weeks, but this time he says he’s going to bring along a few friends. I wonder what…”
I paid for the magazine and went on reading, guided by John’s hand on my elbow. Most of the material was familiar. German and Egyptian scholars had been arguing about the beautiful bust of Nefertiti ever since it went on exhibit in Berlin back in the 1920s. The Egyptians had a point. Some of the other antiquities they wanted back, like the Rosetta Stone, had been found and appropriated before the foundation of the Egyptian Antiquities Organization, as it was once called. By 1912, when Nefertiti had turned up in a German dig, the laws governing the division of finds were strict: the Egyptians kept pretty much whatever they pleased, especially unique items, and the rest was divided between the Cairo Museum and the excavators. Somehow or other, Nefertiti had been included in the objects handed over to the excavators. It was hard to understand how anyone, even an inexperienced inspector, could have failed to claim her. Like Tutankhamon, the life-sized painted bust is unique, and unlike poor old Tut, it is outstandingly beautiful.
John steered me into a chair; when he returned with two cups of coffee I had finished the article.
“I wonder if he’ll really do it,” I said.
“Bring a brass band and some dancing girls to help him picket the museum?” John chuckled. “I hope so.”
“Wouldn’t the cops run him in?”
“He’d love that. Excellent publicity.”
“I’m surprised you never tried to steal her,” I said.
“Nefertiti?” John looked pensive. “I might have had a stab at it if anyone had offered me enough. I didn’t steal things for myself, you know,” he added self-righteously.
“The important word in that sentence is not ‘myself,’ but ‘steal,’” I pointed out, and closed the magazine. “He is a good-looking guy, isn’t he? Is it only a coincidence that this—um—business happened soon after he took over? Speaking of people who have made enemies—”
“We weren’t.”
“Then let’s. I trust you didn’t point out to Feisal that there is a certain multimillionaire who might hold a grudge against him. He was instrumental in foiling Blenkiron’s plan to steal Tetisheri’s tomb paintings. And if we’re talking about collectors with bizarre tastes—”
“Blenkiron’s name does come to mind,” John agreed. “Though the word exotic is more accurate than bizarre. The paintings were beautiful. Tut isn’t. Anyhow, you and I and Schmidt did our share of the foiling.”
“Is that supposed to be a happy thought?”
“I can’t believe Blenkiron is responsible for this. He collects art objects, not curiosities, and if he were the sort of man to hold a grudge, he wouldn’t focus on Feisal. However, you have raised a point I hadn’t considered— the timing. What do you know about Khifaya’s background?”
“Not much,” I admitted. “When I spoke of making enemies, I was thinking about his position rather than his personal history. His predecessor made a huge point of demanding that foreign museums and collectors return Egypt’s stolen antiquities, and Khifaya seems to be intent on carrying on the good work.”
“‘Stolen’ isn’t strictly accurate in some cases,” John said. “The Rosetta Stone—”
“I know more than I need to know about the Rosetta Stone. But you, of all people, can’t deny that a number of museums and private collectors have objects whose provenance is dubious.”
“I take leave to resent that implication,” John said primly. “Why do you keep wandering off the subject? All I said was that Khifaya’s background might bear investigation.”
“A nasty divorce? Hey, is he married?”
“Don’t be frivolous.” John glanced at his watch and rose. “Let’s go.”
“It’s a good picture. If we go to Egypt, maybe I can get him to autograph it. ‘To dear Vicky, my biggest fan.’”
John’s lip curled in one of his elegant sneers.
“He’s even handsomer than Feisal. Or,” I said, struck by a new and inspiring thought, “maybe he’ll let me be one of his friends next time he pickets the museum.”
Content to be towed by a masterful hand on my arm (so I could go on admiring the picture of my new crush), I didn’t take note of where we were going until we arrived at the gate.
“Hey,” I said, digging in my heels. “This is the wrong flight. It’s not going to London.”
“Neither are we.” He had timed it perfectly; the last passengers were lined up. He handed over our boarding passes and propelled me forward.
“Why are we going to Rome? When did you change plans? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t change plans.”
“But you told Feisal—”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you…” Now that I thought back on his reference to London, he hadn’t actually said we were going there. “Damn it, I don’t want to go to Rome. Please don’t tell me you mean to confer with Pietro and whatsername and the other crooks you were working with when we first met.”
“All in the past, my dear, the distant past. In point of fact I hope to confer with someone at the Vatican. Here’s your seat.”
He went on to find his, leaving me in a frenzy of speculation. Someone at the Vatican. Not the pope. Surely not the pope. Not John.
I had ample time for reflection during the flight. Unfortunately, all I could do was go over and over the same ground, like a cat chasing its tail, getting nowhere. Not one cat, several of them, a random feline ballet, interwoven and endless. Suzi. Rome. Tutankhamon. Why in heaven’s name would anybody steal Tutankhamon? Why would anybody want to steal it…him? What would you do with him once you had him? You couldn’t stick him away in an attic or a closet, he’d require…What does a mummy require? Controlled temperature, sterile atmosphere, room service?
I jerked awake from a dream that featured an air-conditioned suite in the best hotel in Cairo, and Tutankhamon laid out on a Posturepedic mattress surrounded by harem beauties in white nurses’ uniforms.
I had planned to intercept John when he passed my seat, but everybody was pushing and shoving and I didn’t catch up with him until I reached the baggage area.
“Not the pope,” I said.
“I beg your pardon?” He raised one eyebrow, in that maddening way of his.
“All right, not the pope. Who? And if you say ‘Who what?’ I will lie down on the floor and kick and scream.”
“Not here, someone will trample you underfoot.” He turned and ran a seemingly casual eye over the passengers who were shoving and pushing as they waited for the belt to deliver their luggage. Nothing unusual about them that I could see: the young mother shepherding two darling kiddies who were beating at each other with stuffed bunnies; the self-important business types yelling into their cell phones; two priests in black cassocks; a pair of twenty-somethings, nationality indeterminate, wound round each other like pretzels; a little gray-haired lady wearing sunglasses and carrying an enormous purse…Nobody brandishing an UZI or a deadly vial of shampoo.
“Nobody could have followed us onto that plane,” I declared. “I didn’t even know we were taking it.”
“Precisely.”
B y the time we got through passport and customs it was late evening and I was starved. I informed John of this.
He didn’t even respond with a raised eyebrow. Taking me by the arm, he hustled me out of the airport, past a line of waiting taxis. Pausing by an anonymous dark sedan, he opened the back door, shoved me in, and followed me.
“What—” I began.
“Quiet,” said my beloved. Leaning forward, he pressed a knuckle into the back of the driver’s neck.
“Albatross,” he said.
“Ancient mariner,” replied the driver, and giggled. The car pulled smoothly away from the curb.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said. “How paranoid can you get?”
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean—”
“I am familiar with the reference.”
