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"Better wait and see what Winston has in mind for us," Rick cautioned. He began to stow his clothing in one of the big dressers. He lifted a shirt, and stared down at the Egyptian cat nestling among his T shirts. "Tell you what, if Winston doesn't need us, let's deliver the cat. We can see some of the city coming and going."
When their clothes were stored, they washed away the grime of travel and Rick called Winston's room.
Hakim Farid answered. "Don't think we've forgotten you," the young radio astronomer said. "But Parnell and Kerama wasted no time in getting down to business. I doubt that you could interrupt long enough to get a sensible answer. Do you have any plans?"
"We have an errand at El Mouski," Rick replied. "Would it be all right for us to go?"
"No reason why not. You'll need a car. I would offer you mine, except that you have no local license. You could take a taxi, but a licensed dragoman would be better. Suppose I suggest one with a car?"
Rick remembered that Bartouki had told them a dragoman was a guide-interpreter. "That would be very good of you," he replied.
"All right. I will send one I know, or a friend of his if he is not available. Wait in your room and he will come for you."
Rick thanked Farid and hung up. He reported the conversation to Scotty.
"First time I've ever had a guide in a city," Scotty said. "Makes me feel important, like visiting royalty or something. Couldn't we just get a map instead?"
"We'd still need a car. Might as well get one with a built-in talking map. Besides, I like the idea. I want to be escorted like a visiting prime minister."
There was a paper laundry bag in the closet. Rick used it to wrap the cat against possible
scratches. Scotty took the few moments to get some cards written, to which he signed both their names.
There was a polite knock on the door, and Rick opened it. He gaped at the sight of what was apparently their dragoman. He was a magnificent figure in blue pantaloons and short red jacket. He had an engaging black face marred by three straight hairline scars that ran in a diagonal across his cheeks.
"Have honor to present me," the figure announced formally. "Name of Hassan. To serve you."
"Come in, Hassan," Rick invited. "Are you the dragoman Dr. Farid sent?"
"Is same, ya sidi . To serve you."
Rick introduced himself and Scotty. He inspected the guide with interest. Hassan was young, with a friendly white-toothed smile. The scars identified him as Sudanese, but Rick didn't know enough about the markings to tell what part of the Sudan he came from. A different part from Bartouki's servant, though, because the scars were at a different angle, and Hassan had three on each cheek.
Rick's quick imagination could picture the Sudanese in a different setting, with scimitar in hand, guarding the palace of a legendary sultan. It was hard to imagine him in the prosaic role of a guide. Rick resolved to take a picture for Barby's benefit. A blackamoor warrior right out of the tales of Scheherazade! That was how she would see it.
The boys shook hands with the dragoman, and Rick saw that he responded to their obvious friendliness. The costume was an odd one, though. Rick hadn't seen any like it on the street, and he wondered if Hassan wore it for effect, since most of his customers probably were tourists. Later he found that the guess was right.
"Where you like to go?" Hassan asked.
Scotty spoke up. "You know El Mouski?"
Hassan's face split in a wide grin. "Who does not?"
"That'll teach me to ask silly questions," Scotty said ruefully. "Like asking a New Yorker if he ever heard of Central Park."
The boys walked downstairs with Hassan, since it was faster than taking the elevator, and went to the alley behind the hotel where he had parked his car.
The car was a small foreign sedan of a make neither boy had ever heard of. Apparently Hassan also used it as a taxi, because the front passenger seat was taken up mostly by a taxi meter.
Rick showed Hassan the address in his notebook. The guide shook his head. "Please, you read."
Rick looked at him with astonishment. A guide who couldn't read? But apparently it was so. "It is the store of Ali Moustafa," he explained.
Hassan shrugged. "I do not know it. But it can be found. Enshallah. "
Although the boys did not recognize it then, the word was a common expression meaning "If God wills it."
They would learn it, though, and with it other Arabic words, including zanb , dassissa , and khatar or, in English, crime, intrigue, and danger!
CHAPTER IV El Mouski
The boys watched with mixed fear and amazement fear that Hassan would hit someone and amazement that he didn't. Time after time he bore down on a slow-moving Egyptian and Rick's heart leaped into his throat until collision was averted by some miracle or other, usually a wild, record-breaking leap by the pedestrian.
The trip from the airport had been along streets that formed a kind of throughway, but in the city itself, the traffic was the kind that would send an American traffic cop screaming for the riot squad. Here, no one seemed to think anything of it.