"What did you say about De Gaulle?"

"Baker worked with the French Red Cross. She was very active in the Resistance. She got Queenie involved, too. They were especially good at using their various-let me say, 'charms'-to convince foreign dignitaries to issue visas to some of the young women who needed to get out of Eastern Europe. Between the two of them, they saved a lot of lives."

"That sounds fairly dangerous," Mike said.

"She seemed to thrive on hazardous duty. There wasn't much that scared her. That was probably the second most dangerous thing Queenie did."

"I'll bite. What was the first?"

"Gathering intelligence for the American government."

"Spying?"

"You got it."

"On whom?"

"The king of Egypt."

"Farouk?" I asked, sitting bolt upright.

"Yes, ma'am, Farouk. The Night Crawler-that's what she called him. McQueen Ransome was King Farouk's mistress, Ms. Cooper."

Josephine Baker, the Revue Nègre, the French Resistance, and General Charles de Gaulle. I thought of the letters R du R, the old Parisian label in the mink coat that Tiffany Gatts had stolen from the apartment, and I traced them with my fingertip against the green desk blotter.

"Ransome du Roi,"I said to Mike Chapman. "The King's Ransome."

21

Less than half an hour had elapsed since Battaglia had mentioned Farouk's name. Paige Vallis's father had tutored the playboy prince in the mid-1930s. Then Vallis had also been posted in Egypt later on, when Farouk's monarchy was deposed. I had not even had the chance to tell Mike about my talk with Battaglia before walking into the room to meet Spike Logan.

"These tape recordings you made with Queenie, where are they now?" Mike asked.

"In a bank vault on Martha's Vineyard."

Dozens of questions raced through my mind, and I needed to break in on Mike's interrogation. But I didn't want to interrupt the flow of Logan's answers by stepping out of the room and bringing Mike up to speed. I didn't want Logan to know that he might have hit on something of consequence.

"You mind turning them over to us?" Mike asked.

Logan hesitated.

"Ms. Cooper can give you a subpoena."

The slip of paper would have no authority in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and it might take me a few days to secure one via the local prosecutor, but Logan didn't know that.

"Let me think about it," Logan said.

"Why, what's on 'em that concerns you?"

"That's all the lady's private thoughts, Mr. Chapman. I signed a contract with her, through the Schomburg, that none of the stories of her intimate relationships would be made public until twenty-five years after her death. You know, it's got anecdotes about lots of famous people-some of them still alive today."

I stepped on Mike's toe, signaling him to lay off the issue of the tapes. I'd find a legal way to get them produced so we could explore them for any information of value.

"What can we tell you about Ms. Ransome?" I asked. Perhaps by making this process a two-way street, we could soften Spike Logan to give us more facts.

He asked questions about how she died, whether anyone had appeared to claim her body or her possessions, and what point we had reached in the investigation.

When we had satisfied his interest, I turned the tables again. "I'm fascinated about this relationship with the Egyptian king. Do you know how all that started?"

Mike Chapman stood and opened the door. "You and your girlfriends eat up all this crap about the royals. A commoner like me couldn't get lucky in your crowd if I was hung like a stallion. Either of you guys want coffee?"

"Yes, please. Get me two. Spike?"

"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-"