Laughter of Dead Kings

TWELVE

S aida made it to the bathroom in time. Swallowing strenuously I followed her and sat on the edge of the tub until she was through.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, raising a pale face.

“It’s okay.” I offered a glass of water and a handful of tissues. “You’re blasé about mummies; I’m not. But I expect I’m more accustomed to fresh corpses than you are.”

She got unsteadily to her feet and took the glass. “Vicky. Was it…It wasn’t his?”

“No.” I hadn’t thought it was, not even for an instant; I knew those long, elegantly shaped hands too well. The very idea that it might have been made my stomach churn. I went on, deliberately matter-of-fact, “It was a woman’s hand. Small, brown, traces of henna on the nails and skin.”

“I’m all right now.” She squared her slim shoulders. “We must look again. Try to determine who it was.”

I had a pretty good idea of who it was.

Feisal had turned away from the exhibit and lit a cigarette. Schmidt was still peering down into the box.

“It is the hand of a woman,” he said.

“An Egyptian woman.” I joined him and forced myself to have another look. “She was already dead when they cut it off. There’s very little blood.”

Saida let out a long shuddering sigh. Feisal put an arm around her shoulders. “The woman Ashraf met last night,” he said, and blew out smoke in a long exhalation.

“It’s a reasonable guess.” I was sorry I’d quit smoking. Then I remembered I had another bad habit. I went to the minibar and selected two small bottles more or less at random. At that point I didn’t care what I drank so long as it was alcoholic.

Schmidt took the glass I handed him. “Vielen Dank, Vicky. Are you all right?”

“As right as one can be under the circumstances.” Scotch jolted down into my queasy interior, which welcomed it heartily. “What are we going to do with—with it?”

“Notify the police, of course,” Feisal said.

Schmidt carefully lowered the lid of the box. “Not of course, my friend. Not until we have had time to consider this. There was a message.”

The slip of paper in his hand must have been under the horrible thing. It certainly hadn’t been on top of it. Bless the old dear, he had more guts than any of us. Bushy brows raised, he held it out. When no one offered to take it, he read it aloud.

“‘You are responsible for her death. The price is now four million. You have three days.’ Well, Feisal? Do you want to show this to the police? Even if we do not hand over the note they will want to know why the box was sent to us.”

Feisal ran a hand through his hair. “What do you suggest?”

“Ashraf,” I said.

At first Feisal resisted the idea of calling his boss. “He’ll only make matters worse. This would never have happened if he hadn’t tried to be clever.”

“Exactly,” I said. “It’s his mess, and I vote we shove it in his face.”

“So do I,” Saida said. “Schmidt? Yes. You are outvoted, Feisal.”

A shraf answered on the first ring. Feisal was uninformative but peremptory. “No, I can’t tell you what the problem is, but it’s bad. Just get over here, right now.”

Then we waited. He was there sooner than I had expected. He had to be pretty worried to respond so quickly, but, being Ashraf, he wasn’t about to admit it.

“I was on my way to an appointment,” he said stiffly. He was dressed to the nines, a monogrammed hankie tucked in his breast pocket, which bore the insignia of a Cairo sporting club. “What is so—”

The sentence ended in a hiss of breath. I had cleared everything off the table except for the box, and was standing in front of it. I stepped to one side with a graceful wave of my hand; there it was, conspicuous as a signboard even to one who had not seen the first delivery. I felt a little guilty when I saw the blood drain from Ashraf’s face. But only a little. He was afraid it was another piece of his precious mummy.

I felt even less guilty when his reaction to the reality was visible relief. “I thought,” he began, and then turned on Feisal. “Did you arrange this charade? I know you dislike me, Feisal, but to torture me in this way—”

“It’s not a charade,” I said furiously. “And it’s not a damned dried-up mummy that’s been dead for three thousand years. Sit down and shut up, Ashraf. Give him the note, Schmidt.”

I gave him two seconds to read it and then said, “This was meant for you, Ashraf. It was safer for them to deliver it here rather than approach you directly, after the dumb stunt you pulled last night. What are you going to do about it?”

“Four million,” Ashraf mumbled, staring at the paper.

“Can you raise that much?”

“Not in three days. Not without stripping myself of every asset I own.”

“Then it seems to me your only recourse is to inform the Ministry.”

Ashraf let out a bleat of protest. “What other option have you?” I went on remorselessly. “Leave it to them to decide whether to raise the money or risk the negative publicity. If I were in their shoes I’d choose the latter alternative. The gang may take the money and not return your precious Tut. For all you know, he’s already been destroyed.”

Ashraf drew a long breath. He tossed the note onto the table. “There is another option,” he said. “We must locate these villains before the deadline.”

“Any ideas?” I inquired sarcastically.

“Keep looking. We have three days. I have the authority to request police assistance. I will tell them we are searching for a missing tourist who may have been kidnapped.”

“It’s worth trying,” Feisal said. “Schmidt, you questioned the concierge. Did he give you a description of the man who delivered the parcel?”

“Only that he was a neatly dressed man who said he was a clerk at the store in question. The lady had wanted an object which was not in stock, and they promised to procure it for her and deliver it to the hotel. They had a card with her name on it.”

“My name,” I added helpfully.

Eyeing Ashraf closely, Schmidt added, “We discussed whether or not to notify the police, and concluded it was only fair to consult you first, since you were the last known person to see her alive.”

Ashraf’s jaw dropped. “What are you implying?”

“I state a fact,” Schmidt said. “Which in duty bound I will feel obliged to mention to the police. You are the only one of us who can give them a description of the woman.”

You had to admire Ashraf’s nerve. Schmidt’s one-two punch had shaken him badly, but he wasn’t stupid enough to start spouting denials. We gave him time to think it over. After a long interval he straightened and looked up at Schmidt.

“Very well, Herr Doktor, the police must be kept out of this for the time being.”

“That,” said Schmidt, “is your opinion. We have invited it but the final decision is mine—ours, I should say.”

He could have the first person singular, as far as I was concerned. So far he had played it brilliantly. John couldn’t have done better.

“You do not deny,” Schmidt went on, “that the severed member most probably belonged to the woman you met at Karnak?”

“Don’t interrogate me as if I were a suspect,” Ashraf said with a flash of temper. “I don’t deny it is possible—likely, even. However, I bear no responsibility for her death. I don’t know who she was or where she went. I was struck unconscious, remember? You had better question the man who hit me.”

“It wasn’t John,” I snapped.

“You would say that, of course,” Ashraf said, giving me a sympathetic look.

I saw the same look on a couple of other faces, and lost the remains of my temper.

“Oh, for God’s sake, haven’t any of you heard of wigs and hair coloring, and hats and turbans? John of all people knows how light, even dim light, shines on fair hair. If he was there, and I suspect he was, he’d be wearing some sort of disguise.”

“Ah,” said Schmidt, stroking his mustache and nodding.

“He was there, however, you believe?” Ashraf pounced. “Then he could have overheard her betrayal. Or learned of it later from one of his confederates.”

“Or got the information from a Ouija board,” I said. Schmidt and I exchanged meaningful glances. We were on the same wavelength, good ol’ Schmidt and I, perhaps because we were the only ones who weren’t obsessed with the well-being of Tutankhamon.

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll try it your way, Ashraf. It’s your decision whether or not to come clean to the Ministry. But from this moment on, you let us in on every move you make and every thought you think. You mucked up good and proper when you tried to go it alone.”

“They will be in touch again,” Schmidt added. “To designate when and where you are to hand over the ransom. You will notify us immediately of this.”

Ashraf’s sour expression showed how little he liked being ordered around. He had no choice but to agree, however. His last faint hope rested with us. I couldn’t blame him for finding that idea depressing.

When he got up to leave I offered him the box. He backed away, hands raised in rejection. “It’s yours,” I said firmly. “Anyhow, you are better able than we to find a secure hiding place. The hotel personnel are in and out of this room all the time.”

He agreed, after I had replaced the box in its original bag, and went out carrying it at arm’s length the way I remove the remains of the unlucky small animals Caesar occasionally manages to catch. Fortunately he’s not very good at it.

It was amazing what a relief it was to have that box out of the room; it had permeated the air like poison gas. Schmidt mentioned the room service, and we agreed we might be able to force down a morsel or two. Saida got out her list again. Before she and Schmidt could start on it, I said, “Hey, Schmidt, can I borrow your cell phone?”

“What is wrong with yours?”

“It’s dead. I guess I forgot to plug in the battery.” I’m usually a comfortable liar, but Schmidt’s innocent blue eyes made me plunge into unnecessary explanations. “I just want to call Karl and find out how Caesar is doing. I’ll pay you back.”

“Ach, nein, there is no need.” He handed it over and I retreated into the bedroom. As I had expected, the number was on Schmidt’s frequent-call list.

T he next problem was how to get away without Schmidt. I considered a number of ideas, none of them very nice and a few downright dangerous. Getting Schmidt drunk was not nice, and it had drawbacks. He was inclined to challenge people to duels, and once he passed out it was impossible to rouse him for hours. I pondered the problem as I picked at my food—turned out I wasn’t very hungry after all—and was still pondering when he said casually, “I am going out for a while. Stay here and lock the door.”

“Going where?” I demanded.

Schmidt chuckled. No cherub in a Boucher painting could have looked more innocent. “I wish to shop.”

“What for?”

“A galabiya and a scarf. In case I need to disguise myself.”

The explanation made perfect sense, if you knew Schmidt as I knew Schmidt, and it suited my plans perfectly. “And,” Schmidt went on, “I will get one of each for you too. The shops in the arcade are open late. I will not be long. Feisal and Saida will come with me.”

If I hadn’t been so anxious to carry out my own scheme, I might have realized he was babbling unnecessarily, just as I had. Saida indicated her willingness to participate, and off they went.

I had told her I would call her back. She was waiting for the call.

Unlike some heroines, I am not the girl to trot out onto the dark streets of a strange city in order to meet with an individual whose motives are open to question. The lobby of the Old Winter Palace is quite large, with groupings of chairs and sofas scattered here and there. I selected the grouping farthest from the door and the elevators and sat down, holding a book up in front of my face and peering over the top of it. She wasn’t long. I recognized her as soon as she came through the door, although her hair was a cascade of auburn tresses and she was made up like a Hollywood celebrity. Lipstick enlarged her narrow lips and she had on so much mascara and eyeliner, she looked as if she’d been punched in both eyes.

The guard at the security desk gave her elegant handbag only a cursory search and waved her on through. She’d spotted me by then and came straight toward me.

“It’s a delightful old hotel, isn’t it?” she said.

“We don’t have time for small talk, Suzi. Schmidt is on the loose and due back before long.”

Her lips stretched into a half-smile. “Fair enough. What do you want?”

“I want to know everything you know. Candor goes against the grain with you people, but you ought to realize we have the same end in mind.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you what I want. The damned mummy retrieved, and the perps caught before they can do any more damage.”

“Seems reasonable,” Suzi murmured.

“Your turn.”

She took a small hand mirror from her purse and pretended to inspect her makeup. “I don’t want you or Anton harmed. I’m very fond of him, you know.”

I thought of several caustic comments, but stuck doggedly to the subject. “What do you want most? Don’t tell me your priorities are identical to mine.”

“Frankly,” said Suzi, manipulating the mirror, “I don’t give a damn about the mummy. They can smash it to pieces for all I care. The people who pulled off the heist are small-fry, hired thugs. I don’t give a damn about them either. I want the man in charge.”

“John? Why? Forgive my rudeness, but you seem a trifle obsessive about him.”

She put down the mirror and looked me straight in the eye. “I spotted him on the cruise, but I couldn’t be absolutely certain I was right until I went over his dossier and put a number of hints together. Laws vary, and so do the statutes of limitations. I realized it would be very hard to pin any of his past escapades on him. But I didn’t believe the leopard had changed his spots. I knew he’d revert to his old ways sooner or later, and then I’d catch him in the act.”

Never trust people who look you straight in the eye. I said again, “Why? Why him? You must have other cases on the docket.”

“I’ll tell you the truth, Vicky.” A small self-deprecating smile joined the candid gaze. “He’s become something of a legend in the business, not only because he has gotten away with so many shady deals but because of their bizarre nature. Nailing him would be like—like identifying Jack the Ripper. Come on, Vicky, you know he’s been lying to you and Anton all along. Using you, betraying your trust.”

“He certainly has told me a lot of lies.”

“You don’t resent that?”

“Oh, I resent it a lot,” I said with perfect truth.

“Then collaborate with me. If he’s innocent, fine; I’m wrong and will admit it. If he’s not, you ought to be as anxious as I to catch him. It isn’t as if you’d be handing him over to the hangman, he’d only spend a few well-deserved years in jail.”

“Well…”

“I know where he is.”

I leaned back and crossed my legs. “I thought you might. You followed him the other night, didn’t you?”

“Yes. The place was crawling with people following other people. Most of them converged on your friend Feisal, who was yelling his head off, but I stuck to Smythe—or Tregarth, if you prefer—who had taken off after the woman, the one Khifaya met. I had to climb a damned wall; it took me a while. I was afraid I’d lost him but I finally glimpsed him just as he caught up with her, outside a house behind the temple. They talked for a minute, maybe less. Then she twisted away from him and ran. That distracted me. It shouldn’t have, but it did, for a vital second or two. When I looked back he was gone. He had to have entered the house. He hasn’t come out since.”

That wasn’t the story she had told Schmidt. She must have concluded she couldn’t entirely trust him, but she was still hanging on to him in case he might prove useful.

“Why haven’t you gone in after him?” I asked.

Her lips twisted. “Regrettably, we are constrained by the laws of the country in which we are operating. The place is owned by a well-to-do Egyptian of impeccable character, who sometimes rents it out on short leases. In order to get a search warrant I’d have to go to the police. For obvious reasons I don’t want—”

“Oops,” I said. “Duck. There’s Schmidt.”

Suzi slid down until only the top of her head showed over the back of the chair. I peeked out from behind my book. Schmidt didn’t look in our direction. In addition to several parcels he’d acquired a gaudily ornamented stick with dependent strings of beads, which he swung jauntily as he passed the elevator and went on along the corridor.

“It’s okay,” I said. “He’s gone toward the bar. But you had better make it quick. What do you want me to do?”

“Get him to leave the house. I’ve had the place staked out. He may have spotted some of my people. I’ll call them off. That should be evidence of my good faith.”

That and a crucifix on which you would swear, I thought.

“Tell me where the place is.”

The description she gave was sufficiently detailed. I nodded. “I think I can find it. I’ll have to reconnoiter first.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow. In daylight.”

“And then?”

The questions were coming hard and fast, like the cracks of a whip. She was so eager, she had forgotten to be persuasive.

“Then, if all goes well, I’ll try for it tomorrow evening. Before dark. I’ll call you. Now get going.”

“You won’t be in danger, Vicky. I promise.”

Seemed to me I’d heard that song before.

We had cut it close. I was waiting for an elevator when Schmidt emerged from the bar, patting daintily at his mustache with a hanky. Seeing me, he broke into a trot and a litany of complaints. What was I doing in the lobby? Why had I not followed his orders?

“I was worried about you,” I explained. “You were gone so long. Where are Feisal and Saida? You promised to stay with them. Have you been in the bar all this time? Boozing it up while I fretted?”

“Feisal and Saida escorted me back to the hotel—as if I were a little boy,” Schmidt added indignantly. “They then went on their way. I was in the bar only for a single glass of beer. It is a historical room, where Howard Carter often went when he was working on the tomb of Tutankhamon. Would you like—”

“No, thanks. I’m beginning to resent Howard Carter. If he hadn’t dug Tut up we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“And how is Caesar?” He followed me into the elevator.

“Who? Oh.” I had forgotten I was supposed to have been inquiring after my dog. “Fine. Where’d you get the fly whisk?”

“It is not a fly whisk, it is one of the royal scepters,” Schmidt explained. “The flail, as it is sometimes called.” He swished the strings of beads.

“Very nice. What else did you get?”

Showing off his purchases took a while. Schmidt has a weakness for bling. Instead of simple inconspicuous galabiyas, he had purchased gaudy garments made for the tourist trade, trimmed with colored or metallic braid. I was moved to mild protest. “I thought you wanted something you could wear as a disguise.”

“Like this?” He dug into another of the bags.

Galabiyas are made to the same basic design: straight, ankle-length garments with long sleeves. They go on over one’s head; the neck opening is just a hole with a slit down the front. The first one Schmidt produced was pale blue, the second had narrow stripes of brown and white, the third was tan. At my suggestion Schmidt tried them on, one after the other. Even the shortest dragged on the ground. Hoisting his striped skirts, Schmidt trotted into his bedroom and came back with a pair of scissors. I crawled around him, hacking off a foot or so of fabric all around, and sat back to study the result.

“It won’t do, Schmidt. A ragged hem might pass, but not when the rest of the garment is in pristine condition. And don’t expect me to fix it, I can’t even sew on a button.”

“The nice lady from housekeeping will do it for me. Now let us make for me a turban.”

We tried, using the white scarves Schmidt had bought. The ends kept coming loose and falling down around Schmidt’s ears. Unperturbed, Schmidt produced a large white-and-red-checked cloth which he draped over his head and tied in place. He looked like a mustachioed member of Hamas or Hezbollah. I refrained from criticism, since I had no intention of letting him go out on the street in the outfit.

Well, it passed the time. Schmidt handed over the stripy robe to a beaming “nice lady,” who knew she would earn a week’s wages for an hour’s work, opened a Stella, and whipped out his cell phone.

“I must report to Suzi so that she will remain unwitting of my defection.”

Somehow I wasn’t surprised when Suzi failed to answer. Schmidt then went through the messages waiting. “Here is one from Heinrich asking how he should respond to a request for you to speak at a meeting in Zurich.”

“That fink! Why did he go to you behind my back?”

“He says you do not communicate with him.”

“He doesn’t communicate with me either. He’s after my job, trying to make me look bad.”

Schmidt chuckled. “That is what you call an uphill struggle. Here is another from him, asking why you do not communicate. Foolish young man. And this…Hmm, hmmm, only unimportant reports. Ah! Wolfgang has called.”

I waited until he had listened to the message, and then said, “The guy we—er—ran into at Karnak?”

“Yes. He regretted that our encounter should have ended so abruptly and asks me for lunch tomorrow.”

“He wants to pump you about the so-called accident.”

“Aber natürlich. I would do the same. Shall we go?”

“I thought you and Saida had tomorrow’s schedule all worked out.”

Schmidt tugged at his mustache. “Yes, but I am not so sure she is on the right track. How could an object of such size be concealed in a place where there are always people?”

“True, Schmidt. Why don’t you put Wolfgang off? Rain check, and so on. We don’t have time for social activities. I take it Saida and Feisal are planning to come for breakfast? We’ll reconsider our plans then.”

Schmidt went off with his parcels and his beer. He forgot the flail, which was lying on a chair. I picked it up and gave it a tentative swish. The beads made a sound like a baby’s rattle. As a potential weapon it lacked gravitas.

After I had washed and brushed and so on, I sat down on the side of my bed and called a number I had rung every night for the past four days. As before, there was no answer.

The bed had been turned down and not one but three foil-wrapped chocolates rested on the pillow. I unwrapped one. Maybe a sugar surge would stimulate my thought processes. I hadn’t had time to consider my conversation with Suzi and what I meant to do about it.

The pale blue galabiya Schmidt had pressed upon me lay across a chair. It would be about as useful as a belly dancer’s costume. (Schmidt would probably get one of those for me next.) I couldn’t pass as a man without, at the bare minimum, a properly wound turban and something to darken my hands and face. What I needed was a black woman’s robe and face veil. They sure didn’t sell them in the suk. I considered possibilities as I unwrapped the second chocolate. The “nice lady” from housekeeping might be able to get one for me—but negotiating with her while Schmidt was around wouldn’t be easy. Saida would know how to get one—but I didn’t want her in on this.

There was only one other option. I ate the last chocolate and got into bed.

T hat must be the house I was told about,” I said, pointing. “It’s the only one around that fits the description. Do you know it, Feisal?”

Feisal leaned past me to peer out the window of the taxi. We had hired one of the nondescript vehicles that wait for fares outside the hotel.

“Yes, I know it. When are you going to tell us how you learned of this place and why it’s important?”

Saida whipped out her notebook. “Is it on my list?”

“How the hell should I know?” Feisal demanded. “Vicky—”

“Later. Just keep a lookout.”

Someone might reasonably have asked “What for?” The house was surrounded by a high wall made of whitewashed mud brick. Only the tops of trees and the roofline of the building inside were visible. A wooden double-leafed gate, wide enough to admit a delivery truck, was closed. Sitting next to it on a straight chair was a man wearing a raggedy galabiya and head cloth. He glanced incuriously at the taxi. There were a few other people around—two women robed in black towing a protesting child between them, a huddled figure apparently asleep under a dusty palm tree, a man driving a donkey cart piled with greenery.

The taxi driver addressed Schmidt, who was sitting beside him. “Is this where you wish to go? Shall I stop?”

“No!” I said emphatically. “Keep going. Slowly.”

I pushed Feisal away from the window and craned my neck as we cruised past. It was the back of the house in which I was interested. I couldn’t see much. The right angle of the wall went on for some distance. It was as blank and uninformative as the front wall.

“The effendi is not there,” the driver offered. “He lives in Cairo most of the year.”

“Who is living there now?” I asked.

The string of blue beads hanging from the rearview mirror tinkled musically as the taxi turned onto a road that led away from the house. “Strangers. Also from Cairo, perhaps. They have their own vehicles. They came a month ago. They are not friendly people. They do not buy at the local market.”

“What about servants?” I asked. “Have they hired local people?”

An expressive shrug. “No.”

I was sorry to hear that, though it didn’t surprise me.

“Where now, sitt?” the driver asked. He had apparently accepted the fact that I was the one in charge.

“A café,” said Schmidt promptly. “The nearest.”

An extremely chilly silence ensued, enlivened only by hostile glares from Feisal. My colleagues had realized they weren’t going to get the information they wanted while the helpful, English-speaking driver was present. He selected a place (probably owned by a friend or cousin) on one of the streets of town, away from the corniche. We accepted his offer to wait.

“Very nice,” said Schmidt, as we settled at a table.

Very nice and very empty. We were the only patrons. Feisal fizzed quietly like a lit fuse while Schmidt discussed food with the waiter. When the latter had gone into the kitchen, Feisal leaned forward, pushed aside a vase with two rosebuds in it, and planted his arms on the table.

“All right, Vicky, we went along with you on this expedition and refrained, as you requested, from questions. Now let’s have it.”

“I will tell you everything,” I said.

“Hah,” said Schmidt.

I did tell them everything. Almost everything. Schmidt’s eyes narrowed and widened, narrowed and widened, as I described my conversation with Suzi. Feisal’s eyebrows wriggled. Grinning, Saida took out her notebook and pen.

I stopped talking when the waiter came with our coffee. The usual alternative to Turkish coffee is Nescafé and a pot of hot water. I was happy to settle for that. There were no grounds involved.

Nobody had interrupted me. They were too busy trying to take in the flood of information I had supplied. Saida was the first to recover.

“As I expected! A woman is the first to make a vital discovery!”

“It’s a possible lead,” I said modestly. “She could have been feeding me a line. I didn’t see anything suspicious.”

“Precisely what you would expect to see if it were the headquarters of the gang,” Saida cried.

“Hmm,” said Feisal.

“What do you think, Schmidt?” I asked. I was beginning to worry about him. He had barely spoken, and I had hit him with the equivalent of a sockful of sand.

“I think,” said Schmidt, “that you are deceitful and dangerous. And even more clever than I had realized. At least you had the sense to let us in on this instead of going alone to reconnoiter.”

“I am all those things,” I admitted. “And so are you, Schmidt, so don’t give me a hard time.”

“I do not because I know what drives you,” Schmidt said. “But we will not speak of that. We agree, do we not, that the house is suspicious? Strangers who have been in residence for a month, who do not mix with the local population, who live behind high walls with a guarded gate. Suzi would have no reason to lie to you. She wants your help.”

“And she’s perfectly willing to use you as a decoy,” Feisal added. “Forget it, Vicky. Not even to retrieve Tutankhamon would I permit you to take such a chance.”

“Aw, gee,” I said, patting his hand. “That’s so sweet.”

“You are a dreadful woman,” Feisal said, without rancor. “Can’t you accept a statement of affection without making a joke of it?”

“No, she is afraid of serious emotions,” Schmidt explained. “We who love her accept this.”

“Shut up, Schmidt,” I said. “Please.”

Schmidt patted my hand. “It is a subject for another time, perhaps. Assuming that Suzi is speaking the truth, that house may be the present headquarters of the gang. In which case, Tut—er—he may be there.”

Lips pursed and eyes shining, Saida chortled, “Yes, he must be. And it is Vicky who has found the vital clue! A woman!”

Nerves were a trifle strained. Feisal turned on his beloved with a sneer. “As it turns out, you weren’t so clever, were you? He’s not on the West Bank. You were wrong.”

“Not at all,” Saida said serenely. “Mine was only one theory among others.”

“The first part of the scenario was right,” Schmidt said, before a jolly little lovers’ quarrel could develop. “They changed the look of the van while they were still on the West Bank, or transferred him to another, more inconspicuous, vehicle. No one would have paid particular attention to a small van or truck on the bridge or on the streets of Luxor. The house is isolated; they could drive straight into the courtyard. It is the right place. It must be. So. We go in tonight, nicht wahr?”

His mustache bristled. I said, “If you mean go in, as ‘in with guns blazing,’ the answer is forget it. This is going to require some planning.”

“Exactly,” Feisal said, giving Schmidt a stern look.

We discussed it for a while. As Feisal kept telling Schmidt, we couldn’t involve the police without getting a warrant, for which we had no cause. Ashraf would go ballistic at that idea. The most interesting suggestion came from Saida.

“Vicky and I will approach the guard at the back gate. Yes, yes, Feisal, there is certainly a back gate. He will be disarmed by the appearance of two helpless, harmless females. We will persuade him to let us in. Then we will begin screaming for help. That will provide an excuse for you and the others to break in.”

Schmidt said, “No, we cannot allow you to take the chance. I will approach the guard, wearing a veil and habara.”

I said, “Not to disparage your powers of seduction, Schmidt, but—”

Feisal said, “What others?” Then he said, “That is the most absurd scheme I have ever heard, and if you suppose for one second that I will allow—”

The appearance of the waiter, wondering what the yelling was all about, put an end to the argument. Schmidt asked for more coffee and I took advantage of the relative quiet.

“Okay, this is the plan. I call Suzi and report. Feisal, you arrange a meeting with Ashraf. One of them may have an idea.”

“That is not a plan, that is procrastination,” Schmidt exclaimed. “If we are to go in tonight—”

“We are not going in tonight. We need time to think and make arrangements.”

“Time,” Schmidt intoned, “is running out.”

“Shut up, Schmidt.”

To show my good faith, I called Suzi and let the others listen in. She had already been informed of our appearance that morning and scolded me for bringing the others with me. I responded with whining excuses which, if she’d had the sense God gave a goat, would have warned her to back off. An exasperated sigh followed my explanation that I wasn’t ready to take action that night. “Meet me in the lobby, same time, same place, tonight,” she said crisply. “I’ll have a plan worked out.”

“She’s a charmer, all right,” I said, ringing off. “Your turn, Feisal. Tell Ashraf we’ll meet him later at—someplace on the West Bank. Deir el Bahri, maybe.”

Nobody asked why the West Bank. That was a relief, since I couldn’t explain my reasons.

The taxi driver was reluctant to part with us, but we couldn’t have conversed freely in the presence of someone whose English was so good. After he had dropped us at the hotel, Schmidt proposed lunch. Over his protests and those of Feisal—“we aren’t meeting Ashraf until three”—I managed to hustle them all onto a boat by telling them the simple truth.

“I want to visit Umm Ali. I wouldn’t want her to think we had forgotten her or her son.”

We picked up a taxi on the other side and went to the village.

I wondered if the kids posted lookouts. They converged on us with the speed of paparazzi tracking the latest pop culture celebrity. Among them I saw a familiar face. I stopped.

“Hey, Ahman. I’m sorry about your uncle.”

The cheeky grin faded, the outstretched hand dropped to his side. “It’s okay,” I said quickly. “I just wanted to know—”

He slid away. I didn’t go after him. It had been a random shot, but his hasty retreat strengthened my hunch. Young as he was, he had been taught the lessons his elders had learned from years of exploitation and adversity: don’t answer questions, or show emotion to strangers, however well-intentioned. They are not one of us. They don’t understand.

The men were in the courtyard, smoking and sitting. That was a relief; I wouldn’t have to face the entire family. I dealt with the next hurdle by the same method that had worked up till now. The truth.

“Stay here,” I told the others. “I want to talk to her alone.”

“You don’t speak Arabic,” Feisal protested.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make myself understood.”

She’d had enough advance notice to arrange herself on the sofa, erect and formidable as a graven image. There were several other women present, including the veiled gray-eyed female I had noticed before. After gabbling my way through the formal greetings, I addressed gray-eyes.

“Do you speak English?”

“A little only, sitt.”

I had concocted a couple of wild theories about her. I’d been wrong on all counts. The face she bared when she put her veil aside was that of a young Egyptian woman, smooth-cheeked and unfamiliar.

“Tell Umm Ali I think I know who murdered her son. Tell her I need her help.”

Another example of unconscious prejudice made me cringe when a murmur of comprehension ran around the room. The younger women had remained modestly silent in the presence of the matriarch, but I ought to have known some of them understood and spoke English.

I told them what I wanted.

When I emerged, blinking, into the sunlight, my backpack bulged, but not enough to provoke comment. So far so good. One step at a time. The next step was going to be a giant step, though.

Nobody was hungry except Schmidt, who is always hungry. Since we had time to kill, we found him a restaurant.

“Now we must discuss what to tell Ashraf,” Saida said, digging into a bowl of hummus with a chunk of bread.

“The truth,” I said absently. “It seems to be working.”

Feisal ignored the last statement. He and Saida got into one of their standard arguments about who was to say what to whom and why. Schmidt drank beer and ate and watched me. He knows me too well, does Schmidt. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth…It had to work. It was my only option.

I didn’t get my chance until we were almost finished eating and Schmidt announced he was going to the bathroom.

“Me too,” I said, and followed him.

The room in question—one room—was around the side and toward the back. Schmidt paused, politely inviting me to precede him.

“Schmidt,” I said softly, “I am depending on you as I have never depended before, and that’s saying a lot. Will you promise to do exactly what I tell you, no arguments, no questions?”

Schmidt said, “Yes.”

I wanted to hug him. So I did. When I had finished explaining my plan, such as it was, he said only, “How will you get away from Feisal and Saida?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“I will make a distraction.”

“God bless you, Schmidt.”

“Now you promise that you will do exactly as you said. If I do not hear from you by five, I will come in after you.”

“Fair enough. It could be a wild-goose chase, Schmidt.”

Schmidt nodded. “For your sake, I hope it is. Be careful.” With great dignity he entered the loo and closed the door.