by Ed McBain
On one side of the building, the detectives could see women entering through a separate door.
“My mother knows this Muslim lady up in Diamondback,” Brown said, “she goes to this mosque up there—lots of blacks are Muslims, you know . . .”
“I know,” Kling said.
“And where she goes to pray, they got no space for this separation stuff. So the men and women all pray together in the same open hall. But the women sit behind the men. So this fat ole sister gets there late one Friday, and the hall is already filled with men, and they tell her there’s no room for her. Man, she takes a fit! Starts yelling, ‘This is America, I’m as good a Muslim as any man here, so how come they’s only room for brothers to pray?’ Well, the imam—that’s the man in charge, he’s like the preacher—he quotes scripture and verse that says only men are required to come to Friday prayer, whereas women are not. So they have to let the men in first. It’s as simple as that. So she quotes right back at him that in Islam, women are spose to be highly respected and revered, so how come he’s dissing her this way? And she walked away from that mosque and never went back. From that time on, she prayed at home. That’s a true story,” Brown said.
“I believe it,” Kling said.
The imam’s address that Friday was about the dead cab driver. He spoke first in Arabic—which, of course, neither Kling nor Brown understood—and then he translated his words into English, perhaps for their benefit, perhaps in deference to the younger worshippers in the large drafty hall. The male worshippers knelt at the front of the hall. Behind a translucent, moveable screen, Brown and Kling could perceive a small number of veiled female worshippers.
The imam said he prayed that the strife in the Middle East was not now coming to this city that had known so much tragedy already. He said he prayed that an innocent and hard-working servant of Allah had not paid with his life for the acts of a faraway people bent only on destruction—
The detectives guessed he meant the Israelis.
—prayed that the signature star on the windshield of the murdered man’s taxi was not a promise of further violence to come.
“It is foolish to grieve for our losses,” he said, “since all is ordained by Allah. Only by working for the larger nation of Islam can we understand the true meaning of life.”
Men’s foreheads touched the cement floor.
Behind the screen, the women bowed their heads as well.
The imam’s name was Muhammad Adham Akbar.
“What we’re trying to find out,” Brown said, “is whether or not Mr. Aslam had any enemies that you know of.”
“Why do you even ask such a question?” Akbar said.
“He was a worshipper at your mosque,” Kling said. “We thought you might know.”
“Why would he have enemies here?”
“Men have enemies everywhere,” Brown said.
“Not in a house of prayer. If you want to know who Khalid’s enemy was, you need only look at his windshield.”
“Well, we have to investigate every possibility,” Kling said.
“The star on his windshield says it all,” Akbar said, and shrugged. “A Jew killed him. That would seem obvious to anyone.”
“Well, a Jew may have committed those murders,” Kling agreed. “But . . .”
“May,” the imam said, and nodded cynically.
“But until we catch him, we won’t know for sure, will we?” Kling said.
Akbar looked at him.
Then he said, “The slain man had no enemies that I know of.”
Just about when Carella and Meyer were each and separately waking up from eight hours of sleep, more or less, the city’s swarm of taxis rolled onto the streets for the four-to-midnight shift. And as the detectives sat down to late afternoon meals which for each of them were really hearty breakfasts, many of the city’s more privileged women were coming out into the streets to start looking for taxis to whisk them homeward. Here was a carefully coiffed woman who’d just enjoyed afternoon tea, chatting with another equally stylish woman as they strolled together out of a midtown hotel. And here was a woman who came out of a department store carrying a shopping bag in each hand, shifting one of the bags to the other hand, freeing it so she could hail a taxi. And here was a woman coming out of a Korean nail shop, wearing paper sandals to protect her freshly painted toenails. And another coming out of a deli, clutching a bag with baguettes showing, raising one hand to signal a cab. At a little before five, the streets were suddenly alive with the leisured women of this city, the most beautiful women in all the world, all of them ready to kill if another woman grabbed a taxi that had just been hailed.
This was a busy time for the city’s cabbies. Not ten minutes later, the office buildings would begin spilling out men and women who’d been working since nine this morning, coming out onto the pavements now and sucking in great breaths of welcome spring air. The rain had stopped, and the sidewalk and pavements glistened, and there was the strange aroma of freshness on the air. This had been one hell of a winter.
The hands went up again, typists’ hands, and file clerks’ hands, and the hands of lawyers and editors and agents and producers and exporters and thieves, yes, even thieves took taxis—though obvious criminal types were avoided by these cabbies steering their vehicles recklessly toward the curb in a relentless pursuit of passengers. These men had paid eighty-two dollars to lease their taxis. These men had paid fifteen, twenty bucks to gas their buggies and get them on the road. They were already a hundred bucks in the hole before they put foot to pedal. Time was money. And there were hungry mouths to feed. For the most part, these men were Muslims, these men were gentle strangers in a strange land.
But someone had killed one of them last night.
And he was not yet finished.
Salim Nazir and his widowed mother left Afghanistan in 1994, when it became apparent that the Taliban were about to take over the entire country. His father had been one of the mujahideen killed fighting the Russian occupation; Salim’s mother did not wish the wrath of “God’s Students” to fall upon their heads if and when a new regime came to power.
Salim was now twenty-seven years old, his mother fifty-five. Both had been American citizens for three years now, but neither approved of what America had done to their native land, the evil Taliban notwithstanding. For that matter they did not appreciate what America had done to Iraq in its search for imaginary weapons of mass destruction. (Salim called them “weapons of mass deception.”) In fact, Salim totally disapproved of the mess America had made in what once was his part of the world, but he rarely expressed these views out loud, except when he was among other Muslims who lived—as he and his mother did now—in a ghettolike section of Calm’s Point.
Salim knew what it was like to be an outsider in George W. Bush’s America, no matter how many speeches the president made about Islam being a peaceful religion. With all his heart, Salim knew this to be true, but he doubted very much that Mr. Bush believed what he was saying.
Just before sundown that Friday, Salim pulled his yellow taxi into the curb in front of a little shop on a busy street in Majesta. Here in Ikram Hassan’s store, devout Muslims could purchase whatever food and drink was considered halal—lawful or permitted for consumption as described in the Holy Koran.
The Koran decreed, “Eat of that over which the name of Allah hath been mentioned, if ye are believers in His revelations.” Among the acceptable foods were milk (from cows, sheep, camels, or goats), honey, fish, plants that were not intoxicant, fresh or naturally frozen vegetables, fresh or dried fruits, legumes (like peanuts, cashews, hazelnuts, and walnuts), and grains such as wheat, rice, barley, and oats.
Many animals, large and small, were considered halal as well, but they had to be slaughtered according to Islamic ritual. Ikram Hassan was about to slay a chicken just as his friend Salim came into the shop. He looked up when a small bell over his door sounded.
“Hey there, Salim,” he said in English.
; There were two major languages in Afghanistan, both of them imported from Iran, but Pushto was the official language the two men had learned as boys growing up in Kandahar, and this was the language they spoke now.
Salim fidgeted and fussed as his friend hunched over the chicken; he did not want to be late for the sunset prayer. Using a very sharp knife, and making certain that he cut the main blood vessels without completely severing the throat, Ikram intoned “Bismillah Allah-u-Albar” and completed the ritual slaughter.
Each of the men then washed his hands to the wrists, and cleansed the mouth and the nostrils with water, and washed the face and the right arm and left arm to the elbow, and washed to the ankle first the right foot and then the left, and at last wiped the top of the head with wet hands, the three middle fingers of each hand joined together.
Salim consulted his watch yet another time.
Both men donned little pillbox hats.
Ikram locked the front door to his store, and together they walked to the mosque four blocks away.
The sun had already set.
It was ten minutes to seven.
______
Among other worshippers, Salim and Ikram stood facing Mecca, their hands raised to their ears, and they uttered the words, “Allahu Akbar” which meant “Allah is the greatest of all.” Then they placed the right hand just below the breast and recited in unison the prayer called istiftah.
“Surely I have turned myself, being upright holy to Him Who originated the heavens and the earth and I am not of the polytheists. Surely my prayer and my sacrifice and my life and my death are for Allah, the Lord of the worlds, no associate has He; and this I am commanded and I am one of those who submit. Glory to Thee, O Allah, and Thine is the praise, and blessed is Thy name, and exalted is Thy majesty, and there is none to be served besides Thee.”
A’udhu bi-llahi minash-shaitani-r-rajim.
“I seek the refuge of Allah from the accursed devil.”
Six hours later, Salim Nazir would be dead.
In this city, all the plays, concerts, and musicals let out around eleven, eleven-thirty, the cabarets around one, one-thirty. The night clubs wouldn’t break till all hours of the night. It was Salim’s habit during the brief early-morning lull to visit a Muslim friend who was a short-order cook at a deli on Culver Avenue, a mile and a half distant from all the midtown glitter. He went into the deli at one-thirty, enjoyed a cup of coffee and a chat with his friend, and left twenty minutes later. Crossing the street to where he’d parked his taxi, he got in behind the wheel, and was just about to start the engine when he realized someone was sitting in the dark in the back seat.
Startled, he was about to ask what the hell, when the man fired a bullet through the plastic divider and into his skull.
The two Midtown South detectives who responded to the call immediately knew this killing was related to the one that had taken place uptown the night before; a blue Star of David had been spray-painted on the windshield. Nonetheless, they called their lieutenant from the scene, and he informed them that this was a clear case of First Man Up, and advised them to wait right there while he contacted the Eight-Seven, which had caught the original squeal. The detectives were still at the scene when Carella and Meyer got there at twenty minutes to three.
Midtown South told Carella that both MCU and the ME had already been there and gone, the corpse and the vehicle carried off respectively to the morgue and the PD garage to be respectively dissected and impounded. They told the Eight-Seven dicks that they’d talked to the short-order cook in the deli across the street, who informed them that he was a friend of the dead man, and that he’d been in there for a cup of coffee shortly before he got killed. The vic’s name was Salim Nazir, and the cab company he worked for was called City Transport. They assumed the case was now the Eight-Seven’s and that Carella and Meyer would do all the paper shit and send them dupes. Carella assured them that they would.
“We told you about the blue star, right?” one of the Midtown dicks said.
“You told us,” Meyer said.
“Here’s the evidence bullet we recovered,” he said, and handed Meyer a sealed manila envelope. “Chain of Custody tag on it, you sign next. Looks like you maybe caught an epidemic.”
“Or maybe a copycat,” Carella said.
“Either way, good luck,” the other Midtown dick said.
Carella and Meyer crossed the street to the deli.
Like his good friend, Salim, the short-order cook was from Afghanistan, having arrived here in the city seven years ago. He offered at once to show the detectives his green card, which made each of them think he was probably an illegal with a counterfeit card, but they had bigger fish to fry and Ajmal Khan was possibly a man who could help them do just that.
Ajmal meant “good-looking” in his native tongue, a singularly contradictory description for the man who now told them he had heard a shot outside some five minutes after Salim finished his coffee. Dark eyes bulging with excitement, black mustache bristling, bulbous nose twitching like a rabbit’s, Ajmal reported that he had rushed out of the shop the instant he heard the shot, and had seen a man across the street getting out of Salim’s taxi on the driver’s side, and leaning over the windshield with a can of some sort in his hand. Ajmal didn’t know what he was doing at the time but he now understood the man was spray-painting a Jewish star on the windshield.
“Can you describe this man?” Carella asked.
“Is that what he was doing? Painting a Star of David on the windshield?”
“Apparently,” Meyer said.
“That’s bad,” Ajmal said.
The detectives agreed with him. That was bad. They did not believe this was a copycat. This was someone specifically targeting Muslim cab drivers. But they went through the routine anyway, asking the questions they always asked whenever someone was murdered: Did he have any enemies that you know of, did he mention any specific death threats, did he say he was being followed or harassed, was he in debt to anyone, was he using drugs?
Ajmal told them that his good friend Salim was loved and respected by everyone. This was what friends and relatives always said about the vie. He was a kind and gentle person. He had a wonderful sense of humor. He was thoughtful and generous. He was devout. Ajmal could not imagine why anyone would have done this to a marvelous person like his good friend Salim Nazir.
“He was always laughing and friendly, a very warm and outgoing man. Especially with the ladies,” Ajmal said.
“What do you mean?” Carella asked.
“He was quite a ladies’ man, Salim. It is written that men may have as many as four wives, but they must be treated equally in every way. That is to say, emotionally, sexually, and materially. If Salim had been a wealthy man, I am certain he would have enjoyed the company of many wives.”
“How many wives did he actually have?” Meyer asked.
“Well, none,” Ajmal said. “He was single. He lived with his mother.”
“Do you know where?”
“Oh yes. We were very good friends. I have been to his house many times.”
“Can you give us his address?”
“His phone number, too,” Ajmal said. “His mother’s name is Gulalai. It means ‘flower’ in my country.”
“You say he was quite a ladies’ man, is that right?” Carella asked.
“Well, yes. The ladies liked him.”
“More than one lady?” Carella said.
“Well, yes, more than one.”
“Did he ever mention any jealousy among these various ladies?”
“I don’t even know who they were. He was a discreet man.”
“No reason any of these ladies might have wanted to shoot him?” Carella said.
“Not that I know of.”
“But he did say he was seeing several women, is that it?”
“In conversation, yes.”
“He said he was in conversation with several women?”
“No, he said to me in convers
ation that he was enjoying the company of several women, yes. As I said, he was quite a ladies’ man.”
“But he didn’t mention the names of these women.”
“No, he did not. Besides, it was a man I saw getting out of his taxi. A very tall man.”
“Could it have been a very tall woman?”
“No, this was very definitely a man.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Tall. Wide shoulders. Wearing a black raincoat and a black hat.” Ajmal paused. “The kind rabbis wear,” he said.
Which brought them right back to that Star of David on the windshield.
Two windshields.
This was not good at all.
This was a mixed lower-class neighborhood—white, black, Hispanic. These people had troubles of their own, they didn’t much care about a couple of dead Arabs. Matter of fact, many of them had sons or husbands who’d fought in the Iraqi war. Lots of the people Carella and Meyer spoke to early that morning had an “Army of One,” was what it was called nowadays, who’d gone to war right here from the hood. Some of these young men had never come back home except in a box.
You never saw nobody dying on television. All them reporters embedded with the troops, all you saw was armor racing across the desert. You never saw somebody taking a sniper bullet between the eyes, blood spattering. You never saw an artillery attack with arms and legs flying in the air. You could see more people getting killed right here in the hood than you saw getting killed in the entire Iraqi war. It was an absolute miracle, all them embedded newspeople out there reporting, and not a single person getting killed for the cameras. Maybe none of them had a camera handy when somebody from the hood got killed. So who gave a damn around here about a few dead Arabs more or less?
One of the black women they interviewed explained that people were asleep, anyway, at two in the morning, wun’t that so? So why go axin a dumb question like did you hear a shot that time of night? A Hispanic man they interviewed told them there were always shots in the barrio; nobody ever paid attention no more. A white woman told them she’d got up to go pee around that time, and thought she heard something but figured it was a backfire.