The tongue, sullenly red and pimpled with taste buds, gleams with congealed fat under the refrigerator light. American kitchens are almost obscene with their gigantic refrigerators crammed with food. We English are starting to go the same way. Who has time to shop for each day’s meal that day?
I wonder who had cooked the tongue—certainly not my mother. She never cooked. My father took care of the house and the kid, and prepared every meal, and he fit every cliché about English cooking. A spurt of anger flares in the center of my chest, but I back down from it. It isn’t Mum’s fault he’s dying. She was the bread winner so I suppose she had the right to dodge the drudgery. But I suspect if she hadn’t worked she still wouldn’t have cooked and cleaned.
Her devotion to radical feminism has defined her life. Hell, she was so militant that she made damn sure I was raised as a boy. Now figure that one out. They may look funny, but I’ve got both sets of genitalia. I could have been raised as a girl, and even kept the same name, just changed the pronunciation.
My pager vibrates. I stand there juggling the tongue while I search through my pockets for the correct pager. I’m wearing a med-alert pager since I am so often away from England, and I have the pager my manager uses to arrange my performances, I have one from the Committee that summons Lilith, and another from Prince Siraj, the man that commands Bahir, and I have the one given to me by the Silver Helix. It’s Siraj calling.
Fuck you, says that febrile part of my mind. But I pull out my mobile and call him. Naturally he wants to see me. Naturally it has to be now. Naturally I’ll go.
The only reason it was the premier of the United Arab Emirates who received a visit from Bahir and not the president was due to an infelicitous exchange Al Maktoum had had with Prince Siraj in a Paris restaurant. The premier had mentioned how he liked to relax in a hot bath and watch the sun set through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Naked men are particularly vulnerable, and it’s easy to locate bathrooms on building plans. Add to that west-facing windows, and it was a simple matter for me to use Google Earth and locate my target. The time of day was a little less felicitous. I can’t use my powers at twilight or dawn, and Bahir cannot be summoned after dark. But Siraj’s recollection of the conversation suggested Al Maktoum liked to read in the tub prior to sunset. And I was delivering a threat, and they rarely take long.
The rippling water in the deep glass-tiled tub makes it hard to see clearly, but it appears the premier’s balls have retreated up into his belly. He stares up at me, and terror clouds his dark eyes. I risk a glance at the brace of mirrors on one wall of the marble-lined bathroom. I am a nicely terrifying figure, dressed in a black dishdasha with a pistol holstered on my hip. I had dispensed with the headdress. The trailing edges can interfere with peripheral vision, and in the desert heat my scalp sweats and itches. So my mane of red-gold hair shines under the lights. I use the tip of the scimitar to scratch at my beard. The premier never takes his eyes off that blade. I really wish that genius in operations at Whitehall who conceived of using my male avatar as a Middle Eastern ace hadn’t insisted on the sword as part of Bahir’s persona. It’s so absurdly Arabian Nights, but I’m stuck with it now. Bahir’s blade has decapitated a lot of people—including the last Caliph.
“Prince Siraj sends greetings to his brother, and is saddened that his brother has chosen not to honor the price of oil set by the Caliph.”
“It’s just a few dollars.” His voice holds a quaver and a whine. As I watch, goose bumps bloom across his shoulders and upper arms.
“One hundred dollars.”
“The three hundred that the prince has set is too high. The European and American economies are staggering. How does it help us if we bankrupt them? If no one can buy our oil, where is the gain?”
“You should have made these arguments to the prince. Not sought to slip behind him like a thief. His highness is not a fool. He will ease prices, but not until the westerners have paid a mighty price.”
“We were not part of that war in Egypt. Why should we exact vengeance? None of our soldiers were lost.” He’s becoming angry, beginning to wonder if he really stands in danger of his life. I glance toward the window. The sun is perilously close to the horizon.
“You say these words without shame, which shows you are a pawn of the West.”
When a blade swings quickly it really does whistle, faintly, not like in the movies, but you have that split second of sound to let you know something awful is coming. The premier flinches, and flails. Water droplets form prisms as they cascade past the window and the rays of sunlight break apart. Blood fountains and glows in the dying light. I have taken off his right hand at the wrist. He is screaming, the sound echoing and reverberating off the hard surfaces. Outside the door there is the sound of pounding feet.
The threat has been delivered. It’s past time I was going.
John Bruckner, the Highwayman, is emerging from Flint’s office as I arrive to report about my little mission for Siraj. Out of courtesy to our chief Bruckner had removed his stained Andy Capp hat while in the office, but he’s in the process of restoring it to its customary place and customary task—covering his nearly bald pate. I retreat to the wall because the Highwayman has the build of a beer keg and about as much dexterity.
An exuberant handshake later, he’s offering me one of his foul black cigars while stuffing one into his own mouth. I wave him off and pull out a cigarette. The heat from his dented Zippo fans my face as I lean into the lighter. He transfers the fire to the tip of his cigar and sucks lustily on it until the tip of the stogie glows red. The rituals having been observed, we lean against opposite walls and study each other.
“Now, how is it that I’m a bloody lorry driver and you’re a bloody magician?”
“I’m prettier than you are.”
“Right you are, and you dress better,” he says, hitching the waistband of his baggy corduroy pants up over his paunch.
“What have you been up to?”
A jerk of the thumb at Flint’s door and he says, “Old Granite Face has me running arms from Lagos to the troops out in the bush.” When the Highwayman gets his rig up to speed he can move from London to Melbourne or Shanghai without passing through any of the territory in between. “Effing roads are no better than goat tracks,” he continues. “They’ve beat the bloody hell out of my suspension. Bloody natives.”
It isn’t just white man’s burden rearing its head. Bruckner has seen strange and disturbing things while traveling his “short cuts,” and he lives in fear of getting stranded in this strange, surreal no-man’s-land.
“Show a little gratitude. Nigeria is the only thing that’s keeping petrol in your truck.”
“Yeah, well, why can’t the niggers build a bloody first world road?”
I keep control of my features. Bruckner’s somewhere in his sixties. Times have changed, but not the Highwayman. He’s racist and sexist, and despises foreigners with a superiority unique only to a white Englishman. Straightening up with a grunt and another tug at his pants, he says, “I’ve got to push off. Join me and the lads for a pint?”
“Can’t.” I incline my head toward Flint’s office.
“Well, next time.”
He leaves, trailing smoke like the fumes from one of his lorries. I tap on the door. I can’t actually hear Flint’s invitation to enter, but I go on in. He’s in his great stone chair, necessary because his sharp stone body would cut the upholstery of any normal chair to shreds.