A Mound Over Hell

by Gary Morgenstein

  Cheng seemed genuinely saddened by this outburst. “I’m so sorry to hear all that. We do have mountains of mistrust to climb, don’t we? Please.” His voice hardened just enough. “Sit.”

  Abdullah slid the chair around and straddled the back, glaring at Cheng, while Azhar insisted on standing. The Asian Crusader shrugged.

  “Until now, how’s your trip been?”

  They didn’t smile. The Cousin arched his eyebrow as if he hadn’t expected an answer. “I heard Grandma took you to an interesting little place.”

  “What do you want?” Abdullah asked coldly.

  “Okay. I tried for civility. All I really want is some information. A few more details. I’m Grandma’s second in command and it’ll be my job to implement this agreement.”

  “Ask her.”

  “I did, which is why I suggested you stop by on your way home.” Cheng’s little eyes froze. “I’m somewhat confused by your allies.” He waited for Abdullah to answer, then continued, “Koury’s Madr Army in France. Shade under one million, nine hundred thousand soldiers, two hundred tank battalions, fifty air wings.”

  Abdullah stared hard.

  “I have good sources. You’re not the only one unhappy under the Caliphate. Important people say the one million, nine hundred thousand should be closer to four hundred thousand. One tank battalion. And air wings? Hard to fly planes when their engines fall off.”

  “Your information is incorrect,” Abdullah said warily.

  “Perhaps. As with the Army of the German Caliphate. One point two million on paper. Two hundred thousand in the field. Or the ally in Italy, the Caliphate of the False Messiah. On paper three quarters of a million. Reality, maybe a hundred thousand. No transport support, either. That’s endemic throughout the Army of Mohammed.”

  Bastard, Azhar could hear Abdullah think.

  “Try.”

  Cheng frowned. “Try what?”

  “To test us.”

  The Asian laughed. “I’ve no interest in testing anything, Your Most Worthy Successor. I’m making sure that when your father moves against you, you can defeat them. Otherwise, it all falls upon us.”

  “We saw how you handled that.” Abdullah sneered.

  “Not well,” Cheng said blandly. “Which is what we’re trying to avoid. The point of peace is not to fight. What is your plan when the announcement goes out and the Mufti labels you a traitor.”

  “As I told Lenora, that is ours to deal with.”

  “As I’m telling you, it becomes ours also. If you fail and your Army attacks us, we have no choice but to use nuclear weapons.”

  Abdullah’s jaw tightened. “My father will be eliminated long before.”

  “You mentioned that,” Cheng said dismissively. “What about the Council?”

  The Son hesitated. “Them too.”

  “All eleven?”

  “Only those who reject us.”

  “All eleven, then.” Cheng nodded to himself. “And the Holy Warriors?”

  “They will fight us.”

  “To the death.”

  “Yes,” Abdullah conceded.

  “Twenty million of them, roughly.”

  “Closer to thirty,” the Son said smugly.

  “And you’ll have how many men under arms….”

  Abdullah kicked aside the chair. “All the armies of the Council. The rot is prevalent. Then what is your concern?”

  “That you’re fucking us, sir. That you have no solid support. That your head will roll up a Camel’s ass and your people will think us desperate and ripe to finish off. Or your head won’t be used as a couch cushion because this is a trap.”

  “Which do you think it is, Mr. Cousin?” Abdullah sneered.

  Cheng scowled and left the room. Azhar expected the soldiers to burst in with guns blazing. When one entered, Mustafa lifted up a chair by the leg. The soldier’s frown could be felt under his mask as he motioned them down the corridor, dispensing with black hoods or handcuffs.

  They walked past soldiers with lifted face visors, expressions disgusted. That was the point, Azhar realized as they settled into the back seat of a car.

  The soldiers were supposed to see them.

  The ‘copter waited in the clearing, but Grandma’s Major wasn’t there. Azhar wasn’t surprised.

  36

  Annette grimaced slightly in the new green-and-gold open toed shoe as she walked gingerly up the wide wooden staircase in the 38th Police Precinct; a trickle of blood seeped into her heel.

  Thank you, Puppy, she made a sound as if swapping out one of her lungs for a cheaper model and hobbled up to the police desk, where a nice looking older Blue Shirt carefully read her papers before returning them.

  “How can we help you, Ms. Ramos?”

  She indicated her sprightly colored yellow skirt and white, trimmed blouse. “As you can see, I’m a dedicated sibling willing to do what’s right.”

  “Hopefully, we all are.”

  “Yes, well, especially you. What would we do without our Blue Shirts?” Annette took in some especially attractive Blue Shirts strolling past.

  “We appreciate that.”

  “So when I saw injustice, I spoke up.”

  The Blue Shirt wearily nodded for her to continue, wondering when he got his ‘bacco break. “Therefore, my question is small. According to the law, I should meet with the defendant…”

  “Not a defendant. The person hasn’t been charged yet.”

  “Ah.” She lowered her voice. “What should I call her?”

  “Zelda Jones. And yes, the law provides the right of the accused to confront the accuser in private.”

  “Accuser sounds so harsh.”

  The Blue Shirt squinted. “What else should we call you?”

  She felt ashamed. “I guess accuser works. To execute the laws properly, where would I go?”

  “The Bronx Courthouse on 161st Street. Know where that is?” She nodded. “But you only have a couple days.”

  “What happens then?”

  He peered at the screen. “Says she’s being transferred.”

  “Where?”

  The sergeant frowned. “Doesn’t say.”

  Annette pouted. “Is there a hint?”

  The Blue Shirt glanced around uneasily and whispered. “BT facility.”

  She puckered so deeply a straw couldn’t get through. “Is that unusual, sir?”

  The Blue Shirt nodded. “In a case like this.”

  Annette swung her handbag over her right shoulder and limped halfway down the steps. She stopped so abruptly two Blue Shirts bumped into her. I hate you so much, Puppy Nedick. She hobbled back up. The sergeant wasn’t thrilled to see her.

  “Apologies, apologies.” Annette pressed her nipples against the chest-high desk and fiddled with her shoes. “I left a comb at the desk of those kindly Brown Shirts. It was very expensive, made in Mexico. A girl can’t let her hair get too wild.” She winked at what that might mean. “Are the Detectives in today?”

  “You’d have to check with them. They’re very squishy about their side and ours. Fifth Floor.”

  “Of course. Fifth Floor.”

  Annette limped up the three flights, wishing Puppy a variety of testicular diseases. The two Brown Hats had their feet up on their desks, doodling.

  “Good afternoon, sirs.”

  They tipped their heads without recognizing her. Detectives passed back and forth to get coffee, donuts or answer their squat black phones.

  “Annette Ramos. Fiance to Third Cousin Elias Kenuda.” Their indifference suggested it didn’t matter if she were Grandma’s plaything. “The accuser of Zelda Jones.”

  Buca grunted. He and his partner waited.

  “I was just chatting with one of your Blue Shirt colleagues.” They nodded vaguely. “At some point I’d like to fully discharge my duties as a member of The Family and allow the accused an opportunity to accuse me back. Not that I’ve anything to be accused about.” The Detectives exchanged bland looks. “Your ki
nd colleague told me she was at the Bronx Courthouse but only for a couple days and since my schedule is crazy, my shoes are very popular and there’s a footwear convention coming up in Hartford this weekend, I wondered if there was some way she could be held there until I get back.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. That’s out of our hands,” Buca said.

  Annette sputtered as if this was in the top five of the most ruinous things ever to hit the human race. “Whose hands is it in then?”

  “The government,” Y’or said; Harris gave him a sharp glance.

  “Aren’t you the government, too? I know there used to be balancings and checkings and all those silly useless branches…”

  “Why do you want to know, ma’am?” Buca slipped his feet off the desk and studied her more closely.

  “I thought as a good sibling I should know these things. You do your duty, accuse and then you like to know what happened next.”

  “No one does,” Buca said slowly.

  “Yes. Exactly. Who needs to know? I certainly don’t, not with my business thriving. If only I sold men’s shoes.” She indicated gravely at their scuffed brown Oxfords.

  Annette mumbled a few more disjointed thoughts about shoes and hurried out with a cheerful wave to the entire squad room. Buca stared a moment at the door.

  “What was that about?”

  “I thought it was weird, too,” Y’or chimed in.

  “Then I must be on the right track,” Buca said dryly.

  • • • •

  SHOVING THROUGH THE crowd nearly knocking the hallway off its concrete blocks, Kenuda slid sideways into the dressing room at the spacious Chandler House Hall. Mooshie barely looked up as she methodically removed the makeup. The Third Cousin leaned against the closed door, exhausted.

  “No one’s ever heard anything like that.”

  She glanced smugly into the reflection in the triangular mirror and changed cleaning pads.

  “Three hours,” he continued wonderingly.

  “That used to be the norm. Back in the day I…” Mooshie caught herself. “Entertainers entertain. Sixty minutes is a stupid length. I’m just getting warmed up at that point.”

  Elias kissed the top of her mass of red curls, hands stroking her shoulders. She shuddered; he smiled, pleased, and kissed the back of her neck.

  “Kenuda.” She lit a ‘bacco, holding up the nearly empty pack. “I need more.”

  He paced in a tight circle, energizing his thoughts. “When football season opens next month, I’d like you to sing at one of the stadiums. Perhaps Meadowlands in Jersey. I see it so clearly, an Augmented Reality universe with you at midfield…”

  “Football’s disgusting.”

  “Darling, it’s number one.”

  “So am I.”

  Kenuda laughed with delight, acknowledging Dara’s songs had claimed thirty-six percent airtime on the vidrad, a record since Mooshie Lopez died. His name ranked in the top three of Grandma’s daily Cousins Thank Yous for the past week. No one had a bottom line like his. Baseball revenue was soaring over a thousand percent. Two new sporting goods factories were opening in Louisville and Milwaukee. There were now baseball day camps planned in twenty-five cities; there were only football camps in twenty-eight.

  He’d put in the suggestion to Cheng for one more baseball season. That’d give him time to sell through merchandising, too. The first adverts for baseball jerseys went up tomorrow. Players’ numbers, but no names along the top of the shoulder. Just FORGIVENESS.

  No wonder baseball evoked such nostalgia. Its quaintness screamed gullibility. Just wait until he reshaped entertainment. Vidrads, vidmovies, vident. New new new ideas.

  “That sounds amazing, but I’d like to start a little simpler. Like Yankee Stadium.”

  He sat on the edge of the dressing table. “You hate baseball, too.”

  “All sports are stupid. Sorry, I don’t mean to trash your world.”

  “That’s why I’ve expanded into entertainment.”

  “Seized is more like it.”

  Elias smacked his lips. “I can certainly arrange for you to sing at the baseball park. What’s that ditty they like?”

  Mooshie clamped her back teeth. “Take Me Out to the Ballgame?’”

  “Yes, yes. Why not sing that?”

  She turned like a kettle boiling. “I’m supposed to sing an old ditty?”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted? You sing older songs now…”

  Mooshie glared into the mirror, squirming as he touched her shoulder.

  “What did I get wrong this time, Dara?”

  “You’re supposed to be guiding me, Elias.”

  “I just booked you on a live vidmus concert that went an hour and a half over.”

  “Are people rioting across the country because some bullshit twiddle my geetar trio got bumped?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “But you want the first time anyone’s sung at Yankee Stadium since Mooshie Lopez to be like pulling your pecker? Yawn, buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks.” She shook her head at his dim stare. “Those are lyrics from the song.”

  “That’s not my expertise.”

  “Isn’t promotion? Look what you’ve done for me.”

  “Yes,” he answered carefully, unsure if he was about to be praised or criticized.

  “This must be historic. Dara Dinton at an historic moment. The lights come on.”

  “What lights, darling?”

  “The fucking lights at the stadium.”

  “They have them?” he asked. She flung a brush. “Perhaps we start with a light show? We do that for Grandma’s birthday at the Arena in Chicago…”

  “Grandma’s clit,” Mooshie snarled. “They have lights at Yankee Stadium because once upon a time they played night games.”

  “I know that, Dara,” he snapped. “But they stopped evening games because it got families home too late…”

  “That’s what I want,” she screamed.

  “Okay, okay…”

  “The first time the lights are turned on since 2065, I’m standing at home plate, singing.”

  Kenuda was relieved that she wasn’t going to make one of her demands like the water onstage served at thirty-four degrees or the flowers in the dressing room painted orange. Lights, stadium, simple enough. “I can certainly set that in motion.”

  “It already is.”

  “Pardon?”

  “In two days the lights go back on and I’m giving a concert.” Mooshie let the strap fall off her left shoulder. Kenuda tilted at the bare arm speckled with tiny freckles.

  “Isn’t that a little soon? There are permits and arrangements…”

  “You can handle it, darling,” Mooshie said huskily. “Now turn around while I undress.”

  Kenuda swallowed very deeply.

  • • • •

  AT EVERY KLICK across the Atlantic, Mustafa expected their Cessna 32 to be blown out of the sky. Neither he nor Abdullah had slept during the ten hours of travel from the Crusader ‘copter to a tiny fishing boat, an Islamic ‘copter and finally mid-air transfer aboard the Son’s private jet, until they landed at a poorly lit airport outside Barcelona. They stumbled on wobbly legs down the portable staircase; Abdullah’s bodyguards whisked him into a black sedan.

  Abdullah leaned out the open window and took his hand. “I must go alone, my friend. Thank you.”

  “I will wait for your call.”

  The Son smiled wearily. A silver mini-sedan rolled to the edge of the landing strip and two beefy men with rifles got out.

  “You must go with them,” he said sadly. “It’s the only way to maintain secrecy.”

  Azhar tensed. “But my family.”

  “Their grief will be addressed.” Abdullah half coughed, half laughed at Azhar’s fear.“Azhar, Azhar, do you think I’m a Crusader? Imagine how delighted your wife and sons will be when you return miraculously alive.”

  He rolled up the window and the car drove into the night. Azhar just stared,
considering running off into the thin forest. But to where? Suddenly he had no home. His home, his family, what would they be told? That he drowned at sea after being killed by Crusaders, like the orphans? Like Clary.

  One of the large men climbed behind the wheel while his colleague waited impatiently.

  Azhar angrily brushed past into the back seat. A small traveling bag rested on the floor.

  “Where am I going?” Azhar asked, not expecting an answer. He rummaged through the bag of toiletries, socks and underwear. He was about to complain, angrily, lividly, whether he was to be a prisoner in socks and undies, when he noticed a leather suitcase under the front seat.

  He dumped the clothes onto the seat.

  “This is not my size.” Mustafa held up a pair of adolescent pants that would be tight on Jalak.

  The bodyguards ignored him.

  “Nor are these shirts.” He flung a pair into the front seat. “I need proper clothes.” No, he didn’t. If Abdullah had lied about the strength of his allies’ armies to Grandma, he could lie to him. No witnesses to the agreement. Or to the shame of being kidnapped. Abdullah could say anything; who would contradict?

  He wept for a while, loudly, piercingly; the guards ignored that, too. When he stopped, he noticed the car was heading south on Fuego del Torres.

  “Get off at the next exit. I said get off. I am a ward of the Mufti’s Son.”

  Apparently they were killing him tonight, so fulfilling a last wish meant little. The car wound around the narrow hill.

  “Next left. Second right. Do as I say,” he shouted, smiling at the liberation of imminent death. “Now stop here.”

  His dark house slept; Mustafa could almost hear Jalak snoring. He carefully folded all the clothes and tossed the suitcase into the front seat.

  “Leave that by the door. The clothes will fit my son.” The guards hesitated. “Please. My wife will think it is charity.”

  The driver finally nodded. His colleague gently laid the suitcase on the front step. He returned and they drove back down the hill.

  I love you Jalak. I love you Abdul. I love you Omar. Believe nothing they say.

  • • • •