The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast #3)(33)

“Hey, what do you think?” he said brightly. “Pretty nice, huh?”

Nora said nothing.

“It’s the bargain of the century,” said the broker. “Eighteen hundred dollars, rent-stabilized. A/C. Great location. Bright, quiet.”

The kitchen had old appliances, but was clean. The bedrooms were sunny with south-facing windows, which gave the little rooms a feeling of space.

They stopped in the middle of the living room. “Well, Nora,” Smithback asked, feeling uncharacteristically shy, “what do you think?”

Nora’s face was dark, her brow furrowed. This did not look good. The real estate broker withdrew a few feet, to give them the pretense of privacy.

“It’s nice,” she said.

“Nice? Eighteen hundred bucks a month for an Upper West Side two-bedroom? In a prewar building? It’s awesome.”

The real estate broker leaned back toward them. “You’re the first to see it. I guarantee you it’ll be gone before sunset.” She fumbled in her purse, removed a cigarette and a lighter, flicked on the lighter, and then with both hands poised inches apart, asked, “May I?”

“Are you all right?” Smithback asked Nora.

Nora waved her hand, took a step toward the window. She appeared to be looking intently at something far away.

“You did talk to your landlord about moving out, didn’t you?”

“No, not quite yet.”

Smithback felt his heart sink a little. “You haven’t told him?”

She shook her head.

The sinking feeling grew more pronounced. “Come on, Nora. I thought we’d decided on this.”

She looked out a window. “This is a big move for me, Bill. I mean, living together…” Her voice trailed off.

Smithback glanced around at the apartment. The real estate broker caught his eye, quickly looked away. He lowered his voice. “Nora, you do love me, right?”

She continued looking out the window. “Of course. But… this is just a really bad day for me, okay?”

“It’s no big deal. It’s not like we’re engaged.”

“Let’s not talk about it.”

“Not talk about it? Nora, this is the apartment. We’re never going to find a better one. Let’s settle the broker’s fee.”

“Broker’s fee?”

Smithback turned to the agent. “What did you say your fee was for this place?”

The agent exhaled a cloud of smoke, gave a little cough. “I’m glad you asked. It’s quite reasonable. Of course, you can’t just rent an apartment like this. I’m doing you a special favor just showing it to you.”

“So how much is this fee?” Nora asked.

“Eighteen.”

“Eighteen what? Dollars?”

“Percent. Of the first year’s rent, that is.”

“But that’s—” Nora frowned, did the calculation in her head. “That’s close to four thousand dollars.”

“It’s cheap, considering what you’re getting. And I promise you, if you don’t go for it, the next person will.” She glanced at her watch. “They’ll be here in ten minutes. That’s how much time you have to make your decision.”

“What about it, Nora?” Smithback asked.

Nora sighed. “I have to think about this.”

“We don’t have time to think about it.”

“We have all the time in the world. This isn’t the only apartment in Manhattan.”

There was a brief, frozen silence. The real estate broker glanced again at her watch.

Nora shook her head. “Bill, I told you. It’s been a bad day.”

“I can see that.”

“You know the Shottum collection I told you about? Yesterday we found a letter, a terrible letter, hidden among that collection.”

Smithback felt a feeling akin to panic creeping over him. “Can we talk about this later? I really think this is the apartment—”

She rounded on him, her face dark. “Didn’t you hear what I said? We found a letter. We know who murdered those thirty-six people!”

There was another silence. Smithback glanced over at the real estate broker, who was pretending to examine a window frame. Her ears were practically twitching. “You do?” he asked.

“He’s an extremely shadowy figure named Enoch Leng. He seems to have been a taxonomist and a chemist. The letter was written by a man named Shottum, who owned a kind of museum on the site, called Shottum’s Cabinet. Leng rented rooms from Shottum and performed experiments in them. Shottum grew suspicious, took a look into Leng’s lab when he was away. He discovered that Leng had been kidnapping people, killing them, and then dissecting out part of their central nervous system and processing it—apparently, for self-administered injections.”

“Good God. What for?”

Nora shook her head. “You’re not going to believe this. He was trying to extend his life span.”

“That’s incredible.” This was a story—a gigantic story. Smithback glanced over at the real estate broker. She was now intently examining the door jambs, her next appointment seemingly forgotten.

“That’s what I thought.” Nora shuddered. “God, I just can’t get that letter out of my head. All the details were there. And Pendergast—you should have seen how grim his face was while he was reading it. Looked as if he was reading his own obituary or something. And then this morning, when I went down to check on some more Shottum material that had turned up, I learn that orders had come down for some conservation work in the Archives. All the Shottum papers were included. And now, they’re gone. You can’t tell me that’s coincidence. It was either Brisbane or Collopy, I’m sure of that, but of course I can’t come right out and ask them.”