Secret of the Scroll (Greg McKenzie Mysteries) Read Free Page B

minivan had parked not far behind our red and white Middle East Tours bus. Its tailgate was swung up, displaying an array of olive wood figures and other trinkets. Dealers like this made us run a gauntlet to reach the bus. At our hotel in East Jerusalem , a Palestinian had greeted the ladies out front each morning, peddling souvenirs from the trunk of his car.
    As we paused beside Sam Gannon’s wife, Wilma, another tour bus edged past. It fouled the air with its diesel exhaust. I fanned the stench away with my Titans cap. Just then a husky man with black hair and a black beard approached me. He wore a dark suit, no tie. He had a round face and white teeth.
    “Perhaps your last chance to buy souvenirs,” he said. “I show something just for you.”
    As he leaned into the van, I wondered how he knew we were on the final leg of our tour. Our bus driver or another passenger had probably mentioned it. Also I had a vague impression I had seen this face before. He appeared to be Arabic, but Jews and Arabs had descended from the same Semitic line. I had been trained to remember facial features, and memories of September 11 had kept me alert during our two weeks in the Holy Land . I watched as the souvenir seller held out a miniature Dead Sea Scroll jar, opened the lid and lifted up a paper scroll.
    “Just like parchment . . . real Hebrew writing,” he said. “The one you get is all packed secure. Because I need to make haste home, everything is now bargain price.”
    I shook my head. “No thanks.”
    “Normally is twenty-five dollars. For you, only ten. Yes?”
    “It’s bigger than those we saw before,” said Wilma Gannon. She studied the reddish clay jar. “And they cost that much or more.” Tall and lean like her husband, she had a grandmotherly swirl of white hair.
    “What would I do with a Dead Sea Scroll jar?” I asked. It looked like a flower vase to me.
    Jill grinned.
    “You drive some hard bargain,” said the man, frowning. “Five dollars.”
    “He’s not going to let you get away without buying it,” Jill said. I had given her a hard time a couple of days before about buying so many souvenirs. A lot of them had to be stuffed into my bag.
    The man reached back into the van and pulled out a box a little larger than the clay jar. It was sealed tightly with clear plastic tape. “This one ready to pack in your bag. No way it can break. Only five dollars. Okay?”
    I had to admire his persistence. And it did sound like a good deal.
    The man held out the package. “Americans are good people,” he said. “I like you. Four dollars–my last offer.”
    Jill whispered in my ear. “For God’s sake, buy it.”
    I shrugged and pulled a money clip stuffed with dollar bills out of my pocket, peeled off four and handed them over. “You’re quite a salesman,” I said.
    I don’t know why, but I had an odd feeling that I might have bought more than I had bargained for.
     
     
     
    Chapter 2
     
    Back on the bus, Jill leaned across to listen to a pixie-eyed woman who always had a joke to tell. I debated what to do with my new souvenir. I finally stuck the box in the webbed pocket of the seat in front of me, next to my water bottle. We had drunk the water in the hotels with no problem, but on the road I figured discretion was the watchword. I wasn’t interested in a visit from Montezuma’s circumcised cousin, Mordecai.
    When Sam Gannon wandered up the aisle a few minutes later, he stopped to lean against my seat. “Wilma told me about the way you took that Dead Sea Scroll guy to the cleaners. I didn’t know you were such a haggler.”
    “I’m not,” I said. “And I don’t know that I got the best of him. When you think about it, some Palestinian potter probably got no more than a buck for that jar. The piece of paper with some Hebrew scratching couldn’t have cost more than fifty cents, and the box maybe another buck. The guy still made a decent profit.”
    As the bus began to push through the crowded