Then she stopped. The whole idea was absurd. Stupid. It was just a wild guess. Pendergast would laugh at her. He might even be angry. She wasn’t supposed to be on the case at all.
She dropped the phone and turned toward the wall again. Maybe she should check it out first—just in case. Just to see if the still was there. If it was, then she’d tell Pendergast. If it wasn’t, she wouldn’t make a fool of herself.
She sat up, put her feet on the floor. Everybody knew the cave only had one or two small caverns beyond the tourist area. The still would be in one of those. It wouldn’t be hard to find. She would duck in there, check it out, leave. And it would get her out of the house. Anythingto get out of this hellhole.
She turned down the music and listened. Her mother had fallen silent.
She slipped off the earphones, paused to listen again. Then, ever so carefully, she got out of bed, pulled on some clothes, and slowly opened the door. All remained quiet. Shoes in hand, she began sneaking down the corridor. Just as she reached its end, she heard her mother’s door bang open and her voice ring out.
“Corrie! Where in hell do you think you’re going?”
She hopped through the kitchen and ran out the door, letting it bang behind her. She jumped into her car, threw her shoes onto the seat next to her, and turned the key, praying the thing would start. It thumped, choked, died.
“Corrie!” Her mother was coming out the door now, moving awfully fast for someone with a nasty cold.
Corrie cranked the key again, pumping the pedal desperately.
“Corrie—!!”
This time the engine caught and she screeched down the gravel lane of Wyndham Parke Estates, laying a spume of smoke, dust, and dancing pebbles in her wake.
Forty-Four
Marjorie Lane, executive receptionist for the ABX Corporation, was becoming increasingly agitated by the man in the black suit sitting in her waiting room.
He had been there ninety minutes. That in itself wasn’t unusual, but during that time he had not picked up any of the magazines conveniently laid about; he had not used his cell phone; he had not opened a laptop or done any of the things people usually did while waiting to see Kenneth Boot, the company CEO. In fact, it seemed as if he hadn’t moved at all. His eyes, so strange and silvery, always seemed to be looking out the glass wall of the waiting room across downtown Topeka, toward the green geometry of farms beyond the city’s edge.
Marjorie had been with the company through a host of recent changes. First, it had jettisoned its old name, the Anadarko Basin Exploratory Company, in favor of the sleek new acronym and logo. Then it had begun buying new businesses that went far beyond oil exploration: energy trading, fiber optics, broadband (whatever that was), and a million other things she didn’t understand and, when she asked around, nobody else seemed to, either. Mr. Boot was a very busy man, but even when he was not busy he liked to keep people waiting. Sometimes he kept people waiting all day, as he had done recently with some mutual fund managers who had come to ask questions about something or other.
She longed for the old days: when she understood what the company did, when people weren’t kept waiting. It was unpleasant for her when people had to wait. They complained, they talked loudly on their cell phones, they banged away on their laptops, and they paced about furiously. Sometimes they used profane language and she had to call security.
But this—this was worse. This man gave her the creeps. She had no idea if Mr. Boot would see him soon, or in fact see him at all. She knew he was an FBI agent—he had shown her his shield—but Mr. Boot had kept important people waiting before.
Marjorie Lane busied herself with work, answering phones, typing, responding to e-mails, but always out of the corner of her eye she could see the black figure, as immobile as a Civil War statue. He didn’t even seem to blink.
Finally, when she couldn’t stand it any longer, Marjorie did something she knew she wasn’t supposed to do: she buzzed Mr. Boot’s personal secretary.
“Kathy,” she said in an undertone, “this FBI agent’s been here almost two hours and I really think Mr. Boot should see him.”
“Mr. Boot is very busy.”
“I know,Kathy, but I really think he should seethis man. I’m getting a bad feeling here. Do me a favor, please.”
“Just a moment.”
Marjorie was put on hold. A moment later the secretary came back. “Mr. Boot has five minutes.”
Marjorie hung up. “Agent Pendergast?”
His pale eyes slowly connected with her own.
“Mr. Boot will see you now.”
Pendergast rose, bowed slightly, and without a word passed through the inner door.
Marjorie heaved a sigh of relief.
Kenneth Boot stood over the drafting table that served as his desk—he worked standing up—and only gradually became aware that the FBI agent had entered his office and seated himself. He finished typing a memo on his laptop, transmitted it to his secretary, and turned to face the man.
He was startled. This FBI agent didn’t look at all like Efrem Zimbalist Jr., one of his boyhood heroes. In fact, he couldn’t have been more different. Beautifully cut black suit, handmade English shoes, custom shirt—not to mention the white skin and slender hands. Five, six thousand dollars’ worth of clothes on the man, not counting his underwear. Kenneth Boot knew good clothes when he saw them, just as he made it a point to know fine wine, cigars, and women—as every male CEO in America had to do if he wanted to get ahead in business. Boot didn’t like the way the agent had made himself so very comfortable. The man’s eyes were roaming around in a way that offended Boot—it was almost as if he were undressing the office.
“Mr. Pendergast?”
The man did not look at him or answer. His eyes continued to roam, examine, scrutinize. Who was he to act so casual around the chief executive officer of ABX, seventeenth largest corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange?
“You’ve got five minutes and one has passed,” said Boot quietly, going back to his drawing table and rapping out another memo on his computer. He waited for the man to speak, but no words were forthcoming. Boot finished the document, checked his watch. Three minutes left.
Really, this was quite annoying: this man sitting in his office, more comfortable than ever, looking at the paneling on the far wall. Staring, in fact, at the far wall. What was he looking at?
“Mr. Pendergast, you’ve got two minutes left,” he murmured.
The man waved his hand and spoke at last. “Don’t mind me. When you’ve finished your work and can offer me your undividedattention, we’ll chat.”
Boot glanced over his shoulder. “You’d better say what you have to say, Agent Pendergast,” he said as unconcernedly as possible. “Because you’ve got exactly one minute left.”
Suddenly the man looked at him, and the look was so intense Boot almost jumped.
“The vault lies behind that wall, correct?” Pendergast said.
With a huge effort of will, Boot remained motionless. The man knew where the corporate vault was—something only three officers and the chairman of the board knew. Was there some sign of it on the paneling? But in ten years no one had ever suspected. Was he under FBI surveillance? This was outrageous. All these thoughts occurred deep within Boot’s mind and did not surface on his face.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Pendergast smiled, but it was a faintly supercilious smile, that of an adult humoring a child. “You’re in a business, Mr. Boot, in which certain documents must be kept highly confidential. These documents would be the crown jewels of your company. I am referring, of course, to your seismic survey maps of the Anadarko formation. These maps show the location of oil and gas deposits, compiled by you at great cost. Therefore, your having a vault is a given. Since you are a person who trusts nobody, it makes sense the vault would be in your office, where you could keep an eye on it. Now, on three walls of your office you have expensive Old Master paintings. On that portion of the fourth wall, there, you have inexpensive prints. Prints that can be moved, taken down, without fear of a ding or scratch. It is therefore behind the paneling of that wall that your vault lies.”