Cry in the Night Read Online Free PDF Page A

told him the manuscript had to be returned.”
    “What’s it all about?”
    “Some rich Mexicans loaned Freidheim a valuable manuscript dating from early Colonial days. They wrote this week and said they wanted it back pronto and they wanted it hand delivered. Our Teutonic friend is beside himself. He hasn’t finished with the manuscript; plus he likes to give orders, not get them. In his view, it’s adding insult to injury to insist that someone bring the manuscript hat in hand.”
    Timothy laughed out loud. I shushed him when others in the café turned to look at us. But he wouldn’t be shamed.
    I didn’t seek him out for coffee for more than a week. When he dropped by my office, he was at his most charming. He didn’t mention the manuscript and the trouble it had caused and neither did I.
    Oddly enough, I never connected the manuscript with the notice that appeared a week later on the staff bulletin board in the main office. This bulletin board, which every museum employee probably passed at least once a day, is a hodgepodge of miscellany: brochures announcing conferences, notices offering items for sale, letters from staff members visiting afar. Anything and everything that might be of interest.
    I saw this particular notice immediately. The all-capital first line couldn’t have attracted me more quickly if it had flashed alternately red and green.
FREE TRIP MEXICO CITY
Wanted: Reliable person to
deliver package. Inquire:
Museum ext. 41.
    I was back at my desk, my hand on my telephone, in less than two minutes.
    Just for an instant, I hesitated.
    Surely, this was not I, Sheila Ramsay, pursuing, literally, a man I had met but once?
    I dialed extension 41. I had been sensible all my life, every day in every way. Why shouldn’t I go to Mexico City?
    The phone was answered on the second ring.
    “Freidheim here.”
    Again I hesitated. That bastard Freidheim, Timothy had called him. But what difference did it make to me, the personalities in the Mesoamerican section?
    “This is Sheila Ramsay. In Egyptology. I wanted to inquire about the notice, the trip to Mexico City.”
    “Ah yes, very good.” There was only the slightest hint of gut in his pronunciation. “Let me see.” He paused.
    I waited, breath held, sure he would say he was sorry but I was calling too late. It was only then, as my fingers gripped the phone, that I knew how badly I wanted to go.
    “Miss Ramsay”—and I was impressed that he retained my name—“I can meet with you at three this afternoon. Is that agreeable to you?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    It was a quarter to ten. Time crept. But when, at last, it was ten minutes to three and I left my office and began to walk toward the Mesoamerican wing, my steps lagged.
    Did I really want to chase thousands of miles after a man I had met only once? An abrasive, quick-tempered man. But his smile was unexpectedly likeable, and life would never be dull near him.
    Besides, I lied to myself, it committed me to nothing to go to Mexico City. After all, I needn’t even go see him. I wouldn’t even think of that until I was there. I knocked on Dr. Freidheim’s door and entered on command.
    I’m not good, really, at meeting people. Especially not people like Dr. Freidheim. I took one look at him and immediately felt possessed of three left feet. I stumbled as I sat down in the chair in front of his desk and, worst of all, felt my face flame with embarrassment. When you are sandy-haired and freckled a red face is noticeable.
    He was big. Even sitting behind a desk, he looked big, heavy shouldered, huge handed. But it was his eyes that caught and held my attention, Alpine blue eyes that looked as cold and bright as a shallow lake on a winter day. His blond hair, well mixed with white, was cut short. He would have looked at home on a ski slope or in a financier’s office or in a yellowing photograph from World War II.
    It was a strained interview.
    Very quickly he elicited a summary of my past, where I was