"Like your membership dues in the temple?" Ray Rah countered. "I've been floating you one loan after another, and this is the thanks I get? The first live contact we have with the head office in over twenty-five years and you try to embarrass me in front of her? Maybe I should let you sink or swim on your own. No dues, no membership; no membership—"
"—no parties." The realization yanked Billy-hotep down to earth with a thud. He began to blubber: "You can't do that to me, man! I love our parties! They're just like the ones we used to throw back in college!"
"Everything's just the way it used to be for us back in college," Meritaten muttered. "Except our waistlines, our cars, and our computers."
"Ah, eternal Egypt," Peez commented. She considered this little nest of aging Baby Boomers. They'd grown up in a society that saw them as the center of the universe, they'd indulged one set of whims after the other, they'd amassed great heaping piles of Stuff, and if you didn't think too much about their age-mates who'd been destroyed by the Viet Nam War, as a group they'd had it good. Why let a little thing like death stop the fun?
A remarkably pharaonic outlook, that. All in all, she was surprised that more Boomers hadn't subscribed to Ray Rah's restored stab at that Old Time Religion.
At least their tombs won't be despoiled, she thought. No self-respecting burglar would be interested. All the electronics they stow away with them for eternity will be obsolete before the seal on the sarcophagus dries.
"You know," she said aloud. "Tradition is a wonderful thing. A sacred thing. I know that of all the different groups that we at E. Godz, Inc. represent, yours is the only one worthy enough to fully appreciate the holiness of continuity. The gods themselves smile upon those who—"
Fifteen minutes later she was sitting in the back seat of Ray Rah's own Lincoln Town Car while his driver whisked her off to her hotel. The first thing she did after fastening her seat belt was to dig Teddy Tumtum out of her carry-on bag and wave a piece of parchment in his furry face.
"Look!" she crowed. "They loved me, Teddy Tumtum. They all told me how much they appreciated my coming out to see them in person this way. Sure, their group's nothing more than a bunch of old yuppies trying to keep a death grip on their youth, but why should I care about that? Read this and weep, Dov! Chicago's power—money, numbers, media clout, the whole shebang—and it's all promised to me, right there, in black and white!"
"Looks more like black, yellow, and a little red," Teddy Tumtum said, studying the parchment. "This is written in hieroglyphics. Good luck getting it to stand up in court, even if some of these squiggles do look like legs."
Peez jealously snatched the parchment away from the bear. "It won't come to court. Why should it? This is only the first of my victories. I hadn't yet hit my stride while dealing with Fiorella, but now—! Ho, ho! Look out, world, here comes Peez."
"Good idea," said Teddy Tumtum. He dove back into the carry-on bag and hid himself beneath a spare pair of Peez's serviceable white underpants. "I think I liked her better when she was shy," he grumbled to himself as Peez's maniacal, triumphant laughter filled the car.
Chapter Seven
Dov leaned across the table in one of the Blue Coyote Diner's back booths and played an ongoing game of Twenty Questions with the Native American man opposite. He'd been at it ever since he'd showed up for this agreed-upon meeting with Sam Turkey Feather and he was starting to get sick of it.
"Zuni?" he asked. Sam shook his head. "Hopi? Navajo?" More misses. Dov sighed. "Okay, fine, I give up. What is your—nation? Tribe? Look, I don't mean any offense, I'm just not sure which one's okay to say."
"You mean today?" Sam's mouth curved up. The rest of his face—bright eyes, black hair, smooth skin—made him appear to be about the same age as Dov, but his mouth was oddly older. Much older. A fine webbing of wrinkles creased his lips and the surrounding skin, and when he smiled he revealed crooked yellow teeth. It was striking, disconcerting, and fascinating all at the same time, and it made it extremely difficult for a body to look elsewhere when conversing with this man.
In fact, it was as if Sam Turkey Feather's mouth exerted an incredible power over anyone he met, a power he was more than happy to exercise to the fullest, to his own advantage.
No wonder he insisted on a face-to-face, Dov thought, his eyes riveted. Not that I wasn't going to insist on it myself, after coming all this way out here to Arizona to get his support. But I'll bet he gets plenty of other business contacts who try to keep their interactions with him on a long-distance-only basis.
What was it Ammi had said when they'd first beheld this man out in the diner parking lot? Oh, right: That mouth gives him a leg up on the competition, a foot in the door, and the upper hand. Then the amulet had started laughing so raucously, with no sign of ever stopping, that Dov had been forced to stuff the little silver blob into his back pocket and sit on him.
"Is that all the answer you'll give me?" Dov demanded.
Sam shook his head. He wore his jet black hair long, in braids tied with rawhide strips, adorned with silver balls and clusters of tiny animal fetishes carved from semi- precious stone. They clicked and clattered together whenever he moved his head, like the macabre decorations on Mr. Bones' painted staff.
"Why is it always so important for you white men to know the names of everything? What is it, a passion for pigeonholing? Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder? Brand-name recognition?"
"All I asked was a civil question: Which tribe are you from?" Dov said. He sounded petulant and no longer cared about whether or not "tribe" was the politically correct term of the moment.
"Yes, and I have chosen not to answer. Is this the only reason you came here to see me? I don't think so. You're here because of what I do, not who I am; where I'm going with my business, not where I came from. And what difference would it make to you if I did tell you my tribe? Would you have any idea of what that meant, besides having a label to slap on my forehead?"
"Hey! I happen to have a great deal of respect for—"
"—'you people'?" Sam chuckled. "Which aspect of 'you people' am I for you? The Noble Savage? Hmm, probably not: much too dated. The Proud Rebel against the White Military-Industrial Complex Oppressors? Nope: too guns 'n' granola. Thank God you're not a woman! You'd be casting me in every white woman/red man romance novel you ever read: Blazing Breechclouts, Tender is the Tepee, Whoopee Warrior and all the rest." He laughed again, louder. "I'd only disappoint you. I never work out, I couldn't find my abs on a bet, and I look like a real dumbass in a skimpy loincloth."
"Look, what I'm trying to say—" Dov made another effort to be heard, but Sam had his own agenda in high gear and was not about to be stopped.
"No, wait, let me guess! It's more fun this way." Sam picked up a piece of toast and waved it around as he spoke. "You once actually went and got a whole book about Native American cultures so you know lots and lots about what makes each nation special. Or else you've only got one or two tidbits you can toss off to impress me with how informed and aware you are. So if I tell you I'm Hopi you'll say, Right. Kachina dolls. Cool. Zuni? Yeah. All those little stone fetish animals. Cute and ecologically sensitive. Makes a nice gift for the folks back home and doesn't take up much room in the suitcase. Or Navajo? That's the motherlode: blankets, silver and turquoise jewelry, sheep, and maybe, if you actually read that book of yours instead of just looking at the pretty pictures, you'll remember the Code Talkers from World War II. But I'm not holding my breath."
"I wish you would," Dov snarled. "It's the only way I'll get a chance to say anything in my own defense."
"Oh, you don't have to defend yourself to me." Sam took a big bite of buttered toast and beat it senseless with his horrible teeth. "Maybe I'm right about you, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you really do know more than a couple of sound bites' worth about us injuns, keemo sabee. I don't care. It's not worth my time to find out, and it wouldn't give you any sort of leverage with me. So how about we stop trying to become each other's best buddies and just
be businessmen? It's what I do best."
"Funny coincidence, that," Dov replied, giving Sam the gimlet eye. "So do I."
"Good." Sam polished off what was left of his toast and soft-boiled eggs, then slapped a twenty down on the tabletop and stood up. "Now we can go."
Dov followed him out to the parking lot, but he balked at getting into Sam's late- model Jeep. "Was that supposed to impress me?" he asked, one foot up on the passenger's side step-up.
"What?"
"Flashing that money. We both ordered the $1.99 breakfast special. Unless they charge one hell of a refill fee on the coffee in there, you just overtipped by a factor of five."
"Four," Sam corrected him. "And that's based on a twenty percent tip which is not the norm in these parts. You think I did that to impress you?" His mouth twisted into a sneer.
Dov felt his face flush. "So why did you do it?"
"Tell you later. Maybe. If I feel like it. Now either get in or stay out there, eat my dust, and haul your sorry ass back to the airport. Me, I've got customers waiting and if I leave them on their own too long, there's always the danger that they'll wise up and go home."
"Customers? You mean the distribution network for the fetish animals and the dreamcatchers?" Dov had done his homework: Sam Turkey Feather was on the E. Godz, Inc. books as the Southwest's major mass producer of Native American merchandise with a "spiritual" subtext. "I thought you had enough sales reps to monitor that for you. How can we have an effective business meeting if you've got to futz around with a lot of piddling details that your subordinates should be handling?"
Sam looked at him as if he'd stuck a pair of chopsticks up his nose and started barking like a walrus.
"Kid, you ever get tired of chewing on that foot, you come to me and I'll spice it up with a little Earth Magic-brand salsa before you stick it back in your mouth. I've been running a successful organization since before you were born and dropped on your head, and that includes knowing how to get the most out of business meetings. You think I do a hands-on customer call when it's not completely necessary? Check the spreadsheets. That's not the way we drum up the big profits, no pun intended."
"What pun?"
"Whoa. You sure you're Edwina's boy? See, I said 'drum up the big profits,' and what I do is— Oh, the hell with it. That's what I wanted to show you right now, if you could maybe stop holding us up with a lot of stupid remarks and let us get started. So which is it, kid? You in or you out?
"In." Holding in his frustrated anger, Dov got into the Jeep. Sam didn't even wait for him to buckle up before flooring the accelerator and taking off.
Distances in the Indian territories of Arizona were best calculated using the same mind-set brought to understanding space travel. Folks from Back East who sighed like martyrs over having to face two-hour commutes each morning went into slack-jawed shock when confronting the southwestern concept of a "short" drive. Two hours on the road might get you out of the figurative parking lot. The day was young and the summer heat was still weeks away, but by the time they reached their destination, Dov was exhausted, sweltering, his eyes were full of grit, and he felt as though someone had run his kidneys through a blender with a handful of rocks thrown in to really get the job done.
As he climbed unsteadily out of the Jeep, Dov looked around. They had left the highway some time ago, heading over secondary roads and fifth-rate sheep tracks towards a distant prospect of tawny mountains, but the mountains still looked just as distant even though the highway itself was long gone.
This isn't even the middle of nowhere, Dov thought. It's the suburbs.
As for Sam, he'd jumped easily down from his seat and was now striding across the arid terrain, heading for a cluster of what looked like rawhide igloos. The brown humps in the distance reminded Dov of the coconut halves used in the old shell game at turn-of- the-century carnivals. Shills and sharpers knew that you didn't get a lot of milk out of a coconut, but you could use them to milk the suckers for plenty.
"Watch where you step," Sam called back to Dov.
"Snakes?" Dov cast nervous glances at the ground. Unlike Sam, he wasn't wearing boots; just designer running shoes.
"Nah; empties."
"Emp—?" That was all Dov had the chance to say before an ill-placed foot landed on a discarded bottle of high-priced mineral water. His legs shot out from under him and he landed on his rump.
"Ow! Get off me, you big hippo!" Ammi's muffled voice rang out loud and clear under the wide open sky. It should have reached Sam's ears as the yelp of a faraway coyote, thanks to the A.R.S.
It didn't.
Sam gave Dov a hand getting back to his feet, then said, "White man speak with surly butt."
"You heard that?" Dov was incredulous.
"Only part of me that doesn't work up to snuff's my teeth."
Slowly, almost shyly, Dov pulled the silver amulet out of his back pocket and held it up for Sam's inspection. The man stroked his chin and mused aloud: "You know, I could really use something like this." He tapped Ammi's nose lightly, making the amulet swing at the end of its chain. "How about it, friend?" he asked the amulet. "Ever thought of a career in show business?"
"What's in it for me, Turkey Plucker?" Ammi retorted.
"That's Turkey Feather," Sam said evenly.
"No, it's not." The amulet flashed a silver smirk. "I used to work for the boss lady, Edwina Godz herself, before she gave me to the kid, here. I was in on plenty of official correspondence, including all the paperwork that went through the office back in the days when you first joined the organization. Your real name is Sam Turkey Plucker, only you changed it to Turkey Feather on Edwina's advice, because it'd sound better for attracting the tourists."
"Is that true?" Dov gave Sam a questioning look.
Sam tossed his head back and laughed. "Yeah, Tex, he got me, all right. Pow, right between the eyes. Another one bites the dust. My true name's Turkey Plucker and when I met your mama I wasn't much more than that, except I was maybe starting to figure out that there was better money to be made plucking the tourists. Edwina and me, we were living together out here for a while—she said she wanted to be somewhere she could tap into the earth magic without hitting a telephone cable. Your mama, she was good for me, taught me to stop looking and start seeing, know what I mean? Seeing things like opportunities."
"You and my mother were—?" Dov couldn't believe it.
"Back when she was maybe eighteen, nineteen, around then. Why? Shocked? Scandalized? Grossed out? What?"
"Hey, I don't care if you and my mother slept together or not," Dov protested. "It's just that you don't look anywhere near old enough to have known her back then."
Sam picked up one of his black braids. "Hair dye. Better living through chemistry. And once my business got going I had more than enough cash to buy me my own private plastic surgeon, if I wanted, plus a carload of retin-A."
"Then why didn't you do anything about your teeth?"
Sam smiled extra wide on purpose. "Because my spirit guide Old Man Coyote told me that if I tried to make my mouth look as young as the rest of me, he'd make sure that all the words that came out of it were young too. Young and foolish. Gotta listen to your spirit guide, kid. Bad medicine if you don't pay heed."
Dov grabbed Ammi from Sam's hand. "If you're quite through yanking my chain?" he inquired frostily.
The older man clicked his tongue. "I can tell you're not gonna listen to me. Too bad. I expected more from Edwina's boy. Oh well, nothing to be done about it. Come on. I've kept the Seekers waiting long enough." He turned and started off for the cluster of brown domes again.
"Now just wait one minute!" Dov objected. "I think I'm entitled to know what's going on here."
"No, you're not," Sam said, never breaking stride. "Edwina always saw, always listened. Taught me to do the same. I'm not gonna tell you another word about who I am and what I do. You'll only hear the sounds my words make, but you won't understand a damn thing. If you're your mother's son, you'll
catch on quick enough. If not, no charge."
"No charge? No charge for what?" Dov demanded, scampering after Sam.
By this time they were within a stone's throw of the brown domes. It was flat land, but tough going. The ground underfoot was thickly littered with at least two score of the same kind of bottle that Dov had slipped on before. Other detritis cluttered the earth: empty energy bar wrappers, used tissues and paper towels, toothpaste-stained twigs and one lonely, tapped-out tube of hemorrhoid cream. As Dov approached, he noted that the domes, which he had initially believed to be made out of hide, were actually cheap tents, their ripstop material painted to imitate leather. They were set up in a ring around a circle of cleared, beaten ground. All of the rubbish he'd been dodging was kept to the outer perimeter of the tent ring.
Out of sight, out of mind, he thought.
Sam strode into the very center of the ring and cupped his hands to his mouth. Throwing his head back, he let loose a series of yips and yowls that any self-respecting coyote might envy. Immediately the door flaps of the brown tents stirred and a chorus of random animal noises streamed out in response. Grunts and bellows, hisses and squawks, meows and chitterings and even a few pathetic squeaks broke the silence of the desert. Then, from inside one of the tents, someone began to beat rhythmically on a drum.
"Gerald! Stop that, you idiot!" a very strident female voice overwhelmed the menagerie and cut the drumming off cold. "You don't do that until later, when Master Turkey Feather calls us into the circle and tells us it's okay. Jesus, are you actively trying to embarrass me?"
"Sorry, Pookie," came the chastened murmur.
Sam gave Dov a look of intense amusement, then whisked his face clean of all trace of levity. Looking grave and stoic, he sat down crosslegged in the middle of the circle and began to sing. The melody was almost nonexistent, nasal and repetitive, but the words were in pure English, a summons for all Seekers to emerge into the Light of Truth and walk the Path of Dreams that would take the Truly Worthy to the very Heart and Soul of the Great Eagle's Egg of Life. (It wasn't often you could hear spoken words being capitalized but Sam made it so.)
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