by F. E. Arliss
There was a long wait, then the door buzzed open, only to allow her into a pristine waiting area with a large Persian carpet and blue velvet sofas. She sat down.
Another ten minutes passed before a young woman appeared and asked if she could look at the papers. Remi handed them to the young woman and said sharply, “Please handle them gently. They’re quite old.”
The young woman only nodded and disappeared through the locking security door. Within a few minutes, Remi was allowed through, shown into a swankly-appointed conference room and offered a glass of champagne and a small charcuterie tray. Hmmm, she took this to mean they believed the papers to be authentic.
Sitting back, she sipped the champagne and nibbled on a few dried figs. When the door finally opened and admitted an old man with a large bald head, Remi managed to hide her smile. Was it just a coincidence that the attorney she came to see was bald? Or was this gentleman also from “the clan” Saulaces had spoken of?
He was helped eagerly by a very young assistant, who - unlike the old man, who wore a baggy black suit, white shirt and narrow dark tie, - was dressed in a royal blue suit cut on very modern lines and layered atop a patterned, pink floral shirt with a magenta tie. It was loud, as business attire went, though of the highest quality.
“Greetings, Ms. Hartsel, I believe?” said the old man, peering at her from over ancient-looking, gold wire-rim glasses. “I’m George Turner Cox, the fourth. This is George Turner Cox, the sixth,” he added, gesturing at the nattily attired young man. “They call me “Four” and him “Six”, he said, cackling merrily. “Can’t wait till we get to “seven”, then I’m putting a double O in front of that one. Though I’m not holding my breath with this one,” he added, flapping one wrinkled hand towards his grandson.
Remi smiled at the man. At least for an attorney he had a bit of a sense of humor - tired though it had been. “I’m Remington Arana Hartsel,” she said, standing and shaking first the old man’s trembling grip and then the young man’s limp, slightly damp hand.
The old man settled stiffly into a straight-back chair on the same side of the conference table as she, then turned the swivel-seat towards her. “So,” he began, “you’ve been bequeathed the estate of Kandake Impundula. I have to admit you aren’t exactly what I thought I’d be seeing, if I even lived long enough to see it at all.”
“She is bald,” Six added, grinning dopily at his grandfather, who snorted and waved a dismissive hand at the statement. Six tugged slightly on his magenta silk tie and grinned awkwardly in apology to Remi.
Remi smothered a smile. Six needed a bit of seasoning in the courtesy and charm department. On the other hand, it was nice to know he was too straightforward to prevaricate...not that an attribute such as honesty spoke that well for an attorney.
The old man sighed, flipped through the yellowed pages Remi had brought along and said, “My great grandfather made these papers in 1948, just after the war ended. Ms. Impundula bought a very nice apartment in one of the buildings along the Place des Vosges in the 4th arrondissement. I believe she’d lived in the building for some time, as the original papers you have are from the nineteenth century, but was only then able to register the legal purchase of the space she occupied. Many solicitors were defunct after the war you know.”
“It’s a top floor flat that has been updated multiple times over the years. It is still very much in the flavor of what was there in the 19th century. Wooden beams, parquet floors, original fireplaces, etc.” he waved a wrinkled hand as though all of this was something she’d already know.
“Last renovation was in 2015 when the building put in a more updated heating system, a new kitchen - though still very small and simple, and updated the bathroom plumbing. There are three rooms. One is a large open salon with the kitchen along one side and a large fireplace at each end. Then there are two bedrooms and two baths, though the second bath is really a divided shower room and toilet room.”
“Still has the old clawfoot tub if I remember correctly. And the original sink from the 40’s when Kandake first registered the purchase with us. I’m sure there was no running water at all when she first began living in the building.” The old man and his grandson both peered curiously at her to see if this statement made any sense to her.
Remi had already figured out that if Kandake had purchased the flat in 1949, and had lived in the building “for some time” as the attorney alluded, it would have made the unusual woman she’d seen three nights ago well over eighty years old, maybe far older. She hadn’t looked it. This was one of the things that made Remi edgy about this entire thing. The numbers didn’t add up unless they were vampires and could live forever, or had some sort of immortality thing going on. Saulaces had mentioned a school started by King Solomon. That was thousands of years, not a mere eighty or so. Keeping that in mind, she wasn’t going to let this nosey duo make her flinch, so she just nodded and made no reaction.
Plus, she’d Googled “Saulaces” and had gotten a whole load of crap about him being the great warrior who had killed Sesostris, one of the most blood-thirsty pharaohs of the ancient Egyptian empire. So this whole thing was either a gigantic elaborate hoax, or the strange groups on the bridge were immortal and many, many centuries old. Neither concept was easy to grasp. At this point, Remi was just investigating and keeping an open mind.
She might be more easily open to things that were unbelievable, because face it, no one thought big American, blue-blooded businesses were making deals with drug-dealing cartels. Remi knew they were. There it was. Unbelievable shit happened all the time.
“The apartment is currently vacant, as the recent tenant lost his job during the Covid 19 pandemic and moved home to his parents’ apartment in the Marais. He left his furniture, which is an odd assortment of very…,” the grandfather was interrupted by the young man.
“Fabulous stuff!” the young man enthused. “OMG I soooo want the fuschia velvet sofa and the cowhide rug! Plus, there’s this awesome set of chandeliers. Real crystal from the Czech Republic. They’re divine,” Six practically swooned as he recalled the details of the flat. His royal blue suit and pink shirt suddenly made very good sense. “Oh, and there’s a garden courtyard and a garage! The entrance is right off the Place des Vosges. Seriously, this is the sweetest apartment, in a great place...with a view,” he emphasized, waggling his precisely-groomed eyebrows. “I wanted to keep the old black velvet drapes that Kandake had, but they nixed that idea during the remodel.”
“Thank you,” Remi said, grinning at him. “It sounds lovely.”
“It is!” he assured her, grinning back. “Say you’ll make me dinner there.”
“I will,” Remi replied, laughing now. At least it looked like she was making a friend. It was weird to imagine that she had suddenly inherited a Paris apartment worth a mind-boggling three and a half million Euros, if the price at the top of the file Four had handed her was correct. Holy crap! Three million Euros!
Remi sobered, “Are you sure all this is properly legal?” she asked suddenly. “It all just seems so unreal and bizarre.” She stared at the old attorney grimly. “Seriously, I’m not signing anything until I’ve had a chance to think about this and discuss it with the person who brought me the papers.”
“That is probably good thinking,” Four said, fixing her with an accessing gaze. “It is bizarre, but I assure you it is all legal. Ms. Impundula was quite clear in her wishes.”
Remi shook her head in disbelief, then took a sip of water. “Ok,” she said doubtfully.
“Now then,” the old man said, glowering at the two of them in order to get them to stop asking what he clearly thought were unnecessary questions. “There is also a tidy sum of money in her bank accounts and a few items in a safe deposit box. When would you like to look at those?”
“Now?” Remi said, hesitatingly. Raising her eyebrows in question if there was time for that.
“I’ll take her,” Six said eagerly, winking at Remi.
“Fine. Do
that. Go over the banking procedures. Get her signatures and make sure she understands about losing the damn keys to the vault. There’s a charge,” he added, glaring at Remi as though she was some absent-minded idiot that would lose the keys to her safety-deposit box every other day. “She can return the bank books if she decides she doesn’t want the money,” he added, a slightly scathing edge to this comment.
The old man stumped from the room and Six leaned across the table and grabbed her hand. “Oooh, I can’t wait to see what’s in the box,” he blurted. “Great grandpa said it was soooo incredible!” He winked, then added in a lowered voice, “Don’t tell grandpa that Two told me anything about it. He was a little bit off his head with dementia when he did it.” The young man contorted his face into a grimace and rolled his eyes and whispered dramatically, “You know, not supposed to know!”
Remi couldn’t help herself and started laughing. Six was great fun. The question was, could he keep his mouth shut?
“What else do you know?” Remi asked suddenly, a hard edge in her voice. It startled the effeminate young man across from her. To her surprise, and earning him her respect, his face straightened into a mask and he said flatly, “I’ve no idea what you mean.”
“Good,” Remi said, then rose and waved a hand asking him to proceed her. Six could keep his mouth shut. That was good.
The next half hour had them traipsing off to a bank a few blocks away and then having a mind-bending learning session on how to manage the half-dozen accounts Kandake Impandula had scattered across the globe. They were also met at the bank by an aged man in a dusty-looking black suit. There seemed to be a theme in this series of events.
There were bank accounts in Paris, London, Cape Town, New York City, Buenos Aires and Cairo. The totals in each account were enormous and Remi, in a matter of hours went from a young woman fleeing her wealthy family with a bag of cash and millions in bearer bonds, to practically a billionaire overnight. There were papers to sign and procedures to go over. By the time Six had covered everything with her, she was too tired to even think about opening the safety deposit box.
Six drove her back to her hotel in an enormously long Jaguar. It seemed now that she was a valued client, she got the royal treatment. Urging her to sleep on everything, he assured her with a hug and a grin that he’d be there the next morning to take her on a tour of her new home and then to the bank to open the safety deposit box.
“You’re not letting that one go, I see,” Remi said, raising an eyebrow.
“Are you kidding me?” the young man asked incredulously. “It’s probably going to be the highlight of my life,” he added in all seriousness. “No, I’m not letting that one go. I do very much hope you’ll allow me to accompany you. Two said it made his entire life worth living.”
Remi reared back in disbelief. “Huh?” she gasped, eyeing Six as though he’d lost his mind.
“That’s what he said,” Six shrugged, then grinned. “I guess we’ll see!”
Remi smiled tiredly, slapped him gently on the arm and got out of the car. She needed a stiff drink and some sleep.
Chapter Five
The Flat
Standing in the dark, overhanging arches of one of the gallery-like promenades of the Place des Vosges, Remi looked at the heavy wrought-iron grille that protected the entrance to the flat she’d been bequeathed by Kandake.
Six had informed her chirpily this morning when he picked her up at the hotel, that Four said Kandake was the equivalent of Candace in English. Somehow, the elegantly skeletal-looking, Nuebean queen with her long oversized earlobes dripping in diamonds and black skulls, and prominent forehead veins of a week ago, hadn’t seemed like a Candace to Remi. A Kandake, yes. Candace, no.
He’d also told her that Kandake was an African name. Remi had rolled her eyes at him and said, “Seriously? Like Impundula wasn’t?” Six had only laughed and pulled the big Jaguar into traffic.
They’d wended their way through the streets of Paris to the Place des Vosges and after pulling up to an enormous black gate, had been allowed entrance to a private cobble-stone parking area with a row of green dumpsters along the rear wall. Six helped her exit the car after parking the huge Jag in a narrow slot that was assigned to the flat. Remi could barely squeeze out after opening the door as wide as possible without marring the saucy red mini Cooper sitting in the adjoining parking space.
A side alley off the parking area led to another tall, black gate that Six opened with a small fob that he waved over the sensor. It clicked open and they stepped out into the shadowed elegance of the promenade.
Walking down along the cobbles, Remi gazed into the windows of a number of richly appointed shops. A perfume shop caught her eye. She’d come back later to see if she could try some of the scents by the renowned perfumer Serge Lutens.
When they’d stopped in front of yet another ancient black-grilled entrance, Remi had been fascinated to see a small courtyard beyond the gate. Impatiently, she waggled her fingers at Six to let them in and when he held the gate open for her, she quickly walked through and looked about in amazement. It was magical! Antique planters ranged about the courtyard, mostly filled with tall evergreens and ivies that trailed down their sides. Red geraniums had been recently planted and added a splash of color.
An art deco-style door opened at the far end of the courtyard and Remi could see that a gilded, old-fashioned elevator graced the center of the marble-tiled entrance. A service elevator was tucked to the far side of the courtyard. Since the flat was supposedly furnished, she wouldn’t be needing that any time soon she hoped.
Rattling to the top floor of the three-story building, they stepped out onto a long narrow landing. It appeared to service only two flats, hers that faced Place des Vosges, and another that would face the street behind them where they’d pulled into the parking area.
The door to the flat was easily eight feet tall and heavily carved with elegant wood-work and an enormous, round, brass door knob. After the darkness of the covered portico of the promenades surrounding the park below, the door opened to an eye-squintingly bright interior of white-washed walls, sloped ceilings, ancient beams, and a beautiful, golden-glowing, hardwood parquet floor. She loved the place immediately.
The main salon was long and narrow, clearly meant to contain a dining area on one end and a parlor area on the other. Two huge fireplaces with heavily-carved stone mantels and topped by large, ornate gold-framed mirrors, were fastened to the walls above each. It bounced the light around the room and made the entire area glow with sunlight.
On the front wall of the room, elegant low-slung doors led out onto a narrow terrace that hung out over the Place des Vosges below. The doors were low because the ceilings sloped down a bit. The exposed attic beams - patinated with age and dark against the white ceiling and walls - met the low frames of the doors at an angled slope.
A small, very elegantly appointed kitchen graced one corner of the long open room. It sported a small, built-in fridge, a built-in oven, cook top, and tiny drawer-size dishwasher. In Paris, that was the most modern kitchen she could have hoped for. Whoever had chosen the kitchen fittings had done a good job making it blend in with the antiquity of the building while at the same time making the most of what the small space had to offer. A small, oval, heavily-leaded cameo window graced a narrow, high-peaked, eave cut in over the kitchen sink and gave a beautiful view of other rooftops and the blue of the sky.
Two bedrooms exited off either side of the long narrow salon. To Remi’s surprise, one had a small full bath off of it. A stand-alone shower room and narrow, powder room graced the space across from the small kitchen on the far side of the entrance. The bathrooms were in excellent condition and, in the master bath, the original clawfoot tub sat elevated on a wooden platform beneath a steeply slanted sky-light overhead. An old-fashioned 1920’s sink accompanied it and an ancient pull-chain toilet with wall-tank still worked beautifully when Remi yanked on the pull.
The shower room and pow
der room were newly designed, but in very good taste, with high quality finishes. The apartment was absolutely wonderful! Six had also been right as the fuschia sofa and brown patchwork cowhide rug in front of the fireplace were divine. Two rather inexpensive looking folding, butterfly chairs had been classed-up with large, genuine sheepskins thrown over them and added a hip touch to the rather old-fashioned style of the hot pink chesterfield. A low lucite table with a simple gold tray acted as the coffee table.
In the dining area, a long rustic-wood table held pride of place. On the near side a long, richly-upholstered, padded bench held space for four people. The far side held a row of antique, Tiverton square-backed velvet-upholstered dining chairs. Their dark-wood legs were lustrous against the vivid chartreuse upholstery. Remi had always loved lime green and with the fuschia sofa at the other end of the room, the chairs popped in a lively contrast that spoke of happiness and the possibilities of many long, interesting dinners.
