Stolen Souls

by Sackett, Jeffrey

  "He's right there, Sam," Sawhill agreed. "Hadji has seen him. We can't let any of them know that we're here. And another thing: say that your little friend does lead us to Haftoori, and he in turn does lead us to Harriet. Then what?"

  Sam was getting annoyed. "Look, if either of you has a better idea, I'm willing to listen to it."

  "Well," Roderick said, "I'd have to say this: The plan is good up until the point at which we locate Miss Langly, but Tom is correct in asking what we would do then. I think that if we're willing to take as many risks as we will be taking, we should be willing to risk being arrested for weapons possession as well."

  "Roderick," Sam said patiently, "to buy a weapon in a country like this—"

  "Sam, please listen. I don't claim to be conversant with the underworld in any way, but I've seen enough on the telly to know that if you have enough money, which we do, you can get anything you want in a city. In Cairo everything's for sale—drugs, women, everything." He leaned forward. "And that includes weapons."

  "Yes, but guns don't have any effect on Sekhemib," Sam protested. "At least that's what the scroll indicates, and it's been right about everything else."

  "But Sekhemib is only one of our problems. Hadji isn't invulnerable. Neither are the other people in this cult of his. If we find Miss Langly, it isn't likely that Sekhemib will be guarding her. With guns we have a chance."

  "And how do you propose to get them?" Sam asked. "Walk around the streets trying to find the criminal element? Come on!"

  "Sam, if Faz can find the institute, he can find weapons," Sawhill said. "Of course. Why didn't I think of this?" He slapped Roderick familiarly on the back. "Good idea, good idea. I'll bet that little kid knows enough about this city to get us anything we want. You asked him to find the institute, and he agreed. If you'd asked him to get us drugs or whores or guns, I'll bet he would've agreed just as readily."

  "Listen, Tom, just because the kid knows his way around the streets of the city doesn't mean he knows how to procure weapons. I know my way around Manhattan pretty well, but I don't have the foggiest notion, I wouldn't even know how to begin to buy illegal weapons."

  "No need to speculate," Roderick said. "When he comes back with the information, we can ask him. If we are all agreed about getting weapons, I mean."

  "I think it's a great idea," Sawhill said. "Sam?"

  He shrugged. "Okay, okay, I'll go along with it. But we may just wind up in prison."

  A knock was heard on the door. "That must be the food," Roderick said eagerly, springing to his feet and going to the door. He opened it to admit the steward, who pushed a roll table before him into the room. Roderick stuffed a few bills into the delighted man's hands, in his ignorance giving him an astronomical tip, and quickly ushered him out of the room. He lifted the silver covers on the plates and trays and sniffed happily at the food. "Such a pleasant surprise!" he said cheerfully. "Roast beef, fried potatoes, vegetables, brandy, sweets—I was half expecting some exotically disgusting garbage."

  "More food there than the average Egyptian sees in a week," Sam muttered, thinking of Faz.

  "Come on, Sam," Sawhill said as he pulled a chair up to the table and unwrapped the napkin which had been folded around a fork and knife, "dig in. We're all going to need our strength."

  Sam acquiesced grumpily. There was enough of the old unreconstructed political radical left in him from his college days all those decades ago to give him a pang of guilt at this largess while the teeming millions swarmed, underfed and undernourished, all around the hotel. He sat down with noticeable ill grace and began to pick at the food. Roderick, of course, needed no encouragement. He attacked his food as if he had not eaten for days.

  After eating they sat about the room nervously, hoping that little Faz would contact them soon. Sawhill smoked cigarette after cigarette as he paced back and forth before the window. Roderick watched television, switching the channel selector around and around until he at last found something in English, an old BeverlyHillbillies being shown with Arabic subtitles. Sam did nothing but sit and gaze at the ceiling, occasionally closing his eyes as if in sleep, but never sleeping.

  Hours passed before the phone rang. "Selwyn," Roderick said into the receiver. "Are you there?" He paused and then smiled. "Ah, good. Please escort him up to our suite. No, no, please just bring him up. Thank you." He hung up and turned to Sam. "The fellow at the desk didn't seem too eager to have your friend in his hotel."

  "I think they're very class-conscious around here," Sam explained. "Most of the Egyptian middle class was part of the lower class not that long ago, and the division between classes means quite a bit to them. It probably bothers the desk clerk to think that his grandfather probably looked like that little kid when he was a child."

  "Really!" Roderick said. "Remarkable."

  "Not really, Roderick. You must remember that this whole area of the world, except for Israel, is just entering the twentieth century, and the process is creating a good deal of social disruption and social tension. The Shah of Iran, for example, found—"

  A knock on the door stopped his lecture, and Thomas Sawhill was grateful. The last thing he felt like listening to was a declamation on modernization in the Third World.

  Roderick opened the door to find a disgruntled bellhop standing beside an incredibly filthy little boy. The child was gazing around him with the wide-eyed, openmouthed wonder to which only the unsophistication of childhood allows full expression. Sam smiled at him and said in Arabic, "Faz, come in, come in." He looked at the bellhop. "Thank you. That will be all."

  Faz walked hesitantly into the center of the room as the door closed behind him. "Effendi, you must be a king to live thus!" the boy gasped.

  "You're close," Sam said. He pointed at Roderick. "This man is an English lord."

  Faz stared at Roderick with awe, and Roderick, who of course did not understand the exchange, asked, "What the devil is he staring at, Sam?"

  "You. I just told him you were a nobleman."

  "Ask him, Sam!" Sawhill demanded. "Ask him!"

  Sam returned to Arabic and said, "We have waited eagerly for you, Faz. Have you found the institute I told you to look for?"

  "Oh, yes, effendi, that was easy. I can lead you there whenever you wish. It is not far from here, no more than two hours."

  That would make it on the other side of the city, Sam thought. The boy has a peculiar concept of distance. "Good, Faz, very good." He turned to Sawhill and Roderick and said in English, "He's found it."

  "Great!" Sawhill. "Now ask him about the guns."

  "Tom, I don't know if—"

  "Please, Sam," Roderick said. "We can't go against these people unarmed. Ask him, please."

  Sam shrugged and turned back to the child. "Faz, I need more help from you. I am going to need you to spy on someone for me, as I said, but I also need to know if you can get us some things which the law says we may not have. We—"

  "Very simple, effendi," the boy broke in, "very easy. You want hashish or opium?"

  "No, no, Faz, you don't under—"

  "Want girls? I can get you girls, very young, very pretty."

  "Faz, be quiet and listen!" The boy, cowed, closed his mouth tightly and stared at Sam with a childish expression of rapt attention. Sam could not help but laugh as he said, "We need weapons, guns. Do you know of anyone who might be able to help us? I don't expect that you—"

  "Guns? Guns? No problem, effendi. You want sarineet shpeesuhl?" It took Sam a moment to realize that the boy was saying "Saturday night special," the term apparently having entered into the general vocabulary of the streets around the world. "You want maybe Kalishnikovs? Shotguns? Any gun you want, effendi, I can get for you."

  "Well?" Sawhill asked impatiently. "What did he say?"

  "He says he can get weapons for us," Sam said, "but I don't know if I believe him." In Arabic, he asked, "Tell me where you will get the guns."

  Faz shrugged. "From my brother Khalid."

  "Yes, ok
ay, but where will he get them?"

  "Oh, effendi, there are many places. Palestinians left much here when they left, and many people took rifles and bullets and hand grenades. Many other groups of people—the Copts, the mullah people—have secret stashes of weapons which I can steal or Khalid can steal. We can rob the police—"

  "Faz, hold it! I don't want you to rob the police!"

  "But why, effendi? I rob the police all the time. The army is easy to rob too. You want maybe bazookas?"

  Sam bowed and shook his head. "And we sell this country armaments," he muttered.

  "Can he do it?" Sawhill asked. "Do you think he's telling the truth?"

  "Unfortunately, I think he is."

  "But that's good, Sam," Roderick said. "Why does it seem to bother you?"

  He sighed. "What kind of world is this where a little boy can get hold of guns and drugs and whores?"

  Sawhill leaned forward. "It's the kind of world where dead men walk and innocent people are killed and kidnapped. Now tell him to get us guns!"

  Sam's dislike of the situation did not blind him to the logic, and he shook his head sadly. To Faz he said, "Now, listen. We will need handguns and rifles and much ammunition. How much money will you need? You can include a fee for your help in the amount."

  The child did some quick mental calculation. He could neither read nor write, but he knew the value of things on the enormous black market. "I think maybe fifty pounds for each weapon, another fifty pounds for the ammunition. Say four hundred pounds, effendi, to be safe?"

  "Four hundred pounds—" he turned to Roderick and said in English, "He says four hundred Egyptian pounds, but that's only about three hundred bucks. You can't buy three rifles and three pistols for such a small amount of money."

  "Maybe you can here," Sawhill said. "Don't forget, we're paying thirty dollars a day for a suite of rooms. Where will he get the weapons?"

  Sam sighed. "Apparently he's going to steal them."

  "Then he's getting them for free, and the fifty pounds is clear profit. It sounds good to me. How about you, Roderick?"

  "As long as we get the guns, I don't care what they cost. Shall I give him the money now?"

  "Give him half," Sam said. "I like the little guy, but we may never see him again." To Faz he said in Arabic, "We will give you two hundred pounds now, and the rest when we get the guns. Is that all right?"

  Faz grinned happily. "Wonderful, effendi, wonderful. I will go to the river and find Khalid, and—"

  "But first you must take us to the institute I asked you to find. After that you tell your brother to get the weapons, and then I want you to come back to the institute where we will wait for you. I will need you to keep a close watch on the people who come and go from the institute. You may need help, so get some friends. We will pay them, as well as we pay you."

  "Yes, effendi! That will put them in my debt!" He smiled.

  Yes, Sam thought, and doubtless make them willing to fork over to you that percentage of their fee which you intend to extort from them. The world is a sewer. "Come, let us go to the street of the potters."

  "Immediately, effendi!" the boy chirped as he sprang to his feet.

  Roderick heaved himself up from his chair and joined Sawhill, who was already pacing tensely in front of the door of the hotel room. They had not understood the last words spoken by Sam to the child, but when Faz bounded over to the door they both felt a surge of anticipation, as if all the days wasted in Egypt and in the U.S. were at last about to be followed by action. Harriet Langly's face, her smile, the smell of her hair, drifted constantly about in Sawhill's mind. He clenched and unclenched his fists obsessively.

  Faz led the three men on what was almost a travel backward through time as they followed him deep into the labyrinthine streets of the oldest section of the city of Cairo. It was easy to imagine, walking down the narrow stone streets, that it was the tenth century still. The smell of excrement, sweat, and stagnation mingled oddly with the delicate aroma of burning incense, the scent of a hundred different spices making palatable the varieties of foods which were being cooked, the perfumes and essences which graced the carefully concealed flesh of the shrouded women who walked barefoot or sandaled along the cobblestones. This was the face of Cairo which was turned from the world, and from which in turn the world turned its face. Medieval Cairo, a city combining elements of charm and desperation, tradition and misery, simplicity most pristine and poverty most abject: old men struggling along on bandy legs; young women giggling to each other furtively from behind their veils; workers carrying heavy bundles borne upon muscles glistening with sweat; old women trudging on in slow, numb steps, their faces cracked and wrinkled with years, decades, a lifetime of unspoken sorrows and unrelenting labor; crowds of bitter and hostile young men who roamed about seeking whipping boys upon whom to vent their rage; beggars pleading for food and money; cripples lying helpless against old walls imploring alms for the love of Allah; the barking of undernourished dogs; the incessant buzzing of flies and gnats—old Cairo. Surveying the crooked streets and the sweltering mass of humanity, one could almost imagine that not far from there Saladin was making ready to ride north and engage Richard the Lion-Hearted in battle over the fate of Jerusalem.

  Sam Goldhaber was filled with a sense of time, a sense of history, as he followed the little boy through the maze. Roderick Fowles held his nose expressively. Thomas Sawhill saw nothing but Harriet's face.

  "It is here, effendi," Faz said happily, as they came to a stop in front of a basket shop and the boy pointed proudly down a narrow alley which terminated in a simple mud-brick building with a single door and no windows.

  "That's it, apparently," Sam said to his companions.

  "No wonder we couldn't find it ourselves," Roderick muttered. "It doesn't even have an address on it, or a sign of any kind."

  "Course not," Sawhill said. "They're not going to advertise their location. The less anyone knows about them, the better off they are."

  "Sure." Sam squinted his eyes and looked down the dark alley. "The only reason they're registered with the government at all is probably to avoid any sort of complications when the regimes change."

  "What do you mean?" Roderick asked.

  "Well, despite what our government tells us, Egypt is not a particularly stable country Whenever a regime is overthrown in one of these countries, any person or group which is in any way suspicious is usually targeted for attack in the general free-for-all which follows. It's a perfect front for their cult. A nationalist organization devoted to the return of national art work stolen by the West over the years." He laughed grimly. "No regime, right wing or left wing, could do other than applaud their intentions. A perfect front."

  "Well, Roderick coughed, his delicate nostrils still not accustomed to the powerful smell of the city, "now that we're here, what shall we do?"

  "I still think that you should go in and see what's to be seen," Sam said.

  "Sam, I hate to be so contrary, but I can't see what—"

  "Wait!" Sawhill broke in. "Look. Someone's coming."

  Sam grabbed Sawhill by the arm, saying, "We can't be seen here. We stick out like sore thumbs on this street."

  "Into this shop, quickly!" Sawhill said, moving tensely into the small basket shop and pulling Roderick behind him. They stood motionless in the shadow afforded by the canopy which hung low over the piles of woven reed baskets which rested in lopsided heaps on either side of the door. The old man who tended the shop began to babble to them excitedly, pushing basket after basket in front of their faces. Roderick reached into his pocket and withdrew some paper money. He peeled off a bill and thrust it into the old man's hand and then gestured for him to be quiet. The old man flashed them a toothless grin and retired to the back of the shop.

  They watched as a very old man hobbled slowly out of the shadows of the alley, his back slightly bent in what at first seemed to be an arthritic stoop but which they soon realized was an attempt at a permanent bow of obsequi
ousness in the direction of his companion. They watched as another man, tall and straight, emerged from the dim recesses of the alley.

  "Sekhemib!" Sam whispered. "My God! It's unbelievable."

  "I know it is. But it's true." Sawhill's body was tense and rigid, and only the knowledge that the ancient priest could paralyze him with a glance restrained him from springing forward upon him and beating him into a bloody pulp. "Why so surprised, Sam?" he asked between teeth clenched so tightly that his jaw began to ache. "You knew what we were here to find."

  "Yes, but I'd never actually seen him, except for a glimpse of a face through the back window of that van of theirs." He shook his head as he watched a living, breathing proof of what for him had been until this moment an abstraction, as the bizarre, unreal situation ceased to be a belief or an idea and became a physical presence, a living danger, a monstrous reality. "Three thousand five hundred years old! And alive!"

  "Older than that," Roderick commented, "in all likelihood."

  "Can we follow them without being seen?" Sam asked.

  "We have to follow them, whether they see us or not," Sawhill replied. "We may never have a chance to find that creature again, and he's the one who can lead us to Harriet."

  Sam turned to the little boy who had been listening in curious incomprehension to the alien conversation, and said in Arabic, "Faz, these are the people we must follow, but we fear that we may lose them in the crowds or be seen by them. You must follow them also and continue to follow them even if we cannot. Do you understand?"

  "Certainly, effendi! I shall cling to them like lice!"

  Aptly phrased, Sam thought to himself, as the three men and the child began cautiously to follow behind the two Egyptians. Sekhemib was so much taller than the average man on the Cairo street that his head was clearly visible above the crowd, even from a distance, so that his four pursuers did not need to follow closely. They stayed well back of him, but kept him constantly in sight. They made no conversation as they fixed their attention with an obsessive intensity upon the back of the head of long, luxuriant black hair as it bobbed up and down through the human sea of Cairo's back streets.