Hajjar just shrugged. “I don’t know. I was just told to fetch you. Let Papa do his own talking.”
Just at this moment of growing fear and menace, the tri-phets decided to kick in and race my heart even harder. It had started out to be such a nice evening, too. I’d won some money, I was looking forward to a pleasant meal, and Yasmin was going to spend the night again. Instead I was in the back of a police cruiser, my shirt and jeans still damp with Sonny’s blood, my face and arms beginning to itch as the blood dried on them, heading toward some foreboding meeting with Friedlander Bey, who owned everybody and everything. I was sure it was some sort of accounting, but I couldn’t imagine for what. I’ve always been extremely careful not to tread on Papa’s toes. Hajjar wouldn’t tell me any more; he only grinned wolfishly and said that he wouldn’t want to be in my boots. I didn’t want to be in my boots, either, but that’s where I’d found myself too often lately. “It is the will of Allah,” I murmured anxiously. Nearer My God to Thee.
Chapter 8
Friedlander Bey lived in a large, white, towered mansion that might almost have qualified as a palace. It was a large estate in the middle of the city only two blocks from the Christian Quarter. I don’t think anyone else had such a great expanse of property walled off. Papa’s house made Seipolt’s look like a Badawi tent. But Sergeant Hajjar didn’t drive me to Papa’s house: we were going in the wrong direction. I mentioned this to Hajjar, the bastard.
“Let me do the driving,” he said in a surly voice. He called me “il-Maghrib.” Maghrib may mean sunset, but it also refers to the vast, vague part of North Africa to the west, where the uncivilized idiots come from — Algerians, Moroccans, semihuman creatures like that. Lots of my friends will call me il-Maghrib, or Maghrebi, and then it’s only a nickname or an epithet; when Hajjar used it, it was definitely an insult.
“The house is back the other way about two and a half miles,” I said.
“Don’t you think I know that? Jesus Christ, would I love to have you handcuffed to a pole for fifteen minutes.”
“Where on Allah’s good, green earth are you taking me?”
Hajjar wouldn’t answer any more questions, so I just gave up and watched the city go by. Riding with Hajjar was a lot like riding with Bilclass="underline" you didn’t learn very much and you weren’t sure where you were going or how you were going to get there.
The cop pulled into an asphalt driveway behind a cinder-block motel on the eastern outskirts of the city. The cinder blocks were painted a pale green, and there was a small handlettered sign that said simply motel no vacancy. I thought a motel with a permanent No Vacancy sign was a trifle unusual. Hajjar got out of the cop car and opened the back door. I slid out and stretched a little; the tri-phets had me humming in a high-velocity way. The combination of the drugs and my nervousness added up to a headache, a very sick stomach, and fidgeting that flirted with total emotional collapse.
I followed Hajjar to room nineteen of the motel. He rapped on the door in some kind of signal. The door was opened by a hulking Arab who looked like a block of sandstone that walked. I didn’t expect him to be able to talk or think; when he did, I was astonished. He nodded to Hajjar, who didn’t acknowledge it; the sergeant went back toward his car. The Stone looked at me for a moment, probably wondering where I’d come from; then he realized that I must have come with Hajjar, and that I was the one he was waiting to let into the damn motel room. “In,” he said. His voice sounded like sandstone that spoke.
I shuddered as I passed by him. There were two more men in the room, another Stone That Speaks on the far side, and Friedlander Bey, sitting at a folding table set up between the king-sized bed and the bureau. All the furnishings were European, but a little worn and shabby.
Papa stood when he saw me come in. He was about five feet two inches tall, but almost two hundred pounds. He wore a plain, white cotton shirt, gray trousers, and slippers. He wore no jewelry. He had a few wisps of graying hair brushed straight back on his head, and soft brown eyes. Friedlander Bey didn’t look like the most powerful man in the city. He raised his right hand in front of his face, almost touching his forehead. “Peace,” he said.
I touched my heart and my lips. “And on you be peace.”
He did not look happy to see me. The formalities would protect me for a short while and give me time to think. What I needed to plan was a way to bowl over the two Stones and get out of that motel room. It was going to be a challenge.
Papa seated himself at the table again. “May your day be prosperous,” he said. He indicated the chair across from him.
“May your day be prosperous and blessed,” I said. As soon as I could, I was going to ask for a glass of water, and take as many Paxium as I had with me. I sat down.
His brown eyes caught mine and held them. “How is your health?” he asked. His voice was unfriendly.
“Praise Allah,” I said. I felt the fear growing.
“We have not seen you in some time,” said Friedlander Bey. “You have made us lonely.”
“May Allah never let you feel lonely.”
The second Stone served coffee. Papa took a cup and sipped from it to show me it wasn’t poisoned. Then he handed it to me. “Be pleased,” he said. There was little hospitality in his voice.
I took the cup. “May coffee be found forever in your house.”
We drank some coffee together. Papa sat back and regarded me for a moment. “You have honored us,” he said at last.
“May Allah preserve you.” We had come to the end of the short form of the amenities. Things would begin to happen now. The first thing that happened was that I took out my pill case, dug up every tranquilizer I could find, and swallowed them with some more coffee. I took fourteen Paxium; some people would find that a large quantity. It wasn’t, for me. I know lots of people in the Budayeen who can drink me under the table — Yasmin, for one — but I bow to no one in my capacity for pills and caps. Fourteen 10-milligram Paxium, if I was lucky, would only unscrew the tension a little; they wouldn’t even begin to make me really tranquil. Right then, I’d need something with a little more velocity to it for that. Fourteen Paxium was barely Mach 1.
Friedlander Bey held out his coffee cup to his servant, who refilled it. Papa sipped a little of it, watching me over the rim of the small cup. He set it down precisely and said, “You understand that I have a great number of people in my employ.”
“Indeed yes, O Shaykh,” I said.
“A great number of people who depend on me, not only for their livelihoods, but for much more. I am a source of security in their difficult world. They know that they may depend on me for wages and certain favors, as long as they perform their work for me in a satisfactory way.”
“Yes, O Shaykh.” The blood drying on my face and arms irritated me.
He nodded. “So when I learn that one of my friends has, indeed, been welcomed by Allah into Paradise, I am distressed. I am concerned for the well-being of all who represent me in the city, from my trusted lieutenants down to the poorest and most insignificant beggar who aids me however he can.”
“You are the people’s shield against calamity, O Shaykh.”
He waved a hand, tired of my interruptions. “Death is one thing, my nephew. Death comes to all, there is no one who can run from it. The jar cannot remain whole forever. We must learn to accept our eventual demise; and more, we must look forward to our eternal delight and refreshment in Paradise. Yet death before death is due is unnatural. That is another thing completely; it is an affront to Allah, and must be set right. One cannot recall the dead to life, but one can avenge a murder. Do you understand me?”