Free Merryll Manning Is Dead Lucky by Johm Howard Reid Page A

I interrupted, “Where are you talking about, professor? The Valley of the Kings?”
        “Yes, yes, of course the Valley of the Kings. Where in blazes did you think?”
        “You haven’t visited the Kings,” I hazarded a guess, “for five or ten years?”
        “Yes, yes! Where do you think I’m talking about?”
        “You haven’t been to Egypt for ten years?”
        “Nearer twelve. A man doesn’t like to travel at my age, and I never did like flying. It’s bad for the health.”
        “Then where did you buy your Anubis and all your other new baubles?”
        I thought his face would explode. If it were not for our two witnesses – the weeping woman and the gangly youth – he’d surely have attacked me again.
        “There’s always been a fair-sized, international black market in Egyptian relics, eh, professor?”
        “What if there is? It’s nothing new!”
        “But now it’s far better organized,” I said. “And if you’re mug enough to buy contraband from organized crime, you’re going to pay. And continue to pay!”
        “Si, si! I promised Mr. Julio eight thousand dollars, to be exact.”
        “You’re mad! Mr. Julio is not the local Mafia boss for nothing. He’ll expect more than that. Much more!”
        “Yes, information. So I have given them information. I have told them how to enrich themselves with eighty thousand dollars.”
        “ My eighty thousand?”
        He smiled.
        “The eighty thousand I intend to win on 80 Questions ?”
        He was laughing now. “Si, si! That eighty thousand.”
        But I wasn’t fazed. If he intended to frighten me, he’d not succeeded. Probably lying his head off anyway. But I would have the last laugh, “And what about your eight thousand, professor? The eight thousand you owe for Anubis and his friends? How will you pay for them?”
        “Simple! I will disappear. Simply disappear!”
     
     
    7
     
    Having spent the weekend nursing my throat, by Monday night I could breathe and talk almost normally. I was still pretty sore, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me taking a seat with the audience at the taping of the next segment of 80 Questions . I needed to know who and what I was up against.
        Only seventeen other early arrivals were already seated. Even the set itself was deserted except for a couple of cameramen and the extra-friendly floor manager, Brian “Bingo” Frobisher, who spotted me straightaway. He didn’t just wave but stepped right across the set. “Hoped you’d be here,” he said. “You’re early!”
        “It seems that’s all to the good,” I replied, noticing how heavily his owlish face was creased with worry lines. Even in the half-lit auditorium, his skin looked hot and sweaty. “What’s up?” I asked. “Another love letter?”
        Sure enough, I guessed right! Without speaking, he handed it over: You ignored the warning. You saw the happening. This is your final warning.
        “All of you get this one?” I asked. “Same people as before?”
        “Sedge is all cracked up. He says he won’t go on. Can you talk to him?”
        I was smug. “I think I can set his mind at rest.”
        “Convince him that pen was fired at you. Not him!”
        “I don’t think it was fired at anyone. I’ve come back to the official explanation: Just some member of the audience fooling around. It has nothing to do with the love letters and their ignored the final warning scenario. In fact, I now know who’s sending these little love notes.”
        “For instance?”
        “Professor Dune-Harrigan, that’s who!”
        “But he’s out of the contest now, so why’s he still sending them?”
        “To cover his tracks. If he stopped now, we’d know for sure it was him.”
     
    We found Sedge in his dressing room at the end of a bleak corridor on the other side of the stage. He was not alone. Monty