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Authors: Charles Benoit

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BOOK: Relative Danger
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But that night, like every night in the cell, he squatted, staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense of it all. He quit, that he decided in the police van as it pin-balled through the streets of Cairo. Sorry, Edna. Sorry I didn’t find your jewel, sorry I didn’t clear Charley’s name, sorry I spent all your money, sorry…but I quit. He decided to be polite about it and had been mentally drafting his Final Report that he’d mail from Pottsville. “Dear Ms. Bowers,” it would read. “I quit.” He’d explain why, of course, and, as the professional detective that he was, he’d send along a summary of his findings. A short summary, since he hadn’t found much.

“First,” it would start, “I believe that the jewel really does, or did, exist. It may have been a very famous diamond with a long history, or it may have been just a hundred years old, I’m not sure, as my sources—a washed-up museum director and a drug-dealing tramp—are divided on this point.

“Second, it was indeed stolen in Morocco. If my source in the Moroccan police force, a sadistic egotist and an admitted embezzler, is to be believed, it was a violent and bloody robbery, masterminded by the one relative I had foolishly thought was interesting, but who was nothing but a punk.”

All those years I pestered my father with those questions. That had to be painful. At what point, he wondered, did Russ turn bad? He couldn’t have always been like that. He played baseball, for God’s sake.

“Third, the jewel was taken from Morocco to Egypt, which you already know because you typed out the notes and paid for the ticket. Fourth, ….” Here is where he was stuck since he had no fourth—and, given his first, second and third were all things Edna had already known—he didn’t even have a summary.

How about expenses? Every good detective submitted an expense report. Edna had paid for everything, but Doug still felt there were some unexpected costs, costs he had picked up but felt justified to pass on to his employer. His questions had cost Mr. Ahmed/Fahad his life. How you going pay for that one, Edna? No, that’s cruel, he thought, and unfair, too. Besides, it may have been a coincidence. What could the old man possibly have known that got him killed? And why wait until
that
day to kill him? Okay, so he’s off the expense list for now.

How about those two pimps he beat up? In a just world they should get something. But it had been Doug’s idea to cruise the red light district and it would be stretching it to pin that on Edna. Unless of course they were not pimps and were hired thugs, out to get him off the trail. If that were the case, he thought, they were pretty lame tough guys. Doug had been in enough fights to know his abilities and, while he’d been in a few with worse odds, and done all right too, it was strange how easy it had been. Even if they were just pimps, they should have been able to beat the crap out of him. He thought about the incident for a while, deciding in the end to leave them off the list as well. Maybe he’d cryptically footnote them, “two incompetent assassins, soundly beaten by an out-of-shape former bottle washer: no charge.”

Then there was Aisha.

On one hand was the fact that she had used him as her delivery man, was responsible for him landing in an Egyptian jail, and, if Abe was right, might be ultimately responsible for his unexplained and unfortunate death, or his formal state-sponsored execution.

On the other was the sex. Doug thought about this for a while, careful to focus on the concept of the sex and not the actual sex itself as he wanted to avoid any hint of arousal while in this tightly packed, all male environment. No reason to give anybody any ideas. It was difficult since just the concept of sex with Aisha was better than most of the real sex in his life. After what he thought was an hour of analysis, but was really less than ten minutes, he decided that, for now, Aisha was off the list.

But there was the cocaine. Or was it heroin? No one had ever mentioned what it was, specifically, that he was carrying, but Doug doubted it made any real difference. ‘Oh, it’s only
cocaine
?
We’re
so
sorry to have detained you, Mr. Pearce,
please
enjoy your stay in Cairo.’ More likely it would be ‘Oh it’s only
cocaine?
Then
just
ninety-nine years for you, Mr. Pearce.’ What could it have weighed? If a can of beer weighed twelve ounces—was liquid measure the same as dry weight?—then it had to weigh a lot less than a pound, probably less than three ounces. Assuming cocaine costs about four hundred dollars an ounce, then he had brought in only around eight hundred dollars worth of cocaine. Aisha had set him up for less than the cost of one of those designer LBDs she made look so sexy. It didn’t seem worth the trouble. Doug thought about this as he tried not to watch one of his cellmates piss down the porcelain hole. Drug dealers dealt in huge quantities, or at least he assumed they did, so why would Aisha need to transport about a quarter of a pound—a pound was less than a kilo, right?—all the way from Morocco to Egypt? The plane ticket cost more than that.

The man stumbled back to his quarter of the upper bunk. In the semi-darkness of the cell, Doug watched as he tried to climb over his sleeping bedmates, curling up between the wall and someone’s backside. Doug sat up, stretched, and leaned back against the wall. Was a pound more than a kilo? In an algebraic equation, did one night of great sex cancel out ninety-nine years in jail? How many questions do you have to ask an old man before he gets hit by a car? If two pimps left the train station at the same time, how long would it be before they would get beaten up? Did an ounce of beer weigh the same as an ounce of cocaine? What if it was light beer? A freakin’ C+ in eleventh grade math, he thought, and I can’t add this up.

Somewhere down the hall, the loudspeaker began blasting the early morning call to prayer. Several of his cellmates woke up and began washing their feet, arms, and hands, the ablutions required before prayers. Doug rested his head back on his raised knees and somehow managed to drift to sleep.

Chapter 14

“What’s your last name again?” Abe asked as they stacked the breakfast dishes on the plastic tray by the door. It was gray meat and rice, the breakfast of champions.

“Pearce. Why?”

Abe held up his hand to quiet Doug and turned his ear to the barred window as he listened to the voices in the hall.

“They’re coming for you, Doug.”

For a moment Doug had no idea what Abe meant, then, as the voices drew nearer and he heard his own name in the middle of a long Arabic sentence, Doug remembered. He had lost count of the number of men who had passed through the cell over the last two weeks. Some came back, eyes blackened, maybe a thin trail of blood snaking out of their ears. Some didn’t come back. “Were they released?” Doug had asked. “One way or another,” Abe had said.

“Abe,” he said, his voice shaky, all the fear that he had swallowed over the days and nights suddenly bubbling up. “Abe…I… I don’t know….”

Abe walked over and put his hands on Doug’s shoulders, and Humphrey Bogart spoke. “Doug, the lives of two little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Where you gotta go, I can’t follow. What you gotta do, I don’t want any part of. But if you don’t go outta that door, you’re going to regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life. We’ll always have this cell.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, you crazy Arab?” Doug said, trying to laugh but too scared now to do more than manage a weak smile.

Abe pulled Doug in and gave him a hug, and, before Doug could react, kissed him on both cheeks.

“You’re fucking crazy, Abe.”

“Here’s looking at you, kid.”

“Douglas Pearce?
Hal anta
Douglas Pearce?” the guard said through the bars.


Aywaha
,” Doug said, using one of the few Arabic words he had picked up, “I’m Douglas Pearce.”

“Come,” the guard said as he opened the door.

Doug looked back at the other men in the cell. The fat man, Fozan, who gave him the back rub, crazy Yasser who actually ate everything on his plate and looked for more. It was strange, he thought, I’m going to miss these guys. He looked at Abe, who was sliding back down the wall to his chosen spot. “That was an excellent Bogart,” Doug said.

“Bogart?” he said, shaking his head. “Shit, that was my best John Wayne.”

A hand reached in and grabbed Doug by the shoulder, pulling him from the room. The door slammed shut and Doug wished he were on the other side.

“Come,” the guard said, exhausting his English vocabulary, pushing Doug forward down the long hall. Dozens of identical doors lined both wall, each housing another dozen men, each with their own Fozans and Yassers and Abes and maybe a Doug here and there. They passed through doors, climbed some stairs and made enough confusing turns to thoroughly disorient him. The halls became brighter, drop ceilings were added, bulletin boards on painted walls appeared, then polished floors, noisy air conditioning and plastic potted plants. He could hear phones ringing in the offices they passed, the rhythmless tap of computer keys filling in the forms that keep the headless bureaucracy breathing. The guard led him into a desk-filled work area and at the far end he saw Sergei leap up from his chair and walk toward him, accompanied by a heavily mustached officer.

“Oh thank God you’re all right,” he said as he wrapped his thin arms around Doug’s chest. “I have been so worried.” The guard said something to him in Arabic and he released Doug, stepping back. “Yes, I’m sorry, please forgive me, it’s just I’m so happy to see my son. Are you a father yourself?” he said to the officer. “
Three
sons?
Al Hamdu Allah, Al Hamdu Allah
. But he is my only son so I’m sure you understand, don’t you?”

The guard replied in Arabic and he and Sergei shared a laugh, no doubt about wayward sons and a father’s love. The escort guard was waved off by the father of three sons and he and Sergei continued to chat in Arabic as they sat at a nearby desk, passing folders of paperwork between them, pulling out forms now and then to sign or pound into submission with a rubber stamp. Doug sat on the bench near the desk trying to piece it all together. He watched as Sergei nonchalantly removed a sealed envelope from his coat pocket and slipped it into the folder he then handed to the guard, the man too polite, too proud, or too professional to notice. They shook hands again and the man checked his watch, not wanting to be late for his next appointment with another nervous father.

“Thanks, Dad,” Doug said, as they walked through the office labyrinth.

“Yes, well, that,” Sergei said. “I couldn’t think of anything else. I hope you’re not offended.”

“Offended? You could have told them I was your wife, as long as it got me out of there,” Doug said. “I should explain how I got there.”

“Certainly not here, Douglas,” Sergei said as they made their way through the crowded lobby toward the entrance. “And certainly not in the cab—all the drivers outside the police station are paid informants for this lovely organization. There will be plenty of time to talk once you get cleaned up. And speaking of that, what have your mother and I told you about playing in your church clothes?” Sergei laughed and put his arm around Doug’s shoulders as they pushed open the glass doors and entered the blinding blast furnace that was downtown Cairo.

Chapter 15

The felucca glided along the Nile, its triangular sail and ancient design contrasting with the triple-decked, diesel powered dinner cruise barge that plowed through the dark waters, its rows of lights multiplied by the ripples of its wake. The felucca’s pilot was dressed in the traditional galabiyya and white headscarf, not because it was part of his tourist shtick, but because that was all he ever wore. The dinner barge carried over-charged diners vacationing from London and Australia. The felucca carried six cases of Gordon’s Gin and a replacement computer modem from a downriver warehouse to the Sheraton. In his quaint costume and in his unhurried way as he guided his craft towards the shore, he was picturesque without meaning to be. In a few weeks, fuzzy and poorly lit photos of his sailboat would be passed around dinner tables in Derby and Perth, and he would be described as historical and fascinating. But at that moment he was being described as late and fucking worthless by the assistant manager who paced the edge of the riverside restaurant.

Doug had watched the manager through most of his meal and now, as he relaxed with an apple-flavored tobacco water pipe, he watched as the manager, in his haste to unload the felucca, dropped the modem off the dock and into the ancient river. The man in the boat said nothing but the diners who watched silently filled in what they knew he was thinking.

It had been a good meal and the dockside entertainment only made it better. Forty-eight hours ago he was mopping up stray grains of rice with the piece of bread he had kept from lunch. Now a small swarm of restaurant employees bused away the remainder of the steak and potato dinners he and Sergei had enjoyed. The Osiris beer had a strange, chemical taste, but Sergei insisted that if they didn’t dine in the style of the Egyptian they would at least drink that way.

“Have you ever had a hubbly-bubbly before, Douglas?”

“Depends,” he said. “What is it?”

“This,” Sergei said, holding up the long wooden handle of the water pipe. “They call it hubbly-bubbly here. Over in the Gulf it’s called
sheesha
. In Istanbul you order
nagillia
.”

“I had it once in Morocco,” Doug said, remembering the night with Aisha, not sure if he should smile or shake his stupid head.

“What do they call it there?”

“I think the lady said it was
kif
.”

“Oh dear,” Sergei said. “Well, I don’t pass judgment, but if it’s somehow tied into later events I don’t want to know.”

Doug had told Sergei about his arrest at the airport, his time in the jail, and his decision to call Edna and quit. He told him about his adventure in Casablanca’s red light zone, his run-in with the pimps/assassins, his day at the beach, and his time in the old souk. He told him everything—except for Aisha. It wasn’t that he was ashamed of his time with her—far from it since he knew he’d get his drinks bought for weeks with that story back in Pottsville. He just wasn’t sure what to say about her. Was she an earnest grad student really on the trail of a historical relic and family obsession, or was she, as Doug had seen her more than once as he sat in the sweltering jail cell, the sultry ring-mistress of an international cocaine cartel? Was she the
kif
-smoking, whiskey-chugging sex goddess of his dreams, or was she playing a role she knew would lure the foolish Yankee into acting as her drug-toting mule? He had spent most of the last two weeks hating her for one of the things she did to him and fantasizing about the rest. If I don’t say anything about her, he reasoned, maybe the bad parts will go away.

Sergei explained everything to Doug as well. He had cleared customs long before Doug but became concerned when Doug never showed up near the taxi stand. He went back inside just in time to see Doug, handcuffed and shackled, being hurried through a security door. “At first, of course, no one would tell me anything,” Sergei had said, “not that it was top secret but because no one in Egypt does
anything
without
baksheesh
, a ‘tip,’ which is at best a bribe and more typically extortion money.”

Sergei didn’t say that he had paid
baksheesh
to find Doug, and more
baksheesh
, a lot of
baksheesh
, to get him released, but Doug was sure that he had. Sergei refused to discuss the matter. “What was I supposed to do Douglas?” he asked, “Leave you there? Please.” But he did apologize for taking so long to find him, and the reason made Doug shudder every time he thought about it. “They lost you. Really. Couldn’t find you in any of the records. Who knows how long you would have been there.”

Sergei had also convinced him not to run out on Edna, not in so many words but that was how Doug had heard it. “You can’t possibly blame this woman, thousands of miles away, for your regrettable problems in Egypt. In good faith she has financed your trip and, in good faith, you should stick with it Douglas, until either you find what you are looking for or she calls it off. You are only as good as your word, you know.”

“Sergei, weren’t you the guy back in Casablanca who told me to play it careful? Told me pretty much to go back to Pennsylvania? Told me that there were a lot of dangers playing this game? Why the change of heart?”

“Not a change of heart, Douglas. Everything I said before still holds true. It is a dangerous game you are playing, stirring up dust that settled years ago and likely to find some nasty things buried in the process. But your problems with the gentlemen from customs had nothing to do with this affair and so you have no real reason to resign now. See it through, Douglas,” he said, blowing out a cloud of blue
sheesha
smoke; “if not, you may wake one day to find that not finishing the job was the cause of all the regrets that followed.”

While Doug had found Sergei’s advice a bit extreme, when he called Edna that night he didn’t mention quitting.

“Oh my God, Douglas,” Edna said, “where have you been? I’ve been so worried. Egypt Air said you arrived but you never showed at the hotel and you didn’t call. Where were you?”

He lied, of course, creating an old high school friend whom he met on the plane—the odds being so astronomical that it sounded plausible—and they had gone on a bit of a binge…. He let it trail off so it sounded like the old story about the irresponsible former-brewery employee and his rich, jet-set friend from Pottsville, that swinging place, closing bars and breaking hearts. He apologized, a bit too much he thought later, and assured her that he wouldn’t let her down, that he’d be back on the case right away and that he’d already set up some appointments. “I gave you my word,” he found himself saying, “and you’re only as good as your word, you know.”

Sergei took care of everything. While he had recovered Doug’s bag, all that remained were the guidebooks and the papers, everything else having “disappeared” while it sat in a secured locker at the police station. He had bought Doug new clothes, a bit conservative for his tastes and a little loose given his prison diet, but name brand and selected with care. He had managed to locate Doug’s passport, no doubt with the help of more
baksheesh
, and even had him looked over by a Swiss doctor he knew. The room, the meals, the wardrobe, it all had to cost a considerable sum of money and Doug had recalled Sergei’s comments about a tight budget.

“I contacted the museum,” Sergei explained, “and told them I had located a few small items from the Mamluk era—a mosque lamp, some quality pieces of pottery—things that won’t be on any list of non-exportable antiquities, and that if they sent me a draft I could make some arrangements. I know the museum business. ‘Arrangement’ is the term for ‘if you are lucky’ and since it wasn’t a huge sum and since they know the items are either stolen or about to be stolen….”

“Wait a second, the museum would know they were stolen? Isn’t that illegal? And unethical?”

Sergei smiled as he exhaled another blue cloud. “If the museums of the world each gave back what was technically stolen goods, I doubt that together they could mount a decent exhibition. That’s an exaggeration, of course, but there is more truth to it than you’d realize. Forged letters of provenance, dubious background checks, a most liberal reading of treaties and contracts, not to mention outright theft and plunder. In my years with the museum I have seen it all, and, truthfully, participated in it as well. It is the nature of the beast, I believe. It consumes as much as it can find, gorging itself in the times of plenty, like during the war, and hunting, constantly hunting, in the lean times.”

“But I’m always hearing about how some museum shelled out a million bucks for a painting or some thingamajig.”

“Oh they do, they do. Museums worldwide spend billions and billions each year to lawfully acquire objects for their collections. But the beast is not stupid. Why should it spend more than it must to satisfy its hunger? Just like you, the beast tries to get as much as possible by spending the least. It is patient, it is greedy, and it is always hungry.”

“What about the real owners?” Doug asked. “Don’t they ever get wise and try to get the stuff back?”

“Have you ever heard of the Elgin Marbles? No? Well, on a hill in Greece is a building, perhaps one of the most famous in the world. It’s called the Parthenon.”

“Yeah, I think I may have heard of it,” Doug said, annoyed that Sergei would think he was that stupid.

“When it was built in the fifth century BC,” Sergei continued, oblivious to Doug’s tone, “its pediments were adorned with statues, each larger than life, depicting mythological events, and along its frieze ran a series of sculptures depicting life in Athens during the Classical era, all of it either done by, or at least supervised by, the great Phidias. And there they remained, surviving disasters both natural and man-made. They were relatively intact during the Ottoman occupation of the city and it was then, this would be around 1800, that a British official, one Lord Elgin, negotiated with some petty officials in the occupation forces and ‘bought’ the statues.

“Using methods that were crude even for that era, he had the statutes hacked from the building. Some fell as they were being removed, shattering on the steps below. Others were too hacked up to bother with and they were left behind. But the bulk of the sculpture, a world treasure if there was ever one, ended up in Lord Elgin’s estate and eventually in the British Museum.

“Now this is a good example of your rightful owners trying to get the stolen works returned. Everyone knows this story and no one disputes the Greek claim that the Elgin Marbles are really the Parthenon’s marbles, but, despite constant pressure from the Greek government, the marbles stay in England.”

“And I assume Lord Elgin ended up fat and happy,” Doug said.

“Poetic justice intervened, I’m happy to say. His young and beautiful wife left him when his nose literally rotted off, the outward effects of an advanced stage of syphilis.”

Doug whistled between his teeth. “And I’m sure you’ll tell me that this is just an example, that you could tell me dozens of other stories….”

“Hundreds, actually. Not always with the syphilis.”

“…and that people and whole countries are robbed of fortunes and everybody knows and nobody can do jack about it and that’s just the way of the world, right?”

“The museum world, yes. Not to be confused with the real world I’m afraid.”

“Geeze, Sergei,” Doug said, “and here I thought Captain Yehia was rough company. Don’t you know any nice, sweet, normal people?”

Sergei laughed as he signed for the meal, slipping in an Egyptian fifty-pound note as a tip. “There’s you, and there’s this fine gentleman here,” he said, handing the leather case to the waiter, “and that about sums it up. And to be honest,” he added in his stage whisper, “I’m not so sure about the waiter. He
said
the salad was fresh, but….”

BOOK: Relative Danger
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