The Mammoth Book of the Mummy

by Paula Guran

  “Miss Smith!” he shouted. I stopped, blinked one, two, three times, all kewpie-doll like, gave him the big dewy green eyes, and watched him deflate. His tone was gentler when he said, “Minnie, honey, we don’t deal with jewelry, at least not ordinary jewelry.”

  “Oh,” I flustered. “I’m so terribly embarrassed, Mr Constantine. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

  “Not to worry, honey. Try Maxferd’s Jewelry over on Market. Ask for Ferd Wolfson, tell him I sent you. He won’t try to take advantage of you or anything.”

  I stood, leaned over the desk and shook his hand like I was pumping for oil. “Thank you for your kindness, Mr Constantine, sir.”

  “That’s not a problem, honey.”

  “Just out of curiosity, what kind of items do you deal in?” I asked in hushed tones, ’cause that always makes men imagine they’re in bed with you; the perfect means of disarming almost every male with a pulse.

  “Well, Minnie, we call it ‘esoterica.’ Specialized stuff, nothing to worry your pretty little head about.” He guffawed, thinking we were friends, and I giggled and thought about how much I’d like to kick him in the crotch with my steel-capped Mary Janes.

  “Well, goodbye, Mr Constantine.”

  “Bye, Minnie.”

  I barely breathed until I got outside, around the corner, and found a phone booth. Mrs Kolchak was going to be impressed, as well she should be: it was a fast result, even for me. I’d done what she’d hired me to do, and I wasn’t about to give up the ten grand—but I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something else going on and it wasn’t a good something. So after I spoke with my very happy client, I made another call, to a somewhat less happy police detective, shared some information (though not all), and rashly agreed to meet him for dinner.

  While I waited for Detective Murphy—who was late—at a corner table in Cæsar’s, I went to town on the bread and butter because my stomach was still a little displeased. I’d gone to a lot of trouble with my appearance—more curl in my hair than usual, deep-cut purple shantung dress with wrap skirt and shawl collar, pretty but impractical kitten-heel mules, a teeny silk clutch just big enough for my keys, lipstick, and some cash and coin—but none of that mattered if I looked green around the gills. The dinner rolls formed a calming raft, but I couldn’t avoid thinking about the body in the apartment when I saw how many menu items involved marinara sauce.

  “Miss Donnelly?” The waiter had crept up on me. In his hand was a chunky black phone he’d dragged across from the front counter on a very long cord. “A call for you.”

  Well, if that doesn’t make a girl feel special nothing will. I waited until he’d departed. “Hello?”

  “Evie, I’ve got a problem here.” Though Detective Murphy’s tone was even, he sounded strained, as if folks were listening on his end and he was remaining polite for the sake of appearances.

  “What kind of a problem?”

  “Well, that Mr Constantine you mentioned is somewhat dead and his files have been somewhat burned in his wastepaper basket.”

  “Oh. When you say ‘somewhat’ . . . ?”

  “Damn it, Evie!”

  “Look, I’m sorry, Liam. If the photos are gone, then I don’t know—”

  “That’s the least of my concerns. Constantine is deceased in the same way as the victim in that apartment.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, is there anything else you want to tell me?”

  I thought fast. Secrets weren’t worth more lives. “A woman called Izolda Kolchak hired me to get the name of the buyer of a particular lot at Conville-Iredale.”

  “Kindly share that information with me.”

  I did so; I might even have gone home, tail between my legs, except he finished the call with, “Right. Now stay outta this, Evie.”

  Which, of course, was the dumbest thing he could have said.

  When the taxi pulled up at the wrought-iron gates, the driver asked me three times if I was sure this was where I wanted to be. Three times I said yes, each time with less conviction. I gave him a good tip for his trouble. Watching the tail lights disappear into the darkness, I wanted to run after him. Instead, I headed purposefully toward the gray metal intercom box. It’d be hours before Liam was free; with any luck I could begin tidying up my own mess, then find him back at the auction house, and we’d work out a plan together.

  The twelve-foot-high fence with spikes on each railing seemed a little extreme for an estate hidden away in the hills, but what did I know? I could see the Italianate mansion from where I stood and Abel Mannheim’s place put the palace in palatial. Out front was a fountain complete with gamboling copper nymphs pouring water from urns, surrounded by a drive of bronze tiles that reflected the spotlights on the eaves of the building. The entire house was lit up like a ship at sea; an enormous three-storied affair in sandstone ranging from dark ochre to pale pink. Three wings hugged a colonnaded courtyard scattered with flowering trees, benches, and sculptures of mythological figures.

  I jabbed at the buzzer, which was answered quickly by someone I assumed was the butler. He was very polite, but really didn’t want to let me talk to his boss. I dropped the names Conville-Iredale and Constantine, and mentioned Lot 22, then waited patiently while he checked to see if Mr Mannheim was available. Not long after, there was a clicking sound and a small person-sized gate I’d not noticed opened in the fence.

  My shoes were built for dining, not long walks up driveways, and a blister had budded on my left big toe by the time I reached the front door.

  A tall dark-haired man was silhouetted at the entrance, the interior light making a kind of halo behind him. When he stepped aside so I could come in, I saw he was wearing a red polo shirt and khaki trousers with creases so sharp you could cut yourself. Probably not the butler.

  “Mr Mannheim?”

  He nodded and smiled. “My man didn’t get your name, Miss . . . ?”

  “Donnelly. Evie Donnelly.”

  A strange expression shimmied across his face and he said, “Oh.”

  I raised a brow.

  He was handsome in a kind of toothy way, which was fine if you didn’t mind feeling as if you might get bitten at any moment. “How can I help you?”

  “Well, it’s more how I can help you, Mr Mannheim.” He took my arm and led me through a foyer lit by an enormous chandelier, with taxidermied tigers and bears guarding the walls, and marble floor tiles in the shape of the Eye of Horus. If that wasn’t sign enough Mr Mannheim was a follower, then the tattooed falcon with the Double Crown of Ancient Egypt on his right wrist was.

  The sheer opulence was overwhelming and I was in danger of whiplash, trying to take everything in. It wasn’t just the furniture, which probably once belonged to one of the French kings named Louis, or the paintings that sedately whispered, “Old Masters.” It was the antiquities: statues and vases, scrolls and mosaics, jewelry and busts, weapons and armor that might have been Roman, some Greek, some Egyptian, some Persian. Mannheim noticed my interest and began a docent’s patter.

  “This breastplate belonged to Alexander the Great, that necklace to Nefertiti, this helmet was worn by Leonidas at the Battle of Thermopylae, Artemisia commissioned that sculpture.”

  We finally wound up in a room deep in the heart of the building, a cross between museum and library, books lining the walls, glass cases on shelves and tables filled with all manner of relics, curios, and fragments of the past. Mannheim gestured to the red velvet sofas and offered me a drink, which I declined, even though I felt in need.

  “This is an amazing collection, sir, but I’m not here for a tour. I think you might be in danger.” He laughed and, though it wasn’t a pleasant sound, I continued, “You bought something from Conville-Iredale.”

  He nodded, giving nothing away.

  “Four canopic jars, I believe. I have to tell you that, firstly, someone has shown an interest in that purchase, and secondly, Mr Constantine has recently become deceased in a very bad way.”

>   “Are those two facts connected?”

  “I fear so”

  “And this interested party would be?”

  “Izolda Kolchak.”

  He gave a brief smile. “A parvenu if ever there was one. She’s only been on the scene for a couple of months.”

  “She’s not a follower, then?”

  “Oh, she claims to be but never flies her colors. It’s very important among people of position to let peers know where you—and they—stand. Mrs Kolchak married her money and, I believe, came to her ‘faith’ by way of convenience, Miss Donnelly.”

  “That’s as may be, but she hired me to find out who bought Lot Twenty-two and I gave her your name. I’m so sorry, Mr Mannheim, but—”

  “You think I’m in danger? From that chippie?” He shook his head, laughing hard. “Miss Donnelly, you’re adorable. This place is laden with alarm systems. I have a staff of twenty. At the slightest peep, the police and a particularly heavy-handed private security firm will be on their way. I know there have been a number of artifact thefts among my circle recently—even Queen Tera’s great ruby gem was reportedly stolen—but I and my collection are perfectly safe.”

  He was an idiot, but I’d found that speaking my mind to a particular kind of man to be counterproductive. Instead I smiled brightly and leaned forward. “Do tell me, Mr Mannheim, what’s so special about these jam jars?”

  He swept a hand toward something I’d missed: four alabaster vessels with gold heads, all lined up on a display table cut from a silky oak burl. Some private investigator.

  “These,” he said, “are reputedly the canopic urns of the last Petsuchos of Shedet.”

  “And who’s that when he’s at home?”

  “The earthly incarnation of the voracious crocodile god Sobek, the embodiment of the pharaoh’s warlike spirit—I believe its mummy is on display in the Memorial Museum.”

  “And inside those . . . ?”

  “The jackal has the stomach, the falcon the intestines, the human the liver and the baboon the lungs—all the things necessary for the journey to the afterlife.”

  “Not the heart, though, not the brains.”

  “No, the heart stays in the body so it may be weighed by the goddess Maat. The brain is irrelevant.”

  I wondered whether the corpse in the apartment had been missing his liver. “Mr Mannheim, you recognized my name. Why?”

  “There’s a man, a moneyed thug, who hangs on the edges of the community to which I belong. He’s been trying to slither up the social ladder. Louis Jones drops your name every chance he gets to those who need something found, those he thinks useful to have in his debt.”

  Louis Jones, aka Louie the Louse, my brother-in-law. The biggest mistake I ever made was agreeing to work for him back in the day, the second biggest was introducing him to my sister. Mamie—who I love to death, but is not the sharpest knife in the picnic set—thought he was exciting. He threw money around. She got pregnant, they got married, and she got hit every second Sunday for five years until he turned on their daughter, and Mamie realized enough was enough.

  Louie.

  That asshole.

  “I suppose someone new in town like Izolda Kolchak would have been the perfect target for him?”

  He shrugged. “I couldn’t say one way or the other.”

  But I could, and I was pretty sure Louis Jones was the guy ruining the rug in that apartment across from my office. I didn’t know what he’d been doing there—maybe watching to see if I led him to Mamie—or maybe it was just one of the places he rented for his “girlfriends” who could be other men’s girlfriends for a fee. Louie’s demise solved more than a few problems for me and mine. Whatever had happened to him, he’d earned. I thought of Mrs Kolchak standing at my office window, looking out. “Mr Mannheim, I really think—”

  The shrieking of an alarm cut me off, and my host leapt up.

  “Stay here,” he commanded, and I let him think I was an obedient girl.

  As soon as he left the room I shot over to the urns. I couldn’t carry all four so I grabbed the nearest one, which—even alone—was awkward and heavy, and tucked it under my arm. Already I could hear footsteps thundering along corridors and up and down staircases. I didn’t know exactly what was happening, but I knew I’d had a hand in getting things rolling. Conscience is a great motivator and I felt more than a little guilty, so I wasn’t planning on making it easy for whoever—or whatever—was looking for these things.

  Elsewhere in the house were the sounds of breaking glass, gunfire, and a whole lot of screaming. I kicked off my pretty party shoes and left them where they lay so I only had to manage my purse and the jar, and fled through a door at the back of the library. It led along a labyrinth of paneled hallways with doors that—if opened—would no doubt reveal luxurious rooms. I passed the glass doors of a greenhouse evidently devoted entirely to orchids just before I reached an enormous kitchen, with an exit into the cool air. I headed out through the manicured gardens and stuck close to the perimeter fence, circling toward the front gates, which hung loosely from their hinges as if they’d been blown apart. After waiting to see if anyone was on lookout, I’d tiptoed onto the still-warm asphalt.

  Barefoot and terrified I did my best to disappear into the night.

  I managed to hitch a ride back into town with an old guy in a truck who was kind enough to drop me near Jessie Street. Imagine my surprise to find Conville-Iredale in darkness, no sign of cops or coroners, and certainly no sign of Detective Murphy, which definitely put a crimp in things. I scrounged up change and called the police station from the phone booth around the corner. Tommy Maloney answered; he’d had a soft spot for me ever since I had, in a triumph of investigatory genius, found his mother’s beagle two years ago.

  “Hey, Sarge.”

  “Evie Donnelly, as I live and breathe. What mischief are you up to?”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m looking for Detective Murphy. Any sign?”

  “Naw, honey. The boys said he was going to interview some woman, weird name, a coupla hours ago.”

  “Izolda Kolchak?”

  “That’s the one. You wanna leave a message?”

  “No, it’s okay. You take care, Sarge.”

  “You too, Evie.”

  Well, that tore it.

  I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t go to my office. But I still had a key to Murphy’s apartment, and a fugitive with naked feet and a priceless funeral urn can’t be too choosy. I needed a place to think and regroup.

  The one-bedder was tidy and comfortable, but the bowl of wizened apples on the counter bore witness to how little the detective had been home lately. And it was empty, dashing any hope I had of finding Liam there, safe and sound. I helped myself to a whiskey and a bowl of cereal, then curled up on the old brown couch to contemplate the jar.

  I’d souvenired the human-headed one, so I was in possession of a crocodile’s liver. I figured a two-thousand-year-old liver was likely even more shrunken than the neglected apples. The lid was sealed with ancient wax, which felt brittle beneath my fingers, nothing like the smoothness of the candles I knew were in the kitchen cupboard in case of a blackout. I put the canopic container back on the coffee table and pondered.

  Was it too much to hope that Izolda Kolchak had nothing to do with recent events?

  That all of this was a coincidence?

  Probably.

  Definitely.

  If she didn’t, as Mannheim claimed, fly her colors, was it because she had something planned she didn’t want anyone to know about? What if Mannheim had bought Lot 22 as much to keep it away from Kolchak as for the joy of collecting? What if she’d been behind the other thefts he’d mentioned? Was there a method, a pattern to what was taken? Were some robberies just distractions from the real goal?

  While I thought, I helped myself to some of Liam’s clothing. The trousers were a little long, the shirt a little snug, and the jacket didn’t button over my busty substances, but I found a pair of my o
ld Mary Janes in the back of the closet. Then I made the call.

  She picked up on the first ring, as if she’d been expecting me.

  “Good evening, Mrs Kolchak.”

  “Well, hello, Miss Donnelly. You’ve been busy.” Her diamond tones could have cut glass.

  “I could say the same for you. Whatever did Mr Constantine do to deserve that?”

  “Once you’d charmed the information from him he had no further use, and I’m not above punishing those who get in my way.”

  “Did Louis Jones get in your way, too?”

  “Horrible man, you should thank me. Claimed to be your brother-in-law.”

  “Alas, it’s one of the few truths he’s ever told.”

  “How unfortunate. Now, I’ve got something of yours. I believe you’ve got something of mine.”

  “Let me guess: we’ll swap, then you’ll let me walk away.”

  “What would it profit me to do otherwise?”

  “I got in your way.”

  “That’s very true,” she answered. “Nevertheless, I don’t see how you’ve got any choice.”

  Much though I hated to admit it, she was right.

  Leaving Liam had been the hardest thing I’d ever done, but my family connection to Louie the Louse meant I had no hope of a future with a detective—or at least not one as clean and straight down the line as Murphy. Liam and I had argued back and forth: I told him I’d be a black mark on his record, he’d come to resent me; he’d denied it, swore it wouldn’t happen. But the thing that had finished me was Louie telling me he wanted a cop on his payroll, that he could use me for leverage with my boyfriend. I’m not easily usable, but I figured whatever Louie’s scheme was, it would wind up getting an honest cop who I happened to love hurt or worse. So I’d broken off with Liam.

  But I wasn’t going to leave him to die.

  “Where shall we meet, Mrs Kolchak?”

  “Why, the Memorial Museum, of course. Just let yourself in, the doors will be unlocked. Don’t forget to bring your part of the bargain, Miss Donnelly, and don’t interfere with it—I promise you I’ll know.”

  I hung up. Part of that was probably a bluff. I was happy to call it a little.