“You’re a fishing captain. You must make money. It mustn’t be easy after what I did to you.”
“You? I made my own shame.”
“By trying to save the orphans?”
“I jeopardized security and the lives of your men.”
“Those al’abalahs,” Abdullah snorted. “That’s why I do what I do. And why you rescued that little girl from the orphanage.”
“I lied.”
“Yes, you did.” Abdullah smiled thinly. “But it was to return her to the infidels, with whom she belonged. Then they kill her. We have a long road ahead.”
Azhar shrugged limply.
The Son squeezed Mustafa’s arm. “Do you worry about your son?”
“Omar has a strong heart…”
“He’s lost to them. At that age, there’s no turning back.”
“He is but sixteen…”
“Lost,” Abdullah said firmly. “Accept that. Accept that he is our enemy.”
He shuddered at the image of his son in a black robe holding a scimitar. “I can’t.”
“Abdul is our future. Perhaps it will be soccer. Think of Abdul scoring goals against the Crusaders, a stadium full of Muslims and… “ he caught himself. “…non-Muslims.
We’ll need to find a different word for them. Perhaps even for us.”
They watched sleepy sailboats pass.
“I’m sorry your life is upside down, Azhar,” Abdullah finally said. “But it was necessary.”
“Allah needs me to be suspected of heresy?”
“No, but I do.” The Mufti’s son leaned forward. “I imagine your wife won’t care if I take you off on another trip.”
“I believe she’d thank you.”
They grinned together for a moment.
“May I ask where we’re going?”
Abdullah leaned back with a mischievous smile. “No. But pack warm clothes.”
He didn’t think it’d be wise to ask Jalak to knit him a scarf.
• • • •
ZELDA SLOWLY WALKED up the wide chipped steps into the abandoned building. The nearest light was on the next floor. She used both hands on the railing, smiling wryly that falling might do the trick except for the broken bones.
Two more flights up, where she paused to catch her breath, glancing through the soiled square window at desolate East 166th Street, then down a corridor lit by a simple exposed bulb. There were no sounds other than her rasping.
One last brave sigh. The door opened on the fourth knock. A narrow bed with a fresh sheet greeted her, come lay with me, my mattress is firm and you shouldn’t be here long. This was the only furniture, except for a wobbly floor lamp, light spilling apologetically onto a dour woman silently washing her hands at the sink. Least she used soap, Zelda thought.
A friendly man in a white surgical gown and a reassuring smile came out of another room.
“Dr. Watt.” He iclasped her hand. “Good to know you, Zelda.”
“Same here. I wish the circumstances were different.”
He looked around as if they were at Lebanon Hospital and it was her fault she couldn’t see the nurses and doctors running around saving lives.
“Next time. There’s no reason why you can’t have many children.”
“I had two after.” The dour women held up a pair of fingers.
Zelda thought Dr. Watt was going to applaud and vidup photos of the dour children on the peeling wall. Instead he nodded grimly and told Zelda to sit while the woman laid gleaming hot, really very sharp instruments on a towel on the kitchen counter.
Her thighs pressed together.
“Can I give you a head’s up how today will go?” Watt didn’t wait for her to answer. “Before abortion was outlawed, doctors used mifepristone, a pill to eliminate the pregnancy. That was in ’69…”
“’68,” the woman said without looking up. “Right after we lost France.”
The doctor’s glare indicated he preferred no further interruptions. “Then in 2076, all of these horrific surgical abortions were banned.”
“Four million,” the woman muttered the mantra.
“Yes.” Dr. Watt grimaced as if he personally knew each of the chlldren who died in the war.
“May I ask a question?” Zelda asked hoarsely.
“Anything.”
The woman turned around in case her knowledge was needed.
“You said it’s horrific.”
Dr. Watt held up his hands. “Not what we’re doing to you, Zelda. This is a simple procedure. We can give you general anesthesia, where you’re asleep, conscious sedation, where you’re awake but sleepy, or local, where the area’s numb. No pain. I prefer the suction aspiration. Something soothing about the sound.”
He smiled as if Suck Out My Fetus were a #1 hit on the vidrad.
“I mean…” Zelda, just close your eyes and don’t interrogate the man. “Why are you doing this if you think it’s so horrible to kill a baby?”
Dr. Watt rested his strong hands on his lap; clearly he’d answered this before. “I would never do this if a woman were married or engaged. But why should a single woman be punished? With no contraception, mistakes are guaranteed. Look what happened to you after an innocent night of drinking with an attractive man.”
Or seven, she smiled nervously.
“Why should you suffer because monsters slaughtered our people?”
“They’re not monsters anymore,” the woman said.
“I forgot,” he sneered. “No nasty words anymore. Forgiveness.”
“Four million,” the woman mumbled.
“That’s why I don’t accept payment. That’d violate Grandma’s Twenty-First Insight, money corrupts good.” The doctor impatiently glanced at his watch. “We should get going, Zelda. The surroundings aren’t the best, but we must be careful. Any more questions?”
Zelda slowly undressed, the clothes glued together to her sweating body. Dr. Watt washed his hands in the sink.
“The tube will be inserted through your cervix and into your womb and then we go thwip.” He made some such sound of suction.
“I don’t need the details.”
“I’m only trying to make it all seem routine,” he said cheerfully.
“Like buying groceries. Apple goes bad, get another.”
“Not quite that coldly.” Dr. Watt considered her. “Katrina did say you have an unusual mind.”
She nodded dully, fingers hovering over the last button on the blouse before she quickly stripped down to her panties, eager to get it done; the woman gleefully gave her a shot.
“Just a local,” Dr. Watt explained.
Her mind tilted, left to right. Right to left. She’d had a local before, when Pablo broke her finger because she wouldn’t show him her breast; fourteen percent of a nipple.
“You sure this is a local?” she mumbled.
The woman smiled smugly.
“But Katrina speaks highly of you,” Dr. Watt continued. “Said you’re an attentive pupil. Lie down, Zelda.”
“S’not a local.” She resisted the woman’s tugs.
“I adore Katrina. We know each other a long time.” Dr. Watt picked up a shiny instrument that looked like a sword and Zelda frantically swam into the fog to hold the waves together. Long time? No.
“We go back to the University of Pennsylvania.”
She stood, unsure where her feet were.
“Oh yes,” he smirked. “We partied a lot.”
Zelda grabbed her clothes, staggering to the door. The woman laughed and dragged her back.
“Changed my mind.”
“It’s a little late for that.” Dr. Watt gently gripped her elbow.
Zelda figured the vagina would be the same on anyone else. She kicked and the woman howled onto her knees. Something pulled Zelda’s arm from her body, but it was fastened pretty tightly; she whirled, slicing her bitten fingernails across Watt’s eyes. His screams faded once she stumbled out of the building, swimming back into her clothes. No one was the
re to watch.
32
The Black Top scowled through the glass door as if this boring job were Pablo’s fault. “It’s all paper records that far back.”
“That’s fine.”
The BT yanked up the black reflective visor. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, uncomfortable about being an asshole, but he had to live up to the uniform. “Not for me. I have to lock down the front door, go up three flights and pull down how many boxes.”
Pablo managed an apologetic look. The BT grumbled and, amid beeps and flashing lights, led Pablo inside the musty warehouse.
“Be careful.” The BT pointed his Tompkins 340 machine gun at the broken tiles.
“Guess not a lot of care goes into keeping up the building.” Pablo followed the BT up the narrow slippery steps to the edge of a dark concrete hallway.
“The name is Dead Past Warehouse. Got the dead part?”
“There has to be something important here.”
The BT grudgingly switched on a light. “Shit. Whole floor of computers. Rusted shut. All them cellular phone instruments. You can have your pick if you’re willing to fight off the rats. Probably some rats on four. They prefer paper.”
The BT was disappointed by Pablo’s indifferent reaction to the possibility of fighting six-foot high rodents for his annoying records. “This way, this way.” His snapping gloved fingers cracked like rocks being splintered as they turned a dark corner and walked single file up an even narrower staircase.
“What’re you looking for anyway?”
“That’s a privileged Cousins matter.” Pablo paused. “But since you’re so cooperative, I can tell you.”
“I’m glad someone tells me something so I don’t lose my mind.”
“Well, Lieutenant…”
“Private.”
“Lieutenant someday.” Pablo smiled faintly. “I’m trying to make a splash into the Cousins program by looking at the lack of really interesting new restaurants.”
“That’s making a splash?” Pausing before the thick black door, the BT fumbled for the correct key on the chain.
“You’d be surprised. Somehow I want to combine my science background as a dentist with my love of eating.”
“Like food for healthy teeth?”
“Exactly. Clearly you have time to think about things.”
The BT snorted and opened the door. Stacks of cartons climbed to the twelve foot ceiling, barely giving them space to prop a huge ladder.
“I gotta go through all of them?” the BT whined.
“Just the letter N, Lieutenant.” Pablo winked. “I’m happy to grab a carton myself.”
The BT muttered a form of thanks, insisting it’d be worse if Pablo fell and broke his head than if he did, a worthless Black Top in a boring dead-end job. The private climbed the ladder with agitated sighs, disappearing for about five minutes, his loud swearing an audio buoy, before stumbling back down lugging four large boxes. He dug through a cardboard corridor, pulling out a folding table and a chair, which he wearily set up as if this took the last of his strength.
“Can I trust you not to steal anything? Otherwise I gotta watch.”
“What if you help?”
The private squinted warily. “I don’t know about restaurants or teeth.”
“You chew food, don’t you?”
They carefully searched the cartons, dumping the last files. The BT wiped his forehead. “All that for nothing.”
Pablo muttered, irritated. “You sure about the name?”
Diaz grunted and dug through the leases, architects’ plans, building codes and government certifications all over again.
“Maybe it’s under something else,” the BT suggested. “Maybe all the Jew places are in the same place.”
Pablo frowned. “Not back in 2036, anyway.”
“You got a year? Shit, why didn’t you tell me?” The BT scampered back up the ladder, triumphantly turning two boxes on their side so Pablo could clearly see the date. “I gotta get back to the front door. If you open a special chewing place, remember me. Paterno. Jake. Being a BT ain’t any fun if you don’t got someone to kill.”
“You’re top of my list for head chef.”
Pablo rolled the marble around the cartons twice for extra luck and opened the first box. More permits for more restaurants. Nikita’s Tacos on Sherman Avenue. Genni Ann’s Real Chicken on Morris Avenue. About forty more, but not a one regarding the best pastrami in New York, he allowed himself a tired smile.
The second box contained only company names. DeViers. Trumble. Chi-Chi. Kreplach.
Pablo chewed on his lower lip, the name dancing mistily. He opened the Kreplach Inc. folder. Three approved restaurant permits. Phyllis’s Soup Palace. Dorsky’s Dairy House.
And Needleman’s.
All three restaurants had identical personnel requirements. None. He re-read that. None. No people required.
On the last page was another company name, Olark LLC.
Pablo carefully balanced up the ladder, making two trips to the O column and rummaging through three cartons. No Olark, Inc. He clambered back onto the ladder, but 2037 and 2038 were no help. He had just finished 2039 when the BT rapped on the door.
“My shift’s ending. Sorry. You gotta go.”
“Give me one more second.” He fingered the marble and climbed back up another row. It took only five minutes. He was ready when the impatient private led him back downstairs to the front door, signing him out. The BT pressed his hand onto Pablo’s chest.
“Do I gotta frisk you?”
“That’s not the way a head chef talks to his boss.”
The soldier smiled sheepishly and frisked him anyway.
• • • •
BOCCICELLI AND FISHER didn’t quite know what to do with Frecklie. They had children. Fisher’s daughter attended Harvard State College, renamed in 2077 under the Third Anti-Elitism Act, and Boccicelli had two sons who managed real estate development in the rebuilding of lower Manhattan. These children smiled, laughed, talked. Blinked their blasted eyes.
This child was like a ‘bot, except he couldn’t make his eyes revolve in opposite directions.
“Wine?” Boccicelli held up a bottle of Jacksonville Chianti.
“He’s too young,” Fisher whispered before they were reported for corrupting a minor.
“Milk?” Boccicelli tried.
Frecklie shook his head again. His mother wasn’t all wrong. The Reg world was populated by morons.
“I have to get back to school soon…”
Boccicelli and Fisher erupted in loud cries about the importance of education, quizzing Frecklie about classes and teachers and interests and future plans.
He just stared, waiting until they’d exhausted themselves, then opened his notebook.
“The store.”
“The one downstairs?” Fisher asked, puzzled.
“There were six of them, all different sizes. All selling merchandise.”
“Selling’s good,” Boccicelli perked up.
“We can’t sell any.”
“Why not?”
The owners immediately assumed Frecklie had deprived them of a profit line. Their P&L was booming, for the little they could keep. But a large P&L recommended them for a stake in the new housing development that would go up just under their feet when this foul stadium was finally torn down.
“Merchandise can’t be sold at any war museum. It glorifies evil.” He tapped his blank notebook as if it contained the full text of the Remembrance Act 405 of 2074, banning, under penalty of loss of sibling privilege, any profits derived from suffering.
“This isn’t a museum.”
“It is now since we put up the exhibits, sirs.”
They exchanged nasty looks since the exhibits were Frecklie’s idea.
“Then what good is a store?” Boccicelli sneered.
“The Forgiveness line. I thought we’d offer t-shirts.”
“How can we sell something that glorifies pain
or whatever?” Fisher asked, hoping he’d set up a trap.
“This looks ahead, not back. I think.”
Boccicelli scowled. “You think?”
“It’s a little murky. I only had time for so much research at the Central Library. No one’s sure since it’s sort of never really been done before.”
“Sort of?” Boccicelli proudly seized on the qualifying words.
“Yes sir,” Frecklie said, nodding gravely. “After Grandma finished all thirty-two Insights,” he waited for them to bow their necks respectfully, “a Fourth Cousin named,” Frecklie peered at a blank page in his textbook, “Sam Fuji celebrated Grandma’s birthday by unveiling a line of t-shirts with each of the Insights. He also produced plates and cups and some bedding, I think blankets and sheets, and everything went on sale simultaneously. He hadn’t told anyone and it wasn’t received very well.”
Fisher and Boccicelli frowned as one; the Falcons owner asked, “What happened?”
“It lasted only a few hours and the factories were destroyed and Sam Fuji was never seen again.”
Fisher visibly trembled. “I’ve never heard of this.”
“Because it was only a few hours, sir. Everything was destroyed, though I’ve heard, in the DV of course, that some t-shirts are still floating around, thirty-five years later, and that if you’re caught with one…” Frecklie shrugged and left the punishment to their imagination, which consumed them for a moment of huddled whispers.
“Then why would we do this?” Boccicelli snapped.
“Because Third Cousin Kenuda thought it would be a good experiment.”
“Experiment?” Fisher paled. “Meaning sometimes an experiment doesn’t work.”
“Yes sir.” Frecklie lowered his eyes.“That’s why I think we should be careful.”
They muttered the obviousness of that.
“If we allow a Reg business to do this, they’ll have to market the product according to law. But a DV business is given more flexibility since there’s no expectation they’ll survive.”
The owners waved him on as if they understood what he was talking about.
“I have an option.”
Morons, Frecklie smiled unpleasantly as he hurried into High School 44 barely in time for the third period math class. He didn’t pay much attention. Thanks to Dale, he was almost a whiz. When the DVs had first been set up, the educational standards were too high; almost no one passed. After the Surrender, The Family had gone the opposite way and simplified the curriculum to make sure that more DVs climbed out. Otherwise it looked as if they were trapped in a permanent cycle of failure. That led to an increase of subtle prejudices when the next generation clearly couldn’t keep up.
A Mound Over Hell Page 47