The Book of the Lion Read Free Page A

into his driveway too fast and nearly hitting the line of privet hedge beside the pavement and then coming too close to the side of the garage door opening. Then had to squeeze out of the driver’s seat with the car door too close to the garage wall to open far enough. He hurried into his house, picked up his phone, and listened to the messages.
    Nothing. Well, something, but not the call he had been hoping for. First were just a few more undergraduates who had dire symptoms that made paper-writing impossible. Next, that graduate student wanted his oral exam the Tuesday afternoon after the written. Fine. Why prolong the ordeal? Next, his friend Norman Sammons had called inviting him to contribute an article for a collection on Gawain and the Green Knight. He would say yes to that, of course. It would give him an excuse to rework the article he’d done ten years ago for the Journal of English and Germanic Philology . Anybody who remembered the JEGP article would be delighted to see how much he’d learned since then.
    Hallkyn hit on a new idea. He would change his phone message. He punched in the code and said in his best professorial tones, “This is Dominic Hallkyn. You may leave a message at the tone, or you may call me on my cell phone. The number is,” and then he recited the number and hung up. Then he called himself and listened. Perfect. Now he would not have to live in torment, thinking that he might be missing the crucial call from the possessor of The Book of the Lion .
    Hallkyn spent four full days and nights enslaved by his cell phone. He tested its ring repeatedly to be sure he would hear it over any of the sorts of noise he might encounter in his mostly quiet life. He kept the vibration on too so if the call came, he would feel it, and then kept checking the messages to see if he had missed the call anyway.
    And then, like a fever breaking, his worry passed. The call must have been a silly prank. If someone had a treasure like that, he would hardly neglect to do something with it. And no matter what he wanted to do, he would need to have an expert authoritatively authenticate the manuscript. He would have to get somebody like Hallkyn to say “Yes, this is the real thing.” The caller had never even mentioned that.
    Hallkyn let himself settle back into a normal frame of mind. Normal was restful. He didn’t have any responsibility for this supposed manuscript. There was no crisis. He went on with his life.
    He had only one problem, which was that his cell phone number was now too easy to get. Undergraduates were calling him past midnight with their excuses and brown-nosing questions, as though his phone were a twenty-four hour emergency literature help line. The department chair had started using his cell number to invite him to her damned cheese and sherry gatherings, making him invent his alibis on the spot.
    Hallkyn recorded a new message, left out his cell number, and substituted, “If your business is urgent, you may leave a message after the tone.” He was pleased, because the message signaled a more restrictive policy than before the Chaucer hoax.
    Still, he didn’t call Spanner immediately. It was one thing to change his message to institute a new regime of sanity in his personal life, and another to say good-bye to a glittering possibility by telling Spanner it was a hoax. For about a week he was able to put it off, but then he called.
    Spanner answered, and then said, “I was just thinking of calling you. Is it all right to tie up your phone line?”
    â€œSure. It won’t matter.”
    â€œI’ve done it,” said Spanner.
    â€œDone what?”
    â€œI’ve lined up the financing,” Spanner said.
    â€œEighteen million dollars?” Hallkyn felt sick.
    â€œI used some properties I own in Europe and one in Virginia as collateral for letters of credit. I also spoke with a few friends in hedge funds and banks who were willing to