“No, really,” Mahmoud went on, “everybody’s talking about it. It was pretty gutsy.”
Jacques shrugged. “Especially if you think that you could’ve ended up with all of Friedlander Bey’s light-speed clout for yourself. Just by letting the old fucker fry.”
“Did you think about that?” asked Mahmoud. “While it was all happening, I mean?”
It was time to take a long swallow of vodka, because I was getting really mad. When I set my glass down again, I looked from one to the other. “You know Indihar, right? Well, since Jirji’s been dead, she’s having a tough time paying her bills. She won’t take a loan from me or Ghiri, and she can’t make enough tending bar in the club.”
Mahmoud’s eyebrows went up. “She want to come work for me? She’s got a nice ass. I could get her good money.”
I shook my head. “She’s not interested in that,” I said. “She wants me to find a new home for one of her kids. She’s got two boys and a girl. I told her she could spare one of the boys.”
That shut ’em up for a little while. “Maybe,” said Jacques at last. “I can ask around, anyway.”
“Do it,” I said. “Indihar said she might even be willing to part with the girl too. If they both go together, and if the price is right.”
“When do you need to know?” said Mahmoud.
“Soon as you can find out. Now, I got to go. Saied, you mind taking a ride with me?”
The Half-Hajj looked first at Mahmoud, then at Jacques, but neither of them had anything to say. “Guess not,” he said.
I took twenty kiam out of my pocket and dropped it on the table. “Drinks are on me,” I said.
Mahmoud gave me a judicious look. “We been kind of hard on you lately,” he said.
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“Well, we’re glad things are straightened out between us. No reason things can’t be like they were before.”
“Sure,” I said, “right.”
I gave Saied’s shoulder a little shove, and we headed back out into the sunlight. I stopped him before he got into the car. “I need you to tell me how to find Gay Che’s,” I said.
His face went suddenly pale. “Why the hell you want to go there?”
“I heard about it, that’s all.”
“Well, I don’t want to go. I’m not even sure I can give you directions.”
“Sure you can, pal,” I said, my voice grim and threatening. “You know all about it.”
Saied didn’t like being pushed around. He stood up straight, trying to give himself a little height advantage. “Think you can make me go with you?”
I just stared at him, my face empty of emotion. Then very slowly I raised my right hand up to my lips. I opened my mouth and bit myself savagely. I ripped a small gobbet of flesh loose from the inside of my wrist and spat it at the Half-Hajj. My own blood trickled down the corners of my mouth. “Look, motherfucker,” I growled hoarsely, “that’s what I do to me. Wait till you see what I do to you!”
Saied shuddered and backed away from me on the sidewalk. “You’re crazy, Marid,” he said. “You gone fuckin’ crazy.”
“In the car.”
He hesitated. “You’re wearing Rex, ain’t you? You shouldn’t wear that moddy. I don’t like what it does to you.”
I threw back my head and laughed. I was only behaving the way he acted when he wore the same moddy. And he wore it often. I could understand why — I was beginning to like it a lot.
I waited until he slid into the passenger seat, then I went around and got behind the wheel. “Which way?” I asked.
“South.” His voice was tired and hopeless.
I drove for a while, letting him worry about how much I knew. “So,” I said finally, “what kind of place is it?”
“Nothing much.” The Half-Hajj was sullen. “A hangout for this jackboot gang, the Jaish.”
“Yeah?” From the name, I’d pictured the clientele of Gay Che’s like that guy I’d seen in Chiri’s a few weeks before, the one in the vinyl pants with his hand chained behind his back.
“The Citizen’s Army. They wear these gray uniforms and have parades and pass out a lot of leaflets. I think they want to get rid of the foreigners in the city. Down with the heathen Franj. You know that routine.”
“Uh huh. I get the idea from il-Manhous that you spend some time there.”
Saied didn’t like this conversation at all. “Look, Marid,” he began, but then he fell silent. “Anyway, you gonna believe everything you hear from Fuad?”
I laughed. “What you think he told me?”
“I don’t know.” He slid farther away from me, up against the passenger door. I almost felt sorry for him. He didn’t speak again except to give me directions.
When we got there, I reached under my seat where my weapons were hidden. I had the small seizure gun I’d gotten so long ago from Lieutenant Okking, and the static pistol Shaknahyi’d given me. I looked at the guns thoughtfully. “This a setup, Saied? You supposed to bring me here so Abu Adil’s thugs could ice me?”
The Half-Hajj looked frightened. “What’s this all about, Marid?”
“Just tell me why the hell you told Fuad to show me that .45 caliber clip.”
He sagged unhappily in his seat. “I went to Shaykh Reda because I was confused, Marid, that’s all. Maybe it’s too late now, but I’m real sorry. I just didn’t like standing around while you got to be the big hero, when you got to be Friedlander Bey’s favorite. I felt left out.”
My lip curled. “You mean you set me up to be killed because you were fucking jealous?”
“I never meant for anything like that.”
I took the empty clip from my pocket and held it in front of his eyes. “An hour ago, Jawarski emptied another one of these at me, in broad daylight on Fourth Street.”
Saied rubbed his eyes and muttered something, didn’t think this would happen,” he said softly.
“What did you think would happen?”
“I thought Abu Adil would treat me the way Papa’s treating you.”
I stared at him in amazement. “You really hired yourself out to Abu Adil, didn’t you? I thought you just told him about my mother. But you’re one of his tools, right?”
“I told you I was sorry,” he said in an anguished voice. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“Goddamn right you will.” I handed him the seizure gun. “Take this. We’re going in there and we’re gonna find Jawarski.”
The Half-Hajj took the weapon hesitantly. “I wish I had Rex,” he said sadly.
“No, I don’t trust you with Rex. I’m gonna keep wearing it.” I got out of the car and waited for Saied. “Put your gun away. Keep it out of sight unless you need it. Now, is there any kind of password or anything?”
“No, you just got to remember nobody in there’s very fond of foreigners.”
“Uh huh. Come on, then.” I led the way into the bar. It was crowded and noisy and all I saw were men, most of them dressed in what I guessed was the gray uniform of this right-wing Citizen’s Army. It wasn’t dimly lighted and there wasn’t music playing: Gay Che’s wasn’t that kind of bar. This was a meeting place for the kind of men who liked dressing up as brave soldiers and marching through the streets and not actually having shots fired at them. What these jokers reminded me of was Hitler’s SS, whose main attributes had been perversion and pointless brutality.
Saied and I pushed our way through the mob of men to the bar. “Yeah?” said the surly bartender.
I had to shout to make myself heard. “Two beers,” I said. This didn’t look like a place to order fancy drinks.
“Right.”
“And we’re looking for a guy.”
The bartender glanced up from his tap. “Won’t find him here.”
“Oh yeah?” He set the beers in front of the Half-Hajj and me, and I paid. “An American, might still be recovering—”
The bartender grabbed the ten-kiam bill I’d laid down. He didn’t offer any change. “Look, cap, I don’t answer questions, I pour beer. And if some American came in here, these guys’d probably tear him apart.”