Disclaimer: I can't claim to own anything you recognize here.

Author's Note: Well this is weird. I quit writing fanfiction ages ago, but I never promised myself I'd quit posting fanfiction. So here's a repost of an old story. I got bored and started sifting through a bunch of documents I have on file, and I came across this story and wondered why I removed it years ago. So then I did a little revising and here I am, posting it back up.

So what's the scam, Beni? You take them out into the middle of the desert and then you leave 'em to rot?

The Scam

The ratty curtains barely kept out Cairo's blazing sun and Beni turned away from the window, listening to the rusted bed springs creak under his weight as he moved. A sliver of sunlight fell across the bed, highlighting his dark, unkempt hair and thin face that rested upon the pillow, and Beni groaned aloud when a sharp tapping noise reached his ears.

It sounded like a knock at the door, though it could have just been the pounding in his head. The empty liquor bottle lying beside the bed was starting to feel like a bad idea.

"Gabor!"

The knocking persisted and Beni supposed it must be reality, unless his hangover was so bad it caused him to hear voices as well.

"Gabor, I know you're in there!"

Whoever stood outside spoke in Arabic, which was never a good sign. The Americans, English, and French usually pestered him about gambling debts and stolen property—nothing he couldn't squirm his way out of with a flimsy excuse and a quick pair of legs. But he could never predict what the Arabs wanted. He was scrounging his way in their city, after all, and nobody would stop the Arabs if they wanted to rid their city of one more rat. Beni tried to ignore the knocking and struggled to crack open his groggy eyes, trying to remember if he had angered any Arabs lately.

"I swear to Allah if you do not open this door, I will have your pathetic head on a platter!"

Obviously he had pissed off one Arab, though Beni couldn't remember why, and he forced himself to sit up so he could take a swig from the water jug that stood on the bedside table. His mouth felt like the Sahara. He dragged himself out of bed and staggered across the dusty floorboards, glad that he always slept fully dressed in case he needed to spring out of bed and dart out the nearest window. He picked up that habit during his time in the Legion, when skirmishes could happen in the middle of the night, and he wanted to spit on the floor when he remembered those hellish days with that miserable herd of soldiers. A little spit wasn't likely to make a difference on those floorboards.

Cursing his headache, he tugged open the door and found an unfamiliar man standing before him, of average height with a blood-red turban and small, angry eyes. "What do you want?" Beni grumbled at him in Arabic.

"I want to know where my brother is," the man demanded.

"Who the hell are you?"

"My name is Abdul," he said, glaring at Beni. "You took my brother Abu to Hamunaptra a month ago. He hasn't returned."

Beni laughed, though the sound got stuck in his tired throat and he ended up wheezing instead. "That is ridiculous," he said. "Hamunaptra does not exist."

"If it doesn't exist, then why did you say you would lead him there?"

Because the gullible bastard was paying him, but Beni didn't think Abdul would take kindly to that information. "You mistake me for somebody else," he said, wishing his head was clearer. "I am only a poor man trying to scrape by in a country that is not my own—"

"You're a poor bastard cheating innocent people. Where is my brother?"

"If he is at Hamunaptra like you say, then he is probably getting rich."

"I have heard rumors about you," said Abdul. He suddenly looked taller and a lot more threatening. "They say you take people to Hamunaptra and they never return."

"You should not believe every rumor you hear," said Beni, trying to make his exhausted eyes look sad. "I am so very, very sorry for your loss, but there is nothing that I can—Ah!"

A flash of steel shone in Beni's face as Abdul pulled out a knife.

Beni immediately shut the door with a frightened squeal that might have been embarrassing if his life wasn't at stake. His fingers scrabbled at the lock and he shoved a rickety wooden chair—the only one he owned—against the door for good measure. Abdul pounded on the door, shouting curses at him, but it soon became apparent that all his threats would come to nothing. The door remained shut.

"You open up this door!" Abdul ordered. "I'm not finished with you!"

Beni didn't bother to respond. He relaxed against the wall and waited for silence, hoping Abdul wore himself out soon, and finally trudged his way back to bed. He settled down onto the creaking mattress and turned his head from the window, so that his eyes faced the dark, stained wall; an ugly structure completely bare of decoration. Once or twice he thought about stealing a painting to hang in his cramped little apartment, but there was no point in stealing paintings when he never lived in the same place for long. Somebody was always after him. Threatening him, demanding money he didn't have, expressing the deepest desire to drown his miserable self in the Nile.

Thanks to that bastard Abdul, he would probably have to find a new place tomorrow, or else he would never get any peace. Beni grabbed his pillow and placed it over his ear, just in case another round of yells and curses started outside, and wished Abdul had conveniently joined his brother Abu on that trip to the desert.

"Who was that?" came a voice from the other side of the bed.

A voice roughened with sleep and late-night cigarettes. A girlish voice the night before, when smoke and whiskey and dark corners made all tramps beautiful, but in the daylight she was probably older than he thought. Beni scooted an inch or two away from her, avoiding a whiff of sickly stale perfume, and hoped she had forgotten he never paid her the night before.

"Nobody," he told her, searching for a comfortable spot on the lumpy mattress. He couldn't remember her name.

"Didn't sound like nobody. You in trouble with the law?"

"It was your pimp," Beni grumbled into the pillow, then removed it from his ear. "He came to the door demanding money. I had to pay him for last night."

A sucker, he added to himself, liking the sound of the American word, and thought of Abu approaching him in a bar with visions of gold dancing in his eyes. He thought of the money stashed beneath his mattress, where it would stay until his companion slipped out the door in her worn-out heels, thinking she had earned her keep. He thought of Hamunaptra, the great myth that had fed him for months since the day he crawled from the desert in a tattered soldier's uniform, and smirked as he lay his tired head back upon the pillow.

Cairo was a breeding ground for suckers.