E.Godz

Chapter Six

"Who are we looking for?" asked Teddy Tumtum from deep within Peez's carry-on bag. They had just arrived at Chicago's O'Hare airport following a flight out of Boston that had been severely delayed by bad weather. Peez was convinced that the springtime storm that had kept her from her second appointment was all her sneaky baby brother's doing. It would be just like him to phone up one of his minions and order a tempest or two, just to thwart her. "How are you going to recognize the guy they sent to meet you?"

"Simple. He'll be holding up a placard with my name on it," Peez replied. Like her brother, she had slapped a portable A.R.S. over herself and Teddy Tumtum so that she could converse with the insidious toy in public and in peace for the duration of her travels. Even in the crowded airport, no one seemed to be at all puzzled by a grown woman talking to her carry-on bag, and when she'd taken Teddy Tumtum out on the plane to distract herself from the worst of the turbulence (Peez was not a good flyer) no one on board had so much as batted an eye. Sometimes Peez wondered what it was they thought they were seeing.

"Well, that's mighty obliging of them," Teddy Tumtum remarked. "They must think highly of you."

"Oh, please." Peez tossed her head. "They're only kissing up to Mother through me. I don't matter as much as a squashed cockroach to these people. Probably less. I think they worship cockroaches."

"Dung beetles," Teddy Tumtum corrected her. "Among other things. I offered to brief you on the flight here, but someone I could mention thought she had better things to do."

"Yes, making sure I threw up into the barf bag was my top priority," Peez replied mordantly. "What was I thinking? Silly me."

"Ha, ha," the bear said, deadpan. "You were thankful enough that I prepped you for the meeting with Fiorella."

"For all the good it did me," Peez said.

"Awwww, izzums Peezie-pie upset 'cause nasty ol' witchy-lady didn't fall right into um's arms? She's a businesswoman! One tough honey, and believe me, I know from honey. Your victory will be all the sweeter once she's had a chance to think things through."

"You sound sure that I'm going to win her over. Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Like what?"

"Like my baby brother. I'm not naive. I know that Dov's probably doing the exact same thing that I am, right now, zipping around the country, drumming up grassroots support for his takeover as head of the corporation. That little moop can charm the pants off anyone. Why not Fiorella?"

"Why assume she thinks with her pants?" Teddy Tumtum countered. "I told you, she's a businesswoman. Emphasis on the business part."

"Yes, but—"

"But nothing! You are naive if you believe that the really successful movers and shakers get led around by the hormones. Your problem is you've been ruined by so-called 'entertainment' TV. According to them, it's all about sex when it isn't all about staying young. Sure, you'll hear tell of some high-placed corporate honcho or honchita horndogging after a bit of crumpet, but you can bet your T-bills that they lock up their assets first."

"Then what about that old dead billionaire whatzisname, the one who married that boob-job bimbo and left her everything in his will? His kids are still duking it out with Suzie Skank in court!"

The carry-on bag chuckled. "Ever think that maybe the old guy didn't leave everything to the bimbo because he was stupid in love? Ever wonder if maybe he knew exactly what he was doing, and he was doing it precisely because he wanted to aggravate his kids from beyond the grave? Never underestimate a parent, Peezie-pie. They could give sneaky weasel lessons to Machiavelli."

"Whatever." Peez was still feeling cranky and peaked after her bout of airsickness. She was in no mood for another of Teddy Tumtum's lectures. All she wanted was to make contact with the Chicago group, secure their backing, and then go to her hotel and the chaste embrace of a hot, scented bubble bath. "Where the hell is that driver?" she muttered, her eyes sweeping the crowd. "I can't stand here forever. I've got to retrieve my luggage. If he doesn't show up—"

That was when she saw him. It was a miracle that she did, considering how thick the crowd around him stood. The little cardboard sign with peez godz scrawled on it in conventional Roman lettering wigwagged desperately over the heads of the gawking mob surrounding the short, dumpy little man whose only clothing was a pleated linen kilt, red leather sandals, and a heavy black Cleopatra wig. Peez fought her way through the pack just as the little man flipped the sign over to display the cartouche lovingly drawn on the other side.

It's either my name or the word HELP done in hieroglyphics, Peez thought. "I'm here," she announced, laying one hand on her escort's naked shoulder. "Shall we go get my bags?"

"Oh yes, please," he replied. His moist, doggy eyes brimmed with gratitude. "I'm Gary. It's an honor to meet you."

"Gary ..." Peez repeated thoughtfully, trying to merge the commonplace name with the bizarrely dressed little man before her.

Somewhere between their initial meeting point and the baggage carousels Gary excused himself, stepped into the men's room, and emerged wearing jeans, work shoes, a

Bears T-shirt and a battered denim jacket. He was carrying a small blue gym bag from which protruded a few stray braids of the discarded wig. In answer to Peez's inquiring look he said, "Ray Rah tapped the power just enough to let me greet you in costu—in suitable regalia but with enough shielding to keep airport Security happy."

"An A.R.S.?" Peez asked. Then, noting how badly bewildered he was, she explained: "Automatic Rationalization Spell. Very popular."

"I guess that must be what he used, then. But your flight was delayed; the spell began to wear off. That's why I was surrounded by all those people. I'm glad you showed up when you did."

"Me, too. You'd have hated to have to explain yourself to Security."

"Tell me about it." He shuddered.

He retrieved Peez's bag from the carousel, then escorted her to his car, a late-model Volvo convertible. The faience image of a hippopotamus dangled from the rearview mirror and the dashboard was a forest of figurines depicting some of the many gods of Ancient Egypt. As soon as they had their seat belts fastened, he pointed to one of the miniature statues and said, "She's my favorite—I mean, the object of my primary veneration: Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess of war and sickness."

Peez gave the little man a searching look. He appeared to be about as bloodthirsty as a penguin. "Interesting choice," she remarked. "You a lawyer?"

"I sell insurance."

"Oh."

They drove from the airport in silence. Gary took it upon himself to offer Peez a brief guided tour of downtown Chicago. The weather was not cooperating; the city did not show its best face under dingy gray overcast skies. Still, the drive along the lakeshore was inspirational, and the skyline spoke to Peez with its own strange, steel-and-glass poetry.

As they drove, Peez discovered that Gary was about as scintillating and outgoing a conversationalist as she was herself. He only spoke when he had no other choice, on pain of death, and after he had pointed out this or that landmark his store of chitchat was drained dry. There was nothing wrong with silence—Peez rather liked being alone with her thoughts—but the Volvo was filled to bursting with that hideous beast, the nervous silence, the kind that sprang to ugly life when both tongue-tied parties felt the pressing obligation to say something to fill the soundless depths because—because—

Because I don't really know who the hell this edgy little man is within the Chicago hierarchy, Peez thought. He's not the head of the organization—that's Ray Rah—but what if he's second-in-command, or even third? If this visit ends like the last one, without a firm commitment of support, they're going to talk about me after I'm gone. I'd need all the allies I can muster. Might as well start with Gary. No harm in taking a leaf from Dov's slimy little book and trying to chat him up.

She glanced around for a prop to use in order to break the ice and her eye happened upon the placard with her name cartouche that Gary had dropped onto the passenger-side floor. She picked it up and studied the column of images within the red ovoid frame for a time, then said:

"Well, that's disappointing."

Gary almost jumped over the steering wheel at the sound of her voice. "What is?" he squeaked.

"How my name looks in hieroglyphics. I'd hoped it would require some of the more, well, interesting elements to render Peez Godz. You know: snakes, owls, lions, people. I can't even tell what some of these symbols are supposed to be. This one here looks like a spittoon."

She was trying to be funny. She lacked the practice, and it showed.

Gary didn't laugh. Instead he flashed her a look of such violent alarm that Peez realized she might have overestimated her ability to charm and had instead insulted a potential ally right to the marrow of his soul. She could feel any chance of winning him over slipping away, leaving the Chicago field wide open for an easy conquest by her baby brother.

Her oh-so-poised and charming baby brother. Except sometimes he didn't land on his feet, either. In all the years of their growing up, she could remember more than a score of incidents where Dov had put his foot in it up to the thigh.

But he saved himself. Every single time. How did he do it? Think, Peez, think! What did he always do to pull his worthless butt out of the meat grinder?

And she remembered. It was such a straightforward ploy, so basic, and yet proven so very effective almost every time Dov had applied it.

Peez gazed at Gary, gave him a smile, and said, "Oh my, did I say that? I don't know what I was thinking. I certainly didn't mean any disrespect for the ancient ways, it's just that— Gosh, this is so embarrassing, but you see, I always get sooo nervous when I have to talk to handsome men."

"Whuh—?" said Gary, and nearly ran the Volvo up the tailpipe of the car ahead of it.

By the time they reached Ray Rah's self-styled Temple of Seshat-by-the-Shore, Peez was amazed yet gratified to find that her brother's simple stratagem had earned her the utter devotion of Gary, the bloodthirsty penguin.

So Dov has his uses after all, she thought as her newly smitten escort raced ahead of her, carrying her suitcase, to hold the temple door open and await her pleasure.

The Temple of Seshat-by-the-Shore was housed in an old mansion with absolutely no view of Lake Michigan whatsoever. It was by-the-Shore the way Minneapolis was by- the-Sea, yet the house and its master were both so undeniably rich that no one was going to argue semantics as long as the bills got paid. Ray Rah had a bank account fat enough for him to call his self-created house of worship the Temple of Seshat-on-the-Moon if he felt like it.

As soon as Peez stepped over the threshold, she knew that she was in the presence of old money and lots of it. Behind that turn-of-the-previous-century facade was the Egyptian temple of Cecil B. DeMille's dreams, or perhaps his nightmares. The entire first floor and most of the second had been gutted to accommodate a row of lotus-crowned pillars, painted red and gold, blue and green. These led from the former vestibule into what had once been the parlor, only now it was transformed into the sanctuary of the gods. Peez walked between two rows of twelve different images as Gary led her deeper into the temple. Ibis-headed Thoth stared down jackal-headed Anubis. Set the kin-slayer snarled his eternal defiance at Horus the avenger. Ptah and Amon, Osiris and Isis, the cobra goddess Renenutet and the cow-horned goddess Hathor, all these and more besides watched over Peez's passage.

Ray Rah was waiting for her at the end of the alleyway of images, standing before a gauzy painted curtain depicting Osiris in the Underworld, sitting in judgment of the dead. The head of the Chicago group was wearing the same sort of pleated linen kilt that Gary had sported at the airport, only his was fringed with scarlet and gold. If he wore a wig, it was not visible beneath his striped Pharaonic headdress surmounted by the cobra-and- vulture uraeus. The bejeweled gold pectoral covering his shoulders and chest was so heavy that Peez wondered how much longer Ray Rah was going to be able to stay standing. He had the look of a failed high school basketball star, all stringy sinews and long bones but not a heck of a lot of useful muscle.

"Hail, Peez, whose coming is most beautiful," he intoned from atop the low flight of shallow marble steps before the curtain. He stretched out the blue and silver flail he carried in his right hand, his left being occupied by a glittering ankh rather than the pharaoh's traditional shepherd's crook. He kept shifting his grip on it, as if uncertain of exactly how he could display it to best advantage. "Behold thy coming is welcome to us. When we do rise up and when we do lie down, we bid thee—"

At that point, the knobbly fake beard attached to his chin fell off, hit the floor, bounced down the steps, and rolled almost to Peez's feet before one of the temple's ubiquitous cats pounced on it with happy murfing sounds. When Gary tried to recapture the errant beard, the cat clawed his hand and he gave up.

Ray Rah said a word that was more Anglo-Saxon than Ancient Egyptian. Then he looked at Peez and blushed.

"Sorry," he said. "That always happens. I don't usually wear the beard, you know— spirit gum and false eyelash adhesive are way too weak to hold it, and anything stronger is too darn strong for my skin—but seeing as how this was going to be our first visit from a corporate representative, I thought it might be nice to do something special. Won't you come into the inner chamber? The rest of the congregation are expecting you."

Peez dutifully followed him, wending her way around the countless cats, as he conducted her behind the painted curtain and through a little door. Some of the cats attempted to come along, but Ray Rah was having none of it.

"Shoo, O She-who-walks-in-beauty. You can't come in here, Thou-who-art-swifter- than-gazelles. Scat, Eternal-glory-of-the-Lady-Bast! Scat, I say!"

Of course the cats, being cats, shot through the door anyway, but as soon as they took one good snort of the air quality on the far side, they turned tail and raced right back out again.

Peez wished she could have joined them. The inner chamber's atmosphere was so thick with the smoke of burning incense (at least she thought that was the source of the sickly-sweet aroma) that her eyes flooded with tears and she began to cough uncontrollably.

"Can I get you something, Ms. Godz?" The faithful Gary was at her elbow, his round face barely visible through the roiling smoke. "Some water? Organic fruit nectars? A beer?"

"Whatever," Peez croaked. He vanished into the mist only to return almost immediately with a gold goblet.

"Beer," he said as she raised the cup to her lips. "We have a highly authentic microbrewery on the premises that—"

He got a faceful of microbrew when Peez spritzed out her first taste of Horus Lite. "Dear gods, what was that stuff?" she gasped.

From somewhere deep in the heart of the pungent clouds there came a giggle and someone said: "That is what we like to call an acquired taste."

Peez blinked her stinging eyes and little by little was able to distinguish solid shapes amid the whorls of smoke. "I don't suppose there's a window in here?" she asked.

"Yes," said the voice. "But we prefer not to—"

"The Lady Peez has spoken!" Ray Rah thundered. "All power to the words of the Lady Peez! So let it be written, so let it be done! Gary, open the window." There came the sound of much scrabbling, a couple of bumps, a thud, several curses, Gary's mumbled "'Scuse me, sorry," and at long last the squeak of a sash being raised. A cool breeze blew into the room, banishing the worst of the haze and giving Peez a clear view of her surroundings.

Apart from the birdbath-sized incense burner in the center of the rug, the inner chamber of Ray Rah's temple looked like nothing more than a frat house rumpus room. There were several mismatched sofas and chairs, some wobbly-looking tables, a big screen TV complete with DVD player, a middle-of-the-line stereo system and a wet bar.

Peez decided to make the wet bar her number one priority. Striding across the room, ignoring the twenty-odd people lounging around, she went right up to the bar and set down her gold goblet with a mighty thump. "I don't call a practical joke an acquired taste," she informed the woman behind the counter. "And I sure as hell don't call this gunk beer."

The woman, like Ray Rah and the rest, was wearing the pleated white linen garb made famous by New Kingdom tomb paintings. She too wore a sparkling assortment of gold jewelry, heavy on the lotus/ankh/eye-of-Horus motifs. However, instead of a wig she had opted to cornrow her mousy brown hair and top the whole ensemble with a Cubs cap.

"Sorry to disillusion you, Princess, but that is beer," she said. "Authentic Ancient Egyptian beer. I brewed it myself, after copious research and the proper sacrifices to the gods. It may be a little sweeter than what you're used to—"

"Sweet, hell; it's chewy!" After Ray Rah and Gary's subservient behavior, Peez didn't care for this woman's in-your-face attitude at all. "There are pieces of—of— Well, I don't really want to know what they're pieces of, and I sure don't want to drink them!"

The woman reached under the bar and slammed a strange metal object down onto the counter between them. "That's because Gary was so hot to fetch you your drink that he forgot to give you the strainer straw. Want to give it a second try?" Her eyes added: Or do you want to wimp out now, Princess?

Peez thrust her goblet under the barkeep's nose. "Fill 'er up," she commanded. Using the straw as directed, she sucked up half the beer in one go. It still tasted too sweet, there wasn't any fizz to it worth mentioning, and it had about as much alcoholic kick as a dose of cough syrup, but she got it down.

The other temple members crowded up to the bar to watch. When she drained her goblet dry, they made small sounds of approval and gazed at her with reverence.

"Wow," one of them said. His slack belly lapped over the top of his long kilt. "You're the first person I ever saw who could stomach a whole serving of Meritaten's beer."

"Yeah," another man put in. "Even Ray Rah couldn't do that. You're cool!"

Peez scanned the ring of friendly faces surrounding her. Men and women alike all looked to be in their late forties to early fifties, with physiques that were not displayed to best advantage by a few paltry layers of translucent linen.

"I'm ... cool?" she repeated. "What is this, a hazing?"

"Oh no, Lady Peez, by no means, none at all!" Ray Rah hastened to say. He shoved his way through the crowd and glowered at Meritaten. "Some people seem to think it's all right to sacrifice the holy tenets of hospitality on the altar of historical authenticity, even if what they serve our honored guest tastes like a kitty litter cocktail! Some people seem to have forgotten that the gods see all and that a list of their errors will be forever inscribed on their hearts. Some people don't seem to care that when they die their hearts will be weighed in the Scales of Justice against the Feather of Ma'at and if they don't measure up, their hearts will be thrown into the jaws of a monster and devoured. Some people—"

"—don't care if they get to dwell in blessedness forever in the Field of Reeds, yadda, yadda, yadda." Meritaten leaned one elbow on the bar, chin in hand, and looked bored. "Some people are actually capable of reading the Book of the Dead for ourselves, thank you very much." She looked at Peez. "Hey, I'm sorry if you didn't like the beer. I didn't mean it as a practical joke, no matter what you think. I just assumed that since you're Edwina's daughter you'd be just as open to new experiences as she is. No hard feelings?"

"None." Peez summoned up one of her brother's patented ingratiating smiles. "Sorry if I snapped at you. I came here on serious business. I'm not exactly in the mood for initiation hijinks."

"We know," Meritaten said. "We heard." A chorus of sympathetic murmurs ran through the congregation. The news of Edwina's impending death had traveled fast.

"If it's any consolation, Nenufer's been studying the old ways of embalming," Gary said, nodding at another one of the women in the group.

Ray Rah chimed in with: "When the time comes, we promise to give your mother the most sumptuous burial the law allows. A pity we can't have slaves to help out with the arrangements, though. Without them you can't get a whole lot of good, solid tomb construction done at today's prices, and as for providing her with a suitable entourage to serve her in the Afterlife—" He shrugged. "I suppose she'll have to make do with ushabti figurines. I know that's what most pharaohs did, but if you ask me, you can't rely on a mere image of a servant to provide you with the same quality labor you got back in the good old days."

"Which was when—?" Peez asked, not entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.

"Which was when the pharaohs had real servants sacrificed and put in their tombs with them." Ray Rah didn't seem at all disturbed by this aspect of his chosen spiritual path.

"Ah, come off it, Ray!" one of the men scoffed. "The only reason you're so keen on human sacrifice is 'cause the only way you'll ever get a woman is if she's too dead to run away."

"Shut up, Billy-hotep," Ray Rah said through gritted teeth.

The peculiarly named Billy-hotep giggled. The eyes behind his bifocal wire-rimmed glasses were two blobs of solid black, their pupils dilated to the point of no return.

That must've been some powerful incense he was inhaling, Peez thought.

Billy-hotep's inhibitions had gone the way of the pharaohs. "Well, excuuuse me, Your Revered Datelessness," he said, "but you forget: We've all known you since college. Whenever we did see you with a girl, we always found out later she'd been bought and paid for."

"Like your membership dues in the temple?" Ray Rah countered. "I've been floating you one loan after another, and this is the thanks I get? The first live contact we have with the head office in over twenty-five years and you try to embarrass me in front of her? Maybe I should let you sink or swim on your own. No dues, no membership; no membership—"

"—no parties." The realization yanked Billy-hotep down to earth with a thud. He began to blubber: "You can't do that to me, man! I love our parties! They're just like the ones we used to throw back in college!"

"Everything's just the way it used to be for us back in college," Meritaten muttered. "Except our waistlines, our cars, and our computers."

"Ah, eternal Egypt," Peez commented. She considered this little nest of aging Baby Boomers. They'd grown up in a society that saw them as the center of the universe, they'd indulged one set of whims after the other, they'd amassed great heaping piles of Stuff, and if you didn't think too much about their age-mates who'd been destroyed by the Viet Nam War, as a group they'd had it good. Why let a little thing like death stop the fun?

A remarkably pharaonic outlook, that. All in all, she was surprised that more Boomers hadn't subscribed to Ray Rah's restored stab at that Old Time Religion.

At least their tombs won't be despoiled, she thought. No self-respecting burglar would be interested. All the electronics they stow away with them for eternity will be obsolete before the seal on the sarcophagus dries.

"You know," she said aloud. "Tradition is a wonderful thing. A sacred thing. I know that of all the different groups that we at E. Godz, Inc. represent, yours is the only one worthy enough to fully appreciate the holiness of continuity. The gods themselves smile upon those who—"

Fifteen minutes later she was sitting in the back seat of Ray Rah's own Lincoln Town Car while his driver whisked her off to her hotel. The first thing she did after fastening her seat belt was to dig Teddy Tumtum out of her carry-on bag and wave a piece of parchment in his furry face.

"Look!" she crowed. "They loved me, Teddy Tumtum. They all told me how much they appreciated my coming out to see them in person this way. Sure, their group's nothing more than a bunch of old yuppies trying to keep a death grip on their youth, but why should I care about that? Read this and weep, Dov! Chicago's power—money, numbers, media clout, the whole shebang—and it's all promised to me, right there, in black and white!"

"Looks more like black, yellow, and a little red," Teddy Tumtum said, studying the parchment. "This is written in hieroglyphics. Good luck getting it to stand up in court, even if some of these squiggles do look like legs."

Peez jealously snatched the parchment away from the bear. "It won't come to court. Why should it? This is only the first of my victories. I hadn't yet hit my stride while dealing with Fiorella, but now—! Ho, ho! Look out, world, here comes Peez."

"Good idea," said Teddy Tumtum. He dove back into the carry-on bag and hid himself beneath a spare pair of Peez's serviceable white underpants. "I think I liked her better when she was shy," he grumbled to himself as Peez's maniacal, triumphant laughter filled the car.