“You will do me a great favor if you will accept this,” he said, leaning over the table with still another envelope. I suppose someone in his position thinks money is the perfect gift for the man who has everything. Anyone else might have found it offensive. I took the envelope.
“You overwhelm me,” I said. “I cannot adequately express my thanks.”
“The debt is mine, my son. You have done well, and I reward those who carry out my wishes.”
I didn’t look in the envelope — even I knew that would have been a breach of manners anywhere. “You are the father of generosity,” I said.
We were getting along just fine. He liked me a lot better now than at our first meeting, so long ago. “I grow tired, my son, and so you must forgive me. My driver will return you to your home. Let us visit together again soon, and then we shall speak of your future.”
“On the eyes and head, O lord of men. I am at your disposal.”
“There is no might or power save in Allah the exalted and great.” That sounds like a formula reply, but it’s usually reserved for moments of danger or before some crucial action. I looked at the gray-haired man for some clue, but he had dismissed me. I made my farewells and left his office. I did a lot of thinking during the ride to the Budayeen.
It was a Monday evening, and Frenchy’s was already getting crowded. There was a mix of naval and merchant marine types, who’d come fifty miles from the port; there were five or six male tourists, looking for one kind of action and about to find another; and there were a few tourist couples looking for racy, colorful stories they could take home with them. There was a sprinkling of businessmen from the city, too, who probably knew the score but came in anyway to have a drink and look at naked bodies.
Yasmin was sitting between two sailors. They were laughing and winking at each other over her head — they must have thought they’d found what they were looking for.
Yasmin was sipping a champagne cocktail. She had seven empty glasses in front of her. Very definitely, she had found what she was looking for. Frenchy charged eight kiam for a cocktail, which he split with the girl who ordered it. Yasmin had cleared thirty-two kiam already off those two jolly sea rovers, and from the look of it there was more to come, the night was still young. And that’s not including tips, either. Yasmin was wonderful at pulling tips. She was a joy to watch; she could separate a mark from his money faster than anyone I knew, except maybe Chiriga.
There were several seats open at the bar, one near the door and a few in the back. I never liked to sit near the door, you looked like some kind of tourist or something. I headed for the shadowy interior of the club. Before I got to the stool, Indihar came up to me. “You’ll be more comfortable in a booth, sir,” she said.
I smiled. She didn’t recognize me in my robes and without my beard. She suggested the booth because if I sat on the stool, she wouldn’t be able to sit next to me and work on my wallet. Indihar was a nice enough person, I’d never gotten into any kind of hassle with her. “I’ll sit at the bar,” I said. “I want to talk to Frenchy.”
She gave me a little shrug, then turned and sorted out the rest of the crowd. Like a hunting hawk she sighted three affluent-looking merchants sitting with one girl and one change. There was always room for one more. Indihar pounced.
Frenchy’s barmaid, Dalia, came over to me, trailing her wet towel on the counter. She made a couple of passes at the spot just in front of me and plopped a cork coaster down. “Beer?” she asked.
“Gin and bingara with a hit of Rose’s,” I said.
She squinted her eyes at me. “Marîd?”
“My new look,” I said.
She dropped her towel onto the bar and stared at me. She didn’t say a word. That went on until I started to get self-conscious. “Dalia?” I said.
She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “Frenchy,” she cried, “here he is!”
I didn’t know what that meant. People all around turned to look at me. Frenchy got up from his seat near the cash register and lumbered over to me. “Marîd,” he said, “heard about you taking on that guy that wiped the Sisters.”
It dawned on me that I was a bigshot now. “Oh,” I said, “it was more like he took me on. He was doing pretty well, too, until I decided to get serious.”
Frenchy grinned. “You were the only one that had the balls to go after him. Even the city’s finest were ten steps behind you. You saved a lot of lives, Marîd. You drink free in here and every other place on the Street from now on. No tips, either, I’ll give the word to the girls.”
It was the only meaningful gesture Frenchy could make, and I appreciated it. “Thanks, Frenchy,” I said. I learned how quickly being a big shot can get embarrassing.
We talked for a while. I tried to get him to see that there was still another killer around, but he didn’t want to know about it. He preferred to believe the danger was over. I had no proof that the second assassin was still in the city, after all. He hadn’t used a cigarette on anybody since Nikki’s death. “What are you looking for?” asked Frenchy.
I stared up at the stage, where Blanca was dancing. She was the one who had actually discovered Nikki’s corpse in the alley. “I have one clue and an idea of what he likes to do to his victims.” I told Frenchy about the moddy Nikki had in her purse, and about the bruises and cigarette burns on the bodies.
Frenchy looked thoughtful. “You know,” he said, “I do remember somebody telling me about a trick they turned.”
“What about it? Did the trick try to burn her or something?”
Frenchy shook his head. “No, not that. Whoever it was said that when she got the trick’s clothes off, he was all covered with the same kind of burns and marks.”
“Whose trick was it, Frenchy? I need to talk to her.”
He gazed off toward the middle of next week, trying to remember. “Oh,” he said, “it was Maribel.”
“Maribel?” I said in disbelief. Maribel was the old woman who occupied a stool at the angle of the bar. She always took that stool. She was somewhere between sixty and eighty years old, and she’d been a dancer half a century ago, when she still had a face and a body. Then she stopped dancing and concentrated on the aspects of the industry that brought more immediate cash benefits. When she got even older, she had to lower her retail markup in order to compete with the newer models. Nowadays she wore a red nylon wig that had all the body and bounce of the artificial lawns in the European district. She had never had the money for physical or mental modifications. Surrounded by the most beautiful bodies money could buy, her face looked even older than it was. Maribel was at a distinct disadvantage. She overcame that, however, through shrewd marketing techniques that stressed personalized attention and customer satisfaction: for the price of one champagne cocktail, she would give the man next to her the benefit of her manual dexterity and her years of experience. Right at the bar, sitting and chatting as if they were all alone in a motel room somewhere. Maribel subscribed to the classical Arab proverb: the best kindness is done quickly. She had to carry most of the conversation, of course; but unless you watched closely — or the guy couldn’t keep the glazed look off his face — you’d never know that an intimate encounter was taking place.
Most girls wanted you to buy them seven or eight cocktails before they’d even begin to negotiate. Maribel’s clock was running out, she didn’t have time for that. If Yasmin was the Neiman-Marcus — and she was, in my opinion — then Maribel was the Crazy Abdul’s Discount Mart of hustlers.