(l. to r.) Emerson, Walden the Monkey, and Emerson's "muscle," Nicky. Next to them are the Cultists and beyond them, those dang heroes!

Emerson Balldridge paces the floor of his uptown apartment impatiently. He had received a phone call from one of his snitches just a few hours before and was waiting for the man's arrival. Pulling the watch from his waistcoat for the third time in the last ten minutes, he glares at it and then at the clock on the mantel. Ten minutes late.

He is glad to have sent Frank out on an errand. His presence would only have served to irritate Emerson more. He checks the watch again. Then there is a knock at the door. It's slow and muffled, like the person knocking is unable to put much force behind the blows.

With his .38 in hand, Emerson unlatches the door. A figure half stumbles and then falls to the floor at his feet. A wicked dagger sticks out from his back. A great torrent of blood has already soaked the back of the man's coat. Not wanting to stain the carpeting, Emerson leaves the man face down and checks for a pulse. Nothing.

He Checks the hallway and then closes the door so that none of his snootier neighbors would see the body on his floor. He turns back to it after securing the latch and taps impatiently with his foot.

"The idiot couldn't live just a few more minutes. Bother!" Emerson trundles past the dead body and over to the phone. He had acquaintences who could take care of this mess for him and he wanted them to do so before the corpse could leak onto his floor.

A few quick words and he hangs up the phone. "Now what to do until they arrive," he states to his former snitch. At that moment he notices the man's dead fingers grasp a slip of paper. He kneels down next to the body and pulls it free. Squinting, since he had left his spectacles in the other room, he can see that the slip is part of a museum packing slip. There is something about an Egyptian exhibit in the copy, but where in the museum the materials were being kept, has been torn away.

"Well, it seems you did serve your purpose after all. It's been a while since I took a private tour of the museum. I shall remedy that this evening."

*****

Ellison and Nicky watch as first the black-robed cultsits, then the Tong members and Germans smash their way into the museum.

Moving stealthily through the park trees that surround the museum, a fact that surprises Nicky given the ample girth of Mr. Balldridge, the two men make their way to within sight of the museum windows. From their vantage point in the trees, they seea group of black-robed figures attempting to jimmy the window. When that fails to work, one of them grabs a nearby rock and smashes a pane. The sound wafts across the still night air.

"Nincompoops," Emerson mumbles. "Do they want to wake up every snoozing guard in the building."

Suddenly the tinkleing sounds of glass breaking comes from farther down the building. Emerson can just make out gray shapes smashing windows and slipping into the darkened building. At least a half dozen others were making their way into the museum. It became obvious to Emerson that the incident down on the dock had far greater implications (and potential artistic reward) than he had at first believed.

With his curiosity piqued, Emerson creeps in behind the cultists as they climb in through the window. He watches them slip in one by one and after waiting a cautious amount of time, he sends Walden and Nicky through the window. When Nicky pokes his head back out to let his boss know the coast was clear, Emerson heaves his enormous bulk up through the window.

No sooner does he set foot inside, then the sounds of a scuffle assault his ears. The black-robed cultists and another group are brawling near the stairs. And then the loud crack of gunfire comes from down the hall. Soon, there are torch beams stabbing and bouncing through the halls.

Walden slips past the cultist and attack dog as he makes his way toward the basement.

Emerson leans in close to Nicky, "Remeber what I told you about what to look for, When you open the crates, you want to find something with the little picture writing on it. Got it?"

"Got it Mr. Balldridge."

"Good. I'm going to head back outside and see if I can work my way around from a different direction." With that, Emerson slips back toward the window and Nicky and Walden begin weaving their way through the struggling melee. Only once does Nicky have to sock a gun-toting brute that got in his way.

****

From his vantage point by the window and tucking as much of his bulk as he can into the shadows, Emerson watches the slapstick comedy of members of five other factions pushing and shoving their way toward the stairs. Hot on their heels are the Keystone capers of the museum security and local constables.

****

Germans and Tong members flee down the halls, trying to avoid the long arm of the law!

Slowly all the combatants make their way to the first basement and race for the freight elevator or stairway on the other side of the building. Having slipped out in front of everyone else, Nicky and Walden lead the way, but the heroes' dog catches Walden as he gets close to the elevator. There is a blur of fur and teeth mixed with the screeches and growls of the two combatants. Neither gains a clear advantage initially.

Suddenly more guards start showing up from the sub basement and those upstairs begin making their way downstairs. They quickly begin beating down the museum invaders with their billy clubs. Two heroes are slowly beaten into unconsciousness, a German soldier is knocked dead and still more gunfire rings out as a group of "fake" police officers (a group posing as cops trying to sneak past the real guards) gets into a shoot out with the Germans, killing one of their team.

Everyone racing for the freight elevetor in the first basement. Nicky (lower right) leads the way and will make it to the elevator before everyone else.

****

Back upstairs, Emerson spies a lone figure with a tommy gun still lurking around the hallway. He limps badly and makes his way toward the rotund burglar. Emerson can hear the cops approaching and so tries to motion the man for silence. Apparently the man is a moron, though, and opens fire on Emerson. The bullet grazes his side, irritating Balldridge to no end. The white shirt under his dark sweater will be stained with blood now and utterly unuseable. To register his annoyance with the idiot who started it, Emerson fires off a single round from his .38 and squeezes out the window behind him.

Picking himself up from the unceremonious tumble out the window, Emerson brushes off his pants. A noise to his right alerts him to another presence. Watching quietly, a handcuffed Chinaman leaps out another window and sprints off into the trees.

"Bah. The incompetent fools around here should all be carted off to the cooler for a few days," Emerson says quietly to himself.

****

Downstairs, Nicky can hear the myriad slapping of feet as people start closing in on him. Not the brightest bulb in Balldridge's employ, he does decide that getting someone to aid him at this point might prove prudent. He holds the elevator as a cultist springs forward. "Going my way?" he jokes with the hooded man. Apparently a sense of humor is not taught in this guy's school. He simply scowls and remains in stony silence. "Look," Nicky continues,"Alone, we're not going to have much luck getting out of here with whatever this thing is supposed to be, but maybe we can share whatever it is. My employer can be a very generous man." The cultist nods slightly and Nicky takes that to mean they have entered into an agreement. He just hopes the Big Guy will be happy about it.

Mummys, Schmummys, Nicky shoves this one out of his way in his rush to find the next piece in this bizarre puzzle.

Once they reach the basement, Nicky is glad to have gained some help. There are boxes and crates stacked everywhere. To dig through all of them alone with people hot on his heels would have been impossible. He breaks the handle on the freight elevator and races off to the nearest stack of crates. With packing material flying he races from one box to the next. On the other side of the room, the cultist does the same. They have covered half the room before the first of their pursuers reach this lowest level.

Only once does Nicky pause in his search, a heavily bandaged man lurches out at him from one of the boxes. If Nicky had stopped to think (or even knew what a Mummy is) he probably would have been afraid, but he sees only an obstacle and shoves the creature back into the box and moves on to the next crate.

In one of the last boxes to be opened, Nicky finds what appears to be a map, carved in stone, and bearing the picture writing that Mr. Balldridge had shown him. He starts to lift the piece but finds it far to heavy for even his great strength. He places a piece of paper over the rock and rubs the pencil over it like he was shown, making sure to get all the details. He does a second one for good measure then shatters the stone on the ground so no one else can use it.

The cultist, seeing him complete the rubbings, motions toward the far side of the room. Nicky notices for the first time a grate in the floor. The two quickly move the cover and drop down into the tunnel below.

****

Back at the apartment, Emerson pores over the rubbing. It is far beyond what he had hoped for. He is glad to have sent Frank out to prepare for some international travel since this map looks extremely promising. "Good work Nicky."

"Sorry about Walden, Mr. Balldridge."

"Yes, that is too bad. Those goose-stepping dolts don't know the value of a golden-bellied, tree monkey." Nicky learned on his walk through the tunnels that some German troopers had killed his boss's favorite pet. A bullet right through its head had ended the miserable creatures life.

Finis