I invited them in. “Bismillah.” I said, asking them to enter in God’s name. It was a formality only, and Hassan ignored it.
“Abdoulaye Abu-Zayd is owed three thousand kiam,” he said simply, spreading his hands.
“Nikki owes it. Go bother her. I’m in no mood for any of your greasy nattering.”
It was probably the wrong thing to say. Hassan’s face clouded like the western sky in a simoom. “The guarded one has fled,” he said flatly. “You are her representative. You are responsible for the fee.”
Nikki? I couldn’t believe that Nikki’d do this to me. “It isn’t noon yet,” I said. It was a lame maneuver, but it was all I could think of.
Hassan nodded. “We will make ourselves comfortable.” They sat on my mattress and stared at me with fierce eyes and voracious expressions I didn’t like at all.
What was I going to do? I thought of calling Nikki, but that was pointless; Hassan and Abdoulaye had certainly already visited the building on Thirteenth Street. Then I realized that Nikki’s disappearance and the working-over I’d gotten from the Sisters were very likely related in some way. Nikki was their pet. It made some sort of sense, but not to me, not yet. All right, I thought, it looked as if I was going to have to come across with Abdoulaye’s money, and wring it out of Nikki when I caught up with her. “Listen, Hassan,” I said, wetting my swollen split lips, “I can give you maybe twenty-five hundred. That’s all I have in the bank right now. I’ll pay the other five hundred tomorrow. That’s the best I can do.”
Hassan and Abdoulaye exchanged glances. “You will pay me the twenty-five hundred today,” said Abdoulaye, “and another thousand tomorrow.” Another exchange of glances. “I correct myself: another fifteen hundred tomorrow.” I got it. Five hundred to repay Abdoulaye, five hundred juice to him, and five hundred juice to Hassan.
I nodded sullenly. I had no choice at all. Suddenly, all my pain and anger were focused on Nikki. I couldn’t wait to run into her. I didn’t care if it was in front of the Shimaal Mosque, I was going to put her through every copper fiq’s worth of hell she’d caused me, with the Black Widow Sisters and these two fat bastards.
“You seem to be in some discomfort,” said Hassan pleasantly. “We will accompany you to your bank machine. We will use my car.”
I looked at him a long time, wishing there was some way I could excise that condescending smile from his face. Finally I just said, “I am quite unable to express my thanks.”
Hassan gave me his negligent wave of the hand. “No thanks are needed when one performs a duty. Allah is Most Great.”
“Praise be to Allah,” said Abdoulaye.
“Yeah, you right,” I said. We left my apartment, Hassan pressed close against my left shoulder, Abdoulaye close against my right.
Abdoulaye sat in the front, beside Hassan’s driver. I sat in the back with Hassan, my eyes closed, my head pressed back against the genuine leather upholstery. I’d never in my life before been in such a car, and at that moment I couldn’t care less. The pain was grinding and growing. I felt droplets of sweat run slowly down my forehead. I must have groaned. “When we have concluded our transaction,” Hassan murmured, “we must see to your health.”
I rode the rest of the way to the bank wordlessly, without a thought. Halfway there the sunnies came on, and suddenly I was able to breathe comfortably and shift my weight a little. The rush kept coming until I thought I was going to faint, and then it settled into a wonderful, lambent aura of promise. I barely heard Hassan when we arrived at the teller machine. I used my card, checked my balance, and withdrew twenty-five hundred and fifty kiam. That left me with a grand total of six kiam in my account, I handed the twenty-five big ones to Abdoulaye.
“Fifteen hundred more, tomorrow,” he said.
“Inshallah.” I said mockingly.
Abdoulaye raised a hand to strike me, but Hassan caught it and restrained him. Hassan muttered a few words to Abdoulaye, but I couldn’t make them out. I shoved the remaining fifty in my pocket, and realized that I had no other money with me. I should have had some — the money I’d had the day before plus Nikki’s hundred, less whatever I’d spent last night. Maybe Nikki had clipped it, or one of the Black Widow Sisters. It didn’t make any difference. Hassan and Abdoulaye were having some sort of whispered consultation. Finally Abdoulaye touched his forehead, his lips, and his chest, and walked away. Hassan grasped my elbow and led me back into his luxurious, glossy black automobile. I tried to speak; it took a moment. “Where?” I asked. My voice sounded strange, hoarse, as if I hadn’t used it in decades.
“I will take you to the hospital,” said Hassan. “If you will forgive me, I must leave you there. I have pressing obligations. Business is business.”
“Action is action,” I said.
Hassan smiled. I don’t think he bore me any personal animosity. “Salaamtak.” he said. He was wishing me peace.
“Allah yisallimak.” I replied. I climbed out of the car at the charity hospital, and went to the emergency clinic. I had to show my identification and wait until they called up my records from their computer memory. I took a seat on a gray steel folding chair with a printed copy of my records on my lap, and waited for my name to be called. I waited eleven hours; the sunnies faded after ninety minutes. The rest of the time was a delirious hell. I sat in a huge room filled with sick and wounded people, all poor, all suffering. The wail of pain and the shrieks of babies never ended. The air reeked of tobacco smoke, the stink of bodies, of blood and vomit and urine. A harried doctor saw me at last, muttered to himself as he examined me, asked me no questions at all, taped my ribs, wrote out a prescription, and ordered me away.
It was too late to get the scrip filled at a pharmacy, but I knew I could score some expensive drugs on the Street. It was now about two in the morning; the action would be strong. I had to limp all the way back to the Budayeen, but my rage at Nikki fueled me. I had a score to settle with Tami and her friends, too.
When I got to Chiriga’s club, it was half-empty and oddly quiet. The girls and debs sat listlessly; the customers stared into their beers. The music was blaring as loud as usual, of course, and Chiri’s own voice cut through that noise with her shrill Swahili accent. But laughter was missing, the undercurrent of double-edged conversations. There was no action. The bar smelled of stale sweat, spilled beer, whiskey, and hashish.
“Marîd,” said Chiri when she saw me. She looked tired. It had evidently been a long, slow night with little money in it for anybody.
“Let me buy you a drink,” I said. “You look like you could use one.”
She managed a tired smile. “When have I ever said no to that?”
“Never that I can recall,” I said.
“Never will, either.” She turned and poured herself a drink out of a special bottle she kept under the bar.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Tende. An East African speciality.”
I hesitated. “Let me have one of those.”
Chiri’s expression became very mock-serious. “Tende no good for white bwana. Knock white bwana on his mgongo.”
“It’s been a long, rotten day for me, too, Chiri,” I said. I handed her a ten-kiam note.
She looked sympathetic. She poured me some tende, and raised her glass in a toast. “Kwa siha yaho.” she said in Swahili.