Bill waved one sunburned arm. "It was nice meeting you," he said.
"Right, Bill," I said. "Who is Christy Mathewson?"
"One of the best players in the history of the game. 'The Big Six,' they called him. Maybe two hundred, two hundred fifty years ago."
"Two hundred fifty years!" I said, astonished.
"Yeah?" said Bill angrily. "What's it to ya?"
I shook my head. "You know where Friedlander Bey's house is?"
"Sure," said Bill. "What's the matter? You guys forget where you put it? It just didn't get up and walk away."
"Here's an extra ten kiam. Drive my young friend to Friedlander Bey's house, and make sure he gets there safely."
"Sure thing," said the cab driver.
I peered into the back seat, where bin Turki looked horrified that he'd have to ride with Bill, all alone and lost in the big city. "We'll see you in a day or two," I told him. "In the meantime, Youssef and Tariq will take care of you. Have a good time!"
Bin Turki just stared at me with wide eyes, gulping but not actually forming any coherent words. I turned on my heel and followed Papa to the unlocked door at the rear of the Blue Parrot. I was sure that Bill would forget the entire conversation soon after he delivered bin Turki to the mansion.
We went up a stairway made of fine polished hardwood. It twisted around in a complete circle, and we found ourselves on a landing, faced by two doors. The door to the left was locked, probably Ferrari's private apartment. The door to the right opened into a spacious parlor, decorated in a European style with lots of dark wood paneling and potted palms and a piano in one corner. The furniture was very tasteful and modern, however. Leading off from the parlor were a kitchen and two bedrooms, each with its own bathroom.
"I imagine we can be comfortable here," I said.
Papa grunted and headed for a bedroom. He was almost two hundred years old, and it had been a long and tiring day for him. He shut the bedroom door behind him, and I stayed in the parlor, softly knuckling bits of music at the piano.
In about ten or fifteen minutes, Signor Ferrari came upstairs. "I heard movement up here," he explained in an apologetic manner, "and I wanted to be sure it was you. Did Signor Bey find everything to his liking?"
"Yes, indeed, and we both want to thank you for your hospitality."
"It's nothing, nothing at all." Ferrari was a grossly fat man stuffed inside a plain white linen suit. He wore a red felt fez with a tassel on his head, and he rubbed his hands together anxiously, belying the suave, almost oily tone of his voice.
"Still," I said, "I'm sure Friedlander Bey will find some way to reward your kindness."
"If that is his wish," said Ferrari, his little pig eyes squinting at me, "then I would be honored to accept."
"I'm sure."
"Now, I must get back to my patrons. If there's anything you need, just pick up the phone and call 111. My staff has orders to bring you anything you desire."
"Excellent, Signor Ferrari. If you'll wait a moment, I'd like to write a note. Would one of your staff deliver it for me?"
"Well. . ."
"Just to Chiriga's, on the Street." "Certainly," he said.
I wrote out a quick message to Chiri, telling her that I was, in fact, still alive, but that she had to keep the news secret until we cleared our names. I told her to call Ferrari's number and get extension 777 if she wanted to talk to me about anything, but she shouldn't use the phone in the club because it might be tapped. I folded the note and gave it to Ferrari, who promised that it would be delivered within fifteen minutes.
"Thank you for everything, signor," I said, yawning.
"I will leave you now," said Ferrari. "You no doubt need to rest."
I grunted and shut the door behind him. Then I went to the second guest room and stretched out on the bed. I expected the phone to ring soon.
It didn't take long. I answered the phone with a curt "Where y'at?"
It was Chiri, of course. For a few seconds, all I could hear was gibberish. Then I slowly began to separate words from the hysterical flow. "You're really alive? This isn't some kind of trick?"
I laughed. "Yeah, you right, Chiri, I set this all up before I died. You're talking to a recording. Hey, of course I'm alive! Did you really believe—"
"Hajjar brought me the news that you'd been picked up on a murder rap, both you and Papa, and that you'd been flown into exile from which you couldn't possibly return."
"Well, Chiri, here I am."
"Hell, we all went through a terrible time when we thought you were dead. The grieving was all for nothing, is that what you're telling me?"
"People grieved?" I have to admit the notion gave me a perverse sort of pleasure.
"Well, I sure as hell grieved, and a couple of the girls, and . . . and Indihar. She thought she'd been widowed a second time."
I chewed my lip for a few seconds. "Okay, you can tell Indihar, but no one else. Got that? Not Saied the Half-Hajj or any of my other friends. They're all still under suspicion. Where you calling from?"
"The pay phone in the back of Vast Foods." That was a lunch counter kind of place. The food wasn't really vast. That was a sign painter's error that they never bothered to correct.
"Fine, Chiri. Remember what I said."
"How 'bout if I give you a visit tomorrow?"
I thought that over, and finally I decided that there was little risk, and I really wanted to see Chiri's cannibal grin again. "All right. You know where we are?"
"Above the Blue Parrot?"
"Uh huh."
"This black girl happy-happy, see you tomorrow, Bwana."
"Yeah, you right," I said, and I hung up the phone.
My mind was crammed with thoughts and half-formed plans. I tried to go to sleep, but I just lay there for an hour or so. Finally, I heard Friedlander Bey stirring in the kitchen. I got up and joined him.
"Isn't there a teapot around here?" Papa grumbled.
I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter after two in the morning. "Why don't we go downstairs?" I said. "Ferrari will be closing up the place now."
He considered the idea. "I'd like that," he said. "I'd like to sit and relax with a glass or two of tea."
We went downstairs. I carefully checked to make sure all the patrons had left the Blue Parrot, and then Papa took a seat at one of the tables. One of Ferrari's flunkies brought him a pot of tea, and after the first glass, you'd never have known that Papa had just returned from a grim and dangerous exile. He closed his eyes and savored every drop of tea. "Civilized tea," he called it, longing for it every time he'd had to swallow the thin, alkaline tea of the Bani Salim.
I stayed by the door, watching the sidewalk outside. I flinched two or three times as police patrol cars rattled by on the stone-paved street.
Finally, the fatigue caught up with us, and we bid Signor Ferrari good night once more. Then we climbed the stairs to our hiding place. I was asleep within a few minutes of undressing and climbing into Ferrari's comfortable guest bed.
I slept about ten hours. It was the most refreshing, luxurious night's sleep I could remember. It had been a long while since I'd enjoyed clean sheets. Again, I was jolted awake by the phone. I picked up the extension beside my bed. "Yeah?" I said.
"Signor Audran," said Ferrari's voice, "there are two young women to see you. Shall I send them up?"
"Please," I said, running my hand sleepily through my rumpled hair. I hung up the phone and dressed hurriedly.
I could hear Chiri's voice calling from the stairwell, "Marîd? Which door? Where are you, Marîd?"
I hadn't had time to shower or shave, but I didn't care, and I didn't think Chiri would, either. I answered the door and was surprised to see Indihar, too. "Come on in," I said in a low voice. "We'll have to keep it down, because Papa's still asleep."
"All right," murmured Chiri, coming into the parlor. "Nice place Ferrari has up here."
"Oh, these are just his guest rooms. I can only imagine what his own suite is
like."
Indihar was wearing widow's black. She came up to me and touched my face. "I am glad to see that you're well, husband," she said, and then she turned away, weeping.
"One thing I gotta know," said Chiri, dropping heavily into an antique wing chair. "Did you or did you not kill that policeman?"
"I did not kill a cop," I said fiercely. "Papa and I were framed for that, and we were tried in absentia, and cast out into the Empty Quarter. Now that we're back—and you can be damn sure that somebody never expected us to get back—we have to solve that crime to clear our names. When we do, heads will roll. Quite literally."
"I believe you, husband," said Indihar, who sat beside me on an expensive couch that matched Chiri's wing chair. "My . . . my late husband and I were good friends with the murdered patrolman. His name was Khalid Maxwell, and he was a kind, generous man. I don't want his killer to get away unpunished."
"I promise you, my wife, that won't happen. He'll pay dearly."
There was an awkward silence for a moment. I looked uncomfortably at Indihar and she stared down at her hands, folded in her lap. Chiri came to our rescue. She coughed politely and said, "Brought something for you, Mr. Boss." I looked toward her; she was grinning, her tattooed face wrinkled up in delight. She held out a plastic moddy rack.
"My moddies!" I said happily. "It looks like all of them."
"You've got enough weirdo stuff there to keep you occupied while you're laying low," said Chiri.
"And here is something else, husband." Indihar was offering me a tan plastic item on the palm of her hand.
"My pillcase!" I was more happy to see it than the moddy rack. I took it and opened it, and saw that it was crammed full of beauties, sunnies, Paxium, everything a working fugitive needed to keep sane in a hostile world. "Although," I said, clearing my throat self-consciously, "I am trying to cut down."
"That's good, husband," said Indihar. The unspoken text was that she still blamed me and my substance abuse for the death of her first husband. She was making a large gesture by giving me the pillcase.
"Where did you get these things?" I asked.
"From Kmuzu," said Chiri. "I just sweet-talked that pretty boy until he didn't know which direction was up."
"I'll bet," I said. "So now Kmuzu knows I'm back, too."
"Hey, it's just Kmuzu," said Chiri. "You can trust him."
Yes, I did trust Kmuzu. More than just about anyone else. I changed the subject. "Wife, how are my step-children?"
"They're all fine," she said, smiling for the first time. "They all want to know where you've gone. I think little Zahra has a crush on you."
I laughed, although I was a little uneasy about that bit of news.
"Well," said Chiri, "we should be going. The Maghrebi here has to get to work on his plans of vengeance. Right, Marîd?"
"Well, sort of. Thanks so much for coming by. And thanks for bringing the moddies and the pillcase. That was very thoughtful."
"Not at all, husband," said Indihar. "I will pray to Allah, thanking Him for returning you." She came to me and gave me a chaste kiss on the cheek.
I walked them to the door. "And the club?" I asked.
Chiri shrugged. "Same old story. Business is dead, the girls are still trying to rob us blind, you know the rest."
Indihar laughed. "The rest is that the club's probably making money like crazy, and your share will need a tractor-trailer to haul it to the bank."
In other words, all was right with the world. Except in the area of personal freedom for myself and Friedlander Bey. I had some ideas on how to improve things along those lines, however. I just needed to make a few important phone calls.
"Salaamtak," said Indihar, bowing before me.
"Allah yisallimak," I replied. Then the two women left, and I closed the door.
Almost immediately, I went to the kitchen and swallowed a few sunnies with a glass of water. I promised myself that I wouldn't get back into my old habits, but that I could afford to reward my recent heroic behavior. Then I'd put the pillcase away and save it for emergencies.
Out of curiosity, I browsed through my rack of moddies and daddies, and discovered that Chiriga had left me a little gift— a new sex-moddy. I examined it. The label said it was Inferno in the Night, one of Honey Pílar's early moddies, but it was recorded from her partner's point of view.
I went into the bedroom, undressed, and lay down on the bed. Then I reached up, murmured "Bismillah," and chipped the moddy in.
The first thing Audran noticed was that he was much younger, much stronger, and filled with an anticipation that bordered on desperation. He felt wonderful, and he laughed as he took off his clothes.
The woman in the bedroom with him was Honey Pílar. Audran had loved her with a consuming passion ever since he met her, two hours ago. He thought it was a great privilege to be allowed to gaze at her and compose clumsy poems in her honor. That he and she might jam was more than he could’ve hoped for.
She stripped slowly and enticingly, then joined Audran on the bed. Her hair was pale blond, her eyes a remarkable green like clean, cool waves in the ocean. "Yes?" she said. "You are much hurt?" Her voice was languid and musical.
Inferno in the Night was one of Honey's earliest sex-moddies, and it had a vestigial story line. Audran realized that he was a wounded hero of the Catalonian struggle for independence, and Honey was playing the courageous daughter of the evil Valencian duke.
"I’m fine," said Audran.
"You need bad massage," she murmured, moving her fingertips gently across his chest and stopping just at the top of his pubic hair. She waited, looking at him for permission.
"Oh, please go ahead, "Audran said.
"For the revolution," she said.
"Sure."
And then she caressed his prick until he could stand it no more. He ran his fingers through her fragrant hair, then grabbed her and turned her on her back.
"Your wounds!"she cried.
"You’ve miraculously healed me."
"Oh good!" she said, sighing as Audran entered her. They jammed slowly at first, then faster and faster until Audran burst with exquisite pleasure.
After a while, Honey Pílar sat up. "I must go," she said sadly. "There are others wounded."
"I understand, "Audran said. He reached up and popped the moddy out.
" Jeez," I muttered. It had been a long time since I'd last spent any time with Honey Pilar. I was beginning to think I was getting too old for this stuff. I mean, I wasn't a kid anymore. As I lay panting on the bed, I realized I'd come dangerously close to pulling a hamstring. Maybe they had sex-moddies recorded by couples who'd been married twenty years. That was more my speed.
There was a knock on my room's door. "My nephew," called Friedlander Bey, "are you all right?"
"Yes, O Shaykh," I answered.
"I ask only because I heard you exclaim."
Yipe. "A nightmare, that's all. Let me take a quick shower, and then I'll join you."
"Very good, O Excellent One."
I got off the bed, ran a quick shower, dressed, and went out into the parlor. "I'd like to get some clean clothes," I said. "I've been wearing this same outfit since we were kidnapped, and I think it's finally dead."
Papa nodded. "I've taken care of that already. I've sent a message to Tariq and Youssef, and they will be here momentarily with fresh clothing and a supply of money."
I sat in the wing chair, and Papa sat on the couch. "I suppose your businesses have been purring along just fine with them at the wheel."
"I trust Tariq and Youssef with my life and more: I trust them with my holdings."
"It will be good to see them again."
"You had visitors earlier. Who were they?"
I gulped. I suddenly realized that he might interpret the visit from Indihar and Chiri as a serious breach in security. Worse than that, he might see it as a punishable stupidity. "My wife and my partner, Chiriga," I said. My mouth went suddenly dry.
But Papa only
nodded. "They are both well, I pray?" he said. "Yes, praise Allah, they are."
"I am glad to hear it. Now—" He was interrupted by a knock on the front door of the apartment. "My nephew," he said quietly, "see who's there. If it's not Tariq and Youssef, do not let them in, even if it's one of your friends."
"I understand, O Shaykh." I went to the door and peered through the small peephole. It was indeed Tariq and Youssef, Papa's valet and butler, and the managers of his estate.
I opened the door and they were enthusiastic in their greetings. "Welcome home!" cried Youssef. "Allah be thanked for your safe return! Not that we believed for an instant that story that you both had died in some distant desert."
Tariq carried a couple of hard-sided suitcases into the parlor and set them down. "As-salaam alaykum, yaa Shaykh," he said to me. He turned to Papa and said the same.
"Alaykum as-salaam," said Friedlander Bey. "Tell me what I must know."
They had indeed been keeping business matters up to date. Most of what they discussed with Papa I knew nothing about, but there were two situations in which I'd become involved. The first was the Cappadocian attempt to win independence from Anatolia. I'd met with the Cappadocian representatives— how long ago? It seemed like many months, but it couldn't have been more than a few weeks.
Youssef spoke up. "We've decided that the Cappadocians have a good chance of overthrowing the Anatolian government in their province. With our aid, it would be a certainty. And it would not cost us very much, relatively speaking, to keep them in power long enough."
Long enough? Long enough for what? I wondered. There was still so much I had to learn.
When all the geopolitical issues had been discussed and commented on, I asked, "What about the datalink project?"
"That seems to be stalled, Shaykh Marîd," said Tariq.
"Unstall it," said Papa.
"We need someone who is not in our household to accept an executive position," said Tariq. "Of course, the executive position will have no real power or influence—that will remain in the household—but we need a, uh, a—"
"Fall guy," I said.
Tariq just blinked. "Yes," he said, "precisely."
The Exile Kiss Page 15
