IV: Down the Tombs of Taurus
“A drought is upon her waters; and they shall be dried up: for it is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their images!”
“Good morning, my friend,” says Marag, sifting his hand from the sleeve of his blue gellabia; “It
I tell him it isn’t a bad morning for two in the afternoon and shake his hand. We look each other over for the first time in the daylight. He’s older than I thought, graying, but his eyes are as youthfully bright and black as his teeth are white. He’s smiling at me to see what I’ll do. There’s protocol at stake here on this sunny sidewalk: an acknowledgement that this is my main hash man could be a
Muldoon ends my dilemma by introducing him to me as Marvin instead of Marag. I tell him my name is Devlin. Muldoon says Marvin has this
“Marvin says it’s a map, to a Secret Hall of Holy History—”
“Secret
He waves at a guy slouched against the fender of his cab at the curb, a surly sort about twenty years old, wearing polyester-knit slacks and a polo shirt, sleeves rolled up to emphasize the arms-folded biceps. He looks us over, the set of his jaw and the beetle of his brow letting us know
“Not so much education,” Marag confides, “but a fine driver.”
“Say, Marvin, just where’d you get that map?” I can’t remember mentioning anything to him the other night about the Hall of Records.
“I hear talk the American doctors one with baldness are searching for the Secret Tunnels. I draw this last night this map.”
“You drew it?”
“And have my son write in the words. Very reliable secret map. My family is live at Nazlet el-Samman many hundreds of years, pass down
Muldoon says all he is know is Marvin wants ten pounds for it. Ten pounds! Jacky and I say at once.
“Only five for me,” Marag hastens to add. “Other five for car and my nephew driver.” He notes our hesitation and shrugs good-naturedly. “As you wish, my friends. I don’t blame you being cautious. We take only five now—for car, gasoline—and
Five seems to be the going front figure. Marag keeps grinning at me.
“Let’s go for it,” I decide. I take a five-pound note out of my wallet. The hand comes out and the note vanishes into the folds of the blue gellabia; not as quick as the nephew’s eye, though; he comes fuming over and he and Marag have a splendid argument in screaming Egyptian.
As squat as the nephew is, he still is some inches taller than his bantyweight uncle, and you can tell he’s pushed a little iron down at the YMMA. Still, it’s an obvious no-contest. That bright-eyed little mink of a man would swarm all over Cool Yet Dangerous, leaving nothing but a pear core.
“My nephew is a
As he bustles around the car closing us in, I realize he isn’t coming along.
“Also most
“Thud?” we all ask in mutual dawning apprehension.
“I haven’t seen a grin like that,” Jacky concedes, “since Sal Mineo won the Oscar for