The Book of the Dead
Chapter One
Early-morning sunlight gilded the cobbled drive of the staff entrance
at the New York Museum of Natural History, illuminating a
glass pillbox just outside the granite archway. Within the pillbox, a
figure sat slumped in his chair: an elderly man, familiar to all museum
staff. He puffed contentedly on a calabash pipe and basked in
the warmth of one of those false-spring days that occur in New
York City in February, the kind that coaxes daffodils, crocuses, and
fruit trees into premature bloom, only to freeze them dead later in
the month.
"Morning, doctor," Curly said again and again to any and all
passersby, whether mailroom clerk or dean of science. Curators might
rise and fall, directors might ascend through the ranks, reign in glory,
then plummet to ignominious ruin; man might till the field and then
lie beneath; but it seemed Curly would never be shifted from his pillbox.
He was as much a fixture in the museum as the ultrasaurus that
greeted visitors in the museum's Great Rotunda.
"Here, pops!"
Frowning at this familiarity, Curly roused himsel ... read full excerpt from: The Book of the Dead ebook
