The Five Things Known About Mr. Kehepti

Mr. Kehepti knew what kind of cup you were. It was the fifth thing that the people in the bazaar knew about the old brewer on Hekha Street, and it was true. From the very moment you walked into his shop, Mr. Kehepti could tell if you were a tall porcelain highball or a squat clay gourd. He knew the enthusiastic and fidgety shot glass from the proud, eager flagon. He read every face, every walk, every shadow that darkened his doorway, and translated it into the beautifully simplistic language of cups. He knew what you’d ask him to fill the cup with, too, but waited to pour until you asked for it. That was the fourth thing people knew about Mr. Kehepti. A cup was who you were, but to drink from it was your choice. 

Counting the things that are known about a person is something that is only done when that list is very short to begin with, and that was certainly true for Mr. Kehepti. He tucked secrets into the folds of his ancient, bronze skin, and let them glimmer just barely through his eyes when he smiled. It wasn’t even known whether Kehepti was a surname, given name, or any real name at all. Someone had merely asked for it something like two decades ago when he first set up shop in the bazaar. He had smiled and spoken the three syllables like cups placed on a wooden counter. Kehepti. A name, and the third thing people knew about the man. 

This evening Kehepti’s shop was quiet, and so he set a kettle boiling for himself. He frequently enjoyed his own art, and spent many a day’s end sipping from a mug as the sun set, but today he got the feeling he ought to make something extra special. 

Water hissed as he poured it from the kettle into the cup he had chosen for himself. It was slate grey, thick and solid, with no handle, no grain, and really no outward features whatsoever. It was delightfully simple, almost to the point of invisibility in the cabinet of other more colorful, shapely cups. 

He brewed the tea bold and bitter, deep brown and the kind of drink that, after a whiff, you might think strong enough to kill a man. Just what he needed. When it had just barely crossed the threshold from scalding into merely piping hot, Kehepti sat down at a table in the front room of the shop, though he did not drink. He would wait for his guest to arrive, whose cup sat just across the table from him.

Golden light shone through the dirty windows, and wooden-bladed ceiling fans spun lazily above his head, churning motes of dust in the air. They should have known better than to come for him in the evening. When the busiest time of the day was instead empty like this, he was bound to take notice. An empty shop in the evening was suspicious. Had they not anticipated that? Kehepti glanced at the wall to his left where hung the colorful prayer-quilt that he had wrapped his mother in for her funeral. Just in front of it, on a small dais, sat her memorial idol, its smooth stone blank, as per tradition. For the dead, perception by the living constituted disrespect. The version of the idol with the actual carving of her face on the front was kept exclusively for the family and was in the back of the shop. Kehepti reverently traced the colorful lines of the prayer quilt with his eyes as he waited for the man he knew would arrive. 

When he eventually did, the bell on the shop’s door tinkled cheerfully, and was met with a hostile, hacking cough in response. Kehepti kept his eyes on the quilt and allowed the man to notice him, sigh, and sit down, assuming his guest would prefer to speak first. 

“You knew we were coming.” The man said with a gruff, rasping voice. Kehepti finally turned to look him over. Kehepti didn’t recognize him, but knew his type. He was foreign, and a soldier. The kind of soldier whose battlefield traced every border of the world, and who hunted his quarries across continents. A weilder of words, a stalker of invisible spaces made of numbers, humming with radio waves. He wore a faded brown bomber jacket, clearly meant to be casual, but Kehepti could see the imprint of the bullet-proof vest from underneath. At his waist was a holstered pistol, unconcealed, though he would have at least another strapped somewhere on him. Obscuring his eyes were a pair of black aviator glasses, and in his ear was a tiny receiver, the wire tucked back against his head. The teamaker could imagine faceless agencies and governments across the sea, waiting like coiled serpents, recording their conversation. There would be other soldiers too, positioned with rifles just outside the shop. Kehepti smiled. He had guessed the man’s cup correctly. 

The soldier picked up the frosted whiskey glass in front of him, foggy from condensation and scuffed on the bottom. He swirling the brown liquid inside and inspected it through his dark glasses. “If you’re trying to be quiet to avoid incriminating yourself, you’re out of luck. I already have a warrant from the local office. The bazaar already doesn’t like my people kicking around in here, so they’re more than happy to let us pick you up and be on our merry way. Nobody’s going to defend you, so I suggest we make this quick. Oh, and don’t give me any of that ‘no English’ bullshit either. I know you can understand me.”

The soldier casually placed a pair of handcuffs on the table. 

“You should try your drink,” Kehepti offered. The man looked at him sarcastically. When he saw that Kehepti was serious, he let out a barking laugh, which turned into another thick cough. 

“What am I, insane? Do you have any idea how long I’ve been tracking you? I’ve been to morgues, labs, prisons, tracing the path of every death for years, and you think you’re going to get me that easily?”

“There is no trick,” Kehepti said. He finally sipped his tea, which was still hot, then realized he’d almost forgotten the most important ingredient. He took a small black leaf from his pocket, crushed it in his hand, and sprinkled it into the steaming drink. Rapampa leaf. It would ruin the taste, but in Kehepti’s experience it added years to your life. 

“Sure. Well, it wouldn’t matter anyway. I brought friends this time. It’s been a long road, but it’s time for you to face up to everything you’ve done.” The man cleared his throat painfully again and reflexively picked up the glass, but realized what he was doing, scowled, and put it back down again. 

“I have done nothing wrong,” Kehepti said. 

The soldier’s hand twitched on the table. “You poison people. How on earth is that ‘nothing wrong’?”

“I do not poison. Only make.” Kehepti sipped his tea. 

“No,” The soldier said. “No, you don’t get to just shrug the blame off. Your poisons have killed kings and warlords. You’ve ended dynasties, started coups, and left people like me scratching our heads for decades. The people you sell to? They kill people, and they’re good at it because of what you make. Hypervenoms. Neurotoxins. Concoctions so pure, so undetectable that they seem impossible. We don’t even know the full extent of your crimes yet. How many heart failures, how many random deaths were you? Behind the scenes, choking them from the inside?

“But you know what? You’re not perfect. You have your failures.” The soldier leaned in across the table. Dark eyes glinted with violence over his sunglasses as he tilted his head down. His breath came low and ragged from a throat Kehepti knew was patterned with scars. “And it’s failures like me who won’t rest until we see you in the ground.” 

The poisonmaker took another sip. Poisonmaker; this was the second thing known about Mr. Kehepti, but in the bazaar it was not wise to speak of it. 

“I bet you’re wondering how we finally got you, right?” The soldier said, and sat up straight again. “It was pretty easy once we figured out what city you were holed up in. From there all it took was some asking around, bribes, anonymous tips, the works. People pretty close to you, it seems. But even if you figure out who, they’re protected now, so don’t even think about it.”

Kehepti wasn’t thinking about it. He wasn’t worried about much at all, except for his simple gray cup.  The officer seemed unnerved by this. “Why the weird and silent act? Really nothing to say? No swearing revenge on anyone? This will be about your last chance.”

“I do not care for revenge,” Kehepti said. 

“That’s ironic. You know, that’s what at least half of all your creations have been used for? It’s true, I have the numbers.”

Kehepti didn’t argue, because he didn’t need to. He knew that he had not used those poisons. The destruction had been done by others, all he did was create. It was not his revenge. 

“Alright, I think we’re done here,” the soldier said. He raised a hand to the reciever in his ear and spoke: “I’m bringing him out in just a second.” He turned back to Kehepti. “Put on the cuffs or I’ll do it for you.”

“I will not be going with you, my friend,” Kehepti said, calmly. 

“Sure, go by yourself if you want. Put on the cuffs.”

Kehepti drained the last dregs of his cup. With that, the dosage was completed, and he felt the cramping in his stomach begin to set in. His insides twisted on themselves, and Kehepti smiled at the man before his vision warped and swam, and he found himself suddenly on the floor, fallen out of his chair. Kehepti’s mind seemed to fit loosely in his skull, and his heartbeat began to slow.

The soldier swore loudly and started calling for help. His voice muffled now, and Kehepti had a hard time understanding the words. He must have picked up Kehepti’s cup and thrown it at the ground, because it now lay a few feet in front of the old poisonmaker. It had shattered into a dozen pieces, and revealed the cup’s insides, which glinted a vivid, majestic purple. Amethyst crystals. They were beautiful, and the twinkling evening light reflecting off of the shards stretched and spun in Kehepti’s twisted vision like a clutch of waving starfish. More soldiers entered the room on heavy booted feet. 

Kehepti’s heart slowed further, multiple seconds passing between beats. He sunk into a dark languor, his vision going dim.

But his heart did not stop. 

The remnants of a crushed rapampa leaf ran in his blood, holding off the poison. It would let the symptoms run their course, but would never let him get close to actually dying. A handy thing to carry in your pocket. 

To the circle of soldiers around him, and the paramedic they had brought with them, he was a dead man. Heart silent, skin cold, eyes glossy. He heard his sons rush into the room and begin yelling at the soldiers, who yelled back in turn. He heard the soldier with whom he had spoken cursing and berating his companions for not sweeping the building. They had, of course, but not the hidden rooms. 

His sons continued shouting, two of them shouting at the soldiers, demanding that they look away from the dead. The other two grabbed the prayer-quilt from the wall, wrapping him tightly, but not enough to suffocate him, for they knew he still breathed. 

Kehepti felt himself lifted from the ground and carried to the back of the shop. He sat paralyzed as they removed the quilt from him and placed it on the decoy body, then stored him away in the compartment below the floorboards of the back pantry. 

The whole performance took no more than five minutes, but to Kehepti’s addled brain, it might have been as many hours. This did not bother him, however, because it gave him plenty of time to savor the success of his ruse. He thought of the funeral to be held in the coming days. The false corpse would remain shrouded, to comply with tradition, and Kehepti would leave with his daughter, who the soldiers would not be aware of. They were unaware of a great many things, and for that reason the soldier would never get his revenge. They would buy his ruse, because they did not know the first thing that was known about Mr. Kehepti. The secret at the core of the old tea maker on Hekha Street, which was that behind his plain, smiling facade, his quiet, earnest honesty, his plain speech and warm drinks, Mr. Kehepti was, at heart, a showman.