Douglas Preston: Brimstone

Cutforth swallowed. What was it Grove had said? The smell is the worst part of it. I can hardly think straight. In his call, Grove said he'd found something-a lump of fur-covered meat the size of a golf ball. It had seemed to be alive . at least until Grove stomped on it and flushed it down the toilet. Cutforth felt his heart pounding in his rib cage, and he took a couple of breaths, let them out slowly, the way he'd been taught in those anxiety management classes. This was ridiculous. This was the twenty-first fucking century. Cool it, Nigel.

"Do you know a Locke Bullard, Mr. Cutforth? Or one Ranier Beckmann?"

These questions, coming on the heels of each other, almost physically staggered Cutforth. He shook his head, hoping his expression wasn't betraying him.

"You been in touch with Beckmann?" he pressed.

"No." Hell, he never should have let the cop in here.

"What about Bullard? You been in touch with him? You know, just a friendly chat about old times?"

"No. I don't know the man. I don't know either one of them."

The cop made a long notation in his notebook. Cutforth wondered what it was that took so long to write down. He felt the sweat trickling down his sides. He swallowed, but there was nothing to swallow. His mouth was dry.

"Sure you don't want to tell me more about that telephone call? Because everybody else who spoke to him that night said Grove was upset. Terribly upset. Not exactly in the mood to buy rock memorabilia."

"I already told you everything."

Now at last they returned to the living room. Cutforth didn't sit down or offer a seat to the cop. He just wanted him out.

"Do you always keep the apartment this hot, Mr. Cutforth?"

It was hot, Cutforth noticed; hot even for him. He didn't answer.

"It was also excessively warm at the site of the Grove homicide, despite the fact that the heat was off in the house." The cop looked at him inquiringly, but still Cutforth said nothing.

The cop grunted, slapped shut his notebook, returned the pen to its leather loop. "If I were you, Mr. Cutforth, next time I'd decline to answer a police officer's questions without a lawyer present."

"Why?"

"Because a lawyer would advise you that keeping your mouth shut is better than lying."

Cutforth stared at the cop. "What makes you think I'm lying?"

"Grove hated rock music."

Cutforth stifled his response. This cop wasn't as dumb as he looked. In fact, he was about as dumb as a fox.

"I'll be back, Mr. Cutforth. And next time it will be on tape and under oath. Keep in mind that perjury is a serious crime. One way or the other, we will find out what you discussed with Grove. Thank you for your time."

As soon as the elevator had hummed its way down, Cutforth picked up the phone with a shaking hand and dialed. What he needed was a humping vacation on the beach. A beach on the other side of the earth. He knew a girl in Phuket who did amazing things. He couldn't leave tomorrow-Jowly, his biggest client, was coming in for an overdub session-but after that he'd be clean gone, fuck the rest of the clients. He was going to get the hell out of town. Away from his wife. Away from this cop and his questions. And, most especially, away from this apartment and its stench .

"Doris? Nigel here. I want to book a flight to Bangkok. Tomorrow night if possible, otherwise first thing Monday. No, just me. With a limo and driver for Phuket. And find me a nice big house on the beach, something really secure, with a cook, maid, personal trainer, bodyguard, the works. Don't tell anyone where I've gone, okay, Doris darling? Yeah, Thailand . I know it's hot this time of year, you let me worry about the heat."

Do you always keep the apartment this hot, Mr. Cutforth?

He slammed the phone down and went into the bedroom, threw a suitcase on the bed, and began hauling things out of his closet: bathing suits, sharkskin jacket and slacks, shades, sandals, money, watch, passport, satellite phone.

They couldn't nail him for perjury if they couldn't frigging find him.

{ 11 }

By the time Sergeant Vincent D'Agosta entered the back door of the New York Athletic Club, he was a very pissed-off cop. The doorman had stopped him at the Central Park South entrance-even though he was wearing a tie as part of his full dress uniform-and upon hearing his inquiry sent him around to the back door because he wasn't a member. That meant walking all the way to Sixth Avenue, down the block, and coming back around on 58th Street-almost a quarter of a mile.

D'Agosta cursed under his breath as he walked. Cutforth was lying, that much he was sure of. He'd taken a gamble, with that wild guess about Grove hating rock music, and Cutforth's eyes had given him away. Still, for all his tough talk, D'Agosta knew there was an entire legal system between him and a rich bastard like Cutforth. Milbanke had been a total wash: all she'd wanted to do was babble about her new emerald necklace. The nutcase hadn't given him a single decent lead, not one. And now here he was, taking an unexpected constitutional around one of Manhattan's long crosstown blocks. Shit.

Finally arriving at the back door of the Athletic Club, D'Agosta punched the button for the service elevator-the only elevator there-and when it opened at last, creaking and groaning after a good three-minute wait, he punched 9. The elevator ascended slowly, pissing and moaning the whole way, at long last opening its doors again with a wheeze. D'Agosta stepped out into a dim corridor-for a fancy club, this one was pretty dark-and followed a little wooden sign with a gold hand pointing a finger toward Billiards. There was a faint smell of cigar smoke in the air that made him crave a good Cuban. His wife had nagged him into giving up the habit before they moved to Canada. But maybe he'd take it up again. Hell, no reason not to anymore.

As he walked down the corridor, the smell grew stronger.

He came through a door into a spacious room, its far wall studded with grand windows. As he entered, another guardian of the order sprang up from a little desk with a "Sir!" Ignoring the man, D'Agosta peered around the room. His eye finally discerned a lone, dark figure, wreathed in smoke, hunched over the farthest billiard table.

"If I may inquire your business, sir-?"

"You may not." D'Agosta brushed by the attendant and strode past the billiard tables, low-hanging lamps casting pools of light over their emerald surfaces. It was six o'clock in the evening, and through the windows, the rectangle of Central Park was a graveyard of darkness. New York was at that magical twilight moment, neither light nor dark, where the glow of the city matched the glow of the sky behind it.

D'Agosta paused about ten feet from the man and pulled out his notebook. He flipped it open and wrote, Bullard. October 20. Then he waited.

He expected Bullard to look up and acknowledge him, but he didn't. Instead, the man leaned farther over the green baize, his face in shadow, and tapped another ball. He chalked his cue with a swift twist of the wrist, came around the table, hit again. The table was like no pool table D'Agosta had ever seen: much larger, with smaller pockets and smaller balls in just two colors, red and white.

"Mr. Bullard?"

The man ignored him, moving to make yet another shot. His back was huge, his shoulders broad, and the silk fabric of his suit strained taut across them. All D'Agosta could clearly discern was the glowing stump of a huge cigar and two great knotted hands that were thrust into the circle of light, the veins on their backs as thick and rolled as blue earthworms. One of the hands sported two immense gold rings. The man tapped, moved around, tapped again.

Just as D'Agosta was about to say something, the man abruptly straightened, turned, pulled the cigar from his mouth, and said: