The Laughter of Dead Kings by Elizabeth Peters Read Free Book Online

going to Rome? When did you change plans? Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “I didn’t change plans.”
    “But you told Feisal—”
    “No, I didn’t.”
    “Yes, you…” Now that I thought back on his reference to London, he hadn’t actually said we were going there. “Damn it, I don’t want to go to Rome. Please don’t tell me you mean to confer with Pietro and whatsername and the other crooks you were working with when we first met.”
    “All in the past, my dear, the distant past. In point of fact I hope to confer with someone at the Vatican. Here’s your seat.”
    He went on to find his, leaving me in a frenzy of speculation. Someone at the Vatican. Not the pope. Surely not the pope. Not John.
    I had ample time for reflection during the flight. Unfortunately, all I could do was go over and over the same ground, like a cat chasing its tail, getting nowhere. Not one cat, several of them, a random feline ballet, interwoven and endless. Suzi. Rome. Tutankhamon. Why in heaven’s name would anybody steal Tutankhamon? Why would anybody want to steal it…him? What would you do with him once you had him? You couldn’t stick him away in an attic or a closet, he’d require…What does a mummy require? Controlled temperature, sterile atmosphere, room service?
    I jerked awake from a dream that featured an air-conditioned suite in the best hotel in Cairo, and Tutankhamon laid out on a Posturepedic mattress surrounded by harem beauties in white nurses’ uniforms.
    I had planned to intercept John when he passed my seat, but everybody was pushing and shoving and I didn’t catch up with him until I reached the baggage area.
    “Not the pope,” I said.
    “I beg your pardon?” He raised one eyebrow, in that maddening way of his.
    “All right, not the pope. Who? And if you say ‘Who what?’ I will lie down on the floor and kick and scream.”
    “Not here, someone will trample you underfoot.” He turned and ran a seemingly casual eye over the passengers who were shoving and pushing as they waited for the belt to deliver their luggage. Nothing unusual about them that I could see: the young mother shepherding two darling kiddies who were beating at each other with stuffed bunnies; the self-important business types yelling into their cell phones; two priests in black cassocks; a pair of twenty-somethings, nationality indeterminate, wound round each other like pretzels; a little gray-haired lady wearing sunglasses and carrying an enormous purse…Nobody brandishing an UZI or a deadly vial of shampoo.
    “Nobody could have followed us onto that plane,” I declared. “I didn’t even know we were taking it.”
    “Precisely.”
     
    B y the time we got through passport and customs it was late evening and I was starved. I informed John of this.
    He didn’t even respond with a raised eyebrow. Taking me by the arm, he hustled me out of the airport, past a line of waiting taxis.Pausing by an anonymous dark sedan, he opened the back door, shoved me in, and followed me.
    “What—” I began.
    “Quiet,” said my beloved. Leaning forward, he pressed a knuckle into the back of the driver’s neck.
    “Albatross,” he said.
    “Ancient mariner,” replied the driver, and giggled. The car pulled smoothly away from the curb.
    “Oh, for God’s sake,” I said. “How paranoid can you get?”
    “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean—”
    “I am familiar with the reference.”
    “This is Enrico.”
    “How do you know?” The man was as anonymous as the vehicle. He wore one of those chauffeur-type peaked caps, which would have made it difficult to see his face even if it hadn’t been dark and he hadn’t been looking forward.
    “I’d know that giggle anywhere,” said John.
    Enrico obligingly produced another giggle and a polite “Buona sera, signorina.”
    John turned to look out the back window. Apparently he was satisfied by what he saw, or didn’t see; after a while he returned his attention to me.
    “You