Douglas Preston - The Book of the Dead

It would have meant so much to have heard from him.

Could there be some truth to Diogenes’s stories? Her head told her he was untrustworthy, a thief, perhaps a sadistic killer… but her heart told her differently. He seemed so understanding, so vulnerable. So kind. He had even shown her evidence-documents, old photographs-that seemed to undercut many of the things Aloysius had told her about him. But he hadn’t denied everything; he had also accepted a share of blame, admitted to being a less-than-perfect brother-a deeply flawed human being.

Everything was so confused.

Constance had always trusted her head, her intellect-even though, in many ways, she knew her mind was fragile and capable of betraying her. And yet now it was her heart that spoke the loudest. She wondered if Diogenes was telling the truth when he said he understood her-because, at some deep level she had yet to plumb, she believed him: she felt a connection. Most important, she was beginning to understand him as well.

At last she rose from the bath, dried herself, and completed her preparations for bed. She chose to wear not one of her cotton nightgowns, but rather one of finely milled silk that lay, unworn and half forgotten, at the bottom of a drawer. Then she slipped into bed, propped up her down pillows, and opened the collection of Rambler essays.

The words all ran together without meaning, and she grew restless. She flipped ahead to the next essay, scanned its stentorian opening, then closed the book. Getting out of bed again, she walked over to a heavy Duncan Phyfe armoire and opened it. Inside was a velvet-lined box containing a small collection of octavo books Diogenes had brought on his last visit. She carried the box back to bed and sorted through its contents. They were books she had heard about but never read, books that had never been a part of Enoch Leng’s extensive library. The Satyricon of Petronius; Huysmans’s Àu rebours; Oscar Wilde’s letters to Lord Alfred Douglas; the love poetry of Sappho; Boccaccio’s Decameron. Decadence, opulence, and passionate love clung to these pages like musk. Constance dipped into one and then another-at first gingerly, then curiously, then with something like hunger, reading late into the restless night.

Gerry Fecteau found a sunny spot on the walkway overlooking yard 4 and snugged up the zipper of his guard’s jacket. A late-winter light filtered down from a whiskey sky, not strong enough to melt the patches of dirty snow that still edged the yards and building corners. From where he stood, he had a good view of the yard. He glanced over at his partner, Doyle, placed strategically at the other corner.

The nature of their assignment had not been explained to them, not even hinted at. In fact, they had been given only one order: watch the yard from above. But Fecteau had been around long enough to read between the lines. The mystery prisoner, still in solitary, had been given yard privileges for good behavior-in yard 4. Obligatory yard privileges. With Pocho and his gang. Fecteau knew very well what was going to happen to the prisoner-who was about as white as a white man could get-when he was turned out in yard 4 with Lacarra and his thugs. And watching the yard from the walkway above, like he was doing, it would take a couple of minutes at least to get down to the yard if any trouble erupted.

There was only one reason for an order like that. The drummer hadn’t worked-for some inexplicable reason, he’d actually grown quiet-and now they were on to something new.

He licked his lips and scanned the empty yard: the basketball hoop with no net, the parallel bars, the quarter acre of asphalt. Five minutes until the exercise hour. Fecteau wasn’t exactly thrilled with the assignment. If anybody got killed, it would be his ass. And he sure didn’t relish the thought of pulling Lacarra off someone. On the other hand, another part of him relished the thought of violence. His heart rate accelerated with anticipation and apprehension.

At the appointed time, to the second, he heard the bolts shoot back, and the double doors to the yard opened. Two guards stepped into the weak sunlight, hooked the doors open, and stood on either side while Pocho ambled out-always first-his eyes squinting around the cement yard, stroking the tuft of hair under his lip. He was wearing the standard prison jumpsuit, no coat despite the winter temperature. He turned as he walked, twisting the tuft of hair, muscles rippling under his sleeves. His shaved head gleamed dully in the weak light and across his face, making his old acne scars look like lunar craters.

Lacarra sauntered into the center of the yard as the six other inmates filed out after him, heading off in different directions, striking casual poses as they looked around, chewing gum, walking aimlessly across the tarmac. One guard tossed out a basketball, which bounced toward one of the men; he flipped it up with his foot, caught it, then began bouncing it idly.

A moment later, the new prisoner stepped out, tall and straight. He paused just beyond the threshold, looking around, with a degree of casualness that made Fecteau tingle. The poor guy hadn’t a clue.

Pocho and his boys didn’t even seem to notice the newcomer-except that they all stopped chewing. But only for an instant. The ball continued its steady bounce, like the slow beating of a drum, bom… bom… bom. It was as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

The mystery prisoner began to walk along the cinder-block wall of the yard. As he walked, he looked about, face neutral, his moves easy and smooth. The others followed him with their eyes.

The yard was enclosed on three sides by the cement walls of Herkmoor, with chain link topped by concertina wire forming the fourth barrier at the far end. The prisoner walked alongside the wall until he came to the chain link, then turned to follow the line of the fence, staring out through it as he walked. Prisoners, Fecteau had noticed, always looked out or up-never back in toward the grim building. A guard tower dominated the middle distance; and beyond that, the tops of the trees rose above the prison’s outer wall.

One of the delivery guards looked up, caught Fecteau’s eye, and shrugged as if to say, “What’s going on?” Fecteau shrugged back and signaled them to leave, that the transfer of prisoners to the yard was good. The two disappeared back into the building, shutting the doors behind them.

Fecteau raised the radio to his lips and spoke in a low tone. “You reading me, Doyle?”

“I read you.”

“You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Yup.”

“We better be ready to run down there and break things up.”

“Ten-four.”

They waited. The sound of the bouncing ball continued steadily. Nobody moved except the mystery prisoner, who continued his slow perambulation along the fence.

Bom… bom… bom, went the ball.

Doyle’s voice crackled over the radio again. “Hey, Gerry, this remind you of anything?”

“Like what?”

“You remember the opening scene of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly?”

“Yeah.”

“This is it.”

“Maybe. Except one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“The outcome.”

Doyle snickered over the radio. “Don’t worry. Pocho wants his meat alive, only tenderized.”

Now Lacarra removed his hands from his pockets, straightened up, and pimp-rolled over to a point on the fence thirty feet ahead of the prisoner. He hooked a hand on the chain link and watched the prisoner come toward him. Instead of varying his route to avoid Lacarra, the prisoner continued his leisurely stroll, not pausing for an instant, until he had come right up to Lacarra. And then he spoke to him. Fecteau strained to hear.

“Good afternoon,” said the prisoner.