hands and feet-would be one kind of stone, and the body another. As it happens, yellow jasper was one of the kinds used for the heads. As it also happens, although there are a fair number of heads and a fair number of bodies around, complete statues-the right body with the right head-are extremely rare. And extremely valuable… even with run-of-the-mill carving. Get it to the right buyer, and it’d be worth-well, maybe millions. So I was thinking-”
“That there’s a body that goes along with that head,” Phil said, “and somebody knows where it is. Or already has it.”
“Exactly.”
“Or could it be right there in the collection?” Julie suggested.
Gideon shook his head. “No, I went ahead and checked through everything, and there are only two partial bodies, neither of which could possibly go with the head.
“How can you know that?” Phil asked. “You haven’t seen the head.”
“Well, no, but Haddon said it was five inches from the crown to the base of the neck, so applying normal body ratios, and giving a little leeway to Eighteenth Dynasty artisticlicense, I figured that the body, from shoulders down, would be around twenty or twenty-two inches, and there’s nothing close. But then, why should it still be there? It could have been stolen just the way the head was stolen. So the next question is-”
Julie was regarding him skeptically, her head cocked, the flat of her fork against her lip.
“Julie, do I take it you’re not buying this?”
“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 lunatic American busybody, as the major called him, out of their hair. He was to do it without offending Oliver or the other Americans, he was to do it without creating any fuss, and he was, above all, to do it without involving Major Saleh any further. The extremist crisis was growing; another tourist, a Dane this time, had been shot near the main ferry landing the previous evening, and the major’s time and energy could no longer be wasted on fantastic intrigues, imaginary murders, and old skeletons.
But Gabra’s could, of course. Ah, well, he thought philosophically-his stomach had settled and he was feeling more in tune with the world-wasn’t this, after all, the very nature of delegation?
It was as the old proverb said:
Shit falls downward.
TO: Major Yussef Saleh FROM: Gideon Oliver
1. INTRODUCTION
