The Curse Read Online Free PDF Page B

worked for the Met eons ago, and I had recently left business cards with some old acquaintances there in the hopes of getting some referrals.
    As for my recovery of looted artifacts, he obviously didn’t know the entire story or he would’ve hung up and run the other way.
    â€œWhy don’t we meet at the most notable Eighteenth Dynasty artifact in America?” he said. “Shall we say the obelisk at one o’clock? I have already made a reservation at the Russian Tea Room at two. Would that be satisfactory?”
    How could I refuse? I was a little curious though why he wanted to meet me at Cleopatra’s Needle first.
    The Tea Room was an excellent choice—it inferred that he had good taste and that he had money. I didn’t get to eat at pricy restaurants very often anymore. However, something he said puzzled me.
    â€œYou intimated that the Isis necklace had been stolen. I’m sure I would have heard about it if it had been taken from the Egyptian Museum.”
    He chuckled. “I was being facetious. It was stolen from King Tut’s tomb along with all the other Tut treasures. I will explain the mystery of the necklace when we meet.”
    â€œOne o’clock is fine.”
    â€œGood. I suspect by then you will have solved the mystery of the Isis necklace.”
    â€œBefore you hang up, perhaps you can solve a mystery for me. Who’s the woman that tried to murder me this morning?”
    â€œTried to murder you?”
    â€œDidn’t you send a woman to slip that note under my door?”
    â€œNo, I sent over a bellman from my hotel. It was quite early and I told him to slip it under your door. You say someone tried to murder you?”
    â€œRight after I picked the envelope off the floor, I opened the door and a woman tried to stab me.”
    I omitted the fact that it was with a letter opener.
    I imagined the gears working in his head as he thought about what I had said.
    â€œI know nothing about this. It is a complete surprise to me. I wish to talk to you about authenticating a rare artifact, not murder.”
    I believed him.
    There were two compelling reasons for my faith in his honesty and veracity: I desperately needed the work and he didn’t know me well enough to want me dead—I hoped.
    I also had a third reason.
    Like everyone else in New York, I had three locks on my front door to keep out people like a madwoman wielding a lethal letter opener.
    So it could be a coincidence that a Middle Eastern woman, probably Egyptian, tried to kill me after a Middle Eastern man, also probably Egyptian, had an envelope slipped under my door about an Egyptian artifact.
    Yeah, that worked.
    Funny thing—the broker I am, the more logical and reasonable the completely irrational can sound to me.
    After we hung up, I turned to Morty to let him know things were looking up. He had become spoiled eating organic cat food while I subsisted on fast food with saturated fats and artificial ingredients that were created in a test tube.
    â€œWe’re going to be in the chips, Morty!”
    He eyed me suspiciously, then went back to sleep.

8
    It occurred to me that if I was really going to sound knowledgeable about the artifact Dr. Kaseem wanted me to evaluate, I should know what it was so I could be prepared to answer his questions.
    I redialed him from the recent calls list on my phone and got nothing—no answer—no ringing; the call just seemed to fade into oblivion.
    That was odd.
    Even odder on a day that I had fallen out of bed and into the twilight zone.
    I tried the number several more times as I was getting ready just to prove to myself that my instincts were right: No one wanted to hire my services; it was just some trick to lure me out of my apartment—no doubt a mob of my creditors would be waiting in the park to hang me from the obelisk.
    I also wondered if the woman who tried to stab me might be another out-of-work art investigator who wanted