“The passive voice should be avoided,” I said. He didn’t get it.
He went all the way down to Abu Adil’s office, and came all the way back with the same contemptuous look his face. “I’m to bring you to my master,” he said. It sounded like it broke his heart to accommodate me.
He led me into one of Abu Adil’s offices, not the same one I’d seen on my first visit with Shaknahyi. A sweet smell, maybe incense, filled the air. There were framed prints of European art masterpieces on the walls, and a recording of Umm Khalthoum playing softly.
The great man himself was sitting in a comfortable armchair, with a beautifully embroidered blanket over his knees. His head lolled back against the back of the chair, his eyes were closed. His hands were laid flat on his knees, and they trembled.
Umar Abdul-Qawy was there, of course, and he didn’t look happy to see me. He nodded to me and put one finger his lips. I guessed this was a signal not to mention any of the things he’d discussed with me concerning his plans to unseat Abu Adil and rule the old shaykh’s empire in his place. That wasn’t why I was here. I had more important things to worry about than Umar’s half-assed power struggle.
“I have the honor to wish Shaykh Reda good afternoon,” I said.
“May Allah make the afternoon prosperous to you,” said Umar.
We’ll see, I thought. “I beg to present the noble shaykh with this small gift.”
Umar made a small gesture, the little flick of the hand a lordly king uses to command a peasant to approach. I wanted to stuff the moddy down his fat throat. “What is it?” he asked.
I said nothing. I just gave it to him. Umar turned it over in his hand a few times. Then he looked up at me. “You are more clever than I gave you credit,” he said. “My master will be greatly pleased.”
“I hope he doesn’t already have this module.” “No, no.” He placed it on Abu Adil’s lap, but the old man made no move to examine it. Umar studied me thoughtfully. “I would offer you something in return, although I’m certain you would be courteous enough to refuse.”
“Try me,” I said. “I’d like a little information.” Umar frowned. “Your manners—”
“They’re terrible, I know, but what can I say? I’m just an ignorant beaneater from the Maghreb. Now, I seem to have uncovered all kinds of incriminating information about you and Shaykh Reda — about Friedlander Bey too, to be honest. I’m talking about this goddamn Phoenix File of yours.” I waited to see Umar’s reaction.
It wasn’t long in coming. “I’m afraid, Monsieur Audran, that I don’t know what you’re talking about. I suggest that your master may be engaged in highly illegal activities, and has attempted to shift the blame—”
“Be silent.” Umar and I both turned to stare at Reda Abu Adil, who had popped the Proxy Hell moddy he’d been wearing. Umar was badly shaken. This was the first time Abu Adil had seen fit to participate in a conversation. It seemed he wasn’t just a senile, helpless figurehead. Without the cancer moddy chipped in, his face lost its slackness, and his eyes gained an intelligent fierceness. Abu Adil threw off the blanket and stood up from the chair. “Hasn’t Friedlander Bey explained to you about the Phoenix File?” he demanded.
“No, O Shaykh,” I said. “It’s something I learned of only today. He has kept the thing hidden from me.”
“But you delved into matters that don’t concern you.” I was frightened by Abu Adil’s intensity. Umar had never shown such passion or such strength of will. It was as if I were seeing Shaykh Reda’s baraka, a different kind of personal magic than Papa’s. The moddy of Abu Adil that Umar wore did not hint at the depth of the man. I supposed that no electronic device could hope to capture the nature of baraka. This answered Umar’s claim that with the moddy he was the equal of Abu Adil. That was just self-delusion.
“I think they concern me,” I said. “Isn’t my name in that file?”
“Yes, I’m sure it is,” said Abu Adil. “But you are placed highly enough that you stand only to benefit.”
“I’m thinking of my friends, who aren’t so lucky.”
Umar laughed humorlessly. “You show your weakness again,” he said. “Now you bleed for the dirt beneath your feet.”
“Every sun has its setting,” I told him. “Maybe someday you’ll find yourself slipping down in the Phoenix File ratings. Then you’ll wish you’d never heard of it.”
“O Master,” said Umar angrily, “have you not heard enough of this?”
Abu Adil raised a weary hand. “Yes, Umar. I have no great love for Friedlander Bey, and even less for his creatures. Take him into the studio.”
Umar came toward me, a needle gun in his hand, and I backed away. I didn’t know what he had in mind, but it wasn’t going to be pleasant. “This way,” he said. Under the circumstances, I did what he wanted.
We left the office and walked down a connecting hallway, then climbed a stairway to the second floor. There was always an air of peace in this house. The light was filtered through wooden lattices over high windows, and sounds were muffled by thick rugs on the floors. I knew this serenity was an illusion. I knew I’d soon see Abu Adil’s true nature.
“In here,” he said, opening a thick metal door. He had a strange, expectant expression on his face. I didn’t like it at all. I went past him into a large soundproofed room. There was a bed, a chair, and a cart with some electronic equipment on it. The far wall was a single sheet of glass, and beyond it was a small control booth with banks of dials and readouts and switches. I knew what it was. Reda Abu Adil had a personality module recording studio in his home. It was like the hobbyist’s ultimate dream.
“Give me the gun,” said Abu Adil.
Umar passed the needle gun to his master, then left the soundproofed room. “I suppose you want to add me to your collection,” I said. “I don’t see why. My second-degree burns won’t be all that entertaining.” Abu Adil just stared at me with that fixed grin on his face. He made my skin crawl.
A little while later, Umar returned! He had a long. thin metal rod, a pair of handcuffs, and a rope with a hook at one end. “Oh jeez,” I said. I was starting to feel sick to my stomach. I was truly afraid that they wanted to record more than just that.
“Stand up straight,” said Umar, walking around and around me. He reached out and removed the moddy and daddies I was wearing. “And whatever you do, don’t duck your head. That’s for your own good.”
“Thanks for your concern,” I said. “I appreciate—” Umar raised the metal rod and brought it down across my right collarbone. I felt a knife-edge of pain shoot through me, and I cried out. He hit me on the other side, across the other collarbone. I heard the abrupt snapping of bone: and I fell to my knees.
“This may hurt a little,” said Abu Adil in the voice of a kindly old doctor.
Umar began beating me on the back with the rod, once, twice, three times. I screamed. He struck me a few more times. “Try to stand up,” he urged.
“You’re crazy,” I gasped.
“If you don’t stand up, I’ll use this on your face.”
I struggled to my feet again. My left arm hung uselessly. My back was a bleeding ruin. I realized I was breathing in shallow sobs.
Umar paused and walked around me again, evaluating me. “His legs,” said Abu Adil.
“Yes, O Shaykh.” The son of a bitch whipped the rod across my thighs, and I fell to the floor again. “Up,” grunted Umar. “Up.”
He hit me where I lay, on my thighs and calves until they were dripping with blood too. “I’ll get you,” I said in a voice hoarse with agony. “I swear by the blessed Prophet, I’ll get you.”
The beatings went on for a long time, until Umar had slowly and carefully worked over every part of me — except my head. Abu Adil had instructed him to spare my head, because he didn’t want anything to interfere with the quality of the recording. When the old man decided that I’d had enough, he told Umar to stop. “Connect him,” he said.