Douglas Preston - The Cabinet of Curiosities

“Dr. Kelly?” he asked the room while looking at his clipboard.

She rose and their eyes met. “How is he?”

A wintry smile broke on the doctor’s face. “He’s going to be fine.” He looked at her curiously. “Dr. Kelly, are you a medical—?”

“Archaeologist.”

“Oh. And your relationship to the patient?”

“A friend. Can I see him? What happened?”

“He was stabbed last night.”

“My God.”

“Missed his heart by less than an inch. He was very lucky.”

“How is he?”

“He’s in…” the doctor paused. The faint smile returned. “Excellent spirits. An odd fellow, Mr. Pendergast. He insisted on a local anesthetic for the operation — highly unusual, unheard of actually, but he refused to sign the consent forms otherwise. Then he demanded a mirror. We had to bring one up from obstetrics. I’ve never had quite such a, er, demanding patient. I thought for a moment I had a surgeon on my operating table. They make the worst patients, you know.”

“What did he want a mirror for?”

“He insisted on watching. His vitals were dropping and he was losing blood, but he absolutely insisted on getting a view of the wound from various angles before he would allow us to operate. Very odd. What kind of profession is Mr. Pendergast in?”

“FBI.”

The smile evaporated. “I see. Well, that explains quite a bit. We put him in a shared room at first — no private ones were available — but then we quickly had to make one available for him. Moved out a state senator to get it.”

“Why? Did Pendergast complain?”

“No… he didn’t.” The doctor hesitated a moment. “He began watching the video of an autopsy. Very graphic. His roommate naturally objected. But it was really just as well. Because an hour ago, the things started to arrive.” He shrugged. “He refused to eat hospital food, insisted on ordering in from Balducci’s. Refused an IV drip. Refused painkillers — no OxyContin, not even Vicodin or Tylenol Number 3. He must be in dreadful pain, but doesn’t show it. With these new patient-rights guidelines, my hands are tied.”

“It sounds just like him.”

“The bright side is that the most difficult patients usually make the fastest recovery. I just feel sorry for the nurses.” The doctor glanced at his watch. “You might as well head over there now. Room 1501.”

As Nora approached the room, she noticed a faint odor in the air: something out of place among the aromas of stale food and rubbing alcohol. Something exotic, fragrant. A shrill voice echoed out of the open door. She paused in the doorway and gave a little knock.

The floor of the room was stacked high with old books, and a riot of maps and papers lay across them. Tall sticks of sandalwood incense were propped inside silver cups, sending up slender coils of smoke. That accounts for the smell, Nora thought. A nurse was standing near the bed, clutching a plastic pill box in one hand and a syringe in the other. Pendergast lay on the bed in a black silk dressing gown. The overhead television showed a splayed body, grotesque and bloody, being worked on by no fewer than three doctors. One of the doctors was in the middle of lifting a wobbly brain out of the skull. She looked away. On the bedside table was a dish of drawn butter and the remains of coldwater lobster tails.

“Mr. Pendergast, I insist you take this injection,” the nurse was saying. “You’ve just undergone a serious operation. You must have your sleep.”

Pendergast withdrew his arms from behind his head, picked up a dusty volume lying atop the sheets, and began leafing through it nonchalantly. “Nurse, I have no intention of taking that. I shall sleep when I’m ready.” Pendergast blew dust from the book’s spine and turned the page.

“I’m going to call the doctor. This is completely unacceptable. And this filth is highly unsanitary.” She waved her hand through the clouds of dust.

Pendergast nodded, leafed over another page.

The nurse stormed past Nora on her way out.

Pendergast glanced at her and smiled. “Ah, Dr. Kelly. Please come in and make yourself comfortable.”

Nora took a seat in a chair at the foot of the bed. “Are you all right?”

He nodded.

“What happened?”

“I was careless.”

“But who did it? Where? When?”

“Outside my residence,” said Pendergast. He held up the remote and turned off the video, then laid the book aside. “A man in black, with a cane, wearing a derby hat. He tried to chloroform me. I held my breath and pretended to faint; then broke away. But he was extraordinarily strong and swift, and I underestimated him. He stabbed me, then escaped.”

“You could have been killed!”

“That was the intention.”

“The doctor said it missed your heart by an inch.”

“Yes. When I realized he was going to stab me, I directed his hand to a nonvital place. A useful trick, by the way, if you ever find yourself in a similar position.”

He leaned forward slightly. “Dr. Kelly, I’m convinced he’s the same man who killed Doreen Hollander and Mandy Eklund.”

Nora looked at him sharply. “What makes you say that?”

“I caught a glimpse of the weapon — a surgeon’s scalpel with a myringotomy blade.”

“But… but why you?”

Pendergast smiled, but the smile held more pain than mirth. “That shouldn’t be hard to answer. Somewhere along the way, we brushed up a little too close to the truth. We flushed him out. This is a very positive development.”

“A positive development? You could still be in danger!”

Pendergast raised his pale eyes and looked at her intently. “I am not the only one, Dr. Kelly. You and Mr. Smithback must take precautions.” He winced slightly.

“You should have taken that painkiller.”

“For what I plan to do, it’s essential to keep my head clear. People did without painkillers for countless centuries. As I was saying, you should take precautions. Don’t venture out alone on the streets at night. I have a great deal of trust in Sergeant O’Shaughnessy.” He slipped a card into her hand. “If you need anything, call him. I’ll be up and about in a few days.”

She nodded.

“Meanwhile, it might be a good idea for you to get out of town for a day. There’s a talkative, lonely old lady up in Peekskill who would love to have visitors.”

She sighed. “I told you why I couldn’t help anymore. And you still haven’t told me why you’re spending your time with these old murders.”

“Anything I told you now would be incomplete. I have more work of my own to do, more pieces of the puzzle to fit together. But let me assure you of one thing, Dr. Kelly: this is no frivolous field trip. It is vital that we learn more about Enoch Leng.”

There was a silence.

“Do it for Mary Greene, if not for me.”

Nora rose to leave.

“And Dr. Kelly?”

“Yes?”

“Smithback isn’t such a bad fellow. I know from experience that he’s a reliable man in a pinch. It would ease my mind if, while all this is going on, you two worked together—”

Nora shook her head. “No way.”

Pendergast held up his hand with a certain impatience. “Do it for your own safety. And now, I need to get back to my work. I look forward to hearing back from you tomorrow.”

His tone was peremptory. Nora left, feeling annoyed. Yet again Pendergast had dragged her back into the case, and now he wanted to burden her with that ass Smithback. Well, forget Smithback. He’d just love to get his hands on part two of the story. Him and his Pulitzer. She’d go to Peekskill, all right. But she’d go by herself.