02 _ Maltese Goddess, The Read Free

in front of you. That poor woman!”
    “He certainly thinks he’s God’s gift to women, that’s for sure,” I agreed.
    “That expression, ”God’s gift,“ implies the existence of a Being of higher consequence than Martin Galea himself, and therefore not something Galea could bring himself to support, I suspect,” Alex said dryly.
    We all laughed. “I have to say I like his work, though,” Alex continued, naming several of Galea’s better known commissions. Galea did work all over the world.
    I had to agree with Alex. Galea, despite his less ennobling qualities, had enormous talent to match the ego.
    “You also have to agree he’s good for business, Sarah,” I said. “Monica Perez, who I’m sure was just browsing, was so entranced she bought a mirror similar to one Galea bought! With any luck, she’ll be back for more—furniture, I mean.”
    “Why do you figure a man like that married a woman like that?” Sarah mused, ignoring the compliments we’d given Galea and our rather jejune attempts at humor.
    “Money,” Alex replied. “McLean money to be precise,” he said, naming a well-known Toronto family. “Married while he was still an architectural student. Got him off to a good start, I’d think. Money and connections.”
    “Do you think she actually had something to say, opinions and such, before she took up with him?” Sarah went on.
    “We’ll probably never know,” I said. “Now, we’d better get started arranging all this. We don’t have much time. Are you sure you don’t want this one, Sarah? You wouldn’t have to deal with him directly very much, and you might enjoy having a few days in an exotic locale.”
    Sarah had purchased the business from me but had asked me to come back in with her when she found she didn’t like the incessant travel it required nearly as much as she thought she might. She disliked the haggling with suppliers, the frustrating dealings with import and export officials in various countries around the world, the loneliness of being so far from home for so long.
    I, on the other hand, loved it. It was why I had started the business in the first place. But I still felt a little guilty that I got all the travel while she minded the shop.
    “Oh, I think learning to communicate with teenagers is about as exotic as I want to get right now,”‘ she replied. Sarah had a new beau who came as a package deal with two teen-aged sons.
    “I’ll look after things at this end, while you’re over there, and we’ll ask Alex to do his usual wonders with our shippers,” she said.
    I was happy with this, I had to admit. My partner in life, Lucas May, a Mexican archaeologist, had agreed to supervise a dig in Belize. He’d be off at a site in the middle of nowhere, out of cellphone range, for several weeks, so our regular time together, usually in Merida or Miami, had been postponed until he returned.
    Unlike Galea, Lucas was self-effacing, equally attractive, I thought, but quietly so. A brilliant archaeologist, an ardent supporter of the indigenous peoples of Mexico, he had a way about him that I had come to find immensely reassuring. But we were both feeling the strains of a long-distance relationship, and I had a sense a bit of a break might help us sort out our feelings. I thought a few days in Malta, away from the distractions of daily life, might focus things a bit for me.
    I called our shipper, Dave Thomson, and understood his expressions of dismay when I told him what needed to be done, by when.
    “Money is no object here, Dave,” I said. “You know Galea. Just tell me how you want to do it. I’ll take measurements of the stuff at the house tomorrow and mark it for you.”
    “Well, this is a new one for me. Can’t say I’ve ever shipped to Malta,”‘ he said. “Do they have a lot of falcons there, do you think?” he joked. “I’ll have to check into routings and costs. My favorite old movie, by the way,
The Maltese Falcon.
Humphrey Bogart at his best,