Over the last few years, however, Kmuzu had become quite a lot more than a slave to me. He was someone I’d come to depend on; God well knew that I couldn’t always depend on myself. I needed someone like Kmuzu to look out for me from time to time. He was loyal and honest, a good man for a Christian.
Despite that, I could’ve done without the disapproval in his voice when he woke me up. I looked at him, my eyes bleary and my mouth tasting like I’d French-kissed a pigeon coop. “Yallah,” I groaned, feeling a booming throb in my head just behind my eyes.
“You need some breakfast, yaa Sidi,” Kmuzu said.
That was an infidel’s answer for everything: food. I didn’t want food, not ever again. The whole idea of breakfast was already nauseating me. “All right, you’re going to tell me anyway,” I said. “I’m a tough guy, I can take it. What’d I do last night?”
“There was a party.” He watched me trying to maneuver myself out of bed.
Yes, there had been a party, all right. It had been at my nightclub—well, the club I own with my partner, Chiriga. It had been a going-away party in my honor, because in a few days Papa and I were embarking on the pilgrimage to the holy city of Makkah.
This is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, something required of every Muslim at least once during his lifetime. Neither Friedlander Bey nor I had fulfilled that obligation, although we had spoken of making the hajj every year as the month of Dhul-Hijjah approached. Now this year, 1632 on the Islamic calendar, 2205 of the Christian era, we’d decided that we were at last both healthy enough and able. There was no way of knowing, of course, how many dead bodies would accumulate during our sacred and spiritual quest.
Anyway, to celebrate this holy undertaking, my friends had turned my place of business into an even more raucous den of licentiousness. I guess it seemed reasonable at the time. I only wished I could recall more of what had gone on.
I didn’t have any problem remembering what I’d done earlier in the day. I’d conspired with a Damascene whore to revenge myself on a man, someone who had betrayed my trust and stolen some money from me. The financial loss had been insignificant; it was the insult that had to be dealt with.
The man was Fuad, whom the people of the Budayeen called il-Manhous, which means something like “the Universally Despised.” When the Greek philosopher Plato sat down to consider the Ideal Form of “loser,” it was Fuad he imagined.
No one really liked Fuad. He whined, he begged, and he couldn’t carry out the simplest tasks without finding humiliating new ways to screw up. Still, his reputation was that he was a pitiful guy but basically harmless. I never would’ve believed him clever enough to scam me for twenty-four-hundred kiam, yet he had. I couldn’t let him get away with that, of course, but I could afford to be patient enough to work out a satisfying counter-sting.
Friedlander Bey, my great-grandfather and the most powerful man in the city, hears of everything that happens. I hear almost everything, because I’m Papa’s trusted right-hand man and because a lot gets said in my nightclub when the liquor’s flowing.
It was a little after two o’clock in the afternoon, about eight hours before the party was due to begin. I was sitting in my usual spot at the bar, where it curved in the back. Chiriga had thrown together my first white death of the day—gin, bingara, and a little Rose’s lime juice. I had a chipzine plugged into one of my two corymbic implants, and I was hearing a speech by the new amir of Mauretania, the country where I’d been born. As for all the seminaked women, sexchanges, and debs in the club, they were no distraction. After the first hundred thousand twirling tassels, the industry begins to lose some of its raw fascination.
The lovely young Yasmin sat beside me, sipping peppermint schnapps. She was a gorgeous, black-haired sexchange with whom I’d been having an on-again, off-again affair for the last few years. I was glad to have her back working for me. She put down her glass and stretched her lithe body. “Never guess what I heard,” she said, yawning.
Yasmin hears almost as much gossip as I do, but her problem is she believes all of it. I reached up and popped out my chipzine. “You heard that they’re going to build a replica of the Budayeen out in the desert so the tourists won’t bother us local residents around here.”
Yasmin’s dark eyes grew larger. “No! Are they? For real?”
“Forget it, Yasmin, I just made that up. What did you hear?”
She lifted her peppermint schnapps again and sucked up the rest of it noisily through a straw. “Fuad, that’s what.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What about Fuad?”
“Oh, just that he’s back in town. I heard it from Floor-Show Fanya who works over by the Red Light.”
I nodded. The Red Light had always been Fuad’s favorite club. Dumb criminals really do return to the scene of the crime, as if the Felons Federation had given him a copy of their pamphlet Common Sense: Why Bother? Here he was back in the city and probably believing that I’d never find out about it.
“I praise Allah for your good news,” I said. “That’s Fuad’s idea of laying low, huh?”
“You heard how he’s got this weird thing about going out with the black working girls. They know they can rob him all day and all night long. It gets him hot or something. Now he’s got himself a job as an itinerant crumber.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. It was only two in the afternoon, and already things were getting a little strange. “The hell is an itinerant crumber, Yasmin?”
“Oh, a guy who travels from town to town, friendless and alone, living on his wits, with his stainless steel implement. He scrapes away the bread crumbs and stuff between courses in good restaurants.”
“You mean like a busboy?”
“Sure,” she said, nodding. Then she shook her head. “No, not really. Crumbing is one step below busboy. He’s working over by Anna’s restaurant in the Hotel Palazzo di Marco Aurelio, you want to go see.”
Didn’t interest me. “What, he wears a white shirt and a bow tie and all that waiter drag?”
Yasmin nodded again. “Yeah, but he’s so starved-looking, he’s no great advertisement for the restaurant.”
“Shukran,” I said. Thanks. “Very interesting, sweetheart.”
“Thought you’d like to hear it.” She squeezed my arm, slipped off her stool, and casually made her way down the bar toward the three customers who’d just come into the club. There were worse ways to get hustled than by buying Yasmin drinks for an hour.
Chiriga, my good friend, partner, and barmaid, rested her elbows on a clean bar towel. She noticed that I’d already knocked back about half my white death. “You take it easy with those,” she said, frowning. “I think Papa and Kmuzu are right. You’re more fun to have around when you’re not drunk or taking pills.”
I didn’t even answer. This was one of those black-pot kettle-calling times. Instead, I looked around our club. There were five dancers working for us in the daytime. One was Yasmin; one was the beautifully restructured real girl, Pualani; the third was Lily, a sexchange who had a crush on me; and two new dancers named Baby and Kitty. I hadn’t yet read them: Were they real girls, debs, changes? I didn’t really need to know, but everyone else on the Street hung on the day the truth would come out.
“Slow shift so far,” I said.
“Always slow in the daytime. The really kinky girls make more money at night.”
“So why don’t you work nights again and make more money?”
Chiri looked at me as if I were stupid. “Didn’t I just say? ‘Cause the really kinky girls are there.” She gave a little shudder, as if she herself hadn’t seen everything and done it all twice.
“Depends on your definition of kinky,” I said. I was twisting my thin little red straw into an equilateral triangle.
Chiri grinned at me. Her strong white teeth were filed to points, the ancient fashion among the old cannibals back home. “I’m kinky, Marîd. You’re kinky. Every girl, deb, and change here in the afternoon is kinky. But those bit
ches at night, though—wow, kinky is what they did last summer. They’re into whole new realms by now. I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Another drink, Chiri, please.” She took my tumbler and scooped some ice cubes into it, then went to the back bar for the bingara.
I thought some more about Fuad. I suppose that with my connections I could’ve gotten even with him with less expensive preparations, but I didn’t care at all about the money. Papa had made me wealthier than I’d ever dreamed, although I never let anyone know the details. As far as my interest in Fuad was concerned, it was the principle of the thing. And after all, I was planning to get back my twenty-four-hundred kiam, as well as every copper fiq that I would invest in the scheme to make it work.
Now, what did I know for sure? Only that Fuad was back in the city, working at the Ristorante Maximo, and still courting trouble nightly at Fatima and Nassir’s Red Light Lounge. Good enough. It was time to set my scheme in motion.
I unclipped my phone from my belt and whispered Sulome’s name into it. The phone found her stored commcode and began ringing. After a few moments, I heard her voice, husky with sleep. “Marhaba,” she said.
“Il-hamdu lillaah!” I said. Praise be to God. “I’m sorry I woke you up, Sulome. It’s Marîd Audran.” Chiri brought my second white death, and served it to me with a decided lack of graciousness.
“You couldn’t have waited another couple of hours?” Sulome sounded grumpy. “It was a long night.”
“I said I was sorry. Anyway, the guy I told you about came back to the city a few weeks ago, and he’s just lately started showing up in all his old haunts. I think it’s a good time to take him down, if you’re not too busy, of course.”
There was a pause from Sulome. “Well, I’ve got nothing important lined up. What do you want me to do?”
I looked at my watch. “You go back to sleep. I’ll send one of my associates—“
“One of your murdering thugs, you mean.”
I smiled. “Bin Turki’s reliable. I’ll send him on a suborbital with your ticket and half the money we agreed on. You’ll both be back in the city by sunset prayers tonight. I’ll have my man Kmuzu meet your flight and take you to our house. We’ll sort out all the small details in the morning.”
“Fine,” Sulome said in a bored voice.
“And keep your hands off bin Turki. He’s a good kid.”
Sulome laughed. “Sure, except he kills people. Whatever you say, Audran. See you later.” And then I was listening to empty dial tone.
I returned the phone to my belt and felt good. Business is business, and action is action—and I liked action better.
I slammed back the second drink and stood up. Yasmin was being shyly courted by a quiet Eur-Am guy. Lily had taken up conversation with a dark Mediterranean gentleman. Pualani was busily describing something chest-high to a man with Asian features. And Baby and Kitty were, as usual, brushing each other’s hair. There were other customers for them to try, men who would probably fall all over themselves buying champagne cocktails just to hear their low, purring voices, yet they only had eyes for each other.
“Going home early,” I announced to Chiri.
“When you get there,” she said, “tell that fine young man, Kmuzu, to come park his ass in here for a while. I think I could teach him a thing or two.”
“You and I both know you could teach him plenty. You’ve heard him, though. Won’t mess with a woman while he’s still my slave, he says.”
Chiri grinned slowly. “And that gets me so crazy. I think about him a lot, you know.”
“I know you do.”
“I think about him a lot.” She waved the bar towel at me, and I went out into the bright, hot, afternoon sun.
I didn’t want to wait for Kmuzu to come pick me up in my car, so I walked along the Street to get something to eat. It seemed as if every kind of flower in the world was in bloom, hanging in pots from balconies in a shower of pink, purple, white, red, and blue; it was like daytime neon. The air was still except for the lazy buzzing of insects—and the signals of the boys and men who watched over me while I was in the Budayeen. They whistled an old children’s tune that told me all was clear, I wasn’t being followed.
I bought a stick of broiled meat, onions, and peppers from the sidewalk window at Vast Foods. The kebab wasn’t really all that huge; “vast” had been only a sign painter’s error. The lamb and beef were coated in a rich, sticky sauce and I savored every succulent bite. It was one of those days when I realized again how much I’d given up, to move from the street life into the magnificent mansion of Friedlander Bey.
Beyond the eastern gate was the gorgeous Boulevard il-Jameel, with towering palm trees and carefully tended flowerbeds planted on the median strip. I walked to the cabstand and, yes, Bill was there. I was feeling confident and content, so much so that I was almost positive I would live through another ride with him.
“Bill,” I said, “you want to take me home?”
“Sorry, pal, but I only go home with girls.”
In any conversation with Bill, you had to give him a good head start because he’s generally slower on the uptake than most people. That’s because most people haven’t traded one of their lungs for an artificial sac dripping measured amounts of lightspeed hallucinogen into their bloodstream. That’s what Bill did, and that’s what’s made him into the barrel-of-fun, hold-onto-your-hat kind of driver that he was. Much of the time he’s crashing his cab through monstrous threatening paisleys that only he can see.
I ride with him because few other people will, and because I’ve seen those paisleys often enough myself.
“What I meant, Bill, was will you take me to Friedlander Bey’s house?”
“Papa, huh? Why didn’t he come down and get you himself?”
“Told him I’d rather ride with you. It’s faster.”
Bill snorted. “Sure as hell is that. I can make it even faster if you want. We can try for the land speed record, you know. As long as the streets are clear of bugs. They got bugs now, you know. Big bugs. Bugs as big as…as big as things.” He shivered.
“Won’t be any bugs around with me in the car,” I said calmly.
“No? You sure? You promise? Okay then, get in.”
“Oh, and Bill? We don’t have to try for the land speed record. Maybe next time.”
“Next time,” he muttered. “Son of a bitch, it’s always next time.”
We careened through narrow, twisting lanes, depending solely on Bill’s shrill horn and good karma to keep us from smashing into a jutting building or a recalcitrant pack animal. There was no direct route from the Budayeen to Papa’s estate near the Christian quarter, so Bill tried to make one. All in all, though, it was a good ride: Once again I’d survived, which was what counted most.
I paid Bill his fare and added a generous tip in the hope that he’d spend it on something sensible, such as food or shelter, instead of anti-bug-and-paisley weapons. The expatriate from the American republic of Sovereign Deseret backed out of the white-pebbled driveway. I heard the small stones crunching and then the burring sound of Bill’s electric taxi heading back toward the Budayeen.
Papa’s house—and now my home, as his legitimate though reluctant heir—was hidden behind half a jungle of tall, slender trees, well-kept shrubbery, and masses of flowering plants. It must have cost Friedlander Bey a small fortune to coax that floral effusion from the dry, sandy soil of the city. I hoped he enjoyed the beautiful result, although I’d never once heard him remark on it.
I looked up at the towers built at the corners of the walled estate. When I’d first come here, my suspicions were that they housed armed guards. They did, of course, all except the minaret, up which Papa’s personal muezzin climbed five times daily to call him to prayer. Papa would have nothing to do with the electronic recordings that called almost everyone else in the city through loudspeakers.
I went slowly up the broad, smooth marble stairs to the house’s entrance. Before I
reached the carved front door, Youssef, our butler, opened it. “I pray to God that the day is pleasant to you, Shaykh Marîd.”
“Salam alekom,” I said. Peace be with you.
“Alekom-os-salam,” Youssef murmured.
“Thanks, Youssef,” I said. I walked by him. I wanted to go straight to my apartments in the west wing. When I got there, I found Kmuzu, my slave and watchdog, busily straightening my already achingly clean and neat rooms.
“You are home before we expected you,” Kmuzu said. “Are you not feeling well?”
“I’m just fine.”
“Can I get you something to eat, then? It’s well past lunch time.”
I sighed. “No, I grabbed something in the Budayeen. Please find bin Turki and send him to my office.”
“I must tell you that the master of the house wishes to see you at your earliest convenience.”
“I’ll be having dinner with him later. For now, send bin Turki to me.”
Kmuzu nodded. “Immediately, yaa Sidi.” Kmuzu was a very good slave.
I had been seated at my desk for only a few minutes, making flight reservations through one of the data decks, when Kmuzu announced bin Turki. The young man came from a nomadic Bedu tribe called the Bani Salim. He had returned with me to the city because he had a great hunger to see and learn new things. He was becoming a very useful helper; he merely shrugged and did what I asked, and showed no hesitation about the more “difficult” tasks I assigned him.
“God grant you peace, O Shaykh, inshallah,” he said. You hear the word inshallah a lot around the city; it means “if Allah wills.”
“May your day be happy, bin Turki,”
“You sent for me, Shaykh Marîd?”
“Yes, O Clever One. I’ve just purchased your ticket on the next suborbital to Ash-Sham. Damascus. It will be a good experience for you to visit that ancient place.”
Budayeen Nights Page 18