Mummy Dearest - lanyon Josh (мир книг TXT) 📗

Fraser looked at me with raised brows. I shook my head.

“Two zombies,” Fraser ordered.

I groaned.

“Come on. Live a little.”

“You’re going to have to carry me back to the hotel.”

He grinned. “I’d be happy to.”

By now the rest of the clientele had forgotten us and were back to grousing over their beer and peanuts. We got our drinks and found a little table in the corner.

“Alley-oop.” Fraser knocked his glass against mine.

“That’s a real possibility if I down this.” I took a cautious sip. “Mother of God. What’s in here?”

Fraser held the tall glass up and considered it. “Three kinds of rum, apricot brandy, pineapple juice, papaya juice and a dash of grenadine.”

“Wrong,” said the bartender, who was mopping up a table next to us. “Creme de almond, triple sec, orange juice, sweet and sour mix and rum.”

“That’s not how you make them,” objected Fraser.

“That’s how we make ’em here at the Blue Moon.”

“And where’s my fruit?” Fraser scowled as I kicked him from underneath the table. “What’s your problem?”

“Shut up and drink your drink.”

Fraser shut up and drank his drink.

I’m not a fan of rum drinks, with or without fruit and tiny umbrellas, so I don’t know how it came to be that I ordered a second round just as we were slurping down the dregs of the first.

We had reached the stage where everything was hysterically funny, and as we recounted our mummy-chasing exploits for each other—as though we hadn’t both been there—we kept breaking down as we cracked ourselves up yet again. When Fraser leaned forward to draw on his drink and his straw nearly went up his nose, I all but fell off my chair.

“You weren’t kidding about the weak head for booze.” Fraser laughed, just as though he wasn’t the guy who’d nearly punctured his own frontal lobe. He was laughing with me, though, and that made all the difference. The difference between his reaction and the way Noah would have responded to my foolishness.

However the straw reminded me of mummies with their brains sucked out, and mummies, brainless and otherwise, reminded me of Princess Merneith and the bogus sarcophagus.

“Hey,” I told Fraser earnestly. “There’s something you should know about me and the princess.”

“You’re engaged?”

Under ordinary circumstances that would not have been so side-splittingly comical. Fraser laughed too, but I think it was at how hard I was giggling.

I finally regained control. “Whoa, I am smashed.”

“No way.”

“Yep.”

The jukebox launched into “Monster Mash”.

More laughing. We nearly knocked the table over we were leaning on it so hard. I’m surprised one of those cowboys at the bar didn’t just shoot us on general principles.

The overhead lights flashed on and off.

“Last call,” the bartender informed the room.

“You want another round?” Fraser asked.

“No. You know, Fraser,” I confided. “You could pretty much have your wicked way with me. Now.”

He choked on the last of his zombie and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That is a charming offer, Drew. But I don’t think it would be the gentlemanly thing to do.”

I waved a careless hand. “Fuck gentlemen.”

I thought he might have blanched, but it was hard to tell in the feeble light. “Er, yes we do, but I don’t think most of the other cowpokes in here are of the same persuasion, so you should probably keep your voice down.”

I looked around at the bar where assorted plaid shirts and leather boots and cowboy hats were all crowded together. Come to think of it, this was Matthew Shepard country. A little discretion was probably a good idea.

I nodded gravely. Watching me, his expression grew doubtful.

“Right?”

Just like that, the giggles were back. “Um, that right, kemosabe.”

He did a double take. I regret to say I found that side-splitting as well.

Fraser took charge. “Oh boy. Time for a little fresh air.” He dragged me to my feet and hustled me out the door into the cold night air. Given the looks I was getting, he probably saved my life. Certainly whatever was left of my tattered reputation.

I felt much better after a few deep breaths. Of course, a few breaths after that I couldn’t feel my feet any longer. “God, it’s cold here. How cold is it?”

“Cold. We should get back to the hotel.”

I nodded. “Do you know where the hotel is?”

“I sure do. I’ve got a great head for directions. We’ll go this way.” We started walking. “What were you going to tell me about the princess?”

“Not about the princess.”

“Huh?”

“What I have to tell you isn’t about the princess.” I nearly strolled into a lamppost. “Excuse me,” I told it.

Fraser grabbed my shoulders and maneuvered me to the other side of him, the inside of the sidewalk. “What isn’t about the princess?”

“Huh? Oh. Her sarcophagus.”

He groaned. “What about her sarcophagus?”

“It’s fake.”

He stopped walking. “What do you mean, fake?”

“Fake. Bogus. Phony baloney. Just what I said. If you want my expert opinion, which has been reinforced after sitting through The Mummy again, I think it’s probably a prop from either that film or one of the other early Mummy films.”

Fraser started walking again, though more slowly. I glided along beside him.

“But how could that be?”

I explained how that could be. I explained about the inscription being a quote from the movie. And when he tried to suggest that the movie researchers had simply done their research, I explained about the difference between hieratic and hieroglyphics and how legitimate hieratic script wouldn’t be written left-to-right.

He heard me out without interruption. “So the princess is a fake.”

The cold air, walking, and having to be halfway coherent had sobered me considerably. “Not necessarily. I mean, the mummy really is a mummy. Is it Egyptian? Sixth Dynasty? Is it royal? The only way to know for sure is to run tests. It’s possible that it’s legitimate. That’s why I’d like to talk to Doctor Solvani about its provenance and the provenance of the sarcophagus. They may have been matched up along the way by someone at the museum who simply assumed they went together. These old dime museums don’t exactly keep records like the Smithsonian.”

Fraser grunted.

“Does learning this mess up your show?”

“Not necessarily. The legend is the important thing. So long as the mummy is real…”

“It could be.”

He nodded, but his expression was troubled as we continued to walk.

After a time I noticed we were passing a park and that ahead of us was an old, closed theater.

“Hey.”

Fraser looked up. “Hey?”

“Look where we are.”

He nodded. “The museum.”

“Why? Why are we at the museum?”

“I thought we ought to look in on your fiancee, the princess.”

That still struck me as funny, but the cold and the exercise had exerted their blessedly sobering effect and I restrained myself to a snort.

“Why?”

“Seems like a good idea, don’t you think?”

No, actually. The hotel and a warm, comfortable bed seemed like a much better idea. “How are we getting inside?” I gave him an uneasy look. “We’re not breaking in, are we?”

“I’m shocked. Shocked I tell you. Do you really think I would commit breaking and entering?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, well we don’t have to.” Fraser held up a set of keys and dangled them before my nose. “Babe gave me a spare key so I could check my equipment.”

“Your equipment seemed like it was in perfect working order to me.” Did I say that aloud? Who was writing my material? Obviously I was still three sheets to the wind.

Fraser gave a little hoot of amusement. “I can’t believe you said that, Dr. Lawson. I must be rubbing off on you.”

I opened my mouth, but movement over his shoulder caught my eye. A light had flared on inside the museum.