"Now it's different," Sam concluded for her, his voice gentle. "Now it's about something more, isn't it?"
This time she nodded. "I used to think that what E. Godz, Inc. had to offer was just like those mass-produced medicine pouches you mentioned. It was a business, pure and simple. Now that I've gotten out there and seen some of the people involved, I know it's more than that. Even the most showy, splashy, fake-looking ceremony can provide something that people really seem to need."
"It's hard these days, living in the cities," Sam said. "Hard to stay in touch with nature, with the changing of the seasons, the great cycles; hard to appreciate something like a harvest festival of thanksgiving when you buy your food in a supermarket. No matter how much we try to ignore the seasons and the cycles and the forces of nature, we're still a part of them. We're children, Peez, and a child who turns away from his mother before he's able to stand on his own isn't going to get very far. That's why so many people are looking to the religions that put them back in touch with the earth. All religions do, in their own way. But some people can't seem to find what they need in the faiths they were taught as children. For them, religious rites became something you did once a week or sometimes only once a year. People change their hairstyles more often than that. The important thing isn't how they rediscover their spiritual side, just as long as they do it."
"They do it, you help them, and E. Godz, Inc. helps you." Peez looked thoughtful. "I was thinking about stepping out of the competition for company leadership. I was upset by all the hucksterism I saw, but now I know it's only surface glitter. The heart of what we do is sincere. Mother didn't just set up a cash cow; she saw what people needed, and she created the most efficient way to serve that need. I know all that, now. I don't know if I'm the right person to take over the job."
"Maybe that's what you should be searching for," Sam said, leaning across her to open the door on her side of the cab. "While you're looking for the bear."
"Multitasking?" Peez gave him a shy smile and got out of the truck. "Just one thing: If I don't come back by daybreak, check to see if I took a meeting with a rattler, okay?" With that, she trudged off into the desert.
The first streaks of pink, purple and gold were lighting the horizon when she returned, holding Teddy Tumtum. Her face was transformed with a deep serenity that Sam recognized at once.
"I see you found what you were looking for," he said softly.
Peez got into the cab without a word. Even Teddy Tumtum was silent. Sam started the truck and drove east. As they rolled down the road, he gave her a searching look. "You're all right? Cold? Want coffee? I know a place—"
"The airport, please," Peez said. Her eyes were fixed on something beyond the realm of ordinary sight. "I need to book an earlier flight to New Orleans." She turned to look at him. "It was there, Sam. It was there inside me all along. I just had to find the time and the silence before I could find the answer."
"Care to share it?"
"It's me, Sam. I'm the answer. My brother shouldn't be the head of E. Godz, Inc., but not because we don't get along or because I used to resent him or anything like that. The only reason he shouldn't guide E. Godz, Inc. is because I should. I know what the company is really about, and I've seen the best path for it to take." She blushed suddenly and added: "Wow, does that sound egotistical or what?"
"Depends." Sam regarded her with fatherly pride. "Why don't you ask the bear? He's usually got all the answers. Hey, you! Bear! How come you're so quiet all of a sudden? You have a vision, too?"
"No," Teddy Tumtum replied cautiously. "But I think I got a scorpion up my— YEEE!"
"I couldn't help it," Peez said apologetically as Sam stopped the truck for the third time. "I hate scorpions."
Chapter Fourteen
No one was waiting at Chicago's O'Hare Airport to meet Dov. That was annoying. The last he'd heard, he was supposed to be picked up at Baggage by someone named William Montrose who would be easily identifiable because he'd be holding up a sign with Dov's name on it.
There were plenty of people with signs waiting near Baggage, but not one of the signs said dov godz or any variation thereof.
"I don't like the smell of this," Dov muttered down the front of his shirt.
"You should try the smell in here," Ammi replied. "Man, if you can't shower twice a day while you're traveling, would you at least consider shaving your chest? I know we've been through this before, but come on, man, it's a jungle in here! One where a whole lot of tigers have been wrestling in dead—"
"Shut up." Dov whipped out his cell phone and fired off a ring in the direction of the Temple of Seshat-by-the-Shore. He wrapped an insulating spell around it so that it would cause the phone on the receiving end of the call to ring at the decibel level of a Heavy Metal band. The selfsame spell would also make Dov's summons shoot straight through any call-waiting or call-screening devices like a bullet through butter.
The phone rang once and only once before someone answered. That was usually about all it took.
"Who in the blessed Afterlife is this?" a harried male voice boomed.
"Are you Ray Rah?" Dov barked.
"I am. Who are you and what did you do to my phone?"
"Why ... don't ... you ... just ... guess?" Dov said slowly, between gritted teeth. He was feeling more than a little testy and he had no qualms about letting it show.
"Oh!" A gasp of embarrassment filled the phone. Good. Dov wanted his neglectful host to suffer.
"Is that all you can say? I've been standing in this baggage claim area for an hour," he lied.
"But the last we heard from you, your plane wasn't supposed to get in until now."
"Ever hear of someone taking an earlier flight? Or even of a flight getting in early?"
"Yes, but this is Chicago-O'Hare we're talking about and—"
"And even if I did come in at my original arrival time, which is now, so what? There's still no one here to meet me!" Dov was piling it on heavy and enjoying doing it. He had not had a good flight from Seattle. There was bad weather over the Rockies, the first- class cabin ran out of the Pinot Grigio he'd ordered and he'd had to make do with Chardonnay, and the coffee they'd served tasted so dreadfully ... weak. He knew he shouldn't have felt quite so homicidal over something as ordinary as coffee, but this was a commonplace, documented reaction among people who had spent more than fifteen minutes in Seattle. Medical journals called it "bean lag."
Perhaps it was unwise of him to take out his irritability on someone whose support he'd come here to woo. Dov was aware that his snippy behavior might alienate the leader of the Chicago group, but the possibility didn't faze him. He placed absolute trust in his own charisma, sure that no matter how badly he antagonized someone, he had the power to convert any foe into a friend by the judicious application of charm. It might take a little time to undo this bit of preliminary damage, but what was time to him? He had plenty to spare.
Besides, if you made someone feel guilty and then forgave them, even when they hadn't done anything so bad in the first place, they became a little less likely to take you for granted, a lot more likely to jump when you said "frog." By Dov's calculations, Rah Ray should be just about ready to offer an intense, humiliating apology for leaving a top executive from E. Godz, Inc. stranded at the airport in so barbarous a fashion. He grinned at the phone and waited for the inevitable groveling.
It did not come. Instead, to his shock, he heard a hearty chuckle in his ear. "Oh, I see what happened. I had Billy-hotep down to pick you up, only then we all decided to do this lovely ceremony and I sent him out for extra pomegranates. You can't have enough pomegranates when you're trying to get Isis to pay attention. You do know how important it is that the rites of Isis be properly performed, don't you, Mr. Godz?"
"Uh ... I mean, yes; yes, of course I do. What do you take me for, an ignoramus?" Dov tried to lob the guilt back into Ray Rah's court, but the man wasn't even in the game.
"Of course you do! Doesn't everyone? I gu
ess what happened is that I just got a little carried away and double-booked Billy-hotep. I mean, you can't be in two places at once until after you're dead, right? It happens. I'll tell you what: It's too late to send someone for you now. There's so much left to do before the ceremony if we're going to have everything ready in time, and I'm a little shorthanded. This happens whenever I schedule a holy rite for the same day as a Cubs game. Okay, so you nab a cab, get a receipt, and I'll reimburse you for it as soon as you get here. Unless you want to hold onto it yourself as a business expense, for taxes?"
Dov snapped his phone shut without another word and wished it were an old- fashioned desktop model of 1940's vintage. You just couldn't slam the receiver of a cell phone in a truly satisfying manner.
All the way to the Temple of Seshat-by-the-Shore, Dov's cabdriver labored under the impression that his fare was one of those oddballs who had to sing along to whatever music was playing in his portable CD player. That was the illusion conjured up by the ARS Dov had invoked to veil his angry conversation with Ammi.
"The nerve of that idiot! The bloody, unmitigated nerve, giving me the brush-off like that!"
"I thought that the only thing that could ever be unmitigated was gall," the silver amulet remarked. "Gall and your chest hair."
"Does he even know who I am? Does he realize where he and his group will be when I take over the company?"
"Out in the cold?" Ammi offered helpfully. "Out in left field? Out on their butts? Out of time? Out of luck?"
"Try 'out of patience,' which is what I am with you, so don't push it."
"Hey, what's with the bruised ego?" The amulet clicked its nonexistent tongue. "All they did was forget to pick you up at the airport. You upset because no one gave you a big ol' gooey apology? That sort of thing never bothered you before. You'd just shrug it off. If it did bug you, you'd still act like everything was aces, file it away, and drag it out later on, when you could use it at the bargaining table. What's eating you all of a sudden?"
"I don't know, Ammi. I just don't know." He sounded just a little scared. "Maybe— maybe it's all that coffee I've been drinking. It's made me nervous, hypersensitive. You're right: This isn't like me."
"Coffee ..." Ammi gave a deprecating snort. "Never touch the stuff if I can help it. I'm already awake 24/7."
"You lie. You slept through Seattle."
"I was not asleep," the amulet responded a trifle huffily. "I was simply taking some downtime to reconfigure my systems."
"What systems? You're an amulet, not a computer! A magically enhanced talisman!"
"Hey, spells need periodic upgrades too! And don't try changing the subject: You're acting weird, even for you. What gives?"
"I told you: I don't know!"
Dov's angry shout was loud enough to make the cabbie turn around and ask him not to do that again, unless he really, really wanted to scare an honest driver into making an unscheduled swerve into Lake Michigan. Chastened, Dov didn't utter another word until they reached their destination.
After paying the fare and obtaining a receipt for tax purposes (Ray Rah had gotten that right, at least) Dov went up to the great front door of the Temple of Seshat-by-the- Shore and rang the bell. No one answered. He rang again, longer, with the same lack of result. Only when he switched to pummeling the wood with his fist and it swung back under the first blow did he discover that it had been unlocked, unlatched, and waiting for a gentle push all along.
"No one at the airport, no one at the door ..." He was still muttering his way through a growing list of grievances as he entered the house. The interior glories of the quasi- Egyptian temple made as striking an impression on Dov as they had on his sister, though in his case, admiration was severely tempered by resentment.
"Where are they? Playing hide and seek? Stupid Ray Rah. Stupid pomegranates. Stupid—whoa!" While searching for another human soul, Dov had failed to watch where he was going, tripped over a monumental black and white cat, and sprawled full length at the feet of the image of Thoth. "Stupid cat!" he hollered, shaking a fist after the retreating animal.
"Blasphemy!"
A shadow fell over Dov. He turned his head and looked up into the contorted face of a middle-aged woman. She was swathed in a white gauze sheath, her bare upper arms encircled by rich bracelets of gold and carnelian, her chest supporting a heavily beaded golden collar studded with turquoise scarabs. It was impossible to tell her original hair or eye color, for she wore a wig and had gotten a little overenthusiastic with green eyeshadow and thick lines of black kohl.
"I remember this movie," Ammi whispered, peeping out of Dov's shirt. "It's The Revenge of the Mummy's Mary Kay Rep! I love the part where she rings the doorbell and says, 'Ding-dong! Aten calling.' Get it? Aten calling? Avon calling? You old enough to remember back when Avon reps used to go around to ladies' houses and—? You know, like in Edward Scissorhands? Aw, c'mon, I know you're old enough to remember Edward Scissorhands!"
"Ammi," Dov whispered. "Shut up." He slapped on one of his most ingratiating smiles and turned up the Flirt-o-Meter to medium-high.
"Well, hel-lo, there. I'm sorry, I had to let myself in. I didn't think it would be a prob—"
"What have you done to the holy feline, Behold-all-the-moles-in-the-front-lawn-have- gone-to-Osiris?" The lady was not to be so easily won over.
"I'm afraid I tripped on him." Dov got to his feet slowly. The front of his traveling clothes had picked up an all-encompassing layer of cat hair, but he suppressed his annoyance and renewed his attack. "He's a beautiful animal. How did you ever get him to grow so fa—big and strong?"
The lady scowled. "Behold-all-the-moles-in-the-front-lawn-have-gone-to-Osiris is no mere animal. He is the holy creature of the Lady Bast. If I were you, I'd be praying that the goddess's attention was elsewhere when you called her precious one fat."
Since charm was scoring 0 for 0, Dov switched tactics to righteous indignation, which lesser souls might often mistake for good old-fashioned bullying. "And if I were you, I'd be praying that this so-called conversation didn't go any farther. Perhaps you don't know who I am? I'm Dov Godz from E. Godz, Inc. Heard of us? If not, have your leader Ray Rah bring you up to speed. E. Godz, Inc. is only the reason that this temple counts as a temple where being a temple counts for something solid, namely with the Internal Revenue Service!"
The woman smiled. It was a toothy grimace reminiscent of the sacred crocodiles who had once staffed the Nile-side temples in ancient Egypt and done their part for the ecology by devouring anyone the priests didn't like. The crocodiles became very devout and their descendants often bemoaned the modern world's comparative lack of religious zeal.
"A threat, Mr. Godz? You can't scare me; I have teenagers. You're not the head of E. Godz, Inc. yet, and if that day should come, I doubt you'll throw us to the wolves. We're far too valuable to you as a working subsidiary. You'd never do anything to dam the cash flow."
"You're a cynic, aren't you, Ms.—?"
"Call me Nenufer. And no, I'm not, but I think you must be. It's all about the money with you, isn't it? The money and the power. You like pretending to be everyone's best buddy, but only when you're hugging the knowledge that one word from you could turn everything upside down. It gives you a sick little thrill, playing the undercover mastermind. I'll bet you've got a tattoo on your butt that says If They Only Knew."
"How would you know what I am?" Dov shot back. "Considering we just met, what, five minutes ago? Wait, let me guess: woman's intuition." He sneered.
"Middle-aged woman's intuition," an unruffled Nenufer replied. "It's like a superpower: modified X-ray vision. I can't see through a brick wall, but I've met plenty of your type before so I can certainly see right through you."
"Lady, you've got issues."
She laughed at him. "Nice use of a dismissive catchphrase; you'll get extra points for style. Sure, I've got issues. Who doesn't? I notice that you still haven't bothered to apologize for what you did to Behold-all-the-moles-in-the-front-la
wn—"
"Apologize to whom? To the cat? You think he cares? You think he even remembers? He's got a brain the size of a walnut and most of the storage space is taken up with that ridiculous name you gave him!"
"To me," said Nenufer. "For having treated the things that I believe in as if they were all just part of a silly little game, something to keep an aging Baby Boomer busy. My generation gets into such mischief when we're not kept busy, don't we? Mischief like standing up for human rights, and speaking up for peace, and pretending the homeless aren't invisible, and seeing that women get treated like human beings, and giving the earth a fighting chance to dig out from under all the trash and sludge and poison that some people believe will just go away if we attend all the right cocktail parties and think happy thoughts."
"Look, lay off me," Dov snapped. "I don't like lectures, but this also happens to be one that I don't need. My mother's part of your precious generation, remember? Believe me, I know everything you've done—and not just the stuff you're proud of! If you want to assume I look down on your beliefs, go ahead, but that won't make it true. One of the first things my mother did long before she set me up in the Miami office was teach me to respect every one of our clients. That was one lesson I took to heart, starting with respecting her. If you think I'm just in this for the money and the power, you might as well say that the same goes for my mother, because everything I know about running E. Godz, Inc. I learned from Edwina Godz herself!"
"Why, thank you, Mr. Godz." Like a brief summer cloudburst, Nenufer's dark scowl blew away as if it had never existed. Her face was transformed from Gorgon to Grace by a warm, affectionate smile. "That's all we were waiting to hear."
She turned on her heel, walked up to the statue of Isis, and clapped her hands four times. There was a great creaking of wood, a groaning of gears, and a squeal of moving parts as the statue of the goddess spread her arms wide. Fountains of blue and green sparks leaped from the gilded palms of her hands and the ceiling began to leak roses.
E.Godz Page 17
