A Fire in the Sun (36 page)

I filled out their damn forms and waited half an hour until one of the residents could see me. He pumped something under the skin of my shoulder with a perfusor, then went about manipulating the broken bones. "This is probably gonna hurt," he said.

Well, he didn't know that I had software chipped in that took care of that. I was probably the only person in the world who had that add-on, but I wasn't a well-known celebrity. I made some appropriate grunts and grimaces, but on the whole I acted brave. He immobilized my left arm with a kind of superstiff shrinkwrap. "You're handling this real well," he said.

"I've had esoteric training," I said. "The control of pain is all in the mind." That was true enough; it was plugged into the mind on the end of a long, plastic-sheathed silver wire.

"Whatever," said the doctor. When he finished with my collarbone, he treated the cuts and scrapes. Then he scribbled something on a prescription pad. "Still, I'm gonna give you this for pain. You may find that you need it. If you don't, great." He ripped the page loose and handed it to me.

I glanced at it. He'd written me for twenty Nofeqs, painkillers so feeble that in the Budayeen you couldn't' trade ten of them for a single Sonneine. "Thanks," I said bluntly.

"No sense being a hero and toughing it out when medical science is there to help." He glanced around and decided that he was finished with me. "You'll be all right in about six weeks, Mr. Audran. I advise you to see your own physician in a few days."

"Thanks," I said again. He gave me some papers and I took them to a window and paid cash. Then I went out into the main lobby of the hospital and took the elevator up to the twentieth floor. There was a different nurse on

duty, but Zain, the security guard, recognized me. I went down the hall to Suite One.

A doctor and a nurse stood beside Papa's bed. They turned to look at me as I came in, their faces grim. "Is something wrong?" I asked, frightened.

The doctor rubbed his gray beard with one hand. "He's in serious trouble," he said.

"What the hell happened?" I demanded.

"He'd been complaining of weakness, headaches, and abdominal pain. For a long while we couldn't find anything to explain it."

"Yes," I said, "he'd been getting ill at home, before the fire. He was too sick to escape by himself."

"We ran more sensitive tests," said the doctor, "and finally something turned up positive. He's been given a rather sophisticated neurotoxin, apparently over a period of weeks."

I felt cold. Someone had been poisoning Friedlander Bey, probably someone in the house. He certainly had enough enemies, and my recent experience with the Half-Hajj proved that I couldn't dismiss anyone as a suspect. Then, suddenly, my eyes fell on something resting on Papa's tray table. It was a round metal tin, its cover lying beside it. In the tin was a layer of dates stuffed with nutmeats and rolled in sugar.

"Umm Saad," I murmured. She'd been feeding those dates to him since she'd come to live in his house. I went to the tray table. "If you analyze these," I told the doctor, "I'll bet you'll find the source."

"But who—"

"Don't worry about who," I said. "Just make him well." This was all because I'd been so caught up in my own vendetta against Jawarski that I hadn't given proper attention to Umm Saad. As I headed for the door I thought, didn't Augustus Caesar's wife poison him with figs from his own tree, to get rid of him so her son could be emperor? I excused myself for overlooking the similarity before; there's so goddamn much history, it just can't help repeating itself.

I went down and bailed my car out of the parking lot, then drove to the station house. I had myself completely under control by the time the elevator brought me up to the third floor. I headed toward Hajjar's office; Sergeant

Catavina tried to stop me, but I just shoved him up against a painted plasterboard wall and kept walking. I flung open Hajjar's door. "Hajjar," I said. All the anger and disgust I felt toward him were in those two syllables.

He glanced up from some paperwork. His expression turned fearful when he saw the look on my face. "Audran," he said. "What is it?"

I lofted the .45 onto his desk in front of him. "Remember that American we were looking for? The guy who killed Jirji? Well, they found him lying on the floor of some rattrap. Somebody shot him with his own gun."

Hajjar stared unhappily at the automatic. "Somebody shot him, huh? Any idea who?"

"Unfortunately, no." I gave him an evil grin. "I don't have a microscope or nothing, but it looks to me like whoever did it also wiped his fingerprints right off the weapon. We may never solve this murder, either."

Hajjar sat back in his reclining chair. "Probably not. Well, at least the citizens will be glad to hear that Jawar-ski's been neutralized. Good police work, Audran."

"Yeah," I said. "Sure." I turned to leave, and I got as far as the door. Then I faced him again. "That's one down, know what I mean? And two to go."

"The hell you talking about?"

"I mean Umm Saad and Abu Adil are next. And something else: I know who you are and I know what you're doing. Watch your ass. The guy who blew Jawarski away is out there, and he may have you in his sights next." I had the pleasure of seeing Hajjar's superior grin vanish. When I left his office, he was muttering to himself and reaching for his phone.

Catavina was waiting in the corridor by the elevator. "What'd you say?" he asked worriedly. "What'd you tell him?"

"Don't worry, Sarge," I said, "your afternoon nap is safe, at least for a while. But I wouldn't be surprised if suddenly there's a call to reform the police department. You might have to start acting like a real cop for a change." I pushed the button for the elevator. "And lose some weight while you're at it."

My mood was a little better as I rode back down to the ground floor. When I walked back into the early evening sunlight, I felt almost normal.

Almost. I was still a prisoner of my own guilt. I'd planned to go home and find out more details about Kmuzu's relationship to Abu Adil, but I found myself heading in the other direction. When I heard the evening call to prayer, I left the car on Souk el-Khemis Street. There was a small mosque there, and I paused in the courtyard to remove my shoes and make the ablution. Then I went into the mosque and prayed. It was the first time I'd done that seriously in years.

Joining in worship with the others who came to this neighborhood mosque didn't cleanse me of my doubts and bad feelings. I hadn't expected that they would. I did feel a warmth, however, a sense of belonging that had been missing from my life since childhood. For the first time since coming to the city, I could approach Allah in all humility, and with sincere repentance my prayers might be accepted.

After the prayer service, I spoke with an elder of the mosque. We talked for some time, and he told me that I had been right to come and pray. I was grateful that he didn't lecture me, that he made me comfortable and welcome.

"There is one more thing, O Respected One," I said.

"Yes?"

"Today I killed a man."

He did not seem terribly shocked. He stroked his long beard for several seconds. "Tell me why you did this," he said at last.

I told him everything I knew about Jawarski, about his record of violent crimes before he'd come to the city, about his shooting of Shaknahyi. "He was a bad man," I said, "but, even so, I feel like a criminal myself."

The elder put one hand on my shoulder. "In the Surah of The Cow," he said, "it is written that retaliation is prescribed in the matter of murder. What you did is no crime in the eyes of Allah, all praise to Him."

I looked deeply into the old mdn's eyes. He wasn't merely trying to make me feel better. He wasn't just putting my conscience at ease. He was reciting the law as the Messenger of God had revealed it. I knew the passage of the Qur'an he'd mentioned, but I needed to hear it from someone whose authority I respected. I felt wholly absolved. I almost wept with gratitude.

I left the mosque in a strange mixture of moods: I was filled with unrequited rage toward Abu Adil and Umm Saad, but at the same time I felt a well-being and gladness I could not describe. I decided to make another stop before I went home.

Chiri was taking over the night shift when I came into

the club. I sat on my usual stool at the bend of the bar. l

"White Death?" she asked.            f

"No," I said, "I can't stay long. Chiri, you got any

Sonneine?"  k

She stared at me for a few seconds. "I don't think so. I

How'd you hurt your arm?"            I

"Any Paxium then? Or beauties?"            f

She rested her chin in her hand. "Honey, I thought

you'd sworn off drugs. I thought you were being clean

from now on."           »

"Aw hell, Chiri," I said, "don't give me a hard time." I

She just reached under the counter and came up with her little black pillcase. "Take what you want, Marîd," she said. "I guess you know what you're doing."

"I sure do," I said, and I helped myself to half a dozen caps and tabs. I got some water and swallowed them, and I didn't even pay much attention to what they were.

Chapter 18

I didn't do anything strenuous for a week or so, but my mind raced like a frantic greyhound. I plotted revenge  against Abu Adil and Umar a hundred different ways: I scalded their flesh in boiling vats of noxious fluids; I let loose hideous plague organisms that would make their Proxy Hell moddies seem like summer colds; I hired teams of sadistic ninjas to creep into the great house and slaughter them slowly with subtle knife wounds. In the meantime, my body began to recover its strength, although all the superluminal brain augmentation in the world couldn't speed up the knitting of broken bones.

The delay was almost more than I could stand, but I had a wonderful nurse. Yasmin had taken pity on me. Saied had been responsible for distributing the story of my heroics. Now everyone in the Budayeen knew how I'd faced down Jawarski single-handed. They'd also heard that he'd been so shamed by my moral example that he embraced Islam on the spot, and that while we prayed together Abu Adil and Umar tried to tiptoe in and kill me, but Jawarski leaped between us and died saving the life of his new Muslim brother.

Then there was the sequel, in which Umar and Abu Adil captured me and took me back to their evil castle, where they tortured me, mind-raped me, and forced me to sign blank checks and deceptive home repairs contracts until Saied the Half-Hajj burst in to my rescue. What the hell. I didn't see that embellishing the facts a little hurt him or me.

In any event, Yasmin was so attentive and solicitous, I think Kmuzu was a little jealous. I didn't see why. Many of the attentions I received from Yasmin weren't in Kmuzu's job description at all. I awoke one morning to find her

straddling me, rubbing my chest. She didn't have a stitch of clothing on.

"Well," I said sleepily, "in the hospital, the nurses rarely take their uniforms off."

"They've had more training," said Yasmin. "I'm a beginner at this, I'm still not entirely sure what I'm doing."

"You know what you're doing, all right," I said. Her massaging moved slowly south. I was waking up fast.

"Now, you're not supposed to do anything too strenuous, so let me do all the work."

"Fine," I said. I looked up at her and remembered how much I loved her. I also remembered how crazy she could make me in bed. Before I got completely carried away, I said, "What if Kmuzu comes in?"

"He's gone to church. Besides," she said wickedly, "even Christians must learn about sex sooner or later. Otherwise, where do new Christians come from?"

"Missionaries convert them from people who are minding their own business," I said.

But Yasmin really didn't intend to get into a religious discussion. She raised up and slid herself down on top of me. She let out a happy sigh. "It's been a long time," she said.

"Yeah," I said. It was all I could think to say; my concentration was elsewhere.

"When my hair gets long again, I'll be able to tickle you with it like I used to."

"You know," I said, beginning to breathe heavily, "I've always had this fantasy—"

Yasmin's eyes opened wide. "Not with my hair, you won't!" she said. Well, we all have our inhibitions. I just didn't think I'd ever suggest anything kinky enough to shock Yasmin.

I'm not going to claim that we jammed all morning until we heard Kmuzu enter the living room. First of all, I hadn't jammed anyone at all in weeks; second, being together again made both of us frantic. It was a short bout, but very intense. Afterward, we held each other and didn't say anything for a while. I could have fallen back to sleep, but Yasmin doesn't like that.

"You ever wish I was a tall, willowy, blond woman?" she asked.

"I've never gotten along very well with real women."

"You like Indihar, I know you do. I've seen you looking at her."

"You're crazy. She's just not as bad as the other girls"

I felt Yasmin shrug. "But do you ever wish I was toll and blond?"

"You could've been. When you were still a boy, you could've asked the surgeons for that."

She buried her face against my neck. "They told me I didn't have the skeleton," she said, her voice muffled.

"I think you're perfect just the way you are." I waited a beat. "Except you've got the biggest feet I've ever seen in my life."

Yasmin sat up quickly. She wasn't amused. "You want your other collarbone broken, baheem?"

It took me half an hour and a long hot shower together to restore peace. I got dressed and watched Yasmin set herself ready to go out. For once, she wasn't running late. She didn't have to go to work until eight o'clock that evening. "Coming by the club later?" she asked, looking at my reflection in the mirror over my dresser.

"Sure," I said. "I've got to make my presence felt, or ill you employees will get the idea I'm running a resort."

Yasmin grinned. "You ain't running nothing, honey," &e said. "Chiri runs that club, like she always has."