Girls of Yellow

by Orest Stelmach

  Elise arrived at the door to the main room. It was also pressed shut but not closed, which accounted for the strip of light that shone from inside.

  Elise knocked as gently on this door as she had on the exterior one initially.

  “Hello, hello. Anyone home?” she said. When no one answered, she rapped on it two more times.

  The door swung open.

  The man in the wheelchair sat in the middle of the room facing Elise, but he looked markedly different than when she’d seen him yesterday.

  He had no head.

  The tip of his vertebrae protruded from the cavity that had been his neck. Buckets of blood had showered his clothes and his means of transportation, and pooled around the wheels on the floor. In the man’s lap rested his head. It looked more like a stage prop than a body part, eyes shut, tumors purple and blue.

  Elise averted her eyes, fought back an urge to vomit and took three slow breaths to calm herself. Once she recovered, she scanned the rest of the room quickly. There was no sign of the housekeeper. Elise wondered if she’d escaped, had been taken prisoner, or was lying dead in another room. The maps and paintings were still hanging on the wall. None of the valuables appeared to have been taken or even disturbed. This wasn’t a robbery, Elise thought, unless the object stolen was a simple porcelain cat, a forgery of a classic Herend.

  She looked around for the cat but didn’t see one. Instead, a black notebook caught her attention. It was bound in rich Italian-looking leather with a toggle clasp, just the sort of a notebook where a man might jot down a certain set of numbers he claimed to have never seen. The notebook rested beside the pot from which the man in the wheelchair had poured the hot chocolate.

  Elise sneaked into the room and glided toward the notebook, eyes on a swivel. She stuck her finger in the pot of hot chocolate—it was cool. Then she lifted the cover of the notebook. She flipped to a few random pages but found nothing written inside. That piqued her curiosity sufficiently to lift the notebook with both hands and fan through the entire book.

  Nothing.

  Only when she glanced at the back cover and saw the year “1431” stamped on the back did she realize why nothing was written inside.

  It was an antique. The notebook itself was the object of value.

  Elise put the leather-bound journal back where she’d found it. When she looked up, an object on a table in a corner of the room caught her attention.

  It was a porcelain Herend cat. Or more likely, a forgery of one, Elise thought.

  Elise stepped around the table and moved toward the cat, or rather, cats. There were three of them. Each one had been decapitated just like its owner, as though someone wanted to see if there was a hermitically sealed plastic bag inside containing a piece of paper with three numbers on it—

  The floor creaked.

  Elise froze. She wanted to examine the insides of each of the cats, praying there might be a fourth in the room somewhere, knowing deep down that she should run but unable to leave before making sure the location of the alleged proof of God was not within her grasp—

  A rumbling noise filled the air. The floor began to creak relentlessly even though Elise wasn’t moving.

  Policemen burst into the room bearing weapons. Elise raised her hands. Two of them secured Elise’s hands behind her back and cuffed her, while two others pointed their handguns at her chest at point blank range. A fifth and sixth policeman stood beside the door.

  None of them paid any attention to the decapitated man in the wheelchair, which meant they’d seen him before.

  The shock of their arrival and the sight of their guns taking aim at her rendered Elise helpless and momentarily mute. A wave of depression washed over her as she realized she’d failed in her mission for Christendom. And an even greater sense of despair gripped her as she remembered her premonition that she’d seen Valerie for the last time outside the Persian School of Dressmaking.

  A seventh cop marched into the room and headed straight toward her. He looked strangely familiar, Elise thought, which was impossible because she didn’t know any cops. Hell, other than Qattan, Faraz, and Zaid, Elise didn’t know any men in BP. She thought of all the security personnel she’d encountered at the Intertheocratic Conference and tried to picture this man’s face among them but couldn’t place him.

  He must have experienced the same sensation because as soon as he saw her he frowned. A light didn’t go off in his eyes, though, suggesting he too couldn’t remember where they’d met. He stole glances at her while one of the other cops removed her diplomatic passport from her bag and handed it to him.

  “Miss … Elise … De Jong?” he said, in decent English. “You’re under arrest for home invasion and unlawful trespassing. You have the right to a fair and speedy trial. You have the right to counsel, the right to be silent, and the right not to be a witness against yourself. Do you understand these rights?”

  And then she remembered.

  The hookah bar.

  “Yes,” Elise answered in Arabic. “I understand my rights. A woman should at least know the name of her arresting office. Who are you?”

  That’s when the light went off in the man’s eyes. Elise could tell by his stunned expression that he’d realized where he’d seen her before, too.

  “My name is Ali,” he said, with breathless surprise. “Major Sami Ali.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Ali sat on the upholstered chair opposite the General and Zaman in the latter’s office. The coffee table in front of them was laden with shawurma—shavings of lamb, chicken and beef that had been grilled on a spit for a day. Taboon bread—a Middle Eastern pita—tahini, hummus and pickled turnips accompanied the meats.

  “What is this cook’s name again?” the General said, mouth stuffed.

  “Florence.” Ali failed to add that he was the informant who’d led him to the Catholic priest, the one whose identity the General desperately wanted.

  “You’re sure he takes his hygiene seriously?” the General said. “If the ulamas at the Caliph’s office saw me eating food prepared by a dhimmi …”

  The ulamas were the scholars and imams who interpreted the sacred Islamic texts as they related to Sharia.

  “He doesn’t cook with pork,” Ali lied. “Says it’s a filthy animal.”

  “The man’s a genius,” the General said. “If only he’d submit, I’d steal him away for the Caliph’s personal staff.”

  “We wouldn’t let him go without a fight,” Zaman said, grinning like the rat-shit ass-kisser he was.

  Ali chuckled to himself, wondering what the two heterosexual masters of the world would think if they knew they were fighting over a gay man.

  After receiving the phone call from the General, Ali had changed back into work clothes, strapped on his gun and practically flown to the station. There he’d received instructions from the General and Zaman. A prominent antique dealer had been murdered, they said. He and a team of men were to position themselves inside the man’s home. The General said he strongly suspected that a customer would come calling. If the customer were to enter the home illegally and search it, he and his team were to arrest him. That was all he was told, and Ali didn’t ask any questions. His only objective was to get back in Zaman’s and the General’s good graces. And when he arrested the female translator from Christendom, he did just that.

  But now during lunch, Ali began to ask himself the kind of questions he’d failed to consider when he’d rushed headlong into the investigation of Greta Gaspar’s murder. He began to wonder why the General had chosen him to arrest the translator from Christendom, and why Zaman had agreed to let him do so. The arrest was a prestigious coup—a member of the diplomatic corps from a rival theocracy had committed a criminal offense, and in the home where a murder had been committed, to boot. Wouldn’t Zaman have wanted the arrest for himself?

  Only if their trap worked perfectly, Ali realized. And there was obviously something else going on. The man in the wheelchair had been decapitated. P
erhaps the motive for the murder was related to the translator’s intended business. No one appeared to understand the players and their motives and that meant there was risk to the arrest. What if she’d had a weapon and she’d been shot? Would that have been a disaster for the Caliph in light of the Conference? Or, what if there were a later development that cast doubt on the police’s actions? In light of such risks, a prudent man might have chosen to use a patsy, someone indifferent, blind or desperate enough to be the potential scapegoat without even realizing it.

  That’s why he’d been given the opportunity to restore his good name, Ali thought. They’d chosen him because he was desperate. They’d chosen him because they knew he wouldn’t hesitate to be their patsy if circumstances required one. Fortunately, he’d gotten lucky, or at least he had so far, Ali thought.

  “She’s a spy from Christendom,” the General said. “Of that we’re certain.”

  “How can you be sure?” Zaman said.

  “The man she went to visit tonight,” the General said, “the man who was murdered … he was a dealer in arts and antiquities in Central Eurabia. Had been for two decades, solid reputation. One of his scavengers had recently found a potentially priceless treasure. Something that could be beneficial or detrimental to the Kingdom of Islam. He’d offered to sell its location to Christendom.”

  “Its location?” Zaman said.

  The General nodded. “The Christians agreed to buy it and sent the translator to complete the deal. She’s a legitimate translator, here from Christendom for the Conference. That’s a fact. But the small fortune in diamonds she was carrying on her person when we arrested her proves she was a spy sent to acquire the location of the treasure.”

  “How do you know the man in the wheelchair offered to sell the location of this treasure to Christendom?” Ali said.

  “Because he offered to sell it to us, too,” the General said. “And to the Hindus and the Buddhists.”

  “I thought he had a solid reputation,” Zaman said.

  “He did,” the General said. “As far as reputations in the arts and antiquities world go. The truth is all those dealers are liars and thieves. It seems this man built a name for himself more carefully than most, then reached a point where he simply wanted to cash it in. Either that or he thought this treasure had such serious implications for the world that he felt morally obliged to make sure all the theocracies had equal opportunity to acquire it. My guess is it was the latter.”

  “What exactly is this treasure?” Ali said.

  The General gave Ali his desert death-glare. “That’s not your concern.”

  “Why do you think it was the latter?” Zaman said. “What makes you think he was a man of conscience?”

  “He told the Buddhists it was a Buddhist nurse who cared for him in the hospital when he was first treated for leprosy. He told the Hindus that it was a Hindu doctor who cured him of his disease. And I’m guessing he told the Christians that it was an old Christian hospital where he received his treatment. He told each buyer he owed them a debt and implied that debt was owed to the buyer’s religion, which is to say, its government.”

  “What did he tell us?” Ali said.

  “Yeah,” Zaman said. “What did he say about Islam?”

  The General chuckled. “He told us that there’s no one on this Earth at a greater disadvantage than a leper, that Islam is the religion of disadvantaged, and that he’d only sell the treasure to us.”

  “So what happened?” Zaman said.

  The General tore off a piece of taboon bread, dipped it in hummus, and stuffed it into his mouth. He continued speaking even though some of his words came out garbled as he chewed.

  “Someone had other plans,” the General said. “At the time, we really thought he was selling it only to us. I’m sure the others thought the same. Our stroke of luck was that he was selling it to us first. Our man had an early afternoon appointment. When he got there, the door was locked from the outside and it looked like no one was home. So he broke in and found the scene exactly the way you found it.”

  “One decapitated man,” Ali said. “Three decapitated cats.”

  The General continued chewing. “We were suspicious right away because he told our man that the treasure would be hidden in the belly of a small beast. Based on that, when our man found three cats, we assumed that he was selling the treasure to at least three of the kingdoms. So we staked out the house and arrested the Hindu and the Buddhist spies, and then the translator from Christendom.”

  “Why didn’t we have surveillance on his house the entire time?” Ali said. “From the moment some priceless treasure was discussed?”

  “We did,” the General said. “There are dealers and buyers walking in and out of that place all day every day. Except today. Last night we saw him through his bedroom window pulling the shades tight before he went to sleep. Next day, first person to arrive was our man. And when he walked in, the man in the wheelchair was dead.”

  “There’s a housekeeper,” Zaman said. “She didn’t live with him. She left the night before at her usual time. She’s deaf, mute and old but we’re looking for her.”

  The General and Zaman looked at Ali, giving him the impression that they now needed him to know everything that was happening. That raised yet another alarm within Ali—he wondered what dirty job they wanted him to do now.

  “One thing I don’t understand at all,” Ali said.

  The General smirked. “Only one?”

  “If the man in the wheelchair was selling to each religion,” Ali said, “then there should have been four cats. Four religions, four copies of the treasure, hidden inside four cats. Where’s the fourth cat?”

  The General took an audible breath, as though Ali had asked the most important question of all.

  “Like I said,” Zaman said. “There’s a housekeeper. We’re hoping she can shed some light.”

  “On the murder or the fourth cat?” Ali said.

  The General sighed with irritation. “Just when you think he deserves a seat at the table …”

  Ali understood. They suspected the housekeeper might have been involved in the murder and stolen all the copies of the treasure, including the one hidden in the fourth porcelain cat.

  “Who led the operation to arrest the Buddhist and Hindu spies?” Ali said.

  “We used three different teams with three different officers in charge,” Zaman said. “Told the first two to keep their mouths shut about what they saw or it’s their jobs.”

  They’d used three fall guys, Ali thought. “Why?” he said.

  “Because we don’t want anyone else to know the entire story,” the General said. “We don’t want it to become common knowledge that spies are walking our streets buying secrets and that antique dealers are getting decapitated in the process.”

  “But you just told me everything,” Ali said. “Why?”

  The General and Zaman shared a conspiratorial glance. Ali experienced a sinking feeling in his gut.

  “Given she’s a spy,” the General said, “she must know local contacts.”

  “Maybe if you talked to her,” Zaman said, “you might learn something about them.”

  “If I talked to her?” Ali said. “But why would she talk to me?”

  “We don’t know,” Zaman said. “But we’re really curious to find out.”

  “I don’t understand,” Ali said.

  “Neither do we,” the General said. “You see, the spy from Christendom has been asking to speak to you. She’s been asking for you by name.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Elise sat alone in the interrogation room with her feet shackled and her hands chained to the cement table. Fluorescent ceiling lights illuminated white cinderblock walls. An eerie silence foreshadowed screaming. No world was this white, Elise thought, and no place where a cop and an accused criminal gathered remained this quiet for long.

  It was nine-fifteen at night.

  In less than nineteen hours, Valerie would be
waiting for her by the Danube at the Little Princess statue. Darby’s men would be parked a block away, prepared for Elise to appear with her. If Elise failed to show, Valerie would never trust her again. Even worse, once Elise returned to Christendom she couldn’t count on ever getting another assignment in Eurabia. She simply had to be released from prison by tomorrow afternoon, and she would do whatever it took to make sure that happened.

  After asking the arresting officer his name at the murder scene, she’d invoked her right to have an attorney present and requested Major Sami Ali to call the delegation from Christendom on her behalf. Ali hadn’t said a word in response. Instead, he took her to the police station and processed her through Central Intake. The cops made an inventory and confiscated her possessions, including the diamonds. A team of five female guards strip-searched her. They laughed as she took her clothes off, then gasped when they saw that her pubic hair revealed that she was, in fact, a blond. They repeated the word mashallah constantly, in reference to their cumulative joy that a terrible criminal had been captured.

  They locked Elise in a holding cell with thirty to forty other women. Based on the snippets of conversation she overheard, Elise inferred that all of her fellow inmates had been arrested by the morality police, most of them for clothing, language or behavioral violations. A group of six teens had committed the most egregious offense. They’d been caught drinking and dancing at a beach party with six male friends. A dozen or more of the other prisoners tried to console the girls, who knew they were facing hundreds of lashes and at least two years in prison each. Women were simply not allowed to mingle with men, let alone dance and drink alcohol.

  When Ali arrested her, Elise asked him his name so that she could use him to her advantage. She doubted his career would benefit from his superiors’ learning that he indulged in illegal tobacco products in the same place as a spy from Christendom. In a paranoid place like Eurabia, such a discovery might taint a man for life, she thought.