Hazard (35 page)

At various times over the evening she made it a point to seek out Pinchon. To sustain him with an embrace or more intimate show of affection. She realized his exasperation but concealed how much it amused her. Several times she cajoled him into a smile and then quickly rejoined the confusion.

At 4:30
A
.
M
. Pinchon still saw no sign of a let-up. Actually, everyone seemed more stimulated than ever. In nervous reaction he himself had drunk too much cognac. He was in the foyer then, trying to make his way through the jostling and milling, when Catherine again came to him. She kissed him a moist lingering one near his right ear and inserted her hand in under the back of his jacket. Feeling through the silkiness of his shirt, her hand glided and performed possessive little grabs.

“I'm going to lie down for a while,” she told him.

He was also in favor of that.

“No,” she said. and left him abruptly.

He watched her go up the wide marble stairway. She was flanked by two handsome young woman dressed in St. Laurent smoking. With arms around, sides locked to sides, up they went together. Pinchon noticed the flash of the oval-cut family emerald. It was on the finger of the extremely short-haired, dark-haired one on Catherine's left.

Not to be obvious, Pinchon waited a moment before following them up. On reaching the upper landing he hesitated and then chose to go to his private quarters. It was the only area of the villa they hadn't been able to violate, thanks to his elaborate precautions.

He closed the door behind him. The multiple electric locks shot back into place.

A sigh expressed how relieved he was to be alone. Under no condition would he let anyone in, perhaps not even her.

He undressed quickly.

Merde.
Their interminable music invaded even here. He got two small cubes of malleable pink wax from a bedstand drawer, worked them into proper shape with his fingers and inserted them into his ears. Then he could hear only his inner self. It was a bit alarming.

He went into his dressing room. Standing at its center he observed his nudity in the opposing mirrored surfaces.

As for her, Madame Pinchon, a slapping around or two would straighten her out.

19

H
AZARD HAD
been detained at Cairo International Airport because he didn't have a visa.

“The purpose of your visit?”

“Sightseeing,” Hazard told them.

They examined his passport page by page, to make sure he hadn't been to Israel. They also opened his piece of luggage. Seeing it contained only a soiled pair of jeans, shirt, and toilet articles, they asked, “How much currency are you bringing in?”

Hazard decided it would be beneficial to show them. He flashed it all—a little over eight thousand in dollars, pounds, and francs. He fanned it out so they could do a quick count.

The senior immigration officer's eyes were stealing the money while his hand reached for the visa stamp. He took his frustration out on the passport, slammed a complicated pink impression on a fresh page, and initialed it with a steel-pointed pen that had to be dipped into a well.

For a while Hazard had thought they might search him routinely, find the Llama and give him real trouble. Saved by money. It didn't just talk, it knew all the languages.

A half hour later he was in a taxi in night traffic on Shari El Nahda, also known as Ramses Street. Feeling more displaced than ever, he gazed out at Arab words, chicken scratchings that seemed even more incomprehensible in neon. Just ahead was some Pharaoh's statue presiding over the upward spurts of a public fountain, and a bit further on, contrasting with blocks of anonymous concrete business buildings, was the fancy minaret of a mosque.

Hazard suddenly realized he was on the edge of the seat, anticipating, behaving like a gawky tourist. He eased back but continued looking out, and it occurred to him that probably Carl had walked along that very street many times. He recalled several letters from Carl, long ones describing Cairo. Letters never answered because Hazard had never been a writer. Carl knew that and hadn't blamed him, Hazard hoped.

The taxi went on past the Egyptian Museum to Shari El Corniche. On the left were such large hotels as the Hilton and Shepherd's. On the right was water that had to be the Nile. It looked no different from any other old river. They crossed over via the El Gama'a Bridge, not far from the spot where Moses was found in the bullrushes.

It seemed too long a ride. Hazard suspected the driver was taking him for one, just running up the meter. He leaned forward and crisply reminded the man, “Mena House!” The driver glanced around, nodded, displayed bad teeth with a big smile. “Zoo,” he said, indicating the park-like area they were now passing. Hazard decided he'd know for sure he was being hustled if they recrossed the Nile.

Soon they reached the section called Giza and headed down Shari El Haram. It was an absolutely flat street aimed straight at the Pyramids. Hazard caught sight of them through the dirty windshield. About five miles away, illuminated, geometrically perfect. He'd take time to visit the Pyramids no matter what, he promised himself.

The taxi continued on Shari El Haram. Hazard kept his attention on the Pyramids, which grew larger in view and still larger until they loomed ahead as though they were the only possible destination. Fascinating, thought Hazard, but hell he didn't want the Pyramids tonight, he wanted his hotel. He was about to tell the driver that when the taxi wheeled sharply right and after a brief, gritty skid stopped at the entrance to Mena House.

Hazard was pleased and a little disappointed that the driver had turned out to be an honest Arab. He paid the fare in dollars, ten, which he knew was three times the hundred and fifty piasters that had registered on the meter. The driver said “hello” for good-by and made a fast getaway with what he believed was a foreigner's stupid mistake.

From the moment Hazard entered the lobby he was glad he'd decided on Mena House. It was over a century old and all the better for it. Originally built by the Khedive Ismail as a royal hunting lodge, it was later expanded to serve as a royal guest house during the opening festivities of the Suez Canal. Since then, all of its palatial ambiance had been conscientiously preserved. Ornamental blue tiles and intricate mosaics, brass-embossed doors, huge hanging Islamic lamps, furnishings inlaid with ivory and mother of pearl, rich Persian carpets and, throughout, an abundance of that highly decorative antique lattice woodwork known as
mushrabiyyeh,
much of it dating back to the fifteenth century.

Royalty had stayed there. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, Princess Eugénie, King Gustav of Sweden, King Alphonse of Spain, Emperor Haile Selassie. And celebrities such as Churchill, Roosevelt, the Agha Khan, Cecil B. de Mille and, of course, Tyrone Power.

At the moment, this being summer and not
the
season, there were plenty of accommodations available. Hazard got a deluxe third-floor suite at the incredible rate of seven hundred fifty piasters, about twelve dollars a day. A boy robed in impeccable white and topped with a bright red fez carried Hazard's bag up. The boy lighted the rooms all around, checked to see the bath had an ample supply of linens, and as a final show of service (knowing it nearly always inspired a more generous tip) he folded open the tall louvered windows to present the view.

It was like having the Grand Pyramid in one's own backyard.

Hazard doubled the dollar he'd intended to give. The boy bowed and said seven “thank yous” on his way out.

Hazard now observed something strange about the lights on the Pyramid. They weren't constant. They brightened and dimmed, went off and on all around the structure. Along with that was a loudspeaker voice in the distance speaking in German. Curious, Hazard asked about that when he called down for a pair of gin-and-tonics. He was told it was
Son et Lumière,
the nightly sound-and-light show that related the history of the Pyramids and Sphinx.

“Why in German?” he asked.

“Tomorrow night English, sir.”

Hazard closed the louvered doors.

First thing off were his new trousers. He'd been suffering the cut of their tight crotch for ten hours, and during the long flight he'd had to take frequent walks up and down the aisle to maintain circulation. Now, getting some revenge, he balled the trousers up and threw them into a corner. He put his money, passports, the Llama, and the special knife under the bed pillow and went into the bathroom. There was something he'd never seen before—a brass bathtub and sink, shiny and luxurious looking. He washed up in the sink with sandalwood-scented hotel soap.

Mindful of the next day's comfort, he filled the tub and tossed in his jeans. He was on his hands and knees plunging and rubbing when the drinks arrived. They were tall and strong enough to be doubles. He downed one and went back to doing his laundry, thinking that if Keven were there she'd be doing it. Maybe. After wringing, he shook and snapped out as many wrinkles as he could and hung the jeans to dry over one of the towel racks.

With the second drink in hand he reopened the louvered windows and saw no lights on the Pyramid now. Evidently the Ministry of Tourism had finished its number for the night. Hazard switched off all the lights in the room, drew over a chair and sat there nude, looking out.

Fronds of tall date palms were silhouetted and being rustled by a slight breeze. The moon was close to full and it had a face. He slid a sliver of ice into his mouth and contemplated the massive funerary monument of Cheops. To accompany his point of view, he thought on some of the things he knew about it.

Statistics: 2,300,000 chunks of granite averaging 5,000 pounds, some weighing as much as 60,000. Covering an area equal to seven midtown blocks of New York City. Two hundred and one stepped tiers arranged in regular all-around courses rising 481 feet, the height of a modern forty-story building. Blunted on top with a level platform because seven of the original uppermost tiers and the capstone were missing. On the north side sixteen courses up was the authentic entrance, and ten courses below that was the gaping scar where the Arab Al Mamum had forced entry in the year 820. Those two passageways converged at a point 100 feet in, and from there the way went down and up to the various chambers. It was said that on August 12, 1799, Napoleon spent three hours alone in the king's chamber and came out noticeably changed, pale and shaken, as though he had witnessed something extraordinary.

Possibly, thought Hazard.

It was also said that for some inexplicable reason the Grand Pyramid possessed a natural power to mummify; that is, a corpse would dehydrate but not decay within its confines. Some scientists theorized that the pyramidal shape was the reason.

Could be.

Then there were those who said that the builders of the Grand Pyramid were of an ancient civilization that had progressed far beyond ours, and had used levitation to raise those gigantic stones into place. Supposedly the structure had served as an earthly reckoning point for space vehicles.

Not very likely.

Nor did Hazard go along with the idea that the Pyramid was an instrument of divine message, cryptically prophesying with all its degrees, measures, crevices, and niches the fate of mankind, like a creator's calendar that timetabled in advance all major occurrences: the revelations of Moses, the birth of Christ, plagues, wars, discoveries, and eventually holocaust and extinction.

For sure, that bewildering arrangement of rocks transmitted an unusual eeriness. If it stood for anything, Hazard concluded, it stood for death.

He was suddenly chilled, shivering.

He blamed that on the ice, the desert night, and his nudity—rather than the fleeting impression that the Pyramid was reminding him how slim were the chances of anyone winning a four-horse parlay.

He closed off the Pyramid and climbed into bed. Lonely goddamned bed. He finally fell asleep while reminiscing about exceptional poker hands he'd held.

At ten the next morning he was awakened by splashes and playful shouts. He got up for the bathroom, on the way back glanced out to see the hotel swimming pool directly below. Center of attraction were two, three blonde girls in mini-bikinis, showing off what they were sure they had. Frauleins on vacation from Dusseldorf. It was too early for Hazard to appreciate them. It looked hot, blazing bright out there. Maybe later he'd get some trunks and take a dip. Anyway, he'd stay around the hotel not to miss Gabil's call.

He ordered up some breakfast. While waiting for it he put on the jeans that now fitted good and snug, the way jeans did when freshly washed. They were still damp at the waistband and around the pockets but they'd dry on him.

A knock on the door.

That would be room service. Hazard opened and found himself looking up at Gabil.

Right off it was apparent Gabil hadn't dropped by to bid him welcome to Cairo. The man was grim. He didn't return Hazard's smile. He sat down as though his body were a burden.

“Mustafa expects me back in an hour,” said Gabil.

“Where is he?”

“Not far from here.”

“Where?”

Gabil went to the window. He directed Hazard's attention across the way to the sun-scorched golf course, one of the hotel's facilities. At the distant edge, about a half mile off, was a line of cypress trees and beyond those, mainly obscured, were some white structures.

“The house is there,” Gabil said.

“Whose?”

“It once belonged to the Pinchons.”

That was a piece of luck, thought Hazard, having Mustafa that close by, not having to contend with the problem of unfamiliar (and unfriendly) Cairo.

Breakfast came. There was only one cup on the tray. Hazard filled it with coffee for Gabil. He drank his own from a water glass.

“What's Mustafa doing over there?” asked Hazard.

That opened the way for Gabil to talk about it, let out some of his tension, and perhaps see things even more clearly by hearing it himself. He gave Hazard a detailed rundown on the situation. He'd seen the atomizing pods and the two canisters of vx–10 nerve gas. The special transfer valves were finished and in place. The gas could now be released. The only hold-up was a minor additional attachment, a nozzle, that would fit onto the intake valve of the pods. The nozzle was being made, would be ready in two days. On Sunday, three days from now, the pods would be filled and transported elsewhere by truck.