Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 03 - Cairo Caper (8 page)

“Stay out of trouble. I’ll be right back with water,” Roger said. He plunked Horus’s cage on a gray marble step and headed to the market. I watched him disappear into the crowd. The first time I met Roger I thought he had a broom up his butt. That was almost a year ago. Now I couldn’t imagine life without him.

I settled in next to Horus’s cage and worked my tushie into the grooves in the stone. If you knew no better back in 30AD, this must have been a real rocking place. I closed my tired eyes and conjured a vision of a night out at the theatre thousands of years ago with primped ladies and handsome heroes.

“Hellooo! Hellooo!”

“Shit!” I opened my eyes.

Fiona stood on the stage testing the acoustics in a falsetto yowl.

I flagged her to shut up. She waved back and called my name. “Wendy Darlin! Hellooo!”

Racing down the steps with Horus’s cage clonking against my leg, I stumbled to the stone platform just in time to see Roger standing on the upper lip of the amphitheater holding bottles of water and wearing a look of horror.

The force of the whap of my hand on Fiona’s mouth sent us both falling backward. She recovered quicker than I. With the weight on my left foot I tried to bring my right into action. The angle and pitch of the insole made it next to impossible to hold my foot level. I fell on my butt. Ouch!

“Take the bird,” I said to Fiona. I rolled onto my hands and knees and pushed myself to a standing position.

Red-faced, I hobbled after Fiona up the ancient marble stairs to our fearless leader who was standing on the upper rim glaring down at us.

Hands on hips and wearing his most angry face, Roger rumble-mumbled, “Nice job of keeping a low profile.” He yanked Horus’s cage from Fiona sending the bird tumbling against the bars with a loud squawk. Roger placed the cage on a step and sat next to it.

What could I say? I was responsible for Fiona being with us and she pulled a dumb stunt like that. I lowered my tender hind end carefully and sat next to Roger. My new appendage sat next to me.

Roger passed sealed water bottles to Fiona and me and slipped a fourth bottle into his jacket pocket. “Ten bucks a bottle and worth every penny.”

I stopped to free my numb arm from Fiona’s death grip and massage my left calf. Without a heel on that shoe I was developing painful cramps and an attitude from hell. The cat was back, nuzzling my ankles.

“I’ve had the weirdest feeling like a cat’s been rubbing against my legs. I can feel her fur but when I look there’s nothing there.”

“It’s just dry skin,” Roger snarked.

“I know the difference between dry skin and cat fur.” I was not in a tease-receptive mood.

Roger trickled a few drops of water on Horus. The falcon threw his head back, and let the droplets run over his beak, and bead on his feathers. We sat for all of ten minutes then it was time to move on.

It was well after lunchtime and Horus was beginning to look tasty. The horizon spun up like a kaleidoscope slicing into my dehydration-induced headache. My eyelids stuck to my Lasik-vision eyeballs, so much for the protection of designer sunglasses.

We approached Pompey’s Pillar. I stopped to gawk at one of two pink granite sphinxes that sat on either side of the approach to the Pillar. Each was about the size of an SUV and mounted on a large rectangular base. The facial details were almost pristine, unlike the Great Sphinx of Giza, which was much older and exposed to the desert. These beauties were worth stopping for.

“Don’t dally!” Roger said.

I repositioned my purse and followed him through the sand-covered open ground. We plopped down near the base of the Pillar.

A lone figure ambled toward us. It looked like Petri strolling in a swirl of dust. He had some nerve taking his time when we were dying. Okay… maybe not dying but pretty damn miserable.

Chapter Thirteen

Was it Petri or a mirage? The low-plains drifter held a frosty glass of Coke in his hand. I shook my head. When I focused again I was looking at a wizened Egyptian dressed in colorful street robes. His hands were empty except for a tattered sack.

The stranger approached Fiona as if he recognized her.

Roger and I shared a cautious look. Fiona reached out to grab me, did a quick sidestep, and hid behind my back. Her quaking frame sent my body into a rumba as she pressed against me.

Before she had a chance to object, the stranger unwound some dirty bandages, bumped her helmet, and wrapped the rags around her head and neck. What the hell?

Fiona’s eyes flooded with startled tears. “Help”

“Take photo!” the peddler yelped. “Kodak! Kodak!” he sounded like a grubby duck as he placed his arm around Fiona and posed in a touristy stance.

Roger yanked the guy by the shoulder, until they were nose-to-nose then he yelled at him in Egyptian. The peddler argued back and wound more rags around Fiona. I kicked him in his right shin. He gave me a gleefully sadistic look and kept wrapping Fiona who was now his stunned prisoner. I would have kneed him but he wore a dozen layers of musty robes, and moved faster than the Tasmanian Devil. I couldn’t figure out where to aim.

Roger grabbed him from behind in a stranglehold. Ick. Mummy germs on Roger
and
Fiona. The man rattled off a slew of words including
US dollars.
He broke loose and stood holding his hands in a prayerful pose.

“Bollocks! This street blackmailer won’t take the bandages off unless we give him money, and he won’t leave without his bandages. This is one of the nastiest peddler tricks. I don’t want to create a scene, otherwise I’d beat the shit out of him.”

Fiona reached for me. I stepped back. She looked and smelled like a mummied zombie.

Grinding my teeth, I began to pull at the nasty cloths.

The peddler jerked my hands away. I imagined the cooties parading from the bandages to my fingers. There wasn’t enough lice soap on the planet to make me feel clean again. I could see Fiona’s green eyes peeking through the wraps. She still made no move to free herself. Her chest started to heave. She was either going into shock or about to barf.

Roger discreetly twisted the peddler’s arm behind his back. “Take the rags off or you will be armless.” He scanned the crowd but his move went unnoticed.

To observers it was a typical street vendor with a dissatisfied customer.

“Is joke!” the little man said. “Not funny? Will take mummy wrap.”

Roger yanked the end of the wrap, and Fiona spun like a Hanukkah dreidel, ending on her fanny on the ground. She staggered to her feet and clung to me like a wart. She was going to have to be surgically removed.

The little man extended his hand to Roger. “Tickemoff.” He bowed.

Roger put his hands in his pockets. “Tick them off?”

The man broke into a snaggled-tooth grin. “No. Say like this… one name, not three. Tickemoff.” He wiped the grime from his face revealing a much younger man.

“Are you a Russian?” I said.

“No, missy. Tickemoff is old pharaonic name.”

Roger stepped between us. “Cut the chatter. Have you seen a Frenchman with a Land Rover?”

“We are all Frenchmen at heart, are we not?” He batted his eyes at Fiona. She climbed further on my back and burrowed into my shoulder.

“Answer the question,” Roger growled.

“A Frenchman stopped at my home two, perhaps three hours ago. He was seeking petrol. He disappeared before I could make a deal with him. For tourists there is no petrol in Alexandria. The government has taken all the fuel.”

He bent in to whisper although there was no one within hearing distance. “I have petrol at my villa.” He put a filthy finger to his mouth. “I will be most happy to sell it to you. Very cheap.”

Roger shot him a quizzical look. “What did that Frenchman look like?”

“Like Niles. Brother of Frasier Crane.”

“You have American television?” I asked.

“We are known in my village for our international culture. We have Seinfeld and George… and Kramer.” He let out a high-pitched cackle. “You must come to my house. You will see my plasma screen. You will meet my five unmarried sisters.” He glanced at Roger. “And I will sell you the petrol and give you ten mini-sphinxes for free.” He held up eight fingers.

Roger tapped the right hip pocket of his jacket where the Russian’s gun bulged slightly. He picked up Horus’s cage and the three of us trudged after Tickemoff.

As we drew closer to the city, the Tick appeared to grow nervous. “You look much like tourists. Can we not cover your clothes?”

“Put the robe on,” I said tugging it from Roger’s head where it sat like an over-sized marshmallow.

Clenching my jaws I inched my robe gingerly over my sticky-stiff outfit. This was like rolling in sandpaper coated in superglue. I flipped the hoodie up to cover my blonde hair.

Fiona looked like a tourist but short of putting her in a sack we were stuck. She smashed her helmet onto her head and smeared a third layer of dust over her face, trying for camouflage.

I was running on empty except for a beer. I felt like a Hobbit. I’d shrunk four inches and shed twenty pounds. The hope of an air-conditioned Land Rover was the only thing that kept me in motion.

Thirty minutes later we were still walking through slippery sand-dusted streets. Our guide led us to a four-story apartment building. It looked pleasant enough, but then anything that provided shade would toot my whistle. The structure was concrete and brick with balconies, dreaded Egyptian balconies.

Tickemoff swept his arm toward the building and said with a sly smile, “We are arriving. Welcome to my home.”

Had we just been welcomed into the parlor by the spider?

Chapter Fourteen

We followed Tickemoff up two exterior staircases, the drifted sand made for a dicey climb. I placed my hand firmly, but carefully on the rusted handrail. Were my tetanus shots up to date?

Tickemoff produced a key from somewhere in his folded cloak and with a flourish opened a battered green door.

My companions gasped. The place was stunning. It was a slightly over-decorated Manhattan penthouse except this pad was located on the second floor and the collection of museum quality furnishings, though ritzy, was disorganized. It appeared to hold pieces from a mind-boggling array of periods. Gaudy Louis XIV and heavy Russian armoires, an 18
^th
century Italian banquette, and an Andy Warhol triptych that bore a striking resemblance to our host.

“Is light and airy? No?” The Tick said.

He led us through a humongous foyer and into a family room, startling a cluster of a half-dozen ladies, all petite like the Tick. The women arose up from an immaculate dining room table made of bleached cypress polished smooth with the natural details of the wood intact.

“Seibonne shwaya, ameshou bara yal la,” Tickemoff said and grabbed the arm of the tiniest lady shoeing the others from the room. With thick black hair and deep violet eyes, she’d be a stunner with a little plucking. She smiled shyly and stood behind Tickemoff.

My brain was denying what I could see of the apartment. The place leaned heavily into czarist-Russian, opulent with a riot of gingham and paisley. A zebra skin chair in the corner with a marble bust of Zeus on a table behind it. On a mahogany table behind the sofa rested two blue Delft porcelain bowls. A Roy Lichtenstein painting sat over the fireplace with a Ming-dynasty tiger perched below. A plasma television dominated the room. I was knee-deep in an out-of-body-experience.

Tick introduced his female relative. “This is my sister… Jorjaokeef.”

Roger grinned. “Georgia O’Keeffe?”

The little man shook his head as if we were the most naïve of visitors. “No… say like one word. I will soon teach you to speak our language. Jorjaokeef is a famous artist in our village.”

My out-of-body experience wasn’t getting any more
in
body.

“May I use your toilet?” I was busting despite the lack of fluids.

He instructed the lavender-eyed lady to escort me. Fiona tagged along.

The bathroom was a tiled delight. Rich ceramic and gold faucets. The peddling business must be pretty lucrative. The toilet paper could use some softening, and the smell of the eucalyptus soap was overwhelming.

Fiona chattered to me through the door sticking her fingers under the bottom like a child. I needed some timeout from the little librarian.

A stone ashtray rested on the commode tank. Hmm. Might need that. I weighed the guilt of stealing another weapon against the monkey-shines Tickemoff had put us through. I dumped the ashtray in my pocket restocking my weapons cache.

Tickemoff turned to Fiona. “What is the pretty lady’s name? I will give her a gift of one of my sister’s paintings as a ‘so sorry’ for making her the mummy. Pick one and I will write her name in Egyptian over the front of it.”

Fiona blushed a shade of red that would have made Nancy Regan drool.

Roger gave me his version of the
Zoolander Blue Steel
look. It was his early warning signal. I stepped back towing Fiona with me. The twinkle in her eye told me she was taken with the idea of having a signed original painting.

“Fi –” she began. The woman was way too trusting.

“Fifi,” I said.

Tickemoff scrawled something in Egyptian across the painting in black magic marker. “For Fifi,” he said.

Fiona took the painting repeating ‘thank you’ half a dozen times.

“That will be two hundred US dollars,” the peddler said extending his hand.

“Nice try, buddy,” Roger said, handing the painting back to Tickemoff. He maneuvered Horus’s cage around Fiona and me and scooped us out the door.

Fiona whimpered as she grabbed for the painting and missed.

“We’re out of here,” Roger said.

Tickemoff blocked our way. “The painting is now spoiled with Mademoiselle Fifi’s name,” he bawled. “You must buy it. It is no good to sell to another.”

Roger pushed the cage against the peddler’s chest knocking him back against the wall with a clunk. Horus tumbled from his perch and let out an angry squawk.

“Wait! Wait! I will take the bird in trade,” Tickemoff said grinning at Horus.