The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [25]
He had almost reached the hospital when a man stepped out into his path. “You must come with me, Brother of Demons.”
“Get out of my way, Musa. I haven’t time to listen to el-Gharbi’s compliments.”
“You must!” the other man repeated. He held out his hands. Stretched between his palms was the filmy scarf Nefret had worn round her neck that morning.
Seeing Ramses’s expression, Musa jumped back a few feet and began to babble. “Do not strike me, Brother of Demons, she is not hurt, she is safe, I will take you to her.”
“Damned right you will.” Ramses’s hand shot out, catching Musa’s stringy arm in a bruising grip. “Where is she?”
“Come. Come with me, it is not far. She is unharmed, I tell you. Would any of us dare injure—”
“Shut up. Which way?”
Knowing he was no longer in imminent danger of violence, Musa said plaintively, “You are hurting my arm, Brother of Demons. I can walk faster if you do not hold on to me. I will not run away. I was ordered to bring you to her.”
Ramses didn’t bother to ask who had given the order. He released his grip and brushed at the enterprising fleas that had already found his hand. “Where?”
“This way, this way.” Musa trotted ahead, around a corner and through a pile of discarded fruit rinds and peelings that squelched under his bare feet. “This way,” he said again, and turned his head to nod reassuringly at Ramses. “Do you have a cigarette?”
“Don’t push me too far, Musa.”
He was no longer worried about Nefret, though. The man who must be responsible for this would not harm her. They ended up where Ramses had expected: in an outstandingly filthy alley behind the house el-Gharbi had once occupied. Musa went to the small inconspicuous door Ramses remembered from earlier visits. The police had barricaded it with heavy boards, but someone had removed most of the nails; Musa pulled the planks aside and climbed through the opening.
The house that had once been alive with music and the other colorful accompaniments of a contemptible trade was dark, deserted, and dusty. The windows had been boarded up, the rich furnishings removed or left to molder. There was a little light, streaking through cracks in the boards. When they reached the room in which el-Gharbi had held court, Ramses made out a massive shape squatting on the ruined cushions. Nefret sat next to him. A ray of sunlight sparked in her hair.
“Sorry,” she said cheerfully. “I did it again.”
Ramses got the words out through lips unsteady with relief. “Not your fault this time. Another black mark against you, el-Gharbi. What do you mean by this?”
“But, my dear young friend, what choice had I?” The voice was the well-remembered high-pitched whine, but as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Ramses saw that the procurer was dressed in a ragged galabeeyah instead of his elegant white robes. He didn’t appear to have lost any weight, though. Shifting uncomfortably, he went on, “You would not come to the camp. You would not have come to me here—so I invited your lovely wife. We have been having a most enjoyable conversation. Sit down, won’t you? I regret I cannot offer you tea—”
“What do you want?” Ramses interrupted.
“Why, the pleasure of seeing you and your lovely—”
“I don’t have time for this,” Ramses said rather loudly. “You cannot keep us here against our will, you know.”
“Alas, it is true.” The procurer sighed. “I do not have the manpower I once had.”
“What is your point, then?”
“You won’t sit down? Oh, very well. It is the camp, you see. It is no place for a person of refinement like myself.” A shudder of distaste ran through the huge body. “I want out.”
“You are out,” Ramses said, unwilling amusement replacing his annoyance. El-Gharbi was unconquerable.
“Only for a few hours. If I am