Relative Danger

by Charles Benoit

  “…The way we figure it, why pay someone else’s mortgage when we can use that money on a place of our own….”

  There wasn’t anything really wrong with Jeff Willett. Hadn’t he bought all the beer and an order of nachos?

  “…it’s a little par three with a wicked slope to the green and this pocket bunker that has to be five feet deep….”

  I know this guy, Doug thought.

  “…I pointed out the sign clearly said ‘three day rental on all first run movies,’ and it was only two days anyway….”

  Not him, not Jeff Willett from Norman, Oklahoma, but Jeff Willett, typical guy.

  “…she’s got a rack out to here and legs that just don’t quit….”

  I know what he likes, what he does in his spare time and what he’ll do when he retires.

  “…sixteen Buds, four shots of tequila, four of JD, and a rum and Coke….”

  I went to school with Jeff Willetts, worked with them, hung out at the Rusty Nail with them.

  “…so we put the housing back on and it’s still leaking so I’m thinking gasket….”

  Jeff Willetts made up just about everybody he knew in Pottsville. They wore jeans, drove pickup trucks or Trans Ams, cheered on the Steelers in October and the Pirates in June. They liked to hunt but were just as happy when they came home without a thing. They married women they had screwed in high school and lived and died fifty miles from where they were born.

  “…he goes ‘who you calling stupid?’ and I go ‘I just call ’em like I see ’em’ which really pisses him off, right? So he goes….”

  He knew Jeff Willett.

  “…but as a designated hitter? He’s unreal. If he was with, say, the Yankees….”

  He was Jeff Willett.

  “Whoa, Doug, you look like you could use another. Yeah, a couple more beers down here and how about a bowl of peanuts? Put your money away, this is on Uncle Frank.”

  This can’t be me, Doug thought as he drained half the Osiris beer in one swig. I can’t be this….

  “…just give me a cold beer and a game on cable and color me happy….”

  …this…

  “…but the highlight is the three-day layover in Minneapolis ’cuz they got that Mall of America….”

  …boring.

  “…Led Zeppelin II. Enough said.”

  Don’t panic, Doug thought. Think. Do Jeff Willetts jet off to Morocco? Do they end up in jail in Cairo? Are they hired as detectives to find stolen jewels and are they tracked down by professional killers? Are they shot at and do they make daring leaps across mile-wide alleyways? Do Jeff Willetts have exotic sex with hot Arab women?

  “Hey Stacey! Finally. Pull up a stool and meet my friend Doug.”

  No, they do not.

  “I got such a great deal on a carpet. I talked him down to just fifty dollars!” She looked at both Jeff and Doug to see if they were as amazed. “Fifty!”

  So maybe he wasn’t a Jeff Willett. Not now, anyway.

  “…I’m not sure, but I think the mosques are a lot like a church, just the wrong god is all….”

  On the tenth beer, the formaldehyde kicked in.

  Chapter 21

  “We met over breakfast, it’s only fitting that it is over breakfast that we say farewell.”

  A formaldehyde hangover isn’t much different from an alcohol hangover, except for the undulating band of visual distortion. It snakes through the air, disrupting solid objects, like a confined heat shimmer or bad tracking on a VCR. Doug was watching one of these lines roll across his plate while Sergei explained his itinerary.

  “The train ride to Alexandria is much safer and more comfortable than the Egyptian Air flight, and it’s usually an hour or two faster. The ship to Cyprus leaves quite early tomorrow morning but I have a cabin so it should be pleasant enough. Then a day trip to Paphos. By this time Saturday I’ll be sipping wine on the terrace, working on my tan.”

  Doug had noticed the flashing message light on his hotel room phone when he got out of bed to throw up, but couldn’t figure out how to get the message out of the damn thing until six, when the dry heaves made it impossible for him to continue trying to sleep. He showered for an hour and met Sergei in the Nile Dawn breakfast buffet lounge, which was actually the Nile Sunset with tablecloths covering the beer ads.

  “I think you should tell your Canadian friend that you are just certain that the Jagersfontien Diamond made a side trip to Cyprus and join us for a week or so.” The “us” part was the big surprise Sergei had mentioned in his phone message. He had run into an old friend while visiting the Islamic Arts Museum and the two had decided to run off to Paphos “like giddy teens.”

  “The weather will be a tad warm but that will only mean less in the way of clothes, I imagine.” Sergei raised and lowered his eyebrows suggestively, which only made Doug feel nauseous again.

  “We spent a torrid July together in Barcelona some time ago and swore that we’d relive it one day. You should come along, you’d have a great time.”

  As much as Doug admitted that he enjoyed Sergei’s company, the thought of spending a week with him and his “companion” on an island—Cyprus was an island, wasn’t it?—didn’t sound like fun. “So what’s there to do at Paphos?” he asked, trying to change the subject a bit.

  “Absolutely nothing. And that’s what we’ll do. Well, not absolutely nothing.” The eyebrows bounced up and down again. “We shared some…moments, you could say, in Spain. We hope to share them all again. And some new ones, I suspect.”

  “So…you leave this morning?” Change the subject, please, Doug prayed.

  “My train was scheduled to leave twenty minutes ago, so I’ll leave for the station in an hour and only have forty minutes to wait. My friend leaves for Cyprus Friday, her husband has business in Beirut and won’t be leaving till tomorrow.”

  “Her husband?” Doug didn’t drop his fork or anything so dramatic, but he was nonetheless stunned. The wavy formaldehyde band jumped off his plate and clung to the Texaco gas pump.

  Sergei smiled a tight-lipped smile and lowered his eyes in mock shame. “I’m afraid you now know my dark side, Douglas. I hope this doesn’t lower your opinion of me.”

  “Sergei,” he said laughing, “what am I going to do without you?”

  “Well Douglas, you seem to be keeping yourself quite busy. And, by the looks of you this morning, not using your time to catch up on your sleep. I trust that you’ve made a few friends here in Cairo?”

  “And a few enemies,” Doug added, imitating Sergei’s eyebrow gesture.

  “And what about you? Still looking for that diamond? Hot on the trail, as they say?”

  Good question, Doug thought. Now what? He’d killed a man—well, sort of—and possibly caused something bad to happen to Aisha’s uncle. He could track down Aisha and take it from there, or look for Abe and see what he suggested. Or he could call Edna and find out how she wanted him to spend her money. He didn’t have any real idea what to do.

  “Me?” he said, pushing his half-eaten eggs into a pile with his fork. “Eh, I’ll think of something.”

  “I’m going to miss you, Douglas. You’ve become quite the bon vivant,” Sergei said, holding up his tea in salute.

  “If that means hung over, I agree,” he said and raised his orange juice in reply.

  ***

  Cairo is more than just the pyramids, more than the mosques, more than the old souks. But since the new parts are not nearly as interesting, or as well built, as the ancient ruins, most visitors to the city never see it. There are thousands of shops that never see a tourist, that don’t sell tiny pyramids, and whose owners don’t stand in the doorway, enticing you to come in with claims of insanely discounted prices on unspeakably valuable items. For three hours Doug wandered around in one of these areas, hoping for inspiration, waiting for the wavy band to disappear, and trying to decide if he needed a rubber stamp.

  The hotel had thoughtfully provided a copy of Cairo! magazine in
every room, and, mixed in among the lengthy restaurant “reviews” written by the restaurant owners and the three color maps pointing out the locations of these highly praised establishments, there were real articles, reprinted each month, about life in Cairo. Squeezed in between mouthwatering descriptions of specially selected and masterfully prepared braised lamb chops, and accounts of how heads of state, when they are in the city, always dine at Maroosh, was a piece on the tradition of the souk. According to A. Carieen, Arabic rulers required like shops to be located together in the same part of town to encourage competitive pricing and make shopping easier. “No need to traipse from shop to shop, across town and back again, to find what was needed. Oh, the ease of shopping then!” Whether by tradition or a still enforced law, whole streets were dedicated to one product. As Doug walked the half-mile of the rubber stamp and small engraved signs with no borders souk—quite separate from the rubber stamp and small engraved signs with borders souk—he wondered how any of these places could stay in business. There were no hordes of price conscious shoppers traipsing from shop to shop, keeping the area financially healthy. There were, however, hordes of underemployed rubber stamp and small engraved sign makers wandering about. Doug tried to picture the entire Reading mall selling only one thing—say, truck-bed liners or sneakers—but it just didn’t make sense. Sort of like the rubber stamp and small engraved signs with no borders souk.

  Mixed in with the specialty shops, perhaps by that same ancient decree, were small restaurants and at one of these, in the middle of the electrical motor and arc welding supply souk, he stopped for a Coke. The electrical motor and arc welding supply community sees itself as a cosmopolitan crowd, unlike those commoners over in the lead-based paint souk, so Doug didn’t attract too much attention.

  On the paper placemat he wrote the heading What To Do Now and, for two Cokes and a Snickers bar, he made boxes around all the letters in What To Do Now, turned the boxes into three-dimensional cubes, shaded in all the Os, rewrote the heading in fancy cursive, shaded in all the Os in that heading, and copied the Arabic letters used to write Coca-Cola. With the mat nearly filled, he checked his pants pockets for something else to write on, this list being too messy now to use for any real work. On a folded, round paper coaster used by the coffee shop near the Bab al-Badistan was the phone number Abe had given him yesterday morning.

  “Where the hell are you?” Abe said. Even over the phone Doug could tell Abe’s teeth were tightly clenched.

  “I’m sorry, have I reached the home of Charlton Heston?” Doug asked.

  “Cut the crap, where the hell are you?”

  “I’m not sure. Want me to pick you up some welding rods?”

  “What the hell are you talking about? We’ve been trying to reach you all day. The hotel said you were at breakfast but nobody’s seen you since.”

  “Calm down, I went for a walk. Who’s we?”

  “Me and Aisha. She called here about ten this morning. She went to the hotel to look for you but you were gone. And don’t tell me to calm down, asshole.”

  “What’s going on?” Doug asked but was thinking about Aisha going to his hotel room.

  “You’ve got to get the hell outta Cairo, that’s what’s going on. There’s some mean motherfuckers looking for you and they’re going to kill you if they catch you.”

  “What?” Doug could feel his testicles retreating up into his stomach. Instinctively, he looked up and down the street. “What did Aisha say?”

  “She said that there’s some mean motherfuckers looking for you and they’re going to kill you if they catch you, that’s what she said. Where the hell are you?”

  “I said I don’t know. I’ll catch a cab back to the hotel….”

  “No man, don’t go there,” Abe said. “She checked out for you and dropped your stuff off here.”

  “How’d she get my passport from the front desk?”

  “It’s Aisha. How do you think she got it? Look,” he said, and paused long enough for Doug to think the line was cut, “get a cab and meet me at T.G.I. Friday’s, the one on the boat.”

  “They got a Friday’s on a boat?”

  “Oh Jesus,” Abe said, his teeth clenching again, “just get there.” Now the line did go dead, but Doug had clearly heard Abe slam the phone down.

  Chapter 22

  When he got back to Pottsville, if he got back, Doug was considering looking for work in the fake antique business.

  The walls of the Friday’s on the boat—yes, there really was a Friday’s on a boat—like the walls of the other two Friday’s he’d been in, and like the walls of the Nile Sunset/Dawn, and a dozen or so restaurants and bars in the greater Pottsville area, were covered in retro Americana antiques. There were signs advertising Beech-Nut Chewing Tobacco, Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup, Esso Gasoline, and one that said “Learn to like Moxie!” but gave no clue what Moxie was or why one had to learn to like it. There were musical instruments, a couple of sleds, scores of old team photos in unusual-shaped frames, a traffic light, some toy fire trucks and train tracks, and a suitcase or two. There were enough balls—National League Spalding, American League Reach , and sandlot no-names—bats and gloves to outfit a team, the kind that would wear the thick cotton uniform that was hanging above the men’s room door. And everything, from the wooden Adirondack canoe to the Old West sheriff’s badges, was rusted or tarnished or bent in a way that was aesthetically pleasing and sort of homey. The red Texaco gas pump, identical to the one at the Nile Sunset/Dawn, identical to the one at the Friday’s in Reading, blocked his view of the Elvis tribute section, displayed over the bright lights of the non-functioning jukebox. But that was all right, he knew exactly what he’d find there. He wondered what it must be like working at the factory that pumped out enough phony antiques to supply the world’s bars and restaurants. Probably three shifts. Probably union. “I work in the stain and tarnish section,” he could picture himself saying, “part of the weathering division.”

  Doug had just finished his second Osiris when Abe pulled up a chair.

  “Anybody follow you here?” Abe asked as he motioned to a passing waiter to bring the check.

  “I didn’t think to look,” Doug said. “Did anybody follow you?”

  “Nobody’s trying to kill me, Dougie. And if I work this right, no one will.” He threw some multicolored pound notes on the table. “Let’s get going, we’ve got a five-hour drive to get to Sharm el-Shiek if you’re gonna catch that flight.”

  “Who’s Sharm el-Shiek?” Doug asked as they headed down the covered gangway and to the tiny street-side parking lot.

  “It’s a resort town on the Red Sea. You’re catching a Gulf Air flight outta here. It’s the first flight we could get you on that didn’t fly out of Cairo.”

  “Why? You think someone’s actually watching the airport for me?”

  Abe stopped to unlock his car door and looked over the roof at Doug. “Yeah, Doug, I do.”

  For over an hour they drove in silence, not counting Abe’s running commentary on the fucking stupidity of every driver on the goddamn road. In heavy traffic the cars bumped into each other, pushing with a fender, nudging with the whole left side of the car, but since this didn’t even elicit so much as a “bastard” from Abe, it probably meant that this was considered courteous driving in Cairo. Doug stared out the window at the identical-looking buildings that raced by, and at the other drivers every time they pulled up to a stoplight. The other drivers, however, ignored Doug, glued to the traffic light, waiting for their chance to sprint ahead a half a car length. And at every traffic light, motorcycles snaked their way up to the front of the line, so when the light did change it looked like the starting flag at a motocross rally.

  Finally Doug said, “Where’s Aisha?”

  “No idea,” Abe said and then yelled something in Arabic, something that probably ended in learn to drive, you dumb fuck.

  “Well how’d you get the ticket?”

  “I got an uncle who owns a travel agenc
y—no smart-assed comments, Dougie—he took care of the flight. Your name won’t be officially listed until you land, too late to catch you here.”

  “So where am I going?”

  “I told you, Sharm el-Shiek. After that, we’ll have to see the ticket.”

  ***

  Doug passed the time watching the darkening horizon. When the sun set in Egypt, it set fast, and all that was left of the blinding sun was a thin band of orange glow in the sky behind them. An hour later, even that was gone. He had started off trying to figure out what to tell Edna, but his mind drifted to a thousand different areas, few of them having anything to do with jewels, killers, or Egypt.

  “We’re being followed,” Abe said, breaking the silence.

  “Huh?”

  “The car behind us, it’s following us,” Abe said as he checked his rearview mirror.

  Doug turned around to look out the back window. There was nothing to be seen other than a sliver of the moon, a thousand stars and a pair of yellow headlights.

  “How do you know they are following us? They could be going to Sharm el-Shiek, too.”

  “Because I thought we were being followed about an hour ago so I took a back route I know. They took it. So I took a few other back roads. They took all of them. No, they’re following us,” he said, looking out to the side mirror, “and they’re getting closer.”

  “Now what?” Doug asked.

  “I’ve got one more road to try, a real back route but it’ll get us around to the main road eventually. If they take that one too, I’m gonna try to lose them.”

  Doug looked around the area, trying to make out something in the blackness. “I don’t see anything out there. There’s nothing to hide behind and no traffic either. How you gonna lose them?”