If there was anything to be taken; if there was anything to be mapped.
The figure moved quickly through the cloakroom where Indy and Marion had left their suitcases and belongings. It moved with unnatural stealth, opening cases, sifting through clothes, picking up pieces of paper, examining them with laborious slowness. It did not find what it had been trained to discover. It understood it had to look for a particular shape-a drawing, an object, it didn't matter as long as it had the shape. When it found nothing, it understood its owner would be disappointed. And that would mean a lack of food. That might even mean punishment. It made a picture of the shape once more in its brain: the shape of the sun, small marks around it, a hole in the center. It began to rummage again.
Again, it found nothing.
The monkey skipped lightly into the corridor, removed some items of food scraps from the table where it had played before with the pretty woman, then swung out through an open window and into the dark.
8: Cairo
The afternoon was sunny, the sky almost a pure white. Whiteness reflected from everything, from walls, clothing, glass, as if the light had become a frost that lay across all surfaces.
"Did we need the monkey?" Indy asked. They were going quickly through the crowded street, passing the bazaars, the merchants.
'It followed me, I didn't exactly bring it," Marion said.
"It must be attached to you."
"It's not so much me it's attached to, Indy. It thinks you're its father, see? It's got some of your looks, anyhow."
"My looks, your brains."
Marion was silent for a while before asking, "Why haven't you found yourself a nice girl to settle down with and raise nine kids?"
"Who says I haven't?"
She glanced at him. It pleased him to think he saw a brief flash of panic on her face, of envy. "You couldn't take the responsibility. My dad really had you figured, Indy. He said you were a bum."
"He was being generous."
"The most gifted bum he ever trained, but a bum anyhow. He loved you, you know that? It took a hell of a lot for you to alienate him."
Indy sighed. "I don't want to rehash it, Marion."
"I don't want that, either," she said. "But sometimes I like to remind you."
"An emotional hypodermic, is that it?"
"A jag, right. You need it to keep you in your place."
Indy began to walk more quickly. There were times when, despite his own defenses, she managed to slide just under his skin. It was like the unexpected desire he'd felt last night. I don't need it, he thought. I don't need it in my life. Love means some kind of order, and you don't want order when you've become accustomed to thriving on chaos.
"You haven't told me where we're going yet," Marion said.
"We meet Sallah, then we go see Sallah's expert, Imam."
"What I like is how you drag me everywhere," Marion said. "It reminds me of my father sometimes. He dragged me around the globe like I was a rag."
They reached a fork in the street. All at once the monkey pulled itself free of Marion's hand and ran through the crowd in quick, loping movements.
"Hey!" Marion shouted. "Get back here!"
Indy said, relieved, "Let it go."
"I was just getting used to it."
Indy gave her a dirty look, caught her by the hand and made her keep up with him.
The monkey scuttled along, slipping through the crowds that jammed the street. It avoided the outstretched hands of people who wanted to touch it, then it turned a corner and stepped into a doorway. There it leaped into the arms of the man who had trained it. He had trained it very well. He held it against his body, popped a confection in its mouth and then moved out of the doorway. The monkey was better than a bloodhound, and a hundred times smarter.
The man looked along the narrow street, raising his face toward the rooftops. He waved.
From a nearby rooftop somebody waved back.
Then he patted the animal. It had done its job very well, following the two who were to be killed, tracking them as diligently as a predator but with infinitely more charm than that.
Good, the man thought. Very good.
Indy and Marion turned into a small square, a place cramped by the stalls of vendors, the crowds of shoppers. Indy stopped suddenly. That old instinct was working on him now, working over his nerve ends, making him tingle. Something is about to happen, he thought.
He looked through the crowds. Exactly what?
"Why have we stopped?" Marion asked.
Indy said nothing.
This crowd. How could he tell anything from this bunch of people? He reached inside his jacket and gripped the handle of the bullwhip. He stared into the crowd again. There was a group that moved toward him, moved with more purpose than any of the ordinary shoppers.
A few Arabs. A couple of guys who were European.
With his sharp eyesight, Indy saw the flash of something metallic and he thought, A dagger. He saw it glint in the hand of an Arab who was approaching them quickly. Indy hauled the whip out, lashed, listened as it split air with the sound of some menacing melody; it curled around the hand of the Arab and the dagger went slicing harmlessly into nowhere. But then there were more people advancing toward them and he had to think fast.
"Get out of here," he said to Marion, and gave her a quick shove. "Run!"
But Marion wasn't running. Instead, she seized a broom from a nearby stall and swung it into the throat of another Arab, who slumped to the ground.
"Go," Indy said again. "Go!"
"The hell I will," she said.
There were too many of them, Indy thought. Too many to fight, even with her help. He watched the blade of an ax swing, and he struck with the whip again, this time around the Arab's neck. He pulled tight and the man moaned before he dropped. And then one of the Europeans was on him, trying to drag the whip from his hand. Indy swung his leg high, smashing his foot into the man's body. The man clutched his chest and fell backward into a fruit stall, toppling amid spilled and squashed vegetables that looked like a mad still life. Indy noticed a gate in a wall and reached for Marion, pushing her through it, then drawing the bolt so she couldn't get out despite her cries and protestations. He looked around the square, striking with his whip, knocking away the props of stalls. Chaos, utter chaos, and he loved it. A blade swung at him and he ducked just in time, hearing the steel whistle above his head. Then he flicked his whip and wrapped it around the Arab's ankles, bringing him down in a pile of scattered vases and broken jars, while the merchant screamed angrily.
He surveyed the wreckage. He wondered if there were any more takers. The urge for action he felt was exalting.
Nobody moved except the merchants who had seen their stalls wrecked by some lunatic with a bullwhip. He began to back away, moving toward the door in the wall, reaching for the bolt as he did so. He could hear Marion banging on the wood. But before he could slide the bolt, a burnoosed figure lunged toward him with a machete. Indy raised his arm to fend off the blow, catching the man by the wrist and struggling with him.
Marion stopped banging and backed away from the door, looking for some other access to the square. Damn Indy, she thought, for thinking he's got some God-given right to protect me! Damn him for an attitude that belongs to the Middle Ages! She turned down the narrow alleyway in which she found herself and then stopped dead: an Arab was walking toward her, walking in quick, menacing steps. She slipped down the nearest alley, heard the man coming up from behind. A dead end. A wall.