Where There's Smoke полностью

“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?”

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.