Dead Men's Hearts

“Well, this is usually your line, Gideon, but may I respectfully point out that you are hypothesizing somewhat in advance of the facts? We still don’t know that the head—let alone this body you’ve now conjured up—was stolen, or even that it was ever there. Simply because something could have been done doesn’t mean it was.”

Gideon looked at her. “Good God, I’ve created a monster.”

“But I’m right, aren’t I?”

Gideon sighed. “Yes, of course you’re right. We don’t know.” He scowled at his half- finished mineral water, his enthusiasm draining away. “And if we did, what would we do about it anyway?”

Phil had a final forkful of koshari and pushed his bowl away. “Well, now, I just might be able to help in that regard. Things get around, you know. I could ask around, talk to some of my, ah, shadier Luxor friends, see if they’ve heard any rumors about an Amarna head coming on the underground market in the last few days. It couldn’t do any harm.”

Julie’s eyes widened. “You have friends who would know things like that?”

“Real people,” Gideon said.

“People who hear what’s going on,” Phil said. “Luxor seems like a big city, but if you separate out the tourist trade it’s simply an overgrown village full of families who’ve known one another for decades or even centuries. There aren’t many secrets.”

Gideon folded his arms gloomily. “But what’s the point? If I can’t get the Egyptian cops interested in two murders, why should they get excited about a piece of an old statue?”

“Never mind the criminal police,” Phil said warmly. “What if we can get the antiquities people interested? They carry a lot of weight with the government. Let them put pressure on Saleh to do something.”

Gideon took a slow sip of warm mineral water. “It’s a thought.”

“It’s a thought to forget,” Julie said. “Or don’t you remember that Clifford Haddon’s been murdered over this? Stay out of it, Phil; this isn’t a game.”

“That’s good advice, Phil,” Gideon said soberly. “Talking to the police is one thing. But stay away from the bad guys.”

“Is everyone ready for dessert?” Phil asked brightly. “I know a marvelous place for mint tea and muhalabiya.”

Chapter Eighteen

Sergeant Monir Gabra dislodged the last stubborn shred of lamb from between his teeth, dropped the toothpick into his wastepaper basket, and sank with a grimace into his chair. Shwarma—people were beginning to call it gyros now, in the Greek fashion—didn’t agree with him the way it once did. It was the fat, he supposed. The older you got, the harder it was to digest, and it was certainly true that he wasn’t getting any younger. He was going to have to stop going out to the stands for hurried lunches. His stomach couldn’t take it anymore. And look at that paunch. Pretty soon Fawzia was going to have to make him lunches of sandweeches and put them in paper sacks the way she did for the children. He put a hand to his chest and burped softly, painfully.

“Shwarma again?” Asila said dryly from her desk just beyond the partition that made an “office” out of his windowless nook on the second floor of the old police building on Shari Bur Said.

Gabra grumbled something in response as he looked at the message slip on his scarred metal desk. How cheeky they were these days, the clerks. Even the old ones, like Asila. There she sat, fat and tawdry, in clothes that were too tight for an overweight woman of forty-five, smoking like a man and full of smart-aleck remarks. Nowadays they learned how to behave from watching “Dallas” on television.

The message asked him to call Major Saleh. He fought down a second burp and punched one of the intercom buttons. Nothing happened. He punched it again.

“It’s broken,” Asila said around her cigarette and over her shoulder.

He shook his head. It’s broken. If Egypt ever needed a national motto, It’s broken would get his vote. The intercom was broken. The swivel on his chair was broken. The electric typewriter was broken. The fan was broken. The paint to refinish the fly-spotted green walls was broken.

“Does the lift work?”

“At last report.”

“God be praised.” He walked dourly from his cubicle.

Asila looked up at him as he passed and suddenly lifted the corners of her mouth with her fingers to make a smile. “Hey, cheer up,” she said as warmly as her brassy voice would allow. “He won’t eat you.”

He laughed. Ah, she wasn’t such a bad old girl, really, compared to most of them. The best secretary on the floor, if he wanted to be honest about it, if you didn’t care about lousy typing. And after twelve years he ought to be used to her manner. It wasn’t much different from having a second wife on the job. Fawzia watched “Dallas” too.

He gave her gaudily beringed hand a pat. “I’m a pretty tough old bird,” he said with a smile.

“Don’t I know it!” she called after him.

In his third-floor office Major Saleh looked up from his work with a noble expression of devotion to duty and country that almost matched that in the picture of President Mubarak on the wall behind him.

“Ah, Gabra, I have something to delegate to you; something that requires sensitivity and discretion. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

“I’m sure I will, sir,” Gabra said, but he sat down in the leather chair beside the desk with deep misgiving. From long experience he knew better than to expect anything good to come of it when Major Saleh started talking about delegating.

Twenty minutes later he was back in his cubicle with a three-page report from Gideon Oliver in front of him and a set of verbal instructions from Major Saleh. Gabra’s assignment, in a nutshell, was to get this meddlesome and