A Fire in the Sun

by George Alec Effinger

  "May Allah increase your strength, yaa Sidi!"

  "May He bless you, my sister."

  She hurried back across the street and into her building. "Makes you feel all warm inside, don't it?" Shaknahyi said. I couldn't tell if he was mocking me.

  "I'm glad I can help out a little," I said.

  "The Robin Hood of the slums."

  "There are worse things to be called."

  "If Indihar could see this side of you, maybe she wouldn't hate your guts so much." I stared at him, but he only laughed.

  Back in the patrol car, the comp deck spoke up. "Badge number 374, respond immediately. Escaped murderer Paul Jawarski has been positively identified in Meloul's on Nûr ad-Din Street. He is desperate, well armed, and he will shoot to kill. Other units are on their way."

  "We'll take care of it," said Shaknahyi. The comp deck's crackle faded away.

  "Meloul's is where we ate lunch that time, right?" I said. Shaknahyi nodded. "We'll try to ease this bastard Jawarski out of there before he puts holes in Meloul's couscous steamer."

  "Holes?" I asked.

  Shaknahyi turned and gave me a broad grin. "He likes old-fashioned pistols. He carries a .45 automatic. Put a dimple in you big enough to throw a leg of lamb through."

  "You heard of this Jawarski?"

  Shaknahyi swung into Nûr ad-Din Street. "We street cops have been seeing his picture for weeks. Claims he's killed twenty-six men. He's the boss of the Flathead Gang. There's ten thousand kiam on his head."

  Evidently I was supposed to know what he was talking about. "You don't seem too concerned," I said.

  Shaknahyi raised a hand. "I don't know whether the tip's genuine or just another pipe dream. We get as many fake calls as good ones in this neighborhood."

  We were the first to arrive at Meloul's. Shaknahyi opened his door and got out. I did the same. "What do you want me to do?" I asked.

  "Just keep the citizens out of the way," he said. "In case there's some—"

  There was a volley of shots from inside the restaurant. Those projectile weapons make a respectable noise. They sure catch your attention when they go off, not like the spitting and hissing of static and seizure guns. I dropped to the sidewalk and tried to wrestle my static gun free of my pocket. There were more shots and I heard glass shattering nearby. The windshield, I guessed.

  Shaknahyi had fallen back alongside the building, out of the line of fire. He was drawing his own weapon.

  "Jirji," I called.

  He waved to me to cut off the back of the restaurant. I got up and moved a few yards, and then I heard Jawarski run out the front door. I turned and saw Shaknahyi chasing after him, firing his needle gun down Nûr ad-Din Street. Shaknahyi shot four times, and then Jawarski turned. I was looking straight at them, and all I could think about was how big and black the mouth of Jawarski's gun looked. It seemed like it was pointed straight at my heart. He fired a few times and my blood froze until I realized I hadn't been hit.

  Jawarski ran into a yard a few doors from Meloul's, and Shaknahyi went in after him. The fugitive must have realized that he couldn't cut through to the next street, because he doubled back toward Shaknahyi. I got there just as the two men stood facing each other, shooting it out. Jawarski's gun emptied and he turned and ran to the back of a two-story house.

  We chased him through the yard. Shaknahyi ran up a flight of steps in the back, pushed open a door, and went inside the house. I didn't want to, but I had to follow him. As soon as I opened the back door, I saw Shaknahyi. He was leaning against a wall, shoving a fresh clip into his needle gun. He didn't seem to be aware of the large, dark stain that was spreading across his chest.

  "Jirji, you're shot," I said, my mouth dry and my heart hammering.

  "Yeah." He took a deep breath and let it out. "Come on."

  He walked slowly through the house to the front door. He went outside and stopped a civilian in a small electric car. "Too far to get the patrol car," he said to me, panting for breath. He looked at the driver. "I'm shot," he said, getting into the car.

  I got in beside him. "Take us to the hospital," I ordered the mousy little man behind the wheel.

  Shaknahyi swore. "Forget that. Follow him." He pointed to Jawarski, who was crossing the open space between the house he'd hidden in and the next.

  Jawarski saw us and fired as he ran. The bullet went through the window of the car, but the bald-headed driver kept on going. We could see Jawarski dodging from one house to another. Between houses, he'd turn and take a few shots at us. Five more bullets spanged into the car.

  Finally Jawarski got to the last house on the block, and he ran up the porch. Shaknahyi steadied his needle gun and fired. Jawarski staggered inside. "Come on," said Shaknahyi, wheezing. "I think I got him." He opened the car door and fell to the pavement. I jumped out and helped him to his feet. "Where are they?" he murmured.

  I looked over my shoulder. A handful of uniformed cops were swarming up the stairs of Jawarski's hiding place, and three more patrol cars were racing up the street. "They're right here, Jirji," I said. His skin was starting to turn an awful gray color.

  He leaned against the shot-up car and caught his breath. "Hurts like hell," he said quietly.

  "Take it easy, Jirji. We'll get you to the hospital."

  "Wasn't no accident, the call about On Cheung, then the tip on Jawarski."

  "What you talking about?" I asked.

  He was in a lot of pain, but he wouldn't get in the car. "The Phoenix File," he said. He looked deeply into my eyes, as if he could burn this information directly into my brain. "Hajjar let it slip about the Phoenix File. I been keeping notes ever since. They don't like it. Pay attention to who gets my parts, Audran. But play dumb or they'll take your bones too."

  "The hell is a Phoenix File, Jirji?" I was frantic with worry.

  "Take this." He gave me the vinyl-covered notebook from his hip pocket. Then his eyes closed and he slumped backward across the hood of the car. I looked at the driver. "Now you want to take him to the hospital?"

  The shrimpy bald-headed man stared at me. Then he looked at Jirji. "You think you can keep that blood off my upholstery?" he asked.

  I grabbed the little motherfucker by the front of his shirt and threw him out of his own car. Then I gently eased Shaknahyi into the passenger seat and drove to the hospital as fast as I've ever driven.

  It didn't make any difference. I was too late.

  10

  ONE OF KHAYYÁM'S RUBIYYAT kept going through my mind. Something about regret:

  Again, again, Repentance oft before I vowed—but was I sober when I swore? Again, again I failed, for younger thoughts my frail Repentance into tatters tore.

  "Chiri, please," I said, holding up my empty glass. The club was almost empty. It was late and I was very tired. I closed my eyes and listened to the music, the same shrill, thumping hispo music Kandy played every time she got up to dance. I was getting tired of hearing the same songs over and over again.

  "Why don't you go home?" Chiri asked me. "I can take care of the place by myself. What's the matter, don't you trust me with the cash?"

  I opened my eyes. She'd put a fresh vodka gimlet in front of me. I was in a bottomless melancholy, the kind that doesn't get any help at all from liquor. You can drink all night and you never get loaded. You end up with a bad stomach and a pounding headache, but the relief you expect from your troubles never comes. " 'S all right," I said. "I got to stay. You go ahead and close up, though. Nobody's come in for an hour at least."

  "What you say, boss," said Chiri, giving me a worried look. I hadn't told her about Shaknahyi. I hadn't told anybody about him.

  "Chiri, you know somebody I can trust to do a little dirty work?"

  She didn't look shocked. That was one of the reasons I liked her so much. "You can't find somebody with your cop connections? You don't have enough thugs working for you at Papa's?"

  I shook my head. "Somebody who knows what he's doing, somebody I can count on to keep
a low profile."

  Chiri grinned. "Somebody like what you used to be before your lucky number came up. What about Morgan? He's dependable and he probably won't sell you out."

  "I don't know," I said. Morgan was a big blond guy, an American from Federated New England. He and I didn't travel in the same circles, but if Chiri recommended him, he was probably all right.

  "What you need done?" she asked.

  I rubbed my cheek. Reflected in the back mirror, my red beard was beginning to show a lot of gray. "I want him to track somebody down for me. Another American."

  "See there? Morgan's a natural."

  "Uh huh," I said sourly. "If they blow each other away, nobody'll miss 'em. Can you get hold of him tonight?"

  She looked doubtful. "It's two o'clock in the morning."

  "Tell him there's a hundred kiam in it for him. Just for showing up and talking to me."

  "He'll be here," said Chiri. She dug an address book out of her bag and grabbed the bar's phone.

  I gulped down half the vodka gimlet and stared at the front door. Now I was waiting for two people.

  "You want to pay us?" Chiri said some time later.

  I'd been staring at the door, unaware that the music had been turned off and the five dancers had gotten dressed. I shook my head to clear the fog out of it, but it didn't do much good. "How'd we do tonight?" I asked.

  "Same as always," said Chiri. "Lousy."

  I split the receipts with her and began counting out the dancers' money. Chiri had a list of how many drinks each girl had gotten from the customers. I figured out the commissions and added them to the wages. "Nobody better come in late tomorrow," I said.

  "Yeah, right," said Kandy, snatching up her money and hurrying for the door. Lily, Rani, and Jamila were close behind her. "You all right, Marid?" asked Yasmin.

  I looked up at her, grateful for her concern. "I'm fine," I said. "Tell you all about it later." "Want to go out for some breakfast?"

  That would have been wonderful. I hadn't gone out with Yasmin in months. I realized that it had been a very long time since I'd gone out with anybody. I had something else to do tonight, though. "Let me postpone that," I said. "Tomorrow, maybe."

  "Sure, Marîd," she said. She turned and went out.

  "There is something wrong, huh?" said Chiri.

  I just nodded and folded up the rest of the night's cash. No matter how fast I gave it away, it just kept accumulating.

  "And you don't want to talk about it."

  I shook my head. "Go on home, Chiri."

  "Just gonna sit here in the dark by yourself?"

  I made a shooing motion with my hand. Chiri shrugged and left me alone. I finished the vodka gimlet, then went behind the bar and made myself another one. About twenty minutes later, the blond American came into the club. He nodded to me and said something in English.

  I just shook my head. I opened my briefcase on the bar, took out an English-language daddy, and chipped it in. There was just a moment while my mind worked to translate what he'd said, and then the daddy kicked in and it was as if I'd always known how to speak English. "Sorry to make you come out so late, Morgan," I said.

  He ran a large hand through his long blond hair. "Hey, man, what's happenin'?"

  "Want a drink?"

  "You can draw me a beer if it's free."

  "Help yourself," I said.

  He leaned across the bar and held a clean glass under one of the taps. "Chiri said something about a hundred kiam, man."

  I took out my money. The size of the roll dismayed me. I was going to have to get to the bank more often, or else I'd have to let Kmuzu play bodyguard full-time. I dealt out five twenty-kiam bills and slid them down toward Morgan.

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and scooped up the money. He looked down at the bills, then back at me. "Now I can go, right?" he said.

  "Sure," I said, "unless you want to hear how you can make a thousand more."

  He adjusted his steel-rimmed spectacles and grinned again. I didn't know if the glasses were functional or just an affectation. If his eyes were bad, he could have had them reconstructed cheaply enough. "This is a lot more interesting than what I was doin', anyway," he said.

  "Fine. I just want you to find somebody." I told him all about Paul Jawarski.

  When I mentioned the Flathead Gang, Morgan nodded. "He's the guy that killed the cop today?" he asked. "He got away."

  "Well, hey, man, the law will bring him in sooner or later, you can bet on that."

  I didn't let my expression change. "I don't want to hear about sooner or later, okay? I want to know where he's at, and I want to ask him a couple of questions before the cops get to him. He's holed up somewhere, probably been stung with a needle gun."

  "You're payin' a thousand kiam just to put the finger on this guy?"

  I squeezed the wedge of lime into my gimlet and drank some. "Uh huh."

  "You don't want me to rough him up a little for you?" "Just find him before Hajjar does."

  "Aha," said Morgan, "I get you, man. After the lieutenant gets his hooks into him, Jawarski won't be available to talk to nobody."

  "Right. And we don't want that to happen."

  "I guess we don't, man. How much you gonna pay me up front?"

  "Five now, five later." I cut him another five hundred kiam. "I get results tomorrow, right?"

  His big hand closed on the money and he gave me his predatory grin. "Go get some sleep, man. I'll be wakin' you up with Jawarski's address and commcode."

  I stood up. "Finish your beer and let's get out of here. This place is starting to break my heart."

  Morgan looked around at the dark bar. "Ain't the same without the girls and the mirror balls goin', is it?" He gulped down the rest of his beer and set the glass gently on the bar.

  I followed him toward the front door. "Find Jawarski," I said.

  "You got it, man." He raised a hand and ambled away up the Street. I went back inside and sat in my place. My night wasn't over yet.

  I drank a couple more gimlets before Indihar showed up. I knew she was going to come. I'd been waiting for her.

  She'd thrown on a bulky blue coat and tied a maroon and gold scarf over her hair. Her face was pale and drawn, her lips pressed tightly together. She came to where I was sitting and looked down at me. Her eyes weren't red, though; she hadn't been crying. I couldn't imagine Indihar crying. "I want to talk to you," she said. Her voice was cold and calm.

  "That's why I been sitting here," I said.

  She turned away and stared at herself in the wall of mirrors behind the stage. "Sergeant Catavina said you weren't in very good shape this morning. That true?" She looked at me again. Her expression was perfectly empty.

  "Is what true?" I said. "That I wasn't feeling well?"

  "That you were high or hung over today when you went out with my husband."

  I sighed. "I showed up at the station house with a hangover. It wasn't crippling, though."

  Her hands began clenching and unclenching. I could see her jaw muscles twitch. "You think it might have slowed you down any?"

  "No, Indihar," I said, "I don't think it affected me at all. You want to blame me for what happened? Is that what this is about?"

  Her head turned very slowly. She stared directly into my eyes. "Yes, I want to blame you. You didn't back him up fast enough. You didn't cover him. If you'd been there for him, he wouldn't be dead."

  "You can't say that, Indihar." I had a sick, hollow feeling in my belly because I'd been thinking the same thing all day. The guilt had been growing in me since I'd left Shaknahyi lying on a cot at the hospital with a bloody sheet over his face.

  "My husband would be alive and my children would still have a father. They don't now, you know. I haven't told them yet. I don't know how to tell them. I don't know how to tell myself, if you want to know the truth. Maybe tomorrow I'll realize that Jirji's dead. Then I'll have to find a way to get through the day without him, through the week, through the res
t of my life."

  I felt a sudden nausea and closed my eyes. It was as if I weren't really there, as if I were just dreaming this nightmare. When I opened my eyes, though, Indihar was still looking at me. It had all happened, and she and I were going to have to play out this terrible scene. "I—"

  "Don't tell me you're sorry, you son of a bitch," she said. Even then she didn't raise her voice. "I don't want to hear anybody tell me he's sorry."

  I just sat there and let her say whatever she needed to say. She couldn't accuse me of anything that I hadn't already confessed to in my own mind. Maybe if I hadn't gotten so drunk last night, maybe if I hadn't taken all those sunnies this morning—

  Finally she just stared at me, a look of despair on her face. She was condemning me with her presence and her silence. She knew and I knew, and that was enough. Then she turned and walked out of the club, her gait steady, her posture perfect.

  I felt absolutely destroyed. I found the phone where Chiri'd left it and spoke my home commcode into it. It rang three times and then Kmuzu answered. "You want to come get me?" I said. I was slurring my words.

  "Are you at Chiriga's?" he asked.

  "Yeah. Come quick before I kill myself." I slapped the phone down on the bar and made myself another drink while I waited.

  When he arrived, I had a little present for him. "Hold out your hand," I said.

  "What is it, yaa Sidi?"

  I emptied my pillcase into his upturned palm, then clicked the pillcase closed and put it back in my pocket. "Get rid of'em," I said.

  His expression didn't change as he closed his fist. "This is wise," he said.

  "I'm way overdue." I got up from my stool and followed him back into the cool night air. I locked the front door of Chiri's and then let Kmuzu drive me home.

  I took a long shower and let the hot needle spray blast my skin until I felt myself begin to relax. I dried off and went into my bedroom. Kmuzu had brought me a mug of strong hot chocolate. I sipped it gratefully.

  "Will you be needing anything else tonight, yaa Sidi?"he asked.

  "Listen," I said, "I'm not going into the station house in the morning. Let me sleep, all right? I don't want to be bothered. I don't want to answer any phone calls or deal with anybody's problems."