"You're kind of old. I said I wanted somebody younger this time." Mahmoud the son said."Sorry, Sonny. Cameron Diaz wasn't interested. You'll have to make do with me," I said.
Except for the kid, the interview went well. Abu Assad spent 10 minutes with me, no more. He was in a hurry and obviously found the task of hiring staff as thrilling as buying toilet paper.
A tall, handsome man with a
striking profile, Assad dripped money from the top of his silk designer tie to the toes of his custom-made wing tips. I was surprised to find him dressed in Western street clothes. I expected one of those robes Arab men
always wear in the movies. He didn't ask if I liked children. But, then again, he didn't mention Chinese water torture, thumbscrews or dipping fillet of nanny in isopropyl alcohol, either. Perhaps some things really are
better left unsaid.
Assad pronounced me suitable, then turned me over to a short, little man named -- oddly enough -- "Phil." I expected his right-hand-man to be "Yassar" or "Adel," but never Phil. But it was
Phil, the misnamed, who led the way up the servant's staircase to my second-floor quarters, which adjoined Mahmoud's room.
"So, Phil, tell me, is Assad a pretty good guy to work for?" I asked companionably as I
followed him up the stairs. We each carried one of my bags.
"First, Madame, the master is known as 'Mr. Assad' to the help," Phil started in a snooty British accent I wasn't too sure was real.
"And secondly, the
help is discouraged from discussing the master or any of the business in this household. So if you want to retain this job, you'll keep your mouth closed and your nose out of other people's business. Do I make myself
clear, Mrs. Baxter?"
"Perfectly. I'll do my best to remember my station in life. One question: Am I allowed utensils when I eat, or are we of the unclean caste required to wrestle the curs for crusts tossed on the
floor?"
Phil paused and regarded me as though he'd just fished me out of a Dumpster.
"I assume your banter is supposed to be droll. It's not. Understand, please, that the master not only lacks a sense of humor, he
doesn't like people who do. And neither do I."
Now I sort of liked the idea that Phil was a priggish little stuffed shirt. Call me perverse, but knowing I could irritate the man so easily made my day. I vowed to
myself to bring out the worst in good old Phil each chance I had.
He left me at the door to my room. I was busy unpacking when Mahmoud entered.
"Don't you believe in knocking?" I asked him.
"My house," he said
and promptly made himself comfortable -- shoes and all -- on my bed.
"Tell me, Mahmoud, has anyone ever told you how charming you are?"
"No."
"Ever occurred to you there might be a reason for that?" He shrugged
his shoulders.
"Did Phil the Pill tell you what happened to the last nanny I had?"
"No. And why do you call Phil a pill?"
"Because he is. The last nanny I had was a guy. Dad fired him for talking back to me. Or at
least that's what he said happened to him."
Now he had my attention. How in the heck was I going to get along with Dennis the Menace and not get fired? Or worse. I didn't want to end up pickled like good old Dan.
"Didn't your father teach you it's not polite to put your feet on someone else's bed?"
"Get real, lady. My dad's gone all the time. He doesn't care what I do. Well, gotta go. Violin lessons." He jumped off the bed and
left me to finish.
I'd put the last of my clothes up and placed a framed photograph of the stranger who was supposed to be my late, dearly departed husband on the nightstand next to the bed. The room was completed. It
was time to go to work. First I searched for bugs. Not the creepy, crawly kind, but electronic surveillance.
As a former cop, I knew a little about listening devices, but a thorough search of the room turned up
nothing. I was just checking the very last place -- the stones around the fireplace in my bedroom, when I discovered a small niche in the stone. I put my finger into it to see how far back it went and brushed a little
cold metal button. I pushed it.
I once had a teacher in high school who told me I knew exactly how to push all the wrong buttons. And while I admit I purposely did things to annoy her, I never took it literally. Maybe
I should have.
A wooden panel next to the fireplace slid open. I wish I could say I was prepared for such a development, but the truth is I nearly wet my pants. This kind of stuff only happens in the movies, I
thought. I wondered what old Alfred would make of this.
I kneeled and looked down into the corridor, half expecting to find Abbott and Costello being chased by a mummy. There was a set of stairs winding down into the
darkness, but nothing else I could see.
I grabbed the little pen knife/flashlight the geniuses at WUSS had given me and directed the narrow beam down. I couldn't see the bottom of the stairs, so I had no earthly idea
where it went. And I knew there was only one way to find out.
Thus I discovered myself at one of those crossroads moments upon which our lives impale themselves. I was overflowing with conflict. My inner coward was
actively battling it out with my sense of duty. The inner coward screamed, "Haven't you ever seen those movies where people do stupid things like go down to investigate a noise in the basement when there's an ax
murderer running loose?" The calm, adult side of me replied, "That's only in the movies. And they use ketchup instead of real blood. And they're all actors."
But the inner coward replied: "Yeah, and that's a fake
staircase, right?"
No, it wasn't fake. It looked disturbingly real. And my former cop's intuition told me I needed to find out where it went, that it could be important at some future point. Then again, maybe no one
even knew it was there. Maybe it went nowhere. Maybe the bad guys would catch me rattling around in their secret, hidden passage and send somebody in a hockey mask down to deal with me.
I wish I could say my prudent
side won out, but it would be a lie. And even though I hate small, dark places, I needed to explore this passage. I took a deep breath, held the flashlight in my clammy hand, and carefully stepped out onto the top step.
The door behind me slid shut. I caught myself before I fell off the steps, but dropped my flashlight. Fortunately, it fell on the landing and wasn't broken. Being plunged into the darkness -- now that would have been
a real problem because then I would have had to scream and beg and pound on the walls until someone got me out.
Ignoring the Edgar Allen Poe implications, I bravely played the little beam about the dark
stairwell. It was a deep, narrow shaft. The stairs were metal and none too stable and were on a circular staircase that wound down and down and down, as far as my little yellow light would go, which wasn't very far, to
tell the truth. But the point was, I couldn't see the bottom.
"Well, this certainly is fun," I said aloud. I really think I just wanted to hear a human voice, even if it was my own. Not that I was alone. There was
something else in the shaft. I could hear them. The skittering sounds of little creatures -- at least I hoped they were little -- floated up to me from somewhere down in the abyss. Mentally I conjured up rats the size
of Clydesdales and cockroaches the size of jockeys.
I looked up. There was nothing to see -- just a roof a few feet from my head. It seemed down was the direction of necessity. I moved that way, taking one step at a
time. I must have been holding my breath because I started feeling a bit lightheaded and had toforce myself to stop and breathe. It's amazing what fear can do.
I was listening for the tell-tale sounds of disgusting
creatures coming after me on their nasty scrabbly little feet. Or rusted steps snapping apart and tossing their sole (I hoped) occupant down the shaft like a quarter in a wishing well. But the only thing I heard was my
own heart beat, pounding in my ears. It was so loud I was amazed it didn't echo.
I worked my way down the steps without incident until, suddenly, I brushed up against something sticky, causing me to panic a bit. OK,
causing me to panic a lot. A whole lot. Turned out it was a spider's web and a big one. And where there's a web, there's usually a spider. I brushed the web from my face and quickly ducked under the remainder, hoping
Charlotte was out teaching her off-spring how to tap dance or whatever it is spiders do with their kids.
I only had four more steps to the bottom and I took them, landing in a small passageway that extended dimly in
opposite directions. Like Alice in Wonderland, I was at a loss as to which way to go. And what would I find when I did? And what was I doing here in the first place? I'm a housewife, not Emma Peel. To the right or to
the left? The Lady or the Tiger? Which would it be? I didn't know the house well enough to figure out where the passage could take me. Both ways looked pitch dark and not very inviting. It was like being in a tomb, and
my claustrophobia was starting to kick in.
Both passages looked the same from where I stood. I walked a couple feet down the left and found a seemingly never-ending corridor that went straight. The one to the right
curved. Both were dark. Both were forbidding. I stood at the mouth of the right-hand passage, weighing my options. Suddenly something small and furry ran over my foot.
I decided to take the passage on the left
.
