Dead Men's Hearts

by Aaron Elkins

  "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

  Today I reexamined a set of skeletal remains originally found in an abandoned storage enclosure at Horizon House on November 28. At that time they were mistakenly identified as being those of an archaeological specimen from the institution's collection, an error in which I concurred in an examination on November 29.

  However, a later examination leads me to conclude that these remains are modern, belonging to an individual dead between two and five years.

  2. BONES PRESENT

  The partial skeleton consists of four ribs, one thoracic and two lumbar vertebrae, the skull (minus the mandible), the right scapula and humerus, the right second and third metacarpals, the first phalanx of the right index finger, the sacrum, both innominates, both femurs, both tibias, and the left fibula. No other bones were recovered.

  Gabra yawned and lit up a Cleopatra King. This would be tough going even if his English were up to it.

  3. CONDITION

  No soft tissue was present. There is moderate environmental erosion and considerable evidence of rodent and canine gnawing, particularly at the long bone ends.

  4. TRAUMA AND PROBABLE CAUSE OF DEATH

  There is a ten-centimeter antemortem fracture of the right parietal running diagonally back from the coronal suture. This type of injury is commonly associated with falls. Total absence of healing indicates that death followed shortly after. It is therefore highly probable that cranial damage resulting from a fall was the cause of death. Naturally, other causes of death that might not show in the existing bones cannot be ruled out.

  In my opinion, it is highly likely that foul play was involved. (See "Conclusions and Implications.")

  5. RACE

  The admixture of racial strains in these remains makes positive racial identification difficult. However, given the circumstances, the admixture of Caucasian, Mediterranean, and African attributes suggests strongly that the individual was Egyptian.

  6. SEX

  The subpubic angle and the angles of the sciatic notch indicate that the bones are those of a male.

  7. STATURE AND BODY BUILD

  Estimated stature, based on combined long bone lengths and using the regression formula of Trotter and Gleser, ranges from 169 cm to 176.5 cm (66.5" to 69.5"), with a likely height of about 173 cm (68").

  8. AGE

  All epiphyses are fused, indicating that the skeletal system had reached maturity. The pubic symphyses, although damaged by carnivore activity, appear to be at about phase five of the Suchey-Brooks age determination system. This, combined with other indicators such as cranial suture closure and "lipping" of long bones, vertebrae, and scapula, suggest an age of about forty to fifty years, with forty-five to fifty being likely.

  9. PATHOLOGIES AND ANOMALIES

  The right malar was fractured sometime before death, possibly in childhood. Although completely healed, the bone did not set properly, and it is likely that the right cheek of this individual had a caved-in or "dropped" appearance.

  Other than this, there is no evidence of anomalies or of pathological conditions beyond the normal bone deterioration and degeneration to be expected with an age in the late forties.

  Gabra scowled and read the last section again. At fifty-four, he was all too aware that his teeth weren't what they had been, or his digestive system either. But was he supposed to believe that his very bones were going too? Of this he had never heard before. His wife's grandfather was still alive at ninety, and though the old man grumbled freely enough about his numerous ailments, Gabra could not remember him complaining about deteriorating bones.

  He began to see some merit in Saleh's assessment of Gideon Oliver. Gabra himself had had dealings with a pair of forensic scientists once before and had failed to be impressed when they quarreled over the age and race of a decomposing corpse that had turned up along the river south of Qena. The only thing they had agreed on was the sex, but Gabra had hardly needed an expert for that.

  And look at the mess the physical anthropologists had made with their famous examinations of Tutankhamun's mummy.

  No, these experts had to be taken with a grain of salt. If Gabra's bones were "degenerating," no one was going to have to tell him about it; he would be the first to know.

  The broken swivel in his chair clacked (or was that his hip joint?) as he shifted and went on reading.

  10. POSSIBLE INDICATIONS OF OCCUPATION

  There are a number of skeletal indicators that appear to offer clues as to the occupation of this individual, and may thus be helpful in his identificat
ion.

  a. Bilateral osteitis of the ischial tuberosities; that is, an unusually craggy appearance of those portions of the hip bones on which most of one's weight rests when seated.

  b. A laterally bowed fibula; that is, a slight side-to-side "bending" of the fibula, which is the thinner of the two bones in the lower leg.

  c. Enlarged ligament-attachment areas on the phalanx (finger bone) and on one of the metacarpals (the bones in the body of the hand), along with evidence of osteoarthritis of the metacarpals.

  d. An unusually advanced state of wear on the upper and lower incisors, or front teeth.

  Gabra huffed. He knew what an incisor was. He'd known what a fibula was too, or close enough to make no difference. Who did this Oliver think he was dealing with?

  This unusual combination of traits resulted in some misinterpretation during my first examination of the skeleton...

  Gabra hooted quietly. Leave it to one of these puffed-up scientists to describe a monumental blunder as a "misinterpretation."

  ... but further analysis of the individual characteristics has suggested a more plausible explanation.

  The roughened areas of the hip bone, as determined earlier, are very probably the result of sitting for long periods on a hard surface. Similarly, the bowed fibula would appear to be a reaction to pressure on the lower leg exerted by years of sitting cross-legged. The roughened areas on the finger bones have been associated in the past with the firm grasping of a relatively thin object in the fingers.

  What this object may have been is suggested by a close examination of the worn incisors, which reveals many small front-to-back serrations or indentations in the eroded biting surfaces of the teeth. These have been found to occur in other cases with long-term use of the incisors to hold and snap thread.

  Add to this the fact that metacarpals like the one described here have been reliably associated with habitual forceful opposition of the thumb and index finger, and have in fact been referred to in the literature as "seamstress's fingers"—and a probable conclusion as to occupation seems justified.

  In my opinion, the deceased was probably a tailor in life, practicing his trade in the old-fashioned manner, seated on a wide bench or on the ground in the cross-legged "sartorial" posture. I understand that this is a position still used by many Egyptian village tailors.

  * * *

  Gabra's mind had begun to drift. His eyes continued to move steadily down the lines like a donkey that keeps on trudging along after it has fallen asleep in its traces. But now he blinked, skidded to a halt, and went back to the top of the page. His mouth hung open as he read it for the second time. The burnt-down cigarette, pasted to his lower lip, dangled for a few seconds before he plucked it off and impatiently ground it out in the ashtray.

  "A tailor!" he said aloud. Maybe Saleh had given him something interesting after all.

  "What?" Asila said without stopping her unsteady, two-fingered typing.

  "Asila," he called over the partition, "do you remember that archaeological theft in the Western Valley a few years ago? At the Horizon House excavation?"

  "Where the watchman was killed?" Click. Clack. Click.

  "Yes, it's never been closed, has it?"

  "No, it's still open, but no longer active. Don't you remember? We were fairly certain that the el-Hamids were in it up to their eyelids, but when it came to proving—"

  "Get me the file, will you?"

  The typing finally stopped, or he thought it did. It wasn't an easy thing to tell. "What, now?"

  "No, a week from next Thursday."

  She sighed mightily. Her chair creaked. Her copper-dyed hair appeared over the top of the partition, her penciled eyebrows, her mascaraed eyes. "What's all this excitement, a new lead?"

  Saleh extracted the last cigarette from the pack on his desk and threw the crumpled container into the wastepaper basket.

  "No," he said. "An old lead."

  He turned to the remaining two pages of the report, the part entitled "Conclusions and Implications."

  * * *

  Gabra nodded to himself while he slipped the cellophane off another gold-striped pack of Cleopatras. At one hand lay Oliver's report, at the other the file that Asila had brought him. The details were coming back now. It had happened four years earlier, in the fall of 1989 at WV-29, an isolated Horizon excavation in the Western Valley. Thieves had raided it during the night. It was not a major site by any means and would not have engendered the formidable investigation it had, if not for the murder of a police constable who was working as night watchman. He had been doped, tied up, and gagged, and when the crew had reported the next morning they had found him dead, choked to death on his own vomit. Probably it had been unintentional, but it was murder all the same. Of a policeman.

  What they had taken was a small, Eighteenth Dynasty sandstone sculpture, a headless statuette "in the Amarna style." It had been found only that afternoon and had not yet been measured or removed from the ground. The thieves had dug it up themselves. Gabra pulled a cigarette from the pack with his lips and flicked his cigarette lighter across its end while he rummaged in the clutter of papers (not all the clerks were as efficient as Asila) for the summary sheet. Ah, here. Signed by Saleh himself.

  The investigation to this time leaves little doubt as to the involvement of the el-Hamids, the notorious and hereditary family of tomb-robbers from Nag el-Azab, where for several generations they have maintained a tailoring business as a front for their other activities.

  Well, that was pretty much correct, except that the el-Hamids' tailoring was no front. But that was Saleh for you. The major's father had been a deputy minister and Saleh had grown up among the clean white villas and fragrant green gardens of Cairo's Maadi district. Despite years of police work, he had never really come to understand the poor. Gabra, on the other hand, had been born in one of the swarming tenements near the Bab el-Luk, the son of a donkey-cart driver; understanding the poor had come with his birthright.

  The el-Hamids were legitimate tailors, all right, but who could survive as a tailor in Nag el-Azab? This dilapidated warren of alleyways was only a few blocks from the heart of oh-so-fashionable Luxor, but the styles didn't change as often on the muddy Shari el-Jihad as they did on the elegant Corniche. They didn't change at all, in fact. Galabiyas and chadors were store-bought, then worn until they fell apart, which was the point at which the el-Hamids came into the picture, patching them up for a few piasters, and sometimes repairing shoes into the bargain.

  It was impossible to live on such work, and so decades ago the family had learned to eke out a precarious and marginal sideline pilfering second-rate artifacts from the isolated secondary sites across the river, sites that better-class tomb-robbers didn't bother with. He had dealt with some of them, not only on this case, but also at one time or another when they had been caught at their illicit trade, as they frequently were. (Clearly, three generations of tomb-robbing had failed to increase their proficiency.) Usually they were fined a few pounds or given a night in jail. Always they accepted their punishment with a shrug and went back the moment they were released to their tailoring and their stealing. Apparently their antiquities profits netted them more than the cost of their fines, because they certainly stuck at it. How much more was debatable. It was the rich dealers and middlemen—not the diggers who expended the sweat and took the risks—who came away with all the money.

  But when had it ever been different? Now as ever, the poor man's jaw ached with the rich man's wealth. His own untutored father had ranted for entire evenings about the coming revolution, about the freedom of the masses, the righteous upheavals of a new order. And yet, all his life he had never been able to think beyond the occupation of cart-driver. When young Monir had told him he wanted to go to high school to prepare himself to be a police man, the old man had been stunned. "Who will drive the cart after I'm gone?" he asked. "Who will provide for the family?"

  Gabra pulled deeply on the cigarette and returned to the file
summary sheet.

  Nevertheless, it has been impossible to prove a verifiable connection to the el-Hamids. In addition, no witnesses of any kind have been found. Moreover, Abdul Nasr el-Hamid, the man thought to have been primarily responsible for the theft and the death of the guard, appears to have fled the area immediately after his crimes, possibly to the Sudan. And finally, a year-long search of the usual outlets for this type of antiquity, in which excellent cooperation was received from Police and Security Service branches in Aswan, Cairo, and Alexandria, has produced no usable evidence that a statuette similar to the one stolen has recently traveled in the usual channels, or even been offered for sale. Interpol was contacted as well, with negative results.

  For these reasons, this case is being classified to inactive as of this date.

  Major Yussef Saleh's gorgeous, flowing signature followed at the bottom of the sheet.

  Abdul Nasr el-Hamid, Gabra mused, the killer-thief who had conveniently run off to the Sudan. Or so they had all thought. But hadn't that been only because the rest of the el-Hamids had so stoutly maintained it? What the police knew was simply that he had disappeared, as if into the air.

  Or into the old storage enclosure at Horizon House, Gabra said to himself, never to reemerge. He flipped through the file looking for Abdul el-Hamid's description; if Gabra himself had ever met the man, he couldn't remember it. Ah, here it was. Age, forty-six, height 172 cm, unusual facial appearance due to the right eye being lower than the left...