Dead Men's Hearts (24 page)

“Absolutely not,” Arlo said, sounding offended for the first time. Accidentally killing a man was one thing; perpetrating a ludicrous escapade involving buried skeletons and faked numbers was clearly beneath his dignity.

“Well, who did?”

Arlo took a long, thoughtful pull on his cigarette. “Well now, how in the world would I know that?”

“The funny thing is,” Gideon said, holding up his hand to refuse the three-foot-long flexible smoking-tube the waiter was offering him, “I believe him.”

“As do I,” Gabra agreed, sighing with his first burbling puff on the
narghile
that had been placed on the tiled floor beside their table.

At the sergeant’s suggestion they had left Horizon House for a nearby outdoor cafe on Shari Mabaad after concluding their session with Arlo, who had almost wept with relief on being told by Gabra that he was not under arrest or in imminent danger of it, but was merely to keep himself available in Luxor for further questions, and to keep to himself what he had told them.

Arlo had done a cogent if not altogether coherent job of explaining himself. He had spent a terrible night after they had all gone out to look at the skeleton, he said, determining at dawn that he would confess and finally confront his fate that day. He had steeled himself to face Saleh and the wheels of Egyptian justice, and then he had been as flabbergasted as anyone else when the numbers were discovered on the bones the following morning. At first he had leaped at the idea that he had suffered some sort of hallucination four years earlier, that el-Hamid’s death had never happened, that the skeleton really was that of F4360.

But even Arlo, who clearly had some considerable propensity for deluding himself, couldn’t quite make himself believe that. In the end he had accepted the astonishing development as a kind of cosmic gift, like finding a winning lottery ticket among one’s dry-cleaning stubs. He had gratefully accepted his salvation, had asked no questions, had looked no gift-horses in the mouth. He had been delivered from evil, and he had had no intention of upsetting things by trying to find out who had done it or why.

No, it wasn’t very logical, but it did sound convincingly like Arlo.

“Somebody recognized that head for what it was,” Gideon mused aloud now, “then killed Haddon afterward because he’d seen it too. The question is: who?”

“ ‘When the cow stumbles,” “ Gabra said somberly, ” ’many knives come out.“ ”

This gloomy particle of Eastern wisdom hung in the air while the waiter set down their orders: mint tea for Gabra, Turkish coffee (“Here we call it Egyptian coffee,” Gabra had reproved him) for Gideon.

“Here’s what I think,” Gideon said. “I think the skeleton was painted to keep anyone from realizing it was one of the el-Hamids so that no one would make any connection to the theft of the statuette four years ago. That means that somebody besides Arlo knew all along that it
was
el-Hamid— either that, or knew enough to figure it out when the bones turned up. He also knew enough to make off with the head when he saw it.”

Gabra nodded, stirring sugar into his already sweetened glass of tea. “I too believe this to be so.”

“If it is,” Gideon said, “wouldn’t your next step be to find out if there’s been any new word of the head on the black market? Talk to the el-Hamids?”

“Yes, but to get information from these people is hard. Also, I think by now that this goes beyond the el-Hamids. It is too large a matter.”

Gideon leaned forward. “I have a friend here, a Dr. Boyajian. He thinks he might be able to learn something from people he knows in Luxor, people who might have contacts in the illegal antiquities market—”

But Gideon had pushed a little too far, a little too fast. “Your friend is too much interested, I think,” Gabra said curtly.

“I just thought—”

“This is a police matter, Doctor, a matter of…” He searched for the right words. “Of sensitivity, of discretion.”

Glumly, Gideon took a sip of the thick, syrupy coffee from its small, squat glass. Was he running into another police roadblock after all? “What’s so sensitive about it? Look, there have been two murders. There have been two thefts of antiquities that add up to a single piece of tremendous historical and monetary value. That piece properly belongs to Egypt, but if it’s not already out of the country by now it’s well on its way. I’d think—”

Gabra was shaking his head. “They will not talk to your friend, they will not talk to me. What we require is to have the help of a—a person with disguise, a—‘’ He fumbled for words again.

“An undercover agent?”

“Yes, an undercover agent, a person to pretend to be a rich buyer of antiquities in search of an Amarna statue.”

Gideon calmed down. “That’s a good idea.”

“We must have a person they do not know, a person who is familiar with Egyptian antiquities. We will have to speak with the antiquities authorities in Cairo. Unfortunately, this may take time—”

“How much time?”

Gabra hunched his shoulders while he used a pair of oversized tweezers to adjust the brazier of burning charcoal that kept the tobacco alight. “A week, no more.”

“A
week?
In a week there wouldn’t be—”

“Perhaps three days. If we are lucky, tomorrow, even.”

Tomorrow.
Bukhra.
Well, Gabra might be operating on Egyptian time, but Clifford Haddon’s killer wasn’t. “Sergeant, there’s a murderer at Horizon House. He—or she-is still there, but the more time we give him, the more chance he has—”

“Dr. Oliver, believe me, I have this many times before. To rush in without good preparation is bad. A proper undercover agent must first be found. Then he must be explained the situation, he must understand—”

“How about me?” Gideon said, startling himself.

Gabra appraised him for a good twenty seconds, through two pulls on the
narghile.
For a single, teetery moment Gideon thought he was going to go along with the idea, but then he shook his head. “This is not possible.”

“Why not?” Now that he’d adjusted to having made the suggestion in the first place, he was beginning to see some merit in it. The only part that daunted him was the prospect of telling Julie about it, but he’d work that out later. “They don’t know me. I know a fair amount about antiquities. I think I could do a pretty convincing imitation of a collector or a dealer who didn’t have too many scruples—”

“You don’t know to speak Arabic—”

“Why would a rich American collector speak Arabic?”

“You have no false identification.”

“You couldn’t have some made up for me?”

Again, there was a flash in Gabra’s eye, a brief, eager weighing of pros and cons, but again it dulled. “It is too dangerous,” he said with finality. “Already one American is killed. No. We will wait for a proper undercover agent. In the meantime, I have plenty of questions for your friends in Horizon House.”

“But—”

Gabra smiled and shook his head. “Go slowly, Doctor. You’re in Egypt. May I tell you an old Arabic saying?”

“Sure,” Gideon said with a sigh. Who knew, a few words of guidance from the Koran might be what he needed.

Gabra steepled his fingers and looked sagacious. “How does the camel fuck the ant?”

Or maybe not from the Koran. “How?” Gideon asked.

“With patience,” Gabra said.

Chapter Twenty

“Fortunately,” Phil said, “I have a plan.”

Trust Phil to have a plan.

He had been lying in wait in the shade of a fig tree, angularly wedged into one of the wicker armchairs on the patio, when Gideon had returned from his talk with Gabra. He had listened with exclamations of excitement and interest to Gideon’s accounting; his own researches, it seemed, had also led him to the shadowy el-Hamid family. He too felt an undercover agent was required. And he had a plan.

“What is it?” Gideon asked doubtfully. He hadn’t much cared for Gabra’s
bukhra
approach, but he wasn’t wild about the idea of a Boyajian Plan either. “If it involves imitating an Egyptian police colonel, forget it.”

“Ha, ha,” Phil assured him, “nothing like that at all. As it happens, you’re John Smith, a rich American antiquities dealer somewhat lacking in scruples. I’m acting as your agent.” He glanced at his watch and unfolded himself from the chair. “Let’s take a walk around the compound. I’ve been sitting here waiting for you since two-thirty. We meet them at five, which doesn’t give us much time to get our act together.”

“We—you—”

Phil had taken a couple of steps down one of the shaded paths before Gideon got his voice and his legs going and caught up with him. “You set up a meeting with these guys for
us?”

“Yes, I did,” Phil said with pride. “No easy matter.”

“How did we get into it? I thought it was the antiquities police you wanted to get involved.”

“I know, but I thought we might as well cut out the middlemen. Do you know what these plants are? The spiky ones? I always like to throw a few plant names into my books. Promotes credibility.”‘

“They’re agave. Phil, what the hell are we supposed to be meeting them
for
?”

“Ostensibly, because you’re looking for a few little gewgaws to add to your stock without the bother of applying to Customs, or paying import duties, or other such nuisances. Actually, to see if they’ve heard anything about the head that might be helpful.”

“Phil, if you set this up, then you already must have talked to them.”

“I did talk to them. Some of them, anyway. God only knows how large the entire clan is.”

“Well, why didn’t you just ask them about the head yourself, then?”

Phil shook his head and clucked. “I don’t know, for a supposedly intelligent man… Look, Gideon, these things take a certain amount of subtlety, of—”

“I know. Sensitivity. Discretion.”

“Correct. You don’t just walk up to them and
ask.
You negotiate, you express interest in buying a few things, you make it worth their while. I can’t do it because they know me and they know I don’t have enough money to be a serious collector. But you—you’re John Smith. I’ve told them just how rich and avaricious you are. They can’t wait to meet you. It’ll be fun, you’ll see.”

“And how am I supposed to bring this delicate mission off with my eight words of Arabic?”

“That’s why you have me along,” Phil said reasonably. “They think you’re paying me a commission to interpret. So those are agave. Ugly buggers.”

They smiled greetings at a workman who was serenely pruning a leggy hibiscus trellised along an archway separating the main house from the annex.

“What if they ask for identification?” Gideon said.

Funny how he’d jumped from one side of the fence to the other in less than an hour. In the cafe, Gideon had been the one hatching plots and Gabra the one raising barriers. But working within the law and under its protection, collaborating with the sober, practical Gabra, had been a different prospect from trying to put over some harum-scarum deception with the breezily confident Phil.

“You won’t need any identification,” Phil told him. “These people aren’t going to frisk you or demand proof of who you are. They’re just diggers, poor bastards who hope to sell what they find for a few piasters. They’re decent people at heart, trying to scrape by any way they can. They’re not dangerous.”

“Oh, right.”

“It’s the dealers, the exporters, the middlemen with the clean fingernails who are the vicious ones—because at that level there’s real money involved. The el-Hamids and people like them aren’t the violent type.”

“Tell that to the guard they killed.”

“Yes, well, there is that,” Phil allowed, “but you must admit that was clearly unintentional.”

“I’m sure that was a great comfort to him. Look, assuming I’d be crazy enough to go along with this, what would we do with this information we gathered? We’d pass it along to Gabra, right?”

“Of course. That’s the plan. Now then: let’s go up to my room. I have something I want to give you before we get started that should, ah, help put a good face on this, shall we say.”

“I haven’t said I’m going to do it,” Gideon said.

“Of course you’ll do it. I never had a moment’s doubt. You just feel you ought to give me a hard time for form’s sake. Really, I don’t mind.”

Gideon opened his mouth to argue but laughed instead. He wasn’t sure just where along the line he’d swung over, but there it was, despite his objections: of course he’d do it. Ifthe two of them didn’t, who would? Besides—had he been spending too much time around Phil?—it did sound like fun.

“One question,” Gideon said. “What’s the hurry? Isn’t five o’clock pushing it a little?”

“I thought it might be better to be off before Julie gets back from the site. I’m not sure she’d approve.”

“I can handle Julie,” Gideon said.

Phil just laughed, a spontaneous peal of genuine amusement.

They had circled the main complex a couple of times and now returned to the patio. Stepping into the shade of the second-floor balcony brought a slight but immediate reduction in heat; something like getting out of a broiler and into a low-temperature oven.

“You’ll probably have to buy a few things from them to establish your credibility,” Phil said, searching through his wallet as they climbed the stairs. “They’ll want American dollars, not Egyptian pounds. I have fifty dollars, what about you?”

Gideon checked. “A hundred.”

“That ought to be more than enough. These people aren’t used to seeing very much for their labors.” He handed his bills to Gideon. “Now look. We’ll turn over anything we come away with to the police, but I don’t want the el-Hamids getting into hot water over it. I know that offends your stern sense of justice but those are my terms. I trust it will be all right with you? In the interests of the greater good?”

“It’ll be all right with me. I just hope we end up with something Gabra can use.”

Phil unlocked the door to his room and went to the air conditioner to flick it on. “I think it would be best,” he said, “if you wore a disguise. What I have in mind,” he said, opening the top drawer of the bureau, “is a beard.”

“Come again?”