Линкольн Чайлд - City of Endless Night

“I’m told you informed Mr. Ozmian’s, ah, staffers that, in pursuing your job as a special agent of the FBI, you have the right to come and go as you please and to interview whoever you are in the mood to speak with. Mr. Pendergast, you and I both know that is not the case. I have no doubt that Mr. Ozmian would be happy to speak to you — assuming that you have a court order on your person.”

“I do not.”

“I’m so sorry, then.”

“Given the fact that I am investigating the death of his daughter, I would have thought that Mr. Ozmian would be eager to help further that investigation.”

“And he is! But it’s my understanding, Mr. Pendergast, that you have already spoken with Mr. Ozmian. He agreed to an interview — an exceedingly painful one. He further aided your investigation by identifying his daughter’s body — an even more painful undertaking. In turn, he has been repaid for this cooperation by a total lack of progress, and a shocking silence from investigators. As a result, he sees no reason why he should subject himself to additional painful interviews — especially when he has no faith in you or the NYPD to solve this case. Mr. Ozmian has given you all possible relevant information on his daughter already. I would advise you to stop going over old ground and instead focus on solving the case.”

“Cases,” Pendergast corrected. “A total of fourteen people are dead.”

“Mr. Ozmian could not care less about the other thirteen, except insofar as those deaths might help solve his daughter’s.”

Pendergast sank back slowly into his chair. “It occurs to me that the public might be interested to learn that Mr. Ozmian is not cooperating with the investigation.”

Now it was Weilman’s turn to sink back into his chair, and a bloodless smile curdled on his pale face. “Mr. Ozmian’s name has for years been put before the public in, shall we say, a less-than-flattering light.” The lawyer paused. “Let me put it to you directly, and forgive the vulgarity: Mr. Ozmian does not give a rat’s turd what the public thinks. At present, he has only two concerns: running his company and bringing the murderer of his daughter to justice.”

As Pendergast considered this, he realized it was true: like King Mithridates, who had taken increasing doses of poison until he was no longer susceptible to its effects, Ozmian no longer cared a whit about his reputation. This rendered his usual method of threats and implied blackmail ineffective.

Pity.

But he was not going to let it go just yet. He tapped the breast of his suit coat — whose inner pocket contained nothing — with a look of complacency. “As it happens, we’ve recently made a not inconsiderable breakthrough — one that the FBI wanted to share with Mr. Ozmian. Not only will he find it interesting, but he may be able to supply information of his own that will help us pursue it further. This discovery is confidential for the time being, which was why I did not mention it before. I would thus ask you to keep any mention of its existence to yourself when you now ask Mr. Ozmian to give me a private audience.”

For a moment, the two men simply looked at each other. And then the faint smile appeared once again on the lawyer’s face. “A promising development indeed, Agent Pendergast! If you’ll just give me a summary of what you have hidden in your pocket, I’ll convey it to Mr. Ozmian right away. And I have no doubt that, if it is really as big a breakthrough as you suggest, he’ll be delighted to see you.”

“Protocol requires that I hand him the information personally,” Pendergast said.

“Of course, of course — after I give him the summary.”

A silence fell over the room. After a moment, Pendergast let his hand fall away from the breast of his jacket. He stood up. “I’m sorry, but this information is restricted to Mr. Ozmian himself.”

At this, the lawyer’s smile — or was it a smirk? — grew a little wider. “Of course,” he said, rising as well. “ When you have the subpoena, you may show it to him. And now, may I escort you to the elevator?”

Without another word Pendergast followed the man out of his office and through the tall, echoing spaces to the elevator bank.

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.”