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They passed a park on the right, dense with massive old trees draped so heavily with Spanish moss they appeared to be dripping. It was like something out of a horror movie. Coldmoon had grown heartily sick of Florida: the heat, the humidity, the crowds, the southernness of it all. But this—this spooky city with its gnarled trees and crooked houses—this was even worse.
“I refrain from thinking at the beginning of an investigation, Commander.” “What do you do in place of thinking?” Delaplane asked drily. “I become a receptacle for information.”
“Is the julep tart enough for you?” Pendergast asked. “It’s tart,” Coldmoon agreed.
Coldmoon could see Pendergast was enjoying prolonging this discussion as fully as possible.
the mayor introduced “the highly decorated Special Agent Aloysius X. L. Pendergast of the FBI”—actually pronouncing his first name correctly which, Coldmoon guessed, might be another southern thing—and
Years ago, they’d made a deal: all their vacations would be two weeks long, one week for him and one for her. This vacation had been no different. He’d spent a fantastic, relaxing week on Hilton Head, playing thirty-six holes of golf a day and hanging out in the evenings at the country club. Agnes had lounged by the pool reading Dorothy Sayers mysteries. They’d seen each other only at breakfast and dinner. Credit where credit is due: she hadn’t complained.
Chicken and waffles?” “Keep your voice down—you’ve made a bad enough impression as it is.” Pendergast paused. “It’s a southern thing. If you have to ask, you won’t understand the explanation.” Coldmoon shook his head. “Sounds toxic.” “Then perhaps I shouldn’t tell you the waffles are slathered in butter, the fried chicken is doused with hot sauce, and then the entire concoction is drowned in maple syrup.” Coldmoon shuddered.
Why the hell did Pendergast need to make a ten-word statement in which nine of the words were superfluous? A simple Right would have sufficed.
The Lakota do have a sort of legend about a vampire. He was white, of course.” “Naturally.”
The few pedestrians about at that early hour ignored him completely. Evidently inebriated people at dawn were not an uncommon sight in Savannah.
To me, Mozart is like a bottle of Château d’Yquem: sweet and silky, but more complex than it initially seems. Beethoven is like a petite sirah: ill-bred, brutish, chewy, but once tasted, never forgotten. And Scarlatti”—she laughed—“Scarlatti is like a cheap prosecco, full of bubbles that bother your nose.” “And Brahms?” Constance asked, irritated at the aspersion cast on her beloved Scarlatti, but not wishing to be impolite. “Ah, Brahms! Brahms is like…one of the best Barolos.”
May I ask, Agent Pendergast, what you and your partner have been doing in the past ten days or so?” “You may ask,” said Pendergast. Drayton waited, but Pendergast apparently had finished speaking.
As usual, he hadn’t anticipated the heat and humidity, which wrapped him like a soggy Hudson Bay blanket.
except, perhaps, in filling in some missing corners of the triptych you’re painting.” “You flatter me, my dear. My mental construct of Savannah and its crimes is a diptych at most.”
Officer Warner, ten thirty-three! Got a…flying…a crazy thing flying…attacking…What the—?”
this is precisely how I would report the apocalypse on the radio
