by Jim Ingraham
*
Chapter Twenty-five
He leaned over the steering wheel to get a clearer look at the man driving the limo. It wasn’t the chauffeur. He knew the chauffeur. It was Esmat Bindari.
“He’s alone.” As he raised his head, his beard caught on something.
“Damn!”
Il-Gazzaar laughed. He was in the passenger seat, both hands clutching the shortened barrel of the pump-action Model 870 shotgun that stood upright between his knees. “I told you,” he said. “That’s Allah’s way of telling you to shave.”
The bearded one ignored the jibe. “They said he’d be in back. But there’s no one in back.”
“Word gets around,” Il-Gazzaar said. “He lost his privileges. They’re staying away from him.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“I don’t know. Somebody said. Look, why don’t we just pull up beside him. I’ll blast his head off. I want to get back.”
“That woman will wait,” the bearded one said. “Let’s see where he’s going.”
They remained well behind the dark limo as they followed it south, then east toward the Fair Grounds.
“I didn’t know that little prick could drive.”
“It’s why he’s going so slow. Not used to it.”
“We could pull up beside him. I roll down the window….”
“Let’s just see where he’s going. I think he’s looking for something.”
The brake lights flared. The limo slowed, turned left into a narrow street where school children, like ducklings following their mama, trailed after a woman in a black robe, maybe their teacher. The limo turned into a narrow alley. As the bearded one moved slowly by, he saw the limo stop, Bindari get into the back seat, two men get in front.
“It’s those two monkeys from the airport, Anwar and Boutros,” Il-Gazzaar said. “I think Boutros lives down here somewhere.”
The bearded one drove beyond the alley, stopped, waited a minute, then backed up. The limo was turning onto a street down at the end. They followed and watched it go onto the highway and head east.
“You know,” Il-Gazzaar said, “we could pull up next to them, get them to lower a window. I got some grenades in back.”
“No. We’ll do like we planned. Let’s hope they keep going to the desert. Shoot their tires. Shoot them.”
“Good!” Il-Gazzaar said. “I never liked that nephew. Thinks he’s better’n me just cause his uncle….”
The bearded one laughed. “Because he stole your woman. Better looking than you.”
“That’s not it. Who gives a shit about her? I just never liked him. Be fun when he sees this pointed at him.”
*
Esmat pressed his hand into pain above his sternum. Pressed the third finger of his left hand into that pulsing spot on his right wrist. The beats were irregular and more than one every second. Didn’t necessarily mean anything. The chest pain could be indigestion. Probably what it was.
He dropped both hands to his knees to subdue the leg jitters.
Staring at the back of Anwar’s head—at a red pimple, actually, just below the hair line—he said, “When this is done, everything will be straightened out. It’s a misunderstanding.” He watched Anwar nod. The other one, the simpleton in the galabiyah, just sat there, probably had no idea what was going on. Maybe he should be eliminated. Maybe he’s brighter than he appears. Maybe he’s a spy. I’ll tell him he’s an accessory to murder. That’ll shut him up.
Out beyond the buildings, a girl in a simple dress, maybe nothing under it, stood in the doorway of a shack holding what looked like bread, distracted by two dogs that ran past her into the pebbled dirt behind the shack. Endless desert out there.
“Look back,” Anwar said, his face coming into the rearview mirror. “That car’s been behind us….”
Esmat turned. “Slow down. See if he passes.”
“I tried that.”
“Then speed up, see what happens.”
The increase in speed threw him back into the cushions.
He turned. The car was closer. He recognized the driver, the shape of the beard. Fear leaped to his chest. He knew the man, knew what Jaradat used him for.
“Go! Go!” he screamed.
For several miles they sped down the highway, the long desert rolling past them. The car in back looked smaller. Esmat raised a hand to the padded partition just as the limo edged off the pavement. A front wheel dug into sand, buckled and threw the limo sideways. It struck something and flipped over, Esmat screaming as he tumbled sideways, head crashing into glass.
*
The bearded one slowly drove off the pavement and stopped. Il Gazzaar got out the passenger side and looked up and down the highway. No cars. No people. He jacked a shell into the chamber.
Although the guy in back looked dead—crumpled to the floor, a limp hand on the leather seat—Il-Gazzaar pried the door open, touched the man’s ear with the muzzle of his shotgun and pulled the trigger, the recoil slamming into his shoulder. “Son of a bitch!” like it was Bindari’s fault. He gazed with satisfaction at the man he had just killed.
He backed out and looked in at Anwar slumped over the steering wheel, maybe breathing. He tried the door. It was stuck. He stepped back and shattered the glass. The body didn’t move. “Fucking asshole,” he said, holding the butt tight against his shoulder as he blasted Anwar’s face off.
The bearded one pointed at the flaring skirts and pumping legs of Boutros fleeing across the sand.
“He’s harmless. Let him go,” he said, scanning the highway for witnesses.
Both men got into the car and headed back toward Cairo.
*
Nick had just moved into traffic on a side street near the Corniche when a car came abreast of his truck, the driver waving him to pull over. “Fuck you” formed in Nick’s mouth and stayed there when, at the edge of his vision, he saw Isaac Roach’s face through the back seat window. He drove to the next block and turned into an empty lot behind an office building—a big Pepsi-Cola sign on the bricks, a dozen trash barrels against a wall under it.
“Join me,” Isaac said, rolling down his window, cigarette holder in his teeth. Nick had been on his way to the Mugamaa Building to see a woman who could locate Bashir. He couldn’t let Isaac trail him to her.
Car smelled like a pool hall. “You’ve been tailing me?”
Isaac shook his head. “Just happened to see you back there.”
Right.
“You know,” Isaac said, “Yousef Qantara’s in trouble because he hasn’t brought Yassin in? Aziz tell you that?”
“We just talk about his daughter,” Nick said.
“This is serious shit, Nick. Bryce can tell us what went on at the prince’s end. Only Yassin can tell us what’s going on here. It’s the Saraaj thing.”
“Wasn’t Bashir in Brazil when that happened?”
“Not that, not who killed him. It’s the conspiracy they were all involved in. He can give us leads. Bindari’s disappeared. We don’t know where the hell he is. All we’ve got is Bashir Yassin.”
“You’ve got him?”
Isaac removed the holder, fingers trembling, trying to keep his cool. He wiped the holder on his leg, rubbed something off it, stuck it in his breast pocket.
“What’s wrong with you, Nick? He’s the enemy! We didn’t bring you here to make friends with the bastard!”
“I don’t know where he is,” Nick said.
“I think you do.”
Nick shrugged. “I have no idea where he is,” and opened the door.
“You’re making a very serious mistake,” Isaac said. “Your career….”
Nick walked around back of the car and got into his truck. He backed up, faced the truck toward the street and waited. He saw smoke pour from Isaac’s mouth, saw his hand fly up in a gesture to the driver. When the car was in traffic going south, Nick made a right turn, drove all the way across town past the tourism ministry, found a spot near the bookstall
s and killed an hour reading an English translation of Naguib Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley.
*
Later, fighting traffic on the city streets, Nick drove to the Mugamaa Building where the old woman outside Umm Sayid’s apartment had said he would find Sakeena. He found her at a desk in a crowded office on an upper floor. He waited in line behind an elderly bearded man who had dandruff on his collar. Sakeena appeared as she had been described—an attractive thirty-year-old with funny-colored hair.
She told Nick she knew of him. Aleyya had told her that Bashir trusted him. She said the police had visited her. She told them she hadn’t seen Bashir in days and had no idea where he might be, and while she was saying it, she wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to him with a smile.
“And what is your problem?” she said to the man who stepped past Nick as he pocketed the paper.
Outside in his truck he read the note. It was an address, but not of a place in Suez, where the old woman said he might be. It was Sakeena’s third-floor address. Scrawled in fine print at the bottom of the note were the words, “he’s there.”
No one followed him outside the building. No one pulled away from the curb and trailed him as he drove away. Isaac probably knew where Aleyya Sayid lived. He might be there looking for Bashir. Nothing Nick could do about it.
*
“It’s Colonel Palermo,” Nick said, breathing stale odors of frying fish from down the hall. “Come on, Bashir. It’s okay.”
The hinges squeaked. Bashir’s face appeared in the crack. He opened the door and quickly closed it when Nick stepped past him.
“How’d you find me?”
Nick didn’t say. He followed Bashir into a room, the walls of which were papered yellow with tiny blue florets, clearly a woman’s room. A large tapestry hung between two doors at the far end—children in a garden.
“I’ve got fruit juice with ice cubes,” Bashir said, standing impatiently near a TV. “You like ice cubes.”
“Love ‘em,” Nick said, laughing. Something about this guy, harmless, head tilted to one side, hands folded in front of him. “Thought you might be in Suez,” he said, dropping onto the cushions of a sofa, arms out, hands patting the cushions, looking around.
“They would find out and follow me,” Bashir said.
“You heard about Uthman al-Ajami?”
“It was on….” He pointed at the TV—a Chinese knockoff with rabbit ears.
“Somebody said it was you did it.”
“Me? How…?”
“Show me your hands,” Nick said.
Without hesitation Bashir displayed his hands, both sides. No wounds.
“You were here last evening?”
“I don’t want to get Sakeena into trouble.”
“She’s fine. But you can’t stay here. You know that.”
“I know,” Bashir said, like a wounded puppy.
“Do you trust me?”
“I have to,” Bashir said. “I have no life now….”
“Not true,” Nick said, raising a flicker of hope that lingered momentarily in the dark eyes.
Bashir brought Nick a cooled drink from Sakeena’s kitchen, nothing for himself. He sat quietly in a chair, hands in his lap.
“You can’t just keep running,” Nick said.
“I know.”
“There’s only one thing for you to do.”
“If I had a gun….”
“No,” Nick said, raising his hand. “No. You’ve got to turn yourself in.”
“They’ll hang me!”
“Not if you’ve done nothing wrong.”
“They won’t believe me.”
“Amina’s father will. He’ll listen to you. He’s a good man.”
It was apparently a new thought for Bashir. “But he’s the one hunting for me!”
“Not to hurt you. Just to find out who you are.”
“I’m nobody! I’m nothing! Why do they…?”
Nick quietly watched the little guy feeling sorry for himself, something comical about it. He set his drink on the coffee table and stood.
“My friend Foad,” Bashir said. “Can he help him?”
“I’ll do what I can. We’ve gotta go. I may have been followed here.”
“The muccabarat?”
“No. You have nothing to fear from them.”
“They don’t listen! They never listen!”
“You’ve got no choice, man,” Nick said, standing at the door. “It’s either come with me or stay here and blow your brains out. Make up your mind. You want to die?”
“No.”
“Then let me explain something. I’m going to call the city police. They’ll come here and pick you up. You’re wanted for questioning in the Uthman al-Ajami case. Just for questioning. They don’t want to hurt you.”
“Why can’t you take me somewhere?”
“Because there may be people right downstairs waiting for you—people I have no control over. If you’re in police custody, those people won’t be able to touch you. Trust me, Bashir. It’s the only way.”
Because Bashir was more frightened than skeptical, he assented.
Nick raised his phone and called Captain Rashid Huzayfi.
*
As Nick had expected, Isaac Roach was waiting at the entrance of the cul de sac. Whether he saw Bashir in the police car with Captain Huzayfi, Nick couldn’t tell. Nick had his window down, elbow resting on the frame. No question Isaac saw him. He resisted the temptation to look. Every once in a while as they crossed town he glanced in his rear view mirror. He was sure Isaac’s car was back there somewhere.
*
At the Garden City police station. Captain Huzayfi kept Bashir for no more than an hour. At Nick’s request, he ordered two uniformed men to drive him and Bashir to the Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where Aziz was temporarily headquartered.
*
Aziz, behind a large ornately carved wooden desk, looked up, gave Bashir a brief once-over, then pressed a button on his phone. A woman came to the door. Nick knew her. Name was Liana.
“You have that list of questions?”
“It was just handed to me.”
“Go with her,” Aziz said to Bashir.
When the door closed, Nick took a seat under a cluster of framed photographs—doubtless politicians.
“You on your way?” Aziz asked.
“Hopefully this evening.”
“You’ve heard they found Bindari and his nephew murdered on the road to Suez?”
“Murdered?”
“Shotgun at close range.”
“Jesus! Heading for the Sinai?”
“He wouldn’t have made it over or under the canal,” Aziz said. He gave that a moment, then said, “If Bashir convinces Liana he’s not a threat to anyone, he’ll be held here for questioning. No harm will come to him. He won’t be beaten or tortured, if that worries you. After a few days, if all goes well, he’ll be allowed the freedom of the city, reporting to us every morning until he’s cleared. There are no warrants out for him, you know.”
“He’s no threat to anyone,” Nick said, “certainly not to the nation of Egypt.”
“Well, we’ll see,” Aziz said.
As he stood and walked Nick to the door, Nick asked for a favor. “Bashir’s friend, Foad Kishk—”
“In Alexandria?”
“He was—”
“I received a report from there. He’s been released.”
He opened the door and shook hands. “The request to expel you, by the way, has been quashed. The president wishes you well.”
He stopped for a moment at the door of Liana’s office—a glassed-in cubicle.
“Take care of yourself,” he said to Bashir, who rose from a chair and rushed to him. “Thank you,” he said, tears flooding his eyes, holding out both hands. “I’ll never forget you.”
“Your friend Foad has been released,” Nick told him.
*
He had been sitting in a waiting room a
t the embassy for a ride to an army airfield when Isaac found him. Isaac wasn’t happy. He didn’t sit down although the seat next to Nick was empty. No one else was in the room.
“You know I can’t touch him now,” Isaac said.
“I did what you asked me to do,” Nick said. “Not my fault the city police brought him in for questioning. And it was Captain Huzayfi who brought him to the Department of Internal Affairs.”
“In other words, you’ve covered your ass,” Isaac said.
“I did what you asked me to do. I found Bashir Yassin.”
“Fuck you,” Isaac said, turned and stomped out of the room.
*
Bashir was allowed two phone calls. The first was to Umm Sayid. The second was to Nuha Za’im.
Her roommate took the call. “Hey, Bashir! Where you been?”
“Is Nuha there?”
“She’ll be here later.”
“Will you tell her that I love her?”
The roommate laughed. “She’ll throw a shoe at me, but I’ll tell her.”
*****
