All except the youngest were bare-breasted, two of them completely naked, the rest wearing thin pants or white petticoats, mostly with tight elastic that cut into their middles. The youngest was dressed in a white nightgown with Maltese lace round the neck. Eduardo could recognize the stitching—his mother had worked in a sweatshop for most of his childhood. And when she wasn’t at the machines, she sewed at home at a window until the light faded.
The young one in the nightdress glanced up, scowled at Eduardo and Eduardo quickly looked away. Straight into the resigned face of a brunette.
“That one,” said Eduardo and the chosen woman looked surprised at his choice. She was not quite the oldest, with heavy hips, small breasts and full derrière. A half-smoked Ziganov hung from between her fingers, its gold band stained pink from the lipstick she used. English, Eduardo decided, that was how she looked . . .
“I’m Rose,” said the woman.
Eduardo gave his card to the waiting Madame without being asked. The gold Amex was only to be used in emergencies or when so ordered by the man, like now.
He signed with a flourish, not bothering to look at the amount.
“Excellency.” There was new respect in the old woman’s voice; and for the first time since she’d started using the honorific, it sounded like she might mean it.
Taking back his card, Eduardo smiled and started up the wide stairs. Then stopped to indicate that his choice should go first. He wanted to look at Rose’s buttocks as she walked. She climbed slowly, apparently only too aware of his gaze. And at the top she paused, as if trying to remember which chamber the Madame had told her to use.
“This one,” she said, opening a battered door.
“Eduardo,” said a voice Eduardo recognized. It was the man, dressed in black and wearing shades even though the chamber was shuttered against the evening light. Behind him sat a short-haired girl in a white shift, her breasts full enough to be obvious beneath the cloth and tipped with nipples that showed like shadows.
“Boss.” Eduardo bowed, feeling stupid. Nothing about the man suggested he wanted Eduardo to shake hands, but bowing still didn’t feel quite right.
“Come in and lock the door behind you,” ordered the man. He said something in a language Eduardo didn’t understand and Rose went to sit quietly on a large bateau lit beside the other woman.
“You made it,” said Raf.
Eduardo looked puzzled. Of course he’d made it. 52 Pascal Coste was where the man had told him to come.
“And you bought the things I asked for?”
Eduardo nodded and pulled a heavy package from under his coat. For extra safety he’d tied it tight with string, which suddenly seemed unwilling to untie.
“Later,” said Raf. “Put it down there for now.” The chest of drawers he indicated was cracked on one side and scratched across the top. “No, even better, put it in a drawer.”
Eduardo did what he was told.
The chamber was the largest in the brothel by far, with two leather divans and a big bateau lit filling most of its space. Most of the maison ’s other rooms featured narrow single beds to discourage lingering. It had taken Raf nearly forty-five minutes of trawling the datacore at Police HQ before he finally found a brothel within easy distance of the corner of Mahmoudiya and Rue Amoud el-Sawari. Hani could undoubtedly have done it in a fraction of the time, but Raf just hadn’t felt right asking her.
This room had been the choice of visiting couples, back in the days before the General did his deal with the Mufti and the morales suddenly became a problem. It was somewhere wives could buy their jaded husbands a whore or two for their birthday, to do things that didn’t get done at home. Most of the visiting women just watched, a few joined in. All were married, rich and decently connected. Respectable members of the kind of families who donated funds regularly to the police.
The accord had changed all that.
For the first time in a hundred years girls from poor families returned to wearing the hijab, while Iskandryia’s mesdames made do with headscarves and dark glasses, altogether more elegant and not remotely to the Mufti’s liking. The property laws were revised to exclude female heirs, driving alone after dark became a criminal offence for women, and to go out with bare arms was to invite some fanatic to scratch his disapproval into your skin with a metal comb . . .
Raf had heard Zara on the subject. She was old enough to remember the city before it started to change. Felix too, the old Chief of Detectives, had been less than impressed with the General’s decision to sign an accord.
All trades had been hit, brothels included. Not that they actually closed. The brothels of Iskandryia were both an institution and tourist attraction (which was altogether more important). Along the Corniche several could be found in the grander houses, where chambers were by the night, cash was forbidden and anything less than a gold card strongly discouraged.
Of course, visiting tourists were billed variously for cultural excursions, theatre groups or an art exhibition. That way everybody was kept happy, from the punters to the card companies and the brothels. Especially the brothels, because embarrassed punters had a habit of getting home, then denying they’d ever visited the place that billed them and that made the card companies very unhappy.
This maison was different, though . . . Somewhere for Iskandryia’s own residents. It paid its local taxes, plus a little extra to Police HQ and in return found itself on the police database as an information source, which gave it some protection should the morales decide to call. The fat man had approved identical deals with brothels all across the city.
Raf and Eduardo were lovers, at least they were according to the Madame downstairs. That was how she’d explained Raf’s request for a double chamber to her girls. Officially, of course, homosexuality didn’t exist in Ottoman North Africa. In practice, it was almost universal, if staunchly illegaclass="underline" a society that placed a premium on female virginity, made premarital sex a killing matter and then made it too expensive for most men to get married before their midtwenties was bound to need an easy acceptance of the inevitable, whatever the law said. And that was quite apart from the one in ten men born with little physical interest in women.
“What do we do now?” Eduardo asked.
“We fill the time,” said Raf. “Until it gets dark.” Walking over to the window, he examined the chamber’s mashrabiya, which looked out over the canal, taking in its two sets of shutters. One set closed it off from the street directly below, the other closed off the actual balcony from the room in which he stood.
“You,” said Raf, pointing to the girl he’d selected at random when he first arrived. “What did you say your name was?” She didn’t, or he’d have remembered it.
“Justine.” It was meant to sound French, Raf guessed. From her skin and the black roots to her short hair, he’d have said moriscos, but he’d been in Isk less than four months and he wasn’t Felix. His predecessor had been famed for his ability to read origins at a single glance.
“Can you get me a drink?”
She looked doubtful. “What would Your Excellency like?”
“Wine,” said Raf, “white and chilled, something dry.”
Justine looked more doubtful still.
“Anything you can find,” Raf said and she fumbled at the lock, then scurried from the room.
Raf sighed. He was tired of people being afraid of him. Maybe she was afraid because in her terms he was rich . . . To be honest, in Justine’s terms he was probably beyond rich. Even though he could barely afford Donna’s and Khartoum’s wages and repairs to the al-Mansur madersa were beyond his wallet. Maybe she realized he was police. Or perhaps it was just that he dressed in a suit and wore dark glasses indoors.