Douglas Preston - Relic

“Well,” she said, looking up with a bright smile. “I have a few small suggestions.”

“Oh,” said Smithback.

“This section on Aztec human sacrifice, for example. It’s much too controversial.” She licked her finger daintily and found the page. “Here.”

“Yes, but in the exhibition—“

“Mr. Smithback, the exhibition deals with the subject tastefully . This, on the other hand, is not tasteful. It’s far too graphic.” She zipped a Magic Marker across his work.

“But it’s entirely accurate,” Smithback said, wincing inwardly.

“I am concerned with emphasis , not accuracy. Something can be entirely accurate but have the wrong emphasis, and thus give the wrong impression. Allow me to remind you that we have a large Hispanic population here in New York.”

“Yes, but how is this going to offend—”

“Moving on, this section on Gilborg simply must go.” She zipped another line across another page.

“But why—?”

She leaned back in her chair. “Mr. Smithback, the Gilborg expedition was a grotesque failure. They were looking for an island that did not exist. One of them, as you are so zealous in pointing out, raped a native woman. We were careful to keep all mention of Gilborg out of the exhibition. Now, is it really necessary to document the Museum’s failures?”

“But his collections were superb!” Smithback protested feebly.

“Mr. Smithback, I am not convinced that you [74] understand the nature of this assignment.” There was a long silence. The tapping began again. “Do you really think that the Museum hired you, and is paying you, to document failure and controversy?”

“But failure and controversy are part of science, and who’s going to read a book that—”

“There are many corporations that give money to the Museum, corporations that might very well be disturbed by some of this,” Mrs. Rickman interrupted. “And there are volatile ethnic groups out there, ready to attack, that might take strong exception.”

“But we’re talking about things that happened a hundred years ago, while—”

“Mr. Smithback!” Mrs. Rickman had only raised her voice a little, but the effect was startling. A silence fell. “Mr. Smithback, I must tell you quite frankly …” She paused, then stood up briskly and walked around the desk until she was standing directly behind the writer.

“I must tell you,” Mrs. Rickman continued, “that it seems to be taking you longer than I thought to come around to our point of view. You are not writing a book for a commercial publisher. To put it bluntly, we’re looking for the kind of favorable treatment you gave the Boston Aquarium in your previous—ahem—assignment.” She moved in front of Smithback, perching stiffly on the edge of the desk. “There are certain things we expect, and indeed, that we have a right to expect. They are—” she ticked them off on bony fingers.

“One: No controversy.

“Two: Nothing that might offend ethnic groups.

“Three: Nothing that might harm the Museum’s reputation.

“Now, is that so unreasonable?” She lowered her voice and, leaning forward, squeezed Smithback’s hand with her dry one.

“I ... no.” Smithback struggled with an almost overwhelming urge to withdraw his hand.

[75] “Well, then, that’s settled.” She moved behind the desk, and slid the manuscript over to him.

“Now, there’s one small matter we need to discuss.” She enunciated very precisely. “There were a few spots in the manuscript where you quoted some interesting comments by people ‘close to the exhibition,’ but neglected to identify the exact sources. Nothing important, you understand, but I’d like a list of those sources—for my files, nothing more.” She smiled expectantly.

Alarms rang in Smithback’s head. “Well,” he replied carefully, “I’d like to help you out, but the ethics of journalism won’t let me.” He shrugged his shoulders. “You know how it is.”

Mrs. Rickman’s smile faded quickly, and she opened her mouth to speak. Just then, to Smithback’s relief, the phone rang. He got up to leave, gathering his manuscript together. As he was closing the door, he heard a sharp intake of breath.

“Not another !”

The door hissed shut.

= 14 =

D’Agosta just couldn’t get used to the Hall of the Great Apes. All those big grinning chimps, stuffed, hanging out of the fake trees, with their hairy arms and hilarious realistic dicks and big human hands with real fingernails. He wondered why it had taken so long for scientists to figure out that man was descended from the apes. Should’ve been obvious the first time they clapped eyes on a chimp. And he’d heard somewhere that chimps were just like humans, violent, excitable, always beating hell out of each other, even murdering and eating each other. Jesus , he thought, there must be some other way to get around the Museum without going through this hall .

“This way,” said the guard, “down this stairway. It’s pretty awful, Lieutenant. I was coming in at—”

“I’ll hear that later,” said D’Agosta. After the kid, D’Agosta was ready for anything. “You say he’s wearing a guard’s uniform. You know him?”

“I don’t know, sir. It’s hard to tell.”

The guard pointed down the dim stairs. The stairway [77] opened onto some kind of courtyard. The body lay at the bottom, in shadow. Everything was streaked and splattered in black—the floor, the walls, the overhead light. D’Agosta knew what the black was.

“You,” he said, turning to one of several policemen following him, “get some lights in here. I want the place dusted and swept for fibers pronto. Is the SOC unit on its way? The man’s obviously dead, so keep the ambulance people out for a while. I don’t want them messing things up.”

D’Agosta looked down the stairs again. “Jesus H. Christ,” he said, “whose footprints are those? Some jackass walked right through that pool of blood, it looks like. Or maybe our murderer decided to leave us a fat clue.

There was a silence.

“Are those yours?” He turned to the guard. “What’s your name?”

“Norris. Eric Norris. As I was saying, I—”

“Yes or no?”

“Yes, but—”

“Shut up. Are those the shoes?”

“Yes. See, I was—”

“Take the shoes off. You’re ruining the carpet.” Fucking doorshaker , D’Agosta thought. “Take them to the forensics lab. Tell them to seal ‘em in a crime bag, they’ll know what to do. Wait for me there. No, don’t wait for me there. I’ll call you later. I’ll have a few questions for you. No, take the fucking shoes off right here.” He didn’t want another Prine on his hands. What was it about this Museum, people liked to go around wading in blood? “You’ll have to walk over there in your socks.”

“Yes, sir.”

One of the cops behind D’Agosta snickered.

D’Agosta looked at him. “You think it’s funny? He tracked blood all over the place. It’s not funny.”

D’Agosta moved halfway down the stairwell. The [78] head was lying in a far corner, face down. He couldn’t see it all that well, but he knew that he’d find the top of the skull punched out, the brains floating around somewhere in all that gore. God, what a mess a body could be if it wanted to.

A step sounded on the stairway behind him. “SOC,” said a short man, followed by a photographer and several other men in lab coats.

“Finally. I want lights there, there, and there, and wherever else the photographer wants ‘em. I want a perimeter set up, I want it set up five minutes ago , I want every speck of lint and grain of sand picked up. I want TraceChem used on everything. I want—well, what else do I want? I want every test known to man, and I want that perimeter observed by everyone, got it? No fuck-ups this time.”