At that precise moment, he looked up from a gas bill to see a bewildered-looking Brad in the hallway in a T-shirt and boxer shorts.
At least he doesn’t have a damned tube.
Brad looked at Vargas a little wide-eyed. “Hi,” he said tentatively.
“Hello,” said Vargas equally tentatively.
He noticed something white squirm in Brad’s hand, and when he looked at the floor, he saw more white things on the hall rug. Vargas looked back at his neighbor.
“I’m sorry. They got out again,” said Brad. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
Vargas pointed at the floor. “Those are mice. With ears on their backs.”
“Yeah.”
“They’re yours?”
“Sort of,” said Brad.
“So, you stole them.”
Brad scooped up a couple more mice. “We liberated them from a research lab.”
“You might want to liberate them back. They might have diseases or something.”
“No. They’re fine. I’ve been with them for days.”
“I’m not sure if ‘fine’ is the word I’d use. I mean, the ears.”
“They’re funny-looking, aren’t they?”
Vargas looked at Brad. “Hysterical. But please try keeping them out of the hall,” he said.
Vargas carefully sidestepped the mutant horde and headed for the stairs thinking, First Zulawski and now the Pied Piper. When it rains it pours mice.
“Please don’t tell the landlady,” called Brad. “I think she thinks they’re demons or something.”
A tiny switch clicked in Vargas’s head.
Two crazy people in one night? Maybe it’s not a coincidence. Maybe it’s something more.
Vargas stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned back to Brad. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said.
“What kind of deal?” said Brad suspiciously. “I don’t have any money.”
Mice wandered aimlessly around the hall. A few scratched at the apartment door, clearly as sick of the crosses and incense as Vargas was.
“I don’t want money. But in exchange for not telling the landlord, I want some of your mice. Six should do it.”
Brad took a step back, scattering a mob of mice. “What for?”
“Don’t worry,” said Vargas reassuringly. “I’ll give them a good home.”
“I don’t know if I’m allowed to do that. We’re sort of a collective . . .”
Vargas started up the stairs. “Oh, well. I’m sure the landlady knows a cheap exterminator.”
“No. Wait,” Brad said, clutching his mice the way Zulawski had clutched his tube. “You’ll take good care of them?”
“Like they were my own mutant kiddies,” said Vargas. “And they’ll have more room to run around than your shitty apartment.”
Brad frowned. “How do you know my apartment is shitty?”
“Because my apartment is shitty. Odds are your apartment is just as shitty. Plus, it’s full of deviant rodents.”
“I guess it is. Okay,” Brad mumbled, looking at the furry swarm. “Six, you said?”
“Yes. Three males and three females.”
Brad shooed the remaining mice back into his apartment. “Wait? You want babies?”
“Lots,” said Vargas.
“What for?”
“They’re for a friend. He’s not feeling so well right now, but I think these furry little beauties will brighten both of our lives.”
“Okay. But don’t let them escape. People freak out. They’re just too weird.”
Vargas reached out and gently petted the mice in Brad’s hands. “Trust me, where they’re going, they’ll fit right in.”
Brad scratched his ass through his boxer shorts. He clearly wasn’t happy about any of this.
“Well?” said Vargas. “It’s me or the landlady.”
Brad looked dumb and blank, which Vargas took for him thinking. “I’ll get a box,” he said finally.
“Remember. Boys and girls. Just like Noah took on the Ark.”
As Brad went into his apartment he shook his head. “You’re kind of a strange guy, mister.”
“Shh.” Vargas pointed to his ear and then at the mice. “They’re listening.”
“I’ll be back in a minute,” said Brad.
“Take your time,” said Vargas. He sat down on the stairs thinking, Wait until Zulawski gets a look at these.
18
They took the elevator down to the first floor, but Coop kept a finger over the button for the top floor in case anything had gone wrong with the gas.
It hadn’t. In fact, it had worked better than any of them hoped.
The lobby was full of what at first looked like a scene from a zombie movie, except that no one was eating anyone and everybody was immaculately coiffed. Dazed, glass-eyed security guards wandered listlessly across the room or sprawled on the floor like exhausted two-year-olds. Every now and then a couple of them would collide and ricochet off in different directions. They’d stagger or laugh and get right back to wandering like it was part of their job description.
“Holy shit. These people are huge,” said Morty. “It’s like André the Giant had a litter of little Andrés.”
Coop watched the zombies on patrol. “Even stoned, they’re on the clock,” he said.
“You have to admire their work ethic,” said Giselle.
“No, I don’t. I resent it. Why can’t they lie down like regular people when they’re high?”
“The gas doesn’t work like that. It just wipes their brains. It doesn’t turn them into a freshman dorm.”
“I suppose we have to go out there and see just how wiped they are.”
“I hope by ‘we’ you mean ‘you,’” said Phil.
“I guess so,” Coop said. “But don’t you dare bail on me. There might be traps or alarms I can’t see.”
“I’m right with you, pal.”
“Good.”
“Until circumstances dictate otherwise.”
“I knew I could count on you.”
Coop took a few cautious steps out of the elevator, grabbed one of the museum stanchions, and dragged it back to the elevator.
“I don’t think anyone noticed you,” said Giselle.
Coop looked around the room. None of the wanderers seemed the least bit interested in them.
“They could be biding their time,” he said.
“For what?” said Morty. “Half of them are drooling and the other half are about to join the first half. These people aren’t planners.”
Coop put the stanchion in front of the elevator doors so they wouldn’t close. Picking up one of the duffel bags, he said, “I guess we’ll know in a minute.”
“Good luck,” said Giselle.
“If I make it to the exhibit room, the rest of you follow me.”
Dr. Lupinsky’s cat cocked its head.
And if you don’t?
“Rescue me.”
How will we do that?
“You went to college. Think of something.”
Coop took a few tentative steps from the elevator. He moved carefully around the caroming guards, trying not to come into contact with anyone. But the lobby was crowded, and his creeping turned into a nervous, jerking square dance. Inevitably, a woman with an earpiece and the bulge of a gun under her arm tripped and fell into Coop’s arms.
He froze, eye to eye with the armed cop. She stared at him hard. Then frowned and pushed away. Coop tensed, ready to retreat to the elevator. Swaying slightly, the cop reached out a finger and touched his red rubber nose.
“Boop,” she said. And broke down laughing.
“Boop,” said Coop, and she dropped to the floor, giggling. He waved to the others.
The rest of the team followed Coop to the exhibit hall. Stacked against the wall on the way in was the Kraken Zap display. Morty stopped in front of it.
“‘Kraken Zap: Release the Serpent.’” he said. “What the hell is this?”
“It’s an e
nergy drink,” said Giselle.
Morty pointed to the Kraken’s tentacles shooting lightning into the sky. “Hey, doc. He kind of looks like you.”
Ha ha ha.
Giselle looked annoyed. “This is dumb. Krakens were mythical creatures that dragged ships to the bottom of the ocean. Plus, they’re cephalopods. Cephalopods don’t zap.”
“It’s poetic license,” said Morty. “Like it’s a superhero.”
Giselle shook her head, unimpressed. “You can take all the poetic license you want; it still doesn’t make a kraken Batman.”
Coop gestured impatiently for them to follow him inside.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if Batman had tentacles?” said Morty.
“I’d watch the hell out of that,” said Phil.
“Me, too.”
The group spread out around Coop, who stood a few feet back from a circle of police tape surrounding Harkhuf’s sarcophagus. Stoned security guards pinballed into them or slept on the floor by the room’s remaining mummies.
“Okay, Phil. Earn your keep. Do you see any illusions, wards, or supernatural traps?” said Coop. He felt the poltergeist squirm around inside his skull for a few seconds.
“Nothing. Not a thing. These nimrods don’t have so much as a spooky black cat.”
Coop slowly approached one of several slender metal cylinders set up around the sarcophagus area.
“But they have a regular alarm system,” he said. “It looks like a motion detector. If anything goes inside the police tape, it goes off.”
“What are we going to do about that?” said Giselle.
“We could lower you on a zip line like Mission: Impossible,” said Phil. “Who has a ladder?”
Three or four grinning guards stood around the group, staring at their funny wigs and floppy shoes.
“Are we okay?” said Coop.
“Look at them,” said Giselle. “They think it’s the circus.”
Coop looked over the closest one. His eyes were big and dumb, like a taxidermied guppy. Giselle was right. As far as they were concerned, Coop and the others were a kiddie show come to life.
“We should have brought cotton candy. We could sell it to these dopes and make a fortune,” he said.
“So, how are we getting around the alarm?” said Morty. “I could pop the lock on one and maybe turn it off.”
“I don’t want to drive the Titanic. I want to crash it and get out,” said Coop. He pointed to the exhibit. “Hey doc, is that the amulet over there?”
Dr. Lupinsky looked past Coop.
Yes. The round object in the center of the jewelry collection.
Coop and Morty looked at a small display case within the ring of motion detectors.
“It doesn’t look like much,” said Morty. He took a pry bar from one of the duffels. “Ten seconds with this and we’d have it.”
“But how do we get to it?” said Coop.
The security guards that had been staring at Coop and the others had gathered around Dr. Lupinsky.
“Doc, can your cat do a trick or something so they stay out of our way?” said Coop.
Dr. Lupinsky turned to the group and the cat disappeared. It was replaced by a grainy black-and-white movie of a mummy wrapped in a rotting linens and carrying a beautiful woman through a painfully obvious cardboard set. The security guards crowded around to watch.
“So, this is the job?” said Phil. “We get a bunch of security lugs stoned and set them up with their own drive-in theater? Morty was right, Coop. Your plan sucks.”
Coop took the pry bar from Morty’s hands. “Why get clever now?” he said. “They’ve already seen us. We can do this fast and dirty and make it their fault.”
“I like the sound of that,” said Giselle.
Coop looked over the alarms. “It’ll take the cops three, maybe four minutes to get here when the alarm goes off. I’m going to get the amulet. When I do, the rest of you clear a path through the mimes so we can get back to the elevator.”
“Good. It’s hot in this clown suit and I think I’m allergic to this nose,” said Morty.
“Ready?”
“Not at all,” said Phil. The others nodded.
Coop grabbed a beefy security cop with a neck like a tree trunk, and shoved him backward. He fell through the police tape, knocking over one of the motion detectors. The moment the cop hit the floor he began to snore. Coop jumped over him as a pulsing siren alarm went off. Jamming the pry bar into the top of the display case, he put his weight on it. It only took a few seconds for the case to pop open. Coop grabbed the amulet and threw it into one of the duffels. He took a few steps toward the elevator, but the other jewels sparkled so beautifully. Screw it, he thought, and grabbed everything in the case.
“Let’s go,” he said. “The cops are on the way.”
He hoisted the duffel over his shoulder and went to follow the others. But they weren’t moving.
“Coop,” said Giselle. “Look behind you.”
He turned, but wasn’t sure what he was seeing at first. It looked like a scene from Dr. Lupinsky’s Karloff movie, but it was in color and right in front of him in the museum. A mummy had stepped away from the wall and was lumbering toward them.
“Does anybody else hear that voice?” said Phil. “It’s like it’s in my head.”
“You don’t have a head,” said Morty.
“Still.”
As the mummy closed in on them, a security guard dragged himself unsteadily off the floor. His name tag said FROEHLICH. The mummy pointed. The security guard pointed.
“Oh, man. He’s in my head,” said Phil.
“Who?”
“Cooper,” said Froehlich. “Charles Cooper. Give back to me what is mine.”
“The mummy,” said Phil.
“Crap,” said Coop.
“Run!”
They shouldered their way through the careening mob of confused guards as Froehlich pulled a pistol from the holster of the guard on the floor. Coop and the others were almost out of the exhibit area when he started firing. Bullets pinged all around them, gouging holes in the marble walls and floor. Morty kicked over a couple of cases of Kraken Zap. As Froehlich staggered after them security guards slipped on the cans, pulling other guards on top of them. Froehlich tripped and cannoned into the pile, but kept firing.
“There’s no time to get to the roof,” said Coop. “Out the front. Giselle, do your thing. Doc, open those doors.”
Giselle concentrated. If any of the guards were lucid enough to notice that kind of thing, the group would have seemed to disappear. Dr. Lupinsky slithered on his tentacles through the chaos and kicked open the front doors. They ran down the museum steps and around the back as shots flew over their heads.
Coop took out the van keys and activated the ramp. With Dr. Lupinsky still in the lead, they charged inside and got the back of the van closed just as the first few police cars pulled into the lot.
“What do we do?” said Morty.
Coop got in the driver’s seat and tossed his nose and wig on the floor.
“Nothing. We sit tight. We’re cops, remember?”
“Oh, right.”
“See? Your plan doesn’t suck entirely,” said Giselle.
“Thanks,” Coop said.
“Wow. That was close,” said Phil. “But exciting, right?”
“What the hell happened back there, Phil?” said Giselle.
“Happened?”
“You said someone was in your head, then that security hump all of a sudden knew my name,” said Coop.
“Oh. That.”
“Yeah. That.”
“That strolling mummy? It’s kind of alive. And it’s got power.”
“And now it knows my name.”
“Sorry about that.”
Coop drooped back against his seat. “I told Woolrich going back a second time was a bad idea.”
Dr. Lupinsky’s cat returned to the screen.
I know things didn’t go entirely to plan, but I h
ave to agree with Phil. It was exciting.
“I’m glad you had a good time,” said Morty.
I’ve never been shot at before.
“You have a strange sense of fun, doc.”
I’m bulletproof. It helps.
“What do you think was going on with that guard who shot at us?” said Giselle. “His badge said Franklin or Frodo or—”
“Froehlich,” said Coop.
“It should have said Renfield,” said Phil. “I’ve seen this kind of thing before. Dead things on the prowl? They usually need a fall guy.”
“What does that mean?”
“Do you think mummies can drive or wander down Sunset in broad daylight? They need a stooge who can do that for them.”
“A stooge with a gun,” said Giselle.
“In this case.”
“Let me get this straight,” said Coop. “I have a mummy’s curse on me?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Phil.
“And the mummy has a chauffeur.”
“Probably Netflix and pizza delivery, too.”
“How is this even possible? I’m immune to magic.”
“From what I heard, it’s using old stuff. Prehistoric shit.”
“And that makes a difference?” said Coop.
“Let me put it this way,” said Phil. “Were you fucked ten minutes ago?”
“No.”
“Are you fucked now?”
“Yes.”
“Then I guess it makes a difference.”
Coop looked at Giselle. “I should have gone to Mexico when I had the chance.”
“I should have let you,” said Giselle.
“Never mind. I have an idea.”
“Another?” said Morty in a not-entirely-encouraging tone.
“I’m keeping the amulet.”
“What?”
“Coop, you can’t,” said Giselle. “Woolrich will send you back to jail.”
“Or you’ll end up as one of those heads on his wall,” said Phil, then added, “But, hey, if you’re dead, you, me, and the doc can work together all the time.”
“I’d rather haunt the baboon house at the zoo. They have more class,” said Coop.