"Could I have a sandwich and some soda?"
"Sure. Be back in ten."
It was obvious that Logan liked talking about McQueen Ransome. "So Josephine Baker was responsible for taking Queenie to Europe to perform. There was never quite the color barrier there that there was for entertainers in this country."
"Paris?"
"That's where it all started, dancing in the Folies-Bergère. But once they got involved with Resistance work, Queenie was sent on missions all over Europe. Farouk had become king of Egypt in 1936, but by 1939, the British had taken over control of the country. Rommel was in the desert, ready to pounce, so the Allied troops packed the Egyptians off to guard the Suez Canal, and took over the government, basically."
"And what became of Farouk when the British took charge?" I asked.
"Just left to be a figurehead. He was barely in his twenties, with a net worth of one hundred fifty million dollars. He had the full run of a five-hundred-room palace, freedom to play with all his toys-yachts, airplanes, racing cars, breeding horses-and to chase broads."
"Was he married?"
"Not very happily."
"How did Queenie meet him?"
"She'd been sent to Egypt supposedly to entertain the troops. It was much later in the war-about forty-four. And she performed at the king's favorite nightclub in Cairo-Auberge des Pyramides."
"Farouk went to clubs during the war?"
"That's how he got the nickname the Night Crawler."
Chapman had used the same phrase himself, but he referred to the vermin who crept around the city streets from dark to daybreak, looking for trouble.
"Every night he was out carousing-belly dancers, jazz bands, caviar and champagne. Next to Mussolini and Goebbels, who got private tours of the pyramids, his favorite people were showgirls."
"So Queenie was really ordered there for the purpose of seducing Farouk?"
"She took the assignment as kind of a dare. She didn't believe he'd go for her."
"Looking at those pictures, it would be hard to imagine why not."
"'Cause he liked them blonde, Ms. Cooper, and he liked them no older than sixteen. She was the same age as the king, and a bit more mocha than he usually fell for."
"What happened?"
"Queenie Ransome danced. She came out onstage and moved that magnificent body like no one else could."
I thought of her photograph in the Scheherazade costume and imagined her dancing in it for Farouk.
"After the performance, one of his bodyguards came backstage and invited her to join the king's party. King Farouk stood up to greet Queenie, and when she curtsied to him, he took a necklace out of his pocket and draped it around her neck. 'This is your passport to my palace,' he said. 'The guards will bring you to me later tonight.'"
Logan stopped to laugh. "Queenie told me she unhooked it and took a look at it. Sapphires all around it the size of quail eggs. She dropped it into his soup bowl and told him, 'I think you have me confused with the next act, Your Highness. She's the whore. I'm just a dancer.'"
"She walked away?"
"Right out the door and back to the Red Cross headquarters, where she was staying. Night after night Farouk came to the club to ply her with gifts but she refused to see him. When he finally showed up empty-handed, and came backstage to apologize, it was the first time Queenie agreed to speak with him." Logan paused. "She played hard-to-get for a few more weeks. Demanded a real courtship."
"And then?"
"The royal affair. Nights in the palace, cruises up the Nile, mingling with all the high society in Cairo and Alexandria, which were quite sophisticated places at the time. There was a big American colony in Egypt. Queenie said Farouk used to invite dozens of Americans in to see Hollywood's latest propaganda-movies like Casablanca, musical scores from brand-new Broadway shows like Oklahoma! "
"Was she on duty or in love?" I asked.
"It started as an assignment. Hell, she was picking up whatever intelligence she could from within the bedroom. She was there when President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill stopped to meet Farouk on their way back from the Yalta Conference. Farouk's wife even moved out of the palace-"
"Because of his affair with Queenie?"
"Not entirely. Because she had failed in her efforts to produce an heir to the throne. Three daughters, but not the son that Farouk needed to guarantee succession for the Egyptian monarchy. It just meant that Queenie had his full attention at the time, and his complete confidence. And yes, she fell in love with him."
"Did she tell you why?"
Logan thought for a minute. "He wasn't the pathetic old exile the world got to know later on, when he had worked himself up into a three-hundred-fifty-pound glutton. Queenie showed me the photo of him that was on the cover of Time magazine when he was crowned, sort of the great white hope of the Middle East. Prince Charming in the land of the pharaohs. He was smart, spoke seven languages, was a high-liver, and he loved women."
"I guess the sapphires didn't hurt, either."
"Queenie had a good laugh about that one," Logan said. "The necklace he tried to give her the first night? A total fake. He carried costume jewelry with him every night that he went out on the town to give away to the showgirls and hookers. He had millions, but he was a real cheapskate with the ladies. I think it fascinated him that Queenie didn't care about his possessions-the jewels, the cars, all the other things."
"What do you mean, 'things'?"
"The king was a collector. Of things, loads of things. Weird things, expensive things. He just had to own whatever he could get his hands on."
"What exactly did he collect?"
"The way Queenie talked, to me it sounded like everything. You know about the pornography, right?"
"No, no. I don't."
"Hasn't anyone told you about those pictures in Queenie's bedroom?" Logan asked.
"The ones by James Van Derzee?"
"Not them. Those are great photos. Really classy. The Schomburg has his whole collection of those-very artistic, very elegant."
I didn't want to tell Logan that the killer had stopped to pose his victim the same way the great photographer had memorialized her. Maybe he already knew that.
"What pornography do you mean?"
"King Farouk had the world's most extensive pornography collection. Erotic art, objects and devices of every kind, timepieces with fornicating couples gyrating on the watch face as the hands moved around. Pornographic neckties, playing cards, calendars, corkscrews. Then he got the bright idea to make Queenie pose for photographs."
"And she did?"
"She did at first. She never minded displaying that body of hers. It was only after the king wanted her to perform sexual acts with other men, so that they could be photographed for his collection, that she objected. She refused to do that. It was the beginning of the end of their relationship."
"The pornography-what became of all of it?"
"Queenie took whatever pictures she could with her when she left Egypt in 1946. When Sotheby's auctioned the rest of Farouk's collections after he was deposed, she contacted them to see whether she could buy some of the photographs, so they wouldn't become public. But at the last minute Sotheby's withdrew the pornography from the auction, along with some other royal loot. She never knew what happened to the stuff. Didn't much matter, though. Her spirit was already broken."
"Because?"
"Fabian, her son."
"Had he died?"
"Yeah. He had contracted polio. Infantile paralysis. Nineteen fifty-five, a few months before the vaccine was approved for use in the States. Shortly before the auction."