The Cabinet of Curiosities

herself.”

“I see. She favored the comprehensive approach.”

“Like you, she no have boyfriend. Very sad.”

“How terrible.”

“It happen right in there,” said Lee, pointing into the kitchen. “Not find body for three day. Bad smell.” He rolled his eyes and added, in a dramatic undertone: “Many worm.”

“How dreadful,” Nora said. Then she smiled. “But the apartment is just perfect. I’ll take it.”

Lee’s look of depression deepened, but he said nothing.

She followed him back up to his apartment. Nora sat back down at the sofa, uninvited. The wife was still there, a formidable presence in the kitchen doorway. Her face was screwed into an expression of suspicion and displeasure. Her crossed arms looked like balsa-colored hams.

The man sat down unhappily.

“So,” said Nora, “let’s get this over with. I want to rent the apartment. I need it immediately. Today. Right now.”

“Have to check reference,” Lee replied feebly.

“There’s no time and I’m prepared to pay cash. I need the apartment tonight, or I won’t have a place to sleep.” As she spoke, she removed Pendergast’s envelope. She reached in and took out a brick of hundred-dollar bills.

The appearance of the money brought a loud expostulation from the wife. Lee did not respond. His eyes were on the cash.

“I have here first month’s rent, last month’s rent, and a month’s deposit.” Nora thumped the roll on the tabletop. “Six thousand six hundred dollars. Cash. Bring out the lease.”

The apartment was dismal and the rent bordered on outrageous, which was probably why it wasn’t gone already. She hoped that hard cash was something Lee could not afford to ignore.

There was another sharp comment from the wife. Lee ignored her. He went into the back, and returned a few minutes later, laying two leases in front of her. They were in Chinese. There was a silence.

“Need reference,” said the wife stolidly, switching to English for Nora’s benefit. “Need credit check.”

Nora ignored her. “Where do I sign?”

“There,” the man pointed.

Nora signed Betsy Winchell with a flourish on both leases, and then handwrote on each lease a crude receipt: $6,600 received by Mr. Ling Lee. “My Uncle Huang will translate it for me. I hope for your sake there’s nothing illegal in it. Now you sign. Initial the receipt.”

There was a sharp noise from the wife.

Lee signed his name in Chinese; emboldened, it seemed, by the opposition of his wife.

“Now give me the keys and we’re done.”

“Have to make copy of keys.”

“You give me those keys. It’s my apartment now. I’ll make the copies for you at my own expense. I need to start moving in right away.”

Lee reluctantly handed her the keys. Nora took them, folded one of the leases into her pocket, and stood up. “Thank you very much,” she said cheerfully, holding out her hand.

Lee shook it limply. As the door closed, Nora heard another sharp irruption of displeasure from the wife. This one sounded as if it might go on for a long time.

THREE

NORA IMMEDIATELY RETURNED to the apartment below. O’Shaugnessy appeared by her side as she unlocked the door. Together, they slipped into the living room, and Nora secured the door with deadbolts and chains. Then she moved to the barred window. Two nails stuck out from either side of the lintel, on which someone had once hung a makeshift curtain. She removed her coat and hung it across the nails, blocking the view from outside.

“Cozy place,” O’Shaughnessy said, sniffing. “Smells like a crime scene.”

Nora didn’t answer. She was staring at the floor, already working out the dig in her mind.

While O’Shaughnessy cased the apartment, Nora made a circuit of the living room, examining the floor, gridding it off, plotting her lines of attack. Then she knelt and, taking a penknife from her pocket—a knife her brother, Skip, had given her for her sixteenth birthday and which she never traveled without—eased it between the edges of two bricks. Slowly, deliberately, she cut her way through the crust of grime and old floor wax. She rocked the knife back and forth between the bricks, gently loosening the stonework. Then, bit by bit, she began to work the closest brick from its socket. In a moment it was free. She pulled it out.

Earth. The damp smell rose toward her nostrils. She poked her finger into it: cool, moist, a little slimy. She probed with the penknife, found it compact but yielding, with little gravel or rocks. Perfect.

She straightened up, looked around. O’Shaughnessy was standing behind her, looking down curiously.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Checking the subflooring.”

“And?”

“It’s old fill, not cement.”