Stories (2011) (112 page)

And then Richard heard the great windows rattling like knucklebones
in a plastic cup. He glanced out of the corner of his eye. The hurricane was
raging. It was like the house was in a mixer. The glass cracked open in a
couple of spots and rain blew in.

"None of that matters," Peak said. "This is
the storm that matters." He moved toward Richard. The side of his head
leaking blood, one of his eyes starting to close.

Richard thought,
Okay, I do better when I don’t play his
game. I’ll look as if I’m going to play his game, then I won’t.
Then
suddenly he remembered the ray. How it had leaped out of the water and flicked
its tail. It was an image that came to him, and then he knew what to do. The
ray’s tail reminded him of a flying reverse heel kick. In a real fight, the
jump kick wasn’t something you actually used much. No matter what the movies
showed, you tried to stay on the ground, and you kicked low, and Peak would
know that. He would know it so strongly he might not expect what Richard could
do.

Richard threw a low front kick off the front leg, followed
with a jab as he closed, followed with a reverse punch, and then he threw his
back leg forward, as if about to execute a leaping knee, but he used the knee
to launch himself, twisted hard, took to the air, whipped his back leg around
into a jump heel kick, whipped it hard and fast the way the ray had whipped its
tail.

He caught Peak on the side of the head, above the temple,
felt the bones in Peak’s skull give way to his heel. Peak fell sideways like a
dipping second hand, hit the floor.

As Richard stepped in and kicked Peak with all he had in the
throat, the windows blew in and shards of glass hit Richard, and a wall of
water took the room and all its occupants, carried them through the other wall
as if it were wet cardboard. Richard felt a blow to his head, a timber striking
him, and then the water carried him away and everything was dark. 

When Richard awoke he was in darkness, and he was choking to
death. He was in the sea. Under it. He swam up, hard, but he couldn’t seem to
make it. The water kept pushing him down. He continued kicking, fighting, and
finally, when he thought his lungs would explode, he broke up and got a gulp of
air and went under again. But not so far this time. A long, dark, beam of wood
hit him in the head, and he got hold of it. It had been an overhead beam in the
gym. It was thick, but it floated just fine. He realized the storm had struck
and moved on, like a hit-and-run driver, leaving in its wake stormy seas, but
an oddly clear sky lit up by a cool, full moon that looked like a smudgy
spotlight.

Richard looked down the length of the beam and shuddered.
The beam had broken off to a point down there, and the point was stuck through
Margo’s chest, dead center, had her pinned like an insect to a mounting board.
Her head was nodding to one side, and as the water jumped and the wind lashed,
her head rolled on her neck as if on a ball bearing, rolled way too far and
high to the left, then back to the right. It was like one of those bobbing, toy
dog heads you see in the back of cars. Her tongue hung out of her mouth as if
trying to lick the last drop of something sweet. Her hair was washed back from
her bruised face. A shard of glass was punched deep into her cheek. Her arms
washed back and forth and up and down, as if she might be frantically signaling.

The beam rolled and Richard rolled with it. When he came out
of the water and got a grip on it again, Margo’s head was under the waves and
her legs were sticking up, spread wide, bent at the knees, flopping, showing
her panties to the moonlight.

Richard looked for the island, but didn’t see it. The waves
were too high and choppy. Maybe the damn island was underwater. Maybe he was
washed way away from it. He had probably gone down below and fought his way up
a dozen times, but just didn’t remember. All reflex action. God, he hated the
sea.

And then he saw Peak. Peak was clinging to a door. He was
hanging on the door with one hand, gripping the doorknob. The door was tilted
toward him, and Peak looked weak. His other arm hung by his side, floated and
thrashed in the water, obviously broken. He didn’t see Richard. His back was to
him. He was about ten feet away. Or he was every few seconds. Waves would wash
him a little farther away, then bring him back.

Richard timed it. When the waves washed Peak away, Richard
let go of the beam and swam toward him, then when the waves washed him back,
Richard was there. He came up behind Peak, slipped an arm around Peak’s neck,
and used his other to tighten the choke. It was the kind of choke that cut the
blood off to the brain, didn’t affect the wind.

Peak tried to hang on to the door, but he let go to grab
Richard’s arm. The waves took them under, but still Richard clung. They washed
up into the moonlight and Richard rolled onto his back, keeping Peak on top of
him. He held his head out of the water with effort. Peak’s hand fluttered
weakly against Richard’s arm.

"You know what Hemingway said about death,"
Richard said. "That it’s a gift. Well, I give it to you."

In a moment, Peak’s hand no longer fluttered, and Richard
let him go. Peak went directly beneath the waves and out of sight.

Richard swam, got on top of the door, clung to the knob, and
bucked with the waves. He looked for the beam with Margo on it. He spotted it
far out, on the rise of a wave, Margo’s legs dangling like a broken peace
symbol. The beam rolled and Margo’s head came up, then it rolled again, went
down into a valley of waves and out of sight. Nearby, Richard saw the check
Peak had written ride up on a wavelike a little flat fish, shine for a moment
in the moonlight, then go down, and not come up.

Richard laughed. He no longer felt frightened of the sea, of
anything. The waves rolled over him with great pressure, the door cracked and
shifted, started to break up, then the knob came away in his hand.

Nayland Jones wondered, as he picked his way through the
Cairo streets, if he was wearing the proper clothes for purchasing a mummy. He
felt certain that he looked like an escapee from one of those sweat-and-gin
movies that Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Humphrey Bogart had appeared in
so often. He was even wearing a pith helmet, the crowning touch to his uniform.

Through the
Muski
he strolled, long legs carrying him
over streets mercilessly baked and cracked by the sun. Past peddlers, beggars
and merchants.

One beggar squatted at the edge of the street, his back
against a crumbly clay wall. As Nayland passed, the beggar plucked his milky
dead eyeball from its socket, let it descend on well-worn tendons and dangle on
his cheek. It looked like some sort of long-tentacled jellyfish reaching out
and groping for the edge of a small, dark cavern, preparing to pull itself up
into the black interior.

The beggar held out a hard, dirty palm.

More out of disgust than charity, Nayland put a coin in the beggar’s
palm. The beggar put the coin in his pouch, and his eye in its socket.

Nayland thought: "Disgusting country." He
remembered what he had been told about such beggars. From birth the man had
probably been prepared for his "profession." He had been taught to
massage the eyeball daily, until the sight died and it became nothing more than
a rubbery pulp that could be pulled from its socket and dangled on the cheek at
will.

Nayland shivered. The whole country was full of crazies.
Civilization had touched the place, but just barely. It was still a country of
backward savages as far as he was concerned.

But he hadn’t come to Cairo to study the people. He had come
to purchase items for his unusual collection. Already he had compiled such rare
things as a supposed Yeti’s scalp from Tibet; shrunken heads from the wilds of
New Guinea; spears and shields from Africa; and a number of other rare
articles.

He kept all of these locked away in his private museum for
his own personal pleasure. No one was allowed to see his goodies. They were his
and his alone. And at night, he gloated over them.

But one thing of importance was missing from his collection:
a mummy. Well, he intended to remedy that. He had obtained a very substantial
lead concerning a man who would sell him a mummy–a mummy from a Pharaoh’s tomb.

The address he was seeking was off the main street–what was
main about the street, Nayland failed to see–and down a dark alley bordered by
leaning buildings that cast shadows on the cobbles below.

Nayland didn’t like the idea of the dark doorways that
bordered the alley on either side like hungry mouths, but he was determined to
get his mummy.

He walked along the alleyway counting doors. He was looking
for the fifteenth on the right. On either side of him, partially hidden by
shadow, were rows of beggars, cripples, eye-pluckers, and a few (Nayland
couldn’t honestly tell if they were male or female) so infested and pocked with
sores they churned his breakfast, which he nearly lost.

But he came to the fifteenth door and his repulsion faded to
enthusiasm as he entered the dark, foul smelling shop. It contained all manner
of jarred and bagged items; a sort of apothecary shop. But from the looks of
things, Nayland doubted if he’d buy anything for a headache here.

A little man who seemed very much a part of the place
shuffled forward from a corner, hands clasped together, head tilted to one
side. The man’s face was very aged, or perhaps ravaged by some exotic disease.
The flesh looked leathery. No, actually it looked wooden. The little man seemed
to move with great difficulty, as if the old legs were too stiff or the bones
too dry.

"Might I help you," the man said in perfect
English, recognizing Nayland for an American immediately. The little man’s
voice was very deep, as if brought up from the insides of a hollow log.

"Why... why, yes... I was told by a man named Jauhur
that I could find someone here who would sell me... " His voice got very
low as the purchasing of such an item was illegal, "... a mummy."

"That is correct," the little man said. "For
a price," he smiled his blackened stubs, "we can get you almost
anything."

"A mummy for my collection, that will do."

"Yes. Shall we talk money... American dollars?"

"I’m willing to pay a proper price, but not be cheated,
mind you."

"Of course, but a mummy is... shall we say, a rarity.
They are scarce. Most of the tombs have long since been robbed... "

"But you have one for sale?"

The little man nodded his head.

"I would like to see it first, before we discuss
price."

"Very well." The little man turned, shuffled
toward the back of the shop, stopped and beckoned Nayland to follow.

They went through a dark, curtained doorway and into a large
room where half a dozen sarcophagi rested against the wall.

Nayland licked his lips. The little man clutched the corner
of one sarcophagus and opened it. "Inspect, but do not touch too
much," the little man said. "They are fragile, very fragile."

Nayland nodded, unable to speak. He walked carefully to the
case and inspected the wrapped figure inside. The cloth that bound the mummy
was yellowed with age, even black in places.

"If it were unwrapped," the little man warned,
"the air would soon crumble it. It would be advisable to put it in a glass
case of some sort, and never move it or touch it."

"Yes," Nayland said absently. He looked the mummy
up and down, greedily. A mummy for his collection; for him to feast his eyes on
alone. No one would ever know...

Hello!
Nayland thought.
What’s this?

On the left hand of the mummy, where the arms were pulled
across its chest, was a break in the cloth, a slight bulge on the left ring
finger.

Nayland looked over his shoulder at the little man who was
watching him with patient, black, bird eyes.

"Perhaps you would rather be alone," the little
man offered, sensing Nayland’s nervousness.

"Yes... yes, if you don’t mind."

"No problem." The little man turned and shuffled
away.

When Nayland was alone with the mummy, he returned his
attention to the bulge on the mummy’s finger. Perhaps he had found something of
importance, like a ring; a ring of priceless gold and jewels; a ring that had
resided on a dead man’s finger for centuries. If the proprietor became aware of
it, he might drive the price up; if not, Nayland felt certain he could make a
nice purchase. He’d have the mummy for his collection, and the ring to sell for
no telling how much.

Carefully, he reached up and touched the bulge. It was very
hard. He saw through the break in the wrappings that something glinted. Yes, by
golly, he’d found a mummy equipped with a ring. Of course, it could be bone,
nothing more.

Nayland leaned forward and peered at the rent in the
wrapping. Still uncertain, he carefully reached up and began to peel back the
wrappings from a finger, and then he saw it.

Yes, a ring... a... He looked closely. God! No! But there
was no denying it. It was a ring all right, and on it he read: SENIOR, ‘69,
GLADEWATERHIGH SCHOOL.

Nayland, suddenly aware that someone was behind him, turned.

Too late.

Nayland saw the little man s arm and the hatchet descend in
a blur, and then he saw no more.

The hunchback brought Nayland’s nude body out of the
steaming vat of chemicals with a long-handled hook, pulled the corpse onto the
wrapping slab with expert ease.

He was about to begin the wrapping when the little man came
into the smoky chamber.

The hunchback hoped he wasn’t still angry.

The little man said, "I hope you inspected this one,
Kuda. No rings or watches... and remember the one you wrapped still wearing his
glasses? What am I to do with you? We have to sell these mummies to stay in
business. We can’t keep making them out of potential customers just because of
your idiot mistakes."