Inherit the Dead

Mr.—Excuse me, I’m sorry—”
    “Christo.”
    “A Mr. Christo here to see you.” The doorman nodded at Perry and offered a smile that actually seemed friendly. Then he angled his jaw toward a large lobby. “Just through there, sir.” He replaced the phone with an audible sigh.
    Perry wondered if it was the job or Julia Drusilla that had caused the sigh along with the facial tics.
    “The elevator is at the rear. That’s the top floor. Penthouse A.”
    Perry crossed the large lobby, its centerpiece a huge display of calla lilies arranged in an even huger vase. The room was overheated, Perry going from cold to hot in a matter of seconds, the flora adding an exotic, jungle quality. Behind it, he caught his reflection in floor-to-ceiling mirrors flecked with gold. He attempted to smooth the wrinkles out of his trench then gave up, took it off, and folded it over his arm. It didn’t help. His shirt was wrinkled, too. He looked like a door-to-door salesman who’d come to the wrong door.
    The elevator had more heat, more gold, and more mirrors, butPerry didn’t need another look to confirm that his wool sports jacket looked tatty, his out-of-date tie too wide.
    The elevator deposited him into an equally overheated hallway leading to only two apartments—one to the east and one to the west. The door to the west apartment, directly opposite, was still adorned with a Christmas wreath and had a brand-new sisal doormat. The door to the east apartment, at the far end of the hallway, was bare, and there was no welcome mat.
    Perry pressed the bell. There was a low chime from somewhere inside the apartment, and then the door opened and Julia Drusilla stood there, backlit, a dark skeleton.
    “Come in,” she said, her voice a rasping whisper.
    Perry closed the door behind him. In contrast to the stuffy lobby and hallway, the penthouse was not heated. It actually felt air-conditioned, with cool breezes issuing from invisible ducts that fluttered his hair and made him shiver.
    Julia Drusilla, elegant in a sleeveless white tunic, was already moving down her hallway into a living room large enough to house five or six of his entire Yorkville apartment, her bare feet soundless on black marble floors that reflected nothing and gave the place the look of an endless pit. The ceilings were high, the furniture low and surprisingly spare—white couches, small slate tables. But the most impressive part of the apartment was the view behind the glass, which ran the entire length of the living room and the terrace beyond. He caught a glimpse of a terrace dotted with evergreens and what looked like fragments of sculpture, a larger-than-life-size marble foot, half a toga-clad torso. Beyond that, the spires of Manhattan apartments, a swath of Central Park, and low-hanging clouds in an endless gray sky.
    “You have a magnificent view,” said Perry, taking a few steps closer.
    Julia Drusilla turned her head toward the glass then back at Perry. Her pale gray eyes caught the light, startling and beautiful, but with something hard and impenetrable behind them. “I suppose,” she said. “But one gets used to such things. I rarely notice.”
    “The sculpture—That foot . . . ”
    “There are a few others you can’t see unless you go out there, and more at my homes in Palm Beach and Aspen, though I rarely go to either anymore.” She sighed, a bony, perfectly manicured hand at her throat. “They’re all Roman, late empire. The early and mid period are impossible to find; the museums have greedily scooped them up. But I’m happy with the sculptures I have. They remind me that people die but culture lives on.”
    “Can I borrow that for my tombstone?”
    Julia Drusilla peered at him, her gray eyes narrowed. “Is that a joke?”
    “Sorry,” said Perry. “Not a very good one.
    “No,” she said, with a flicker of anger before she gazed back at the terrace. “You may go out there, if you’d like, to see the sculptures. I never do. I’m not a fan of heights.”
    “Then why—”
    “Live in a penthouse on the twenty-fourth floor?” She smiled for a half second, translucent skin tugging away from large, capped teeth. “It was my husband’s—my ex-husband’s idea—and I got used to it, but . . . ” She seemed lost for a moment then focused on Perry. “You’re not what I expected.”
    “That bad, huh?”
    “Another joke?”
    “ ’Fraid so.”
    Julia Drusilla frowned. “You’re younger and better looking. I