Tatiana passed five empty seats to get to Petri. After he took a small amount of salad and dressing, she proceeded past five more empty seats to Sydney at the foot of the table.
He took a penlight from his jacket. “Hope you don’t mind, old boy.” He pushed the button on the end but it didn’t light up. He waved it over the salad and dressing. “A pocket Geiger counter. With all the unfortunate contamination of salad dressing by nuclear waste these days, one can’t be too careful. I believe it was last month that a young family discovered the hard way that their Thousand Island dressing would have been more accurately labeled Three Mile Island dressing.”
Satisfied that the food was radiation-free, Sidney heaped his bowl with salad and drowned it in camel toe dressing.
Tatiana moved to Dorkovsky. He produced a gadget that could have been an electric razor with a pig’s snout attached. He flipped a switch and circled it over the food. It buzzed and snorted then shut itself off. “A contaminant detector. Sniffs out everything from heavy metals to pesticides. So much of the food supply contains such things, but this is safe.”
He put a small amount of salad in his bowl then poured on the camel toe dressing until it looked like a bowl of soup.
Tatiana stepped next to my chair, bent over, and said softly, “That pig just emptied the pitcher. I’ll see if Luca has more.”
“Thank you but don’t bother. I feel too queasy to eat anything.” Which was the truth. The thought of food, with or without nuclear waste, made my stomach do somersaults. “And Roger doesn’t want any salad.”
She studied my face. “Are you with child?”
That didn’t help my queasiness. I shook my head emphatically. “No, absolutely not. I think it’s just a reaction to all the locust guts.”
Tatiana hung out by the sideboard waiting for the salads to be eaten. Dorkovsky and Sydney inhaled theirs. Sputum ate about half of his then pushed it aside. Petri left his untouched.
Borgia lurched out of the dumbwaiter toting a silver platter of camel meatballs. They rolled to the left. They rolled to the right. They rolled all about while Borgia settled down to a mild waver. “Tatiana, please see to the plates. I will serve these personally.”
It appeared she was going to argue but smiled instead and went around the table removing salad bowls and placing dinner plates.
The chef was now taking one step sideways for every two forward. The camel meatballs would avalanche side to side and back and forth as Borgia stutter-stepped around the room. Miraculously, none rolled off the plate. If those half-pound camel balls were as hard as the one I’d tried in the desert, they could have done some damage to a foot or at the least, a big toe.
Sputum took two and, after performing their safety rituals, Sydney four, and Dork eight. Needless to say, Petri, Roger, and I passed. When Roger, the last of us to be offered the dish declined, Borgia drew himself up indignantly. The meatballs finally lost their will to stay on the plate and crashed into Borgia’s chest knocking him flat on his back.
The servings of the braised shank of camel with hollandaise sauce and the camel mousse with caramel sauce weren’t nearly as interesting since they weren’t round. But Borgia was drunker with each course and, after serving the dessert, passed out with his head in the dumbwaiter and his feet on the sideboard.
The meal was over and nobody was dead. Amazing. What was Sputum’s plan? I caught him looking at me with the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth, like he was reading my mind.
He returned his attention to Sydney and Dork and said, “Now that we’ve broken bread, maybe we can reach an accord. There’s no reason for us to work against each other.”
Sydney and Dork both nodded, obviously not rejecting Sputum’s bold-faced lies out of hand. They both seemed a little slow. Had they been drugged, after all? Then I got it. Sputum slowed them down and dulled their senses through their gluttony. They were as sluggish as anacondas that had swallowed goats.
Tatiana walked past the table.
Sputum barked, “Where do you think you’re going?”
She spun on her spiked heels at the top of the stairs and barked back. “Anyplace you aren’t. But after my brother is done with you, that will be everywhere.”
Oh no, I was panicky. I couldn’t handle another oligarch. “Who’s your brother?”
“You know him as Mustafa.” She snapped her forefinger at Sputum. “And you, as Vladimir. Did you think you could screw the Dark Force without consequences?”
She turned her back on Sputum and walked down the stairs.
He jumped out of his chair and leaped toward the stairs while sliding his hand under his jacket.
A distinctive voice rumbled up the stairs. “Not a good idea, boss, or should I say, ex-boss.”
Tyson stood near the exit, gripping his Glock with a green laser spot centered on Sputum’s black heart.
Tatiana reached the exit. “You will pay the price for those you have disrespected… the Dark Force, Tyson, and me.”
She stuck her hand in Tyson’s jacket pocket and, similar to Little Jack Horner, pulled out a plum, in this case the iPod controller. She tapped it with her finger, the door whooshed open, and a can of soda flipped in. That’s what it appeared to be from my vantage point on the second level. It wasn’t Coke or Sprite or any soda I’d ever seen, but I was in Egypt.
Tatiana tapped Tyson on the shoulder. He stepped out of the bus but the laser dot never left Sputum’s heart. The soda can popped open and a cloud of gas spewed out.
“I’m sorry that you all will die,” Tatiana said as she backed out, pointing her hand at Sputum. “But he would have killed you anyway. Up with his bullshit we will not put!”
“However, if any of you survive and need a little help with awkward situations, google Dark Force. We have reasonable rates and guarantee results.” She took the final step outside and tapped the iPod, closing the door and sealing us in without a controller.
Perfect. If I didn’t die because of Sputum at the hands of the Dark Force, I could hire the Dark Force to kill Sputum if he survived the gas spewing into the bus. Circular homicide.
Sputum worked his gun out of his shoulder holster. Sydney and Dork hit the floor. Roger and Petri squatted beneath the table.
I dumped my water glass on my linen napkin and wrapped it, cold and dripping, over my face like an unimaginative bandit. I had to get to Fiona, still out cold and sitting next to the canister.
Chapter Thirty-seven
I soaked a napkin for Fiona as the cloud swirled through the first floor and twisted its way up to the dining room. The air was heavy with the smell of tar and taffy. The Campoos! I snatched my purse and folded the flap, hoping the little guys had enough air. I put the strap over my head and across my shoulder.
Roger and Petri wrapped their faces. Roger motioned me to the floor. We crawled to the stairs. The gas was our immediate danger but we still had two oligarchs and the oh-so-slimy Sir Sidney to worry about. Roger motioned for me to go down. I took a deep breath. Roger and Petri had my back as they guarded the top of the stairs, for whatever that was worth without weapons.
I slithered down the steps on my belly wondering if I’d ever see Roger again. My eyes watered and my throat slammed shut. What would it have been like without the wet napkin over my face? I ka-thumped to the bottom and low-crawled to Fiona. Pulse strong, still unconscious. I put the wet napkin over her face and unraveled her from the chair. I eased her to the floor and elevated her feet, wishing I had a blanket.
Bam! Bam! Heavy pounding on the door. I nearly jumped out of my Ferragamo-Converse custom designed footwear.
What the hell was that racket? Was Habib alive and here with the army? Or was it the Dark Force? Or a wayward camel?
The hydraulic door burst open with a crunch followed by a feeble whoosh. I recognized the designer shoe coming through the door at waist level. Darcy Bone! Dead but not defeated, dripping blue ooze, but with not a hair out of place. The woman deserved her own mini-series. She had
more lives than a Seinfeld re-run.
“Antony! Antony! Wherefore art thou?” she screamed.
In serious need of brushing up on her Shakespeare, she stood spread-legged in the entrance, arms locked at her sides, fists balled, implacable as the fat lady in the opera. Obviously out of her gourd… again, if she was ever in her gourd. The embalming pool bath probably didn’t help.
I huddled over Fiona screening her with my body and hiding my face from Darcy. This was not the time for another Darlin-Bone tussle.
Darcy wildly scanned the first and second levels. “Antony, I’ve found our medallion! You complete me.”
Bonkers. Totally bonkers. I was sure Antony’s half of the medallion was in Roger’s left-left shoe. But maybe she’d found Cleopatra’s half, which drove her into a Cleopatra hallucination.
At the top of the stairs Sputum holstered his gun then struck a pose, hand in the air, beseeching her, “Cleopatra. Cleopatra. Up here, my love.” His opportunistic delivery was marred by the choking effect the gas was having on his voice.
“Antony. Antony. Therefore art thou.” She stepped forward, tripped, and slammed into the wall. An air recirculation system kicked in with a gulping sound. Evidently Tatiana disabled it with the controller and Darcy enabled it with a body slam. Size matters.
The gas swirled into vents throughout the bus. The air cleared in a matter of seconds. Sputum grinned like the cat that swallowed the canary, in this case the coalmine early-warning canary.
Darcy walked by me, smelling like the Mummy’s sister. I wondered if there was a vaccine against her. I released Fiona. Her breathing stayed steady. I opened my bag to check on the Camapoos. They were tumbled together in their box, but alive. I left the flap open to let in the purified air.
I stood and followed Darcy. I had to see if she had the Isis side of the medallion.
She climbed the stairs slowly with an exaggerated hip motion. Didn’t she know you can only make an entrance when descending stairs? Sputum waited at the top. They embraced.
“Cleopatra, my lovely Cleopatra. Tis I, your Antony. You saved my life, all of our lives.”
“Oh, were that it true, my brave Antony. Then I might be worthy to join thee and rule all the lands of the world.”
“But it is true, my sweet. If you hadn’t made the pure air system turn on, the poison gas would have killed all of us.”
“Forsooth, I know not of the matters you speak, but lo, if I have served you in some small way, my journey here abounds with joy.”
Sputum held out a shaky hand. “The brush with poison gas was too much. I need a drink. Come, let’s sit and celebrate.” He steered her toward the dining area.
“At yon table?”
Dork and Sydney were as close as shadows. The way Sputum was treating Darcy made it obvious that Sputum had been lying when he told them he had the medallion. I trailed the group, hoping to see and hear without being seen or heard, which wasn’t difficult. Sputum, Dork, and Sydney were totally focused on Darcy.
Sputum helped Darcy into his seat at the head of the table. Dork and Sydney stood next to her, showing no inclination to return to their seats at the far end. Sputum grabbed a bottle of vodka and a stack of shot glasses from the sideboard.
He placed four glasses on the table and held the bottle at shoulder height. “This is a fitting liquor for our toast. This is Blabnik vodka, one of the most expensive vodkas in the world.”
Sputum opened the bottle and extracted a clear wand filled with crystals. “This wand contains forty-eight crystals of smoky topaz, pink tourmaline, amethyst, citrine, peridot, cubic zircona, and one blood-red diamond.” He filled the glasses and set the bottle on the table.
“A toast to our savior-ess, Cleopatra,” Sputum said raising his glass of vodka.
Dorkovsky and Sir Sydney lifted their glasses while wiping remnant tears caused by the gas from their eyes.
Darcy raised her glass. “Dost thou perchance have mead?”
“To Cleopatra,” Sputum said.
“To Cleopatra,” Dork and Sydney repeated.
They all downed their shots except Sputum, who threw his vodka over his shoulder and placed his hand over Darcy’s glass so she couldn’t drink hers.
Dorkovsky dropped his glass and grabbed his throat with both hands. He gurgled like a backed-up drain and collapsed.
Sir Sydney’s lips pulled back in a blue-black sneer, his eyes bugged out. He hit the table with a crack and slid to the floor.
Sputum cackled. “Two with two shots.”
Darcy moved her glass away from Sputum’s hand. “No mead?” She shrugged and chugged.
Sputum keened, “Noooo, noooo. The medallion, you must tell me about the medallion.”
I held my breath waiting for her to drop. The secret of the medallion would be gone forever.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Darcy jerked the bottle off the table and took a long pull. “Not mead but not bad. Thou servest a mean drink, Antony my love.”
The bitch was clearly a demon in disguise. A devil with a blue dress on, or, more accurately, blue ooze on.
I glanced over my shoulder at Roger still standing by the stairs with Petri. He shook his head. He didn’t know what she was either.
Darcy held her nose in the air and did a hound dog sniff. “Hark, dost the aroma of camel meatballs fill my nostrils?”
Her perfect hair bobbed as she spotted one under the chair next to her. It must have rolled there during the Borgia fiasco. She snatched it off the floor and snarfed it in two bites, never getting a single drop on her chin. Definitely a demon.
She took another pull on the bottle. “Mark Antony, I gavest thou the bestest years of my life.” Her head swiveled to Roger.
Sputum waved his hand in front of her face. “I’m over here, my queen. Please give me the medallion.”
“It wouldst be my greatest pleasure, my love. First thou must rid us of these bodies so they beginst their path to the afterlife. And thou knowest how a clean bus pleaseth me.”
Sputum’s frustration showed in his bearing. He believed she had the medallion. The easiest way was to shoot the crazy bitch and be done with it. But if he shot her and she didn’t have it on her, he’d never find it. And she was so nutty he’d never be able to force the information out of her. Her game was the only game in town.
“A short drive into the desert will take care of this trash,” Sputum said through clenched teeth.
He waved his gun at Roger and Petri. “Downstairs! One of you is my new driver.”
They started down the stairs. Their body language told me they were thinking that together they had a chance of taking him down. But getting into a gunfight without a gun is never a good idea. I had to act before they did something foolish, fatally foolish.
I raised my hand timidly as I did in Catholic school when I needed a potty pass.
Sputum pointed his gun at me. “Why are you still here? And alive? Oh yes, it’s because I’m in a nest of traitors and enemies. Now I’ll have one less.”
His finger tightened on the trigger.
“I can drive the bus. I used to work for the LTA.”
His eyes spun a bit. “LTA?”
“London Transit Authority. Double-deckers are my specialty.”
Darcy’s eyes darted between Sputum and me. “Anthony my love, methinks she is a Chariotress.”
Sputum’s gun wavered. A good sign, unless it went off.
“Chariotress?”
“Yes, a driver of the first order. One who will protect our temple and lead us to our destiny in the afterlife. We must put ourselves in her hands.”
The confusion on Sputum’s face was nothing compared to the confusion in my mind. Why was Darcy vouching for me?
“You better be telling the truth.” He glared at me. “Start charioting.”
He followed me down the stairs. The door hung open from Darcy’s grand entrance. A full moon peeked over the crumbled temple walls.
Sputum walked to the bottom en
try step and peered out. He turned around and pointed his gun at Roger and Petri. “Ashtray Girl is going to drive us a few miles into the desert. You two drag those double-dealers down here and dump them out. One good sandstorm and they’ll disappear forever.”
I got in the driver’s seat and set my purse on the floor. A computer screen was mounted in the dash to the right of the steering wheel. There were no other controls. If I hadn’t seen Tyson operate this thing, I’d have been screwed. But I was merely buying time. I didn’t have a plan. Maybe all of us could jump Sputum when we stopped to dump the bodies. Stupid. Another version of getting into a gunfight without a gun.
I adjusted the rearview mirror so I could watch Sputum. Tapping a few buttons on the computer screen, I managed to fire up the engine. It was running but not in gear. What would Sandra Bullock do?
The screen was the same as when Tyson used it. I wasn’t sure what the Feet setting was for. I hit Next and the letters PRNDL popped up across the top edge. If those letters meant the same as the shift lever in a car, D stood for Drive. If not, the D would stand for Dead, my next state. I placed the cursor on the D and aimed my finger toward the Enter button.
I heard a scratchy sound. The Camapoos had escaped from my purse and were making a break for the open door and the moonlight. Sputum was mean enough to kill them for no reason. Remembering his phobia, I yelled, “Rats! Rats with saddles!”
Sputum screamed, “Aaaaiiiieeee,” as he jumped to the side.
Fiona bolted upright. “I said no talking in the library!”
She flung her pith helmet like Oddjob in Goldfinger catching Sputum in his left eye. He fell out of the bus, then still screaming, dove under it to hide from the rats with saddles.
My hand bumped the Enter button when I lunged for the Camapoos. I nabbed both of them as the bus lurched into drive. I halfway fell out of the driver’s seat. Sputum’s screaming stopped with a snap, crackle, and pop. Ooops.
I slid back into the seat, slammed on the brakes, put the cursor on P, and hit Enter, struggling with two wiggly Camapoos the whole time.
My hands shook as I secured them in their box. I was pretty sure I’d used up my quota of kills for this caper, but I wasn’t just Ashtray Girl anymore.
Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 03 - Cairo Caper Page 16