Demon Box

The whole effect was macabre, disconcerting; such modern precision, for something so stone-aged. Jack stamped around the giant enigma in dismay. “What the hell was their trip? I mean forget about the goddamned tools; even if they were equipped with Goldfinger’s laser and Solomon’s worm, it’s still a hard way to carve your roast.”

“Nobody knows why they did it. Maybe it was initially intended as some kind of symbolic burial of the Age of Taurus, and they got so deep into it they kept going. But nobody knows.”

Jacky Cherry couldn’t get over it. “There’s something downright perverse about it, you know? Something—”

“Bullheaded,” Muldoon filled in. “Which reminds me: we better see if our driver is still reliably waiting.”

We found Thud in such a thunderous peeve he wasn’t going to look at us, let alone drive us home. He stared in the direction of Cairo and claimed we had robbed him of a whole afternoon’s livelihood, tips and everything. He diatribed he was going to sit there and listen to the radio until some tourists arrived on one of those camel caravans from Giza. After their voyage aboard one of those smelly ships of the desert, plenty tourists would be ready to jump camel for a berth on his luxury liner, hopefully pay him enough extra to make up for what our dawdling had cost.

It was a bare-faced bluff. There might not be another caravan until tomorrow and he knew it, but he was going to milk every possible piastre out of the predicament. Worse yet, I realized, when the bastard finally consents he has it in his four-cylinder mind to scare the shit out of us!

It was getting downright depressing all around. While Thud argued with Jack and Muldoon I remembered my Polaroid; I would while away this bullshit time practicing my photography.

I got the bag and bucket of negative developer out of the rear seat and carried it to a little stone bench at the edge of the parking lot. When I took the camera from the bag I heard Thud’s diatribe stumble slightly. And every time I snapped a button or turned a dial his concentration was further distracted. As an experiment I swung the lens toward him and he hushed entirely so he could suck in his gut. I swung on past to take a shot of the Step Pyramid. He tried to resume his tirade, but he was faltering fast. Then he saw it produced pictures immediately! He was a lost man.

He left Jack and Muldoon in mid-squabble and came bargaining humbly to me: all our insults, all our dawdling and delays would be forgotten and forgiven, but for only one picture of himself produced immediately.

I squeezed off another prizewinning shot of the sand and sky, pretending not to fahim. When he saw that precious film being wasted on wasteland he began to beg shamelessly. “Snap,” he wheedled. “Snap me; snap T’udd!” I told him I had only one more snap in this packet and wanted to save it to get a shot of those farmers I had seen back down in the valley, so picturesque working that deep dark Nile soil. “But I’ll tell you what, Thud. You drive us nice and slow back to the Mena House and I’ll get another pack.”

We were away at once. When I tried to photograph the farmers he jumped out and ran around the front of the taxi to try to find a place in the frame. I cropped out all but his bicep, but even that meager sliver was enough to make his breath come thick and his hands grasp uncontrollably.

It was the worst attack of covetousness I have ever had the displeasure of witnessing. It was degrading and embarrassing, and a little frightening. Thud knew he was losing all cool but he couldn’t help himself. He climbed under the wheel like a whipped spaniel. He readjusted the mirror, this time so he could watch me. He watched me like Dog Watches Man With Meatball. He didn’t even turn on his transistor.

All the strained ride home he kept helplessly clearing his throat into the silence. When he turned up Pyramid Boulevard he forced himself to drive so slowly that it was almost as unpleasant as his speeding. By the time we reached the hotel all of us were trembling, and Thud’s hands were shaking so he could hardly turn off the key. His stomach was growling. His brown face had actually gone ashen with the agony of that stretch of unnatural driving forced on him by his terrible yen.

“Snapping now?” he begged pitifully.

“Going to get film,” I told him. “At the cabana.” I didn’t dare take the camera along. He would have driven right across the pool after me.

“Hurry back and snap him soon,” Jack Cherry called. “Before he snaps himself.”

When Thud saw me returning he almost broke into tears. I loaded the camera and noticed my hands were shaking under the scrutiny. Jacky positioned him with sideshadow, the pyramid at his back: “For dramatic effect.”

He stood on the curb. It took him nearly a minute to pull himself together and pump up to the right pose before nodding he was ready.

“Now! Snap me!”