Линкольн Чайлд - City of Endless Night

“Thanks be to God,” Swope whispered to himself. “Thanks be to God.”

Now the time had come to start the bonfire. He would do it fast, so that the cops would not have time to stop it or push through the crowd to douse the fire.

He rose to full height, standing in the middle of a circular clearing, already surrounded by pilgrims ten to fifteen deep. With a gesture that was both dramatic and — he hoped — deferential, he threw off his cape to reveal a garment he had woven himself over many painstaking evenings: a hair shirt made of the roughest, coarsest animal hair he’d been able to acquire. Next, he took hold of the tarp and snatched it away, revealing a large white X he had spray-painted on the grass. Beside it were two jerrycans of kerosene.

“People!” he cried out. “Children of the living God! You have gathered here — rich and poor, from all over the country — for a single purpose: to unite in ridding ourselves of the luxuriant and prideful possessions that are so hateful to God, the wealth that Jesus so clearly stated would prevent our entry into heaven. Let us now solemnly swear to divest ourselves of these trappings of greed and purify our hearts. At this place, in this time, let us each make a symbolic offering to the bonfire of the vanities, as our promise to live from this day until the end of our days lives of simplicity!”

Now he backed away from the painted cross, picking up the jerrycans as he did, until he had joined the front line of the circle. Reaching into a pocket of his torn jeans, he plucked out a pen — a gold-filled fountain pen that his father, whom he had not seen or communicated with in a decade, had given him on graduating from the Jesuit seminary. He held the pen up for all to see; its precious metal inlay glinted in the rays of the setting sun. Then he threw it into the open area, where it landed, nib down, in the center of the painted cross.

“Let all who wish to walk in the way of grace,” he intoned, “follow my example!”

There was a brief ripple through the crowd, like a shudder of expectation. This was followed by a moment of stasis. And then incredible showers of items were tossed from the surrounding circle, landing on the grass marked by the cross: designer handbags, clothing, jewelry, watches, car keys, sheaves of bearer bonds, ziplock bags of drugs and packets of marijuana, stacks of hundred-dollar bills, books detailing diet and get-rich-quick schemes, along with some surprising items: a jewel-studded dildo, an electric guitar with a beautifully book-matched top, and a Smith & Wesson handgun. Countless other things that beggared description rained down or were dropped onto the quickly growing pile. The heap of glitter and tinsel and empty luxury mounted up, including a perfectly astonishing number of women’s shoes — stiletto pumps, mostly.

Now a transcendent glow, a sense of divine inevitability, suffused Swope like the caress of an angel. This must be how Savonarola felt , he realized, all those centuries ago in Florence. Taking one of the jerrycans of kerosene, he stepped forward and, unbunging it, poured it in widening circles over the ever-growing litter of vanities. Things thudded around him and fell against his head and shoulders, but he took no notice.

“And now!” he said, throwing aside the empty can and producing a box of wooden safety matches. “Let our new life in purification begin with fire!”

Pulling a match from the box and striking it into life, he threw it onto the pyre — and in the huge, yellow-orange crump of fire and heat that rose, he could see — briefly illuminated as if by daylight — the dark images of thousands of additional pilgrims, coming in from all sides of the Great Lawn, to join in this latter-day bonfire of the vanities, even as luxuries continued to rain down into the conflagration.

Dusk was falling over the city as Mrs. Trask bustled her way northward up Riverside Drive, her string bag full of groceries for the evening’s dinner. Normally she didn’t wait until such a late hour to do her shopping, but she had gotten preoccupied rearranging and cleaning the third-best set of china, and hadn’t realized how late it had become. Proctor had offered to drive her, but these days she preferred to get out for a bit of a walk — an early evening’s constitutional did her good, and besides, what with all the gentrification the neighborhood had undergone in recent years, it had become a pleasure to do her own shopping at the local Whole Foods. But as she walked across the circular driveway of 891 Riverside, heading toward the servants’ entrance at the back of the house, she was dismayed to see a dark figure hovering in a shadow near the front door.

Her immediate instinct was alarm, and to call for Proctor — until she saw that the figure was no more than a boy. He looked shiftless and dirty — what she would have referred to growing up in London’s East End as a street urchin — and as she approached he came out of the shadows.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” he said, “but is this the residence of Mister, um, Pendergast?” He even had the Bow Bells accent and speech of a street urchin.

She stopped well short of him. “Why do you want to know, young man?”

“Because I was paid to give him this.” And he pulled an envelope out of his back pocket. “And there doesn’t seem to be anyone as is answering the door.”

Mrs. Trask considered a moment. Then she extended her hand. “Very well, I’ll see that he gets it. Now scarper.”

The youth handed her the letter. Then, with a tug of a forelock, he turned and hurried away down the driveway.

Mrs. Trask watched him vanish into the bustle of the city. Then, shaking her head, she made her way to the back kitchen entrance. Really, one never knew what to expect, working for her employer.

She found him sitting in the library, a cup of green tea untouched on the table beside him, staring into the low fire burning in the grate.

“Mr. Pendergast,” she said, standing in the doorway.

The agent did not respond.

“Mr. Pendergast?” she said in a slightly louder tone.

At this, he roused himself. “Yes, Mrs. Trask?” he said, turning toward her.

“I found a young boy waiting outside. He said nobody was answering the door. Did you not hear the bell?”

“I did not.”

“He said he’d been paid to bring you this letter.” She advanced, bringing with her the dirty, folded envelope on a silver salver. “I wonder why Proctor did not answer the door?” she couldn’t help but add — as she slightly disapproved of Proctor and the liberties he sometimes took with the master.

Pendergast looked at the letter with an expression Mrs. Trask could not quite fathom. “I believe he did not answer because the doorbell was never rung. The boy lied to you. Now, if you would please place it on the table.”

She put the salver down beside the tea set. “Will there be anything else?”

“Not for the present, thank you, Mrs. Trask.”

Pendergast waited until she had exited the library; until her steps had died away down the hallway; until the entire mansion was quiet once again. And still he did not stir, or act, or do anything but regard the envelope the way he might an explosive device. What it was, he could not be sure — and yet he had all too strong a premonition.

At last, he leaned forward, picked it up by one edge, and unfolded it. The envelope was printed with a single word, typed on a manual typewriter: ALOYSIUS. He regarded this for a long moment, his sense of premonition increasing. Then, he gingerly slit the envelope open along its narrow edge with a switchblade he kept nearby for a letter opener. Looking inside, he saw a single sheet of foolscap and a small USB memory stick. He slid the sheet out onto the salver, then used the tip of the switchblade to unfold it.