I got into the sedan. Kmuzu started the engine and swung the car around and out through the main gate. I thought about what Umar had said, what he’d offered me. Abu Adil had exercised his power for almost two centuries. Surely in all that time there had been many young men who’d filled the position Umar now held. Surely some of them had had the same ambitious ideas. Abu Adil still remained, but what had happened to those young men? Maybe Umar had never considered that question. Maybe Umar was nowhere near as smart as he thought he was.
Shaknahyi had been killed on Tuesday, and it wasn’t until Friday that I was able to go into the station house again. It was, of course, the Sabbath, and I toyed with the idea of passing by a mosque on the way, but I felt hypocritical about that. I figured I was such a crummy person that no amount of worshiping could make me acceptable to Allah. I know that’s all hollow rationalization — it’s the sinners, after all, who need the benefits of prayer most, and not the saints — but I just felt too soiled and guilty to enter the House of God. Besides, Shaknahyi had set an example of true faith, and I’d failed him. I had to redeem myself in my own eyes first, before I could expect to do the same in the eyes of Allah.
My life has been like a rolling ocean, with waves of comfort and ease followed by waves of adversity. No matter how peaceful things get, I know more trouble will soon sweep over me. I’ve always told everyone how much I preferred being on my own, a solitary agent answerable only to myself. I wished I meant it half as much as I pretended.
I needed every bit of the inner strength and confidence I’d achieved to deal with the obstinate forces around me. I was getting no help at all from Lieutenant Hajjar, Friedlander Bey, or anyone else. No one at the station house seemed particularly interested in talking with me on Friday morning. There were a lot of part-time office workers there, Christians who filled in for the religious Muslims on the Sabbath. Lieutenant Hajjar was there, of course, because on his list of favorite pastimes, religion finished down somewhere between oral surgery and paying taxes. I went immediately to his square, glass-walled office.
Eventually he looked up to see who was looming beside his desk. “What now, Audran?” he snapped. He hadn’t seen me in three days, but he made it sound as if I’d been badgering him non-stop all that time.
“Just wanted to know what your plans for me were.”
Hajjar looked up from his data deck. He stared at me for a long moment, his m6uth twisted as if he’d just chewed a rotten date. “You’re flattering’ yourself,” he said in a quiet voice. “You don’t enter into my plans at all.”
“I was just volunteering to help in the investigation of Jirji Shaknahyi’s death.”
Hajjar raised his eyebrows. He leaned back in his chair. “What investigation?” he asked incredulously. “He was shot by Paul Jawarski. That’s all we need to know.”
I waited until I could speak without shouting at him. “We have Jawarski in custody?”
“Whe!” demanded Hajjar. “Who’s we? You mean, does the police department have Jawarski? Not yet. But don’t worry, Audran, he won’t slip away. We’re closin’ in on him.”
“How do you expect to find him? This is a big city. You think he’s just sitting in a room somewhere, waiting for you to show up with a warrant? He’s probably back in America by now.”
“Good police work’s how we’ll find him, Audran. You never have much faith in good police work. I know he ain’t left town. He’s here somewhere, and we’re tightenin’ the net around him. Just a matter of time.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Tell that to his widow,” I said. “She’ll be heartened by your confidence.”
Hajjar stood up. I’d made him angry. “You accusin’ me of somethin’, Audran?” he asked, jabbing a stiff forefinger into my chest. “You hintin’ that maybe I’m not pushin’ this investigation hard enough?”
“I never said nothing, Hajjar. I just wanted to find out what your plans are.”
He gave me an evil grin. “What, you think I got nothin’ better to do than sit around and worry about how to utilize your special talents? Hell, Audran, we were gettin’ along fine without you the last few days. But I suppose now you’re here, there must be somethin’ for you to do.” He sat down again at his desk and riffled through a stack of papers. “Uh yeah, here we go. I want you to go on with that investigation you and Shaknahyi started.” I wasn’t happy about that. I wanted to be directly involved in tracking down Jawarski. “I thought you said we were supposed to lay off Abu Adil.”
Hajjar’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t say anything about Abu Adil, did I? You’d better lay off him. I’m talkin’ about this chink, On Cheung. The baby seller. Can’t afford to let his trail get cold.”
I felt a cold chill pass through me. “Anybody can follow up on On Cheung,” I said. “I got a special interest in finding Paul Jawarski.”
“Marid Audran, Man on a Mission, huh? Well, forget it. We don’t need you roarin’ around the city workin’ off your grudge. Anyway, you ain’t shown me yet that you know what you’re doin’. So I’m assignin’ you a new partner, somebody with a lot of experience. This ain’t some ladies’ volunteer club, Audran. You do what I tell you. Or don’t you think puttin’ On Cheung out of commission is worth your time?”
I gritted my teeth. I didn’t like the assignment, but Hajjar was right about it being just as important as collaring Jawarski. “Whatever you say, Lieutenant.”
He gave me that same grin. I wanted to whack it off his face. “You’ll be ridin’ around with Sergeant Catavina from now pn. He ought to teach you plenty.”
My heart sank. Of all the cops in that station house, Catavina was the man I least wanted to spend time with. He was a bully and a lazy son of a bitch. I knew that if we ever did catch up to On Cheung, it wouldn’t be because of Catavina’s contributions.
The lieutenant must have read my reaction from my expression. “Any problem with that, Audran?” he asked.
“If I had a problem, is there any chance it would change your mind?”
“None whatsoever,” said Hajjar.
“Didn’t think so.”
Hajjar looked back at the screen of his data deck. “Report to Catavina. I want to hear some good news real soon. You cut the legs out from under this dink, there may be commendations for the two of you.”
“I’ll get right on it, Lieutenant,” I said. I was impressed with Hajjar’s cleverness. He’d skillfully maneuvered me away from both Abu Adil and Jawarski by throwing me into a time-consuming but perfectly valid investigation. I was going to have to find a way to accomplish both my official assignment and my own personal goals.
Hajjar paid no further attention to me, so I left his office. I went to find Sergeant Catavina, I’d rather proceed without him, but that wasn’t going to be possible.
Catavina wasn’t that excited about being paired with me, either. “I already got the word from Hajjar,” he told me. We were walking down to the garage, to pick up Catavina’s patrol car. Catavina was trying to give me the benefit of all his years’ experience in one disjointed lecture. “You ain’t a good cop, Audran,” he said in a grim voice. “You may never be a good cop. I don’t want you fucking up with me like you fucked up Shaknahyi.”
“What’s that mean, Catavina?” I asked.
He turned and looked at me, his eyes wide. “Figure it out. If you’d known what you was doing, Shaknahyi’d still be alive and I wouldn’t have to be holding your hand. Just stay out of my way and do what I tell you.”
I was mad as hell, but I didn’t say anything. I planned to stay out of his way, all right. I figured I’d have to lose Catavina if I wanted to make any progress.
We got into the patrol car, and he had nothing more to say to me for a long while. That was okay with me. I thought he might drive back to the neighborhood where On Cheung was last known to have operated. Maybe we could learn something useful by interviewing those people again, even though they’d been so uncooperative before.