“Yes,” I said, “he’d been getting ill at home, before the fire. He was too sick to escape by himself.”
“We ran more sensitive tests,” said the doctor, “and finally something turned up positive. He’s been given a rather sophisticated neurotoxin, apparently over a period of weeks.”
I felt cold. Someone had been poisoning Friedlander Bey, probably someone in the house. He certainly had enough enemies, and my recent experience with the Half-Hajj proved that I couldn’t dismiss anyone as a suspect. Then, suddenly, my eyes fell on something resting on Papa’s tray table. It was a round metal tin, its cover lying beside it. In the tin was a layer of dates stuffed with nutmeats and rolled in sugar.
“Umm Saad,” I murmured. She’d been feeding those dates to him since she’d come to live in his house. I went to the tray table. “If you analyze these,” I told the doctor, “I’ll bet you’ll find the source.”
“But who—”
“Don’t worry about who,” I said. “Just make him well.” This was all because I’d been so caught up in my own vendetta against Jawarski that I hadn’t given proper attention to Umm Saad. As I headed for the door I thought, didn’t Augustus Caesar’s wife poison him with figs from his own tree, to get rid of him so her son could be emperor? I excused myself for overlooking the similarity before; there’s so goddamn much history, it just can’t help repeating itself.
I went down and bailed my car out of the parking lot, then drove to the station house. I had myself completely under control by the time the elevator brought me up to the third floor. I headed toward Hajjar’s office; Sergeant Catavina tried to stop me, but I just shoved him up against a painted plasterboard wall and kept walking. I flung open Hajjar’s door. “Hajjar,” I said. All the anger and disgust I felt toward him were in those two syllables.
He glanced up from some paperwork. His expression turned fearful when he saw the look on my face. “Audran,” he said. “What is it?”
I lofted the .45 onto his desk in front of him. “Remember that American we were looking for? The guy who killed Jirji? Well, they found him lying on the floor of some rattrap. Somebody shot him with his own gun.”
Hajjar stared unhappily at the automatic. “Somebody shot him, huh? Any idea who?”
“Unfortunately, no.” I gave him an evil grin. “I don’t have a microscope or nothing, but it looks to me like whoever did it also wiped his fingerprints right off the weapon. We may never solve this murder, either.”
Hajjar sat back in his reclining chair. “Probably not. Well, at least the citizens will be glad to hear that Jawarski’s been neutralized. Good police work, Audran.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.” I turned to leave, and I got as far as the door. Then I faced him again. “That’s one down, know what I mean? And two to go.”
“The hell you talking about?”
“I mean Umm Saad and Abu Adil are next. And something else: I know who you are and I know what you’re doing. Watch your ass. The guy who blew Jawarski away is out there, and he may have you in his sights next.” I had the pleasure of seeing Hajjar’s superior grin vanish. When I left his office, he was muttering to himself and reaching for his phone.
Catavina was waiting in the corridor by the elevator. “What’d you say?” he asked worriedly. “What’d you tell him?”
“Don’t worry, Sarge,” I said, “your afternoon nap is safe, at least for a while. But I wouldn’t be surprised if suddenly there’s a call to reform the police department. You might have to start acting like a real cop for a change.” I pushed the button for the elevator. “And lose some weight while you’re at it.”
My mood was a little better as I rode back down to the ground floor. When I walked back into the early evening sunlight, I felt almost normal.
Almost. I was still a prisoner of my own guilt. I’d planned to go home and find out more details about Kmuzu’s relationship to Abu Adil, but I found myself heading in the other direction. When I heard the evening call to prayer, I left the car on Souk el-Khemis Street. There was a small mosque there, and I paused in the courtyard to remove my shoes and make the ablution. Then I went into the mosque and prayed. It was the first time I’d done that seriously in years.
Joining in worship with the others who came to this neighborhood mosque didn’t cleanse me of my doubts and bad feelings. I hadn’t expected that they would. I did feel a warmth, however, a sense of belonging that had been missing from my life since childhood. For the first time since coming to the city, I could approach Allah in all humility, and with sincere repentance my prayers might be accepted.
After the prayer service, I spoke with an elder of the mosque. We talked for some time, and he told me that I had been right to come and pray. I was grateful that he didn’t lecture me, that he made me comfortable and welcome.
“There is one more thing, O Respected One,” I said.
“Yes?”
“Today I killed a man.”
He did not seem terribly shocked. He stroked his long beard for several seconds. “Tell me why you did this,” he said at last.
I told him everything I knew about Jawarski, about his record of violent crimes before he’d come to the city, about his shooting of Shaknahyi. “He was a bad man,” I said, “but, even so, I feel like a criminal myself.”
The elder put one hand on my shoulder. “In the Surah of The Cow,” he said, “it is written that retaliation is prescribed in the matter of murder. What you did is no crime in the eyes of Allah, all praise to Him.”
I looked deeply into the old man’s eyes. He wasn’t merely trying to make me feel better. He wasn’t just putting my conscience at ease. He was reciting the law as the Messenger of God had revealed it. I knew the passage of the Qur’an he’d mentioned, but I needed to hear it from someone whose authority I respected. I felt wholly absolved. I almost wept with gratitude.
I left the mosque in a strange mixture of moods: I was filled with unrequited rage toward Abu Adil and Umm Saad, but at the same time I felt a well-being and gladness I could not describe. I decided to make another stop before I went home.
Chiri was taking over the night shift when I came into the club. I sat on my usual stool at the bend of the bar. l “White Death?” she asked.
“No,” I said, “I can’t stay long. Chiri, you got any Sonneine?”
She stared at me for a few seconds. “I don’t think so. How’d you hurt your arm?”
“Any Paxium then? Or beauties?”
She rested her chin in her hand. “Honey, I thought you’d sworn off drugs. I thought you were being clean from now on.”
“Aw hell, Chiri,” I said, “don’t give me a hard time.”
She just reached under the counter and came up with her little black pillcase. “Take what you want, Marid,” she said. “I guess you know what you’re doing.”
“I sure do,” I said, and I helped myself to half a dozen caps and tabs. I got some water and swallowed them, and I didn’t even pay much attention to what they were.
I didn’t do anything strenuous for a week or so, but my mind raced like a frantic greyhound. I plotted revenge against Abu Adil and Umar a hundred different ways: I scalded their flesh in boiling vats of noxious fluids; I let loose hideous plague organisms that would make their Proxy Hell moddies seem like summer colds; I hired teams of sadistic ninjas to creep into the great house and slaughter them slowly with subtle knife wounds. In the meantime, my body began to recover its strength, although all the superluminal brain augmentation in the world couldn’t speed up the knitting of broken bones.
The delay was almost more than I could stand, but I had a wonderful nurse. Yasmin had taken pity on me. Saied had been responsible for distributing the story of my heroics. Now everyone in the Budayeen knew how I’d faced down Jawarski single-handed. They’d also heard that he’d been so shamed by my moral example that he embraced Islam on the spot, and that while we prayed together Abu Adil and Umar tried to tiptoe in and kill me, but Jawarski leaped between us and died saving the life of his new Muslim brother.