hours after the girl was murdered? Nobody seems troubled by this anymore, except for me.”

“You really think it’s important?”

“I think it’s vital. In fact, earlier today I dropped in on Anton Ozmian to get more information. Unfortunately, my usual bag of tricks didn’t get me past his retinue of toadies, lawyers, lickspittles, bodyguards, lackeys, and other impedimenta. It was with some embarrassment I was forced to withdraw.”

Longstreet suppressed a smile. He would have loved to have witnessed Pendergast obstructed like that; it happened so rarely. “Why do I feel this is leading up to a request?”

“I need the power of your title, H. I need the full weight of the FBI behind me in order to beard the lion in his den.”

“I see.” Longstreet let a pregnant silence build. “Aloysius, you know that you’re still on my shit list, right? You maneuvered me into dishonoring an oath that I swore to with my life.”

“I’m acutely aware of that.”

“Good. I’ll do what I can to get you inside the door, then — but after that, it’s your show. I’ll come along, but only as an observer.”

“Thank you. That will be entirely acceptable.”

Their waiter returned with a fresh, steaming plate of calves’ brains. He slipped the plate before Longstreet, then took a step back, looking on tremulously, waiting for his patron’s opinion. The executive associate director cut a slice off one edge with a stroke of his knife, speared it with his fork, raised the jiggling mass to his mouth.

“Perfection,” he pronounced, chewing with half-closed eyes.

At this, the waiter bowed with mingled pleasure and relief, then turned and disappeared into the gaslit gloom.