Fever Dream Read Online Free PDF

around its
     bloody chops, and looked at him calmly. His breath coming in short, sharp gasps, Pendergast raised the Holland & Holland with
     his good arm, propped it on his bad, sighted along the top of the ivory bead. And pulled the trigger. The massive round, packing
     five thousand foot-pounds of muzzle energy, struck the lion just between and above the eyes, opening the top of its head like
     a sardine can, the cranium exploding in a blur of red mist. The great red-maned lion hardly moved; it merely sank down on
     top of its meal, and then lay still.
    All around, in the sunbaked fever trees, a thousand birds screamed.

PRESENT DAY
5
    St. Charles Parish, Louisiana
    T HE ROLLS-ROYCE GREY GHOST CREPT AROUND the circular drive, the crisp crunch of gravel under the tires muffled in places by patches of crabgrass. The motorcar was
     followed by a late-model Mercedes, in silver. Both vehicles came to a stop before a large Greek Revival plantation house,
     framed by ancient black oaks draped in fingers of Spanish moss. A small bronze plaque screwed into the façade announced that
     the mansion was known as Penumbra; that it had been built in 1821 by the Pendergast family; and that it was on the National
     Register of Historic Places.
    A. X. L. Pendergast stepped out of the rear compartment of the Rolls and looked around, taking in the scene. It was the end
     of an afternoon in late February. Mellow light played through the Greek columns, casting bars of gold into the covered porch.
     A thin mist drifted across the overgrown lawn and weed-heavy gardens. Beyond, cicadas droned sleepily in the cypress groves
     and mangrove swamps. The copper trim on the second-floor balconies was covered in a dense patina of verdigris. Small curls
     of white paint hung from the pillars, and an atmosphere of dampness, desuetude, and neglect hung over the house and grounds.
    A curious gentleman emerged from the Mercedes, short and stocky, wearing a black cutaway with a white carnation in hisboutonniere.
     He looked more like a maître d’ from an Edwardian men’s club than a New Orleans lawyer. Despite the limpid sunlight, a tightly
     rolled umbrella was tucked primly beneath one arm. An alligator-skin briefcase was clutched in one fawn-gloved hand. He placed
     a bowler hat on his head, gave it a smart tap.
    “Mr. Pendergast. Shall we?” The man extended a hand toward an overgrown arboretum, enclosed by a hedge, that stood to the
     right of the house.
    “Of course, Mr. Ogilby.”
    “Thank you.” The man led the way, walking briskly, his wingtips sweeping through the moisture-laden grass. Pendergast followed
     more slowly, with less sense of purpose. Reaching a gate in the hedge, Mr. Ogilby pushed it open, and together they entered
     the arboretum. At one point he glanced back with a mischievous smile and said, “Let us keep an eye out for the ghost!”
    “That would be a thrill,” said Pendergast, in the same jocular vein.
    Continuing his brisk pace, the lawyer followed a once-graveled path now overgrown with weeds toward a specimen-size weeping
     hemlock, beyond which could be seen a rusting iron fence enclosing a small plot of ground. Peeking up from the grass within
     was a scattering of slate and marble headstones, some vertical, some listing.
    The gentleman, his creased black trouser cuffs now soaked, came to a halt before one of the larger tombstones, turned, and
     then grasped the briefcase in both hands, waiting for his client to catch up. Pendergast took a thoughtful turn around the
     private graveyard, stroking his pale chin, before ending up next to the dapper little man.
    “Well!” the lawyer said, “here we are again!”
    Pendergast nodded absently. He knelt, pushed aside the grass from the face of the tombstone, and read aloud:
    Hic Iacet Sepultus
    Louis de Frontenac Diogenes Pendergast
    Apr 2, 1899–Mar 15, 1975
    Tempus Edax Rerum
    Mr. Ogilby, standing behind Pendergast, propped his briefcase on the top of the tombstone,