Free Dream Factories and Radio Pictures by Howard Waldrop Page A

were no markings on this case,” he said, knocking on the plain wooden case. “The pharaoh was in that nested three-box sarcophagus over there.”
    Teeheezal leaned closer. He reached down and touched the left foot of the thing. “Please don’t touch that,” said Carter Lord.
    The patrolmen returned from their search of the building. “Nobody here but us gendarmerie ,” said Patrolman Rube.
    “C’mere, Rube,” said Teeheezal. “Reach down and touch this foot.”
    Rube looked into the box, jerked back. “Cripes! What an ugly! Which foot?”
    “Both.”
    He did. “So?”
    “One of them feel wet?”
    Rube scratched his head. “I’m not sure.”
    “I asked you to please not touch that,” said Carter Lord. “You’re dealing with very fragile, irreplaceable things here.”
    “He’s conducting a murder investigation here, bub,” said Patrolman Mack.
    “I understand that. But nothing here has committed murder, at least not for the last four thousand five hundred years. I’ll have to ask that you desist.”
    Teeheezal looked at the face of the thing again. It looked back at him with a deep open hole where one eye had been, the other closed. Just—
    The hair on Teeheezal’s neck stood up. “Go get the emergency gun from the wagon,” said the chief, not taking his eyes off the thing in the case.
    “I’ll have to insist that you leave now! ” said Carter Lord.
    Teeheezal reached over and pulled up a settee with oxhorn arms on it and sat down, facing the thing. He continued to stare at it. Somebody put the big heavy revolver in his hand.
    “All you, go outside, except Rube. Rube, keep the door open so you can see me. Nobody do anything until I say so.”
    “That’s the last straw!” said Carter Lord. “Who do I call to get you to cease and desist?”
    “Take him where he can call the mayor, Buster.”
    Teeheezal stared and stared. The dead empty socket looked back at him. Nothing moved in the museum, for a long, long time. The revolver grew heavier and heavier. The chief’s eyes watered. The empty socket stared back, the arms lay motionless across the twisted chest. Teeheezal stared.
    “Rube!” he said after a long time. He heard the patrolman jerk awake.
    “Yeah, Chief?”
    “What do you think?”
    “Well, I think about now, Captain, that they’ve got the mayor all agitated, and a coupla aldermen, and five, maybe ten minutes ago somebody’s gonna have figured out that though the murder happened in Wilcox, right now you’re sitting in Los Angeles.”
    Without taking his eyes from the thing, Teeheezal asked, “Are you funnin’ me?”
    “I never fun about murder, Chief.”
    * * *
    Three carloads of Los Angeles Police came around the corner on six wheels. They slammed to a stop, the noise of the hand-cranked sirens dying on the night. By now the crowd outside the place had grown to a couple of hundred.
    What greeted the eyes of the Los Angeles Police was the Wilcox police wagon with its four horses in harness, most of the force, a crowd, and a small fire on the museum lawn across the street from the murder house.
    Two legs were sticking sideways out of the fire. The wrappings flamed against the early morning light. Sparks rose up and swirled.
    The chief of the Los Angeles Police Department walked up to where the captain poked at the fire with the butt end of a spear. Carter Lord and the Wilcox mayor and a Los Angeles city councilman trailed behind the L.A. chief.
    “Hello, Bob,” said Teeheezal.
    With a pop and a flash of cinders, the legs fell the rest of the way into the fire, and the wrappings roared up to nothingness.
    “Teeheezal! What the hell do you think you’re doing!? Going out of your jurisdiction, no notification. It looks like you’re burning up Los Angeles City property here! Why didn’t you call us?”
    “Didn’t have time, Bob,” said Teeheezal. “I was in hot pursuit.”
    They all stood watching until the fire was out; then all climbed into their cars and wagons