“I wouldn’t ask you to,” said Giselle.
“But I can help set up a trap.”
“Really?” said Bayliss hopefully.
“When this is over we’ll come up with something.”
“Thanks. That would be great.”
“You have any pilfering down in your department, doc?” said Morty.
Never.
“How would you handle it?”
Lupinsky held up one of his metal tentacles, opened and closed the metal claw at the end a couple of times with a menacing clank. The cat on-screen hissed.
“That would do it,” said Coop.
Thank you.
“Phil says hi, by the way,” said Bayliss.
“Tell him hi back. How’s he working out as a partner?”
“He’s chatty.”
“Yeah. That’s him.”
“I think it’s because he gets bored. Even I find following people and collating background information less than thrilling sometimes. I think he misses things like this tonight.”
“Come to a few more sessions and maybe we can get you on the crook squad, right, Coop?” said Giselle.
“First we have to catch your crook. Then we’ll see about making you one.”
Bayliss nodded. “First steps,” she said.
“Exactly.”
What about me?
The cat on Dr. Lupinsky’s screen hopped around and purred.
“It’s like I said, doc. The body is a problem. If they could make you a thousand pounds lighter, maybe then.”
I’ll see what I can do.
“Coop, help me clear up the food and we’ll get dessert,” said Giselle.
“What did you get?” said Morty.
“Pork ice cream.”
“You’re kidding,” said Coop.
“Do you want fried or steamed?”
“Ha ha. That’s hilarious. You’re hilarious.”
“You can tell it’s love because he believes everything she says,” said Morty.
“That’s sweet,” said Bayliss.
“It’s not sweet. It’s diabolical,” said Coop. “You’re a man of the world, doc. Am I right?”
I haven’t eaten food in over thirty years. I’d kill for pork ice cream.
No one said anything for a minute.
“If they make you a new body, you might get them to work on that, too,” said Coop.
No shit.
9
At four a.m. Sunday morning, Coop, Giselle, and Morty sat in a DOPS van at the curb outside the museum. In the empty parking lot, a few lights illuminated the carless rows and there was a dim glow coming from the lobby.
“Is that that gizmo of yours going to work?” said Coop.
Giselle held up a device that looked like a television remote. It had two buttons: on and off.
“It’s never failed yet.”
“Then let’s get rolling.”
Giselle hit the off button. Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then the parking-lot lights began to flicker. A few seconds later, lights began to explode. Neatly, row upon row into the distance, lights blew, scattering glass all over the parking lot. Lights flickered on and off in the museum lobby and, finally, they, too, went out.
Giselle shook the device. “I might have had it turned up too high.”
“It looked okay to me,” said Morty, smiling.
“Yeah. That was kind of fun,” said Coop. “You ought to keep it. We can use it on the frat boys down the street when they invite friends over for beer pong in the middle of the night.”
“Now, now. You were young once.”
“No, he wasn’t,” said Morty. “When other kids had paper routes, Coop was stealing newspaper vans and selling the papers to the delivery boys at half price.”
“That’s my little entrepreneur,” said Giselle.
“It beat bagging groceries,” said Coop.
Giselle looked at her watch. “Do you think the guards are suitably confused yet?”
“I think we’re good,” said Coop. He pointed to the back of the museum. “Why don’t you pull us around to the dock?”
Giselle eased the van around the broken glass in the lot until she reached the back of the museum.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go inside with you?”
“Morty and me should be fine. And if that gizmo of yours doesn’t work and the lights come on, you’re our getaway driver.”
“I always wanted to race at Le Mans,” she said. “Good luck, you two.”
“Thanks,” said Morty.
“See you soon,” said Coop.
The moment they were out of the van, Morty ran to a box mounted on the wall at the back of the museum. He barely touched the lock and the box sprung open. With a pair of wire cutters, he began snipping away at the phone lines.
“You done yet?” said Coop.
“Yeah,” said Morty. “Next time let’s break in somewhere with a little class. This is too easy.”
“I know what you mean. Got your night-vision goggles?”
“Yep.”
“Then let’s open-sesame this place and get going.”
Morty went up the short flight of stairs to a door on the dock. Again, he touched the lock, and with a quiet click, it opened. He and Coop went inside and quickly made their way through the dock to the museum’s inner door. The night-vision goggles worked flawlessly, lighting up the room in a bright green glow.
Having memorized the blueprints, Morty led the way from the back of the museum to the mummy exhibition. The room was even more impressive in the dark, thought Coop. Like Halloween haunted-house mazes he’d gone through as a kid.
“This is how they could bring in the tourists,” he whispered to Morty. “Go for a House on Haunted Hill thing.”
“Yeah. The junior-high-field-trip bit doesn’t do the place justice. Should we leave a note in the suggestion box?”
“I’ll send them a valentine.”
“Bayliss is right. You’re a sweet boy.”
“Shut up and help me steal something.”
Guards’ voices echoed around the museum as they called to each other. Coop and Morty went out onto the museum floor and looked around the corner. Flashlight beams panned around the lobby.
“I guess Giselle’s box doesn’t work on those,” said Morty.
Coop reached into the bag slung around his shoulder. “I knew that thing wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” He took out a couple of what looked like black golf balls. “Let’s see if these things are any better.”
He squeezed each one and threw them in different directions. As the balls bounced away, they crackled and whistled. Blinking lights strobed and buzzed. The guards’ flashlight beams followed the sounds. There was more shouting as the guards ran in all directions, trying to find the source of the noise.
“Nice,” said Morty.
“Yeah. But let’s get moving in case those things crap out, too.”
“Always so cynical.”
“Not cynical. Scared. It’s a good instinct around possibly armed rent-a-cops.”
“Good point.”
They quickly made their way back to the exhibit room and went to the sarcophagus. From a small backpack, Morty unfolded the bodyboard and set it on the floor. He and Coop got on opposite sides of Harkhuf and slowly slid their hands underneath him. In the distance, guards were shouting to each other.
“On three,” said Coop.
Morty nodded.
“One . . . two . . . three . . .” They lifted. Harkhuf didn’t budge. They lifted again, but Harkhuf refused to move. Coop looked over the edge of the sarcophagus.
“There’s things on his wrists and ankles,” he said. “Got your knife?”
“Of course.”
“Let’s cut him out. I don’t know how long those bouncing balls last.”
They reached into the case and slit through the wax seals with the pictures of Anubis and Set. Once they did, Harkhuf lifted easily. They set him carefully on the board
and Morty started to raise his end. Coop held up a finger. He took something else out of his shoulder bag and set it in the sarcophagus. Morty looked down into the case. It was the mummy snow globe Coop had bought at the museum store.
“You mean, mean man,” said Morty, grinning.
“It’s like those penny trays at checkout counters.”
“Take a mummy, leave a mummy.”
“Exactly.”
Morty looked around the room. “What do think? Do we take anything else? Just for fun?”
“I thought about that. The doc said some of this stuff is fake. What if we stole junk? Then we’d be as third rate as these guys.”
“You’re right. Forget it.”
They picked up the board and headed out the back. The guards were still chasing the golf balls.
“Are we really doing this?” said Morty. “Is it this easy?”
“Spooky, isn’t it?” said Coop.
They made their way through the loading dock, out the door, and down the stairs. Coop knocked on the side of the van. Giselle stared at him through the window. She rolled it down and said, “What went wrong?”
“Nothing,” said Coop. “We’ve got him right here.”
“You’re done already?”
“That’s what I said,” said Morty.
Giselle hit the button that opened the back of the van and extended the ramp. They took Harkhuf inside and set him on the floor. Morty stayed in the back keeping an eye on the mummy while Coop got into the passenger seat. Giselle started the van, made a U-turn, and they sped away. When they reached the edge of the lot, she hit the on button on the little box. A few streetlamps flickered on in the parking lot, while others blew sparks into the night sky. Lights came on in the museum, but they were already on the street, heading back to DOPS headquarters.
Coop and Giselle grinned at each other.
“Is there any beer left at home?” he said.
“Tons.”
Morty moved up from the back and crouched between the seats. “I guess Woolrich was right for once,” he said. “This was an easy job.”
“I told you it was going to be all right,” said Giselle.
“Yeah. Woolrich has always been really nice to me,” Morty said.
“He hates me,” said Coop.
“He doesn’t hate you,” said Giselle. “He just isn’t used to your particular charms yet.”
He shook his head. “Story of my life. Let’s drop off the stiff and get drunk.”
“Best plan I’ve heard all week,” said Morty.
From the back came a sound like a low groan.
“What was that?” said Giselle.
“When we get back, we should tell the garage that this thing needs a tune-up,” said Coop.
“Can you imagine if we stalled out with that thing in the back?”
“I can’t think of anything worse,” said Morty.
From the back of the van, something groaned again.
10
“Did you get the memo?” said Vargas.
“What memo?” said Zulawski.
“Any memo! I haven’t seen a single one in weeks.”
“I’m sure you’re exaggerating.”
“Am I? When was the last time you got one?”
“Well . . .” said Zulawski. “I’m sure it hasn’t been weeks. Let me go and see.”
“Yes, you do that,” said Vargas, a slight hint of contempt in his voice.
Vargas and Zulawski worked the late shift collecting, cataloging, and occasionally giving ultra-top-level people access to some of the most mysterious and dangerous objects in the DOPS archives. They were known as the Inscrutabilis Unit, a group so secret that its full name—the Extra-Confidential Inscrutabilis Unit—was even more secret, so that if someone happened to stumble on the office they’d have no idea just how secret it was. However, being so unbelievably secret, the ECIU often felt forgotten, which didn’t really make sense because how can anyone forget something they never knew about in the first place? Still, the ECIU wasn’t known for its high morale, and because it was so secret, none of its employees were allowed to speak to a DOPS psychiatrist or participate in softball, merengue lessons, the office pet program, or any of the other morale-building activities the DOPS offered. In short, the ECIU was the most miserable, lonely, and forlorn department in an organization that prided itself on being able to make even the most hopeless job worse by following the motto Obscurity, Perplexity, Tuna Fish, the phrase, in itself, designed to make anyone contemplating it for too long feel woozy and feverish.
“Anything?” said Vargas.
“I’m still looking,” said Zulawski.
Vargas tapped a pencil on his desk. No one in the ECIU was allowed to use a pen because objects in the archive occasionally turned ink sentient and vicious. They’d lost more than one unit member to a stray grocery list forgotten in a pocket.
“Take your time. You’re just proving my point.”
“Aha!” shouted Zulawski. “I found one.”
“Let me see,” said Vargas.
Zulawski marched over to Vargas and tossed a pencil-scrawled note onto his desk. “Convinced now?”
Vargas picked up the memo, gave it a quick glance, and tossed it back on his desk. “That’s two months old.”
“Really?” said Zulawski. “I thought it was more recent.”
“Wishful thinking. I’m telling you. They’ve finally, completely forgotten us.”
Zulawski picked up the memo and stared at it. Vargas was right. It was two months old. He went back to his in-box and pawed through the papers. “This one is from last week. I think,” he said. He handed it to Vargas for confirmation.
Vargas read the memo with great suspicion. He was certain that Zulawski wasn’t above planting a piece of correspondence in his in-box, just to prove him wrong. He also suspected Zulawski of dulling his pencils when he wasn’t looking, overwatering his fern, and being the magician who put the crusts back on the sandwiches he brought from home that he was absolutely certain he’d cut the crusts off of. Some nights, Vargas wondered if he might be going a little mad, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it. Madness in the ECIU was also classified and, rumor had it, could result in a promotion to ECIU management, which was supposed to be even worse than his current position. It was easier and safer to continue blaming Zulawski for any unexplainable occurrences in the office.
Vargas read the correspondence over twice. Indeed, it was dated from the previous week. “Congratulations. They approved your requisition for more size-six erasers. You must be so proud.”
Zulawski snatched the memo off Vargas’s desk. “Well, it’s something. And it proves you’re wrong. They haven’t forgotten us.”
“I’m coming to terms with the obvious reality that we’ve fallen completely off the books, while you seem extremely invested in the idea that we haven’t. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
Zulawski put the memo back in his in-box. “It’s nothing you don’t already know about. It’s because of the parcel.”
Vargas went rigid for a second. “I thought we agreed not to talk about that.”
“But that’s the problem. We need to talk about it. We have to do something about it. Something with it.”
“No, we don’t. We don’t have to do a single thing.”
Zulawski looked around, then whispered, “I’m afraid of it.”
“You think I’m not?” said Vargas. “It’s ghastly. I don’t want to know it exists, let alone that it exists in this office.”
Zulawski looked at a set of gray metal shelves not unlike the gray metal shelves you’d find in any storeroom anywhere. The parcel, a simple flat rectangle wrapped in butcher paper, lay ominously atop the nearest set of shelves.
“It’s like it’s watching us,” Zulawski said.
“It’s not watching us,” said Vargas. “You’re being paranoid.”
“Do you think it knows we’re talking about it?”
Vargas e
xperienced one of the brief episodes where he doubted his sanity. They never lasted long, but they were coming more frequently. But he couldn’t let Zulawski know this for fear of management training.
“It’s just a thing. A thing in a box,” he said. “A hideous, awful, evil thing, but still just a thing.”
“It scares me,” said Zulawski.
“You already said that.”
“It doesn’t scare you?”
“I already told you it did!”
“Sorry. I’m just . . . Should we do something about it? Maybe hide it. Pretend we don’t know anything about it.”
Vargas picked up his pencil and examined the point. It was still sharp. For now. “What if someone who knows we have it comes looking for it. What then?”
“We can worry about that when we have to,” said Zulawski.
“Too late. I’m already worried just talking about it.”
“What if it’s why we don’t get messages anymore?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Vargas.
Zulawski picked up a stepladder. “I’m hiding it.”
As Zulawski carried the ladder to the shelves, Vargas grew suspicious again. “Why are you so obsessed with the parcel all of a sudden? I know there’s something you’re not telling me.”
Zulawski’s stopped in midstride. He put down the ladder and sat on top. “It’s my birthday. I haven’t received a single card, not even from management. And they always send a little something.”
“It’s your birthday? Since when?”
“Since yesterday.”
“How come I don’t know anything about it?” said Vargas.
Zulawski jumped up from the ladder. “You say that every year! ‘How come I don’t know about it?’ How do you not know about it? It happens every year on the same day.”
“Don’t get so upset. I’m sure you don’t know my birthday either.”
“June seventeenth. I gave you a card with a cat on the front. It said ‘I’m pawsing to wish you a happy birthday.’”
“Oh yes. I sort of remember that,” said Vargas. “Sorry. Happy birthday.”
“Thank you,” said Zulawski.
The more Vargas thought about it, the clearer the memory of the card became. Which began to make him suspicious again. How could he be sure his birthday was really June seventeenth? It could be a trick. If Zulawski was magician enough to make the crusts on Vargas’s sandwiches reappear after he knew he’d cut them off, maybe he could change his birthday. Or maybe make him remember the wrong birthday. Vargas became determined to keep an even closer watch on his office mate.