“How is she a crackpot?”
“She’s crazy,” Durski said.
“In what way?”
“She thinks she’s Cleopatra. Do you believe in recarnation?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Me, neither. She does. You know what she thinks?”
“What does she think?”
“She thinks she’s a recarnation of Cleopatra, how do you like that? She thinks she was born in the year 69 B.C. She used to tell me her father wasn’t James Fletcher, he was Ptolemy the Eleventh—is that how you pronounce it? Ptolemy? And her brother Harry? The one died of a heart attack six months ago?”
“What about him?”
“He wasn’t her brother. That is, he wasn’t Harry Fletcher. You know who he was?”
“Who?”
“Ptolemy the Twelfth—is that how you pronounce it? Cleopatra married him when she was seventeen. He didn’t die of a heart attack, Natalie said.”
“How did he die?”
“He drowned in the Nile. You should see the way she dressed. I’ve got to tell you, she’s a prime nut. She used to wear these long gowns, she copied them from pictures of Cleopatra at the museum. Hair was pitch black, had it cut to just about here, just like Cleopatra. And sometimes she used to wear this cheap little crown on her head, and carry around a thing with a fake snake on it, that was supposed to be her scepter—is that how you pronounce it? Scepter? She had Cleopatra’s make-up down pat, too, the eyes, you know, and the mouth. I got to tell you, she almost had me convinced sometimes. Do you know what she used to call my wife? My wife whose name is Rose Ann?”
“What did she call her?”
“Charmian—is that how you pronounce it? That was supposed to be Cleopatra’s lady-in-waiting. I’m glad she’s out of here, I’ve got to tell you. Now, if I can just sell all that crap she left behind ... I told her, you know. I told her if I can’t sell it to the new tenant, I’m just gonna throw it in the garbage. She used to call her living room ‘the royal chamber,’ you should see it. You never saw so much thrift-shop crap in your life. I was up there a couple of times, fixing something or other, there’s always something going wrong in these old buildings. She used to keep the lights off all the time, she’d burn these candles, you know, I could hardly see what I was doing. And incense. Jesus, she used to stink up the whole building! And she’d play records with this eerie string music on them, and sometimes she’d talk to herself in what sounded like a foreign language—Egyptian, I guess it was. I don’t know how to talk Egyptian, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Oh, she’s a crackpot, all right. It’s a shame, too. She comes from a nice family.”
“Are her parents still alive?”
“Both of them. I never met the father, though Natalie was always talking about him ... Ptolemy the Eleventh, you know.” Durski said, and rolled his eyes heavenward, and sighed. “Him and the mother are divorced. She’s a nice lady, the mother. Stopped to talk to me whenever she came to visit and I was outside. We got along good, Violet and me. Violet, that’s her name. Violet Fletcher.”
“Where does she live?”
“Uptown someplace. On Fairmont, I think. I’m not sure.”
“Mr. Durski,” I said, “have you ever seen Natalie wearing a jade pendant with a—”
“Oh, sure, all the time. She told me it was a gift from her brother. Ptolemy. Said he hired the best sculptor in all Alexandria to carve her face on the jade. That’s a crackpot, am I right?”
“The man across the hall from her...”
“Wakefield?”
“Yes. He said he’d never noticed her wearing it.”
“Well, he keeps pretty much to himself. He probably didn’t notice it.”
“How long has he been living here?”
“Moved in about two months ago. What’s Natalie done, anyway?”
“Nothing that we know of. We’d like to talk to her, that’s all.”
“Stan!” a woman yelled from somewhere in the apartment. “Is there somebody here with you?”
“No, Rose Ann,” he yelled back. “I’m sitting here in the kitchen talking to myself.”
“Stan?”
“Of course there’s somebody here with me. There’s a policeman here with me.”
“Don’t be so smart, Stan,” she said.
“Mr. Durski... you mentioned that Natalie gave you her key when ...”
“That’s right.”
“Do you still have it?”
“Yep.”
“I wonder if I could have a look at the apartment.”
“I don’t see why not,” he said. “You look like an honest man, and besides, there’s nothing but a bunch of crap in there. I had a fire once in 7C, when the people was away, and the firemen came in and carried off everything that wasn’t nailed down, they don’t call them The Forty Thieves for nothing. And also, I get a lot of cops coming around here looking for violations so they can threaten me with a fine and get a payoff instead. But you look honest, and anyway, I’m gonna throw that crap in the garbage if I can’t sell it to whoever rents the place. You want the key?”
“Would you like to come up with me?”
“Nope, I’d like to get back to sleep. Just drop the key in my mailbox when you’re through, okay?”
“Stan!” his wife yelled. “Have you got the television on?”
Fifteen
I unlocked Natalie’s door without disturbing Amos Wakefield across the hall, eased the door shut behind me, and only then groped on the wall for a light switch. I found one to the left of the door.
A beaded curtain hung in the door frame of the small entrance foyer, separating it from the room beyond. The wallpaper in the foyer was white, with a boldly repeated palm-frond design in a green so dark it appeared black. I went through the curtain, found another light switch just inside the door frame, flicked it on, and was immediately transported back to a rather shabby ancient Egypt.
The palm-frond wallpaper continued into the room, its design less overpowering than it had been in the tiny foyer. Two real palms, both on the edge of imminent death, were against the wall opposite the beaded curtain. They flanked a huge wicker armchair sprayed with gold paint, undoubtedly Cleopatra’s throne. A purple cushion was on the seat of the throne. Two cushions identical in size and shape, one blue, the other white, were on the floor before the throne. The wall behind the throne was hung with framed prints of the Pyramids, the Sphinx, a river I assumed to be the Nile, a frieze that looked as if it had been lifted from a dead Pharaoh’s tomb, and a very lifelike drawing of a cobra. Two unfaded rectangles on the palm-frond wallpaper indicated where a pair of pictures had once been hanging. On the wall to the left of the throne, and at right angles to it, there was a closed door papered over with the palm-frond design, and sitting directly on the floor, either a mattress or a foam-rubber slab covered with a purple spread tucked in all around. I went to the door and opened it.
Unlike the shabby opulence of the royal chamber, the bedroom was spartanly furnished and looked almost severely modern in contrast. The walls were painted white, and there were no pictures on them, and no indication that any had been removed. A double bed was against the wall opposite the entrance door, beside a window overlooking an airshaft. There was a white shade on the window, flanked by hanging sheer curtains, also white. The bed was made up with sheets, pillowcases and a blanket, but no bedspread. A dresser finished in white enamel was opposite the bed, a cheap record player on top of it, a mirror over it. I went to the dresser. The drawers in it were empty except for the debris of packing—some bobby pins, an empty tube of lipstick, two pennies, and a ballpoint pen that must have cost twenty-nine cents when new. The single closet in the room was empty, too, except for some wire hangers on the pole and on the floor.