by Ari Marmell
“That damned broad put one over on me! Again!”
I’d been so careful, so friggin’ clever, and I’d caught her out on so much, and she’d still slipped one by me!
“Mick, what are you talking about?”
I took a long, deep breath—not real calming for me, really, but sorta to reassure her I was simmerin’ down some.
“When I was at Baskin’s,” I growled, “there was a pile of rags. One of ’em had been used to wrap the—to wrap a relic with some seriously bad mojo. Kinda thing I’d kill to keep outta the wrong hands, and in this case, the ‘wrong’ hands are just about anyone’s. Turned out the dingus wasn’t even there, though. Just the cloth that’d held it for a spell.”
“I see,” she said, makin’ it real clear she didn’t.
I bared my teeth in what I hoped she took for a grim smile.
“Ramona must’ve known I’d react badly to findin’ that. And she used that against me.” I bent down to pick up the scrap of faux-mummy wrap. “There was some of this in the pile, few layers down. Didn’t even register with me. Probably never would’ve if I hadn’t spent so much time in here surrounded by the stuff.”
She perched herself on a “broken obelisk,” sorta half-seated, half-leaning.
“I’m not sure I follow. Are you saying they have the mummy after all?”
“No.” I was runnin’ through it all in my head, now, tryin’ to race ahead of a dozen possible thoughts at once. “But if the piece they have is really from the mummy, not fake like this one… Or hell, maybe even if it is fake, the stuff’s been around the body for a while now, associated with it, that might be enough of a connection by itself, though the real thing’d certainly be a much stronger link to—”
“Mick! Make some fucking sense!”
“You tell people’s mothers their fortunes with that mouth, doll?” Then, before she could completely explode, “What I’m sayin’ is that they can maybe use the length of fabric they got to find the mummy. Almost certain if it’s the real deal, but even if it ain’t, there’s all kinda rites and rituals and spells that’ll lead them right to it.”
“Oh. Well, but… doesn’t that mean we can use this piece the same way?”
“I can’t.” At least, not without spending a few days it at and drawing on some truly prodigious quantities of luck, I couldn’t. “But I may know somebody. Actually, I may know two somebodies.” I tossed a rag at her.
Then, after a minute that took about an hour, “Anything?”
“No. But I told you, it—”
“It don’t work that way. Yeah.”
“Sorry. Maybe if it was an actual part of—”
“Yeah.” I reached out, took it back. “Well, like I said, I know a dame. She ain’t exactly the best in the business…” And I’d probably have to give her her grimoire back, if I wanted any shot of gettin’ her to agree to this. “But she may be able to pull this off. We just gotta—”
The lights died with a last, strangled buzz and a dull thump.
“Uh…” Tsura said.
“Yeah.”
“Did you do that?”
“Maybe. Amount of luck I was sucking up earlier? I coulda damaged the system. Might just be we busted a fuse or something.”
“And if not?”
“Then somebody outside threw the main switch and is waitin’ for us.” I grinned, even though I wasn’t sure if the fiddlin’ I’d done behind her eyes was still good, if she could see me at all. “Wouldn’t be mannerly to leave ’em standin’ around, would it?”
She crossed her arms, almost but not quite huggin’ herself.
“I could stand to be rude.”
“You know any way outta here other’n the main door or the staff entrance?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then I guess we go be polite. Aw, cheer up, kid. It was probably just my magic mixin’ poorly with old equipment.”
We made our way out, and guess what? It was not just my magic mixin’ poorly with old equipment.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“But are you sure…?”
“Yes!” I was fond of Tsura, really was, but c’mon already. “For the nine-hundred-and-fifty-third time, yes, I’m sure!”
“It’s just, working with the carnival isn’t the best job in the world, but it’s all I have. I—”
I took her arm in mine—a gesture that looked completely innocent to the early mornin’ pedestrians who’d started to flood the sidewalks over the past hour or so since dawn, but also let me steer her where I wanted to go. Ignorin’ the expression I’m sure she was stabbin’ at me, I guided us into the doorway of a small craft supplies and picture frames shop that hadn’t opened for business yet. It was the closest we were gonna get to privacy without me draggin’ her into an alley, and I wasn’t quite steamed enough for that.
Yet.
“Listen, Fedora.”
“Hey!”
“They’re not gonna remember you. I promise.”
“But they know me!”
The two ginks who’d been waitin’ outside the funhouse had turned out to be a pair of the carnivals’ roustabouts, broad-shouldered lugs who could easily have passed for a gorilla act if they’d just quit shavin’ for a week or two. Apparently last night was their turn to walk security—and they’d noticed just the faintest trace of the light Tsura’n me had turned on, leaking through a split wooden board that’d probably been damaged when I vacuumed the last dregs of luck outta it.
What were the odds, right? Damn, but this whole “curse of the mummy” bad fortune bit is gettin’ real, real old. Even if it was more an inconvenience than a genuine catastrophe, I was pretty well sick of it and ready for it to go away.
“Sister,” I said, danglin’ by a fingertip from the last inch of my patience, “I been doin’ this since before the Roman Empire went the way of the dodo. I know what I’m doin’ when it comes to gumming up people’s thoughts and emotions and memories. They’ll wake up knowin’ they caught an intruder, they’ll think they got pounded on some by goons even bigger’n they are, and that’ll be the end of it. The most intimidating copper in the world could grill ’em on the subject from now until I grow old and die, and your name would never even come up.”
She breathed in, deep, steadying herself.
“All right. I believe you. I do. I’m just… This is all new to me.”
“Yeah, I got that.” I forced a chuckle. “Ain’t all new to you, though. Where’d you learn to throw a right hook like that?” One of the roustabouts was gonna wake up with more’n just the imaginary pain I’d stuck in their conks to back up the false memories.
“I work in a traveling carnival, Mick. We’re strangers and outsiders, people figure we’re all crooks, and some fellas want more than their fortunes told.”
What she said didn’t at all surprise me. How hot under the collar it made me, though, did. I don’t much care for anyone treatin’ people like those “fellas” did, especially since it put me in mind of some of the sins of my own ugly past.
I really didn’t much care for somebody treatin’ Tsura that way.
Nothin’ I could do about it now, and we had more immediate problems. So I just jerked a nod, squeezed her arm once before lettin’ it go, and got back to walking.
Morning traffic picked up, flivvers choked the air with squawking horns and stinking exhaust fumes, sidewalks slipped into their usual ebb and flow. The two of us were just comin’ up on Gina’s apartment building when Tsura stopped and spun to gaze through the window into some shop, snaggin’ my hand in hers.
“That guy on the bench. He’s watching the building.”
“Yep. I saw him.” Wasn’t the same palooka who’d been pretending to read the paper the first time I’d wandered by, but he might as well’ve been. About the same build, planted in the same spot, could even be the same paper for all I knew. Only obvious difference was the color of his coat.
Alla which explained neatly how I’d tumbled to him, but…
“How’d
you know?” I asked.
“Just did.” She tapped a finger to her temple for emphasis. “There’s another one, too. Down the street a ways.”
“Hmm. Wait here a minute, wouldja?”
“What? Where are you—?”
I was already off, casually strollin’ along the sidewalk, until I reached the bench. Bo didn’t obviously look up when I sat down beside him, but I could see the tension in his shoulders. He figured I was probably just some guy, but he was ready in case I wasn’t.
Good instincts. Too bad they wouldn’t help.
“Who you workin’ for?” I asked.
I mean, I knew one of these two mugs was Bumpy Scola’s man, but I figured it might be wise to find out who else had peepers on the place.
He shifted his weight so he could get to his piece, turned to look my way, and that was that. I had him. Eggs in the coffee to get into his noggin once we’d locked eyes.
So I asked him again, and this time he answered.
“Nolan Shea.”
Huh. “And why’s he got you sittin’ on this place?”
“Some skirt who lives here. She’s some Outfit gavone’s main squeeze, or one of his squeezes, anyway. Shea said the boss wants to know who comes to see her.”
“Why her? No way he’s got enough manpower to watch over every moll in South Chicago.”
“Dunno. Mr. Fleischer says do, we do.”
Which said, to me, that Fleischer knew Gina was a witch. I couldn’t come up with any other reason he’d set somebody to watching over her specifically, outta all the gangsters and gangsters’ girls in the Outfit.
A few more questions, none of which provided any useful answers, and then he went to sleep. A short while later, I tapped on a car window to get Bumpy’s goon’s attention, and then he went to sleep, too. Only then, when nobody was watchin’ us who didn’t need to be, did I go back for Tsura and take her inside to meet Scola’s pet witch.
Gina wasn’t real eager to help us out at first, but it didn’t take a whole lot of persuasion.
“Look, Mick, I’m grateful to you for bringing back my grimoire.” In fact, since I’d walked in the door and handed it to her, she’d been cradling it like a lost pet. “But that was part of our deal to start with. I’m not looking to make you mad, but I don’t owe you anything more, and I don’t even know your squeeze here.”
“Let me tell you something, sister…” Tsura began, soundin’ exasperated. I shook my head, hard, and she clammed up, but I could hear her roll her eyes at me.
“And you ain’t willing to just do me a favor?” I asked.
“Sorry. I’m wise to just enough of what’s goin’ down in the city to know I don’t want any bigger part of it.”
“And what if it wants a bigger part of you, Gina? You know Bumpy ain’t the only one keeping a slant on you, right?”
“Yeah, you mentioned that.”
“You ever figure out who?” Her expression was more’n answer enough. “’Cause they got peepers on your building right now. Well, not now, ’cause I put him in mind for a nap, but most of the time.”
“So who is it?”
“Uh-uh. You want the rumble? Make with the ritual.”
And so we’d ended up at her table again, with the bowls, mortar and pestle, and a bunch of the same this’n that as the last time I’d paid her a visit. Unfortunately, it didn’t pan out quite the same way.
“I’m sorry,” she said after the third time she’d dipped the fake mummy wrap in the chunky concoction she’d mixed, and the third time it’d come out not even wet, let alone soggy and waterlogged as it shoulda been. “It’s just not taking. I tried, Mick. I really did!”
“’S’okay, Gina. I know you did. I was watchin’.”
Hell. So what happened? Was it just that the faux wrapping didn’t have a solid enough link with mummy dearest? Or was somethin’ interfering on a mystical level? The bad-luck curse, maybe, or some kinda protection it’d cloaked itself with after it woke up?
“Y’know,” I said to nobody in particular, “scryin’ magic ain’t too useful when everybody and their damn uncle’s warded. When did this town become Grand Central Sorcery, anyway? I wanted to put up with that bullshit, I’da stayed in Elphame!”
Then, since there didn’t seem much I could say—either to follow up on the rant, or in reply to the queer expressions the two ladies were castin’ my way—I harumphed once for good measure, snatched up the length of fabric, and marched for the door.
* * *
The rest of the day was just as much of a waste of time.
I made the rounds of my contacts again: Franky, Lenai, and so forth. Half of ’em I still couldn’t find, the other half knew nothin’ about the mummy. If the dead geezer really was out there somewhere, he was lyin’ dormy. Pretty slick for a guy who oughta be unfamiliar not only with the city and everything in it, but anything resembling a modern language.
And who most closely resembled a bandaged pork rind.
I’d tried, about mid-afternoon, to convince Tsura to go home, that she’d be a lot safer and probably happier not bein’ any part of this. If nothin’ else, I figured she might wanna sleep sometime soon. Calm, polite, everythin’ I hadn’t been as much as I shoulda been. She equally calmly and politely explained why it was the dumbest idea she’d ever heard, that could go a couple nights without snoozing if she had to, and that she wasn’t goin’ anywhere. (I still got no idea what she’d told Rounser about why she wasn’t at work.)
To be frank, I didn’t really want her to leave. I appreciated not bein’ entirely alone on this, what with Pete bein’… indisposed. If nothin’ else, it was an extra pair of shoulders to help me carry the frustration.
Plenty of that to go around, and no mistake!
Although it did make me wonder, since when do I not want to be alone? I like alone. When I ain’t bein’ influenced the way Ramona did—and I wasn’t right then; I watched for it—alone’s my favorite place.
The past year musta been really gettin’ to me.
Come evening, we found ourselves back in my office, keisters planted in chairs—me behind my desk, her in my client chair—both intently studying the air in front of us. I had my heels crossed on the typewriter, which I still hadn’t bothered to put back where it belonged. She was tappin’ one foot on the carpet, which was so old and flattened by now it was pretty near to being a drumhead.
Eventually it got to be too much.
“You wanna knock that off?”
She jumped so hard the chair shook.
“What? Huh? What?”
“That.” I pointed. “Knock it off.”
“I’d hate to see how you treat a gal who isn’t trying to help you.” She turned her face away, staring—if I hadda guess—at the typewriter.
I felt like a jackass, and irritated that I felt like a jackass.
“Look, I’m sorry, I just… Couldn’t you not…?”
“Some of us fidget! It’s a thing we do. You know, humans?”
“Yeah, I do know. I just forget.” Then, again, “Sorry.”
She leaned back and crossed her arms, but at least she was lookin’ at me again. And hey, her foot stopped.
“Mick, what are you gonna do if we find the stupid thing?”
“Friggin’ hell, I dunno. Talk to it, I suppose? Try to figure out what a jobbie who’s been dead for thousands of years even wants.”
“You speak Ancient Egyptian?”
“I can understand it, given a minute. As for makin’ him understand me… I got no idea. Although,” I added, leanin’ forward to rest my elbows on the desk, “he seems to be makin’ his way around Chicago without drawin’ attention, Maybe he’s got his own means of understanding.”
“You really can’t even guess at what he can do?”
“Not even a little, kid. We’re in uncharted waters, which is somethin’ I don’t often get to say. Ghosts and revenants are unpredictable at best, and this ain’t like any of those I’ve dealt with.”
&nbs
p; “Well… Are we assuming he’s following some kinda logic? Maybe we can puzzle out where he’s going, or what he wants, or something?”
“Be easier if you just, y’know, saw where he was.”
“Yes,” she said flatly. “I’m sure it would be. Let me just find the ‘on’ switch. I’m sure I’ve got one somewhere.”
So, yeah. Still a little touchy, she was. Can’t say I hadn’t given her good cause, though.
“Okay, so let’s lay this out. Carnival’s had the mummy for a while now, yeah?”
“Yep. Rounser bought him almost two years back, if I’m remembering right.”
“And so far’s we know, this is the first time he’s woken up.”
She snorted. “If he did before, he snuck out and back without telling anyone. Maybe he went for a coffee?”
“Assuming for the sake of argument he didn’t, why now? What was it about Chicago that rang his alarm clock?”
Tsura’s foot started to tap again. She blinked at it, half shrugged at me, and stopped again.
“Ramona? Or the Uptown Boys? Could he’ve sensed they were planning to take him?”
“Sure, that’s possible. Or…” Hang on a minute. “You been to any cities with their own mummies in the last two years?”
“Um… ‘Their own’…?”
“We got a few at the Field Museum. Part of the expanded Egyptology exhibit. Mummies, and also a heap of genuine Ancient Egyptian grave goods.”
“You think those could have… could have called to him?” she asked.
“It’s possible.” Then, “I mean, I ain’t sensed anything from ’em, but that don’t mean somebody more in tune to that magic couldn’t have.”
You ever seen someone try to nod and shake their head at once? It’s dizzying.
“I’m sorry, Mick. I honestly don’t know. I don’t think we have—we tend to hit smaller towns more than big cities—but I don’t really get to go too far from the fairgrounds. If any of the cities’ museums did have that kinda exhibit, I just can’t say.”
“Fair,” I grunted. Not real helpful, but fair. “We should check into it, though.”
“Mick, how do we know it was anything about Chicago at all? Maybe it was something to do with, I dunno, Egyptian astrology. Or a thousand other things.”
