"Relax, bro!"
At 11 P.M., Snyder logs off. Finally, they step outside. "Where's my key?"
"How do you mean?"
"If you're still at the restaurant when I get back, I'll be locked out," Snyder says. "All my stuff is inside."
"You're not coming to dinner?"
"Did you think I was? Ohmigod! I hope you weren't waiting for me. No way. That is hilarious. But I'll totally be back before you. The keys?" He plucks them from Winston's hand. "Awesome, man-you're totally awesome." He jogs down the street, waving for a cab.
"Hang on," Winston cries. "Wait."
"Dude," Snyder calls back. "I'll be gone, like, ten minutes. I'll be back before you've even ordered." He jumps into a cab and is gone.
By this hour, all the local restaurants have closed. There is a twenty-four-hour deli, Maison Thomas, but it's shut for renovation. Winston resorts to a grubby convenience store. He buys potato chips, a candy bar, a can of Mecca-Cola, and consumes the lot outside the apartment complex, studying his watch and feeling horribly reduced by the whole Rich Snyder experience.
At 3 A.M., Snyder ambles back. "Ohmigod, what are you doing outside?"
"You have the keys," Winston replies.
"Where's yours?"
"You have them."
"Well, that was dumb." Snyder unlocks the door. "I'm taking the bed because of my back." He flops diagonally across the mattress. "You're cool with the armchair, right?"
"Not especially."
But Snyder is already snoring. Winston would dearly love to throw this guy out. However, he desperately needs instruction from someone who understands journalism. Winston studies Snyder with distaste, splayed out there across the bed. Perhaps this is how journalists are supposed to act. Winston settles down in the armchair.
At nine, Snyder shakes him awake. "What've you got for breakfast, guy?" He pulls open the fridge door. "Somebody needs to go shopping. Dude, we got, like, thirty minutes."
"Till what?"
"We'll start with man-on-the-street. I know it's bull, but that's the job."
"Sorry, I don't understand."
"Translations-I'm letting you interpret for me. I told you, I never compromise my objectivity by speaking foreign languages."
"But I have my own articles I'm working on."
"Like?"
"I was thinking of writing something on the U.S. peace initiative-Abbas and Olmert might start holding regular meetings, I heard."
Snyder smiles. "Don't write about diplomacy. Write about human beings. The tapestry of human experience is my press office."
"Is that a joke?"
"How do you mean?"
"Or something on Iran and nuclear weapons, maybe."
"Writing about Tehran from Cairo? Ouch. Listen, dude, let me tell you a story. Back when I was reporting from Bosnia, I heard that shit was going down in Srebrenica. I didn't say a word to anyone, got in my Lada, drove there. Along the way, I bump into some aid groupie. She's, like, 'Where you going, Snyder?' I'm, like, 'Vacation.'"
"I don't get it."
"If I'd said one word to her, Srebrenica would have been swarming with even more aid groupies and reporters and shit. And where would I have been? I was, like, a day ahead of everyone on the massacre. Ever since, The New York Times has been aching to hire me. Till this big-shot editor there says I don't fit their culture or something. I was, like, I wouldn't work for you guys anyway."
"It must have been pretty upsetting."
"Not getting the Times job?"
"Covering a massacre."
"Oh, totally."
"But," Winston says uncertainly, "I vaguely remember some other reporter breaking the Srebrenica massacre."
Snyder opens and shuts his cellphone to ensure that it's off. "I never trash talk. But, entre nous, that guy is an unethical, scheming louse. Whatever-you have to live your life. My motto is 'End hate.'"
Winston isn't sure how all this pertains to his story idea on Iran 's nuclear activities, but deems it wise to shift topics. "Still," he says, "I do need to get an article in the paper. I mean, I am applying for this position."
"Applying? You are getting this job. I have total faith in you."
"I appreciate that. But I haven't done a single story yet, and I've been here two weeks."
"Don't be so stressed. You gotta have fun with it. And, listen, I am totally ready to throw you a contributor's tag. What do I care about bylines-I mean, how many do I have by now? Ten thousand?" He scans Winston's face for signs of awe. "Come on-I'll toss you the contributor's tag, 'kay?"
"My name and yours on the story?"
"If that rocks your world, bro."
Hurriedly, Winston showers and slips into a suit and tie. He finds Snyder at the door, in his faux-military garb, laptop under his arm.
"Is that my computer?" Winston asks.
"It's the one that was on the table," Snyder replies. "Let's roll, bro!"
"Why are you bringing my laptop?"
"You'll see." He walks outside, leading Winston down the Twenty-sixth of July Street, and points at an approaching businessman. "Get that dude over there."
"What do you mean, Get him?"
"Get quotes. Man-on-the-street. I'm grabbing a coffee."
"What am I supposed to ask him?"
But Snyder is already inside Simonds cafe.
Gingerly, Winston shifts into the path of the businessman. The man quickens his pace and sweeps past. Winston scouts other victims. But, as each nears, Winston loses his nerve. He slinks into the cafe. Snyder sits there on a high stool with Winston's laptop open, interviewing locals in English and consuming a platter of miniature buns. He types with two sticky forefingers.
"So?" he asks, swallowing. "The businessman give good quote?"
"You mind if I grab a coffee?"
"No time." He snaps the laptop shut. "I'm going to Khan el-Khalili, and I strongly advise you to follow."
"I've hardly eaten since yesterday-couldn't I get a quick bite before we leave?"
"Have this." He flicks over the final morsel of baby croissant, bearing soggy teeth prints.
As they climb into a taxi, a tall thin man steps from the cafe, observing them. He enters a black sedan, which pulls out behind them. Winston watches through the taxi's rear window: the black sedan is following them. They arrive at the street market, but the sedan is nowhere to be seen.
Snyder points at the bustling crowd. "Get that chick."
"What chick?"
"The one in that coat thing."
"The burka, you mean?"
"Get her, big guy. We need man-on-the-street quotes."
"But a woman in a burka? Couldn't I do man-on-the-street with a man on the street?"
"That is so racist." Snyder wanders away to investigate a spice stall.
Under his breath, Winston repeats his most practiced Arabic phrase: "Excuse me, do you speak English?" His armpits prickle with sweat. He gathers his courage and approaches the cloaked woman. But his voice emerges in such a tiny peep that she doesn't hear. He taps her shoulder and she turns with surprise, addressing him in Arabic. A few shoppers shift, watching. He repeats, "Excuse me, do you speak English?"
She responds again in Arabic.
"You don't, then?"
More Arabic.
"This is a problem."
Further Arabic.
A frowning young man intervenes. "What is matter? Why you bother her?"
"You speak English-great. No, it's nothing. I was just hoping to ask her a couple of questions."
"Why for?"
"It's okay-I'm a journalist."
"You touch her?"
"What? No, no. I didn't touch her."
"You touch her!" the man shouts, stepping forward.
"I didn't, I swear. I just want to ask her a question. For a news story."
"What question?"
"It's hard to summarize."
"But what is question?"
That itself is a good question. Snyder hasn't told Winston what to ask or indeed what their topic is. He's constantly talking about terrorism-perhaps Winston should inquire about that. "Could you ask her if there's much terrorism in this area? And if so, where, if she knows. And if you could write that down, too-in English ideally, or even with a map, if possible."