She scooted down beside me, drenched with perspiration, and gasped, “I thought that son of a slut would never leave!”
“It’s your charming presence,” I said sourly. “It’s your scintillating conversation. It’s Frenchy’s needled beer.”
“Yeah,” said Yasmin, puzzled by my annoyance, “you right.”
“I have to talk to you about something.”
Yasmin looked at me and took a few deep breaths. She mopped her face with a clean bar towel. I suppose I sounded unusually grave. Anyway, I went through the events of the evening for her: my second meeting with Friedlander Bey; our — that is, his — conclusions; and how I had failed to impress Lieutenant Okking. When I finished, there was stunned silence from all around.
“You’re going to do it?” asked Frenchy. I hadn’t noticed him returning. I wasn’t aware that he’d been eavesdropping, but it was his place and nobody knew his eaves better.
“You’re going to get wired?” asked Yasmin breathlessly. She found the whole idea vastly exciting. Arousing, if you get my meaning.
“You’re crazy if you do,” said Dalia. Dalia was as close to being a true conservative as you could find on the Street. “Look what it does to people.”
“What does it do to people?” shouted Yasmin, outraged, tapping her own moddy.
“Oops, sorry,” said Dalia, and she went to mop up some imaginary spilled beer at the far, far end of the bar.
“Think of all the things we could do together,” said Yasmin dreamily.
“Maybe it’s not good enough for you the way it is,” I said, a little hurt.
Her expression fell. “Hey, Marîd, it’s not that. It’s just—”
“This is your problem,” said Frenchy, “it’s none of my business. I’m going in the back and count tonight’s money. Won’t take me very long.” He disappeared through a ratty gold-colored cloth that served as a flimsy barrier to the dressing room and his office.
“It’s permanent,” I said. “Once it’s done, it’s done. There’s no backing out.”
“Have you ever heard me say that I wanted to have my wires yanked?” asked Yasmin.
“No,” I admitted. It was just the irrevocableness of it that prickled my skin.
“I haven’t regretted it for an instant, and neither has anybody else I know who’s had it done.”
I wet my lips. “You don’t understand,” I said. I couldn’t finish my argument; I couldn’t put into words what she didn’t understand.
“You’re just afraid,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. That was a good starting point.
“The Half-Hajj has his brain wired, and he’s not even a quarter of the man you are.”
“And all it got him was Sonny’s blood all over everything. I don’t need moddies to make me act crazy, I can do that on my own.”
Suddenly she got a faraway, inspired look in her eyes. I knew something fascinating had occurred to her, and I knew it most likely meant bad news for me. “Oh, Allah and the Virgin Mary in a motel room,” she said softly. That had been a favorite blasphemy of her father’s, I think. “This is working out just like the hexagram said.”
“The hexagram.” I had put that I Ching business out of my mind almost before Yasmin had finished explaining it to me.
“Remember what it said?” she asked. “About not being afraid to cross the great water?”
“Yeah. What great water?”
“The great water is some major change in your life. Getting your brain wired, for instance.”
“Uh huh. And it said to meet the great man. I did that. Twice.”
“It said to wait three days before beginning, and three days before completing.”
I counted up quickly: tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday. Monday, when I was going to have this thing done, would be after three days. “Oh, hell,” I muttered.
“And it said that nobody would believe you, and it said that you had to keep up your confidence during adversity, and it said that you didn’t serve kings and princes but higher principles. That’s my Marîd.” And she kissed me.
I felt ill. There was absolutely no way I could get out of the surgery now, unless I started running and began a new life in some new country, shoving goats and sheep around and eating a few figs every couple of days to stay alive like the other fellahin.
“I’m a hero, Yasmin,” I said, “and we heroes sometimes have secret business to attend to. Got to go.” I kissed her three or four times, squeezed her right silicone tit for luck, and stood up. On the way out of Frenchy’s I patted Indihar’s ass, and she turned and grinned at me. I waved good-night to Dalia. Blanca I pretended didn’t even exist.
I walked down the Street to the Silver Palm, just to see what people were doing and what was going on. Mahmoud and Jacques were sitting at a table, having coffee and sopping up hummus with pita bread. The Half-Hajj was absent, probably out kicking gigantic heterosexual stone-cutters around for the hell of it. I sat down with my friends. “May your and so forth, and so forth,” said Mahmoud. He was never one to worry about formalities.
“Yours too,” I said.
“Getting yourself wired, I hear,” said Jacques. “A crucial decision. A major undertaking. I’m sure you’ve considered both sides of the matter?”
I was a little astonished. “News travels fast, doesn’t it?”
Mahmoud raised his eyebrows. “That’s what news is for,” he said, around a mouthful of bread and hummus.
“Permit me to buy you some coffee,” said Jacques.
“Praise Allah,” I said, “but I feel like something stronger.”
“Just as well,” said Jacques to Mahmoud. “Marîd has more money than the two of us together. He’s on Papa’s payroll now.”
I didn’t like the sound of that rumor at all. I went to the bar and ordered my gin, bingara, and Rose’s. Behind the bar, Heidi grimaced, but she didn’t say anything. She was pretty — hell, she was one of the most beautiful real women I’d ever met. She always fitted into her well-chosen clothing the way some of the debs and changes wished they could, with their store-bought bodies. Heidi had wonderful blue eyes and soft, pale bangs. I don’t know why, but bangs on young women always make me jittery. I think it’s the hebephile in me; if I examine myself closely enough, I find hints of every objectionable quality known to man. I’d always wanted to get to know Heidi really well, but I guess I wasn’t her type. Maybe her type was available on a moddy, and after I got my brain wired …
While I was waiting for her to mix my drink, another voice spoke up about twenty feet away, beyond a group of Korean men and women who would soon learn, no doubt, that they were in the wrong part of town. “Vodka martini, dry. Pre-war Wolfschmidt’s if you’ve got it, shaken and not stirred. With a twist of lemon peel.”
Well, now, I said to myself. I waited until Heidi came back with my drink. I paid her and swirled the liquor and ice in tight, counterclockwise circles. Heidi brought my change; I tipped her a kiam, and she started some polite conversation. I interrupted her rather rudely; I was more interested in the vodka martini.
I picked up my glass and stepped back from the bar, just enough to get a good look at James Bond. He was just as I remembered him from the brief encounter in Chiri’s place, and from Ian Fleming’s novels: black hair parted on one side, a heavy lock of it falling in an unruly comma over the right eye, the scar running down the right cheek. He had straight, black brows and a long, straight nose. His upper lip was short and his mouth, though relaxed, somehow gave the impression of cruelty. He looked ruthless. He had paid a great deal of money to a team of surgeons to make him look ruthless. He glanced at me and smiled; I wondered if he recalled our previous meeting. His gray-blue eyes crinkled a bit at their edges as he observed me; I had the distinct feeling that I was, in fact, being observed. He was wearing a plain cotton shirt and tropical worsted trousers, no doubt of British manufacture, with black leather sandals suitable to the climate. He paid for his martini and came toward me, one hand extended. “Nice to see you again, old man,” he said.