Relic

circled downward out of sight. It was even dustier here, and there was a strange smell in the air that made his nose wrinkle. He didn’t want to stand on those steps, at all. But Billy was down there.

“Billy!” he called. “Billy, come up! Please!”

In the cavernous gloom, his echoes were the only answer. The child sniffled, then gripped the railing and began walking slowly down into darkness.

= 4 =

Monday

As Margo Green rounded the corner of West Seventy-second Street, the early morning sun struck her square in the face. She looked down a minute, blinking; then, tossing her brown hair back, she crossed the street. The New York Museum of Natural History loomed before her like an ancient fortress, its vast Beaux Arts facade climbing ponderously above a row of copper beeches.

Margo turned down the cobbled driveway that led to the staff entrance. She walked past a loading dock and headed for the granite tunnel leading to the interior courtyards of the Museum. Then she slowed, wary. Flickering stripes of red light were painting the mouth of the tunnel in front of her. At the far end, she could see ambulances, police cars, and an Emergency Services vehicle, all parked at random.

Margo entered the tunnel and walked toward a glass pillbox. Normally, old Curly the guard would be dozing in his chair at this time of the morning, propped up against the pillbox corner, a blackened calabash pipe [22] resting on his ample front. But today he was awake and standing. He slid the door open. “Morning, Doctor,” he said. He called everyone ‘doctor,’ from graduate students to the Museum Director, whether they owned that title or not.

“What’s up?” Margo asked.

“Don’t know,” Curly said. “They just got here two minutes ago. But I guess I’d better see your ID this time.”

Margo rummaged in her carryall, wondering if she even had her ID. It had been months since someone had asked to see it. “I’m not sure I’ve got it with me,” she said, annoyed that she hadn’t cleaned her bag of last winter’s detritus. Her carryall had recently won ‘messiest bag in the Museum’ status from her friends in the Anthro Department.

The pillbox telephone rang, and Curly reached for it. Margo found her ID and held it up to the window, but Curly ignored her, his eyes wide as he listened to the receiver.

He put it down without saying a word, his whole body rigidly at attention.

“Well?” Margo asked. “What’s happened?”

Curly removed his pipe. “You don’t want to know,” he said.

The phone rang again and Curly grabbed it.

Margo had never seen the guard move so quickly. She shrugged, dropped the ID back in her bag, and walked on. The next chapter of her dissertation was coming due, and she couldn’t afford to lose a single day. The week before had been a write-off—the service for her father, the formalities, the phone calls. Now, she couldn’t lose any more time.

Crossing the courtyard, she entered the Museum through the staff door, turned right, and hurried down a long basement corridor toward the Anthropology Department. The various staff offices were dark, as they always were until nine-thirty or ten o’clock.

[23] The corridor took an abrupt right angle, and she stopped. A band of yellow plastic tape was stretched across the corridor. Margo could make out the printing: NYPD CRIME SCENE—DO NOT CROSS. Jimmy, a guard usually assigned to the Peruvian Gold Hall, was standing in front of the tape with Gregory Kawakita, a young Assistant Curator in the Evolutionary Biology Department.

“What’s going on here?” Margo asked.

“Typical Museum efficiency,” Kawakita said with a wry smile. “We’ve been locked out.”

“Nobody’s told me nothing, except to keep everyone out,” the guard said nervously.

“Look,” Kawakita said, “I’m giving a presentation to the NSF next week, and this day’s going to be a long one. Now, if you’ll let me—”

Jimmy looked uncomfortable. “I’m just doing my job, okay?”

“Come on,” Margo said to Kawakita. “Let’s get some coffee up in the lounge. Maybe someone there will know what’s going on.”

“First I want to hunt down a men’s room, if I can find one that isn’t sealed off,” Kawakita responded irritably. “I’ll meet you there.”

The door to the staff lounge, which was never closed, was closed today. Margo put her hand on the knob, wondering if she should wait for Kawakita. Then she opened the door. It would be a cold day in hell when she needed him as backup.

Inside, two policemen were talking, their backs turned to her. One sniggered. “What was that, number six?” he said.

“Lost count,” the other replied. “But he can’t have any more breakfast to bring up.” As the officers moved apart, Margo got a look at the lounge behind them.

The large room was deserted. In the kitchen area at the far end, someone was leaning over the sink. He spat, [24] wiped his mouth, and turned around. Margo recognized Charlie Prine, the new conservation expert in the Anthro Department, hired on a temporary grant six months before to restore objects for the new exhibition. His face