Free The Mummy by Max Allan Collins Page B

like him one tiny bit.”
    “Anybody I know?” O’Connell asked, sidling up to her.
    Her eyes widened in surprised embarrassment—big blue eyes that O’Connell wouldn’t have minded diving into; and that mouth, full, sensual . . .
    He caught himself, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of noticing his admiring her, and in the process he failed to notice that she had been admiring the new spit-and-polished him.
    “Afternoon, O’Connell,” Jonathan said, nodding toward his sister, taking the American’s arm, shaking his hand enthusiastically. “Don’t mind Sis—she was talking about some other cad.”
    “He sounds pretty bad,” O’Connell said, with a little smile.
    “Hello, Mr. O’Connell.” Evelyn smiled nervously at him, pretending she didn’t know she was being needled, as O’Connell fell in step with them, pushing through the crowd toward the waiting stern-wheeler.
    All around them, beggars were bawling, “Baksheesh!”
    “Ripping day to begin an adventure, what?” Jonathan said, a hand on O’Connell’s shoulder.
    “Yeah,” O’Connell said, withdrawing himself from Jonathan’s grasp and stopping to check for his wallet. “ ‘Ripping.’ ”
    “Dear boy,” Jonathan said, pausing to touch his heart in a gesture of wounded pride, “I would never steal from a partner.”
    “Nice to know you have standards. How’s the chin?”
    The bruise on Jonathan’s jaw, from O’Connell’s punch-through-the-bars, was a lovely black, blue, and orange, like an exotic blossoming flower.
    “Think nothing of it, partner mine,” Jonathan said cheerily. “That sort of thing happens to me all the time.”
    “Bet it does.”
    Evelyn dropped her bags to the boardwalk, where they clunked heavily, drawing the two men’s attention. She cleared her throat and, with exaggerated formality, said, “Mr. O’Connell, as you well know, we have a considerable journey ahead of us—”
    “One day by steamer, two by camel, yes, ma’am.”
    “Yes. And before we embark on this arduous adventure, and put ourselves to considerable trouble and discomfort, not to say expense . . . can you look me straight in the eye and convince me that this is not a sham designed to bilk me of my money?”
    “What?”
    Evelyn, lovely face blushed blue by her hat brim’s shadow, lifted her chin and looked down her nose at him—a habit she had that was not her most endearing, in O’Connell’s opinion. “Despite what you might assume, my brother and I are not wealthy, nor do we have any desire to spend our meager funds and risk our lives on . . . what is the phrase?”
    O’Connell lifted an eyebrow. “A wild goose chase?”
    “That would seem to cover it, yes. I would understand entirely if a man facing the gallows were to stoop to deception to find his freedom. If that is the case, you have my permission, even my blessing, to—”
    “Straight in the eye, is that how you want it?” O’Connell marched right up to the patronizing young woman and practically touched his nose to hers. Her eyes became huge and her lashes fluttered like startled butterflies. “Lady, two hundred men, my whole battalion, followed our colonel across Libya and into Egypt to find your precious City of the Dead. They found it, and they joined it—all but me. Now, I’m willing to go back there because those bloody sands defeated me. And I intend to win this time. I’m going with or without you . . . and, frankly, I would advise you stay here in Cairo and let your brother and me take the risks.”
    She did not back away, holding her ground, despite how obnoxiously, presumptuously close he was standing to her. “No, thank you. I’m going along. To look after my interests.”
    He took a step back, shrugging, intoxicated by the fragrance of her lilac-scented perfume. “Suit yourself . . . let me get those.”
    And O’Connell, slinging the gunnysack on its strap around his shoulders, bent down and picked up her bags, and headed up the gangplank.
    He