E. Godz (9 page)

Peez dutifully followed him, wending her way around the countless cats, as he
conducted her behind the painted curtain and through a little door. Some of the cats
attempted to come along, but Ray Rah was having none of it.

"Shoo, O She-who-walks-in-beauty. You can't come in here, Thou-who-art-swifter-
than-gazelles. Scat, Eternal-glory-of-the-Lady-Bast! Scat, I say!"

Of course the cats, being cats, shot through the door anyway, but as soon as they took
one good snort of the air quality on the far side, they turned tail and raced right back out
again.

Peez wished she could have joined them. The inner chamber's atmosphere was so
thick with the smoke of burning incense (at least she thought that was the source of the
sickly-sweet aroma) that her eyes flooded with tears and she began to cough
uncontrollably.

"Can I get you something, Ms. Godz?" The faithful Gary was at her elbow, his round
face barely visible through the roiling smoke. "Some water? Organic fruit nectars? A
beer?"

"Whatever," Peez croaked. He vanished into the mist only to return almost
immediately with a gold goblet.

"Beer," he said as she raised the cup to her lips. "We have a highly authentic
microbrewery on the premises that—"

He got a faceful of microbrew when Peez spritzed out her first taste of Horus Lite.
"Dear gods, what was that stuff?" she gasped.

From somewhere deep in the heart of the pungent clouds there came a giggle and
someone said: "That is what we like to call an acquired taste."

Peez blinked her stinging eyes and little by little was able to distinguish solid shapes
amid the whorls of smoke. "I don't suppose there's a window in here?" she asked.

"Yes," said the voice. "But we prefer not to—"

"The Lady Peez has spoken!" Ray Rah thundered. "All power to the words of the
Lady Peez! So let it be written, so let it be done! Gary, open the window." There came
the sound of much scrabbling, a couple of bumps, a thud, several curses, Gary's mumbled
"'Scuse me, sorry," and at long last the squeak of a sash being raised. A cool breeze blew
into the room, banishing the worst of the haze and giving Peez a clear view of her
surroundings.

Apart from the birdbath-sized incense burner in the center of the rug, the inner
chamber of Ray Rah's temple looked like nothing more than a frat house rumpus room.
There were several mismatched sofas and chairs, some wobbly-looking tables, a big
screen TV complete with DVD player, a middle-of-the-line stereo system and a wet bar.

Peez decided to make the wet bar her number one priority. Striding across the room,
ignoring the twenty-odd people lounging around, she went right up to the bar and set
down her gold goblet with a mighty thump. "I don't call a practical joke an acquired
taste," she informed the woman behind the counter. "And I sure as hell don't call this
gunk beer."

The woman, like Ray Rah and the rest, was wearing the pleated white linen garb
made famous by New Kingdom tomb paintings. She too wore a sparkling assortment of
gold jewelry, heavy on the lotus/ankh/eye-of-Horus motifs. However, instead of a wig
she had opted to cornrow her mousy brown hair and top the whole ensemble with a Cubs
cap.

"Sorry to disillusion you, Princess, but that is beer," she said. "Authentic Ancient
Egyptian beer. I brewed it myself, after copious research and the proper sacrifices to the
gods. It may be a little sweeter than what you're used to—"

"Sweet, hell; it's chewy!" After Ray Rah and Gary's subservient behavior, Peez didn't
care for this woman's in-your-face attitude at all. "There are pieces of—of— Well, I don't
really want to know what they're pieces of, and I sure don't want to drink them!"

The woman reached under the bar and slammed a strange metal object down onto the
counter between them. "That's because Gary was so hot to fetch you your drink that he
forgot to give you the strainer straw. Want to give it a second try?" Her eyes added: Or
do you want to wimp out now, Princess?

Peez thrust her goblet under the barkeep's nose. "Fill 'er up," she commanded. Using
the straw as directed, she sucked up half the beer in one go. It still tasted too sweet, there
wasn't any fizz to it worth mentioning, and it had about as much alcoholic kick as a dose
of cough syrup, but she got it down.

The other temple members crowded up to the bar to watch. When she drained her
goblet dry, they made small sounds of approval and gazed at her with reverence.

"Wow," one of them said. His slack belly lapped over the top of his long kilt. "You're
the first person I ever saw who could stomach a whole serving of Meritaten's beer."

"Yeah," another man put in. "Even Ray Rah couldn't do that. You're cool!"

Peez scanned the ring of friendly faces surrounding her. Men and women alike all
looked to be in their late forties to early fifties, with physiques that were not displayed to
best advantage by a few paltry layers of translucent linen.

"I'm ... cool?" she repeated. "What is this, a hazing?"

"Oh no, Lady Peez, by no means, none at all!" Ray Rah hastened to say. He shoved
his way through the crowd and glowered at Meritaten. "Some people seem to think it's all
right to sacrifice the holy tenets of hospitality on the altar of historical authenticity, even
if what they serve our honored guest tastes like a kitty litter cocktail! Some people seem
to have forgotten that the gods see all and that a list of their errors will be forever
inscribed on their hearts. Some people don't seem to care that when they die their hearts
will be weighed in the Scales of Justice against the Feather of Ma'at and if they don't
measure up, their hearts will be thrown into the jaws of a monster and devoured. Some
people—"

"—don't care if they get to dwell in blessedness forever in the Field of Reeds, yadda,
yadda, yadda." Meritaten leaned one elbow on the bar, chin in hand, and looked bored.
"Some people are actually capable of reading the Book of the Dead for ourselves, thank
you very much." She looked at Peez. "Hey, I'm sorry if you didn't like the beer. I didn't
mean it as a practical joke, no matter what you think. I just assumed that since you're
Edwina's daughter you'd be just as open to new experiences as she is. No hard feelings?"

"None." Peez summoned up one of her brother's patented ingratiating smiles. "Sorry
if I snapped at you. I came here on serious business. I'm not exactly in the mood for
initiation hijinks."

"We know," Meritaten said. "We heard." A chorus of sympathetic murmurs ran
through the congregation. The news of Edwina's impending death had traveled fast.

"If it's any consolation, Nenufer's been studying the old ways of embalming," Gary
said, nodding at another one of the women in the group.

Ray Rah chimed in with: "When the time comes, we promise to give your mother the
most sumptuous burial the law allows. A pity we can't have slaves to help out with the
arrangements, though. Without them you can't get a whole lot of good, solid tomb
construction done at today's prices, and as for providing her with a suitable entourage to
serve her in the Afterlife—" He shrugged. "I suppose she'll have to make do with ushabti
figurines. I know that's what most pharaohs did, but if you ask me, you can't rely on a
mere image of a servant to provide you with the same quality labor you got back in the
good old days."

"Which was when—?" Peez asked, not entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.

"Which was when the pharaohs had real servants sacrificed and put in their tombs
with them." Ray Rah didn't seem at all disturbed by this aspect of his chosen spiritual
path.

"Ah, come off it, Ray!" one of the men scoffed. "The only reason you're so keen on
human sacrifice is 'cause the only way you'll ever get a woman is if she's too dead to run
away."

"Shut up, Billy-hotep," Ray Rah said through gritted teeth.

The peculiarly named Billy-hotep giggled. The eyes behind his bifocal wire-rimmed
glasses were two blobs of solid black, their pupils dilated to the point of no return.

That must've been some powerful incense he was inhaling, Peez thought.

Billy-hotep's inhibitions had gone the way of the pharaohs. "Well, excuuuse me, Your
Revered Datelessness," he said, "but you forget: We've all known you since college.
Whenever we did see you with a girl, we always found out later she'd been bought and
paid for."

"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.

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.