A Fire in the Sun (10 page)

Laila had chipped in Wise Counselor again. She gave     me that tranquil smile. It was toothless, of course, and it made me shiver. "Go in safety," she said in her nasal wail.

"Peace be upon you." I hurried out of her shop, walked back down the Street, and passed through the gate to where the car was parked. It wasn't far from there to the station house. Back at my desk on the third floor, I

opened my briefcase. I put my two purchases, the Complete Guardian and Wise Counselor, in the rack with the others. I grabbed the green cobalt-alloy plate and slotted it into the data deck, but then I hesitated. I really didn't feel like reading about Abu Adil yet. Instead I took Wise Counselor, unwrapped it, then reached up and chipped it

in.

After a moment of dizziness, Audran saw that he was reclining on a couch, drinking a glass of lemon sherbet. Facing him on another couch was a handsome man of middle years. With a shock, he recognized the man as the Apostle of God. Quickly, Audran popped the moddy out.

I sat there at my desk, holding Wise Counselor and trembling. It wasn't what I'd expected at all. I found the experience deeply disturbing. The quality of the vision was absolutely realistic—it wasn't like a dream or a hallucination. It didn't feel as if I'd only imagined it; it felt as if I'd truly been in the same room with Prophet Muhammad, blessings and peace be on him.

It should be clear that I'm not a terribly religious person. I've studied the faith and I have tremendous respect for its precepts and traditions, but I guess I just don't find it convenient to practice them. That probably damns my soul for eternity, and I'll have plenty of time in Hell to regret my laziness. Even so, I was shocked by the pure arrogance of the moddy's manufacturer, to presume to depict the Prophet in such a way. Even illustrations in religious texts are considered idolatrous; what would a court of Islamic law make of the experience I'd just had?

Another reason I was shaken, I think, was because in -the brief moment before I'd popped the moddy, I'd gotten the distinct impression that the Prophet had something intensely meaningful to tell me.

I started to toss the moddy back into my briefcase, when I had a flash of insight: The manufacturer hadn't depicted the Prophet, after all. The visions of Wise Counselor or Dark Lightning weren't pre-programmed vignettes written by some cynical software scribbler. The moddy was psychoactive. It evaluated my own mental and emotional states, and enabled me to create the illusion.

In that sense, I decided, it wasn't a profane mockery of the religious experience. It was only a means of accessing my own hidden feelings. I realized I'd just made a world-class rationalization, but it made me feel a lot better. I chipped the moddy in again.

After a moment of dizziness, Audran saw that he was reclining on a couch, drinking a glass of lemon sherbet. Facing him on another couch was a handsome man of middle years. With a shock, he recognized the man as the Apostle of God.

"As-salaam alaykum," said the Prophet.

"Wa alaykum as-salaam, yaa Hazrat," replied Audran. He thought it was odd that he felt so comfortable in the Messenger's presence.

"You know, "said the Prophet, "there is a source of joy that leads you to forget death, that guides you to an accord with the will of Allah."

"Idon't know exactly what you mean, "Audran said.

Prophet Muhammad smiled. "You have heard that in my life there were many troubles, many dangers."

"Men repeatedly conspired to kill you because of your teachings, O Apostle of Allah. You fought many battles."

"Yes. But do you know the greatest danger I ever faced?"

Audran thought for a moment, perplexed. "You lost your father before you were born."

"Even as you lost yours," said the Prophet.

"You lost your mother as a child."

"Even as you were without a mother."

"You went into the world with no inheritance."

The Prophet nodded. "A condition forced upon you, as well. No, none of those things were the worst, nor were the efforts of my enemies to starve me, to crush me with boulders, to burn me in my tent, or to poison my food."

"Then, yaa Hazrat," asked Audran, "what was the greatest danger?"

"Early in my season of preaching, the Meccans would not listen to my word. I turned to the Sardar of  Tayefand asked his permission to preach there. The Sardar gave permission, but I did not know that secretly he plotted to have me attacked by his hired villains. I was badly hurt, and I fell unconscious to the ground. A friend carried me

out of Tayefand lay me beneath a shady tree. Then he went into the village again to beg for water, but no one in Tayef would give him any."

"You were in danger of dying?"

Prophet Muhammad raised a hand. "Perhaps, but is a man not always in danger of dying? When I was again conscious, I lifted my face to Heaven and prayed, 'O Merciful, You have instructed me to carry Your message to the people, but they will not listen to me. Perhaps it is my imperfection that prevents them from receiving Your blessing. O Lord, give me the courage to try again!'

"Then I noticed that Gabriel the Archangel lay upon the sky over Tayef, waiting for my gesture to turn the village into a blasted wasteland. I cried out in horror: 'No, that is not the way! Allah has chosen me among men to be a blessing to Mankind, and I do not seek to chastise them. Let them live. If they do not accept my message, then perhaps their sons or their sons' sons will.'

"That awful moment of power, when with a lifted finger I might have destroyed all of Tayefand the people who lived there, that was the greatest danger of my life."

Audran was humbled. "Allah is indeed Most Great," he said. He reached up and popped the moddy out.

            Yipe. Wise Counselor had sifted through my subskull-

ular impulses, then tailored a vision that both interpreted my current turmoil and suggested solutions. But what was Wise Counselor trying to tell me? I was just too dull and literal-minded to understand what it all meant. I thought it might be advising me to go up to Friedlander Bey and say, "I've got the power to destroy you, but I'm staying my hand out of charity." Then Papa would be overcome with guilt, and free me of all obligations to him.

Then I realized that it couldn't be that simple. In the first place, I didn't have any such power to destroy him. Friedlander Bey was protected from lesser creatures like me by baraka, the almost magical presence possessed by certain great men. It would take a better person than I to lift a finger against him, even to sneak in and pour poison in his ear while he slept.

Okay, that meant I'd misunderstood the lesson, but it wasn't something I was going to worry about. The next time I met an imam or a saint on the street, I'd have to ask

him to explain the vision to me. In the meantime I had more important things to do. I put the moddy back in my briefcase.

Then I loaded the file on Abu Adil and spent about ten minutes glancing through it. It was every bit as boring as I was afraid it would be. Abu Adil had been brought to the city at an early age, more than a century and a half ago. His parents had wandered for many months after the disaster of the Saturday War. As a boy, Abu Adil helped his father, who sold lemonade and sherbets in the Souk of the Tanners. He played in the narrow, twisting alleys of the medtnah, the old part of town. When his father died, Abu Adil became a beggar to support himself and his mother. Somehow, through strength of will and inner resources, he rejected his poverty and miserable station and became a man of respect and influence in the medmah. The report gave no details of this remarkable transformation, but if Abu Adil was a serious rival to Friedlander Bey, I had no trouble believing it had happened. He still lived in a house at the western edge of the city, not far from the Sunset Gate. By all reports it was a mansion as grand as Papa's, surrounded by ghastly slums. Abu Adil had an army of friends and associates in the. hovels of the medmah, just as Friedlander Bey had his own in the Budayeen.

That was about as much as I'd learned when Officer Shaknahyi ducked his head into my cubicle. "Time to roll," he said.

It didn't bother me in the least to tell my data deck to quit. I wondered why Lieutenant Hajjar was so worked up about Reda Abu Adil. I hadn't run across anything in the file that suggested he was anything but another Fried-lander Bey: just a rich, powerful man whose business took on a gray, even black character now and then. If he was , like Papa—and the evidence I'd seen indicated that's just what he was—he had little interest in disturbing innocent people. Friedlander Bey was no criminal mastermind, and I doubted that Abu Adil was, either. You could rouse men like him only by trespassing on their territory or by threatening their friends and family.

I followed Shaknahyi downstairs to the garage. "That's mine," he said, pointing to a patrol car coming in from the previous shift. He greeted the two tired-looking

cops who got out, then slid behind the steering wheel. "Well?" he said, looking up at me.

I wasn't in a hurry to start this. In the first place, I'd be stuck in the narrow confines of the copcar with Shaknahyi for the duration of the shift, and that prospect didn't excite me at all. Second, I'd really rather sit upstairs and read boring files in perfect safety than follow this battle-hardened veteran out into the mean streets. Finally, though, I climbed into the front seat. Sometimes there's only so much stalling you can do.

"What you carrying?" he said, looking straight out the windshield while he drove. He had a big wad of gum crammed into his right cheek.

"You mean this?" I held up the Complete Guardian moddy, which I hadn't chipped in yet.

He glanced at me and muttered something under his breath. "I'm talking about what you're gonna use to save me from the bad guys," he said. Then he looked my way again.

Under my sport coat I was wearing my seizure gun. I took it out of the holster and showed him. "Got this last year from Lieutenant Okking," I said.

Shaknahyi chewed his gum for a few seconds. "The lieutenant was always all right to me," he said. His eyes slid sideways again.

"Yeah, well," I said. I couldn't think of anything terribly meaningful to add. I'd been responsible for Okking's death, and I knew that Shaknahyi knew it. That was something else I'd have to overcome if we were going to accomplish anything together. There was silence in the car for a little while after that.

"Look, that weapon of yours ain't much good except for maybe stunning mice and birds up close. Take a look on the floor."

I reached under my seat and pulled out a small arsenal. There was a large seizure cannon, a static pistol, and a needle gun that looked like its flechettes could strip the meat from the bones of an adult rhinoceros. "What do you suggest?" I asked.

"How do you feel about splashing blood all over everything?"

"Had enough of that last year," I said.

"Then forget the needle gun, though it's a dandy side

arm. It alternates three sedative barbs, three iced with nerve toxin, and three explosive darts. The seizure cannon may be too hefty for you too. It's got' four times the power of your little sizzlegun. It'll stop anybody you aim at up to a quarter of a mile away, but it'll kill a mark inside a hundred yards. Maybe you ought to go with the static gun."

I stuffed the needle gun and the seizure cannon back under the seat and looked at the static gun. "What kind of damage will this do?"

Shaknahyi shrugged. "Hit 'em in the head with that two or three times and you've crippled 'em for life. The head's a small target, though. Get 'em in the chest and it's Heart Attack City. Anywhere else, they can't control their muscles. They're helpless for half an hour. That's what you want."

I nodded and tucked the static gun into my coat pocket. "You don't think I'll—" My telephone began warbling, and I undipped it from my belt. I figured it was one of my other problems checking in. "Hello?" I said.

"Marîd? This is Indihar."

It seemed like they just weren't making good news anymore. I closed my eyes. "Yeah, how you doing? What's up?"

"You know what time it is? You own a club now, Maghrebi. You got a responsibility to the girls on the day shift. You want to get down here and open up?"

I hadn't given the club a goddamn thought. It was something I really didn't want to worry about, but Indihar was right about my responsibility. "I'll get there as soon as I can. Everybody show up today?"

"I'm here, Pualani's here, Janelle quit, I don't know where Kandy is, and Yasmin's here looking for a job."

Now Yasmin too. Jeez. "See you in a few minutes."

"Inshallah, Marîd."

"Yeah." I clipped the phone back on my belt.

"Where you got to go now? We don't have time for no personal errands."

I tried to explain. "Friedlander Bey thought he was doing me this big favor, and he bought me my own club in the Budayeen. I don't know a damn thing about running a club. Forgot all about it until now. I got to pass by there and open the place."

Shaknahyi laughed. "Beware of two-hundred-year-old kingpins bearing gifts," he said. "Where's this club?"

"On the Street," I said. "Chiriga's place. You know which one I mean?"

He turned and studied me for a moment without saying anything. Then he said, "Yeah, I know which one you mean." He swung the patrol car around and headed for the Budayeen.

You might think it'd be a kick to zip through the eastern gate in an official car, and drive up the Street when other vehicular traffic is forbidden. My reaction was just the opposite. I scrunched myself down in the seat, hoping no one I knew would see me. I'd hated cops all my life and now I was one; already my former friends were giving me the same treatment I used to give Hajjar and the other police around the Budayeen. I was grateful that Shaknahyi had the sense not to turn on the siren.

Shaknahyi dropped the car right in front of Chiriga's club, and I saw Indihar standing on the sidewalk with Pualani and Yasmin. I was unhappy to see that Yasmin had cut her long, beautiful black hair, which I'd always loved. Maybe since we'd broken up, she felt she had to change things. I took a deep breath, opened the door, and got out. "How y'all doing?" I said.