He looked a little uncomfortable. It might have crossed his mind that just possibly I was mocking him, but usually he was impervious to that sort of thing. He smiled again. “I am happy that you will be among us again tonight.”
I was startled. “I will?”
He turned over one fat palm. “Is it not so? You are to be discharged this afternoon. Friedlander Bey sent me with a message: You must visit him as soon as you feel well. Tomorrow will be soon enough. He does not wish for you to hurry your recuperation.”
“I didn’t even know that I was being released, and I’m supposed to see Friedlander Bey tomorrow; but he doesn’t want to hurry me. I suppose your car is waiting to take me home.”
Now Hassan looked unhappy. He didn’t like my suggestion at all. “Oh darling, I wish it were so, but it cannot be. You must make other arrangements. I have business elsewhere.”
“Go in safety,” I said quietly. I laid my head back on the pillow and tried to find my dream again. It was long gone.
“Allah yisallimak,” murmured Hassan, and he was gone, too.
All the peace of the last few days disappeared, and it happened with disturbing suddenness. I was left with a pervasive feeling of self-loathing. I remembered one time a few years ago, when I had pursued a girl who worked sometimes at the Red Light and sometimes at Big Al’s Old Chicago. I had worked my way into her consciousness by being funny and fast and, I suppose, contemptible. I finally got her to go out with me, and I took her to dinner—I don’t remember where—and then back to my apartment. We were on the bed five minutes after I locked the front door, and we jammed for maybe another ten or fifteen minutes, and then it was all over. I lay back and looked at her. She had bad teeth and sharp bones and smelled as if she carried sesame oil around with her in an aerosol. “My God,” I thought. “Who is this girl? And how am I going to get rid of her now?” After sex, all animals are sad; after any kind of pleasure, really. We’re not built for pleasure. We’re built for agony and for seeing things too clearly, which is often a terrible agony in itself. I loathed myself then, and I loathed myself now.
Dr. Yeniknani knocked lightly on my door and came in. He glanced briefly at the nurse’s daily notes.
“Am I going home?” I asked.
He turned his bright, black eyes on me. “Hmm? Oh, yes. Your discharge orders have already been written. You have to arrange for someone to come and get you. Hospital policy. You can leave anytime.”
“Thank God,” I said, and I meant it. That surprised me.
“Praise Allah,” said the doctor. He looked at the plastic box of daddies beside my bed. “Have you tried all of these?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. That was a lie. I had tried a few, under the supervision of a therapist; the data add-ons had been pretty much of a disappointment. I don’t know what I’d expected. When I chipped in one of the daddies, its information was sitting there in my mind, as if I’d known all of it all my life. It was like staying up all night and cramming for an exam, without having to lose any sleep and without the possibility of forgetting any of the material. When I popped the chip out, it all vanished from my memory. No big deal. Actually, I was looking forward to trying some of the daddies that Laila had in her shop. The daddies would come in very handy now and then.
It was the moddies I was afraid of. The full personality modules. The ones that crammed you away in some little tin box inside your head, and someone you didn’t know took over your mind and body. They still spooked the hell out of me.
“Well, then,” said Dr. Yeniknani. He didn’t wish me luck, because everything was in the hands of Allah, Who knew what the outcome was going to be anyway, so luck hardly entered into it. I’d learned gradually that my doctor was an apprentice saint, a Turkish derwish. “May God provide a successful conclusion to your undertaking,” he said. Very well spoken, I thought. I had come to like him a lot.
“Inshallah,” I said. We shook hands, and he left. I went to the closet, took out my street clothes, threw them on the bed—there was a shirt and my boots and socks and underwear and a new pair of jeans that I didn’t remember buying. I dressed quickly and spoke Yasmin’s commcode into my phone. It rang and rang. I spoke my own, thinking she might be at my apartment; there was no answer there, either. Maybe she was at work, although it wasn’t two o’clock. I called Frenchy’s, but no one had seen her yet. I didn’t bother leaving a message. I called a cab instead.
Hospital policy or not, nobody gave me a hard time about leaving unescorted. They wheeled me downstairs and I got into the cab, holding a bag of toilet articles in one hand and my rack of daddies in the other. I rode back to my apartment feeling a bewildering emptiness, no emotions at all.
I unlocked my front door and went in. I figured the place would be a mess. Yasmin had probably stayed here a few times while I was in the hospital, and she was never great at picking up after herself. I expected to see little mounds of her clothes all over the floor, monuments of dirty dishes in the sink, half-eaten meals and open jars and empty cans all around the stove and table; but the room was as clean as when I’d last seen it. Cleaner, even; I’d never done such a thorough job of sweeping, dusting, and washing the windows. That made me suspicious: some skillful lockpicker with a yen for neatness had broken into my home. I saw three envelopes beside the mattress on the floor, stuffed fat. I bent over and picked them up. My name was typed on the outside of the envelopes; on the inside of each was seven hundred kiam, all in tens, seventy new bills fastened together with a rubber band. Three envelopes, twenty-one hundred kiam; my wages for the weeks I spent in the hospital. I didn’t think I was getting paid for that time. I would have done it for free—the Sonneine on top of the etorphin had been quite pleasant.
I lay down on the bed and tossed the money to the side, where Yasmin sometimes slept. I still felt a curious hollowness, as if I was waiting for something to come along and fill me up and give me a hint about what to do next. I waited, but I didn’t get the word. I looked at my watch; it was now almost four o’clock. I decided not to put off the hard stuff. I might as well get it over with.
I got up again, stuck a wad of a few hundred kiam in my pocket, found my keys, and went back downstairs. I began to feel just the beginning of some kind of emotional reaction. I paid close attention: I was nervous, not pleasantly so; and I was sure that I was fighting my way up the thirteen steps of the gallows, intent on putting my head in some as-yet-unseen noose. I walked down the Street to the east gate of the Budayeen and looked for Bill. I didn’t see him. I got into another cab. “Take me to Friedlander Bey’s house,” I said.
The driver turned around and looked at me. “No,” he said flatly. I got out and found another driver who didn’t mind going there. I made sure we agreed on the cabfare first, though.
When we got there I paid the driver and climbed out. I hadn’t let anyone know I was coming; Papa probably didn’t expect to see me for another day. Nevertheless, his servant was holding the polished mahogany door open before I reached the top of the white marble stairs. “Mr. Audran,” he murmured.
“I’m surprised you remember,” I said.
He shrugged—I couldn’t say if he smiled or not—and said, “Peace be upon you.” He turned away.
I said “And upon you be peace” to his back and followed. He led me to Papa’s offices, to the same waiting room I had seen before. I went in, sat down, stood up again restlessly, and began to pace. I didn’t know why I’d come here. After “Hello, how are you?” I was depressed to find I had nothing else to say to Papa at all. But Friedlander Bey was a good host when it served his purposes, and he wouldn’t let a guest feel uncomfortable.
In a while the communicating door opened and one of the sandstone giants gestured. I passed by him and came again into Papa’s presence. He looked very tired, as if he had been handling urgent financial, political, religious, judicial, and military matters without rest for many hours. His white shirt was stained with perspiration, his fine hair mussed, his eyes weary and
bloodshot. His hand trembled as he gestured to the Stone That Speaks. “Coffee,” he said, in a hoarse and peculiarly soft voice. He turned to me. “Come, my nephew, be seated. You must tell me if you are well. It pleases Allah that the surgery was successful. I have had several reports from Dr. Lisân. He was quite satisfied with the results. In that regard I am also satisfied, but of course the true proof of the value of the implants will be in how you use them.”
I nodded, that’s all.
The Stone arrived with the coffee, and it gave me a few minutes to settle my nerves while we sipped and chatted. I realized that Papa was looking at me rather closely, his brows drawn together, his expression mildly displeased. I closed my eyes in exasperation: I had come in my usual street clothes. The jeans and boots were fine in Chili’s club or for hanging out with Mahmoud, Jacques, and Saied, but Papa preferred to see me in the gallebeya and keffiya. Too late now, I told myself; I’d started off in the hole, and I was going to have to climb out of it and gain some more ground to get back in his good graces.
I shook my cup back and forth a little after the second refilling, indicating that I had had enough. The coffee things were cleared away, and Papa murmured something to the Stone. The huge man left the room also. This was the first time, I believe, that I’d been alone with Papa. I waited.
The old man pressed his lips together while he thought. “I am glad that you thought enough of my wishes to undergo the surgery,” he said.
“O Shaykh,” I said, “it is—”
He shut me up with a quick gesture. “However, merely having the surgery will not solve our problems. That is unfortunate. I have had other reports that told me you were reluctant to explore the full benefits of my gifts. You may be thinking that you can satisfy our arrangement by wearing the implants, but not using them. If you are thinking that, you are deluding yourself. Our mutual problem cannot be solved unless you agree to use the weapon I have given you, and use it to the utmost. I have not had such augmentation myself because I believe my religion forbids it; therefore, one might argue that I am not the proper person to advise you on this matter. Yet I think I know a thing or two about personality modules. Would you care to discuss a proper choice with me?”
The man was reading my mind, but that was his job. The odd thing was that the deeper in I got, the easier it seemed to be to talk to Friedlander Bey. I wasn’t even properly terrified when I heard myself declining his offer. “O Shaykh,” I said, “we do not even agree on the identity of our enemy. How then can we hope to choose a suitable personality as an instrument of our vengeance?”
There was a brief silence during which I heard my heart give one good bam! and start on another. Papa’s eyebrows raised a little and fell back into place. “Once again, my nephew, you prove to me that I was not mistaken in my choice of you. You are correct. How then do you propose to begin?”
“O Shaykh, I will begin by making a closer ally of Lieutenant Okking, and getting all the information he has in the police files. I know certain things about some of the victims that I’m sure he does not. I see no reason to give him this information now, but he may require it later. I will then interview all our mutual friends; I think I will find further clues. A careful, scientific examination of all the available data should be the first step.”
Friedlander Bey nodded thoughtfully. “Okking has information you do not have. You have information he does not have. Someone should assemble all that information in one place, and I would rather that person be you, and not the good lieutenant. Yes, I am pleased with your suggestion.”
“All who see you, five, O Shaykh.”
“May Allah grant that you go and come in safety.”
I saw no reason to tell him that what I truly planned to do was make a closer scrutiny of Herr Lutz Seipolt. What I knew of Nikki and her death made the whole affair more sinister than either Papa or Lieutenant Okking were willing to admit. I still had the moddy I’d found in Nikki’s purse. I’d never mentioned that moddy to anyone. I would have to find out what was recorded on it. I also hadn’t mentioned the ring or the scarab.
It took me another few minutes to ease myself out of Friedlander Bey’s villa, and then I couldn’t find a taxi. I ended up walking, but I didn’t mind because I was having a fierce argument with myself all the way. The argument went like this:
Self1 (afraid of Papa): “Well, why not do what he wants? Just collect all the information and let him suggest the next step. Otherwise, you’ll just be asking for a broken body. If not a dead one.”
Self2 (afraid of death and disaster): “Because every step I take is directly toward two—not one, but two—psychopathic murderers who don’t care half a chickpea if I live or die. As a matter of fact, either or both of them would probably give considerably more than that just for the chance to put a bullet between my eyes or slit my throat. That’s why.”
Both selves had considerable stores of logical, reasonable things to say. It was like being at a mental tennis match: one would bash a statement across the net, and the other would bash a refutation right back. They were too evenly matched, the rally would go on forever. After a while I got bored and stopped watching. I had all the equipment, after all, to become El Cid or Khomeini or anybody else, and why was I still hesitating? Nobody else around here had any of my qualms. I didn’t think of myself as a coward, either. What would it take to get me to chip in that first moddy?
I got the answer to that the very same night. I heard the sunset call to prayer as I passed through the gate and headed up the Street. Outside the Budayeen, the muezzin sounded almost ethereal; inside the gate, the same man’s voice had somehow gained a reproachful note. Or was that my imagination? I wandered over to Chiriga’s nightclub and sat down at the bar. She wasn’t there. Behind the bar was Jamila, who had worked for Chiri a few weeks ago and then quit after my Russian was shot in the club. People come and go around the Budayeen; they’ll work in one club and get fired or quit over some dumb-ass little thing, go work someplace else, eventually make the circuit and end up back where they started. Jamila was one of those people who can make the circuit faster than most. She was lucky to hang onto a job in one place for seven days running.
“Where’s Chiri?” I asked.
“She’s coming in at nine. You want something to drink?”
“Bingara and gin over ice, with a little Rose’s.” Jamila nodded and turned away to mix it. “Oh,” she said, “you had a call. They left a message. Let me find it.”
That surprised me. I couldn’t imagine who would leave a message for me, how they’d known I’d come in here tonight.
Jamila returned with my drink and a cocktail napkin with two words scrawled across it. I paid her and she left without another word. The message was Call Okking. What a fitting beginning to my new life as a superman: urgent police business. No rest for the wicked; it was becoming my motto. I unclipped my phone and growled Okking’s commcode, then waited for him to answer. “Yeah?” he said at last.
“Marîd Audran,” I said.
“Wonderful. I called the hospital, but they said you’d been discharged. I called your house, but there wasn’t any answer. I called your girl friend’s boss, but you weren’t there. I called your usual hangout, the Café Solace, but they hadn’t seen you. So I tried a few other places, and left messages. I want you here in half an hour.”
“Sure, Lieutenant. Where are you?”
He gave me a room number and the address of a hotel run by a Flemish conglomerate, in the most affluent section of the city. I’d never been in the hotel, or within so much as ten blocks of it. That wasn’t my part of town.
“What’s the situation?” I asked.
“A homicide. Your name has come up.”
“Ah. Anyone I know?”
“Yes. It’s odd that as soon as you went into the hospital, these bizarre killings stopped. Nothing unusual for almost three weeks. And the day you’re released, we’re right back in the Reign of Terror.”
“Okay, Lieutenant, you
’ve got me and I’ll have to confess. If I’d been smart, I would have arranged a murder or two while I was in the hospital, to throw off suspicion.”
“You’re a wise guy, Audran. That just makes your predicament worse, all the way around.”
“Sorry. So you never told me: who’s the victim?”
“Just get here fast,” he said, and hung up.
I gulped my drink, left Jamila half a kiam tip, and hurried out into the warm night air. Bill was still missing from his usual place on the wide Boulevard il-Jameel outside the Budayeen. Another cab driver agreed to the fare I offered him, and we rumbled across town to the hotel. I went straight up to the room, and was stopped by a police officer standing inside the yellow tape “crime scene” barrier. I told him Lieutenant Okking was expecting me. He asked me my name, and then let me pass.
The room was like the inside of a slaughterhouse. There was blood everywhere—pools of blood, streaks of blood on the walls, blood spattered on the bed, on the chairs and bureau, all over the carpet. A murderer would have had to spend a lot of time and energy making certain his victim was sufficiently dead to splash all that blood so much, thoroughly soaking the room. He’d have to kill the wretch with stab after stab, like a ritual human sacrifice. It was inhuman, grotesque, and demented. Neither James Bond nor the nameless torturer had worked this way. This was either a third maniac, or one of the first two with a brand-new moddy. In both cases our scanty clues were now obsolete. That’s all we needed at this point.
The police were completing the job of bundling the corpse into a body bag on a stretcher, and moving it out the door. I found the lieutenant. “So who the hell got the business tonight?” I asked.
He looked at me closely, as if he could gauge my guilt or innocence from my reaction. “Selima,” he said.
My shoulders slumped. I felt immensely exhausted all of a sudden. “Allah be merciful,” I murmured. “So why did you want me here? What does this have to do with me?”
“You’re investigating all this for Friedlander Bey. And besides, I want you to look in the bathroom.”
When Gravity Fails Page 19