A Fire in the Sun

One of Khayyam’s rubaiyyat kept going through my mind. Something about regret:

Again, again, Repentance oft before I vowed — but was I sober when I swore? Again, again I failed, for younger thoughts my frail Repentance into tatters tore.

“Chiri, please,” I said, holding up my empty glass. The club was almost empty. It was late and I was very tired. I closed my eyes and listened to the music, the same shrill, thumping hispo music Kandy played every time she got up to dance. I was getting tired of hearing the same songs over and over again.

“Why don’t you go home?” Chiri asked me. “I can take care of the place by myself. What’s the matter, don’t you trust me with the cash?”

I opened my eyes. She’d put a fresh vodka gimlet in front of me. I was in a bottomless melancholy, the kind that doesn’t get any help at all from liquor. You can drink all night and you never get loaded. You end up with a bad stomach and a pounding headache, but the relief you expect from your troubles never comes. “ ’S all right,” I said. “I got to stay. You go ahead and close up, though. Nobody’s come in for an hour at least.”

“What you say, boss,” said Chiri, giving me a worried look. I hadn’t told her about Shaknahyi. I hadn’t told anybody about him.

“Chiri, you know somebody I can trust to do a little dirty work?”

She didn’t look shocked. That was one of the reasons I liked her so much. “You can’t find somebody with your cop connections? You don’t have enough thugs working for you at Papa’s?”

I shook my head. “Somebody who knows what he’s doing, somebody I can count on to keep a low profile.”

Chiri grinned. “Somebody like what you used to be before your lucky number came up. What about Morgan? He’s dependable and he probably won’t sell you out.”

“I don’t know,” I said. Morgan was a big blond guy, an American from Federated New England. He and I didn’t travel in the same circles, but if Chiri recommended him, he was probably all right.

“What you need done?” she asked.

I rubbed my cheek. Reflected in the back mirror, my red beard was beginning to show a lot of gray. “I want him to track somebody down for me. Another American.”

“See there? Morgan’s a natural.”

“Uh huh,” I said sourly. “If they blow each other away, nobody’ll miss ’em. Can you get hold of him tonight?”

She looked doubtful. “It’s two o’clock in the morning.”

“Tell him there’s a hundred kiam in it for him. Just for showing up and talking to me.”

“He’ll be here,” said Chiri. She dug an address book out of her bag and grabbed the bar’s phone.

I gulped down half the vodka gimlet and stared at the front door. Now I was waiting for two people.

“You want to pay us?” Chiri said some time later.

I’d been staring at the door, unaware that the music had been turned off and the five dancers had gotten dressed. I shook my head to clear the fog out of it, but it didn’t do much good. “How’d we do tonight?” I asked.

“Same as always,” said Chiri. “Lousy.”

I split the receipts with her and began counting out the dancers’ money. Chiri had a list of how many drinks each girl had gotten from the customers. I figured out the commissions and added them to the wages. “Nobody better come in late tomorrow,” I said.

“Yeah, right,” said Kandy, snatching up her money and hurrying for the door. Lily, Rani, and Jamila were close behind her.

“You all right, Marid?” asked Yasmin.

I looked up at her, grateful for her concern. “I’m fine,” I said. “Tell you all about it later.”

“Want to go out for some breakfast?”

That would have been wonderful. I hadn’t gone out with Yasmin in months. I realized that it had been a very long time since I’d gone out with anybody. I had something else to do tonight, though. “Let me postpone that,” I said. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

“Sure, Marid,” she said. She turned and went out.

“There is something wrong, huh?” said Chiri.

I just nodded and folded up the rest of the night’s cash. No matter how fast I gave it away, it just kept accumulating.

“And you don’t want to talk about it.”

I shook my head. “Go on home, Chiri.”

“Just gonna sit here in the dark by yourself?”

I made a shooing motion with my hand. Chiri shrugged and left me alone. I finished the vodka gimlet, then went behind the bar and made myself another one. About twenty minutes later, the blond American came into the club. He nodded to me and said something in English.

I just shook my head. I opened my briefcase on the bar, took out an English-language daddy, and chipped it in. There was just a moment while my mind worked to translate what he’d said, and then the daddy kicked in and it was as if I’d always known how to speak English. “Sorry to make you come out so late, Morgan,” I said.

He ran a large hand through his long blond hair. “Hey, man, what’s happenin’?”

“Want a drink?”

“You can draw me a beer if it’s free.”

“Help yourself,” I said.

He leaned across the bar and held a clean glass under one of the taps. “Chiri said something about a hundred kiam, man.”

I took out my money. The size of the roll dismayed me. I was going to have to get to the bank more often, or else I’d have to let Kmuzu play bodyguard full-time. I dealt out five twenty-kiam bills and slid them down toward Morgan.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and scooped up the money. He looked down at the bills, then back at me. “Now I can go, right?” he said.

“Sure,” I said, “unless you want to hear how you can make a thousand more.”

He adjusted his steel-rimmed spectacles and grinned again. I didn’t know if the glasses were functional or just an affectation. If his eyes were bad, he could have had them reconstructed cheaply enough. “This is a lot more interesting than what I was doin’, anyway,” he said.

“Fine. I just want you to find somebody.” I told him all about Paul Jawarski.

When I mentioned the Flathead Gang, Morgan nodded. “He’s the guy that killed the cop today?” he asked.

“He got away.”

“Well, hey, man, the law will bring him in sooner or later, you can bet on that.”

I didn’t let my expression change. “I don’t want to hear about sooner or later, okay? I want to know where he’s at, and I want to ask him a couple of questions before the cops get to him. He’s holed up somewhere, probably been stung with a needle gun.”

“You’re payin’ a thousand kiam just to put the finger on this guy?”

I squeezed the wedge of lime into my gimlet and drank some. “Uh huh.”

“You don’t want me to rough him up a little for you?”

“Just find him before Hajjar does.”

“Aha,” said Morgan, “I get you, man. After the lieutenant gets his hooks into him, Jawarski won’t be available to talk to nobody.”

“Right. And we don’t want that to happen.”

“I guess we don’t, man. How much you gonna pay me up front?”

“Five now, five later.” I cut him another five hundred kiam. “I get results tomorrow, right?”

His big hand closed on the money and he gave me his predatory grin. “Go get some sleep, man. I’ll be wakin’ you up with Jawarski’s address and commcode.”

I stood up. “Finish your beer and let’s get out of here. This place is starting to break my heart.”

Morgan looked around at the dark bar. “Ain’t the same without the girls and the mirror balls goin’, is it?” He gulped down the rest of his beer and set the glass gently on the bar.

I followed him toward the front door. “Find Jawarski,” I said.

“You got it, man.” He raised a hand and ambled away up the Street. I went back inside and sat in my place. My night wasn’t over yet.

I drank a couple more gimlets before Indihar showed up. I knew she was going to come. I’d been waiting for her.

She’d thrown on a bulky blue coat and tied a maroon and gold scarf over her hair. Her face was pale and drawn, her lips pressed tightly together. She came to where I was sitting and looked down at me. Her eyes weren’t red, though; she hadn’t been crying. I couldn’t imagine Indihar crying. “I want to talk to you,” she said. Her voice was cold and calm.

“That’s why I been sitting here,” I said.

She turned away and stared at herself in the wall of mirrors behind the stage. “Sergeant Catavina said you weren’t in very good shape this morning. That true?” She looked at me again. Her expression was perfectly empty.

“Is what true?” I said. “That I wasn’t feeling well?

“That you were high or hung over today when you went out with my husband.”

I sighed. “I showed up at the station house with a hangover. It wasn’t crippling, though.”

Her hands began clenching and unclenching. I could see her jaw muscles twitch. “You think it might have slowed you down any?”

“No, Indihar,” I said, “I don’t think it affected me at all. You want to blame me for what happened? Is that what this is about?”

Her head turned very slowly. She stared directly into my eyes. “Yes, I want to blame you. You didn’t back him up fast enough. You didn’t cover him. If you’d been there for him, he wouldn’t be dead.”

“You can’t say that, Indihar.” I had a sick, hollow feeling in my belly because I’d been thinking the same thing all day. The guilt had been growing in me since I’d left Shaknahyi lying on a cot at the hospital with a bloody sheet over his face.

“My husband would be alive and my children would still have a father. They don’t now, you know. I haven’t told them yet. I don’t know how to tell them. I don’t know how to tell myself, if you want to know the truth. Maybe tomorrow I’ll realize that Jirji’s dead. Then I’ll have to find a way to get through the day without him, through the week, through the rest of my life.”

I felt a sudden nausea and closed my eyes. It was as if I weren’t really there, as if I were just dreaming this nightmare. When I opened my eyes, though, Indihar was still looking at me. It had all happened, and she and I were going to have to play out this terrible scene. “I—”

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry, you son of a bitch,” she said. Even then she didn’t raise her voice. “I don’t want to hear anybody tell me he’s sorry.”

I just sat there and let her say whatever she needed to say. She couldn’t accuse me of anything that I hadn’t already confessed to in my own mind. Maybe if I hadn’t gotten so drunk last night, maybe if I hadn’t taken all those sunnies this morning -

Finally she just stared at me, a look of despair on her face. She was condemning me with her presence and her silence. She knew and I knew, and that was enough. Then she turned and walked out of the club, her gait steady, her posture perfect.

I felt absolutely destroyed. I found the phone where Chiri’d left it and spoke my home commcode into it. It rang three times and then Kmuzu answered. “You want to come get me?” I said. I was slurring my words.

“Are you at Chiriga’s?” he asked.

“Yeah. Come quick before I kill myself.” I slapped the phone down on the bar and made myself another drink while I waited.

When he arrived, I had a little present for him. “Hold out your hand,” I said.

“What is it, yaa Sidi?”

I emptied my pillcase into his upturned palm, then clicked the pillcase closed and put it back in my pocket. “Get rid of ’em,” I said.

His expression didn’t change as he closed his fist. “This is wise,” he said.

“I’m way overdue.” I got up from my stool and followed him back into the cool night air. I locked the front door of Chiri’s and then let Kmuzu drive me home.

I took a long shower and let the hot needle spray blast my skin until I felt myself begin to relax. I dried off and went into my bedroom. Kmuzu had brought me a mug of strong hot chocolate. I sipped it gratefully.

“Will you be needing anything else tonight, yaa Sidi?” he asked.

“Listen,” I said, “I’m not going into the station house in the morning. Let me sleep, all right? I don’t want to be bothered. I don’t want to answer any phone calls or deal with anybody’s problems.”

“Unless the master of the house requires you,” said Kmuzu.

I sighed. “That goes without saying. Otherwise—”

“I will see that you’re not disturbed.”

I didn’t chip in the wake-up daddy before I went to bed, and I got a restless night’s sleep. Bad dreams woke me again and again until I fell into deep, exhausted sleep at dawn. It was close to noon when I finally got out of bed. I dressed in my old jeans and work shirt, a costume I didn’t wear very often around Friedlander Bey’s mansion.

“Would you like some breakfast, yaa Sidi?” asked Kmuzu.

“No, I’m taking a vacation from all that today.”

He frowned. “There is a business matter for your attention later.”

“Later,” I agreed. I went to the desk where I’d thrown my briefcase the night before, and took Wise Counselor from the rack of moddies. I thought my troubled mind could use some instant therapy. I seated myself in a comfortable black leather chair and chipped the moddy in.

Once upon a time in Mauretania there was or maybe there wasn’t a famous fool, trickster, and rascal named Marid Audran. One day Audran was driving his cream-colored Westphalian sedan on his way to take care of some important business, when another car collided with his. The second car was old and broken down, and although the accident was clearly the fault of the other driver, the man jumped out of the wrecked heap and began screaming at Audran. “Look what you’ve done to my magnificent vehicle!” shouted the driver, who was Police Lieutenant Hajjar. Reda Abu Adil, Hassan the Shiite, and Pauljawarski also got out of the car. All four threatened and abused Audran, although he protested that he had done nothing wrong.

Jawarski kicked the creased fender of Hajjar’s automobile. “It’s useless now,” he said, “and so the only fair thing is for you to give us your car.”

Audran was outnumbered four to one and it was clear that they were not in a mood to be reasonable, so he agreed.

“And will you not reward us for showing you the path of honor?” asked Hajjar.

“If we hadn’t insisted,” said Hassan, “your actions would have put your soul in jeopardy with Allah.”

“Perhaps,” said Audran. “What do you wish me to pay you for this service?”

Reda Abu Adil spread his hands as if it mattered little. “It is but a token, a symbol between Muslim brothers, ” he said. “You may give us each a hundred kiam.” So Audran handed the keys to his cream-colored Westphalian sedan to Lieutenant Hajjar, and paid each of the four a hundred kiam.

All afternoon, Audran pushed Hajjar’s wrecked car back to town in the hot sun. He parked it in the middle of the souk and went to find his friend, Saied the Half-Hajj. “You must help me get even with Hajjar, Abu Adil, Hassan, and Jawarski,” he said, and Saied was agreeable. Audran cut a hole in the floor of the derelict automobile, and Saied lay by the opening covered with a blanket so that none could see him, with a small bag of gold coins. Then Audran started the engine of the car and waited.

Not long after, the four villains happened by. They saw Audran sitting in the shade of the ruined automobile and laughed. “It won’t drive an inch!” mocked Jawarski. “What are you warming the engine for?”

Audran glanced up. “I have my reasons, “he said, and he smiled as if he had a wonderful secret.

“What reasons?” demanded Abu Adil. “Has the summer sun at last broiled your brains?”

Audran stood and stretched. “I guess I can tell you,” he said lightly. “After all, I owe my good fortune to you.”

“Good fortune?” asked Hajjar suspiciously.

“Come,” said Audran. “Look.” He led the four villains to the back of the car where the battery cap had been left open. “Piss in the battery,” he said.

“You’ve surely gone crazy,” said Jawarski.

“Then I will do it myself,” said Audran, and he did, relieving himself into the wreck’s battery. “Now we must wait a moment. There! Did you hear that?”

“I heard nothing,” said Hassan.

“Listen,” said Audran. And there came a gentle chink! chink! sound from beneath the car. “Take a look,” he commanded.

Reda Abu Adil got down on hands and knees, ignoring the dust and the indignity, and peered under the car. “May his faith be cursed!” he cried. “Gold!” He stretched out on the ground and reached under the car; when he straightened up again, he held a handful of gold coins. He showed them to his companions in amazement.

“Listen, “said Audran. And they all heard the chink! chink! of more gold coins falling to the ground.

“He pisses yellow into the car,” murmured Hassan, “and yellow gold falls from it.”

“May Allah let you prosper if you let me have my car back!” cried Lieutenant Hajjar.

“I’m afraid not,” said Audran.

“Take your goddamn cream-colored Westphalian sedan and we’ll call it a fair trade,” said Jawarski.

“I’m afraid not,” said Audran.

“We’ll each give you a hundred kiam as well,” said Abu Adil.

“I’m afraid not,” said Audran.

They begged and begged, and Audran refused. Finally they offered to give him back his sedan plus five hundred kiam from each of them, and he accepted. “But come back in an hour, “he said. “That’s still my piss in the battery. “And they agreed. Then Audran and Saied went off and divided their profit.

I yawned as I popped Wise Counselor out. I’d enjoyed the vision, except for seeing Hassan the Shiite, who was dead and who could stay dead for all I cared. I thought about what the little story might mean. It might mean that my unconscious mind was hard at work coming up with clever ways to outsmart my enemies. I was glad to learn this. I already knew that I wasn’t going to get anywhere by force. I didn’t have any. I felt subtly different after that session with Wise Counselor: more determined, maybe, but also wonderfully clear and free. I had a grim set to my jaw now and the sense that no one at all could impose restrictions on me. I’d been changed by Shaknahyi’s death, kicked up to a higher energy level. I felt as if I were living in pure oxygen, bright and clean and dangerously explosive.

“Yaa Sidi,” said Kmuzu softly.

“What is it?”

“The master of the house is ill today and wishes you to attend to a small business matter.”

I yawned again. “Yeah, you right. What kind of business?”

“I do not know.”

This liberated feeling let me forget about what Fried-lander Bey might think of my clothes. That just wasn’t important anymore. Papa had me under his thumb and maybe I couldn’t do anything about it, but I wasn’t going to be passive any longer. I intended to let him know that; but when I saw him, he looked so ill that I filed it away for later.

He lay propped up in bed with a small mountain of pillows around him and behind his back. A tray table straddled his legs, and it was stacked high with file folders, reports, multicolored memory plates, and a tiny microcomputer. He held a cup of hot aromatic tea in one hand and one of Umm Saad’s stuffed dates in the other. Umm Saad must have thought she could bribe Papa with them, or that he would forget his last words to her. To be honest, Friedlander Bey’s problem with Umm Saad seemed almost trivial to me now, but I did not mention her.

“I pray for your well-being,” I said.

Papa raised his eyes toward me and grimaced. “It is nothing, my nephew. I feel dizzy and sick to my stomach.”

I leaned forward and kissed Papa’s cheek, and he muttered something I could not hear clearly.

I waited for him to explain the business matter he wanted me to take care of. “Youssef tells me there is a large, angry woman in the waiting room downstairs,” he said, a frown pulling down his mouth. “Her name is Tema Akwete. She’s trying to be patient because she’s come a long distance to beg a favor.”

“What kind of favor?” I asked.

Papa shrugged. “She represents the new government of the Songhay Republic.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Last month the country was called the Glorified Segu Kingdom. Before that it was the Magistracy of Timbuktu, and before that Mali, and before that it was part of French West Africa.”

“And the Akwete woman is an emissary from the new regime?”

Friedlander Bey nodded. He started to say something, but his eyes closed and his head fell back against the pillows. He passed a hand across his forehead. “Forgive me, my nephew,” he said, “I’m not feeling well.”

“Then don’t concern yourself about the woman. What is her problem?”

“Her problem is that the Segu king was very upset to find out he’d lost his job. Before he fled the palace he sacked the royal treasury, of course — that goes without saying. His gang also destroyed all the vital computer records in the capital. The Songhay Republic opened up shop without the slightest idea of how many people they rule or even where the country’s boundaries are. There is no fair basis for taxation, no lists of government employees or descriptions of their duties, and no accurate information concerning the armed forces. Songhay faces immediate catastrophe.”

I understood. “So they sent someone here. They want you to restore order.”

“Without tax revenue, the new government cannot pay its employees or continue normal services. It’s likely that Songhay will soon be paralyzed by general strikes. The army may desert, and then the country will be at the mercy of neighboring nations, if they are any better organized.”

“Why is the woman angry with you, then?”

Papa spread his hands. “Songhay’s problems are not my concern,” he said. “I explained to you that Reda Abu Adil and I divided the Muslim world. This country is in his jurisdiction. I have nothing to do with the Sub-Saharan states.”

“Akwete should have gone to Abu Adil in the first place.”

“Exactly. Youssef gave that message to her, but she screamed and struck the poor man. She thinks we’re trying to extort a higher payment from her and her government.” Papa set down his teacup and searched through the disordered piles of papers on his blankets, selecting a thick envelope and passing it to me with a trembling hand. “This is the background material and the contract she offered me. Tell her to take it to Abu Adil.”

I took a deep breath and let it out. It didn’t sound like dealing with Akwete was going to be much fun. “I’ll talk to her,” I said.

Papa nodded absently. He’d disposed of one minor annoyance, and he was already turning his attention to something else. After a while I murmured a few words and left the room. He didn’t even notice that I’d gone. Kmuzu was waiting for me in the corridor leading from Papa’s private apartment. I told him what Friedlander Bey and I had talked about. “I’m gonna see this woman,” I said, “and then you and I are gonna take a ride out to Abu Adil’s house.”

“Yes, yaa Sidi, but it may be best if I waited for you in the car. Reda Abu Adil no doubt thinks me a traitor.”

“Uh huh. Because you were hired as a bodyguard for his wife and now you look out for me?”

“Because he arranged for me to be a spy in the house of Friedlander Bey, and I no longer consider myself to be in his employ.”

I had known from the beginning that Kmuzu was a spy. I’d just thought he was Papa’s spy, not Abu Adil’s. “You’re not reporting everything back to him?”

“Back to whom, yaa Sidi?”

“Back to Abu Adil.”

Kmuzu gave me a brief, earnest smile. “I assure you that I am not. I am, of course, reporting to the master of the house.”

“Well, that’s all right, then.” We’d gone downstairs, and I stopped outside one of the waiting rooms. The two Stones That Speak stood on either side of the door. They glared menacingly at Kmuzu. Kmuzu glared back. I ignored all of them and went inside. The black woman jumped to her feet as soon as I’d set foot across the threshold. “I demand an explanation!” she cried. “I warn you, as a lawful ambassador of the government of the Songhay Republic—”

I shut her up with a sharp look. “Madame Akwete,” I said, “the message you received earlier was quite accurate. You’ve truly come to the wrong place. However, I can expedite this matter for you. I’ll convey the information and the contract in this envelope to Shaykh Reda Abu Adil, who participated in establishing the Segu Kingdom. He’ll be able to help you in the same way.”

“And what payment will you expect as a middleman?” Akwete asked sourly.

“None whatsoever. It is a gesture of friendship from our house to a new Islamic republic.”

“Our country is still young. We mistrust such friendship.”

“That is your privilege,” I said, shrugging. “No doubt the Segu king felt the same way.” I turned and left the waiting room.

Kmuzu and I walked briskly along the hall toward the great wooden front doors. I could hear Akwete’s shoes echoing behind us on the tiled floor. “Wait,” she called. I thought I heard a hint of apology in her voice.

I stopped and faced her. “Yes, madame?” I said.

“This shaykh… can he do as you say? Or is this some elaborate swindle?”

I gave her a cold smile. “I don’t see that you or your country are in any position to doubt. Your situation is hopeless now, and Abu Adil can’t make it any worse. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

“We are not rich,” said Akwete. “Not after the way King Olujimi bled our people and squandered our meager wealth. We have little gold—”

Kmuzu raised a hand. It was very unusual for him to interrupt. “Shaykh Reda is less interested in your gold than in power,” he said.

“Power?” asked Akwete. “What kind of power does he want?”

“He will study your situation,” said Kmuzu, “and then he will reserve certain information for himself.”

I thought I saw the black woman falter. “I insist on going with you to see this man. It is my right.”

Kmuzu and I looked at each other. We both knew how naive she was to think she had any rights at all in this situation. “All right,” I said, “but you’ll let me speak to Abu Adil first.”

She looked suspicious. “Why is that?”

“Because I say so.” I went outside with Kmuzu, where I waited in the warm sunlight while he went for the car. Madame Akwete followed me a moment later. She looked furious, but she said nothing more.

In the backseat of the sedan, I opened my briefcase and took Saied’s tough-guy moddy from the rack and chipped it in. It filled me with the confident illusion that nobody could get in my way from now on, not Abu Adil, Hajjar, Kmuzu, or Friedlander Bey.

Akwete sat as far from me as she could, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her head turned away from me. I wasn’t concerned with her opinion of me. I looked at Shaknahyi’s brown vinyl-covered notebook again. On the first page he had written Phoenix File in large letters. Beneath that there were several entries:

Ishaq Abdul-Hadi Bouhatta — Elwau Chami (Heart, lungs)

Andreja Svobik — Fatima Hamdan (Stomach, bowel, liver)

Abbas Karami — Nabil Abu Khalifeh (Kidneys, liver)

Blanca Mataro -

Shaknahyi had been sure that the four names on the left were somehow connected; but in Hajjar’s words, they were only “open files.” Under the names, Shaknahyi had written three Arabic letters: Alif, Lam, Mim, corresponding to the Roman letters A, L, M.

What could they mean? Were they an acronym? I could probably find a hundred organizations whose initials were A.L.M. The A and L might form the definite article, and the M might be the first letter in a name: someone called al-Mansour or al-Maghrebi. Or were the letters Shaknahyi’s shorthand, an abbreviation referring to a German (almani) or a diamond (almas) or something else? I wondered if I could ever discover what the three letters meant, without Shaknahyi to explain his code.

I slipped an audio chip into the car’s holosystem, then put the notebook and Tema Akwete’s envelope in the briefcase and locked it. While Umm Khalthoum, The Lady of the twentieth century, sang her laments, I pretended she was mourning Jirji Shaknahyi, crying for Indihar and their children. Akwete still stared out her window, ignoring me. Meanwhile, Kmuzu steered the car through the narrow, twisting streets of Hamidiyya, the slums that guarded the approach to Reda Abu Adil’s mansion.

After a ride of nearly half an hour, we turned into the estate. Kmuzu remained in the car, pretending to doze. Akwete and I got out and went up the ceramic-tiled path to the house. When Shaknahyi and I had been here before, I’d been impressed by the luxurious gardens and the beautiful house. I noticed none of that today. I rapped on the carved wooden door and a servant answered my summons immediately, giving me an insolent look but saying nothing.

“We have business with Shaykh Reda,” I said, pushing by him. “I come from Friedlander Bey.”

Thanks to Saied’s moddy, my manner was rude and brusque, but the servant didn’t seem to be upset. He shut the door after Tema Akwete and hurried ahead of me, going down a high-ceilinged corridor, expecting us to follow. We followed. He stopped before a closed door at the end of a long, cool passage. The fragrance of roses was in the air, the smell I’d come to identify with Abu Adil’s mansion. The servant hadn’t said another word. He paused to give me another insolent look, then walked away.

“You wait here,” I said, turning to Akwete.

She started to argue, then thought better of it. “I don’t like this at all,” she said.

“Too bad.” I didn’t know what was on the other side of the door, but I wasn’t going to get anywhere standing in the hallway with her, so I grabbed the doorknob and went through.

Neither Reda Abu Adil nor his secretary, Umar Abdul-Qawy, heard me come into the office. Abu Adil was in his hospital bed, as he was the previous time I’d seen him. Umar was leaning over him. I couldn’t tell what he was doing.

“Allah grant you health,” I said gruffly.

Umar jerked upright and faced me. “How did you get in here?” he demanded.

“Your servant brought me to the door.”

Umar nodded. “Kamal. I will have to speak to him.” He looked at me more closely. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t recall your name.”

“Marid Audran. I work for Friedlander Bey.”

“Ah yes,” said Umar. His expression softened just a little. “The last time, you came as a policeman.”

“I’m not actually a cop. I look after Friedlander Bey’s interests with the police.”

A little smile curled Umar’s lips. “As you wish. Are you looking after them today?”

“His interests and yours also.”

Abu Adil raised a feeble hand and touched Umar’s sleeve. Umar bent to hear the old man’s whispered words, then straightened up again. “Shaykh Reda invites you to make yourself comfortable,” said Umar. “We would have prepared suitable refreshments if you’d let us know you were coming.”

I looked around for a chair and seated myself. “A very upset woman came to Friedlander Bey’s house today,” I said. “She represents a revolutionary government that’s just socialized the Glorified Segu Kingdom.” I opened my briefcase, took out the envelope from the Songhay Republic, and tossed it to Umar.

Umar looked amused. “Already? I really thought Olujimi would last longer. I suppose once you’ve transferred all the wealth there is in a country to a foreign bank, there’s really no point in being king anymore.”

“I didn’t come here to talk about that.” The Half-Hay’s moddy was making it difficult for me to be civil to Umar. “By the terms of your agreement with Friedlander Bey, this country is under your authority. You’ll find all the relevant information in that packet. I left the woman fuming outside in the hallway. She seems like a cutthroat bitch. I’m glad you have to deal with her, and not me.”

Urnar shook his head. “They always try to order and reorganize our lives for us. They forget how much we can do for their cause if we’re in the right mood.”

I watched him play with the envelope, turning it around and around on the desk. A weak, drawn-out groan came from Abu Adil, but I’d seen too much real pain in the world to pity the suffering of a Proxy Hell maggot. I looked back at Umar. “If you can do something to make your master more alert,” I said, “Madame Akwete needs to speak with him. She seems to think the fate of the Islamic world rests on her shoulders alone.”

Umar gave me an ironic smile. “The Songhay Republic,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Tomorrow it will be a kingdom again or a conquered province or a fascist dictatorship. And no one will care.”

“Madame Akwete will care.”

That amused him even more. “Madame Akwete will be one of the first to go in the new wave of purges. But we’ve talked enough about her. Now we must discuss the matter of your compensation.”

I looked at him closely. “I didn’t have any thought of payment,” I said.

“Of course not. You were fulfilling the agreement, the compact between your employer and mine. Nevertheless, it’s always wise to express gratitude to our friends. After all, someone who has helped you in the past is more likely to help you again. Perhaps there is some small service I may do for you in return.”

This was the whole purpose behind my little jaunt into Abu Adil’s part of town. I spread my hands and tried to look casual. “No, I can’t think of anything,” I said. “Unless …”

“Unless what, my friend?”

I pretended to examine my boot’s rundown heel. “Unless you’re willing to tell me why you’ve installed Umm Saad in our household.”

Umar pretended to be just as casual. “You must know by now that Umm Saad is a very intelligent woman, but she is by no means as clever as she believes. We wished her only to keep us apprised of Friedlander Bey’s plans. We said nothing to her about confronting him directly or abusing his hospitality. She’s antagonized your master, and that has made her worthless to us. You may dispose of her as you wish.”

“It’s only as I suspected,” I said. “Friedlander Bey doesn’t hold you or Shaykh Reda responsible for her actions.”

Umar raised one hand in a rueful gesture. “Allah gives us tools to use as best we can,” he said. “Sometimes a tool breaks and we must discard it.”

“Allah be praised,” I murmured. ,

“Praise Allah,” said Umar. We seemed to be getting along just fine now.

“One other thing,” I said. “The policeman who was with me the last time, Officer Shaknahyi, was shot and killed yesterday.”

Umar didn’t stop smiling, but his brow furrowed. “We heard the news. Our hearts go out to his widow and children. May Allah grant them peace.”

“Yeah. In any event, I greatly desire to have the man who killed him. His name is Paul Jawarski.”

I looked at Abu Adil, who writhed restlessly on his hospital bed. The plump old man made a few low, unintelligible sounds, but Umar wasn’t paying any attention to him. “Certainly,” he said. “We’ll be glad to put our resources at your disposal. If any of our associates know anything about this Jawarski, you’ll be informed immediately.”

I didn’t like the way Umar said that. It was too glib, and he looked too unhappy. I just thanked him and stood up to go.

“A moment, Shaykh Marid,” he said in a quiet voice. He stood up and took my arm, guiding me to another exit. “I’d like to have a private word with you. Would you mind stepping into the library?”

I felt a peculiar chill. I knew this invitation was coming from Umar Abdul-Qawy, acting independently, not Umar Abdul-Qawy, the secretary of Shaykh Reda Abu Adil. “Fine,” I. said.

He reached up and popped the moddy he was wearing. He hadn’t spared so much as a glance at Abu Adil.

Umar held the door for me, and I went through into the library. I seated myself at a large oblong table of glossy dark wood. Umar didn’t sit, however. He paced in front of a high wall lined with bookshelves, idly tossing the moddy in one hand. “I think I understand your position,” he said at last.

“Which position is that?”

He waved irritably. “You know what I mean. How much longer will you be content to be Friedlander Bey’s trained dog, running and fetching for a madman who doesn’t have the wit to realize he’s already dead?” “You mean Papa, or Shaykh Reda?” I asked. Umar stopped pacing and frowned at me. “I’m speaking of both of them, and I’m sure you goddamn well know it.”

I watched Umar for a moment, listening to the trilling of some of the songbirds that were caged all through Abu Adil’s house and grounds. It gave the afternoon a false sense of peace and hopefulness. The air in the library was musty and stale. I began to feel caged myself. Maybe it had been a mistake coming here today. “What are you suggesting, Umar?” I asked.

“I’m suggesting that we begin thinking of the future. Someday, not long from now, the old men’s empires will be in our hands. Hell, I run Shaykh Reda’s business for him right now. He spends the whole day chipped in to … to—”

“I know what he’s got chipped in,” I said. Umar nodded. “All right, then. This moddy that I use is a recent recording of his mind., He gave it to me because his only sexual kick is jamming himself, or an accurate facsimile of himself. Does that disgust you?”

“You’re kidding.” I’d heard much worse in my time. “Forget that, then. He doesn’t realize that with his moddy, I’m his equal as far as tending to business is concerned. I am Abu Adil, but I have the added advantage of my own native skills. He is Shaykh Reda, a great man; but with this moddy, I am Shaykh Reda and Umar Abdul-Qawy together. Why do I need him?”

I found this all terrifically amusing. “Are you proposing the elimination of Abu Adil and Friedlander Bey?” Umar looked around himself nervously. “I propose no such thing,” he said in a quiet voice. “There are too many other people depending on their judgment and vision. Yet there may come a day when the old men themselves are a hindrance to their own enterprises.”

“When the time comes to push them aside,” I said, “the right people will know it. And Friedlander Bey, at least, will not begrudge them.”

“What if the time is now?” Umar asked hoarsely. “You may be ready, but I’m not prepared to take over Papa’s affairs.”

“Even that problem could be solved,” insisted Umar. “Possibly,” I said. I didn’t let any expression cross my face. I had no idea if we were being watched and recorded, and yet I didn’t want to antagonize Umar. I knew now that he was a very dangerous man.

“You will learn that I am right,” he said. He tossed the moddy in his hand some more, his brow furrowed again in thought. “Go back to Friedlander Bey now and think about what I’ve said. We’ll talk again soon. If you do not share my enthusiasm, I may need to push you aside along with both our masters.” I started to rise from my chair. He raised a hand to stop me. “That is not a threat, my friend,” he said calmly. “It is only how I see the future.” “Allah alone sees the future.” He laughed cynically. “If you think that pious talk has any real meaning, I may end up with more power than Shaykh Reda ever dreamed of.” He indicated another door on the south side of the library. “You may go out that way. Follow the corridor to the left, and it will lead you to the front entrance. I must go back and discuss this Songhay Republic business with the woman. You needn’t worry about her. I’ll send her back to her hotel with my driver.”

“Thank you for your kindness,” I said. “May you go in peace and safety,” he said. I left the library and followed Umar’s directions. Kamal, the servant, met me along the way and showed me out. Again he kept silent as we walked. I went down the steps toward the car, and then I turned to look back. Kamal stood in the doorway, staring after me as if I might be concealing stolen silverware in my clothing.

I got into the sedan. Kmuzu started the engine and swung the car around and out through the main gate. I thought about what Umar had said, what he’d offered me. Abu Adil had exercised his power for almost two centuries. Surely in all that time there had been many young men who’d filled the position Umar now held. Surely some of them had had the same ambitious ideas. Abu Adil still remained, but what had happened to those young men? Maybe Umar had never considered that question. Maybe Umar was nowhere near as smart as he thought he was.

Shaknahyi had been killed on Tuesday, and it wasn’t until Friday that I was able to go into the station house again. It was, of course, the Sabbath, and I toyed with the idea of passing by a mosque on the way, but I felt hypocritical about that. I figured I was such a crummy person that no amount of worshiping could make me acceptable to Allah. I know that’s all hollow rationalization — it’s the sinners, after all, who need the benefits of prayer most, and not the saints — but I just felt too soiled and guilty to enter the House of God. Besides, Shaknahyi had set an example of true faith, and I’d failed him. I had to redeem myself in my own eyes first, before I could expect to do the same in the eyes of Allah.

My life has been like a rolling ocean, with waves of comfort and ease followed by waves of adversity. No matter how peaceful things get, I know more trouble will soon sweep over me. I’ve always told everyone how much I preferred being on my own, a solitary agent answerable only to myself. I wished I meant it half as much as I pretended.

I needed every bit of the inner strength and confidence I’d achieved to deal with the obstinate forces around me. I was getting no help at all from Lieutenant Hajjar, Friedlander Bey, or anyone else. No one at the station house seemed particularly interested in talking with me on Friday morning. There were a lot of part-time office workers there, Christians who filled in for the religious Muslims on the Sabbath. Lieutenant Hajjar was there, of course, because on his list of favorite pastimes, religion finished down somewhere between oral surgery and paying taxes. I went immediately to his square, glass-walled office.

Eventually he looked up to see who was looming beside his desk. “What now, Audran?” he snapped. He hadn’t seen me in three days, but he made it sound as if I’d been badgering him non-stop all that time.

“Just wanted to know what your plans for me were.”

Hajjar looked up from his data deck. He stared at me for a long moment, his m6uth twisted as if he’d just chewed a rotten date. “You’re flattering’ yourself,” he said in a quiet voice. “You don’t enter into my plans at all.”

“I was just volunteering to help in the investigation of Jirji Shaknahyi’s death.”

Hajjar raised his eyebrows. He leaned back in his chair. “What investigation?” he asked incredulously. “He was shot by Paul Jawarski. That’s all we need to know.”

I waited until I could speak without shouting at him. “We have Jawarski in custody?”

“Whe!” demanded Hajjar. “Who’s we? You mean, does the police department have Jawarski? Not yet. But don’t worry, Audran, he won’t slip away. We’re closin’ in on him.”

“How do you expect to find him? This is a big city. You think he’s just sitting in a room somewhere, waiting for you to show up with a warrant? He’s probably back in America by now.”

“Good police work’s how we’ll find him, Audran. You never have much faith in good police work. I know he ain’t left town. He’s here somewhere, and we’re tightenin’ the net around him. Just a matter of time.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “Tell that to his widow,” I said. “She’ll be heartened by your confidence.”

Hajjar stood up. I’d made him angry. “You accusin’ me of somethin’, Audran?” he asked, jabbing a stiff forefinger into my chest. “You hintin’ that maybe I’m not pushin’ this investigation hard enough?”

“I never said nothing, Hajjar. I just wanted to find out what your plans are.”

He gave me an evil grin. “What, you think I got nothin’ better to do than sit around and worry about how to utilize your special talents? Hell, Audran, we were gettin’ along fine without you the last few days. But I suppose now you’re here, there must be somethin’ for you to do.” He sat down again at his desk and riffled through a stack of papers. “Uh yeah, here we go. I want you to go on with that investigation you and Shaknahyi started.” I wasn’t happy about that. I wanted to be directly involved in tracking down Jawarski. “I thought you said we were supposed to lay off Abu Adil.”

Hajjar’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t say anything about Abu Adil, did I? You’d better lay off him. I’m talkin’ about this chink, On Cheung. The baby seller. Can’t afford to let his trail get cold.”

I felt a cold chill pass through me. “Anybody can follow up on On Cheung,” I said. “I got a special interest in finding Paul Jawarski.”

“Marid Audran, Man on a Mission, huh? Well, forget it. We don’t need you roarin’ around the city workin’ off your grudge. Anyway, you ain’t shown me yet that you know what you’re doin’. So I’m assignin’ you a new partner, somebody with a lot of experience. This ain’t some ladies’ volunteer club, Audran. You do what I tell you. Or don’t you think puttin’ On Cheung out of commission is worth your time?”

I gritted my teeth. I didn’t like the assignment, but Hajjar was right about it being just as important as collaring Jawarski. “Whatever you say, Lieutenant.”

He gave me that same grin. I wanted to whack it off his face. “You’ll be ridin’ around with Sergeant Catavina from now pn. He ought to teach you plenty.”

My heart sank. Of all the cops in that station house, Catavina was the man I least wanted to spend time with. He was a bully and a lazy son of a bitch. I knew that if we ever did catch up to On Cheung, it wouldn’t be because of Catavina’s contributions.

The lieutenant must have read my reaction from my expression. “Any problem with that, Audran?” he asked.

“If I had a problem, is there any chance it would change your mind?”

“None whatsoever,” said Hajjar.

“Didn’t think so.”

Hajjar looked back at the screen of his data deck. “Report to Catavina. I want to hear some good news real soon. You cut the legs out from under this dink, there may be commendations for the two of you.”

“I’ll get right on it, Lieutenant,” I said. I was impressed with Hajjar’s cleverness. He’d skillfully maneuvered me away from both Abu Adil and Jawarski by throwing me into a time-consuming but perfectly valid investigation. I was going to have to find a way to accomplish both my official assignment and my own personal goals.

Hajjar paid no further attention to me, so I left his office. I went to find Sergeant Catavina, I’d rather proceed without him, but that wasn’t going to be possible.

Catavina wasn’t that excited about being paired with me, either. “I already got the word from Hajjar,” he told me. We were walking down to the garage, to pick up Catavina’s patrol car. Catavina was trying to give me the benefit of all his years’ experience in one disjointed lecture. “You ain’t a good cop, Audran,” he said in a grim voice. “You may never be a good cop. I don’t want you fucking up with me like you fucked up Shaknahyi.”

“What’s that mean, Catavina?” I asked.

He turned and looked at me, his eyes wide. “Figure it out. If you’d known what you was doing, Shaknahyi’d still be alive and I wouldn’t have to be holding your hand. Just stay out of my way and do what I tell you.”

I was mad as hell, but I didn’t say anything. I planned to stay out of his way, all right. I figured I’d have to lose Catavina if I wanted to make any progress.

We got into the patrol car, and he had nothing more to say to me for a long while. That was okay with me. I thought he might drive back to the neighborhood where On Cheung was last known to have operated. Maybe we could learn something useful by interviewing those people again, even though they’d been so uncooperative before.

That wasn’t his plan, however. He headed west, in the opposite direction. We drove about a mile and half through an area of narrow, twisting streets and alleys. At last, Catavina pulled up in front of a crumbling apartment building, the tallest building on the block. The windows on the ground floor had been covered over with plywood, and the front door into the foyer had been taken off its hinges. The walls inside and out were covered with spray-painted names and slogans. The lobby reeked; it had been used as a toilet for a long time. As we crossed to the elevator, we crunched broken glass beneath our boots. There was a thick layer of dust and grit over everything.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” said Catavina. He punched the button for the elevator. When it arrived, I was hesitant about getting in. The condition of the building didn’t give me any confidence that the cables would hold our weight. When the elevator asked what floor we wanted, Catavina muttered “Eight.” We looked away from each other as the door slid closed. We rode in silence, the only noise coming from the elevator as it creaked its way upward.

We got out on the eighth floor, and Catavina led the way down the dark hallway to room 814. He took a key out of his pocket and unlocked the front door.

“What’s this?” I asked, following him into the seedy apartment.

“Police officers’ lounge,” said Catavina.

There was a large living room, a small kitchen, and a bathroom. There wasn’t much furniture — a cheap card table and six chairs in the living room, along with a torn black vinyl couch, a small holoset, and four folding cots. There were uniformed cops asleep on two of the cots. I recognized them but didn’t know their names. Catavina dropped heavily onto the couch and stared at me across the bare floor. “Want a drink?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Bring me some whiskey then. There’s ice in the kitchen.”

I went into the kitchen and found a good collection of liquor bottles. I tossed a few ice cubes into a glass and poured in three fingers of raw Japanese liquor. “So what are we doing here,” I called, thinking of the department’s motto, “protecting or serving?” I carried the drink back into the living room and handed it to Catavina.

“You’re serving,” he said, grunting. “I’m protecting.”

I sat down in one of the folding chairs and stared at him, watching him down half the Japanese whiskey in one long gulp. “Protecting what?” I asked.

Catavina smiled contemptuously. “Protecting my ass, that’s what. It ain’t gonna get shot up while I’m here, that’s for damn sure.”

I glanced at the two sleeping cops. “Gonna stay here long?”

“Till the shift’s over,” he said.

“Mind if I take the car and get some work done in the meantime?”

The sergeant looked at me over the rim of his whiskey glass. “Why the hell you want to do that?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Shaknahyi never let me drive.”

Catavina looked at me like I was crazy. “Sure, just don’t smash it up.” He dug in his pocket and fished out the car keys, then tossed them to me. “You better come back and pick me up by five o’clock.”

“Right, Sergeant,” I said. I left him staring at the holoset, which wasn’t even turned on. I rode the elevator back down to the filthy lobby, wondering what I was going to do next. I felt an obligation to find something that might lead me to On Cheung, but instead it was Jirji Shaknahyi who occupied my mind.

His funeral had been the day before, and for a while I thought I’d just stay home. For one thing, I didn’t know if I was emotionally settled enough to handle it; for another, I still felt partly responsible for his death, and it didn’t seem right for me to attend. I didn’t want to face Indihar and the children under those circumstances. Nevertheless, on Thursday morning I went to the small mosque near the station house where the memorial was being held.

Only men were permitted to participate in the worship service. I removed my shoes and performed the ritual ablutions, then entered the mosque and took a place near the back. A lot of the other cops in the congregation seemed to be looking at me with vengeful expressions. I was still an outsider to them, and in their eyes I might as well have pulled the trigger that killed Shaknahyi.

We prayed, and then an elderly, gray-bearded imam delivered a sermon and a eulogy, going through some weary truisms about duty and service and bravery. None of it made me feel any better. I was truly sorry that I’d talked myself into attending the service.

Then we all got up and filed out of the mosque. Except for some birds singing and a dog barking, it was almost supernaturally quiet. The sun burned down from a high, cloudless sky. A faint, tremulous breeze rippled the dusty leaves in the trees, but the air was almost too hot to breathe. The odor of spoiled milk hung like a sour mist over the cobblestone alleys. The day was just too oppressive to draw the business, out much longer. I’m sure Shaknahyi’d had many friends, but right now they all just wanted to get to the graveyard and get him planted.

Indihar led the procession from the mosque to the cemetery. She was dressed in a black dress with her face veiled and her hair covered with a black kerchief. She must have been stifling. Her three children walked beside her, their expressions bewildered and frightened. Chiri had told me that Indihar hadn’t had enough money to pay for a tomb in the cemetery in Haffe al-Khala where Shaknahyi’s parents were buried, and she wouldn’t accept a loan from us. Instead, Shaknahyi was laid to rest in what amounted to a pauper’s grave in the cemetery on the western edge of the Budayeen. I followed far behind her as Indihar crossed the Boulevard il-Jameel and passed through the eastern gate. People who lived in the quarter as well as foreign tourists came out and stood on the sidewalks as the funeral party made its way up the Street. I could see many people weeping and murmuring prayers. There was no way to tell if those people even knew who the deceased was. It probably didn’t make any difference to them.

All of Shaknahyi’s former comrades wanted to help carry the particleboard coffin through the streets, so instead of six pallbearers there was a pushing, shoving mob of uniformed men all straining to reach the flimsy box. The ones who couldn’t get near enough to touch it marched alongside and in a long parade to the rear, beating their chests with their fists and shouting testaments of their faith. There was a lot of chanting and fingering of Muslim rosaries. I found myself moving my lips along with the others, reciting ancient prayers that had been inscribed in my memory as a young child. After a while, I too was caught up in the odd mixture of despair and celebration. I found myself praising Allah for visiting so much injustice and horror on our helpless souls.

In the cemetery, I kept my distance again as the unadorned coffin was lowered into the ground. Several of Shaknahyi’s closest friends on the police force took turns shoveling in dirt. The mourners offered more prayers in unison, although the imam had declined to accompany the funeral to its conclusion. Indihar stood bravely by, clutching the hands of Hakim and Zahra, and eight-year-old Little Jirji held tightly to Hakim’s other hand. Some representative of the city went up to Indihar and murmured something, and she nodded gravely. Then all of the uniformed police officers filed past and offered her their individual condolences. That’s when I saw Indihar’s shoulders begin to slump; I could tell that she had begun to weep. Meanwhile, Little Jirji looked out over the crumbling tombs and overgrown grave markers, his expression perfectly blank.

When the funeral was over, everyone left but me. The police department had provided a small spread of food at the station house, because Indihar didn’t have the money for that, either. I saw how humiliating the whole situation was for her. Besides grieving for her husband, Indihar also suffered the pain of having her poverty revealed to all her friends and acquaintances. To many Muslims, an unworthy funeral is as much a calamity for the survivors as the death of the loved one itself.

I chose not to attend the reception at the station house. I stayed behind, staring down at Jirji’s unmarked grave, my mind confused and troubled. I said a few prayers alone and recited some passages from the Qur’an. “I promise you, Jirji,” I murmured, “Jawarski won’t get away with this.” I didn’t have any illusions that making Jawarski pay would let Shaknahyi rest any easier, or make Indihar’s grief any less, or ease the hardships for Little Jirji, Hakim, and Zahra. I just didn’t know what else to say. Finally I turned away from the grave. I blamed myself for my hesitancy, and prayed that it wouldn’t lead to anyone else getting hurt ever again.

The funeral was on my mind as I drove from Catavina’s secret coop back to the station house. I heard the rolling rumble of thunder, and it surprised me because we don’t get many thunderstorms in the city. I glanced through the windshield up at the sky, but there were no clouds at all in sight. I felt an odd chill, thinking that maybe the thunder had been a humbling sign from God, underscoring my memories of Shaknahyi’s burial. For the first time since his death, I felt a deep emotional loss.

I also began to think that my idea of vengeance would not be adequate. Finding Paul Jawarski and bringing him to justice would neither restore Shaknahyi nor free me from the intrigue in which Jawarski, Reda Abu Adil, Friedlander Bey, and Lieutenant Hajjar were somehow involved. In a sudden realization, I knew that it was time to stop thinking of the puzzle as one large problem with one simple solution. None of the individual players knew the entire story, I was certain of that. I’d have to pursue them separately and assemble what clues I could find, hoping that in the end it would all add up to something indictable. If Shaknahyi’s hunches were wrong and I was heading off on a fool’s errand, I would end up worse than disgraced. I would surely end up dead.

I parked the copcar in the garage and went up to my cubicle on the third floor of the station house. Hajjar rarely left his glass booth, so I didn’t think there’d be much chance that he’d catch me. Catch me! Hell, all I was doing was getting some work done.

It had been a couple of weeks since I’d done any serious work at my data deck. I sat down at my desk and put a new cobalt-alloy cell-memory plate in one of the computer’s adit ports. “Create file,” I said.

“File name,” prompted the data deck’s indifferent voice.

“Phoenix File,” I said. I didn’t have a lot of actual information to enter. First I read in the names from Shaknahyi’s notebook. Then I stared at the monitor screen. Maybe it was time to follow up on Shaknahyi’s research.

All of the satellite decks in the station house were connected to the central police database. The problem was that Lieutenant Hajjar had never entirely trusted me, and so I’d been given only the lowest security clearance. With my password, I could only obtain information that was also available to any civilian who came in the front door of the station house and inquired at the information desk. However, in the months I’d worked at the copshop, I’d casually nosed out all the codes from other paper-pushers with higher ratings. There was a great and active underground involved with circulating classified information among the nonuniformed staff. This was technically highly illegal, of course, but in actual fact it was the only way any of us could get our jobs done. “Search,” I said.

“Enter string to be searched,” muttered the Annam-ese deck in its peculiar American accent.

“Bouhatta.” Ishaq Abdul-Hadi Bouhatta was the first entry in Shaknahyi’s notebook, a murder victim whose killer had not yet been caught.

“Enter password,” said the computer. I had the list of security codes scribbled on a torn sheet of paper that I’d hidden in a tech manual. I’d memorized the top-level password long ago, however. It was a twenty-four-character mix of alphanumerics and Arabic Standard Code for Information Interchange symbols. I had to key those in manually.

“Accepted,” said the data deck. “Searching.” In about thirty seconds, Bouhatta’s complete file appeared on my monitor. I skipped through the personal biography and the details of his death — except to note that he’d been killed at close range by a charge from a static pistol, the same as Blanca. What I wanted to know was where his body had been taken. I found that information in the medical examiner’s report, which formed the last page of the file. There’d been no autopsy; instead, Bouhatta’s corpse had been delivered to Abu Emir Hospital in Al-Islam Square.

“Search again?” asked the deck. “No,” I said. “Import data.” “Database?”

“Abu Emir Hospital,” I said.

The computer thought about that for a moment. “Current security code is sufficient,” it decided. There was a long pause while it accessed the computer records of the hospital.

When I saw the hospital’s main menu on my screen, I ordered a search of Bouhatta’s records. It didn’t take long, and I found what I needed. Just as Shaknahyi’s notes suggested, Bouhatta’s heart and lungs had been removed almost immediately after his death and transplanted into the body of Elwau Chami. I supposed then that Shaknahyi’s other information was correct, concerning the victims of the other unsolved murders.

Now I wanted to take his research one important step further. “Search again?” the hospital’s database inquired. “Yes,” I said.

“Enter string to be searched.” “Chami.” A few seconds later, I saw a list of five names, from Chami, AH Masoud to Chami, Zayd. “Select entry,” said the deck.

“Chami, Elwau.” When the file came up on the screen, I read through it carefully. Chami was a faceless man, not as poor as some, not as rich as others. He was married and had seven children, five sons and two daughters. He lived in a middle-class neighborhood northeast of the Budayeen. The medical records said nothing about any run-ins with the law, of course, but there was one important fact buried in the redundant forms and reports: Elwau Chami operated a small shop in the Budayeen, on Eleventh Street north of the Street. It was a shop I knew well enough. Chami sold cheap Oriental rugs in the front, and he leased the rear of the establishment to an old Pakistani married couple who sold brass ornaments to tourists. The interesting fact was that I knew Friedlander Bey owned the building; Chami probably also worked as gatekeeper for the high-stakes gambling parlor upstairs.

Next I researched Blanca Mataro, the sexchange whose corpse I’d discovered with Jirji Shaknahyi. Her body had been taken to another hospital, and it had provided urgently needed kidneys and liver to a seriously ill young woman she’d never met. This in itself wasn’t unusual; many people signed up to donate organs in case of sudden or accidental death. I just found it rather coincidental that the recipient happened to be the niece of Umar Abdul-Qawy.

I spent an hour and a half tracking down files on all the other names in Shaknahyi’s notebook. Besides Chami, two of the murder victims — Blanca and Andreja Svobik — had ties to Papa. I was able to prove to my satisfaction that of the other four names, two had rather obvious connections to Reda Abu Adil. I was willing to bet a large sum of money that the rest did too, but I didn’t need to pursue the matter any further. None of this was ever going to have to stand up in court. Neither Abu Adil nor Fried-lander Bey would ever be dragged in front of a judge.

So what had I learned, after all? One: There had been at least four unsolved murders in the city in the last several weeks. Two: All four victims had been killed in the same way, with a shot at close range from a static pistol. Three: Healthy organs were taken from all four victims after death, because all four were listed in the city’s charity file of voluntary donors. Four: All four victims and all four recipients had direct ties to either Abu Adil or Papa.

I had proved Shaknahyi’s suspicion beyond the possibility of coincidence, but I knew that Hajjar would still deny that the murders were related. I could point out that the killers had used a static pistol so that none of the internal organs would be damaged, but Hajjar’d shrug that off too. I was pretty damn certain that Hajjar knew about all this already, which was why I’d been put to pasture investigating On Cheung, instead of looking into Shaknahyi’s death. There were a lot of powerful men allied against me. It was a good thing I had God on my side. “Search again?” asked my data deck. I hesitated. I did have one more name to check, but I really didn’t want to know the details. After he’d been shot, Shaknahyi had told me to find out where his parts went. I thought I already knew, although I didn’t have an exact name. I was sure that some of Jirji Shaknahyi still lived on in the body of some low-level employee of Abu Adil or Friedlander Bey, or one of their friends or relatives. I was completely disgusted, so I just said “Quit.” I looked at the monitor’s dark screen and thought about what I needed to do next.

I was just fighting down the urge to find somebody in the station house who might sell me a few sunnies when the phone on my belt rang. I undipped it and leaned back in my padded chair. “Hello,” I said.

“Marhaba,” said Morgan’s gruff voice. That was about all the Arabic that he knew. I leaned over and grabbed my English-language daddy from the rack, then reached up and chipped it in. “Where y’at, man?” he said. “All right, praise be to God. What’s up?” “Remember how I promised to let you know Wednesday where this Jawarski guy’s hidin’ out?”

“Yeah, I was wondering when you’d check in.” “Well, turns out I was maybe a little optimistic.” He sounded rueful.

“Had a feeling Jawarski’d cover his tracks pretty well.”

“Got a feelin’ he’s had help, man.” I sat up straight. “What do you mean?” There was a pause before Morgan spoke again. “There’s a lot of talk on the street about Shaknahyi’s shooting. Most people couldn’t care less that a cop got dusted, but I can’t find nobody with a personal grudge against Shaknahyi himself. And Jawarski’s crazy as a bedbug, so nobody I know would lift a finger to help him get clear.”

I closed my eyes and massaged my forehead. “Then why haven’t you or I located him yet?” I asked.

“I’m comin’ to that. What it comes down to is it looks like the cops are hidin’ the son of a bitch.”

“Where? Why?” Chiri vouched for Morgan’s dependability, but this story of his was a little too incredible.

“Ask your Lieutenant Hajjar. He and Jawarski had some drinks together in the Silver Palm a couple weeks ago.”

In the words of the great Christian humorist, Mark Twain, this was too various for me. “Why would Hajjar, a high-ranking police official, set up one of his own officers for a lunatic escaped killer?”

I could almost hear Morgan shrug. “You think maybe Hajjar’s involved with somethin’ crooked, man?”

I laughed sourly, and Morgan laughed too. “It’s not funny, though,” I said. “I guessed all along that Hajjar was mixed up with something, but I didn’t see him passing orders to Jawarski. Still, it answers some of my own questions.”

“What’s it all about, then?”

“It’s about something called the Phoenix File. I don’t know yet what the hell that means. Just keep trying to pin down Jawarski, okay? You learn anything useful about him yet?”

“Some,” said Morgan. “He was waitin’ around in a jail cell in Khartoum, supposed to be executed. Some guy smuggled a gun in to him. One afternoon Jawarski walks down a corridor and meets two unarmed guards. He shoots the guys, then walks into the jail office and starts firin’ all around like a maniac till somebody hands over the keys. Then he unlocks the big main doors and walks out calmly into the street. There’s a crowd of people out there ’cause of the gunshots, and he pushes his way through ’em and goes half a block to a waitin’ car. Jawarski drives away and there’s no sign of him again till he shows up here in the city.”

“When was that?” I asked.

“Been here a month, maybe six weeks. Pulled a coupie of robberies, killed another couple of people. Then the other day somebody recognized Jawarski in Meloul’s and called the cops. Hajjar sent Shaknahyi and you. You know the rest.”

“I wonder,” I said. “I wonder if somebody really recognized him in the cookshop. Shaknahyi thought that Hajjar had fingered us, putting Jawarski in Meloul’s and sending Jirji and me over there to get taken down.”

“Could be, man. We’ll have to ask Jawarski when we collar him.”

“Yeah, you right,” I said grimly. “Thanks, Morgan. You keep nosing around.”

“You got it, man. I want to earn the rest of that money. Take care of yourself.”

“You bet,” I said, clipping the phone to my belt again.

It helped that I knew more than my enemies did. I had the advantage of having my eyes open. I still couldn’t see where it all was leading me, but at least I understood the extent of the conspiracy I was trying to uncover. I wouldn’t be so foolish as to trust anyone entirely. Anyone at all.

When the shift was over, I drove the patrol car back to the “police officers’ lounge” and picked up Sergeant Catavina, who had gotten very drunk. I dropped him off at the station house, turned the car over to the night shift, and waited for Kmuzu to arrive. The workday was done, but I still had plenty of investigating to do before I could go to sleep.

Fuad il-manhous was not the brightest person I knew, One look at Fuad and you said to yourself, “This guy is a fool.” He looked like the character in a fairy tale who would get three wishes from a djinn and blow the first on a plate of beans, the second on a spoon, and the third on cleaning the dish and spoon when he was done eating.

He was tall, but so thin and starved-looking he might have been a refugee from the Benghazi death camps. I once saw my friend Jacques circle Fuad’s arm above the elbow with his thumb and forefinger. And Fuad’s joints were huge, swollen as if from some horrible bone disease or vitamin deficiency. He had long, dirty brown hair that he combed into a high pompadour, and he wore thick eyeglasses in heavy plastic frames. I don’t suppose Fuad had ever had enough cash to afford new eyes, not even the cheap Guatemalan ones with the counterfeit Nikon lenses. His expression was permanently bewildered and hurt, because Fuad was always a beat and a half behind the rest of the band.

Il-manhous means something like “the permanently hapless,” yet Fuad didn’t seem to mind the nickname. In fact, he seemed happy to be recognized at all. And he played the part of fool better than anyone I’d ever known. He had a certain genius for it, as a matter of fact.

I was sitting at a table in Chiriga’s with Kmuzu, near the back. We were talking about what my mother had been up to lately. Fuad il-manhous came and stood beside me, holding a cardboard box. “Indihar lets me come in here in the daytime, Marid,” he said in his raspy, twangy voice.

“I got no problem with that,” I said. He’d made me forget what I’d been about to say. I looked up at him, and he grinned down and shook the cardboard box. Something inside made a rattling sound. “What’s in the box?” I asked.

Fuad took that as an invitation to sit down. He dragged a chair over from another table, making the legs shriek on the flooring. “Indihar said as long as nobody complained, it was all right with her.”

“What’s all right?” I demanded impatiently. I hate having to pry information out of people. “The hell you got in there?”

Fuad ran a gnarled hand through his greasy hair and shot Kmuzu a mistrustful look. Then he hunched forward over the table, set the box down, and lifted the lid. There were maybe a dozen cheap gold-filled chains inside. Fuad reached in with a long forefinger and poked them around. “See?” he said.

“Uh huh,” I said. I looked up and caught Kmuzu’s eye. He was finishing a glass of iced tea — I felt bad about tricking him into drinking so much liquor that time, and since then I’d respected his feelings. He set his glass down carefully on the cocktail napkin. He was keeping his face free of any expression, but I could tell that he didn’t approve of Fuad at all. Kmuzu didn’t approve of anything he saw in Chiri’s.

“Where’d you get them, Fuad?” I said.

“Take a look.” He grinned. His teeth were bad too.

I fished one of the chains out of the box and tried to examine it closely, but the light was too dim in the club. I turned the price tag around. It said two hundred and fifty kiam. “Sure, Fuad,” I said dubiously. “The tourists and locals we get in here complain about paying eight kiam for a drink. I think you’re gonna have some sales resistance.”

“Well, I’m not selling them for that much.”

“How much are you selling them for?”

Il-Manhous closed his eyes, pretending to concentrate. Then he looked at me as if he were begging a favor. “Fifty kiam?”

I looked back into the box and pushed the chains around myself. Then I shook my head.

“Okay,” said Fuad, “ten kiam, but yaa late efll won’t make any profit that way.”

“Maybe you could sell them for ten,” I admitted. “The price tags are from some of the best shops in town.”

Fuad grabbed the box away from me. “So they’re worth more than ten, huh?”

I laughed. “See,” I said to Kmuzu, “the chains are cheap plated metal. Probably not worth fifty fiqs. Fuad here goes into some exclusive boutique and steals some tags with the shop’s classy name on them and a price in three figures. Then he ties the tags to his junk jewelry and hawks it to drunken tourists. He figures they might not notice what they’re buying, especially out of the bright sunlight.”

“That’s why I wanted to ask you if it’d be okay to come in during the night shift,” said Fuad. “It’s even darker in here at night. I’d probably do a whole lot better.”

“Nah,” I said. “If Indihar wants to let you hustle tourists during the day, that’s up to her. I’d rather not have you doing it at night when I might be here.”

“Beyond the Budayeen, yaa Sidi,” Kmuzu pronounced ominously, “they’d cut his hands off if they caught him doing that.”

Fuad looked horrified. “You wouldn’t let them do anything like that to me, would you, Marid?”

I shrugged. “ ‘As for the thief, both male and female, cut off their hands. It is the reward of their own deeds, an exemplary punishment from Allah. Allah is Mighty, Wise.’ That’s right from the blessed Qur’an. You could look it up.”

Fuad clutched the box to his sunken chest. “You wait till you need something from me, Marid!” he cried. Then he stumbled toward the door, knocking over a chair and bumping into Pualani on the way.

“He’ll get over it,” I said to Kmuzu. “He’ll be back in here tomorrow. Won’t even remember what you told him.”

“That’s too bad,” said Kmuzu gravely. “Someday he’ll try to sell one of those chains to the wrong person. He may regret it for the rest of his life.”

“Yeah, but that’s what makes him Fuad. Anyway, I need to talk to Indihar before the shift changes. You mind if I leave you alone for a couple of minutes?”

“Not at all, yaa Sidi.” He stared at me blankly for a moment. It always unsettled me when he did that.

“I’ll have somebody bring you another iced tea,” I said. Then I got up and went to the bar.

Indihar was rinsing glasses. I’d told her that she didn’t have to come into work until she felt better, but she said she’d rather work than sit home with her kids and feel bad. She needed to make money to pay the babysitter, and she still had a lot of expenses from the funeral. All the girls were tiptoeing around her, not knowing what to say to her or how to act. It made for a pretty glum ambience in the club.

“Need something, Marid?” she said. Her eyes were red and sunken. She looked away from me, back at the glasses in the sink.

“Another iced tea for Kmuzu, that’s all,” I said.

“All right.” She bent to the refrigerator under the bar and brought up a pitcher of iced tea. She poured a glassful and continued to pay no attention to me.

I looked down the bar. There were three new girls working the day shift. I could only remember one of their names. “Brandi,” I said, “take this to that tall guy in the back.”

“You mean that kaffir?” she said. She was short, with fat arms and plump thighs, with large breast implants and brushy hair whose blondness had been artificially encouraged. She had tattoos on both arms, above her right breast, on her left shoulder blade, peeking out of her G-string, on both ankles, and on her ass. I think she was embarrassed by them, because she always wore a fringy black shawl when she sat with customers at the bar, and when she danced she wore bright red platform shoes and high white socks. “Want me to collect from him?”

I shook my head. “He’s my driver. He drinks for free.”

Brandi nodded and carried the iced tea away. I stayed at the bar, idly spinning one of the round cork coasters. “Indihar,” I said at last.

She gave me a weary look. “I said I didn’t want to hear you say you were sorry.”

I raised a hand. “I’m not gonna say that. I just think you should accept some help now. For your kids’ sake, if not your own. I would’ve been happy to pay for a tomb in your in-laws’ cemetery. Chiri’d be glad to lend you all the money—”

Indihar let out an exasperated breath and wiped her hands on a bar towel. “That’s something else I don’t want to hear. Jirji and I never borrowed money. I’m not gonna start now.”

“Sure, okay, but the situation is different. How much pension are you getting from the police department?”

She threw the towel down disgustedly. “A third of Jirji’s salary. That’s all. And they’re giving me some kind of song and dance about a delay. They don’t think I can start collecting the pension for at least six months. We were barely keeping our noses above water before. I don’t know how I’ll make it now. I guess I’ll have to look for someplace cheaper to live.”

My first thought was that any place cheaper than the apartment in Haffe al-Khala wouldn’t be fit to raise children in. “Maybe,” I said. “Look, Indihar, I think you’ve earned a paid vacation. Why don’t you just let me pay you for two or three weeks in advance, and you can stay home with Zahra and Hakim and Little Jirji. Or you could use the time to make some extra money, maybe—”

Brandi came back to the bar and plopped down beside me with a contemptuous look on her face. “Motherfucker didn’t give me a tip,” she said.

I looked at her. She probably wasn’t any smarter than Fuad. “I told you, Kmuzu drinks for free. I don’t want you hustling him.”

“Who is he, your special friend?” Brandi asked with a crooked smile.

I looked at Indihar. “How badly you want this bitch to keep working here?” I said.

Brandi hopped off the stool and headed toward the dressing room. “All right, all right,” she said, “forget I said anything.”

“Marid,” said Indihar in a low, carefully controlled voice, “leave me alone. No loans, no deals, no presents. Okay? Just have enough respect for me to let me work everything out my own way.”

I couldn’t argue with her anymore. “Whatever you want,” I said. I turned away and went back to Kmuzu’s table. I truly wished Indihar had let me help her somehow. I’d gained a tremendous amount of admiration for her. She was a fine, intelligent woman, and kind of on the beautiful side too.

I had a couple of drinks and killed some time, and then it was eight o’clock. Chiri and the night crew came in, and I watched Indihar count out the register, pay the day shift girls, and leave without saying another word to anyone. I went to the bar to say hello to Chiri. “I think Indihar’s trying too hard to be brave,” I told her.

She sat on her stool behind the bar and surveyed the seven or eight customers. “Yesterday she was telling me about her twelfth birthday,” Chiri said in a distant voice. “She said she’d known Jirji all her life. They both grew up in the same little village. She always liked Jirji, and when her parents told her that they’d arranged with the Shaknahyis for the two kids to be married, Indihar was happy.”

Chiri leaned down and brought out her private bottle fof tende. She poured herself half a glassful and tasted it.

“Indihar had a traditional childhood,” she said. “Her folks were very old-fashioned and superstitious. She grew up in Egypt, where there’s this old wives’ tale that girls who drink the water of the Nile grow up too passionate. They exhaust their poor husbands. So it’s the custom for the girls to be circumcised before their weddings.” “Lots of country Muslims still do that,” I said.

Chiri nodded. “The village midwife cut Indihar and put onions and salt on the wound. Indihar stayed in bed for seven days afterward, and her mother fed her lots of chicken and pomegranates. When she finally got up again, her mother gave her a new dress she’d just finished making. Indihar’s clitoris was sewn up in the lining. Together the two of them took the dress and threw it into the river.”

I shuddered. “Why you telling me all this?”

Chiri swallowed some more tende. “So you’ll understand how much Jirji meant to Indihar. She told me the circumcision was very painful, but she was glad to have it done. It meant she was finally a grown woman, and she could marry Jirji with the blessings of her family and friends.”

“I suppose it’s none of my business,” I said.

“I’ll tell you what’s none of your business: badgering her about her financial situation. Leave her alone, Marid. Your intentions are good, and it was right to offer help after Jirji was killed. But Indihar’s said she doesn’t want our money, and you’re making her feel worse by bringing it up all the time.”

I let my shoulders sag. “I guess I didn’t realize it,” I said. “All right, thanks for letting me know.”

“She’ll be fine. And if she runs into trouble, she’ll let us know. Now, I want you to put in a good word with Kmuzu. I like the way that honey looks.”

I raised my eyebrows at her. “You just trying to make me jealous? Kmuzu? He’s not a party kind of guy, you know. You’d eat him alive.”

“I’d sure like to give it a shot,” she said with her best file-toothed grin.

Time for another shot in the dark. “Chiri,” I said, “What do the letters A.L.M. mean to you?”

She thought about that for a little while. “The Association of Lesbian Mothers,” she said. “This girl Hanina, used to dance by Frenchy’s. She used to get their newsletter. Why?”

I chewed my lip. “That can’t be right. If you think of something else A.L.M. might mean, let me know.”

“Okay, honey. What is it, some kind of puzzle?”

“Yeah, a puzzle.”

“Well, I’ll think about it.” She drank a little tende and stared over my head at the mirrored wall behind me. “So what’s this I hear about you flushing all your recreational drugs? Never thought I’d see the day. We gonna have to find a new chemical champion?”

“I guess so. I emptied my pillcase right after Jirji died.”

Chin’s expression became serious. “Uh yeah.”

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds. “I’ll tell you, though,” I said at last, “I’ve had these strong cravings. It’s been pretty hard on me, but I’m keeping away from the drugs.”

“Cutting back is one thing, but quitting altogether seems kind of extreme. I suppose it’s for the best, but I’ve always believed in moderation in all things, and that goes for abstinence too.”

I smiled. “I appreciate your concern,” I said, “but I know what I’m doing.”

Chiri shook her head sadly. “I hope so. I hope you’re not just kidding yourself. You don’t have much experience handling yourself sober. You could get hurt.”

“I’ll be fine, Chiri.”

“Maybe you should pass by Laila’s shop in the morning. She’s got these moddies that make you feel like you’ve taken a handful of pills. She’s got the whole line: sunnies, beauties, tri-phets, RPM, whatever you want. You chip the moddy in and if you need to use your brain for something later, you pop it out and you’re straight again.”

“I don’t know. Sounds dumb to me.”

Chiri spread her hands. “It’s up to you.”

“Make me a gin and bingara?” I didn’t want to talk about drugs anymore. I was beginning to feel the craving again.

I watched Yasmin dance on stage while Chiri built my drink. Yasmin was still the prettiest collection of XY chromosomes I’ve ever known. Since we’d gotten friendly again, she told me she was sorry she’d cut her long black hair. She was letting it grow back. As she moved sensuously to the music, she kept glancing down at me. Every time she caught my eye, she smiled. I smiled back.

“Here you go, boss,” said Chiri, setting the drink on a coaster in front of me.

“Thanks,” I said. I picked it up, threw a sizzling look toward Yasmin, and went back to sit with Kmuzu. “Say,” I said, “you’ve got a secret admirer. You know that?”

Kmuzu looked perplexed. “What do you mean, tiarri ?” Stair grinned at him. “I think Chiriga would like to elevate your pulse rate.”

“That is not possible,” he said. He looked very disturbed.

“Don’t you like her? She’s really a very nice person. Don’t be scared off by that headhunter routine of hers.”

“It’s not that, yaa Sidi. I do not plan to marry until I am no longer a slave.”

I laughed. “That fits in fine with Chiri’s plans. I don’t think she wants to get married, either.”

“I told you when we first met that I am a Christian.”

Chiri came over to the table and joined us before I could say anything more. “Kmuzu, how you doin?” she said.

“I am well, Miss Chiriga,” he said. His tone was almost icy.

“Well, I was wondering if you’d ever made it with anybody who was wearing Honey Pilar’s latest. Slow, Slow Burn. It’s my favorite of all of hers. Leaves me so weak I can barely get up out of bed.”

“Miss Chiriga—”

“You can call me Chiri, honey.”

“—I wish you’d stop making sexual advances to me.”

Chiri looked at me and raised her eyebrows. “Am I making sexual advances? I was just asking if he’d ever made it—”

“Did I hear that Honey Pilar’s getting divorced again?” said Rani, one of the night-shift debs who’d wandered over to our table. Evidently none of the customers were tipping or buying anybody cocktails. I knew it was a slow night when Kmuzu and I were the most interesting thing happening in the club.

Chiri looked aggravated. “Somebody get up on the goddamn stage and dance!” she shouted. Then she stood up and went back behind the bar. Lily, the pretty Belgian sexchange, took off her blouse and went to play her music.

“I think I’ve had about enough of all this excitement,” I said, yawning. “Kmuzu, come on. Let’s go home.”

Yasmin came up and put her hand on my arm. “Will you come in tomorrow?” she asked. “I need to talk to you about something personal.”

“You want to talk right now?”

She looked away, embarrassed. “No,” she said. “Some other time. But I wanted to give you this.” She held out her pocket I Ching calculator. She swore by the I Ching, and she still believed that it had accurately foretold all the terrible events of several months ago. “Maybe you need it again.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Why don’t you keep it?”

She put it in my hand and closed my fingers over it. Then she kissed me. It was a gentle, unhurried kiss on the lips. I was surprised to find that it left me trembling.

I said goodnight to Chiri and the debs and changes, and Kmuzu followed me out into the warm, raucous night on the Street. We walked back down to the gate and found the car. All the way home, Kmuzu explained to me that he found Chiri too brazen and shameless.

“But you think she’s sexy?” I asked him.

“That’s beside the point, yaa Sidi,” he said. From then on, he just concentrated on his driving.

After we got back to Friedlander Bey’s estate, I went to my suite and tried to relax. I took a notebook and stretched out on my bed, trying to order my thoughts. I looked at Yasmin’s electronic I Ching and laughed softly. For no particular reason, I pressed the white button marked H. The little device played its tinkling tune, and a synthesized woman’s voice spoke up. “Hexagram Six. Sung. Conflict. Changes in the first, second, and sixth lines.”

I listened to the judgment and the commentary, and then I pressed L for the lines. What it all amounted to was a warning that I was in a difficult period, and that if I tried to force my way toward my goal, I’d encounter a lot of conflict. I didn’t need a pocket computer to tell me that.

The image was “Heaven above the waters,” and I was advised to stay close to home. The problem was that it was just a little too late for that. “If you determine to confront the difficulties,” the mechanical woman cautioned, “you’ll make minor progress that will soon be reversed, leaving you in a worse situation than before. Sidestep this trouble by tending your garden and ignoring your powerful adversaries.”

Well, hell, I would have loved to do just that. I could have forgotten all about Abu Adil and all about Jawarski, just written Shaknahyi off as a painful tragedy, and let Papa deal with Umm Saad by ordering the Stones That Speak to twist her devious head off. I could have left my mother a fat envelope of cash, kissed Chiriga’s club goodbye, and caught the next bus out of the city.

Unfortunately, none of that was possible. I stared at the toy I Ching ruefully, then remembered that the changing lines gave me a second hexagram that might indicate where events were leading. I pressed CH.

“Hexagram Seventeen. Sui. Following. Thunder in the lake.” Whatever that meant. I was told that I was coming into very positive circumstances. All I had to do was attune my actions into harmony with the personalities of the people I had to deal with. I just had to adapt my own desires to the needs of the times.

“Okay,” I said, “that’s just what I’ll do. I just need someone to tell me what ‘the needs of the times’ are.”

“Such fortune telling is blasphemous,” said Kmuzu. “Every orthodox religion in the world forbids it.” I hadn’t heard him come into my room.

“The idea of synchronicity makes a certain logical sense,” I said. Actually, I felt pretty much about the I Ching as he did, but I felt it was my job to bait him as much as possible. Maybe something would get him to loosen up a little.

“You are dealing with dangerous people, yaa Sidi,” he said. “Surely your actions must be governed by reason, not by this child’s plaything.”

I tossed Yasmin’s gimmick to him. “You’re right, Kmuzu. Something like that could be dangerous, in the hands of a gullible fool.”

“I’ll return it to Miss Yasmin tomorrow.”

“Fine,” I said,

“Will you need anything more tonight?”

“No, Kmuzu, I’m just gonna make some notes to myself, and then I’ll get some sleep.”

“Then goodnight, yaa Sidi.”

“Goodnight, Kmuzu.” He closed the door to my bedroom behind him.

I got up and undressed, then pulled back the covers on my bed and laid down again. I began listing names in my notebook: Friedlander Bey, Reda Abu Adil and Umar Abdul-Qawy, Paul Jawarski, Umm Saad, Lieutenant Haj-jar. The bad guys. Then I made a list of the good guys: me.

I remembered a proverb I’d heard as a child in Algiers. “Fleeing when it is not necessary is better than not fleeing when it is necessary.” A quick trip to Shanghai or Venice seemed like the only reasonable response to this situation.

I suppose I fell asleep thinking about stuffing a bag full of clothes and money and running off into the honeysuckle-scented night. I was having a bizarre dream about Chiriga’s. Lieutenant Hajjar seemed to be running the place, and I went in looking for somebody who might have been Yasmin or possibly Fayza, one of my adolescent ’oves. There was some kind of argument with my mother about whether or not I’d brought in a case of bottled sherbet, and then I was in school without any clothes on, and I hadn’t studied for some important exam.

Someone was shaking me and shouting. “Wake up, yaa Sidi!”

“What is it, Kmuzu?” I said blearily. “What’s the matter?”

“The house is on fire!” he said. He pulled on my arm until I got out of bed.

“I don’t see any fire.” I could smell the smoke, though.

“This whole floor is burning. We don’t have much time. We’ve got to get out.”

I was completely awake now. I could see a heavy layer of smoke hanging in the bright moonlight that slanted in through the lattice-covered windows. “I’m all right, Kmuzu,” I said. “I’ll wake Friedlander Bey. Do you think the whole house is on fire, or just this wing?” “I’m not sure, yaa Sidi.”

“Then run over to the east wing and wake my mother. Make sure she gets out all right.” “And Umm Saad as well.”

“Yeah, you right.” He hurried out of my room. Before I went out into the hall, I stopped td find the telephone on my desk. I punched the city’s emergency number, but the line was busy. I muttered a curse and tried again. Still the line was busy. I kept calling and calling; it seemed like hours went by before a woman’s voice answered. “Fire,” I cried. I was frantic by that time. “The Friedlander Bey estate near the Christian Quarter.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the woman. “The fire brigade is on its way.”

The air had gotten very bad, and the acrid smoke burned my nose and throat as I bent lower trying to breathe. I paused at the entrance to the suite, and then ran back to find my jeans. I know you’re supposed to get out of a burning building as quickly as possible, but I still hadn’t seen any actual flames and I didn’t feel as if I were in any immediate danger. It turned out that I was wrong; while I stopped to pull on my jeans, I was already being burned by the hot ash in the air. I didn’t feel it at the time, but I was getting second-degree burns on my head, neck, and shoulders, which were bare. My hair was badly singed, but my beard protected my face. I’ve since promised myself that I’m never going to shave it off again.

I first saw flames in the corridor. The heat was intense. I ran with my arms around my head, trying to shield my face and eyes. The soles of my feet were badly scorched within ten feet of my apartment. I pounded on Papa’s door, sure that I was going to die right there, bravely but foolishly attempting to rescue an old man who was likely already dead. A stray thought lodged in my consciousness, the memory of Friedlander Bey asking me if I had the courage to fill my lungs again with fire.

There was no response. I knocked louder. The fire was blistering the skin on my back and arms, and I’d begun to choke. I took a step back, raised my right leg, and kicked the door as hard as I could. Nothing happened. It was locked, and the bolt had probably expanded in the heat. I kicked again, and this time the wooden frame around the lock splintered. One more kick and the door sprang back, slamming in against the wall of Papa’s parlor. “O Shaykh!” I shouted. The smoke billowed even more densely here. There was the sharp smell of burning plastic in the air, and I knew that I had to get Papa out quickly, before he and I were overcome by poisonous fumes. That made me even less hopeful of finding Friedlander Bey alive. His bedroom was back and to the left, and that door was closed and locked too. I kicked it in, paying no attention to the stabbing pain that shot through my ankle and shin. I’d have time to nurse my injuries later — if I lived.

Papa was awake, lying on his back in bed, his hands clutching the sheet that covered him. I ran to him, and his eyes followed my every movement. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He raised one hand feebly. I didn’t have time for whatever he was trying to communicate. I just threw back the covers and scooped him up as if he’d been a child. He was not a tall man, but he’d put on a moderate amount of weight since the days of his athletic prime. It didn’t matter; I carried him out of the bedroom with a maniac strength that I knew wouldn’t last very long. “Fire!” I shouted as I crossed the parlor jain. “Fire! Fire!” The Stones That Speak had their rooms adjoining Papa’s. I didn’t dare set him down to rouse the Stones. I had to keep fighting my way through the flames toward safety.

Just as I reached the far end of the corridor, the two huge men came up behind me. Neither said a word. They were both as naked as the day they’d been born, but that didn’t seem to bother them. One of them took Fried-lander Bey from me. The other picked me up and carried me the rest of the way, down the stairs and out into the clean, fresh air.

The Stone must have realized how badly I was hurt, how exhausted I was, and how close to collapse I’d come. I was terrifically grateful to him, but I didn’t have the strength to thank him. I promised myself that I’d do something for the Stones as soon as I was able — maybe buy them a few infidels to torture. I mean, what do you get the Gog and Magog who have everything?

The firemen were already setting up their equipment when Kmuzu came to see how I was. “Your mother is safe,” he said. “There was no fire in the east wing.”

“Thank you, Kmuzu,” I said. The inside of my nose was raw and painful, and my throat hurt.

One of the firemen rinsed me with sterile water, then wrapped me in a sheet and rinsed me again. “Here,” he said, handing me a glass of water. “This’ll make your mouth and throat feel better. You’re gonna have to go to the hospital.”

“Why?” I asked. I hadn’t yet realized how badly I was burned.

“I will go with you, yaa Sidi,” said Kmuzu.

“Papa?” I said.

“He also needs immediate medical attention,” said Kmuzu.

“We’ll go together then,” I said.

The firemen led me to an ambulance. Friedlander Bey had already been put on a stretcher and lifted inside. Kmuzu helped me up into the vehicle. He beckoned toward me, and I leaned down toward him. “While you’re recuperating in the hospital,” he said softly, “I will see if I can learn who set this fire.”

I looked at him for a moment, trying to collect my thoughts. I blinked and realized that all my eyelashes had been burned off. “You think it’s arson?” I said.

The ambulance driver closed one of the rear doors. “I have proof,” said Kmuzu. Then the driver closed the second door. A moment later, Papa and I were speeding through the constricted streets, siren screaming. Papa didn’t move on his stretcher. He looked pitifully frail. I didn’t feel so well myself. I suppose it was my punishment for laughing at Hexagram Six.