Oasis of Night (17 page)

“When the Athenian hero Theseus went into the labyrinth to fight the Minotaur, the goddess Ariadne gave him a ball of string.”

“Uh-huh.”

Blount's lips tightened. If I didn't know better, I could have sworn he was fighting off a smile. “So he might find his way
back
.”

I sat there staring at him while the clock above my desk counted off the moments. “A ball of string.” I reached out and touched the bowl with just the tips of my fingers, and found it cool and smooth.

“Diorite is an extremely hard stone, Mr. Stoyles, and very difficult to work with, but ancient artisans recognized its innate beauty. Even the most unpromising chunk of diorite could be shaped into something beautiful, something… useful.” He placed the bowl back into its protective box and handed the box to me. “There you are, Mr. Stoyles.” He rose to go.

“Wait just a minute! You just said this was—you said this was valuable—and now you're just gonna leave it here?”

Blount put on his hat. “Unfortunately, Mr. Stoyles, the museum does not have the financial resources to send someone to Cairo, and yet the bowl must be returned to its rightful owner.” He fished an old-fashioned pocket watch out of his vest and peered at it. “Oh dear, I must be going. Mr. Stoyles, thank you, and if ever I can be of any service to you, please don't hesitate to call. I'll just show myself out.”

He slipped past me and was out the back door, moving faster than a guy like him ought to. I went after him, but I was too slow. He had vanished, probably into any one of the narrow laneways that crisscrossed this part of the city.

I went back to my office and got on the horn to the museum. “Look here, some guy called Mr. Blount just left a valuable piece of Egyptian… uh… stuff here. I can't be responsible for everything that people leave in my cafe, so you better send somebody to come and pick it up, okay?”

The young man at the other end of the phone seemed genuinely puzzled. “Mr. Blount, did you say?”

“Yeah, Blount—skinny guy with a light suit and a briefcase.”

“Would you mind waiting for a moment, Mr. Stoyles?”

There was a thump as he laid the phone down and the sound of people talking in the background and things being moved around on the desk. I waited for five minutes, then ten, and I was just about to hang up when there was a click—and the low hum of the dial tone filled my ear. When I called back, the line was busy. It was busy every time I called, and I spent the better part of the afternoon calling. It was nearly six when I remembered the slip of paper Blount had given me. I fished it out of my pocket and looked at it.

There were two words, printed in block letters, in black ink: I KNOW.

I understood what I had to do.

 

 

I
T
TOOK
a few days to tie things up around the Heartache. I called my local suppliers and advised them that all deliveries would go to Chris and that he would be responsible for ordering and for taking possession of whatever the Heartache needed to keep going in my absence.

I got hold of Frankie Missalo and explained about Julie, and I asked him if he'd keep an eye on Chris, sort of look out for him.

“You sure this is what you want to do, Jack? Egypt's neutral, but maybe you don't want to be heading out into the unknown like this. Case you haven't heard, there's a war on.”

“I know there's a war on.” I pretended to sock him in the jaw—it was an old joke between the two of us—and he laughed. “It's just something I have to do, Frankie—you know?”

He laughed. “Is it a dame?”

“No. No, it's not a dame… it's a little stone bowl, actually.”

Frankie looked at me like I'd lost my mind. “A bowl.” He shook his head. “I never could figure you out, Jack, but hey, if it makes you happy….” He stuck out his hand and I took it. “Send me a postcard with the pyramids on it, huh?”

“Thanks, Frankie. You'll, uh….” Chris was tidying up behind the bar so I lowered my voice. “You'll keep an eye on him?”

“Till you get back.” He tilted his head and peered at me. “You are coming back, aren't you?”

“Yeah, Frankie. I'm coming back.” I walked him to the door and waved good-bye as he ran to catch his bus. It was late afternoon and the Heartache was empty of customers. The radio was playing softly, and dust motes spun in the stray shafts of sunlight shining through the plate glass windows at the front. Everything was as it should be. Leaving was going to be so strange—it seemed like I'd just arrived here five minutes ago—but at the same time, it felt right, like something I had to do.

My suitcases were packed and the diorite bowl was resting in its wooden box, wrapped in several layers of cloth for the long overseas voyage. I had purchased a flat gold chain from a local jeweler and had the cartouche Sam had given me mounted on it like a pendant. I wore it inside my clothes, the gold warming to my skin, and whenever I was alone, I'd pull it out and smooth the inscription between my fingertips, remembering. He'd been so formal that day, but there was a kindness underneath the affectation of ceremony.

It is inappropriate to refuse a gift….

Things had fallen into place for me almost from the start—at least as far as this trip was concerned. When I'd explained things to Chris, he had immediately volunteered to look after the Cafe while I was gone, and urged me to get started as soon as possible. Frankie Missalo had turned up one afternoon with twenty bucks he owed me, and as soon as he heard the story of Sam, the museum, and the diorite bowl, offered to find me a seat on a military flight—something that's only ever done for really important people, ambassadors and politicians and other high-ranking officials. My passport was updated, and the special visas I needed to enter the country were pushed through much faster than I would have ever thought possible. I was going to Egypt.

I was actually going to Egypt.

 

 

“J
ACK
? G
OT
a minute?” Chris poked his head around the door of my apartment, his jacket in one hand.

“Sure, Chris. Come on in.” I cast around for somewhere to sit. My suitcases, some of them still open, were laid across every available flat surface, and the various maps and guidebooks I had been staring at for days were scattered everywhere. “Sit down, if you can find a place.”

“Jack, I just wanted to say good-bye and wish you a good trip.” He stuck his hand out, but I dragged him into a hug. “I'm gonna miss you.” He pressed his face into my shoulder and hugged me hard. “Place won't be the same without you.”

“I'll be back.” I pulled away a bit and looked at him. He'd lost weight in recent days, and his eyes were shadowed with dark circles, probably from lack of sleep. “I asked Frankie Missalo to look in on you while I'm gone.” He opened his mouth to protest, but I interrupted. “Humor me, Chris. Huh?”

“Sure, Jack.” There was a noise from downstairs, and a voice calling his name. “I gotta go.”

I looked out over the banister and down into the Cafe. Alphonsus Picco was standing by the bar, waiting for Chris. He looked as nervous as a bridegroom. “Picco, huh?”

Chris was blushing and I was glad. Goddammit, I wanted him to be happy. I wanted us all to be happy. “Yeah. He, uh… well, after that whole thing with Julie, I….”

“No need to explain.”

“I really like him. He really likes me. We just go for walks and stuff. We talk.”

I grinned. “You kissed him yet?”

“Yeah.” He wouldn't look at me.

“Is he a good kisser?”

“Jack!”

“Okay, okay….” I made a gesture of surrender. “You're happy, I'm happy.”

“Jack, don't spread it around, okay? He's a cop. It could cause trouble if people knew.”

“I'll be as silent as the grave.” I shook his hand. “Take care of the Heartache till I get back, huh? And Chris?”

“Yeah?”

“Take care of yourself.”

I watched him go down the stairs and out the door with Alphonsus Picco, and I'll admit I felt a little bit sad—but I always get that way when things change, even if the change is for the better. When it comes to the past—especially my own—it's like I have selective amnesia.

I checked my suitcases and closed them up, and laid my passport and my visas on the table where I'd find them as I went out the door. I wound my watch and set my alarm for six in the morning and turned out all the lights in my apartment.

It was nearly midnight when the telephone rang, and I'd been asleep for about half an hour. I groped for the light, turned it on, and jiggled the receiver off the hook. “Yeah?”

“Hello, Jack. Did I wake you?” His voice was as warm and rich as I remembered.

“Sam. Sam, where are you?” I clutched the receiver till my knuckles hurt. “Where are you calling from?”

“I am in Cairo.” A long sigh, and silence before he spoke again. “Something curious has happened to me, Jack. I'm afraid I don't remember anything. I don't remember how I got here, or why I came.” He began to weep, and the sound of it nearly broke my heart.

I clutched the phone as if I could will myself to him through the wires.

“Hold on, Sam. Just hold on. I'll be there in the morning.”

 

 

A
UGUST
, 1942,
and the sun was just rising over the Nile when we arrived in Cairo. I'd slept most of the way over, lulled into insensibility by the droning of the big plane's engines, waking only once when a grinning blond kid in an Air Corps uniform offered me a hot cup of coffee. I didn't know what Frankie Missalo had told them, but none of the other guys spoke to or even looked at me. Maybe they figured I was on some covert spying mission, trying to slip into Egypt on the QT or something. Either way, I was grateful for the quiet and the chance to catch up on my sleep, but every time my eyes closed, I ended up dreaming about Sam.

You ever have one of those ordinary days when it seems like nothing interesting is going to happen to you? I mean the sort of day where you just disappear into your work until the whole world goes away? Sam Halim walked into my life that way, on a day so ordinary it could have been any one of a thousand others. By the time he walked back out, I was hooked, brother, but good.

I'd been in agony ever since the day he'd disappeared from Newfoundland. It was hard to believe he'd only been missing for two weeks. When I'd heard his voice on the telephone the night before I left, it was all I could do to hold on.
I'll be there in the morning
, I'd told him. We were pushing it with everything we had, to fly from Newfoundland to North Africa in just one night, but that didn't matter to me. They could burn the engines out, just as long as I made it into Cairo in one piece.

That was the other thing, I'm originally from Philadelphia, but a lot of things happened back in Philly that would make it pretty hard for me to go back there anytime soon. For a while, I just drifted, rootless, wondering what the hell I was going to do with myself.

Then my old pal Frankie Missalo had come along.
“Listen, Jack, why don't you come up to Newfoundland with me? They're building all kinds of stuff up there and the whole place is ripe for the picking.”

Frankie and I had grown up together, roaming the mean and dirty streets of Kensington, earning a place for ourselves with our wits, as well as our fists. How we managed to stay out of real trouble is beyond me. By then the Irish mob had much of Philly under its thumb and boys like us were easy targets for guys like Dean O'Banion, fellas who wouldn't hesitate to enlist us as runners or worse. Maybe it was because of the church—Frankie was an altar boy and my old lady made sure I went to mass almost as often as I brushed my teeth—or because Father Danny O'Keefe patrolled the streets like a modern day knight errant, but we managed to escape our early days in Philly more or less unscathed. It was said that Father O'Keefe carried a blackjack hidden underneath his cassock, and if he caught you swearing, chewing, smoking, or taking the Lord's name in vain, he'd let you have it—and if the Father let you have it, you'd get it again when you got home, sure as shooting. Even Frankie's old lady, who was crippled with arthritis, wasn't above cutting him a few sharp cuffs about the ears when he deserved it.