Arabesk

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  “You’ve wasted no time.”

  Behind General Saeed Koenig Pasha walked Lady Jalila, a scarf wrapped demurely round her hair. Then came two bodyguards from the General’s personal cadre who silently took up positions either side of the front door. The General’s face had that stony-eyed glare usually found only on statues. His skin was dark, not from the sun but from heritability and his cheeks were hollowed out with age and lack of sleep. Piercing eyes examined Raf from under heavy brows.

  “You and I need to talk,” he told Raf, his gaze sweeping the hall until it reached Khartoum. “Leave us,” the General ordered. “And take the child with you.”

  He pivoted round to face Raf, malacca cane thrust hard on the floor. “I take it this is the way up?” The tiles were crossed in a clicking of walking stick and boot-heels before Raf even had time to answer.

  Lady Jalila followed, demurely.

  Walking directly behind Lady Jalila, Raf got the full benefit of the sight of her buttocks as they flexed with each step she took, sliding beneath the shot silk of a sand-coloured suit. If she wore underwear it was only a thong: he knew that because the afternoon’s heat and humidity made her skirt fit tighter than any second skin.

  The woman climbed the stairs slowly, one at a time, in a stride that almost let Raf catch a flash of inner thigh and waiting darkness. There was a sleekness to her legs and bottom that spoke of personal trainers and whole days spent working out in some exclusive gym of which he’d undoubtedly never even heard.

  At the top, General Koenig Pasha walked through the spot where Lady Nafisa’s office had been and clattered his way to the balcony to stare at the darkening sky. A storm was coming in, but not fast enough for his satisfaction. It was left to a slyly smiling Lady Jalila to do the social chit chat.

  “So,” she said, “how are you?” With a practised sweep, she pulled the scarf from her head and shook out her blonde hair, then casually smoothed the front of her jacket, full breasts briefly obvious beneath thin silk. She was watching Raf watching her and her smile faded the moment she realized it wasn’t being returned. The unspoken offer, if that was what it had been, came and went before Koenig Pasha even had time to turn round.

  “I thought we should talk about your niece,” said the General.

  “Hani?”

  “You have others…?”

  Not that he knew about.

  “You see,” said the General. “There’s a problem. It seems Lady Jalila and your aunt had an agreement. If anything should happen to Lady Nafisa, then her cousin was to look after Hani. In fact, I gather the Minister and Lady Jalila had actually promised to adopt the child.”

  “And Lady Jalila has this in writing…?” Raf’s voice was polite.

  He could have spat in her face and her disgust would have been less. “No,” said Lady Jalila tightly. “I don’t have it in writing. Neither of us imagined a situation where that might be necessary. Of course, I didn’t know about you then…”

  “Or I about you…” Raf said simply and watched her hesitate.

  “Hani will be better off with Lady Jalila,” said the General. “A country estate, the best schools… And, of course, she’s known Hani all her life.”

  Whereas Raf barely even knew himself. Okay, so only he knew that…but a country estate? “I thought Lady Jalila lived in the Quartier Greque?” Raf said contemptuously, naming an overpriced area of mercantile houses near Shallalat Gardens. Vast and ornate, the houses had gone from fashionable to slum tenements and back again in a century. Leave anything long enough in Isk and eventually its time would come round again—that seemed to be the rule, anyway.

  “We’re selling the house,” Lady Jalila said crossly. “I’ve got an architect drawing up plans for a summer villa out beyond Aboukir. I’m sick of the city in this heat.”

  “And the Minister?” Raf asked politely. “Is the Minister of Police for Iskandryia really planning to live in the suburbs?”

  “He’s got his flat over the precinct. Next to your fat American friend. And I’ve already got my eye on a new winter house, though I’m not sure what business it is of yours…”

  Raf stood up, just as Donna brought in a tea tray. One look at the old woman was enough to confirm how terrified she was to be in the presence of the General. Raf didn’t feel too special about making matters worse. “I’m sorry,” he told the old woman. “But you’d better take it back. Lady Jalila is just leaving.”

  And the most feared man in North Africa who, as a young military commander, had shot his own brother for disobeying an order to retreat, raised one heavy eyebrow and padded silent as a leopard after the furious woman. He nodded once at Raf and then again to Donna, scaring the old Portuguese maid almost witless. The famed anger that Raf had expected to see break like thunder across his patrician face was entirely absent. If anything, Koenig Pasha seemed almost amused.

  “Felix called,” said Hani, as soon as Lady Jalila had gone. “He wanted to talk to you so I told him you were with her…”

  “What did he say?”

  “Something very rude.” Hani grinned. “I don’t think he likes her. Mind you, I don’t think anyone likes her.”

  “So you definitely don’t want to live with Lady Jalila?”

  Raf regretted his suggestion the moment it was spoken. Hani’s answer was a rising babble of outrage that died only when he grabbed the child and scooped her up, ignoring the fists that tried to hammer at his head. When Raf looked round, Khartoum was standing in the doorway, glaring.

  He had his answer.

  “I had to ask,” Raf said gently.

  “Never.” Hani’s voice was fierce, her chin held high. “I’d run away first.”

  “But she was Aunt Nafisa’s best friend…?”

  “That’s not my fault,” Hani said crossly.

  CHAPTER 33

  Seattle

  “Sorry to trouble you.” The voice was scrupulously polite, the accent so floppy haired that Hu San knew immediately who was on the other end before the boy had even announced his name.

  It was late and an ice-cold wind blew in off the Sound, throwing white spray against the harbour walls. Up in her penthouse, Hu San sat listening to Nyman’s Piano Concerto and drinking jasmine tea. The rain outside and the churning sea below didn’t bother her. Weather only made Hu San feel more real.

  Though ZeeZee had never called her before, at home or at her office, which was how she still thought of her small waterfront shop, Hu San had been expecting this phone call. She’d been expecting it for three days, during which the English boy had gone calmly about his work, serving court orders and reporting back any information that he thought the Five Winds Brotherhood might find useful.

  Now he would want to complain about Wild Boy. She knew her staff called Haruki “Wild Boy” behind her back. What they didn’t know was that it had been she who first came up with that name, back in the days when Wild Boy was a scruffy street kid who trawled the strip with a gravity knife in one back pocket and a tube of KY in the other. It had been an easy trade. She liked his looks and he liked her money. Besides, any scraps she could offer him from her life were better than the one Haruki already had.

  “I hope you’re not about to give me a problem,” Hu San said shortly.

  “/ don’t think so. I was hoping for an address for Haruki?”

  Half question, half request… Still, it threw Hu San off guard.

  “What?”

  “I owe him an apology.”

  For what, exactly? Hu San wondered. Maybe the English boy had heard about her anger with Wild Boy and held himself responsible. If so, the boy was right: he was responsible for Wild Boy’s current disgrace. But that still didn’t mean it was his fault. Hu San clearly remembered saying Not the face. Wild Boy hadn’t listened and she couldn’t accept that.

  Wild Boy was on ice until he grovelled properly. Screaming fits and protests wouldn’t do, and nor would sulking. And yes, sex complicated things, no one could deny that. All the same, she
expected obedience, even from the boy who sometimes spread her legs.

  “Tell him to quit sulking,” said Hu San and rattled off the address for an apartment block two streets back from the harbour. She paid the rent, she paid his bills and she paid the woman who went in once a week and cleaned up. In fact, she paid the woman double, once to do the job, and once again to ignore the discarded roaches and the gun Haruki could never remember to hide away in a locked drawer.

  Let them make friends, thought Hu San tiredly. Or she’d get rid of both of them. Besides, both their sets of bruises should have started to fade by now. And anger faded like bruises, or it did in people wise enough not to nurse it. As to whether Haruki was as wise as the English boy obviously was, that was something Hu San reckoned she was about to find out.

  Payback time.

  ZeeZee blipped his bike into life, let out the clutch and felt his tyres squeal on the wet tarmac. Bain had cleared the harbour road of everything except a delivery truck, a police car and him. Spray from his back wheel rose behind the Suzuki like a wave. And by the time he reach Wild Boy’s apartment, rain was vaporizing off his single exhaust to add its own fog trail to the spray. It was cold and undeniably wet but ZeeZee was seriously enjoying himself.

  Hidden strips lit the foyer inside Wild Boy’s building. A wall of glass separating the warmth of the foyer from the dark and rain of the sidewalk where ZeeZee had left his bike.

  “Going all the way,” he told the clerk behind the desk, pointing his finger at the ceiling. Inside a lift, he checked his gun. Full load, seven shots. Flipping out the cylinder and then flipping it back. Only then did he realize a video camera was positioned in the top right corner of the lift. Too bad. Besides, he had a license for the gun, because delivering court orders meant not everyone liked to see him coming.

  ZeeZee counted off the floors as each number lit and the lift shot past, headed for the penthouse. What was it Wild Boy always used to say? It ain’t over till the fat lady pings…The English boy took a fold of paper from his pocket and looked at it. Wild Boy lived on this stuff—that, and Mexican red. Hu San—he wasn’t too sure what she used, but something more than just life regularly reduced her eyes to dark pinpricks. He, on the other hand, didn’t even smoke. The fox didn’t approve.

  Not usually.

  Weighing the twist in his hand, as if it might actually have a weight rather than being too light to feel, ZeeZee shrugged and carefully unwrapped the chemical origami to reveal the grey, salt-sized crystals inside.

  “Have a great evening,” said the lift.

  “Thanks,” said ZeeZee as he put his nose to the paper and inhaled, hitting it with both barrels. “I intend to…”

  A creak of the apartment door tugged Haruki away from his dreams. Far away—in the world inside his head, which was less safe even than the world outside—he registered first the click of a lock recessing itself and then a door creaking open on hinges that needed oiling.

  The next click was closer and dispelled his dreams like wind through smoke. It came a microsecond ahead of the cold kiss of metal on his forehead. Revolvers that operated on double-hammer action were increasingly rare but Haruki knew of at least one person who owned a model like that. The cold-eyed English boy who walked alone and mostly talked to himself.

  “Get up.”

  Haruki opened one eye. His other was still too badly bruised to open. Around the eye he could, there were distinct bruises, left by a bony knuckle.

  “Out of bed.”

  Slowly, very carefully, Haruki eased his feet out from under the covers, toes feeling for the floor. The cold made him reach instinctively for his silk dressing gown.

  “You won’t need that.” A hand flicked Haruki’s fingers aside before they could touch fabric. “Walk over to the window.”

  Haruki did what he was told, trying to ignore both the cold and his own nakedness. Most of all, he tried to ignore the revolver and a rising fear brought on by questions he suspected it would be stupid to want answered.

  “Open the curtains.”

  He did that, too. Seeing the pinprick lights of Seattle flicker in the falling rain. The carpet felt sticky under his bare feet and the room stank of incense, empty beer cans and half-finished Singapore noodles. The sheets were dirty and his Toshiba wall screen was running nothing except static, but the view out over the harbour was heart-stopping. So beautiful it almost made up for dying surrounded by his own squalor.

  “Now open the window.”

  The glass slid back silently and a sudden gust of cold raised goose bumps on Haruki’s naked skin. “Why are you doing this?” Wild Boy asked. His voice sounded small, even to him. “We didn’t touch your face.”

  The English boy shrugged. “Did I ever say you did?”

  “You let Hu San think so…” Wild Boy’s hand went up to touch the bruise below his eye and his fingers came away wet.

  “How sweet,” said ZeeZee. “You’re crying.” He raised the gun and sighted along the top, seeing a naked Japanese boy no older than he was. “Any last requests?”

  Haruki just looked out from under his fringe.

  ZeeZee sighed. The fox was right and he was wrong.

  “I don’t know about you,” ZeeZee said as he lowered his gun. “But I’m not finding this nearly as much fun as I thought.” Stepping back towards the bed, he threw Haruki a dressing gown.

  “You don’t love her,” Wild Boy said fiercely.

  “And you do?”

  Haruki nodded, sliding first one, then another arm into the gown and knotting the belt loosely round his narrow waist. “And she loves me.”

  “Not any more,” said ZeeZee.

  He closed the apartment door behind him and left Wild Boy to lock up the window and call Hu San, if he was that stupid. Not that he would—call Hu San, that was… ZeeZee knew Wild Boy. Shame would prevent him.

  Haruki was right about one thing, though. ZeeZee didn’t want a lover, certainly not a Chinese gangster in her late thirties. A mother—now, that was something different. But that was one place even Wild Boy couldn’t make him go.

  Shoving his gun back into its holster, ZeeZee zipped up his black biker jacket and hit a button to call the lift. He didn’t know how well Wild Boy would sleep but as soon as he got back to his own room he intended to crash out like the proverbial log, cooking sulphate or not. And then, first thing tomorrow he planned to get up and go visit Micky O’Brian. Hu San wanted a small package delivered. Something by way of apology for the recent misunderstanding…

  Sitting on the edge of his bed, knife in hand, Haruki remained awake for the best part of five hours while he went over what had happened. What he’d said, what had been said to him. It was as if black and white had suddenly reversed. Maybe he could have handled matters differently. Perhaps he really should have launched himself at the English boy and not even thought about the gun.

  Except that if life had taught Haruki anything it was when to lose fights. Most times he fought hard and won but occasionally he knew to give in. That knowledge had saved his life as a kid. He wasn’t proud of how he’d made his living before he met Hu San but never once had she shown anything but sympathy. Until now…

  Sadly, Haruki put his hand to his swollen eye and then touched the edge of the blade to his throat. No use, he didn’t feel brave enough for really grand gestures. Reversing his grip, so that he held the blade securely, Haruki dragged its point across his wrist, feeling sick. The wound should have been deeper but two glistening sinews blocked his way.

  The tears that started up ran unchecked down his face as he sat there on his bed, his one good hand wrapped tight round his damaged wrist, trying to hold the edges of the cut together. For all his front, it seemed he couldn’t even kill himself properly. Haruki had a decision to make without being sure how much time he had left in which to make it… In the end, shame or not, Haruki ordered his mobile to call Hu San and keep calling until it got through. He wanted to apologize or say goodbye, whichever seemed appropriate.r />
  CHAPTER 34

  10-11th July

  Saturday began hot, the early-morning sun turning the Corniche to a burning silver strip that flared along the shore and separated the city from its beaches and low-lying headlands. But even early, with the sun hanging low over Glymenapoulo to the east, the air was too heavy and too sticky for blue sky to last.

  A headache settled over the city, dogs growing restless and feral cats slinking from the shade of one shabby tenement to another. Policemen pulled at their high collars as they tried to relieve the itch, women scratched discreetly and men at café tables casually adjusted their balls. Through endless shuttered windows came the sound of toddlers whining, being slapped and whining louder still.

  Under their glass roofs the souks overheated, peaches turned bruised and rancid in the open markets and at the taxi rank on Place Orabi a driver killed two passengers in an argument over his tip.

  The storm came in at noon, as muezzin were calling the faithful to prayer. It fell on Iskandryia in a rolling landslide of dark clouds that slid down the coast, vast and soot-hued, banked so high that the outer edge of each cloud turned back on itself and still kept climbing. Looking up was like staring down into a bottomless canyon.

  And with the clouds came a chill that cooled the air until the only heat was latent, radiating back from alley walls and parked cars. But Hani didn’t notice the sudden chill at the time because she was too busy in the haremlek throwing “rubbish” clothes into a black plastic bag… Rubbish meant anything neat, anything fussy, anything that Hani’s aunt had made her wear…

  Now they were up in the attic, rubbishing that without quite saying so, Raf had decided to get the al-Mansur madersa swept clean of ghosts and rearranged by the close of the weekend. Some ghosts need exorcism. Some die, shrivel in the daylight or let time brick them off into the little-visited rooms of memory.