Charles stalked away, annoyed.
Roger gave Kilkenny a grateful wink.
“Sorry about that,” Emma said. “I was going to say, I like that aspect of your books. I like happily married people. I’m sorry Charles doesn’t.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I seem to bump into a lot of these situations. I should know how to handle them better, but they usually blindside me. Tell me something about yourself, Emma.”
She looked lost for a moment, and her silence was filled by the publisher. “Emma is an avid reader and one of the sweetest ladies I know. She buys a lot of books, and she actually takes the time to do online reviews.”
“Well, that’s something we writers really appreciate,” Roger said.
“Hear, hear,” the other writer said.
Emma blushed.
Chapter 5
An Unsuitable Place for a Historical Artifact
The next morning, Clark spent two hours in the Egyptian Institute Library poring over the lore on Howard Carter’s finds in King Tut’s Tomb. He found photos that matched the photo Jonesy had of the statue in Michelle’s father’s study. It was eerie how close the resemblance was, right down to a chip in the front right corner of the pedestal, a detail that might have been left out of a reproduction. He also found out when the piece was noted missing, that it was never traced, and no one was ever indicted for the theft. He sat there for 30 minutes, looking over every detail in the photos. If it was a reproduction, it was a good one. He scribbled down the recorded dimensions of the cat on a notecard.
Two days later, Clark and Jonesy drove down Poplar to the self-storage place and a burnt-out ex-skater still dressed in flannels from the 90s let them in to see the stuff in the unit. Jonesy had insisted they weren’t to ask specifically about the cat. When Ryan, the ex-skater, raised the door and flicked on the light in the dusty, chilly unit, Clark, now convinced by his research that the piece might be from King Tut’s tomb, walked over to it immediately, sitting precariously atop a bookshelf.
“Mind if I look at this?” he asked Ryan.
“Go ahead, but if you break it, you buy it,” Ryan said perfunctorily, standing outside in the sunlight, vaping.
“I’ll bear that in mind,” he replied. He reached up and took it down carefully. Could it be?
It was heavy for its size, made of stone, not plaster, and not hollow. It also looked about the right size to be the piece in question. This sure looks like diorite to me; I swear it’s the same type of stone as the other diorite pieces I’ve seen in exhibits. There was a writing desk in the unit, solid pecan, he suspected, and some space for him to set the cat down. Am I shaking? I am.
With trembling hands, he set the cat in the open spot atop the pecan desk and took a tape measure out of his pocket. When he was done, he was even more sure it could be real. The measurements were exactly what had been recorded by Howard Carter nearly 100 years before. Jonesy sidled up to him and whispered fiercely, “Don’t be so damn obvious, Clark.”
“I don’t think this will fit in her shadowbox,” Clark said, improvising, “and it’s too big to be a decent paperweight…not that she needs one.” He gave Jonesy a wild, hopeful eye.
Jonesy nodded and then turned away from it, saying, “Well, let’s look at some of this other junk. Maybe there’s something good in here.”
Clark glanced at Ryan. The man was uninterested, puffing on his vape and staring at something outside, down the row of units.
“They’ve already tagged everything,” Jonesy whispered, outraged. Clark, so awed by the possibility, had failed to note the rather obvious tag on the pedestal of the statue, marked “$600 starting bid.”
“They must have had a professional antique guy look at this stuff,” Clark said.
They made a show of looking through the items, thanked Ryan, and went away, stating they might come back next week for the auction.
Once in the car and heading over to the Popeye’s drive-thru for a bucket of spicy chicken, Jonesy said, “With a starting bid of $600, we’re out of luck trying to buy it, aren’t we?”
“I can’t raise half that, can you?” Clark said.
“No. All I have is my portion of the rent and a little left over for brews.”
“Same here. Credit card?”
“Maxed out.”
Clark shook his head, dismayed, then thought of the obvious solution. “Mine is too close to the limit after my car repairs. We should tell the department. We can raise the money that way. They’ll be thrilled. This is a hell of a discovery if it’s real, and they’ll want to know about it.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Jonesy said. “Why would we tell them?”
They were stopped at the light, and Clark turned to stare at his roomie. “Dude, it’s a major cred with the professors to be the ones who uncovered this. Do you know how impressed they’ll be? Of course we tell them! There’ll be articles in JSTOR and KMT, and so on. Heck, we might get to write them. That’s a publication credit we could both really use. We’ll be advancing our careers nicely before graduation. People will know our names, and that means a better possibility of getting hired somewhere we’d like to be, right?”
“Green light,” Jonesy said sourly.
Clark drove through the intersection, signaled, and turned into the parking lot, getting in line for the drive-thru.
“What?” he asked.
Jonesy gave him a knowing look.
“What?” he repeated.
“You’ll get a job, Clark. I’ll get kicked out of the program at the end of this semester. There’s no way I’ll pass the hieratic class with miss Dr. Script Expert.”
That was probably true, Clark knew, but he tried anyway. “If you buckle down on your studies, I can get you through it, buddy.”
“Sure. Do you know what I say?”
“What do you say?”
“I say the cat has been lost to history for 100 years, and it was lost for 4,000 years before that.”
More like 3,000, dummy.
“So who cares if it’s found again?” Jonesy asked. “It’s one stupid piece. Let’s get it on our own. Let’s find a buyer and sell it off for the hundreds of thousands or more we’d get for it. It’s King Tut’s cat! Some collector who doesn’t care about antiquities laws will pay through the nose for it. We might get millions. We could retire young. Or I could retire young, and you could go on to a brilliant career without having to worry about money. You could finance your own digs.”
Clark was silent. They moved forward in the line. I should’ve seen this coming.
“It’s illegal and immoral, buddy. If it turns out to be King Tut’s cat rather than a replica, we’re obliged to return it to the government of Egypt. There might be a reward of some kind. At the very least, we’ll be boosting our careers, like I said. Fame will move us a long way.”
Jonesy laughed. It was a derisive laugh, short and humorless. “I’d rather have the money.”
“We’re going to have to settle for the fame. I won’t help you sell it on the black market.”
“Screw Egypt’s cultural heritage, Clark. You’ve got a future in this. I don’t, and you know it.”
They didn’t speak again until the car was pulling back out onto Poplar, the savory fragrance of fried chicken filling it. Jonesy pulled out a piece at random and chowed down, his expression cold.
Clark forced back the sigh he felt rising and said, “I’ve always helped you with your studies, and you’re much smarter than you give yourself credit for. You’ll make it. You’ll see.”
Jonesy threw the bone out the window. “Fame is good, I guess. Hell, we’ll meet new girls, right? I’m still in. Don’t blame me if I keep trying to get you to sell it to the highest bidder, though.”
“Deal. No blame.”
“Listen, let’s try to raise the money on our own and present it to the faculty after the fact. No offense to them, but let’s not spread the fame around quite that much. Diluted fame is less fame, know what I mean?”
> “How are we going to raise the money?” He couldn’t keep the skepticism out of his face or voice.
“Maybe one of us can get a loan?”
“Maybe, but not likely.”
“Just keep everything quiet until we try, okay? I’ll look into it and let you know. You cover Dr. Douglas’ Shabako Stone lecture for me.”
“Okay.”
Chapter 6
A Shopping Cart with a Broken Wheel
This sort of thing didn’t happen often. Augusta hadn’t had to protect anyone except her husband, George, since college. Adults in the ordinary world didn’t generally behave so badly that they needed protection from one another. Hits were things seen on the news, but not encountered in daily life. She’d never known a single person who’d been assassinated or had anyone assassinated, but a rival architecture firm had tried to have George killed so they could get his contract. The Sanders’ new house had been built bulletproof, just in case.
Coming out of the Kroger on Poplar on a fine morning in early fall, she saw a woman in front of her pushing a basket laden with enough groceries for a small army. The basket had a wheel that didn’t turn, and the woman was struggling to get it to steer straight. The tension in her shoulders and the low muttering of a monologue of personal frustration caught Augusta’s attention. She wheeled her own basket around in front of the woman’s and grabbed its right front corner.
“Let me give you a hand,” she suggested. “Where are we headed?”
She had a homely face, once pretty, perhaps, blue eyes in a pale, fleshy face, surrounded by an unkempt halo of mouse-brown hair, but worn, sad, and beaten down. A grateful smile creased some of that combination away, revealing the traces of beauty. Augusta smiled back.
The woman said, “That bronze Sienna,” and she pointed across the parking lot. Augusta saw the minivan in question and pulled that way, pushing her own cart with one hand. She only had a few items, and it was easy to handle both.
“I should have traded carts, I guess,” the woman said, “but I didn’t notice the bad wheel until there was a lot of weight in it. I thought I’d be able to make it work, but I’m not strong. It was hard enough in the store, but out here in the parking lot, it’s unmanageable.”
“The ones with the bad wheels are the worst,” Augusta responded. “It’s happened to me too.”
Her eyes were on the minivan when a motion near it caught her eyes. A man in a red flannel shirt walked out from behind it and headed toward another vehicle. He’d been looking at them but quickly looked away when it registered to him that her eyes were on him. She watched him get into a white SUV with GMC in big letters on the front. His expression, sullen and heavy, bothered her.
The woman was talking. “I always pick the wrong carts, and I always come to the store when there aren’t many good carts to choose from. It doesn’t matter what time of day. I have no luck. You’re a godsend.”
“I’m happy to help,” she replied, glancing behind her.
They struggled to the minivan. The one stuck wheel kept catching at the pavement and jerking the cart awry. The woman had unwisely packed most of the heavy items at the front of the basket. Augusta wanted to say something tactful and helpful, but her attention was on the man in the red flannel shirt. Was he watching them, staring at them?
Bothered, she offered more help as they stopped at the minivan, “Let’s get these stowed, shall we?”
“You’ve done enough. I don’t want to keep you.”
“I’m in no hurry, and you look so tired. Let me assist you.”
The woman offered a rueful but grateful smile. “I will, then. I am tired. I never sleep enough anymore.”
“How many children do you have?” she asked, interested. There were lots of items for young children in the cart—breakfast cereals, pudding cups, and the like.
“Five. My husband didn’t want that many, but somehow, we ended up with five. I can’t imagine life without them. The only thing I miss is sleep.”
The expression that flitted across her face at the mention of her husband spoke for her.
Poor dear, thought Augusta, you miss having a husband who’s a partner with you.
“I love big families,” she said, “George and I just have two. We wanted more, but it hasn’t worked out so well. I have some issues conceiving. I was one of six, myself. I had eight cousins from one aunt and uncle. We were so noisy together, but there was a lot of love and few dull moments.”
They were loading bags, and Augusta had to wait as the woman made room among the sports equipment in the back of the van. A quick glance showed her that the man in the flannel shirt was still sitting in his SUV. She couldn’t tell if he was looking at them or not. His posture said he might be, but she couldn’t see his eyes.
“I came from a small family, just one brother,” the woman was saying. “I wanted a little more for us, but not five. I always thought three would be perfect. Jack—that’s my husband—always said two or three, but he really meant two, I think. He bears up well, though. Work keeps him pretty busy anyway, even most Saturdays.”
“Big families are expensive, especially these days.”
“He’s a good provider, but it keeps him away a lot.”
They were done then, so Augusta offered a hand and introduced herself.
“Susan,” the woman answered as they shook. “Thanks. It’s nice to know people still care about each other.”
“Maybe I’ll see you again, Susan.”
“Maybe so.”
They smiled and parted. Augusta pushed her mostly empty cart down the row of cars. The apprehension returned to her mind as soon as she and Susan parted, so she turned after four cars and saw the man in the flannel shirt step out of his vehicle and stride purposefully toward the minivan. The old urge—hardly felt since the early days of their marriage and George’s successes when a rival had tried to have him assassinated—returned, and she ran back to protect Susan, from what she didn’t know. He was pulling a pistol from a holster under his shirt when she ran in front of him and interposed herself. Susan turned, having just opened the van door.
“What?” she began.
“Damnit, lady. I don’t need this,” the man in the flannel shirt snarled.
She didn’t feel any fear. She never had, not from any person. Mean dogs scared her, and heights, too. Snakes and spiders were cool at the zoo, behind glass. Personal violence had never bothered her. The pistol aimed at her head was of no concern. Behind her, Susan gasped.
“We spent all our cash in the store,” Augusta said, “and our credit cards are maxed out. You might as well leave.”
“Lady, do you see this gun? Move, and you won’t get hurt.”
“I’ve got 50 bucks in my wallet,” Susan said, her voice strident. “It’s all yours. Take it and go.”
“No,” Augusta said, “it isn’t.” She shoved down the arm Susan was stretching past her. Bills escaped and fluttered to the asphalt.
“Are you her hired bodyguard or something?” the man asked, annoyed, but otherwise strangely calm.
“Yep, I’m her bodyguard.”
“For God’s sake, let him have the cash, Augusta!” Susan shouted.
“If you’re a bodyguard, this bullet comes with the job description,” the man said with a grin. He squeezed the trigger. There was a click, and no more. No fire roared out of the barrel that was aimed at her head. Chemistry and physics appeared to have failed.
“You can’t get past me,” Augusta explained.
“Son of a bitch.” He jerked the slide back, ejecting one round and chambering another.
Augusta crossed her arms and shook her head. Susan shrieked and grabbed her arm, pulling her away. Augusta jerked free and stood her ground.
“Beat it,” she told him firmly.
He took aim and squeezed the trigger again, but once more, no roar or flash issued forth.
“Son of a bitch!” he shouted, then checked the chamber. The round was jammed. “This never happens,” h
e complained.
“Okay, buddy,” Augusta said, “you’ve been warned. Now it’s my turn.” Slowly, she reached for the small of her back as though she had a pistol of her own. Seeing this, his eyes widened, and he turned and fled. Augusta grinned and risked a glance at Susan, who was still behind her, mouth agape, clutching her purse with one hand and the open door of her van with the other. The man in the flannel shirt was jerking his door open and fumbling with his keys. She kept her hand behind her back as though she’d draw at the slightest provocation.
“Did you—” Susan asked, her voice shaky. She couldn’t finish the question.
“It’s okay. It’s really okay,” Augusta assured her, eyes still on the man.
“He could’ve killed us.”
Augusta shook her head. “Not with me here, he couldn’t.”
The SUV rumbled to life, went into gear, peeled out of its parking space, and screeched off across the parking lot. Augusta relaxed and turned her full attention to her frightened new friend.
The tension broke. Tears formed in Susan’s eyes and rolled down her worn cheeks. Augusta wrapped the woman in her arms and held her. “It’s alright. He’s gone. No harm done.”
Susan, after an awkward moment, embraced her in return, holding her briefly and tightly before coming to herself again. “My cash is going to blow away,” she said practically and bent to retrieve the bills. Augusta helped.
“Should we call the police?” Susan asked.
“I guess we should.”
Susan pulled her phone out of her purse after they’d gathered the money.
“Should I call 911, or…?”
“He’s gone. I guess the non-emergency number?”
“Did you get his license plate?”
Augusta laughed. “Didn’t even cross my mind.”
As Susan looked up the number and made the call, Augusta collected her cart and thought the event over. It had all happened so fast, she wasn’t sure what had really occurred. If he’d meant to rob them, why hadn’t he demanded their purses? Why had he waited until she walked away? Had he wanted money, or had he wanted Susan specifically? She had the idea that he’d been waiting by that van alone out of all the vehicles in the lot. She put her groceries in her car quickly, replaced the cart in the cart corral, and walked back to Susan, waiting frightened and alone by her dinged-up Sienna.
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