"Sir… sir!" The voice was insistent. It was as if the lights had been turned on. Goldman turned to the voice. He saw Johnson, the museum guard, standing there with a confused look on his face.
"Are you all right, sir?" Johnson asked. "You've been standing there for hours. Your friend said that you weren't to be disturbed, that you were studying the article. But it's closing time now, and we have to shut up until tomorrow. You can come back then if you haven't finished examining the mask."
Goldman's mouth was dry. Closing time. That meant he had been here seven hours. "Yes. Thank you." He read the guard's metal name plate. "Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Yes. I'm quite all right, thank you. May I have just one more moment, please alone? Then I'll leave."
Johnson nodded. "All right. But five minutes more is all I can let you have." Leaving Goldman, he shook his head. What the hell could be so interesting about an old jade mask from Mexico? These brain types. I'll never figure them out. How can they stand in one spot for hours looking at something that doesn't move or talk? Just sits there. Well, that's their business…
Not waiting until the guard had left, Goldman had turned back to the mask. Where had Casca gone this time? Would he return? Somehow, Casca, I think we will meet again. I don't believe you've yet finished what you started.
He gave one last look at the jade mask. It seemed to mock him. The thin hairline scar running from the corner of the left eye to the mouth gave the immobile jade the same slightly sardonic look as Casca… as if it knew a secret… some as yet untold joke.
Goldman straightened, twisting his head to ease the stiffness in his neck.
He left the museum, the closing doors separating him from another world.
As Goldman was leaving, another man was standing in a line waiting to get airline tickets that would take him from Boston to Johannesburg and from there to Salisbury in Rhodesia. As he stood, patiently, he checked his papers, including the Spanish passport identifying him as Carlos Romano, of Sevilla. Everything was in order. He nodded wearily. Several people in the line tried to put some distance between themselves and the man with the scarred face, but he didn't notice.