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 man’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.
“No,” I said, “I can’t stay long. Chiri, you got any Sonneine?”
She stared at me for a few seconds. “I don’t think so. How’d you hurt your arm?”
“Any Paxium then? Or beauties?”
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.”
She just reached under the counter and came up with her little black pillcase. “Take what you want, Marid,” 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.
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.