Finally bin Zaki says, “We thought we might give you one last opportunity to help us before you…”

“I can’t help anybody. I can’t even help myself.”

More silence. Then Hashim says, “Just one question. It might even take your mind off…”

“What?”

“Before you go climb a tree…” Shakir says.

“Who,” I ask, “is climbing a tree?”

“You know,” Hashim says, “what we do in a tree when somebody dies.”

“I mean, what’s the question?”

“Well, here in Assama we have not kept up with the world.” Pachachi heaves a leaden sigh. “Now we got to make up for lost time.”

“We need to get something going,” Shakir says. “We got to bust out of our rut.”

“We need foreign investment,” the Secretary of Commerce says. “Tourist trade. Some kind of international attraction. Something big.”

“Big as a rock,” bin Zaki adds.

“Spectacular but refined,” Hashim says. “Transformational.”

“In the arts,” Shakir says. “A poetry festival with two prizes. In Arabic and English.”

Pachachi frowns. Bin Zaki has thrown him a curve, momentarily impeding his plunge toward tycoonism. “What I had in mind was more like a World’s Fair,” Pachachi says. “Or the Olympics. Maybe a heavyweight championship fight. The Miss Universe Contest. World Cup soccer—we could put an all-Coproliabad team together. So,” he turns to me, “what do you think?”

“Do you know,” I ask, “what fat chance means?”

“Don’t you want to help us?” bin Zaki asks back.

“I don’t know how.”

“Yes, you do,” Hashim insists. “You’re a Yank.”

“There’s nothing I can do in jail. Maybe, if you could get me out…”

“You want me to go against the will of the Sheikh?” Hashim is shocked. “That wouldn’t get you out. It would get me in.”

We seem to be hitting an impasse. For a long moment I hear the rats jigging in a dark corner.

“Take care of yourself,” Shakir says.

They shuffle toward the door. Before they get there I ask, “You happen to know where Valerie is?”

They exchange a guarded glance, their eyes avoiding mine. Finally, “She spends a lot of time with King Abdul,” Shakir says.

“Probably trying to talk him into letting you out of here,” Hashim says.

“Probably,” Shakir adds unconvincingly.

“Probably? Why else would she spend time with him?”

Now they are staring at a dirt-lodged crack in the floor.

“I don’t know,” Shakir says. “I’m sure she has her reasons.”

Abruptly, Pachachi says, “We got to go.”

And they went, leaving me uncomfortably alone with my thoughts.

FOURTEEN
THE SECRET OF THE PYRAMIDS

Darkness fell long before the day succumbed to evening. I walked the hall outside my room, flapping my arms to keep warm, trying to think, finding little but worms in the gedanken apple. Chatterton’s voice tore up the stairs.

“Bud,” he shouted. “Come down here!”