"Edward Whittemore - The Jerusalem Quartet 02 - Jerusalem Poker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Whittemore Edward)

Jerusalem Poker
by Edward Whittemore
For Abby and Sarah
 Copyright ┬й 1978
by Edward Whittemore
Contents

PROLOGUE


PART ONE
1. Jerusalem 1933
2. Cairo Martyr
3. Cheops' Pyramid
4. Solomon's Quarries

PART TWO
5. Munk Szondi
6. St Catherine's Monastery
7. Haj Harun
8. Joker Wild

PART THREE
9. Nubar Wallenstein
10. Sophia the Black Hand
11. Gronk

PART FOUR
12. Maud
13. O'Sullivan Beare
14. Stern
15. Sheik Ibrahim ibn Harun
16. Venice 1933
17. Crypt, Cobbler
18. Bernini
 Prologue
In the first light of an early summer day a naked Junker baron and his naked wife, both elderly,
both heavily overweight and sweating, stood on top of the Great Pyramid waiting for the sunrise.

The air was warm and the desert still, the year was 1914 and the noble couple from Behind
Pomerania had just fulfilled a lifelong dream of making love on the summit of the Great Pyramid
at dawn, to the point of a final and exhaustive satisfaction.

A few blocks down from the summit sat the man who had performed these various acts upon
them, an experienced black dragoman and former slave named Cairo Martyr. For the baron and
his wife it was the rarest moment in their long lives, but for Martyr it was just another routine
sunrise that had earned him twenty pounds sterling for services rendered.

He yawned and lit a cigarette.