“Like appetizers?” Yasmin said. “Sometimes I go into Martyrs of Democracy and have like six different appetizers for supper.”
“Then you should like this,” Indihar said. “There are another few packages still outside. Kmuzu, would you bring them in for me, please?”
“Yes, immediately, yaa Sitti.”
Indihar gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Enjoy yourself, Marîd, but don’t have too much fun. You have a busy day tomorrow.”
“I know, I remember.” I wasn’t happy about her talking to me that way. We were married, but we weren’t that married.
“I’m going to go now. Have a good time. It was nice seeing all of you again.”
“Indihar,” Rocky said, “you’re not going to stay?”
She shook her head. “I’ve got to get home to the kids.’
“The kids should be asleep already,” I said. “Anyway, I’m paying Senalda to give you a hand with them. Let her watch the kids tonight. Stay a little while.”
“I’ll go with you to the hospital tomorrow, Marîd. Good night, everybody.”
After she and Kmuzu left the club, Yasmin turned and said, “Well, that just means more fried chicken for the rest of us.”
“Son of a bitch, Yasmin,” Rocky said, “that’s cold.” Yasmin just laughed and flung her long black hair over her shoulder.
I’m sure it wasn’t a coincidence that the first guests to show up — right after the food arrived — were Jacques, Mahmoud, and Saied the Half-Hajj. These guys had been my best friends in the Budayeen, although in recent times events had reduced them from three to a total of no more than one-half of a best friend among them.
Jacques was three-quarters European and he made sure everyone knew it. He was a snob, and I didn’t like to be around him very much, but I’d put him to work in one of Friedlander Bey’s commercial ventures. Thanks to me, Jacques was making some good money and getting a little influence of his own, so now he showed me more respect. That was very generous of him, as he still found ways to remind me that I’d always be a full twenty-five percent less French than he.
Mahmoud had not been born a man. As a matter of fact, I can remember him as a slender, rather pretty girl with big, dark eyes, dancing at Jo-Mama’s Greek club some years ago. Now he weighed a lot more, had developed a mean, cruel personality, and still thought no one knew he worked for Friedlander Bey’s rival and enemy, Shaykh Reda Abu Adil. It was okay with me if Mahmoud believed he was fooling me. It was that much easier to keep a close watch on him.
Saied was actually a friend, but the kind of friend you wished lived in, say, Transoxiana — the kind of friend who sent you a letter every ten years or so, and you never had to deal with up close and personal. We called him the Half-Hajj because he had once set out on the holy pilgrimage to Makkah, got a brilliant idea for making a ton of money in a short amount of time, quit the pilgrimage and headed back home, and forgot the brilliant idea before he got back here. He’s so scatterbrained that I rarely saw him when he wasn’t wearing a personality module with a better short-term memory built in.
These three hung out together all the time. In simpler days — when I was still living on the street and my time was my own — I hung out with them, too. We used to sit in the Cafe Solace and play cards and gossip. I don’t get to do that much anymore.
The Half-Hajj had brought a date — some guy with light brown hair and blue eyes, tall but not very muscular, and good-looking enough, I suppose. My eyebrows raised, because I knew that Saied had been keeping time with the American kid everyone called Abdul-Hassan, whom he’d inherited when the boy’s previous protector was killed.
I knew better than to say a word, though. In the Budayeen, you never ask personal questions, not even something as innocent as “How’s the wife and kids?” Since the last time you saw them, they could have been sold into slavery or traded for a nice Esmeraldas holo system.
I went to greet them. “You just missed Indihar,” I said. “She brought the food and left.”
“Marîd,” Jacques said, “the drinks are on the house, right?”
That was so goddamn typical. “Yes, Jacques,” I said, “the drinks are free.” He smiled and went to the bar. I glanced at Saied, who just gave me a little shrug.
“It’s good that you’re making the hajj,” Mahmoud said.
“As if the religion means a copper fiq to you,” Saied said.
“Well,” I said, “it’s mostly Friedlander Bey’s idea.”
“It usually is,” Jacques said. He had come back carrying what looked like a tequila mockingbird. He’d probably had to tell Rocky how to make one.
“Papa’s starting to hear the calendar pages whisper,” I said. “He wants to go on the pilgrimage before he gets too old.”
“Ha,” Mahmoud said, “he’ll outlive us all.”
“He’ll certainly outlive some of us, I’m sure.” I tried to look completely innocent when I said that. I don’t even know if Mahmoud understood what I meant.
Saied reached out and tapped me on the shoulder with a forefinger. “I really should introduce you. Marîd, darling, this is my new friend, Ratomir. He’s in the city on business.”
“It’s Radomil, actually.” He gave me a brief, empty smile. “Good to meet you. You own this club?” He was obviously European, but he was speaking perfect Arabic. I took it for granted that he had an Arabic-language daddy chipped in.
“I own half of it,” I said. “Get a drink, have some food.”
“Let me get you something, sweetheart,” the Half-Hajj said. “What are we drinking?”
“Beer is fine,” Radomil said. Saied nodded and went to get the beer. A couple of things startled me: First, I don’t believe I’d ever heard Saied use any term of endearment on any occasion whatsoever; and second, he never fetched for anyone. That wasn’t his image, and he cared a lot about his image.
“It’s his new moddy,” Mahmoud said, knowing what I was thinking.
“Has to be,” I said.
“It’s a niceness moddy,” Jacques said. He was having trouble stifling his laughter.
I shook my head in wonder. Until now, the Half-Hajj’s favorite moddy had been Rex, the Butch Brute.
Radomil looked puzzled. “I rather prefer this personality to the one he was wearing when I first met him.”
Saied returned, and while he was handing Radomil a glass of beer and a plate of sushi, Jacques whispered in my ear, “Ain’t love grand?”
“I’m not going to say a single word,” I said. It was none of my business. It would just take me a little while to get used to a “nice” Saied, that’s all.
“Marîd,” Yasmin said, “don’t look now, but here come the Bucket-of-Mud Girls.”
“Who?” Mahmoud asked.
“As in ‘dumb as a bucket of mud,’” Lily explained.
“We’re back!” It was the triumphant return of Baby and Kitty, staggering drunkenly on either side of an obese bearded black man wearing a blue robe and sandals. He had a carefully trimmed beard, eyes like anthracite chips, and a small, bemused smile on his lips. There was something wrong with this picture. He didn’t look like he belonged in Chiriga’s, and he didn’t look like he belonged with Baby and Kitty, either.
They walked a crooked line to one of the booths in the back, near the rest rooms. As they passed me, I said softly, “Where’d you find this guy?”
Baby laughed. “We were in Frenchy’s, and he was buying bottles. He wanted to see Chiri’s. We told him we’d rather stay in Frenchy’s, but he wanted to see Chiri’s.” Baby shrugged. “So here we are. See if he wants to buy us another bottle.”
They squeezed into the booth, all three of them on one side. It looked like Kitty was getting crushed on the inside, but I didn’t hear her complain. “Would you like to buy these young ladies a drink, sir?” I asked.