"Coffee ..." Ammi gave a deprecating snort. "Never touch the stuff if I can help it. I'm already awake 24/7."
"You lie. You slept through Seattle."
"I was not asleep," the amulet responded a trifle huffily. "I was simply taking some downtime to reconfigure my systems."
"What systems? You're an amulet, not a computer! A magically enhanced talisman!"
"Hey, spells need periodic upgrades too! And don't try changing the subject: You're acting weird, even for you. What gives?"
"I told you: I don't know!"
Dov's angry shout was loud enough to make the cabbie turn around and ask him not to do that again, unless he really, really wanted to scare an honest driver into making an unscheduled swerve into Lake Michigan. Chastened, Dov didn't utter another word until they reached their destination.
After paying the fare and obtaining a receipt for tax purposes (Ray Rah had gotten that right, at least) Dov went up to the great front door of the Temple of Seshat-by-the- Shore and rang the bell. No one answered. He rang again, longer, with the same lack of result. Only when he switched to pummeling the wood with his fist and it swung back under the first blow did he discover that it had been unlocked, unlatched, and waiting for a gentle push all along.
"No one at the airport, no one at the door ..." He was still muttering his way through a growing list of grievances as he entered the house. The interior glories of the quasi- Egyptian temple made as striking an impression on Dov as they had on his sister, though in his case, admiration was severely tempered by resentment.
"Where are they? Playing hide and seek? Stupid Ray Rah. Stupid pomegranates. Stupid—whoa!" While searching for another human soul, Dov had failed to watch where he was going, tripped over a monumental black and white cat, and sprawled full length at the feet of the image of Thoth. "Stupid cat!" he hollered, shaking a fist after the retreating animal.
"Blasphemy!"
A shadow fell over Dov. He turned his head and looked up into the contorted face of a middle-aged woman. She was swathed in a white gauze sheath, her bare upper arms encircled by rich bracelets of gold and carnelian, her chest supporting a heavily beaded golden collar studded with turquoise scarabs. It was impossible to tell her original hair or eye color, for she wore a wig and had gotten a little overenthusiastic with green eyeshadow and thick lines of black kohl.
"I remember this movie," Ammi whispered, peeping out of Dov's shirt. "It's The Revenge of the Mummy's Mary Kay Rep! I love the part where she rings the doorbell and says, 'Ding-dong! Aten calling.' Get it? Aten calling? Avon calling? You old enough to remember back when Avon reps used to go around to ladies' houses and—? You know, like in Edward Scissorhands? Aw, c'mon, I know you're old enough to remember Edward Scissorhands!"
"Ammi," Dov whispered. "Shut up." He slapped on one of his most ingratiating smiles and turned up the Flirt-o-Meter to medium-high.
"Well, hel-lo, there. I'm sorry, I had to let myself in. I didn't think it would be a prob—"
"What have you done to the holy feline, Behold-all-the-moles-in-the-front-lawn-have- gone-to-Osiris?" The lady was not to be so easily won over.
"I'm afraid I tripped on him." Dov got to his feet slowly. The front of his traveling clothes had picked up an all-encompassing layer of cat hair, but he suppressed his annoyance and renewed his attack. "He's a beautiful animal. How did you ever get him to grow so fa—big and strong?"
The lady scowled. "Behold-all-the-moles-in-the-front-lawn-have-gone-to-Osiris is no mere animal. He is the holy creature of the Lady Bast. If I were you, I'd be praying that the goddess's attention was elsewhere when you called her precious one fat."
Since charm was scoring 0 for 0, Dov switched tactics to righteous indignation, which lesser souls might often mistake for good old-fashioned bullying. "And if I were you, I'd be praying that this so-called conversation didn't go any farther. Perhaps you don't know who I am? I'm Dov Godz from E. Godz, Inc. Heard of us? If not, have your leader Ray Rah bring you up to speed. E. Godz, Inc. is only the reason that this temple counts as a temple where being a temple counts for something solid, namely with the Internal Revenue Service!"
The woman smiled. It was a toothy grimace reminiscent of the sacred crocodiles who had once staffed the Nile-side temples in ancient Egypt and done their part for the ecology by devouring anyone the priests didn't like. The crocodiles became very devout and their descendants often bemoaned the modern world's comparative lack of religious zeal.
"A threat, Mr. Godz? You can't scare me; I have teenagers. You're not the head of E. Godz, Inc. yet, and if that day should come, I doubt you'll throw us to the wolves. We're far too valuable to you as a working subsidiary. You'd never do anything to dam the cash flow."
"You're a cynic, aren't you, Ms.—?"
"Call me Nenufer. And no, I'm not, but I think you must be. It's all about the money with you, isn't it? The money and the power. You like pretending to be everyone's best buddy, but only when you're hugging the knowledge that one word from you could turn everything upside down. It gives you a sick little thrill, playing the undercover mastermind. I'll bet you've got a tattoo on your butt that says If They Only Knew."
"How would you know what I am?" Dov shot back. "Considering we just met, what, five minutes ago? Wait, let me guess: woman's intuition." He sneered.
"Middle-aged woman's intuition," an unruffled Nenufer replied. "It's like a superpower: modified X-ray vision. I can't see through a brick wall, but I've met plenty of your type before so I can certainly see right through you."
"Lady, you've got issues."
She laughed at him. "Nice use of a dismissive catchphrase; you'll get extra points for style. Sure, I've got issues. Who doesn't? I notice that you still haven't bothered to apologize for what you did to Behold-all-the-moles-in-the-front-lawn—"
"Apologize to whom? To the cat? You think he cares? You think he even remembers? He's got a brain the size of a walnut and most of the storage space is taken up with that ridiculous name you gave him!"
"To me," said Nenufer. "For having treated the things that I believe in as if they were all just part of a silly little game, something to keep an aging Baby Boomer busy. My generation gets into such mischief when we're not kept busy, don't we? Mischief like standing up for human rights, and speaking up for peace, and pretending the homeless aren't invisible, and seeing that women get treated like human beings, and giving the earth a fighting chance to dig out from under all the trash and sludge and poison that some people believe will just go away if we attend all the right cocktail parties and think happy thoughts."
"Look, lay off me," Dov snapped. "I don't like lectures, but this also happens to be one that I don't need. My mother's part of your precious generation, remember? Believe me, I know everything you've done—and not just the stuff you're proud of! If you want to assume I look down on your beliefs, go ahead, but that won't make it true. One of the first things my mother did long before she set me up in the Miami office was teach me to respect every one of our clients. That was one lesson I took to heart, starting with respecting her. If you think I'm just in this for the money and the power, you might as well say that the same goes for my mother, because everything I know about running E. Godz, Inc. I learned from Edwina Godz herself!"
"Why, thank you, Mr. Godz." Like a brief summer cloudburst, Nenufer's dark scowl blew away as if it had never existed. Her face was transformed from Gorgon to Grace by a warm, affectionate smile. "That's all we were waiting to hear."