The Wheel of Darkness Read online

  “I don’t got a problem. You do. You got a big fucking problem.”

  “I’m well aware of my problem. You are my problem. You’re standing in front of me with a gun pointed at my head, and you seem to be losing your temper. Yes, a definite problem.” Pendergast took a sip, sighed. “Excellent.”

  “You got one more chance to tell me who you are before I plaster your brains on the wall.”

  “Before you do that, I might just point out that you have a far more serious problem than I.”

  “Yeah? And what the hell’s that?”

  Pendergast nodded toward the bedroom door. “Does Mr. Brock know you are entertaining a lady in his suite?”

  An uneasy hesitation. “Mr. Brock’s got no problem with me entertaining ladies.”

  Pendergast raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. But on top of that, if you attempt to ‘plaster’ anything on the wall, you’ll find yourself the unfortunate center of attention on this ship. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up with a murder charge. If you’re not, it will be your brains decorating the wallpaper. I’m also armed, you see.”

  Another hesitation. “I’m calling ship’s security.”

  Pendergast took another sip. “You’re not thinking this through, Mr. Curt.”

  The man jabbed the gun at him. “It’s Johnson. Curtis Johnson. Not ‘Mr. Curt.’”

  “Excuse me. Mr. Johnson. Even if it’s true Mr. Brock doesn’t mind you entertaining ladies while on duty, if you call security there may be questions raised about the cargo Mr. Brock has stored in that bedroom you are using as a love nest. On top of that, you don’t know who I am or why I’m here. For all you know I might be ship’s security. And so, as I said, Mr. Johnson, we both have problems. I’m hoping there’s a way we can solve our respective problems intelligently, and to our mutual advantage.” He slowly inserted two fingers inside his tuxedo pocket.

  “Keep your hands in view.”

  Pendergast removed the fingers, which were now holding a small sheaf of crisp hundred-dollar bills.

  The man stood, meaty hand clutching the gun, his face flushed and confused.

  Pendergast dangled the money. “Lower the gun.”

  The man lowered the gun.

  “Go ahead, take it.”

  The man reached out, snatched the money, shoved it in his pocket.

  “We have to work quickly, Mr. Johnson, so that I’m gone by the time Mr. Brock returns.”

  “You get the hell outta here. Now.”

  “You take my money and still kick me out? How unsporting.”

  Pendergast rose with a loud sigh, turned as if to leave, but the motion accelerated with mercurial quickness into the tossing of the glass of champagne in Johnson’s face while, with a simultaneous, lightning-fast motion, he brought his left fist down on Johnson’s wrist. The gun bounced on the rug and skidded halfway across the room. As Johnson let out a shout and dove for it, Pendergast tripped him up, then shoved his own Les Baer 1911 in the man’s ear, putting one knee at the base of his spine.

  “Doucement, Mr. Johnson. Doucement.”

  After a long moment, Pendergast stood up. “You may rise.”

  The man sat up, rubbed his ear, and then stood. His face was a dark mass.

  Pendergast stuck his own weapon back inside his jacket, walked across the room, picked up Johnson’s gun, hefted it.

  “A Walther PPK. You’re a James Bond fan, I imagine. Perhaps we have less in common than I imagined.” He tossed it back to Johnson, who caught it, surprised. He held it, uncertain what to do.

  “Be a smart fellow and put it away.”

  Johnson holstered the weapon.

  “Now,” said Pendergast pleasantly, “here’s the choice, Mr. Johnson. You could be my friend, do me the tiniest of favors, and earn another thousand. Or you could continue to act out of misplaced loyalty to a contemptuous jackass of a man who underpays you and who will fire you the very minute he learns of your indiscretion and never think about you again. So—which is it, Mr. Johnson?”

  The man stared at Pendergast for a long time, then nodded curtly.

  “Splendid. Open the back bedroom, my newfound friend. There’s no time to waste.”

  Johnson turned and went to the bedroom door, unlocked it. Pendergast followed inside.

  “Curt, what the hell’s going on?” A woman with huge hair lay on the bed, the bedclothes pulled up to her chin.

  “Get dressed and get out.”

  “But my clothes are on the other side of the room,” she said. “I don’t have anything on.”

  “Nobody gives a shit,” said Johnson roughly. “Get going.”

  “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

  He waved the gun. “Move it!”

  The woman jumped out of bed, heavy breasts flopping, snagged her clothes, and retreated into the bathroom. “Asshole!” came a second muffled insult.

  Pendergast looked around. The bedroom, as he noted earlier, had been intended for storage: half a dozen large wooden crates were in view, all stamped Fragile and taking up much of the room.

  “Do you know what is in these crates?”

  “No idea,” said Johnson.

  “But you were hired to keep an eye on them?”

  “You got it.”

  Pendergast walked back and forth in front of the crates for a moment. Then he kneeled before the nearest and removed a screwdriver from his bag.

  “Hey, what are you doing?”

  “Just taking a peek. We’re going to leave everything just as we found it. Nobody will know.” In a moment he had the end of the crate off, exposing green felt and padding. With a knife, he made a careful incision across several layers of padding, felt, and custom-cut pieces of Styrofoam, exposing a rack of what looked like oil paintings. Judging from the fact that the other five crates were of exactly the same dimensions, Pendergast deduced they were full of paintings as well.

  He thrust his flashlight into the incision in the padding, moving it this way and that. There were eight paintings in all, unframed. From what he could see, they seemed to be all by second-tier impressionist artists—Charles Théophile Angrand, Gustave Caillebotte. There were also two German expressionist works, apparently by Jawlensky and the other, Pendergast guessed, by Pechstein. Obviously, the paintings were destined for Brock’s gallery on 57th Street.

  While Pendergast immediately recognized the styles of the various painters, he recognized not one of the actual paintings themselves, at least what he could see of them. They were, at best, obscure examples of their artists’ oeuvre.

  Reaching into his bag again, he pulled out a small leather case, which he unzipped and laid flat on the floor. He extracted several tools from the case—a jeweler’s loupe, a pair of forceps, a scalpel—and set them on the nearest crate. These were followed by stoppered test tubes.

  Johnson shifted his weight uneasily from foot to foot. “Whatever the hell you’re doing, man, you’d better hurry it up.”

  “Calm yourself, Mr. Johnson. Your employer won’t be back from dinner for some time yet. I’m almost finished.”

  Kneeling before the nearest crate, Pendergast turned his attention to the Jawlensky painting. Picking up the tweezers, he plucked off a few threads of canvas from the back of the work, where the cut canvas was nailed to the frame. Next, using both the forceps and scalpel, he shaved away a small, built-up fragment of yellow paint from the very edge of the painting and placed it in the test tube. He moved on to the Pechstein and several of the others and did the same.

  He checked his watch. Eight forty-five.

  He rearranged the packing to disguise the cut he had made, screwed the end of the crate back in place, then rose with a smile. “Mr. Johnson,” he said, “my apologies for interrupting your evening.”

  “Yeah, well, you still haven’t told me who you are or what you’re doing.”

  “Nor will I, Mr. Johnson.”

  They went into the living room and Pendergast turned to his host. “We have just enough
time to enjoy another glass.” He refilled their glasses. Johnson drank his off in a shot, then set it down. Pendergast sipped his more slowly, then pulled another sheaf of bills from his pocket.

  “As promised,” he said.

  Johnson took them silently.

  “You did well.” Pendergast smiled, gave a half bow, and departed quickly.

  23

  BACK IN THE SUITE, CONSTANCE FOUND PENDERGAST HUNCHED over a chemistry set. She watched as he dipped a cotton swab into a vial of a clear liquid and applied it to a paint chip in a test tube. Immediately, the fragment turned black.

  He moved to another test tube and another, applying the same test. Finally he looked up. “Good evening, Constance.”

  “Any results?”

  He nodded to the tests. “Indeed. These paint samples all show unacceptable levels of lead. Our Mr. Lionel Brock has six crates of impressionist paintings in his spare bedroom, and if the rest are like these, they’re all forgeries. Brock must be employing a European art forger—a man of considerable talent—to imitate the work of minor artists, which he no doubt salts among his genuine paintings by major artists. Quite a clever scheme, really: nobody would question the authenticity of the second-tier paintings carried by a dealer known to sell the finest, most scrupulously provenanced first-tier works.”

  “Clever indeed,” said Constance. “But it seems to me a man like that wouldn’t risk all this on a Tibetan artifact.”

  “Exactly. We can strike him.” With a rustle, Pendergast produced his list. “I have also crossed off Lambe—the man’s as soft as risen dough.”

  “How did you manage that? Impersonate a doctor?”

  “Ugh. Let us not speak of it. I have also struck Claude Dallas from the list, as well as Lord Cliveburgh, who is busy smuggling cocaine. Strage is illegally exporting several extremely valuable and quite genuine Greek vases, and while this might lessen the chances that he’s also smuggling the Agozyen, we can’t quite rule him out. Which leaves us with three: Blackburn, Calderón, and Strage.” He turned his silver eyes on her. “How did your adventure belowdecks go?”

  “I met the woman assigned to clean Blackburn’s triplex. Luckily—for us, anyway—she took over from another worker who apparently suffered a psychotic break shortly after departure and killed herself.”

  “Indeed?” said Pendergast with sudden interest. “There’s been a suicide on board?”

  “That’s what they say. She just stopped working in the middle of her shift, returned to her cabin, and had a breakdown. Later, she stabbed herself in the eye with a piece of wood and died.”

  “How odd. And the woman who’s cleaning Blackburn’s triplex—what does she say?”

  “He brought his own maid, and she lords it over the ship’s maid. Blackburn also had his suite redecorated for the crossing with his own furniture and artwork.”

  “That would include his Asian art collection.”

  “Yes. The same housekeeper I met also cleans Calderón’s stateroom, which is next door. It seems he picked up a lot of French antiques. Apparently, he’s as pleasant as Blackburn is obnoxious: he gave her a nice tip.”

  “Excellent.” For a time, Pendergast’s eyes seemed to go far away. Slowly, they came back into focus.

  “Blackburn is a strong number one on our list.” He reached in his pocket, withdrew yet another sheaf of crisp bills. “You are to temporarily switch places with the ship’s housekeeper assigned to Blackburn and Calderón’s rooms. Get in there when the suite is empty.”

  “But Blackburn won’t let the ship’s maid in without his maid being there.”

  “No matter—if you’re caught you can always chalk it up to bureaucratic error. You know what to look for. I would suggest going late this evening—Blackburn, I’ve noticed, is partial to baccarat and will probably be in the casino.”

  “Very well, Aloysius.”

  “Oh—and bring me his trash, please.”

  Constance raised her eyebrows briefly. Then she nodded and turned toward the staircase, preparing to change for dinner.

  “Constance?”

  She turned back.

  “Please be careful. Blackburn is one of our prime suspects—and that means he could well be a ruthless, perhaps psychopathic, killer.”

  24

  SCOTT BLACKBURN PAUSED AT THE ENTRANCE TO OSCAR’S TO BUTTON his Gieves & Hawkes bespoke suit, adjust his mauve tie, and survey the room. It was eight forty-five and the second seating was well under way: a horde of slim, elegant foreign waiters rushing in with the main courses under silver domes, which they brought to each table, laid down, and then—all at once, a waiter standing behind each diner—whipped off to reveal the dish underneath.

  With a sardonic crook to his lip, Blackburn strolled over to his table. His two companions had already seated themselves and they rose obsequiously as he arrived. As well they should—Blackburn had invested several hundred million in their respective companies and sat on their boards’ compensation committees. Two bottles of burgundy already stood empty on the table, among the scattered remains of hors d’oevures, antipasti, and a first course of a smallish bird that might have been squab or pheasant. As he sat down he took one bottle into his hand and examined the label.

  “Richebourg Domaine de la Romanée-Conti ’78,” he said. “You fellows are breaking out the good stuff.” He turned and poured out the heel into his own glass. “And you’ve left me with nothing but sediment!”

  Lambe and Calderón laughed reverentially, and Lambe gestured for a waiter. “Bring out another of these from our private cellar,” he said. “One of the ones already opened.”

  “Right away, sir.” The waiter glided off as silently as a bat.

  “What’s the occasion?” Blackburn asked.

  “We just thought we’d indulge ourselves,” Lambe said, rocking his soft, slumpy shoulders. Blackburn noticed that the man was less green about the gills than before. The weenie was, apparently, growing accustomed to the ocean.

  “Why not?” Blackburn said. “This voyage is proving to be even more interesting than I anticipated. Among other things, I ran into an old girlfriend last night, and found her obliging—very obliging. At first, anyway.”

  This was greeted with a roar of laughter from his two listeners.

  “And then what?” Lambe asked, eagerly leaning forward.

  Blackburn shook his hand and laughed. “I don’t know which was more exciting—the fucking or the fight afterward. Whew, what a wildcat.”

  More toadying laughter.

  The waiter glided back with the bottle and a fresh glass, and Lambe indicated for him to pour Blackburn a taste. Blackburn swirled the liquid around in the glass, took a quick whiff, swirled again, then stuck his nose in and inhaled the bouquet. Then he sat back, his eyes half closed, appreciating the aroma. After a moment, he lifted the glass to his lips, drew in a small amount, rolled it around on his tongue, then drew in some air through his lips, bubbling it through the wine before swallowing. Ritual complete, he placed the glass down and waved the waiter away.

  “What do you think?” Lambe asked eagerly.

  “Magnificent.”

  They relaxed.

  Blackburn raised his glass again. “And, it so happens, I have something to announce.”

  Both friends turned to him eagerly.

  “Fill your glasses.”

  They did so with alacrity.

  “As you know, since selling Gramnet for two billion, I’ve been knocking around, looking for some new little thing to mess around with. I believe I’ve found that thing.”

  “Can you talk about it?” asked Calderón.

  Blackburn enjoyed the long pause.

  “It has to do with scanning and searching visual databases on the web.” He smiled. “When I sold Gramnet, I retained the rights to my proprietary image-compression algorithms. I’ll push image content onto everybody’s desktop, and it’ll be content that looks a hundred times better than anything else out there.”

  �
�But Google’s been working on image-matching technology for years,” said Lambe. “They can’t seem to get it right.”

  “I’m going to use a different technology: old-fashioned elbow grease. I’ve got thousands of programmers and researchers I can put to work on it, 24/7. I’m going to build the largest online multimedia database on the web.”

  “How?”

  “Images can be linked just like web pages. People searching images go from one similar image to the next. Don’t analyze the metadata or the images: analyze the links. Once they’re in your own database, you can build on billions, trillions, of user-generated links. Then I’ll grab the images themselves, super-high-res, and use algorithms and mathematical signatures to compress them. I’ve got a dozen server farms, idling, just waiting to be filled with data like this.”

  “But the copyrights to the images—how will you deal with that?”

  “Screw copyright. Copyright’s dead. This is the web. Information should be free for the taking. Everybody else is doing it—why not me?”

  A reverent hush fell on the group.

  “And to kick it off, I’ve got an ace in the hole.” He raised his glass and gave a deep-throated chortle. “And what an ace it is.”

  Then he took a three-hundred-dollar swallow of wine, closing his eyes with sheer orgiastic pleasure.

  “Mr. Blackburn?” a low, deferential voice sounded at his elbow.

  Blackburn turned, annoyed at having his enjoyment interrupted. A man in a rather indifferent suit stood there. He was short and ugly and had a Boston accent.

  Blackburn frowned. “Who are you?”

  “Pat Kemper’s the name. I’m chief security officer of the Britannia. May I have a few words with you privately?”

  “Security? What’s this about?”

  “Don’t be alarmed, it’s routine.”

  “My friends can hear anything you have to tell me.”

  Kemper hesitated a moment. “Very well. Mind if I take a seat?” And glancing quickly around the dining salon, he took a chair at Blackburn’s right.

  “My deep apologies for interrupting your dinner,” Kemper said, his Boston accent already grating on Blackburn’s nerves. The guy looked and talked like a cop. “But protocol requires that I ask you a few questions. It’s about the staff member who was first assigned to clean your suite. Juanita Santamaria.”