Oasis of Night

by J. S. Cook

  The driver gazed at me with great, dark eyes full of compassion. “You are sad, effendi?”

  “Yeah, something like that.” I pressed my hands against my eyelids, willing back the tears. “Can you take me to the police station?” I told him which one and gave him the address. Ibrahim Samir should be just coming off the night shift now, and I was eager to tell him what I’d found out. The little scrap of paper with the poem on it I would keep for myself… and what did that mean, the phrase Sam had used? Ana uħibbuk. I had bought a new Arabic phrasebook to replace the one I’d lost in the fire, but I’d left it in my hotel room. I turned to the cab driver. “Hey, you’re from here, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, effendi.” He deftly swung his cab around a driver and two camels in the road. “My name is Khybir. I live with my brothers on the Sharia Soliman Pasha.”

  “What does ana uħibbuk mean, huh?” We stopped at an intersection. “I don’t know that one.”

  A subtle blush stained his cheeks, and he suddenly couldn’t look at me. “I… could not say for certain.”

  “You don’t know what it means?”

  “I do know, but I am afraid the Americani might take offence.”

  “No, I’m asking.” The light changed, and Khybir’s cab darted forward. “Trust me, I won’t be angry.”

  “It means I love you, when said to a man.”

  My heart thumped violently in my chest. “It does, huh?” I sat back and lit a cigarette, pretending nonchalance, but inside I was as jumpy as a bag of eels. “That’s what it means. Great. Thanks.” It means “I love you.”

  “I have answered your question?” He peered at me cautiously, out of the corner of his eye.

  “Oh yeah.”

  I FOUND Ibrahim Samir in the locker room just as his shift ended. He looked tired and scruffy, and a fresh bruise darkened the right side of his face. “A tourist was causing difficulty near the Muski bazaar.” He grinned. “He resisted my suggestion he should move along.”

  “Tough guy, huh?” I shook his hand warmly. I was glad to see him. I told him what had happened at the bank, how I’d seen Sam, but I left out the part about the poem. I had it folded neatly in my wallet, where I intended to keep it safe, just like I intended to keep Sam’s heartfelt declaration. The poem might prove to be another encoded message. At this stage of the game, I was eager for whatever intelligence I could get. I had no guarantee Aaltonen would let Sam out of this alive.

  “Our priority is to recover Captain Halim, of course, but this Aaltonen must be found.” Samir led me downstairs and out the main doors of the station. “I have had a difficult night and I must sleep, at least for a while.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “I will call on you at your hotel, around four?”

  “Four, yeah, that’s fine.” I wondered what I was supposed to do till then, but Samir had that covered. He scribbled a name and an address on a slip of paper and gave it to me.

  “This man knows everything about everything. He may not see you, but if he does, he will expect payment for the privilege, as well as money for any information he provides.”

  “Uh-huh.” Yeah, I’d met guys like that before. “So I guess he does this for a living?”

  Samir laughed. “He has no need to work. It is a hobby for him. Make no mistake. He is not likely to accept merely a handful of piasters; you will have to dig deep for this one. Will you be all right until I come to you?” He leaned toward me and cupped my cheek in his hand. “You have made me very happy. Captain Halim is alive. This is good news.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be okay. As long as the Acacia Court doesn’t blow up, huh?” I stepped back to let a group of American sailors go by. They were obviously the worse for drink and more than a little rowdy, but if they noticed Samir’s hand on my face it obviously didn’t bother them too much. It wasn’t unusual for Arabic men to exchange affectionate gestures in public, so maybe they figured we were just part of the local color. If that were true, I was blending in better than I thought. “See you at four.”

  I thought about making a quick call to Tareenah to let her know Sam was okay, but decided against it. If, as she suspected, some of Sam’s colleagues weren’t kosher, it wasn’t a good idea to discuss things over the telephone. No, I’d wait till I saw her in person.

  The name on the slip of paper that Samir had given me was Pasha Nubar. I climbed back into the cab and directed Khybir to the Sharia Elfy Bey, near the Midan Opera. We honked our way past a lot of pedestrians, natives with donkeys, tourists, and soldiers of all stripes, before Khybir pulled up in front of an all white building with a lot of brass around the doors and windows. I went up three broad steps to a set of double doors and rang the bell. After a few minutes, the door was opened by a woman old enough to be Cleopatra’s grandmother. She peered up at me out of eyes that would have looked at home on a potato and said something in Arabic.

  “I’m looking for Pasha Nubar. Does he live here?”

  “Ahhhhhh, Engleezhi! Come in, come in!” She bowed alarmingly from the waist, her skinny frame looking like it would break in half, and showed me into an opulent foyer done in gold and red. There were a lot of expensive hangings on the walls and a lot of fancy rugs underfoot, and I could smell incense from somewhere in the house, a pungent scent like sandalwood. “The Pasha Nubar will be pleased to see the honored Americani, just a moment, just a moment.” It was one of those quaint acts I’d heard the locals like to put on for foreigners, so I wasn’t impressed. I waited patiently, listening to the faint strains of native music wafting from another room, and a few minutes later, I heard footsteps, accompanied by heavy breathing, and then the fattest man I ever saw hove into view in front of me.

  He was roughly egg-shaped and almost completely bald, with a huge, protruding stomach and tiny hands and feet. His small eyes twinkled with merriment, as if he were enjoying some private joke; all in all he reminded me of Sidney Greenstreet, and when he spoke, he sounded like him, too. “Mr. Stoyles, sir, I am so glad you have come, so very, very glad you have come.”

  I put out my hand as he came toward me but instead of shaking it, he took hold of it and drew my arm under his. “How did you know my name?”

  “The young Samir telephoned me you might be coming. Now, then, sir, come inside and let us make ourselves comfortable.” He led me down a hallway and into a large room that had been built to resemble a tent. The walls and ceiling were hung with great swaths of red silk, tasseled in gold; the floor was covered in antique carpets and a selection of lush cushions. A small table sat at one end of the room, holding a coffee pot and several cups on a tray. There was a water pipe—a shisha—right next to it, with multiple hoses leading off the bottle. Clearly, Pasha Nubar had expensive tastes. “Sit down, Mr. Stoyles, and tell me how you came to be in Cairo. You are not dressed as a soldier, so I do not think you come to fight. It must be love, then. Sit and have some coffee and tell me about your love.”

  I guess I must have looked like a camel caught in the headlights, because he laughed. It was rich and unfeigned and put me immediately at ease. I accepted a cup of strong Egyptian coffee from him and a plate full of dainties. It had been hours since I’d eaten, and I was starving. “I came looking for information, actually.”

  “Ah, information! The universal currency.” He took a drag off the pipe and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “You are seeking the man who killed your taxi driver, Shiva El Rawy.”

  “You’ve been talking to Samir.”

  “Yes, but our telephone conversation was of no more than one minute’s duration. He was on his way to bed and told me you would be coming.” He leaned over and patted my knee. “Mr. Stoyles, the young Samir told you there is nothing in Cairo I do not know about.”

  “Uh-huh. Or maybe you read it in the newspapers.”

  He shrugged and then laughed heartily. “You have me, sir! You have me. Come, have another cup of coffee.” He refilled both our cups and reclined on his cushions. “The driver, Shiva El Rawy, was not personally known to me, but I knew his fath
er many years ago, during the last war. Shiva El Rawy was—” He started up, eyes wide and staring, and I turned to look. Just there, silhouetted head-and-shoulders in a small window, was the figure of a man with both hands held in front of his face. Pasha Nubar’s enormous body jerked backward and was still, the sharp point of a blow-dart sticking out of the side of his neck. I didn’t have to look to know he was dead.

  I scrambled to my feet and lunged for the front door, passing the elderly housekeeper on the way; she was screaming like an air raid siren. I was out of there in the space between heartbeats, diving into Khybir’s cab like my life depended on it. “Go.”

  Khybir blinked like he’d just woken from a long sleep. “Does the effendi wish to be taken to the hotel?”

  “Just go, Khybir! Anywhere. Drive.” This was bad. This was very, very bad. The last thing I needed was a murder rap, especially in a town like this. Once word got out a foreigner had killed a great man like Pasha Nubar, my life wouldn’t be worth a handful of wooden piasters. The fact that I hadn’t killed him wouldn’t matter; just being in the same room with him was enough to make me the number one suspect. “Take me to the hotel, yeah.” No. The guy with the blow gun would probably be waiting for me. “No, take me to the police station.”

  Khybir had already been en route to the Acacia Court, but he didn’t turn a hair, merely slewed the cab around in the middle of the street like he did it every day. All the traffic behind and in front of us started honking their horns simultaneously, and part of an English regiment was scattered from hell to breakfast before they could finish crossing. They shook their fists in the air and cursed us, but if that was the worst of what I’d have to put up with, I didn’t mind one bit. Khybir let me out in front of the police station, and I tipped him a pound note. “Don’t wait for me.” I glanced up at the building full of cops. “I may be here awhile.”

  “Indeed you may, Mr. Stoyles.” A firm grip fell on my shoulder, tugging my hands behind me, and I heard the unmistakable metal hiss of handcuffs being fastened around my wrists. “Indeed you may.”

  Ibrahim Samir didn’t look at all happy to see me.

  THE POLICE lockup was about what you’d expect: dirty, crowded, filled with angry men of various backgrounds, some native and some not, and a member of His Majesty’s Navy with the loudest, most annoying voice I’d ever heard, who seemed to be hell-bent on enraging the guards. “Let me out of here, you lot! I say, you’d best let me out. By God, I won’t be having this! I can’t be having this sort of thing!”

  At first there was a lot of pushing and shoving as the bigger men fought for spaces at the front of the cage, where they could see what was going on, but eventually everyone subsided into silence broken only by murmured and occasional conversation. I found a spot on the floor and sat down, cradling my head in my hands. It seemed like years had passed since I’d walked off the plane; I wondered if I’d ever see St. John’s or my Heartache Cafe ever again. As soon as I got out, I resolved to place a call to Chris, my bartender back at the Heartache, just to say hello and hear a friendly voice. It was strange I hadn’t seen Ibrahim Samir during all of this; since he’d been the one to arrest me, surely there was paperwork to be completed, at least some of which needed my participation. But he was nowhere to be found. It sure didn’t follow the kind of protocol I was used to. If you got arrested back in Philly, they’d put you through the wringer before locking you up. I was surprised I hadn’t been shoved into a room with the proverbial naked light bulb and smacked around a bit.

  The heat inside the cell got worse as the day went on, to the point where some men fainted. I felt especially sorry for a kid about sixteen, propped up against a wall at the back of the cell. His face was an ugly color, and he kept fainting and falling down. Two other guys who were with him would lift him back up and lean him against the wall in the same spot, and then the whole charade would start all over. When the calls for prayer were sounded, everything stopped and the natives immediately assumed the position, during which nobody disturbed them, not even the loud Englishman. Around noon, a metal can of water was handed in and got passed around, and then some kind of rough bread, bland, but still warm from the oven. Then the afternoon prayers, after which everybody—including the loud Englishman—fell into profound silence.

  I was napping in the corner when the guard rattled his nightstick against the bars and summoned me over. “You, Stoyles, Americani, come here.” He was the young man with the big ears I’d met the first time I’d come into the station. Obviously, he was pretending not to recognize me.

  I climbed to my feet and did what I was told. “Yes?”

  “You are free to go. Someone is here to meet you.” He unlocked the cell door and led me out to the front desk. Khybir, the taxi driver, stood anxiously waiting for me with a worried look on his face.

  “Khybir! What are you doing here?”

  He reached out and touched my arm. “I have told the police all I know, effendi Stoyles. Now you are free to go.”

  Free to go?

  “The taxi driver has come forward as a witness.” The cop handed me a brown envelope containing my personal belongings, including my wallet with that precious scrap of poem in it. “His report on the murder of Pasha Nubar makes it clear you could not possibly have killed him.”

  I knew enough to keep my mouth shut until we were in the car. “Khybir, thank you. You’re a right guy.”

  He blushed with pleasure. “It is my wish that the effendi Stoyles be free.”

  Right. What was he getting out of it, I wondered… and from whom?

  I was exhausted by the time I got back to the Acacia Court, so I tipped Khybir big and headed straight for a nice, cool shower followed by a late lunch from room service. Ibrahim Samir had said he was going to meet me at four, but I wondered if that plan still held, considering the earlier debacle over Pasha Nubar’s death. I didn’t get Ibrahim Samir, first he was all hearts and flowers, and then next thing I knew, he had the cuffs on me and I was stuffed in a cell with a hundred other guys for something I didn’t do. I was learning real quick how the justice system worked here. Obviously the testimony of one witness, biased or unbiased, was enough to damn or save.

  After I ate and got comfortable, I picked up the phone and requested the long distance operator. Frankie Missalo had military connections that could have gotten me priority access, but I wasn’t about to take advantage of something I wasn’t entitled to. I sat on the line and waited. It was midmorning back home, and Chris would be at the Heartache.

  Sure enough, he picked up almost as soon as it started to ring on the other end. “Jack! Where are you? I can’t believe you’re calling.”

  It was good to hear his voice. I hadn’t realized how much I missed him. I filled him in, talking only in generalities and skipping the whole thing about me being thrown in jail. I deliberately didn’t mention Ibrahim Samir, and I said nothing about Sam, knowing this was wartime and somebody, somewhere, was probably eavesdropping. Mostly, I asked how things were going at home, if there were lots of people coming into the Heartache, and how Alphonsus Picco was doing.

  Sergeant Picco was a young officer of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary who’d been instrumental in exposing corruption and graft in his department; he and Chris had gotten close after the death of Chris’s girlfriend, Julie Fayre. Picco and I had been involved in an investigation of the Nazi collaborator, Jonah Octavian, who, along with Picco’s superiors, was running a few side deals. When Picco had gotten too suspicious—and too close to the truth—Octavian slapped us both in a hole in the ground.

  “What can I say, Chris? I guess I just needed to hear a friendly voice.” I kept things general with talk about the weather and so on. Something Chris said stuck with me, though, and I found myself turning it over and over in my mind.

  “Everybody’s wondering what happened to Jonah Octavian.”

  The overseas connection was a bit crackly, and I had to ask him to repeat himself, but it still didn’t make sense. �
�Everybody? Like who?”

  “Phonse said Octavian’s become what they call a person of interest.”

  “Octavian?”

  “Something wrong with your ears, Jack? Or maybe it’s the overseas connection.”

  “No, it’s just….” Octavian? Why were the cops nosing around traces long left cold? “Skip it.”

  “No, Jack. Listen, Phonse said this was real. Octavian had a lot of lines in the water. Watch yourself over there, huh?”

  “I will.”

  By the time Chris rang off, I felt real lonely and figured I’d better find some way to keep myself busy. I still didn’t know anything about Shiva El Rawy, and I figured I had a good hour and a half before Samir showed—if he decided to show—so I got dressed and went downstairs to the main desk, where the registration clerk was absorbed in a Whiz comic book with Superman on the front, all tights and teeth, charging toward an unseen enemy. After I’d been standing there awhile without any sign from him that I existed, I banged on the bell a few times. “Excuse me, I wonder if you can help me with something.”

  He looked at me as if drawing himself back from a long way away. “Help you, sir?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “Superman has tracked the evil Doctor Ratoman to his lair and is extracting information from him by slowly pulling out his teeth one by one with hot pincers.” He giggled behind his hand. “It’s very funny.”

  “Yeah, sounds like a real laugh riot. Look, did you know a taxi driver by the name of Shiva El Rawy? He used to work Shepheard’s, but he parked here a lot, too.”

  The clerk delicately licked his fingers and turned the page without looking up. “Shiva El Rawy, the driver who was murdered by an associate of the Americani Jonathan Stoyles?” He sniggered. “That Shiva El Rawy?”