Staying Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

space, a designer had meditated on the perfect shade of white for the walls and ceiling, a feng shui specialist had dictated the ordering of the floor’s wooden planks, the exact placement of the three objects which resided therein in relation to the door.
    It was for those three objects that the room existed.
    In one corner, reaching from floor to ceiling, was a simple green marble pillar, three feet around and seven feet high. Etched onto its surface were crude symbols that hadn’t seen the light of day for over three thousand years.
    In the opposite corner, an ebony wood pedestal was lit from above, highlighting a chunk of clear, unfaceted crystal that looked as though it had just been pulled from the ground, hosed down, and dropped onto that base.
    And in the farthest corner, two men maneuvered a low wooden tray set on wheels into position. It was a mover’s trolley, its bed covered with a quilted pad similar to the kind used for fine furniture and grand pianos. Another pad wrapped up over a four-foot by six-foot square, and was sealed with heavy gray tape. The hard rubber wheels moved soundlessly on the floor, despite the weight they bore.
    The two men were burly, but not brutish looking. One was perhaps forty, with graying hair cut short. The other was ten years younger, and completely bald. They wore simple white coveralls that had only one pocket in the left sleeve, too small to carry anything larger than a cigarette lighter. There were no names sewn over the chest: no logos, cute or otherwise on their backs.
    They finished adjusting the trolley, and the younger man knelt by its side, producing a slender but sharp-looking pocket knife from his sleeve pocket, carefully cutting through the tape, peeling it away from the pad and unfolding the pad from its enclosed prize. About the length of a small bench, the marble’s silvery-gray surface was marked and pitted, making the once-glossy surface look dull and battered. A smaller rectangle on the top surface looked as though it had been carved out and then filled in with concrete.
    â€œAll this, for that?”
    The older man sounded disgusted. No one else was in the room, but his partner cast a worried look over his shoulder, as though expecting someone to appear there and overhear the criticism.
    â€œIf the owner says it’s art, it’s art,” he told his older companion firmly. “Let’s just get it settled, and get out of here.” Personally, the object gave him the creeps. Hell, the entire place gave him the creeps. But he was a professional, damn it. He was going to act like one.
    A low matte black platform, installed when the room itself was built and unused until now, waited to receive its burden. The two men took wide canvas slings that had been hung on the trolley’s handle, and fitted them around two corners of the marble block. The younger man’s hand brushed the surface of the stone where the cement plug was, and he shuddered involuntarily, stopping to look down at his hand as though expecting to see a spider, or something else less pleasant on top of it.
    â€œWill you stop that?” the other man snapped. “Concentrate on the job. I don’t need you getting sloppy and dumping it all on me.”
    Stung, his co-worker glared at him, shook his hand out unobtrusively, as though to get feeling back into a sleeping limb, and counted to three under his breath, just barely loud enough to hear. On three, they heaved, and with a seemingly effortless movement and a pair of grunts that destroyed that illusion, the stone settled into its new home.
    â€œThat’s strange. Wonder if it’s been hollowed out? I thought marble that size would be heavier.”
    â€œDon’t complain, man, don’t complain! And for God’s sake, don’t ask,” the younger man begged, his eye closed against the sweat that was rolling off his forehead. “We on the mark?”
    The stone was square on its base,