PART TWO
SUPERSTITION
EXIBITION
= 21 =
“What’s going on here?” came the stern voice.
Margo whirled around and almost collapsed with relief. “Officer Beauregard, there’s—” she began, stopping in mid-sentence.
F. Beauregard, who was righting the brass posts that the swinging door had knocked over, looked up at the sound of his name. “Hey, you’re the girl who tried to get in earlier!” The policeman’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong, Miss, can’t take no for an answer?”
“Officer, there’s a—” Margo tried to start again, then faltered.
The officer stepped back and folded his arms across his chest, waiting. Then a look of surprise crossed his face. “What the hell? Hey, you okay, lady?”
Margo was slumped over, laughing—or crying, she wasn’t sure which—and wiping tears from her face. The policeman freed one folded hand and took her arm. “I think you should come with me.”
The implications of that last sentence—sitting in a [140] room full of policemen, telling her story again and again, maybe having Dr. Frock or even Dr. Wright called in, having to go back into that exhibition—forced Margo to straighten up.
Officer Beauregard looked unconvinced. “I still think we should go talk to Lieutenant D’Agosta.” With his other hand, he pulled a large, leather-bound notebook out of his back pocket. “What’s your name?” he asked. “I’ll have to make a report.”
It was clear he wouldn’t let her go until she gave him the information. “My name’s Margo Green,” she said finally. “I’m a graduate student working under Dr. Frock. I was doing an assignment for George Moriarty—he’s curating this exhibition. But you were right. Nobody was in there.” She gently freed her arm from the policeman’s grip as she spoke. Then she started backing away, toward Selous Memorial Hall, still talking. Officer Beauregard watched her and finally, with a shrug, he flipped open the notebook and started writing.
Back in the Hall, Margo paused. She couldn’t go back to her office; it was almost six, and the curfew was sure to be enforced by now. She didn’t want to go home—she
Then she remembered Moriarty’s copy. She pressed one elbow against her side-sure enough, her carryall was still there, hanging unnoticed through the ordeal. She stood still another moment, then walked over to the deserted information kiosk. She picked up the receiver of an internal phone and dialed.
One ring, then: “Moriarty here.”
“George?” she said. “It’s Margo Green.”
“Hi, Margo,” Moriarty answered. “What’s up?”
“I’m in the Selous Hall,” she replied. “I just came from the exhibition.”
“My exhibition?” Moriarty said, surprised. “What were you doing there? Who let you in?”
[141] “I was looking for you,” she answered. “I wanted to give you the Cameroon copy.
“No. The exhibition’s supposed to be sealed, in preparation for Friday night’s opening,” Moriarty said. “Why?”
Margo was breathing deeply. trying to control herself. Her hands were trembling, and the receiver knocked against her ear.
“What did you think of it?” Moriarty asked curiously.
A hysterical giggle escaped Margo. “Scary.”
“We brought in some experts to work out the lighting and the placement of the visuals. Dr. Cuthbert even hired the man who designed Fantasyworld’s Haunted Mausoleum. That’s considered the best in the world, you know.”
Margo finally trusted herself to speak again. “George, something was in that exhibition with me.” A security guard on the far side of the Hall had spotted her, and was walking in her direction.
“What do you mean,
“Exactly that!” Suddenly, she was back in the exhibit, in the dark, beside that horrible figurine. She remembered the bitter taste of terror in her mouth.
“Hey, stop shouting!” Moriarty said. “Look, let’s go to The Bones and talk this over. We’re both supposed to be out of the Museum, anyway. I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t understand it.”
The Bones, as it was called by everyone in the Museum, was known to other local residents as the Blarney Stone Tavern. Its unimposing facade was nestled between two huge, ornate co-op buildings, directly across
