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Sam bey . Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
    “How’s the eye?”
    “I’ve been hit harder.”
    I grinned. Although Pascal was small, he was tough. I motioned with my thumb. “Hit the road, kid.”
    Pascal pocketed his earnings and untied his apron and hung it on a hook over the sink. He flashed me another grin. “By the way, the American woman came by tonight and asked me to give you this.”
    Pascal held up two twenty dollar bills attached to a note. The note was short, with big flowing letters: ‘Sorry for sticking you with the bill. I hope this covers it. The lamb was excellent, by the way.’
    Pascal was grinning. “She is very pretty, Sam bey .”
    “I know.”
    When the kid left, I took up the position of honor behind the counter, staring at the note. I poured myself a splash of brandy. A short while later, I poured another.
    “At least she didn’t stick me with the bill,” I said to the splash of brandy. The brandy didn’t respond, of course. But if I had a few more shots, it just might.
    Later, an older woman came in through the open double doors. She was three sheets to the wind, weaving this way and that as if she were a detective on a crooked trail. As always, she was beautiful, elegant and stately. She was, of course, Camilla Constantine.

    Chapter Seven

    Camilla was my self-appointed spiritualist and oracle, reading much into my words and actions, coming up with some amazing prognostications. Most were ridiculous. Some were humorous. And a few were deadly accurate. Of course, those were the ones that made me nervous. Then again, even a blind harpoonist can hit the ocean.
    “You look good, Camilla,” I said. “Drunk, but good.”
    Camilla sat before me at the bar and shrugged out of a red silk business jacket with ivory buttons. She hung the jacket on the back of the barstool, its black silk inner lining shining under the dusty lightbulbs above.
    I placed a glass of raki , made from distilled raisins, before her, a favorite of Camilla’s. She promptly tilted it back and drained the glass dry and motioned for another.
    “Rough day?” I asked, pouring.
    “Sometimes I would like to kill all men,” she said in Turkish, her voice deep. Sort of sexy. “I would like to kill them all one at a time. And slowly.”
    I stepped back. She continued. “Men think they can cheat me. But not tonight. I sent two of them on their way. They will never do business with me again, and it is their loss. Men, Sam, are assholes.”
    “Don’t look now, Camilla, but you happened to be seated across from an asshole now.”
    “None of the above applies to you, Sam.” She reached out and patted my cheek with a warm palm. “Though I should grab your ear and shake some sense into you.”
    “Is that a Turkish form of foreplay?”
    She shook her head, irritated. When she was drunk, she didn’t find me as cute as usual. “I send a beautiful American young woman your way, and you turn her away as if she were diseased.”
    I raised my forefinger to counter that accusation, but Camilla had moved on. When Camilla speaks, one needs more than a forefinger to break in. “But that’s okay, Sam. You had your reasons. Yes, what she asks is stupid and foolish. But she is pretty and nice. I thought you two were right for each other. She was a good omen. After all, you are both Americans.”
    I shook my head. “There’s more to a relationship than nationality, Camilla.”
    “But I knew you would take care of that girl. I don’t trust the other guides.” Camilla sighed and took a breath, sitting back in the stool. “However, Faye Roberts is a big girl. Her own iron will got her here. And it is her own iron will that keeps her here now.”
    “So she didn’t leave?” I asked. I tried to sound casual, but the excitement was there in my voice. For now, the Academy Award was safe.
    “Of course she didn’t leave,” said Camilla. “She will not be denied, Sam. I have recommended she speak with Niksar.”
    “Niksar?” I