He dislodged Little Jirji and Hakim and, to my dismay, left me alone with them while he went in to see how supper was progressing. I didn’t actually bear these children any ill will, but my philosophy of raising kids is kind of extreme. I think you should keep a baby around for a few days after it’s born — until the novelty wears off — and then you put it in a big cardboard box with all the best books of Eastern and Western civilization. Then you bury the box and dig it up again when the kid’s eighteen. I watched uneasily as first Little Jirji and then Hfikim realized I was sitting on the couch. Hakim lurched toward me, a bright red toy figure in his right hand, another in his mouth. “What do I do now?” I muttered.
“How you boys getting along out here?” said Shaknahyi. I was saved. He came back into the parlor and sat beside me in an old, shabby armchair.
“Great,” I said. I said a little prayer to Allah. This looked like it could be a long night.
A very pretty, very serious-faced girl came into the room, carrying a china plate of hummus and bread. Shaknahyi took the plate from her and kissed her on both cheeks. “This is Zahra, my little princess,” he said. “Zahra, this is Uncle Marid.” Uncle Marid! I’d never heard anything so grotesque in my entire life.
Zahra looked up at me, blushed furiously, and ran back into the kitchen while her father laughed. I’ve always had that effect on women.
Shaknahyi indicated the plate of hummus. “Please,” he said, “refresh yourself.”
“May your prosperity increase, Jirji,” I said.
“May God lengthen your life. I’m gonna get us some tea.” He got up again and went back into the kitchen.
I wished he’d stop fussing. It made me nervous, and it left me outnumbered by the kids. I tore off some bread and dipped it in the hummus, keeping a careful eye on Little Jirji and Hakim. They seemed to be playing together peacefully, apparently paying no attention to me at all; but I wasn’t going to be lulled so easily.
Shaknahyi came back in a few minutes. “I think you know my wife,” he said. I looked up. He was standing there with Indihar. He was grinning his damnfool grin, but she looked absolutely pissed.
I stood up, bewildered. “Indihar, how you doing?” I said. I felt like a fool. “I didn’t even know you were married.”
“Nobody’s supposed to know,” she said. She glared at her husband, then she turned and glared at me.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” Shaknahyi said. “Marid won’t tell anybody, right?”
“Marid is a—” Indihar began, but then she remembered that I was a guest in her home. She lowered her eyes modestly to the floor. “You honor our family with your visit, Marid,” she said.
I didn’t know what to say. This was a major shock: Indihar as beautiful Budayeen dancer by day, demure Muslim wife by night. “Please,” I said uncomfortably, “don’t go to any trouble for me.”
Indihar flicked her eyes at me before she led Zahra out of the room. I couldn’t read what she was thinking.
“Have some tea,” said Shaknahyi. “Have some more hummus. “Hakim had at last found the courage to look me over. He grabbed my leg and drooled on my pants.
This was going to be even worse than I’d feared.
It was Shaknahyi’s small brown notebook, the one he’d carried in his hip pocket. The first time I’d seen it was when we’d investigated Blanca’s murder. Now I stared at its vinyl cover, smeared with bloody fingerprints, and wondered about Shaknahyi’s coded entries. I supposed I was going to have to find out what they all meant.
This was a week after my visit to Jirji and Indihar’s apartment. The day had started off on a low note and it never improved. I looked up to see Kmuzu standing beside my bed holding a tray of orange juice, toast, and coffee. I guess he’d been waiting for my wake-up daddy to kick in. He looked so sick that I almost felt sorry for the poor sucker. “Good morning, yaa Sidi,” he said softly.
I felt like hell too. “Where are my clothes?”
Kmuzu winced. “I don’t know, yaa Sidi. I don’t remember what you did with them last night.”
I didn’t remember much either. There was nothing but sick blackness from the time I came in the front door late last night until just a moment ago. I crawled out of bed naked, my head throbbing, my stomach threatening immediate upheaval. “Help me find my jeans,” I said. “My pillcase is in my jeans.”
“This is why the Lord forbids drinking,” said Kmuzu, I glanced at him; his eyes were closed and he was still holding the tray, but it was tilting dangerously. There was going to be coffee and orange juice all over my bed in a few seconds. That wasn’t important to me right then.
My clothes weren’t under the bed, which was the logical place to look. They weren’t in the closet, and they weren’t in the dressing room or the bathroom. I looked on the table in the dining area and in my small kitchen. No luck. I finally found my shoes and shirt rolled up in a ball in the bookcase, crammed between some paperback novels by Lutfy Gad, a Palestinian detective writer of the middle twenty-first century. My jeans had been folded neatly and hidden on my desk beneath several thick sheaves of computer printout.
I didn’t even put the pants on. I just grabbed the pillcase and hurried back into the bedroom. My plan was to swallow some opiates, maybe a dozen Sonneine, with the orange juice.
Too late. Kmuzu was staring down in horror at the sticky, sweet-smelling puddle on my bedclothes. He looked up at me. “I’ll clean this up,” he said, gulping down a wave of nausea, “immediately.” His expression said that he expected to lose his comfortable job in the Big House, and be sent out to the dusty fields with the other unskilled brutes.
“Don’t worry about it right now, Kmuzu. Just hand me that cup of—”
There was a gentle scraping sound as the coffee cup and saucer slid southward and tumbled over the edge of the tray. I looked at the ruined sheets. At least you couldn’t see the orange juice stain anymore.
“Yaa Sidi—”
“I want a glass of water, Kmuzu. Right now.”
It had been a hell of a night. I’d had the bright idea to go to the Budayeen after work. “I haven’t had a night out in a long time,” I said to Kmuzu when he arrived to pick me up at the station house.
“The master of the house is pleased that you’re concentrating on your work.”
“Yeah, you right, but that don’t mean I can’t see my friends now and then.” I gave him directions to Jo-Mama’s Greek club.
“If you do this, you will not get home until late, yaa Sidi.”
“I know it’ll be late. Would you rather I went out drinking in the morning?”
“You must be at the station house in the morning.”
“That’s a long time from now,” I pointed out.
“The master of the house—”
“Turn left here, Kmuzu. Now!” I wasn’t going to listen to any more argument. I guided him northwest through the twisting streets of the city. We left the car on the boulevard and walked through the gate into the Budayeen.
Jo-Mama’s club was on Third Street, jammed tight against the high northern wall of the quarter. Rocky, the relief barmaid, frowned at me when I took a stool at the front bar. She was short and hefty with brushy black hair, and she didn’t look glad to see me. “Ya want to see my manager’s license, cop?” she said in a sour voice.
“Get a grip, Rocky. I just want a gin and bingara.” I turned to Kmuzu, who was still standing behind me. “Grab a seat,” I told him.
“Who’s this?” said Rocky. “Your slave or something?”
I nodded. “Give him the same.”
Kmuzu raised a hand. “Just some club soda, please,” he said. Rocky glanced at me, and I shook my head slightly.
Jo-Mama came out of her office and grinned at me. “Marid, where y’at? You ain’t been comin’ around no more.”
“Been busy,” I said. Rocky set a drink in front of me and an identical one in front of Kmuzu.