Sheyenne checked the schedule and let me know about the last client of the day. “An emancipation case.”
“One of Robin’s, then? Am I supposed to be here for it?”
Sheyenne gave me that “Do you even have to ask?” raised eyebrow. “You know she likes to have you there for moral support.”
“I thought she wanted me there for the muscle.”
“Ha!” With a psychokinetic pfft!, Sheyenne fluttered a bunch of the papers on her desk. “That’s what I get for telling you how cute you are, Beaux. Now you think you’re Adonis.”
Robin poked her head out of her office. “Is our five o’clock here yet?”
As if she had summoned the client, I heard painstaking, shuffling footsteps out in the hall: a long drag, then a footfall, a long drag, then a footfall, followed by slow, ominous rapping at the door.
“I wasn’t expecting so much suspense,” Sheyenne whispered to me. She opened the door.
Standing in front of us was a decrepit, half-unraveled bundle of bandages and rags that swaddled a short brown man. He was so desiccated that he looked like a child’s doll made of beef jerky. As he lurched forward, three moths flew up from among the bandages. I could hear his bones creaking.
The mummy spoke in a crisp businesslike British accent. “So sorry I’m late. My sundial is notoriously unreliable on cloudy days.” With several ancient scrolls tucked under his elbow, he shuffled into our offices, dragging his left foot. He extended a skeletal hand to me. “Ramen Ho-Tep, at your service.”
I took the grip, but didn’t shake too vigorously, afraid I might break something off (which could lead to a lawsuit of our own). “Pleased to meet you, sir.”
Robin greeted him with her dazzling smile. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Ho-Tep. Your case sounds very interesting. Would you mind if my partner sits in?”
The mummy regarded me. “Is he your slave?”
“No, and he’s not an attorney either, but I value his insights.”
“Brilliant,” the mummy said. “By all means. I want many ears to hear the persecution I’ve suffered.”
In the conference room, Ramen Ho-Tep thumped the ancient scrolls down on the table, and dust wafted up, along with tiny flakes of dried papyrus. Robin had already set out six enormous volumes of legal cases and precedents.
She wrapped up a half-eaten tuna sandwich from her late lunch and set it on a credenza next to a can of diet cola. “Sorry for the mess. I was just catching up.”
“No worries,” said the mummy. “You should have seen the state of my tomb when the archaeologists broke in.”
“You speak English extremely well, Mr. Ho-Tep.” I’m accustomed to unnaturals having slurred diction, and the ones with Southern accents are almost impossible to understand.
“I spent nearly a century lying in the British Museum,” the mummy said. “One’s bound to pick up something of the language, even though I wasn’t actually aware. My body was loaned to the Metropolitan Natural History Museum shortly before the event you call the Big Uneasy … and then I woke up. That was a most distressing day, let me tell you! For scientific purposes, the archaeo-logists had unwrapped half of my bandages, and there I was, naked under the bright lights. If I’d still had any blood flow, I would have blushed quite furiously.”
Robin started jotting notes on her legal pad. “So, how can we help you, sir? I have the basics of your story, but I’d like my partner to be completely filled in.”
The mummy rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward. The sinews in his jaw snapped and clacked as he talked. “Due to the woeful state of your public education system, your citizens have little accurate knowledge of ancient Egypt. Most of what they think they know comes from those silly mummy movies, although I must admit that Arnold Vosloo did a creditable job of it. Good special effects.”
I didn’t tell him I was a Karloff man myself. Old school.
His head twitched, as if he were trying to focus on his thoughts again. “I was the pharaoh of all Egypt, but I do not have an inflated sense of my own importance. You’ve probably never heard of Ramen Ho-Tep. I’ve nothing to do with the dried noodles, I assure you—in fact, I’m thousands of years older than prepackaged food.” A sigh rattled out of his dry throat. “And now I’m merely …”
He seemed dejected. “I ruled for twenty floodings of the Nile before I succumbed to a fever caused by the bite of a tsetse fly. I was entombed in a lovely pyramid in the desert suburbs. The workers were killed, of course, the records struck, curses laid down—the usual privacy and security measures, but insufficient. Robbers ransacked the tomb within a century or two, and much later a team of British archaeologists removed my body.” Ho-Tep let out an indignant snort. “Apparently, if one calls oneself an ‘archaeologist’ rather than a ‘tomb raider,’ one receives far more respect. But the end result is the same.
“Now, being on display may sound glamorous, but it’s quite dull, I assure you. Once I awakened, it became clear that I needed to explain the true ways of life in ancient Egypt. I am uniquely qualified for the job, but those”—he inserted a guttural string of Egyptian words—”from the museum wouldn’t release me!”
Ramen Ho-Tep became more animated. His shoulders stiffened, his bones squeaked and bandages rustled, and he did look terrible to behold. Previously, I was skeptical about animated mummies who are supposed to be fearsome. I mean, how can anybody be afraid of something a banana slug could outrun? But now, as the mummy unleashed his true anger, Robin and I both flinched.
“I wish to be emancipated! I must be freed. I was Pharaoh of all Egypt! I was a god. I am not a slave—I am no one’s property! And I should know, because I had a great many slaves of my own. Nevertheless, the museum insists that they own me.”
Robin, as usual, grew incensed and indignant on behalf of her client. “We have laws against this sort of thing, Mr. Ho-Tep. Slavery has been outlawed for more than a century and a half.” She turned to the law books stacked on the table, opened one of the thickest tomes, and riffled through the pages to where she had used a sticky note to mark a passage. “A wealth of case law has withstood every legal challenge.”
The mummy unrolled his own ancient scrolls to reveal faded hieroglyphics. “I brought my own case law—Egyptian case law. Look at this clause here, under paragraph six, subclause B.” He pointed to drawings that showed a sphinx, a bird, and squiggly lines that might have been water. “Right there, as plain as day: Shall I read it aloud? Bird, foot, round thing, another bird. How can opposing counsel argue? You need only show this to a qualified judge, and I shall be freed from captivity within the week.”
“That might be a tad optimistic, Mr. Ho-Tep,” Robin said. “The Metropolitan Museum will oppose the emancipation petition. They’ll question your status as a human being, or they might claim that you’re not capable of taking care of yourself. Or they could bring in an expert from the Health Department to testify that your moldy old bandages are a public health hazard, and therefore you can’t be allowed to roam free.” She gave him a look of great concern. “They’ll try to humiliate you in front of a jury.”
The mummy was furious. “This is not possible! I was Pharaoh of all Egypt!”
“Yes, you mentioned that,” I interrupted, “but it won’t necessarily impress a judge.” In general, I prefer to give my clients a realistic view of their cases.
Robin chimed in, still optimistic. “Don’t worry, we’ll do everything legally possible to ensure your emancipation.”
“Please hurry,” the mummy said. “I’ve waited thousands of years. I simply can’t bear it anymore.”
* * *
After Ramen Ho-Tep shuffled back to the museum, Robin used a small hand vacuum to clean up the dust and debris he had left behind on the conference table, while I pitched in with a carpet sweeper to get rid of the larger pieces on the floor.
“I think I’ll call it a day,” I said. “I’m going to stop by the Goblin Tavern.”
“I’ll put in a few more hours here before I go upstairs,” Robin said. No surprise. We both spent more time working than in our individual apartments above the office.
Sometimes I worried about her. She worked herself to the bone, gave 110 percent to her clients, felt every ounce of their pain, reflected their righteous indignation. She was always optimistic, utterly convinced that Justice would prevail and Truth would win in the end. How could I not love her for it? But I worried about her.
Robin and I—and Sheyenne—were a good team. Most of the cases were satisfying … except for the one that had killed me.