The Game - Laurie R. King [28]
“Mr Goodheart, so you decided to come ashore after all! What do you think of this ring?”
He pulled the dark glasses from his bloodshot eyes and came fully into the shop, giving the ring I held out the merest glance. He seemed more interested in what we had been looking at earlier, but the bangles had vanished, and the shopkeeper was as phlegmatic as Holmes.
“I should think it would turn one’s finger green in a day,” Tommy Goodheart told me, looking more than a little green himself. “Say, you haven’t come across my mother anywhere in this madhouse, have you? I was looking at some carpets and turned around and she was gone.”
“I haven’t seen her, no.”
“Maybe you could ask this fellow for me,” he said to Holmes. “Since you seem to speak the lingo.”
So, he’d been listening outside long enough to hear the exchange. I didn’t look at Holmes while he asked the man behind the counter if he’d seen a large American woman in a flowered dress (all Mrs Goodheart’s dresses were flowered) looking lost. The man regretted that he had not seen such a person that day.
Holmes translated the man’s reply, then told him that we would take the ring, please. I was glad to see the jeweller pick up the unspoken message, that the bangles Holmes had made away with were not to be mentioned, but would now be paid for; he made no protest, and reacted not in the least to a payment vastly greater than the price of the trinket for my “sister.” He merely wrapped the ring, thanked us profusely, and turned to the young man and asked him in English if he wouldn’t like to look at some pretty necklaces for his girlfriend.
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Thomas snapped. “And if I did I wouldn’t buy her rubbish at those prices. You really should’ve got him to come down,” he said to Holmes, following us out into the street. He winced at the brightness and put his sun-glasses back on.
“Oh, that’s my fault,” I told Goodheart. “I hate haggling over a pittance, it always seems so rude. And these people have so little, compared to us.”
I was interested to hear the committed Communist sniff in disgust at my willingness to share the wealth.
“Where’d you learn to speak the language?” he demanded, as if Holmes had revealed some distasteful habit.
“Oh, it’s one of those things a person picks up,” Holmes answered blandly. “I lived in Cairo for a time.”
“That’s right—the reason you didn’t care to take the train down to see the pyramids. You two heading for the sights here? The tanks are supposed to be quite something.”
“Not just now,” Holmes said. “We’ve a bit more exploring down here to do. In fact,” he added as if at a sudden thought, “we might just have a meal, something good and spicy. Have you ever eaten mutton pilau, Goodheart? The Arab style of mutton is memorable. A trifle greasy, perhaps, and the eyeballs take some getting used to, lying half buried amidst the rice—”
Goodheart flushed a most peculiar shade of puce, swallowed convulsively, and turned away, waving his hand in wordless farewell that attempted nonchalance.
“Enjoy yourself,” I called. We turned into the nearest arm of the bazaar, and in a dozen steps had lost young Goodheart in the crowd.
I laughed aloud. “Holmes, that was pure cruelty, the detail of the eyeballs.”
“The young puppy deserved it, forcing me to guzzle all that bad champagne and giving so little in return. I’ve a head-ache myself, you know.”
“Holmes, if we weren’t in an Arab country, I’d take your arm.”
“If we weren’t in an Arab country, Russell, I should allow it.”
We wandered, amicable if apart, through the ethnic potpourri for an hour or so, buying the odd item of foodstuff or decoration, dried figs and a double handful of almonds, kohl for the eyes and an ornate pair of embroidered slippers for Mrs Hudson, shopping more for the delight of the purchase than the thing itself, for the pleasure of fingering and sniffing and haggling in a variety of tongues. The sun continued to beat through the awnings, but slowly it shifted angle, until