“That’s why I been sitting here,” I said.
She turned away and stared at herself in the wall of mirrors behind the stage. “Sergeant Catavina said you weren’t in very good shape this morning. That true?” She looked at me again. Her expression was perfectly empty.
“Is what true?” I said. “That I wasn’t feeling well?
“That you were high or hung over today when you went out with my husband.”
I sighed. “I showed up at the station house with a hangover. It wasn’t crippling, though.”
Her hands began clenching and unclenching. I could see her jaw muscles twitch. “You think it might have slowed you down any?”
“No, Indihar,” I said, “I don’t think it affected me at all. You want to blame me for what happened? Is that what this is about?”
Her head turned very slowly. She stared directly into my eyes. “Yes, I want to blame you. You didn’t back him up fast enough. You didn’t cover him. If you’d been there for him, he wouldn’t be dead.”
“You can’t say that, Indihar.” I had a sick, hollow feeling in my belly because I’d been thinking the same thing all day. The guilt had been growing in me since I’d left Shaknahyi lying on a cot at the hospital with a bloody sheet over his face.
“My husband would be alive and my children would still have a father. They don’t now, you know. I haven’t told them yet. I don’t know how to tell them. I don’t know how to tell myself, if you want to know the truth. Maybe tomorrow I’ll realize that Jirji’s dead. Then I’ll have to find a way to get through the day without him, through the week, through the rest of my life.”
I felt a sudden nausea and closed my eyes. It was as if I weren’t really there, as if I were just dreaming this nightmare. When I opened my eyes, though, Indihar was still looking at me. It had all happened, and she and I were going to have to play out this terrible scene. “I—”
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry, you son of a bitch,” she said. Even then she didn’t raise her voice. “I don’t want to hear anybody tell me he’s sorry.”
I just sat there and let her say whatever she needed to say. She couldn’t accuse me of anything that I hadn’t already confessed to in my own mind. Maybe if I hadn’t gotten so drunk last night, maybe if I hadn’t taken all those sunnies this morning -
Finally she just stared at me, a look of despair on her face. She was condemning me with her presence and her silence. She knew and I knew, and that was enough. Then she turned and walked out of the club, her gait steady, her posture perfect.
I felt absolutely destroyed. I found the phone where Chiri’d left it and spoke my home commcode into it. It rang three times and then Kmuzu answered. “You want to come get me?” I said. I was slurring my words.
“Are you at Chiriga’s?” he asked.
“Yeah. Come quick before I kill myself.” I slapped the phone down on the bar and made myself another drink while I waited.
When he arrived, I had a little present for him. “Hold out your hand,” I said.
“What is it, yaa Sidi?”
I emptied my pillcase into his upturned palm, then clicked the pillcase closed and put it back in my pocket. “Get rid of ’em,” I said.
His expression didn’t change as he closed his fist. “This is wise,” he said.
“I’m way overdue.” I got up from my stool and followed him back into the cool night air. I locked the front door of Chiri’s and then let Kmuzu drive me home.
I took a long shower and let the hot needle spray blast my skin until I felt myself begin to relax. I dried off and went into my bedroom. Kmuzu had brought me a mug of strong hot chocolate. I sipped it gratefully.
“Will you be needing anything else tonight, yaa Sidi?” he asked.
“Listen,” I said, “I’m not going into the station house in the morning. Let me sleep, all right? I don’t want to be bothered. I don’t want to answer any phone calls or deal with anybody’s problems.”
“Unless the master of the house requires you,” said Kmuzu.
I sighed. “That goes without saying. Otherwise—”
“I will see that you’re not disturbed.”
I didn’t chip in the wake-up daddy before I went to bed, and I got a restless night’s sleep. Bad dreams woke me again and again until I fell into deep, exhausted sleep at dawn. It was close to noon when I finally got out of bed. I dressed in my old jeans and work shirt, a costume I didn’t wear very often around Friedlander Bey’s mansion.
“Would you like some breakfast, yaa Sidi?” asked Kmuzu.
“No, I’m taking a vacation from all that today.”
He frowned. “There is a business matter for your attention later.”
“Later,” I agreed. I went to the desk where I’d thrown my briefcase the night before, and took Wise Counselor from the rack of moddies. I thought my troubled mind could use some instant therapy. I seated myself in a comfortable black leather chair and chipped the moddy in.
Once upon a time in Mauretania there was or maybe there wasn’t a famous fool, trickster, and rascal named Marid Audran. One day Audran was driving his cream-colored Westphalian sedan on his way to take care of some important business, when another car collided with his. The second car was old and broken down, and although the accident was clearly the fault of the other driver, the man jumped out of the wrecked heap and began screaming at Audran. “Look what you’ve done to my magnificent vehicle!” shouted the driver, who was Police Lieutenant Hajjar. Reda Abu Adil, Hassan the Shiite, and Pauljawarski also got out of the car. All four threatened and abused Audran, although he protested that he had done nothing wrong.
Jawarski kicked the creased fender of Hajjar’s automobile. “It’s useless now,” he said, “and so the only fair thing is for you to give us your car.”
Audran was outnumbered four to one and it was clear that they were not in a mood to be reasonable, so he agreed.
“And will you not reward us for showing you the path of honor?” asked Hajjar.
“If we hadn’t insisted,” said Hassan, “your actions would have put your soul in jeopardy with Allah.”
“Perhaps,” said Audran. “What do you wish me to pay you for this service?”
Reda Abu Adil spread his hands as if it mattered little. “It is but a token, a symbol between Muslim brothers, ” he said. “You may give us each a hundred kiam.” So Audran handed the keys to his cream-colored Westphalian sedan to Lieutenant Hajjar, and paid each of the four a hundred kiam.
All afternoon, Audran pushed Hajjar’s wrecked car back to town in the hot sun. He parked it in the middle of the souk and went to find his friend, Saied the Half-Hajj. “You must help me get even with Hajjar, Abu Adil, Hassan, and Jawarski,” he said, and Saied was agreeable. Audran cut a hole in the floor of the derelict automobile, and Saied lay by the opening covered with a blanket so that none could see him, with a small bag of gold coins. Then Audran started the engine of the car and waited.
Not long after, the four villains happened by. They saw Audran sitting in the shade of the ruined automobile and laughed. “It won’t drive an inch!” mocked Jawarski. “What are you warming the engine for?”
Audran glanced up. “I have my reasons, “he said, and he smiled as if he had a wonderful secret.
“What reasons?” demanded Abu Adil. “Has the summer sun at last broiled your brains?”
Audran stood and stretched. “I guess I can tell you,” he said lightly. “After all, I owe my good fortune to you.”
“Good fortune?” asked Hajjar suspiciously.
“Come,” said Audran. “Look.” He led the four villains to the back of the car where the battery cap had been left open. “Piss in the battery,” he said.