Two Graves

30

IT WAS NOON. THE DOCTOR HAD COME AND GONE, THE room was silent and dark, the curtains drawn, the boy—bathed and cleaned of soot—was asleep. A shadowy figure sat in a corner of the small, spare room, unmoving, his pale face like a ghostly apparition floating in the dimness.

The boy stirred, turned, sighed. He had been asleep for eighteen hours. One hand lay on the covers, shackled, with a chain attached to the metal bed frame.

Another sigh, and then a gleam appeared in the darkness—the gleam of an open eye. The boy turned again, restlessly, and finally raised his head. He looked around and his attention fixed on the figure in the corner.

For a long time they looked at each other in the darkness, and then the boy spoke in a whisper. “Water?”

The figure rose silently, left the room, and returned with a glass of water and a straw. The boy reached for it, the movement of his arm stopped by the chain. He looked at it, surprised, but said nothing. Pendergast held the glass for the boy, who drank.

When he was done, his head sank back to the pillow. “Thank… you.”

His voice was weak, but no longer raving. His mind had returned to rationality. The fever was down, the antibiotics taking effect. The long sleep appeared to have done him good.

Another long silence ensued. And then the boy held up his wrist, the one with the chain on it. “Why?” he asked.

“You know why. What I want to know is—why you have come here.”

“Because… you are Father.”

“Father,” Pendergast repeated, as if the word was foreign to him. “And how do you know this?”

“I heard… talk. Of you. Pendergast. My father.”

Pendergast did not reply. Finally, the boy stirred again in the bed. “Do they… know I am here?” He spoke hesitantly, with a strange accent, part German but softened by the mellifluous roundness of what sounded like Portuguese. His face, now clean, was so pale and delicate that blue veins could be seen within it. Dark circles lay like bruises under his eyes, and his thin hair was plastered to his skull by sweat.

“If you are speaking of the police,” said Pendergast, voice cold as dry ice, “I have not informed them. Not yet.”

“Not the police…” said the boy. “Them.”

“Them?”

“The others. My… my brother.”

This was met with another profound silence, and then Pendergast said, in a strange voice: “Your brother?”

The boy coughed, tried to sit up. “More water, please?”

Removing his .45 and laying it out of reach, Pendergast went over to the boy, helped prop him up against the headboard with some pillows, and gave him another sip of water. This time the boy drank greedily, finishing the glass.

“I am hungry,” he said.

“You will be fed in good time,” said Pendergast, resuming his seat and sliding the .45 back into his suit. “Now: you were speaking of your—brother?”

“My brother.”

Pendergast stared at the boy impatiently. “Yes. Tell me about this brother.”

“He is Alban. We are… twins. Sort of twins. He is the one doing the killing. He has been cutting me. He thinks it lustig. Funny. But I escaped. Did he follow?” Fear had crept into his voice.

Pendergast rose, his slender figure like a wraith in the dim room. He paced to the curtained window, turned. “Let me understand,” he said, voice low. “You have a twin brother who is killing people in New York City hotels. He’s kept you a prisoner and has been cutting off your body parts—an earlobe, a finger, and a toe—and leaving them at the crime scenes.”

“Yes.”

“And why did you come to me?”

“You are… Father. Are you not? Alban… spoke of it. He talk of you a lot with others. They do not think I listen. Or that I understand.”

Standing very still, Pendergast did not say anything for a long time. And then he stepped back to the chair and eased himself into it, almost as if he was in pain. “Perhaps,” he said, passing a pale hand across his brow, “you should start at the beginning. Tell me everything you know. Where you were born, under what circumstances, who your brother Alban is, and what he and you are doing here in New York.”

“I will try. I not know much.”

“Do your best.”

“I was born in… Brazil. They call the place Nova Godói.”

At this, Pendergast froze. “Your mother was—?”

“I never met Mother. Alban was the good twin. I… bad twin.”

“And your name?”

“I have no name. Only good twins get names. I… Forty-Seven.”

“What are these good twins and bad twins? What does it mean?”

“Not know how it works. Not exactly. Good twins get all the good stuff, bad stuff go into bad twins. Good twins go to school, have sports, have training. They eat good food. We… work the fields.”

Pendergast slowly rose from his seat, a shadow growing in silent amazement. “So the town, Nova Godói, is full of twins?”

The youth nodded.

“And your twin, this Alban: he’s the one doing the killing?”

“He… loves it.”

“Why is he killing?”

The boy shrugged.

“And you escaped? How?”

“They think I am more stupid than I am. I fooled them, got away.” This was followed by a brief hiccuping sob. “I hope they do not follow me.”

“Where were you held?”

“It was… under the ground. There was a long tunnel, old, very cool. They kept me in… giant oven, cold, big as a room. Bricks dirty, floor dirty. Big metal door. Last time… they forget to lock it.”

“And?”

“I ran, just kept running.”

“How did you find me?”

“I heard them say you live in fancy place. Dakota place. So I asked. A stranger told me, helped me, put me in yellow car. Gave me those.” And he pointed to a few wadded bills Miss Ishimura had removed from the pocket of his jeans.

He fell silent. Pendergast slid his hand into his pocket, removed a key, and unlocked the shackle from the boy’s wrist. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I misunderstood.”

The boy smiled. “I care not. I… used to it.”

Pendergast pressed a button beside the door, and a moment later Miss Ishimura came in. Pendergast turned to her and spoke briskly. “Could you kindly prepare a full American breakfast for our guest? Eggs, sausage, toast, orange juice. Thank you.”

He turned back to the boy. “So someone put you in a taxicab? How long was the ride?”

“Very long. Pass many, many autos.”

“What do you remember of it? Did you cross any bridges, go through tunnels?”

“We crossed a big bridge over a river.” He shook his head at the memory. “So many buildings, so tall.”

Pendergast immediately picked up a house phone. “Charles? The cab that brought the boy. I need its hack number. Go through the building’s security videos and get it to me right away. Thank you.” He hung up, turned back to the boy lying on the bed, looking so lost, so confused, so vulnerable.

“Let me see if I understand what you’ve told me,” he said. “You and your brother are twins, born and raised in Brazil. You are apparently part of some program. As part of this, he got all the desirable qualities, the good genetic material, somehow leaving the unwanted material to you, in a manner of speaking. Is that it?”

“They say we are dumping ground. Garbage.”

“And you each get a number. You’re Forty-Seven.”

“Forty-Seven.”

“So there must be a lot of you.”

The youth nodded. “Could you open curtains? Please? I want to see light.”

Pendergast went to the window and slid open the curtains, letting in the long yellow light of early winter, coming in low over the slate roofs, dormers, gables, and turrets of the famous apartment building. The boy turned gratefully toward the light, which fell on his pallid face.

In a gentle voice, Pendergast spoke. “The first thing is that you should have a name. A real name.”

“I do not know what to call myself.”

“Then I will name you. How do you like… Tristram?”

“I like it fine. And shall call you… Father?”

“Yes,” said Pendergast. “Yes. Please do call me…” He struggled to get the word out. “Father.”