Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe, with its extra e’s and p’s, was located just a half mile from my apartment. I could have walked there, but decided to drive, because nobody walks in Orange County, either.
The building itself was made of cinder block, painted in a red and white checkerboard pattern. White stars were painted within the red squares. It looked like a nightclub or an ice rink.
The time was noon, and the store had just opened. Inside, the curiosity shop was filled with, well, curiosities. Most of it was junk, and most of it was designed to lure away the tourist’s buck. I passed rows of shrunken heads, tribal spears, bobble heads and postcards. California license plate key chains with names like Dwayne, LaToya and Javier.
The store itself was smallish, made smaller by the overwhelming amount of junk. Inventory must have been hell. I was the only customer in the store. No surprise there, as it had just opened.
I headed to the rear of the store, side-stepping a curtain of crystal talismans, and there was the old boy. Sealed within a polyurethane case, Sylvester stood guard next to a door marked Employees Only. I wondered if he was on the clock.
I stepped up to the case.
Sylvester was not a handsome man. His skin was blackened and shriveled. His lips had disappeared in the mummification process, and so had most of his eyes. His hair was there, but short and scraggly. You would think, after all these years, someone would have thought to brush it. He was naked, although his genitalia had shriveled and disappeared. My heart went out to him. His hands were crossed under his stomach, the same position he was found in a hundred years ago.
I had aged twenty-five years since the first time I had seen Sylvester; he didn’t appear a day older. Mummification has that effect.
According to the legend at the base of the pedestal, Sylvester stood six feet one inches and weighed nearly two hundred pounds. His identity was unknown. His killer unknown. The hole was there, above his right wrist, clear as day. No bullet had been found, as it had exited out his back, shot clean through. A shot that had torn up his insides and caused him to bleed to death in the desert.
The storeroom door opened, startling me slightly. Sylvester ignored the door, and ignored me for the most part. A kid came out, smiled at me, looked casually at the dead man in the case, and then headed toward the cash registers.
“Not very talkative.” I nodded toward Sly.
“He’s a mummy,” said the employee.
“Ah, would explain it.”
The kid didn’t seem to care much that the man in the case had been murdered.
But I cared. Hell, I was being paid to care. Sort of. And the more I thought of it, the more I cared.
I reread the legend for the dozenth time. Sylvester had been found in the California desert, near Rawhide, now known as the Rawhide Ghost Town. Historians had found no evidence as to who he was or why he was killed. After his discovery, Sylvester had been passed from museum to museum, paraded around until this day. The only justification as to why he was not given a proper burial was that he was a mummy, and therefore of interest to science and history.
Now he was just of interest to Jones’s pocketbook.
I stepped up next to the case, my face just inches from Sly’s own. I stared at him, soaking in the details of his dried-out face, his half-open eyes, and his shriveled remains of a nose. I stared at him, and we played the blinking game for a half a minute. He won, although he might have flinched.
I put my hand on the case.
Well, buddy, I think you are more than a freak show curiosity. I think you were once a person, a person who died a hell of a shitty death. I care that you suffered so much. I care that you bled to death. I care that you never got that last drink of water you so desperately craved. Of course, you didn’t leave me much to go on, but that’s never stopped me before. But first I have to look into the death of a young historian, who may or may not have died accidentally. Maybe you know him. I hear he was a good kid. His name is Willie Clarke.
“There’s no touching the display,” said the voice of the employee behind me. “Now that we serve ice cream here, I’m always cleaning off sticky fingerprints. It’s a pain in my ass. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course,” I said, and left.