“I didn’t even know they — “
“I do not believe we will give them what they desire. Indeed, I think it is time that Parthia be, shall we say, disunited.”
What could I do but agree? We discussed these weighty affairs for some time. At last, Papa relaxed. He took an apple and a small paring knife. “You called the medical examiner today, my darling,” he said.
I was astonished. “Yes, O Shaykh.”
“You are interested in the death of the young dancer. It is of no importance.”
Maybe it’s because I used to be a poor street kid myself, but the lives and deaths of the people of the Budayeen matter more to me.
Friedlander Bey went on. “Your employees believe in vampires.” He was amused. “Lieutenant Giragosian of the police does not.” Here his amusement ended. “You will not pursue this further. It is a waste of time, and it is unseemly for you to concern yourself with what is, after all, chiefly a Christian myth.”
Crazy Vi’s body in the morgue was no myth. And in the Maghreb, the far western part of North Africa where I’d grown up, there are still stories of the Gola. She is a female djinn, very big and strong, sometimes with goat’s feet and covered with hair like an unshorn sheep. Her trick is that she speaks sweetly and gently to people, and then kills them and drinks their blood. The Gola is usually described as having those familiar long, fierce, canine teeth and eyes like blazing fire. Still, I wasn’t about to mention any of this to my benefactor.
“You and I will share luncheon tomorrow with the Parthians,” Papa said. “Forget about the murdered woman, your nightclub, and the Budayeen for a while.”
“As you wish, O Shaykh,” I said. Yeah, sure, I thought.
I returned to my suite and relaxed with a detective novel by Lutfy Gad, my favorite Palestinian mystery writer. He’d been dead for decades, so there were no new Gad books, but the old ones were so good I could enjoy them again and again. This one was called The Deep Cradle, and if I remembered correctly, it was the one in which Gad’s dark and dangerous detective, al-Qaddani, ended up in Breulandy with almost every bone in his body broken.
It’s amazing, sometimes, how resilient those paperback detectives are. I wish I knew how they did it.
The phone on my belt rang. That meant the call was probably from one of my disreputable friends and associates; otherwise, the desk phone would have rung. I unclipped it and murmured, “Marhaba.”
“Marîd? It’s Yasmin, and guess what?”
She actually waited for me to guess. I didn’t bother.
“You know that boys’ club of yours?” she said. I have a small army of kids who look out for me in the Budayeen, watch me and make sure I’m not being followed by the cops or anything. I throw them a few kiam now and then.
“What about them?” I asked.
“One of ‘em’s dead and it looks like Sheba all over again. Kid’s throat is torn open and before you say anything, I saw the goddamn puncture marks this time, like from fangs. So you’re wrong.”
It bothered me that her notion about Sheba was more important to her than the death of that poor boy. “Who was it?” I asked. “Anybody you know?”
“Yeah, stupid. Sheba, like I been telling you.”
I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “No, not her. The boy. Who was it?”
I could almost hear her shrug. “They have names, Marîd? I mean, how would I know?”
I closed my eyes. “Call the police, Yasmin.”
“Chiri already did.”
“All right. I’ve got to go now.”
“Something else, Marîd. Lily and me and this girl you don’t know, Natka, and Sheba were all going to have supper after work tonight. At Martyrs of Democracy. Anyway, Sheba comes in real late with this lame excuse about having this admiral or something buy her one bottle of champagne after another even though the night shift had come in. What’s an admiral doing in the Budayeen in the first place? And I know Sheba’s no dayshift girl. So she’s all out of breath and she seems really nervous, not just to me, you can ask Lily about it. And you know what? When we ordered the food, she asked me please not to get the pork strings in garlic sauce. That’s what I always order. So I asked her why, and she said her stomach was bothering her, like maybe she was pregnant or had the flu or something, and the smell of the garlic would make her sick. Garlic, Marîd, get it?”
I opened my eyes. “Maybe it wasn’t the garlic, sweetheart. Maybe she just remembered that none of you good Muslim women ought to be eating pork, in strings or anyhow.”
There was a pause while Yasmin figured if I was kidding her or not. She let it go. “How much more proof do you need, Marîd?” she asked angrily. “You’re really being a jackass about this.” I heard her slam the phone down. I put mine back on my belt and shook my head.
Behind me, I heard Kmuzu say, “If I may say so, yaa Sidi, I have noticed a tendency on your part to hesitate to get involved in such matters until you yourself are personally threatened. In the meantime, innocent lives can be lost. If you think back, I’m sure you’ll recall other — “
“The voice of my conscience,” I said wearily, turning to face him. “Thank you so much. Are you telling me I should take this vampire stuff seriously? Especially after Papa specifically told me to ignore it?” You see, Kmuzu wasn’t merely my slave; he’d been a “gift” from Friedlander Bey, someone to spy on me and report back to Papa.
He shrugged. “The people of the Budayeen have no one to turn to but you.”
“So if I pursued this, you’d help me?”
Kmuzu spread his hands. “Oh no. The master of the house has made his feelings clear. Nevertheless, you could telephone Lieutenant Giragosian and learn what he knows.”
I did just that. I called the copshop. “Lieutenant Giragosian’s office,” a man said.
“I’d like to speak to the lieutenant, please. This is Marîd Audran.”
“Audran, son of a bitch. The lieutenant isn’t, uh, available right now.”
“Who’s this, then?”
“This is his executive assistant, Sergeant Catavina.” Jeez, the laziest, most easily bought cop in the city. How his star had risen.
“Look, Catavina,” I said, “there’ve been two murders in the Budayeen in the last couple of days. One was a dancer, a real girl named Vi, and the other was a boy. Both had their throats torn out. Know anything about them?”
A pause. “Sure we do.” He was playing it cagey. Dumb cagey.
“Look, pal, you want me to have Friedlander Bey send over a couple of guys to question you personally?”
“Take it easy, Audran.” There was a gratifying hint of anxiety in Catavina’s voice. “What are you looking for?”
“First, what’s the ID on the boy?”
“Kid named Mahdi il-Mallah. Eleven years old.”
I knew him. He was one of my friends. I felt a familiar coldness in my gut. “What about puncture wounds on the neck?”
“How’d you know? Yeah, that’s in the report. Now, I got to tell the lieutenant you called. What you want me to tell him when he asks me what you’re up to?”
I sighed. I wasn’t happy about this. “Tell him I’m going to catch his vampire for him.”
“Vampire! Audran, what are you, crazy?”
I hung up instead of replying.
Kmuzu’s expression was difficult to read. I didn’t know if he approved or not. I don’t know why I cared. “One piece of advice, yaa Sidi, if you’ll permit me: It would be a mistake to begin your investigation of this woman Sheba tonight.”
“Uh-huh. Why do you say that?”
He shrugged again. “If I had to hunt a vampire, I’d do it during the daylight.”
Good point. The next day I arose at dawn, made my ritual ablutions and prayed, then set out to begin serious investigations. If Kmuzu wasn’t planning to offer any direct assistance — meaning that he wouldn’t even drive me over to the Budayeen — then I’d have to rely on Bill the cab driver. Now, if you know Bill, you know how amusing the concept of relying on him is. He’s as dependable as a two-legged footstool.